Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

People are complicated. Love is not.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Let’s finish the job.

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

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

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

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Second rate reporter says what?

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

We still have time to mess this up!

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Duck Blogging / Repost: Ben Afquack

Repost: Ben Afquack

by | 132 Comments

This post is in: ,

So ICYMI, I broke the blog. Seemed the cute kitteh photos were the culprit. Watergirl said the only fix was to trash it, then dump the trash. It. Was. That. Bad. LOL

Here is Ben Afquack again. I may try the photos again later to see if I fixed the issue – in a post I can quickly trash if it does it again.

Enjoy!

BTW – it took me weeks to convince Penelope Pearl she was actually a duck.

Open thread

Reader Interactions

132Comments

  7. 7.

    Ohio Mom

    Speaking of code glitches, am I the only one for whom the back arrow doesn’t work? It makes it very hard to follow a conversation, when I can’t go back and forth between the response, the original comment, and back to my starting point.

    I’m willing to concede that I have an ancient phone and that might be the cause.

  12. 12.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud:  finally you sheeple are ready to admit LaRouche was right about her all along

    as a non-UK taxpayer– which is I assume why Brits care– the Royal Family neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket, but is the fact that these two are basically taking an early buy-out from the elegant dole really bothers people more than Andrew’s recent exposure?

  14. 14.

    The Dangerman

    @JPL:

    Harry and Meghan no longer working members of the Royal Family.

    I’m feeling the end of the movie Arthur (the original?) where Dudley Moore says to Liza’s character how it’s gonna suck being poor, to which the Matriarch says bullshit or something of that nature. If I had more caffeine or less medicine in me, I’d go look for the clip.

    I’m calling it medicine. It’s a good one. Cardiologist doubled it Monday and slept for most of the week. Waking up to Trump still being President. I might have to double it again

    ETA: However, waking up to Duck P0rn rocks.

  15. 15.

    Zelma

    Has anyone else taken the quiz on the candidates’ positions at the Washington Post? I took it and was surprised by my results. I’ve always thought of myself as very liberal, but it didn’t turn out that way! My positions were closest to Mayor Pete, Biden and Bloomberg(!). I was farthest from Warren, Tulsi and Bernie.

    I think that one of the reasons I “tested” that way is my basic pragmatism. I chose on the basis of what might be possible, not necessarily what would exist in the best of all possible worlds.

    I’d love to see other folks’ results.

  18. 18.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud:

    Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl
    But she doesn’t have a lot to say
    Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl
    But she changes from day to day
    I want to tell her that I love her a lot
    But I gotta get a bellyful of wine
    Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl
    Someday I’m going to make her mine, oh yeah
    Someday I’m going to make her mine

  22. 22.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud:  the questions are too vague and open-ended to make sense. A few years ago some French friends put me through one of those during a presidential campaign there. I was quite surprised to land on the communist candidate.

    Both back buttons, top right and side left, seem to be working for me on a Mac with Safari

  24. 24.

    Ohio Mom

    Zelma @15: I’ve taken that quiz several times, as an idealist and as a pragmatist, and as opposite as I can get from what I really believe. You can really game the thing. What can I say, I’m easily entertained.

    Ohio’s primary is later, I’m just voting for whomever is in the lead at that point, to shore them up. Guessing it will be Biden or Warren by then, and I can live with either one (I’m in denial about Bernie having any chance).

    On the topic of the back arrow, I am now in awe of my fellow-Juicers commitment to dialog, that you all persevere without a back arrow. I often give up.

  25. 25.

    WhatsMyNym

    @JPL:

    OT Royal news. Harry and Meghan no longer working members of the Royal Family. hmmm

    Isn’t that what they wanted anyway? It’s not like they don’t have their own money, they’re set for life.

  27. 27.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @JPL:

    @Baud:

    Wow, I just read up on it. She took away their titles. too.

    H&M: We’d like to step back a bit, see what life is like on our own, but we’ll still help out.

    Queen: Fuck you. You’re dead to me.

  31. 31.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Ohio Mom: the back arrow? Or the reply arrow? I don’t understand why browsers and machines make a difference, but I see people mention it, so I did too.

    MSNBC has gone full-on royal family. I guess it’s their version of a respite thread.

