Poll: Congress gets highest approval rating from voters in over two years https://t.co/X03ihHeYil pic.twitter.com/H6qVoW5pPP
— The Hill (@thehill) March 19, 2019
Seriously. According to lore, it’s when the frozen ground softens enough for earthworms to emerge, thereby encouraging the return of the robins. Perhaps more importantly, the Spring Equinox arrives just before 6pm EDT… and I, for one, am ready for this winter to be over.
And speaking of spring, with the impulse for housecleaning it inspires, this is very sweet and also embarrassingly reminiscent of our whole house…
With apologies to @MarieKondo, I wrote about my father and the life-changing magic of a disorganized pile of books. https://t.co/jtOAyoRQr7
— Kathryn Schulz (@kathrynschulz) March 18, 2019
When I was a child, the grownup books in my house were arranged according to two principles. One of these, which governed the downstairs books, was instituted by my mother, and involved achieving a remarkable harmony—one that anyone who has ever tried to organize a home library would envy—among thematic, alphabetic, and aesthetic demands. The other, which governed the upstairs books, was instituted by my father, and was based on the conviction that it is very nice to have everything you’ve recently read near at hand, in case you get the urge to consult any of it again; and also that it is a pain in the neck to put those books away, especially when the shelves on which they belong are so exquisitely organized that returning one to its appropriate slot requires not only a card catalogue but a crowbar.
It was this pair of convictions that led to the development of the Stack. I can’t remember it in its early days, because in its early days it wasn’t memorable. I suppose back then it was just a modest little pile of stray books, the kind that many readers have lying around in the living room or next to the bed. But by the time I was in my early teens it was the case—and seemed by then to have always been the case—that my parents’ bedroom was home to the Mt. Kilimanjaro of books. Or perhaps more aptly the Mt. St. Helens of books, since it seemed possible that at any moment some subterranean shift in it might cause a cataclysm.
The Stack had started in a recessed space near my father’s half of the bed, bounded on one side by a wall and on the other by my parents’ dresser, a vertical behemoth taller than I would ever be. At some point in the Stack’s development, it had overtopped that piece of furniture, whereupon it met a second tower of books, which, at some slightly later point, had begun growing up along the dresser’s other side. For some reason, though, the Stack always looked to me as if it had defied gravity (or perhaps obeyed some other, more mysterious force) and grown down the far side of the dresser instead. At all events, the result was a kind of homemade Arc de Triomphe, extremely haphazard-looking but basically stable, made of some three or four hundred books…
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
Good morning, rikyrah ???
NotMax
Gasp, you used the H word. Quick, where are the smelling salts?
:)
Looking ahead to the summer, this looks as if it has the potential to be amusingly diverting, in a trashy beach novel kind of way.
Elizabelle
Good morning (lady) jackals.
Not surprised at Congress’s improved approval rating. Problem is not Congress, per se, but Republicans in Congress. How dishonest it’s been to pretend otherwise.
ETA: and NotMax.
eclare
What a nice story, as I look around my bedroom and see several mini-stacks.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Beto Mania lands in New Hampshire
Holy shit (photo) ?
satby
@Elizabelle: Good morning everyone ?!
@Elizabelle: our context free media can’t be arsed to tell the truth or to even try to track what changed that might have led to an improvement in perception.
Jeffg166
I am downsizing. Many books to get rid of which pretty much no one wants. They are going to Goodwill slowly.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Dogs for Beto
(photo 1)
(photo 2)
(photo 3)
SFAW
Don’t have time to read the article at the moment, but not sure I see the problem with having shitloads of books.
satby
Greg Sargent interviewed Mayor Pete:
No link to WaPo because I don’t subscribe.
satby
@SFAW: oh, it’s a erroneous trope that Marie Kondo wants people to get rid of their books. Her entire thing is about how your possessions make you feel. If your cluttered home is making you unhappy or stressed, clear it; if your possessions make you happy, organize them to make it easier on yourself. And be mindful and grateful for all you have, no matter what the amount. That’s all she says
Edited to add: my house would potentially scare Miss Haversham, and I see a lot of wisdom and kindness in Kondo’s approach to dealing with possessions and recognition that inertia is why we end up drowning in stuff.
NotMax
@satby
Here’s the link.
Betty Cracker
Here’s some good news: [Politico]
If Trump loses Florida, he’s toast.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: As long as I can find the toilet….
satby
@NotMax: gracias amigo!
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Man, the floor in our rental is way worse than we thought!
eclare
@Betty Cracker: Cool, that is his big announcement. Excellent.
satby
@Raven: oh man, that’s bad.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@satby: Here’s a glowing editorial in USA Today on Mayor Pete:
SFAW
@satby:
Every grifter has some sort of hook, I guess.
No, I don’t really want to argue about Kondo. I’m sure there are literally tens of persons whose lives have been improved by her “methods” (or whatever they are). I wish them well. But, as an old fart, I have become, shall we say, a little jaded with respect to each new “and if you do THIS one weird trick, your life will be SO much better” lifeplan from someone charismatic.
Although, frankly, if I could come up with some life-changing
scammethodology which garnered me gazillions of followers and made me rich, I can’t say that I wouldn’t milk it for all I could.SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s outside. The small building with the crescent on its door.
Outside of that, I agree.
Lapassionara
@Betty Cracker: More like this! Getting to work now to make sure people are registered and have whatever ID they need to vote.
Good morning, everyone.
NotMax
On the receiving end of an unexpected surprise last night. Wanted to check the taste of a sauce in progress, and picked up the wrong spoon to lick. Inadvertently chose the one coated with ghost pepper salsa I had added to give a bit of extra kick.
:)
@Raven
Oy vey. It’s going to be one of those keep finding bad news projects, isn’t it?
SFAW
@Raven:
All you need is the right type of area rug to cover it up
SFAW
@NotMax:
“I see dead peppers”?
Raven
@satby: It really sucks. The folks who live there just had their black lab get diagnosed as diabetic after a long stay in the ER. We’re actually losing money on the house and we were going to talk with them about the future. The guy is really handy and he’s taking on the repair job and I’m going to pay for the supplies and pay him. After the dog news we decided to put off any talk of a rent hike (we were thinking of doing it in September when I retire) but now we feel even less like dropping a bomb on them!
satby
I don’t want to argue about it either because it’s like anything else: it may resonate with someone, or it may not. But a lot of the hate she’s gotten is based on a complete misunderstanding of what she actually is saying.
An almost wilful demonization that is bizarre to me. But maybe shouldn’t be after what other high profile women have gone through in this country.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: From that pic it looks like you’re gonna have to replace about 2′ x 4′. Wy do I feel like you don’t have that much flooring left over from the hallway (?) project in your house.
SFAW
@Raven:
You’re a good man.
ETA: Correction: you and Mrs. Raven are good people.
Raven
@SFAW: I actually have a good bit of 3/4 tongue and groove flooring left over from our addition. He built a plastic tent over the work area and is putting in some subfloor to support the replacement. He seems to know what he’s doing so I’m backing off.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: What, you don’t think I have stacks of books out there too? What do you think I use for toilet paper?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Betty Cracker: Then this is a good spot to drop this: How This One Weird Trick Can Help Florida Democrats Win More Elections
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: I have 6 16 footers and some other that I built some shelves from.
SFAW
@satby:
Yes, I know. I wasn’t being totally serious in my earlier comment(s).
She’s not for me, although I bet Mrs. SFAW wishes it were otherwise.
Raven
@SFAW: The other tenant is her hairdresser!
Betty Cracker
@eclare: I’m glad Gillum is focusing on Florida rather than making a doomed run at the presidency. Trump is somewhat underwater in the polling here, but not by much. If we can get better turnout among Dems who don’t vote regularly, younger voters, minorities, etc., to offset the growing colony of wingnut assholes from the Midwest in The Villages, we’ll have a real shot. And it certainly wouldn’t hurt Gillum’s career if he could pull off a turnaround in the state.
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Schale is correct! (Here’s a working link.)
