Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

T R E 4 5 O N

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Meetups and social events / Open Thread: Ohio Meetup Photos

Open Thread: Ohio Meetup Photos

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Bella Q sent along photos for the latest meetup. Gotta say, good looking crew:

Clockwise from back:
Every day I have the blues (the man in the red shirt)
Carol Durquart
Kathleen
Mr Ohio Mom
Ohio Mom
Evo devo
Mr evo devo
Glaukopis
Bella Q

Bonus puppy! Meet Harry Potter – Bella Q’s adorable rescue:

I hope you all had a great time.  Open thread.

(also, if there are spelling errors in your name, correct those babies on the comments)

Reader Interactions

135Comments

  3. 3.

    TaMara (HFG)

    There was a question about Green Balloons – from the BJ Lexicon:

    Green Balloons – Republican State Senator Rod Jetton reacted to charges that he beat and choked his partner into unconsciousness by complaining that she didn’t use their ‘safe word’, green balloons. It didn’t take long for Balloon Juice commentor Kryptik to plead “Green Balloon Juice” when the concurrent HCR (health care reform) discussion threads descended to levels, and lengths, that could be construed as unnecessarily abusive to the innocent by-reader.

  10. 10.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    So, after talking to the vet, I tried to figure out how I would decide whether or not Dirk is sufficiently cognizant to be deriving pleasure from the good things about what’s left of his life. I settled on whether or not he would purr when I snuggled with him. This is a higher bar than it sounds like, because he’s never purred very much. I didn’t even know whether or not he had been recently, since he’s so quiet when he does. (Harry purrs loudly enough for both of them.)

    When he settled in next to me in bed and I petted him, he was. He also kneaded with his paws, though not extravagantly. So, by the standard I’d set, I’m keeping him around.

    I’m worried that I’m lying to myself about this, and that there really isn’t any personality left there. But, after holding him for a half hour just now, and putting him down to write this and then get read for work, he wandered off briefly and then came back to ask to be picked up again. So it at least feels like he still loves me.

    Maybe I’m putting to much reliance on the vet’s statement that she doesn’t see any evidence that he’s in pain. But, if that’s true, it doesn’t feel like keeping him here could be too wrong of a decision, and maybe this is a time to go with what I feel rather than what I know.

  11. 11.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: I’m going with … Bella Q? But I seriously have no idea what that means. Maybe it means “clockwise from some random position, your choice?”

  13. 13.

    schrodingers_cat

    I is making a blueberry lemon cake. Later I will be making coffee ice cream.

    ETA: This morning I made butter chicken in the oven. Nutritious and delicious and not too much work. Win, win, win.

  18. 18.

    zhena gogolia

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:

    It sounds as if you’re thinking this through the right way. You’ll know when he’s ready to go (in my experience).

    I’m dealing with something similar, as our beloved 15-year-old Louis has a fatal sarcoma — they say 6 months (now 3.5, I guess, since we found out July 1) to a year, so I’m watching him like a hawk. It’s painful to be worrying about when he’s going to seem so bad that we need to make a decision. That hasn’t come yet.

  20. 20.

    WaterGirl

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I will share my guiding principle, for whatever it’s worth.

    “If they’re in it, I’m in it.”

    By which I mean that as along as they are not in pain and are still in the game – eating, drinking, going to the bathroom, and want love or still want to play, even if it’s just for a minute before they get tired – then I’m in it with them. As soon as they tell me they’re done, I know it’s time to call the vet.

    I also got some wise advice from a partner’s mom when I had to make that decision with my first pet. She said “you won’t have to decide, you’ll just know”.

  21. 21.

    Miss Bianca

    Harry Potter looks like a foxhound!

    The rest of you look like…well..jackals! A nice, friendly, well-fed pack of jackals, but still…

  24. 24.

    rikyrah

    ‘These people need to be protected’: Police won’t release info on lynching of 8-year-old biracial boy
    David Ferguson
    10 Sep 2017 at 16:46 ET

    A group of white teens attacked an 8-year-old biracial boy and hanged him by a noose, his family says, and police in Claremont, NH are refusing to release information in the case.

    The Root’s Angela Helm reported on Sunday that an 8-year-old biracial boy was hanged by a rope around his neck by other juveniles in what his grandmother said was a racist attack.

