US textile artists Alison Chambers and Emily Robbins, “Strong Tradition” quilt #WomensArt pic.twitter.com/OjL3B9rXBr
— #WOMENSART (@womensart1) January 26, 2022
Petula Dvorak, in the Washington Post — “An ode to those women who say what we’re thinking”:
There is something gratifying about the no-nonsense, fed up women who just let ’em have it.
This week has brought us two extraordinary examples. One called herself “Black Jesus” on Amtrak. The other is now trending on Twitter for her punchline to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin: #readtheroombuddy…
Thursday was when Stacey Patton, a.k.a. Black Jesus, made an appearance on the Northeast Regional headed to Trenton.
Patton, a journalism professor at Howard University, book author and frequent contributor to The Washington Post, was in business class on an Amtrak train from D.C. when she decided she’d had enough of The Guy.
You’ve seen him. Manspreading, maskless, perhaps, voice booming through the quiet of a train, Metro, bus, space…
“I’m about 8 rows behind him. He’s been on his cellphone since we boarded. He’s talking loud, as if he’s in his home office. Everyone else in the train car seems unbothered. But I’m annoyed…
“GIMME A SEC. GOT ANOTHER CALL COMIN’ THROUGH. YELLL-OOOO?”
I whisper. “Hello, this is Black Jesus calling. I’m riding on Northeast bound train 176. I hope y’all find the right interns for your search. You will make it to New Brunswick in time for that teams meeting. I also think your pitch for the new project, with some minor adjustments, will be well received by the rest of the team. And I recommend either the Frog and the Peach or Steakhouse 85 for dinner tonight. But for right now, Imma need you to lower your voice while riding this train. In my name, Amen.”
Click.
Dude actually stood up and looked around frantically. I kept looking at my computer like I’m not Black Jesus.”…
For the video of Ms. #ReadTheRoom, see the tweet at the top of my Coronavirus Update post, immediately below this one. But there’s more — you should definitely read the whole thing!
Speaker Pelosi had a huge role in the #BidenBoom as well. pic.twitter.com/t2sMz1v0gO
— Scott Dworkin (@funder) February 4, 2022
debbie
Reposting because it fills me with joy:
@Amir Khalid:
It is truly, truly good to see your name!
debbie
For the Twitter-adverse, the last word on that quilt is “Fight.”
Baud
@debbie:
I had guessed “Fuck” but “Fight” works too.
debbie
@Baud:
Don’t make me pull my pussy hat out of the closet…
sab
I love the Black Jesus intrusively loud cell phone response.
Barbara
@sab: I sat in the not quiet car on Amtrak pre-pandemic and heard two loud conversations in sufficient detail that I was able to trace two of the speakers and family members on the Internet and then find their social media accounts.
I don’t understand how anybody could think their work related conversations would be private. Just crazy.
mrmoshpotato
@sab: I take it that the slapdick loudly gave out his number. The bonehead…
mrmoshpotato
@Barbara: During the nicer months, some of my neighbors have loud, personal phone calls on the back porches.
Glad you have a doctor’s appointment. Is it for your loud mouth-itis?
Benw
@sab: it’s so awesome
Baud
Black Jesus hushed the multitude.
Gin & Tonic
@sab: How did she know his number?
Spanky
@Baud: If only.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
He spoke it out loud on the train.
sab
@mrmoshpotato: They often do
Back pre-Covid we used to hear a lot of loud business calls at baseball games. Pay attention, guy! There are balls coming into the stands!
Spanky
@Barbara: Too much to hope they made some credit card purchases?
Geminid
A bright sunny day in Amicus. Windy too.
JMG
@Barbara: In the summer of 2019 I was taking a 7 subway train to the US Open in Flushing Meadows and heard an extended phone conversation by a Mets scout on his way to nearby Citi Field in which their minor league pitchers were evaluated, loudly. The kind of operational security to be expected from that franchise, but really, even for baseball that’s dumb.
Another Scott
AL thanks for the WaPo story. It’s good. I hope that #ReadTheRoomBuddy woman gets visibility too if she wants it (the story says she’s known for other good things).
Cheers,
Scott.
Spanky
In other news, it looks like the Shootings Fairy is revisiting some old haunts:
Both via CNN.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Love the Black Jesus story! Love it!
Also, Amir is in another thread? I’ll take a look
Dorothy A. Winsor
In less happy news, a judge temporarily stopped Gov. Pritzker’s mask mandate for schools. My teacher DIL is going to be distraught. She already has kindergarteners out sick with covid, one of them quite sick. And she herself is immuno compromised. I assume she’ll keep wearing her mask, but this is not good.
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: He popped up first in the very late night mask thread
ETA #12
Starfish
@sab: She was much more elegant than I was. I had a loud talker behind me on a bus, and I just told her about how obnoxious she was being and how we did not all want to hear her conversation.
p.a.
