Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

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

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

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

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

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

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / Thursday Morning Open Thread: All the New ‘Normals’

Thursday Morning Open Thread: All the New ‘Normals’

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284Comments

  1. 1.

    raven

    We started Mrs America with Cate Blanchett as Phillis Schlafly last night. It looks really good and we can’t wait to see how she goes from being treated like chattel to where she ended up.

  2. 2.

    debbie

    I wonder why performers’ ages are included in that graphic about the benefit concert.

  3. 3.

    debbie

    @raven:

    to where she ended up

    As in demanding that every woman accept and appreciate being treated as chattel? //

    If Blanchett can make Schafly at all sympathetic, she will deserve every acting award there is.

  4. 4.

    WereBear

    @raven: we can’t wait to see how she goes from being treated like chattel to where she ended up

     
    As I recall, getting herself to a higher social position where she could treat other women like chattel.

  11. 11.

    Betty Cracker

    @raven: Damn it all, Hulu is the one streaming service I don’t subscribe to, so I’ll have to wait until it’s available on Prime or Netflix. I love Cate Blanchett, whom I consider my generation’s Meryl Streep. She’s got such range! I look forward to seeing her portray Schlafly brilliantly.

    My wingnut religious fanatic gran used to purchase subscriptions to far right Christianist publications in my name, I guess to counter the influence of my hippie mom (her daughter). Schlafly featured in many of them! I read them with amusement and horror back in the day. :)

  14. 14.

    raven

    @Betty Cracker: It’s weird, it’s on Hulu FX exclusively. It was $12 a month but we figured there was enough stuff on there to make it worth it. We dumped cable for youtube tv (because it had ALL the sports I wanted) but we’re still way ahead at $50 a month.

     

    It also has Tracey Ullman as Betty Friedan, Margo Martindale as Bella, Uzu Aduba as Shirley Chislom and Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinem. The first episode ends with them laughing it up about “who the fuck is Phillis Schlafly” and “the ERA is in the bag’!

  15. 15.

    NotMax

    Couple of curiosities on TCM today. Noted, not necessarily recommended.

    The Lost Continent (1968), 11 a.m. Eastern time. Hammer films dips its toes into chilling SF (okay, okay, plunges both feet in). Giant creatures, irascible wayward conquistadors and killer seaweed.

    Last of the Pagans (1935), 2:15 p.m. From the age of talkies although for the time scant of dialogue (a lot of it non-English) and plays as well with the volume turned down. Product of its time yet a damning portrait of Western imperialism (so much so that all or parts were banned in France and Germany). Very loosely based on Melville’s Typee; shot on location in Tahiti. One thing Hollywood had learned to pull off on film with elan by the 30s was hurricanes.

    Also too, while people are searching for things with which to fill some time, once again give highest recommendation to the anti-McCarthy radio play The Investigator (1954). You’ll spot some unnerving parallels to current politics. Excellent quality copy. Written after he was deported from the U.S. back to Canada by successful scriptwriter Reuben Ship. Pour yourself a large tumbler of whatever tickles your fancy, lean back in a comfy chair and enjoy.

  17. 17.

    mrmoshpotato

    @debbie:

    If Blanchett can make Schafly at all sympathetic, she will deserve every acting award there is. 

    And all the Nobel prizes too!

  18. 18.

    Betty Cracker

    @raven: How are you getting by without your sports fix? IIRC, you aren’t really a baseball guy, right? My husband is jonesing so hard for baseball! (Me too, but to a lesser extent.) The first COVID-19 disruption in our lives was the cancellation of a spring training game to which we had tickets. Seems impossible that it was just LAST MONTH!

  20. 20.

    raven

    @Betty Cracker: Yea, baseball was never my thing. Personally I don’t think there will be college football this year which is a shame because our D is loaded. I guess I’m just hoping this will work out in the long run and trying not to get down. The replay of last years Masters was the only thing I’ve watched so far.

  22. 22.

    raven

    @mrmoshpotato: I mean it starts with her in a bikini at some Republican event and then shows here being totally humiliated in a meeting with Goldwater so they are laying the groundwork for what comes.

  27. 27.

    Lee

    There is an article on CNN about a high school senior’s tweet asking Obama to give a virtual commencement address to the graduating seniors.

    I get teary just thinking about him doing that.

    At the moment there is no comment from the Obama’s but I can see him doing it.

  31. 31.

    scribbler

    @raven:  Wonderful actors all, and I’m sure with great production values, but no part of me wants to watch.  I already (painfully) lived through it.

  33. 33.

    Gin & Tonic

    @OzarkHillbilly: Same here. I miss baseball, but my son *really* misses it. But since he’s living in a country where it’s not played and is seven hours ahead of EDT, he wouldn’t have gotten much anyway, at least not in real time.

  34. 34.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @raven:

    I saw Cate Blanchett talking about this role. I hope the show is good watching.

    I’m remember Phyllis Schlafly. She did a lot of damage to causes I believe in. I’m not letting her on my TV.

    ETA: I classify here with Betsy DeVos. And btw, I saw that the DeVos family organized those protests in Michigan yesterday.

  35. 35.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    I should have oppressed more people.

    “Should have”? I thought that was why you’re here in the first place. Or was your “Baud!/Torquemada 2020” thing no longer your thing?

  37. 37.

    OzarkHillbilly

    NYT: Relying on Science and Politics, Merkel Offers a Cautious Virus Re-entry Plan

    BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday set in motion a plan for Germany to begin lifting social and economic restrictions in place because of the coronavirus, even as she warned that the road ahead would look less like a return to normal than a way to live with a pandemic that has overturned ordinary life.

