Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

He really is that stupid.

I really should read my own blog.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

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

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

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

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

No one could have predicted…

This really is a full service blog.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

You are here: Home / Humorous / These Guys are Speaking My Language

Reader Interactions

158Comments

  2. 2.

    Ruckus

    So now everybody speaks the language I learned in my childhood and understood was supposed to be said quietly.

    Of course that was before 2020 and the crappiest election of my life, electing shitforbrains as president.

    And of course I have to join in.

    FUCK YOU SHITFORBRAINS AND FUCK YOU 2020

  3. 3.

    Eunicecycle

    I think I’ve used some version of fuck more often this year than in my whole life before. Usually in reference to Trump or some other asshole. It’s just such an all-purpose word to express anger and exasperation.

  6. 6.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    Great PSA!

    Fuck Trump, Pence, Moscow Mitch, brain dead Kevin McCarthy and, last but not least, fuck that goddamn asshole Giuliani.

  13. 13.

    prostratedragon

    Sympathetic as I am to each and every one of those fuck yous (if I think about it I can probably add some that they missed), it was the woman with the laptop that made me howl.

  15. 15.

    Roger Moore

    @Eunicecycle:

    I remember getting to work one day this year and saying very loudly- I don’t think it was a shout, but someone else might disagree with me- “2020 can fuck right the hell off”.  I am not the kind of person who said that at work before this year, and my workplace is not the kind of place where people would have said it, but this year nobody batted an eye.  I don’t even remember what specifically triggered it, but this is the kind of year where somebody could act that way and everyone would understand.

  19. 19.

    Inspectrix

    After reading the comments, I think I’d better save this one for after the kiddos go to bed!

  20. 20.

    Mike in NC

    As we wrap up a ghastly year and contemplate the evil and stupidity of Donald J. Trump and his henchmen and henchwomen, many people are compiling their Top Ten (or Top 50, maybe) lists of the most insane shit that we had to endure from this grifting lunatic. I plan to collect and savor them all.

    A personal favorite was his deranged interest in buying Greenland from Denmark, and selling Puerto Rico to Mexico or whoever he could scam into making an offer. Trump’s downfall may eventually be directly traced to the Battle of Lafayette Square, where he tried to pretend he was his idol and mentor, Vladimir Putin. Millions of us responded responded with, “Are you fucking kidding us?!?”

  23. 23.

    Eunicecycle

    @Roger Moore: Before this year, 2016 was the year that could fuck off. The Cleveland baseball team lost the World Series after being up 3-1; my father died after a long cancer fight; and Donald Trump was elected, all within about 4 weeks. Little did I know…

  26. 26.

    Suzanne

    I miss efgoldman.

    SuzMom keeps saying, “I feel like something bad is going to happen before the end of the year” and I just cannot deal with the fucken stress. I am super-anxious and magical thinking really really badly because FUCK THIS FUCKEN YEAR and I am in no mood to be a sounding board for others.

  27. 27.

    Suzanne

    @NotMax: That piece was incredible and I came here to share it but y’all got there first.

    I feel like printing out hundreds of copies of it and smacking Trump supporters with them.

  30. 30.

    satby

    @Eunicecycle: Yeah, 2016 was a personally bad year for me too. Lost a job in January, tree smooshed the garage at the house I still owned on paper in Chicago in Feb., my mom died in April, in June another tree fell on and structurally damaged my residence in MI which was listed for short sale before foreclosure. The coup de grace was the election of an idiot as president*. 2016 gave 2020 a real contest for worst year, but 2020 is still ahead in total sucktitude.

  31. 31.

    Barbara

    @NotMax: No mistake was more important or consequential than waiting 46 days to have a workable diagnostic test for the virus.  Thailand had a test in a matter of days.  It wasn’t the kind of evil “mistake” we saw time and again from Trump, or Republican governors, but certainly, it made it all but impossible for the places that were hit earliest to mount a strong response.

  33. 33.

    wvng

    @Barbara: I am still trying to understand how the CDC could make such a massive mistake. I better understand why it wasn’t aggressively corrected, because Trump.

  34. 34.

    artem1s

    @debbie:

    Injecting disinfectant is the clear winner

    I gotta go with the q-tip factory inspection that resulted in an entire day of production having to be thrown out.

