Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Nothing worth doing is easy.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Come on, man.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

I really should read my own blog.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Agonize - Organize / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Nowhere to Go But Up

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Nowhere to Go But Up

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(Scott Meyers via GoComics.com)
.

Note that this cartoon was originally published in 2010… although it could’ve been 1990, or 1980. Yeah, I still find it funny, because I’m old and calloused. There are so many subgroups for whom 2017 has been the year of “time to give up on sweet reason as a method of conversion”. Petula Dvorak, in the Washington Post, on “The Unexpected (and inspiring) Year of the Woman”:

… [I]t felt as though 2017 might be the year that the massive boulder women have been pushing uphill for centuries rolled back down.

But no. It turned out to be the exact opposite, and, in a way, far more powerful than any of the milestones of 2016.

The year began with what was believed to be the largest march the country has ever seen. On Jan. 21, the day after the inauguration, women and the men who support them filled the streets, plazas and squares of Washington and cities across the country, as well as around the world. It was a breathtaking mass of humanity. On the ground in the nation’s capital, it felt as though no square foot of land was empty. From the office windows and balconies of those in power, it looked as though a tide was swallowing cities whole.

It was an amazing, powerful moment full of hope. But there was no unifying message, no concrete demand, no specific goal or 10-point action plan. Now we see: There didn’t have to be.

The women’s marches ignited an energy that roiled and swelled through the rest of the year.

By the end of 2017, a seismic change in American culture began toppling dozens of sexual predators in the #MeToo movement. A surge of female candidates ran for office and won a stunning number of elections, from city mayors to the nation’s statehouses.

“Women claimed big victories” with the Nov. 7 elections “in a night that marked many firsts and could signal the start of a sea change for women in politics,” wrote Governing magazine, a publication not known for breathless declarations on culture and feminism. “The sheer volume of success for women candidates was a surprise to many, mainly because they were running against incumbents who historically win re-election 90 percent of the time. But not this year. Incumbents in Georgia, New Jersey and Virginia all lost their seats to women.”…

In one year, our nation went from a place where 46 percent of American voters didn’t mind having a commander in chief who brags about grabbing women’s genitals to a place where a celebrity chef who allegedly gropes his female employees isn’t considered fit to be in the kitchen…

And, of course, it was women of color who largely spearheaded the Women’s March and all the activism that followed. Which has led, at least sometimes, to much-needed examination of the racism that has been the root and support of far too much political power in America, in 2017 no less than in 1817.
***********

What’s on the agenda as we prepare for the last long weekend of this too-long year?

Reader Interactions

192Comments

  1. 1.

    OzarkHillbilly

    What’s on the agenda as we prepare for the last long weekend of this too-long year?

    NWS:

    Today Cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly sunny and cold, with a temperature falling to around 12 by 5pm. North wind 8 to 13 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph.
    Tonight Partly cloudy, with a low around 1. Wind chill values as low as -10. North wind 6 to 8 mph.
    Sunday Partly sunny and cold, with a high near 11. Wind chill values as low as -10. North wind 7 to 11 mph.
    Sunday Night Partly cloudy, with a low around -4. Wind chill values as low as -20. North wind 8 to 10 mph.
    New Year’s Day Sunny and cold, with a high near 9. Northwest wind 7 to 9 mph.
    Monday Night Mostly clear, with a low around -3.

    On Tuesday the Big Warm happens. Gets all the way up to 18. Winter is here. And no, hibernation is not an option.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    In one year, our nation went from a place where 46 percent of American voters didn’t mind having a commander in chief who brags about grabbing women’s genitals to a place where a celebrity chef who allegedly gropes his female employees isn’t considered fit to be in the kitchen…

    I hate this. The two things aren’t comparable. This makes it sounds like we’ve fixed whatever was wrong with us in 2016. We haven’t (or there’s insufficient proof that we have). Surely, Vanity Fair taught us that, at least.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    Another sleepless night spent horking up lung loogies. Got lots of old friends in town for the holidays, but I’ve had to miss every meetup because of this damnable cold. Le sigh.

  10. 10.

    p.a.

    The way it’s going, our New England January thaw will mean the temp breaks 20 deg. I’ll take cold over heavy snow every time, however.

  11. 11.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: I have thought of putting a small woodstove in my too small shop but there is just no place for it. I have a propane heater that can get it up to bearable but it takes a while so it’s bibbies and mukluks in this kind of cold. Even in the mukluks tho, standing on the cold concrete all day is killing my foot.

    Still, I’m glad to see it. Last year we had no winter to speak of and I miss it when that happens.

    (Behind me right now, Miss Kitty Stormborn is hunting the inevitable refugees of Winter’s wrath)

  13. 13.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Heh: Ottawa concert cancellation is proof of concept: it can be too cold for Canadians

    To put it all in perspective, temperatures in some regions have come close to -40C. Photographer Jared Monkman, from Hay river, Northwest Territories, said he would be grateful for a balmy -20C on New Year’s Eve.

    “In Hay river, we only have outdoor hockey rinks. Minus 20 would be a glorious day outdoors for us,” Monkman said. “The town is going to come alive when it hits minus 20,” Monkman said, “While Ottawa is shutting down.”

  14. 14.

    O. Felix Culpa

    Good morning! Schlurping my coffee before heading out to tend the goats. Twelve kidlets born over Christmas, so there are more mamas to milk and babies to feed. Temperatures have been unseasonably high (although still cold at this dark hour) and we’ve had no precipitation for 86 days. Stupid Chinese hoax.

    We have a wonderful wood stove, although we’re in the high desert and not the woods. Somewhat underused so far given the warm daytime temps.