    The chancellor, a physicist by training, was typically restrained and focused on the science as she announced the government’s cautious step-by-step plan, for which she had won the agreement of regional leaders in Germany’s diffuse federal system.

    Shorn of any bravado, her announcement seemed again to make Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, a de facto leader on the Continent and something of an example for Western nations looking to navigate the tricky course of rebooting economic activity and fighting the virus.

    Her approach stood in stark contrast to the fraught political divisions in the United States, where state authorities have often been at odds with President Trump, who has made forceful but erratic predictions about the virus.

    “We have achieved something,” Ms. Merkel said at a news conference, “something that by no means was a given at the start — namely that our doctors and carers, all those in the medical field, in the hospitals, were not overwhelmed.”

    But she added: “What we’ve achieved is an interim success — no more, no less. And I stress that it is a fragile interim success.”
    ………………………..
    Every two weeks the government will take stock of infection numbers, Ms. Merkel said, to evaluate in real time the impact of each incremental measure that is lifted — and to avoid the danger of infections picking up pace again.

    “We can’t have a wrongheaded push forward, even when the best intentions are behind it,” Ms. Merkel said. “We need to understand that we need to live with this virus as long as there is no vaccine and no treatment.”
    ……………………………
    As in previous stages of the pandemic, Ms. Merkel consulted widely before she made her announcement Wednesday. She had studied the recommendations from a panel of 26 top academics from a range of fields including behavioral psychology and ethics, and then hammered out an agreement with the governors of Germany’s 16 states.

    Highlighting this broad consensus, the chancellor was flanked at her hourlong news conference not just by her finance minister, but also by the governor of Bavaria and the mayor of Hamburg.

    A LOT more at the link, and well worth the sacrifice of one of the 5 free articles per month, but reading it makes me sad. All I can think is, “That could have been us, but she was too prepared.”

    But that’s not really true is it? We still would have had the batshit crazy Republican party fighting her every step of the way.

  38. 38.

    satby

    Second night of a hard freeze here. Looks like the tulips will not survive. The early daffodils are kaput too, but I hope the late ones that haven’t bloomed yet make it. It snowed basically all day yesterday though it didn’t stick long, but more snow expected tonight and tomorrow. And no stimulus check yet ?

    2020 blows. And the news that covid-19 might have a cardiac outcome even for mild cases is not good either.

  39. 39.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: I miss my Double AA Cardinal games!  By now we would have been to two or three.  Did you read about the proposal for the majors to go to their spring training parks and play an abbreviated season?  Strange days…..

  42. 42.

    artem1s

    @raven:

    The first episode ends with them laughing it up about “who the fuck is Phillis Schlafly” and “the ERA is in the bag’!

    so the plan is to blame second wave feminists for systemic misogyny that allowed the religious right to put doughy old dead white men back at the center of US politics from Raygun to the present day?  Hard pass.

  43. 43.

    WereBear

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    All I can think is, “That could have been us, but she was too prepared.”

    But that’s not really true is it? We still would have had the batshit crazy Republican party fighting her every step of the way.

     
    Correct. Which is why we must nuke the site from space.

  44. 44.

    raven

    @Immanentize: I had only been home since September so my hair is still short, I have a headband on and I’m next to my two pals with big Jewfrows!

  47. 47.

    SFAW

    It appears that new unemployment claims were “only” 5.24 million last week, a 20 percent (approx) drop from the week before.

    Thanks, Obama!

    Let’s see:

    1. Trump University
    2. Trump Steaks
    3. Trump “Wines”
    4. The USFL
    5. The US Economy

    There are probably a few or 20 more things that the Murderer-in-Chief has bankrupted, but this list depresses me enough as it is.

  48. 48.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Gin & Tonic: If the ball games weren’t all on cable TV, I’d probably be watching them most nights. But I’m too damn cheap for that so I watch the highlights the next day. In addition to going to a few games every year (3 or 4 at most). My son on the other hand goes to almost half the home games and watches the rest on TV. Talks about the games, who’s hot, who’s not, endlessly. Can’t shut him up about it. It’s a good thing I enjoy and follow as the season progresses because otherwise love would be the only thing keeping him alive.

  50. 50.

    raven

    “The miniseries follows leaders on both sides of the debate, with Schlafly fighting against the amendment and National Women’s Political Caucus co-founders Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, Bella Abzug, and Jill Ruckelshaus fighting for it. Weaving together multiple storylines, both personal and political, the show offers a nuanced portrait of the battles over the women’s rights movement in the early 1970s”

  51. 51.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: I’d ask for a Public Land Survey location but it would take too long to explain it if you don’t know of it, so I’ll settle for which quadrant?

  53. 53.

    raven

    In Mrs. America’s third episode, “Shirley,” Chisholm, an extraordinary civil rights leader, the first black woman ever elected to Congress, receives long-overdue attention for her role in shaping the women’s rights movement and carving out a space for women of color within the predominantly white feminist agenda.
    One of the plots that emerges early in the season surrounds the question of the women’s liberation movement’s support for Chisholm. In the show, Steinem and Abzug waffle between supporting Chisholm and supporting McGovern, whom they are less enthusiastic about but whom they believe has a better chance of winning the Democratic nomination. At one point, Chisholm confronts Abzug and Steinem about their support of McGovern and receives harsh words from Abzug while Steinem sits quietly by. The details of these fights seem to be fictionalized, but they are certainly based in truth: Chisholm was indeed abandoned by many of her feminist supporters during her primary campaign because they didn’t believe she would win. The question of whether or not white feminists were supportive of Chisholm has been the subject of some lingering controversy. As recently as July 2019, an article in the Times Sunday Review claimed that Chisholm had been “abandoned by white feminists” in the early 1970s, specifically naming Steinem. In response, Steinem wrote a letter to the editor the following day refuting the claim and outlining how she campaigned for Chisholm in 1972.