  36. 36.

    Barbara

    @wvng: Washington Post had an article that tried to explain.  Basically, the two people who came up with the test became fixated on their test design and resisted changing it, even though there were clearly problems.  Those problems were compounded by contamination of the manufacturing facility, and the initial belief that COVID was unlikely to be much different from SARS and MERS and so did not generate sufficient urgency among leaders of either the CDC or its parent agency.  The article names a lot of names and I am sure it is painful reading for many CDC employees.

  40. 40.

    NotMax

    @Barbara

    One can dissect gradations of error/failure until the cows come home but to me it’s the sheer bulk of stubbornly (and most often deliberately) compounding mistake upon mistake, whether as dedicated policy or by way of laissez faire-itude, which is the most dreadful to look back upon.

    Have been saying for nearly a year now that the Dolt 45 administration has insistently viewed and treated it as a public relations crisis rather than a public health crisis and if pressed to designate a single #1 mistake, that would be it.

  41. 41.

    Ohio Mom

    Odie Hugh Manatee,
    Oh don’t worry, there will be plenty to yell Fuck 2021 about. The reverberations from this year are going to well, reverberate for a while.

  42. 42.

    kindness

    Who else remembers when one of the Ad companies didn’t want to cover this web site because cuss words were used some? They’d be dying right now if they took it.

  44. 44.

    AnotherBruce

    So many Karens and Kens, hey what happened to that couple? The way she was holding that gun, I’m surprised that she didn’t shoot her titty.

  46. 46.

    dmsilev

    @wvng: The Post had a long story about the CDC test failure a few days ago. Capsule summary: They tried to be too fancy and tried to produce an overly sophisticated test, and the upper management was also asleep at the switch.

  47. 47.

    Mary G

    Officials describe a frightening scene at LA hospitals: With no available beds, multiple ambulances are parking outside hospitals and doctors are treating the patients inside the ambulance. Patients are also being treated in conference rooms and gift shops at hospitals.— Soumya (@skarlamangla) December 28, 2020

  48. 48.

    dmsilev

    @Mike in NC: It’s really small-bore, but the time he insisted on looking straight at the Sun (during the eclipse) without any protective glasses was good.

    Also, Sharpie Moves Hurricane was, in retrospect, an omen of the whole “Trump’s will triumphs over scientific fact” thing.

  50. 50.

    NotMax

    @Mary G

    Gift shops? In a hospital? Is that a California thing?

    “We’ve covered Rodeo Drive and nothing caught my eye. How about we head over to the hospital?”

  51. 51.

    Gemina13

    2016 can definitely go fuck itself.  I spent most of that year in a crappy job, working with my SO to keep a house of 4 adults and 2 kids going (and only two of us were working).  I got a new job, and was laid off a week before Trump stole the election.  2016 was a trash fire.

    2020 was worse – not for me, but for people around me.  Several friends have lost loved ones to COVID-19; some have lost jobs; others have been hit with other medical disasters.  And along with the plague stalking the land, there’s been Trump and all his supporters.

    Fuck you, 2020.  Fuck you sideways with a rusty chainsaw.  And fuck every MAGAt, Trumper, Proud Boy, III %er, and All Lives Matter-supporting shitheel.

  52. 52.

    prostratedragon

    I remember mentioning to a couple of people in summer 2016 that, if we were so foolish as to elect Trump, they’d eventually be both appalled and awed by the lack of a bottom. One in particular scoffed; I’m tempted to look him up and say, “How you like me now?”

    As for me personally, not a great year, but the worst has not affected me directly as much as some here, so far; there was one cousin who had to quarantine, and another who died unexpectedly of a massive stroke. The latter was in the NoCal area just as the virus was kicking off. Never found out whether they checked him for covid. Late 2019 was an ominous prelude, as several weeks after my mother’s funeral found me spending Christmas in the hospital as a critical patient with a bleeding ulcer. I tottered out just before New Year’s and just in time to sprain my knee doing nothing much, just as the out-of-town family had left. Started feeling better right about the time to start preparing for lockdown.

  55. 55.

    MisterForkbeard

    @NotMax: It’s pretty normal in most hospitals, that I knew of.

