Just want to make sure Cheryl’d post below gets more the attention it needs. Here is anther resource for places to donate.
Reader Interactions
163Comments
Comments are closed.
This post is in: Open Threads
Just want to make sure Cheryl’d post below gets more the attention it needs. Here is anther resource for places to donate.
Comments are closed.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I’m just so glad to know that this shit in Texas isn’t really happening, and it’s all fake news, and it must be fake news, since Czar Manbaby told us that climate change is a hoax, as did Ted Cruz, who so memorably spoke against the federal government giving any help to New Jersey, New York and New England when that other fake news-ass storm hit back in 2012. I know that the whole Republican delegation to Congress from Texas will speak out as strongly now against any wasteful government spending going to help clean up a storm in Texas that never happened as they did then, since they’re so intellectually honest about shit like this.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): One way we can ensure the aid bills will pass is by making their passage contingent on every other Senator (and why not, Representatives) punch Ted in the face.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
In other news, we had our two year anniversary three days ago of when Smedley Darlington Mingobat came to live with us from Kentucky. I know he’s as glad to be out of Kentucky as we all here to have him living with us. He’s happily sleeping on the chair next to me as I write this.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
Yeah, that’s a demand I could happily live with.
sukabi
How long before Wolf Blitzer gets on the tv and makes amazed comments about skin color again as he did during Katrina.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): As someone on LGM pointed out, charging every American adult $100 for the privilege would also get rid of out budgeting woes in the immediate future.
Ruckus
@sukabi:
What are the Vegas odds? They can’t be very good.
Face
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): Close, but the Orange Ogre will demand they attach a debt ceiling raise, PP defunding, and tax cuts to the going-to-happen TX relief bill.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): After reading Sen. Franken’s book, ‘Al Franken, Giant of the Senate’, I don’t think that would be much of a problem. He said, “I like Ted Cruz more than the rest of my colleagues, and I hate Ted Cruz”.
Ruckus
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
Imagine the line. I’d bet that if that line formed that drumpf would be selling hats. And for something that would make america better again.
Punchy
I too look forward to all the TX politicians who so famously decried and dismissed Nawlins rebuild money similarly declining help for Houston on the same principle. Because intellectual honesty and consistency and all that….
JPL
Years of uncontrolled expansion and developing on wetlands have repercussions. Who knew. I don’t mean to be flippant, and I do hope that they can recover from this.
Jay S
@?BillinGlendaleCA: That didn’t sound quite right so I looked it up. The correct quote is
Maeve
Again? A thread to point people who want to donate/help in the immediate is all about what “should” have been done. “Should” is the most useless word sometimes.
dmsilev
@Punchy: You don’t even have to go all the way back to 2005; both Cruz and Cornyn voted against relief aid for Sandy not even five years ago.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@dmsilev:
Yeah, I still can’t understand that. What, they thought they’d never need any help? They thought Texas was immune to storms?
Baud
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
They thought (1) Dems are too decent to reciprocate or (2) if not, their voters will blame Dems and not blame them for being dicks.
They are right.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jay S: Did I capture what the Senator was saying? I left out 3 words…
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
All they’d need are Thoughts and Prayers.
They’re God fearing people in Texas, so yes.
Davebo
@JPL: While you certainly have a point, pick the city in the US that can handle 15″ to 20″ of rain in 28 hours without flooding.
I’ll wait.
Davebo
I’m a bit disgusted. Here I am in a city that voted Obama twice, then Clinton. The first major city with an openly gay mayor.
And I hear this carping in the middle of an epic disaster? GFY
efgoldman
@Davebo:
True, but most major coastal cities aren’t in states where it’s against the law even to mention climate change in official actions and documents
Mike J
2000 miles away from How-stun I got to assist in a water rescue today. Terrified as we motored up and I saw something orange floating in the water. Turn out to be a traffic cone attached to a piling to make it more visible. I had visions of every bad thing you can imagine (it’s a person floating face down!) was happy when it was nothing.
Found the MOB[1]. We had been told he was hanging on to the log boom that makes a lagoon at the north end of our park. He had made it to shore and refused further assistance, so we stowed the boat hooks and lifesling and sent an all clear on 16. When we got back to the dock there were cop cars, a fire truck and paramedics all packing up.
