Lions at Denver Zoo frolic in the snow after historic blizzard https://t.co/uiGIrN0y1Q pic.twitter.com/B8jExmhHwo
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) March 16, 2021
I envision these lions celebrating ancestral memories of the days when shivering primates huddled in caves, producing amazing art of the apex predators who ruled their world…
(Yes, it’s the anniversary of a commercially-supported ‘holiday’ that encourages people to get drunk in public while cosplaying the worst ethnic stereotypes about my people. I loathe St Paddy’s Day, begorrah, every bit as much as MisterMix loathes Cinco de Mayo, and for much the same reasons. This year in particular, if you *must* celebrate, at least have the common decency to do it in your own homes, ‘kay?)
‘The status of democracy also depends fundamentally on the empowerment of women,’ U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said in her first address to the UN's 65th Commission on the Status of Women https://t.co/pnhPxfkIFk pic.twitter.com/ZLIYn11DAI
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 17, 2021
President Joe Biden's top messengers – his VP and wife among them – are hitting the road in an effort to highlight his huge COVID relief plan. Biden himself heads out Tuesday on what the White House is calling the “Help is here” tour. https://t.co/iSdTbCxwXk
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 16, 2021
The #AmericanRescuePlan, the #WealthTax, and huge parts of the Democratic agenda are bipartisan across America – just not with Republicans in Congress. I’m glad to have my GOP colleagues join us on these broadly popular bills, but we won't let them veto America’s agenda. pic.twitter.com/ll2SqIXBp3
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 16, 2021
raven
wow
WereBear
What a difference an election makes.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Loved the lions
And the Bidens too
debbie
My local news last night had a clip of McConnell promising all kinds of things he’s threatening to do if the Democrats bring up any legislation that offends him. Saying the bad things out loud has become the GQP norm.
RepubAnon
Back in the 1950s, one of my relatives found himself in Ireland on St Patrick’s Day. For Catholics, it’s a holy day of obligation, so the bars were all closed and everyone was in church.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
RepubAnon
@debbie: Yes, the Republican standard threat: “Do what Republicans want, or else when the Republicans regain power, they will do whatever they want to do anyway.”
Not so much of a threat as a promise of what they intend to do regardless of what Democrats do.
Immanentize
Happy Evacuation Day!!
Princess
I’m not Irish one scrap but I’m making soda bread and I’ll probably wear something green — which I never usually bother to do — because we’re in the middle of a pandemic and anything that makes one day different from another is welcome.
Immanentize
Lions are such kittens.
rikyrah
rikyrah
rikyrah
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m reading everywhere about people getting their first shots. Part of that is because I hang out with an older crowd but part of it also has to be that things are moving along more quickly. It’s such good news.
A former student of mine asked me to visit her community college class today. It’s virtual of course, and all I have to do is answer questions they’re supposed to have prepared. It’s a literature class, god help me.
rikyrah
Good messaging by the Democrats
twitter.com/dmeisner99/status/1372019873836978176?s=20
NotMax
Will be testing the Instant Pot’s abilities with corned beef. No cabbage, but have a passel of baby carrots which should be used for something soon.
Otherwise, wanna look at some pretty pictures?
OzarkHillbilly
Same here, that’s why all the bars are open.
NotMax
Erin go blech?
:)
Immanentize
@NotMax: I used my insta pot as a slow cooker for corned beef. Excellent. Don’t forget onions in with the carrots or it might seem too sweet. Now I want a ruben!
p.a.
@rikyrah: They’ll focus on the zombie ‘threat’ on our Southern border. Wash, rinse, repeat. ? To paraphrase: you can fool an electorally significant portion of people all of the time. Or as George Costanza put it, “Jerry, it’s not a lie if you believe it.”
MJS
Second St. Patrick’s Day in a row with a low key celebration at home. But next year, when I’m retired, and it falls on the first day of a normal NCAA basketball tournament? The 7/8ths of me that’s of Irish descent will have a grand time. The other 1/8th (English) will not approve.
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Ohio’s opening up to 40 years and over soon, and the governor is promising to open it up to everyone by the end of the month. Hope he’s right.
Chief Oshkosh
I love St. Patrick’s Day. I love it because I’ve been to Ireland many times, have long-term friends and business colleagues there, and I love the culture. Part of that culture is hanging out at pubs, and often there’s a bit of drinking and singing. So, St. Patrick’s Day, for me, is a reminder of good friends and happy times. If others want to turn it into a day long party and do stupid things, well, I’m sure not going to sweat that.