  32. 32.

    Fair Economist

    The back arrow works for me until I post, abd then it starts bringing me back to my comment, regardless of where I had actually been. Once I eventually had it go haywire random crazy but only once.

  38. 38.

    Mnemosyne

    @WhatsMyNym:

    There are so many weird rules about using the HRH that I don’t know that I would read too much into it. IIRC, Princess Anne’s kids (William and Harry’s cousins) aren’t HRH.

  39. 39.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I think the Germans have the best titles, I would want to be a Landgrave or a Markgrave. Maybe a Herzog, if there were a zu in there somewhere

  40. 40.

    artem1s

    @Zelma:

    I’ve always thought of myself as very liberal,

    the quiz doesn’t claim to measure liberal or conservative; only how your views matched up with various candidates. Is it conservative to believe that everyone should get more than 12 weeks of family leave (Bloomberg)? Liberal if you believe you should only get 12 weeks of leave (Warren; Sanders)? Many of the positions were represented poorly in the quiz, as if having one stated position precluded all the others. None of these candidates have demonstrated that they can enact far left positions while holding office except maybe Warren and Biden. Biden has enacted far more actual liberal legislation than the rest of the field but is considered by the cultists to be mainstream. Hillary had the most progressive platform of any Democrat ever running for the WH.  Most of these candidates are running on smoke and mirrors when it comes to what they could actually accomplish if, for instance, they were opposed by 2/3rds of the rest of the government.  I’m sick to the teeth of having a relatively far right media and far left cultists define who is and isn’t liberal (BTW – still a dirty word in the MSM).

    I took the poll and was pleasantly surprised to see that many of the candidates deemed too stodgy and corporate by Wilmer to have relatively progressive stances on labor and pay issues.  Most GOPers would consider those candidates redder than red socialists.

  41. 41.

    Percysowner

    @Ohio Mom: I’m also in Ohio and it depends. If it’s close I’m Warren>Biden>Bernie>Buttigeige I don’t think any of the others will be in the running by then. If it’s not close then yeah, I’ll help the leader run up the score.

  44. 44.

    sab

    @Percysowner: I’m canvassing tomorrow in Ohio, and it’s going to be in the teens. Brrr. Maybe I ‘ll burn off some calories. Ohio primary isn’t too far off (early March.)

  46. 46.

    sab

    Do ducks mate for life like geese? If not maybe Penelope and Afquack could give Cole his own duckling. She’s laying eggs anyway.

  55. 55.

    J R in WV

    I just always try to notice the comment number when I reply. After a reply comment is posted, you can click that link to return to the comment you replies to, that almost always works. But remembering a comment number is fool proof, if you can remember a 2 or 3 digit number for a couple of minutes.

  60. 60.

    TomatoQueen

    OT: TOON 1 0 Chel$ea in the 94th minute by Isaac Hayden. WAHEY. And now back to pouting about punishing the kids.

  61. 61.

    The Dangerman

    Ah, spring (or close enough), where a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love…

    …and baseball…

    …anyway, this Altuve and buzzer thing is atrocious. If the Yankees were burned (Chapman) and the Dodgers were burned in 2017, there’s a lot of Money in Vegas that is really pissed.

  63. 63.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    OT: apparently Joy Reid brought in a “body language expert” to discuss the the Warren-Wilmer confrontation. Not necessarily a choice I would’ve made if I were a TeeVee muckety-muck but… Rose Twitter is melting down, Glenn Greenwald is rage-tweeting and I am here ROFLMAO

    well, actually it’s more of a wry chuckle and if got down on the floor I’d only roll to try to get momentum to heave myself back up on my feet, but whatever. You gather my inference.

  64. 64.

    WaterGirl

    @Steeplejack:  who wishes we hadn’t lost the comments.

