The Build Back Better Regional Challenge, a signature program of the American Rescue Plan that invests in underserved communities, will put people who have been left behind in positions to lead. pic.twitter.com/BuYXqurac8
— President Biden (@POTUS) September 2, 2022
American manufacturing is roaring back:
-Corning: $42.5 billion on fiber optics
-LG/Honda: $4.4 billion on EV batteries
-Micron: $40 billion on chips
-Qualcomm: $4.2 billion on chips
-Intel: $100 billion on chipsRepublicans use jobs as a talking point. Democrats create them.
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) August 30, 2022
Pretty incredible stats:
-5.8 million jobs have added over the past year
-Employment is now 240,000 higher than pre-pandemic
-Men have fully recovered all job losses from pandemic.
(Women are close, but still ~264,000 off)-Manufacturing added 461,000 jobs in past year
— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) September 2, 2022
There's a bit of a goldilocks feel to this latest report.
It's not too cold, and with payrolls growth averaging +378k per month(!), it puts an end to any talk the U.S. economy is in recession.
It's not too hot, with a sharp rise in participation, and more sustainable job growth
— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) September 2, 2022
Thank you, Mr. President. https://t.co/c5pBv2QsnZ
— Leonid Baezhnev 🔥 (@rev_avocado) September 5, 2022
BREAKING: President Biden is asking Congress for $13.7 billion for Ukraine as U.S. aid to the war-torn country is running out. It’s part of a $47.1 billion emergency spending request that includes money for the COVID-19 response and the monkeypox outbreak. https://t.co/1lSyQkFx2K
— The Associated Press (@AP) September 2, 2022
If you think it's "unthinkable' Dems can't gain seats in the midterm, maybe think harder.
In 2002, the GOP gained seats in the House and Senate. Why? A seminal event put wind in their sails: 9-11.
20 years later, another seminal event favors Dems: the overturning of Roe.
— Greg Pinelo (@gregpinelo) August 28, 2022
What do you call it when independents start swinging toward a party within 90 days of Election Day https://t.co/a5EsTCeG7N
— chatham harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison) August 27, 2022
Young people, especially *young women*, organizing & getting to the polls, may yet save this country. I've witnessed it firsthand & it's like a glass of cool water in a desert. The kids are very alright. https://t.co/0aa0LrUGmj
— chatham harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison) August 27, 2022
QTing this to make sure everyone sees it in context, because it’s an excellent observation https://t.co/fjYjtBEqDq
— counterfax???? (@counterfax) August 28, 2022
While the quoted tweet contains very good new, it is absolutely not an excuse to slack off or relax.
It is, if anything, encouragement to work harder, to solidify these gains and run up the score on the bastards. https://t.co/20uQe1pUj0— soonergrunt ???? A Capybara Appreciation Account (@soonergrunt) August 24, 2022
OzarkHillbilly
No sleep again. Blech.
Brachiator
@OzarkHillbilly:
I know the feeling. Can’t sleep and it’s already warm and muggy.
Baud
I would love to see the GOP face consequences for once.
ETA: I Iook forward to the day when Republicans have to tell their fundie base that they have to turn the page on the abortion issue.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: That sucks.
Central Planning
Crappy sleep here too. Have only been in my regular bed once in the past 8 days
Brachiator
OT. Odd news story from Chile. I don’t really think that this a rejection of liberal or progressive values, but it is damned cautionary. From BBC News
Baud
@Brachiator:
I don’t know anything about Chile, but that constitution didn’t sound communist.
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly: Same here. Going to *try* to stay up all day so that I can get on a non-vampire sleep schedule.
Geminid
@Brachiator: If that constitution got rejected by 62% of the voters, I have to wonder who drew it up. Perhaps idealists who were insufficiently pragmatic.
JPL
This is not the place to complain about waking up at three. At least I was able to get some sleep.
Baud
@Baud:
According to this Reuters article, the main problems were pension reform and treatment of indigenous people.
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/chileans-head-polls-decide-progressive-new-constitution-2022-09-04/
ETA. The NYT has a summary of what was in it.
In a single ballot, Chileans will decide whether they want legal abortion; universal public health care; gender parity in government; empowered labor unions; greater autonomy for Indigenous groups; rights for animals and nature; and constitutional rights to housing, education, retirement benefits, internet access, clean air, water, sanitation and care “from birth to death.”
Brachiator
@Baud:
Another article on the rejected constitution in Chile.
The proposals don’t sound communist to me, either.