I think I prefer uneventful days, but it was nice to know we were ready to help (and faster than official responders[2]) if the need arises.
[1] We typically use the phrase “crew overboard” but emergency radio labels usually say “man”.
[2] They were there quick, we were just already on site and in a boat. Had it been a real emergency, we would have needed them desperately, but we could have brought the guy to them for treatment.
Thoughtful David
I’d just like to lay out here that Houston went for Clinton by 160,000 votes.
Not sure what that means with respect to the likelihood of getting hurricane aid if Cruz and Cornyn have anything to say about it.
lamh36
Why this CNN video came across my twitter timeline…
@mattmfm
A truly amazing moment on CNN ➝
CNN
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Davebo: Any flooding or widespread flooding? LA might be able to without widespread flooding.
JPL
@Davebo: You are correct that is this is an extreme case, but Houston has a problem with flooding because of lack of zoning anyway. I understand this is an extreme situation, and I didn’t mean to sound as insensitive as I came across.
What I find sad is that those living in low lying communities, tend to be the neediest among us.
Jeffro
I see that Kasich has ruled out running on a “unity” ticket, so it’s time for more useless speculation: morons, starting with a bored Aaron Blake at the Post, are talking about Trumpov ‘ditching’ the GOP. You have got to be fucking kidding me. It’s his party now – why would he ditch them when he can single them out and pick them off one by one if/when they oppose him?
Face it, Republicans: you have no good options here. Find some principles (if you ever had any) and be prepared to take your lumps – a grateful nation might, I say might, not give you the retribution you so richly deserve.
Davebo
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Dream on!
Baud
@Thoughtful David: They’ll get aid. Dems aren’t going to block it.
Davebo
@JPL:
Actually Houston has a problem with flooding mainly because it was built on a swamp.
No amount of zoning was ever going to change that .
ArchTeryx
@Davebo: No city could withstand that without flooding, yes. BUT, the lack of wetlands both makes the flooding more intense and greatly slows the drainage afterward. Wetlands can soak up floodwater given time. Concrete and tarmac can’t. And Houston is finding that out the hard way.
Jeffro
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Praying for rain was their strategy for alleviating drought a couple years back, as I recall, and now it can be their strategy for making the rain stop as well.
One can only reasonably conclude that either God hates Texas, or Texans are praying to the wrong god.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Davebo: We’ve had rain like that in LA, that’s why they built the infrastructure to handle it. We have dams that have no water behind them. Lots of them.
Jeffro
@Jeffro: Whoops…Kasich “no unity ticket” link is here…’What if Trumpov ditched the GOP?’ nonsense is here
lamh36
@lamh36: I mean wow…not why…smh
JPL
A CNN crew helped rescue an elderly couple and their dog today. Of course, that won’t stop Trump for leading the CNN sucks chant on Wednesday.
lamh36
@JPL: the video link is what I posted
Davebo
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Give me a break! LA averages less than 15″ per year! The max in one year was less than 38″.
Fake Irishman
@ArchTeryx:
Upstream suburban development is also making the situation worse. Water that would have been absorbed in the Katy prairie 30 years ago is now running off parking lots and flooding places that were safe until recently. Climate change of course is another driver.
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
I still want Chuck Schumer to demand a signed, notarized agreement from Cruz and Cornyn that they will never again block a natural disaster relief bill before he allows a vote, though.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@JPL:
Well, yeah. Trump hates dogs.
Fake Irishman
Right now I am thankful my wife and I bought a house in a place called “The Heights” down here. Roof is a bit leaky, but we are light years better off than many. Thanks to all you for your donations on behalf of all our fellow Houstonians.
Davebo
@Fake Irishman: In fairness, the Katy Prairie 30 years ago was mostly flooded rice fields.
Davebo
@Fake Irishman: I lived in the Heights 20 years ago. You wouldn’t recognize it as it looked then.
I was on 18th right behind the old hospital and Heights theatre in a 109 year old Victorian that I believe still stands.
lamh36
OT, but apropos…apparently during the commercial breaks during the MTV VMAs, a song is playing called “Fuck Donald Trump”…these kids may just be allright?
https://twitter.com/ScottFeinberg/status/901972098632916992
Zinsky
The flooding in Texas is nothing a gigantic tax cut for the wealthy can’t cure…
Baud
@lamh36: Nice. Finally some resistance music.
