Here's video of Trump telling reporters today that "innocent children" are "coming home and they're saying, 'mom, I want to vape!'" pic.twitter.com/XwSrYboavZ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 11, 2019
Mandatory disclaimer: I don’t vape, and I certainly wouldn’t encourage anyone to start vaping. But whenever the Repubs start ginning up a new WON’T SOMEBODY THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN!!! scare, I assume it’s an electioneering tactic…
I feel like sending kids onto the black market to buy bootleg vape cut with fentanyl or whatever might backfire
— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) September 11, 2019
Counting down the days until the THC angle is confirmed by the FDA and then there’s a misguided crackdown against states where weed is legal https://t.co/igOQ06V0w7
— Brandon Wall (@Walldo) September 11, 2019
The replies to Tolentino’s tweet are, so far, astonishingly sensible:
yeah, I assume some lying, but also it seems to me the places where shady nicotine vapes are potentially very harmful (the heating coil, the substances in the liquid) are just clearly going to get so much worse with a ban
— Jia Tolentino (@jiatolentino) September 11, 2019
I just quit last week after vaping for the last 10 years (pack/day before that). It helped me quit, definitely. But after teaching high school for a couple of years I can say that legitimately a shitload of young people now consume incredible amounts of nicotine on a daily basis.
— Tetsuo Sakurai fanpage / Mac DeMarco hate page (@ShigeoSekito) September 11, 2019
LMAO you built this 8chan https://t.co/3WmBanAJcM
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) September 11, 2019
INCELEBRATION1469: 'in the summer & fall of 2016 I was producing 350 Killary memes a week. But my efforts are rewarded as my chosen God Emperor triggers the libs and makes america great again.
Now to take a big draw off this gamer girl bathwater flavored e-cig and check twi-' https://t.co/3WmBanAJcM
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) September 11, 2019
Is Vaping the new excuse why he won't touch gun control?
— Stealthgirl (@stealthgirl21) September 11, 2019
He’s going to vape onstage then win the Libertarian nomination https://t.co/EX0VvXPtZ2
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) September 11, 2019
Baud
This is action I might consider supporting if it were done by an administration I had confidence in.
Steeplejack
“Nobody knows much about this, but we’ve got to do something.”
God, what a maroon. (Trump, if not obvious.)
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack: How’s the mom today? How’s the greyhound?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
ah yes, I remember coming home from school and telling my mom, “Mom! I wanna get high” then Nancy Reagan came and saved us from ourselves. This is a man with much parenting experience of his five children, one just about starting high school, I think, and another not long out of college
can’t believe you didn’t include one about why Melanie is so interested in our vaping tragedies, even as I usually think the youngers should be left out of it.
ETA : Melanie cares about vaping.
Argiope
@Baud: Yeah, it’s clear they are going to utterly screw up what might otherwise become a reasonable public health policy by being themselves. Kinda wish they would just wait, even knowing how many of our yoot are affected and think vaping is safe. Shit Midas is going to mess this up, no doubt about it.
Elizabelle
I don’t think there is anything great about vaping. The flavors are clearly intended to get kids hooked.
It seems to be just another potentially habitual, addicting behavior that is a cash cow for companies that sell the products. It has very little social benefit — unless is it useful in getting current cigarette smokers to quit? That is a social good.
Millard Filmore
This all started with several deaths related to vaping. It has been traced to here:
https://www.leafly.com/news/health/vape-pen-lung-disease-vitamin-e-oil-explained
“Amid Vape Pen Lung Disease Deaths: What Exactly Is Vitamin E Oil?”
Baud
@Elizabelle:
I think it was initially sold as being a safe alternative to traditional cigarettes.
Brachiator
Soon, kids will be able to exchange a vape pen for a hand gun.
JPL
That there were deaths due to vaping is so sad, but to say we can’t prevent children from being mowed down with military type of guns is criminal.
Gvg
Uh i heard about this from responsible authorities last week who said banning non menthol or regular cigarettes decades ago had helped reduce kids taking up cigarettes back when. This is just the same thing. Also it is aimed at big tobacco companies….who are not to be trusted and who have been getting into this per other news reports.
FelonyGovt
This from an administration that doesn’t give a shit about kids getting gunned down at school and thinks the solution is to arm their teachers.
JPL
@Brachiator: the only thing illegal will be the vape pen .
SFAW
One way to mind-fuck the Moron-in-Chief and his followers (OK, I realize using the word “mind” is inappropriate) would be for some well-known Dem — Hillary, maybe? — to do a PSA saying “Studies have shown that vaping leads young people to vote Republican, so we agree with [Shitgibbon] that it needs to be banned.”
Rethug heads be a-splodin’ in response.
Gvg
@Elizabelle: it was originolly solely about help quitting. The it became trendy and new users started. Because there were no regulations. Pretty much need to say its legally like tobacco.
Baud
What if they made a vape pen in the shape of a gun? We’d be helpless.
Elizabelle
@Gvg: I am seeing signs up “No smoking or vaping.” In Richmond VA.
I continue my fascination with watching the old Perry Mason series on Amazon Prime. Just finished The Case of the Howling Dog (and, sadly, it involved a bad outcome for a dog) …
Anyway, I am amazed that show was not called Philip Morris Presents Perry Mason. Every other scene not in a courtroom has someone lighting up or standing around smoking. Smoking accessories have figured in the plots.
Were the other late 50s shows that blatant?
mad citizen
I’m not watching the video but I assume the innocent coming to him also said “Sir”
Cacti
Only a good guy with a vaping pen can stop a bad guy with a vaping pen.
