Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Consistently wrong since 2002

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

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

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

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

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Let’s finish the job.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

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

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

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

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

No one could have predicted…

You can’t love your country only when you win.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Biden-Harris 2020 / Saturday Morning Open Thread: The Grownups Are Back

Saturday Morning Open Thread: The Grownups Are Back

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Sure, it’s a minor disappointment that we won’t be able to contrast the singing, dancing crowds at Biden’s inauguration with the pathetic 2016 turnout for the GOP figurehead. On the other hand, we already have the videos from November 8th…

… Not to mention, the DNC put together a pretty impressive online / socially-distanced convention this year; I suspect we’ll be able to come up with a stellar package for Joe and Kamala’s inauguration as well!

Reader Interactions

184Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Along with the virtual inaugural on inauguration day, we should have a delayed real inaugural after everyone is vaccinated.

  3. 3.

    TS (the original)

    Sure, it’s a minor disappointment that we won’t be able to contrast the singing, dancing crowds at Biden’s inauguration with the pathetic 2016 turnout for the GOP figurehead.

    But imagine the numbers watching the inauguration online! Given how well the convention was planned & executed this will be the same – or better – and millions will be watching world wide.

  4. 4.

    Immanentize

    I have to go into the office today for the first time since April to pick up some materials I need for my final exam.  I had to download a specific app that either clears me or restricts me from going into any building.  I think my Uni. is doing pretty good, but Boston is starting to do worse.

  5. 5.

    Amir Khalid

    Is Cornel West going to have hurt feelings again, because he wasn’t offered tickets to the inauguration?

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Christian group tears down mysterious monolith on California mountain

    In a video, which was livestreamed and posted online, the group of young men drive from southern California to tear down the structure. Under cover of darkness, they hike up to the structure and tear it down while chanting “Christ is king!”. They then erect a homemade wooden cross in its place and drag the remains of the monolith down the mountain to their car.

    During the video, the men also make offensive comments and drink substantial quantities of energy drinks, while also referencing Donald Trump and the QAnon conspiracy theory and their mission is to demonstrate “how much we love Jesus Christ”.

    It’s even money on whether or not they burned the cross after erecting it.

    The vandalism angered local officials.

    “We are upset that these young men felt the need to drive five hours to come into our community and vandalize the monolith,” Atascadero’s mayor, Heather Moreno, said in a news release. “The monolith was something unique and fun in an otherwise stressful time.”

    No no, Ms Mayor, these are Christians. Don’t you understand how superior they are to all others and how we must defer and cater to their special feelings?

  10. 10.

    Amir Khalid

    @Baud:

    I was disappointed that when the monolith first showed up in Utah, a crowd of Utahans did not gather around it and start beating their chests.

  13. 13.

    Immanentize

    @Amir Khalid: I think West already got invited — to Sanders’ inauguration party at the third villa in Burlington….

    But seriously, I remember when I considered West a brave academic when he took a public stand against Harvard and moved to Princeton.  One of my hero/mentors, Charles Ogeltree, thought West was in the right vis a vis Harvard and what he did publicly was helping black profs everywhere.  But that event seemed to turn CW into a media maven and now, he is a real crank.

  15. 15.

    debbie

    I’m sure he won’t, but part of me would like Joe to call attention to all of the undermining going on with the Trump administration and how they’re focusing on that rather than helping in any way with the pandemic. I know people know that, but some things must be spoken out loud.

  17. 17.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly: How come these He-Rows all have such a burning expressed desire for the love of the man, Jesus?  Seems to be counter their particular brand of manlimanness.  I know, I know….  God, guns and love of men.  Err, “man.”

    Meanwhile, gay orgy for right wing bigots in Southern California or Hungary scheduled for this evening.  Police attendance optional.

  19. 19.

    Immanentize

     

    @debbie: I need a kid to get me in the door!  The Immp haughtily disdains such pursuits.  But a little online gaming?  Bueno!

  20. 20.

    mrmoshpotato

    Sure, it’s a minor disappointment that we won’t be able to contrast the singing, dancing crowds at Biden’s inauguration with the pathetic 2016 turnout for the GOP figurehead.

    You’ll be able to hear the cheering and horn honking throughout the land. :)

  21. 21.

    Immanentize

    @debbie: One of my favorite things that a commenter ever said here — it was raven — was something to the effect that no one would have laughed more at taking target practice at those statues than the Buddha himself.  I think of that when I get pissed about the foolish acts of men.

  22. 22.

    mad citizen

    Wanted to say a huge thanks for Anne for doing the hundreds of COVID updates this year.  I was reading this morning’s post on my cell earlier and it just kept going and going going.  So much information compiled in one place.  I know we all appreciate the massive effort that it takes.

    Re: Monolith.  This weird fear by a few seems strange considering one of our nation’s symbols is monolithic, but an obelisk: the Washington Monument.  We have a 100 feet high obelisk in Indianapolis in our war memorial area (erected 1930) (I was once told by a visitor that Indy has the nation’s second most war memorials outside of D.C.).  Obama made two campaign stops there in 2008.

  23. 23.