Suzanne
@lamh36: I have been hoping that America’s hip-hop and punk musicians would show up for the challenge of Trump. I went to see Rise Against a few weeks ago, and they are all het up about the current situation, but I haven’t heard a peep out of anyone else.
So hearing a “Fuck Trump” song makes me HAPPY.
BBA
@Punchy: They’d be perfectly fine with denying all aid to the city of Houston. The very white, very Republican suburbs, on the other hand…
trollhattan
@Davebo:
There’s water management and there’s flooding. No city storm drain system can handle that much water but hilly cities such as Seattle and SF just direct it to the ocean with no long-term effects. I say this as a resident of the #2 floodprone city behind New Orleans.
JPL
This is such a touching story.. NYTimes reporter trapped in his house because of the flood
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/27/us/hurricane-harvey-houston-a-reporter-disaster.html?action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&module=RelatedCoverage®ion=EndOfArticle&pgtype=article
Sad.
I do hope that Baud is around to respond more appropriately.
trollhattan
@JPL:
Please tell me that’s The Onion.
Amaranthine RBG
Texas helped elect Trump.
Fuck them.
Jeffro
@Suzanne:
Every show I’ve been to this year has been one big middle finger to Trump, with the exception of the milquetoast plea for unity that U2 threw out there. Green Day was on him the whole show (and Against Me! opened for them – you can imagine how that went). Mike Ness let him have it. And I bought the last “Dirty Fucker” (with Trumpov’s raging face on it) t-shirt Dave Hause’s merch table had for sale…
…Hause is great, folks. Go give “Dirty Fucker” and the rest of ‘Bury Me In Philly’ a listen when you have a few minutes.
Baud
@JPL: Wet garbage.
Davebo
@trollhattan:
So true. My friends in Holland live near the largest pump in the world and 5 meters below sea level. Sure, it floods there at times but it’s controlled and the poor farmer who’s fields are flooded is compensated for his loss.
JPL
@trollhattan: They had the good sense to take it off the front page, after they received calls saying wtf. I assume that’s why they took it off .
The NYTimes is allowing all to view their hurricane coverage so enjoy the article. There’s a cockapoo that’s upset also.
satby
Just going to repeat what I said in Cheryl’s thread:
I still have friends working at ARC, so I hate to slag on it, but Charity Navigator has several 4 star charities listed that will be working in the areas affected by Harvey.
Some of the biggest names, like ARC, are 3 stars.
Paul W.
Hey gang! Long time lurker and infrequent commentator, I’m having a shit weekend because I fell in love with someone who told me I could never be what she wanted. I don’t normally open myself up and she was gung ho so I let it happen. Now I don’t know how to deal but I figured some of the folks here could help.
Thanks
Baud
@Paul W.: That sucks, dude.
Steve in the ATL
@Paul W.: most of the advice you’ll get here will be “Drink heavily!” or the occasional “That bitch!”. But hang in there–everyone gets hurt some time. The good news is that you don’t have a marriage to dissolve or, much worse, kids to fight over.
clay
From WaPo:
Davebo
@Paul W.:
Look at it this way. You dodged a bullet.
sukabi
@Jeffro: sooo, pundits are speculating Drumpf will leave the gop, and go where? The American Nazi party?
It’s not like any other party would have him.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@JPL:
Hard to know what to say to that. I can kind of understand. I have a lot of things I’ve gotten from my family, and I’d hate to lose them. But when people are fleeing for their lives, it seems kind of amazingly stupid to write a column about how worried you are that you might lose your jazz records or your fucking gin. These people need some serious perspective. Or a serious beating. Maybe both.
clay
@Jeffro: When I saw U2 in June, they played a clip from an old Western that had a villain named Trump trying to con a town into building a wall around it. They also played a moving short film about life in a Sryian refugee camp, which was clearly a direct rebuke to Trump’s policies. It was pretty clear what they thought, even if they weren’t direct about it.
BBA
@sukabi: The Donald Trump Party, of course. There’s no classier name in politics anywhere on Earth. It’ll be yuge.
