Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

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

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Consistently wrong since 2002

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Infrastructure week. at last.

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

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

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Sunday Evening, Hopefully Respite, Open Thread

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  3. 3.

    sab

    I dunno. I had a rescue lab for about 12 years. I think he was about 16 when he died. The whole time we had him we always felt that he was asking ” why can’t you call me by my real name?

  4. 4.

    PsiFighter37

    So…anyone interested in a Denver meetup on Wednesday? Going to resort to hitting open threads now. :) Email me at VRML99 at yahoo dot com if so! Have only had one person reach out directly so far.

     

    ETA: leaning towards 6PM at Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. If you’re a local coming, feel free to supply the green balloons!

  5. 5.

    dmsilev

    This …isn’t a respite comment. It’s a sad story, about someone much-loved:

    Inside the heartbreaking conservatorship battle of a ‘Star Trek’ legend

    Tucked away at the end of a secluded cul-de-sac, Nichelle Nichols’ Woodland Hills home was a testament to her boundary-breaking career spanning more than 70 years. Nichols lined walls and shelves with photos of herself as Lt. Uhura on the original “Star Trek” series, memorabilia from her legions of fans and documentation of her contributions to NASA’s recruitment of women and people of color in the 1970s.

    The home was Nichols’ pride and joy, say those close to the star. She purchased it in 1982 for $12,000 and meticulously planned its details, from her plush, oversize furniture to the garden where she planted roses to the neighboring property she purchased in 1994 to use as a guesthouse and workspace for projects.

    Questions around the fate of Nichols’ home — who lives in it and what happens to it — have been central to an ongoing, years-long legal battle over the finances and care of the beloved TV star, who friends and family say is financially drained and struggling with dementia.

    Short version: her son believes that Nichols is being exploited by her manager (who, among other things, lived in a guest house on her property), and has filed a petition for conservatorship. The manager disagrees, and has filed suit to block it.

    Sigh. Getting old sucks.

  8. 8.

    West of the Rockies

    I know not everything is or can be good news, but I do appreciate your posts, AL. They are frequently a beacon of hope amid dreary news days.

  9. 9.

    Morzer

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/15/an-afghan-woman-in-kabul-now-i-have-to-burn-everything-i-achieved

    A terrible, miserable story from Afghanistan – but one which makes clear just how shallow and unlikely to endure the supposed transformation of Afghanistan was. When you look at the reality of how many Afghan men obviously hate any attempt to give women any sort of rights, it’s obvious that another five years, ten years, twenty years would have achieved nothing.

  10. 10.

    Mary G

    Warning: this is a thing out of a horror movie:

    Say hello to Eulagisca gigantea, a scale worm from Antarctica. It’s about 8” (20cm), approximately the size of a squirrel.I think James Arness played it in the movie. pic.twitter.com/7dIl7c07v1— Harry Turtledove (@HNTurtledove) August 9, 2021

  12. 12.

    jackmac

    After we had two elderly cats pass on in the last 10 months and we missed having felines wander around the house. So we went to a nearby shelter and adopted Mr. Snigglefoot (or some horrendous name like that). The name barely lasted halfway through the drive home. But the time we arrived our new guy — a burly, friendly and curious two-year-old adolescent — was renamed “Rocco.”

  15. 15.

    Suzanne

    I have been listening to a wonderful podcast that I think y’all (yinz?} would appreciate: History of Ideas. David Runciman is excellent at this medium. I got into Talking Politics during Brexit and I’m so glad to keep listening to him.

  19. 19.

    Raven

    I was waking Artie and a friend rode by and stop. He said he was inspired by us adopting her he adopted too!

  23. 23.

    Amir Khalid

    @HumboldtBlue:
    Adam Something is, among other things, an entertaining YouTube channel for those who like to be reminded just how hollow Elon Musk’s big tech ideas really are.

  24. 24.

    Anne Laurie

    @sab: I had a rescue lab for about 12 years. I think he was about 16 when he died. The whole time we had him we always felt that he was asking ” why can’t you call me by my real name?

    Zevon came to live with us just after his fifth birthday (he’d been turned over to the breed rescue with his veterinary records).  His first family called him ‘Pepi’, which might’ve been suitable when he was a wee pup, but came nowhere near the charisma of his adult self.