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
It better be “Art of the Deal,” or you got some splainin’ to do.
satby
@Raven: I understand, and also understand that good tenants are like gold. But they also have to realize they have below market rates right now and that you can’t support them. September is 6 months away, which is pretty fair warning. If the rent hike was going to be big, maybe you could do it in two steps, first 1/2 in September and the second 1/2 kicks in in January? They have time to plan and find another place if they can’t afford yours. That’s more than fair.
And if you’re paying the guy to fix the floor it’s a business transaction, not a favor. I bet you’re a good landlord, and those can be like gold too.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: You spelled “sucker” wrong.
NotMax
@SFAW
Something like these?
:)
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: Sheeeeeeeeeit…. Piece of cake.
OzarkHillbilly
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Linky no workee.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
I wish Gillum good fortune on this. Based on what little I know/hear about FLA, it sounds like there’s more fuckery afoot from the Lege, at least as regards to the felon-franchise-reinstatement vote results. Evil motherfuckers keep throwing up roadblocks to citizens they don’t like nor want to vote.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: Unread Ayn Rand, Dinesh D’souza, and Rush Limbaugh can all be had for about half the price of toilet paper out here.
OzarkHillbilly
Alarm over leaked US database targeting journalists and immigration activists
Too damned depressingly ugly for me to read this morning.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: and I bet using them sparks joy ?
Betty Cracker
@SFAW: It’s true. They’re so damned obvious about it too — it’s always Republicans who come up with new roadblocks — the fuckery you mentioned with the enfranchisement amendment, closing polling sites, making it harder to register voters, shortening the early voting period, purging the rolls, etc.
I keep hoping it blows up in their damned faces, but it hasn’t so far. They’re doing what their garbage constituents want, of course. But is it too much to hope the more civic-minded unaffiliated and people who don’t bother to vote will finally catch a damned clue? So far, it seems so.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Certainly the best use for anything from those evil motherfuckers.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Don’t work all that well as they’re already totally full of sh*t.
;)
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
Your answer to that question is, unfortunately, probably correct.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@OzarkHillbilly: I should know better than to do something like that from my phone, but I didn’t want to wake up the sleeping lap cat.
How This One Weird Trick Can Help Florida Democrats Win More Elections
Dorothy A. Winsor
I got rid of a lot of books when we moved. I kept the ones I reread. Also, while I’m comforted by being in the presence of physical books (why is that?), I buy mostly ebooks these days. I have stacks of papers on the floor though, for various writing projects. I want easy access in case I get an idea. God willing.
JPL
@Raven: Yes it is.
hueyplong
@Betty Cracker: That Gillum item brightens my day.
As for the large Democratic field, viewed in context you could say there are about 66 million people in the US more qualified than Trump and who would deserve to win if any one of them garnered the Democratic nomination. So a couple dozen candidates isn’t that big a deal.
OzarkHillbilly
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Thanx. Apologize to the Kitty for me.
eclare
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Thanks for the article, I’m glad Gillum is making registration his priority.
WereBear
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I keep buying paperbooks, used, because they are no longer in print. And once they show up they are like a lost kitten, what am I going to do with them? They are now rare and precious and unique.
Fortunately, after wearing out my welcome at local libraries due to various book purges, I can always drop off fiction at the local laundromat. They do disappear from there!
rikyrah
Uh huh ?
Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) Tweeted:
The High Court in London heard on Monday that Cambridge Analytica was up to its old tricks from beyond the grave—by surreptitiously trying to halt investigations that could expose allegedly nefarious tactics before the company was shut down for good. https://t.co/V7pnk68Hlb https://twitter.com/CREWcrew/status/1108329894889574401?s=17
Dorothy A. Winsor
@hueyplong: I glanced at Kos this morning and it’s interesting to see enthusiastic posts about a number of candidates like O’Rourke and Mayor Pete (I finally figured out how to pronounce his last name but I can’t spell it yet). Wilmer is no longer the only candidate getting love over there. With a big field, I’m guessing that’s a normal process. Old favorites and will known names get talked about first. Then things open up. We’ll have to wait to see where they settle down.
Also, Dear Uncle Joe, please don’t run. Be our elder statesman. Work on voting rights or whatever.
rikyrah
Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) Tweeted:
Adam Schiff says he’s steering his investigation in a new direction to focus on whether Trump or anyone around him is under the influence of a foreign government — and he says he’ll demand any relevant evidence compiled by the FBI or Mueller’s team.
https://t.co/EGJQWDAwix https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1108329844440326145?s=17
J R in WV
@Raven:
Jeeze, no sub floor at all. Our farm house shack was like that, once I peeled off 15 layers of old linoleum, it was pine boards with knotholes, you could see the ground under the house. It was on flat rocks on the ground, and as those rocks sank at different rates, the house bent.
At least your rental is a FLA fishing camp, not a full time home where it gets well below zero and snows a couple of feet many winters. I would get a piece plywood for that hole, and bill it to the owner/manager.
Or send them a picture of the situation as you found it and ask if they’re responsible for that hole, what’s its history, would they be interested in fixing it before anyone gets hurt, etc…
That’s pretty F’ed up even for a camp…
I woke up at 5 am, insomnia, so I’ve mopped half the kitchen floor already and am now chillin’ before trying to go back to bed for a couple of hours. That was my big chore for the day, it’s been a while, so lots of grease etc from frying. Tried Scrubbing Bubbles instead of Pinesol, worked pretty well.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@WereBear: I know I’m going to hell for this but when we were packing to move, I threw a bunch of old books in the trash.
rikyrah
Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) Tweeted:
It shouldn’t matter how much money you have or what neighborhood you live in — everyone deserves clean water. We saw this story play out in Flint. Now we’re seeing reports in South Carolina. Enough is enough. We need action now.
https://t.co/Tvhx3PVxmd https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1108075668385030144?s=17
rikyrah
John Wellington Ennis (@johnennis) Tweeted:
Bernie’s hires from the Intercept tells me four things: 1) He’s not attracting campaign professionals 2) He endorses their recent line of attacks 3) There will be more misleading attacks on Democrats as campaign strategy 4) He and his staff will not support the DNC nominee, again https://twitter.com/johnennis/status/1108064301229600769?s=17
Kathleen
@eclare: My stack is on a ledge in my living room. Bookshelf in my office which has 4 shelves is jam packed.
OzarkHillbilly
The local library had a speaker from the Climate Reality Project last night at a time my early to bed ass could handle. I went but not because I would learn anything (I knew I would, at the very least around the edges of a subject I am well read on) but because I figured I would be 1 of 3 people to show up. It was better than I was expecting, he was just an avg public speaker but his slides helped him a lot and he had some new data I was unaware of (was kicking myself in the ass for forgetting to bring pen and paper which always helps my fact retention) and there was one particularly horrifying graphic. All in all it was well worth my trouble to go.
And I was wrong. I was 1 of 5 people.
hueyplong
@rikyrah: I want to think that Schiff’s new direction is based on a heads up from the very people he’d subpoena to get the goods on these crooks and traitors. Insiders who know things and want to tell them no longer have Devin Nunes as the person to go see about it.
evodevo
@SFAW: Yes. I was talking at work about the disappeared/dwindled tax refunds and mentioned that the Repubs had done away with a LOT of the deductions people were accustomed to, and three of my clueless co-workers were like “why would they do that?!” I had to explain, yet once again, about the “tax cut” going to the billlionaires and corporations, and how “you all” were now paying for it. They had heard NONE of this, even though I have been talking about it for a year. On the other hand, NONE of them do anything to avail themselves of actual news (what little there is – thanks MSM), instead spending most of their time on their phones watching episodes of Walking Dead or vampires or Instragram or something…. THAT’S who we have to reach. And these people have kids and families and are all over 30 and may or may not vote. It ain’t gonna be easy.
J R in WV
@J R in WV:
Oh shit, previous comment based upon mistaken impression you were at a fishing trip staying in a cabin… sorry to have struck out in a ficticious direction.
Hope material on hand will do for the repairs, that and some water control should go a long way to making things adequate. And a sheet of plywood right away for safety. Glad your renter is going to pitch in and work on it. And sorry their dog is ill, that never helps out, does it!?
