Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Bark louder, little dog.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Second rate reporter says what?

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

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

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

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

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Birdwatching / Wee Hours Open Thread

Wee Hours Open Thread

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I just can’t with the 80s music, so here’s a good-looking woodpecker instead:

And here’s a crappy photo of a Sandhill crane on the wing:

It was yelling its head off, as they usually do when they fly, at least around here. I wonder if the migratory flocks screech for the entire trip? Human children are capable of it, so it’s a possibility.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

41Comments

  1. 1.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I just can’t with the 80s music

    You read my mind. Nice shot of a Pileated too.

  2. 2.

    satby

    Good morning Betty and other early risers! I woke up at 4:30 and my alarm is at 5, so I just got up. No 80s music here, a lovely Bach sonata playing softly while I have my coffee. And dogs snoring because they’re not ready to get up yet.

  3. 3.

    Sab

    How is “pileated” pronounced? We have one that migrates through, so I get a glimpse of it once a year. Amazing bird.

  5. 5.

    Nelle

    Is the horrible cough going around other parts of the US besides NE Kansas? Weeks of bone rattling deep coughing (yesterday, such a coughing seizure that I was throwing up). So one medicine helps (I’ve had this kind of cough before..maybe my reaction to a strain of viruses? But others are complaining too). I’ve not had much trouble getting it before. But now, because if opioid epidemic, they will only give me a small amount. Doc says take 5 ml at bedtime. Insurance and oaracist say take 1.5. That doesn’t touch the cough. Oh, and dic gives 90 ml. Rx gave me 30 ml. Damn opioid crisis and damn Sacklers…the ripples spread wide. I understand it intellectually but I need some relief.

    Sorry to sully new thread with whining. Actually, if it weren’t for the coughing, I had planned to be in southern Nebraska for the great gathering of Sandhill cranes this week or next. And the whole state is reeling under blizzard flood. So the cough kept me from bothering Nebraska this week.

  9. 9.

    Aleta

    Beautiful birds, much more beautiful than a lot of 80s music. The musicians were mostly doing what they could to adapt though.

  13. 13.

    Nicole

    Eh, I like birds AND I like 80s music. I also like plenty of music from the- well, any decade, really. There’s good music made all the time. Yes, even these days, by those young whippersnappers.

    Speaking of, we discovered the React Channel on Youtube, which is basically, “Do kids know these old songs?” (by which they mean 70s music) and “Do parents know the songs their kids like?” and it is so much more entertaining than the premise would suggest. As I like kids, I find them hilarious, especially one teenager who solemnly pronounced that, “Rihanna has really lasted the test of time.”

    Also, I like the sandhill crane photo. Love birds in flight. Love, love, love. Nice to wake up to before I catch an early train.

  15. 15.

    Kathleen

    Though it’s not “my era” (my daughter’s era actually) I love love love 80’s music. I blame previous thread for my descent into the You Tube 80’s music black hole (with some late 70’s Al Stewart mixed in).

  18. 18.

    Betty Cracker

    I do like 80s music; I graduated from high school in the 80s, so it’s the music of my yoot. I simply couldn’t face a thread devoted to it this early. I like a lot of different kinds of music, but recent visits to disreputable local taverns have introduced me to a genre that I loathe unreservedly: country rap. I can’t even believe it’s a thing, it’s so awful.

  19. 19.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Sweet justice: Ghent’s ‘war of the little noses’ resolved

    But an eight-year rivalry between two street stall merchants on Ghent’s Groentemarkt, which regularly descended into abuse, dirty tricks and open brawling, has finally been resolved, a court has heard.

    Carl Demeestere and Younes Benzaza, who both claim to sell the superior cuberdons – gelatinous raspberry-flavoured sweets also known as neuzekes or little noses – have been in daily battle with each other in Ghent’s sweeping central square, where they stand 100 metres from each other.

    Over the years, buckets of water have been thrown, fines threatened by the local chamber of commerce, and claims made of confectionery theft. The row escalated significantly in 2017 when a tourist captured a shouting match on film in which Demeestere appeared to make a racial slur, describing Benzaza as “a beast” and “a piece of shit on two feet who should have stayed in his own country”.
    ……………………………………………
    The presiding judge ruled that Demeestere’s acts did not constitute incitement to hatred, but that they did amount to insults with racist motivations. He was put on a self-control course, given a conditional two-month prison sentence and a fine of €1,600 (£1,370) and ordered to pay Benzaza €1,100 in damages.
    …………………………………………
    The two men’s claims to be selling the better cuberdons led to some embarrassment in 2016 when it emerged they were selling the same brand.

  20. 20.

    NotMax

    Barreling through Weekend Aristocrats on Netflix as a sort of palliative to the agita afoot. If ever places cried out for solar panel installations, it’s the castles featured.

  25. 25.

    Nicole

    @Betty Cracker: Slate had an article some years ago about how the music of our youth will always produce an emotional response in us because of the biological changes that were going on in our brains during our teen years- we’ll like, and love songs we discover at all points of our lives, but the music of that particular period in our development will always affect us like no other era will be able to.

