Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

The revolution will be supervised.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Come on, man.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

The lights are all blinking red.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

You are here: Home / Elections / Biden For President / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Independence Day

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Independence Day

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J.M. Opal, history professor, for the Washington Post:

… It began in the mid-1760s, as hard economic times set in after Britain’s most recent war with France. To pay its creditors and reduce its debt, the British government imposed regressive new taxes and banned much-needed paper money throughout the American colonies. Sailors and tradesmen responded by rioting in Boston, which was full of unemployed men and war widows.

To their surprise, the beleaguered New Englanders found support from fellow colonials as far away as South Carolina, the only North American province with a black majority.

But after hearing white patriots demand “liberty” on the streets of Charleston, groups of enslaved men chanted that same slogan, sending local slaveholders into a long panic.

As the empire tightened the screws over the next decade, Colonial women began to renounce imported finery — London was the seat of British fashion as well as power — in favor of “homespun” clothing. The idea was to make the colonies more self-sufficient. “Women and Children, both within Doors and without, set their Spinning Wheels a whirling in Defiance of Great Britain,” noted one observer.

By standing up to the great men of England, these women often wrote that they felt “useful” and “notable” for the first time. They soon began to question old assumptions about female weakness and wickedness and to denounce cruel fathers and husbands as petty tyrants.

With rebellion in the air, the colonies became more democratic than ever before. In Massachusetts, people at town meetings looked past their traditionally parochial interests, telling their representatives to protect freedom of the press and stop the “unchristian and impolitick” practice of slavery throughout the province. They made clear that all authority came from “the body of the people” and that governments should advance the “general welfare” against arbitrary power and selfish individuals.

In New York, direct democracy by popularly elected committees replaced old patterns of gentry rule. Made up of a cross section of adult men, these committees didn’t just tear down royal authority; they assumed the ordinary work of governing, inspecting roads and taverns and enforcing fire and health regulations. For the first time, marveled a writer calling himself “A Poor Man,” ordinary people were “effectually represented” by accountable authorities.

In Philadelphia, workers and radicals rose up not only against British rule but also against Pennsylvania’s conservative assembly. They demanded voting rights and equitable tax and land policies. Among their leaders was the British emigre Thomas Paine, whose January 1776 pamphlet “Common Sense” urged Americans to look past their ethnic and religious differences and embrace the larger struggle: “The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth.” That May, a huge crowd in Philadelphia sent the old assembly packing — the stunning culmination of a full-blown revolution in one of the most diverse parts of the British world.

By then, a good number of the roughly 2.5 million colonists were already committed to independence. One historian has found 85 small-D declarations of independence written before Thomas Jefferson’s famous version. These little-known texts came from towns in New England, counties in Virginia and Maryland, grand juries in South Carolina and one mechanics association from New York City. They turned particular grievances into a bold vision for a new kind of country…

Reader Interactions

217Comments

  3. 3.

    Baud

    Perspective: Trump’s idea of the Fourth of July Life, the Universe, and Everything is totally wrong

  5. 5.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: x2 ?

    @Baud: I would amend that to the entire GOP, otherwise truth.

    I’m about to get ready to go work, the stupid market is open today. Not that it ruins any plans I have, I just resent the idiocy of being open normal hours on a holiday.

  10. 10.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud:

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that Donald Trump is a fucking idiot. 

    ETA – also a Soviet shitpile mobster conman, and the entire GOP are traitors too.

  12. 12.

    Derelict

    I find it both amazing and utterly horrifying that Donald Trump and his Republican followers have managed to take the idea of fighting a pandemic and turn it into a political wedge issue. And that Donald and the MAGAts have taken the side of the virus!

    Never in a million years of bizarre conservative politics would I have ever guessed that not wanting to catch a potentially fatal or crippling disease could be cast as unAmerican. But here we are.

  13. 13.

    WaterGirl

    @satby: It’s the American way, apparently.  The idea is that if you can’t have your fireworks and you’re not supposed to have the picnics and other group activities, shop.  Just buy something!

  15. 15.