  15. 15.

    Raven

    Not a bad travel day all things considered. There were tons of dawg fans at the airport and we had one visible Oklahoma guy on the plane and all parties took it with good cheer. The whole family gathered here and basically did Christmas again so that was nice. It’s 4 here and 7 back there so I got as much sleep as I’m probably going to. I think I’m going to load the girl up and do a practice run to Pasadena.

  18. 18.

    bystander

    @Betty Cracker:

    Another sleepless night spent horking up lung loogies.

    I’m certain they’re missing your unique verbal stylings at the holiday dinner table, too.

    Morning, all!

  19. 19.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: I have a woodstove in the house that supplies 95% of our heat (the other 5% is an electric baseboard heater in the bathroom). Most people out here have central heating but supplement it with a woodstove. The people who built this place put in base board heaters but they are expensive to use so we just go with the woodstove (which when it gets cranking can flat run one out of the house) Come February I’ll spend a couple weekends cutting wood and put up 1 1/2 to 2 cords of wood for the next winter. That’s usually enuf, but if not one can always buy some (right now I’m seeing prices in the $45 per rank range) (1 cord = 3 ranks, 1 rank is 4′ high by 8′ long of 16″ logs)

  20. 20.

    satby

    @rikyrah: Good morning!

    @Betty Cracker: today is the first day since Christmas that I don’t feel completely awful. This cold hasn’t gone into my chest though, it’s stayed a head cold. Luckily, since I have asthma chest colds become pneumonia pretty regularly. I hope you start feeling better soon.

  21. 21.

    Phylllis

    Taking down the Christmas decorations and doing a bit of tidying so I can enjoy the final two days of my break. Rather cold around here, with even colder temps forecast for next week.

  22. 22.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    Looks like we got exactly the 1" of snow overnight that was predicted here in NoVA. It’s hushed and peaceful down in Threadkill Lane. But it’s cold: 22° now, not going up much today and then really cold for a few days starting tonight. Lows down around 12°, highs in the low 20s.

    I started my taps trickling/​dripping last night. Pipes are fine, but I’m more worried about how they’ll be after a couple of nights 10 degrees colder. This may be the coldest I’ve seen it in my 12 years here.

    That said, I’m set. I’ve got groceries, the housecat has food, and neither of us has anyplace we need to be. So we’re in the bunker, maybe until 2018.

  24. 24.

    Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)

    We’re back from Chicagoland where we put a deposit on a large apartment in a beautiful building that my son says looks like Hogwarts. We’ll probably move in the late spring or early summer. Luckily the deposit is refundable if things go wrong. It’s in Barrington if that tells Chicagolanders anything.

  28. 28.

    Steeplejack

    @satby:

    It’s all relative, isn’t it? I’ve lived in Illinois and (briefly) North Dakota, where it is much colder. And I’ve lived in Georgia and Alabama, where 30° is cause for alarm, because pipes are lightly insulated and many houses are set up off the ground.

  29. 29.

    Sab

    Checked on my 90 year old dad in the middle of the night, and sure enough he had opened his windows. 11 degrees last night.

  31. 31.

    cope

    @Alain the site fixer: I second the vote for hot sauce in chicken soup for convalescents. I hadn’t heard about the lime juice trick but I will try it next time.

    Did anybody else look at the cartoon and immediately think of Louis CK?

    My plans for today include watching Liverpool this morning and later…well, that’s it so far.

    Tomorrow, we will stay safely at home, comfort the dogs during the fireworks and finish off the Texas Caviar (black-eye pea) dip I made for good luck. I hope it works better than last year’s batch.

  33. 33.

    chris

    @OzarkHillbilly: You got me remembering the tiny woodstoves from Lunenburg Foundry. Don’t think they make them anymore and they were really pricy. So I googled “tiny wood stoves” and there are a lot like this one. 12x11x15 and they make a smaller one too.

  35. 35.

    ruemara

    I’m on poop watch. Our little girl kitty has the runs. She’s sharting & it’s a nightmare of stench & spray. I’ve washed the walls behind their box 3x yesterday & it’s already a mess at 4am. Most of my vacation has been cleanup work & then Mama’s little anal biohazard has been adding to that. I’m looking forward to work on Tuesday.

  36. 36.

    Betty Cracker

    @ruemara: Good lord! Whenever I’m tempted toward self-pity today, I’ll keep your plight in mind and count my blessings instead! :)

  39. 39.

    HeleninEire

    Just finished my daily catch up of the overnight threads where I learned Sue Grafton died. It has made me very sad. And right before she finished her life’s work. Right before Z.

    I will miss Kinsey. In many ways she is like me. And I will miss Henry and Rosie, too.

    RIP Sue. And thank you.

  43. 43.

    Kristine

    Wind chill advisory here in far NE Illinois until this afternoon (-20F WC), after which we get a bit of a break until tomorrow. Gaby barked to be let inside after a few minutes’ bathroom break–I’m taking that as a sign to delay the usual morning walk.

    Yesterday the high reached only 15F, but it was cloudy and the air held some moisture thanks to an approaching clipper. It was lovely.

    Hope everyone who’s sick feels better soon.

  44. 44.

    debbie

    @satby:

    With your asthma, you might want to get a pneumonia vaccine. I got my first one a couple weeks ago and am hoping my confidence isn’t misplaced.

  47. 47.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Heh. I have long complained of our refusal to join the rest of the world. Back when I was still surveying caves it was a real pain in the ass when working with internationals. (depending on country, either I or they would be barred from certain jobs).

    @debbie: You betcha.

