Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

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

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

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

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

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

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

We still have time to mess this up!

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / It’s a Strange World

It’s a Strange World

by | 108 Comments

This post is in: 

Yes, as a matter of fact, that is a shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe, in the middle of a bike path, in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Note the tiny Juan Diego under the Virgin. As I write this, sitting in a campground far to the south of this shrine, a pair of British overlanders are parking their rig near mine, and the man who is directing his wife could be a double, in posture and appearance, to Wallace from Wallace and Gromit.

I have a bunch of photos and thoughts to share, but I’m working on this trip and I’m naturally lazy, so those thoughts and photos will have to wait until I’ve had my fill of tequila and fish tacos. Until then, here’s another strange fact. Did you know that John Lewis had a set of graphic novels written about his life, and that he would attend Comic-Con in San Diego, dressed as he had been when crossing the Edmund Pettus bridge, and lead a march through the convention floor? Here’s the first graphic novel in the series:

And, yes, these images are large. Open thread.

Reader Interactions

108Comments

  1. 1.

    Another Scott

    Hey, MM, thanks for checking in.  Hope you are doing well.  Enjoy your “work”.  ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  3. 3.

    Darkrose

    The March trilogy was one of my recommendations for the library’s Black History Month book rec video. Since we didn’t have it, I bought a copy, which promptly went in a display case, so I haven’t actually had a chance to read it yet.

  4. 4.

    Betty Cracker

    Oooo, tequila and fish tacos!!!!

    I did not know that fact about John Lewis. Thank you for sharing it!

  6. 6.

    Yarrow

    the man who is directing his wife could be a double, in posture and appearance, to Wallace from Wallace and Gromit.

    Is he on a cheese holiday?

  7. 7.

    susanna

    My son and girlfriend were there in December, hiking, biking and diving.  They loved it.  I’d rather go there than the other Baja places like Cabo.

    The visual of John Lewis dressed for ‘a’ parade, then making his own at Comic-Con makes him more endearing, and fearless.  Good story

    Enjoy your vacation!

  11. 11.

    Martin

    So, Russias plan is that the Russian market can’t crash if it never reopens. I mean, it worked in 1917 – sort of.

  15. 15.

    Martin

    My dad and his buddies go to this little practically non-existent town in Baja to go surfing. We’re talking ‘town has a bar/restaurant that’s open when the women who owns it isn’t busy doing other stuff’ small. He says everyone moves at a glacial pace and he loves it.

  20. 20.

    Martin

    @raven: That’s really sweet. We only have graves for our pocket pets. Each one gets a a little section under the patio bricking where we have a sitting bench, so we can sit and spend time with all of them. Speaking of which, I see we need to freshen up the paint a bit on their names.

  27. 27.

    catclub

    @Martin: So, Russias plan is that the Russian market can’t crash if it never reopens. I mean, it worked in 1917 – sort of.

     

    One of the complications of Cuba opening up is all the US based companies that will be suing to restore their property rights from 1956.

  28. 28.

    jnfr

    Listening to MSNBC and it seems that the British are confirming that Putin is deliberately targeting civilians who  try to leave, as the Ukrainians have charged.

  29. 29.

    Kalakal

    @raven: That’s lovely. I used to plant a small tree or shrub over ours. Now their ashes will be buried with us.

  32. 32.

    Gin & Tonic

    @jnfr: Vladimir Putin is not aiming the artillery, ordinary Russians are. So the correct formulation here would be “Russians are deliberately targeting…”

  33. 33.

    Sure Lurkalot

    La Paz is a great place to go diving and snorkeling. A longish boat ride to Los Islotes, where you can frolic with sea lions and dizzying schools of fish and explore sea walls with starfish everywhere.

    My friend Mary and I ate chile rellenos all over town. They were all good!

  34. 34.

    grandmaBear

    My golden, Mac, crossed the rainbow bridge on Sunday. He’s on the April page of one of the calendars, forget which. He was a very good boy. It’s so hard to see them go. We’ll put his ashes in a wooded area behind the house and plant a pine tree there, as we did with Gibby a couple of years ago. The house feels very empty without them.