    As the child was being flown by a medevac to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, his mother Cassandra Merlin posted to Facebook, “So my son is being flown to Dartmouth after a 14 year old kid decided to hang him from a tree. I don’t care if this was a so called accident or not. My son almost died because of some little sh*t teenage kids.”

    NH1.com said that Claremont Police Chief Mark Chase refused to comment on the case, but said the department is investigating the incident, which took place on Aug. 28. He said that because the perpetrators are juveniles, he is prevented from discussing the case publicly.

    He said that unlike the adult judicial system, which is aimed at punishment, the juvenile justice system is designed to correct and rehabilitate aberrant behavior.

    “These people need to be protected,” Chase said. “Mistakes they make as a young child should not have to follow them for the rest of their life.”

    “Notice how he called these predators ‘young children,’” wrote Helm, “infantilizing the white teens. Conversely, teens like Trayvon Martin are made out to be hulking, menacing adults. Chief Chase seems to be centering the perpetrators feelings and futures, all but forgetting about the trauma of a little boy who had his so-called friends hang him from a tree to the point where he had to be medevaced to a hospital.”

  26. 26.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I think you’re doing okay. You’ve been doing this long enough, you’ll know. He’ll tell you. Enjoy your time with him now and try not to second guess. It never seems to be the “right” time – my experience is we find a way to feel guilty no matter when we decide. We did it too soon, we waited too long, and on and on. It’s such a big responsibility, I think it’s normal to second, third and fourth guess ourselves.

  30. 30.

    CarolDuhart2

    I am the Carol Duquartl. Actually CarolDuhart2, way in the back at the other end of the table in brown. Wonderful people at the meetup, pretty deep conversation, great food. Me and Kathleen and BellaQ may well be close friends after all of this.

  33. 33.

    Achrachno

    @TaMara (HFG): I found it uninterpretable because it seemed to require finding a guy in a red shirt. Red is not a color that exists — and 5-7% of the population would agree with me on that. Better to start with a person on one end or the other so we just have to count. That’s my opinion.

  37. 37.

    ThresherK

    Nice bunches folks! I have to make a meet up someday.

    And I hope that dog is full-grown, as his feet look absolutely mammoth, and if he kept growing into them…

  40. 40.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @WaterGirl: I agree. The question with Dirk is that he’s probably had multiple strokes, and is likely to have more, so his cognitive functions are pretty impaired. The vet wasn’t even sure that he can compute pain anymore. Likewise, it’s not positive that he can really experience happiness. So the usual rules have gone out the window. I’m going to have to play it by ear.

  42. 42.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: …an 8-year-old biracial boy was hanged by a rope around his neck by other juveniles in what his grandmother said was a racist attack.

    In what his grandmother said was a racist attack???? 8-year-old biracial boy hanged but the neck with a rope, could it be anything else. It truly makes me physically ill to think that lynching is now okay again. An 8-year-old boy? Somebody should just nuke our country now before it gets any worse.

  43. 43.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:

    He will tell you when he’s ready. You’ll know, and you’ll do the right thing for Dirk. I hope you still have some good time remaining with him; if not, you will know that he was much loved and comfortable in his final days.

    Whatever the outcome, thinking of you. It’s a difficult time.

  44. 44.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: Wow, I just read the whole thing. I’m all for juvenile records being sealed, but I have no problem with his trying to hang a little boy following him around for the rest of his life. Sadness, disgust and rage are now competing emotions.

  47. 47.

    WaterGirl

    @schrodingers_cat: I, too, have one of those ice cream makers, same brand.

    So you literally just put cream and coffee into your frozen gizmo and let it do its thing? Proportion of cream to coffee?

  51. 51.

    dmsilev

    @WaterGirl: Coffee ice cream is easy. Take a normal vanilla ice cream recipe and add some cold coffee to the mix before chilling. If you’re lazy, use instant coffee powder instead.

    Amounts to add depends on how strong of a cofffee flavor you want. I’d usually add enough to make a deep, almost bitter, flavor, but that’s a matter of taste. Make a small batch first, taste it, and decide.

  53. 53.

    sharl

    Ah, nice to get a report on this. Lovely photos of a good-looking bunch (that includes Harry Potter of course).
    This long-ago Dayton boy is glad to see that this went well.