One thing to note. You see this in Chile, Bolivia and to some degree in Venezuela. A strong pushback against indigenous rights, and a reluctance to upset the economic interests of a narrow sliver of elites.
Baud
@Brachiator:
Mandatory voting and 62% rejection makes me think this was more about the indigenous than protecting the 1%.
eclare
@Brachiator: Where are you in CA?
Baud
@Brachiator:
I don’t know the details, obviously, but one thing that struck me is that a flash cut even to good economic policies is often very disruptive to people’s lives and the economy. I can certainly see people getting overwhelmed by the scope of the changes that the new constitution would have brought.
Brachiator
@Baud:
From the other BBC article. The Chilean version of “De-fund the police. ”
“Concern” about the free market in a country where the benefits of the economy are very unevenly distributed.
And as is usual these days, there was a lot of disinformation about what the new constitution would have accomplished.
germy shoemangler
I was pleased to see a TV commercial last night that explained what Biden’s bill will mean for the average citizen. Lower energy costs, cheaper insulin for seniors, etc.
I hope to see more of these commercials in prime time.
Brachiator
@eclare:
San Gabriel Valley area, Southern California.
eclare
@Brachiator: Ugh. The temps in Southern CA have been awful.
OzarkHillbilly
Benton Park bike race today, if the rains hold off I would guess.
My son always grills a meat and there is a pot luck table to graze on. When in doubt, I bake. I made 2 Apple Praline loaves, one with pecans, one without for my nut allergic granddaughter. Also made some Ka’ak Bil Simsim, a Palestinian bread I really like.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Yum!
OzarkHillbilly
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Biden should have flown in a jet to an aircraft carrier.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: But, but, but
Within a year, CNN will become irrelevant.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: Hope the weather holds for you.
I’m having my first cataract surgery bright and early tomorrow. At least the prep for this is only eye drops. That beats colonoscopy prep by a mile.
OzarkHillbilly
I’ve never been a WaPo reader so I know Milbank in only the most tangential way. I might pick this one up.
satby
@Geminid: It makes young idealists nuts, but most humans resist change, especially big changes. All those goals sound laudable, but all at once probably would be unsettling even to people who support most of them. The incremental changes are way slower than idealists (or ideologues) want but they tend to stick.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I know it’s “minor,” but no surgery is minor. Good luck with it.
eclare
@JPL: It already is in this household. Before Stelter and Harwood were fired, I didn’t watch any shows, but I sometimes clicked the website. No more.
And waking up at three am sucks too.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Good luck. Hopefully the wisdom of BJ will be even clearer oncw you’re done.
Baud
@JPL:
I wonder how msnbc will take advantage of this opportunity.
eclare
@Dorothy A. Winsor: All of my relatives have had very good results. Good luck!
satby
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Good luck! People really rave about how much better they see after it’s all healed. It always surprises me when I acuity test someone in their 80s who sees better after their cataract surgery than most 40 year olds.
satby
@eclare: The temps have been awful almost everywhere in California it looks like. Not good for fire season.
JPL
@Baud: NBC will probably expand their streaming service. I can see Berman, Scioutto, or Acosta making the change. Jim Harwood should replace Chuck Todd. Send Todd to CNN.
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: Minor surgery is that performed on someone else.
Geminid
@satby: Many of these types of reforms are normally achieved through legislative action. I can see why the drafters might want to accomplish them through what is essentially a plebiscite. Now they may have to achieve them the old fashioned way, through legislation.
Evidently, President Boric is adapting to this setback by revamping his cabinet. Perhaps he sees that a more pragmatic course is needed.
MattF
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Good luck. I’ve had a bunch of eye surgeries, all successful. Vision in the treated eye was messed up for 12 to 24 hours after, full recovery took about a week. There’s also some vision disturbance in the time between surgeries when your brain is trying to figure out how to merge discordant signals from two differing eyes.
Brachiator
It’s official in the UK. In Liz they Truss.
Sir Graham Brady has given some numbers on the margin of Liz Truss’ victory over Rishi Sunak.
He says Truss won 81,326 votes compared to Sunak’s share of 60,399 votes.
Brady adds there was a turnout of 82.6%
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: Hmmm… I always thought minor surgery was that performed on me.
Baud
@JPL:
That would be a major upgrade.
eclare
@Brachiator: And number ten cat carries on…
OzarkHillbilly
@Brachiator: Heatwave in North America threatens to break global September temperature record
Those Chinese have gone way overboard with this global warming hoax.