    @Humdog: Oak and hickory. They are the dominant species here in the hills and hollers. I have heard of folks who will load up a tractor trailer and haul it out west and getting as much as $200/rank (which sounds like a fairy tale to me) There have been years where it has been as much as $75/ rank here, but usually it’s $50-60. Also, the price goes up as winter goes on.

  48. 48.

    chris

    @OzarkHillbilly: Pricy for such a little thing. My monster that will take more than an armload of two foot wood was less than $1000. Same as yours, when it gets going I need to open a window.

  49. 49.

    opiejeanne

    @debbie: I’m afraid your confidence may be misplaced. There are two shots you need, and be aware of this from the CDC website:
    One caveat is that while PCV13 is effective in preventing pneumonia caused by S. pneumoniae, it does not prevent pneumonia caused by viruses or other bacteria.

  50. 50.

    debbie

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I only wish I had that problem. This apartment building is masonry with no insulation. When I remember how I had to open a window to regulate the heat in my NYC apartment, I could cry.

  51. 51.

    chris

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Oak and hickory.

    Seasoned two years? Hot! I save the oak I get for the really cold times and use it sparingly since the time I watched an oak fire warp the cast iron door on a wood stove.

  52. 52.

    Sloane Ranger

    @chris: I belong to the last generation of British people to be taught Imperial measurements and I admit to still having to ask people who quote things in metric “What’s that in English?” My brother, who is five years younger, is perfectly happy in metric.

    The US and the others may, however, soon be rejoined by GB as there is talk of returning to Imperial measurements post Brexit. Not to mention a return to pounds, shillings and pence!

  53. 53.

    Steeplejack

    @Baud, @OzarkHillbilly:

    There was a serious effort afoot in the 1970s to move to the metric system. Thwarted by idiots, as usual.

    The U.S. Metric Study recommended that the United States implement a carefully planned transition to the principal use of the metric system over a decade. Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 “to coordinate and plan the increasing use of the metric system in the United States.” Voluntary conversion was initiated, and the United States Metric Board (USMB) was established for planning, coordination, and public education. The public education component led to public awareness of the metric system, but the public response included resistance, apathy, and sometimes ridicule. In 1981 the USMB reported to Congress that it lacked the clear Congressional mandate necessary to bring about national conversion. Because of this ineffectiveness and an effort of the Reagan administration—particularly from Lyn Nofziger’s efforts as a White House advisor to the Reagan administration, to reduce federal spending—the USMB was disbanded in the autumn of 1982.

    Any of those names ring a bell?

    If the effort had succeeded, we would now be 40 years on, we would have saved billions of dollars, and even geezers like us would have no trouble with meters and liters.

  54. 54.

    debbie

    @opiejeanne:

    I know i’ll need a second shot and I still intend to flee whenever I hear coughing, but I still think I’m better off with at least one shot. I’ve had pneumonia twice in the past 3 years, so I know I had to do something. They’re also talking about what a bad year it is going to be for flu, so I may just avoid all people as best I can.

  55. 55.

    Jeffro

    Looks like another day of too-warm, no-snow weather out here in Utah…?

    Not looking forward to returning to sub-zero temps, either. But we need to get home before my better half starts looking at condos and timeshares!

  56. 56.

    HeleninEire

    One of the best surprises I got when moving here was the high quality of the restaurants. Well, my wonderful restaurant streak is over. I just ate in one of the worst restaurants I’ve been in in Dublin, and I’ve been in at least 50. It’s called Chez Max. First, they wanted to seat me in the corner, next to the door. Of course, they did; that always happens to single women. I asked for a different seat. I ordered French onion soup. Now you would think that a French restaurant would know how to make French onion soup. My soup was so cold that the cheese not only was not melted, the shreads had fallen down to the bottom on the bowl. They didn’t notice that before serving? Additionally, there was no internet, and I don’t mean WiFi. I mean the building blocked even my 4G. Lastly, one of the servers had a cold and she kept coughing All over everything. Awful. Awful. Awful.

  57. 57.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @chris: Pricey indeed. The ones I look wistfully at only cost a couple hundred but I just don’t have room for them.

    @chris:

    Seasoned two years?

    Doubtful. I only cut dead trees so it’s already pretty dry, then I lay it up till the next winter. The stuff one buys is most likely tops cut from last years timber harvests and still a little green. Another option is slab wood from the sawmills. They’ll bundle it up (10′ long by 3-4′ in diameter) and put it on your trailer with the fork lift. It’s cheap (bought one once to supply 300 cavers at an MVOR about 15 yrs ago so I have no idea of price now) but a lot of bark. Some sawmills that build pallets will also sell ends cheap too. I’ve never bought any because usually it’s so green it would sprout a tree if one stuck it in the ground. I call it “Old man wood” because when I get too old to cut my own that’s probably what I’ll use.

  58. 58.

    Steeplejack

    @HeleninEire:

    Foodie culture in general has gotten so good over the last couple of decades that it’s shocking when you run into a real disaster like that. Condolences!

  59. 59.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Steeplejack: Yeah Lyn Nofziger rings an alarm bell with me. Our refusal to change convinced me early on that Americans have to be some of the laziest mf’ers in the world.

  60. 60.

    joel hanes

    In Iowa at my mom’s, with my son and a niece and her husband, regular visitations from two in-town sisters.
    Brutally cold, it’s been mostly below zero for the entire visit, and it’s currently 15 below F; high for today a bright and sunny minus six degrees.
    So we’re coccooning and taking turns cooking, watching movies and reading books and stocking the bird feeders (four pairs of cardinals this year).