Scott Alloway
@Paul W.: The only salve is time. Went through a situation in 1973 where the love of my life (at the time) went to her best friend’s wedding, became enamored with the groom’s brother, came back, dumped me and married him three months later. Skip to 1980 and we bumped into each other. Went out four or five times and I realized, “No way.” Time teaches us lessons; one of them being what is good now may not be what one needs in the long haul. Your heart will heal and you will find a person who works with and for you. Be kind to yourself.
Jeffro
@clay: I saw those as well (was the villain’s name really Trump, though? I don’t remember that). And yes, being pro-refugee makes one automatically anti-Trump. But still..the rest of the night was full of “can’t we all just get along?”-ish stuff from Bono…my answer then and now is ‘no’.
Ruckus
@Paul W.:
Many have fallen for the wrong mate. Life and love happens that way. As a fellow traveler down this road, I can guarantee that it will get better. Might take a while, might not. Learn from this and move on.
Baud
@Jeffro: Yeah, didn’t Jon Stewart try that schtick?
Jeffro
@Steve in the ATL:
I don’t think that’s just a BJ thing…
Steve in the ATL
@Jeffro: how about “the best advice you’ll get will be…”
Jeffro
@sukabi: They’re thinking (if you wanna call it that) that he’ll just ‘go his own way’, since he’s so fed up with them. They’re not really thinking it through, as you’ve noted. He can’t come over to the Dems, and he doesn’t have enough supporters to start an independent party that will win anything.
More importantly, why would he leave the GOP? He’s more popular than any of their other figures, and he can pick them off one by one, as cowardly as they are. Look at how McCain, Graham, Cruz, Perry, Carson, etc all have been. He disgraced them beyond belief – they still lick his boots.
Ruckus
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
I’ve got a very good friend who has lost 2 houses to fire. One caused by an earthquake and one from an out of control brush fire. Both times they lost everything. OK they got out with their cats and their cars and the clothes on their backs. Everything else ashes. They wanted to save stuff, but they just couldn’t. They replaced stuff and moved on. All of that stuff in the article is just stuff. Can it be replaced? A good amount of it can, some can’t but if stuff is your most important concern then your life isn’t worth a shit.
Jeffro
@Steve in the ATL: true!
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
Seems like they are doing a bit more than that and a bit farther up the trouser leg.
Mnemosyne
@Paul W.:
Start putting this mantra in your head, Wow, that was a lucky escape. I’m glad she didn’t leave me dangling.
It’s going to take a few days to click, but it will eventually click, because it’s 100 percent true. You won’t be wasting your time dangling after someone who will never love you the way you deserve, because she was kind enough to cut you loose.
Take a few weeks to hunker down and lick your wounds, and then get back out there.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: @Steve in the ATL: Oddly, you gave pretty good advice there. Certainly better than “Drink heavily.”
Mandarama
@Paul W.: You are already getting good advice, but I would just like to affirm that “you can never be what I want” is an irresponsible cop-out. It’s not as weaselly as ghosting or an insincere wish to be friends — but it puts implicit blame on you, suggests you are less-than. It allows the speaker to abdicate responsibility for the initial relationship and often have a dramatic preen. I say this as a woman who has seen friends deliver lines like this, and called them on it.
Just my opinion, but there are direct and honest ways to break up. And you learn a lot about a person from how they choose to do it or how they accept it when it happens to them. Hang in there– time really is a friend in this regard.
Another Scott
@Paul W.: Sorry Paul. It hurts and it sucks.
We’re all broken in some ways.
Don’t wall yourself off. Remember the good times, learn from the bad times, and try again when the time is right.
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
MomSense
@Paul W.:
I’m sorry. Ugh. Someone really close to me is coming out the other side of a bad heartbreak. He’s only coming out of it because he started building a group of friends who are all artists so they share the same passion and similar struggles. Hasn’t found love yet but having a squad is pretty darn good.
Maybe you can connect with a hobby or an interest and see who else in your area shares it. Please keep us posted. Sending you a hug.
daize
Don’t post much, but. I had been following the storm all week.
CNN had a live shot of an elderly man being evacuated from his house. Chest high water for him. I just can’t get over it. That poor soul. I am still sobbing. Donated to Red Cross.