  57. 57.

    Amir Khalid

    @SFAW:

    I don’t understand why anyone would buy steak from a guy who eats it well-done, wine and vodka from a teetotaler, or a university education from an ignoramus.

  58. 58.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly: Look at the picture, see the guy near the front with the white Bob Dylan Desire album hat?  Now follow the diagonal line of people back into the crowd slightly to the left. Count back 7 or 8 hippies and you will come upon our friend in a dark headband, right behind a guy with, as Raven says, a very impressive jewfro.

  60. 60.

    germy

    @Amir Khalid:  I was married in a catholic church, and before we could do it, we had to attend a pre cana, a “marriage preparation course”  hosted by an unmarried,  celibate man.

  61. 61.

    Immanentize

    Remember in the 70s when all the white basketball players wore tight little shorts and spotted ‘fros?  I doubt that look is coming back.

  62. 62.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Amir Khalid: Most people didn’t, which is why those businesses no longer exist, and why Trump University had to pay out a huge fraud claim.

  64. 64.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: Yeah, got you.

    ETA <blockquote><a href=”#comment-7674357″>@Immanentize</a>:white Bob Dylan Desire album hat</blockquote>

    Really? I have to reach back to a glanced at album cover I saw once in the 70s? Or when ever? ;-)

  66. 66.

    JeanneT

    I lived/worked in the heart of Springfield, IL during the ERA battle there.  Phyllis Schlafly was a frequent visitor at the state capitol.  She once crossed the street in front of my car, and I was so sorely tempted…..  To this day I don’t know whether it was my better angel or the my personal demon that held my foot off the gas pedal.

  67. 67.

    Immanentize

    @germy: Same here, but my pre-cana was painless because the priest who married us was the President of my Uni. and very cool.  Ours consisted of 5 dinners I cooked at home.  It was considered a “mixed marriage” by the church because Julie was Lutheran.

    My favorite part was when the priest has to ask each of you questions, one being to me: Will you do everything in your power to raise your children as Catholics? I turned to Julie and said, are we raising our kids as Catholics? She said, “Absolutely not, no way.”

    A brief silence. Father John said, “I guess you’ve done all you can.”

  71. 71.

    germy

    I’m delighted to have Michael Caputo join our team at @HHSGov as our Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, especially at this critical time in our nation’s public health history. pic.twitter.com/xf2YFeXzqy— Secretary Alex Azar (@SecAzar) April 15, 2020

    Caputo, who moved to Moscow in 1990s, was Putin’s image maker, worked for Gasprom, & is close pals with Stone & Manafort, spent last year promoting the Kremlin’s 2016 election Ukraine conspiracy and nonsense about Bidens, in coordination w/ Russian agent Telizhenko. But now… https://t.co/3eroU65Wm0— Alexandra Chalupa (@AlexandraChalup) April 16, 2020

  77. 77.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @WereBear: If you can’t beat the patriarchy , make that internalized misogyny work FOR you…I think about that each and every time I hear the phrases “Make it your bitch” “Don’t be a pussy!!” and “I’m going to make him cry like a little girl”  Learning to hate ourselves, from the cradle.  Just another day that ends in Y.  My lesson to myself today, is learn to stifle yourself, literally no one wants your opinion.

  81. 81.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @OzarkHillbilly: If HIllary were President right now, they would have simultaneously fought her on every thing she put in place to try to stop the virus before it got started (“Dranconian!” “Dictator!”)  and blamed her for every death from COVID-19 amd every hit to the economy.  And if she had managed to work with Congress to get massive stimulus and aid packages passed the Senate would have fought them at every turn for more giveaways to their buddies.

  84. 84.

    Sab

    My spouse is having his weekly coffee klatch voa Zoom. It’s so cute. This one is multi-state imstead of at the local Giant Eagle.

  85. 85.

    Citizen_X

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I saw that the DeVos family organized those protests in Michigan yesterday.

    Lots of those people are going to be dead in two weeks or so. An even greater percentage of the idiots at the Ohio demonstration earlier in the week will be so as well.

    Holy shit, that family has a lot to answer for.

  86. 86.

    germy

    @Immanentize:

    my pre-cana was painless because the priest who married us was the President of my Uni. and very cool.

    Shows how everyone’s experience is different.

    My pre cana consisted of a crowd of nervous working class young people herded into a classroom and given a stern lecture by a conservative priest.  I only remember one thing he said:  “Be grateful you were all born Catholic!”  His point was that everyone else was going to hell.

  89. 89.

    Gin & Tonic

    Talk about religious idiots.

    Moscow Patriarchate continues to insist it will hold full-scale Easter services in churches this weekend, in defiance of law and common sense and despite being a hotspot of C19 https://t.co/iOJkNcDoTv
    — Katya Gorchinskaya (@kgorchinskaya) April 16, 2020

  91. 91.

    khead

    @Betty Cracker:

    I can’t speak for Raven but…. it’s been difficult for me.  Because, well, gambling. Heh.  Also, I tend to agree with Raven that football (all sports, really) is doubtful for 2020.