    Basically, a small shop where you can buy flowers or a small gift to bring upstairs when you’re visiting someone. It also can have things like tylenol, advil, etc. And lately they also have things like baby swaddles and so on with the hospital’s name on it.

  56. 56.

    Amir Khalid

    @NotMax:

    I can see people buying get-well cards and gifts for patients they’re visiting that help them pass the time. Plus, I don’t know, X Medical Center souvenir T-shirts and key chains?

  58. 58.

    prostratedragon

    @NotMax:  No, not that rare. I’ve seen them at UMMC (Ann Arbor), Mercy (Chicago), and Northwestern (Chicago). Conveniences for patients and their visitors: Get Well cards, little games and trinkets, and t-shirts or other simple clothing, mostly.

  60. 60.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Amir Khalid: phone chargers, my parents each had a couple extended hospital stays. I think I bought three phone chargers

    one hospital had a nice charging station in the family waiting room

  62. 62.

    dmsilev

    Dana Milbank:

    To all those who would divine in the president’s floundering a grand strategy, or even a small one, let me offer some caution: If you go rummaging around in Trump’s brain right now, you’re going to emerge empty-handed.

    (he’s got to be in the running for Most Improved Pundit over the last few years)

  64. 64.

    PsiFighter37

    From the FTFNYT about the NDAA bill:

    But attempts to quickly pass it in the Senate could be complicated by Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, who said on Monday that he would delay consideration of the military bill unless lawmakers voted on a separate bill — one that would increase the size of individual stimulus checks to $2,000.

    Don’t really love the optics of this, but again Wilmer himself and his acolytes have never shown the best political instincts. Gives the GOP a nice little cudgel to tar Ossoff and Warnock with – “these guys stand with socialist Bernie Sanders to hold up military benefits”.

  66. 66.

    catclub

    @dmsilev: Also, Sharpie Moves Hurricane was, in retrospect, an omen of the whole “Trump’s will triumphs over scientific fact” thing.

     

    The worst part of that was:  The bureaucracy will try to make Trump right. And those who object are punished.

     

    ETA: Like this:

    Dr. James Phillips, an emergency room doctor at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, has been removed from his duty after publicly criticizing President Donald Trump’s drive-by around the hospital after his coronavirus diagnosis.

  68. 68.

    catclub

    @dmsilev: he’s got to be in the running for Most Improved Pundit over the last few years)

     

    ummm, Rubin is a pundit. Beats him by many miles.

  72. 72.

    WaterGirl

    @NotMax: I’m sure you’re kidding, but the gift shop is the “oh, I wanted to bring them something, I can get balloons, magazines, stuffed animals, flowers, etc on the way up” place.

  74. 74.

    Mike in NC

    @Eunicecycle: That’s making it to some lists, along with the sharpie to change the direction of another hurricane. Also raking the California forests.

    I can’t get past the fucked-up bromance with the brutal dictator of North Korea. They had what, four or five playdates to win a ‘Noble Prize’? What did that cost us taxpayers?

  75. 75.

    danielx

    @NotMax:

    Totally normal, at least in larger hospitals, carry a little bit of everything. Heavy on the stuffed animals where there are pediatric units.

  77. 77.

    NotMax

    @raven

    Last time set foot in a hospital was forty-plus years ago. Lesson learned which stuck was to never again order the Salisbury steak in the cafeteria.

  78. 78.

    danielx

    @NotMax:

    I’ll bet it stuck.

    ETA: you are most fortunate. I’ve spent a shit ton more time in them than I care to think about – family and friends, not me so far.

  79. 79.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    I think it’s an everywhere thing. Don’t believe I’ve ever been in a decent-sized hospital that didn’t boast a gift shop (so visitors don’t show up empty-handed).

  81. 81.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @PsiFighter37: wasn’t she the original yard-sign-counter for Romney in 2012?

    @NotMax: I was struck by how hard it was to get anything healthy in the hospital cafeteria, other than the very limited salad bar, and the longest line in the multi-station kitchen was for cheeseburger. Lot of scrubs in that line.

  84. 84.

    FlyingToaster

    @PsiFighter37:

    Gives the GOP a nice little cudgel to tar Ossoff and Warnock with – “these guys stand with socialist Bernie Sanders to hold up military benefits”.