    Immanentize

    @debbie: Biden will tell that tale, once he is President and can get no more value from the current admin whose cooperation he needs right now to get ready for his job.

  24. 24.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud: Delayed party.  We’re not postponing swearing in Biden and Harris, and kicking out Dump and Dense on their fascist fucker asses.

  30. 30.

    mrmoshpotato

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    make offensive comments and drink substantial quantities of energy drinks

    Offending their taste buds.  Red Bull – it tastes like puuuuuuke!

    “Brah!  Do you even lift?”

  31. 31.

    Zzyzx

    I’ve been reading Free Republic lately to see how they’re dealing with the loss and it’s amazing what happens when you never deal with people who challenge you. The current argument is that we need to defend “freedom” by declaring martial law and arresting – and sometimes executing – people we don’t like, mainly journalists and opposing politicians.

  34. 34.

    TS (the original)

    @debbie:

    I think it is implied every time Biden speaks of what he will do or what should be done in regard to the pandemic.

    Biden also spoke very clearly when asked about trump attending the inauguration.

    President-elect Joe Biden said on Thursday that it is not important to him personally if President Trump attends his inauguration next month, but added that it would be important for the country to bear witness to a peaceful transfer of power.

    I doubt Biden will ever get into a discussion as to trump preferring golf to addressing the pandemic, but the concept is there whenever he speaks to the issues, while trump stays silent.

  35. 35.

    Betty Cracker

    I’m pleased to hear Biden doesn’t plan on a big to-do for the inauguration, not just because of the coronavirus but because so many Americans are out of work and hurting. Trump sweeps all the misery under the rug for his own glorification, but Biden centers it. I think that’s really important, not just for Biden but for the Democratic Party. Master class in competence and empathy coming up, and what a contrast it will be.

  37. 37.

    raven

    @Debbie: the Buddha’s final words express this: Impermanence is inescapable. Everything vanishes. Therefore there is nothing more important than continuing the path with diligence.

  39. 39.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud: The Trump humpers won’t turn over a new leaf.  But they will open another barrel of toxic waste and take a bit slurp.

  41. 41.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The Abuser and the Terrorist
    The under recognized web of shame, honor, and twisted masculinity that connects domestic violence and political violence.

    I am running on East Eighty-Ninth Street in the dark. Cannot breathe, cannot stop. In the streets kids are playing stickball—I can hear them, but they are a blur of pink and brown, flesh and T-shirts, voices. Keep running. Behind me somewhere is the man who whispers to me in the night, but I cannot look back, can only run. Keep running. Air and night close around me, darkness at my throat, hair in my eyes, boots on the sidewalk, breathe, choke, a man asks, “Are you all right?” but I do not, cannot stop to answer. Keep running. Legs heavy; Eighty-Ninth Street going west is all uphill. Some nights it is whispers and some nights it is curses and tonight it was hisses, hot and filled with spit as a switchblade flashes to the corner of my eye and does not move from there, spit from his mouth spraying against cold steel, distorting the reflection. I am looking forward, only looking forward, do not dare to move my eyes. Until he drops the knife. “Too good for you,” he mutters and turns to walk to where I know the gun is, and this is where I start to run, pull the lock open, the door, down the stairs and through two front doors. Surely he could have caught me by then if he’d wanted to. I am just five feet, and he is six foot one.

    Run. Heels hard against the pavement, a hot June night, I still remember, run.

    I turn left. Left is the obvious direction: toward home, not away. But I turn left, and he knows I will turn left and so he catches up to me, a hand on my shoulder, the lights stop, breath stops, footsteps stop, and I realize that deafening drumming in my ears has been the sound of my own footsteps because that, too, stops.

    “What are you running from?” Boris says. “Come back with me.”

    Years later I still remember we are standing on Third Avenue in the dark in front of a deli between Eighty-Eighth and Eighty-Ninth Streets and he is wearing jeans and the pale brown hairs of his chest are visible beneath a denim work shirt that is two too many buttons unbuttoned, and I am seventeen years old and I am stuck. If I go home to my parents I will have to explain why I am back before 9:30 on a Saturday night. I will have to act as if everything is fine when it is not. I turn to face him. There does not seem to be a gun. “Don’t be such a silly,” he says and sweeps me into an embrace, the kind of embrace the good guy sweeps the frightened maiden in when he comes to save her from the evil king, the evil bandits. My head is spinning again but I am too confused and still too dumb with fright to argue.

    “Silly,” he says again. “Don’t you know how much I love you?”

    Food for thought. She has a lot to say, more than can be put into an article, hence it’s an excerpt from a book.

  42. 42.

    Geminid

    trump’s campaign organization is calling today’s rally in Valdosta Ga. a “Victory Rally.”                                           This is going to be weird.

  43. 43.

    Amir Khalid

    Thank you all for the kind words. It’s been quiet here today without Bianca. She was always a talkative cat, and she liked to start conversations with me.

  44. 44.

    Zzyzx

    @Immanentize: I always find it fascinating and I do believe it’s important to read things that I find massively wrong just in case there’s something I’m missing. That’s what brought me here at first, back when Cole was a sane conservative.