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly: Well they do keep sending us their bad air.
OzarkHillbilly
More climate change madness: US flood maps outdated thanks to climate change, Fema director says
OzarkHillbilly
@eclare: I fart in their general direction!
kalakal
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I assume this is the lens replacement. I had it done about 10 years ago, best thing I ever did. After 40 years of terrible myopia I’ve got 20:20 vision.
It didn’t hurt, was uncomfortable for a day or so after. Make sure you have dark sunglasses.
Believe me, you’re going to love the afterwards.
Ps make sure you keep up the eyedrop schedule
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly: Hahaha…
Suzanne
I didn’t sleep great, either. I think we’re going to skip the parade. It’s raining and is forecast to do so all day. Spawn the Younger has a cough that started yesterday. And I don’t want to leave the doggo alone. She fell trying to get up off the tile floor yesterday.
frosty
@Dorothy A. Winsor: You’ll get to wear an eyepatch! Don’t forget to say “Arrhhh, matey!” a lot!
lowtechcyclist
I think this was really big.
People have been talking about this for years, how you’d tell people what the GOP was doing, and what it said it wanted to do, and they wouldn’t believe you, they wouldn’t believe the Republicans could possibly be that bad, no way, it didn’t make any sense.
And besides, it wasn’t like there was much media confirmation of the GOP’s extremism: they always way underplayed it, which had a lot to do with how the GOP has continued to be politically viable even as they got more extreme. People who didn’t want to vote Dem weren’t disabused of their belief that the GOP was a conservative but reasonable political party.
Dobbs has ripped the cover off of all that. Especially as GOP-controlled states take turns outdoing each other in passing extreme anti-abortion legislation, and the consequences of that legislation in the lives of individual women get reported.
People can now see that yes, they’re fucking maniacs. And of course, everything else dovetails into that: the insurrection, TFG’s promise to pardon the insurrectionists, the continued threats of violence by the right (including by U.S. Senators as well as TFG) every time they don’t get their way in everything from a school board meeting on up, you name it. And where are the sane Republicans who are condemning this rising tide of violence and threats of violence? Damned if I know, I sure haven’t heard anyone on the right speak out against it. (Maybe Cheney or Kinzinger has, but they’ve all but been drummed out of the party, so they don’t count.)
So what this election is about is: are you on the side of the maniacs, or do you want sanity? Do women own their own bodies, or not? Do you want political issues to be settled by votes, or by AR-15s? Do gay and trans persons have equality under the law, or are they going to be treated as ‘groomers’ and unfit to be around children, just for being open about who and what they are? And the kids themselves – are we going to be affirming when they realize they’re not cis and het, or are we going to persecute them for it?
We’re on the right side of all this shit, and they’re on the wrong side of it. Morally, and with any luck, electorally as well.
eclare
@lowtechcyclist: Democrats also need to pound on Rick Scott’s plans for SS and Medicare. This.Is.What.They.Will.Do.
Scout211
Ugh. Just another complaint about the heat here in California. . . I just checked the forecast for my area. It’s been revised. Today is now predicted to be 115 and tomorrow 116. Only about 20 degrees above normal. And the rest of the week: 108, 112, 111. Ugh.
lowtechcyclist
@OzarkHillbilly:
I feel your pain. I finally got two decent nights in a row (decent = 6+ hours, and anything over 7 is a fucking miracle anymore), so I’m doing OK today, but a couple days ago, I was wondering if I was even going to be able to function during the day.
Are you able to nap during the day at all? Lately I’ve been crashing for 30-45 minutes of my lunch hour, and that’s been a life-saver.
eclare
@Scout211: That is painful to see.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone😊😊😊
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: Agreed. I think a lot of people don’t want to pay taxes and they have vague resentment at other people (racial resentment, sure, but also just inchoate resentment) who they consider to be lazy. And the GOP is the perfect vehicle for the person who doesn’t think a lot but doesn’t want to pay taxes and has a lot of resentment.
And the anti-abortion stuff and the repeal-Obamacare and Medicare and Social Security stuff all felt like the rantings of a crazy uncle who talks a lot of shit but never actually does anything. And now they’re actually doing it and that was supposed to remain in the realm of pipe dream.