  54. 54.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I’m so sorry you’re going through this. They leave such big paw prints on our hearts.

    @Miss Bianca: He’s a Great Pyrenees/hound mix, and the trainer at the shelter and I have decided the hound is foxhound. You’ll understand when I say he has very distinctively foxhound behaviors.

    Thank you for all the kind words about Harry Potter! The trainer at the shelter where we got our late beloved Layla, and who helped us integrate her into our canine family, asked me to consider him as he was a bit much dog for many. He came for a sleepover for a couple of days, and well, here he is. We love him.

  55. 55.

    Patricia Kayden

    @rikyrah: Since it appears that justice will not be done by the police, is anything stopping the parents from releasing the names of the attempted murderers to the public? I’d do so and sue the police and the parents.

  56. 56.

    germy

    Beautiful group photo. Looks exactly how I imagine balloon-juicers would look. Nice people.

    I love that photo of the dog. So dignified.

    The fence behind his head, it reminds me of a fence I just had installed a few weeks ago. I don’t know if the fence in the photo is a trick of perspective, but my fence is off center (the main post isn’t spaced evenly between the other posts) in one spot, and that spot is right in front of my living room window. I see it every day from my chair and the sight of it always throws me off balance.

  58. 58.

    WaterGirl

    @dmsilev: Okay, so I make the standard ice cream base and then add the coffee.

    There is a new flavor out from Haagen Daaz – Sweet Cream Coffee Caramel. I am usually an ice cream purist, but the swirls of sweet cream ice cream and the swirls of coffee ice cream and swirls of caramel is heavenly.

  59. 59.

    Barbara

    @schrodingers_cat: ok, that’s it. I’m having Indian food tonight. FYI after the thread yesterday re the Tanehisi Coates article I saw a data driven response focused on gender at the GOS. I think you would find it interesting. It was called “Trump Is the First Male President.”

  63. 63.

    dmsilev

    @WaterGirl: Basically, yes. For something like coffee where the bitterness is an important element of the flavor, I tend to cut down the amount of sugar in the original mix so it doesn’t get overwhelmed by the sweetness, but again that’s a matter of taste preferences rather than a requirement.

  66. 66.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @CarolDuhart2: I knew I’d screw up your name! I enjoyed the meetup so much, and really hope we can do another one.

    And Baud we did not get arrested (this time), but I think we’ll be great friends. Turns out we had formative years during the same era here in town.

    And I wanted to start at the easily identifiable outfit – the red shirt worn by Every Day I have the blues (I think I remember that screen name correctly) who was a delightful next-door-chair companion. And he was especially gracious when I talked across him to CarolDuhart2 about our youths.

    Everyone at the table, excepting, of course, myself was tremendously fascinating and outgoing. I struggled, as I do daily, to come out of my shell. I hope cintibud will be able to attend the next verson, and that Botsplainer will consider wandering up from the People’s Kenyan Islamic Soc¡alist Republic of Louisville (school’s in session is what I’ll remind him…). I enjoyed the gathering immensely, no matter how much fun y’all make of my description of who was where in the photos.

    @evodevo: Nope, Kathleen organized it. I just brought the balloons and might have been a little bossy about introductions. I’m so shy I sometimes overcompensate.

  67. 67.

    WaterGirl

    @dmsilev: I think that’s one reason that coffee ice cream is my favorite – it’s not as sweet as most ice cream. Good idea to cut the sugar in the recipe.

    I always cut the sugar to 3/4 in any dessert with fruit in it, but I not pretty sure it would not have occurred to me to do that here.

  68. 68.

    Lymie

    @Baud:
    Surely this dog should be called Harry Pointer! (That is the name of our dearly loved guy, gone too soon)! Actually looked very like this guy. He was a pure bred – think symbol of the American Kennel Club.

  70. 70.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: There’s some truth to it. Figuring out how to handle cases where there is little to no evidence beyond two people’s testimony as to what happened is hard, and that’s what a lot of campus rape cases boil down to. Rape is not a crime that the justice system is well equipped to handle even if the authorities take reports seriously (a very large “if” in many cases). Yes, only a small percentage of rape accusations are false claims, but a statistic isn’t much use in adjudicating a single instance.

