so this very funny tiktok really turned out to be one hell of a harbinger of the retail employment exodus and contains everything you need to know to understand it in under two minutes https://t.co/GrT68p1stj
— kilgore trout, uatx professor of turnip studies (@KT_So_It_Goes) November 23, 2021
America's Thanksgiving Paradox.
Thursday night: "We are America, land of plenty! Let's feast on our boundless supplies of food and be thankful for everything we have!"
Friday morning: "IT'S SOVIET UNION NOW. LAND OF SCARCITY AND AGGRESSION! WE GET IN LINES AND PUNCH PEOPLE!!!!"— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) November 23, 2021
(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)
Official Letter of Reprimand from the Dog Union
mrmoshpotato
It’s Tackle-Someone-For-A-TV day! And they were superspreader events in 14 days, 13 days…
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
America’s Boxing Day.
With real boxing.
NotMax
Let’s set the WABAC machine to 1963, when a certain fellow was on the cusp of widespread celebrity.
;)
raven
When Black Friday comes
I’ll stand down by the door
And catch the gray men when they
Dive from the fourteenth floor
Rob
No shopping for me today. I’m going to be working from home as if it were a normal day.
germy
germy
Princess
Worrying about this new variant. Western countries are slamming their doors to the countries in southern Africa where it has been identified, but it’s already in Belgium and in Israel, therefore, I am guessing, everywhere.
satby
That TikTok channels every single thing retail workers think. I laughed till I cried. Bookmarking it so I can play it over and over tomorrow.
Not going out today, a personal tradition I started 30 years ago when I left retail work and went into IT. I was a slacker on the holiday so I’m going to be working twice as much today to make up for it. Plus some family stuff going on. And snow, though it’s not accumulating much.
Betty Cracker
@Princess: Was just thinking the same. Disease transmission prevention protocols exist to snuff this out before it takes hold here, but wingnuts are already infected with a political strain of oppositional defiant disorder that will render those tools useless.
Winston
@Betty Cracker: As you know, we don’t have any disease prevention protocols in Florida. We don’t have honest reporting of disease proliferation. We don’t have an honest governor.
ryk
According to my Pets of Balloon Juice calendar, today is Thanksgiving. I have no choice but to eat and drink too much again… Happy Balloon Juice Thanksgiving everyone
NotMax
@Winston
On the plus side, Florida’s got sinkholes and gators and palmetto bu–
Never mind.
;)
Ken
@NotMax: Oh, him. I thought you meant Dr. Who.
germy
We were watching the old Bernie Mac Show on BounceTV and he tells his kids the pilgrims had Thanksgiving with the Native Americans because the pilgrims were casing the joint.
Winston
@NotMax: We have lots of Anoles that eat lots of cockroaches though.
ETA Then there is the shitty weather in the summer.
lowtechcyclist
It’s a good day to go grocery shopping if you need groceries.
If you’ve got a fridge full of leftovers from yesterday, then never mind.
Betty Cracker
@Winston: Well said. We are on our own. Spent yesterday with wingnut relatives in a group for the first time in a long time, and the Fox Newsmax hive-mind was very much in evidence on this and all topics.
Betty Cracker
@Winston: But Not-Summer is great!
different-church-lady
This is a really crappy day to need basic household supplies.
Brachiator
@Princess:
It’s a worldwide pandemic. We needed to try to make sure that everyone everywhere had access to the vaccine.
Winston
@Betty Cracker: I have looked around extensively for places to live and I haven’t found anywhere better than here, to be honest. The cost of living can’t be beat, the winters are great and if it weren’t for this pandemic, I wouldn’t complain much.
sab
@NotMax: LOL. Well done even by the high standards we set for you.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Brachiator:
We basically have been, AFAIK. We’ve shipped millions of vaccines around the world as the US State Department Twitter account has shown
sab
@Betty Cracker: Amazing sunsets and sunrises. Beautiful inland rivers. Anoles are very cute. Nice beaches (except Daytona’s have too many cars.) It’s convenient to know exactly what time it will rain every day.
But it is very, very, very, very flat.
raven
@Winston: Athens, GA has become a retirement destination. We’ve got lots of folks moving here because of all the activities going on and it ain’t Atlanta.
MazeDancer
Recalling that Aero Gardens – those light included counter top growing pots – have a bit of popularity here on BJ (not with me, though), just passing along that many models are over 50% off today on Amazon.
