Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

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

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

People are complicated. Love is not.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

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

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

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

Come on, man.

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

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

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Military / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Be Happy, When You Can

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Be Happy, When You Can

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Usually that Secret Service agent thinks it’s a pretty good gig, but right now, he’s the dog tied up on the curb while everybody’s partying in the restaurant…

Besubaru!

Reader Interactions

190Comments

  2. 2.

    SiubhanDuinne

    This thread is just chock full o’ cheer! What a nice way to start Saturday morning. Thanks, Anne Laurie!

    ETA: Good morning, rikyrah! ???

  4. 4.

    debbie

    @germy:

    Nice, but these should be handed out during the actual awards ceremony. I understand technical awards wouldn’t be included, but these actors deserve their moments too. Get rid of those overblown production numbers instead.

  5. 5.

    tom

    Joe looks like he’s enjoying himself. Can you imagine Trump sitting down and grabbing pizza with the troops?

  7. 7.

    Suzanne

    @tom:

    Can you imagine Trump sitting down and grabbing pizza with the troops?

     

     
    Only if they had forks and knives.

  9. 9.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @tom:

    Only if they cry and thank him for saving the military and America.  I would add ‘and the world’ but Trump assumes the world is the enemy.

  15. 15.

    Kayla Rudbek

    So I have gone through my first two weeks of training for my new job.  Early days as of yet, but so far it feels like a much better fit than my previous job in terms of people. I’m a bit worried about the pace that I will be eventually working at, but after seeing one of the trainers get through writing up and disposing of two cases in under two hours, I think that the tools may be better on the new side of the house. I was commenting to Mr. Rudbek yesterday that since the workforce on this side of the house is more even in terms of gender, that the women don’t want to put up with wasting time.  What’s one of the rotating tags here? “Women: they get shit done.”

    And I saw that Judge Brown Jackson is a knitter and crocheter, with a basement full of yarn. Now I’m trying to figure out if I have ever seen her at my local yarn store in Alexandria, Virginia. I suppose that if she gets confirmed that she will need a lot of security to go out and about :(

  18. 18.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @tom:
    Andrei Kozyrev, former foreign minister of Russia (under Yeltsin), was on Ali Velshi’s show a little while ago. He said that when he served as FM, a day or two of that kind of schedule would have knocked him flat, and he was in his early 40s at the time. Kozyrev is now 70 and said he didn’t think he could keep up with Biden now. He seemed in awe of Joe’s stamina, especially considering his age.

  19. 19.

    Kay

    Michael Tracey
    @mtracey
    Ginni Thomas was a passionate proponent of the most outlandishly nutty 2020 election fraud theories on the internet, and her husband Clarence Thomas still declined to hear the “Texas v. Pennsylvania” lawsuit contesting 2020 election administration procedures

    This isn’t true. Justice Thomas (and Justice Alito) would have allowed Texas v Pennsylvania to proceed.

    (One term) President Trump even thanked them publicly for their support.

  20. 20.

    SFAW

    @Parfigliano:

    I can imagine Trump sitting with the troops and grabbing ALL the pizza.

    And then blaming Biden, Hillary, and Obama for there not being enough for the troops.

    “An Admiral — big, strong guy — came to me, with tears in his eyes, and said ‘Sir, your leadership has made pizza possible’ — did you know I created the World’s Best Pizza? — ‘but my pilots are unable to enjoy it, because Hunter Biden stole all of them when he stole the election. So my Marines will support anything you command, including arresting Sleepy Joe for Treason Due to Lack of Pizza. Just give the word.’ So I told him to arrest Hillary and that black guy, too.”

  21. 21.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Honus:

    So is William H. Macy! Well, he transferred to another college, so he’s not technically a Bethany alum, but still.

  23. 23.

    SFAW

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    so he’s not technically a Bethany alum, but still.

    No big deal, neither is Cole. Or are you under the impression John actually graduated?

    ETA: Yes, of course I’m kidding. Unfortunately, I too-often yield to the temptation of attempting a cheap joke.

  26. 26.

    MomSense

    @Kayla Rudbek:

    Congrats on the new job!  Basement full of yarn definitely got all the fiber folks excited.  I’m seeing a lot of indie dyers want to make KBJ colorways.  I loving it!

  27. 27.

    Honus

    @zhena gogolia: yeah, I was in college then and would do summer theater in Wheeling in those days.  I’ll have to ask Tom Stobart if she was ever around then.

  28. 28.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    If the substackers are going to defend Justice Thomas’ corruption-  and I’m sure they are because that’s the appropriately “contrarian” position and they’re all such genuises and original thinkers that blatant corruption is “too easy”- they’re going to have to work harder than this. It’s complicated.