Betty Cracker
@Paul W.: I’m sorry. That’s a kick in the teeth. Something like that happens to all of us, not that that makes it any easier for you. Just don’t forget you deserve someone who loves you just the way you are. Sorry to go all Bridget Jones on you, but it’s true.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker:
Without weight and drink count, it’s not really Bridget Jones, now is it?
Jeffro
@Ruckus:
1) True, they are, and
2) Ewww, and
3) That’s exactly why I can’t believe the writer didn’t take just an additional 30 seconds to think it through: why would Trumpov leave the GOP, it’s his party, it’s his, um, back they’re scratching…
BKinNC
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Without those three words Frankin could be interpreted to mean he likes Cruz better than he likes any of his other colleagues — then the punchline turns into “I hate everyone in the Senate,” rather than “Everyone hates Ted Cruz.” Not really as funny.
magurakurin
@Amaranthine RBG: jesus. you are a fucking asshole. Please go die in a fire.
maybe assholes like Ted Cruz play that game by refusing to help Sandy victims. But us Liberals…we don’t play that game. We help everyone. That’s the way we roll.
Mr Stagger Lee
@lamh36: I would play that song at every Texan, Astro, and Rocket game.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: careful, dude–I don’t want to get a good reputation.
Felonius Monk
@Jeffro:
Perhaps not, but we seem to have weaponized it.
JCJ
@Suzanne:
I saw Roger Waters in Milwaukee at the end of July. Before an intermission he did “Another Brick in the Wall.” He had a group of kids dancing on stage wearing orange jumpsuits, then during the song they took off the jumpsuits to reveal they all were wearing shirts with “RESIST” on them. After the song the enormous video screen behind him had RESIST in gigantic letters. After the intermission for the song “Pigs (Three Different Kinds)” had all sorts of imagery of Trump. At the end of the song there were many Trump quotes on the screens and then it ended with “Trump is a Pig.”
This is from the show in Mexico City
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWLBtMz5OuY
And thus is “Another Brick in the Wall”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPXk6VqIa6U
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: I truly understand your concern. Many of us have dark reputations to uphold. When I was in law school, the “meet your law review editor” questionnaire question regarding me was “What is OO’s favorite color?” and the correct answer was noted as “Black, like his heart.”
lamh36
Betty Cracker
Trump a while ago on Twitter:
Thanks? THANKS?!? What a weird thing to say.
@magurakurin: Co-signed.
JCJ
@JCJ:
From the Milwaukee show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giHnBk4_oo0
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: Of course he thanked the people for showing spirit and…making him proud. It’s all about him. They didn’t let him down. This whole Harvey thing is going to go great, because Americans are rising to the occasion and therefore that reflects well on Trump.
lamh36
@Betty Cracker: also too:
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/901797906046439426
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: Or to put it another way: Americans are helping each out out during this HISTORIC crisis, inspired by Der Leader, by his eminence, He Who Makes It All Happen.
Otherwise, under that OTHER guy…it’d be all over, abandon ship, Houston!
Recall
https://www.propublica.org/article/boomtown-flood-town-text
Just one more canuck
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): or a kick in the nuts
Jeffro
@lamh36: He’s ecstatic because now he has a big ol’ crisis on his hands and he gets a chance to claim credit for all the feel-good stories that are going to come out over the next few weeks. (Watch – he will indeed say that Americans were helping each other ‘just as I called for in my Charlottesville remarks’)
Jeffro
OT but funny tweet: “Bernie Woulda Beat Mayweather”
LOL
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
Yeah, that Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww part. I tried to make it as acceptable as possible to read on this fucking family blog.
But really, isn’t that exactly what they are doing? I don’t care how they feel doing it or how much bleach they have to use to wash out their mouths, have they no scruples at all, I mean not a fucking one?
Ruckus
@Steve in the ATL:
Not to worry, we won’t let you up.
lamh36
@daize: yeah…I saw the video on twitter…I posted the link upthread.
https://twitter.com/mattmfm/status/901935488491249664
Jeffro
@Ruckus: I don’t think so. I don’t think they even understand ‘self preservation’…keeping company with Trumpov will STILL get them dead, politically speaking (to say nothing of their souls)
Steve in the ATL
@Ruckus: Thanks–it’s a great comfort knowing you guys don’t have my back!
And WTF Donald? And WTF flood control guy?