    School administrators are even less qualified and capable of dealing with the problem in a judicial way than the legal system is. A lot of them really do have little concept of what due process is or applying it; they aren’t any better at it than the NFL, to be honest. Faced with a situation in which they have nothing to go on but conflicting testimony, and often testimony of people who were drunk or otherwise impaired at the time of the incident, they really do have no good options.

    Forget the bullshit about trying to criminalize college age pickups; it’s not the problem. And the problem isn’t that there’s a lower standard of evidence needed than at a criminal trial; that’s a given for any proceedings other than a criminal trial. But there definitely are problems here, and university administrators have shown a lot of incompetence in dealing with those problems.

    What I think would be a lot better, though also clearly not going to happen under this administration, is for the Department of Education, in conjunction with lawyers who really do understand all of the issues involved, ought to come out with guidelines for how schools should conduct and adjudicate rape cases. But even with that, you’re never going to have a system where those making the decisions are really going to be sure that they aren’t either telling a woman who was raped that she has to keep going to school with someone with her attacker, or punishing someone who is actually innocent. It’s just not something where you’re always going to be sure what happened. And we, as a society, really need to have a mature, rational discussion about how we want to deal with that uncertainty in individual cases.

    In other words, it’s going to remain a mess. And Betsy DeVos and her henchmen are wildly unqualified to be in charge of that mess.

  71. 71.

    ThresherK

    @schrodingers_cat: Jeebus, I could see what a turf that story was even before I heard Yoffe’s name.

    The self-labeled “uncomfortable, unpopular, ‘this hurts me more than it does you’ truth-tellers” always seem lashed to the mast of the SS Right-Wing Orthodoxy, aren’t they?

  72. 72.

    dmsilev

    @schrodingers_cat: Googling around a bit, I found this actual recipe, which is a bit more involved, but not too bad. It uses whole beans steeped in the milk/cream mixture to infuse the coffee flavor, and then strained out. Calls for decaf beans, but that’s just doubleplusungood, so use regular instead.

  73. 73.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @schrodingers_cat:
    I saw this on the political chat section on AH.com and decided to ask for opinions from here:
    Here was particularly stupid commemt:

    I heard that California and Maryland were reflexively attempting to encode Title IX into state law as part of their #resistance

    And that campus admins are vowing to uphold their current undeniably draconian policies to spite Betsy deVos & Co. Regardless of how many times they have and continue to lose in Court. Which, according to the Atlantic article, they almost always do. Self-Righteousness + Power trip + fear of campus activists

    Everything Trump admin is against they must be for and everything done under Obama must be saved… Even if well intentioned it was terribly self-destructive in practice… Like Title IX

    Mindless

    The OP of the thread:

    This is a long read, but a good one. https://www.theatlantic.com/educati…ortable-truth-about-campus-rape-policy/538974

    If you only read one passage of the article, this should be it:

    On too many campuses, a new attitude about due process—and the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty—has taken hold, one that echoes the infamous logic of Edwin Meese, who served in the Reagan administration as attorney general, in his argument against the Miranda warning. “The thing is,” Meese said, “you don’t have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That’s contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect.”

    I wish the author had expanded on this. IMO, it shows that many US liberals never sincerely believed in the right to a fair trial, they just supported it because most criminal defendants were “oppressed people”. When the defendant belongs to an “oppressor group” instead, as is the case in almost all rape proceedings, they turn into authoritarian tough-on-crime conservatives. Why afford defendants any rights, they’re guilty anyway, they’ll just use them as a way to get away with it! Similarly, when it comes to rape, the emphasis is always on punishment, not rehabilitation. It’s very disheartening, and shows that a sincere commitment to human rights -not simply because they happen to line up with your own agenda at the moment- is hard.

    Also, I think the direction feminism has taken in the past decades is partly to blame for spurious rape accusations (note: they’re not “fake” since the complainant is sincere) of the kind shown in the article. We now have many young people who know a lot about sexual victimisation and hardly anything about sex. Once you take that into account, the way they’re reacting isn’t surprising. They’re using the only concepts they have at their disposal to make sense of what happened to them.

    Finally, it’s interesting to note that the kind of proceedings American universities are using would contravene the ECHR if they were held here. The ECtHR considers any proceedings that can have can have sufficiently serious consequences for the defendant -and being expelled from university definitely qualifies- as penal in nature, even if the legal system in which they exist defines them as administrative. And once that’s the case, all the usual protections kick in, including the right to have one’s guilt proven beyond reasonable doubt.