MattF
Like anyone who has ever been a regular at a bar, I always stayed away on St. Patrick’s day, since that’s when the amateurs take over. You get to come back after everything’s been cleaned up.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Obligatory?
;)
NeenerNeener
I forgot it was St. Paddy’s Day and put on a purple shirt this morning. My Irish ancestors must be spinning in their graves.
NotMax
Speaking of the Irish, haven’t seen Helen no longer in Eire ’round these parts for a while.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@debbie: John Scalzi posted this morning about getting his first show in Ohio. He said his area is very R so there’s a lot of vaccine resistance, which is good for him.
rikyrah
???
Ceci n est pas mon nym
In Philly the UPenn students typically celebrate two weekends and the street parties start well over a week before the 17th.
I haven’t been downtown since lockdown so I don’t know if any of that is happening. But Penn went hybrid this semester and there are at least some on campus so I suspect students are doing what students do.
Professor Bigfoot
I’m having a total blecch day so far.
Facebook gaol for another two weeks.
Twitter gaol for another week.
My income tax refund, filed five weeks ago, has not shown up.
Stimmy money? Heh.
I can’t decide whether I’m depressed or pissed off.
As they said in the church I grew up in, “y’all please pray for me that I grow stronger.”
Immanentize
@NotMax: I have some great Carnegie stories. And Katz’s. But the better grumpy waiter stories are all from the Carnegie.
Nora
I love St. Patrick’s day, at least partially because it’s my birthday. Growing up in the NYC metro area (all right, northern New Jersey), I was convinced for an embarrassingly long time that the parade was because of my birthday.
Immanentize
If it were not for Evacuation Day! y’all would be bitching about the British Royals!
Wait….
Baud
Top o’ the morning to you too, AL.
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Professor Bigfoot: You know what you did
Gin & Tonic
Busy day today, capped by Pfizer #2 at 5:30.
In the meantime, this is required reading. Hoping to get an Adam post on this at some point
ETA: Oh, and yesterday was the fourth anniversary of the thing with the arm, so obviously I commemorated it by going skiing.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: I like how Buddhists celebrate Cinco de Maya. “Gimme green tea. And make it a double!”
NotMax
@Nora
Have the happiest of celebrations.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: That is excellent! Your wife got hers before you, right? Yay!
Meanwhile, I am starting to get the mildest form of annoyed that I won’t be able to get my shot(s) for weeks. This extended quarantine past when friends are finished with their shots is harder than the old dreadful quarantine.
rikyrah
Professor Bigfoot
@Dorothy A. Winsor: yeah, I know, I let myself get sucked into a slapfight with a white supremacist fuckwit asswipe conservative and he got all his little pasty-assed friends to report me, the fucker… ?
MattF
@rikyrah: RW satire problem is ripe for satire… except that it would be misunderstood.
NotMax
@Immanentize
As it should be.
:)
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Immanentize: All I remember about the Carnegie is ludicrously large sandwiches and even more ludicrously large slices of cake.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Professor Bigfoot: At least they know what you thought!
NotMax
@Ceci n est pas mon nym
One of their mottos wasn’t “If you can finish your meal, we’ve done something wrong” for nothing.
:)
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: Good recall of facts. Yes, dear wife got both a while ago, due to the nature of her work. On Friday she will be working a vaccination clinic. But only one of our children has got it so far, so we are still maintaining all previous precautions. Since I have no friends, that is fairly simple to do.
Betty Cracker
Carnegie Deli is gone now, correct? (There have been so many disasters — I lose track.) Anyhoo, that’s where I had my first proper corned beef sandwich.
I’m of Irish descent on my dad’s side with a recognizably Irish surname, but my dad and relatives on that side never made much of our Irish-American-ness growing up for whatever reason, probably because we aren’t Catholics and are multigenerational Floridians, which is almost its own quasi-ethnic identity thing.
I married into a Polish-American Catholic family from upstate New York, and it always amuses me how hyperaware they are of my Irish heritage, I guess because they assume it’s meaningful to me? My mother-in-law will call me at some point to wish me a Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
marklar
@MattF: With regards to the character played by Stephen Colbert, an Ohio State study back in 2009 found that:
“…Individual-level political ideology significantly predicted perceptions of Colbert’s political ideology. Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatism also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism.” (journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1940161208330904)
SiubhanDuinne
@Nora:
Happy birthday!
