Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Come on, man.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

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

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Second rate reporter says what?

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

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

After roe, women are no longer free.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

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

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Monday Random Open Thread: Ya Gotta Have A Hobby!

Monday Random Open Thread: Ya Gotta Have A Hobby!

by | 99 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Reader Interactions

99Comments

  4. 4.

    Chetan Murthy

    I can’t be the only one who watches President Biden’s actions and listens to his words, and worries that he might come to harm from them.  He’s going to Tulsa tomorrow to commemorate the 1921 Massacre and Race Riot, and IIRC, a memorial observance was *already* canceled due to the threat of White supremacist violence.  Geez.  Geez.  And I can’t write any more, b/c, as with 44, it scares me too much to do so.  I never expected a President (to be brave enough) to do what he’s done.

  5. 5.

    John Revolta

    When Mrs. Revolta go to see a movie in the theater, which isn’t often, we wait until it’s been out for three or four weeks and then go to the last showing of the day in an out of the way cineplex. Often we’ll be the only ones in there. It’s great!

  8. 8.

    Miss Bianca

    That movie story is both hilarious and horrifying as I contemplate opening our theater this summer.

  17. 17.

    Another Scott

    Aljazeera:

    Istanbul, Turkey – Millions of Turks have tuned in this month to the YouTube channel of convicted Turkish mob boss Sedat Peker with his videos gripping the nation and rattling the government.

    In a series of videos, apparently made in exile, Peker made a series of wild and unsubstantiated allegations against several prominent individuals – including leading figures in Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) – ranging from murder to rape, drug smuggling, corruption, and the role of organised crime in political machinations and violence.

    All the allegations have been vehemently denied by those accused.

    The eight videos have had more than 60 million views and Peker’s allegations have reached ever closer to the heart of government.

    They have also raised fresh questions about alleged ties between the state and organised crime, which many had believed were largely consigned to some of the darkest periods in Turkey’s history.

    […]

    Erdogan will probably have everyone who watched the videos arrested. :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  20. 20.

    Chetan Murthy

    @debbie: Oh, interesting.  I thought I’d read they received threats of violence.  In any case, while I can understand why the commemoration committee wouldn’t want to make payments to the survivors, I can also understand why the survivors would want those payments.  I certainly can’t blame the survivors in this.

  21. 21.

    HumboldtBlue

    @eclare:

    If my cat had been inside he would have woken up too. Yesterday it was the mewling of a tiny kitten that pulled him away from his catnip ball.

  23. 23.

    rikyrah

     

    Madam Vice President Harris is GOAT! (@flywithkamala) tweeted at 1:58 PM on Mon, May 31, 2021:
    The media has dogged Venus and Serena Williams for decades. Now they are doing it to Naomi Osaka.

    No matter the industry or realm, the media constantly attacks high achieving Black Women and then expects them to continue on unbruised like whole institutions didn’t attack them.
    (https://twitter.com/flywithkamala/status/1399440136891473922?s=03)

  24. 24.

    Splitting Image

    The movie story reminds me of the time I was riding the bus home from work and a middle-aged lady got on and started chatting with the driver. She spent half of the trip complaining about how rude young people are these days and stood there blocking the door while a group of teenagers edged their way past her trying to get on. A taser would have come in handy there too.

    I haven’t been to a movie theatre since a group of my friends decided to see Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.

  30. 30.

    gene108

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Committee agreed to pay the three living survivors $100k each, and put $2 million aside as restitution for descendants of those hurt by the massacre.

    Per the article, the survivors and their lawyers asked for a lot more money, $1 mil for survivors, and $50 mil for descendants

    Committee basically backed off at the higher demand amount. I think the respective sides lawyers are trying to agree on the amount for reparations.

    There are other events scheduled this week, just not the big one with John Legend, Stacy Abrams, and the survivors.

  32. 32.

    Chetan Murthy

    @gene108: One of the reasons I don’t buy property (even here in majority-minority CA) is that I feel like, if the shit really hits the fan, it’s easier to move more-liquid assets out of the country.  I figure, if the US ever stopped capital movements across its borders, it’d fall apart in about 2 days, so that’ll be a step they won’t take for quite a while.  I remember reading about all the steps the Nazis took, to prevent Jewish Germans from emigrating with their assets, and think to myself: that’s a lot easier to do when the assets are physical, than when they’re rows in a database.