Or something.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
There was a show called My Little Margie where, IIRC, they initially had Margie be a sophisticated bad ass woman who smoked and then they decided to change her character to a good girl who didn’t.
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
I’m in a bit of a trough. I think that physically my mother is improving—although slowly, as you would expect. Mentally, her mood goes back and forth, and not just because of the injury and recovery. To be honest, she has had a somewhat negative, morose attitude for a long time, and that is inflaming, or being inflamed by, the post-injury situation. To oversimplify it, I think she is pissed about being old and infirm but not willing to do anything to ameliorate things. A stuck place. Which increases the frustration (and not just for her!).
I have been trying to be supportive—sometimes with teeth clenched—and not let it infect me. Not much more to say about it right now.
As for Woody the greyhound, he is doing all right. Sometimes sleeps on the bed, sometimes not. I stayed up way too late last night multitasking with TV and Internet, and he came and dozed on the loveseat next to the couch to demonstrate solidarity. When I finally went to bed I invited him on there, but he took up a position on his dog bed in the narrow gap between the bed and the wall. A cozy nest, and in the same room. Pretty good sign.
I have been changing up his food, wet and dry, to see what he likes and what gets him to eat more. His appetite is good, just not ravenous 24/7, which is my usual experience with dogs.
My brother gets back Monday night, so I’m running out the clock. Things are going pretty well, all things considered. The big thing is that my mom is not at death’s door, which is what I thought when I first arrived.
I’ve had some good meals with my old friend who lives here. We still have to hit Penn’s Thai and Metro Pizza, maybe one more Mexican place, but we’ve still got time.
Baud
@Steeplejack:
My mother was like that.
EAlbert
First the disclsimer: I have never smoked anything. That being said, I was in a conservation with a smoker so noted that one problem with gaping is that unlike cigarettes, there is no portion control with vaping. With cigarettes, you are aware of each cigarette you are smoking. The woman I was talking with noted that she had been watching a movie and without realizing it she had inhaled the equivalent of an entire pack (in just 2 to 3 hours). I wonder how many people who are gaping are actually “smoking” more than they had been when they were smoking cigarettes.
japa21
When vaping is outlawed, only outlaws will vape.
MomSense
My middle son finally quit vaping last week. I’m so relieved.
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack: I had never heard of a pan roast, and it is not what it sounds like.
LA Times on Las Vegas cuisine: The biggest draw at Vegas oyster bars? It’s not the oysters. It’s the pan roasts
Harrah’s Las Vegas pan roasts are especially recommended, and just $18, which seems a bargain.
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
Smoking was all over the TV shows in the ’50s and into the ’60s—especially dramas, for some reason. Lending gravitas?
My daily dose of Perry Mason, either in the morning or the evening (MeTV), helps me get through the Trump nightmare. I know the show is basically ridiculous, but the bad guys always get their just deserts. So satisfying in these times.
And Perry is a rock. He’s never perturbed or flustered. Yesterday a couple of shady execs were ranting at him about some complicated buyout deal where they were trying to screw Mason’s client.
“And don’t try any of your legal shenanigans, Mason. We’ll make trouble. Big trouble!”
Mason: “Not by talking about it.” Boom. Love that man.
Ladyraxterinok
@Elizabelle: Smoking was on every page in novels, in every scene in TV and movies.
It was just a given background. I didn’t notice it growing up, but now watching or reading–the smoking just hits you in the face.
Nearly every other tv ad was for cigarettes. Ads for them every3here in magazines.
Even little kids knew the jingles—LSMFT/Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco.
And the kid calling through the hotel ‘Phillip Morris! Call for Phillip Morris!’
And the pack for Camels with a picture of a camel on the side. There was some joke about that picture that my older boy cousins whispered about.
hells littlest angel
Everyone knows that what the kids are really saying is, “Mom, I want to vape, bitch.”
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack: WRT your mom’s mood: my sympathies. She’s probably glad to have an audience there, not suffering alone.
We take so much for granted that age starts removing. A friend has a terrible tremor and can no longer handwrite much of anything; has a steampunk-looking keyboard with a very heavy touch — like for an old and stubborn typewriter — to try to combat the tremor’s effect. So much adapting one has to start doing …
Mary G
Who vapes non-tobacco liquids other than marijuana users? Giving tobacco companies an exception makes this useless. I will say that when I first got my medical marijuana license, I bought vapes because my lungs are weak and wouldn’t tolerate smoking. The sales person assured me that there would only be water vapor which would be completely harmless. This wasn’t true – I could tolerate the vape, but just barely. So i changed to capsules/edibles.
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack: I don’t find the show ridiculous at all (yet), but do kind of wonder if Perry is running a nonprofit. In a book I just read, Della was taking him to task on all the non-compensated expenses. She’s not wrong.
The Moar You Know
@Baud: Not I. I am not a bothsiderist but both Republicans and Democrats have appalling records when it comes to dealing, in any way, with any recreational drugs. I don’t want the federal government involved in this. They will lie, they will pay millions for falsified ‘scientific’ data to support draconian laws, and they will throw a crapload of people in jail. Happens every time.
Jay
Steeplejack
@Baud:
My condolences. It’s frustrating. My mother was always a human dynamo, and it kills her—oops, phrasing!—that she just doesn’t have the juice any more. And she resists adapting to the status quo, like that would be admitting defeat. Grr.
