Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

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

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

This fight is for everything.

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

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

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

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

So many bastards, so little time.

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

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

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

Trump should be leading, not lying.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / 2020’s Christmas Song

Reader Interactions

92Comments

  2. 2.

    Amir Khalid

    If we make it through December … You sense that the narrator in the song is being brave rather than actually optimistic.

  5. 5.

    pacem appellant

    You can just start in California. It’s crispy at 67ºF outside right now (Bay Area). If you’re in L.A. it’s downright balmy at 80ºF.

  7. 7.

    White & Gold Purgatorian

    That’s funny. A couple of days ago I was telling Mr. Purgatorian that this was my favorite Christmas song. He’s always trotting out that most wonderful time of the year crap because he knows how I feel about December.
    I might have caught this attitude from my dad who was captured by the German army just before Christmas in 1944. He was always somber at Christmas time, especially if there was snow.

  9. 9.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @raven: Might be a baritone horn. Or a flugelhorn. I couldn’t see it well enough to tell, although I think it’s the former.

  10. 10.

    misterpuff

    And it’s been a long December and there’s reason to believe
    Maybe this year will be better than the last
    I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
    To hold on to these moments as they pass

    And it’s one more day up in the canyon
    And it’s one more night in Hollywood
    It’s been so long since I’ve seen the ocean I guess I should

    Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

  14. 14.

    trollhattan

    The leopard brings his pray back to the den, where mama leopard and leopard cub rejoice as they tear into the still-warm packs of Kirkland tissue and towels.

    Good for the rest of 2020. The leopard considers, then sadly rejects day drinking as a fitting celebration. Selah.

  16. 16.

    SiubhanDuinne

    From downstairs:

    Don’t know who all else is interested, but Biden’s rolling out his health care/COVID team. Surgeon General-designate Vivek Murthy is speaking now: HHS Secretary-designate Xavier Becerra spoke a couple of minutes ago.

  19. 19.

    Gin & Tonic

    @raven: Others got in first with the correct answer. It’s a brass instrument, the bassoon is a reed instrument (actually double-reed, for the pedants.) It’s also not a very loud instrument.

  23. 23.

    opiejeanne

    @O. Felix Culpa: A fluegelhorn looks like a trumpet. It was a baritone horn, a brass instrument. The other instrument was an oboe. Or maybe a soprano sax, as someone noted. I couldn’t see it well enough to tell, but I was going by the sound.

  25. 25.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    On a seasonal note, I’m debating getting the dog some boots for bitter cold winter walks. Anybody have experience with this?

  27. 27.

    raven

    I changed it to “horn”on the video. Here I was trying to be light and see what it got me. I’m alone and in pain.

  31. 31.

    Gin & Tonic

    @raven: Sorry to add to that awful pain, but my daughter played the bassoon in HS, so I have a lot of experience hearing one.

  33. 33.

    opiejeanne

    @Gin & Tonic: I played oboe for a while in college and was impressed that it wasn’t making the little squawking noise that sometimes is the result of playing in cold weather, but then I’m not sure how cold it is in Athens right now.

  36. 36.

    White & Gold Purgatorian

    @trollhattan:  Yep. Said it was a huge mess. They were going in circles for several days. Guns got stuck in the mud and they had to remove the firing mechanisms and abandon them. Next day they were back in the same place. Guns were still there but the ground was frozen so they were able to pull them out, replace the firing mechanisms and were back in business to go around some more.

    After they were captured they were shipped east in cattle cars in the snow, then over the next months marched on foot back west — with guards and dogs. In the snow. Very little food. Frostbite. Lice. General atrocities of war. Daddy lost over 60 pounds before they were liberated in April. He probably would have made a career of the army, but that experience kind of soured him on it.

  38. 38.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Gin & Tonic:

    That looks like just the ticket, and I wouldn’t have to struggle with putting boots on the dog. Has she ever said if it leaves residue on the floor at all?

  39. 39.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @raven:

    That’s my fear. He’s kind of a klutz when he’s on a scent trail – I can only imagine him with the distraction of boots.

    This morning when I took him out to pee he no-shit stumbled over a dirt clod while sniffing over deer poop.

  44. 44.