    But I could be completely wrong.  Sigh.

  33. 33.

    leeleeFL

    @Chetan Murthy: I knew he would be brave, just like I knew Obama would be brave. A not brave pair would have just said “Fuck it!”

    Brave, patriotic and selfless.  What a gift for a weary nation!

  35. 35.

    Chetan Murthy

    @rikyrah: Heh, what she could use is an anger translator to take the questions for her when she doesn’t want to.  [ok, ok, I’m only joking]

    100%, yeah, this is bullshit.  The press oughta submit their questions beforehand, and she can provide answers to the ones she wants, either in person or in writing.  Or not.  This idea of a damn media circus is infuriating.

  42. 42.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Okay that Cruella story is going into my “why I still don’t leave the house after being vaccinated” file

  43. 43.

    zhena gogolia

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Haha, me too. I’m hoping to go see In the Heights, but I think that if we go in the afternoon to our sleepy local theater it will be okay.

    The last film we saw there was Little Women. There were about 20 women, my husband, and another guy who said to him, “We’re the only guys here” as he went up the aisle.

  46. 46.

    gene108

    @Chetan Murthy:

    One thing the U.S. Treasury Department did, prior to the American entry into the war, was catalog the assets of Dutch, Belgian, etc. nationals and the respective governments had with U.S. banks, so the Nazis couldn’t request our banks to remit them back to Europe. This included things like gold, stock certificates, bonds, etc.

    I heard this on an NPR segment, but I can’t remember which one.

  47. 47.

    Wag

    @Another Scott:   Don’t want to blow anyone’s mind, but when I shows the video of the hippo to my daughter she said “I saw that the other day. And apparently hippos can’t swim, so when they’re leaping out of the water like that, they’re running along the bottom of the river, and jumping up for air.”

    Don’t know that it’s true, but really cool if it is.

  51. 51.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Another Scott:

    That looks like the Zambezi above Victoria Falls, and likely one of the ferry boats from the landing in Livingstone headed to the resorts. When we did our safari, those fuckers were everywhere around – we passed within 20 yards of bunches of them within a hollowed log canoe thing that was propelled by a stick in the Okavango.

  53. 53.

    gene108

    @rikyrah:

    Press conferences with players after games and matches is usually pointless. I can see how prior to social media it served purpose, because the media reports would be the primary way for the public to get information about players.

    Also, she wanted have the media hold off on questions until after the tournament, so she wouldn’t have distractions. She’d wrote she was willing to talk afterward. The tennis association and media didn’t honor her request. She dropped out.

  54. 54.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @WaterGirl:

    I think it’s being streamed AND is in theaters, but I may be confusing that with something else.

    I was looking at streaming movies last week, and it seems like the bigger new releases are renting for $20, which I’m guessing isn’t much more than a ticket at a multiplex these days (Grampa Foolish hasn’t been inside a movie theatre in ten years). In the end, I decided to watch, based on a long ago rec from these threads, Tucker and Dale vs The Evil. It was a mite bit gorier than I was prepared for, but a clever twist on horror movies.

  55. 55.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Starfish: Little Women was the last one we saw, too. It was good, but the one before that was Knives Out, which was great.

    That said: in summer 2020, when the COVID rates were pretty low here, one of our local theater chains was trying to stay afloat by renting out entire theaters for low prices (mostly non-first-run films) so you could see a movie privately. A few of us did it and saw Inception, which I guess was rereleased as part of the advance hype for Tenet. I’m not sure it was actually that safe an exercise, but it was interesting to do once.

  56. 56.

    Poe Larity

    North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong-Un doesn’t care if you’re stuck in the past or trying to be ironic — he will not tolerate mullets or skinny jeans in his repressed country.

    Dammit, there go my vacation plans.

  57. 57.

    Fair Economist

    @gene108: 2 million is an insulting level of reparations. The History Channel special estimated the damages at 8 million *in 1921 money* which would be about 120 million today. Then there’s a century of real-valued interest, which would at least quadruple it. So fair compensation would be in the neighborhood of 500 million.

    One thing that immediately jumped out at me from watching the special: the Tulsa Massacre was not a spontaneous riot. It was planned, with very nefarious intent. To wit:

    Incendiary language in the newspaper, overdone even by the standards of the time.

    Rapid intervention of the police providing deputization and arms to the butchers.