Ladyraxterinok
@Baud: I remember really hating that show as a kid. All the characters were just soooo sweet. Even as a 10yo or so I felt it.
chopper
@mad citizen:
this big burly guy who never cried in his life, even when he was born, had tears rolling down his cheeks. said “sir, only you can take away my kid’s strawberry flavored e-juice”
Elizabelle
@Ladyraxterinok: Would that, in a while, viewers think all of our guns and violence and mass shootings are also something from an earlier era.
schrodingers_cat
OT: God can I just say how much I love you all, dear BJ commentariat. I know that we have had our differences, especially over the last 2.5 years. But after wading into the sewer that is the Indian political Twitter, I have come to realize your true worth.
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
Huh, interesting. I’ll add it to the file. Thanks.
Elizabelle
@Ladyraxterinok: Never saw it; just heard of the name. What a surprise that “My Little Margie” is not heavy on the reruns, hmm?
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: Has she shared her old recipes with you, yet?
Mike in NC
@Elizabelle: Ever watch the old “Twilight Zone” show with Rod Serling? He smoked in virtually every episode.
Steeplejack
@Ladyraxterinok:
Smoking was everywhere in real life, too. I remember that in 1964, when I was 12, I was in the hospital after an accident that required me to have a tracheotomy. I was breathing through a tube in my throat. One morning the doctor came in with a gaggle of interns on rounds, and he was puffing on a pipe. I started to wheeze, and my mother (a former nurse), who happened to be visiting, went after him like a mama grizzly. People were just clueless about smoking.
ETA: I remember it so clearly partly because I remember thinking, “I’m going to see my [previously mild-mannered] mother kill a man.” LOL.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
मोदी भगवान हैं, बिल्ली
FelonyGovt
@schrodingers_cat:Although I’m not a frequent commenter, can I say “back at you”. I have learned so much from your posts and your point of view, particularly about immigrants and immigration, is so valuable.
Ladyraxterinok
@Elizabelle: IIRC there are a few bits on youtube.
Elizabelle
We are about to get a great thunderstorm. Yea.
LA Times: A Midcentury Modern homeless shelter rises in an abandoned Hollywood library
Creative reuse of the Gardner Public Library. Now turned into a “bridge shelter” with 30 beds, bathrooms, kitchen, living areas for women. Looks rather like a hostel.
Curbed Los Angeles has some better photos of the facility, and some good reader comments (along with some trolls, of course).
ixnay
@schrodingers_cat: Love you back, s_c. And likewise to the rest of the jackaltariat. Been a rough day (my mom died on 9/11/2002 – amazingly easy to get a short notice flight that day) but you all provide perspective and some laughs, and I know you have my back.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Elizabelle: you can go on youtube and see cigarettes being sold by Rob and Laura Petrie, Jed Clampett and Granny, I think the Honeymooners and… Fred Flinstone and Barney Rubble.
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
You will find that Perry has two kinds of clients: the pro bono ones and the ones where some rich guy flings a blank check at him and yells, “I don’t care what it costs, Mason—I want you to get my [daughter | wife | self] cleared!”
And he does a nice sideline in corporate retainers, which is weird, because of course he’s famous as a criminal lawyer. Last week he told Wendell Corey (amoral Koch-level oil bastard, “The Case of the Unwelcome Well”) to fuck right off with his $50,000 annual retainer (1966 dollars, about $300,000 now) because he did something Perry didn’t like.
Jay
Elizabelle
@Mike in NC: And Rod Serling died at age 50, after multiple heart attacks.
William Hopper (Paul Drake) died at age 55, stroke followed by pneumonia. William Talman (Hamilton Burger), dead at 53, lung cancer that metastacized. Talman did some anti-smoking public service announcements.
Steeplejack
@Jay:
It is part of the militarization of every “enforcement” agency in goverment. It’s a disease.
When I was a kid on the Texas border in the mid-’60s, the Border Patrol was more like park rangers. I’m sure they had their dark side, but nothing like the storm troopers today.
And, yeah, that was 50 years ago. Jeez, I’m old.
Another Scott
ICYMI, Reuters
Sotomayor’s dissent on the immigration stay by the SCOTUS today:
(tl;dr – This SCOTUS thinks rules and norms are for little people – let Donnie do what he likes and lump it.)
Ginsburg joined her.
The order doesn’t say who voted for the stay, but it’s easy to have suspicions.
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack: Right. His clients are sending him large denomination bills (no longer in circulation) via special delivery, etc. Della is quite the banker.
They keep him in convertibles.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle: Yeah, the trolls want to move the homeless out to the desert(maybe Owens Valley).
namekarB
Well I am puzzled. I use a vape to ingest herbs (polite talk for MJ). I have never vaped oils or other refined substances. So is this another throw the baby out with the bath water knee jerk reaction and when all vaporizers are confiscated I will have to go back to bows and arrows. Oh wait, I think I just got mixed up with the 2nd Amendment arguments. I think I’ll go have another toke and sort this out.
Jay
@Elizabelle:
So did some of the most famous Marlboro Men,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlboro_Man
JoyceH
I have to say that this current crusade against vaping makes me mad – no, the flavors are not because of the kids. I’m 66 and trying to quit smoking, and I want the flavors. So do most adult vapers. If you’re going to entirely ban something to keep kids from getting it, don’t forget to ban alcohol and porn. Let’s go ahead and live in a world that is entirely sanitized of everything not suitable for children. Or, here’s an idea, how about going after the vendors who are selling to kids, which is already against the law?