? ? ?
MattF
@Betty Cracker: Carnegie deli at its original location is long gone, but some branches (LA, FL?) live on. I used to stop off there to get a sandwich to eat on the train from NYC to DC.
ETA: Actually, thinking about it, gone not so long ago but, yeah, gone. That neighborhood has gone to the (billionaire) dogs.
BruceFromOhio
It’s my departed father-in-law’s birthday, may he rest in peace. MrsFromOhio has a corned beef standing by, and I’ll be sipping a bit of whisky later to mark the day. I’m grateful not to suffer the keg & eggs crowd on the train downtown to the parade, as there is no train (for me, anyway) and no parade.
Cinco de Mayo tale of yore: MFO was co-owner of a vacation property near Sandusky Bay, close to Lake Erie. There was a large ash tree in the backyard that had succumbed to the emerald ash borer the year before, and was now looming dead over everything. We had arranged to have it carefully cut down and the brush removed, with the trunk and largest branches sawed in 18″-24″ segments. May 5 was a Saturday that year, and the cut wood had sat for about 5 weeks to season slightly. I rented a splitter and convinced my brother in-law and a friend to help split everything and stack behind the garage on the property. We spent about 5 hours splitting and hauling this absolutely splendid ash, and by noon we completed construction of a wood fortress that would fuel many, many fires over the years to come. It being a Saturday, our plan was to reward ourselves with ferry ride and a bicycle tour of Kelley’s Island, and to have a good meal and some beers. Little did we know that this Cinco de Mayo coincided with the running of the Kentucky Derby – it is apparently a tradition on Kelley’s to celebrate “Derby Day” as the return of good weather and tourists to the island. This collision of drinking traditions resulted in Cinco De Derby, and was further enhanced by the presence of several large bachelorette parties. Carefully riding between the microbrewery and the several bars we visited, we were witness to exceptionally well-dressed drunken young women wearing fancy hats, and more than a few fellows sporting a variety of headgear. We eventually made our way back to the ferry, taking bets on which of our fellow travelers would be the first to retch during the crossing.
It was one of the most surreal experiences in this life, enhanced by the presence of witnesses.
Ken
So instead of “Where do you get your ideas?” you’ll be getting “I felt the bleak Nietzschean motifs you developed early in your novel were undermined by the frankly Proustian focus on stylistic flourishes that you adopted later in the work. Did you consider re-writing to remove this flaw?”
Which is not so much a question, as preening before the instructor…
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Gone the way of Lindy’s, Lundy’s and Lüchow’s. Still, AFAIK. producing their own products and selling them online.
SFAW
@NotMax:
Isn’t that O’Zark’s line?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ken: You just made me homesick for one of my favorite cafes, closed to in-person dining at the moment.
(We live near a liberal arts college and I would hear people — undergraduates as well as professors — subjecting their table-mates to lectures like that all the time)
Another Scott
Happy SPD.
Meanwhile, … Nature – Pandemic burnout rampant in academia –
nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00663-2
Cheers,
Scott.
Gin & Tonic
@NotMax: I recall how it drove my mother crazy when people referred to the latter as LOO-chows.
Buffalo O’Rude
“while cosplaying the worst ethnic stereotypes”
I dunno. I’ll take the ethnic stereotypes over cosplaying some of the really dark parts of our heritage. Then again, I’m old and sober now. So the day doesn’t have the sway with me that it used to.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: if that is what drove your Mom crazy, then she sure should not have spent one moment in Philly.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: I’ll allow it.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: The Blech Master has spoken!!!
Frankensteinbeck
@marklar:
This fits perfectly with the conservative idea of humor: Be an asshole then say you can’t blame them because it’s just a joke.
mali muso
hmph, it looks like wordpress ate my comment earlier. Or my phone just didn’t want to cooperate. In any case, good morning everyone!
I’ve got on the one piece of kelly green in my wardrobe, which is the race t-shirt I got from the 2000 Dublin Marathon. Not sure what college-aged me was thinking when I decided to do a marathon but only train up to 13 miles in advance. I did finish it…took about 8 hours, but I did cross the finish line. I remember the cold drizzle, the grey streets, the bright green grass, and the kindly Irish folks cheering even the last dregs of the racers. And being told to drink Guinness the following day because it would help with all my aches and pains. Slainte!