The Venn diagram of the “900,000+ American dead, no big whoop, mah freedumbs” people and the “let’s commit genocide because 7 drunks somewhere burned an American flag” people is 2 100% overlapping circles.
germy
zhena gogolia
@debbie: Great news!
Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan
Good to see Amir back.
On the home front, covid test 2 came back negative – yay! Just the “regular” sinus shenanigans.
Remember, anti-CRT flailing means they know they’re LOSING.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan:
Good news!
randy khan
@Barbara:
I sat behind someone who is in my field on an Amtrak train to New York once, and he spent big chunks of the trip doing work calls. We happened to be on the same team (so to speak) on the issues he was talking about, but if we weren’t it could have been a big problem for him. (At least it wasn’t the quiet car.)
It’s remarkable how many people don’t realize that they can be heard in public spaces.
Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan
@SiubhanDuinne: I’ve never been so happy to have my nose turn into a fire hydrant.
Professor Bigfoot
@Dorothy A. Winsor: One would think your DIL could insist on masking at least in her own classroom just under “reasonable accomodation” for her immunocompromised condition.
Amir Khalid
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I can be here too, if you like.
Baud
@germy:
I save my citizens arrests for when I see someone trying to overthrow the government.
Ken
I vaguely remember a psychological study that indicated when people are on a phone call, they blank out their surroundings; it’s as if they were alone in a room with the person on the other end. Which is one of the reasons that using the phone while driving is so dangerous.
randy khan
I suspect that Youngkin thinks he won that encounter. As a cuddly moderate Republican (*cough*), he can’t wear a mask anywhere because it would enrage the base, so he’s probably hoping he will come off as a brave truth-teller.
But what I think he doesn’t get is that he won the election, in part, because he convinced a fraction of the voters in northern Virginia that he actually would be a cuddly moderate. Stuff like this (including the anti-masks-in-schools executive order he issued his first day in office) hurts him because it tells them that he was lying during the campaign. He can’t be unelected, and he can’t run for reelection, but it makes it harder for him to push his agenda and risks turning the 2023 legislative elections into a referendum on him that he will lose. And since the awful Republican gerrymander from the 2010 census is going to be gone, those elections may be an uphill battle already.
Betty Cracker
One of the few joys left to me in post-Trump American politics is schadenfreude when Trump spurns a pol who is an imitator. And the more simpering and obsequious the imitator, the greater the schadenfreude when the orange fart rejects or ignores them. According to the Daily Beast, that is the fate so far of U.S. senate candidate from Ohio Josh Mandel:
Emphasis mine. I think more Republicans should feed Trump gossipy rumors about rival MAGAs. Ideally, a squishy dope who wants to take out a more powerful potential rival, say Marco Rubio vs. Ron DeSantis, will concoct salacious rumors that play on Trump’s most hysterical anti-kink impulses.
germy
Some political cartoons have very short shelf lives.
Josie
@Amir Khalid: So happy and relieved to see you back.
different-church-lady
Loud, obnoxious cell phone calls in public are so last decade. Now it’s loud, obnoxious Zoom meetings in public.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: I always wonder about people who become obsessed with the sex lives of others. It always seems to indicate envy or desire, more often than not, both.
Heidi Mom
@Amir Khalid: Welcome back, Amir! So glad to hear from you.
M31
had a great time in the ‘quiet’ Amtrak car once, a guy was calling all his friends and work acquaintances to apologize for all his drunk phone calls late the night before
“hey man, uh, sorry about that, uh, must have had a few too many, know what I mean, uh”
lol a guy like that all his exes already have him blocked
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker:
Frankly, I didn’t think Angela Merkel cared that much.
MagdaInBlack
@Amir Khalid: So glad to see you back ?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Professor Bigfoot: That sounds reasonable, but we left “reasonable” a while back
@Amir Khalid: That would be lovely. :-)
Someone told me about a murder mystery writer on a train, talking to his agent about how he planned to kill a character. Other riders were so concerned that police met him at the next stop.
Another Scott
@germy:
Popehat had his number very early on.
Cheers,
Scott.
AliceBlue
@Amir Khalid: Hey Amir!
There go two miscreants
Happy to add my voice to those welcoming you back, Amir! I hope that whatever kept you away did not leave any lingering negative consequences.
Bex
@Amir Khalid: Joining the long line of Jackals happy to see you back!
germy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnar_mhCTbg
Jackals were screaming, yelling and howling.
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: Ha! The phrase has long grated on me. It was always arrogant (even when arguably true), but Trump made it ridiculous. Good excuse to retire it forever.
