Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Speaking of Marathons…

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Speaking of Marathons…

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(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)
.

Been sitting on this, but it feels like we can use a little positive feminism right now. From the NYTimes, “How the ‘Shalane Flanagan Effect’ Works”:

When Shalane Flanagan won the New York City Marathon [November 5th], her victory was about more than just an athletic achievement. Of course, it’s a remarkable one: She’s the first American woman to win in 40 years, and she did so in a blistering 2 hours 26 minutes.

But perhaps Flanagan’s bigger accomplishment lies in nurturing and promoting the rising talent around her, a rare quality in the cutthroat world of elite sports. Every single one of her training partners — 11 women in total — has made it to the Olympics while training with her, an extraordinary feat. Call it the Shalane Effect: You serve as a rocket booster for the careers of the women who work alongside you, while catapulting forward yourself…

Here’s how it worked until Flanagan burst onto the scene. After college, promising female distance athletes would generally embark on aggressive training until they broke down. Few of them developed the staying power required to dominate the global stage. And they didn’t have much of a community to support them; domestic women’s distance running was fractious and atrophied. In 2000, for example, only one American woman qualified for the Olympic marathon, after training alone in her Anchorage home on a treadmill.

But things changed after 2009, when Flanagan joined Jerry Schumacher’s fledgling running group in Portland, Ore., called the Bowerman Track Club. She was the team’s lone woman, and worked with him to create something new: a team of professional female distance runners who would train together and push one another to striking collective success. They were coached by a man and surrounded mostly by male runners, but over time Flanagan and her teammates outperformed the men in the national and global arenas.

Instead of being threatened by her teammates’ growing accomplishments, Flanagan embraced them, and brought in more women, elevating them to her level until they become the most formidable group of distance athletes in the nation. National championships, world championships, Olympics: They became some of the best runners in the world…

To be sure, Flanagan’s unapologetic competitiveness is not universally popular, but she is respected for it. Flanagan boldly acknowledged the work she put into her marathon training and was unabashed about wanting to win before the race. Her victory in New York involved fist-pumping and profanity-laced affirmations as she crossed the finish line in front of millions of viewers.

We usually see competitive women, particularly athletically excellent women, only in one of two ways: either competing to defeat one another, or all about team over self. But that’s a flawed, limiting paradigm. The Shalane Effect dismantles it: She is extraordinarily competitive, but not petty; team-oriented, but not deferential. Elevating other women is actually an act of self-interest: It’s not so lonely at the top if you bring others along…

***********

Apart from remembering that teamwork is good for all participants (not least during the countdown to Thanksgiving) what’s on the agenda for the day?

Reader Interactions

149Comments

  4. 4.

    Elizabelle

    Good morning, three. Recovering from a cold. Have been barking like a seal, but not today. Wiesbaden is beautiful. Might walk into town center today, if not raining.

  5. 5.

    Elizabelle

    Not that surprised about Charlie Rose. As long as this does not become witch-hunt hysteria, it could have a cleansing effect on the media-industrial complex. Can’t immediately think of professions other than media and politics that have hack lists, and long ones, at that. Corrupt, rotted institutions.

    WRT Rose’s slot: someone mentioned Tavis Smiley. What about Terry Gross? Wonderful interviewer.

    I think C. Rose was on air more as a “validator”. Curating the elite, and leaving so much unexplored and unmentioned. Good riddance.

  7. 7.

    bemused

    I loved the cat thread from last night. I knew our dogs loved pumpkin but didn’t realize cats do too.

    Our two cats will puke up their food at times, particularly the one who hoovers up her food. Instead of buying food dishes that force kitties to eat slower, I just picked up some rocks from outdoors to put in their dishes. Three rocks each so they have to work around the rocks. Works pretty well and free! I do wash the rocks when I wash their dishes, kitty saliva.

  11. 11.

    Ben Cisco

    @marcopolo: Saw your comment in the last thread – welcome to the 55 club. I just got there myself on Sunday.

    Good morning fellow jackals!

    @Elizabelle: Tavis gets a hard pass from me – you could choose literally anyone else, Terry Gross is fine.

  18. 18.

    Elizabelle

    @JPL: that sounds lovely. Although, less leftovers.

    Re a better interview show to replace Rose: maybe a rotating lineup of interviewers, primarily female. We need parity, and no better place to start.

  19. 19.

    Schlemazel

    @Elizabelle:
    Lots of issues but I am still going to work every day so none are debilitating. Don’t recall if I mentioned it, I had a second heart attack 6 weeks after the first. They used the MRI taken after the first to find one tiny blockage that caused the problem. Put in a stent so I should be OK. I had a surgery lined up to fix a major problem but that is on hold now because of blood thinners etc. It gets boring fast so I try not to talk about it.

  22. 22.