    WaterGirl

    @Amir Khalid: I’m not sure I can watch that again.  I cried happy tears watching that concert on that day, so happy that Pete Seeger lived to see that day.  That we all lived to see that day.

    Look where we are now.

  16. 16.

    mrmoshpotato

    Yup.

    this Mount Rushmore thing doesn’t just feel bad, it feels setup-for-a-horror-movie bad— Michael Tisserand (@m_tisserand) July 3, 2020

  17. 17.

    OzarkHillbilly

    An ashram for the hummingbird’: the Trindad haven for world’s tiniest bird

    At the foot of Theo and Gloria Ferguson’s property stands a giant silk cotton tree. Reminiscent of those enchanted species in children’s fables, this ancient sentinel’s huge varicose limbs yawn upwards and outwards, towards a canopy of leaves that scratch the sky. Eight adults linking arms would struggle to encircle its vast girth, proof of the aeons it has stood guarding the edge of Trinidad’s Maracas valley.

    It could be that this tree was a mere sapling when the indigenous people who first lived here named this land Iere, or “Land of the Hummingbird”. So bewitched were they by these bejewelled creatures that they created a myth to protect the birds, which they believed represented the souls of their dead. According to the legend, the La Brea Pitch Lake – a sprawling bitumen wonder in the south-west of Trinidad, now a Unesco world heritage site – was once the home of the Chima Indians. However, the tribe induced the wrath of the gods by dining on hummingbirds at a celebratory feast. In their fury, the gods opened up the earth and summoned the sulphurous lake of pitch to consume the village and its people.
    …………………………………
    The Fergusons’ lush garden, in the shadow of the silk cotton tree, teems with hundreds of hummingbirds daily. Fifteen species have been spotted in the garden, including a new discovery in October 2019, the glittering-throated emerald. Entering the space, a tropical oasis of vivid, trumpet-shaped blooms, the air beats with the frenzied wings of these tiny creatures, which flit, zoom and shimmer among the scarlet feeders like miniature rainbow-coloured strobes.

    So blessed are the Fergusons with these diminutive visitors that they named their home of 34 years Yerette, Amerindian for “home of the hummingbird”.
    ……………………………….
    For Ferguson, the fascination with hummingbirds became a passion. He and his wife Gloria spent time creating a unique environment that would lure them into their garden. “We introduced flowers such as the hibiscus, the verbena, the sanchezia, the powder puff [calliandra], the caliente, the honeysuckle – there are a wide range of flowers that the hummingbirds feed on, some more popular than others,” he says. “Ten per cent of the birds’ diet is insects, so the garden is important in helping to generate the ecosystem that can produce food for the hummingbird. We discovered hummingbirds eat mosquitoes and can suppress that population.”
    …………………………………….
    The birds came in such numbers that Ferguson, now in his 70s and lecturing on leadership development, saw an opportunity to combine two of his life’s passions: nature and educating others to build a better world. After persuading Gloria to open up the garden to visitors – “she thought I was crazy at first” – he educates visitors to Yerette about the world’s smallest bird and how fundamental it is to Trinis’ national character.

  20. 20.

    gkoutnik

    Just finished my annual re-listening to NPR’s reading of the Declaration of Independence.  This year I was struck by how humble and reasonable it is.

    Wouldn’t it be great to be humble and reasonable again?

  22. 22.

    WaterGirl

    @mrmoshpotato: Hmm.  Sadly, that appears NOT to be the American way.

    In all fairness, just like we can’t blame CONGRESS when it’s REPUBLICANS in Congress who are to blame for so many thing, it’s not fair to tar all Americans with the stupidity brush in dealing with COVID when it’s mostly the Trump cult causing all this death and destruction.

  24. 24.

    NotMax

    We may not be together but we’re all in this together. Amidst the pall of isolation and roiling of despairing news, make the effort to find a chunk of time to celebrate in some way a festive Fourth. You’re worth it, we’re worth it.