  61. 61.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    That cartoon, so the feminist position on these indiscretions is some other man is supposed to jump in and correct the offending man, code duello style, Anne? That is what that cartoon is saying.

  62. 62.

    maurinsky

    I don’t know how cold it is right now, but we’re supposed to have a high of -1 one day this week, I think we might be above 0 today.

    There will be marches on January 20 around the nation this year, again. I’m helping with one in Hartford, CT.

  63. 63.

    arrieve

    @debbie: That’s me right now. Friends in other parts of the country who have central heating laugh at me when I explain that in NYC apartments with steam heat the window is your thermostat. Right now the radiator is blasting and the window is about 2″ open. I’m cozy.

  64. 64.

    Steeplejack

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    And you were in an industry—the building trades—that would have seen the greatest changes. For most people it would have been a minor hassle for a while. “It’s a hundred kilometers to Shelbyville? Guess it’ll take about an hour to get there.”

  65. 65.

    Schlemazel

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:
    No, that is not what the cartoon is saying. It probably would help if you knew the cast of characters. They are all co-workers. The boss often puts the protagonist into the role of supervisor (though it is unclear that is his job title). The doofus here is always a pain in the ass who needs correction.

  66. 66.

    Raven

    Recon Pasadena, the seats may have been pricey but, goddamn, three rows off the street with no obstructions! We’re a bit shaky on the walking route but it’ll be ok.

  67. 67.

    Steeplejack

    @joel hanes:

    I have a friend in Iowa City, so I have that on my weather “cities” page. Currently 1° there.

    I also have a friend in Fairbanks, AK, and currently it’s −17° there.

  68. 68.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly: My Grandfather (on my mom’s side) used to sell wood in front oh his house in upstate New York. If there was one thing that pissed him off more than any other, it was selling a rank and a “face cord”. And even face chords in the N.E. have gone fro. 16″ depth to 12″ logs OMGl the cousins learned the dimensions of a true cord when we were all.still swaddled.

    But 200 for a 16″ rank is probably cheap in Boston….

  69. 69.

    Proudgradofcatladyacademy

    Hi all. Happy New Year’s Eve. Hoping for a better year. So cold here in NE MN my car won’t start. I had it jumped the other day and set a block heater install for today. I figured I’d run out and start it every two hours but slept through the night. Hate calling Roadside again, but if I can’t get my neighbor with the jump box I feel I must.

    Made chicken stock with cleaned! Chicken feet and hands down the best stock I have ever made since using the scraps, bones and fake instant pot I inherited. With a “I socialized with people” cold brewing I think 40 clove Garlic soup might need to be made. If I can get to the store. I didn’t put up fire cider this year and might have to buy some which is an anathema to me as an open source herbalist, since said company tried to patent this beloved recipe. However,readymade Fire Cider is a boon to lazy amatuer herbalists such as myself.

    Layer up, be safe and if I don’t check in on New Year’s may it also be safe for you all and your family.

  70. 70.

    Mary G

    It’s 59 here in So Cal and both cats are snuggled up because that’s our version of cold. The discussion of wood prices cracks me up. Here they sell three pieces bundled up for $6.95 for use in fire pits at the beach.

    Opened the WaPo and there was a video of Twitler hosting the Coast Guard at his golf course and every single one of them was a white man. God what a pig.

  72. 72.

    Sab

    @Sloane Ranger: I was in England in 1975-1976 when y’all were converting over. I remember seeing very confused older women in stores trying to figure out how much fabric they needed to buy using the old patterns with the new measurements.

    Makes me feel old to watch the whole thing come full circle.

  74. 74.

    Phylllis

    @Steeplejack: I can remember my mother being absolutely infuriated that we were being ‘indoctrinated’ in the metric system when I was in elementary school.

  76. 76.

    Dave C

    Current status: stuck in a ditch off I – 80 in Indiana. I have plenty of gas to run the heater and a tow truck is on the way but this is quite boring.

  80. 80.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Steeplejack: The truth of it is that while Imperial dominates construction we often have to flip to metric because of the European stuff we install.

  81. 81.

    Dave C

    @Proudgradofcatladyacademy: thanks, I’m fine other than my wounded pride. I hit a gust of wind and put on my brakes too hard and careened into the the divider that is full of snow. No damage to myself or my car as far as I can tell just stuck for the moment.

  82. 82.

    Steeplejack

    Just realized I have 79 tabs open in Firefox. May need to do a little pruning. Didn’t realize I was that far behind in my reading/​browsing. LOL.

    Somehow this is analogous to how my DVR is always full and I never quite get around to watching everything. Is digital hoarding a thing? I think I may have a problem.

  85. 85.

    frosty

    @arrieve:

    …. in NYC apartments with steam heat the window is your thermostat.

    That was us in our 3rd floor apartment in a cut up rowhouse in Baltimore. The little old ladies on the first floor controlled the only thermostat and they liked it warm.

    What I wouldn’t give for a little overdriven steam heat right now!!

  86. 86.

    chris

    @Sloane Ranger:

    I belong to the last generation of British people to be taught Imperial measurements

    Me too! Except I’m in Canada. We’ve been metric for forty years now but because our largest trading partner is weird there are gaps. I worked construction most of my life and it’s still imperial because we export so much stuff to the US. Lots of people are still complaining 40 years on but they’re dying out and the schools don’t teach imperial any more. I tell the complainers that their fingers are a metric, rather than imperial, system.

  91. 91.

    Proudgradofcatladyacademy

    @Steeplejack:
    Yes, yes it is a thing! There’s general hoarding and then what I like to call specialized hoarding. My Kindle app, Pocket app and my crafting closet tell a different story from my minimalized life.