    Schlemazel

    @Elizabelle:
    We are having some family & friends over. Tissue Thin is on the friend list & his work gave him a turkey so he dropped it off for the dinner. It is a monster, almost 23 pounds! Gonna be a lot of leftovers going home with folks!

  23. 23.

    Elizabelle

    @OzarkHillbilly: Fresh bread? Yum.

    I travel to Stockholm on T’giving Day. It’s our Lufthansa Surprise(!), especially since we selected for “days in the sun.” My hostess is bummed; I am good with it.

  26. 26.

    Elizabelle

    @Schlemazel: Had heard about the second ❤️ Attack. Glad you are on the mend. Something we can all be thankful for.

    When does efgoldman post? Good to hear he is back.

    And thoughts are with Alain.

  30. 30.

    Baud

    @Schlemazel: Agree. Civil rights and immigration (and now disaster relief) are probably the areas where Trump makes the most difference. I also don’t think another Republican would try to sabotage Obamacare, but OTOH another Republican would probably have been more effective in getting repeal done.

    And any other Republican would probably be more competent in the position.

  31. 31.

    Raven

    Just as we got used to the time change we head to cst and we’re all fucked up. Tough day fishing yesterday with 3 snapped lines and the a nice big red that somehow spit the hook just as I got it to shore! It never got to 60 and the wind was brutal but it’s going to warm up so it’s off to get some live shrimp and hope for the best. Jackals

  32. 32.

    satby

    @Elizabelle: I’m cooking the next day, not Thanksgiving itself. I got the smallest turkey I could find because it’s just my youngest son and me. Thanksgiving day itself will be spent puttering around cleaning and relaxing.

    And I did tell the office manager I would help her screen resumes and interview people, because she hates to do that anyway. She was open to it after the last fiasco.

  33. 33.

    Jeffro

    @Elizabelle:

    Who is cooking up a turkey feast this week?

    I’m making a couple of veggie side dishes and a couple salads to take to my mom’s (she’s making the turkey). She lives about 20 min away from us, so a nice change of pace from traveling two hours+ each way to see my dad & stepmom.

  35. 35.

    Raven

    @satby: I still enjoyed but my wife is worried about me going way out to throw my rig and then freezing while I dry off. I gotta do it while I still can.

  36. 36.

    Immanentize

    @Elizabelle: it’s the morning alright.

    I am cooking up the feast this Thursday. The Immp and I went back and forth on the issue — should we eat at home like we always have in the past? Accept on of the invitations to join others? Leave town and go to NY for a few days?

    Well, muscle memory has won out and I will be cooking for two instead of three plus guests. It is going to be strange!

  37. 37.

    cosima

    I’m going to share this around the club that Little Cosima runs with. It’s been a big issue in our house lately, because next spring Little C is able to be chosen to run to represent Scotland. She is good enough, at the top of the rankings in her sport, but she doesn’t have a bit of a competitive streak. I like that, and yet, to go all of the places, literally & figuratively, that it can take her, she will need to find that. There are girls she runs with who seem focused specifically on coming ahead of her (sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t).

    The larger issue, for me, is how to foster a team spirit amongst these girls so that they pull each other up, rather than race against each other. Some get it, some don’t, and I do realise that a lot of it begins at home. Her sport is fairly balanced in terms of men/women dominance. And there is a lot of respect for the women who compete at an elite level — generally they do better than the men in international competitions. I will say, though, that some of the male coaches (and at the uni & above level they’re definitely mostly male) are either creepers or jerks. I wold love to see more high level female coaches, but I get it, they’ve devoted the first 30+ years of their lives to sport & education, and want to start families, do some other things.

    Girls in sport need all of the strong role models that they can get. It’s impossible to reach your potential without tapping into competitiveness, and that’s not limited to sport. I am not about raising a child that always wins, or feels that she must win, but there must at least be the feeling that you’ve given 100% (or more!) in the things that are important to you, whether sport, academics, relationships, work, or many other things.

    Without reading this piece, I do wonder what the rest of her life is like. Does she have a fulfilling career, family, etc? Or is life all running? I’ll be reading it to find out, and, as I said, passing it around the club as food for thought…

  42. 42.

    bemused

    @JPL:

    Net neutrality issues have been on Al Franken’s radar for awhile now. Most recent article I found on Franken/net neutrality was in Forbes Nov. 10.

  45. 45.

    MomSense

    @Schlemazel:

    We’ve had way too many interactions with cardiologists the last 7 months and it looks like this trend will continue. Hope you continue to improve and that the other problem is fixed successfully.

  47. 47.

    Caphilldcne

    As a pretty regular runner’s world reader (not always much of an actual runner), I’ve known about Shalane Flanagan for awhile. I’m glad she finally got her win. She has been knocking on the door for awhile and had a few heartbreaks. I’ve run 3 marathons. I could not have completed any of them without training with a team.