Ladyraxterinok
@Steeplejack: My ex, graduated from college in 63, had a very nervous TA as a freshman. The poor guy put down his cigarette to write an equation on the board. When he turned around, not looking, he picked up the chalk and tried to smoke it.
One of my profs in grad school smoked constantly while lecturing.
I remember the intense anti-smoking campaign that was waged that finally brought it to a stop. A friend, who had a son the age of my son, smoked constantly. She told me she decided to stop when her son (6 or 7) begged her not to die.
The anti-smoking campaign was brutal and graphic–with pictures of people lying wasted in hospital beds about to die.
As I recall, the tobacco companies fought hard, but they had been shown–after a long, hard battle to get the info into public record–that they had KNOWN early on that cigarettes were addictive and caused cancer. And they did nothing—they just didn’t care.
So many deaths from lung cancer–no one paid any attn to what the companies wanted. And ads and smoking stopped.
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
The 1950s were that blatant. Lots of people smoked, and it was socially acceptable to smoke anywhere. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when restaurants started having separate smoking and non-smoking sections.
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
Some she has shared, and I have snagged some of her old cookbooks. I think there are some recipes where I am going to have to rely on my memory of her version for guidance as I triangulate among various Internet recipes.
Yesterday I had lunch with my old friend at the (lavish) buffet at her local casino (like your neighborhood pub or bar and grill in a normal city), and as we were looking at the desserts she said, Don’t bother with the chocolate cream pie, it won’t be anywhere near your mother’s. We had a bit of a discussion about that, and it reminded me that that is one recipe I might need to talk to my mom about. There are some recipes where alchemy is involved that can’t be captured on the page.
Elizabelle
@Roger Moore: I was up in NYC the day smoking was banned in bars, too. The anti-Bloomberg napkin art was something to behold.
I remember the tobacco industry put out drink napkins printed with a photo and slogan along lines of “can’t we all just get along?”
No. Not in my lungs.
khead
@Steeplejack:
I always get a chuckle out the mayor smoking in the hospital in Jaws. Also, Midnight Run has to be one of the smoking-est movies ever. DeNiro smokes EVERYwhere. Planes, trains, cars, diners, police stations….
Re: Vaping. See popcorn lung.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I remember John Wayne and Yul Brynner doing anti-smoking ads. I remembered Wayne’s as being more frank about his own cancer than youtube has.
Of course, they’re running some pretty brutal ads these days, too. Much more graphic than they had in the 70s and 80s
ETA: just looking at the stills on those current videos gives me something to think about when I still get that occasional craving, two months shy of the 25th anniversary of my last cigarette
Jay
@namekarB:
While it does not address the vaping deaths issues,
( most likely off brand cheap chemical concoctions sold on Amazon and EBay, containing god knows what),
It’s a “good move”, equvalent of banning candy cigarettes and flavoured cigars,
The fruit flavours have nicotine, ( large amounts) and other stuff, but it’s hidden behind cherry pie, bubble gum, dark chocolate, etc.
Here, you have to be 21 to buy smokes, ( or vape), but there’s a crapload of kids out there filling the sky with clouds.
laura
@Ladyraxterinok: when I was a yoot, pushing shopping carts and stacking groceries, I was bagging up an older customers lucky strikes and she told me LSMFT stood for let’s screw, my finger’s tired. It made a lasting impression on a foolish young virgin, that I remember it as if it were yesterday…..
Simpler times.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
Smoking was encouraged back in the 50s. And into the 60s. The ads would never say it was safe, but would use every euphemism for that they could possible fit into a commercial. Always tough guys, the Marlboro man on his horse, every PI in the movies smoked. It was just accepted that smoking was a normal every day, every place, thing to do.
frosty
@schrodingers_cat: Thank you on behalf of all us jackals from an occasional commenter. And may I add that your voice is one of many I look forward to.
Redshift
@Mary G:
My younger coworkers, when they went through a vaping phase, mostly used (or mixed their own) flavors like breakfast cereal and stuff. They didn’t do nicotine or THC, at least not during work hours.
It all seemed weird but harmless to me.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: मोदी येशू है, भागवत भगवान है |
Translation for those who want to follow along
Baud: Modi is God, cat
Me: Modi is Jesus, Bhagwat is God
Bhagwat is Mohan Bhagwat, the head of the RSS.
mrmoshpotato
I don’t understand why all Republicans don’t start smoking crack. It would be a throwback to their St. Ronnie, and apparently their orange emperor is smoking it.
When is this going to morph into doctors asking new mothers if they want their babies to start lighting up? What’s the over/under on that bullshit Dumpian lie?
kindness
I’ve smoked weed & weed concentrates for almost 50 years now. (Yea, Boomer). Not all day long like cigarettes but enough. Putting any smoke in your lungs is bad for you. Any. About 10 years ago I started using vape pens because they were so damned convenient. Most days I’d do a hit or two after work and that would be it. No Cheech & Chong scenes any more, sorry. Over the summer I went to two music festivals two weeks in a row up in the Sierras. Between all the extra smoking I did and all the dust & kicked up dirt I breathed, I came down with a really bad lung infection. This was right when people started reporting these symptoms. Everything I buy I buy retail at reputable stores (Harborside Oakland is my fav) so I don’t have any black market experience. But no one says what they use in the THC/CBD vapes to make them a solution. I’ve heard it’s glycerin which if eaten isn’t bad. I don’t know what the effects on your lungs are though and no one is saying. None the less, I ditched the vape pens after the lung scare and my lungs are much better. Now it’s bhong hits and dabs. I know it still isn’t good for my lungs. I am still a child of the 70’s though. A trade off. I don’t really like eating the stuff because it’s much harder to manage the dosage. That’s what I should do though. But when I eat it I often find I’m still buzzed the next morning when I wake up. I can’t do that. Too much time spent at a computer all day where what I input has to be right. And honestly I’m not a kid anymore. I enjoy being straight, I don’t have to be high. But I do enjoy the buzz after work. I like it all. Still.