(don’t forget to use your smile.Amazon.com or hit the BJ link before purchase.)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
As for the new variant, this is what Anne Laurie had to say on the Thanksgiving Reminder Thread last night:
Brachiator
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Not enough has been done. And I don’t just blame the US or depend on the US to help in the global battle.
debbie
@Princess:
The BBC reported overnight that the doors have been “slammed” for six days so they could get quarantine hotels set up and ready to go.
Betty Cracker
@sab: I am drawn to mountains because experiencing variations in elevation is so outside my usual day to day, but I also find it terrifying and am glad to get back to billiard-table flat Florida after a visit elsewhere.
Ken
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): But this is all Anne Laurie’s fault! She took the weekend off, saying “Murphy the Trickster God willing”. And Murphy said “Hold my beer.”
debbie
So this TikTok challenge has become a thing around here.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: I am staying far away from every retail establishment with the exception of the grocery store. We have plenty of leftovers, but I want salads. I am meh on T-Day leftovers, so I am leaving them for Mr, Suzanne.
Winston
@sab: When I scoped out Florida my criteria included high ground, away from nuclear power, reasonable population (but not rural), cost of living, taxes, pool halls and medical facilities. Lakeland excelled in all of those categories. I can get along with political views of all stripes even though Polk County tests that. Otherwise the Anoles make up for it. I was concerned about the bugs, but having spent many hours watching them I have no fear of a bug ground evasion and the birds take care of the rest.
raven
@Betty Cracker: I’m watching “Chasin the Sun” a fishing show out of Panama City. At the end of the May 1 episode the posted a “In Loving Memory of Travis Alan Holeman” one of the two hosts. I looked him up and found this on a gofund me page for him.
mrmoshpotato
@different-church-lady:
I hope this is just an observation, and that you didn’t just run out of something essential.
germy
A sequel:
Winston
@raven: I spent a couple days in Athens with a classmate of mine a couple of years ago. I liked it there.
Skepticat
A friend in Idaho who is a widow with a special-needs son, a sick dog, a miserable job, and talent has published an ebook, and I’m trying to help her get the word out. If you know a someone between 8 and 12 years old who likes realistic adventure stories about very smart kids and loves animals, please consider Sabine Hartmann’s “Escape from the Secret Lab” Kindle book from Amazon.
Ken
@debbie: Has it really become a thing? I have become skeptical of reports starting “Police warn that young people are doing X”, because so many have turned out to be one or two people doing X followed by a social-media-fueled micropanic.
Cameron
@NotMax: Lizards. You forgot the lizards.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/26/invasive-lizards-invading-tampa-bay/5829807/
debbie
@Ken:
Could be, but either way, the homeowner’s still still out a few hundred dollars for repairs.
Cameron
@Winston: I don’t have my glasses on, so I was nodding vigorous agreement and thinking, “Yes, it’s a heavily MAGA state, so I’m sure there are a lot of aholes who eat cockroaches…..oh. Oh. Never mind.”
germy
NotMax
@raven
Have not sampled it myself but noticed that several seasons of the BBC’S Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing are streaming on Tubi.
Barbara
@Brachiator: Not that I feel despair, but given the level of need and the odds, not to mention the lack of infrastructure in many countries, we were destined to play whack-a-mole with Covid. Many choices have been unfair, unethical or downright irresponsible but it’s just very unlikely that we were ever going to run the table in our favor. I am happy that, for whatever reason, African nations by and large have not been hit as hard.
sab
@Winston: Also, I forgot to mention the amazing birds.
Barbara
@Skepticat:
We have three nephews in that age range so I will look for it. We send them a lot of books.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: I really like Florida, but I wouldn’t have a big problem moving back to PA (lots of relatives in Pittsburgh, friends in Philly and Harrisburg). If you’d like to explore it some time, this is a good place to see what’s up:
https://uncoveringpa.com/
Jager
A friend of mine is a car dealer. On Wednesday, one of his salesmen lost a deal on a new E Class Benz because the customer’s ass was too wide for the driver’s seat. Yes, the customer was pissed off at the salesman.
sab
@Betty Cracker: My sister, who lived in very hilly eastern Ohio, once talked her way out of an Oregon speeding ticket by telling them that she had not realized that cars speed up when you go downhill. And they believed her!
When we first moved to hilly eastern Ohio I found it really claustrophobic because we don’t have horizons except on the Lake. Our sky is something you see in patches between the tree leaf canopy. Of course, most of the rest of Ohio isn’t like that.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone???