  48. 48.

    bystander

    Had to take a break from my constant monitoring the news. So I made spicy cranberry sauce to go with our fried chicken last night, while listening to France Musique’s tribute to the 50th anniversary of Les Demoiselles de Rochefort.

    Little vocals but Michel Legrand is there playing extended riffs on his many melodies. I haven’t watched Demoiselles in a while and I forgot how many great songs he wrote for it. Also forgot that Danielle Darrieux’s song in the film became known to the English-speaking world as You Must Remember Spring. If you can wait out the French blather, some very distracting, relaxing piano music. Perfect kitchentime music. Also loved the cranberry sauce.

  50. 50.

    Honus

    @Elizabelle: me. Brined my turkey last night. Also whipped up a couple gallons of egg nog combining the joy of cooking recipe with Dr. Rebecca Lansfield’s. Making yeast cornbread for the stuffing tonight. Mashed potatoes with ruta bagas and also scalloped oysters. Guests are bringing the other sides.

  51. 51.

    debit

    @Elizabelle: It’s going to be a joint effort between me and my sister at my parent’s house. Mom is still pretty wobbly from the chemo, so she’s been relegated to a supervisory position while we do the heavy lifting.

  56. 56.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @MomSense I broke down and bought a big Coleman cooler and a bunch of bags of ice. I took anything that could go in the cooler out of the fridge to make room for the bird. Had Thanksgiving early as the Spawn has to work Thanksgiving night and Black Friday. Sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, brined turkey slathered in herb butter before roasting, home made cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes. That was Saturday and I am still eating leftovers every day…good times

  58. 58.

    JeanneT

    Good morning! Last week I was worried about taking my dog to a vet oncologist. Today I’m happy to report that yesterday afternoon I got the call that Raleigh shows no signs of cancer recurrence or spread. Lymph nodes, thyroid and lungs were all clear of suspicious nodules. The scans did show a couple of shady looking areas in his kidneys and some small kidney stones, so we’ve got to keep an eye on his kidney function. Otherwise, only regular blood tests are needed between now and late February, when the oncologist wants to do more imaging. I feel much more hopeful that Raleigh will have a pretty healthy winter.

  64. 64.

    Baud

    Speaking of net neutrality, it’s fun watching Reddit freak out about it. That place was so anti-Hillary last year. Even now, the majority line is both sides (although there are some brave souls who try to educate people.)

  68. 68.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: Oh, you meant brine. This is the turkey brine recipe I use for chicken:

    3/4 cup plus 2 TBSP kosher salt
    3/4 cup sugar
    1 carrot diced
    1 large onion diced
    1/4 cup celery
    2 large sprigs of thyme
    2 bay leaves
    1 TBSP black peppercorns
    1.4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
    1/4 tsp fennel seeds

    Bring salt sugar and 4 cups water to a boil in a 16 qt pot, stirring until salt and sugar are dissolved.
    Turn off heat and add remaining ingredients. Refrigerate until cold.
    Add 6 qts cold water to pot. Add turkey. Place a plate on top of turkey to keep it submerged. Cover and chill for up to 72 hrs. (the longer the more flavorful and moister the bird will be)

    I always brine my 4# chickens for 24 hrs and that seems sufficient. It has become my go to process for roasted chicken. Just too tasty. I also like to drain the carrot/onion/celery spice mix (removing the peppercorns) and add it to stuffing. Mmm Mmm good.

  70. 70.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: Speak of, I put mealworms out for the birds in the feeders here, and they seem to be ignoring them. Surprisingly, because at my old place the birds would fight over that feeder.

  71. 71.

    clay

    Morning Joe ran a segment this morning — a timeline of all of the (known) Trump-Russia connections during the campaign (and the subsequent lies about said connections). I listened to it on XM, so I didn’t see the visuals, but it seemed pretty thorough — I can’t think of any obvious thing they overlooked. It took two segments to get through.

    Anyway, I know we bag on Joe & Co, and not without reason, but in their favor: they are not blind to the myriad ways in which Trump is damaging our country — treason included — and they use their platform to publicize them.

  73. 73.

    ThresherK

    @OzarkHillbilly: Just curious: I have read sites which geek out at the (genuine) difference in weight-by-volume of different Kosher salt brands. Which do you use, and have you ever weighed it while brining?

    This is a low-pressure, no-real-world-effects question. I’m not making a turkey.

  74. 74.

    MomSense

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone:

    Most years I can put the turkey in the garage but it is not cold enough. It’s in the 20s at night but then we are up to just shy of 50 during the day. May have to pull the coleman chest down from the eaves.

    Every year I laugh to myself about days of shopping, hours and hours of cooking, and then we stuff our faces so fast the meal is over in a flash. Thank dog for Thanksgiving leftovers – and pecan pie for breakfast.

  76. 76.