  29. 29.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Kay:

    Justice Thomas (and Justice Alito) would have allowed Texas v Pennsylvania to proceed.

    Fairness to even the worst slime when they deserve it:  Thomas and Alito added to their dissent, in lawyer speak, that there’s no way in fuck they would have ruled in favor of Texas.  They just have a long-standing policy (and they do, it’s recorded) of thinking the Supreme Court is obligated to hear every case of that state-vs-state variety.

  31. 31.

    Suzanne

    @Honus: Are you kidding?! We’ll hear that Biden ate an actual vegetable once. And not one of those Real American vegetables, like ketchup. ELITIST.

  32. 32.

    Suzanne

    @Parfigliano:

    I can imagine Trump sitting with the troops 

    I can imagine him doing his shitty JAZZ HANDS!!! pose in front of the pizza, but not actually sitting with the troops or talking with them.

    One thing about Trump, he always looked so uncomfortable around actual humans.

  33. 33.

    debbie

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Pretty safe to say something like that when they’ve already refused it. It seems more a pathetic attempt to maintain judicial integrity than anything else.

  34. 34.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @SFAW: ​Unfortunately, I too-often yield to the temptation of attempting a cheap joke.

    Why pay good money for an expensive joke when there are so many cheap ones available?

  35. 35.

    zhena gogolia

    @Ishiyama: My husband looked at the picture and said, “It looks like that James Bond scene where they drop someone in a trap door from under the desk.”

  39. 39.

    montanareddog

    @SiubhanDuinne: so, when Jerry Lundegaard stepped out of his office during his interview with Marge Gunderson at the dealership, and then did a runner, it was a metaphor for the actors’ respective Bethany College experiences?

  41. 41.

    Steeplejack

    Thought for the day from @megelison:

    If something in the Midwest has a French name, it will be pronounced in the unfrenchiest way you can imagine.

    Checks out.

  43. 43.

    debbie

    @Steeplejack:

    Yep, but not just in the Midwest. I remember standing behind someone at a just-opened French restaurant/bakery in late 1970s NYC and hearing him request a “croyzant” sandwich.  ??‍♀️

  44. 44.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Honus: I am not a Cole expert, but I believe he did a year of two at Bethany before joining the Army.  That, I think, where he gets his fraternity connection.  Also, Delta Tau Delta (my fraternity , but not Cole’s) was founded at Bethany.

  45. 45.

    MomSense

    @WaterGirl:
    For multicolored yarn it is the combination or formula that makes that particular colorway unique from the others.  The colorways are variable though because dyeing is not precise.  There are also batch lots so you know the yarn you buy was dyed at the same time.

  47. 47.

    prostratedragon

    @Steeplejack:  Not just  Midwest.  Consider “Tolliver,” often from the South.  There’s another one in my Piedmont family that you’d think was Irish,  till you see it.

  49. 49.

    Honus

    @Omnes Omnibus: Cool. I knew a lot of DuTuhDuhs at UVA. Never knew they started at Bethany.
    I knew Cole played lacrosse at WVU but it doesn’t surprise me he did a couple years at Bethany.
    You know Lady Gaga’s mom is from Moundsville, went to John Marshall HS and was a WVU cheerleader.

  51. 51.

    Raven

    @SiubhanDuinne: I attended and taught at the NC State School of Sports Management at Oglebay Park

    outside of Wheeling and we’d go to Bethany College to shoot hoops. I’ve told that to John multiple times over the years and he has never once acknowledged it! Also the fact his mom did her doctorate here at UGA never elicits a peep!

  52. 52.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    It’s what happens when you let galaxy brain Ivy League assholes capture an institution. Every brief, every opinion has to be a tome with long explanation of principles, and bedrock “doctrines” apply in the shadows.

    It is the perfect environment for well-born sociopathic issue focus think-tank conservative lawyers to thrive.

    It would be far more preferable for them to rule on a greater number of cases with far shorter orders, some of them so brief as to say “just no, this is a stupid result – see the precedent of X as to why we think this was stupid.”

    This model would forever change the dynamic, and would let the air out of the balloon of hubris that leads them to act the way they do and how they’re confirmed.

  54. 54.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Honus: I went skiing at Seven Springs once and have driven through the panhandle a bunch of times on I70.  Those are my only connections with WV.

  57. 57.

    germy

    Wisdom from our highly educated elites

    People telling themselves Trump can’t win again nationally may be wrong. But they also might not be.

    — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 24, 2022

     

    Thanks for that analysis. I know your time is valuable.

    — Bert Gilfoyle ?? ?? (@bert_gilfoyle) March 24, 2022

  59. 59.