Another Scott
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Thanks for the pointer. She’s right. I left a reply downstairs.
tl;dr – The two infected were asymptomatic, so the Pfizer jab is still working. As long as the pandemic lasts and community spread is high, the virus will keep evolving – it’s math.
Cheers,
Scott.
Spanky
@sab: I mentioned the other day how I drove a native Marylander coworker’s truck to New Mexico for him. He’d gone to school at NMSU and worked in Socorro for about a decade before coming back East. HATED it. Found it was now too claustrophobic what with all the trees, so back he went.
rikyrah
All I wanted from Black Friday was my haircare products for the year, so I stayed up to midnight, and bought them from the different brands. My Black Friday is done ??
germy
@Jager:
I hope that customer only flies first class. I don’t think he’d be comfortable in coach.
Another Scott
@Jager: I remember sitting in an old BMW decades ago (when they had short bucket seats) and being amazed how uncomfortable the seats were. J hates the seats in my VW (I think they’re great). There’s something about German seats that they still haven’t gotten right for too many people even after all these years…
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@Another Scott:
Isn’t math really just a part of CRT? //
different-church-lady
Nope, not doing COVID despair porn anymore. Fuck off with that, paranoid friends, find something else to talk about other than a detailed account of every person you saw outddors without a mask in the last month or I’m just going to cut our visit short.
Jager
@germy:
A seat belt extension type of guy. I had a client, an ex-college lineman, who played football at 270. He never stopped eating, in his 50s he was well over 350 and soft as a grape. He had a full-size Caddy sedan, with the seat all the way back and tilted, he still had half the steering wheel buried in his gut. I used to have lunch with him at Chinese Buffet, the owner would shudder when he came in the door.
Fair Economist
@Princess: Always, without exception, by the time a new SARS2 variant is identified, it has spread internationally. To prevent spread, we’d have to have international travel restrictions all the time. Likely something like China, where all travelers go into quarantine.
Rob
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Thanks for posting that, Goku. I just refollowed Garrett and unfollowed Feigl-Ding on my Twitter account.
zhena gogolia
Paper grading for me today.
Betty Cracker
@germy: Quote from Reality Winner? Read that in Rolling Stone. She would squash GG like a bug!
Another Scott
Meanwhile, this might explain Putin’s recent military activities near Ukraine…
As tensions between the neighbours grow, the Ukrainian president said the planned coup was set for December.
https://aje.io/q4fhep
Of course, people on Fox were asking why we are supporting Ukraine…
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
sab
@Cameron: I had great aunts in Pittsburgh. I would love to explore it but in my opinion nobody (except Cole) who isn’t from Pittsburgh can find their way around in it.
different-church-lady
@germy: Speaking of false prophets we had the good sense to reject from our top ten thosand clubhouse, my recent hate-reading of LGM alerts me to the fact that Freddie d B is once again “a thing”. ?
Jager
@Another Scott:
We’ve had 3 BMW 5 Series sedans, I’m 6-1, my wife is 5-4, the seats worked perfectly for both of us.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker: That’s a YouTube crush-porn channel I would binge watch until it wore through.
NotMax
@Another Scott
No longer saying “the Ukraine?”
Baby steps.
//
Kay
@germy:
The anti-woke mob are still all Rittenhouse all the time, frantically monetizing that one case- “the woke mob has seized all our institutions!”
The fact that the killers weren’t even arrested in the Arbery case, that not one but two prosecutors refused to even take it to a grand jury until Arbery’s mother made so much noise she could no longer be ignored, does not change the analysis.
There’s already a new high profile shooting case where the shooter is claiming self defense.
Anyway
@raven:
I’ve always thought of college towns (the surroundings) as neat retirement destinations.
germy
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, that’s Ms. Winner.
Interesting interview. She got burned by the Intercept and it still hurts.
debbie
@Kay:
My guess is that this is what you were linking to? How unsurprising to find it’s in TX. //
germy
@Kay:
I predict Rittenhouse will find himself in more and more trouble. He seems to lack impulse control. Did you see the clip of him hitting a girl a few weeks before the shootings? And a clip of him shoving his mother while in the police station.
sab
@different-church-lady: I am still masking and probably will be for years, but I am back to fun masks. I just got in the mail one from Scotland, with a highland cow bedecked with ornaments saying Seasons Greetings in Gaelic.
germy
@different-church-lady:
I thought Freddie had retired from the game. He’s back?