Mnemosyne
@JCJ:
An artist in Chicago got permission from Waters to put some Pink Floyd-style flying gold pig balloons up to block the Trump hotel sign there, but the city wouldn’t give permission to do it this fall. They were afraid that far more people would show up to see it than the artist was estimating.
They’re going to try again this spring to get the permit.
Ruckus
@Just one more canuck:
Better yet for a double donation, BOTH. I wonder how many senators would pay to smack and kick that smug asshole?
Paul W.
Steve, monsense, baud, Betty, etc. Thank you for the “chin up” comments, I’m a young(ish) man of 32 living in NYC and it just gets real lonely sometimes. My family is back in Dallas, and this whole brief but painful episode makes me think I need to move on (to where I know not) but first steps are hard.
lamh36
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
I don’t think so either. Not scruple one. Because this isn’t about getting their agenda through, this is sucking up at it’s worst. These shitstains define the words, Fucking Assholes.
Ruckus
@Steve in the ATL:
Hey, anytime we can’t be there for you, don’t ask.
Paul W.
Oh, also that drinking does not feel good to me right now. So I guess that’s a plus
lamh36
Just one more canuck
@Ruckus: open it up to the public and you could wipe out the deficit. I’d drive down from Toronto to do it
Ruckus
@Paul W.:
It’s not the location. It hurts the same everywhere. Not saying a change of scenery will hurt but it may not help at all either. Time is your friend. You’ve been wounded, give yourself a bit of time to heal.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus:
I like that.
Ruckus
@Steve in the ATL:
And can believe it.
MomSense
@Paul W.:
The problem is that you build up expectation that you’ll feel better in a new place and you might for awhile but then when you feel bad again it can be even worse.
You are a young (no ish about your age) guy in one of the greatest cities in the world. Go do something new that you’ve always wanted to try even if you think it’s stupid.
Omnes Omnibus
@JCJ: Where was the show?
Immanentize
My in-laws in Richmond/Rosenberg are still OK but they are heading west soon. The slough is up 10 feet and they are predicting another 4 at least. The problem isn’t the slough as much as it is the Brazos river is backing up all the drainage bayous. They will head to relatives in Brenham.
Their daughter/sister just died of cancer
My MIL has stomach cancer herself
My FIL is having some bone damage from his prostate cancer
My BIL’s entire business is garage door repair and depends on work from day to day.
I feel like they are living out “As I Lay Dying.”. Very sad here for a multitude of reasons.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Recall:
And Texans put up with a BSer like this ass clown?
J R in WV
@Just one more canuck:
I would rather kick him in the gonads— can we have a category for that?
Price no object! Double donation to the Houston area food bank!!
Another Scott
@lamh36: Andy Slavitt‘s response:
Yup.
Trump seems to think what’s going on in Texas and Louisiana is something out of a Hollywood movie or reality TV show… :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@MomSense:
That letdown that the answer that you hoped would work even when told by experienced experts that it very likely wouldn’t, that can be a real kick in the crotch.
Immanentize
@MomSense: makes me think of Divorce Song by Liz Phair:
Omnes Omnibus
@Paul W.: From my divorce, I can say that I did not try to crawl inside a bottle. It would not have changed things.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: Of course you do.
MomSense
@Ruckus:
Yup. Sometimes love is the worst.
Ruckus
@Immanentize:
Speaking of a kick in the gonads. That’s a lot of bad in that one comment.
Let’s hope that it gets better.
Omnes Omnibus
@Immanentize: Jewel’s mother is a horse. I hate that book with a passion.
ETA: Sorry, insensitive. I apologize.
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: So much sorrow all at once. Strengthen and courage to you all.
Ruckus
@MomSense:
One minute it’s good, the next, maybe not so much. Still, better to have the experience than not.
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus: I love hate it. “I built it on the bevel….”.
MomSense
@Immanentize:
Oh damn that is too much for one family to bear. I’m really sorry, Imm.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: almost biblical. I am quite numb now, but even I am feeling their pain. Brutal.
Mnemosyne
@Immanentize:
2012 was the year from hell for my extended family. In the span of that year, my father-in-law, my sister in law’s mother, my ex-sister in law’s father, and my father all died. Technically, my dad died three days into 2013, but I think he was supposed to go in 2012 with everyone else and was just too damn stubborn to comply, just like he always was.