    Roger Moore

    After seeing those Japanese baseball scenes, I only want to say “Shinjo kawaii!”

    Naturally, there’s a story here.  Back in 2002, he played for San Francisco in the same outfield as Barry Bonds.  I went to see a Dodgers/Giants game at Dodger Stadium and sat in the outfield seats.  Interestingly, in the same section there was a group of macho Dodger fans who wanted to boo all the Giants and a group of teenage Japanese girls who had obviously come to the game just to watch Shinjo.

    For the first part of the game, the Dodger fans had their fill shouting insults at Bonds, but when he refused to even acknowledge them, they decided it was time to start insulting Shinjo instead.  Since the macho Dodger fans had been drinking, their judgment was impaired, and one of them thought it would be a good idea to ask the Japanese teenagers for advice on how to insult Shinjo.  Thus I was treated to the surreal scene of a bunch of drunk Dodger fans shouting “Shinjo kawaii!” (Shinjo’s cute!) in a completely failed attempt to insult him.

  62. 62.

    Honus

    @Omnes Omnibus: I lived in Buena Vista Virginia when I was in law school at W&L.  Pronounced, well,”Bue Na” Vista; I always enjoyed calling California companies to order software in those days and giving them my address and waiting for the reaction  

     

    @Omnes Omnibus:

  63. 63.

    Ken

    @germy: It must be horrible to have to produce sixteen column inches of text three times a week. I don’t know if I could cope with the pressure.

  65. 65.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    It’s what happens when you let galaxy brain Ivy League assholes capture an institution. Every brief, every opinion has to be a tome with long explanation of principles, and bedrock “doctrines” apply in the shadows.

    It is the perfect environment for well-born sociopathic issue focus think-tank conservative lawyers to thrive.

    It would be far more preferable for them to rule on a greater number of cases with far shorter orders, some of them so brief as to say “just no, this is a stupid result – see the precedent of X as to why we think this was stupid.”

    This model would forever change the dynamic, and would let the air out of the balloon of hubris that leads them to act the way they do and how they’re confirmed.

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I am not a Cole expert, but I believe he did a year of two at Bethany before joining the Army.

    Is that sort of like the Kremlinologists of the 70s and 80s?

  66. 66.

    prostratedragon

    And let’s not overlook the obvious Illinois.  At least I haven’t heard the s in years.

  69. 69.

    Honus

    @Raven: no, and I’m so old they raced horses there in my day.  The Wheeling HS baseball field was on Wheeling Island near the racetrack and we rode a buses onto the Island to play baseball when I was high school and on those warm spring afternoons all the sporting girls were lounging on the porches and balconies of the infamously numerous brothels along the route and took great amusement at the hormone filled pubescent teenage boys ogling them out of the bus windows, smiling, waving and posing for us.

  71. 71.

    Captain C

    @Parfigliano:

    I can imagine Trump sitting with the troops and grabbing ALL the pizza.

    “Everyone else gets one slice!  I get an entire pie!  The best pie!  The bigliest pie!  Did you know I taught the Italians how to make pizza?  They all say, ‘sir’, they always call me sir, they say ‘sir, if it wasn’t for you, there would be no pizza!  Thank you for our livelihoods!'”

  72. 72.

    Roger Moore

    @Steeplejack:

    If something in the Midwest has a French name, it will be pronounced in the unfrenchiest way you can imagine.

    This is by no means restricted to the Midwest, as anyone from Smackover, AR or Versailles, KY can attest.

  74. 74.

    Kay

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    They just have a long-standing policy (and they do, it’s recorded) of thinking the Supreme Court is obligated to hear every case of that state-vs-state variety.

    Yeah, I’m aware. My own opinion is the threat to the 2020 election was bigger than what was portrayed, because a lot of people very much want to believe that institutions will hold when I think that was and is in doubt.
    Nothing has changed. None of the weaknesses that were there in 2020 have been remedied. It will happen again and the next time they will be better at it. We were lucky in 2020. We had some D governors and some D election officials, we had a genuinely alarmed media and corporate sector who didn’t want unrest and wouldn’t go along, and there were very few real election irregularities to exploit.
    It was luck. The stars didn’t align just right for a coup. We won’t get that lucky again.

  84. 84.

    Kay

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Actually, truthfully, something has changed since 2020 but unfortunately it goes in the wrong direction. They have issued terrible opinion after terrible opinion on election law since 2020 so now we have a better idea how far they will go to tilt the field towards Republicans- very, very far.

  85. 85.

    SFAW

    @Kay:

    Nothing has changed. None of the weaknesses that were there in 2020 have been remedied. It will happen again and the next time they will be better at it. We were lucky in 2020.