Soprano2
@satby: I second this, and raise you answering the incoming phone for the sewer department, where they’ll be glad to tell you they’re your boss because they pay taxes! You haven’t lived until you’ve talked to someone with 4 ft of sewer water in their basement. I’m so glad I don’t have to do that anymore.
different-church-lady
@sab: At this point I would prefer that masks be to conversational topics as the words “it” or “the” are to linguistics; present and functional, but otherwise unremarkable.
germy
“Promises made, promises broken…”
Kay
@debbie:
There are a LOT of them. This isn’t just a Texas thing. They’re shooting anyone who challenges them.
Juries better brush up on it. They’re going to be seeing a lot of it.
Betty Cracker
@germy: I hope Winner keeps squawking until Pierre Omidyar gets a clue and cleans house. Maybe I’m ascribing good motives to him that he doesn’t deserve. But surely he didn’t intend this shit-show?
danielx
Two feasts in two days are too much of a muchness. Not leaving the house today except to clean up all the leaves that have fallen in the last two days.
SiubhanDuinne
@sab:
Ooh, I’d love one like that! My fun masks include the Union Jack, London street map, London Tube map, and Gilbert & Sullivan posters.
MazeDancer
Having “Shopped America” to try to find a new hometown five or six times, and lived in many of the best places – Santa Fe, Sag Harbor, Manhattan to name just a few – I can offer expert advice on the “Where to Live” topic.
1. It is massively subjective. Understand what is important to you.
2. Weather is the biggest determinate. Know what you like and can tolerate.
My example: I cannot bear heat or humidity. Forget about the entire SE and Mid-West. Allergic to mold, so no NW. Despise AC. Unless I win lottery for NoCal or back to Santa Fe, that leaves the NorthEast.
3. Cost is #2 determinate. Most Blue States cost more. But don’t have as many crazy sales taxes. And housing is $$$ everywhere now.
3. Winter is so much shorter in the NE than Summer is long elsewhere.
4. You can get everything delivered now. No barriers to organic living anywhere.
5. Hudson Valley was the ultimate winner for Weather, proximity to culture, housing costs, actual economy, beautiful scenery, abundance of good food and famers markets.
6. See #1
Kay
@germy:
People his age often lack impulse control. Not by any means all of them- they don’t all get into physical altercations- but a minority do. That’s why we don’t put them out on the street with weapons and tell them it is heroic and socially desirable for them to assume the role of police and patrol, and they will become Right wing/anti-woke celebrities if they do it.
different-church-lady
@germy: apparently the gray lady has decided he’d help with her ongoing senility.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/11/the-paranoid-fantasy-world-of-the-anti-woke-i-dont-support-republicans-but-crowd
Aside: an observation on that thread states…
To which I would reply: modern socialists never try to convince anyone that socialisim is good. The only try to convince you that everything that isn’t socialism is bad.
NotMax
@<a href=”https://balloon-juice.com/2021/11/26/friday-morning-open-thread-black-friday/#comment-8353238″>SiubhanDuinne</a>
No <em>The Maskado</em>?
;)
germy
@different-church-lady:
To be fair, capitalism is often grotesque and cruel.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
He’s their token Leftist. He’s safe because they know he’s far too pure to actually engage politically in any real way so will never be any real threat to anyone (them) who doesn’t want their taxes to go up.
They allow Leftists, but only the kind who stick to writing essays about how far Left they are. Any actual politically engaged or organizing “Leftists” are by definition corrupted, so will not be offered a platform.
debbie
@sab:
I have a mask with pink flamingos, but I’m not sure I trust cloth masks and I don’t want to start doubling up again.
NotMax
Let’s try that again (and FYWP).
@SiubhanDuinne
No The Maskado?
;)
Cameron
@germy: He always comes back. Do you know how many Nightmare on Elm Street movies there are?
different-church-lady
@germy: Yes, but you can’t make a whole film out of just Darth Vader, not if you’re going to win any elections.
different-church-lady
@Cameron: The answer is best expressed in exponents, isn’t it?
frosty
@Betty Cracker: Not-Summer is great, which is why we’re only in Florida for six weeks or so between January and March.
My favorite Florida weather line was from John D. MacDonald in one of the Travis McGee novels: “Florida is great in May and October.”
“Every place in North America is great in May and October.”