Elizabelle
@Ruckus: Kept the weight off, too.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Congratulations on quitting.
European cigarette packages have photos of diseased organs, amputations, impotent men, babies with a cigarette in their mouths, tableaus with people standing around a grave or hospital bed. But smokers continue to puff right past. (The Spanish, something fierce.) I would see older women on the metro with little bits of lace at their throats, to cover up the hole from their tracheostomy.
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: I know what you mean. My mother’s recipes are like that and she doesn’t like to write down exact measurements, her recipes are a guideline not step by step instructions.
Jeffro
@hells littlest angel: I’m dyin’ here…
I wonder if, without the slightest trace of irony, the administration will propose a vape buyback program?
Roger Moore
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
A lot of people seem to think that homelessness is limited to crazy street people living on skid row. The modern face of homelessness is families living out of their cars because the parents’ two jobs still don’t earn enough to pay the rent.
Steeplejack
@laura:
Bit of an overshare there by the old dear. Sort of a Ruby Romaine thing.
Fair Economist
@schrodingers_cat: Is Indian political Twitter as botted up as ours? I’m thinking it’s probably pretty bad that way.
Jeffro
Btw the vape stuff is EXPENSIVE (but then again so are cigarettes). Even here in VA, I heard they were over $6/pack and someone said they were $15/pack or more up in NYC. That’s nuts.
Ruckus
@Steeplejack:
I’m probably not as old as your mom but I can tell you that some days getting old is a major pain in the many places that might be hurting on any particular day. The last two weeks for me has been a stone bitch. Things going wrong, an ambulance ride, my first, much time in an MRI, and most of it revolving around getting older stuff. Two weeks ago today I was worried that I’d be able to eat, see, or live without assistance. Today was like the day before that.
Getting older for most people means things stop working as intended. Some of those things seem to be important, or at the very least uncomfortable when they don’t work properly. Was just talking to one of my neighbors in the senior apt building I live in and he and I have the same attitude, take what comes, you can’t really do shit about it other than make it worse by being an ass about aging. You can make the process not quite as difficult with a good attitude. But it is going to happen to everyone at some point.
schrodingers_cat
@Fair Economist: Its worse than our Twitter. BJP’s IT cell uses Twitter to intimidate journalists and voices with a reach that are even mildly critical of Modi.
Fake accounts, bots, bhakts they all pile on, make death threats, use eliminationist rhetoric.
Jay
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
I’m so happy that most people no longer expect to be allowed to smoke in public places. OTOH, not everyone gets it. I work at a cancer hospital, and we have prominent signs all over the place saying that smoking is forbidden everywhere on our campus, and I still see the occasional person who thinks they should still be allowed to light up. Nothing tells me how addictive nicotine is more than seeing people visiting cancer patients who can’t obey the signs telling them to stop smoking.
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
Yeah, or there’s one crucial detail that makes all the difference but somehow didn’t make it into the recipe, because “everybody knows that.” “Yeah? Nobody under 70, Mom!”
Elizabelle
@Roger Moore: And blocks of investors grabbing up housing. Becomes financial instruments, more than housing.
Jay
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
सबसे खराब ट्रिनिटी कभी
ETA: that may not translate sensibly.
Elizabelle
@Roger Moore: I think cigarettes is so much the template for guns, although guns needs insurance and background checks and so much just removing from society, too.
We need to break the backbone of the GOP and minority control. It’s been, literally, deadly. In so many ways.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
We got started the other night with “The Case of the Restless Redhead.” (Whitney Blake of Hazel.) We both were amused and delighted at the first 15 minutes or so. Then Perry went into an INCREDIBLY long and boring scene about a gun and whether it was the same gun that killed the guy, and we both were snoring through the rest of the episode.
CliosFanBoy
@Baud: mine is a bit like that. with dementia. (sigh)
Anybody else watching “Carnival Row”> Have watched 5 episodes so far and liking it a lot.
Jay
@Ruckus:
Getting old ain’t for the faint of heart.
I have a trashed back. 30 years ago, the tales of how I managed to aggravate it again were epic, mountains, forests, raging rivers,
Now it’s I put on socks,…..
Belafon
John as a neighbor: https://twitter.com/socialiststeve6/status/1171919390847229952
catclub
@Elizabelle:
I recently boarded a plane, on the trip between the airport and the airplane (the jetbridge? tunnel), the person in front of me took to his vape pen. It seems like he had found a loophole in the no smoking/no vaping zones.
Gin & Tonic
@Steeplejack: Lotus of Siam?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: To make it into an evil trinity you have to add Savarkar or if you want to restrict it to RSS members then, Golwalkar, Bhagwat and Modi.
Steeplejack
@Ruckus:
It has been a bit of a reminder for me. My mother is 89, but I’m 67 myself, and I realize that, depending on the breaks, I’m not that far out of the zone myself.