    But yeah, this is more akin to reading the blogs of sports rivals after they had a bad loss.

  45. 45.

    Spanky

    @Immanentize:

    One of my favorite things that a commenter ever said here — it was raven — was something to the effect that no one would have laughed more at taking target practice at those statues than the Buddha himself.

    Buddha may not care, but Mama Monolith is gonna kick some christianist ass.

  46. 46.

    NotMax

    The only reading possible through Occam’s spectacles is that the military took a look at crowd restrictrions in place in Philly and basically said, “Screw it. We’re taking our ball and going home, where we can pack people into the bleachers like sardines, all the way to the top.” Which in today’s world is an idiotic decision.

    [West Point’s] Michie Stadium has hosted the Army–Navy Game only once, in 1943 during World War II, after it was played at Thompson Stadium at Annapolis the year before. Neither Army nor Navy have played at an on-campus facility since very early in the rivalry, since teams’ home stadiums are not nearly large enough to accommodate the crowds and media that usually attend the rivalry games. Their rivalry game is normally played at a neutral site between the campuses on the East Coast, usually in Philadelphia in early December. In 2020, the Army–Navy Game was moved from Philadelphia to Michie Stadium due to state-imposed attendance limits on outdoor events as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Source

    Meanwhile, in other current events, this ought to fry a few more of what’s an extremely endangered species, namely Dolt 45’s brain cells.

    President Barack Obama’s 1979 Punahou basketball jersey has been sold at auction for $192,000.

    That’s a record auction price for a high school jersey. Source

  48. 48.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    Grr.

    Tom Brady’s side nutrition business, TB12, employs around a dozen people.

    Brady is worth $200 million. His wife, Gisele Bundchen, is worth $400 million.

    Hey, if you run a very small business and were not able to get a PPP loan, rest easy knowing Tom Brady got one.
    https://t.co/dmWDnBPSqU

    — The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) December 5, 2020

    I know it’s about 103rd on the new administration’s priority list, but I really would like for them to audit the PPP loans, name and shame the undeserving and claw back the money.

    That’s a fantasy, became I’m sure it was all done “legally.”

  49. 49.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Louisville’s all-rapacious, business connection megachurch (Southeast Christian, the one attended by McConnell) has build campuses all over the Metro and decimated dozens of smaller Baptist, Presbyterian and Methodist congregations by raking off the Chamber of Commerce types, along with their families. Part of their rise was fueled by anti-Catholic, anti-Orthodox animus and criticism from the pulpit.

    They bought a plot of ground in Southern Indiana to use as a teen camp and retreat center; the plot adjoined a number of large private lots.  Apparently, in the course of the kids’ rambles, they’d stumbled upon a Marian shrine that was on a ridge line owned by a neighbor. The counselor whipped his campers with proper evangelical zeal to go trash the shrine.

    As it turned out, the devotional shrine had been erected by the owner in honor of his deceased wife at a point where they liked to hike and catch the view and the pastoral nature of the spot.

    Megachurch muttered an insincere apology and provided some funds to restore the spot, but didn’t terminate the idiot counselor and refused to identify him.

  50. 50.

    Spanky

    @Immanentize: My first electric guitar was a Silvertone. I think that was the Sears brand back in the day. I bought it from my friend Donnie for $12 and a tank of gas for his truck.

  54. 54.

    sab

    @Amir Khalid: My husband says cats don’t talk to other cats unless they are oversocialized among humans. Cats only talk to humans.

    ETA Apparently they realize we can’t understand their eyeblinks and ear positionings.

  55. 55.

    debbie

    @raven:

    The Buddha is never wrong, but I will never be able to separate out the sadness of the loss. No doubt I’d have made a crap monk.

  58. 58.

    raven

    @NotMax:

    “It is unlikely there will be fan attendance allowed at Michie Stadium beyond the Corps of Cadets and Brigade of Midshipmen”

  60. 60.

    Immanentize

    @Spanky: Cosmic convergence.

    The tank of gas is an excellent detail in that story.  Probably around the same time I got a Norma electric from my brother’s friend for a double sawbuck.  But I never kept up with the instrument, skill wise or possession wise.

  61. 61.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Betty Cracker:

    Carter’s “Malaise” speech was about competence and empathy, but a demented, gaslit populace was conditioned to accept conservative manipulation of a fantastic message as one of weakness, and the media was ripe to play along.

  62. 62.

    raven

    @raven: It’s also the first time it won’t be the only game played that weekend as most conferences have had to use it and the 19th for postponed games. Go Dawgs!

  64. 64.

    Honus

    @Salty Sam: at one point when I was in high school in 1972 my mother, father, aunt and grandfather were in the hospital at the same time with various ailments. I’ll never forget the day I was driving to the hospital and that song came on the car radio.

  67. 67.

    Elizabelle

    @Amir Khalid:

    Oh no!  Bianca has joined Steep’s housecat with the heated throw, in the sky?

    Sad to hear that.  I hope another lucky kitty joins Amir’s House o’ Guitars, when the time is suitable.  It will be too quiet without a pet, talkative or otherwise.