    We’ve renamed about half of the rescues, dogs & cats, that have lived with us.   Even the dimmest of them — and some of them have *not* been very bright — took no more than a few days to adapt to their new monikers.  Sometimes they’ve actually seemed happier to be renamed… possibly because the memories associated with the old ones weren’t so great…

  26. 26.

    Brachiator

    @dmsilev:

    Short version: her son believes that Nichols is being exploited by her manager (who, among other things, lived in a guest house on her property), and has filed a petition for conservatorship. The manager disagrees, and has filed suit to block it.

    A very sad story.

    I kinda wish that some big Trek fan attorney could swoop in and help.

  27. 27.

    Brachiator

    @Morzer:

    When you look at the reality of how many Afghan men obviously hate any attempt to give women any sort of rights, it’s obvious that another five years, ten years, twenty years would have achieved nothing.

    This is not just a problem in Afghanistan.

  29. 29.

    Suzanne

    @Morzer: The scene at the airport in Kabul is devastating. I would support any sort of refugee airlifts to get women out of there.

  32. 32.

    Emma from Miami

    Open thread, so… I need a reality check.
    We arrived in the US through Miami but a month after moved to Chicago and settled in a Greek-German neighborhood. The closest grocery store was a Hi-Lo. So my mom does all the laundry (the apartment building had a laundry room in the basement) and like a thrifty housewife bought the least expensive laundry powder available. Gets home, opens the box and inside was a very nice hand towel. So every month, new box, new hand towel. We ended up with about a dozen before the brand disappear from the shelves. So mom moves one (minuscule) price up and this time there is a glass! Again, collection. We still have them.
    I mentioned this to a born-and-bred American more or less my age and she said it was IMPOSSIBLE (yes, she spoke in all caps) that companies would have done that, as it was giving away something for nothing. I do know the giveaway stuff disappeared by the mid 1970s, but honestly, I do remember it!
    So am I crazy?​

  34. 34.

    Capri

    I adopted my current dog when I saw her listed by a local shelter on Facebook. She was a courtesy post still living with a famiy that was about to move. They hoped to place her before she was reliquished. She was advertised as a whippet, and from the head shot it appeared to be possible. Like pretty much every pet whippet I’ve been around, her name was Devo. I wasn’t actively looking for a dog, but I love sight hounds, particularly whippets and basenjis, so I contacted the owner. When she got to the house it was clear that only a person who had never seen a whippet in their life would think she was a whippet – she’s most likely an Australian Shepard/terrier cross. She’s a sweet dog and we kept her, but wanted to lose the name. We ended up renaming her Reno. It has the same vowel sounds as Devo, and supposedly that’s what dogs hear. She responded to it right away.

  36. 36.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Suzanne: This would be the sanest and most moral path I can see.  First, all the people who worked with us.  Then all the women who wish to flee.  But: I don’t think I could support them fleeing with their male children.  I’m sorry, but just because women want a little more freedom than the Taliban would allow, doesn’t mean that they won’t bring up their boys to be just as backward.  We’ve had 20 years in Afghanistan, so a significant proportion of the males — the ones that we read about as being pretty goddamn misogynist — were brought up by Afghan women during the American occupation.

  39. 39.

    Miss Bianca

    @Emma from Miami: You’re not crazy. Giveaway items were big back in the 70s. Gas stations used to give away all kinds of things from oil companies – glassware being one of those things, as I recall.

  43. 43.

    Percysowner

    @Miss Bianca: Oh, yeah. One gas station attendant gave me 12 glasses at one time. It was either the end of a promotion or a case they found in the back. In any case he wanted them out and I ended up with a matching set of glasses. It was quite a score for a poor college kid. The guy also filled my tank, checked my oil and cleaned my windows. Those were different days. We were killing the environment, but I, at least, didn’t know.

  45. 45.

    Emma from Miami

    @Miss Bianca: I remember those too, but we didn’t have a car until 1976. It amuses me how it was standard for us to walk to school alone.
    @Kattails: Well, only when the wind blows north-northwest.​

  46. 46.

    Mousebumples

    I am in the middle of reading the Giannis book! Just picked it up from the library today. Only have 2 weeks before it’s due, so I need to make sure I get through it in my limited free time… So far so good. The first few chapters are about the difficulties of being undocumented in Greece around the time of the 2008 financial crisis.

  47. 47.

    Mary G

    New statement from @StateDeptSpox:“We can confirm that the safe evacuation of all Embassy personnel is now complete. All Embassy personnel are located on the premises of Hamid Karzai International Airport, whose perimeter is secured by the U.S. Military.”— Weijia Jiang (@weijia) August 16, 2021

    No hostages. Good. That was one of my big worries after going through 1979.