    FULL SERVICE BLOG

    debbie & mrmoshpotato were certain that Steve would never tolerate a duck

    Amir thought the first kitty was cute

    mattf: “It does seem that ducks have systemic identity issues. That must be the source of the ‘walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, must be a duck’ truism.”

    momsense:  “Oldest kid came up last night for the weekly guitar lesson with my youngest.  It was so cold he stayed over.  He has to work today so they decided to start playing early.  Killing Floor at 7am will get you going for the day!  Two hours of non stop music this morning.”

    amir to momsense:  “That’s cool. From my own adventures in guitarland, I am happy to report that discovering Keef tuning has been wonderful. I have learned Brown Sugar, which is fun and easy in that tuning, and I am taking on All Down The Line.”

    mrmoshpotato offered some dinosaur rock

    chris:  “Pics and video from Newfoundland on the morning after the snowpocalypse. Also People calling in to the local CBC radio station. Gotta love Newfoundlanders!”

    MomSense to Amir: “I love the Stones.  The thing about Keith is that he has the best right hand – totally under appreciated in guitar hero world.  His acoustic playing is so good.  There’s a documentary of their Hyde Park concert on the 45th anniversary of the ‘69 concert.  I turn it on all the time.  It’s called Sweet Summer Sun and I think you will love it.”

    MomSense to mrmoshpotato:  “I didn’t know that was a thing.  I can’t hear it now, though.  The volume is turned up to 11 here.”

    jeffrey to Amir: “Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street represent the Stones at their peak.  Those albums are their finest work.”

    mrmoshpotato to chris:  damn! (about the snow)

    mrmoshpotato to MomSense:  “I didn’t either.  A friend sent me a Reddit link, and now I want subtitles.”

    pat wants to know WHEN WILL THE PET CALENDAR BE AVAILABLE??!!   (answer from WG: within a very small number of days, I believe. stay tuned for a post from john, and keep an eye on the blue box upper right)

    mrmoshpotato thinks pat might be a bit shouty :-)

    MomSense to jeffreyw: “My kids say that Beggars Banquet through Let it Bleed and that Let it Bleed is the best album but Exile is their favorite.”

    J: “That duck video is AWESOME! Thank you so much for sharing it, TaMara. (And the name? Priceless!) Cole definitely needs a duck.”

    Dorothy Winsor thinks pat has to shout to be heard over the music at MomSense’s.

    JPL and chris chat about the weather: “What an amazing storm and hopefully that’s not the new normal.    We have a cold front moving through the Atlanta area today, but it’s not suppose to last long.”

    pat to mrmoshpotato: It is almost the end of January and the notice on the top of the page that says PET CALENDAR SOON has not changed.  So yea, shouty.

    Steep offers a link: The Electric Flag, “Killing Floor.”

    chris to JPL: Just a scatter bit of snow here in #Newfoundland kinda sad when you gotta shovel your snowblower out of the garage ?#nlblizzard2020#Snowmageddon2020 pic.twitter.com/ADbAFCQY4R— omoh (@mikestephann) January 18, 2020

    MomSense to Dorothy: Huh?  What did you say?  I CAN’T HEAR YOU

    weather report from Steep: We got a little bit of snow overnight here in NoVA—less than an inch, and it didn’t stick to the pavement, although it looks wet. (I haven’t been outside.) But it’s only 28°, going up into the mid-30s later, so I guess ice is a danger. Nice day to stay inside.

    MomSense to Steep: Bloomfield is really good.

    lots of talk about the post acting weird

    TaMara has the last comment before we had to delete the post, May it rest in peace:  Hey everyone, I fix’d the post. Not sure why the second photo disappeared. Then I had much trouble signing in to fix it.  Sorry about that. Hazards of scheduling a post for when you’re asleep.

    All the chores are done and I’m having my first cup of coffee. And by chores, I mean fresh pool water for the ducks and cleaning out their coop and filling with fresh wood shavings. #urbanfarmlife :-)

  68. 68.

    trollhattan

    @sab:

    Mallards seem to not, based on the hanky-panky I see among flocks. Those drakes chase the hapless hens like crazed frat boys. I fail to see how mom would know who’s responsible for the little ones.

    Watched buffleheads last summer backpacking in the mountains. They’re cavity nesters and as best as I could tell, a pair would tend to each nest, high in a tree. Perhaps they pair longterm?

  69. 69.

    WaterGirl

    @Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ: I doubt that you did anything wrong.

    What we do know is that WordPress did not like it. ?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️

    If you send more pictures, perhaps send them as attachments and not embedded in your email message?

  76. 76.