    A special siren set up to signal to thousands of people waiting for the signal.

    Intentional arson attacks on most of the buildings in the district. That’s a lot of arson!

    Machine guns to crack defensive nests.

    And of course the killer: AIRPLANES with *preprepared bombs*. That’s not something just lying around in the dawn of the aviation age!

    The Tulsa Massacre was an ethnic cleansing, carefully planned by a fairly large conspiracy. In addition to reparations and “never again” preparations, we need to investigate who profited from the destruction of Greenwood. Because they were the ones that really did it.

  58. 58.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Fair Economist: There’s that saying: “behind every great fortune there lies a great crime”.  Britain lived off of India for more than a century[1] from what I’ve read.  None of these great crimes are ever compensated.  None of them.

    But that doesn’t mean that these survivors and descendants don’t deserve to extract every penny possible.  And that’d be less necessary, but for the ongoing racism of our society.

    [1] perhaps several; I am not conversant with the history on that subject.

  59. 59.

    Another Scott

    @Wag: Truth is stranger than fiction. TheAtlantic (from 2017).

    This is remarkable for a few reasons. Recall how fast the hippo in the YouTube video seemed to be traveling while submerged. These animals can weigh as much as 10,000 pounds. Their round bodies aren’t exactly streamlined. Yet hippos are able to keep their feet in contact with the ground, even when they’re underwater, “by control of the specific gravity of the body and high bone density,” according to a 2009 paper about the kinetics of underwater hippopotamus motion, published in the Journal of Mammalogy. Also, they’re able to dramatically increase the latitude of their regular walking gait while underwater. “The aquatic environment, although increasing resistance to movement, buoys the animal up,” the paper says. “This increased buoyancy effectively acts to make water a microgravity environment.”

    Which means a hippo barreling through the water is often supported on two feet instead of four. It also helps that they can remain submerged for up to 30 minutes. “There are periods in which the hippopotami are ‘in flight’ with no feet in contact with the ground,” the paper says. “In deep water, they locomote by ‘a series of porpoise-like leaps off the bottom’ or in ‘a series of high, prancing steps.’”

    Hippos can do all this terrifying prancing because they’ve evolved with just the right combination of buoyancy and bone density to allow it.

    Clever designer, that evolution fellow.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  62. 62.

    Starfish

    @Matt McIrvin: I still have not seen knives out. Someone just now told me about the theater rental thing when I mentioned wanting to rent some community pool after hours.

  64. 64.

    Brachiator

    @Chetan Murthy:

    I can’t be the only one who watches President Biden’s actions and listens to his words, and worries that he might come to harm from them.

    I could worry about any president, regardless of his or her politics, because there are some crazy asswipes out there.

    But I don’t. There is no point.

    He’s going to Tulsa tomorrow to commemorate the 1921 Massacre and Race Riot, and IIRC, a memorial observance was *already* canceled due to the threat of White supremacist violence.

    Fuck white supremacist assholes.

  66. 66.

    Elizabelle

    @Fair Economist:   I have not read it yet, but interesting article about an eyewitness account by attorney Buck Colbert Franklin, an attorney and father of the late, great John Hope Franklin.  Smithsonian Mag from 2016; no paywall.

    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/long-lost-manuscript-contains-searing-eyewitness-account-tulsa-race-massacre-1921-180959251

    ETA:  Slate published BC Franklin’s manuscript in full.

    https://slate.com/culture/2019/10/watchmen-b-c-franklin-tulsa-massacre-account-full-text.html

  67. 67.

    Feathers

    @Starfish: Most small community theaters can show anything you bring on BluRay. If you are bringing a disc that you own, it’s not a copyright issue, they are merely renting you a room and projector.

    It’s fun to have a screening of somebody’s favorite movie on a big screen for their birthday, especially one they never saw in the theater. If you get a group together, it costs about the same as a regular movie.

  68. 68.

    gwangung

    In the Heights will be streamed, as it is released, on HBO Max. And HBO Max doesn’t charge a premium for seeing it at the same time as the theatre release.

    Disney, on the other hand, does…

  69. 69.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott:

    Hippos can do all this terrifying prancing because they’ve evolved with just the right combination of buoyancy and bone density to allow it.

    This is also why the Hippo team are a lock in the Synchronized Swimming events in the Olympics.

  72. 72.