  74. 74.

    NotMax

    @zhena gogolia

    A fun time in a Norse demigod sort of way.

    Loki.   :)

    Very, very, very nice people, good eats. As there was (for whatever reason) no wait staff assigned to the tables and rooms downstairs nearer the bar they seated us upstairs in the fancier dining room. Not tablecloths and such – it was still pub grub after all – but it may well have been the first ever BJ meet-up held beneath a crystal chandelier. Plus a death mask of Shakespeare overlooking our proceedings from the wall at the end of the table.

    Couple of people took a picture but AFAIK have not sent it to AL. (I possess no type of soul stealing photo taking device.)

  76. 76.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I haven’t read that particular article. It’s always possible to find examples to illustrate any problem one wants to define with dealing with sexual misconduct on campuses. There are a number of problems with government policies on this that potentially mess up things legally for those on all sides of a particular incident. When the government first mandated action by colleges and universities under Title IX, there were some big mess-ups, but the colleges and universities have been figuring things out, and it’s better now, although not perfect. What is best is for the college to work closely with a non-punitive local police department and give all involved plenty of opportunity to be heard, with legal protection.

    College students are figuring out sexuality, often with the help of alcohol or other pharmaceuticals, and the situations can be horrendously complex and ambiguous. That gives ideologues an opportunity to hold up a particular incident as exemplifying a loss of rights by whomever they want to defend. The idea of the regs was to allow a way to resolve incidents without giving people crime records and still respecting the victim. The practical result was conflicts with legal rights. Also, college students are prone to saying “No big deal” at first and later realizing that what happened was very upsetting.

    What is needed is a reconciliation of the regs with the laws and the development of a process that respects the law and allows those involved alternate routes. I think there’s enough experience now to outline how that might be done. But, as with so many other things in this administration, they just want to remove the regs and maybe figure it out later.

  77. 77.

    NotMax

    @schrodingers_cat

    With relish and, so far as am aware, only one exception. Staff at the reservation station had been instructed to respond to Balloon Juice. People hailed from both NY and NJ.

  78. 78.

    lgerard

    @dmsilev:

    This is the way I make it. I also make Thai basil ice cream by steeping the leaves in the milk then straining them out……it is fantastic.

  80. 80.

    Ohio Mom

    @CarolDuhart2: I wish we would have had more time to talk — perhaps next time we can make sure we aren’t at opposite ends of the table. That’s not to say I didn’t thoroughly enjoy the Juicers at my end of the table: the Evo Devo’s and Glaukopis. Everyone has such interesting life stories!

    Ohio Dad keeps marveling that a group of strangers could hit it off so well, but I wasn’t surprised.

    Many thanks to Kathleen for organizing the meet-up, and for Bella Q for making sure it was properly documented.

  81. 81.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @WaterGirl: It’s true that juvenile records are sealed, unless the prosecutor decides to try the offender as an adult. This has its own problems, but what a pack of little monsters.
    I am furious for that child, for his family, and for everything they have been through and will continue to have to cope with because of these junior-grade psychopaths.

  82. 82.

    Ohio Mom

    @Patricia Kayden: Yes, it is nice to finally have faces to go with the nyms. But as I discovered, if you have trouble remembering names, a meet-up can be a challenge because just about every face comes with two identifiers, a nym and a name.

  83. 83.

    Ruckus

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
    Living without pain is good. Believe me, it really is. And some days that is as good as you can hope for. Contentment is nice. Being able to wonder off and find your way back is good.
    The only way you know is how you feel that your pet is dealing with whatever. There is no magic, no secret handshake. There are some unmistakable signs, but you have to see them because they are not the same for every animal every time. They are though, pretty much the same with pets and people. And most of the time neither pets or people can tell you for sure because none of us can predict the future, even seconds away. Do what your brain tells you, otherwise you will drive yourself batty trying to figure it out. If your brain is telling you that you don’t know, then you don’t.

  85. 85.

    efgoldman

    @evodevo:

    We had a great time!

    We’ve been to multiple meetups in the Boston and DC areas. Never had other than an excellent time, never met other than excellent. interesting jackals. I hope they feel the same.