  38. 38.

    CaseyL

    @raven: Those are wonderful, heart-touching memorial tributes.

    As someone without a yard, I have as collection of ceramic ash urns.  I call it my Kitty Necropolis, sitting on a mirrored tray on my dresser.  I should create a proper cabinet or table or something for them.

  47. 47.

    raven

    @Gin & Tonic: I didn’t know it until we were leaving for the cemetery and my step-mom handed me the urn and said “he wanted to be buried with her”! This was a guy that I begged for years to get a dog and he resisted until he was in his 70’s, then he went bonkers!

  51. 51.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @raven: No, but many thanks for making me aware! And your memorials to your beloved dogs are beautiful tributes to the lives you had together.

  54. 54.

    CaseyL

    Umm – I just saw something about the Pentagon nixing the Polish jet swap deal for fear it might cross Putin’s “red line.” Does anyone here know anything about that?

  55. 55.

    raven

    @Sure Lurkalot: It’s a great story of the expedition they took on The Western Flyer  

    It’s being restored as an educational platform.

     

    Since that remarkable six-week voyage to the Sea of Cortez, the Western Flyer become an icon of American literature. Some say that it is, perhaps, the best-known fishing boat in history. This fame didn’t happen overnight. Sea of Cortez wasn’t a bestseller. Word of the book spread from person to person among those who’d been touched by the story and resonated with it. It’s not a book that people forget easily. As time has passed, the collective memory of the book has grown, along with the legend of the boat.

  56. 56.

    Gin & Tonic

    @CaseyL: The Pentagon says no, not sure they gave a reason. Seems people are getting pretty far out over their skis.

    But … Poles really want Ukraine to get those MiG’s. Ukraine really wants them. I won’t be surprised if they get there. Maybe the Pentagon needs to look the other way.

  58. 58.

    Baud

    @CaseyL:

    Pentagon dismisses Poland’s proposal to transfer fighter jets to US for delivery to Ukraine

    From CNN’s Oren Liebermann

    The Pentagon dismissed Poland’s proposal to transfer their MiG-29 fighter jets to the United States for delivery to Ukraine, calling it not “tenable,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Tuesday.

     

    The Pentagon is in touch with the Polish government about the issue, but Poland’s proposal shows the “complexities” of transferring the fighters to Ukraine, Kirby said in the statement.

     

    “It is simply not clear to us that there is a substantive rationale for it,” Kirby said. “We will continue to consult with Poland and our other NATO allies about this issue and the difficult logistical challenges it presents, but we do not believe Poland’s proposal is a tenable one.”

     

    Earlier Tuesday, the Polish government proposed moving all of their MiG-29s to the US Air Force’s Ramstein Air Base in Germany, according to a statement from the foreign ministry. The US government would then provide them to Ukraine, the ministry said. In exchange, Poland requested used fighter jets to replace the MiG-29s.

     

    But Kirby said the idea as laid out by Poland was too risky, as the US and NATO seek to avoid an outright conflict between the alliance and Russia.

     

    ETA:

    Is providing planes different from providing other weapons?

  60. 60.

    CaseyL

    @Gin & Tonic:

    @raven:

    @Baud:

    Well, fuckity fuck.  That is seriously fucking fucked, and I am not at all happy about it.

    ETA: I do have to say, though, the shell game of offloading title to the US, and then the US can offload the jets to Ukraine, rather than Poland giving them to Ukraine directly, did strike me as needlessly complicated.  Putin would be enraged if Poland gave Ukraine its fighter jets, but not if the US gave Ukraine Poland’s fighter jets?  That… made not a whole lot of sense.

  61. 61.

    grandmaBear

    @Baud:  I wonder if the dismissal might be for the sake of deniability. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t want this done openly.

  65. 65.