Gin & Tonic
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Spoiler! There might have been a few of his readers on that train.
geg6
More bridge news from Pittsburgh. The Saw Mill Run Bridge, major artery for commuters from Mount Washington and the South Hills to the city by busway and light rail, has been closed by the Port Authority because engineers inspecting it found it had shifted. Another 79s era bridge falling apart. How many of the hundreds of bridges in the city have these issues?
Bex
@Gin & Tonic: Sounds like yesterday when Faux Noise hyperventilated about a disastrous jobs report before it came out.
schrodingers_cat
Latest from BJP ruled dystopia that is Karnataka (Bangalore now Bengaluru is the capital of this state) Hijab wearing Muslim students are being prohibited from attending class.
realbtl
@Amir Khalid: C’mon Amir end the suspense. Les Paul, 335, JazzMaster? GAS!
Sure Lurkalot
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
That sounds like a beginning to a good murder mystery.
A Ghost to Most
Sorry to intrude, but a remarkable thing is happening in the WaPo comments. Something I have not seen in nearly five years of almost daily commenting there. The right wing commenters have gone almost silent. This means something.
Carry on.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic: That makes me feel better on a number of levels.
frosty
@realbtl: He said earlier it was an amp. So … Fender Twin, Marshall Stack, or a Quilter (lightweight for us older players)?
rosalind
Flashing back to jury duty downtown L.A.: walked over to Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to grab lunch at the cafe. Sat down on a quiet bench in their very quiet garden. Enter man talking loudly on his cell. Sat next to me, and I realized with increasing horror he was conducting a counseling session. From his side of the conversation he revealed deeply private things about the woman on the other end. He ignored my looks of disbelief, and I finally got up and left I was so uncomfortable.
Baud
@A Ghost to Most: Rapture? Covid taking out the rest of the antivaxxers?
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Upon seeing your appellation, this.
;)
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker:
Agree with this. It’s one of the few entertaining things left to watch. Wondering what those rumors are about Mandel that the orange traitor finds so weird. Does he not fuck enough strippers or something?
cain
@Barbara: My (ex) sister-in-law told me a story about how they were on an amtrak and a bunch of Indians were playing Antakshari quite loudly. When someone tried to tell them they were being loud they pulled the race card on them.
They were lucky I was not there, as I would have told them to shut the fuck up, and that pulling a race card is an insult to actual racism that is out there. They can’t pull the race card on me.
zhena gogolia
Cauvin does DJT the DJ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5gsByvLqe0
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
NotMax
Other side of the coin: when the reviews are, um, less than laudatory.
:)
frosty
@rikyrah: Good morning! (You’re late enough that I can say it in real time.)
Amir Khalid
@realbtl:
You’ll all know soon enough. ? ?
Mike E
@Gin & Tonic: Dewey Defeats Russia, heh (though tbh it’s Covid keeping things from escalating)
Sure Lurkalot
@frosty: I wish you pickers and strummers would put together a guitar hero zoom, Balloon Juice style.
jnfr
Speaking of women speaking truth to power, this is Nekima Levy Armstrong.
Sure Lurkalot
@Betty Cracker: So, you pay a couple of hundred grand to join a club to listen to an elderly wide body in makeup shoot the shit about some dweeb’s sex life?
frosty
@Sure Lurkalot: Interesting idea. From what I’ve seen there are some good players among the jackaltariat. Open mic maybe?
cain
@jnfr:
That was epic. Glad to have seen that. What happened there was complete bullshit. A man lost his life for doing nothing more than sleeping on a couch. Sneaking into the room all silent and stuff. Assholes.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
Oh, even worse. He knows he’s a Jew.
Trump apparently favors Mike Gibbons and has convinced Bernie Moreno (“I’m the right kind of immigrant!”) to drop out of the race.
Yay for Ohio. ?
danielx
It’s a bright sunshiny day, and it’s…nine degrees.
Welcome back, Amir!
jeffreyw
@Amir Khalid: If it’s not a tik tok of you doing Jumping Jack Flash I’m a declaring pre-dissappoint.
Ken
The Ministry of Truth has recalled their scripts about the disastrous Biden jobs report, and the new talking points haven’t been sent out yet?
Miss Bianca
@A Ghost to Most:
But what?
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
I love Mike Luckovich but obviously even he can get it dead wrong occasionally.
Betty Cracker
@debbie: Not my state so I haven’t followed the race closely and have never heard of Gibbons, but I was thinking it might be good for Dems if Mandel is the GOP nominee. He seems horrible enough to lose. Maybe Gibbons is just as bad?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I love the Amtrak story. I’ve shared a train car with That Guy way too many times.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne:
Luckovich is brilliant as a caricaturist. Lots of political cartoonists don’t have that skill. He’s great usually, but every time someone famous dies he invariably does an “arriving at the pearly gates” cartoon.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: trumpov called someone a charisma-free weirdo?
oh my
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
I think he is as bad. He’s an ex-pro footballer and businessman, and his tagline at the end of his latest campaign ad excoriating Dems for the pandemic and China is “Let’s get them back.”