  25. 25.

    cmorenc

    Yesterday evening, I saw a pickup truck with two flags flying in the rear bed – US flag on one side, Confederate Stars and Bars with Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” snake design superimposed.  The truck was parked in front of a house with a flagpole flying the US flag on top and a “Trump – Keep America Great” flag directly underneath where a US state flag would conventionally be.  This was in a small town in SE North Carolina near the SC border, and the truck had SC plates.

  26. 26.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @cmorenc: I saw a flag yesterday that was half American flag, half Confederacy flag. I really wonder about these people.

  27. 27.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Jennifer Toon:

    After spending half of my life in a Texas prison, I learned how to make peace with locked doors. So when a global pandemic hit and the worldwide order to stay at home began, I was frustrated but prepared. I was accustomed to not being able to leave.

    Then I had an epiphany. The door wasn’t locked from the outside. I could go anywhere I wanted – excluding bars and crowded restaurants of course. For me, this meant a new opportunity for adventure.
    ……………………………………………..
    I put the flower in my pocket. I was about to turn around when I heard the familiar sound of trickling water. An old curiosity drew me deeper into the woods. My heart leapt at the sight of a creek. I resisted the desire to splash through the water and scoop up tadpoles. I had forgotten this feeling of abandon, and unadulterated happiness. I sat on the edge of the creek bed and watched the leaves bounce along the current. I closed my eyes. A flood of long-forgotten memories washed over me. Hunting arrowheads, picking blackberries, collecting caterpillars in a jar.

    With shutdown orders not lifting anytime soon in Texas, where Covid-19 cases are soaring, many Texans have been feeling closed in, but I feel like my heart is reopening. Before the pandemic, I had known prison for so long that I had forgotten the joy of the outside world. But nature was my first refuge from the growing anxieties and loneliness that eventually overtook me as an adult. How deeply I have missed it.

    And so, when I finally made my way home later that evening, I pulled the flower from my pocket and pressed it in my Bible, as my grandmother had taught me. She had said, “Jennifer, its beauty will never fade, we may forget it’s in there, but then suddenly one day it may fall from the pages, and what a nice reminder that will be for us!” She was right.

  30. 30.

    mrmoshpotato

    @WaterGirl: I know, hence the ffs. :)

    I wonder when we’ll see the location breakdown of Plagueapalooza 2 – Mountain Edition attendees.

  34. 34.

    Aleta

    @Amir Khalid: Thanks for that.  It ‘s good to remember that we haven’t lost the people who celebrated that day.  (One  can actually see Seeger now come out clearly in the stage presence of a few of the musicians he nurtured.)

  37. 37.

    hueyplong

    @cmorenc: I live in NC, and odds are you can repeat that scene by going into a rural area on any road without center line pavement paint.

  43. 43.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @NotMax: I saw that show! Couldn’t have remembered the title in a million years though, so thanks for the memory jog.

  44. 44.

    NotMax

    So, finished up the final season of Dark on Netflix. Grade it a B.

    Short take: an Einstein-Rosen bridge too far.

  45. 45.

    cmorenc

    @hueyplong:

    @cmorenc: I live in NC, and odds are you can repeat that scene by going into a rural area on any road without center line pavement paint.

    I also live in NC (native) – and having visited the panhandle of Florida traveling via southern Alabama, the phenomenon of confederate flag-flying is by far much less common in rural NC or even rural South Carolina than it is down in south Alabama and the Florida panhandle.  That’s not to say rural NC doesn’t have many pockets of racist rednecks, but most of them stay much more discreet about it up here than rural panhandle Fla, where they seem to be much more in-your-face about it.   I lost count of how many yards were flying Confederate flags traveling through the rural Fla panhandle and S. Alabama, whereas by contrast while you can occasionally run across examples in rural NC, it’s uncommon enough for such encounters to be individually memorable in N.C.

  46. 46.

    Trapper Lurker

    @Amir Khalid: Thank you for that beautiful and precious memory, Amir. Hearing it again made me weep, but the hopeful faces also give me hope that this insanity too shall pass.

  51. 51.