    Tenar Arha

    @clay: They deserve to be bagged on forever. They were useless doormats during the election, either because Trump knew Joe & Mika were having an affair, or because they wanted to maintain their connection to him for the aftermath, or both. They don’t get my compliments for finally doing their jobs, unless they reckon with their complicity in Orange Julius winning. If they ever apologize to Clinton and the country for letting him phone in for months, maybe I’ll listen.

    ETA Sorry bout that. Guess I’m still mad.

  77. 77.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: I give my chickens scratch in the evenings and they go after it like it was crack. Mealworms? Like junkies with free smack.

  78. 78.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Grumble, grumble. Woke up to a request from a reporter for a quote that he needed right now about the radiation release in Russia. I’ll post the article when it appears, and if it quotes me. Sometimes the quotes get cut, and he said it’s a small article.

    Also to a couple of guys who just couldn’t give up on a Twitter discussion from last night. They assured me that status was the issue in the sexual harassment stuff – that a guy in the mailroom would get fired fast. I finally told that guy that I was done with the discussion and would block him if he continued. Another went off on the “not all men” thing. Another hint for the guys: I know it’s tempting (it certainly tempts me), but it’s not always necessary to get the last word.

    Gonna have breakfast now.

    [Eh – made the mistake of looking again, and have had to issue a blocking warning to the “not all men” guy.]

  79. 79.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @ThresherK: Mortons, because it’s the only brand of Kosher Walmart carries. I doubt it would make any kind of difference to my unschooled palate.

  80. 80.

    Eric S.

    Bonjour!

    I’ve started studying French in preparation for a trip next September. I’m not particularly gifted with human languages (computer programming is my forte) and I darn well know I won’t fool anyone I’m a massive speaker.

    Still a week in to my self study and I’m still excited and motivated. I want to show some basic aptitude while there.

  81. 81.

    ThresherK

    @MomSense: I developed a pecan allergy sometime in my 30s, and I miss pecan pie, and pralines, something fierce around this time of year. My wife and I always are welcomed places when I bring a homemade dessert.

    My walnut allergy was evident a lot earlier, but I don’t care about them.

  82. 82.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Elizabelle: (raises hand)

    We have 20+ coming. Somehow (nothing to do with my lobbying for it I’m sure) we ended up the hosts for all the siblings and spouses and their kids, etc. I love it! And traditionally I make the turkey every year, as well as attempt a duck.

    I’m an extreme introvert but I love being surrounded by the activity and noise and conversation, hearing all that’s going on with people. It’s just trying to make small talk myself that’s wearing.

    Good morning, BJ!!

  83. 83.

    Another Scott

    Great story about the marathon runners. Thanks.

    In other news, … Reuters: Exclusive – State Dept. revolt: Tillerson accused of violating U.S. law on child soldiers:

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of about a dozen U.S. State Department officials have taken the unusual step of formally accusing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of violating a federal law designed to stop foreign militaries from enlisting child soldiers, according to internal government documents reviewed by Reuters.

    A confidential State Department “dissent” memo not previously reported said Tillerson breached the Child Soldiers Prevention Act when he decided in June to exclude Iraq, Myanmar, and Afghanistan from a U.S. list of offenders in the use of child soldiers. This was despite the department publicly acknowledging that children were being conscripted in those countries.[tmsnrt.rs/2jJ7pav]

    Keeping the countries off the annual list makes it easier to provide them with U.S. military assistance. Iraq and Afghanistan are close allies in the fight against Islamist militants, while Myanmar is an emerging ally to offset China’s influence in Southeast Asia.

    Documents reviewed by Reuters also show Tillerson’s decision was at odds with a unanimous recommendation by the heads of the State Department’s regional bureaus overseeing embassies in the Middle East and Asia, the U.S. envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, the department’s human rights office and its own in-house lawyers. [tmsnrt.rs/2Ah6tB4]

    “Beyond contravening U.S. law, this decision risks marring the credibility of a broad range of State Department reports and analyses and has weakened one of the U.S. government’s primary diplomatic tools to deter governmental armed forces and government-supported armed groups from recruiting and using children in combat and support roles around the world,” said the July 28 memo.

    […]

    Tillerson isn’t a bumbling know-nothing incompetent, he’s implementing policies that are actively evil.

    Grrr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  85. 85.

    Jeffro

    @Elizabelle:It is a really (painfully) on-point article…

    Trump’s great political insight was that Obama’s time in office inflicted a profound psychological wound on many white Americans, one that he could remedy by adopting the false narrative that placed the first black president outside the bounds of American citizenship. He intuited that Obama’s presence in the White House decreased the value of what W. E. B. Du Bois described as the “psychological wage” of whiteness across all classes of white Americans, and that the path to their hearts lay in invoking a bygone past when this affront had not, and could not, take place.