    Reboot

    The back arrow seems to work if you first click the comment’s date stamp and then click back (someone offered that tip earlier; I forget who). So far this has worked for me using Chrome on a laptop.

  77. 77.

    mrmoshpotato

    @WaterGirl: Giant snowcone!  Just add an oil tanker of flavored syrup.

    I want to know how you even start to dig that out.  “Can’t make it in today.  Digging out my house.”

  80. 80.

    WaterGirl

    @mrmoshpotato: Giant Sno cone or not, just imagining everything being covered with no way out makes me feel a little anxious!

    Every single window I have opens out, how would you even start?

    :: shudder ::

  81. 81.

    WaterGirl

    @mrmoshpotato: Yeah, that was before I realized it would keep the link if I copied & pasted. :-)  Figured you could all at least be reminded of what you posted and could re-link if desired.

    Full-service, apparently, but not perfect service.

  84. 84.

    oatler.

    Reminds me of the dancing ducks in “Village of the Giants”. And Joy Harmon’s hip-huggers.

  88. 88.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @WaterGirl: When I got to this thread I got just text mode in the comment box*, I clicked “Refresh” by right clicking three time, still no tabs in the comment box.  Clicked the text above the comment box and that showed both tabs.

    *I got to the thread by clicking on the most recent of the “Recent Comments”.

  89. 89.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl: Actually to chris.

    I once had to snowblow a 20ft wide by 25 ft long commercial driveway twice.

    First pass I had to pick up the blower by the top handle and take off about 8-10 inches and then let it sit on the ground and do the next 8-10 inches to finish that row. Rinse repeat. That’s about 1000 sq ft of snow blowing. Good times.

  91. 91.

    Ruckus

    I have a cory gardner vid on the home page and the ben the duck vid on this page.

    Don’t have both of them one either on the home or this page.

  94. 94.

    WaterGirl

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Do you know when the “click this to get the text/visual tabs” link went away?

    I was shocked not to see it there yesterday.

    Never mind. I forgot that I don’t see that if I am logged in. Duh.

  101. 101.

    WaterGirl

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: oh, duh!  when I am logged in, I do not get the box where I entered my nym and email and see the text at the top that says to click it to get both text and visual tabs.

    You must use the link above In order to get your tabs back – that refreshes in a special way that breaks cache, which means that then you will get the two tabs.

    Other ways you refresh do not “break cache” so they do not necessarily get you the tabs back.

    Since we pay by the page view, it costs Cole more money if we refresh a bunch of times to get those back, rather than clicking on the special link.

  103. 103.

    WaterGirl

    @mrmoshpotato: Perhaps you want to shout WHERE THE FUCK IS THE NEW CALENDAR?

    I’m pretty sure that won’t get it here any faster, but it could be cathartic.

  105. 105.

    WaterGirl

    @WaterGirl:  @Ruckus:

    As a test, I opened the BJ front page.  Watched the video.  Went back to that page in a bit, and yes, the video changed from TaMara’s duck video to other related videos.

    That’s how it works, and I’m thinking maybe that’s what happened to you?

  107. 107.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    Both!

    Duck vid is better. Quacking and crapping is far better than cory.

    Also the other day folks were asking about a quack ring, iPhone has that under sounds Classic. Not an enthusiastic quack but a quack non the less.

  109. 109.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    OK what is this special link to get back?

    I like to keep main tabs open but not for each post so if I’m done with a post for a while I hit the back arrow box and it shows a box with the number of backs it takes to get to the main page. I click the last entry in the box and almost always have to do this two or three times to go back to the main page. If that’s costing money for no reason other than my obsessiveness with my way of computing I’ll change.

  110. 110.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    Nope. Front page is still the cory vid and this post page is the duck vid. Do not have both on either page and what I see is the same as when it first posted

    Also commenting is extremely slow for me. I hit post and it takes over a minute for the comment to post and give me the page back. It was very fast earlier, been slow only for my last two comments.

  111. 111.

    WaterGirl

    @Ruckus: Look for the text in the image below. Do you see where it says “If you don’t see both the Visual and text tab on the editor, click here to refresh”?  That’s what you click.  It always returns both tabs because it refreshes in a special way to breaks you out of any cache your browser may have stored.