Plus, as my friend and I were discussing yesterday, aging/health decline typically isn’t a smooth, predictable downward path. It’s more like a series of plateaus with (sometimes abrupt) drops to the next level down. We all know people who age a lot in a short period of time, also people who seem to be ageless, at least for a while.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
I’ve had days that my tremor interferes with typing. But it’s mostly controlled enough that I can touch type. OK I can with a bit/lot of correcting. Not sure if that’s the tremor or the sometimes difficulty having the muscle control that I used to have. Not every day is bad, not every day is good.
I haven’t tried it but there are programs to use dictation rather than typing. Apple comes with one built in, called strangely enough, Dictation. I keep hitting the key strokes that bring it up. It does seem weird to use it or Siri even. That may just be me. And I’m not saying no to my self out of hand, I may decide I need it.
Jeffro
Ed Randell has a neato op-ed up in the Post: “I like Elizabeth Warren. Too bad she’s a hypocrite”
Ed goes on to talk about how EW transferred big-donor $$$ from her Senate campaign to her presidential campaign, she shouldn’t be calling Biden (Ed’s buddy) out for accepting big donations, yadda yadda.
At least at the end he tells her if she’s the nominee he’ll vote for her. Thanks Ed – that’s really all we wanted to hear from you!
Baud
@Jeffro:
I don’t think she ever calls out anybody by name.
Ladyraxterinok
My mom, b 1913, started smoking when she was in college. It’s what grownup, modern women did then.
Both she and my dad smoked all the time we were growing up. I’ll never forget car trips with a window cracked to let out the smoke. Neither I nor my brothers ever wanted to smoke.
Mom was early fascinated with space and followed all the preparation for the moon trip.
She said she so admired the dedication and discipline of the astronauts that she decided she would discipline herself too—to quit smoking. And so she did…..for herself and for her new—and first–grandchild, my son!
Cacti
@Roger Moore:
But pretending the first group is less of a problem than it actually is, tends to be a shortcoming of homeless advocates. More affordable housing isn’t a silver bullet solution that’s going to fix the biggest problem for long term homeless with primary substance abuse and/or mental disorders.
Elizabelle
@khead: Popcorn lung. Never heard of that.
From American Lung Association (lung.org!):
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Jeez, that’s literally the first episode (1957). Sorry it didn’t satisfy your speeded-up 21st-century sensibilities. LOL. The first season is a little clunky. Skip ahead to season 2 or 3. It’s definitely not a show where you have to worry about “story arcs.”
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: I liked the Klan hood myself. And driving in it.
ETA: Whitney Blake turns out to be Meredith Baxter (Birney’s) mother. Bridget Loves Bernie. You can see the resemblance.
frosty
@Steeplejack:
This was exactly how my mother’s vascular dementia and my father’s Parkinson’s went. A drop, medical help, acclimating to it, then another drop. They moved to a continuing care facility with the Parkinson’s diagnosis and moved from a duplex, to a 2BR apartment, and then (mom only) a studio. So living arrangements mirrored the plateau effect too.
Don’t know how or where I’m going to end up. Glad I’m not smoking (anything) though.
mrmoshpotato
@Steeplejack:
Good idea. *plays Ozzy*
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
I know it was the first episode — we started at the beginning! We tried to watch Late Night with Emma Thompson, but it was too edgy for my husband, so we started on Perry Mason. He got all excited seeing Paul Drake perch on the edge of the desk (did that man ever sit in a chair?), but it went downhill from there.
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle:
Yes, the first few moments were the best, when she goes into the Villa España and the guy in the hood is watching her from the car.
BTW, they had apartment complexes that supplied you with embroidered linens?
ETA: Yes, I used to know that about Whitney Blake, but I forgot.
Ladyraxterinok
@Ruckus: When I was teaching German in adult ed in the 80s, smoking was still very common. One standard conversational exchange involved sharing cigarettes and asking for a light or match. The German for ‘Do you have a light?’ was ‘Haben Sie Feuer?’ (Literally ‘Do you have fire?’) German can be hysterically funny at times.
Steeplejack
@Gin & Tonic:
I’ve been to Lotus of Siam (as has my local friend). Penn’s Thai is 90% as good, much less crowded and more convenient. Works for us unless we’re doing “event dining.”
schrodingers_cat
@frosty: @FelonyGovt: @ixnay: Thank you, I really appreciate your positive feedback.
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
One of my side pastimes is looking up an episode on IMDB and reading the bios of the guest stars and bit players. One big takeaway is that you could have a pretty solid career back then just doing guest spots on all of the series (with theater work mixed in for some, I presume).
Gold-painted Bond girl Shirley Eaton was on an episode of The Saint this morning.
Mousebumples
Re: the above comments on wanting family recipes before parents or grandparents pass away, I put together a cookbook of 200+ recipes with my grandma a few years ago. She gave me a bunch of recipe books and there were plenty that were a challenge to decipher… Or without specifics. She’s still around but moving more much slowly than before, so I’m glad to have so many of her favorite recipes in a legible (digital!) format.
If there are certain recipes you all are wanting or needing, I would figure we could crowdsource something, given all the cooks and chefs we have around here…
Keith P.
I’m sure this was courtesy of a very irate John Bolton, but to the point, what kind of fucking negotiating prowess is this shit. The guy who ripped Obama for giving $X million to Iran is now entertaining a multi-billion dollar payout to the same Iran to get them to adhere to a deal that we pulled out of while telling them to go fuck themselves?
jl
@Millard Filmore: Thanks for posting that link. I was going to mention that the evidence is leading to the inclusion of various types of oils in vaping ‘juice’ (I think that’s the term). I heard a news interview with a researcher who said some types of oils change chemical composition if heated to a high enough temperature, and the vapor doesn’t interfere with lung function. But the chemical composition changes back when it cools, and it starts coating various cells in your lungs and suddenly you can’t breath.