  86. 86.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Eric S.: Good for you! I’ve run into maybe three stereotypically snotty French people, and only two of those were snotty about the language. The rest have been lovely and delighted to hear a tourist attempting French.

    I went first in 2000 with four years of school French behind me and I was terrible. That was the trip with the two snotty remarks. Somehow ina few short trips over the years since, my French has gotten much better just from exposure to the actual language in real life and reading books & newspapers and the occasional weird French movie.

    So my recommendation is to supplement the textbooks with real stuff.

  87. 87.

    Jeffro

    @Jeffro:

    Clinton defeated Trump handily among Americans making less than $50,000 a year. Among voters making more than that, the two candidates ran roughly even. The electorate, however, skews wealthier than the general population. Voters making less than $50,000, whom Clinton won by a proportion of 53 to 41, accounted for only 36 percent of the votes cast, while those making more than $50,000—whom Trump won by a single point—made up 64 percent. The most economically vulnerable Americans voted for Clinton overwhelmingly; the usual presumption is exactly the opposite.

    If you look at white voters alone, a different picture emerges. Trump defeated Clinton among white voters in every income category, winning by a margin of 57 to 34 among whites making less than $30,000; 56 to 37 among those making less than $50,000; 61 to 33 for those making $50,000–$100,000; 56 to 39 among those making $100,000–$200,000; 50 to 45 among those making $200,000–$250,000; and 48 to 43 among those making more than $250,000. In other words, Trump won white voters at every level of class and income. He won workers, he won managers, he won owners, he won robber barons. This is not a working-class coalition; it is a nationalist one.

  89. 89.

    clay

    @Tenar Arha: I know a lot of people feel that way (about Joe and others), but I am less interested in re-litigating the past than figuring out what to do from here. I will take any ally we can get, for whatever reason. Joe can reach people that the commenters on a top-10000 blog can’t, and if he can convince people that Trump is a treasonous danger to our country, then more power to him.

  90. 90.

    tobie

    @Tenar Arha:

    Tamron Hall would be great

    What a fantastic suggestion! I’m going to look for the comment box on the CBS website to suggest this. Thanks!

  91. 91.

    Lapassionara

    @satby: not to worry. I just could not resist, as I found the idea of bribing a turkey amusing. Plus, it brought to mind the famous Sarah Palin video at the turkey slaughter place.

  92. 92.

    laura

    I’m picking up the turkey this morning and will, as usual, make the whole meal including deviled eggs. I’m planning an early work getaway to drive to Oakland and meet my best friend since high school and her sister and go see Guns & Roses at the Coliseum Arena and spend some time preshow with my roadie brothers.

  93. 93.

    Elizabelle

    @Jeffro: thank you for excerpting. Lots of good points in there.

    On iPad, and it’s tedious to cut and paste, but concur completely with this passage:

    One measure of the allure of Trump’s white identity politics is the extent to which it has overridden other concerns as his administration has faltered.The president’s supporters have stood by him even as he has evinced every quality they described as a deal breaker under Obama. Conservatives attacked Obama’s lack of faith; Trump is a thrice-married libertine who has never asked God for forgiveness. They accused Obama of being under malign foreign influence; Trump eagerly accepted the aid of a foreign adversary during the election. They accused Obama of genuflecting before Russian President Vladimir Putin; Trump has refused to even criticize Putin publicly. They attacked Obama for his ties to Tony Rezko, the crooked realtor; Trump’s ties to organized crime are too numerous to name. Conservatives said Obama was lazy; Trump “gets bored and likes to watch TV.” They said Obama’s golfing was excessive; as of August Trump had spent nearly a fifth of his presidency golfing. They attributed Obama’s intellectual prowess to his teleprompter; Trump seems unable to describe the basics of any of his own policies. They said Obama was a self-obsessed egomaniac; Trump is unable to broach topics of public concern without boasting. Conservatives said Obama quietly used the power of the state to attack his enemies; Trump has publicly attempted to use the power of the state to attack his enemies. Republicans said Obama was racially divisive; Trump has called Nazis “very fine people.” Conservatives portrayed Obama as a vapid celebrity; Trump is a vapid celebrity.

    There is virtually no personality defect that conservatives accused Obama of possessing that Trump himself does not actually possess. This, not some uncanny oracular talent, is the reason that Trump’s years-old tweets channeling conservative anger at Obama apply so perfectly to his own present conduct.

  94. 94.

    Elmo

    Every year my wife and I make the biggest turkey we can find, plus stuffing and mashed taters and rutabagas and gravy (and sometimes a veg too). For the two of us. We put one of the breasts in the freezer immediately, there to wait until summer tomatoes and sandwich season. Then we eat turkey and nothing else for about a week.
    Then we make soup with the carcass.

    We really like turkey.

  96. 96.