    Repost: Ben Afquack

  112. 112.

    WaterGirl

    @Ruckus: It would definitely be fewer clicks if you do it this way:

    When you are done with the thread you are in, hit the up arrow to take you to the top of the page, then click on either Balloon Juice or anywhere on the balloon guy, and you will go right to the front page of the site.

  113. 113.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    That refreshes the page, same as hitting refresh at the top of the page.

    I may have misunderstood I thought you were talking about a different way to go back, say to the main page.

  114. 114.

    WaterGirl

    @Ruckus:

    Also commenting is extremely slow for me. I hit post and it takes over a minute for the comment to post and give me the page back. It was very fast earlier, been slow only for my last two comments.

    Yeah, that’s not normal.  If it keeps doing that, let me know.

  115. 115.

    WaterGirl

    @Ruckus: Clicking the link in the image that is a few comments up is the way to immediately get both the Visual and Text tabs if you do not already have them.

    My comment at #112 describes the quickest/best way to get to the front page of the site.  Fewest clicks to get to the same place = less cost for site hosting.

  116. 116.

    WaterGirl

    @Ruckus:

    I have a cory gardner vid on the home page and the ben the duck vid on this page.

    Don’t have both of them one either on the home or this page.

    I guess I don’t understand what you are describing.  Sorry!

    It sounds like you are saying you see different videos for this post, depending on whether you are on the home page or on this particular duck thread.  Is that correct?

    I have no idea what a Cory Gardner video is, so maybe that’s part of the problem.

  117. 117.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    Yes that does but it also leaves the history of movement in the tab history. Which means I have to close the tab every so often so that my history doesn’t screw up my system, which is what I think just happened, the site got crabby and sullen. I closed the tab completely and reopened and the main page has the duck vid and no cory (yeah!) on either main or post page. Also things seem to work fine for me once again.

    I’m going to start just closing the tab when I want to go back to the home page and start again, it’s much faster and if the cost to John is the same or less, and my system stays fast and fresh, it’s a win-win.

  118. 118.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    The cory gardner vid is some group from CO that is trying to elect someone else because he’s a sleazy ass trump supporter. Until I closed the tab and reopened it with BJ that’s what I got on the main page. And I played it, twice and it was still there when I clicked the post and it opened I would only have the duck vid on the post page. Whenever and however I went back to the main page it was the cory vid. Until I closed the tab entirely and reopened it with BJ, then it’s duck vid all the way. Also the speed returned.

    I wonder if this is the problem a lot of people have with the site, it seems to act up if we’ve jumped around too much and have a large history on the tab of the site. Or it’s the way the cache is working that when the tab history gets too long (whatever that may be) the cache goes wonky. Or something along that line.

  119. 119.

    WaterGirl

    @Ruckus: Interesting!   We all use BJ so differently.

    I always have at least one tab open. I go to the next thread, and the next, you using the fly-out wing on the right, but I open each thread in its own tab.

    So right now I have 5 tabs open.  One is the WordPress dashboard, and the others are 4 BJ tabs that are still active.  When I’m done with a thread, I just close the tab.

    edit: And then there were 3.

  120. 120.

    sab

    @Baud: Warren. Her new logo is a giant W. I find that awkward. So I am wearing my own handknitted winterwear and bluejeans. I do have a magnetic bumper sticker for my car. And boots and wool socks.

    I feel like I have spent winter in the subtropics this year. I am not ready for normal winter.

  121. 121.

    sab

    @sab: A friend showed me her Amy Klobuchar icescraper. It’s awesome. Very wide and solid. You don’t even have to have your gloves on to use it, because it is already inside its own fleecelined mitten.

    I still use my Hillary icescraper from ’08, but this one is okay.

  123. 123.

    J R in WV

    @WaterGirl

     

    Back when I collected rocks, my collecting buddy Danny and I spent some time in WY and hit some old gold mining camps in the mountains. They’re trying to restore them into tourist attractions.

    The restored buildings at one of the mining camps, way up in the mountains, had outside doors on all four stories, because, the story was, over the winter as storms accumulated, eventually only the 4th floor access door still worked, the rest of the building was under snow. Like 20 or 30 feet deep!