    That said, seeing Captain Marvel this past weekend reminded me of how much 90s music I really loved, too, even though I don’t own a lot of it (I was too broke in my 20s to afford a lot of CDs). I was disappointed to find out they didn’t release a soundtrack from the movie of the pop songs used. I know I can buy them individually, but that’s wooorrrrrk.

  26. 26.

    Amir Khalid

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    I have no understanding of French law, certainly not in these matters. How does an MJ fan club have standing to sue anyone for defaming MJ?

  28. 28.

    debbie

    I wonder if the migratory flocks screech for the entire trip?

    Geese sure do. You can hear them before you can see them flying by.

  29. 29.

    Starfish

    @Betty Cracker: Last weekend, I learned that some of my friends think they are terrible at ’80s music trivia because they did not grow up in the US. I am going to send the a mixed tape of Adam’s thread.

  30. 30.

    donnah

    I graduated high school in 1976, so I grew up listening to good old rock music and then graduated to the wonderful Indie music of the 1980’s. I love bands like REM, Radiohead, Adam Ant, the Pixies…it wasn’t all synth pop. My oldest son worked as a DJ his senior year in college, and his time slot was ‘80’s music, so I got to hear some old favorites again.

    I do find myself listening to old stuff instead of new. I guess I’ve reached the “what’s that noise?” phase of my life.

  31. 31.

    J R in WV

    When I was in high school, my piano teacher was a former big-band arranger and player, who left high school after auditioning for a place with a touring big band who lost a trombone player in a fight outside their venue (which was probably somewhere like the Elks Club or Moose Club, or some less well known fraternal order, which were the night clubs back in the late 30s.

    He was in NYC as musical director for the Latin Quarter, IIRC, and met his future wife Betty while she was a choreographer for Broadway shows.

    So after I wasn’t really that interested in etudes and classical piano, he started me on Broadway show tunes, big band music, and how to improvise around a melody line with chords above, like today’s guitar charts. The first pro performer I actually bought tickets for was the Ramsey Lewis trio, which played at a small college near my home town. So pure piano jazz trio, right up my then current alley.

    That early training allows me to buy a chart book of Greatful Dead tunes and sight read them… etc, etc.

  32. 32.

    HeartlandLiberal

    We have several Pileateds in the neighborhood who come for the suet cage hanging over the balcony outside our master bedroom. It is amazing to sit on the bed or stand by the french doors and watch them. HUGE birds, and beautiful. Like the dinosaurs they are.

    As for music, we just finished expensive dry out and repair of our finished lower level. The first thing we moved back in was a lifetime of vinyl LPs and CDs. It was an incredibly nostalgic tour through the music we listened to from the sixties on. Classical, rock, jazz, blues. We decided in restoring after the flood that half the thousands of books are going to the food bank annual books sale. But the vinyl? Not yet time to let go! One of my favorites is a special edition of all four of Brahms symphonies in a leather binding. Just magnificent. Time to spin that turntable.

  33. 33.

    cope

    Nice pictures, BC. I have begun the process of gathering all my decent bird pictures from various computers onto a flash drive. It’s fun to find pictures I do not remember taking. I have tried to send some to Alain via the form and individual email messages in the past but without apparent success. I shall try again, however.

    Just some mindless blather to keep our minds off the terrible world out there but are there any other fans of “Schitt’s Creek” here? Our daughter turned us on to it and now every night has to end with our Schitt’s fix.

  35. 35.

    Steeplejack

    @cope:

    Schitt’s Creek: I’ve seen about half the episodes, somewhat out of order, at my brother’s house. It’s pretty funny. I need to fill in the gaps.

  36. 36.

    Ruckus

    @Nicole:
    The popular music of my youth doesn’t do this for me. I think primarily because I had almost no way to listen to it on my own till I was out of my teens. Second because I hear it played so many places around me, lunch stops, work…. At lunch on Thursday the shop was playing 50-60s popular music. I could tell you the years that most of it came out and how many thousands of times I’ve heard a number of them because they get played like this all the time. I think it has to do with people thinking the olden days were better. OK if the only music you could hear was country rap as @Betty Cracker: talked about then yes the wayback oldies are far better. Immeasurably better. On a scale of 1-10, at least 5 million times better.

  37. 37.

    cope

    @Steeplejack: AT the risk of killing the thread I already killed, it benefits from watching them in order because you get to see the evolution of the Roses. Seasons 1-4 are currently on Netflix and also in on demand from the POP network which we get with our Spectrum cable. The current season is also on demand but not on Netflix.

  39. 39.

    Jay Noble

    @Nicole: Love the React stuff! What I found interesting was how often the “kids” knew the songs but hadn’t a clue who the Artist was. Certainly says something about the power of music and fleeting fame.

  41. 41.

    jame

    The cranes talk to each other, about where they are and what they’ve found to eat or possible danger.

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