  94. 94.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: The Jesuits are the only order allowed to question the existence of God. (or so somebody with a tongue half embedded in cheek once wrote)

  99. 99.

    satby

    O.T bigly, but in taking stock of my overloaded dining room table groaning under the contents of my market booth, I realized that I have a huge overstock of lavender lotion. I made several gallons ramping up for the selling season. So I’m running a special on that if anyone needs mother’s /grandma day gifts. Just lavender scent on sale, but that sells 2/1 over other scents. At my nym or you can email directly sbarrt at hotmail dot com and I can tell you what else isn’t listed on Etsy.
    I have high hopes of eating at that table again some day ?

  100. 100.

    Immanentize

    @raven: I was a creative writing major in college.  Ferlinghetti came to read once. Maybe 20/30 students tops. Then, years later I was in San Fran at a work convention. Stopped into City Lights and he was there drinking something from a tea cup near the first floor back. I said hello, he was gracious.

    I just looked it up — Dude is still alive. 101!

  101. 101.

    satby

    @Citizen_X: the protesters blocked access to the hospital near the capitol, and then massed with their penis substitutes and Trump 2020 signs on the capitol steps to scream “lock her (Whitmer) up”. Just ugly horrible people.

  103. 103.

    WaterGirl

    @satby: I am allergic to lavender, so ix-nay on that for me.  But when I read “lavender” I pictured the lovely lilac lotion that I grew up with, which was lavender in color.

    So for just a minute, I was really excited, thinking about that lilac lotion I loved as a kid.  On the other hand, for all I know, the lilac lotion that I loved in 8th grade may well have been some disgusting, cloying scent that would be appalling to me now.

    So maybe it’s all for the best.

  106. 106.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @satby: I am trying not to wish COVID-19 on them because their children, elderly parents and coworkers/neighbors/etc don’t deserve that.  But it’s hard some days to try to be nice.

  111. 111.

    satby

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone: the only thing keeping me from wishing the mayhem of Covid-19 on them is my healthy respect for the concept that what goes around comes around. But just like when the smartass ministers who insisted on holding church services and downplayed the risk got it, I won’t feel a tiny bit bad if any of these astroturf protesters get it. I may even smirk a bit.

    I don’t like what the last three years have done to me.

  112. 112.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Re sports. I was looking forward to watching the gymnastics among other things at this year’s Summer Olympics. Since that’s obviously not happening, I was wondering if there are archives with reasonably complete coverage of any big gymnastics competitions. I’d love to see some Simone Biles routines, I’ve heard so much about her and I’d love to see some complete routines, not just occasional highlight clips. But also full competitions if possible, men’s and women’s.

    I’m not a big sports watcher, I mostly come out of my sports-free shell at Olympics time (Summer and Winter). So maybe this is an obvious one that all you sports fans know.

    Come to think of it, I’d also watch archives of weird winter sports that I only see every four years.

  116. 116.

    JeanneT

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’m sure I wasn’t hating on you!    I certainly was hating on Phyllis  – but my chance to be an assassin ended as she hustled past in her pink suit, so smug, so coifed and so proper….

  117. 117.

    MomSense

    @satby:

    Yeah I would wish it on all of them if I weren’t  so concerned for all the health care workers, nurses, and doctors.

    We are going to need a truth and reconciliation process if we get through this, because I don’t see how we move forward without some kind of reckoning and healing.

  119. 119.

    Aziz, light!

    I briefly met Schlafly in 1970. She came to my university (Washington U. in St. Louis, Schlafly’s alma mater) for a debate with Gloria Steinem. This was my first full taste of right wing nuttery. I remember her explaining how feminism was a communist plot. Her claim to fame in the ’60s was full-dress Bircherism.

  122. 122.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @scribbler:

    Likewise!!

    Can’t even stand to even hear her name. She had a horrendous effect on US women !!

     

    @WaterGirl:

    I saw her at the airport in early 70s when she was leaving Aspen after speaking at some conference

  124. 124.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Citizen_X: Lots of those people are going to be dead in two weeks or so. An even greater percentage of the idiots at the Ohio demonstration earlier in the week will be so as well.

    Yup, in two or three weeks there will probably be a spate of “He protested for freedom, and caught covid-19” stories, “he was the best grandpa in the world, he just wanted to take his grandkids fishing”, with pictures of Harold holding his newborn granddaughter, instead of a confederate flag

  125. 125.

    Betty Cracker

    It’s been really warm here for the last couple of weeks. It’s not unusual for Florida to be warm, of course, but I mean it’s been unseasonably hot — like in the 90s — which doesn’t often occur until First Summer gets underway in May.

    Well, a big storm blew through yesterday and today, a cold front that may be our last of the season. So, I opened all the windows to air the place out. And now I’m freezing! I had to go dig up a sweater and find socks! Poor Badger is shivering and burrowing under the sofa throw pillows. Daisy’s blubber keeps her warm. :)

  128. 128.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @OzarkHillbilly: True.  I have a reputation for being a loudmouth and too negative at work because when they come up with “out there” proposals I say things like, that sounds great in theory but we have to also make this, this and this work in concert with that so can we come up with a plan for how we are going to handle that?  I am now the Dora Downer of the office.  SO I tell myself every day when I want to put my two cents in, Don’t Bother.

  129. 129.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Sounds like me at my former workplaces. I would periodically remind myself to keep my mouth shut when I saw disaster coming down the pike…but not always successfully. Cassandra never gets heeded nor rewarded when she consistently turns out to have been right.

  130. 130.