Immanentize
@satby: I agree with you about MK. I think I told you the Immp got into it and had me read her book. It is overwritten and redundent in a certain American way, but her point is, like you say, value what you own, don’t accumulate by inertia. It makes perfect sense. And her “method” of dealing with all of one type of a thing at once makes the difference between what you just have and what you really care about quite obvious. But, as the Immp says, ‘Taters gonna Tate
rikyrah
???
Brett Pransky (@BrettPransky) Tweeted:
So the Germans are considering expelling an American diplomat for being too much of a Nazi.
Wrap your head around that one. https://t.co/wETUWUGUal https://twitter.com/BrettPransky/status/1108104078150770689?s=17
Gin & Tonic
@J R in WV: I suspect you misunderstood – raven *is* the owner. That’s the house on his street that he owns and rents out.
raven
@J R in WV: @J R in WV: It’s the house next door to ours and none of the old houses here have subfloors. Our addition does but it was very common to put the flooring right on the joists.
Gin & Tonic
Oh, and raven, if you’re still around, I went to see Cold War last night, and I’m glad I did. Posted about it in the Joe Biden thread late, so I won’t repeat it. NotMax says it’s coming out on Amazon Prime; I thought somebody else said Netflix. Whatever, I recommend it highly. And yes, it’s subtitled, which makes sense, as I recognized at least six languages throughout.
Kathleen
@satby: They don’t want to. It would ruin the script. I’m convinced most media outlets would be happy with fascism and Jim Crow.
raven
@satby: Yea, it’s complicated and we’re going to let it sit for a bit. I should have addressed it a couple of weeks ago but things changed and there is time.
CCL
Re: #53 Dorothy’s question “why is that?”.
Because we are comforted by the physical presence of old friends with whom we’ve spent a lot of time?
OzarkHillbilly
@J R in WV: ;-)
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
We have the wonderful library Book and Bake which will gladly take any book in good condition you donate. Then they sell them for 50 c or a $ or two. They make a lot of money twice a year. Oh, and good cookies and pies too! This is especially useful for the paperbacks purchased there, then returned there. Julie directed I take her mystery book collection there after she died (10 shopping bags full) although the Immp decided to keep all the Agatha Christie.
satby
@Immanentize: the Immp is a smart cookie, and a chip off both the old blocks ?
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
This Friday, the 22nd, on Amazon Prime. It’ll be listed there as an Amazon Original production.
eclare
@Kathleen: I have two bookshelves that are full, and now I have started annexes on my nightstand table and dresser. :)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@CCL: That feels right. Books feel intimate. They happened not on the page, but inside your head.
Karen S.
My dad’s 91 years old and still ordering books, much to my mother’s consternation. Their house (my childhood home) has always been full of books and I was allowed to read any of them I wanted. I think my dad’s tendency to hoard books is because of a genuine love for books on the knowledge held within them and also because the small Missouri town he grew up in (New Madrid) didn’t allow blacks to use the town’s public library. For a little black boy who loved learning, this had to sting. He’s never forgotten that. When I started going to kindergarten, my dad took me to my hometown’s public library and helped me get my first library card. Ever since then, wherever I’ve lived, I’ve always gotten a library card from the local library as soon as I could.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: Have I mentioned how much I dislike Sirota?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: While you were in Texas, a front pager posted a video about a somersaulting robot insect-like thing. I thought about Immp and the robotics team. Did you see that?
rikyrah
Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) Tweeted:
The idea that amending the Constitution—or simply proposing amendments—is somehow radical is a recent phenomenon and a silly one. The 2016 Republican platform called for five constitutional amendments (abortion, same-sex marriage, term limits, balanced-budget, education). https://t.co/eLJeEmAirM https://twitter.com/RyanLizza/status/1108114751089987585?s=17
satby
@Dorothy A. Winsor: a lot of the younglings formerly for Wilmer now are more interested in backing someone closer to their own age that they feel can relate more to their challenges. So just for that, we should all be grateful for Beto and Mayor Pete. The only people I see sticking with Wilmer at this point (in my limited circle) are purity leftists who aren’t really allies anyway, because they inevitably jump to supporting a third party candidate.
OzarkHillbilly
Every now and again, Twitter is justified in the most glorious of ways:
Proudly stolen:
ola azul
@Raven:
Oy. Go chasing rot, never know what you’ll find or where it’ll end. But: Sometimes you gotta go backwards to go forwards.
Hauled out this autumn, put 40 tons on the hard, and, among a great many projects, hadda sonar tube wanted to remove and glass in/over the resultant cavity. (Usedta be a tuna boat based in SF Bay and Morro Bay before that; sonar was 30 years old when I got it, never worked.)
Removed sonar tube and topside retraction mount/sea chest so just a 8-inch diameter hole remained in bottom of boat emerging out a faring block. Plan was to glass over faring block to cover/fill gaping hole (roughly 2 feet deep in interior x 8 inches wide of cavity space at bottom).
But: After poking around a bit, discovered (to my horror, will confess it freely) about the only thing holding the sonar faring block to the bottom of the boat was force of habit. (*Someone* did a really piss-poor glass job on the original sonar/faring block install. If I’da hit a log at the faring block, it mos def woulda stove in the assembly and might well a sunk the boat.)
So: desecrated boat even further by lopping off the faring block, creating an *even larger* garish hole that exposed 1 1/2 feet high up one side, as well as the 8 inches at the bottom of the hull; boat in profile looked like it hadda pulled tooth. (Once the faring block was removed, was happy to see glass was a good 6 inches at the keel rise and a lil over 1 inch thick on the high side of the original lay-up done in ’77. Skookums is skookum.)
Glad your tenant sounds willing and capable.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Guess who? You can’t make this stuff up.
sdhays
@Immanentize: I found this article about the oversized hate based on the deliberate misunderstanding of Kondo’s philosophy interesting and rather sad: What White, Western Audiences Don’t Understand About Marie Kondo’s ‘Tidying Up’. I haven’t read her book or seen her show on Netflix, but I basically became aware of her when there was a freak out about how she wanted to burn everyone’s books (which she absolutely does not want to do). Since Kondo is not a white American, the hate comes harder, faster, and more freely. How the author relates the backlash to how her own (white) father denigrated her (Japanese) mother’s way of life is sad and pretty real.
SFAW
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Just one day. Just one. Where I don’t have to see his full-blown assholishness on display. Just one fucking day.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: No! Thanks, I will go back and check it out.
The Immp’s old team — which is now version 2.0 made up of young-uns because all the originals are now in college or about to go (Immp was the youngest on the original team) — just won the Massachusetts State Championship for First Tech Challenge and they are off to the World Finals. Whew! The young team never made all the mistakes Immp’s team did….
O. Felix Culpa
@satby: This.
raven
@ola azul: Ugh! Have you read “The Log from the Sea of Cortez” by Steinbeck?
They outfitted an old tug for the trip.
raven
@Gin & Tonic: Cool! We watched the last of season 2 of the Detectorists last night and been something (except that the hoop starts tomorrow and that will lock me down for 4 days!)
Betty Cracker
@J R in WV: Speaking of fishing camps, they were plentiful here in FL when I was a kid, and I visited many of them with my paternal grandparents, who were avid anglers. My husband and I have visited some of the remaining ones over the past several years, and it’s always a hoot.
I live near a few fishing camps now, and the other day, I had this crazy idea of getting together with my aunt, sister and daughter and spending a weekend at all the old school fishing camps that are still around. It would probably take a few years to accomplish this with everyone’s schedules. The women in my family tend to be…characters, so between their antics, the wildlife, etc., it might make a good story!
ola azul
@Karen S.:
I love your story. Like you and your father, I have a similar abiding love for libraries and share the same ardor for getting a library card tout suite wherever I go (if the library permits, as it did when I’s in Point Richmond for a stretch, will get a visitor’s card).
You prolly know this already, but perhaps some others might be innerested in the earthquakes of 1811-12 that struck the New Madrid area. Had always heard folkloric accounts of “the Mississippi reversing its stream and running backwards,” which allus sounded a bit much like tall tales on the front porch, but the article gives a (to me) satisfactory explanation of this illusory effect:
JPL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Thrice married adulterer calls another husband from hell. hmmm
Karen S.