    NotMax

    Holiday dinners at the Reffitt household bound to be super ultra mega tense.

    The first Jan. 6 defendant to take his case to trial was found guilty Tuesday of all charges related to his role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

    Guy Reffitt, a Texas man who attempted to storm the U.S. Capitol while armed with a gun and zip ties, was convicted of all five counts against him, including transport of a firearm in support of civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding. The jury met for barely two hours before informing the judge that they’d reached a verdict.

    Jurors began deliberating Tuesday morning after a weeklong trial in which they heard testimony from Reffitt’s teenage son, Jackson Reffitt, who tipped off the FBI about his father before the Jan. 6 attack. Prosecutors, quoting the elder Reffitt’s own words, argued that the defendant had “lit the match” on the west side of the Capitol, where some of the most brutal attacks on law enforcement took place. Video shows Reffitt, with a blue jacket covering his waistband, leading the mob up the steps of the Capitol, besides the platform where Joe Biden was inaugurated.
    [snip]
    Nicole Reffitt, the defendant’s wife, told reporters after her husband’s conviction that it was a verdict “against all American people” and that they were planning to appeal the guilty finding.

    “This fight has just begun,” Nicole Reffitt said. “Guy was used as an example today to make all the 1/6ers take a plea. Do not take a plea, 1/6ers. Do not. We got this.” Source

  66. 66.

    Dan B

    @Baud: Awful news.  Putin is making the US look cowardly.  Imagine what it would feel like if Zelensky was killed and Ukraine leveled.

  67. 67.

    CaseyL

    @zhena gogolia: I’m really the wrong person to ask that of.  The correct person to ask that of is V. Putin – you know, the one threatening a nuclear war if he wakes up on the wrong side of the bed.

  69. 69.

    Baud

    @Dan B:

    Yeah, well, while I don’t pretend to know the right way to manage this, I don’t think anything we decide to do should be based on our being made to feel unmanly.  I would like U.S. foreign policy to move away from thinking with our dicks.

  70. 70.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud: We lost four precious years of dealing with Putin correctly. Make it 12, because that wasn’t Obama’s strong suit, TBH.

  73. 73.

    Scout211

    The postal service reform bill passed in the Senate.

    The Senate on Tuesday passed sweeping bipartisan legislation to overhaul the US Postal Service’s finances and allow the agency to modernize its operations.
    The final vote was overwhelmingly bipartisan 79-19. The bill now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.
    The Postal Service Reform Act – which cleared the House last month by 342-92 – would require retired postal employees to enroll in Medicare when eligible, while dropping a previous mandate that forced the agency to cover its health care costs years in advance. Those two measures would save the USPS nearly $50 billion over the next decade, according to the House Oversight Committee. The legislation would also require the USPS to create an online dashboard with local and national delivery time data.

  76. 76.

    germy

    #NewYork artists hold a campaign with a request to make a no-fly zone over #Ukraine️ Paper airplanes, calling to stop Putin, were thrown from all the floors of @Guggenheim museum ✈️ #UkraineRussianWar pic.twitter.com/Qrq5IKbCtd

    — Worldnews_NWS (@WorldnewsNws) March 6, 2022

    After this they assuredly walked past a janitor cleaning up their bullshit on their way out to get an $11 coffee.

    — Chris Davis (@Cee4our) March 8, 2022

    Draft every one of these art gaywads and make them clean Army toilets in Lubbock TX before they are shipped out to die in the meat grinder of war https://t.co/gtvMMGKwtN

    — debdrens (@debdrens) March 8, 2022

  80. 80.

    Mousebumples

    Late to the thread, but I highly recommend March. I’ve donated the trilogy to a few local school libraries. John Lewis’s acceptance speech, accepting a National Book Award for the series is wonderful too – https://youtu.be/8TwGBxRaLDQ

  84. 84.

    Brachiator

    @Dan B:

    Awful news. Putin is making the US look cowardly.

    Sometimes looking cowardly is the bravest thing you can do.