    Lacuna Synechdoche

    We need language to emphasize how truly, spectacularly, stupid Trump’s and the GOP’s insistence on re-opening the economy is, without a vaccine, testing, or contact-tracing in place.

    I hereby nominate my own neologism: Corona Roulette.

    As in:

    Republicans might want to take a look at Wisconsin to see how voters really feel about the GOP playing Corona Roulette with their lives.

  131. 131.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Gin & Tonic: It’s a sport that always makes me giggle, “Let’s combine shooting with skiing, come on What’s the worst that could happen?”  I need to look up how it came into being..was it a bet between two drunk people in the middle of a snow storm?  I hope it was.

  135. 135.

    delk

    We are picking up groceries this afternoon that we ordered last Wednesday.
    Schlafly has a self loathing gay son.

  138. 138.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jonathan Capehart @CapehartJ  4h
    Y’aaallll! –> Lindsey Graham outraised by Democrat Jaime Harrison in SC’s record-setting Senate race

    I will count no chickens, especially since Rs don’t so much raise funds as just have them, but this makes me smile.

  139. 139.

    WaterGirl

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone: @O. Felix Culpa:

    I worked with a fellow who got tired of the negative responses when he would point out why thus and so was a bad idea, or would not work, or would have these unintended consequences.

    He would say: “When I get really mad, I do exactly what they tell me to do.”

    And then let them live with the consequences of their stupidity.  I always kind of admired that.

  142. 142.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wouldn’t that be something if Harrison ousted Graham? I’d put the chances at less than 5%, but damn, it would be all kinds of awesome to see Lindsey get bounced. Harrison seems like a really strong candidate, from what I’ve read.

  145. 145.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Gin & Tonic: And hey, if you want the weird winter stuff – biathlon is about as strange as they come, IMO. Two things as different as chalk and cheese, rolled into one event.

    I was talking about that once with my Finnish sister-in-law and she said, “oh yeah, we used to do that in Girl Scouts”.

    Excellent links, those look like great places to start down this particular YouTube rabbit hole. Thanks!

  148. 148.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @O. Felix Culpa: my dream is that Harrison can take Lindsey down, my hope is that his campaign can boost down-ticket races– state lege, county and municipal offices– and build up the state party

  149. 149.

    MomSense

    @Gin & Tonic:

    It’s one of the hardest sports!  When I spent time in Norway I learned to appreciate it.  It is incredibly difficult to lower your heart rate in order to shoot accurately.

  154. 154.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Wow, even National Review alum Robert Costa allowing himself the barest bit of editorializing

    Robert Costa @costareports 29m
     Follow the money: “The Michigan Conservative Coalition and Michigan Freedom Fund — founded by Greg McNeilly, political adviser to the family of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — planned the protest following Whitmer’s executive order.”

  158. 158.

    germy

    HUGE.

    Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which authorizes loans to small businesses to pay employees during the COVID-19 crisis, has run out of money and is now frozen.

    Small Business Administration says it is "currently unable to accept new applications" or enroll new lenders.

    — Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) April 16, 2020

  163. 163.

    L85NJGT

    @Betty Cracker:

    For the progressive eyores who whing about such things, he put together the DNC’s “Every Zipcode Counts”, aka Trump country voter outreach.

  167. 167.

    Immanentize

    @Gin & Tonic: I love the biathlon.  Stilling your heart and breath after miles of cross country skiing.  Those guys (mostly until recently) were heavy beta blocker users during the 80s.

  170. 170.

    Immanentize

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone: It was one of the perceived marshal skills for battle in cold climes.  The pentathalon is the same for the cavalry:  fencing, swimming, horse riding, shooting and running.

    The ever instructive wikipedia:

    Norwegian skiing regiments organized military skiing contests in the 18th century, divided in four classes: shooting at mark while skiing at top speed, downhill race among trees, downhill race on big hills without falling, and a long race on flat ground while carrying rifle and military pack. In modern terminology these military contests included downhill, slalom, biathlon, and cross-country skiing.

    Who coulda knowed?

  177. 177.

    L85NJGT

    @Immanentize:

    The Finns used ski troops to beat back the Soviets in 1939-40.

    @Gin & Tonic:

    One of Putin’s refrains is that he is the only thing keeping the Whites from winning the Russian Civil War. How he squares that with empowering them over the last twenty years ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  180. 180.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: Awwwww…. Poor baby, what I wouldn’t give to see 61 degrees again!  ;-)  Actually going to see it today for the first time in a week. High of 41 tomorrow tho,  :-(  then back to more seasonal temps for the wkend. Kind weird the weather we’ve been having.

  182. 182.

    Fair Economist

    @Betty Cracker: My son was suffering in SoCal in our blazingly hot low-80s yesterday. Yes, really, he was complaining. At 70 he’s complaining that it’s freezing. Having gone to college in Chicago I find him amusing or annoying depending on the circumstances.

  184. 184.

    trollhattan

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Phil is the narrator of my summer, so summer won’t technically happen this year, heat or no heat (there will be heat).

    I know they didn’t have an inkling this was coming when they cancelled the 2020 Tour of California, but they’re probably feeling kind of smart now. Impossible to guess whether it’s on hiatus or gone for good.

    Paris-Nice may have been 2020’s final stage race.

  185. 185.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    Re Michigan protesters:

    Like, you built your whole f***ing pseudo-survivalist Obama-era personality on being prepared for the collapse of society and now that there's a real threat requiring people to take shelter you dorks just want a Jolly Rancher margarita.