Side note: who needs colonoscopy prep when there’s coffee?
rikyrah
@Scout211:
😪😪😪😪
Benw
@Dorothy A. Winsor: hope it goes well for you!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Comment eaten. Moderated or trashed?
kalakal
@kalakal: Meant to add. The only side effect is some haloing on point light sources. My night vision is fine but things like car headlights look a bit weird at first, you get used to it
Lapassionara
@eclare: Ditto. Getting rid of Social Security and Medicare has been the right wing goal for decades. Now that they have made that clear, it should be said at every opportunity.
lowtechcyclist
@OzarkHillbilly:
Used to subscribe to the dead-trees WaPo until parenthood (2009), at which point the papers started piling up way faster than I could read them.
Back then, he was just as bothsidesy as most of them are, but obviously he’s had some sort of awakening since then.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I appreciate all the good wishes. I had lasik eye surgery 25 years ago, and apparently that complicates the cataract surgery. I will still have to wear reading glasses, but I like my glasses. They cover up the bags under my eyes.
@Suzanne:
As I sit here drinking coffee, I’m not sure how to read this!
OzarkHillbilly
@lowtechcyclist: I usually take a nap at some point, rarely for more than 45 mins or so. Friday and Saturday nights I slept fairly well (5 or 6 hrs) and then last night happened. No apparent rhyme or reason.
JPL
@Scout211: Stay hydrated!
la caterina
@rikyrah: Good Morning, Rikyrah! I love seeing your greeting every morning.
kalakal
@lowtechcyclist: Absolutely. No amount of bothsiderism and ‘balance’ by the FTFNYT and the rest of the msm can cover what rabid insanity that is the GQP now from the politically semi engaged. They’re letting their freak flag fly and I believe they’re going to repel a lot more people than they attract
kalakal
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
It does, my wife had the same, surgery still went fine and she had a splendid outcome
Gin & Tonic
Suicide bombing at the russian embassy in Kabul.
Scout211
@Dorothy A. Winsor: You are correct. I had LASIK and it does make for a less than perfect IOL replacement with cataract surgery. They do now have a way to correct astigmatism with cataract surgery but not irregular astigmatism, which those of us with LASIK tend to have.
I had cataract surgery in 2020 and still wear blended bifocal glasses now. But the cloudy vision is gone and I don’t mind still wearing glasses either. It’s still worth getting the cataracts removed.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@kalakal: When I talk to my neighbors, I realize how little normies know about actions politicians take or advocate.
artem1s
Happy #Twertzog Day
Werner Herzog’s unpaid internet stooge. #Twertzog: A tweet that is gnomic, erudite, existential and spoken with a Bavarian accent. September 5 is #Twertzog Day.
Josie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Best wishes for your eye surgery. I had it about 15 years ago and it was a breeze. Did one eye and a week later did the other one. I sang in the church choir a few days after the first one, and it was kind of strange having one good eye and one not so good. The only downside was having to make a chart to keep up with all the eyedrops and the different times to use them.
lowtechcyclist
@eclare:
Absolutely.
@Suzanne:
You’re right – as long as they weren’t actually doing it, people could wave it off like it didn’t really matter. Now they can’t do that anymore.
germy shoemangler
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: I’ve had this theory for a while that a lot of the “people don’t want to work” resentment comes from people’s personal experience with their own most useless old friends or family members. There are people who just can’t get it together for whatever reason (maybe actually for hard-to-crack mental-health reasons), and can’t or won’t produce even though they came into the world with the same advantages as successful people. If you came from a middle-class background, you likely have social contact with some of these people, but not with underpaid poor people who are busting their asses at three jobs to stay afloat. That skews your concept of where poverty comes from.
MattF
@artem1s: Warning— #Twertzog is a rabbit-hole.
Ohio Mom
@Dorothy A. Winsor: My late aunt called cataract surgery her favorite surgery. I know I enjoyed mine. It’s like being inside a lava lamp. Lots of swirling colors, very trippy.
She also gave DEXA scans high marks for being the easiest medical test.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
Never thought about it like that. Thanks for the insight.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ohio Mom: I’ve had a dexa scan, and your aunt is right. You just lie there. You don’t even have to take your clothes off.
My doc just told me to get another dexa because I think I’m shrinking. I scheduled it for November. I can’t deal with anything else until I get both my eyes done.
zhena gogolia
Classes start today. I am not feeling physically up to it, but I guess I have no choice.
I wish the university had made masking the default, instead of leaving it up to us to enforce. Now I feel like the bad guy. Oh well. If somebody doesn’t want to take my class because I’m asking them to mask, I guess I don’t want that person anyway.
eclare
@germy shoemangler: Whoa! I never heard that and judging by comments a lot of people didn’t. I wondered what happened to him, he was so good in Gods and Monsters. Never saw The Mummy movies, so I can’t comment on those.
hedgehog mobile
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Fingers crossed!