  70. 70.

    e julius drivingstorm

    Concerning the 905 billion Covid relief bill, it doesn’t contain the 1200 dollar individual and 500 dollar dependents provision, nor anything to extend unemployment. I wish somebody who still has a democrat representative would suggest to them that stand alone bills to address each of these (two separate bills) would really pressure McConnell if Pelosi passes them in the house.

  71. 71.

    sab

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I remember Carter’s Malaise speech and I thought it was a good speech. Then Ted Koppel got in with his late night countdown thing and the press rewrote the reaction.

    I had an amazing boss years ago (CPA accounting) who had a client who was one of those hostages in Iran. He missed an important tax filing because he was a hostage and couldn’t sign his return. So he missed an important tax election deadline. Cost him a bundle.

    My boss, who had thought he was politically well connected, could do nothing to help his client. Reagan and Congress (Republican) did not actually care at all about all those US embassy and other employees in Iran. The Republicans in office just wanted the headlines.

  75. 75.

    Chyron HR

    @e julius drivingstorm: 

    Now that the citizens of Kentucky have seen fit to inflict their sociopathy on the nation for another 6 years, the only thing that can “pressure” Mitch McConnell is actual physical violence. Maybe.

  76. 76.

    sab

    @e julius drivingstorm: That’s why Pelosi is relenting in her opposition to any relief if it’s not perfect. She thinks with Biden we can get more relief soon. This bill is just the first step, not the last gasp as it would have been with Trump.

  77. 77.

    TS (the original)

     Which candidate Republican lawmakers say won the election

    25 Biden (Actual winner)

    2 Trump

    222 Unclear/No answer

    The party of no facts, no responsibility and a blind allegiance to Donald Trump (to steal the title of a book about Sarah Palin)

    Link

    Think I have more consideration for the two who said trump won – than the 222 who mumbled a non reply.

  79. 79.

    dmsilev

    Just 25 congressional Republicans acknowledge Biden’s win, Washington Post survey finds

    Just 25 congressional Republicans acknowledge Joe Biden’s win over President Trump a month after the former vice president’s clear victory of more than 7 million votes nationally and a convincing electoral-vote margin that exactly matched Trump’s 2016 tally.
    Two Republicans consider Trump the winner despite all evidence showing otherwise. And another 222 GOP members of the House and Senate — nearly 90 percent of all Republicans serving in Congress — will simply not say who won the election.
    Those are the findings of a Washington Post survey of all 249 Republicans in the House and Senate that began the morning after Trump posted a 46-minute video Wednesday evening in which he wrongly claimed he had defeated Biden and leveled wild and unsubstantiated allegations of “corrupt forces” who stole the outcome from the sitting president.

    Ten percent of elected Republicans are willing to acknowledge reality. TEN PERCENT. It’s not that they’re actively denying reality, oh no only two loons are willing to say “Trump actually won”, it’s that ninety percent of them are such moral pygmies that they refuse to actually answer the very straightforward and very easy question. And if you read through the rest of the article, you find that about a quarter of those reality-adjacent Republicans are retiring at the end of the month.

  84. 84.

    Danielx

    @Immanentize:

    ::::::Firing up memory banks::::::

    Jesus’ General would have had great commentary on these nitwits, along with how each and every one of them was due an appointment with the Terrible Spatula of Redemption.

  85. 85.

    artem1s

    “The monolith was something unique and fun in an otherwise stressful time.”

    the artist or whomever put it up is going to be pretty amused by all of this, I bet.  If aluminum wasn’t so expensive I could see art students all over the country trolling these asshats into displays of ‘religious’ suppression, by coordinating building hundreds of them, documenting the constructions, online reactions, and tear down frenzy, and turning the whole thing into a giant performance piece.  Great MFA thesis, IMO.  great way to demonstrate how autocrats and fascists always draw attention to the thing they are trying to keep quiet and suppress by massively overreacting to it.

  87. 87.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Chyron HR:

    Mitch really loves to eat well, and there are some fantastic restaurants around. I’ve been trying to pipe some information out to bubble back to him that if he doesn’t do something to aid workers and small business, he won’t be able to trust that a single plate or glass he ever gets in any eatery is untainted with spittle or other bodily fluids.

    The only places I want him to feel safe eating at are diners and Cracker Barrels in Somerset, Pikeville or Hazard.

  88. 88.

    Spanky

    @Danielx:  I had thought the same thing earlier, and in a moment of “whatever happened to …” went a-Googling. Hard to believe it’s been about 7 years since he lost the muse.

  96. 96.

    Luciamia

    @Zzyzx: And anyone who dares A different opinion is immediately part of the conspiracy. Barr is now an enemy.

    Free Republic also has a creepy religiosity that gives it its own icky vibe.  But if Christ himself appeared an declared the election valid, they’d denounce him.

  97. 97.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @sab:

    I remember Carter’s Malaise speech and I thought it was a good speech. Then Ted Koppel got in with his late night countdown thing and the press rewrote the reaction.

    The so-called “Malaise” speech was in July 1979. Koppel’s “late night countdown thing” didn’t begin until November of that year, first as America Held Hostage and subsequently (after the release) as Nightline.