    HeleninEire

    One if the very best things about living here is all the canned music is American Pop music from the 80’s ish. I was in college in the 80’s and it was pretty much the last time I paid attention to current music. Right now listening to Dan Folgerberg’s “Same Old Lang Syne.” Heaven.

    Yeah, shut up and stop judging me!!

  97. 97.

    Stan

    My running experience has been exactly as described in the OP: a bunch of women helping out everyone around them who’s willing to put in a little effort. I am a crappy runner myself but have been amazed at the help and support I’ve gotten from elite local women runners with whom I have no business running. Dozens of folks I know could say the same.

  98. 98.

    HeleninEire

    @Eric S.: When I went to France the first time I found the French delightful. Really. The old adage that they are unfriendly just did not happen.

    I found that if you at least attempt French (and my French was horrible) they will embrace you.

  102. 102.

    rikyrah

    UH HUH
    UH HUH

    Leading Trump Census pick causes alarm
    The 2020 count might be put in the hands of an inexperienced professor who wrote that ‘Competitive Elections are Bad for America.’
    By DANNY VINIK and ANDREW RESTUCCIA
    11/21/2017 05:06 AM EST

    The Trump administration is leaning toward naming Thomas Brunell, a Texas professor with no government experience, to the top operational job at the U.S. Census Bureau, according to two people who have been briefed on the Bureau’s plans.

    Brunell, a political science professor, has testified more than half a dozen times on behalf of Republican efforts to redraw congressional districts, and is the author of a 2008 book titled “Redistricting and Representation: Why Competitive Elections Are Bad for America.”

    The choice would mark the administration’s first major effort to shape the 2020 Census, the nationwide count that determines which states lose and gain electoral votes and seats in the House of Representatives.

    The fate of the Census under Trump has been closely watched by voting-rights advocates worried that the administration — which has already made unsupported claims about voter fraud — might nudge it in directions that over- or under-count some Americans. Subtle bureaucratic choices in the wording and administration of the Census can have huge consequences for who is counted, and how it shifts American voting districts.

  104. 104.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Elizabelle: I read that article and although it doesn’t make excuses for the Orange one’s voters, do we still need yet another piece about them. I am still waiting for a piece about people who rejected T’s call to bigotry. I don’t recall a single piece in our so called liberal media. Hell they can only write a story about the blessed WWC who rejected who rejected T. They exist in the millions, yet not a single piece about them. I also don’t recall endless ruminations of President Obama’s voters white or otherwise.

    ETA: Balloon Juice could do such a FP feature, about why one voted for HRC and rejected T. Instead of the ritual self flagellation over Franken or whatever hairball the media throws up.

  105. 105.

    Betty Cracker

    We’ve got an appointment to get our piano tuned this morning, so I’ll have to shoo the dogs out (they would maul the piano tuner affectionately if left inside) and deal with their outrage for an hour or so. Productivity killer!

  107. 107.

    bemused

    I just starting reading Adam Serwer’s Atlantic piece “The Nationalist’s Delusion”. So far excellent. Serwer starts off with the 1990 David Duke campaign and how that race was much closer than anyone imagined. Washington Post and other media were asking is it economic anxiety, anti-Washington rage? Gosh, that sounds familiar, where could I have heard that recently?
    At the time, Louisiana author Walker Percy said don’t make the mistake thinking Duke is a unique phenomenon to KKKers, LA rednecks and yahoos. Duke is appealing to white middle class and somebody like Duke will appeal to the white middle class of Chicago or Queens. Larry King on CNN asked Trump why so many voted for Duke and Trump said, “It’s anger, that’s anger votes”.
    30 years later majority of americans stunned Trump won presidency and media continually interviewing deplorables trying to pin their trump support down to economic anxiety and/or drain the swamp anger.
    Serwer says Trump embodied his supporters most profound beliefs, combining an insistence that discriminatory policies were necessary with vehement denials that his policies would discriminate and absolute outrage that the question would even be asked. Serwer says they were in denial about what they were voting for but Americans across the political spectrum won’t change their minds. They wanted a president who embodies the rage they feel toward those they hate and fear while reassuring them their rage is nothing to be ashamed of.
    I don’t think they were in denial as much as they just didn’t want to say out loud they were racist.

  114. 114.

    Immanentize

    I usually make three pies (at least) for Thanksgiving:
    Apple
    Pumpkin
    Chocolate Pecan
    And sometimes I go crazy and also make:
    Apple Cranberry and
    Apply Custard with Pecans

    I am going to make my Grandma’s pumpkin pie, but I don’t need so many others. Which other should I do??

    I wish a dozen of you could come for dinner.

  116. 116.

    Adria McDowell

    @HeleninEire: I speak next to no French, and the French were still nice both times I’ve gone.

    I’ve found that being humble and not acting like an asshole works wonders, no matter where you are traveling to! Too bad too many of my fellow Americans can’t seem to follow that advice.

  119. 119.