Thought of you this weekend. On my way home from Worldcon, which was wonderful. Caught up with friends, bought too many books, ate and drink too much. It was grand!
Matt McIrvin
(To my previous comment, I’d add: it could be introspection too. I personally had a lot of trouble maintaining high productivity through about the second year of the COVID pandemic which coincided with my recovery from major surgery, and there were times when the “I’m beat, just don’t want to work” feelings were overwhelming. To someone who doesn’t think about wider social phenomena very much it might just be easy to assume that poor people are people who feel that way all the time, and just need a kick in the butt.)
germy shoemangler
germy shoemangler
eclare
@germy shoemangler: Diverse casting choices certainly did not hurt Bridgerton, a huge hit for Netflix.
Ohio Mom
@Matt McIrvin: Yes. You articulated something that has long been a foggy and half-formed glob in my head — and I can list all the people in my circles who fit into the groups you describe. Will be using you formulation going forward.
eclare
@Ohio Mom: How was the ice cream graduation party?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@hedgehog mobile: Until the surgery got scheduled, a friend and I were going to go to World Con together! After all, I live in the Chicago suburbs. I’m so sorry I missed it. Oh well.
ETA: What books did you buy
ETA again: The next one is in Glasgow. My publisher in in the UK, so they’re excited because they can easily go to that one.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
100%. Honestly, I think this is probably equal to racism in its impact. Many, many of my friends have complained to me about another friend or family member who is “lazy” or can’t stay employed or just seems generally irresponsible or seems to be a low-level scammer/crimer. I get it — it can feel really hard to stomach the idea of building a social safety net to protect people who don’t always make good choices.
Darkrose
@Scout211: It’s going to be awful this week. The one good thing about my sleep schedule being completely borked is that I can go grocery shopping at 8 or 9 before it’s too awful.
That said, it’s 6 am and it’s 71 with 49% humidity, which is not normal for Sacramento, even at this time of year.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@eclare: It’s interesting that the romance people didn’t object to diverse casting at all, but some of the SFF people are uncomfortable. Romance gets a lot of scorn, but that genre’s enthusiasts came through.
Or is that too big a generalization?
germy shoemangler
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I don’t think it’s too big. I think the romance people are more open minded.
germy shoemangler
What a wonderful creature. But the truth is more complicated:
In the mid-2010s, quokkas earned a reputation on the internet as “the world’s happiest animals” and symbols of positivity, as frontal photos of their faces make them appear to be smiling (they do not, in fact “smile” in the human sense; this can be attributed to their natural facial structures).
eclare
@Dorothy A. Winsor: That is an interesting observation. Stacey Abrams wrote romance novels…
tybee
@Josie:
pro tip on eye drops: keep them in your pants pocket so they’re close to body temp and you don’t get that “thermal shock” from cold drops.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: For me, I will admit to a fair degree of resentment at people who won’t move to find a job. It is a mindset that is so foreign to me, and it feels incredibly entitled. Joe’s statement about people not wanting to leave their friends and family in search of opportunity…. well, I come from generations of people who did just that. (Literally, immigrants from Europe, whose son then chased the gold rush, then turned north and became one of the first white settlers in Alaska.) And many, many more moves to follow jobs, It’s been drilled into me that it’s a reasonable thing to do. The value that some people have about staying close to their families seems like an incredible luxury to me.
hedgehog mobile
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Gotcha!
Books: Too many to remember? I did get Alec Nevala-Lee’s Astounding ( history of SFF) and a Holmes v Dracula pastiche. I’m very excited for Glasgow. I don’t have your latest one yet, and I may have missed your publisher in the Dealer’s Room.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Milbank was as cynical and corrupt as the rest of the Village. A MoDo wannabe. Always “both sides”-ing every issue with false equivalencies.
Then he offered some tepid – tepid mind you – criticism of Dump and he got the usual death threats and antisemitic garbage. I saw him go on MSNBC, with umbrage, along the lines, “how dare they, do they know who I am!”