@ola azul:
My dad said he’d heard about the earthquake as a boy and there were still tremors on occasion while he was growing up. But whenever he asked about the tremors, no one would talk about them. Either they were in denial that they were happening or they flat out refused to talk about them, out of fear or superstition, I don’t know. He says he didn’t really learn much about that huge earthquake until he’d left home and started doing his own reading about it. Of course, he has several books about it amongst the many books he now owns.
zhena gogolia
@SFAW:
I’ve had two philosopher-kings (friends whose political judgment I used to trust) tell me in the past week that Trump is going to win in 2020. I’m depressed.
eric
@zhena gogolia: whom did they say would win in 2016?
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
Don’t know if you saw this from yesterday, BC:
Taniel (@Taniel) Tweeted:
?news in Florida: a House committee has moved forward a bill to strip Floridians of right to vote if they haven’t been able to fully pay court fines & fees. Hundreds of thousands could be disenfranchised.
Coups easier to pull off when universal suffrage devalued to start with.
https://twitter.com/Taniel/status/1108030465699729408?s=17
Taniel (@Taniel) Tweeted:
key detail: since January, people have been able to register to vote without this obstacle. Bill would restrict current registration process, and kick people off the rolls who’ve registered (and who may have already voted in this month’s local elections)
Taniel (@Taniel) Tweeted:
Amendment 4 got majorities in ALL congressional & legislative districts. Bill would restrict how it’s been implemented in January.
James Grant is GOP chair of committee that passed bill today; he got angry at idea it’s a poll tax. https://t.co/9gW91VmHip
satby
@sdhays: I have always felt that there was a tinge of racism in the Kondo hate too, but it’s mostly the misogynistic crap any female gets who becomes too prominent.
ola azul
@raven:
Ya, sure have. Seems I remember a puckish outboard Steinbeck wrangle with repeatedly like it were a duende. Only a coupla works by Steinbeck I ain’t read. Loves me some Steinbeck. What made ya think of it?
Re: the outfitted vessel: Not that it matters one way or the other — and I might be misremembering entirely — but if it were a Jeopard question, I’d haveta say what were a seiner they took south?
Ed Rickett’s visited Sitka in ’32, and his daughter Nancy was still going strong at 91 and living in Sitka (as of 2015; hadn’t heard different).
Beloved local radio station KCAW did a radio bit onnit if innerested: The real Sitka journey of Steinbeck’s ‘Doc Ricketts’
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL:
Let’s not beat around the bush here. Whether or not he ever laid a hand on any of wives or children, it is beyond doubt that he was and continues to be emotionally abusive.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Major Major Major Major
I’ve had many book (dis)organization methods. The important thing about your books is that they be a collection organized for use. That is:
– A collection;
– Organized;
– For use.
Intentionality comes into play for each of these interrelated points*. I’ve recently culled my way to I’d guess around fifty books, which is working for me at the moment. I never thought I’d have so few but it turned out a lot of them are better off living with people who will ever open them again.
*source: library college
Gin & Tonic
@raven:Yeah, it’ll be there when the hoops settle out – but it’s a fairly short movie, so won’t substitute for a series.
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
Come sit by me.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Are they men?
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah:
Something tells me this will not survive long in the courts. Poll taxes have long been anathema.
rikyrah
@Kay:
truth, Kay.
truth.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: It’s all about the Benjamins.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: I may have asked this before, but Florida, fishing camps, books – have you read Mathiessen’s Shadow Country? Old Florida, from a couple of angles. Well worth it, IMO.
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly: That is what I was wondering…have to assume Holder is on this.
rikyrah
Nothing but a muthaphuckin’ POLL TAX!!
Florida felon voting rights imperiled amid GOP opposition
By GARY FINEOUT and URSULA PERANO
03/19/2019 04:32 PM EDT Updated 03/19/2019 05:55 PM EDT
TALLAHASSEE — Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature is moving to roll back parts of a historic November constitutional amendment that reinstated voting rights for convicted felons, drawing sharp opposition from Democrats in a key 2020 presidential battleground.
A bill that would limit voting rights that ex-offenders gained under the ballot measure cleared its first stop in a Republican-controlled Florida House committee on a party-line vote Tuesday, and the president of the state Senate said he expects his chamber to draw up a companion measure.
Democrats and others condemned the move, likening the legislation to a poll tax imposed on African-Americans during the Jim Crow era.
“Today we saw the politicization of Amendment 4,” said Neil Volz, political director with the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, which pushed the voting rights initiative onto last year’s ballot. “When partisan politics gets involved, the people lose.”
At stake are the voting rights of more than a million Floridians — and possibly the U.S. presidency. The legislative battle is a reminder of the high political stakes in Florida, where voters backed both Barack Obama and Donald Trump in recent presidential elections. The marquee races in last year’s elections, U.S. Senate and governor, were so tight that both were forced into recounts.
JPL
@rikyrah: It is a poll tax and I hope that the Roberts court views it as such. .
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
And they could pay actual locals. People who live there. It wouldn’t cost that much. In Florida say 32k each organizer plus health insurance. You could find good people for that. Retirees could even do it- take the job for 6 months or one year, whatever. People could split the job. Work as a team, each do 15, 20 hours for extra income.
I think small donors can make a difference. We could be more demanding. Ask why our donation aren’t going to voter reg, or at least ask where the donations DO go. Now that Democrats are more reliant on small donors we could change campaigns. Make them better. Make them better if for no other reason than so voters don’t hate campaigns so much– because voters do hate them. They’re sick of how we run them. They’re sick of the ads and how professional and slick it’s all gotten.
Uncle Cosmo
@Immanentize: In Baltimore we have The Book Thing. Regular weekend stop where I’ve found nearly-new copies of treasured books I never thought I’d see again.
When I hightail it to the next plane of existence, I’m giving my friends & family one weekend to go through my stacks; then the chess books go to a local program, the SF books to the Baltimore Science Fiction Society to auction off, & everything else goes to The Book Thing. (They may need a new annex.)
satby
Completely off topic but sort of funny: turns out that the local birds enjoy cat chow if there’s no worms or grubs to be had. I wondered why the bowl for ferals was getting empty so fast.
rikyrah
@satby:
You learn something new everyday, satby :)
Peale
@sdhays: yep. Beyond the racism that the Kondo moment brought to the surface, what this thing really revealed to me is just how miserable people who write for a living must be. And how much they revel in the misery of their clutter. The reason I think the backlash came over books is that books are the things writers sell, and she was percieved to be saying buy fewer books and donate them so others don’t have to purchase them. The writers then circled the wagons around their industry the same way tobacco companies would had she written a book on quitting smoking. Because writers have access to media and social media, they could express their disdain widely. That’s why you first heard about the backlash over books.
jeffreyw
Good morning, deer.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Do voters have to hate political campaigns as much as they do?
What if campaigns were better? I don’t know- is it possible campaigns could change and be better? I think it is. Just a small thing- people hated phone calls so groups started postcards. That was in response to voters. That’s better, I think, because voters say they like postcards more. The next question would be does it work better- do they come out more and/or more reliably with postcards.
rikyrah
Hmmm?
Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) Tweeted:
News: Maria Butina’s Russian legal defense fund is being controlled by a an organization called the Anti-Globalization Movement that has promoted fringe American separatist movements on the Kremlin’s dime. https://t.co/qceZaOGPKZ https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1108336650399174656?s=17
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
Door to door, engaging potential voters in conversation, finding out what is important to them personally, without all the hub bub of a booth at a festival or county fair.
I think people remember and appreciate it when a person makes an extra effort to talk to them.
Kay
I generally get rid of things, including books, but I did hang on to my children’s books and we have a lot of them. Now we have a 3 year who visits and spends the night and we read to him, which he seems to enjoy. What he likes most though is picking the book. I’ll read him more than one so he really doesn’t have to JUST pick one but he takes a long time to pick- like, ten minutes. So I’m glad I kept them. The sheer number of them interests him. The picking is the fun part, I think.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: I hate phone calls. Not sure why. I even resent it when one of my sons call. Of course I get over that quickly enough, but calls from random strangers not so much.
OzarkHillbilly
@jeffreyw: Cute.