    Scout211

    So this just came on both our phones a few minutes ago. I can see why they are sending this out because we just got back from our monthly Costco run and it seemed like no one is staying at home. I don’t think there is much compliance here.

    Emergency Alert

    State  of CA: New public health stay at home order in your area.  COVID-19 is spreading rapidly. Stay home except for essential activity. Wear a mask. Keep your distance. Visit COVID-19.ca.gov. 

  46. 46.

    Aleta

    Take out yr sharpie and X-out Jenna Ellis’s face on your Elite Strike Force Team Covid  bingo card.

  48. 48.

    geg6

    So, I’m seeing speculation that my pick for AG, Doug Jones, is the front runner for AG.  This would make me very happy.

  55. 55.

    piratedan

    @geg6: agreed, while he may not be a rabid GOP anethema, he has a track record of going after racists, in fucking Alabama, I suspect he’s a very methodical, determined type who isn’t flashy, yet speaks well and is earnest.

  60. 60.

    Barbara

    @zhena gogolia: I wasn’t really following the earlier thread but I hope you stay.  When things get too heated I do sometimes sit posts out or stop commenting for a while.  You can’t fight every fight.  I find that over the last 8 months I get particularly disappointed when I feel like people are not being kind — not just in virtual space but IRL as well.  The urge to be contrarian or confrontational just for the heck of it seems to have become a national past time.

  61. 61.

    Barbara

    @geg6: The thing is, in many of these cases I am not sure how hidden the identity of the perpetrators really was.  The real accomplishment was getting people to agree to testify.

  62. 62.

    zhena gogolia

    Thanks. I just went for a long walk and thought it over. It’s exacerbated by a recent event on my professional listserv, where I got publicly reprimanded, and moderated, for doing a factcheck on someone else’s egregious lie.
    I’ll try to just avoid the commenter in question. I thought we were on friendly terms but we’re not.

  71. 71.

    Baud

    @zhena gogolia:

    It’s exacerbated by a recent event on my professional listserv, where I got publicly reprimanded, and moderated, for doing a factcheck on someone else’s egregious lie.

    You are always welcome to fact check my egregious lies, ZG.

  78. 78.

    Aleta

    After some good weeks, suddenly the dog isn’t doing well.  His breathing may be getting obstructed.  Painful day.  Now it’s nearly completely dark, 4:18.

  82. 82.

    geg6

    @Barbara:

    Oh, there’s no doubt that they knew who they were all those years.  It’s getting people to testify and then convict that is impressive.  It was freaking Alabama!

  85. 85.

    Aleta

    @zhena gogolia: He has a cancer that entered  his forehead bone.  Almost all the vet’s predictions have been wrong, fortunately, b/c he’s lived longer.   But now it suddenly seems to be affecting his breathing, which the vet believed wouldn’t happen.  Sorry if too much detail.  Thanks for listening.

  88. 88.

    evodevo

    @White & Gold Purgatorian: Yeah, sounds like my husband’s uncle; captured at St.Vith, spent several months as a POW, lost a lot of teeth from malnutrition….never was really the same after that…never married, never moved on.  PTSD wasn’t allowed in those days…

  89. 89.

    Comrade Colette

    @lol chikinburd:  Tom L and (I think) the Fat White Duchess shared that during the “Money for Nothing” Zoom last night! I love it. Our family tradition, since none of us could carry a tune in a bucket, is to light the lights and then play a Hanukkah music video each night. This will be the star of this year’s holiday!

  91. 91.

    White & Gold Purgatorian

    @evodevo:  Yeah, they all had PTSD for sure. After they were liberated the Army told my dad and his guys not to tell anyone about their experiences, and he didn’t open up about it for many, many years. We used to watch “The Battle of the Bulge” on the late movie in the 70’s and when it got to the part where they machine gun the American prisoners he would always turn to me and say, “That happened. They really shot prisoners like that.” It took years for me to “get it” that he knew those things happened because he saw them, and the bloody bodies he remembered in the snow were not actors, but his comrades or even buddies.

    My dad was lucky. He survived the ordeal and his physical state was good enough that he could still work. He married and raised a family and was a great father. But like your husband’s uncle, Daddy’s older sister told me he was never the same after he came home from the war.

Comments are closed.