It took personal pain, of sorts, to finally acknowledge outwardly there aren’t “both sides”. Of course, he knew that all along but that was the price he was more than willing to pay to attend those fancy Village cocktail parties and Nerd Prom, damn it!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@hedgehog mobile: My publisher wasn’t in Chicago. They can’t afford trans-Atlantic travel.
kalakal
@eclare: I thought he was great in Blast from the Past
OzarkHillbilly
@eclare: The first 2 Mummy movies are fun the 3rd, not so much. Whoever it was who took over Rachel Weisz’ role just didn’t have the same chemistry with Frazier.
eclare
@Suzanne: Sometimes people don’t have a choice because of caregiving responsibilities, both a good friend of mine and I moved to be closer to aging parents. Luckily mine lived in a decent sized city.
Also, poverty. I read an article quoting people who desperately want to leave Jackson MS. Then you look at the photos of them, their houses, and you realize gassing up the car, if they have one, and saving for a deposit on a rental while working as a housekeeper at a motel is not going to happen.
That is not entitlement.
Uncle Cosmo
@satby: I hope DAW has better results than mine, after recent cataract lens replacement in both eyes.
The surgeon extolled the marvels of new, very expensive lenses, that I would “never need glasses again.” I’d been profoundly nearsighted for 65 years, and I jumped at the prospect, and paid the extra cost (high 4-figures).
Three weeks after the second surgery, my “near” focus is nearly at arm’s length, and I am unable to read the maps, phrase books and tour guides I use when I travel, paperbacks, or even hardback books with normal-size type.
I will need reading glasses for the rest of my life.
I am bitterly disappointed and I am speaking with a lawyer.
OzarkHillbilly
It’s not a luxury, it’s a sacrifice. One we willingly make out of love.
Another Scott
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: I think that a lot of people in almost any field are like that – they see the bad actors and the corruption and the not living up to the ideals and mission statement and don’t like it, but figure that’s the way it is or someone else with more power needs to speak up. “I need this paycheck.”
The long nail gets hammered down.
It’s hard to speak out. Reporters lose contacts and positions when they do so. But, and it’s a big but, it’s part of the job of reporting the truth. Systems rot if people inside don’t work to make it better, and the consequences of a rotten political press can be horrific.
So, welcome to the light Dana. Get more of your friends to come over.
Cheers,
Scott.
SFAW
@Baud:
Kind of a low bar. Replacing Todd with any of my cats would be a major upgrade. Hell, replacing Todd with my dryer lint would, as well.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: Last week there was at least one bit of climate news:
The coal plant produced 20% of of Oahu’s electricity and emitted 1.5 million tons of CO2 each year. Hawaii will still burn oil in a few plants as the state builds solar, wind and geothermal generation capacity.
Chris T.
@tybee:
What about Baudians who don’t wear pants?
hedgehog mobile
@Dorothy A. Winsor: gotcha
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@germy shoemangler: I watched clips of CNN on youtube and it is bad.
They had some clown from Politico say “we just don’t know enough to know what occurred”. The photo of the Top Secret documents in his office, his admission that he knew what were in the boxes, the false statement that all materials had been returned, his non compliance with a grand jury subpoena – that’s not enough.
Then the hideous Dana Bash argued if Dump had an innocuous reason for holding the documents (she suggested hording) he shouldn’t be prosecuted, which was shut down by a former Pence staffer saying source and methods have been burned (which doesn’t even address the obstruction). Then she went to say, “he came close to admitted he knew what was in the boxes” to which two former Dump staffers jumped and said, “what, are you an idiot, of course he admitted it” (I added the idiot part).
If Ted Turner was dead, he would be rolling over in his grave.
Uncle Cosmo
Now that it’s owned by a fascist billionaire whose sincerest wish is to emulate
Fox NewsFaux Noise, it’s well on the way to becoming the Covert Nazis Network.kalakal
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I hear you. I think though the muffled blanket of Our Glorious Media is no longer enough to hide the vicious idiocy of the Repubs. They’re now shouting the quiet bits out loud. Rather than than endless coverage of a dysfunctional Congress, endless blocked legislation and discussions on arcane procedures, there’s Jan 6th, Dobbs and every GOP state racing to the bottom on half the populations’ rights. There’s howling mobs at school board meetings endorsed by Senators & Governors, book banning, attacking libraries. Even the normiest normie sees that stuff, is impacted by it, and I’m hoping more are repelled than attracted by it. You do not mess with peoples kids education
Chris T.
@Uncle Cosmo:
Um, yeah, that’s a lie. No matter how fancy the replacement lens, it’s not going to give you the kind of vision a 20-year-old with perfect eyesight has. You pretty much pick a fixed focal length, plus or minus a bit if you get the more-flexible lenses.