    MomSense

    @Immanentize:

    Next year, let’s all crash at Cole’s place for Thanksgiving!

    I make pumpkin, apple, and pecan. I used to make mincemeat for my grandfather but he was the last of the mincemeat eaters. The apple cranberry and apple custard with pecans sound amazing. Which pie is Immp’s favorite?

  121. 121.

    Immanentize

    @schrodingers_cat: I do have a recipe — It’s really excellent because it is tart. I will have to get it out. Someone suggested a PIE RECIPE thread some day….

    But I will get the recipe ready for you and post it in comments later when I see you.

    I like the idea of a meet up at my house — entirely doable some day! I would like that.

  122. 122.

    Tenar Arha

    @clay:
    My feeling is they’re our allies more like Stalin than Churchill. Now that I’ve seen how their ideas survive even after all the chaos & misery they applauded just a decade ago, I’m just not willing to ignore how they managed to do it.

    Here’s how I see this: I appreciate that they’re telling some truths, but these are the same people who lied us into the Iraq War. They’re still on TV. They’re actually still successful! And they’re still directing the conversation!!

    If they really wanted allyship they’d address the fact that liberals really were right all along. Just like when it became obvious that the Iraq War was a failed policy, that’s not what they’re doing. What they’re looking for is a soft landing in a new beat, where they still get to be in charge of the conversation.

    So, I will take their “help” with a grain of salt because they’re already working on directing the conversation away from the fact that it’s been the GOP political project of decades that landed them with Trump in charge. JEB¡ would have done almost all the same stuff domestically & even some of the same things internationally, but that would have been fine. They’d be fine with Trump in the GOP if he could stop saying the quiet parts out loud and take directions. He can’t, so they’ve joined the never Trumpers.

  123. 123.

    Immanentize

    @MomSense: The pumpkin. But he also likes the chocolate pecan. Or, he would make me do a chocolate custard, but I usually do that one at Xmas.

  125. 125.

    Betty Cracker

    @schrodingers_cat: Been there, done that, and I will gently point out that one person’s “ritual self-flagellation” is another’s heartfelt plea for folks of all political stripes to acknowledge women as fully equal human beings rather than political commodities.

    Dogs are usually a more pleasant topic, but lately it has hit me that my dogs are getting old; one will soon be 10, and the other is eight. With boxer dogs, years beyond 10 are borrowed time. They’re fine, health-wise, but they’re slowing down. I’m trying to appreciate them more. I can’t imagine life without them.

  127. 127.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Betty Cracker: I was thinking of a regular series, commenters can contribute their reason for voting for Clinton, something like Alain’s morning photography series.

    heartfelt plea for folks of all political stripes to acknowledge women as fully equal human beings rather than political commodities.

    As a woman I would like that as well but I find the D tendency of throwing our own under the bus, counterproductive, especially in this political climate. When Rs literally want to kill us.
    My kittehs too are getting on in years, I have similar thoughts about them.

  130. 130.

    rikyrah

    BLACK PEOPLE…
    who are the BASE of the Democratic Party…

    Are…

    By every measurement…

    THE MOST RELIGIOUS PEOPLE IN AMERICA…

    So….

    GET THE ENTIRE PHUCK OUTTA HERE WITH THIS BULLSHYT!!

    ………………………….

    Why Democrats Must Regain the Trust of Religious Voters

    If the party wants to win back votes in the Trump era, it will need to stop ignoring people of faith.

    Democrats ignored broad swaths of religious America in the 2016 election campaign and the nation has suffered because of it. Yet calls for a recommitment to faith outreach—particularly to white and other conservative or moderate religious voters—have been met in some corners of liberal punditry with a response as common as it is unwarranted. Some quarters of the Democratic party would rather maintain rhetorical and ideological purity than win with a more inclusive coalition. For the sake of the country, the party must turn back to people of faith

    We know faith outreach works, because it has worked before. In 2005, after the reelection of a president many Democrats believed was clearly unfit for leadership, a concerted decision was made to close the “God Gap” that the GOP had so effectively exploited. Yes, the Democratic Party was losing among white religious people, but there was also an understanding in the party that its margins among black and Hispanic voters were limited by the perception that the party was antagonistic toward religion. Democrats took back Congress in the 2006 midterms, through a combination of direct engagement, district-based flexibility on policy, and rhetorical adjustments. The majority gained in 2006 is the majority that delivered all of the legislative-policy wins progressives hail from the first two years of the Obama administration, including the Affordable Care Act.

  132. 132.

    Elizabelle

    @rikyrah: Thank you for your very sane response to that link. Too many stories like that. It’s like people of color, and women, are invisible

  134. 134.

    schrodingers_cat

    @rikyrah: Unless you are a white person that votes R you are invisible to the national media. Even D voting WWC are never covered by our media elites. I know they exist because I personally know many of them.

  143. 143.

