Last week, President Biden rolled out a federal plan to support efforts to tackle Omicron at every level of government.
Here’s the full clip of his comments yesterday, where he reaffirmed the need for a strong partnership between Federal and State governments. pic.twitter.com/s9HAtu9Qsb
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 28, 2021
President Joe Biden’s new puppy, Commander, has gotten his moment under the flashing lights of the Washington press corps. Biden and first lady Jill Biden took the German shepherd on a walk in Delaware. https://t.co/YzgCSqGocY
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 28, 2021
U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden took their new German Shepherd puppy, Commander, out for a stroll on the beach pic.twitter.com/mdgKSaSMb4
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 29, 2021
ICYMI: According to this analysis from Bloomberg, America's economy improved more in Joe Biden's first 12 months than any president during the past 50 years. https://t.co/BeRGq11P8Z
— Mike Levin (@MikeLevin) December 28, 2021
Gains among the bottom 1/3, you say?
No wonder the GOP is furious. https://t.co/busyMcKjcW
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) December 28, 2021
OzarkHillbilly
Cute puppy.
ETA: I mean Blech! Puppy!
trnc
And the villagers.
NotMax
Has anyone mentioned this Floriduh Man yet?
“Honest, officer, I have no clue how they got there.”
Meanwhile, in the Motor City,
Baud
@trnc:
And a good chunk of the bottom ⅓.
germy
zhena gogolia
I wish I were in Hobbiton. First P/T today.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Open thread? I got backless slippers for Christmas. How do you keep these things on your feet?
Anne Laurie
@Dorothy A. Winsor: You shuffle. That’s why they’re called ‘scuffs’!
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Duct tape.
Don’t you have any left over from fighting the terrorists?
NotMax
Proud goeth before a fall.
p.a.
Hmmmpf, so you’re saying the people who actually SPEND 95+% of their income are the real job creators? Not the people who bid up real estate in the Hamptons and Picasso’s framed unwashed handkerchiefs?
UNPOSSIBLE!
Gin & Tonic
Russia’s Supreme Court has ordered Memorial, the country’s oldest human rights organization, shut down.
p.a.
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Ditch ’em. Now is not the time to flirt with an ER visit. If ever…
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: To be honest, I have no problem keeping them on, but mine are a proper fit.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
On what pretext?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Anne Laurie: I was afraid of that.
@Baud: Mr DAW would never be without duct tape.
Do you know the song?
satby
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The front should hug your foot, if it’s loose it’s too big.
– satby, who wears clogs and backless shoes 80% of the time (yes, even in snow, until it’s deeper than an inch)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@p.a.: I hate to do it. My DIL gave them to me.
@OzarkHillbilly: I don’t even know what a “proper fit” of these would be. There’s no back.
Ken
@NotMax: Not quite the “my clients didn’t do it, and even if they did it’s not illegal” defense, but flirting with it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: See @satby: The front should hug your foot, if it’s loose it’s too big.
satby
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Example: if you wear a 7 1/2 but the slippers only come in ranges or whole sizes you size down for the correct fit.
See if you can exchange them for the next lower size.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly</a@satby: Oh. Maybe that’s the problem. The front is wide.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: Their equivalent of FARA.
p.a.
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I understand; set them aside, have them out for her visits, wear them CAREFULLY enough for a while to show some use.
Downsizing could still be an issue. Slippers stretch.
Cermet
Anyone interested but not following – the Web telescope is progressing extremely well. It continues to both make success course corrections and deployments of various parts. So far, NASA has achieved still more great results (through the Mars landing was way up there; this, in time, may well surpass not just that but Hubble as well.)
Baud
@Cermet:
?
satby
@Dorothy A. Winsor: yeo, that’s the problem. And if it’s a slipper that comes in both medium and wide (which is rare) you pretty much always want a medium even if in other shoes you wear wides. With the right fit, they’re very comfortable and convenient.
Did I ever mention I used to manage the shoe department at the precurser store that evolved into Kohls? For two years my life was all about feet.
OzarkHillbilly
@p.a.: Neither of my pairs have stretched. My first pair I wore for over 10 years until the souls came off. My current pair I’ve been wearing for 2+ years. Yes, I’m sure it can happen, but if it does I’ll deal with it then.
trnc
People really need to get attorneys that are better than your average Rudy.
Betty Cracker
I love fleece-lined house booties even though it’s cold enough to wear them maybe 30 days out of 365 per year here. So cozy! If lived up north, I’d have dozens!
Baud
@satby:
You were a female Al Bundy!
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Have you ever seen Evil Roy Slade? The shoe store scene is great.
Soprano2
@Gin & Tonic: I heard a story about that on Morning Edition today and kept thinking in a lot of ways it’s exactly what conservatives are trying to do to schools with their CRT panic. I wish the press could see the parallels and do a story about it.
Geminid
Yesterday the Washington Post had a good, long article on the January 6 Commitee. Sources were unnamed senior staff. The article covered a lot of ground, including schedule. They anticipate public hearings, starting this Winter and running into Spring, an interim report by summer, and a final report that could drop before the November elections.
mali muso
Well, I managed to keep my kiddo from contracting Covid for almost two years. She is now positive for it after being exposed at pre-school last week. So far, it’s just like a mild cold, and she seems fine. As she turned 5 a month ago, she did get the first Pfizer shot and was due for the second one this week, so I’m hoping that the antibodies from part 1 help keep it mild. sigh.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
There’s plusses to the ones made with memory foam. Although not anywhere as long lasting and tootsie conforming as good ol’ leather*; all too soon the memory foam develops amnesia.