I don’t know why this shit comes in clusters, but it does. You just wade through it as best you can, one foot in front of the other.
Immanentize
@Mnemosyne: so.sorry, Mnem. Please.lend me your waders?
JCJ
@Omnes Omnibus:
At the Bradley Center
Omnes Omnibus
@JCJ: That is what I suspected.
Mel
@Paul W.: I don’t know if this will help or not, but here are the words that pulled me out of a dark place a few decades ago. My lifelong friend said to me that if a very serious relationship has to end, better that it end before there are children, blended families, and blended finances involved, and while it was devastating to have my heart broken in two by someone I loved and had put my trust in, at least I could try to heal without having to try to caregive at the same time for others whose hearts were broken by the same loss.
She then said, “Someone either loves you for the good person that you are, and appreciates you the way you are, or they don’t and were going to leave eventually anyway. Better sooner than later. Would you rather find out when you’re 50 that you’ve spent the last 25 years with an asshole that never really loved you, and try to start over then after losing all those years?”
At first, I was furious and I thought it was one of the coldest things that anyone had ever said to me. As time went on a bit, I started to see that there was some real wisdom in what she said.
She wasn’t trying to minimize the very real grief and shock and mourning that comes with that kind of relationship ending suddenly; she was trying to focus me on the fact that my immediate job was to take care of myself (emotionally and physically). I needed to talk through the grief, eat right even when I had no appetite, try to get sleep, avoid isolating myself, and look for ways to look forward and to find small pieces of hope and happiness during the grieving process.
She wanted me to work towards letting go of something that was never going to be a healthy situation in the long run, and to not focus on the heartbreaking (and in my situation, impossible) “what might have been” but to focus on just getting myself through those first days and then weeks as best I could.
I would just add: surround yourself with the people who love you. Please be kind to yourself. It takes time to get through this, and the grief will likely wax and wane, but eventually it will get better. If you feel overwhelmed at any point, please don’t try to “tough it out” or go it alone. Talking to friends, loved ones, and / or a trusted counselor really helps.
chopper
@Amaranthine RBG:
houston didn’t.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
They aren’t relatives but I’ve had 6 people pass away in the last 8 months. One was my best friend I’ve known for over 40 yrs, one a HS friend that was the only one older than me, and only by one yr. He died while I was still going through radiation treatment. One was a friends daughter who was 41. My friends are a year older than me and raising her two kids.
We are never in a mind set to deal with this but we do anyway. Even though it seems like it comes at us all at once. I don’t have a clue but maybe it’s easier all at once, it’s so bad that we get a bit numb and then we have an opportunity to heal, rather than one after another where you never can catch your breath.
Ruckus
@Mel:
That was some damn good advice.
This holds true if it’s love or some major health event like cancer. I know this from recent experience. And it never hurts to be reminded of this regularly.
Texasboyshaun
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Gov. Goodhair was telling us to pray for rain a couple of years ago, remember. Be careful what you wish for…
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
My mother in law’s best friend and a close cousin died within a couple of weeks of my father in law dying. They weren’t married anymore, but they got back together after he got sick … it’s complicated.
It really seems to run in clusters. I don’t know why.
NoraLenderbee
@Paul W.: Do you have good friends you can hang out with? Friends who will be happy to have you around even if you’re sad and no fun, and will let you talk or not talk as much as you want? You need to be around people if possible. That’s what helped me when I went through something similar.
Or keep posting here. I have no words to lessen the pain, but lots of us here understand.
Mnemosyne
@Immanentize:
My mother in law said that the best thing she did was go to a spousal grief group sponsored by a local hospital. It really, really helped just being in the same room with other people dealing with the same kind of grief. If your Immp is at college (I seem to recall that he is), they should have similar group counseling available with his peers.