ETA: Also, no one mentioned yet that Florida has some of the best state parks and state park campgrounds in the country. The Real Florida.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
Wokedy-woke woke.
You can subscribe to an anti-woke substack or you can just watch mainstream, free Right wing or leans Right wing “corporate” media- it’s the same. Watch Alex Jones free on you tube or pay to read anti-wokesters interview Alex Jones.
Brachiator
@Barbara:
Apparently the WHO is meeting right now in Geneva to discuss whether this new variant needs to be designated a variant of concern. It’s good that there is some ongoing process to try to deal with this.
But again the world is learning and we probably need to do better. This does not mean that we need to give in to despair.
Again there are probably lessons to be learned here.
different-church-lady
@Kay: I’m just astonished that we nobodies could see his act was tissue thin, but the paper of record thinks its something worth their ink.
But, I suppose in the end we didn’t hound him out of here for his views so much as for for his endless simpering over our vociferous failure to appreciate the inherent brilliance of his insights.
Brachiator
@different-church-lady:
Are we talking about Little Freddie?
I admit that I was surprised to find that anyone had hired him as a pundit.
And you nailed it on why he was not appreciated here.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
It’s genuinely offensive to criminal justice reform advocates for deBoer to continue to summarily state that they haven’t made any progress. It’s not true. Any progress that has been made on criminal justice (including addressing racial disparities) has been made by people- not him- who did that work and there has been a lot of progress.
He should stop saying it. It isn’t true, and it devalues the work they have done for the last 50 years. Where does the lazy, dabbling substacker think the advances in criminal justice came from? People fought for them. They changed the whole jury selection process in this country with a series of lawsuits. It’s more fair than it was.
I get it- the BLM protests scared the shit out of him. That’s not justification for these ridiculous claims that social justice activism hasn’t accomplished anything- they have accomplished a lot.
Also, for a “socialist” he’s pretty fucking ignorant of labor history. Is deBoer really operating under the assumption that fights over rights in the workplace weren’t bloody? They were. Labor organizers were violently attacked, that is true, but they gave as good as they got. Labor organizers and activists were voilent too. People died. They weren’t all grouped around Woody Guthries guitar peacefully singing harmony. They were shooting and bombing.
Matt
@different-church-lady:
Keep punching left, you’ll make a great trustee in the fascists’ reeducation camps.
The Germans have a name for “sensible voters” who were intensely worried about socialism in the 1930s: they call them Nazis, because they willingly handed the country over to the fascists.
different-church-lady
@Kay:
But why be redundant?
different-church-lady
@Matt: Hey, I’m all for some form of socialism, but pouring on more snake emojis ain’t gonna get the job done is what I’m saying.
CarolPW
@Kay: Woody’s guitar didn’t say this machine argues with fascists.
Alison Rose
OMG that Tiktok I am cackling!!! I work in customer service for a mail order company, so not all of these are directly relevant but it is all still so on point. Just under a month to go in the season and I’m already two seconds away on every phone call from talking just like him
Jim, Foolish Literalist
good lord
Barbara
@sab: Well, that’s a lot of the appeal. The basic plot is that neighborhoods are defined by hills and rivers. What with Google maps it’s easier than ever, but the real trick is to know where to find stellar views in random places — cemeteries, my aunt’s house, my sister’s house. Some cities are better places to visit than to live, and others are better to live in than to visit. Pittsburgh is one of the latter.
Example: The last time I went there routinely was for what turned out to be my brother’s last illness, and Google kept sending me to the hospital by routing me through a place called Panther Hollow, which is a steep incline that bypasses traffic by going on cobblestone streets under a bridge. These were the places you were happy to find in high school because you could hang out without getting bothered too much. Maybe not much of an appeal for visitors.
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, I mean I’m rather more worried about socialists being utterly incompetent at politics than I am about socialism (which is “worry” = 0), but Godwin is a harsh dominatrix, aint’t he?
different-church-lady
@CarolPW: Today we’d be having endless debates about Woody advocating violence while McConnell figures out a loophole that allows him to fire Kagan.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Alison Rose: I work in ‘in person’ retail, everything is on point. I hear “the website says you have 2 of these in stock…”. 2 in stock can mean 0 or 20. Do you have this in back…we’re a warehouse store, we don’t have a “back”.
Kay
@CarolPW:
I don’t have anything in common with people who believe “wokism” is the greatest threat facing this country. They can think it! They can (apparently) publish a NYTimes editorial about it every fucking day for months and charge people monthly fees to read about it, but I’m not going along.