*Try finding a quality pair of those today for anything less than an arm, a leg and a gonad.
danielx
Three negative tests over five days….yay.
OzarkHillbilly
@mali muso: Fingers and toes crossed.
Baud
@danielx:
?
Frankensteinbeck
@trnc:
No wonder the villagers don’t know any gains happened. If there is one thing they demonstrate over and over, it’s that they don’t know anyone who isn’t at least upper middle class, and can’t imagine the lives of average Americans. At the same time, they’re sure they know. So to most of the news clique, Biden’s recovery plan IS a failure because they haven’t seen any benefits!
Soprano2
@Baud: Here’s a link to the story on Morning Edition. They used the pretext of “foreign ties”, but it’s really about them saying that Russia’s history isn’t perfect, which it why it sounds so much like what conservatives are trying to do to schools with the CRT panic.
trnc
@mali muso: Ack! Hopefully, the new compressed timeline means she’s already had it long enough that it won’t get any worse.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic: UGH we knew it was coming
zhena gogolia
@Baud: They’re using the “foreign agents” law to shut down any traces of free thought or contact with the outside world (or reality).
germy
I knew Musk was dangerous. I just didn’t know he was this dangerous:
Baud
@Soprano2: Thanks. The right everywhere operates from the same playbook.
Baud
@Geminid: As a practicing normie outside of BJ, I appreciate the information you provide here.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
Today show was milking the “supply chain” meme this morning — what you can expect in 2022!
OzarkHillbilly
Nature photographer of the year 2021 – the winners
My favorite: Black and white category winner
White Wedding by Roie Galitz, Israel (polar bear).
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: I lost the mammal category again!
Thanks for the link. The photos are beautiful.
Starfish
@mali muso: Many of the cases and symptoms have been mild in children to the point that the parents did not know what they had was COVID. I hope your little one continues to do well and recovers quickly.
Betty Cracker
Was just reading about the woman-hating, anti-vax, white supremacist nutjob who went on a shooting spree in Denver earlier this week, killing five people. Reporters found social media rants where the shooter complained about “badass” men being emasculated by the “weak.” After shooting several people, he shot and wounded a female cop, who put an end to the rampage by returning fire and killing him. She is expected to survive.
Starfish
@germy: He is really dangerous. The amount of stuff he wants to put into space may actually harm space science. He wants to put more than 40,000 satellites in orbit. There is a limited space for things in any given orbit, so this will make it harder for other people to have satellites.
Also, the reflections from these satellites may interfere with anyone trying to make any astronomy observations from Earth.
JMG
My children are grown now, but little ones (preschool up to about grade four) had a huge rate of colds and similar minor illnesses at this time of year and into January long before covid was around. This is probably why it spreads so rapidly in kids. Parents find it hard to distinguish between a regular runny nose and sneezing and the possibility of covid and are understandably not eager to say “I’m gonna stick this swab up your nose now. With luck it will have been unnecessary” to their children.
Gvg
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Exchanging for the proper size would be best, but if necessary I would use some elastic and make straps for the backs. Just sew on loops.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Antifa or BLM? #FoxNewsQuestions
satby
@Baud: I always regretted not finishing college, but not having a clear career track and big student loans to pay let me just grab various opportunities as they came up. Made for an interesting, if hard to categorize, “career”.
I left retail for the doctor’s office after that job, because I had a toddler and a baby and my former husband was the main breadwinner. Same doctor I work for today, 34 years later and in a different state. Life is strange.
Edited to add: I never watched MWC, so I’m sure I missed the joke.
Ken
Rules are rules, and you don’t qualify unless you’ve given live birth.
hueyplong
@Baud: The Denver killings literally won’t exist on Fox. They’ll be talking about Biden’s “failure” to control a virus the spread of which Fox works every day to support.
If the murder of numerous first graders couldn’t move the dial re mass shootings, it’s difficult to resist despair over the issue. I’m at the point at which I give an extra wide berth to males who are still single in their mid-30s or older.
Soprano2
This is a public service announcement – don’t do the Cologard test, it’s a waste of time and money. I did it this year because I turned 60 and my colonoscopy 10 years ago didn’t turn up anything of note, so I thought I could do this simple home test and avoid the colonoscopy. Well, the Cologard turned up an “irregular” result (no one could ever tell me what that actually meant), so I had to do the colonoscopy anyway, and I had it yesterday. Just like I thought there was nothing – they said I had one polyp that they removed. The nurse told me that they hate those Cologard tests because this happens a lot, and it turns what was considered to be a routine health screening into a diagnostic screening, which costs more and isn’t reimbursed at 100% by your insurance company. So, word to the wise – just do the colonoscopy no matter how much you’re dreading it (I was for sure, just what I wanted to do during the holiday season!).
zhena gogolia
@satby: yes I have backless slippers and they are as snug as any shoes
frosty
@Starfish: Can’t Space Force put a stop to Musk? Seems like a situation where the common good should prevail.
I know, I know …
Kay
@Soprano2:
The school funding lawsuits are great. They’re always based on this:
So what’s “thorough and efficient”?
Ohio has a whole line of cases- DeRolph v State of Ohio. The lead plaintiff was a student in an underfunded rural public school who had to sit on the floor because they the classes were so overcrowded. They always use a rural plaintiff AND an urban plaintiff – it’s a strategic decision- involve poor white kids and Republicans, who represent the rural districts.
Edmund Dantes
@trnc: and the bad Joe (Manchin) wants to tank it all just in time for the midterms.
Baud
@Soprano2: My doctor told me the tests have a lot of false positives.
LiminalOwl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: By warping and maybe spraining all the muscles in your feet, to hold them on? (I loathe backless slippers, as is probably obvious.)
eta: I have had the Duct Tape Madrigal on my devices for decades, but I think you’re the first other person who knows it that I’ve encountered!
Soprano2
@Baud: You’re welcome. As I was listening to the story this morning, I kept thinking that the parallels to what Republicans are trying to do to education with their CRT panic were eerie. How can reporters not see that?
Baud
@satby: I’m just happy your wanderings brought you here.
Al being a shoe salesman was a running gag on the show. No particular joke, just a general theme.
mali muso
@OzarkHillbilly: @trnc: @Starfish: Thanks, so far she seems to be doing fine. This is day 3 of symptoms and it’s pretty much all stuffy nose. I’ve seen her worse off with the various colds and typical “yuck” that she brings home from daycare/pre-school. Hoping for a speedy recovery.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: Evidently he wrote a book where the main character named after him kills 46 people!
Other MJS
Yeah, but
her emailsinflation!Soprano2
@Kay: Whenever I hear a discussion about school choice I always bring up rural schools, because they also have a lot of problems with funding and quality, and that can’t be solved by just letting the kids go to a private or religious school that’s in the same city. The school choice people who claim to care so much about the quality of children’s education literally have no solutions for anyone whose child is in a rural school, like the one I went to. It’s a huge gap in their rhetoric that too many liberals ignore.
Geminid
The Virginia Supreme Court put out a final Congressional map, and I will have a new Representative! I am now in the 5th, but next year I will vote in a 7th District that will run from the southern Washington suburbs to the Blue Ridge. Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger was left out of the new District, but reports are that she is contacting local politicians in preparation for a run. i expect she’s talking to real estate agents too. The old 7th was Biden+1, and the new 7th is Biden+7. Spanberger will face a competitive primary.
Just 10 miles away, Albemarle County will remain in the 5th District that runs to the North Carolina line. The 5th will be slightly more Republican, but that won’t stop Democrats there from waging a strong campaign to unseat their rotten congressman from Liberty U.
Layer8Problem
Aw, and he seemed like such a pleasant little talking poop box in the commercials.
Seriously, get those colonoscopies folks, awful prep drinks and all.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@hueyplong:
Not everyone is romantically or sexually attracted to other people
OzarkHillbilly
@frosty: I read recently that the US govt issued a permit for 12,000 satellites to him.
Soprano2
@Layer8Problem: For me that’s not what it’s about, although yeah that’s unpleasant, especially the getting up at 4:30 a.m. part; I know someone whose mother died from a colonoscopy because they perforated her bowel. Doctors talk about it as if it’s not much more risk than a mammogram, but it’s a lot riskier! They stick an instrument up an organ with a lot of twists and turns, and they give you Ativan and Fentanyl so they can do it. Not risk-free at all.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: There is no such thing as a risk free procedure. Still, one’s odds are lot better with a colonoscopy than they are with colon cancer.
no comment
@OzarkHillbilly:
Rest in peace, slippers!
Betty Cracker
@Layer8Problem:
LOL, I was thinking the same thing. The talking poop box LIED TO US!
Kay
@Soprano2:
Yup. Rural schools have lots of issues. Obama sort of bent over backwards to include them, perhaps aware of that criticism of liberals, or maybe just because it’s smart strategically :)
They won DeRolph decades ago but the legislature slow walked it for decades, so there was DeRolph II and III and IV. The funding HAS gotten more equitable as a result of the case though – lower income districts do get more state money to make up for lower local tax revenue (it’s just an agonizingly slow evolution) so they did a lot of good. You don’t see it as a big difference because wealthy districts keep moving too, so the gap stays the same even though you’re bringing up the bottom.
Honestly Massachusetts does the best job with public schools of any state, in terms of both good schools and equity- their lower income kids do better along with their higher income kids. They’re not perfect but they’re better than everyone else. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Just do what they do. Follow that plan. If I were a state education secretary I would use the Massachusetts approach and call it “Ohio”. Call it Buckeye! They’ll never know it’s straight outta Boston :)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Betty Cracker:
One of the people that asshole murdered was well known to many of us:
https://denverite.com/2021/12/28/beloved-denver-tattoo-artist-alicia-cardenas-among-the-victims-of-metro-area-mass-shooting/
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: Well, a mammogram is pretty risk -free. LOL You’re right, but they talk about it as if it’s no more risky than a mammogram.
Roger Moore
@trnc:
In fairness to the lawyers, they don’t have a lot to work with. Their clients were caught on video, so it’s very hard to argue they didn’t do what they’re accused of doing. All they have left is trying to claim it was legal, which requires going into crazy territory.
Betty Cracker
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Damn, that sucks. Awful for everyone, but especially her 12-year-old kid.
Geminid
@Kay: I still hope that Universal Pre-k gets funded in whatever version of BBB passes. That could do a lot to reduce income disparity in public education outcomes.
OzarkHillbilly
@no comment: Heh, nice catch.
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: After much careful practice I can even go downstairs with mine. But your foot arches will fall do to lack of exercise if you wear the scuffs too much too much.
Brachiator
Impossible. Democrats don’t know nothing but tax and spend.
Seriously, this is great, but not unexpected news. Biden has a good team, Pelosi is Da Boss in Congress, and the administration has been doing well in a time of great challenge.
But apart from lies and bias from right wing opponents, I think that part of the problem is that some folks are unhappy that everything has not magically bounced back to pre Covid times and still judge Biden harshly.
It’s not fair, but that’s how things go.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: I watched my brother in law succumb to colon cancer. I’ll try to avoid that fate.
Omnes Omnibus
@hueyplong:
Um, wow.
Layer8Problem
@Betty Cracker: Yes, things have come to a pretty pass in this country when you can’t even trust slickly-produced pharma/medical advertising! :-)
Another Scott
@Soprano2: Counterpoint – the CG test worked fine for J and me (clear results for both of us, a few years after clear colonoscopies).
And actually it sounds like it worked fine for you too. (Polyps should be removed and checked.) No argument that the financing of them is nuts, but that’s a different issue.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
As I understand it, the at-home tests are sensitive to false positives. So if you test negative at home, you most likely don’thave cancer. If you test postive at home, you may or may not have cancer and you should get the colonoscopy to confirm (unless you’re a Trumper in which case you should go straight to the horse laxative).
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I am not crapping in a box and mailing to someone even as a sick prank.
Another Scott
@Soprano2:
A big study in Canada – 1 death per 14,000 colonoscopies.
Breast cancer screening via x-rays is controversial in some quarters (I don’t know the consensus these days). E.g. JRSM – Mammography screening is harmful and should be abandoned – Peter C Gøtzsche
There are always corner cases in large populations. (A colleague at work’s wife had a bad reaction to a flu vaccine one year and was basically disabled as a result.) Having outpatient ways to check for colon abnormalities is a good thing.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@mali muso: Hang in there! Both you and the mini. It’ll be okay.
Everyone in my family is fully vaxxed, everyone over 18 is boosted…. except for Spawn the Youngest, who is under 5. It sucks. I would get her the 5-11 dose, if possible.
Layer8Problem
I’d wager there’s a room at Mar-a-Lago full up of those, and someone on the staff tasked to check if there’s a donation in each and every one.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@LiminalOwl: I heard it on Car Talk years ago
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s a terrible disease; I thought I could do a test for it without having to take the risk, but evidently the test sucks balls so I thought I should warn everyone here not to do it.
Soprano2
@Another Scott: So how come no one could tell me what “irregular” means? Honestly I figured it didn’t mean I had cancer because they weren’t in a huge hurry to get me in – I scheduled the test in October. It’s like the time I had a spot in a mammogram that they couldn’t read – the “tell” that this happens a lot is that it was OK to wait 3 months for another mammogram! If they thought you had cancer I’m sure they’d get in in faster than that. Now I always ask the tech if the film looks OK. Once one of them asked me why I wanted to know, and I told her it was because I had to come back once for basically no reason so I want to avoid that again.
Kay
Classic moral panic. There will be victims and in ten years they’ll quietly repeal all these laws or stop enforcing them and no one will admit they ginned up the panic or took part in codifying it.
Baud
@Kay:
So any book featuring a hetero couple?
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: Colonoscopies do suck donkey f’n dck.
Another Scott
@Soprano2: It’s my understanding (IANAMD) that colon cancer is generally slow-growing.
Here’s the physician brochure for Cologard (13 page .pdf) with more details:
That’s all I’ve been able to find.
It may seem to have been a waste, but it seems to me that the test worked as it should for you – indicating that your results were not normal and needed to be checked. Yes, the results should be easier to interpret.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Starfish
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: This was so awful. I am still struggling to process it.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: Party pooper.
Soprano2
@Kay: I’ve sometimes thought that the main reason a lot of poorer people vote for Republicans is because they think Republicans will keep their daughters from having an abortion and their son from becoming gay (and the racism). They are absolutely terrified of having a gay child, especially a son. The men think it reflects on their own masculinity somehow if their son is gay, and the mothers think it means they were a failure as a mother. Remember when there was such a thing as the “gay panic” defense for assault and murder? This is part of that. They’re terrified that just reading that there are gay people and it’s OK will turn their son gay.
Brachiator
@Kay:
$10,000.
Looks like they are adopting some of the nonsense of the Texas anti-abortion law.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: I think it’s some of that, but really I think this sums it up:
“If Dems want to learn how to ‘reach voters on the other side’ then they need to realize that these people would tell you ‘yes’ they read news & then report ‘The National Enquirer’ as their paper of choice. Now, IDK if its just that I’m one of fewer academics that come from the real, unpolished, bottom 50% world, and not the romanticized bullshit painted by J.D. Vance of working-class America- the real one where people have 3 kids from 3 different women and get angry when 1 of them is reticent to let them visit their kid when they get out jail. AGAIN. In THAT working class, sexism, racism, xenophobia, and bigotry run rampant: and not only are these “isms” prevalent, there is a belief that they shouldn’t have had to be buried (see how that relates back to their culture war champion?) That the old days were far superior bc they could just call someone a f&g or slap their female co-worker in the ass is they were in the mood. There was a hierarchy, a caste @Isabelwilkersonnotes, and they were at the top of it. Everything else might be a shit sandwich, their job, their house, their marriage, their debt, but that hierarchy & their place at the top of it- as Wilkerson notes in her book, that shit was SOLID. And now its gone. And do you know who took it? The Democrats.”
— Rachel Bitecofer
Baud
@Suzanne:
IOW, economic anxiety.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Steve M on Twitter says if the law passes, parents should demand that the bible be removed from school libraries. It definitely qualifies as offensive in that definition.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: I will note that I think you’re part right. I read Dreher’s batshit-crazy blog sometimes, including the comments, and there is this real terror that widespread cultural acceptance of things they don’t approve of will seduce their children away. They’ll get educated, move away from the small town, leave the religion, and not see their parents as aspirational.
The idea that their children might be attracted to staying in their religious right-wing bubble if they view the people in it positively never seems to cross their minds.
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: I am more or less required to have one every 5 years. It’s not my favorite thing in the world, but really not a big deal.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Well, actually…. I am not. ‘Twas rather my point.
Kathleen
Soprano2
@Suzanne: Wow, is that ABSOLUTELY TRUE. I had a white guy once complain to me that now all the good jobs went to women and minorities. I asked him “How does it feel to have to stand in line now”? They don’t think they should have to stand in line for anything – they should be at the front of the line, getting stuff because they “earned” it (by being a white man/woman) and setting the terms of the debate over everything. What they want should rule, period.
Soprano2
I grew up in a place that was a small town and rural but close enough to the big city of Springfield that it wasn’t poor; I couldn’t wait to leave it behind, and most of the smartest kids felt the same way. You’re right, that’s what they’re terrified of. They honestly believe that widespread acceptance of people who are gay will turn their sons gay. I think that’s what they’re most afraid of, because it will mean they were a failure as parents. Not all of them, but a lot.
Geminid
@Kathleen: The Ohio Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the Republican-drawn map yesterday. Redistricting is time sensitive, so I don’t think it will take to long for a decision. From what I read, the maps treatment of Hamilton county was especially egregious. The Court may find that the Republicans went too far. If they do, I’m not sure what the next step is. Maybe the Court can bring in the two special masters that the Virginia Supreme Court used. Those two are done with that map, which the judges approved unanimously. Ohio law may require that the problem be punted back to the legislature, though.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
They weren’t at the top of much of anything. Plutocrats could kick them in the ass, and they would take it because there were people below them, and they believed that one day they would be a Number 1 Ass Kicker too.
Suzanne
@Brachiator: I would say that many men (straight, white, Christian) of this typology felt like they were at the top of their own families. That’s why women’s liberation and birth control and equal pay are destabilizing, and why they’re now freaking out about the (white) birth rate declining. Hell, Sean Duffy from Wisconsin just went on Tucker Carlson’s show this week, bragged about how he has nine kids, and said that getting a vasectomy makes one less of a man.
This type also has a fetish about “respect” and feeling “disrespected”. Drill into it, and they don’t really mean that they’re disrespected. But they’re no longer esteemed. Fewer and less important people look up to them, and that sucks for them.
smith
@Brachiator: It wasn’t so much that they were are the top — it was that they were above somebody.
As per LBJ:
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
As well as Davis X Machina:
“The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn’t even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it.”
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
I think this is basically right. Some people want a hierarchy. They’re willing to accept being dumped on by the people higher than them if it means they can dump on the people lower than them. That we could do away with anyone dumping on anyone else never even crosses their minds.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: They’re terrified of their kids rejecting them and the cultural things they bought into: religion and denying themselves things they wanted, patriarchal family structure (being gay is part of this), “common sense good judgment” without education, etc etc etc. I think this type is really bitter AF because they see atheists, gays, minorities, women, educated people, etc being successful, and they know deep down that their kids don’t aspire to the lifestyle they modeled.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
Being at the top of your family is not the same as being at the top in society. This may be in part why some asswipe men might physically abuse their wives and kids. They would maybe take out frustrations where they could.
I think that lying asswipe racist upper class conservatives care more about declining white birth rates. The average moke knows that he would have to support the extra kids that he spermified.
Also, I guess there is the male hysteria that they can’t find wimmins to marry because wimmins with their own jobs have higher expectations.
People kept down never looked up to these wretches. What changed was that improvements in society meant that they no longer had to pretend or hide their contempt for these insecure assholes.
Suzanne
@Roger Moore: I think deep down, the fear that these types have is that there isn’t a god. That they have suffered, denied themselves pleasures…. and that none of it means anything. There’s no reward.
Most religious people know that a lot of their fellow worshippers in the pews are only there because of social pressure, and they know that if the social pressure goes away, the entire thing falls apart.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
RE: Plutocrats could kick them in the ass, and they would take it because there were people below them, and they believed that one day they would be a Number 1 Ass Kicker too.
There is a great British comedy short which encapsulates this idea: I Know My Place.
John Cleese and the Two Ronnies.
James E Powell
@Frankensteinbeck:
I think it’s even more simple than that. They “know” Biden is a failure because that’s what Republicans tell them every day. The “news” – every day since the 90s – is whatever Republicans say it is.
Suzanne
@Brachiator:
Of course it isn’t. But it’s a substitute. It’s what we used to give to white men in exchange for being in the middle or bottom of the class ladder. Rick Perlstein once called it “a petty lordship” for being born with a dick.
But the evil left-wing liberals took this from them, and that is why I think Bitecofer is on to something critical. Marriage is increasingly concentrated among the educated, and the marriages are more egalitarian than patriarchal. They can’t support their kids. No one who matters thinks Jim Bob Duggar is aspirational.
Matt McIrvin
@mali muso: I’m sorry to hear that, wishing the best for you and your kid.
My 15-year-old daughter is frustrated that she’s eight months short of being allowed to get a booster, and will be sent back into school with probable twin Delta and Omicron outbreaks without one. Her protection against severe illness should still be pretty good, but I think the chance that she gets through the next few months without some sort of COVID infection is pretty low, and then we have the fun of trying to do home isolation.
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
I do think there’s something more going on. There are two hierarchies to look at, wealth and social status. We’ve done a lot to flatten the social status hierarchy, so women and minorities are doing better relative to white men than they used to*. At the same time, wealth disparities have only expanded. Mediocre white guys are losing in both categories. I think they’d be more accepting of losing social status if they were catching up on wealth.
*We obviously haven’t flattened it completely. White men still have a substantial advantage, even if it isn’t as big as it used to be.
Kathleen
@Geminid: Good point. I need to Google the answer to that question as to who would redraw maps.
smith
@James E Powell: It also flies in the face of the fact that they’ve done very well with their investments over the past year.
Suzanne
@Roger Moore:
I think you’re potentially right, here. But I do think Tyler Cowen’s assertion that all politics is about relative social status is right a lot more often than it is wrong.
Ruckus
@hueyplong:
What if they are single because their spouse has passed away?
What if they are single because their ex was cheating on them?
And yes it works both ways, it just seems that there are a lot fewer women who attempt to shoot up a city because their supply of reality is missing. Also maybe we can rewire the concept that asinine masculinity is above all else in life.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
RE: Being at the top of your family is not the same as being at the top in society.
I don’t think it’s a substitute. No one says “I am upper class because I am married.”
But I take your other points about how marriage reinforces and defines social class strata.
I suppose this is why some men fear their fantasy idea of what feminism is. Educated women are more likely to marry “up.” But this leaves behind men who blame women or liberals for their inability to attract a mate.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
Totally OT. I was too late to comment on your I Am an Author posting, but really enjoyed it. I even have a few questions that I might pose later in a more appropriate thread.
Suzanne
@Brachiator: I think being at the “top” of one’s family is absolutely intended to provide autonomy and status and control to men who didn’t get that anywhere else and so the domestic sphere is the only outlet for that energy. This is also the cohort who says that the nuclear family is the core unit of society.
And you’re right that no one says that they’re upper class because they’re married. But among that cohort, being a single or divorced man is suspect. When women were able to be more financially independent, this meant a lot of mediocre white guys who would have had partners now no longer do.
Uncle Cosmo
Yoicks! My first “up mine” was performed under “twilight anesthetic,” so I was marginally awake when the MD said to his assistant, I need you to push down here (he indicated a place on my lower right front) to help me get around the bend in the colon. And then proceeded to push the probe in. At the time I remember thinking, That’s kind of interesting. Guess I’m lucky he didn’t poke it on into the peritoneum… (NB The next one, some years later, was done under full anesthesia – they weren’t about to have the patient listening in, I guess…)
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
It is crazier than that. You have those fools who were happy to get a stimulus check from Trump, but then forget that they got a stimulus check from the Democrats as well and instead rail against money going to the “undeserving horde of Hispanics and blacks.”
Biden rightly notes that his policies have helped relieve child policy. Instead of being happy that more people are doing well, angry idiots moan about money being thrown at poor people even though these policies help them as well.
The best economic stories note that large segments of the middle class have been helped. Some Villagers acknowledge this. Others cherry pick information that is right in front of them to foment anger and envy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: Excuse me? Being divorced is now suspect? I think your rhetoric is getting out over its skis a bit.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: In social conservative land? Absolutely. Divorce is seen as super-shady among that cohort. A friend of mine was told by her parents that she shouldn’t divorce her cheating husband because then everyone would think that he was cheating and that would be embarrassing to him.
smith
@Suzanne: I think you’re describing the incel phenomenon. I disagree that having been divorced is a red flag — there are so many reasons people might have a divorce at a relatively young age — but someone who gets well into his/her 30s without ever having had a serious relationship has probably missed a critical period in his/her development. Young men and women usually use their 20s to get to know the opposite sex as human beings, and that takes both time and closeness. An older person without that experience might very well still look on the opposite sex in terms of whatever myths and stereotypes they learned as teenagers. I’m sure it’s possible for people to catch up if they have the chance of a serious relationship, but what you see with incels is a whole social support structure that works to prevent that, reinforcing unrealistic and contemptuous views of women that greatly reduce the odds of ever getting past that barrier.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I agree on both of your points.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
I don’t quite agree that marriage confers respect or autonomy outside the domestic sphere, especially with respect to social status. And if you are a married man without a job, you are a bum. If you are a married man and your wife makes more than you do, you are a loser.
This is still the conventional wisdom of most of society. Some see this as fundamental to the mystical Judeo-Christian tradition.
And laws and customs are set up to reward married people more than singles.
In theory, in many societies, a man could not even get married to a “respectable” woman until he had amassed some degree of wealth or assets.
Getting married for love displaced some of these old rules, but did not entirely eliminate them.
Suzanne
@smith: Being divorced is not a red flag to me, hell, I was divorced at a young age. But among the religious cohort, much more so.
Shit, one of my Mormon friends got divorced a few years ago, and he was completely humiliated. Honestly, his ex was a terrible match for him and they were both happier broken up, so he went sad about that. His was the first divorce in his entire family and it was seen as a huge tragedy. He had to start going back to the singles ward and it was really terrible for him.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: It was also reinforced by the Christian churches that they attend that the man is the absolute head of the family, and the wife and children are underneath him and subject to his control. I haven’t seen the suspicion of single or divorced men that you mention, though. It’s more sympathy that either they can’t find the “right” kind of woman due to the “evil liberals” or they were married to a woman who “turned” on them and wasn’t the “right” kind of woman.
I need to apologize to you for the thread the other day where we were talking about student loans. I got a little harsh with you, and I apologize for that. I get frustrated with the “why doesn’t Biden just forgive $50,000 worth of student debt for everyone, it would be really popular” line because I believe a) it would actually be really unpopular with everyone else and b) I don’t think he can do it anyway. Plus, it offends me to think people could take out a loan but never actually pay any of it back, and the people who advocate for it never say what they think will happen to future student loans if $50,000 is actually forgiven (hint: there won’t be any more student loans!!). I never got to say what I would actually do about student debt, so here it is:
I think Kay’s idea of making student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy is a good one. I know why they changed the law; it was because they were afraid a bunch of students would borrow $100,000 and then file bankruptcy the minute they graduated from school in order to keep from paying any of it back. I think there needs to be a rule that either you’ve paid for “x” number of years or paid “x” percentage of the total before you can discharge it. I would continue the efforts to find debt that can actually be forgiven or reduced legitimately, like they are already doing. I would make it so that people could renegotiate their interest rate, and so that a portion of every payment reduced the principle – paying for 20 years and still owing more than the actual loans is ridiculous! I would greatly expand Pell Grants – a lot of kids had them when I was in college, and they would make access to higher education easier for lower income students, plus no debt! As for the actual cost of college, I would make states fund their universities better so that tuition doesn’t have to be so high. Any other reform would have to be done by the actual college or university, and that’s a heavy lift. Oh, and whatever happened to work study programs? I had a lot of friends who used those to help pay for their education.
smith
@Suzanne: And the interesting thing is that red states have a higher divorce rate than blue states, possibly because of the pressure to marry and have children at a younger age.
Suzanne
@smith: I know a dude (evangelical) who was forced to give up his leadership position at his church when he got divorced. It is still very Not Okay in that slice of the world, even though it is common.
Miss Bianca
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: She seems to have been well-known among a cohort of my Denver-based FB friends, as well. A real fixture on the Denver art scene. Ugh, just ugh. :(
Brachiator
From a 2017 Pew Report.
I think this trend continues.
There was also this:
Another Scott
Redistrict on the latest status on, er, redistricting.
Thread.
Cheers,
Scott.
Chief Oshkosh
@Suzanne: Bitecofer’s experience growing up white working class (or poorer) is similar to mine, though separated by many years.
And I agree with Bitecofer that JD Vance is a total fraud.
@Suzanne: I’m trying to recall, but I don’t think I know a single social conservative (and I know many) of any socioeconomic stratus that HASN’T been divorced. In most cases, more than once.
James E Powell
@Another Scott:
We need another Democratic wave election.
Baud
@Another Scott: Why isn’t seat control the only valid metric?
Geminid
@Another Scott: Redistricting is now pretty far along. By February, we should know the outcome of the Ohio court challenge, and how rough Albany Democrats are with New York’s Republican Representatives. Nothing gets proven until next November, but I think the maps are looking fairly good so far, the California map especially. Republicans picked up four seats (I think) there last year, but they could lose them and more next year.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
Sure, but this is exactly why the men who expect that being the head of a family will give them primacy are upset at the world. It used to be that a married man was expected to be the breadwinner, and society was structured to ensure he could be. Men were given preference in terms of getting and keeping jobs because it was assumed they were providing for their family, while women who worked were just doing it because they wanted the experience.
Of course having things structured that way pushed people into their expected roles. Women were pushed to get married because they couldn’t count on a job being a consistent source of enough income to live on. Men didn’t have quite the same existential pressure, but there was very strong social pressure. People questioned why a man wouldn’t want to get married and have kids, and they criticized a man who did get married and have kids but couldn’t provide for them.
There are still plenty of people who either expect the world to be like that or understand the world has moved on but want to drag us back. They still live in a culture that has the social expectations of women to be homemakers and men to be providers, even though the economics that made that possible for most families just don’t exist anymore. Is it any wonder that kids want to run away from that culture, and that people who still live in it are frustrated at the world?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Snooze Hour was on it yesterday. They are so intent on manufacturing scandal and outrage.
Soprano2
@Brachiator: Among young people it’s become a lot more common to live together and have children together, then maybe get married later. That’s what one of my nephews and his wife did – they had two kids when they got married!
Brachiator
@Soprano2:
Yep. But I can’t find the article, maybe NYT, that noted that increasingly educated people are waiting longer to get married, and when they do, they (both spouses) tend to bring more income and assets to the marriage.
And there is this thing where some celebrities are more openly having children together without any intention of ever marrying.
This trend sometimes is to the kids’ disadvantage later with respect to child support and inheritance, but a lot of people apparently never think about stuff like that.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Seems like most people looking to get married expect to stay married because they likely think they will be better off in a marriage than not. It of course does not always work out that way.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
RE: I don’t quite agree that marriage confers respect or autonomy outside the domestic sphere, especially with respect to social status. And if you are a married man without a job, you are a bum. If you are a married man and your wife makes more than you do, you are a loser.
But again, marriage did not automatically move a man up the class ladder even if he were head of household and lord of the manner. But yes, his social status changed.
And of course, society had all kinds of rituals and rules to help provide some assets to the couple, from wedding gifts (including cash) and dowries. And of course the man was often required to bring some assets to the marriage. In some traditional cultures, a man without a cow could not get a bride.
And yeah, it was often presumed in advanced societies that a woman would stop working when she got married, implying that any job she had was simply provisional.
At some point in human social organization, sexuality became more regulated not just because of rigid morality, but because children who could not be provided for could endanger the tribe if there were not sufficient resources for everyone. But it is also clear from finds of ancient burials and other remains that human groups bent over backwards to try to provide for those who could not easily provide for themselves, the elderly and children.
Many women still want to get married, and educated women tend to choose educated men. Even where educated women are not choosing men who are potentially sole providers, they tend to choose men who have assets or potential earners.
Women in upper economic classes tend to marry men in upper economic classes.
This causes resentment in men who wrongly perceive that women and nonwhites are preventing them for rising higher with respect to their economic class.
But here is the fun thing. Even though people get married later, and some are not getting married at all, men with low paying jobs and little education still expect to get regular sexual access to women. They want girlfriends and mates. And some men expect to be able to have children without much thought about the long term care and support of these kids.
And of course some of this comes down to doofus men wanting whatever it is they want without regard to the interests or desires of women.
I am not to sure what the kids wan to run toward. The old rules no longer work. But new rules create their own problems.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
There have been some studies that suggest that married men live longer and are healthier then unmarried men. Maybe it helps to have someone who looks after you (not the same thing as someone taking care of you and neglecting their own well being).
But I am not sure how rigorous these studies are. And obviously, life cannot guarantee everyone a happy or stable marriage.
A slightly related tidbit…
I heard a podcast that suggested that many middle class Chinese kids born in the days of the “one child policy” spend a lot of money and are big consumers, in part because they expect to inherit property from their parents and from both sets of grandparents, and will not have to share anything with siblings.
So here, a Chinese society which encourages marriage and discourages divorce, provides a potential economic bonanza for kids and grand kids.
dopey-o
There you go again, with numbers and risk calculations and that sciency stuff. Blech!
Suzanne
@Brachiator:
But that is exactly the point: even low-income/low-education men could raise their social status higher than women by marrying and having children, literally becoming a patriarch. And the economic and social orders supported this. And Bitecofer notes that this cohort blames the Dems for changing those economic and social orders, thus making these men less appealing marriage partners.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
We disagree about whether a married man’s social status as being a married patriarch meant very much once he stepped outside his home.
Again, I think that social class and social status (married/unmarried) are very different. Being married is a minor enhancement, but if you are lower class, you are still at the bottom of the social heap.
Democrats get blamed for everything.
But yeah, less educated men and men with fewer assets become less appealing marriage partners once women have any ability to raise themselves up in society independent of their family (or their patriarchs). Life is tough. I approve.
ETA: It is possible that in a society which still cares about social class, women with education and their own money can rise higher or escape social class faster and more emphatically than can some men. So a guy who is a plumber (not a bad job or even necessarily a low paying one) is resentful that some of the women he might ordinarily be able to date don’t want to date him and prefer even a … banker, now that they have a college education and their own income.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Equality does change the status of everyone, up or down. I’d bet good money that those who lose status will be unhappier than those who gain. But, in the long run the society will be better. And it will take a long run to make a solid change in equality. Many, many situations in humanity have to change to get there and there will be resistance. Possibly forever to get even close to actual equality.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Totally agree. But there are viciously angry and resentful, mostly white, men, who whine, wail and make noise about not being able to get wimmins.
They also whine, wail and make noise about the fact that instead of there being 1,000 movies featuring straight white men who fight the bad guys and get the wimmins, there are only 998 released every year.
Ironically, for them, equality is a bitch.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
You silver tongued devil…..