Immanentize
@Frankensteinbeck: The new one among the sophisticated assholes is to say, “I was just being sarcastic.”. Similar, but it always ends up the sarcasm is unintelligible. As are the jokes. I now always ask people to explain the joke -+ “what do you think is funny there?”
ETA Congratulations on the near finish!
OzarkHillbilly
White Castle turns 100 years old.
Few things in life are quite as satisfying as feeding a 2 am drunk craving for sliders.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: I don’t get it.
Ken
@Gin & Tonic: I assume everyone in Philly used the pronunciation that drove her crazy. One of those regional things, like the names of Donald Duck’s nephews.
CliosFanBoy
@Ken:
I’d answer with a simple “No” and let it hang there., Next question!
Soprano2
My first name is Erin, so on St. Patrick’s Day a lot of people ask me if I’m Irish. I’m not, or at least as far as I know I’m not. I got one of those Ancestry DNA kits for my birthday, so once it’s done I’ll have a better idea of whether I have any Irish in me or not. My guess is mostly Scottish and German, but you never know.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: I have never understood the attraction of White Castle, I went there once when I was in St. Louis and that was enough for me. Maybe you have to grow up on them.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
Ah, yes, the 17th of March. Or as my Irish cousin Sean called it, “Yankee Amateur Day.” Not much respect for the kids who realized once a year they had Irish surnames and thought that was a reason to drink beer and have green skin for a few days afterwards.
Blech, indeed
CliosFanBoy
Time to fly my Ulster flag to honor MY Irish ancestors. Good Presbyterians all. :)
Betty Cracker
Our hummingbirds have returned, and not a moment too soon! We have a side porch where I’ve deployed two feeders that I can see from my workstation (aka the dining room table), and we’ve got at least two regular feathered patrons so far.
Earlier, I was sitting on a chair on that porch, which also functions as a mudroom for the removal or putting on of boots, etc. A hummingbird visited the feeder positioned about three feet from where I was sitting. It’s one of those flat feeders with a clear plastic reservoir, and I could see the bird’s little vermicelli-like tongue lapping up the nectar!
They’re super-tame and curious and often hover about two feet in front of our faces to check us out. Unfortunately, I can never get a photo of that, even if I have a camera in my hand, because I’m too enchanted to move a muscle. I did get this shot of one of the hummers on our honeysuckle vine yesterday.
Gin & Tonic
Getting hooked to the apheresis machine now.
Ken
@CliosFanBoy: Ah, the Psaki method. And heaven help any student who instead of “I think”, starts their question with “Some would say…”
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: my parents used to go to Loochows every year after the Army/Navy game. Pretty much everyone in Philly — at least South Philly which I know the best, called it Loo-Chows.
Fun fact, I have a Lüchow’s recipe book on my shelf. Heavy fair, but so good! My favorite among them is Fresh Eel Soup, but that is not enough, oh no! The next recipe is Fresh Eel Soup, Berlin Style. Günter Grass was not exaggerating in The Tin Drum.
PS, my wife’s last name also included an umlaut, but her family had anglicized it to a “ue” spelling with a long “ee” sound (Leek). She put back the umlaut and we pronounced it correctly, but most people ended up saying “Luck.”. Umlauts are tricky here.
Ken
@Betty Cracker: It hadn’t even occurred to me that hummingbirds migrated from Florida in the winter. We have a few in the summer here in Illinois, and I always imagined they went to Florida for the winter.
Jeffro
@Immanentize: we made pastrami reubens (maybe there’s a term for that?) this past weekend and I need that to be a regular thing…mmm mmm MMM!
Immanentize
@CliosFanBoy: You clearly do not live in Boston.
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
White Castle crashed and burned in Malaysia — twice. They never cracked the drunken student market here, nor managed to communicate why those soggy little sliders were better value for money than a full-sized burger. You could get a cheaper, tastier and more filling burger at any roadside stand.
Ken
@Jeffro: Some call the pastrami version a Rachel, but I’ve also heard Rachel used for a turkey Reuben.