  93. 93.

    Steeplejack

    Uh-oh. Eight minutes in and Leicester City is already up a goal on Liverpool. Alert Amir! (Although I’m sure he’s watching intently.)

  98. 98.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Raven: Those are some kick ass seats. It sounds like a dandy day you’re gonna have.
    @Steeplejack: Is it worse that I’ve just spread mine into Chrome & FF both? I think I’ve got it to under 60, unless you count the laptop Chrome tabs separately…

  99. 99.

    Baud

    @Steeplejack:

    If the effort had succeeded, we would now be 40 years on, we would have saved billions of dollars, and even geezers like us would have no trouble with meters and liters.

    Fool! Haven’t you realized yet that electing Republicans only leads to a more perfectly progressive future. You’ll be grateful in about 100 years.

  100. 100.

    Kay

    White women as a meaningful and effective voting bloc have consistently disappointed me for 30 years, but I’m certainly willing to change my mind about them. Us. I don’t know- “solidarity” doesn’t seem to be something we’re good at.

    I’m glad there was that brief historical moment where we got the vote because I’m not sure we could do it now. That may have been a one-off. You know who was pretty damn good on “women’s issues”? Obama. A black man. Yet white women flocked to Trump because he told them black people were taking “their stuff”. I’ll need to see proof. Who remembers “soccer moms” and how George W Bush was gonna “keep them safe”, until, ya know, they all ended up in foreclosure? They’ve been making poor decisions a long time.

  101. 101.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Racism. That was exactly the period when ‘Fuck anything those n- loving liberals want’ began to take power, along with ‘Our way of life is under attack! My god, you made us DESEGREGATE!’ Reagan harnessed that swelling anger against Carter and told more moderate whites it was a totally respectable impulse.

  102. 102.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Dave C: On election day 2016 i got run off the road by a tractor trailer, spun me out into oncoming traffic all of which miraculously missed me and into a ditch. Minor damage to the truck but a blown tire. It sucked to be me without a jack that would work but then a buddy of mine came by, went home and got his floor jack. We were able to change it pretty quick then.

    It still sucked to be me.

  103. 103.

    Amir Khalid

    @Steeplejack:
    After a big win like they had on Boxing Day, it’s almost customary for Liverpool to suffer a leydown, and that’s frustrating for us fans.

  104. 104.

    chris

    @Major Major Major Major: Hey, minus 10 Celsius here. Just finished rereading Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy and have the Bridge cued up. It’s been twenty years since the last read and his books are more relevant than ever because a lot of his predictions have come to pass.
    Have you seen his Twitter feed, @GreatDismal? The man is prolific to say the least and progressive.

  105. 105.

    Steeplejack

    @Proudgradofcatladyacademy:

    “Specialized hoarding”—good term. I’m generally not laden down with possessions, but as a lifelong infomaniac I think I subconsciously remember the days before the Internet when one had to amass a library of references and sources or had to make a trip to the library or simply did without. Same with movies: before DVDs (or even videotapes) you had to wait for classic movies to “come around” to your local art house or various college screening groups. Hard to break the habit of “saving” something and to remember that you can just stream it, order it or look it up on line.

  106. 106.

    Kay

    I’m currently backing Cordray over two female candidates because he’s better qualified and more likely to win. Frankly as a purely practical matter I have no intention of relying upon the unicorn-like white female “solidarity” vote as a factor at all. I’m really not interested in white female voters telling me the female candidate is too strident or too competitive or too intrinsically evil and devious again, as they did in 2016. Maybe they’ve changed en masse but I doubt it.

    I suspect Donald Trump doesn’t give a shit about them because he doesn’t consider them a decisive factor. Which is a safe bet.

  107. 107.

    gene108

    @Steeplejack:

    I think if anyone proposed converting to the metric system now the right-wing howler monkeys would go crazy and declare that person a traitor, who hated God, Mom, America, and Apple Pie.

    I remember seeing ads, when I was a kid in the late 1970’s, about what Fahrenheit temp equaled in Celsius.

    We really missed an opportunity to get with the rest of the world and not be so isolated. It would have made international travel from and to the United States so much easier.

  110. 110.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Frankensteinbeck: I don’t think it was racism so much as knee jerk reactionary conservative “WE ARE THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD” in combination with “my head hurts”. I always found it humorous that the act was passed in 1975 and signed by Ford but Carter was blamed for it.

  114. 114.

    Kay

    @Major Major Major Major:

    We should focus more on mobilizing and protecting the ones who don’t.

    Absolutely. My “persuading soccer moms” days are over. They’re on their own. Good luck and godspeed. I know this sounds like the feminist version of “black people are the real racists” but it is true- some of the most vitriolic, insane things I heard about Hillary Clinton came from middle aged white women- supposedly the people who promote women in leadership.

    She’s so ambitious. Unlike that humble and self-effacing Donald Trump.

  115. 115.

    cope

    @Amir Khalid: They have been knocking on the door pretty hard, though. However, this is the kind of situation where LC might pop out a counter-attack and then, BAM, 2-0.

    It’s an entertaining game, though.

  116. 116.

    Steeplejack

    @gene108:

    I think if anyone proposed converting to the metric system now the right-wing howler monkeys would go crazy [. . .].

    Yeah. It would be right up there with “sapping our precious bodily fluids.”

    Not that it comes up in conversation a lot, but most people are flabbergasted to hear that something like the Metric Conversion Act ever passed in Congress. How times have changed!

  119. 119.