    RSA

    Obama’s call for working together is so much different from Trump’s Mt. Rushmore speech:

    Our people have a great memory. They will never forget the destruction of statues and monuments to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, abolitionists and many others. The violent mayhem we have seen in the streets and cities that are run by liberal Democrats in every case is the predictable result of years of extreme indoctrination and bias in education, journalism, and other cultural institutions. Against every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to hate their own country and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes but that were villains. The radical view of American history is a web of lies, all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted and every flaw is magnified until the history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition. This movement is openly attacking the legacies of every person on Mount Rushmore. They defiled the memory of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt. Today we will set history and history’s record straight.

  55. 55.

    MattF

    Watched the start of Hamilton last night, decided I need to read Chernow’s biography in order to follow the story.

  56. 56.

    JPL

    The president of red America uses the holiday that most connotes national unity and shared heritage to advance his culture war.

    Brownstein

  58. 58.

    raven

    50 years ago today I was in an anti-war group that was near the front of the “Freedom Celebration” in Champaign-Urbana. We made it two blocks when we were set upon by plainclothes cops and patriots. You can see the group at the beginning of this video.

  69. 69.

    Wanderer

    Wearing black today to honor all that this nation has so recently lost.

    * Congrats DAW on your novel.

  73. 73.

    Trapped Lurker

    @Amir Khalid: Thank you for that, Amir. Listening again to Pete Seeger and Bruce and the others and remembering that day made me weep, but watching the hope and joy on all the faces left me feeling hopeful that we will indeed maybe be able to overcome the horror of today. Pete Seeger spoke at my college graduation back in 1972; he gave us hope then, and somehow I keep hope alive now. Thank you for the reminder!

  74. 74.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Wanderer:

    Thank you.

    I didn’t watch any of the national stuff yesterday. Trump makes me sick, often quite literally as my blood pressure shoots up. I did watch Hamilton because it made me happy.

  76. 76.

    Trapped Lurker

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I thank you for the pleasure (&escape) of your books. I have now read the all. I generally lurK at BJ for all of the wisdom & knowledge & snark, but love that I find new authors & books too!

  80. 80.

    Luciamia

    50.

    Our people have a great memory. They will never forget the destruction of statues and monuments to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, abolitionists and many others. The violent mayhem we have seen in the streets and cities

    Lie, lie and lie. But I guess that summons up the whole speech.

  82. 82.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @japa21: Thanks, japa. I hope one day to be back at an author fair in a library near you again. Not soon, it looks like, but one day.

    @Trapped Lurker: Oh wow. I’m so glad you enjoyed them. You never really know because not all books suit all readers. And thank you for telling me.

    @JPL: Some day I too hope to see it in paperback! I still haven’t gotten the copies I order either from Amazon or directly from my publisher.

  84. 84.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @MattF: It is work, so it better be work you enjoy because you do it for a long time and there’s no certainty of any reward other than the doing.

    @Sab: Thanks. Once again, I point out that it’s a sub-sub-category. I didn’t even know it existed. But it’s there!

  87. 87.

    debbie

    “Garden of American Heroes.” FFS. At least you’ll never be in it, you asshole.

  88. 88.

    rikyrah

    Last night, in the heart of the Black Hills, a sacred site for Native Americans, Trump praised and elevated the figure of Andrew Jackson, who killed and displaced tens of thousands of indigenous people.Minorities are on notice they have no future in Trump’s White America.— Tea Pain (@TeaPainUSA) July 4, 2020

  89. 89.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Did we know that Trump Jr.’s girlfriend tested positive for COVID yesterday? He apparently tested negative. But how is it possible that neither Trump nor Pence has it?

  90. 90.

    Spanky

    It appearing in the course of these debates that the colonies of N. York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina were not yet matured for falling from the parent stem, but that they were fast advancing to that state, it was thought most prudent to wait a while for them, and to postpone the final decision to July 1, but that this might occasion as little delay as possible a committee was appointed to prepare a declaration of independence. The committee were J. Adams, Dr. Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston & myself. Committees were also appointed at the same time to prepare a plan of confederation for the colonies, and to state the terms proper to be proposed for foreign alliance.

    The committee for drawing the declaration of Independence desired me to do it. It was accordingly done, and being approved by them, I reported it to the house on Friday the 28th of June when it was read and ordered to lie on the table.