Texasboyshaun
Thank you John and everyone for the support. Houstonians are tough, we help each other out, we´ll get through this. And maybe I´ll break through my awkwardness enough to start talking about my two pups here. Everything is awful, but we have each other, and dogs, to keep us going.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I did a group at the VA when I was still going through the acceptance phase of my cancer diagnosis and while not one of us was there for the same reasons, we were all there to learn how to deal with shit in our lives. It was formula counseling which helped some but the better part was just being in the room talking and listening. There aren’t many of us who don’t have some level of shit in our lives, you’d think that as a group of somewhat intelligent creatures we’d have learned to handle it a bit better by now.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
I’ve been begging my own mom to go to something like that for years, but she flatly refuses. She had a really bad psychiatric experience as a teenager (involuntary commitment for depression, apparently) and now refuses any kind of professional counseling. It’s very frustrating.
Mnemosyne
Okay, back to the tropical storm — now I can’t find who did the original ink, but this series of tweets has a good explanation of Houston’s flood control strategy and why they decided not to order an evacuation. Short version: the streets and highways are supposed to flood in this situation, they were designed that way, but it complicates evacuations.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
We hate to see people suffer needlessly. That’s a given, there for the grace of whatever go I. But this was and an event that is out of the ordinary. It could be planned for but how much could actually be done? In CA we’ve toughened building codes numerous times and strengthened many structures and roads to make survival better in earthquakes. And it works. Every place has to work with the types of events that they have, the southern coastal areas have hurricanes, we have earthquakes, OK has tornadoes, the northwest had a volcano and all those areas have to work with the probabilities of how bad they normally get and how bad can they get. Nature isn’t all that safe, we have made it safer and can probably do a lot more, but at what cost? So far Houston has had a lot of flooding but few deaths. From a 100, maybe 200 yr storm. That’s pretty good considering the amount of water and the winds that brought it there. Of course we won’t know all the damage and deaths for a while and it could get worse but it seems to not be outside the level of the expected.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Davebo: One break, coming right up. Look, I know how much rain LA gets, I LIVE HERE. I’ve lived in the LA area for 54 of my 57 years. What happened in the early part of the 20th century is that LA was plagued by flooding. In the late 30’s they built a shit ton of infrastructure to prevent flooding from even a 500 year storm. There are huge dams(Sepulveda, Hansan, Wittier Narrows, …) and areas behind them that you can’t build on even with Southern CA real estate prices. There are also dams all over the foothills in tributaries to the major rivers that catch debris from the hills so it doesn’t end up in the basin and back up our rivers. Also the LA basin isn’t flat, it slopes down from about 1000′ at the base of the mountains to the sea in the space of about 25 miles. What we do have problems with is mudslides after fires when all the vegetation is burned off and the hillsides end up in folk’s backyards(and houses sometimes).
No One You Know
@Immanentize: I am so sorry. I hope it’s not to naive to think that they are, however effortfully, finding their courage in each other, and discovering anew the strength that is in family bonds.
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Do you remember the catastrophic floods in … ’92 I think? The Sepulveda Basin (I think that’s the right one) flooded and people were rescued from the golf course by helicopter? I love people telling us all about how much it doesn’t rain so it can’t possibly flood, based on average rainfall or even record rainfall. They don’t understand the terrain.
The cabin we own in the mountains is a mile high. The creeks all start higher up than that and by the time they come down and join with all the other creeks the flooding can be incredible, even with all of the flood control channels. We have people who die in the Los Angeles River or the Santa Ana River or Walnut Creek or Big Dalton Wash every time we have a flooding event. Those are all dry most of the time and visitors from out of state always laugh when they see how big these empty “rivers” are, but all of that water comes off the mountains.
Mel
@Immanentize: I am so, so sorry. I wish that I could do something to help. Please know that you, your son, and your in-laws are in my thoughts.
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I forgot. Chino dairy land was behind the Prado dam, albeit several miles away; after a big flood the water backed up all the way to Chino. A lot of houses were built below that dam in Orange County, beyond Green Canyon so they can’t really let the water out of the dam. They raised that dam so that the water can back up even farther now. A lot of people thought the Army Corps of Engineers were nuts for raising it rather than fixing the drainage downstream.
opiejeanne
@Immanentize: I am so sorry for your and everyone’s losses, and to add more illness on top is just the cherry on top of the… well, you know what kind of sundae. I haven’t read the book or seen the movie but I can feel what you’re getting at.
satby
@Texasboyshaun: yes, get through this safely with your loved ones (furry loved ones too), and keep us posted! Then tell us all about your pups and anything else on your mind. The more jackals talking, the better.