    I have to assume that’s why the buildings were built so tall, so people could move from one building to another. It was fun to tour. I asked a lady at a general store if they got much snow, and she said, “Not really, it usually is just passing through on its way to Dakota.” That’s in the flat part of WY, which is really flat!

  124. 124.

    J R in WV

    @Ruckus:

    Just nope!

    You have to press it twice to go back to where you were.

    I’m glad that works for you, whatever system/software you’re using, but it do not work for me, ever — at all ~!!~ Some times the back button works, sometimes it doesn’t, clicking on it twice just gets it all confused.

  126. 126.

    WaterGirl

    @J R in WV: That’s really interesting about doors that open on all floors!  My house is only one story so that doesn’t help me too much.

    It reminds me of a story my dad told me from when he was in the service in Japan during WWII.

    It was Christmas Eve and some of the guys snuck out and cut down a tree so they could have a tree for Christmas.  I think they got in a bit of trouble with their superior office, but all was mostly good until spring, when there was a tree that was missing the top 10 or so feet. :-)

  127. 127.

    J R in WV

    @Ruckus:

    I once had to snowblow a 20ft wide by 25 ft long commercial driveway twice.

    Wife had a co-worker from suburban Chicago residence. When he was about to retire, he said he was going to put his snowblower in the back of his truck and drive south until people started asking him “What in tarnation is that contraption in your truck?” That would be just about far enough south to stop.

    We have half a mile of farm road to cope with. We also have a tractor with a front end loader/back-hoe (currently) and can mount a scraper blade on the back as needed…

    Sometimes we scoop thick heavy snow up with the loader bucket and drop it over the side of the hill, if it’s too hard for the blade to deal with it. One bucket at a time. Sometimes we just wait for it to melt… now that we’re retired.

  128. 128.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    I have different tabs open and I normally refresh without problem. Take the twitter tab, I click on it and of course the screen is not up to date, it’s twitter. Hit refresh in the address bar and all is fine. BJ likes the refresh button in the top bar on the site or below the Leave a Comment area better than the browser address bar refresh button. Mac with Safari. So right now I have 4 tabs open. Sometimes I have more. I don’t close the ones I use all the time unless they act up, which is what BJ was doing today. It allows me to go back to where I was easier, just click on the tab and I’m right back. But new BJ doesn’t work that way, everything is a reload, either total or partial page. (maybe from the fact that every page load costs something?) Anyway it seems that my way of doing things may be screwing with The Way Things Work. So I may have to change, at least somewhat, to have a better experience. But of course it’s interesting that there is a way to simply screw up BJ just by a normal way of using the internet that’s slightly different than some other way. And from the sound of it, a lot of people maybe are or aren’t doing some process that screws up BJ for them. Difficult to fix something that actually isn’t wrong, just not understood.

  129. 129.

    Amir Khalid

    @TaMara (HFG):

    I wouldn’t read any of this as punitive. Harry and Meghan are not being cut out of the royal family. They were expecting to give up the stipend that comes with performing royal duties. And Diana had to give up the HRH title too once she was no longer involved in those duties. This is what they want, after all. The only news here is that it was decided that part-time royal duty wouldn’t work, and a clean break was the best thing.

  131. 131.

    frosty

    @Ohio Mom: Back arrow hasn’t worked for me in a long time. I’m using BillinG’s workaround: click on the date of the comment first, then the commenter you want to go back to. You can go back along a chain and the back arrow will bring you home. Kind of a PITA but better than gamboling all over the comments.

  132. 132.

    sab

    @Amir Khalid: The Brits kind of phased out Duke and Duchess as anything but a royal title in the 17th or 18th century. So it is still possible but unusual. So okay for those who used to be royals but choose not to be to keep the ducal title but not the royal honorific.

    I am not a fan of monarchy, but the British royals who are on the payroll seem to work a lot at really tedious duties. I can understand why they would choose to quit that if the British press (encouraged by skunks employed in the royal household) spend all its time and energy in vilifying them and their spouses.

    UK has Queen Elizabeth and her mostly dutiful children and grandchildren raised to the public PR job. USA has Trump, Melania  and his mostly awful whiny and bombastic children representing us.

    Was there an Oxford comma issue in that last sentence?

Comments are closed.