    On Monday, the 1st of July the house resolved itself into a committee of the whole & resumed the consideration of the original motion made by the delegates of Virginia, which being again debated through the day, was carried in the affirmative by the votes of N. Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, N. Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, N. Carolina, & Georgia. S. Carolina and Pennsylvania voted against it. Delaware having but two members present, they were divided. The delegates for New York declared they were for it themselves & were assured their constituents were for it, but that their instructions having been drawn near a twelvemonth before, when reconciliation was still the general object, they were enjoined by them to do nothing which should impede that object. They therefore thought themselves not justifiable in voting on either side, and asked leave to withdraw from the question, which was given them. The committee rose & reported their resolution to the house. Mr. Edward Rutledge of S. Carolina then requested the determination might be put off to the next day, as he believed his colleagues, tho’ they disapproved of the resolution, would then join in it for the sake of unanimity. The ultimate question whether the house would agree to the resolution of the committee was accordingly postponed to the next day, when it was again moved and S. Carolina concurred in voting for it. In the meantime a third member had come post from the Delaware counties and turned the vote of that colony in favour of the resolution. Members of a different sentiment attending that morning from Pennsylvania also, their vote was changed, so that the whole 12 colonies who were authorized to vote at all, gave their voices for it; and within a few days, the convention of N. York approved of it and thus supplied the void occasioned by the withdrawing of her delegates from the vote.

    Congress proceeded the same day to consider the declaration of Independence which had been reported & lain on the table the Friday preceding, and on Monday referred to a committee of the whole. The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of many. For this reason those passages which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offence. The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it. Our northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under those censures; for tho’ their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others. The debates having taken up the greater parts of the 2d 3d & 4th days of July were, in the evening of the last, closed the declaration was reported by the committee, agreed to by the house and signed by every member present except Mr. Dickinson. As the sentiments of men are known not only by what they receive, but what they reject also, I will state the form of the declaration as originally reported.

    -Autobiography of T. Jefferson

  93. 93.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Just bought the Kindle version. I have a fondness for YA fantasy anyway so I know it will be an enjoyable read. You get more shekels from electronic sales, right? I think I heard that somewhere.

  94. 94.

    rikyrah

    Other advanced countries have contained Covid-19. We could have too, but failed because of terrible leadership. But rather than asking what we did wrong, Navarro sees a dastardly foreign conspiracy. This should be shocking, but it's the norm for this gang. https://t.co/zkiFlytNtg— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) July 3, 2020

  101. 101.

    Spanky

    @OzarkHillbilly: These days, in the early morning before the heat comes up, I sit under a black locust with my phone and the BirdNET app from Cornell. Sometimes there’s too many competing bird and mechanical noises for it to pick out the song/call I want, but I’m slowly learning the calls of my local birds.

    And unlearning. What I thought was a Chickadee call I find is really a Tuffed Titmouse, and a “CHIT” that I thought was Red-Winged Blackbird is really those damned Grackles.

    It’s amazing what you can learn by just quietly sitting.

  108. 108.

    ThresherK

    @rikyrah: “We were so excited in the beginning. A businessman to run our country like a business and it hasn’t happened.”

    On one hand, he’s stupid enough to want gummint like a bidness.

    On the other hand, he’s a banker who hasn’t loaned Trump money (that we know of).

  111. 111.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @RSA:

    It’s got Steven Miller written all over it.

    The irony is that it probably sounded better in its original German.

    It is a plea to the Herrenvolk for violence.

  121. 121.

    scav

    @rikyrah: Like many, I don’t think that banker has a solitary clue about what “running like a business” actually means. It’s intellectual empty calories, a magical incantation bringing about a nebulous state of perfection, cloud-cuckoo land for the MBA-beguiled.

  123. 123.

    Amir Khalid

    @Emma from FL:

    It looks like you’ve unintentionally put your email address in your name field. If so, you might want to ask Watergirl to help you fix that.

  125. 125.

    zhena gogolia

    @MattF:

    That will take too long! Just read the libretto before watching.