    Kay

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I went to a fundraiser for Connie Pillich. Ohio. Candidates gain weight when they’re campaigning because they don’t move around enough or sleep enough and they spend 16 hour days around snack tables. So I got to hear women tell me Pillich’s suit was too tight, like she’s a stripper or something. This happens to me on a monthly basis. I’m arguing with women who are sexist.

  121. 121.

    Kay

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Her flat, declarative statements were the best thing about her. Every once in a while she would forget she’s supposed to be “nice” and “warm” and just blurt out something true. I was thrilled with these moments.

  123. 123.

    chopper

    @satby:

    ugh. I’ve had a cold for like two weeks. usually these guys are over and done in a day. still coughing up junk all day.

  124. 124.

    danielx

    Cranked up snow blower, which I didn’t use at all last year. Fifteen degrees and dropping all day…..REALLY wish i didn’t have to go to grandniece’s first birthday party.

  126. 126.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    Same goes for lacrosse moms, hockey moms, and maybe all the moms except the bandnand chirus boosters.

    I’ve had soccer moms tell me we should drug test people on welfare, practice forced sterilization on women so they don’t have more children just to get all that sweet, welfare money.

  127. 127.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: This is so true in my context — jury trials. Men can wear the same suit every day at trial and if they are really clothes conscious they might change their tie. Many don’t. But women have to have several outfits ready for trials or some women jurors start picking at their wardrobe choices and making comments like “she wore that yesterday: doesn’t she clean her blouse’s? Those shoes do not match that dress. It really was a surprising aspect of the culture and a stark difference in treatment. And don’t even get me started regarding women who are obviously pregnant trying cases. I’ve gone pink at the things I’ve heard jurors say….

  129. 129.

    Another Scott

    @Steeplejack: Dunno.

    GM (and maybe Ford and Chrysler) did lots of metric conversions in the 1970s. I don’t know if their cars are “fully” metric even now, though.

    And there are still things like the UK still using “stones” for people’s weight.

    And (most) US tires and wheels are still sized in diameters inches (though bolt circles and sections are in mm).

    There will continue to be issues even if we more fully convert to SI units. Are farmers and hydrologists really going to start using “hectare-meters” instead of “acre-feet” for measures of water?

    And I could tell you stories about trying to mix US and UK electrical connectors. And pipe fittings. “I need a G 1/8″ BSPP to 3/8″ NPT male adapter!!1” And UHV fittings. “Hey, why are these European ConFlat nipples larger ID than the US ones. I thought it was supposed to be a standard!!1”

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  130. 130.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Kay: White female voters are often blind to the privileged position from which they make such pronouncements. Because we’re white of course, and the younger ones have absolutely.no.idea how much less opportunity women of older cohorts had, simply by chromosomal composition. The younger women appropriately tend to tolerate much less harassment in general, but fail to understand that there have been some systemic improvements since how it was back when. As a group, white women voters are not to be counted on for solidarity.

  132. 132.

    Amir Khalid

    Damn near total domination of the match, and still 0-1 down at halftime. Never a dull moment with Liverpool.

  134. 134.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    except the bandnand chirus boosters.

    Hah! So true. If this is going to be our electoral strategy we need to tell the truth about it. White women are not a meaningful or effective voting bloc on “women’s issues” or anything else. Had the suffragettes not joined with abolitionists and AA civil rights leaders and anti-alcohol crusaders they wouldn’t have gotten anywhere.

    The part that most disappointed me was not Trump’s admitting to sexual assault of adult women. It was his absolutely repulsive bragging about gaping at naked teenage pageant contestants. WTF, women? You VOTED for this scumbag? Christ- he should be on a sex offender list. GIRLS. Not women.

  135. 135.

    ProudGradofCatLadyAcademy

    @Kay:

    Kay:

    White women consistently disappoint me also, and I am one. Is it because to paraphrase -Upton Sinclair maybe It’s difficult to get them to change when their economic security is tied to white men?”

    The most disappointing and infuriating conversations I had this holiday were with my work companion and my sister. My work colleague-a white woman who after telling a married man at work to stop asking her out, and only talk to her in regards to professional work, informed me he repeatedly corners her alone, to do seemingly polite things like-wishing her a Merry Christmas, or Happy New Year, When I told her that was harassment, she told me I was overreacting and he was just being nice and to stop trying to ruin his life. When I said, “what about your life, does that count that you are afraid to come to work, and a good chunk of your day is spent trying to navigate avoiding him? But apparently that’s a moot point and I am just out to ruin white men’s lives with my feminazism.

    Next up is the most infuriating conversation I had with my sister. She told me that she thinks a lot of this harassment is made up by the women. The example she used is a situation in a small town around here, the principal of the school is on “paid administrative leave” pending an investigation regarding inappropriate behavior towards staff. Apparently, the principal had an affair with a teacher, which my sister says was “consensual” and the school secretary wanted to “get’ the principal on some perceived slight. When I tried repeatedly explaining that as a principal in a position of power, affairs with his staff are never quite “consensual” and that while this is the part of the story everyone is fixated on, there probably is more going on there then we think we know. My sister became quite aggressive and hostile about how the two adults can have consensual sex even when one person has dramatic power over the other, so I dropped it since it’s her house, and once my sister is locked in her opinion it is near impossible to dislodge her or to have civil meaningful conversations that don’t involve rehashing things 20 years in the past if not more.

    Both women are white, working class/lower-middle-class workers who threw their lot in with white men a long time ago, so I shouldn’t be surprised at their attitude. Maybe even their very survival depends on supporting white men and choosing not to believe any other women who come forward to challenge the narrative that women are lying bitches about harassment and assault. let it be said I while I understand their thinking, understanding how those thoughts are formed is not condoning it at all.