     

    ETA. Pging Kay, Kay to the white courtesy phone, please:

    There is decades of blame for the US failures in Afghanistan. But now the responsibility is on the Biden administration to evacuate those who worked alongside us. NOW. This withdrawal wasn’t sprung out of nowhere. It’s been a long time coming. Your Competency matters most now— Patrick Skinner (@SkinnerPm) August 16, 2021

  49. 49.

    Suzanne

    @Emma from Miami: Not crazy. My mom gave me some steak knives like 7-8 years ago (ish) that she had gotten as some sort of freebie. I also remember getting some free glassware with Flintstones characters on them. Maybe from Pizza Hut?

  52. 52.

    zhena gogolia

    @Suzanne:

    I had a gorgeous Petunia Pig tumbler that a housemate broke. I have no recollection of where it came from. Wish I still had it.

  55. 55.

    Ohio Mom

    @Emma from Miami: I just googled “Duz laundry detergent glasses” and MagdainBlack remembers correctly.

    Apparently you can buy the glasses on eBay and etsy. They are something of collector’s items.

    What I remember from the 1970s was my mother continually opening new bank accounts for gifts. When I moved off campus, she opened one account to get me a small set of dishes (one salad plate remains) and another for a set of enameled sauce pans.

    ETA: I spent too much time on google admiring the glasses, lots of other people commented in the mean time I see.

  56. 56.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Suzanne: That assumes that they will bring up their male children as Americans.  This is not at all guaranteed, which I can attest to as a child of immigrants.  This assumption that women are blameless in the misogynist upbringing of their sons is just wrong.

  57. 57.

    prostratedragon

    @Emma from Miami: No you’re not, we used the one with the washcloth back in the 60s I guess it was. Very decent cloth, and the detergent didn’t cost more than the competition, or there’s no way my mother would have bought it regularly. I also remember glasses or coffee cups or something, but we never had that one.

    Some night soon I’m going to wake up shouting the name of that product.

  58. 58.

    MagdaInBlack

    I believe my mothers pink depression ware plates were free when she went to movies. I could google but its late and I’m lazy.

  60. 60.

    Suzanne

    @Chetan Murthy: Um, I was snarking. The point is that we Americans bring up our own boys to be raging misogynists, so it’s hard for me to throw stones in that regard.

  61. 61.

    debbie

    @Suzanne:

    I still have a couple of steak knives I got from a gas station back in the 1970s. Not good for much, but they’re still in the drawer.

  62. 62.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Suzanne: *grin* It’s all good. I’d just say that …. you haven’t seen raging misogynists yet.  Can you imagine actual honor killings in America (by Americans — cultural Americans), as anything other than crazy flukes ?  And yet, it happens in India (and among Hindus, not just among Muslims as the trope would have you believe).

    I remember Erik Loomis had post about Deadwood and …. the treatment of women in frontier times (== late 19th, early 20th century — so, not exactly that long ago): https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/04/deadwoods-historical-accuracy

    Moreover, the age of consent in Iowa until the 1890s was 10. That’s right. 10. As it was in most states. This meant that if a girl came from a house not considered “respectable,” she was open game for sexual exploitation by men without legal means to punish them. It also meant that statutory rape charges could not be issued against men who had sex with young girls. In September 1891, a 10 year old Davenport girl named Ada Ammerman disappeared from her home. After three days she and two other young girls named Dolly Hamerly and Mamie Woods were discovered. Their clothes were soaked with semen. Three men were soon arrested and charged with 8 counts of rape. But they were found not guilty. While reformers wanted to end this practice and save these girls, men, including the entire political establishment of the city, defended the sporting men’s right to sexually use women they found on the streets. Rather, the defense successfully used the argument that these girls’ families had failed the city by allowing their girls on the street where they would be irresistible to men. The girls were already prostitutes by coming from poor families and being on the street. These girls were publicly tainted with this definition of them. Soon after this, Dolly Hamerly was sold to a brothel by her family. Eventually, this trial and other similar events led Iowa to raise the age of consent. To the ripe old age of 13.

    I understand that we think of some American men as real misogynist pigs.  But there’s a long, long way to fall.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    @Mary G:

    “Maggie Haberman
    @maggieNYT·56m

    Cotton spokesman says that their office has heard from multiple US citizens in Kabul trapped behind Taliban checkpoints, who can’t safely reach the US perimeter and have no clear option for what to do.”