    Not really.

    Anyone who would fall for that is not going to vote for a Democrat anyway.

    Right now, every damn thing is about getting out the vote.  Not about convincing people to vote for you over the other guy, but to make sure everyone who hates Trump and his ilk shows the fuck up.

  85. 85.

    prostratedragon

    @NotMax:  Brings back fond memories of the beef tongue which was a weekly special at the Cornell Medical Center employee cafeteria back in the day. I can only hope that they never added to the burden of those with someone in the hospital by putting it on the public menu.

  86. 86.

    Brachiator

    Definitely a great ad.

    I want to add an extra, mighty fuck you to all the asswipes who insist that they have some goddam divine and constitutional right to eat at restaurants that have been asked to close, strut around without masks and in general do all kinds of stupid shit to spread the virus, especially as hospitals are collapsing under the strain.

    A couple of fuck you’s to the Supreme Court.

    More forever fuck you’s to the GOP and to the right wing plutocrats for sowing another year of dissension and misery.

    Oh, I  got plenty of fucks to give.

  91. 91.

    UncleEbeneezer

    The only problem with that video is the “I don’t care WHO you voted for…” part.  Otherwise, I love it.

  93. 93.

    Suzanne

    @NotMax:

    Gift shops? In a hospital? Is that a California thing?

    Those are really common, yo. All over the country. They sell flowers, balloons, stuffies, candy, tchotchkes, cheesy jewelry. Less for patients and their families, more for the staff.

  95. 95.

    prostratedragon

    @NotMax: Served on a plate, like a hamsteak. Tastebuds and all. Mind, I did manage to eat it, being about 19 and all. Wouldn’t have minded the camoflage of bread, mustard, and pickle.

  97. 97.

    Mike in NC

    @NotMax: I hate hospitals but every one I’ve been in had a gift shop, to buy get well cards and flowers and stuffed animals and related shit. They ought to sell booze but don’t.

  98. 98.

    Suzanne

    @Delk: Fuck. I’m so, so sorry.

    This year has just run me ragged. Nothing personally bad, but the stress of the world is a thing. You’ve got a much worse situation. I’m sorry.

    I hope this place is a bit of solace.

  104. 104.

    Suzanne

    @NotMax: You laugh, but wayfinding in a hospital is one of the most difficult aspects of the interior design. The buildings can be so big that travel distances (walking) are sometimes measured in miles. And the corridors get samey-same. So we do all these strategies to try to help people find their way through. Some are more effective than others.

  107. 107.

    NotMax

    @Suzanne

    Put in mind of the color-coded strips for each level on the corridor walls in Babylon 5.

    “Who designs a space station with a purpose built slum?”

    :)

  108. 108.

    Gravenstone

    @kindness: They probably ended up dropping every political site like this from their portfolio if that was a legitimate issue for them. Because fuck has to be among the most prevalent words used on such sites in 2020.

  109. 109.

    Gvg

    @NotMax: people buy things for relatives in the hospital. Comfort things, and you just run down the elevator. Magazines and puzzles and PJ and nightgowns because we often arrive at the hospital unplanned from events in daily life like car accidents and heart attacks. I bought one of the best phone chargers I ever found at the hospital gift shop while waiting for moms surgery to be over and realizing I hadn’t brought mine. Also a lot of magazines while waiting for various relative surgeries to be over.

    all hospitals have gift shops.

  110. 110.

    prostratedragon

    @Suzanne:  The main UMMC is so sprawling that they’ve invested in scooters that patients or visitors can borrow (if available) to get around on. It’s possible to have internal medicine and cardiology appointments on the same day that are over a quarter mile apart. But the wayfinding on the second floor concourse is pretty well laid out. Can’t say the same for the labyrinthine basement, for which one needs a guide. The farthest linear distances that I know of at Northwestern are under a quarter mile, but of course it’s a much more vertically constructed, downtown type facility.

  111. 111.

    Gravenstone

    @NotMax: There have been small gift shops in almost every midwest hospital I’ve ever been inside. I can only think of one that didn’t and they were less than 50 beds.

  112. 112.

    Delk

    Back in the day, the AIDS ward I was in had a smoking lounge. They figured everybody was going to die, might as well let the smokers smoke.