JPL
Sen. Isakson is going to give a statement on the floor of the Senate denouncing Trump’s statements about John McCain. Lindsay will be hiding in the cloak room.
schrodingers_cat
@sdhays: Xenophobia and misogyny is alive and well, just take a look at who sits in the WH.
Major Major Major Major
@Peale: not writers; book fetishists (though there is significant overlap).
ETA many book-lovers just saw it as a fun excuse to talk about their love for books, though. Most of the writers I follow on twitter who opined on it at all were able to recognize this distinction.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: How does making nasty attacks barbs at Kondo, misrepresenting what she wrote, demonstrate the love of books, is something I don’t understand.
zhena gogolia
@eric:
Trump.
@schrodingers_cat: Yes.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: I’m drawing a distinction between people who did that, and people who said things like “I could never do this, I love books, here is a story about how much I love books!”
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: If it were only up to men, I think Orange would keep the WH. For some reason men seem to tolerate him more. Women on the other hand just can’t stand him. I know that the white women voted for T gets trotted out a lot but I would love to see a state by state breakup. I am pretty sure that he lost the female vote (including the white female vote) in more states than he won it. I have to delve into the stats to see if my hunch is correct.
Kathleen
@eclare: I’ve parted with many books but currently I’m needy and clingy about them.
Uncle Cosmo
@OzarkHillbilly: My guess is that those SOBs will start screwing with the voter rolls the instant that fucking law is signed. iANAL, but I hope the Democrats are ready to file, at that very instant, not only a court challenge to the law, but also an injunction to prevent the State of FL from taking ANY action to restrict future (or revoke prior) registration until the court challenge is settled.
o/t: I note that bad-tempered fuckhead masquerading as an incoherent hayseed (“ola azul”) has returned & is posting his babblings once more in prime time.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: With a side of condescension or outright derision directed Kondo’s way. Accompanied by humble bragging about the books they own. That’s how many of the pieces that appeared in various publications after Kondo’s Netflix debut read to me. Also, in comments on Balloon Juice or Twitter. There was absolutely no need to evoke Kondo in the post above.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
The actual fact is that in early 2017 Trump offered George Conway a high-level position in the Department of Justice, which Conway respectfully declined.
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodingers_cat: I read this about a week ago but never past it on because most around here are sick of reading about trump voters:
You might find it interesting.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
In all men I know except my own husband, no matter how “liberal” or “progressive” they may be, I sense a sneaking admiration for Trump. They know they’re supposed to hate him, but secretly they admire him. Just as they all couldn’t stand Hillary, for no reason they could articulate.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: ah, I haven’t read those. I was trying to relay the social media takes I’d seen. I definitely remember reading some reactions like you describe in publications after her book came out, though.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Meanwhile in really crucial news, I need a teabag translated. My wife picked up a box of German teabags somewhere and I’ve been making my self crazy trying to figure out what this one says: Freiheit ist die Möglichkeit, auf Möglichkeiten zu verzichten.
Something about freedom, opportunity and quitting but I can’t make it all fit together.
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: I will read it, thanks. In my little farm town (over 90% white) that’s pretty liberal, women absolutely loathe T.
I have met some libertarian leaning men who are ambivalent about T but not the women.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I hate phone calls too. We’re voters, small donors, so they don’t need focus groups. They can just ask us :)
There are entrenched interests at play in campaigns, in the business of politics. It benefits them to adopt the attitude of “oh, it has to be horrible and people have to hate it- that’s just how it is”. My sense was the Obama campaign disrupted some of that and that’s partly why he met so much vocal resistance from people who should have been allies. He wasn’t hiring them or their firms.
I mean, obviously it benefits James Carville if we all adopt James Carville’s belief that if you’re “counting on new voters you’re losing”. James Carville makes a very good living in traditional campaign operations. He doesn’t want it to change from 1993. If you hire many more people at 32k that means there are fewer slots for single bigshots at 320k.
Push the money DOWN. Spread it around. Fewer huge paychecks = more people on the ground.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Awe, that’s so sweet, Kay.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: I know at least two men other than my husband who absolutely loathe T. One is my ex-classmate and one is my friend’s husband. Curiously both their families have roots in this country that go back to the colonial times.
OzarkHillbilly
@zhena gogolia:
You don’t know any of the men I know, except maybe one, but he’s an even bigger asshole than I.
tobie
@satby: That’s a great quote from Buttigieg. I really like how he’s able to zoom out and articulate broad principles and values and then zoom in and discuss a specific issue (in this case immigration). I also like the rejection of nostalgia in his campaign. Part of being a transformative President will be in moving people to see transformative policies as benefitting everyone.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: And like you said, not just once every 2 or 4 years.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major:
— Kathryn Schulz (@kathrynschulz) March 18, 2019
Tweet quoted by AL above.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: Yep, I saw that. The poll tax proposal moved out of committee, and I wrote my entirely useless wingnut state reps urging them not to sabotage amendment 4. That won’t accomplish squat, but maybe the ACLU can make headway. I know a lot of folks don’t like the ACLU, but they are critically important in preventing fuckery like this, which is why I support them.
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: I have not, but it sounds fascinating. Thanks for the rec!
ola azul
@Uncle Cosmo:
Here’s the part I remember: The first words you spoke to me, Uncle Cosmo, were presumptuous, rude and insulting. My response was I was concerned about how you were doing with that stick up your ass. Things devolved (for you) from there and apparently my objecting to your acting like an asshole to me has earned me your enmity. OK, seems silly, but whatever.
Since we are in a “noting” mood this fine morn, Uncle Cosmo, I would “note” that I am not bad-tempered unless I am fucked with. Which you did. And which you are presently doing.
I would also “note” that it takes a certain special someone to try to re-air a personal grievance, outta nowhere, cuz you’re all butt-hurt.
And last, I would “note” that it takes a certain kind of insecure human being who feels it necessary to “win” folks to his cause rather than allow them to decide for themselves.
But you do you. Ain’t the first time I seen this behavior.
Kathleen
@rikyrah: Do you have room for one more?
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: having not read the piece, I only see Kondo mentioned as a hook in a tweet, in a manner quite relevant to the article, which defends ill-thought-through disorganized clutter. A quick command-f on the article returns zero results for Kondo.
ETA Not that such articles don’t exist—again, I remember being exasperated by them when her book came out—I’m just saying that it’s not what I was talking about in my comment, and I don’t know that this qualifies either.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Google Translate gives it as:
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodingers_cat: ??????? Haven’t read the article, and feel no need to, but in the tweet, what is objectionable?
rp
I haven’t read Kondo’s book or watched her show, but I don’t get why people care so much. It’s similar to Cole’s point yesterday about gender identity — if it’s not your bag and doesn’t affect you, ignore it! Why people waste psychic energy on this stuff is truly baffling.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@SiubhanDuinne: Thanks but I rarely believe Google Translate. It’s a place to start though, a first draft of a translation.
Part of the problem is that Möglichkeit has many meanings.
satby
@tobie: I just ordered his book, it may not be the autographed ones that sold out at the library, but it’s $10 cheaper on Amazon.
I’ll manage to get it autographed anyway, even if I have to book an appointment at Mayor’s night out??
Kay
Corruption has real, measurable costs. We all will pay for it. We can choose to allow it, but the only people benefiting from it are the specific individuals engaging in it- everyone else pays. If you can’t board an airplane with the assumption that someone from outside the industry has checked the industry work, or hell, even buy stock relying upon regulation then the whole thing starts to fail. The corrupt actors are adding risk. They’re shifting risk TO all of us.
Is this really what the US wants to be? They want to race to the bottom to benefit a small group of people at the top? They want to be a poorly regulated corrupt country where ordinary people can’t rely on guarantees of oversight? Because that changes the risk – if I have 100k to invest for retirement I can’t afford to be lied to about safety of the product the company makes or rely on a corrupt regulator. I don’t have a billion dollars. I can’t handle that risk.
This is Elizabeth Warren’s MARKET argument and she’s right. Little guys NEED regulation or they can’t put their money in these companies.
hueyplong
Kondo has a financial interest in people wasting psychic energy on this stuff.
Don’t understand why others care, but the first rule of Don’t Care Club is that you don’t care what they waste psychic energy on, or why.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: You see a hook, I see derision about Kondo’s methods. Let’s agree to disagree.