    It’s so demoralizing to realize that the vast majority of men and women I am surrounded by can’t see these truths.

  138. 138.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Immanentize: It’s so good to hear a man comprehend the kinds of calculations we have to consider during a jury trial that you don’t! And that’s before I’d have to think about how to dress so as not to offend the male jurors.

  139. 139.

    Gelfling 545

    Cooking for tomorrow’s dinner. My sister’s family is coming over and my nephew has brought a boyfriend to meet the family for the first time EVER so I’m going all out. Roast pork loin, cranberry pilaf, butternut squash& bell pepper soup, bûche de noël ((as the first is my sister’s birthday). I always fuss a bit for her birthday since our parents drank almost literally only on New Year’s Eve when we were kids so her birthday celebrations were a bit perfunctory. Trying to decide whether to make apple sauce or brave the weather and go back to the store for it. Also whether to have champagne or Smoking Bishop. If the latter I’ve got to roast the fruit soon so it can soak in the wine for 24 hours.

  146. 146.

    ProudGradofCatLadyAcademy

    @Gelfling 545:

    Cranberry Pilaf?

    Tell me more! I have a bag and a half of fresh cranberries. Made orange cranberry vodka for a small Christmas gift and now am thinking through the possibilities. I have wild rice and leftover frozen white rice from a Chinese Takeout, so am intrigued by this pilaf idea!

  147. 147.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Kay: Sisterhood is a fucking myth. It has never existed and it will never exist. When I am in India I get grief for my clothing choices from other women, rarely from men, only one negative comment from grand-father-in-law for wearing bermudas because it was 100 with 100% humidity. He also had something nasty when I wore more traditional clothes, so the second time I met him, I was like I might as well be comfortable if I am going to be criticized anyway.

  151. 151.

    chris

    @Gelfling 545:

    bûche de noël

    Careful how you say that. English is my first language and my French is barely adequate. Anyway, I said it and my French BIL looked at me and laughed. “Chistmas blowjob?” he asked with raised eyebrow. Bouche and bûche are very close, very hard for a non-native speaker and very much not the same thing. At all.

  153. 153.

    Another Scott

    @chris: Heh.

    I’m reminded of a story of someone (not me) in high-school / freshman French trying to impress the teacher by using a French dictionary/thesaurus for some homework. And used a colloquial term for “a whore” by mistake. Whoops!

    French is dangerous!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  154. 154.

    Steeplejack

    @Amir Khalid:

    What was up with that kerfuffle after the goal? Two yellow cards. I saw it (briefly) but didn’t understand it. I know that sometimes one player wants the ball and an opponent hinders him, but I’ve never understood that either.

  158. 158.

    Dave C

    Managed to get a tow out of the ditch and am back on the road. Sadly, I still have about 700 miles to go before bed.

  159. 159.

    Chip Daniels

    @Kay:
    I recall reading an article back in the 70s about how the biggest opponents of feminism and the ERA were middle aged women for whom feminism challenged their worldview of their own femininity and place in the world.

    Although we are a full generation on, I can’t help but think that it is still a common failing to blithely assume that 50% of the human race can easily be swept together in a common cause, particularly with regards to generational differences in how we view ourselves and our relationship to the opposite sex.

  164. 164.

    Suzanne

    Our Ikea dressers have been recalled, so we took this as an opportunity to upgrade. New dresser arrives in under an hour. It’s a midcentury lovely from a vintage shop.

    After that, I have to go to the Crate and Barrel distribution center to pick up six new chairs to go around my dining room table. I am excited to finally be able to fit enough people around my dining room table.

    Operation Rid The House Of Ikea is going well.

  169. 169.

    Roger Moore

    @gene108:
    The odd thing about metric conversion is that it’s stealthily happening in the background as part of globalization. For example, wine and hard liquor is international, so it’s all sold in liter sizes, while beer is dominated by domestic producers who still use ounces and gallons. The automotive industry is all globalized, so even the American brands have largely switched to metric, with the exception of a few outliers like wheel diameters being in inches even though tire widths are in millimeters. And, of course, the military is completely metricized to make it easier to work with allies in the rest of the world.

  171. 171.

    Amir Khalid

    @Roger Moore:
    And science has been all metric — sorry, SI units — for generations, so that’s how American kids are taught science subjects in school, right? I think metrication is inevitable in America (assuming der Scheißgibbon doesn’t blow up the planet first) even if it takes a while longer than the rest of the planet.

  173. 173.

    Roger Moore

    @Another Scott:

    And UHV fittings. “Hey, why are these European ConFlat nipples larger ID than the US ones. I thought it was supposed to be a standard!!1”

    I’m frustrated by the weird mix of measurements I wind up with when dealing with HPLC fittings. You’d think scientists would do everything in metric units, but practically everything still uses inch sized fittings, e.g. 1/16″ tubing using fittings with 10/32 screw threads and a 1/4″ hex head. But a lot of that tubing uses internal diameters measured in micrometers rather than thousandths of an inch, and all the column sizes are defined in metric, e.g. 2.1mm ID x 150mm long. Who comes up with this crap?

  175. 175.

    Roger Moore

    @Chip Daniels:

    I recall reading an article back in the 70s about how the biggest opponents of feminism and the ERA were middle aged women for whom feminism challenged their worldview of their own femininity and place in the world.

    And you should never underestimate the whole “I had to put up with X back in the day, so youngsters today should have to deal with it, too” mentality. A disturbing amount of conservatism is jealousy at people today not being tripped up by the obstacles old people faced in their youth.