I think it’s a classic moral panic among a whole lot of other panics that have taken hold in this nutty period of our historyand their academic or Lefty-essayist credentials don’t change that for me.
The tens of shootings and tens of self defense claims by the shooters will continue, they just won’t be on Fox and the anti-woke mob won’t have a bit of interest in them, because they won’t fit this rigid narrative that insists that “wokism” is somehow the defining issue of all events.
It wasn’t “wokism” that let the Arbery murderers nearly go free, but that “self defense” shooting case didn’t fit the narrative, so they chose not to feature it on their platforms. All they’ve done is replace the editors they objected to with themselves as the arbiters of what’s important. It’s a different bias, not a lack of bias.
Alison Rose
@?BillinGlendaleCA: The “can I still get the discount” thing…I had a customer with last year’s catalog insist she should still get the November free shipping offer, even though she read it aloud to me as “Free shipping on orders over $100 in November 2020.” I was like, hello ma’am, please look at a calendar.
RSA
@germy:
Scott Seiss grew up on the eastern side of Baltimore (Dundalk, Essex, etc., according to a local profile). If you’re curious what a Baltimore accent sounds like, that’s it.
Brachiator
@Matt:
Reeducation camps were defining features of the Communists, the extreme left.
Fascist regimes just shoot you and throw your body in a ditch.
So, what was your point?
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt: Christ, what an asshole.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Do the anti-woke Substackers all have an origin story? Sullivan and the Bell Curve, deBoer and the Tiger Beatdown, etc.
The dynamic seems similar to the way a subset of wingnuts evolve to embrace what are contrarian views within their community, e.g., Cheney on gay rights, only the political movement is in the opposite direction.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Alison Rose: I had one customer follow me yelling “where is your customer” after I told him that I was helping another customer. I had one guy start with F-bombs and “I want to speak to your manager” after I didn’t look up quickly enough from my phone(I was looking for an item to pull for fulfillment, which is my primary job).
laura
Yesterday’s meal was So Very Good. The deviled eggs were, in fact, the slurry with the fringe on top. Every bite was a delight even though it took hours to pull together. But today, all the pleasure and none of the effort. Spouse and I have been talking about how stoked we are for the leftover feast. I’m heading to a friend’s for holiday crafting today and sharing a fruits nuts and cheeses plate and if I don’t have gout by Sunday it’ll be a miracle
Also, Scott Seiss’ hot retail takes is so spot on, just a line drive every single time. Retail is hard because people, as many have noted, are the worst.
Alison Rose
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yep, I’ve had three callers scream and curse at me in the last two weeks, all over stupid shit that was, in two cases, their own fault. The third case was someone being mad about backorder delays and I’m like, hello have you seen the world right now. We sell items for schools and homes aimed at the elementary and under age range, so it’s especially interesting getting bitched at in rude language over toys for toddlers.
Steeplejack (phone)
@germy:
TFW you click on a link from somewhere in Balloon Juice and go down a Twitter hole for two hours.
Lauren has an interesting timeline.
Betty Cracker
@?BillinGlendaleCA: People have always sucked, but as a bystander customer who has observed more tantrums lately, it does seem to me like there are more whiny babies around these days. I don’t know if there are greater numbers of people who suck or if the ones who suck are more on a hair trigger. Maybe it’s a combination of Trump and the pandemic, I don’t know.
Brachiator
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Are things getting worse? Did people build up resentment and rage during lockdown?
Some folks got used to being nasty on the Internet. Did this create a feedback loop that is now unleashing more venom in public spaces?
It is unfortunate that you were subjected to this crap.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Another dynamic may be a singular form of negative partisanship. The Democratic party has an essentially liberal program. To the extent that the party is successful, it’s a threat not just to conservatives’ power but to leftists’ power as well. Both groups are explicit about their contempt for liberals, and they’ll share any line of attack on them that shows promise. The leftists seem kind of desperate though, as if they see the Democratic party succeeding and that frightens them.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Skepticat:
Let’s give her a link: Sabine Hartmann, Escape from the Secret Lab.
trnc
@different-church-lady: I dunno. My response to whomever wrote that “observation” is:
– There’s a difference between socialism and liberal capitalism, but you may be paid not to understand the difference or too intellectually lazy to understand it.
– If you support zero taxpayer funded healthcare, do you also support zero taxpayer military?