Bet that’s what attracted TFG’s attention.
germy
@Miss Bianca:
Either they’ve ramped up their comments to the point of being banned, or they’re too busy cleaning their guns to leave comments.
The Moar You Know
@germy: I used to work retail, 20 years ago. This runs directly counter to the VERY specific instructions employees and management are given at every retail chain in America, as doing so is the number one way that employees end up getting shot, stabbed, or beaten to death. Same goes for bystanders. Just don’t do it.
Mike E
@Amir Khalid: Cheers for Amir! If you haven’t already, check out Chris Buck on YouTube and his Friday Fretworks (if it’s available in your region) this young man puts in the work evaluating lots of gear and is quite the gifted player
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I’ll take “words you don’t expect in a food review” for $500, Alex.
germy
@The Moar You Know:
I’d love to see a video of Charlie Kirk trying to stop a shoplifter.
I never will because it’d never happen.
Elizabelle
@The Moar You Know: Says that Charlie Kirk never worked a retail job, no? Or maybe he paid as little advice to best practices there.
jnfr
@cain:
I can’t bring myself to watch the video, but even the descriptions make it clear this young man was flat out murdered.
Steeplejack (phone)
@A Ghost to Most:
Which story? Or in general?
Geminid
@debbie: One factor affecting Trump’s endorsements is that he’s afraid of endorsing a loser. Reports are that he has even considered hedging his bets by endorsing two candidates in a race. Another problem is that lot of his henchman are on the payrolls of opposing campaigns, and he doesn’t know who to trust. Trump is too lazy to do extensive research on his own.
How potent a Trump endorsement can be is an open question. North Carolina ex-Governor Pat McCrory is still leading Trump-endorsed Ted Budd in the Senate primary race (Budd is also backed by the Club for Growth). And so far Georgia Governor is leading David Perdue, Trump’s endorsee, in the primary race there.
brantl
@Amir Khalid: Good to hear from you.
debbie
@Geminid:
I forgot to mention Rand Paul also starred in another campaign ad for Gibbons, endorsing him and promising that together, they would make sure Fauci was fired.
I’m thinking the election will definitely go to Gibbons.
H.E.Wolf
@Amir Khalid: So glad to see you! Hoping you’re on the mend.
Brachiator
@cain:
Back when I had a long commute, there was always a car of the MetroLink train that was designated as a Quiet Car.
But elsewhere it is always a pain when people want to treat public spaces as though they are at home.
Brachiator
@Geminid:
“Extensive research.” That’s funny. Trump is too lazy to read anything much longer than a Twitter message.
I wonder how literate he really is. His primary method of research seems to be watching TV, especially Fox News.
Mel
@Amir Khalid: So thankful to see that you are back. You have been very much missed!
Ramalama
@Dorothy A. Winsor: My sister (and family) caught Covid teaching in an IL school.
Another Scott
@Brachiator: What’s this “read” you speak of??
NPR.org:
They don’t care. Nothing but tribalism and power matters to the RWNJs. We shouldn’t take what they profess seriously, either.
Cheers,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@germy:
This Fox News screen grab from 2/27/2020 (the one from this morning’s Covid thread) has aged rather badly too.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
However, Trump has been known to call God a loser for failing to include a golf course and a Trump Tower in the Garden of Eden.
There was some recent GOP gathering where everyone continued to praise Trump despite his sedition and disdain for supposed core conservative principles.
It is almost comical to see how tribal support for Trump has become.
mrmoshpotato
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I still can’t believe people are taking the side of the virus.
Hope your DiL’s school district isn’t in a numbskull, “But mah freedumb!” part of the state.
Kathleen
@debbie: He’s certainly mastered Trumpian outside voice. He may well win the primary.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Either one would work for me. I’ve long held that if everyone who believes in the Rapture were to get Raptured, America would instantly be a much better and happier place.
“But those were going to be my followers!” cries a disappointed Antichrist.
artem1s
@Brachiator:
yea, not true. another bit of NPR misinformation to send the Liberty students’ protest against TFG down the memory hole. There were a lot of LU students who made waves over Falwell, Jr. playing footsie with TFG. The board and CEO were the ones who weren’t fazed. $$$$ means more to televangelists than the state of their souls.
Brachiator
@artem1s:
I was quoting another commenter, but good point.
I wonder how many voting students actually abandoned Trump.
Geminid
@Brachiator: Trump mainly relies on other people’s advocacy. That can be problematic in cases like the Pennsylvania Senate race, where Hope Hicks and Steven Miller work for hedge fund manager David McCormick, while Sean Hannity is a supporter of celebrity Doctor Oz. Between Hicks, Miller and Hannity, who are you gonna believe?