    But after you’ve seen the show, read Chernow and marvel at how brilliantly it’s been adapted into a rip-roaring musical.

  126. 126.

    Ken

    @ThresherK: On one hand, he’s stupid enough to want gummint like a bidness.

    Personally I’d prefer that the government not collapse after two bad quarters, but I am not a banker.

  130. 130.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Sab: I dunno. What’s happening in television these days is much more innovative and challenging than what’s being released in the movie theaters. I can see The Wydsman finding a home at Netflix, for example.

  131. 131.

    debbie

    @rikyrah:

    Here, the police are saying they won’t be able to operate without freely using deadly force. Unbelievable.

  138. 138.

    Shalimar

    @Baud: I think only former VP ever charged with treason.  Not sure if that makes him more of an asshole than Hamilton ot not.

  140. 140.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud:

    Just as you would be rooting for Judas halfway through Jesus Christ Superstar. You’re supposed to.

    Where is Mnem when you need her? I can’t believe she abandoned us at this critical time.

  144. 144.

    Peale

    @debbie: he was a tenured professor in the University of California system in economics. So basically qualified to teach others nonsense.

  145. 145.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Wow! How exciting, and very well deserved. I’m about 60% through The Wysman, and just completely caught up in it. What a world you’ve created!

  146. 146.

    TomatoQueen

    @Amir Khalid: That were a proper cold day (frostbite for your toes is traditional here on January 20). The most satisfying, sweet day evah. Oh there’s onions in here.

  148. 148.

    Elizabelle

    @RSA:   Our people have a great memory.

    LOL.  Actually, a not insignificant number are on the cusp of dementia.  As is this speaker.

    Was in a Facebook thread with some rightwinger, who was taunting on “why didn’t Abraham Lincoln do more for Reconstruction?”  I pointed out his great difficulty there.   And then winger erased all his comments and fled.

    These people are bile and grievance.

    And nowhere in that speech does any form of the word “confederacy” appear.  He does touch on the Civil War and civil rights.

    Happy July 4th to us and Fuck Trump.

  151. 151.

    Peale

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: and apparently was at a party in the hamptons 4 days ago. Come on Cuomo. Put some contact tracers on them there red heeled scofflaws. Prove to us that rich and poor alike need to participate in keeping the spread under control.

  153. 153.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @SiubhanDuinne: I’m glad you’re enjoying it. As I told someone above, I never know if a friend will like a book I love, much less one I wrote so am totally not objective about. Sometimes it just doesn’t click.

    Elizabelle @152. It was sweet news. But weekends (and holidays) have blurred into all the other days now.

  156. 156.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @WereBear: Then again, Prince Prospero was the last to go…

    ???!??!?!!!??

    Didn’t someone recently post an excerpt from “The Masque Of The Red Death” that showed Prospero was among the (if not the) first?? Chased down the mysterious interloper, tried to stab him with a dagger but fell down dead – & then said M.I. went after the rest of the guests?

    Here’s the full text. Passage in question:

    Prospero … bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure…. There was a sharp cry — and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which most instantly afterward, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment …

    And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

  157. 157.

    J R in WV

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Congratulations !!!

    I can only imagine how wonderful and fulfilled that makes you feel~!!!~ And how much so many others are going to enjoy your work, also too !

    So happy for you!!!

  158. 158.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah: That’s the exact same line from the article that I used when retweeting/putting up on FB.  Gets right to the heart of this maladministration’s priorities.

  159. 159.

    Nicole

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:   I don’t even need to click that link in comment 7, I know exactly what it’s going to link to. :)

    “RRRRNNNNNN BRRRRRRRR!   RRRRNRNNNNNN BRRRRRR!”

  162. 162.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Peale: he was a tenured professor in the University of California system in economics. So basically qualified to teach others nonsense.

    I worked for ~5 years as a statisician/programmer for a bunch of PhD economists. Some of them were nice people, some not so nice – but the collective intellectual pretensions were right out of Dunning-Krugerville.

    “An economist is a person who likes to work with numbers but isn’t personable enough to be an accountant.”