  114. 114.

    dmsilev

    The Post has a story up about the effort to coax Trump into signing the stimulus bill yesterday. I can’t wait until headlines like this are once more a joke rather than reality: ‘A day on the golf course helped change Trump’s mind on the stimulus bill.’

  115. 115.

    Suzanne

    @prostratedragon: I did some work at one very large urban hospital that did the most organ transplants in the state. So they tracked the travel distances for that patient. By the time they registered, got prepped, went to surgery, went to PACU, then got taken to their actual room for however-many-days, they had traveled approximately 1.1 miles. There’s a hospital in Tucson that is gigantic, but all on one story. Apparently it has (or had) the largest roof in the world at one point.

  117. 117.

    Argiope

    @Suzanne: I’m local-ish to the blocks-spanning Cleveland Clinic main campus.    During my mom’s many visits for cancer treatment, my sister and I began referring to the miles of hallways and bridges between buildings as the habitrail.

  118. 118.

    Ruckus

    I spent 2 months in a hospital in Long Beach, CA which I don’t believe had a gift shop.

    Said hospital no longer exists, it was torn down 25 yrs ago.

  119. 119.

    Amir Khalid

    @Suzanne:

    Kuala Lumpur Hospital would probably be your idea of a nightmare hospital design. The British built it in colonial times as a cluster of single-storey buildings, and that cluster grew after independence into a huge cluster spread over an area as big as a midsized town, with departments haphazardly sited in separate buildings a considerable distance apart. My late father was head of radiology there in the 1970s; when the Health Minister was quoted in the paper calling the hospital’s sheer size was something to be proud of, he told teenage me that it was something to be ashamed of.

  120. 120.

    Suzanne

    @Argiope: The firm I work for designed some of that habitrail. That’s a weird client. Everything is aggressively white white white. They hired a C-suite-level Design officer to make sure their buildings are adequately cool-looking.

  123. 123.

    Suzanne

    @Amir Khalid: Eh, buildings evolve into gigantic things for a whole host of reasons. Sometimes the original building can’t be easily expanded (like it’s a circle), sometimes the soil can’t support anything tall, sometimes there’s height restrictions from the city or town, sometimes there’s an adjacent landowner who’s making things difficult, sometimes there’s not enough physical infrastructure to the site (power, sewer, whatever), sometimes you have to keep one thing open before you tear something else down. Hospitals are often on the same site for centuries and I wouldn’t say it’s anything to be ashamed of to have a sprawling campus. It is certainly more difficult to navigate, but it’s typical in most of the world for the facility to grow over years and get a bit weird.

  124. 124.

    lahke

    I gave up my TV during the whole OJ Simpson thing, and managed to avoid most TV since, with the occasional visit to someone’s house convincing me that I wasn’t missing much.  But 2020 broke me, and now I’m watching things on Amazon Prime  and Netflix after (checks date) 26 bleeding years of innocence.   Which is a very long intro to a question, after having viewed Bridgerton:  they really show all of that sex on the TV?  When did that happen?  I mean, as a single middle-aged woman in lockdown I am definitely appreciative that the show caters to the female gaze, and I don’t even have to scrub my browsing history; it’s just the culture shock, because the definition of porn seems to have really shifted.  Amazing.

    Edited to apologize for going way off thread, and to share condolences with all.  Takes me so long to write a comment that I often give up and delete them once I see their actual context.

  126. 126.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @lahke:

    Edited to apologize for going way off thread

    I enjoyed it. Funny to think of coming back to TV after so long. You resisted all the much ballyhooed “Golden Age” TV?  I can’t speak to Bridgerton, but on the streaming services, you don’t have any of the old censorship rules of the networks, and I hardly watch any network TV anymore so I couldn’t say. I believe a few years ago, AMC had to pay some kind of fine for broadcasting an F-bomb on Breaking Bad, basic cable. HBO– the Sopranos, Deadwood, Rome– showed just about anything that would’ve brought an R rating back when I was young. Was NC-17 more or less restricted than R? Can’t even remember now. Been a while since my friend and I had to get my brother to pretend he was my dad on the phone and tell the theatre manager we could go in to Body Heat.

  128. 128.