My father went for 20/20 distance vision (after needing glasses all his life) and went from remembering his glasses all the time, because he couldn’t see without them, to forgetting them because he could see distant stuff just fine. I have not yet decided what I would like when my cataract surgery days come (whenever that will be).
artem1s
@MattF:
as are his films. a rabbit hole I gladly frequent!
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: Good.
SFAW
@eclare:
All that while performing her duties as President of United Earth? Amazing.
narya
Here’s the thing: NOBODY wants to work. So many jobs are just bullshit jobs (I saw an article about that at one point, but can’t find it now). Sometimes we’re lucky, sometimes we find something that’s reasonably paid, not terrible to do, etc., but for a lot of people, not so much. I think it’s reasonable for people to want to stay close to their communities or friends or families or whatever–those are the relationships that sustain us (if we’re lucky with THAT); to HAVE TO break away from that to feed ourselves shouldn’t be required. Of course, I’m sitting here thinking of a million exceptions to every single thing I just said, and acknowledging every point everyone above made, in my head, so . . .
Suzanne
@eclare: I realize that it’s a bias.
There’s an embedded value there about caregiving, though….. it was modeled for me that it is somewhat shameful to accept care from your children and to depend on them. (I am not saying that this is healthy.) Most of my family members would prefer the ice floe route.
SFAW
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
To borrow from Jack Gilford, “This will kill him.”
WaterGirl
@Baud:
Gosh, so hard to decide?!?!!!!
edit: And i see that they voted against it. CRAZY.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: I am hoping that New Mexico will find a way to close its Four Corners coal fired plant early. The Clean Power program that the legislature passed in 2019 will not shutter the plant until 2031.
This may not be simply a matter of building replacement capacity; existing supply contracts may be an issue. The Hawaii plant’s shutdown was easier because the power company’s 30 year supply contract expired this year.
In the 1960s, Mercury and Gemini astronauts could see the Four Corners plant’s smoke plume from orbit.
MattF
@Chris T.: I went for ‘whatever is the kind of eye surgery you do most often’, which is no glasses for distance, reading glasses for close vision. Works fine for me.
eclare
@Suzanne: My parents both said they wanted the shotgun route. Then they both became sick, old, and feeble. All of a sudden that went out the window, and they needed me. And I was glad I could help.
jonas
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
The vast majority of Americans are simply unable to identify *any* political office holder other than maybe their state governor or the POTUS. Vice-president? Which party controls Congress? Who the Speaker is? What is the most recent legislation that’s been passed? Most people couldn’t tell you for a million bucks.
kalakal
@Chris T.: I went from extreme myopia to ‘normal’ vision. I don’t need glasses at all.
I didn’t have cateracts, I actually went for lasik when the prescription for my glasses started to get insane in my early 50s. The consultant said “sure we can do it, you can have either good distance vision, or good short vision with a simple pair of glasses to make up the difference OR given your age I replace the lenses, you’ll have 95%+ chance of not needing glasses and that way I’m not going to be doing it in 5 to 10 years anyway for cataracts.” Worked well so far
Fun fact he was John Glenn’s eye person, had a very cool signed picture
WaterGirl
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Nowhere, now spam, not pending, not trash. ??
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@WaterGirl:
Who would want to live in a hell-hole like that
eclare
@kalakal: That is cool! I was at a conference in Orlando when the space shuttle with him took off. We all went outside to watch (once it reaches a certain altitude you can see it from Orlando).
Ken
@Chris T.: Keep them in your sporran.
catclub
@Baud:
Sounds like Monica the voter was found in a diner.
OTOH that constitution sounds quite radical. Rights for indigenous peoples? WTF
Chris T.
@kalakal: Watch out. Those fancy lenses don’t last 50 years. They came out about 15 or 20 years ago, and have been touted by some eye surgeons because they’re a good money-maker, but recently people have started having issues with them.
Never believe the sales hype!
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Denali
The choice of whether to stay home near family is profound. My choice to leave enriched my life and I have never been sorry. My son’s choice to work abroad and start a family there did not look to misguided until the pandemic limited travel and the country he chose(Hungary) has been changed into a far right Russian friendly culture. In the 90’s I never would have predicted either of these outcomes, but here we are.
catclub
From CNN: Boris Johnson is handing his successor an economic ‘catastrophe’
Where is Tony Jay? Somewhere saying I told you so ( in 50,000 words).
Suzanne
@eclare: When my grandfather was reaching the end of his life, he decided to sell his house, give the proceeds to his kids, and then move to the one corner of the country where none of his children lived and die in a shitty assisted-living facility essentially alone. The modern version of the ice floe.
