Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

This fight is for everything.

Everybody saw this coming.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

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

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Cat Blogging / Friday Morning Open Thread: Stay Braced

Friday Morning Open Thread: Stay Braced

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I owe one of you guys thanks for the above image. Quick notes on the (probable) Topic of the Day (assuming Trump doesn’t actually manage to fire Rod Rosenstein — remember that story? Three days ago!)…


 
… aaaand let’s talk about something more pleasant. From the Washington Post, “Nearly 40,000 people applied to run a cat sanctuary on a Greek island”:

It began in 2010, when a cat gave birth in Joan and Richard Bowell’s garden on the Greek island of Syros. She had two kittens, and one was ill.

The Bowells took them in and gave them names: Pepper was the mother, Tiny and Ninja the babies. The trio joined two cats the couple had brought to Syros when they moved from Denmark, Joan’s native country, and the Bowells viewed it as a mere expansion of their two-person family. They now had not a small number of cats, but not so many that they couldn’t take the animals along when their plan to move to New York, where Richard worked with the United Nations, came to pass.

But this was Greece, where cats posing against white buildings become the subjects of many postcards, but not necessarily the objects of much affection. The Bowells kept finding felines bearing injuries and sicknesses and kittens, and soon the Bowells’ acre of island idyll had become a cat sanctuary they called God’s Little People. The name was not a statement about faith, they say, but about a philosophy — that cats are important as individuals, with a right to be free and to be cared for…

As the feline population roaming their property rose well above 60, the couple said, they realized space prevented the operation from growing much more. They wanted to finally make that move to New York, where Joan Bowell planned to establish another cat sanctuary outside the city. So on Aug. 5, she created a Facebook post soliciting applications for a modestly paid job managing God’s Little People.

The Bowells had posted a similar ad a few years back and gotten a couple handfuls of responses. This time, they hoped for 25, maybe 50.

Within six weeks, they had nearly 40,000…

The story of the job ad went viral, and the Bowells are in talks with filmmakers about a movie. Richard Bowell said he believes the enormous response isn’t about one news report starting a spiral of coverage, or even about the Internet’s infatuation with cats. He says it, too, is about humanity.

“This is bigger than just a job on a Greek island,” he said. “There’s a kind of wish for people to return to some level of humanity at a time when things are degenerating into such inhumanity . . . people want to see a future that can be worked toward.”

Earlier this month, the Bowells had whittled the towers of applications to a handful of finalists. Among those was 62-year-old Californian Jeffyne Telson, whose husband sent her the link to the job ad in August…

More positivity (yes, there are pictures) at the link.

Reader Interactions

92Comments

  2. 2.

    Betty Cracker

    My sister and I were texting about the hearings last night. We’re resigned to seeing Kavanaugh confirmed despite his obvious lying and unfitness. The only possible silver lining is if the blow-back in November is enormous.

  3. 3.

    Joey Maloney

    This summer I had the chance to visit the cat sanctuary on the island of Lana’i, Hawaii. Lana’i is the small island basically owned lock, stock, and barrel by Larry Ellison. The sanctuary is a 3-acre enclosure that, when I was there, was hosting close to 600 cat. Besides the main part, there separate units – all open-air, all fully enclosed for cats in quarantine, elderly and antisocial cats. The amazing thing is that the original goal of the sanctuary was as much to prevent endangered bird species as it was to rescue abandoned and ferel cats.

    They welcome visitors, too. I spent the afternoon just walking around and meeting the kitties. There were definite little “tribes” among them. There was a group that hung out by the entrance to get first pick of any humans that wandered in. There was another group that was in charge of one of the several trees growing in the main enclosure.

    I was most struck by a white kitty that had late stage skin cancer. It had already taken both his ears, his nose and one eye. Anywhere else he would surely have been put down long since. But he was still happy to lie in the sun and still very social, happily accepting pets and skritches from all. I’m getting a little verklempt right now just remembering him.

    Anyway – awesome place. Visit if you can. Donate if you can. (Fix the disappearing ‘nym problem if you can.)