    Winston

    Seems like all along we have been ignoring Cuba. Population 11M, cases 11K, deaths 143. vs Polk County Fl population 725K, cases 36k, deaths 767.

    So what are they doing that makes their heath care so great?

    My Doctor who is from Cuba  when I asked about Ivermectin, said they use it in Cuba. Funny that. But she can’t prescribe it because FDA.

  132. 132.

    mrmoshpotato

    @NotMax:

    One of the joys of a good kosher deli is an overstuffed sammich of tongue on rye. 

    Overstuffed sammich – yes.

    Tongue – no.  Just no.

    Club sammich me!

  133. 133.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Suzanne:

    wayfinding in a hospital is one of the most difficult aspects of the interior design.

    I have worked in a hospital and have two family members who have worked in other hospitals.  They are mazes.  I’ve never been in any other kind of building so complicated to navigate.

  136. 136.

    TomatoQueen

    The gift shop at the hospital that did my hip joints in September has a dearth of the usual sundries, and a fine selection of artisanal wares, which aren’t cheap. Hospital gift shops are little fund-raising centers in some places.

  138. 138.

    Lyrebird

    @Suzanne: and you put all that work in and then they stick your building onto another building so that the floor numbers don’t match when you walk on certain corridors!

    That’s true at CHOP, but it’s actually really nice. I wish grownups could go to hospitals that had nice hangings and giraffes painted on the walls.

     

    I bet the work you do makes a big difference.

  139. 139.

    Origuy

    Stanford opened their new hospital last year or so. It’s a little hard to navigate but not terrible once you’ve been there a few times. The whole Stanford Medical Center complex is huge; they have sites all over the Peninsula. The new gift shop has been closed since Covid, but it’s about the size of a mall store.

    Suzanne, is it the architect that decides on the pavement outside the hospital? Because why would they put a rough stone surface where a lot of people are going to be in wheelchairs?

  141. 141.

    Fair Economist

    @Winston:

    My Doctor who is from Cuba when I asked about Ivermectin, said they use it in Cuba. Funny that. But she can’t prescribe it because FDA.

    That’s a lie. A doctor can prescribe any approved medication for COVID, regardless of what the approval is for. “Off-label usage” is routine for many drugs.

    They don’t prescribe it because the doses needed to get an effect against COVID are lethal to humans.

  142. 142.

    Suzanne

    @Origuy:

    Suzanne, is it the architect that decides on the pavement outside the hospital? Because why would they put a rough stone surface where a lot of people are going to be in wheelchairs? 

    Sometimes it’s the architect, sometimes a landscape architect or civil engineer. We do hardscapes of different textures for different reasons. Often it’s because it’s a detectable warning for blind people. Sometimes it’s because of how rainwater falls or flows on the site—concrete with exposed aggregate is more robust and lasts longer. Sometimes aesthetics.

  143. 143.

    hitchhiker

    @NotMax:

    since everybody’s talking about hospital gift shops, I might as well stick my 2 cents in.

    they’re a lot like airport stores where you buy travel stuff you forgot, or snacks, drinks, candy, reading material.

    there’s a weird similarity between hospitals and airports — both places filled with strangers, some having the very worst day of their lives, some having the best, and most just milling around trying to figure out where the fuck they’re going.

    also the lighting is horrendous in both, so that everyone you see looks their absolute worst.

  144. 144.

    Suzanne

    @Lyrebird: One of the projects I worked on (that is actually just finishing up, delayed by COVID) is the start of a hospital replacement. The lowest floor is G in the old buildings (that will be mostly demolished). In the new building, the lowest floor is 1. So part of the project is a full rename/renumber strategy.

    I used to work on airports. Those buildings are a total cornflake.

  145. 145.

    CaseyL

    I can’t stop watching the ad. It is SO cathartic!

    My 2020 wasn’t so bad, on a personal level; but my heart keeps breaking for everyone else.  Except anyone who supports the GOP.  Fuck ’em.

    Hospitals as labyrinths:  The first time I worked for UW Medicine (a complex that at the time consisted only of the Medical Center and the Health Sciences Building) there were color-coded wayfinders to guide you to specific departments.  I thought it was charming, and a good idea.  This was back in the late 80s-early 90s.