  86. 86.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @WaterGirl: Aww. He is a big (and very sweet) boy – about 85 pounds. And at 2 years old, he may come close to growing into his enormous feet; he’s gotten slightly bigger since he arrived in April. Or so says the trainer from the shelter, when we went back for the summer picnic. She later brought a little beagle mix over for a play date.

    He’s a big goof, and we love him. Thanks to everyone who’s complimented him.

    And thanks again to all who attended yesterday. It was such great fun, and I do look forward to another one. Ohio Mom, I’ll send that email we discussed soon…

  87. 87.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @debbie: No, but he had the hind dew claws and he’s got a Pyr looking head and face, plus a noticeable ruff/loose neck skin there in spite of his houndy coat. He also watches like a flock guarding dog. His brothers looked much more like Pyrs, I’m told.

  88. 88.

    vtr

    @rikyrah: Good god. Claremont is 20 miles from my home town in Vermont. People from away think of Vermont and New Hampshire, but when I was growing up there, it was heavily into machine tool manufacture. I grew up in a house built by an engineer who did much of the design work on the Palomar telescope in Pasadena, the biggest in the world when it was built. Dozens of machine patents came out of there. It’s all gone now, and the area is quite depressed.

  91. 91.

    joel hanes

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:

    It’s just not something where you’re always going to be sure what happened.

    What TTP said. All of it.

    However: for millennia, guilty men in this situation have been given the benefit of the doubt, and victimized women disbelieved and stigmatized. One has to suspect that the pattern continues, and thus that a thumb on the scale in favor of the victim will often be appropriate.

  92. 92.

    Emma Anne

    Regarding how campuses handle rape and abuse allegations that can’t be prosecuted: I have known the people involved in two cases where the campus kicked the guy out of school until the woman graduated. I thought both were appropriate. One was domestic abuse and the other was unwanted sex.

    I didn’t think the kid in the second case intended anything too bad. They were both impaired. But I still think that spending a year doing something else and going back after the girl graduated was the right result. She was pretty traumatized, whatever he intended, and taking another year to finish school is IMO appropriate for being really sloppy at best.

    Leaving school for a while is not the equivalent of going to prison and shouldn’t require the kind of burden of proof that a criminal trial does. If you do require that burden of proof, what you are really saying is that the girl* bears all of the consequences so the guy isn’t inconvenienced.

    (* assuming male perpetrator and female victim here since that is what is under discussion right now.)

  94. 94.

    Spanky

    @vtr: Russell Porter’s place? Or one of his guys, perhaps.

    The Connecticut River Valley was a hotbed of engineering manufacturing and innovation for over a hundred years. All gone now.

  95. 95.

    MazeDancer

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:

    Your standard sounds good.

    Also, cats stop eating. If a cat is eating, it’s still interested in being that cat.

    My cat Tate was determined to be Tate, despite all kinds of afflictions, up until the moment he wasn’t. He had several fatal conditions and was chowing down on every chicken liver I gave him. (His favorite, figured why not give him lots of them, he was dying.)

    And then, one morning, almost mid nosh, he just stopped. No eating. Not interested. And later that day slipped into a coma. The vet had said a cat that’s eating heartily is usually not ready to go. She was right.

  96. 96.

    Suburban Mom

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Our vet asked us if our ailing cat was eating and enjoying food. That seemed to be a key marker in addition to responding to affection. It is always a tough call. You’re taking a thoughtful, kind approach and I’m sure you’ll make the right decision.

  97. 97.

    vtr

    To Spanky – yes, I grew up in his former house after he had gone west to Cal Tech. In a south facing window in my older sisters bedroom there were gouges in sill where Porter clasped a small scope. If you’re a Stellafaner, my brother-in-law Bert was the clubs president for several years. I’m old enough to has met, and to have been neighbors of several of the original members.

  100. 100.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman: thanks for the check-in! Sorry you all are having to go thru’ this down in FL!

    Up here in the mountains, we are having rain and wind, too…just neither as severe. Also, cows have moved into the neighborhood, and a new family of wild turkeys. Hummingbird numbers down, but a few are still packing the nectar away. .