    — seiZedd tesla & spacex to mass produce ventilators (@Zeddary) April 16, 2020

  188. 188.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone: How did it come about?  How about hunting in Scandinavia in the winter.  Skiing and shooting might well be a valuable skill set.

  193. 193.

    Origuy

    @Just One More Canuck: Hey, I didn’t make these up. I watched a little bit of a fistball video. It looks like a combination of volleyball and soccer. The page about it says:  “Fistball is a very German sport; six out of nine gold medals have gone to the German team. It does not come as a surprise: Johann Wolfgang Goethe wrote in 1786 about Fistball being played between ‘four noblemen from Verona and four Venetians’.” Sounds like a Shakespeare festival.

  194. 194.

    Barbara

    @Immanentize: I read that if the U.S. had won the same number of medals in the winter Olympics relative to its population as Norway, we would have something like 18,000 medals.

    I never pass up an opportunity to recommend a kids’ book that my son loved, called “Snow Treasure,” which is about Norwegian efforts to keep its reserves of gold away from Nazi Germany, wherein kids were enlisted to ride sleds on top of gold to a cave where it was being squirreled away.  I don’t know how historically accurate it was, but it was written by the lady who lived next to my mother’s family when she was a kid.

  195. 195.

    sdhays

    @Betty Cracker: I lived for a few years in Taiwan and Hong Kong, so I know what you’re talking about. The high humidity can make not-that-cold feel bone-chilling. I grew up in Illinois where we had real winters (oh, god, I still remember being in Chicago when I was 5 or something and I thought I was going die), and while it’s not that bad, it’s pretty darn uncomfortable.

    In Hong Kong/Taiwan, the real problem is that winter is so short, there’s no heat in houses, so you get cold and then never really warm up until winter passes. Which is just a few weeks, so boo hoo, I know. At least in northern Taiwan. Southern Taiwan is pretty mild and dry during winter.

  196. 196.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @mrmoshpotato: Sorry for the delay in responding: I went to get washed up and dressed. My jeans are a titchy bit tighter. No idea why.

    Ah yes, the truffle brownie recipe. HERE. I make a few tweaks, for example substituting 1/4-1/2 cup almond flour for sugar and adding strong coffee or kahlua to the batter (cutting vanilla back to 1 tsp). I’m going to try a hint of mint in the ganache topping one of these days. I typically leave out the nuts, because we prefer our brownies nutless. I like keeping the brownies in the fridge. They’re nice and fudgy that way.

  197. 197.

    rikyrah

    Maddow is the only one in the media who is on the Nursing Home/Senior Care facility problem across the country. As she points out – THE GOVERNMENT ISN’T EVEN GETTING THE STATS ON THIS.

    When it’s all said and done, this story will be one of the cornerstones of the failure of this Administration.
    These damn ghouls.
    And, the VA is lying too.

  202. 202.

    Kent

    @Barbara:

    @Immanentize: I read that if the U.S. had won the same number of medals in the winter Olympics relative to its population as Norway, we would have something like 18,000 medals.

    I never pass up an opportunity to recommend a kids’ book that my son loved, called “Snow Treasure,” which is about Norwegian efforts to keep its reserves of gold away from Nazi Germany, wherein kids were enlisted to ride sleds on top of gold to a cave where it was being squirreled away.  I don’t know how historically accurate it was, but it was written by the lady who lived next to my mother’s family when she was a kid.

    Well yeah.  But that would require the 330 million US population to pack into the few NE and mountain states that actually have winter sports available.   If every HS in the US had a cross country ski team like they do in Norway then we’d be pretty damn good at it too.  In fact, they start the nordic ski programs at the elementary schools so basically every child in Norway grows up on cross country skis.

    BTW, I remember reading that same children’s book too.

  203. 203.

    Kent

    @L85NJGT:Eastern European farm workers are being flown to the UK on charter flights to pick fruit and vegetable crops.

    But….BREXIT!  They aren’t supposed to need them anymore!

  205. 205.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    I am currently in the midst of one of my big lock-in projects: Clearing out the bags and boxes of unsorted paper I’ve accumulated over the decades (so far the record holder is a collection that apparently dated from about 1984, in a bag from a store which stopped existing in the 90s). It’s quite an interesting / depressing glimpse into the past.

    Anyway, just found a brochure that came with my cell phone circa 1997. There’s a page on FCC rules. If you’re operating a cell phone, it’s a radio frequency device and comes under the regulations any radio operator has to comply with:

    1. No person shall utter any obscene, indecent or profane language by means of radio communication.
    2. No person shall knowingly utter or transmit any false or fraudulent signal of distress or communication.
    3. No person shall willfully or maliciously interfere with or cause interference to any radio communication signal.
    4. The owner shall have the frequency and other operating characteristics checked at least once each year.
    5. It is unlawful to “listen in” on conversations intended for others, or to divulge any information thereby obtained.

    Hope you’re all being compliant and getting your frequency checked every year, and not transmitting any of that indecent language!

  208. 208.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Kent:

    the few NE and mountain states that actually have winter sports available

    Always boggles my mind that they play ice hockey in Tampa.

  209. 209.

    trollhattan

    @Kent:

    Similar to how rural WWC Americans continue to not pour into Bakersfield to land themselves some sweet fruit-picking jobs.

  212. 212.

    Jay

    @Barbara:

    Norway made plans to evacuate the National Reserves in the late 1930’s. When the evacuation started, ( shortly after the first guns were fired), the Reserves were moved in three stages, by Commercial Trucks from Oslo to a Railhead, by truck and rail to a port, then by ship abroad.