    I don’t deny, however, that framing Carter’s thoughtful address as “malaise” was totally on the media of the day, cheerfully abetted by the Republicans.

  99. 99.

    sab

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I had a roommate in boarding school probably back before you were born(1968-1969). She was from Louisville. Very Republican. (Weird then. She should have been a Dixiecrat.) Relatives working all over DC as Senate staffers.

    Last picture I have seen of her was in a pink pussy hat with her elderly aunt who had been chief of staff to a Republican senator, Aunt also in a pink pussy hat.

  103. 103.

    lowtechcyclist

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    No no, Ms Mayor, these are Christians. Don’t you understand how superior they are to all others and how we must defer and cater to their special feelings?

    According to the Daily Beast story, they were shouting “Christ is King” and “America first”.  Apparently they couldn’t make up their minds.

    But speaking as a born-again, Jesus-freak sort of person, people like this piss me off no end.  I’m sure that in their heads, they believe that if actual persecutions ever came, and they were forced to choose between death and denying their faith, they’d choose death.  Yet they can’t seem to bear the least inconvenience in the name of the Lord without endless whinging about their rights.

    It’s almost like an anti-witness – if they’ve got something special to share with the world, it sure isn’t very special.

  108. 108.

    germy

    WaPo surveyed all 249 Republicans on Capitol Hill. 25 acknowledge that Biden won. 2 insist that Trump won. And "another 222 GOP members of the House and Senate — nearly 90% of all Republicans serving in Congress — will simply not say who won the election." https://t.co/CjOM2vVLjJ

    — Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 5, 2020

    They seem to be terrified.

  109. 109.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Zzyzx:

    I always find it fascinating and I do believe it’s important to read things that I find massively wrong just in case there’s something I’m missing. That’s what brought me here at first, back when Cole was a sane conservative.

    The experience of the Bush years burned the impulse out of me to actively seek out right-wing perspectives on things. They got into my head too much and helped convince me to support bad things. Never again.

    (But the same experience convinced me that it actually was incumbent on me to seek out radical left experiences on things, and ever since then I’ve been disappointed over and over by how stupid they can be, too.)

  110. 110.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Immanentize: I wish we could organize some massive inauguration event online for Joe and Kamala.

    Screw “online” – at 12 noon I intend to be sitting parked in my auto with the radio tuned to a broadcast of the swearing-in. And once Joe says “I do” I intend to honk the living shit out of the horn for about a minute & IMHO every decent American with access to an auto or an air horn or for that matter a big pot they can bang with a big steel spoon ought to do the same. Let’s make some friggin’ noise!

  116. 116.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @mad citizen: This weird fear by a few seems strange considering one of our nation’s symbols is monolithic, but an obelisk: the Washington Monument. We have a 100 feet high obelisk in Indianapolis in our war memorial area (erected 1930).

    Baltimore erected the first major monument to Washington from 1815 through 1829, and it remains a central landmark in the city at the intersection of Mt Vernon and Washington Squares on north Charles St. In lieu of a tree, the Monument is strung with lights every Christmas season.

    (A glance at a photo suggests that this first monumental effort honored Washington’s role as “The Father of His Country” maybe just a tad too literally…;^D.)

  119. 119.

    germy

    @Faithful Lurker:

    In my case it must have been around 1963 or so.  My parents didn’t own a car.  My mother didn’t know how to drive anyway.  My father took a bus to work.

    I remember it was our regular doctor (not a pediatrician, just a general practitioner) and his doctor bag snapping open. I think he gave me an injection of something.

    Imagine calling your doctor’s office nowadays and saying “Yeah, I’m gonna need you to come over today.”

  121. 121.

    RandomMonster

    @Amir Khalid: My sincere heartfelt sympathies. We just lost our cat, Chuck, last weekend. He was the most vocal animal in the house, always offering a greeting when he strolled in the room.

  122. 122.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Baud: Along with the virtual inaugural on inauguration day, we should have a delayed real inaugural after everyone is vaccinated.

    I’d guess that (absent any unforseen problems with the vaccines) we should be out of the woods by the VeRonal Equinox ;^) and would suggest in that case repurposing Columbus Day as a National Day of Deliverance in which we express our gratitude to health care workers, scientists, and everyone who helped by following the science and cooperating with the public health authorities for the good of all. (Italian-Americans can still celebrate it as Columbus Day, as misguided as that seems to many of us, while the rest of us will celebrate something else.)

  123. 123.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Faithful Lurker: @germy:  I remember a doctor’s visit at home too. Similar timeframe. It was either the measles or German measles. I had all the delightful childhood diseases except for polio thanks to the vaccine. While sick with one of them, my eyes had gotten encrusted shut during the night and I couldn’t open them when I awoke. I thought I had gone blind and started screaming. Probably scared the bejeezus out of my parents. I was certainly terrified.

  126. 126.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Immanentize: Maybe I Can See Clearly Now?