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: There is also the possible blow back of incessant investigations should DEMs take back the House and Dawg willing and the creek don’t rise the Senate. Just because he gets confirmed doesn’t mean it’s over.

  7. 7.

    Shalimar

    Joe and Mika started in fine form. Apparently if you don’t feel empathy for Kavanaugh too, you are a horrible human being. Because his anger and self-pity over facing consequences is the same as barely escaping rape.

    The alumnus thing pissed me off the most. Everyone knows what you meant. Apologize to her, you horrible sack of shit.

  9. 9.

    JGabriel

    Shalimar:

    Apparently if you don’t feel empathy for Kavanaugh too, you are a horrible human being. Because his anger and self-pity over facing consequences is the same as barely escaping rape.

    Brett Kavanaugh spent the first half of his career spreading demeaning, insensitive, and disgusting lies about the Clintons and other Democrats. The only things I’m feeling for Kavanaugh are rage at his behavior and schadenfreude at karma’s payback.

  11. 11.

    Immanentize

    Hello All.
    I am driving today from Boston to Upstate New York for all too brief visit with my Mom. Five hours in the car. I will plug in my nano loaded with tunes and blissfully try to forget this country’s woes.

  12. 12.

    Chyron HR

    Just be honest, you don’t like his politics.

    Huh? How would we possibly know what his politics are? He’s spent his entire life as a judicial blank slate who does nothing but call balls and strikes, right?

  16. 16.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Shalimar:

    Empathy is reserved for high-born, wealthy, well-connected white Christian males. Everyone else is a shiftless mooch with saggy pants, bad morals and substance issues. Everyone knows this.

  20. 20.

    Betty Cracker

    @Shalimar: Yeah, the “alumnus” explanation was a big, fat, obvious lie. The woman they slut-shamed knows it too and has said she hopes the leering jock assholes’ daughters are never treated that way.

    Kavanaugh also lied about the “exculpatory” statements from the people who were allegedly at the party, including Ford’s friend Leland Keyser, who Ford predicted wouldn’t remember the party since nothing remarkable happened to her there. But Keyser also said she believes Ford.

    When Kavanaugh says Keyser’s statement and those of Smyth and Judge “refute” Ford’s account, he’s lying. They said they don’t recall that party, not that they weren’t there.

    The whole thing is a goddamned farce, just as the Clarence Thomas hearing was a fucking farce.

  21. 21.

    Anne Laurie

    @Shalimar:

    The alumnus thing pissed me off the most. Everyone knows what you meant. Apologize to her, you horrible sack of shit.

    I don’t even wanna mention the poor woman’s name. If she really didn’t know what “everybody” was saying about her in high school, what an awful way to find out. If she did — and, as a clueless nerd at an all-girl parochial high school in the early 1970s, even *I* knew which of my 70 or so classmates had the reputation as The Girl Who Put Out — sharing her name all over the Very Serious Media is just as bad as publishing any other sexual assault victim’s name, which most VSP outlets have thankfully been shamed out of.

    There’s been some progress around the treatment of sexual abuse since the 1970s… or Kavanaugh’s 1980s high school days… or Clarence Thomas’ ‘high-tech lynching’ (of Anita Hill) in 1991. But NOT NEARLY ENOUGH.

  24. 24.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @JGabriel:

    I’m holding out fading hope that he isn’t confirmed, goes on a bender, becomes subject to a domestic violence order and then blows his own fucking diseased brains out in self pity while being near blackout drunk.

    It’s a lovely fantasy, but alas, unlikely to happen, because he’s going to be confirmed by his fascist party.

    And yes, I realize that it is harsh, but This guy inspires visceral loathing in me. He’s the epitome of upper class white Christian male privilege – zero empathy for those born without his advantage, zero concern for women, zero concern for the consequences of his decisions.

    One more thing – this government is such a bastion of minority rule that it is no longer legitimate. Only 18% of the population controls the Senate – the House isn’t much better. The presidency is decided by a minority based on that same disgusting structure. SCOTUS has long been the horcrux of white Christian male upperclass conservatism, with only brief spells of empathetic work. In this environment, protests will be sneered at; the only thing that may work is the instilled fear that everything is going to burn down if power isn’t shared or compromise isn’t attempted.