Hating on Marie Kondo to caging children after snatching them from their parents, is all on the continuum of bigotry and hate.
How dare a mere foreigner who doesn’t speak English tell us exalted beings that you may be hoarding too much stuff (including books) to how dare these people come to the United States to seek a better life.
ETA: I haven’t read the article. I was just getting tired of the pile-on on Kondo.
Major Major Major Major
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: google translate has become extremely good in just the last few years. There was a good Times piece I think about it a year or so ago. It even half-works for Japanese now. Anyway, that’s an accurate translation.
ola azul
@Betty Cracker:
fwiw, I’ve read the first in the trilogy: Killing Mr. Watson (1990). Enjoyed it muchly, too. Either I never knew or forgot that it was part of a trilogy, so might look up Shadow Country myself for Lost Man’s River (1997), and Bone By Bone (1999).
Part of the time I was reading Killing Mister Watson was onna week-long canoe-camping trip in the Ten Thousand Islands in the late ’90s, adding considerable piquancy.
rp
@hueyplong: But I have no issue with people enjoying her work and Kondo making money from it. It’s the criticisms I find bizarre.
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: It not about just this one article, its that the media pile-on on Kondo was getting to be a bit much.
I will give you one example
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
I don’t know if it’s what they want but it is what 47% vote for.
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: Another gem from MM in a skirt.
tobie
@satby: You better get there early to get that book signed AND to post photos for all us BJ readers who desperately want some vicarious thrills!
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodingers_cat: That’s pretty egregious. Personally, I’m just jealous of her. I wish I could have one room, just one room, that looks like what her whole house probably does. I suppose her critics do too, the difference being they are incapable of accepting their personal foibles where as I laugh at mine.
rikyrah
@Kathleen:
The more, the merrier.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
She got pretty roundly criticized for that, if I recall correctly.
Back to grading papers!
xxxx
With any other administration this would be huge news:
The State Department announced a Monday conference call with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that was restricted to “faith-based media” to discuss international religious freedom ahead of his trip this week to the Mideast.
So now there is a religious test for media access to the government?
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Good. Also, all the humble bragging in articles about Kondo, about I have so many books that I have no room to sit, got old fast.
Nelle
My daughter can be paralyzed with OCD. The Kondo approach has given her a method, a pathway for making decisions in one part of her life. If it’s not about you, pass by, stranger. It’s not a religion, but a method of coping in living in a consumer obsessed culture bombarded with buy, buy, buy. What is this one way-ism that afflicts Americans, from Evangelicals to left wing purists?
NotMax
@satby
Talk about sitting in the catbird seat!
@OzarkHillbilly
Amen. Preach it, brother.
schrodingers_cat
Meanwhile another man dies in immigration detention or should I say American concentration camps?
rikyrah
A political awakening: How Howard University shaped Kamala Harris’ identity
By EVAN HALPER
MAR 19, 2019 | 3:00 AM
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodingers_cat:
A fair number have a strong xenophobic fear of obsolescence.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: these are much better examples. Did we criticize her on the front page here about that or was it in a comment thread? I’m pretty sure I saw it first here.
TerryC
@satby:
Allow me to suggest that it is possible to disagree with Kondo, and even made uncomfortable by her, without racism* or misogyny**. I am an avid fan of visual clutter. It makes me feel good and I seek it out. I also collect things, from slide rules to trees. I once owned 4,000 books.
In my philosophy, it is an utter and absurd waste of time to spend time reflecting on where to put things. Just like spending time deciding which files to delete, and when, has been an absurd waste of time since storage got cheap.
Everything I have is already where I want it, and I didn’t have to spend time thinking about it, okay? Kondo never once that I can find says that it is okay to not want to spend time thinking about deleting or changing things.
To me Kondo represents the tip of the spear of decades of people trying to tell me to be different and more like them. Ugh.
* Got the CO of my Navy ship shitcanned in 1979 for his racism;
** Anita Hill was right, I marched on the Repub convention in Detroit in 1980 in a white three piece suit, was NOW county chapter VP.
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodingers_cat: I prefer gulags.
WereBear
@Dorothy A. Winsor: At least that room in hell will have reading material! LOL.
Betty Cracker
@rp: I think the book thing hit a nerve with people whose personal identity is tied to owning stacks of books. The Kondo derision on that score is based on a complete misunderstanding of her method and a false belief that she decreed a maximum number of books for every person in the world. For some Kondo haters, there’s doubtless some sexism and racism thrown in, though I don’t suspect anyone here of that.
hueyplong
@rp: Sensitive people who see this woman as critical of themselves? I agree that criticism of her seems a little thin-skinned.
She’d have a field day with my house’s excess of books and bookshelves. To each her own. If I ever try to sell it, I’m just going to have to assume that she and her fans are not interested buyers (they’d have plenty of other reasons to reject it anyway).
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
yep
Accurate
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
We had Hoovervilles. Why not label them Trumpervilles?
/half serious
Brickley Paiste
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
That looks like the same event where Beto claimed not to be able to recall his 2K time: https://www.reddit.com/r/Rowing/comments/b2zuy8/beto_doesnt_remember_his_2k_skinny_ergo_confirmed/
Fraudster.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Hmmmmmmmmmmm….. Nah, that would just assign an undeserved to dignity his name.
Brickley Paiste
@rikyrah:
Yeah Kamala. Just makes me happy to read about her journey.
rikyrah
Nunes’ lawsuit predictably backfires, boosts ‘Devin Nunes’ Cow’
03/20/19 08:40 AM
By Steve Benen
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) decided this week that it’d be a good idea to sue Twitter because it’s allowed some of its users to publish content that hurts the congressman’s feelings. Of particular interest, however, is “Devin Nunes’ Cow.”
The Republican congressman’s lawsuit specifically points to “Devin Nunes’ Cow” – a Twitter account that mocks the lawmaker with bovine-related puns – as an example of the sort of brutal mistreatment he’s received on the social-media platform. (The account, for example, has described Nunes as “udder-ly worthless.”)
I’ll confess that I was unfamiliar with the parodic account before yesterday, but I’m well aware of it now – which is one of the reasons Nunes’ litigation is such a bad idea. New York Times noted yesterday:
How rapidly? By last night, the “Devin Nunes’ Cow” account had over 217,000 followers. As I type this morning, it has over 327,000 followers.
In fact, the comedic account, created to mock Devin Nunes, now has nearly as many Twitter followers as Devin Nunes.
opiejeanne
Spring is officially here because the Pileated woodpecker is drumming on our roof right now, just above our bedroom. The effect is both startling and hilarious, this large bird trying to attract a girlfriend. He was drumming away at the stop sign yesterday afternoon.
I only wish he’d wait until 8am because mr opiejeanne is trying to sleep in a little. Well, not only that, I also wish he’d let me photograph him.
Brickley Paiste
@schrodingers_cat:
Some people just don’t understand wit.
That was (obviously) a commentary on “real Mericans” anxieties – not a slam on Kondo.
satby
@tobie: we were early last night too, just not an hour early ?
But the mayor’s night out things are 5 minute appointments to talk with the mayor about whatever, with all the department heads sitting there to handle whatever gets referred to them during that time. Immediacy, accountability, transparency… And most of his executive staff are women, including the CoS I spoke to last week. He walks the talk for sure.
opiejeanne
@rikyrah: The boosters of the Devin’s Cow account thought it would take about three weeks to get as many followers as Nunes has. I’m perverse enough that I’m glad that he’s being overtaken by this parody account.
Miss Bianca
@Karen S.: As a library worker, fan, and auto-didact, I salute your father.
A Ghost To Most
@Brickley Paiste: You fucking toad. Care to retract your lie about me?
jeffreyw
Two birds enter, one bird leaves. Who rules Feedertown?
satby
@TerryC: Ok, so neither racism or misogyny applies to you.
You also are not someone her method is designed for, since her purpose is to assist people who are overwhelmed and unhappy with dysfunctional surroundings.
I think @Nelle: and @Betty Cracker: nail it here.
I hated the knee-jerk hate directed at Hillary Clinton based on lies, and I hate it directed at Marie Kondo also based on lies. I don’t follow her method but I can appreciate her reasoning.