    I personally would need to see some independent verification that this actually occurred, given the source, but maybe they’re contractors of some kind.

  71. 71.

    JAFD

    @Emma from Miami: Don’t know about stuf in laundry deterg, but I’ve owned steak knives and plastic tumblers given away by gas stations

    Got letter the other day, Board of Elections wanting to know if I can work on November 2nd.  So, checked ‘yes’, is ready to drop in mail.

    Also saying that they’ll be using new ‘electronic poll books’, all District Board Workers will need to attend training session – but we’ll get paid for that.  They usually have sessions at a half-dozen or so places around Essex County,  am trying to hit all of them sooner or later…

  75. 75.

    Eunicecycle

    @Suzanne: when I was a kid some jelly came in jars that had the Flintstones on them. After the jelly was gone they were glasses. I think it was Welch’s? But you’re quite a bit younger than me so it’s probably not the same promotion.

    ETA: I just Googled it, and it was Welch’s, in 1962!

  76. 76.

    Kay

    Michael Morell
    @MichaelJMorell
    · 9h
    What is happening in Afghanistan is not the result of an intelligence failure. It is the result of numerous policy failures by multiple administrations. Of all the players over the years, the Intelligence Community by far has seen the situation in Afghanistan most accurately

    Well. We’re clear on who is NOT responsible. NOT those people. They’re really all going to do this? Insist none of them bear responsibility for anything?
    I think I preferred “mistakes were made”. Bad as that was it was better than panicked denials.

  77. 77.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Kay: So I guess Tom Cotton’s people decided to do the right thing and… tell the media rather than get help for these people from the State Department?

  81. 81.

    brendancalling

    @Chetan Murthy:  That is a horrible and ruthless thing to say, and I say that as someone who regularly wishes death on the Covid idiots.

    I just saw my son today for the first time in 18 months. It’s been sheer torture. I have to get therapy and likely take meds for awhile to recover from this.

    You don’t tear children from their parents.

  83. 83.

    Suzanne

    @frosty: The French fries on everything is one of the grossest things. I ate at Primanti’s once, didn’t realize that there would be fries on my sandwich, and have never gone back.

    Besides, the culinary milieu I most associate with this place is PIZZA. There are pizza-wings-hoagies places E V E R Y W H E R E. I live behind one. I don’t like pizza very much.

    I miss restaurants that end in -berto’s.

  88. 88.

    frosty

    @Suzanne: ​
      ‘bertos is funny. As for your other foods, I’ve never liked wings, I’ve had enough pizza to last me the rest of my life, but hoagies (subbies where I am) and cheesesteaks (if you’re in Philly), I could eat every day.
    As for my former stomping grounds in Baltimore, it’s crab cakes all the way!

    I miss In’n’Out. Five Guys doesn’t come close.

  89. 89.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Found this hilarious tidbit from an old Atlantic article about Martin:

    In the Brotherhood, local gatherings are called “moots.” On the night of the Pasadena book signing, a moot was held in the back yard of a Spanish-style house in town. Brotherhood members from way back mingled with relative newcomers. Martin leaned against the railing of a deck, drinking beer and swapping anecdotes about past conventions.

    …

    Several veterans briefed me on the group’s traditions. At that first Brotherhood party, in 2001, a tipsy reveller (this is a crowd that likes to lift a glass) asked Martin to knight him. Martin said, “I can’t knight you. You haven’t gone on a quest yet!” When his petitioner implored Martin to invent one, he sent the fan and several others off in search of Philly cheesesteaks. When their prize was secured, Martin dubbed the group the Knights of the Cheesesteak. So began the custom of Martin sending fans off in the middle of the night with orders to bring back local street food. The Brotherhood quests are a gentler version of a fraternity hazing, providing people who have in common only a particular literary taste with the shared experiences that turn them into pals.

    It was a brisk night, and as we clustered by a clay fireplace a fan named Erik Kluth recalled the moot in Kansas City where he was knighted. Martin had commanded him and some other fans to retrieve barbecued smoked brisket tips. But by the time Martin issued his decree restaurants had closed. In desperation, the fans rooted through garbage left outside one establishment. Finally, they tried to cook the dish themselves, in a drug-store parking lot. Martin was impressed enough by the effort to dub them the Knights of the Dumpster.