  176. 176.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @satby: Here in balmy Balmer Merlin, hon, temps reach 33 today then drop below freezing, not to re-emerge until the 8th. Predicted lows of 8 F early next week match the coldest I’ve ever seen here – & I’ve been here since the 1950s.

  177. 177.

    Gelfling 545

    @ProudGradofCatLadyAcademy: simmer your cranberries in water with a little sugar until they start to pop. Drain & let come to room temp. Dice a bell pepper or 2 depending on the amount of rice you have and a bunch of scallions or 2, again depending. Make an olive oil balsamic vinaigrette, add soy sauce & if you have it, toasted sesame oil to taste. Mix the whole thing together & pour the fressing over it using just enough to moisten. Let stand at room temp for a while for all the flavors to get acquainted. It can also be made with dried cranberries if fresh are not available. I generally mix white and wild rice for it. If you’d like a bit of crunch, toast & chop some walnuts & toss them in. This is a holiday tradition in our family as it can be made well in advance as long as it is brought to at least room temp before serving, though we’ve been known to eat it cold. Makes a nice side for practically any meat.

  178. 178.

    Roger Moore

    @Amir Khalid:
    Learning metric units in school is less helpful than you might think. It means people have to learn the names of the units and their approximate sizes, yes, but without regular practice that knowledge atrophies. People probably have more practical knowledge of metric units because they buy soda in 2L bottles and have to use metric wrenches on their Toyota than they do from science class in school.

  180. 180.

    Gelfling 545

    @Another Scott: I taught my students that,when using a dictionary, look up the word “ both ways”. If the word you have chosen doesn’t give you the word you are trying to translate as its first meaning you should probably look again. Also Google Translate cannot be relied upon. Still, the pitfalls are many – and often funny.

  181. 181.

    Roger Moore

    @Roger Moore:
    Also, too, one shouldn’t necessarily confuse SI and metric. When a scientist talks about using SI units, they’re usually being specific about using MKS (meter/kilogram/second) units specifically. MKS units are very popular in many branches of science, but they are far from universal. For example, physicists tend to use cgs (centimeter/gram/second) units instead of their MKS equivalents, like dyne instead of Newton for force and erg instead of Joule for energy. And there are lots of units that are metric but not SI that are used either as legacy units (e.g. calories and degrees Celsius instead of Joules and Kelvin) or are more reasonable units for specific applications (e.g. electron volts for energy and Daltons for molecular weights).

  182. 182.

    J R in WV

    @Raven:

    Hope your team wins the big game and goes on to take the title. Never fond of ‘Bama, and Clemson, was never so happy as when WVU broke or tied 7 records winning the Orange Bowl a little while ago.

    The big bowls are real parties, win or lose. We lost some big ones, the best was New Years Eve in New Orleans at the Sugar Bowl, the Gators won big, and then we all went out to party in the Quarter. So sad!

    So win or lose, have a good time and enjoy every moment in So Cal. Best of luck, which does count!

  183. 183.

    Uncle Ebeneezer

    @ProudGradofCatLadyAcademy: Speaking of disappointment with white women here’s a little story from my past 48 years:

    My wife posted that “2017 Was The Year of Rose Armitage” article on FB and added that it helped illustrate some of the reasons she is hesitant to do the Women’s March again this year. IE- because most of her fellow white women, Marched then proceeded not to do shit for the rest of the year.

    So one of her friends chimed in with a “well I don’t think we should criticize people for marching (which she didn’t) and we need to support every act of resistance. And I’m pretty sure my black friends would want me there fighting alongside them.”

    This is the same woman who got REALLY defensive when we posted something about White people not appropriating the Dia De Los Muertos stuff last year. So I knew she already had a lot of White Fragility.

    So, me being me, I decided to jump in and point out some of the numerous points about White Feminism™ and #SolidarityIs4WhiteWomen and other critiques of the Women’s March that had been voiced by Black women last year and that more or less aligned with my wife’s trepidation about joining it this year. IE- Marching is fine, but if that’s ALL you do, you’re still part of the problem for choosing a largely performative action rather than getting involved in the endless work that needs to be done at the local level, with regularity. I was careful to point out that this has been a problem with White people, in general, not in any way aimed at her.

    Predictably, I got an angry PM from her assuring me that she hired 9 people this year and none of them were “white dudes” and how dare I…and I was Mansplaining, etc. etc.

    I debated how to respond while I was down with the flu for 24 hours then decided, fuck it, time for the gloves to come off: I told her that while I’m still just a white man, I have spent the past 2 years immersing myself in Black spaces where racism is discussed regularly and where I listen, learn, engage with, and get held accountable by Black people and activists who will not hesitate in the slightest to tell me when I screw up. After all that time I can confidently say that she is absolutely clueless on matters of race, and that her hyper-defensiveness and fragility whenever racial issues come up, are a perfect example one of the biggest reasons why Black women (and men) weren’t thrilled about the Women’s March and why they will always be hesitant to join coalitions with us. I also told her to watch Get Out again and try to view it from a different perspective because she seemed to miss the entire point of the movie and that right now she was looking an awful lot like Rose Armitage.

    Then I un-friended her. Good riddance.

  191. 191.

    SWMBO

    @Steeplejack (phone): Posted in a dead thread: Be careful. My uncle told of the time they tried that in Michigan and the incoming pipe trickled all night. The drain pipes froze and there was an ice water flood the next morning.

  192. 192.

    Steeplejack

    @SWMBO:

    Thanks for the tip. My apartment is so small, and my sleep patterns so irregular, that I think I’ll be able to monitor the situation pretty well.

    The forecast gets colder every time I check it. Looks like overnight lows around 10° for the next four nights after about 14° tonight.

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