Major Major Major Major
@satby: I didn’t really have a super strong opinion about Kondo until I saw the way people were reacting to the show, especially once the lies started flying around.
I guess I still don’t have a super strong opinion. I like the way she suggests folding shirts. I still dislike all the white-girl woo that surrounds some of her fandom, though it’s not her doing.
bluefoot
@zhena gogolia: Sadly, I have to agree with this. At least of the men I know here in MA. It’s made me think many men have latent misogynistic tendencies, whether they realize it or no. There’s this sense they have (reading between the lines of what they say) that Trump is a “man’s man”…..which really squicks me out and makes me wonder how to prevent the next Trump.
Gravenstone
‘The Stack’ reminds me of my own joked about organizational style. A pile for everything, and everything in its pile.
zhena gogolia
@bluefoot:
It’s very depressing.
TerryC
So, she aims herself only at those already unhappy with their belongings or at the way they fold or organize them. I hadn’t previously known that, thanks. Her followers don’t seem to apply her rules correctly, perhaps that’s where the misunderstandings come from,
I’m not sure that my not knowing that should be characterized as part of a lie about a Kondo, though. Seems to me that if that’s a big part of her philosophy she fails to highlight it well I have been unable to find any lies about the parts of her philosophy that bother me the most. (As a Clinton lover, I find your analogy infuriatingly imprecise and lacking.)
Actually, I see her philosophy being misapplied as a more frequent cause of misunderstanding. I asked a few friends last week about her: All thought she was on a crusade to make people be neater. Whose fault is that misunderstanding? Enemy action or unclear mission and vision?
rikyrah
@zhena gogolia:
Lips pursed.
He’s a phucking disgusting pig.
rikyrah
@TerryC:
I am a packrat, so I’m not her audience. Never will be her audience, but the racism I see thrown towards her is disturbing.
Brickley Paiste
@zhena gogolia:
It’s too far out but right now their views can’t be discounted. It is going to be a close race.
For some reason, I think some on the left are thinking “Ds are sure to win in 2020 – how could they lose against Trump? – so it’s time to nominate a dream candidate who checks all the boxes on the Democrat’s wishlist.
Not so.
42% of Americans think Trump is doing a fine job. Those people will never vote for a Democrat.
So there is about 10% of the electorate that is up for grabs and they are not going to go for a Democratic dream candidate.
SenyorDave
@zhena gogolia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-cRVvvSvE8
I worked in NYC 1980 – 193, part of Trump’s heyday. I found him to a disgusting piece of trash even then. He had the morals of a snake, he pumped himself endlessly, and he just came off as someone who was 100% interested in being a celebrity. In full disclosure my father had worked for an engineering firm that dealt with Fred Trump (wh he met in a meeting), and Fred Trump had tried to stiff the firm. Fortunately they were big enough that they called his bluff when he said go head and sue me. They had a large legal firm send him a threatening pay up or else letter and he backed down.
I think plenty of males loathe Trump, most men I know don’t admire a man who is clearly a corrupt, amoral pig.
satby
@TerryC: you’ve actually spent more time arguing with me about this than I even think about this normally. sdhays @#93 linked to a good article about it, several other people weighed in. My link at #205 pretty much recaps the average state of my house, so I’m not a Kondoite, but the attacks on her have been based on things she doesn’t do (like Hillary) or on things she said that have been misinterpreted, sometimes deliberately (again, like Hillary).
Since I am also not Kondo’s publicist, I think all the above info will have to suffice, because it’s all I got.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: Actually, there is one lovely fabulous moment in perhaps the last or second-to-last episode of her show where she is talking about some topic, but her two daughters are playing at the table she uses to show how to fold things, etc. And the kids are having such fun! They have paint and stickers (or paint prints all up and down their arms and are pretty much a mess). Normal damn kids, who are not acting like this is anything but the way they live and play and Marie obviously is loving them.
Brickley Paiste
@ola azul:
Cosmo is one of self-appointed gate-keeping bullies. He has a couple of aides-de-campy but he’s nothing to bother with, except for an occasional swat to underline his idiocy, which you have nicely done.
GregMulka
BOOKS!
Which means this is somewhat topical.
I picked up Kameron Hurley’s The Light Brigade yesterday. And finished it at 11:30 last night. It’s her best book.
TerryC
@satby: I get it. Thanks. Bottom line for me is that every time I read her stuff it seems like she is picking on me for the “bad habits” I have come to admire about myself after decades of taking harassment.
And then I find it offensive that I keep seeing posts saying that those who don’t like her are racist or misogynist – ignoring even the possibility of myself.
(Many have come around to my “never take the time to delete files” motto, though.)
StringOnAStick
@OzarkHillbilly: I have a business idea. Get an exclusive contract to acquire all remainderd RW crap books and pulp them into making toilet paper, which you can sell based on that origin. Even include as a civic service a way to send Rand novels, what you clean out of deceased rage uncle’s homes, etc just so they don’t continue to circulate via book sales and second hand stores. The marketing materials development would be fun! “Wipe your bum with Ayn!” ” play your own D’Sousaphone”. Endless possibilities here.
Major Major Major Major
@TerryC: I’m usually of the mindset that if lots of people misunderstand you as a writer, it’s your fault, but in this case she’s actually pretty clear and we’re the ones who get weirdly defensive and take it as a crusade and personal attack.
Emma
@TerryC: Neither. Americans always seem to be on a crusade to find a savior. There is a streak in this country of “if I get this one thing perfect, my whole life will be in technicolor.” A couple of decades ago it was Buddhism or yoga. Very few people grasped the concept of complexity and difficulty. These days it’s all about clean eating or whatever is the latest fad. The crusaders piss the rest of us off.
chopper
@Brickley Paiste:
it’s adorable how you keep trying to make that tiny-ass bullshit into beto’s “but her emails!”. you know, instead of fucking the fuck off.
Steve in the ATL
@zhena gogolia:
Wow–you know some really shitty men. I get that vibe from very few men in my circles, even fewer since I started purging trumpists.
StringOnAStick
@ola azul: I will admit to having a lifelong fear of water from near drowning at age 5, now somewhat mitigated by getting a SUP, but seeing a significant sized boat with an intentional hole in it of that size would knit my gut, hard. And being in rough waters with it after it was properly repaired would be a real contest for maintaining steady mind! You sea faring people are a interesting lot. I’m best on frozen water (snow) and rock but I do love the meditative aspect of paddling my SUP around a lake.
Fair Economist
@satby: Kondo also gets flack because she is attacking the cult of stuff accumulation, and all the marketing we get these days has gotten a lot of people devoted to that.
Aleta
@satby: What you wrote. You said it so well.
StringOnAStick
@rp: I have an idea why people get so knotted up over Kondo, other race and sexism. Some people really need their “stuff” for security. My late mom packed their house full of stuff, the UPS truck stopped every day, the catalogs overflowed her reading pile. I’m not sure if the buying endorphin rush meant more than the having sense, but she could never buy enough to fill the void she was shoveling it all unto. That to me is the underlying wisdom of Kondo’s idea: Have what brings you satisfaction and be mindful about it. My mom’s buying was the opposite of mindful. She defined her life by all the stuff she owned; I find it sad but some find my attitude threatening to their sense of self worth and that’s where I thing some of the Kondo hate comes from.
I read her book and there are great organization hints like for clothes, but I’m not going to put the shampoo away every time after thanking it for its service, then get it out again and put it in the shower before each use. That’s excellent training for developing gratitude but not efficient in my life. Maybe the undercurrent of developing gratitude is too much in our often resentment based culture?
Fair Economist
@OzarkHillbilly: In Kondo’s show she says her house isn’t perfect either.
StringOnAStick
@jeffreyw: Is the cardinal in the foreground the referee?
Fair Economist
@StringOnAStick: In addition to the people like your mom, there are a lot of people who make their living selling things to people like your mom, and they are influential in media culture because their advertising pays for most of it. I think that is the ultimate reason for the
Kondo backlash.