    You remind me — in the sense that you make me think of, not that you resemble — of the geniuses who, when the first election after Citizens United did not result in a Rethug landslide, they said “See? No big deal!”

    Unless they’re stopped, they’ll keep attempting a coup, or attempting to destroy democracy, until they “get it right.”

  87. 87.

    Honus

    @Raven:From your stories about your military service I think I’m about five years younger than you (67) but I grew up about thirty miles down the river from Wheeling, so I remember the horses from when I was a kid. Were they still racing horses in the 80s (or are you possibly referring to the other notable business establishments on Wheeling Island?)

  88. 88.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Delta Tau Delta (my fraternity

    Well THAT explains a lot. We had Delts at my school, and they were …

    .. actually, they were all (or most of them, at least) pretty good guys, and my frat had a pretty good relationship with DTD.

  90. 90.

    Raven

    @Honus: Ah, it’s the same place!

     

    On August 18, 1976, Wheeling Downs opened for greyhound racing after the racing complex had been revamped. According to the East Liverpool , Ohio newspaper, The Evening Review, “…the parent organization, Odgen Corp., has invested some $1.5 million into the mammoth reconstruction program, with the new results being what they believe to be one of the finest greyhound facilities in the dog racing sport. Along with the new quarter-mile track, there is a bright new Tote Board, and enlarged grandstand area…” The August 11, 1976 article goes on to state the new kennel buildings can house more than 700 greyhounds.

    Since 2002, Wheeling Downs has been known as the Wheeling Island Racetrack & Gaming Center. Visit the official website for more on the facility.

  92. 92.

    Kay

    @SFAW:

    It isn’t just me! This is the mainstream expert opinion. There are no mainstream election experts who disagree with this. It’s still happening. They’re grabbing these election cases and issuing broad, sweeping new rules.

  93. 93.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Are we even sure they would have ruled against TX if the court heard the case? I’m not assuming that, no matter what they said in the dissent. Thomas lives with a Q nut-bag and might be one himself. The Fed Soc-underwritten SCOTUS majority allowed TX to abridge women’s long-established rights while it gears up to remove protections for the rest of us egg carriers. My assumption is they’ll do anything they can to ensure minority wingnut rule.

  95. 95.

    germy

    The QAnon group embedded with the People’s Convoy in DC, made a manifesto video in front of a hybrid Confederate flag declaring the government abolished and demanding the arrest of “Joseph Biden, Kamala Harris, Fauci, and all the other criminals.” pic.twitter.com/UEOte5bdEB

    — PatriotTakes ?? (@patriottakes) March 25, 2022

    Just a reminder that several prominent Republican legislators met with and endorsed these psychos, and Ted Cruz rode around in their trucks. https://t.co/WHwjWouMQq

    — Roy Edroso (@edroso) March 26, 2022

  98. 98.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo expat)

    @SiubhanDuinne: My dad was also a Bethany grad. Class of ’58 I think.

    @Roger Moore: Made me laugh. I wonder if they ever figured it out. There was an Angels announcer last year that started yelling Suwatte kudasai when Ohtani hit a Homer. The first time it happened, I was certain I’d heard wrong and then it happened again. Suwatte kudasai means please sit down, which didn’t make sense when fans were standing up and shouting in excitement. Some things definitely get lost in translation!

  99. 99.

    Raven

    @germy: My former tenant’s dad died Monday and, while I didn’t know him well, I was considering going to the funeral today. I looked at the video tribute to the man and there was a picture of him, Cruz and Jody Hice. I just can’t.

  101. 101.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’m not sure of anything. If anyone says they are “sure” they haven’t followed any election law since 2020. They’re radical as fuck. They’re grabbing cases they don’t have to take right now.

    This was outrageous. It was also last week:

    In a per curiam (unsigned) opinion on the shadow docket, over the dissent of Justices Kagan and Sotomayor, the Supreme Court has rejected a redistricting plan that a divided Wisconsin Supreme Court had adopted for drawing state assembly and senate districts. I am on my way to teach and so I have time for just a brief analysis here, but the way this case was handled is quite bizarre and is another signal of a conservative supermajority of the Supreme Court showing increasing hostility to section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

  103. 103.

    Honus

    @Raven: Yes, the same place.  That history is pretty sanitized.  Wheeling Downs was owned for years by the notorious Big Bill Lias, the 300lb mobster that ran Wheeling’s prostitution and gambling for decades. Famous for car bombing his rival Paul Hankish and blowing off his legs but not killing him.   The IRS nailed Lias and seized Wheeling Downs in late 60s.