  25. 25.

    TS (the original)

    As Kavanaugh explained so well – he is also a partisan hack. This is no independent judge who looks at things on their merit. This is a judge who looks at which party wants which ruling & votes for the GOP.

  29. 29.

    Immanentize

    Brett Kavanaugh acted exactly like OJ Simpson, except for calling for an independent investigation.

  32. 32.

    Amir Khalid

    Deep down inside, so deep he is not consciously aware of it, Brett Kavanaugh realises he is out of control and unfit for the prestigious position he enjoys now, let alone for anything higher. This knowledge makes him sad and angry at himself, and its outward manifestation is the petulant and bullying behaviour we see from him. One can only hope that he finds the inner peace he needs to become a better person.

    There: I have shown empathy and compassion for Kavanaugh. Now he can go fuck himself.

  34. 34.

    Kay

    Ed Rollins brags about securing $1 million from a donor “to help Kavanaugh get through this thing.”
    Rollins: “He said to me, ‘If you need more, I’ll put 20 big businessmen together, we’ll raise the money to make this guy … make him on this court.'”

    20 “big businessmen” aren’t buying him to overturn Roe. I think it’ll be really ambitious- knocking out the underpinnings for the existence of regulatory agencies- something like that.

  37. 37.

    debbie

    @JGabriel:

    There was nothing more telling about Kavanaugh than his bringing up the Clintons out of nowhere. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d invoked Garland, but this more than anything showed his true character.

  38. 38.

    JPL

    Even if Flake votes no, Mitch will bring it to the floor. Did Morning Joe mention that they pushed Mitchell aside in order to make political points?

  40. 40.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Kay:

    This is what tax cut money goes to.

    I’m going to invest in a guillotine company – thinking forward to my as-yet-unborn grandchildren’s retirement.

  43. 43.

    EveryDayIHaveTheBlues

    I called Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman on Wed. Spoke to an intern in Browns office. Got an answering machine with Portman, the coward. Will keep trying through the day. Also gonna try his OH offices.

    Work and family have been getting in the way of volunteering for Aftab Pureval, D challenger for OH 1 against Steve Chabot. But as I wrote last night, the travesty we saw has clarified things. I’ll sign up with Pureval today.

    Avenge me, Bob.

  52. 52.

    lamh36

    @Betty Cracker: At this point it seems all we’ve got to go on…but not surprisingly I find myself really not trusting of he folks who we need to comeback out and run to our side for the blowback to be enough. As a woman of color, we’ve done our thing everytime it was needed and in many cases it’s that bite that had helped Dems prevail…It’s a bit hard for me to trust that enough of that 53% of white women from last time feel enough rage to vote against them this time…my prediction…Black women, like myself & true blue Dem white women will do our part, but will those others???

  53. 53.

    montanareddog

    Reposted from downstairs as that thread kind of died quick and I think this is important:

    There have been so many threads I am not sure if this has been highlighted elsewhere, but an important spot by the Post:

    Kavanaugh is pressed on the key July 1 entry in his calendar. But only to a point.

    Kavanaugh is pressed on the key July 1 entry in his calendar. But only to a point.

    tldr: the calendar’s July 1st get together after training at Timmy’s for “skis” appears to fit in with Dr Blasey Ford’s description of the party; and so does the timing vis-a-vis Judge’s Safeway job. It was immediately after Ms Mitchell started on that calendar entry that Graham changed the dynamic with his rant and Ms Mitchell was allowed to ask no more questions

    Journalists need to do an Ed Whelan and see if they can get the layout of this Timmy Gaudette’s then house

  55. 55.

    Kay

    @JPL:

    It’s a shame we weren’t able to spend more time on his body of work, what with having to wade thru his constant lies. People will be shocked when they find out how far Right he is. I guess his insane rant about how much he loathes Democrats – better than half the country- was kind of a head’s up. Crazy job interview, huh? I never considered going in and just screaming over and over that I am owed the job. They’re sure not teaching humility there at Georgetown Prep – we do fake interviews for our high school seniors. We have employers come in and they “interview”. I’m going to suggest the Kavanaugh approach. Give them that prep school advantage without the 60k price tag. Do you think it works for ordinary mortals?