    Feathers

    @gene108: What gives the game away is that they are saying that an athlete not doing the press conferences would have a competitive advantage over one who did. These press conferences provide no useful information and lower the quality of play. It’s all about the media outlets’ egos.

    I still haven’t seen anything on whether it is actually in the player contract that they could kick her out for not doing the press conferences. If the only penalty listed is the fine, then she should just be able to pay it and play. A fine is simply a price, after all.

    I also have the feeling that if a dude were doing this, it would be a brave and principled stance.

  73. 73.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Feathers:

    I also have the feeling that if a dude were doing this, it would be a brave and principled stance.

    I’m disappointed the WTA hasn’t taken a firmer stand on this.  Lots of people aren’t extroverts.  The idea that you have to be one, to be a pro tennis player, is pretty damn wrong.

  74. 74.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Sometimes, t’s the little victories that count. I braved a trip to IKEA today to get the missing shelves I needed for my new TV console. They reportedly had seven in stock, but by the time I got there, I nabbed the last one. Still need four more, I’m still happy because this is the visible shelf where the AV receiver will go — and online they’re back ordered until mid-July.

    Plus, I discovered they have a cute new yellow cushion for the lounge chair I picked up used for $20. Just the sort of color pop I was looking for as I redecorate the living.

  75. 75.

    Brachiator

    @zhena gogolia:

    Haha, me too. I’m hoping to go see In the Heights, but I think that if we go in the afternoon to our sleepy local theater it will be okay.

    I’m glad to see this film being discussed. It looks as though it will be available via some streaming services, which is probably where I will see it.

    I don’t know when I will feel comfortable going to the movie theaters again. On top of it, the movie theater nearest me went out of business because of the pandemic.

    I do note that a second run movie house, popular with seniors, some college students and large families, is getting set to start up again. I think this is cool.

    The last film we saw there was Little Women.

    Last film I saw in theaters was Knives Out. Cool that they are working on a sequel. The movie was lots of fun.  Daniel Craig was a hoot and a half.

    There were about 20 women, my husband, and another guy who said to him, “We’re the only guys here” as he went up the aisle.

    Among the co-workers at a former employer,  there were some guys who absolutely would not go to see a movie that their wives or girlfriends wanted to see.

  81. 81.

    Brachiator

    @Feathers:

    I still haven’t seen anything on whether it is actually in the player contract that they could kick her out for not doing the press conferences.

    I don’t know. They had hinted at harsher penalties.

    I am ultimately glad that she beat them to the punch and withdrew.

    Sports pundits don’t know how to react. I get the feeling that some journalists were trying to set her up as the ” new nice black woman” in opposition to Serena Williams as “the old scary black woman,” but Osaka is not playing along.

    I also have the feeling that if a dude were doing this, it would be a brave and principled stance.

    Doubtful. The tennis bodies want that sweet cable and TV money. And that means trotting the players out for meaningless interviews. And the cable and TV stations want their reporters to be seen with the athletes.

    Professional sports is show business as much as it is competition. And everyone wants the merchandise to be sold effectively.

    ETA: I don’t know about ratings, but these days I prefer to watch women’s tennis, if I watch tennis at all.

  82. 82.

    frosty

    Last movie I saw in Jan 2019 was Ford vs. Ferrari with a friend on a rain Monday night. We were two of the four people in the theater.

  83. 83.

    gene108

    @Starfish:

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Pre-pandemic some theaters would allow people to rent out a theater to show a movie the theater wasn’t running.

    Usually see this with Indian movies. Someone rents out the theater. Sells tickets for people to see the movie separate from the regular box office.

  84. 84.

    Brachiator

    @zhena gogolia:

    I’m lucky in that he likes a lot of “women’s” movies.

    Very cool.

    ETA: I guess the movie studios are breathing a sigh of relief now that A Quiet Place 2 is doing well at the box office. From BBC News.

    The adverts for A Quiet Place Part II, which sees Emily Blunt and Cillian Murphy trying to evade noise-sensing blind aliens, stress that it is available “only in theatres”.

    Its $48m takings are the biggest single-weekend figures since Sonic The Hedgehog opened with $58m (£41m) in mid-February 2020.

    Still, I know a few people who now say that if a movie is not a big superhit they might stay home rather than go out to the movies.

     

  87. 87.

    CaseyL

    Hi, everyone!  I’m back from a couple days at Ocean Shores.  The weather was lovely.