    Many years ago, when I still had aspirations of writing the Sorta-Not-All-That-Bad American Novel, I was plotting one of suburban politics set in the 1972-74 period, whose working title was I Can See Clearly Now, taken from that song. (I hoped to come up with a pithier title and write it in two parts, headed I Can See Clearly Now and Bright Sunshiny Day.) Ah, the egotism of youth…

  128. 128.

    Steeplejack

    Report from the coronasphere:

    Last night I drove out to Tysons Corner, the fancy mall here in NoVA, to pick up something I had reserved at L.L. Bean (sold out on line). The store is big, has a direct entrance from the parking lot, so you don’t have to go through the mall. I thought I needed to get out anyway, and it would let me run the doughty Kia a bit and keep the battery charged up. (Hadn’t been anywhere since last Saturday or Sunday, I think. The days run together.)

    I saw a lot of Christmas lights on the streets in downtown Falls Church (I mean the elaborate ones put up by the city), which was simultaneously cheery and a bit sad. Traffic was normal/​busy (about 6:00-6:30). When I got to the mall the parking lot was pretty crowded, at least the open parts near the mall. I didn’t venture down into the parking decks.

    The entrance to the L.L. Bean store was locked, but some guy said you could “still get in through Bloomingdale’s.” I walked around there, went through the store and around to L.L. Bean’s mall entrance, which was also locked. Later I found out that they had closed early because of a minor fire or some other problem. Mentally kicked myself for assuming the guy meant I could get into L.L. Bean, not just the mall.

    The mall was fairly populated, although I’m sure not as much as on a normal Friday night. (I hardly ever went there even in the before times.) All the kiosks were closed, and a number of the regular stores were too. The Apple store was locked and completely empty, with notices on the glass about appointments.

    The anchor stores seemed to be business as usual, although I’m sure with less than usual foot traffic. Mask usage in Bloomingdale’s was good. I saw one employee with his mask under his nose and a nine- or ten-year-old girl with her mask completely off. (Her mother was masked.) Slightly nervous-making to realize that even through my mask I could smell the perfumes at the makeup counters. Irrational but true.

    I walked back to my car and drove home. Stopped to get a few things at the grocery and to get a takeout burger and onion rings from my local pub. Somewhat of a pleasant outing, even though a logistical failure. I think I might get out more and just drive around now and then.

    In other developments, my brother the doctor is tensing up, because at his HMO three optometrists (at another facility) tested positive for coronavirus and yesterday he learned that a pharmacy tech at his facility (big outpatient clinic) had died from the virus. No further information yet. First occurrences they’ve had, I think. On the plus side, I think my brother said his medical group may start getting the vaccine as soon as Christmas. He is still seeing 20-30 patients a day and doing cataract operations once a week.

  131. 131.

    Steeplejack

    @germy:

    One thing about that story: the 222 includes those who simply didn’t reply, for whatever reason, which is not quite the same as refusing to say who won. But, yeah, definitely not profiles in courage.

  136. 136.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Steeplejack:

    the 222 includes those who simply didn’t reply, for whatever reason, which is not quite the same as refusing to say who won.

    I suspect that’s a distinction without a difference. As you say, not exactly profiles in courage. Exemplars of cravenness? Models of cowardice? Specimens of pusillanimity?

  141. 141.

    patrick II

    @TS (the original):

    Since it’s going to be an online inauguration and millions will be watching world wide it would be cool to have pictures of them too — like New Years’.   “And now Fireworks from Tokyo Tower”, “and now from London” “and now from the Eiffel tower”.  Make clear it is a worldwide celebration. Congratulations President Biden!

  144. 144.

    Steeplejack

    @CliosFanBoy:

    Ah, got it. No, my local is the Dogfish Head Alehouse at Seven Corners. Right across the parking lot from the new (since March) mega Giant that is almost Wegmans quality. All conveniently located less than a mile from my rooms in Threadkill Lane.

    I think I’ve been to Four Provinces only once. It was okay, just mildly inconvenient and a little heavy on the faux-Irish malarkey. Dogfish is much more convenient. In the before times I used to slide in there once every couple of weeks to have a late lunch at the bar and be around humans for a bit.

  145. 145.

    J R in WV

    @germy:

    I saw that, evidently she also did 12 months of probation for some sort of “computer” fraud case. A great witness, lawyer doing cross-examination would have had her demolished after a long series of questions about that illegal action.

    Maybe not inebriated, maybe just cray-crayz…

  147. 147.

    Wolvesvalley

    @Amir Khalid:

    Oh, no — I missed your news about Bianca, too! I am so, so sorry. This has been a terrible year for the loss of pets.

    I know how much you miss her. I hope she sends you a new kitty at the right time — not to fill place in your heart, but to quell the silence.

  148. 148.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @O. Felix Culpa: And once the Biden Administration moves our hard-hit indigenous peoples up toward the head of the queue for vaccination, and the Rona has been beaten down to the level of nuisance, the Land of Enchantment will have two reasons to celebrate next October. That work for you?

  149. 149.