  58. 58.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:
    They hid away 90% of the paperwork related to his government work. It’s not like folks weren’t interested in his work.
    This was done on purpose, of course ?

  59. 59.

    Ninedragonspot

    @lamh36: Hopefully this will put an end to any incipient nostalgia for GW “Have A Beer With Me” Bush. The only humane Republican is an ex-Republican.

  60. 60.

    Kay

    @lamh36:

    I find myself really not trusting of he folks who we need to comeback out and run to our side for the blowback to be enough

    I agree and I am a white woman. Democrats are running almost underneath the political narrative though- if you listen to their campaigns they’re specifically issue-based. It seems to be working. If white women move their way it’s just as likely to be about health care or education as it is about opposition to Trump/Kavanaugh. It was smart. They don’t really have to talk about Trump/Kavanaugh. Those two talk enough and then all of media amplifies them.

    The governor’s races polling is the most optimistic indicator I’ve seen and Trump is barely mentioned.

  61. 61.

    lamh36

    [email protected] @mikeallen reports Republicans are “increasingly optimistic” about getting the vote of Democratic Sen. @JoeManchinWV, who is up for reelection in a state Trump won by 42 points.

    Manchin up for re-election…he votes yes and still fuqn loses…maybe show a fuqn profile on courage and do the right fuqn thing and vote no…

    The continued defense of Manchin will continue though

  62. 62.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Well if anyone had any doubt Kavanaugh himself made that clear with that harangue he “wrote himself”. I love the crazy grade inflation of bragging about “writing it himself”. Gosh. Really? 2 whole hours of drafting, all by himself?

    He loathes “the Left”. Imagine Sotomayor coming out and announcing she loathes “the Right”. You can;t because it would never, ever happen and if it did they’d arrest her.

  63. 63.

    Baud

    @lamh36: Manchin is up in the polls already, and West Virginia is a very red state. I don’t think they have enough John Coles staying home that would cause him to lose. I guess well find out in about 40 days though.

  64. 64.

    JWR

    @Baud:

    If find anyone born withing 5 days of me to be insufferable.

    @Baud: Ugh. born = not born

    “Born”, “not born”. Works for me either way. ;-)

  66. 66.

    Baud

    @Kay: Right-wing voters defend their honor in a way that our voters do not. Probably one of the downsides of caring about issues.

  67. 67.

    MomSense

    @JGabriel:

    Mika was on Ruhle’s show talking about her book and she sounded like an infomercial host talking about how many women write to her to say they read her book and then got a raise. And they’re continuing this infomercial right now! It’s just not realistic for women who are struggling financially or for every job and in every market.
    And don’t fet me started on Joe. We’ve all seen him flash a terrifying anger, boast about himself, and be dismissive and downright disrespectful to Mika and many guests over the years.

  69. 69.

    jonas

    @Kay: I’m sure he’ll be happy to overturn a century’s worth of jurisprudence on the Commerce Clause. Goodbye pesky regulations!

  70. 70.

    Chyron HR

    @lamh36:

    The GOP has 51 votes; the only reason they would even need to flip Manchin is if two GOPers vote no, in which case those two will get the blame if Kavanaugh goes down. I don’t know if these hot anonymous scoops are trying to tell potential GOP defectors “We’ll still confirm him and you’ll have betrayed the party for nothing” or they’re just trolling the Democrats, but the Manchin rumors are ridiculous on their face.

  71. 71.

    debbie

    At the team meeting at work yesterday (my team being all women), there were spontaneous outbursts about Trump’s press conference. Most of these women don’t discuss politics, keep their opinions to themselves (unlike me), and are reticent to talk about much of anything, but that “shambling mess” (quoting Colbert) really set something off in this country. Usually I’m the one to veer the meeting off-topic, but I don’t remember saying much of anything.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    More
    Sen. Amy Klobuchar asks Brett Kavanaugh if he has ever blacked out from drinking, and he turns the question back on her.
    Kavanaugh: “You are asking about a blackout. I don’t know. Have you?”
    Klobuchar: “Could you answer the question, judge?”