Betty Cracker
@Ken: There are hummingbird populations that overwinter in Florida, but our locals bug out for the season (I’m in the Big Bend part of the state). Most head to Central America. Albatrossity shared this cool animated Ruby-Throated Hummingbird abundance map if you’re curious about their continental comings-and-goings.
nclurker
lived in ireland for a year after college.loved pub life.
in the before times my s.o. and i would leave the mountains and head to wilmington
and the best dive irish pub in n.c for the celebration.
this year it will be lamb chops on the grill and black velvets in the glass(champagne and guinness)
at home.may be next year……slainte’ all
Immanentize
@Jeffro: Sadly that sandwich ? is often called a “Rachel.”
It is such an excellent combo with corned beef or pastrami. In a couple of weeks, I’ll fire up the smoker and make some pastrami.
Nicole
Two of my late dad’s favorite holidays in close succession: the Ides of March, and St. Patrick’s Day. He would always make corned beef and cabbage, and it was a great surprise to me when I visited Ireland and learned that the Irish don’t eat corned beef. At least not as a traditional food. I ate traditional Irish bacon while there; it was fine, but as an Irish American, I prefer corned beef. ?
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: I suspect you weren’t drunk enough.
mrmoshpotato
Thank you to everyone who voted for him.
Ken
@Betty Cracker: Very cool map. I am always amazed by birds that fly thousands of miles without stopping. There are several species that cross the Sahara in one stint, for example; and at least one that swaps between the polar regions twice a year. Googles… Arctic tern, which half the year is the Antarctic tern.
Ken
@Nicole: Now I’m wondering what a traditional Ides of March sandwich would be. Something with Caesar dressing, perhaps, on Roman flatbread. I’m not quite up to flamingo tongue or pickled dormice for the filling, though.
OzarkHillbilly
@Amir Khalid: Roadside stands are in all ways better than White Castle.
Immanentize
@Ken: It would have to include lots of ketchup.
yellowdog
@Nora: My father’s birthday was July 4th. He had me convinced that the fireworks were for him.
Just One More Canuck
@Immanentize: I shudder (or is it shutter) to think how you make fresh eel soup into ‘Berlin style’. Do you serve it with 10 pounds of spaetzle? Curry ketchup?
Another Scott
@Amir Khalid: When we were in Japan we visited a fast food chain place that was sort of like a diner with a big wrap-around central counter. There were a bunch of young women working there and they were always yelling in a painfully high voice, calling out orders or something. Apparently very popular there.
It hurt my ears, but the food was good.
Some things don’t translate cross-cultures very well!! :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
MazeDancer
Saw a pic of a green bagel on Twitter and had flashbacks to torture time when I had an office midtown on Fifth Ave.
Every band – and there were so many – had to do their version of Does Your Mother Come From Ireland. And couldn’t leave the building because the streets were jammed with insane, drunk people.
Zoom would have helped so much.
Almost Retired
St. Patrick’s Day is mostly “meh” in Los Angeles, which for some reason never attracted much Irish immigration (probably because it was just a dusty, hard-to-reach pueblo during the heyday of Irish immigration). No parades, few bars (Tom Bergin’s on Fairfax notwithstanding), no “Little Dublin” neighborhood, etc. We did have an Irish-American mayor 30 years ago, but that fact doesn’t warrant a parade. Insofar as I’m descended from dour, tee-totaling English Methodists, the holiday was hardly celebrated at home, either!
Jeffro
@Ken: Yeah, a Rachel is usually turkey/slaw/swiss/1000 Island sandwich, those are awesome too!
@Immanentize: hmm…various online sources are telling me that a Rachel can be turkey or pastrami, the key seems to be, does it have slaw instead of sauerkraut?
Maybe pastrami + sauerkraut = pastrami Reuben, pastrami + cole slaw = pastrami Rachel?
The one thing we DON’T want is turkey + sauerkraut, talk about blech!
Amir Khalid
@Immanentize:
Is there by any chance a sandwich called a “Ross”?
prostratedragon
Test post. An interesting article on the racial dynamics of the Power conferences in collegiate sports in the U.S.. An athlete identified as Andrew:
different-church-lady
But you gotta admit corned beef is awesome!
Kayla Rudbek
Tonight I’m going to see how my new Celtic knots dress from Svaha looks on me and figure out which shawl will coordinate. The green and gold print will make it a bit tricky.
gwangung
@Ken: Oh, those are COMMON “questions” in audience talkbacks for plays…i.e., “This is more of a comment than a question” which then goes on for another couple thousand words…
NotMax
Tisn’t really St. Paddy’s Day without Nora Bayes‘ rendition her signature tune from the Ziegfeld Follies.