     

    While a great kids story, ( which I remember reading at one time), it’s a work of fiction.

  213. 213.

    Kent

    @Gin & Tonic:Always boggles my mind that they play ice hockey in Tampa.

    Yeah, in Vegas and Phoenix too.  But the NHL paying in a basketball arena is different than having every kid in Phoenix playing ice hockey all winter in his/her back yard like is the case in say Thunder Bay Ontario.

  214. 214.

    J R in WV

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    btw, I saw that the DeVos family organized those protests in Michigan yesterday.

    Would I be evil if I hope that all those RWNJ protestors (that blocked an ambulance running hot with lights and siren) managed to infect each other with the virus they don’t believe in?

    After all, it doesn’t matter if they don’t believe in the virus if the virus believes in them.

    And perhaps up the chain to the DeVos monsters? One can hope! Calvinists seem to be power mad, except for those under the thumb of the power mad Calvinists.

  215. 215.

    Gin & Tonic

    Russia has cancelled its annual Victory Day (May 9) parade, the one with all the military hardware passing in front of the Kremlin. This is a BFD, as it was to be the 75th anniversary.

  217. 217.

    Jay

    @Gin & Tonic:

    so The Donald isn’t going to get his big military parade this year?

    guess he’s just going to have to attend his BFF’s one in Pongyang.

  218. 218.

    Jay

    Sociopaths,……

    DR OZ: "Schools are a very appetizing opportunity. I just saw a nice piece in The Lancet arguing the opening of schools may only cost us 2 to 3%, in terms of total mortality. Any, you know, any life is a life lost, but … that might be a tradeoff some folks would consider." ? pic.twitter.com/aifMeKTsIv— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 16, 2020

  219. 219.

    Chyron HR

    @Jay:

    Is it possible he’s not evil, just too dumb to know that “three percent” is ten million people?

  220. 220.

    sdhays

    @Jay: Is Dr. Oz an actual doctor, or is he more of a “Dr.”? I seem to recall that the’s not actually a medical doctor. Or else I’m just remembering how he’s been boosting snake oil for years by trading on his title.

  223. 223.

    Gin & Tonic

    @sdhays: He’s actually a cardiothoracic surgeon.

    Cue an argument about whether surgeons are doctors or carpenters.

  227. 227.

    Jay

    When I lecture on the Great Depression, I give the rising unemployment numbers, noting that after more than three years of the crisis, there were 15,000,000 Americans unemployed in March 1933.I don't think that number is going to hit students in quite the same way anymore. https://t.co/tkdJoUCSNo— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) April 16, 2020

  229. 229.

    Kelly

    Sunny and warm here in the Cascade foothills. National Weather Service warning of elevated fire danger due to dry conditions the past few weeks, east winds and low humidity. In the rainy Willamette Valley. In April. March 19th last year was a day like this and a 130 acre wildfire burnt a state park  miles upwind of us. Fire danger used to start in July. Things have changed since I was young.

  230. 230.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone: I heard it came about as a result of the deeply bored Finnish army trying to stay in shape while manning the frontier of Finland during WWI. Apocryphal story though, don’t know if it’s true.

  231. 231.

    sdhays

    @Gin & Tonic: I remember seeing John Oliver’s take down of Oz a year or two ago. I don’t have regular TV, just internet-based media, so I was shocked that this guy was on day-time network television. As I recall, he’s anti-vaxxer-curious and willing to shill for any supplement or alternative “medicine” that will pay him $$$.

    At least when Gwyneth Paltrow sells you a rock to shove up your vagina, you aren’t under the illusion that a medical doctor is recommending it.

  232. 232.

    germy

    I like how ads have gone from “buy a toyota” to “this is a difficult and uncertain time for us all…buy a toyota”

    — california guy now (@InternetHippo) April 14, 2020

  234. 234.

    Jay

    @Kelly:

    Evacuation north of Squamish, parts of Brakendale evacuated due to a forest fire.

    in April,

    in a Rainforest,

    in the Lower Rainland.

  235. 235.

    germy

    @sdhays:

     I was shocked that this guy was on day-time network television.

    Fox is one thing, but I’ve seen Dr. Oz interviewed on the other, “regular” TV networks as a medical authority.

    As much as I admire Oprah Winfrey for rising up out of poverty and for her charity work, I never understood the calls for her to run for president.  She brought us Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil.  I wouldn’t be comfortable with her choices for staff as president.

  237. 237.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    in other media news: The Intercept is staying on the Nancy Pelosi Ice Cream scandal

    jeremy scahill @jeremyscahill
    Is a powerful Democrat worth $120 million joking around about it from her luxury mansion on a comedy show during a pandemic where people are in massive lines for food and dying left and right?

    Yup, that’s from today.

  239. 239.

    opiejeanne

    @L85NJGT: I haven’t seen the size of the crowd reported yet, but was it really in the thousands of protesters at either of the quarantine protests?

  246. 246.

    trollhattan

    @Jay:

    Dear lord.

    Heard a BBC World Service interview with an Aussie forester, walking fire areas that took place in their rainforest this year, forest evidently directly descended from Antarctic rain forest that existed before the continents broke apart. Tree and plant species of great geologic age are threatened by 21st century climate change.

  249. 249.

    joel hanes

    @Citizen_X:

    Lots of those people are going to be dead in two weeks or so

    five to ten asymptomatic days to first symptoms

    often a week to ten days symptomatic

    crash

    a week to two weeks on a ventilator if there is one.

    So three to five weeks from exposure to death.   That’s one of the difficulties — the consequence is delayed so long that people have difficulty connecting it to the bad choices.