  163. 163.

    TS (the original)

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    But weekends (and holidays) have blurred into all the other days now.

    Now we are retired – and especially since COVID the days seem to merge together. About 4 months ago I used to say “every day is a holiday” – not quite so much at the minute.

    Congratulations on your No 1 – I used to check a relative’s book on amazon & whenever it got to 2 figures (in any list) we celebrated. Never made it to single digits – so your No 1 is most impressive.

  164. 164.

    Nicole

    It’s interesting reading here, and friends’ posts on FB, that Hamilton has been a bit confusing and overwhelming to watch on TV- I’ve seen several people post things to that topic.  I saw the show on Broadway a few years ago- I had not heard the music before I went to see it, so I went in without any sort of foreknowledge, and I was able to follow the show (and the lyrics) with no problem.

    Now, I don’t think it says anything about me or folks who viewed it on TV at all- I’m no smarter or less smart than anyone else and my hearing isn’t particularly acute-  I think it says something about the nature and experience of live theater and material written for live theater and it makes me desperately hope that live theater will be able to return in some form down the road.

    People in a theater group I work with have been setting up Zoom play readings that I’ve been attending weekly and man, it’s an entirely different medium.  Comedies, which are so dependent on timing, really don’t work on Zoom.  I’m tinkering with a short piece for one of the groups that I’m writing as a comedy, but intended for performance on Zoom, to see if it can be done.  It’s a fun challenge so far.

  169. 169.

    sdhays

    @rikyrah:  A businessman to run our country like a business and it hasn’t happened.

    Argh!! Yes, it has happened, you stupid mother-fucker!! This is what “running the country like a business” looks like.

  170. 170.

    zhena gogolia

    @Nicole:

    This is really interesting. I thought my husband might have that problem, but I guess he’s picked up enough by seeing clips and hearing me sing around the house (plus being an American history expert) that he is not having any trouble. But we could only watch one act last night — it’s just so overwhelming, even to me who knows it so well. I’m not sure I could sit through the whole thing in a theater!

  172. 172.

    kindness

    I’m not a history expert but I seem to have read that a lot of the colonists here in the US did not support revolution.  Sure most the landed gentry figured out it was in their best interests but the actual citizens?  I thought it was closer to 60-40, 55-45 kind of breakdown.  And at the end of the Revolution those royalists mostly stayed here and kept their heads down for a bit.

  176. 176.

    Ken

    @Uncle Cosmo: The “first assume a spherical cow” joke has nothing on economists, or at least some sub-fields. “Assume all humans are perfectly-informed rational actors seeking to maximize their utility function, and also assume they have the same utility function.”

    That doesn’t even describe the markets, except in those areas where trading has been almost entire turned over to computer programs that do all use the same utility function (like options trading and Black-Scholes, if I understand correctly).

  179. 179.

    Josie

    I am so angry I could chew nails.  My son, who had two stents put in two years ago, was called back in to work weeks ago (we are in Texas).  He tried to be safe, wore his mask and kept the door to his office shut as much as possible.  Nobody else in the office wore masks and some had their kids in day care.  I’m living with them right now to help with child care.  He got a call this morning that someone in the office that he has talked to recently had the virus.  Luckily he can go to the other grandmother’s home and quarantine there in her upstairs, but it means extra stress on all of us and a true danger to him.  I blame the GOP in this country and in Texas particularly for stupid, STUPID decisions, and I will never forgive anyone who voted for this travesty.

  181. 181.

    mozzerb

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    @The Thin Black Duke: A friend of mine has a Netflix thing coming out about her YA book. It’s called “Get Even.” The premise is that 4 high school girls decide to take revenge on the mean kids. They form a DGM society, which stands for Don’t Get Mad (Get Even).

    Is that the version that was relocated to a British setting? I saw that on one of the BBC online channels and it was pretty good (albeit with one of the girls still inexplicably American and the occasional aspect that hadn’t been completely translated).

  184. 184.

    Croaker

    Here’s to the troops on Yavin 4! Never forget Alderaan.