    I have never seen an interview with an athlete that was worth the air it took to form the Q&A.  The only exception I can think of offhand was Martina Navratilova, who gave great interviews, but she Had No Fucks Left to Give (long before that was fashionable).

    I’ve never heard either Serena or Venus Williams give an interview, because I frankly pay little attention to any sports, so if they are honest, forthright, and occasionally offensive to delicate sensibilities, good for them!

  88. 88.

    Chetan Murthy

    @CaseyL:  A-yup.

    I have never seen an interview with an athlete that was worth the air it took to form the Q&A.

    https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2021/may/31/were-not-the-good-guys-osaka-shows-up-problems-of-press-conferences

    ”
    We’re not the good guys: Osaka shows up problems of press conferences”

    This dynamic is only exacerbated in women’s tennis, a highly visible enterprise that takes place not just in a largely white male space, but a white‑male‑with‑free‑food space. That sense of voracious, engorged entitlement often manifests itself in exceptionally creepy ways. Question: “I noticed you tweeted a picture. Are you prepared that if you go on a long run you may be held up as a sex symbol, given you’re very good looking?” (Genie Bouchard, Wimbledon 2013.) Question: “You’re a pin-up now, especially in England. Is that good? Do you enjoy that?” (A 17-year-old Maria Sharapova, Wimbledon 2004.) And of course there are plenty of decent, curious journalists out there doing decent, curious things. In a way, this is what makes the chronic lack of self‑awareness so utterly self-defeating. Read the room. We are not the good guys here. We are no longer the power. And one of the world’s best athletes would literally rather quit a grand slam tournament than have to talk to the press. Rather than scrutinising what that says about her, it might be worth asking what that says about us.

  90. 90.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): In politics, there’s something to report, if you’re willing to do the legwork: real policy, real consequences, real good & bad guys.  In sports?  So much of it is just humans imposing a narrative on slightly-biased random walks.

  92. 92.

    Brachiator

    @Chetan Murthy:

    In politics, there’s something to report, if you’re willing to do the legwork: real policy, real consequences, real good & bad guys.  In sports?  So much of it is just humans imposing a narrative on slightly-biased random walks.

    Sports and politics can be very similar in some ways. This is why you have cynical hack reporters covering each area in much the same way. Instead of sports teams, you have political parties. In both realms, there are bums whose achievements are magnified and feats of glory or infamy which reporters either lie about or magnify.

  93. 93.

    wkwv

    I could use your opinions on patio umbrellas. We finally upgraded from a homemade picnic table to a metal table and chair set. The table is 42in and seats 4 people. Do we buy a 6ft umbrella, 9ft or 11ft- which sounds too big for the table. Does anyone have any ideas?

  95. 95.

    Brachiator

    @rikyrah:

    A lot of folks don’t know that Medgar Evers served in World War II and is buried here at Arlington. In a cemetery full of presidents, justices, astronauts, generals, admirals, etc., his grave is one of the most visited.

    This is very sad and sobering, but it is good to know that so many people remember him and honor his memory.

  96. 96.

    Another Scott

    @wkwv: We bought a California Umbrella for our ~ 12′ x 16′ deck several years ago.  A 9-foot diameter one.  I got a separate heavy aluminum base (with wheels) – I think the base weighs 70 pounds.

    It has held up well, the fabric hasn’t torn or faded, and seems to be a good size for our space.

    Do be careful about winds though. Even with the air vents, and the heavy base, it can get knocked over if it’s too breezy. (We got it for general shade on our patio doors – we don’t have a patio table.)

    I would guess that you want something that is at least 4-feet (2-feet on each side) larger diameter than your table (so that if the sun is overhead that everyone can be in the shade without being right up against the table). So 4 + 3.5 = 7.5 feet diameter. So 6-feet might work, but sounds a little small. 9-feet should be more than big enough.

    The California Umbrella website seems to be down for some reason, maybe it will be up tomorrow. I recall that it was good for seeing various styles in use, proportions, etc.

    I hope this helps a little. Good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  99. 99.

    Ivan X

    I cannot believe there have not been more comments about that phenomenal parrot. I spent like 30 mins on that guy’s YouTube page. The parrot actually sings in something resembling the right key and rhythm, and the guy didn’t even know, he just figured it out one day when he was playing White Wedding and the parrot wanted to be included.

Comments are closed.