    This clip is great- so revealing. THAT my friends is why we have the word “sneer”. I always envy people like Klobuchar who can remain pleasant when confronted with assholes because it really is a position of strength. Hard though- you want to say “oh, fuck you. How dare you”.

    That’s what Democrats, or people representing liberal positions, can expect in his court. And they’ll be paying his salary while he’s doing it. I thought Ford was most eloquent when she talked about the humiliation- that’s what he was attempting to do here- humiliate Klobuchar. But she isn’t 15 and scared to death, so it wasn’t effective.

  73. 73.

    Kay

    @jonas:

    That’s what I think too. We all live in the house that FDR built. He essentially put the whole regulatory frame in. They want to burn your house down.

  74. 74.

    lamh36

    @Baud: ok then, I guess the question is should having that disgusting POS Kavanaugh as a LIFETIME SCOTUS justice be more important than a blip in his re-election campaign. I don’t like to this is it and Manchin should stick with his party and vote no. This bullshit “we still undecided” shit he played after the hearing yesterday was bullshit at best. HEs undecided if he cares more bout his re-election prospects over this and i doubt it’s anything else…

    And I contend a “yes” vote him, being the deciding vote for Kavanaugh to get through should negate almost anything else he’s done

  77. 77.

    jonas

    @Kay:

    Kavanaugh: “You are asking about a blackout. I don’t know. Have you?”
    Klobuchar: “Could you answer the question, judge?”

    What. A. Fucking. Asshole. This is someone Republicans are proud to put on SCOTUS for life. The mind reels.

    Also, how could anyone — anyone — watch with a straight face as he explained away all the little inside “bro jokes” in his highschool yearbook page as innocent references to being nauseous or just going out on a totally chaste date. Imagine a Democratic appointee telling the Judiciary Committee — under oath — that all the references to “420” in his yearbook were about a time in the afternoon when he liked to take a nap, nothing more.

  78. 78.

    jonas

    @Kay: It’s been a conservative wet dream for decades to go after the Commerce Clause, as well as the idea of a constitutional right to privacy. Kavanaugh is a 100% sure bet to take those down, which is why they’re so desperate to have him on the court. A merely conservative justice wouldn’t do. They needed one who was also a complete partisan asshole.

  79. 79.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    After yesterday’s consequential awfulness, I feel almost silly doing this, but THE WIND READER is officially released today. Or maybe you want to read about a boy who believes in honor and regrets it when he fails to live up to it, about two boys and a girl who look out for one another. Nobody brags about being an alumnus of a girl.
    It’s on Amazon

    B&N

    And other places online.

    I’ll probably repeat some version of this later today. My apologies. My publisher has been good to me and I don’t want to let them down.

  80. 80.

    NotMax

    @Churon HR

    the only reason they would even need to flip Manchin is if two GOPers vote no

    They also want to yell out for eternity that he was confirmed with “bipartsian support.”

  81. 81.

    Emma

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Please don’t apologize. I just bought it. It will be exactly what I need this weekend. I’m planning a detox party: no news, good books, getting back into writing after several years of blank staring at a page. Thank you!

  82. 82.

    Edmund dantes

    They had him dead to rights on why won’t you take a polygraph for employment purposes. Klobuchar even had it before kavanaugh’s hearing.

    And no one nailed him on it.

    It’s his own fucking ruling.

  83. 83.

    chopper

    every time one of these conservative types on twitter or whatever complains about the politics of this i remember garland and am instantly reminded that they’re completely and utterly full of shit.

  88. 88.

    Kayla Rudbek

    Avenge me, Bob! And may my nephews not grow up to be anything like Kavanaugh! And may my niece grow up and be safe from men and boys like Kavanaugh!

  89. 89.

    Miss Bianca

    Oh, hai, A-L, that was me with Gentle Bob. I’ve been murmuring to him, “sic ’em, Bob” ever since about this time yesterday.

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