  104. 104.

    Roger Moore

    @Honus:

    I’m actually surprised that the people in the part of Colorado where I grew up managed to get Cache la Poudre and La Porte halfway OK. It’s not the French pronunciation by any means, but at least it’s close enough you know what French they’re trying to say.

  105. 105.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I think there is a kind of veneration of these institutions that comes from a good place. Sure there’s fancy lawyers who are asskissers advancing their careers but there’s also a larger group of people who just want to believe that it isn’t corrupted because they value it. I just don’t think we can afford that kind of sentimentality and denial anymore. Look at the cases. They’re telling us in no uncertain terms that they don’t recognize any limits. It doesn’t mean you have to collapse in tears and give up but in my view you have to look at it for what it is and recognize that it’s a real threat.

  107. 107.

    Honus

    @Raven: Larry was 70 when he died in 2020. He was an MD in Appamattox for years, and then went to law school with me at W&L in 1995.  He was a great med mal lawyer in texas for few years, and then returned to Appamattox to resume his medical practice, and take care of the people there. A wonderful guy.

  108. 108.

    Cameron

    Too many things in this world remind me of “Animal House,” but I swear that my immediate thought after reading that “Nothing is happening” headline was of Kevin Bacon shouting, “Keep calm!  All is well!”

  109. 109.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Steeplejack: My European born wife and I have this argument all the time. There are a lot of French names around here due to the fact they were the earliest (white) explorers/settlers. Don’t ask where the Courtois Creek is, ask how to find the Coat-away Crick. Fourche au Renault? Nope, the Four-Shana. Etc etc etc.

  110. 110.

    oldgold

    I would like to ask the textualists on the Supreme Court where in the text of the Constitution they find the power the Supreme Court granted itself in Marbury v Madison. The very power that makes possible this textualist nonsense.

  111. 111.

    germy

    MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The push by Republicans to conduct partisan ballot reviews similar to the one that unfolded last year in Arizona has spread beyond the battleground states where former President Donald Trump disputed his loss, an effort that has had mixed legislative success but has sown doubts about whether future elections can be trusted.

    While most of the bills are unlikely to become law, the debates and public hearings in GOP-controlled state legislative chambers have added fuel to the false claims that widespread fraud cost Trump reelection in 2020.

    “They’re really tearing down democracy, and they don’t think they are,” said Scott McDonell, the election clerk in Dane County, Wisconsin, home to the state capital.

  112. 112.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I think some of the reluctance to really look at it also comes from another, different “good place”. People want to fix things. They want a plan. This can’t be fixed – it would be really hard to fix even with a super majority of electeds who wanted to fix it (because it’s layered and complicated) and we only have a bare majority of electeds who want to fix it. There were some plans- there was the US House democracy bill and there’s a really narrow Senate fix to the electoral count act which IMO is fighting the last war and won’t help, but even those aren’t going anywhere.

    We’ll know more after 2022. Let’s see what they do with a close senate race.

  113. 113.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Raven: ​They’re fine, fat and sassy. My granddaughter is the happiest baby I’ve ever met, all smiles and laughter all the time. She even likes her PawPaw. Apparently more than MawMaw. About damn time I had a granddaughter who liked me. Too bad it’s just a phase she will grow out of.

  114. 114.

    Gin & Tonic

    If anyone was gullible enough to have believed the breathless “news” yesterday that the Russians were changing their plans and re-focusing on Donbas, there are now air strikes just outside of Lviv.

    They lie about everything at all times.

  115. 115.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    What MIGHT help is more information to the public. Maybe they won’t give a shit and 40% of them are unreachable and will deny everything, but 5% might become alarmed if Mrs. Thomas is forced to reveal more and we find out how wide this is and 5% (additional) is all we really need.

    How many electeds were involved? Maybe she was just texting Meadows! That seems unlikely to me since she’s incredibly well connected and powerful on the Right but maybe it’s true. But they have to find out. Because it’s going to happen again and it won’t have exactly the same posture it had in 2020.

  117. 117.

    Kay

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I follow it with very little background knowlege and even I recognize I’m in a kind of “good news!” bubble.

    You want them to win right? Want the suffering to stop. So you grab it. I have to keep tamping it down.

  118. 118.

    Cameron

    @Gin & Tonic: I’m shocked!  Shocked, I tell you!  At this point the only people believing the peace talk are people who are invested in believing it.  Shoot, I don’t believe much of anything our own government says, and I still wouldn’t believe whatever line is coming out of Russia.

  119. 119.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @MomSense: I’m sure that Neighborhood Fiber Company will come up with something (Black-owned yarn company out of Baltimore).  Hmm, I should probably be on the lookout for KBJ-inspired yarn when I go to Maryland Sheep and Wool festival in May.