    Flying the Real Flag of the Rebel Alliance today.

    Trump off my yard – you gun humping, mask-less, nazi lovers.

  186. 186.

    dmsilev

    Territorial birds are hilarious. I just watched a lone hummingbird chase away a pair of hooded orioles (combined weight probably 15x larger) from the nectar feeder. MY FLOWER!

  189. 189.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @raven: My official residence was in Waterloo because Mr DAW worked there in John Deere’s engineering research center. It’s 90 miles from there to Ames, so I got a condo in Ames and spent 3 nights a week there when the university was in session.

  190. 190.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Nicole: It’s out of stock because demand was higher than the book sellers predicted based on my past books. So they had only a few in stock when the book went live. It’s driving me crazy. I know I’m losing sales because of that.

    @mozzerb: Yes, it is that. The author, Gretchen McNeal, is an online friend

    @Bex: So you’re the one who drove it up the chart!

  191. 191.

    suezboo

    Happy Birthday, USA. That makes you 244 years old, right?

    So your democracy lasted 244 years. Seems like peanuts compared to, say, Iceland’s over 1000 years but you got some great declarations and speeches out of it. Still not very encouraging to us very new democracies. Will we fade as fast? Very worrying.

  192. 192.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Josie:

    That’s appalling. I hope he’s ok. My son works in a place that has had COVID not only in the building but also in his office, and he hasn’t caught it, so maybe that predicts well for your son too.

  193. 193.

    SteverinoCT

    @Sab: we’ve got a mockingbird across the street that serenades the sunrise, starting about four hours early.

  194. 194.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Very nice to have a positive tweet from an actual President, not a Russian-installed traitor.

  196. 196.

    WaterGirl

    @Josie:  I am sorry, Josie.  That’s scary, and enraging.

    I think there should be a law that says if your employer insists on you working in the office, that 1) masks are required and 2) distancing is required and 3) special safety mechanisms are in place.

    If all 3 are not in place, they need to allow you to work from home or pay you for the time you are unable to work.

    It will never happen with Rs at the helm in the Senate, but what’s happening to people like your son and MomSense and others should not be allowed to happen.

  199. 199.

    debbie

    @Josie:

    Where I work, we can request to continue working remotely if we are at risk. I haven’t gotten my “verdict” yet, but would your son’s employer have something similar?

  202. 202.

    Josie

    @debbie:

    They did work remotely for a while, which was fine for him, since he is an appellate attorney for the county and does mostly research and writing. But then they called him back in and gave him no choice.  They just this week instituted day on/day off shifts, but it is too little, too late.  It is all so poorly thought out and administered all over Texas.

  208. 208.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @sdhays: This is what “running the country like a business” looks like when your entire history of “running businesses” consists of shoddy work, shoddier management, stiffing contractors and customers & walking away unscathed via plutocrat-friendly bankruptcy laws.

    Clarified that for the readers. Caveat suffragator! Cave criminalibus!

  212. 212.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @raven: Rich Freed was my colleague. I met his wife Julie several times too. Is that her? She was always interesting to talk to. I remember talking to her about a book club she belonged to that had decided to read YA books for a year.

  213. 213.

    Zelma

    @Amir Khalid:

    Thank you for posting that.  I am in tears about how far we have fallen.  I was there for the inauguration.  Had tickets but didn’t get in because of the crowd.  I watched instead in the basement of a nearby Lutheran church with a crowd of mostly African Americans who had likewise failed to enter.  When the national anthem came on, they all stood up so proudly that I cried then like I am crying now.

  214. 214.

    Amir Khalid

    @Zelma:

    The audience’s faces were shining with joy and hope that day. I have faith that I will see joy and hope again in America.

  215. 215.

    sgrAstar

    The streaming Hamilton is superb! Miranda and his brilliant team have given us a work for the ages. I’ve seen it twice on stage and was absolutely gobsmacked by the film. Can’t recommend it enough.

     

    ?

  217. 217.

    catclub

    @Spanky: It’s amazing what you can learn by just quietly sitting.

    “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,” wrote the French philosopher Blaise Pascal.

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