So, it’s not nicotine and it’s not THC, and it may not even be vitamin E oil specifically, but any type of oil in the vaping fluid that has certain properties at room or body temp that change after heating above a certain temperature, then changes back in your lungs at body temp.
There has been a of concern in medical and public health circles about lack of regulation of the scents and flavors and other random stuff that is in vaping fluid. The national association for the flavoring industry put out an announcement that their products were not approved for inhalation and they shouldn’t in vaping fluid. I don’t know if they are honestly trying to keep their flavors away from vaping industry, or it was CYA PR stunt, or a probably futile attempt to avoid future liability, if they have been knowingly selling flavors to vape industry.
As for TRump
“they’re coming home and they’re saying, ‘mom, I want to vape!'”
I don’t think vaping works that way with kids.
schrodingers_cat
Its still fashionable among the westernized elite in India to smoke. Its like a minor rebellion against all the orthodoxy, especially for women to smoke. Many of our Indian friends especially in the artsy fields think we (husband kitteh and I ) are too square because we don’t smoke
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
And we realize your worth as well. Yours is a valued voice in this community.
Steeplejack
Okay, I gave Woody his evening dry food, with a shmitz of Cesar wet food mixed in, and he attacked it with gusto. Then he had a big glug of water.
I’m getting kind of hungry myself.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia:
I know. Especially ones that waitresses lived in.
I love looking at the set designs. You start recognizing the furniture and knickknacks and exteriors. And wallpaper. And some of the furniture is really banged up! They were working on a budget.
And the box television sets, set on the wall adjacent to the apartment entrance door. See that a lot. The old sets reminding you that the audience could not see all the dings and scratches on the furniture that are clearly visible on laptop screens.
Steeplejack
@Keith P.:
Inorite. That’s some world-class “art of the deal” there!
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle:
Wow, I’m going to look more closely tonight.
Gin & Tonic
@Keith P.:
Clearly the genius of the God-Emperor is well beyond the comprehension of your little plebeian brain.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
Medicine has evolved massively in the last 70 yrs. Things that would kill you easy then have become much less deadly. My grandfather, and one of his daughters died from congenital heart failure. Today most of the defects that cause that are quite fixable. The first successful pacemaker was installed in 1968, a friend got her first in 1972 and she just passed 2 yrs ago. Surgeries that were not even considered in 1950 are done regularly now, heart, lung, kidney, liver transplants and more, the changes really are staggering. My cancer was put into remission using a machine that didn’t exist 20 yrs ago, the VA hospital has two of them. MRIs only started being used widely in the 80s. It goes on like this. Hip, knee, shoulder joint replacements. Numerous commenters on BJ have them. Vaccines for things that could kill you or cause massive issues, polio, measles, etc.
Ladyraxterinok
@Mousebumples: Watermelon pickles? My grandma made them. Hers were the only ones I’ve ever had.
Oatmeal cookies with bacon grease as part of the shortning/crisco? (Never made oatmeal cookies, so don’t know what goes into them.) My ex’s mom protected her recipe like it was the crown jewels. They were the best!
FelonyGovt
@Mousebumples: My mother-in-law, who’s about to turn 90, and I were going to put together a Cuban cookbook many years ago. It never happened, but I did write out a lot of her recipes for Ropa Vieja and similar dishes, and I treasure them.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia, @Elizabelle:
Different times. There were a lot of “residential hotels,” motor courts, etc., back then, catering to different levels of society. And the Villa España might have their linen embroidered so that, say, if they used a laundry service it would be easier to identify as theirs.
Anyway, it’s a TV show. It’s a trap to think that some old show is “realistic” just because the script requires, say, a way to tie the hooded guy to the motel. Boom! Embroidered pillowcase to the rescue. Sounds plausible.
Look at all the unrealistic bullshit we see in contemporary TV shows. Personal favorite is the ever popular “Let’s blow up this grainy security-cam image of that car to magically capture the license number [in even greater resolution].”
Ladyraxterinok
@Ruckus: Cataract surgery is (I think) the most common surgery, and apparently takes very little time. Yet 30 some yrs ago it was cumbersome and difficult.
John Revolta
@Ladyraxterinok: “Do you have fire” is actually more accurate when you think about it. Asking someone for a ‘light’ involves a metaphor, unless you want a flashlight or something.
evodevo
@Elizabelle: Old person here who watched extensively in the Fifties and Sixties…(black and white, only three channels, walked to school uphill both ways…) Yes, they were…interestingly enough, not Westerns (or of course Father Knows Best or Dennis the Menace or whatever). But anything else, they were generally smoking up a storm. there were also a LOT of cigarette commercials too..
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack: Yeah, and don’t start with the instantaneous DNA analysis and other forensics.
Another Perry Mason cheat sheet, that directs you to IMDB for actor bios and credits. I hadn’t read this one for the first episode, and it does have a lot of gun talk in it.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
The VA goes non smoking everywhere on the properties on Oct 1st. Waiting on my buddy to pick me up last Friday after I got out of the ER I sat outside the main front door of the hospital, where people used to go to smoke and several of them talked about it. But there are a lot of old guys that started smoking 50 yrs ago or more and they aren’t going to stop till they can’t breath in and out any longer. Just an aside, when the destroyer I was stationed on would cross the 12 mile limit, cartons of cigs would be sold for I think $5. No taxes, and that was in the early 70s. Two cartons per person, they sold out in 30 minutes or so. And you couldn’t smoke in most places on board, only outside on the fantail and when the smoking lamp was lit. The fantail is the flat main deck back by the flat end of the ship, which is opposite the pointy end.