  121. 121.

    Kay

    @Kayla Rudbek:

    I saw a clip of the knitting/crochet exchange and I was so glad she had a kind of pleasant interlude in the midst of all that ugliness. She’s one of those people who smiles with her entire face :)

  122. 122.

    Debg

    @tom: First thing I thought of too. Biden just makes it seem so natural and easy–like he actually enjoys being there and seeing these troops.

  127. 127.

    NotMax

    Haven’t seen a lot of recommendations for Women’s History Month on B-J this March. Before it wends its way for 2022 into the mists of time, a shout-out to The Outrageous Sophie Tucker, streaming free at the moment on Tubi. Chutzpahrific respite from the lowering clouds scudding ‘cross the skies of the news.

  128. 128.

    Skepticat

    @Roger Moore: This is by no means restricted to the Midwest, as anyone from Smackover, AR or Versailles, KY can attest.

    As can Calais, Maine; Berlin, New Hampshire; and numerous others.

  130. 130.

    NotMax

    Contradictory? You betcha. (Would also lay down folding money this is not why Manafort was headed there.)

    The Middle East is the most water-scarce region in the world, but participants at an upcoming climate summit in Dubai will be ensconced in a resort with one of the world’s largest water parks, complete with artificial lagoons, encounters with dolphins and a mesmerizing aquarium with sharks, sting rays and schools of fish.

    It’s a striking backdrop for a climate summit aimed at tackling lack of water and other pressing issues facing the region due in part to warming global temperatures from the very fossil fuels produced by Gulf Arab states and others. The Arabian Peninsula, where Dubai sits, is grappling with menacing sand storms, rising temperatures and dangerous humidity levels. Source

    Virtually simultaneously,

    An ice shelf the size of New York City has collapsed in East Antarctica, an area long thought to be stable and not hit much by climate change, concerned scientists said Friday.

    The collapse, captured by satellite images, marked the first time in human history that the frigid region had an ice shelf collapse. It happened at the beginning of a freakish warm spell last week when temperatures soared more than 70 degrees (40 Celsius) warmer than normal in some spots of East Antarctica. Satellite photos show the area had been shrinking rapidly the last couple of years, and now scientists wonder if they have been overestimating East Antarctica’s stability and resistance to global warming that has been melting ice rapidly on the smaller western side and the vulnerable peninsula.

    The ice shelf, about 460 square miles wide (1200 square kilometers) holding in the Conger and Glenzer glaciers from the warmer water, collapsed between March 14 and 16, said ice scientist Catherine Walker of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. She said scientists have never seen this happen in this part of the continent, making it worrisome. Source

  131. 131.

    J R in WV

    @SFAW: ​

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    so he’s not technically a Bethany alum, but still.

    No big deal, neither is Cole. Or are you under the impression John actually graduated?

    ETA: Yes, of course I’m kidding. Unfortunately, I too-often yield to the temptation of attempting a cheap joke.

    Somehow I was sure J G Cole was a graduate of WVU, over in Morgantown, where he is associated as some sort of faculty person. Could be wrong…

    Wife and all my family members are WVU graduates, I however, due to my geographic location, attended Marshall U and graduated with my BS CS in ’84 — my third college enrollment, using the GI Bill for most of my expenses.

    Schools are all about “you get out of it what you put into it.” We have discussed Hahvad and Yale grads who are bone stupid and uneducated for example!

  132. 132.

    Another Scott

    Someone pointed out that people appearing around Biden were scrutinised by Secret Service. However, those appearing around Putin *are* Secret Service. On all events Putin attends, be it visiting a church or a fishery, we see exactly the same faces around. They're all FSO officers pic.twitter.com/V1j6ib6bww

    — Kamil Galeev (@kamilkazani) March 26, 2022

    This is my shocked, shocked face.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  133. 133.

    Raven

    @Honus: Aw damn, I’m sure her brother knew him. She left after high school and didn’t go back (to live). Her brother took over the family building business after her pop died and stayed.

  137. 137.

    Anyway

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Yeah so many critical items demanding POTUS’ attention! Hope he gets some down-time. Also it’s time to retire those damn airplane stairs for prominent public people.

  139. 139.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: Named for Claudius Crozet, who served as an engineer in Napoleon’s armies. Crozet migrated to Virginia and in the 1850’s supervised construction of a railroad tunnel through the Blue Ridge a few miles west of the town named after him. In preparation for the impending war, the U.S. helped the C&O Railroad complete a replacement tunnel in 1941.