  251. 251.

    joel hanes

    @germy:

    [Oprah] brought us Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil

    Oprah helped give us Jenny McCarthy and the anti-vax stupidity.

    Oprah gave a national stage to Tom Cruise’s anti-psychiatry Scientologist ranting.

    Oprah means well.   That’s not enough.

  253. 253.

    joel hanes

    @opiejeanne:

    There were probably at least a thousand at the Michigan protest, but many of them stayed in or close to their vehicles, sorta practicing the social distancing that they were supposedly there to protest.

  254. 254.

    Ksmiami

    @O. Felix Culpa: ive been warning friends and family that Covid would be a global pandemic since January a have since learned that being a Cassandra is wretched- people don’t heed the warnings and then lash out at you for being right

  256. 256.

    Gravenstone

    @Jay: Seems like the good “Doctor” forgot about that little Hippocratic Oath thingy he once took.

  257. 257.

    J R in WV

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone:

    It’s a sport that always makes me giggle, “Let’s combine shooting with skiing, come on What’s the worst that could happen?” I need to look up how it came into being.

     

    I suspect it was because in the parts of the world where winter is hard, troops on skis fight with weapons, once probably spears and bow-and-arrows, now with high powered assault rifles.

    Lots of Olympic sports started as combat  — Greco-Roman wrestling anyone? Javelin? Even foot races perhaps…

    Ah, from the Biathlon Rules:

    Biathlon is a winter sport that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. The sport has its origins in an exercise for Norwegian soldiers. The first known competition took place in 1767 when border patrol companies competed against each other.

    What Fun !!!

  261. 261.

    Elizabelle

    @WaterGirl:   I knew you would come through!  Happy Thursday.

    (And not one, but two.  Which is good, cuz I don’t have Netflix, good as it sounds.)

  264. 264.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    The Hollywood Reporter @THR
    Brian Dennehy, the regular-guy actor whose bulldog build, good-guy demeanor and no-nonsense approach meshed in an array of memorable roles for film, television and the theater, has died

    RIP. Doesn’t sound like it was the ‘rona. I wish I had gotten a chance to see him on stage.

  265. 265.

    mrmoshpotato

    @trollhattan: I’m still waiting for the day my grocery stores pay me to take onions, carrots and celery off their hands because 62 million white people have become migrant farm workers and they’re underbidding each other for the back-breaking jobs.

  266. 266.

    trollhattan

    @L85NJGT:

    They had begun construction on Keystone XL pipeline in Montana this week, but a judge just yesterday revoked a permit. As a side note, the tribes did NOT want an influx of pipeline worker dudes bringing the virus with them. (Saw no reports of free blankets on offer.)

    The controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has been dealt a major setback, after a judge revoked a key permit issued by the US army corps of engineers without properly assessing the impact on endangered species.

    In a legal challenge brought by a coalition of environmental groups, a federal judge in Montana ordered the army corps to suspend all filling and dredging activities until it conducts formal consultations compliant with the Endangered Species Act.

    The ruling revokes the water-crossing permit needed to complete construction of the pipeline, and is expected to cause major delays to the divisive project.

    Keystone XL is a 1,179-mile pipeline which would transport around 830,000 barrels of oil a day from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to Nebraska, eventually heading to refineries on the Gulf coast.

    IIUC Alberta tar sands oil is the filthiest, most energy-intensive oil in production. So obviously it must not be denied!

  268. 268.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Jay: All for the best.  It’s a fucking disgrace that this Soviet shitpile is squatting in the White House during the 75th anniversaries of D-Day, V-E day and V-J day.

    ETA – and the centennial of the end of World War I.

  269. 269.

    WaterGirl

    @Elizabelle: I think we’re all a bit stunned.  Or maybe a lot stunned,  But I had kind of planned to do these this weekend, so I could put them up bare bones to get something out there.

    You’ll have to imagine interesting introductions, lovely graphics, etc. :-)

  275. 275.

    opiejeanne

    @WaterGirl: I had to pay for mine, too. I wonder why the world works that way. (sarcasm font)

    I’m making chicken stock today with the leftovers from the roast chicken I made for Easter and was low on carrots and celery.

  276. 276.

    opiejeanne

    @WaterGirl: Nobody has rice.

    I could have bought one of those ridiculously large bags of rice at Costco, just before all of the pain-buying started, but I thought I had lots. I was sorely mistaken.

    I’ve still got some left and we don’t eat it that often because of the blood sugar issue.

  277. 277.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I’m sorry, we need a thread about ice cream-gate.

    Shahid Buttar for Congress @ShahidForChange

    US House candidate, CA-12

    This is the kitchen I share with my housemate in the Upper Haight. I often cook at home and freeze leftovers in these used yogurt containers.

    Nancy Pelosi’s Rose Twitter ‘challenger’ is posting a picture of his freezer, filled with virtuous left-overs. It actually took me a long minute to figure out what point he was trying to make. Fellow ice-cream-gaters are joining in the celebration of Freezer Virtue.

  282. 282.

    Geminid

    @opiejeanne: Kroger’s was out of brown rice the first three weekends of ” the panic.” I finally scored a bag last weekend. I hope people actually cook and eat all that brown rice; it would do them good.

  284. 284.

    Another Scott

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: It would be great to have Graham tossed out on his ear, the way that Jesse Helms should have been tossed out by Harvey Gantt in NC.  History is slow sometimes, but sometimes she catches up.

    Go Jaime!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

Comments are closed.