Followups as necessary.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I feel bad for Reality Winner but what does she think The Intercept does? How do they make money? What business are they in? They don’t care about Reality Winner as a person, just like they don’t care about Kyle Rittenhouse as a person.
I’m amused that Greenwald didn’t take Winner’s leak. Hmmm. It’s almost like he’s acting as an editor and that particular piece of information didn’t fit his agenda.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker:
@Brachiator: Some customers are just flaming assholes, some have an inflated view of what to expect from store staff(they want the sort of customer assistance that you might find at a high end store), some expect every employee to be an expert on everything, some seem to think that we carry everything imaginable(one guy came in asking where we had headlights). TFG, the pandemic, and internet interactions may have heightened this as well. We had one customer, who came in, expecting his order to be ready immediately after ordering it(we get 2 hours to have your order ready). The dude must have ordered it in his car and walked in to pick it up, only 3 minutes of the 2 hours had passed. We had to pick that order immediately.
Soprano2
@Kay: I listen to Bill Maher’ show as a podcast (yeah, I know, he’s a jerk). The thing is, he used to have on people who he disagreed with and it was often interesting, but when it comes to stuff like being “woke” he never has anyone on who challenges him. When he starts complaining (it’s on pretty much every show now) about how awful “too-woke” liberals are and how comedians can’t even go on college campuses anymore because today’s college students don’t have a sense of humor (translation: he can’t tell the same jokes he told 30 years ago anymore), all the panelists nod and agree as if this is the biggest threat to free speech ever. ??? Even all the liberals do this! It’s cowardly, the way he makes sure no one dares to contradict him on this, especially for someone who claims to be for free speech. I haven’t heard him talk about what’s happening with school boards and books, either – it’s all one-sided with him when it comes to speech these days. It’s disappointing.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Aubrey was hunted like a modern day Slave Patrol ?
Mike G
Thursday: Let’s be thankful for all we have
Black Friday: I will trample you to death to get more stuff
Skepticat
@Barbara:
Thanks to both of you. I ought to have included the link (blush).
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Maybe that could explain deBoer, Taibbi, the Bruenigs and others who were in the “leftist” category, but the anti-woke Substackers and those who amplify their concerns don’t all fit neatly into leftist or conservative categories.
trnc
@germy: This is not a direct comment on anything in that article, but it occurred to me that many of the same people who claim the covid vaccines are still “experimental and untested” probably also believe that FDA requirements for drug approval take too long and are too expensive.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker: This category of “pundit” wants a reaction more than anything else. If they get better reactions from the right than the left, that’s where they’ll move. Back when Tabbi was a liberal darling I was saying, “Yes, but careful, he’s a stunt writer. He’s telling you what you want to hear in an entertaining way, and that’s not to be trusted.” Sure enough, he started to tell other people what they wanted to hear in an entertaining way. They’re not looking to put enlightenment into the world, they’re looking for an audience. And they all become whiners and future faculty at the University of Austin the moment someone dares tell them their act sucks.
Geminid
@Kay: Winner says she sent the material after listenening to a Greenwald podcaste where he was discounting the possibility of Russian election interference. She thought that she could set him straight. If she had diligently researched Greenwald, she’d have found people who were warning that Greenwalt was, at least constructively, a Soviet intelligence asset. But Winner was naive and simply believed his image as a dedicated journalist, specializing in helping whistleblowers. To Greenwald, though, Winner was just a small counterintelligence matter.
Kay
@Soprano2:
They won’t even do the obvious thing. If you believe all school boards are too woke and you’re a rigorous intellectual contrarian wouldn’t you look for some that aren’t? There’s 14,000. I believe most aren’t woke and a substantial portion are ideologically and operationally conservative.
There’s conservative school boards in this country because there’s conservative areas in this country. Not the huge ones because those places are urban and liberals outnumber conservatives, but I would fully expect Washington DC to have a liberal school board or leadership, just like I would fully expect my school board to consist of 7 wingnuts and 2 moderate Republicans, who do things like hold weird anti-sex rallies conducted by (paid) Right wing religious grifters during the school day.
Most people, the vast majority, of people in this country don’t go to college for liberal arts. They go for “business” (usually #1) and then various training for specific professions or jobs. I mean, they’re taking some liberal arts classes but most of what they’re doing is training for employment. There’s a huge influx of “woke” business majors? Sorry, lazy substackers- you’re gonna have to prove it to me.