    The old tunnel has been reopened for walking, and a couple of my friends hiked it last Tuesday.

  140. 140.

    Brachiator

    @Anyway:

    Yeah so many critical items demanding POTUS’ attention! Hope he gets some down-time. Also it’s time to retire those damn airplane stairs for prominent public people.

    I had not thought of it before, but you’re right. We really don’t need the image of a president going down the stairs and stepping onto foreign soil.

    Roll up into a gate, get settled and then do whatever scheduled events are in order.

  141. 141.

    germy

    Before 2020, Jennifer Sey was an executive at Levi Strauss & Company and a top candidate to be the company’s next leader. Two years later, she was out of a job. Her advocacy for school reopenings during the pandemic made her a pariah at work, she said. https://t.co/1JaB2RIAq7 pic.twitter.com/kFnrIVi48f

    — The New York Times (@nytimes) March 25, 2022

    there has never been a story in the times about a single mom who lost her minimum wage job because her car broke down or her boss sexually assaulted her or her supervisor was racist. they only care about whining white people who are already rich and comfy https://t.co/8lY3JVN5sB

    — debdrens (@debdrens) March 25, 2022

  142. 142.

    dnfree

    @Steeplejack: pretty much any foreign name.  Take Cairo, Illinois, pronounced like the syrup.

    I often wonder if the many Native American place names and rivers are pronounced correctly.

  143. 143.

    NotMax

    @Anyway

    Using the stairs allows for the plane to be parked a safe distance well away from main structures, for the limos to be driven right onto the tarmac, and for entire sections of the airport not to be shut down for security purposes (and to accommodate the media gaggle).

  145. 145.

    Brachiator

    @dnfree:

    pretty much any foreign name.

    This is the United States. When you get down to it, pretty much every name is a foreign name.

    ETA: And let’s give a tip of the hat to the Dutch. I recall a story about some animal rights sensitive people complaining about the name Fishkill, New York.

    From the Dutch for “fish stream.”

  146. 146.

    Another Scott

    @dnfree: Heh.  Look at “Potomac” River:

    The following have been listed as variant names of the Potomac River throughout its history by the Geographic Names Information System. The Board on Geographic Names officially decided upon Potomac as its spelling in 1931.

    :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    “Who spent part of his childhood outside DeKalb County, GA, and now lives a few miles south of Wythe Street…”

  152. 152.

    Kalakal

    @Brachiator: The Dutch have their own test.

    The town of Scheveningen is basically impossible for a non local to pronounce correctly. I lived in the Netherlands on and off for 5 years, my friends used to love hearing me get it wrong.

  154. 154.

    MomSense

    @Debg:

    OH MY!  I’m obsessed with the ladybug, but I am not a spinner.  I’ve only tried a few times and I don’t think I have a talent for it.  I do love to watch people spin. Maybe someday.

  155. 155.

    zhena gogolia

    @Gin & Tonic: OMG, I used to go to a roadhouse there with my first husband on the way to visiting his mother. We would have “ironic” really bad meals looking out on Lake Webster.

  156. 156.

    Brachiator

    @NotMax:

    Using the stairs allows for the plane to be parked a safe distance well away from main structures, for the limos to be driven right onto the tarmac, and for entire sections of the airport not to be shut down for security purposes (and to accommodate the media gaggle).

    Makes sense I guess. Still, there should be a better way. Couldn’t they have a big ass hatch and ramp at the back of the plane and have POTUS and crew blast out of the plane already in the presidential limo, Fast and Furious style?

  158. 158.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Brachiator: I have it on semi-reliable authority that Filthadelphians ca. 1970 pronounced Schuykill “Sure Kill” ​and that when regattas were held on that river where it ran through the city, participants were issued cyanide pills for use in case they fell overboard… :^p

  159. 159.

    NotMax

    @Kalakal

    Not to mention Dutch place names which begin with a diacritical apostrophe.

    Trivia:

    Not Dutch but notation is made of the only village in Great Britain which ends with punctuation: Westward Ho!

  160. 160.

    Roger Moore

    @dnfree:

    I often wonder if the many Native American place names and rivers are pronounced correctly.

    I’m pretty sure the ones here in Southern California are all pronounced wrong.  The “nga” ending (on places like Tujunga and Cucamonga) does not come naturally to the English-speaking tongue.  Not to mention that many of the “Native” names here are actually English versions of the Spanish transliterations of the Native names.

    More generally, look at how many Native groups aren’t even called by their preferred name for themselves!  Many of the names we frequently use are the insulting names their traditional enemies called them.

  164. 164.