    UW Medicine now consists of the Medical Center, the Health Sciences Building, the Surgical Pavilion,  more than a dozen Neighborhood Clinics, plus about a dozen hospitals and outpatient clinics cattered all over the region (formerly independent; UW Medicine bought them up).  The color-coded wayfinders disappeared a long, long time ago – possibly because attempts to keep them up would have run out of colors altogether (at least, the ones humans can see) and line graphics more suited to an Escher print.  I honestly don’t know how patients find their way around; even employees can get hopelessly lost.

  148. 148.

    grammypat

    FUCK 2020:

    The first “stimulus” check was eaten up when my indoor cat, Mi’ja, got outside and apparently was attacked.  In an attempt to escape the attacker(s), she got locked in somewhere for nearly 3 days (I did not expect to see her again), acquired a warble and an infection, and 2 weeks after coming home was so sick that she almost died.  Over a month of antibiotics and steroids, and >$1k in vet bills later, she recovered and the “stimulus” money was gone.

    Now, with the expectation of a $600 “stimulus” check, my water heater just sprung a leak from corrosion and has to be replaced.  The cost?  ~$500 for the heater and >$100 labor.

    One step forward  ….  FUCK 2020 !

  149. 149.

    prostratedragon

    Two (maybe 3) nice features of University (Mich) Hospital: The concourse areas, at least, have plenty of light from skylights and windows; there is much art on the walls both in open areas and patient rooms, with regular public displays of various plastic and graphic art and sometimes live music in the open areas. Helps all those decidedly non-cheery aspects of the business there.

  150. 150.

    Leto

    Fuck 2018 (my accident and what it put my family through), and fuck 2020 for what it’s done to so many people. I’m not sure if I could navigate Abington Hospital (where I spent 6 weeks) but maybe if I was lying on my back staring at the ceiling tiles I could do it. Abington is a fairly large hospital and I was able to visit a lot of different departments in it. I believe they had a nice gift shop, and the dining facility wasn’t too bad.

  151. 151.

    Winston

    @Fair Economist: My doctor can’t prescribe it for use against Covid because it isn’t approved here in the good old USA for humans. That is not a lie. But if your dog has heart worm, your vet can prescribe it for your dog. Idiot. That they use it for humans in Cuba seems to escape you, despite the statistics, is all I’m sayin.

  152. 152.

    Winston

    @Winston: Cuba seems to be doing a helluva lot better job of dealing with this virus than the USA. If you don’t wonder why you might wonder why.

  154. 154.

    JAFD

    @NotMax: Well, most of the Pa & NJ hospitals I’ve been thru have had little shops off the lobby – sometimes run by the Ladies Auxiliary – seling newspapers / magazines / flowers / stuffed animals / snacks / etc

  155. 155.

    satby

    @Winston: Ivermectin is used as a parasite medicine, like for heartworm, because it kills the worms. I used it frequently for one dog as a miticide, because she had an autoimmune disease that allowed mites normal on a dog’s skin to grow out of control. Ivermectin kills the things it’s prescribed to treat, and has warnings about using too much because it’s toxic. I’m familiar with it, and I sure wouldn’t take it as a treatment for covid. Third world countries make do with alternative medicines because they’re often unable to obtain newer ones. Doesn’t mean it’s a good choice.

  156. 156.

    Miss Bianca

    @lahke: So funny, my friend who’s watching it right now said the exact same thing! Like, “this would have been considered *pr0n* back in the day!”

  158. 158.

    Ben Cisco

    Way late, but just to read it into the record for prosperity:

    FUCK 2016 now and forevermore. Lost Mrs. Cisco, Dad started the decline that would result in his death a year and a few days later, vulture capitalists finally started their process with my old job (decapitate senior management tier, buy out most of the junior management + longest-term non-managers, cut expenses so deep that the bones had nick marks on them, claim numbers from all previous steps as PROFIT! for to make sale). And all of that was BEFORE Ol’ Leaginous Bastard rode the wave of dimwits, halfwits and fuckwits to the Oval.

    For all that 2020 has been, I’ve been spared the brunt of it. Moved home, have a great job that I got to keep, been closer to remaining relatives, and daring to allow myself to FEEL again. That last one has been both the biggest surprise and the biggest joy. Maybe now that we’ll have a sentient president again things will continue to improve.

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