  87. 87.

    NotMax

    @Baud

    Park them along the border, figuratively leave the keys inside and head off to an extra-extra-long coffee break.

    “First, it was BOGO day at the coffee bar. Second, Casimir habitually plays polkas on the jukebox so loud we wouldn’t notice if a herd of elephants were stampeding outside.”

    //

  89. 89.

    debbie

    @NotMax:

    Wasn’t this the patriot (?) who was going to grab Pelosi by her hair and drag her down the Capitol steps, making sure her head hit every step?

  90. 90.

    Kay

    Tracking women and curtailing travel:

    Now, a prominent antiabortion lawmaker in Missouri, from where thousands of residents have traveled to next-door Illinois to receive abortions since Missouri passed one of the country’s strictest abortion laws in 2019, believes she has found a solution.
    An unusual new provision, introduced by state Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman (R), would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident obtain an abortion out of state, using the novel legal strategy behind the restrictive law in Texas that since September has banned abortions in that state after six weeks of pregnancy.
    Coleman has attached the measure as an amendment to several abortion-related bills that have made it through committee and are waiting to be heard on the floor of the House of Representatives.

    Horrifying. Starting to get a little nervous yet?

    Volunteer far Right religious police will be watching you.

  93. 93.

    Kay

    What if you’re pregnant and want to get out of Missouri and move to a state that still has rights for women? Can the self-appointed religious police sue you and drag you back to Missouri to stand trial?

  95. 95.

    Brachiator

    @Kay:

    What if you’re pregnant and want to get out of Missouri and move to a state that still has rights for women? Can the self-appointed religious police sue you and drag you back to Missouri to stand trial?

    We will see what evil the Supreme Court might allow, but we have been here before. Instead of the Fugitive Slave Act, it will be the Fugitive Woman Act.  Aiding the woman trying to exercise her rights will be a crime.

  96. 96.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I’m horrified.

    When asked if the measure was constitutional she smugly pointed to the SCOTUS no longer enforcing womens rights. She’s right. That’s exactly what happened. They no longer recognize voting rights either.

  97. 97.

    Kay

    @Brachiator:

    Women better start paying attention, is all I can say. I know the issue is all but ignored by media but they aren’t going to stop until they control every aspect of womens lives.

  101. 101.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    It’ll work fine for the Right. They’ll set up a donor funded litigation machine. All they’ll do is change the parties in the caption for each lawsuit. It won’t be difficult legal work at all. They can paper thousands of people, cheap. Churn them out. Hire right out of religious law schools, pay them next to nothing, and give them what will be essentially a form.

  102. 102.

    Old School

    @debbie:

    Serious question: What would be the correct way to handle Putin?

    Apparently the way W. did.

    (Sorry, you said “serious.”)

  104. 104.

    Brachiator

    @Kay:

    Women better start paying attention, is all I can say.

    I agree. We all have to pay attention.

    I know the issue is all but ignored by media but they aren’t going to stop until they control every aspect of womens lives.

    I suppose that we will have to fight the culture wars again.

  105. 105.

    Shana

    @debbie: My husband got horribly drunk on tequila the night before his father’s funeral, partly because we were drinking at the bar owned by a high school girlfriend’s family and they kept pouring whether we wanted them to or not. He hasn’t touched it since then and it’s been over 30 years now.

    Somewhere there are pictures of John Lewis, dressed in his beige raincoat with the backpack he wore then, at ComicCon leading a bunch of kids on a march through the arena. Beautiful.

  107. 107.

    grandmaBear

    Thanks to all for your condolences. It’s been a difficult week, but the BJ jackals are a comfort.

  108. 108.

    HeartlandLiberal

    Yes, wife and I got to meet John Lewis on tour to promote his books with artist and writer. We grew up in Alabama at time of Civil Rights Movement, so Rep. Lewis and we held up the signing line while we reminisced and introduced ourselves. How wonderful to have shaken the hand of such a giant of a man.

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