Elizabelle
@Ruckus: Yes. Better living through science (and nutrition, in some cases).
You have such a generous attitude to life and aging.
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
Thanks for the link to that site, although it looks a little too detailed and obsessive even for me. There’s a fine line between “eccentric hobby” and “Shatner telling Trekkies to get a life” obsession. LOL.
Elizabelle
@evodevo: Dennis the Menace’s father showed up as a grifting contractor recently.
I think I remember the Flintstones in first run, although my memories are in color and I think we watched some of them while we still have a B&W set. It was on at night, prime time.
Jay
@Jeffro:
That was then and this is now. Things change over time. People change.
Kkkonservatives don’t get that.
J R in WV
@Ruckus:
The first time I comment in the morning, or in the wee hours if I gave up on going back to sleep, my comments are pretty much gibberish at first. Not even worth fixing up!
But after a couple of attempts, I get better, and then I can type my standard long rants, no problem. I’m 68, hoping to have another decade, 2 or 3 trips overseas, maybe get to see MJ legalized nationwide!!
In the meantime, Colorado is my favorite place to visit. Also because of old friends out there. I hear there are some B-J regulars also too…
cliosfanboy
And then there were the cigarette machines, where you put in the quarter, or whatever it was, pulled a blow, and got your smokes.
Elizabelle
Oh good gawd, the Flintstones were smoking too. Wikipedia:
From Ad Age: YABBA DABBA COUGH! FLASHBACK TO WHEN THE FLINTSTONES SHILLED CIGARETTES
Fred and Co. Hold the Crown as the Most Popular Cartoon Characters Ever Used to Sell Products
Jay
@Cacti:
Homelessness also causes a lot of mental health, physical health and addiction issues.
And the criminalization of the homeless doesn’t help any.
Saw a Bylaws officer “clear” a roadside squat. The homeless person wasn’t around and the Bylaws officer, wearing gloves and a mask, threw everything into the back of their truck to take to the dump.
All the little things that a person had begged, borrowed, dug out of the trash, to provide small comforts, from a pillow to rest their head on, some bauble to hold as a talisman, something that could be sold, or used in begging as an opener, a tarp to keep dry with,
callously cleared a “rubbish”, like the person attached to those things.
Ruckus
@Steeplejack:
Absolutely. I’ve had a number of people surprised at my age by looking at me. I don’t look my age. And yet I have lived 7 decades on this rock. You aren’t far behind me. One of the things that brings this into focus for me is that over the last 3 yrs I’ve known of 12 people who have passed, only one was older than me and that was by one year. My sister passed when she was 66. At my 50th HS reunion 3 yrs ago, the slide show of the people who have passed took over 15 minutes to get through. That was over 10% of the class. The Vietnam war took over 53,000 men around my age and 8 women. WWII was worse, 407,316. Most of us seem to like living, at least to some extent, because the alternative is permanent, no backsies with this and yet I still wonder why some need to make it so difficult for everyone else.
Ruckus
@Keith P.:
This is the bestest negotiator on the planet. Just ask him. Or wait 2 minutes and he’ll tell you. Do watch out though, he may be lying. Absolutely will be if he’s still breathing.
The Lodger
@cliosfanboy: Back east we called those things on the cigarette machines, knobs.
Jay
Jay
Stuck in moderation again,…….
Ruckus
@Ladyraxterinok:
I know, it’s in my future.
I had laser surgery to correct my eyesight in 95, after almost 40 yrs with glasses, all different kinds of contacts as they became available – solid, soft, disposable. Absolutely amazing difference to actually be able to see. Of course I’m now wearing glasses full time again and readers to be able to make any sense of anything on paper or at work. My computer screen is far enough away that my regular glasses work great. And I need them, not because of my eyesight but because my eyes are old enough that they just don’t work well any more. (Or some days are functional at all.)
Jay
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@cliosfanboy: I remember pumping three dollars in quarters into one of those machines, now I think a pack goes for about ten bucks?
Jay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
$15.78 here.
Funny thing how taking up “social smoking” in Clubs and Bars back in the day, became an addiction.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
Thank you.
I’ve just never understood why people don’t/can’t/won’t just go with the flow. It so often works a million times better than fighting without any possibility of success. I see racism in the same vein. I just can’t see why people are racist, it gains you nothing. So you are angry for nothing. Anger is an emotion that all of us have and it can be useful, if at least properly controlled. When it is directed at things that it can’t change and people it is a massive waste of neurons. Even if someone is attacking you, anger is not your friend, control works much better. Education can replace fear of the unknown but one has to be willing to learn, and so many aren’t.
Anotherlurker
@kindness: Harborside is my favorite, too!
I use a vape pen fo my nightly 3 hits of Indica. I also find the gummies to be consistent. 5mg/gummie is a “take the edge off” dose. 10mg., for me is a buzz.
I moved to the East Bay in November, from Fla. and I can truly say that it is so nice to be in a State that has sane laws regarding recreational use.
Much better weed, too.
Anotherlurker
@CliosFanBoy: I am loving “Carnival Row”!
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: Thanks! That’s sweet.