    Sorta scummy of GRRM to enable this kind of fan behavior, isn’t it?

  90. 90.

    Suzanne

    @frosty: I like In n Out, too. But I’m not really a burgers person. I like spaghetti-and-meatballs, that kind of thing.

    -berto’s, though. Breakfast burritos any time of day. And Super Nachos. I miss you, Super Nachos!!!

  91. 91.

    Morzer

    @Kay: I think this is a both and, not an either or situation. I think you have to arm individuals and communities in a country like Afghanistan – and one of the big mistakes was trying to create a western-style army and have it do all the work,

  94. 94.

    CaseyL

    Yesterday was a bit of a respite day: went over to my neighbor’s place to watch the Seahawks-Raiders game.  Watching sportsball with the neighbors has been a thing for the past five years or so.

    We were a bubble, so we kept on doing this through the first year of the pandemic, when it was just about the only social contact we had.

    Always fun to spend time with the nabes, and because it was a pre-season game, we felt very little stress over the outcome (the ‘Hawks lost).  It was fun to see the new players get out there: we were surprised by all the names we didn’t recognize at all.  I noticed hyphenated last names are showing up more and more.

  95. 95.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Suzanne:

    I think Taco Bell still has breakfast, only during certain hours though if you want some breakfast burritos. Then again it’s Taco Bell lol

    I remember really liking In and Out Burger when I was on vacation in SoCal a few years back

  96. 96.

    Ohio Mom

    @brendancalling:

    The only comparison to your situation I can think of is dads drafted into fighting wars and missing years of their children’s growing up.

    My general policy is to encourage anyone who thinks therapy would be helpful. Hope you find the right therapist, the one on your wavelength, easily.

  103. 103.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Major Major Major Major:

    What can I say, it’s fun to make fun of the guy. He’s kind of a creepy weirdo (mood: horny re: GoT actress audition videos with him needing to take a cold shower afterwards) and often comes across as an unprofessional asshole when interacting with fans on his NAB. The slightest amount of criticism would be censored and Martin surrounds himself with sycophants like Elio and Linda of Westeros.org

  116. 116.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Five Guys opened up near Mom’s. Went to give it a try when was there several years ago. Once.

    Disgusting doesn’t come close. Felt pity for the trash can in the parking lot which was the end recipient of the bulk of what I had ordered.

  118. 118.

    Stuart Frasier

    The best California burger chain is The Counter.  For an actual fast place, there’s The Habit (they’ve been acquired by the Borg, but the food hasn’t suffered yet).  In-N-Out is okay, but the fries are weird.  Tommy’s is just nasty.

  119. 119.

    NotMax

    @mrmoshpotato

    Putting just-in-time cut taters into the oil an inferior method for making fries. Soaking the slices in water first to remove surface starch, then patting them completely dry produces a more toothsome, less mealy fry.

    If patient enough to do double frying, even better.

  121. 121.

    sab

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: It’s okay. Everything else in his life was much better. He got a family he loved that loved him. He got a dog pack led by a German Shepherd he adored. He got to leave Las Vegas ( HOT!) for Ohio ( snow and rain and metroparks.)

  122. 122.

    sab

    @sab: Maybe he just didn’t like the name we gave him, which was boring and stupid and one syllable.

    ETA I believe dogs prefer two syllable names.

  123. 123.

    Barbara

    @Emma from Miami: ​
    I still have the remnants of a set of yellow plastic bowls, plates and tumblers that came inside dog food I purchased circa 1984. No, you’re not crazy.

  124. 124.

    sab

    @Emma from Miami: You are not crazy. Half my glassware is from stuff I inherited from my mother and grandmother that came in food packaging. Also too we had a set of BC ( comic strip) glassware from our local gas station that I passed on down to a nephew. Dozens of glasses of various sizes, each with a BC character on the side. Plus a big pitcher. My favorites were the little juice glases with the anteater zotting an ant.

    ETA We never got dish towels. We would have liked them.

  126. 126.

    sab

    @NotMax: I currently (or used to before the last grocery run) buy a german mustard that came in a cute litle mug. We have twenty of the things, so my husband said no more. I can’t bear to throw them away so we switched brands.

  130. 130.

    sab

    @NotMax: Big maybe. We have cats, who destroy most plants. That might let me get a few more mustards in, just trying

    Maybe I will save and take them to humane society thrift store.

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