I don’t follow the full Kondo system for a variety of reasons but she has inspired me to get rid of a lot of clutter. It has even rubbed off on my packrat husband who recently disposed of some 40 year old unused textbooks. Yay!
tybee
@ola azul: i hate holes in a bote, particularly below the waterline.
and yes, it was a fishing bote that steinbeck and ricketts took. it returned tto fishing after that trip
texasdoc
@Uncle Cosmo: Let’s not go down this road again. I enjoy his posts. I wouldn’t choose to write that way, but he definitely has a unique voice, and I remember who wrote that particular post because of it.
ola azul
@StringOnAStick:
Hadda look up SUP, then realized I know what they are — of a lovely morn, they’re mellow fun! (Was a guy in SF Bay at the yard I’s at before bringing the boat up who had one and lemme try it.) Glad having one is militating/mediating your (understandable) uneasiness with the liquid form a H2Oh.
Funny you mention the spasms of anguish over having a rather large point a ingress for water into a boat. Yeah. Certainly had my moments of wtf did I just do?
But what got me past those terrors was twofold.
One: Reminded self, self you brought boat up from SF Bay to Sitka. Once you leave Golden Gate till you round Cape Flattery, it’sa (can be) exposed shit-kicker of a coast with very few good anchorages (unlike SE Alaska, where there’re lotsa grand places to bite your nails on anchor watch!) and a lotta ports with a bar you gotta cross. From Point Reyes onward when we left, seas was worse than called for (sposed to be 8-footers with a period of 11 seconds, i.e. decent traveling sea, but was 14-footers every 13 seconds; closer the period, more steep the sea, if unfamiliar). And it got progressively (regressively?) worse, building to 21-footers, till we ducked into Mendocino Bay to let it blow over for a coupla days. The sonar tube, as bad a shape as it was in, did not fail. Didn’t even leak then, that developed later. (Course, very lucky I didn’t hit anything to really stress test it.)
Second: Glassed the cavity entirely (in incremental stages; glass gets too hot —-> fire). Then gel-coat and bottom paint, with alla sanding/faring as necessary to preserve the beautiful lines. It’s a helluva sea-boat, and it’ll take a lot more’n I will.
The remedied area is actually stronger stouter, more skookum now than it was in its original lay-up because the glass is thicker now. No leaks. Peace of mind.
Oh, and wanted to mention, cuz not sure if you saw it, but (and hope I spell her/his nym correctly from memory), but sgrAstar dropped in late onna thread in which I put up the Free Solo clip and was purty jazzed to learn you are a fellow climber.
Prolly got grand places and sharp end stories to trade.
Aleta
TV shows and books in Japan about folding techniques and life tricks go way back. The ‘genre’ is treated as fun or interesting in itself and pleasurable to some. There’s a cultural history of folding for utility (for ex.: ways to carry things; envelopes; knots; protecting pottery) while appreciating its form.
Btw, I believe bookstores and book-buying have been much more universal in Japan than in the US (historically + in recent times). Afaik, the comparison is still true, along with higher spending on books per capita, (Of course manga reading is huge there too since the 80s and part of 70s.) The bookstores in Tokyo, etc. are amazing and usually packed after work hours. I don’t believe Kondo has animosity to books.
Merging the intention of that earlier kind of Japanese show with the ‘household in crisis’ idea, and some reality show-hoarders overtone for popularity, is unfortunate for Kondo’s ideas here I think. (Though I know she adopted that approach in Japan.) I keep thinking the attacks must be unexpected and hard on her.
Aleta
@ola azul: Brave. Can see why you love that boat though. One of my kayaks had bubbles in the gelcoat of the fiberglass when I bought it (new but discounted, and at the time the maker said he’d repair it if I ever brought it to NovaScotia, but then he forgot he’d said that). After a year or two of light use (= seldom) they opened into pinpricks and then started to leak (into sealed storage compartment). I haven’t been able to find any one to repair it. It’s not whitewater-type (though it’s a canoe-type shape, but with a rudder; very lightweight) but that’s probably the community where I need to look.
oldgold
Apparently, you folks do not watch late night TV.
The answer to your boat problems is here!
TerryC
@StringOnAStick: But, but, okay, for one example: I own an old, 1870 farmhouse with outbuildings full of cool stuff. Last year I ran across a portable radio/generator which I know from his stories was with the former owner when he was dropped as a German speaker behind Russian lines at the end of WWII.
You maybe wouldn’t, but I do, feel some responsibility for this item and its future. As well, I love it because when I see it I think of his stories and what a strange guy he was, etc.
Now, multiply this by hundreds if not thousands of things out there. When do I ever find the time to even look through them all much less sort them out? And it’s not just WWII, it’s bottles from an old pharmacy that was here in about 1910, and it’s architectural drawings and doorplayes and sconces from the Eberwhite Subdivision in Ann Arbor, because the owner here at the time did that development.
I also have a very busy life without all of this stuff. None of it bothers me and I feel satisfied that I am at least not destoying it, I often protect it in plastic. Why should I spend time organizing it and deciding what to throw away and stuff?
Aleta
@oldgold: “The answer to your boat problems is here!”
But of course! (How could I forget the ancient custom of duct tape to patch holes in carbodies?)
Aleta
@TerryC: Protecting it in its place is good, a worthy act, admirable.
ola azul
@Aleta:
Made a few assumptions, hopefully not too far off (and hopefully not unwelcome). One was, since whomever promised repair then conveniently forgot it was in Nova Scotia, figgered you were somewheres around Maine. Left msg. at Portland Paddle, but:
In Kittery, ME (wherever that is), there’sa outfit callt Kittery Trading Post, and tho I cannot speak with authority about his abilities, there’sa guy inna “Specialty Dept.” named John. Seemed like a good shit. He repairs fiberglass yaks.
The lowdown:
website for topview reference: kayakservice.com
his email: [email protected]
John’s direct line/phone: (207) 337-3346
Trading Post #: (207) 439-2700
John suggested that you take pics of problems areas and send to him at email above as an intro, then you two can schedz a time to yak ’bout yer yak.
As I say, do not mean to offend and am hoping if this isn’t useful, you will forgive it.
StringOnAStick
@TerryC: Well, there’s always more than one way to look at an idea, no? I love historic stuff like that and I’m certainly no say in you should toss it. Everyone finds their own comfort level.
After moving my husband’s father and brother, the dealing with 35 years of anything that broke being tossed in a cabinet then packed up to move it yet again was, uh, instructive. Now both have passed, one of old age and the other far too young, leaving his broken hearted widow with a house full of mostly just junk, but junk that reminds her of their too brief time together.
My dad is dealing with, or actually not dealing with, a house so packed with the stuff my mom acquired that it’s a trip hazard. This includes 5 deep freezers packed with literally thousands of dollars spent on Omaha Steaks, Schwann’d, etc because she lived to buy and in her diminished mental state she was an easy target for unscrupulous sales people. That’s where her life long need to own and spend as !much as possible led her, and has left my dad in a precarious financial state, I’m interested in practicing balance now in the hopes it leads to balance with late age, her example taught me that.
jeffreyw
@StringOnAStick: She’s the boss!
ola azul
@oldgold: @Aleta:
“Flex-Seal! Obvs.! [slaps head in disbelief] Why didn’t I think a that?”
First commercial fishboat I had was an older classic wooden salmon troller, 38 feet, built in ’46.
The slap-dash quick fix for folks, specially wooden boat owners, who didn’t wanna go chasing rot and do it right was embodied in the morbid saying: “Splash Zone and paint, make it what it ain’t!”
That or bear-shit (blacktar) and lead patches.
(Ugh! Gimme the shivers just thinking onnit.)
StringOnAStick
@ola azul: we’ll have to talk climbing sometime. I’m stuck on a Kindle now since I’m recovering and it is tedious typing! My husband and I gave up ice climbing over a decade ago because kicking into ice was finally too much for my now newly replaced knee. Most of my rock history is here in Colorado, some in CA, OR, WA and BC. We’re both 60 now and getting back in after some injuries required time off; the youngsters out there act like we’re some kind of freaking miracle!
StringOnAStick
@jeffreyw: Cardinals are bossy birds I’ve been told. We never see them here in Colorado. Too bad, so pfetty!
Aleta
@ola azul: Just saw this. Thank you very much !!
Really appreciate that; so kind of you.