    Miss Bianca

    @sab: Errr…*waves paw*…I am still here. Amir’s Bianca, on the other hand, has indeed gone where the good kitties go. : (

    @Amir Khalid: Was far too late to the original thread where you posted to post my condolences, but I will now. I still miss my wonderful calico cat, Queen Mab, and I had her for 18 years, from fuzzy scrappy kitten to gracious elder beldame, so believe me…I feel your pain.

  151. 151.

    lowtechcyclist

    @germy: Either terrified, or just no integrity and no backbone.

    But man, only 25 out of 249 GOP Congresscritters are willing to acknowledge that Biden won – days after all the swing states had certified, and over a month after the election itself.  Profiles in courage.

    @Steeplejack:

    One thing about that story: the 222 includes those who simply didn’t reply, for whatever reason, which is not quite the same as refusing to say who won.

    Gotta agree with O. Felix Culpa on this one. If they had acknowledged publicly that Biden won, the people answering their phones would know this and have the OK to share it.  So ‘no reply’ means not willing to acknowledge that Biden won.

    Glad someone took the trouble to do this, though. I’d been wondering if the elected GOPers were finally willing to acknowledge reality.  Apparently not.

    ETA: They apparently updated it.  Now the count is 26 say Biden won, 2 say Trump won, and ‘only’ 221 aren’t willing to take a stand on this rather factual matter.

  154. 154.

    cain

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: They bought a plot of ground in Southern Indiana to use as a teen camp and retreat center; the plot adjoined a number of large private lots. Apparently, in the course of the kids’ rambles, they’d stumbled upon a Marian shrine that was on a ridge line owned by a neighbor. The counselor whipped his campers with proper evangelical zeal to go trash the shrine.

    Why would trash a shrine devoted to the virgin mary? I mean isn’t that like trashing the nativity scene? It’s all devoted to same set of people.

  156. 156.

    cain

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    @cain:  Veneration of, and building shrines to, Mary is very much a Catholic thing.

    I never understand this whole competition thing between all Christian and Muslim groups. It’s like fighting over chairs that have different woods. But it’s still basically a chair.

  162. 162.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @cain: I never understand this whole competition thing between all Christian and Muslim groups.

    You probably need to understand this in a highly “Christian” and significantly “Catholic” nation:

    One of the major bones of contention in the Reformation was the massively hierarchical structure of Catholicism. The laity went to the priests for the sacraments that would allegedly save their immortal souls from an eternity of Hell; the priesthood deferred to their superiors, the bishops & archbishops, who in turn deferred to the Bishop of Rome, bka the Pope.**

    If you needed something from the temporal Church, you went up the clerical ladder. If you needed something from God, you had another ladder to ascend, because Big-Daddy-In-The-Sky doesn’t pay much attention to the peons; you have to get his attention by getting someone in tight with him to plead your case. Enter “the communion of the saints,” holy types now deceased who Holy Mother Church says are sitting up in Heaven with the Big Guy. “Patron saints” have specific areas of “miraculous expertise” for bending the Big Guy’s ear, e.g., St. Jude is the patron saint of hopeless causes. The BVM (“Blessed Virgin Mary”), who bypassed Purgatory & ascended directly into Heaven, is the closest of all not-God entities to the Big Guy and is the go-to gal for females in general & pretty much any- and everything.**

    The Reformation begged to differ. You didn’t need priests and bishops and popes – you had someone who ministered to the well-being of the congregation, with no one above him but God. You didn’t need “saints in heaven” to pray to – you prayed directly to God, and he would hear your prayer and answer it (sometimes with “No”). This notion of a personal relationship with the Creator unmediated by any other entity is central to Protestantism and the Reformation.

    Also FTR, this is the reason that in Protestant churches****  he crucifixes are unadorned – no Jesus hanging from them – and there are no statues or paintings or stained-glass windows showing saints, as this would tempt the faithful to venerate those representations as idols.

    That help?

    ** A fundamental difference between Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy is the role of the Bishop of Rome. For the RCs he is Christ’s Vicar on Earth, and when speaking ex cathedra (from the throne of Peter, the first BoR) is considered infallible in matters of faith. For the Orthodox, he’s just the Bishop of Rome – each Orthodox church is attached to a different national grouping with its own “metropolitan” or chief archbishop, who has no overweening connection to the Big Guy.

    *** My first-generation italo-american mother never prayed to God but frequently to the Holy Mother. When I came home from a trip to Italy I brought her a copy of a Raphael Madonna and a very nice rosary [also a prayer to the BVM as it’s mostly Ave Marias strung along like, well, beads on a chain]. Carlo Levi, in his barely-fictionalized memoir Cristo s’e fermato ad Eboli, asserts that Christianity per se never made it lower in the Boot than Eboli, a town just south of Naples (“Christ Stopped At Eboli”) – farther south, Mary was more important than Jesus because it was really the prehistoric earth-mother religion repurposed for patriarchal control and profit.

    **** Excluding the Anglicans, who are mostly Catholics with no Pope, priestly marriage, and divorce, who broke away at Henry VIII’s displeasure when Il Papa would not grant him an annulment of his first marriage so he could marry Anne Boleyn.

  165. 165.