    Roger Moore

    @Brachiator:

    I think the ceremony is part of the point.  We might wish it otherwise, but everywhere the President goes is an event, and all of his public appearances are stage managed to some extent.  The whole thing with the President coming down the stairs has been honed over decades of practice to be an effective event.  They aren’t going to change it lightly.

  165. 165.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Raven: ​I slept right thru the storms, which considering my options for sheltering from a tornado in NOLA are nada and nothing at all, it was probably my best option.

  166. 166.

    Spanky

    @Roger Moore:

    The whole thing with the President coming down the stairs has been honed over decades of practice to be an effective event.

    Then along came Gerald Ford.

  167. 167.

    Miss Bianca

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Gratiot!

    I remember my father telling me a story of the first time he arrived in Detroit and had to take a taxi to an address on Gratiot. Which, he told me, he pronounced in the French way, only to have the cab driver look at him in disbelief. “Grah-ci-io? Oh, you mean GRA-SHUT!”

    ETA: but not just French names! I had a friend who lived near Freud, pronounced Frood.

  168. 168.

    Ruckus

    @Debg:

    Joe Biden does seem to actually like real humans. Beings that pretend to be humans and suck at pretend, you can imagine who, not so much.

  169. 169.

    Kalakal

    @NotMax: Oh yeah, theres a load of ‘t or ‘s names like ‘s- Hertogenbosch 

    The Dutch also do particularly evil things with the letter g

  170. 170.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore:

    I think the ceremony is part of the point. We might wish it otherwise, but everywhere the President goes is an event, and all of his public appearances are stage managed to some extent.

    Absolutely. This is why I mentioned the image of the president stepping onto foreign soil.

    But the president traveling domestically, visiting cities for fund raisers, for example, used to be more of an event. Now arrivals are barely covered and, depending on how much a city loves a sitting president, you might hear complaints and gnashing of teeth over streets tied up because of presidential motorcades.

    The whole thing with the President coming down the stairs has been honed over decades of practice to be an effective event. They aren’t going to change it lightly.

    But some of this is also inertia. We do an event this way because we have always done it this way.

    This morning I watched a clip of President Joe hanging out with American troops, eating pizza, taking selfies. This was more cool than the more pompous displays of ceremony.

  171. 171.

    Ken

    @Roger Moore: Not to mention that many of the “Native” names here are actually English versions of the Spanish transliterations of the Native names.

    A whole lot of originally-Nahuatl Mexican place names like Xochimilco became a lot easier for me when I learned that in 16th-century Spanish, “X” was used for the /sh/ sound.

  172. 172.

    WaterGirl

    @Gin & Tonic: I hope that no one in any position of power took them seriously for even half a second.

    Do you believe Turkey when they say that President Zelenskyy said he is willing to agree not to apply to NATO?????

    I will back whatever Zelenskyy and Ukraine want, it’s their country, but it seems impossible that he would say that.

  175. 175.

    Another Scott

    @WaterGirl: AFAIK, Zelenskyy’s terms haven’t changed: 1) Full ceasefire; 2) Full withdrawal of Russian troops; 3) Solid security guarantees.

    He’s willing to talk about anything else beyond that, with any proposed agreement subject to approval by a vote of the Ukrainian people.

    Corrections welcome.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  176. 176.

    Amir Khalid

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Oddly enough, I know how to pronounce Quonochontaug; I saw the episode of The X-Files which featured the Mulder family’s summer home in that town.

  183. 183.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @MomSense: yes.

    @WaterGirl: to clarify what MomSense said above, it’s often used for a skein of yarn with more than one color dyed onto the yarn.  For instance, one of the shawls I’ve been working on has sections where the yarn has two colors (e.g. faded teal and pink) so you can’t say that the skein is dyed one particular color. So the yarn company/individual dyer will call it a colorway instead of a color. And the small/indie yarn dyers will often go with themed colorway sets, so for instance picking characters/themes out of Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, inspiring real people, etc.

  184. 184.

    WaterGirl

    @Kayla Rudbek: So if someone went with the blue and yellow colors of Ukraine, both in the same skein of yarn, that would be a colorway?

    Probably not half that is all yellow and then the other half all blue, but with the colors changing every so often?

  187. 187.

    WaterGirl

    @Kayla Rudbek: Doesn’t that only work if you knit a certain sized something, and if you knit neither tighter nor looser than average?

    Or is there some magical / mysterious thing at work that makes it line up properly?

  189. 189.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @WaterGirl: you are indeed correct that it only works to make the nice neat stripes if you get x number of stitches per inch (the dyers will calculate out what they want for x).  So people come up with other ways to use it than for socks (hats, gloves, sleeves on sweaters, baby clothes, knitting shawls in blocks)

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