    Patricia Kayden

    @schrodingers_cat: So true. The media has decided that interviewing White Trump supporters over and over again is the most interesting story ever told. I don’t recall the media fawning over Obama supporters even though he was much more popular than Trump during his entire presidency.

  144. 144.

    Patricia Kayden

    @rikyrah: White Evangelicals and conservative Catholics aren’t going to vote for Democrats because of abortion, contraception and gay rights. Period. End of discussion. There is no outreach to people who are opposed to basic civil rights.

  145. 145.

    Shana

    @Elizabelle: We head out Wednesday for Cincinnati. MIL turns 90 that weekend so we’re having a family reunion with about 65-70 people expected. Thanksgiving itself will be at Magiano’s with the big celebration Saturday night. Hubby hired a geneologist to pull together a family tree for the occasion. I’m cutting and pasting sections of the documents and mounting them on tri-folds and bringing post-it notes for various people to add info or correct info if they can. Should be very interesting. One of the things we’ve learned is that MIL’s father came over from Poland with one name, changed it when he got to Canada, and then changed it again at his naturalization in the US. The name he came over with seems to be the real family name so we can eliminate the possibility that he had a fake passport to get here. Beyond that we’re stumped trying to figure out why the other two name changes happened.

  146. 146.

    J R in WV

    @satby:

    When we hired either FTE employees or contractors we would put together an ad hoc team or at least 2 more often 3 people to sit in on interviews, depending on the tasks the new hire would be working on we would pick people with the most experience using the tools and or working on that kind of project. We even used contractors who had experience with the newer tools we were using to sit in on interviews with newer guys to make sure they really had experience with the tools, only ever burnt once. The only time I personally had to fire someone, they had lied about their experience, we gave them a shot for 2 weeks, then I did the dirty. The worst work task I ever had to do!!

    Thanksgiving:

    I’m not doing Turkey, I’m doing sides and desserts for group feast next door. We eat around 8 as host works noon to 6. Hostess is great cook, worked her way through college in restaurant / catering kitchens. Now an inspector with Health Dept. She does a big turkey and dressing, everything else the rest of us bring, so best of potluck world.

    What I’m up to – lots, really busy, making progress!

    Had a good productive day yesterday, a friend who is a big strong guy helped me take stuck sliding patio doors apart, lift the sliders onto work horses, replace the roller mechanisms on the bottom. These two doors abut a concrete patio on the ground level, so they get moisture and more corrosive moisture at that. In the Andersen video it took 4 minutes – hahaha professionals working on new doors in a specialized environment!!! It took us a couple of hours each. Also found lumps of some kind of glue or building goo on bottom track, which was extra friction with the door, scraping that off helped a lot.

    The door panels probably weigh something like 150 pounds of wood and glass, plus 4×7 feet, so awkward and heavy, so it took a big strong guy to help. I was one once but am not now and won’t be again. Really I helped Mike!

    Then we finished tightening the new replacement shear bolt on the brushhog, so I’ll mow the bottoms by the county road today, it’s really pretty out, sunny and 60. We also spotted a ladder where I can get onto the roof and blow the leaves off, so will start with that process, steps, etc. I broke the shear bolt some time back, and as it broke it deformed the steel connector that slides over the brushhog’s gear box shaft. Which is 36mm metric. The replacement part came in, should have been a painless task to bolt in the replacement, but it wasn’t the proper ID diameter, was english measurement, had to take to a machine shop to bore out to larger size to slide over the 36mm shaft.

    It’s going to be 60 today, so will be enjoyable to be on tractor on the bottoms, all good. Will be moving slowly too, so as to not break the shear bolt again – total pain in butt to fix!!! $155 for part that didn’t fit, $69 to get machined to fit… ouch! Task took weeks instead of hours.

    Have a nice day jackals!!!

  147. 147.

    J R in WV

    @HeleninEire:

    I have found that if you can say “Hello, do you speak any English?” even close to the local language, you are already there and everyone will tell you that no, they don’t have any English, but will then show that it isn’t very necessary as they will help you figure out what you needed.

    Happened time after time in 3 different languages so far.

    Plus Google translate on the tablet for when you can’t gesture your way to understanding. That tickled folks as much as your being able to say where’s the bathroom in Fr, Sp, Italian. A gadget that translates is amazing to a shopkeeeper! To me too!

  148. 148.

    cosima

    @rikyrah: I subscribed to The Atlantic for about 10 years, and gave countless subscriptions. The combination of Andrew Sullivan + the both-sides-do-it bullshit thing cured me of wanting to give them money or clicks.

    Your fury is righteous! Phuck The Atlantic.

  149. 149.

    JustRuss

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Assuming that’s Mt. Pinos near Frasier Park, we used to camp up there when I was a kid. My first real cross-country ski hike was going to the summit, those two miles felt like 10!

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