    Citizen Alan

    @lowtechcyclist:  Can someone to has a subscription to the Washington Post please check for me and see where Roger wicker and cindy Hyde smith are on that list? I’m curious timer but I refused to give a penny to the Washington Postc while they still employ Marc Thiessen.

  167. 167.

    mad citizen

    @Uncle Cosmo: Interesting, will have to check it out if I can get back to Baltimore in the After Times (was there 3 times in the last several for meetings).

  168. 168.

    zhena gogolia

    @Citizen Alan:

    Neither responded to the WaPo.

    Hyde-Smith’s office did not respond to The Post’s request. Hyde-Smith was one of five members of the Mississippi delegation who issued a joint statement days after the election calling for investigations. “Any allegations of voting irregularities, including ballot tampering or voting by ineligible persons should be investigated and adjudicated to the fullest extent of the law,” they wrote. “Neither the media nor states should rush to declare a winner in closely contested states until all legally-cast ballots have been counted and all legal challenges and required recounts have been resolved.” Attorney General Barr said Dec. 1 that the Justice Department has not found evidence of widespread fraud that would overturn Biden’s victory.

    Same for Wicker.

  170. 170.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @J R in WV:

    I saw that, evidently she also did 12 months of probation for some sort of “computer” fraud case.

    As I understood it, the ‘computer fraud’ aspect was using work WiFi to send the abusive sex tapes, for the sake of deniability.

    Then there was her history of making a false complaint to police, which seems most relevant to her claims of witnessing voter fraud.

  171. 171.

    Quiltingfool

    @Citizen Alan: I skimmed the article; Wapo really didn’t name names except that Paul Gosar and Mo Brooks are the 2 that believe Trump won.  We all know they are idiots, so no surprise.  My guess is that the two you mentioned were in the “not gonna say” group.  Fred Upton went the furthest of all Republicans by announcing on Nov 7 that he would work with Biden.

  173. 173.

    Steeplejack

    @Citizen Alan:

    Neither Hyde-Smith’s nor Wicker’s office responded to the Post’s request. They were two of the “five members of the Mississippi delegation who issued a joint statement days after the election calling for investigations. ‘Any allegations of voting irregularities, including ballot tampering or voting by ineligible persons should be investigated and adjudicated to the fullest extent of the law,’ they wrote. ‘Neither the media nor states should rush to declare a winner in closely contested states until all legally-cast ballots have been counted and all legal challenges and required recounts have been resolved.’ Attorney General Barr said Dec. 1 that the Justice Department has not found evidence of widespread fraud that would overturn Biden’s victory.”

    tl;dr: They are among the 221.

  175. 175.

    SWMBO

    @O. Felix Culpa: I had chicken pox with fever up to 106.  The doctor came by every few hours to give me a shot to lower the fever.  He would have put me in the hospital but *all* the hospitals were full or nearly full of Asian flu patients.  He didn’t want me to catch that and he didn’t want me to spread the chicken pox to those people.  They bathed me in alcohol in between doctor’s visits to help bring the fever down.  This would have been around 1964-5.

  177. 177.

    evodevo

    @cain: Talibangelicals LOATHE anything to do with statues of Mary (or the saints, for that matter).  When I was clerking at the PO, the local fundagelical preacher’s wife recoiled in horror when I proffered the usual medieval art Madonna and Child Xmas stamps as one of the holiday choices…was very put out about it…”Idolatry!11!!!”

    So the story about the vandalism doesn’t surprise me in the least.  Intolerance is one of the fundagelical tenets…

  178. 178.

    satby

    @RandomMonster: Condolences to you and yours on the loss of your Chuck kitty. Sounds like he had a long well-loved and happy life with you; that’s all they ask of us, and you gave him that joy.

  179. 179.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @sab: Indeed, when trying to tame down feral cats, who often want to pretend humans don’t really exist and the food appears by magic, being talked to is a very good sign, since it means they are recognizing you and want to communicate (usually “feed me”).

  180. 180.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Steeplejack: My maternal grandmother was born in Falls Church, VA in 1887 so in my head it is always an old-fashioned town with dirt streets and horses pulling wagons.  In spite of my fantasies, It was probably a busy town even them since her father worked for the railroad and was stationed there.

  181. 181.

    Another Scott

    @germy: Or, they see no upside in responding to the WaPo.  So they don’t.  And they know their constituents mostly won’t care.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  182. 182.

    Another Scott

    @Steeplejack: Thanks for the report.  We haven’t been out to Tyson’s in ages – maybe January?  I remember it being a big deal when the LLBean store opened – what with them having trout in their little ponds by the stairs and all (the fishies didn’t last long).

    We got our Xmas tree and wreaths today – the local spots are already pricked over pretty aggressively.  I guess that’s good, economy wise.

    Stay safe.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  183. 183.

    thalarctosMaritimus

    @Amir Khalid: @sab:

    I was still laughing at the 2001 reference when I came across Sab’s comment. I, too, missed the news, and am really sorry to hear it.

    Your love came through in your comments, and–while I always enjoy what you have to say–I especially liked the comments in which you mentioned her.

    I hope that soon you will find solace in your memories of her. Thank you–terima kasih–for sharing her with us.

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