Kay
@Soprano2:
Since nobody actually defunded the police and they’re still getting their lavish budgets that go up every year, I think it’s a stretch to blame an increase in crime on “defund the police”. I might, if I were a rigorous person who is paid to write on current events look at the (still lavishly funded) POLICE. What are they up to? Not crime fighting, for some reason. That might be a worthwhile question, why we still have enormous police budgets but they don’t seem to be preventing or solving crimes.
Miss Bianca
@Matt: In case you’re ever interested in reading any actual German history of the period, you want to know who *else* elected Hitler? The German Communists and Socialists who refused to vote for the “moderate” candidates because they weren’t pure enough for them, and figured that Hitler as Chancellor would actually be *good* for their electoral chances next time round. “Nach Hitler, uns!” was the rallying cry. Yeah, that didn’t work out so well for them, did it?
Sound familiar? It ought to – that’s exactly what cosplay “Socialists” were saying about Trump and HRC. Didn’t work out so well for us, did it?
Betty Cracker
@different-church-lady: “Stunt writer” is a good term for it. I’d put the late Hitchens in that category too. Of course, the quality of writing among the anti-woke Substackers varies wildly. Greenwald is and always has been a godawful writer. I’m not sure they all have something in common, but their aggrieved state strikes me as sincere if wrongheaded, so I’m guessing they feel personally attacked in some way.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker: When even mild disagreement = personal attack, then yeah, aggrieved is pretty much a permanent state of mind. That’s what pretty much all of them have in common.
Soprano2
@Kay: People get upset when I point out that police mostly come in after a crime has happened, and don’t actually prevent crime most of the time. They like to think that higher police budgets mean less crime, but it usually doesn’t. They’re getting ready to open a new, bigger city/county jail here; I GUARANTEE that within a year the police will be complaining that it’s full and they need more space. Right now they blame more crime on lack of space in the jail (even though most kinds of crime are down here)! The problem is, they’ve been saying that for 20 years. You’d think the people here would be onto their game by now. ?
The people here could singlehandedly reduce thefts from cars BY LOCKING THEIR DAMN CARS! The police here say most stolen cars are stolen BECAUSE PEOPLE LEFT THEIR KEYS IN THE CAR! And most of the time when things are stolen from a car it’s because the car was left unlocked! C’mon, people, you’re causing your own crime wave! Too many of them think they have a safe neighborhood, so they don’t need to bother with locking their car. Shoot, the Street Department here had a pickup stolen because some idiot was too lazy to take the keys inside at the end of the day. The doofus who stole it broke our double gates, just like you see in the movies!
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: There is always the nebulous ideological catergory of “Libertarian.” These people share a dislike of the liberal state, and the Democrats’ attempt to make it work unsettles them.
But I typically don’t encounter these people except when someone I follow on Democratic twitter swats one down. I’ve known their arguments generally for a while, though, and my feeling is that a lot of these are in bad faith and that’s why they switch them out so frequently.
I wonder how long “woke” will be a buzzword. Conservatives love it because it is such a good racist dog whistle, and it conforms so nicely with the image of a radical Democratic party they promote incessantly. So they’ll make the word a staple for a while at least, even if everyone else (except maybe the community from which it was appropriated) has long since stopped using it.
Miss Bianca
@Soprano2: I used to never lock my car out here in the sticks, but times change. I always do so now when I have stuff in the car, and I always do so in the city.
I have also been known to leave my key in the car. However, since I drive an old manual transmission vehicle, I’m usually not too worried about someone stealing it. Laughed a little (not a lot, because ouch) when Eric S. from Chicago (where I used to live) said that the reason the thieves didn’t steal his car when he got mugged was because they couldn’t figure out how to drive a stick shift.
Turns out there’s a real reason behind why my friend D refers to our manual trannies as “Millenial anti-theft devices.”
Skepticat
@Miss Bianca:
I’ve always driven a manual and still have a five-speed transmission; if I’m going to drive, I like to drive. My father insisted my sisters and I learn to drive a stick shift, and his rationale was a story he told about a group that planned the perfect crime. They were foiled only because the car they stole for their getaway was a four-speed shift. I’m not certain why he thought would be good preparation for our lives, but I’m ready just in case. But hey, I also write in cursive with a fountain pen.
CCL
@Skepticat: dead thread, but what the hey: fountain pen, cursive, and 5-speed manual.
Check, check, and check.
different-church-lady
@CCL: I’m sorry, the correct answer is “straight razor”.