:)
mrmoshpotato
@Nora: Happy Birthday! ?
Immanentize
@Just One More Canuck: In the Berlin Style, the eel is boiled in May Wine and beer which then becomes the broth. Not joking. The plain old Fresh Eel Soup is a cream based soup. I guess like New England versus Manhattan style clam chowder?
Immanentize
@Amir Khalid: Ha! Probably, but you’ll only see it’s white teeth.
JanieM
I went to Ireland for the first of many times in 1979 and stayed for six weeks with my Irish-American high school friend, who had married an Irishman and gone “back” there to live. The visit included St. Patrick’s Day, and I was quite bemused to find that what they did on March 17 in Ireland was go to church.
That was a long time ago, mind you, and the church still had a hold on the country that it has lost (thank the FSM) in the intervening years. I haven’t been back for many years now, so I don’t know how they celebrate these days. The biggest celebration I ever saw was for soccer………
Betty Cracker
@Ken: Migrations are truly amazing — did not know about Arctic / Antarctic Terns! IIRC, some hummingbirds follow the Gulf Coast to Central America, but the ones that set out from FL mostly fly 500 or so miles straight across the Gulf, which is an astounding feat for such tiny critters.
The Moar You Know
Here in lovely San Diego, I’ve been watching for decades as tourists (all white, natch) use a non-Mexican holiday, Cinco de Drunko, to get insanely drunk and indulge in the shittiest behavior imaginable. And if you want to be forever embarrassed as a white person, cross the border and spend May 5 in Tijuana. Holy fucking hell. Intoxicated men and women spitting vicious drunken racist tirades at anyone with brown skin, all of whom, contrary to what these “tourists” believe, speak good to excellent English. And somehow they’re the bad guys. If it happened on our side of the border with Mexican tourists we’d beat them all to death in a heartbeat.
I think Mexico should close the return border on May 5 and on that day be legally allowed to take anyone who blows more than a .05BAC as a slave laborer for the state.
Cinco de Mayo is a garbage American holiday for garbage people.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax:
@Immanentize: Now I want a reuben!
Just One More Canuck
@Immanentize: Oh dear lord. My wife’s parents grew up in Berlin. Thankfully they’ve never served that
Geminid
@Ken: Virginia whipoorwills migrate to the Carolina lowlands for winter bugs, and for the shag dancing. Then they come back to drive people crazy on summer nights. Whipoorwills have whiskers that help them snag bugs.
Brachiator
@different-church-lady:
I was never confronted with corned beef before I went to college back East. Never cared for it. Still don’t.
But I fell into deep love with pastrami.
Ken
@Amir Khalid: Reuben and Rachel are both Biblical names from the Jacob stories. So we could name sandwiches after Jacob’s other wives, concubines, sons, and daughter from those stories. Sounds like an idea for a sandwich chain menu. “An Issachar, but could you substitute Swiss for the Havarti?”
Just One More Canuck
@Brachiator: Montreal smoked meat
Soprano2
OMG, an Atlanta law enforcement official said about the terrorist who killed 8 women last night “Yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did” – ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME! I guess it’s time for the White Terrorist Bingo Card once again. Can’t wait to see a picture of him as a young child with a puppy.
DCA
I’ll defend Cinco de Mayo (though not how most people celebrate it). It was developed by the Latino population of California during and after the US Civil War as a way of showing solidarity with the Union cause by celebrating a Mexican victory over the French–who had come to Mexico because the Monroe Doctrine was somewhat in abeyance, the USA being distracted by a slavers’ revolt.
kindness
I enjoyed the BBC lion frolicing tweet when I saw it earlier this morning. What is there there that doesn’t bring a smile to one’s face. Well I just clicked the tweet to read the comments under it and I have to say humanity is doomed. Far too many people suggesting lions in snow is cruelty and barbaric. Far too many folk bringing in stupid shit to try to make others feel guilty and make themselves feel superior. That I think is the true sin of the internet. It allows dumb shits an avenue to try to pummel others just so the dumb shits feel better about themselves. How shallow is that? Fuck em all. Those lions are enjoying themselves.
Bill Arnold
Some Sumerian proverbs related to lions
[Sumerian] Proverbs: collection 5
And other animals: