Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

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

Not all heroes wear capes.

“But what about the lurkers?”

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

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Open Thread: Act Of Kindness

Open Thread: Act Of Kindness

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Open Thread: Act Of Kindness

”Red Piano Ballroom Ensemble” (1996) © Eldzier Cortor / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

On display at the MFA in Boston until January 17 – Black Histories, Black Futures Exhibit

If you guys think it’s a good idea, I would like to devote one post a week to good news stories. And I mean really good news stories – not some political win or some indictment – just straight-up acts of kindness.

But if it’s something you think is a good idea, I’ll need your help. As in, send me good news stories!

Let me know what you think in the comments.

And because I know my audience, I would like you to behold Trixie and Scout’s feet side-by-side. My 4 yr old vs my 14 week old.

Open Thread: Act Of Kindness 1

We went to the vet today and had a little weigh-in:

Trixie – skinny butt that she is, weighed in at 39.6 lbs and she looks like I never feed her, LOL
Scout at 14 weeks was 26 lbs
Bixby at 14 weeks was 36 lbs and he was a chunk.

Her feet are almost the size of Scout’s. I’m pretty sure this is how Clifford the Big Red Puppy started out. Also, if she grows into those feet, I’m going to need a bigger car…

Open thread + give me your thoughts on a kindness post once a week

 

Reader Interactions

62Comments

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    I could swear this same thing was proposed here previously and kind of fizzled out.

    Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with the idea.

  5. 5.

    Benw

    Not to worry. Trixie’s feet will shrink to normal size soon and you’ll have a perfectly normal dog. I’m pretty sure that’s how puppies work.

    I’m all in for news about good stuff and will do my best to find some stories.

  14. 14.

    TaMara (HFG)

    All right, I have to get the animals all set for the night, but I’ll check back and see what the verdict is.

    Again, email me good news stories if you’re on board.

    whats4dinnersolutions (at) live (dot) com

  16. 16.

    Another Scott

    Kindness is good.

    Speaking of which, I don’t think that I’ve seen “kindness” around here in a while…

    Our Sophie had (relatively) huge feet but only ended up around 50 pounds.  No Great Dane genes in her, though.  You indeed might have a Clifford in your future!  :-)

    Good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  17. 17.

    Leslie

    Big yes for good news stories. I am sitting here stroking that senior kitty’s fur through my screen. ??❤️

  18. 18.

    LeftCoastYankee

    “Also, if she grows into those feet, I’m going to need a bigger car saddle”.  Fixed it for you.

    Great idea on the good news posts.  There’s more of it than bad, but it’s less dramatic, so making an effort to call it out is a great idea.

  20. 20.

    Brachiator

    Good news, but not kindness-related.

    A new quarter featuring legendary poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou and other trailblazing American women has officially started shipping to banks on Monday, the U.S. Mint announced. Angelou is the first Black woman to appear on the quarter.

    The Maya Angelou design is the first quarter in the “American Women Quarters Program,” a four-year program that will include coins featuring prominent women in U.S. history.

  21. 21.

    Anne Laurie

    Great idea, TaMara!

    I never seem to find a space for the Kindness stories… acerbic / OCD is more my style, usually… so I’d be very glad to have someone to forward them to. (Also, you’re probably on FaceBook, so you can share the best with us.)

  25. 25.

    meander

    A small bit of good news from Marin County, California, a few miles north of the Golden Gate:

    In 2021, after nine months of debate, the district renamed the school in San Anselmo the Archie Williams High School for a beloved teacher. I thought it was a mistake. I had heard of Francis Drake, who was a world historical figure. I had never heard of Archie Williams. I figured the change was another chapter of revisionist history. It was politically correct.

    I was mistaken. Archie Williams High is the perfect name for a California school. Drake is a man out of the history books. People like Williams were pretty much left out.

    …

    Archie was a Californian, born in Oakland in 1915. He was also an Olympic athlete, a pilot, a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, a pioneering meteorologist and, above all, a teacher.

    Read the whole story in the San Francisco Chronicle column by Carl Nolte.

  26. 26.

    Elizabelle

    @raven:   Woo hoo for the Bulldogs!  Hello from Germany.  Woke up to news alerts that Georgia had beaten Alabama, and thought of you immediately and how happy you would be.

    Congrats to all the Dawgs fans.

  27. 27.

    JWR

    If you guys think it’s a good idea, I would like to devote one post a week to good news stories.

    Sorta like Seth Meyers’ occasional The Kind of Story We Need Right Now segment, like the story about the guy who wrangled an alligator into a trash bin. If it works, it works. If not…

  28. 28.

    eclare

    @JWR:   I liked the story of the guy who got an email invite to a bachelor party by mistake, replied yes, and hit reply all.  He went and had a great time.  Also got some free stuff because of the publicity.

  29. 29.

    JWR

    @eclare: Oh, yeah! That was a good one. Only problem for me is that those stories usually bump his A Closer Look segments, which, for me, make it all worthwhile.

  30. 30.

    mrmoshpotato

    Watching Seth Meyers’ A Closer Look and, wow.  Fucker Carlson is spanking Shithead Ted (Cruz).

  32. 32.

    CaseyL

    I think it’s a great idea!  We really do need to celebrate good people doing good things.

    And, OMG, those feet.  Already as big as Scout’s feet? Talk about an Absolute Unit!

  34. 34.

    Mike in NC

    Rewatching “The Comey Rule” about what a rotten bag of shit Trump was, stinking up our lives for four long and miserable years.

  37. 37.

    JWR

    Re Late Night TV: OMG! Colbert played a clip of a teacher asking a school board member about teaching the evils of Nazism, and the answer he got is mind boggling, which is to say, perfectly normal for our times.

  40. 40.

    opiejeanne

    @CaseyL: Me too. Feel-good stories, stories about kindness, are a good respite from fighting the forces of evil the rest of the time.

  42. 42.

    JWR

    @JWR:

    Colbert played a clip of a teacher asking a school board member…

    Oops. It was a state senator! Here’s a link to that point in Colbert’s monologue: LINK

  44. 44.

    Rusty

    I think a weekly good news post would be great.  How do I send suggestions?  There used to be a way to email front pagers directly but I can’t find it anymore!  It will be a nice reason to keep my eyes open for good stories.

  47. 47.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The story above puts me in mind of a buddy of mine who got big into urban skate boarding when he was a teen. When he and his wife bought there house in S STL they had a fair sized back yard, so he built a small skate board park for all the neighborhood kids.

    And yeah Tamara, I’m always looking for good news stories, sometimes they are a little hard to find but when I do find one, I’ll forward it to you.

  50. 50.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Just woke up a few minutes ago and didn’t see this post last night.  I love the idea and have emailed you a story.

  54. 54.

    EmanG

    We moved to GA a little over 1.5 yrs ago and since then we’ve elected two Dem Senators and the Dawgs won the Championship! Go Dawgs!!!

    (and by we I mean the people of GA, not just us. but we did do our part!)

  55. 55.

    WaterGirl

    @Rusty: Every front-pager can be emailed at their nym at balloon-juice.com

    If there is a space in their nym, put a hyphen in its place.  So a front pager whose nym is Bonnie Lou would be emailed at bonnie-lou at balloon-juice.com

    mistermix would be complicated!  So I made an alias for him so he can be reached as just mistermix at balloon-juice.com

    The CONTACT US page has an image of an example.

  56. 56.

    Mousebumples

    I’m on board. If there’s a shortage of good news stories emailed in, i could see using the thread as a place to share good news and happiness from the lives of Juicers, in general.

    I have this Tumblr on my RSS reader – https://peopledontalwayssuck.tumblr.com/

    Not usually “news” but a feel good collection of stories, at least.

  57. 57.

    Percysowner

    What a good, big girl you have! I’m all on board for happy, kind stories. I need the break.

  60. 60.

    J R in WV

    @raven: ​
     

    Congratulations, Raven~!!~ I wish I had been able to watch, but with no cable, all the football I see is over-the-aid broadcast. Must have been a great game in Athens!

  61. 61.

    kindness

    I’m a bit taken aback that kids in Michigan didn’t (have a place to) skate in the winter.  Growing up in the NY suburbs our town would plow the local lake and we’d skate on that all winter.  From what my family tells me that lake doesn’t freeze over every year like it used to.  Climate something or other I suspect.

  62. 62.

    CAM-WA

    Do it! Particularly for us politics junkies, we need to hear that there are plenty of good people in the country that just quietly go about doing good things.

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