  102. 102.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Schlemazel: right now I’m in St. Pete. At my brother’s – he’s in a no flood/no evac zone. I live about 40 minutes north in northeastern pinellas county.

  107. 107.

    glaukopis

    I also had a great time. It was wonderful to meet my juicer neighbors. By the way, if any of you fine Ohio / Kentucky juicers are still in need of a pink pussy hat, let me know and I’ll bring one to our next meetup.

  115. 115.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @MazeDancer: Dirk is now blind (which I’ve suspected for a few months but the vet confirmed) as well as being confused on a frequent basis, so there are times I have to carry him to the food bowl for him to find it, but once there, he digs in heartily. I have no idea how he’s lost so much weight, because he eats a lot, but the tests for things like diabetes or a thyroid condition that would explain it have all come back negative.

  116. 116.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Adam L Silverman: I hope indoor conditions have improved since earlier. Surely everyone is settling in well by now? Moving is stressful, especially under those circumstances.

  117. 117.

    Kathleen

    @Ohio Mom: I hope to spend more time talking with you & Mr. Ohio Mom as well as the evodevo’s, whose stories about their store in Maysville had me in stitches. (I swear I see either a blog, newspaper column or book).

  118. 118.

    lamh36

    @Adam L Silverman: When is the storm supposed to pass completely through? I admit, I haven’t been following all the movements.

    BTW, I found the email…sent ya back another…sorry bout missing it!

    As always my advice is to keep dry and keep calm…esp if you’re not int he thick of things and just getting wind and rain so far!

  120. 120.

    Brachiator

    @Achrachno:

    Red is not a color that exists — and 5-7% of the population would agree with me on that.

    That’s funny. I had no problem locating the guy in red, but I never thought about the good point you raise.

    Since they were doing clockwise, how about, from the 12 o clock position?

  122. 122.

    RedDirtGirl

    Haven’t read the thread, but just wanted to pop on to ask if there were any photos posted of the recent NYC meet-up? I missed the event and haven’t been on-line much the past 8-10 days…

  124. 124.

    raven

    @Suburban Mom: Our friends got here yesterday morning and their old golden wouldn’t eat and really looked bad. She’s perked back up and seems fine now. The cars ride from Ft Myers to here was pretty stressful. That said, if they won’t eat for a long while it tell you something.

  125. 125.

    WaterGirl

    It’s odd to be on pins and needles worried about everyone’s safety in the hurricanes, even while the weather is quiet as a mouse here in Illinois.

    Peace to everyone who is waiting, especially those of you who are in the storm’s path.

  128. 128.

    EveryDayIHaveTheBlues

    It was awesome to finally meet some progressives!

    First of all, that shirt was PINK. The waiter taking the photo was some kinda hi-falutin’ photographer, (like Tim F.), and he couldn’t manage to work Bella’s phone. I blame him and Trump for the poor lighting.

    Second, Bella Q is too kind. I was eating a quesadilla, and the very glimpse of one of those things puts me in a trance. Only later, when my wife asked me if I was polite, did I realize that I was too busy stuffing my face to apologize for getting in the way of Carol and Bella’s conversation.

    Carol & Bella had great stories about how the Queen City was, back in the bad old days… Carol was very kind in explaining to me the structure and unique neighborhoods of the Queen City. I’ve only been here since 2008, just a tiny spark in comparison. A vigorous discussion of the East Side vs. the West followed. Tupac & Biggie would have been proud.

    Bella has a dish named after her at our neighborhood Mexican joint! I MUST HAVE IT.

    Glaukopis told us stories of La Jolla and California, and I learned so much from the fascinating discussion b/w Kathleen and Bella on voting machines. I haven’t voted in the US yet, but look forward to my turn at it.

    There was great controversy over how everyone came to BJ, but we all agreed that Daily Kos was the pits.

    Truly though, I was honored to be seated at a table with such a wealth of experience, wisdom, wit and good nature.

  133. 133.

    sharl

    @mai naem mobile: That would be a long haul from NW Ohio (Toledo area), even with most of it being interstate (I-75). In cases like that it would be better to schedule it around a visit by Kay (or whomever), if and when that happens.

  135. 135.

    Ivan Ivanovich Renko

    I’m also in the Akron/Canton area (oh, hell, I’m in Canton and not far from the CTE Hall of Fame) and wish I’d known about this!

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