Caregiving is not the only concern, though. I’ve seen a lot of my friends who just don’t want to live far away from their families and communities, even when they’re pretty young and no one is in immediate crisis. Their families just have this strong value of living near one another.
artem1s
Most of the “people don’t want to work” resentment I hear comes from three types:
1. small business owners who pay crappy wages with zero benefits who cannot fathom why their former, pre-COVID employees aren’t flocking back to them
2. The WWC male who went back to work for small businesses for crap wages and no benefits or who is ‘self-employed’ and works largely under the table for cash. They won’t/can’t improve their own work status and resent those who did, especially POC and women.
3. retirees who haven’t worked since they were in their 40s/50s because they got great pensions and were well paid all their lives. Who also resent every dime of taxes they have to pay to support services they no longer need (pubic education) and who resent every dime over the 1950’s price of anything they still buy. They really resent the notion that their upsized meal at the diner might cost them an extra few cents just because the bus boy got a dime an hour pay increase.
eclare
@Suzanne: Sometimes people call that strong value love?
MattF
@catclub: Also ‘Jonathan Pie’.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: Caregiving responsibilities for elderly or ailing family members tie people down, as do financial considerations like the cost of living getting very high where the jobs are. If you own a home, a real-estate crunch like the one that happened in 2006-08 can make it a hairy proposition to move at all, because you can’t sell the house–that did a LOT to reduce mobility around that time. And if you’re a marginalized minority, moving to some places can actually be a danger to life and limb.
Suzanne
@eclare: It’s a kind of love, sure, but I wouldn’t call the strong expectation for independence/opportunity-chasing to not be loving. For example, in my family, it’s very much a “foul-weather friends” kind of culture. The idea that physical proximity is a necessary component of familial love is not a thing I have ever felt.
MagdaInBlack
@eclare: Thank you. Not everyone is in the position to just up stakes and move.
MagdaInBlack
@artem1s:
4. People who just parrot the phrase and have no clue.
jonas
Well, they *think* they’re happy, but they ain’t!
Geminid
@Uncle Cosmo: Yesterday the Orange Churl had some business advice for CNN. And an offer!
Nelle
@eclare: We call it “going to Oregon.”
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: Sure. But expecting your family members to spend their lives living in relatively close physical proximity can also be really financially unwise and limiting to their opportunities, too.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@catclub:
Watching Bloomberg Intl and they say it’s the worse economic catastrophe since season three, episode nine of “The Crown”
Ruckus
@Baud:
I wonder how the thing reads in the native language.
In english it may sound completely different.
Also, haven’t the people in Chile had to live with a few far more shitty governments than we have over the last few decades and that may color their concept of what they don’t want.
Also look at what the rethuglicans are calling what Biden is doing and he’s actually running our government normally, it was/is the rights choice to elect an extremely racist scamming asshole as destructor in charge, while many of them run around disrespecting the flag and the entire concept of our country.
Nelle
@Denali: We had figured that, returning to New Zealand, we could still get back every year to see our kids. Covid put an end to that sort of thinking. Now we will visit New Zealand, but live near our son. Previously, though, we had moved for jobs (seven states, two countries.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Hawaii’s power grid is really unusual for the modern US in that it is dominated by burning petroleum (oil stopped being a major source of electric power in the rest of the country decades ago). I don’t think coal was ever one of the main players there; the big challenge is to get off of oil. But the potential for renewables there seems good.
Princess
@eclare: Yeah, and I’m thinking of Elizabeth Warren and her Aunt Bea who took care of her kids, allowing her to take a job. The people in the worst circumstances are those who most need support networks of family and friends to help with the things that can’t afford to pay for.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: My parents have done the opposite–told me not to expect much of an inheritance, because they’re spending that money to keep themselves as comfortable as possible in their retirement, in good medical care, etc.
This strikes me as right and proper. They gave me so much that got me where I am today–I’m doing fine and they don’t owe me anything else. They knocked themselves out for decades to earn a living, raise a family and support their community and they should enjoy life for a while.
kalakal
All Hail Britains New Worst Prime Minister ever! In her own words
“We have shown the depth and breadth of talent available to the Tory party” and for once I will not disagree with her
Shortly before the result was announced the
braindeadannointed one was on the Beebs new weekend politics flagship, helmed by Tory sycophant Laura Keussenberg, talking. gibberish. in. her. usual. flowing. manner. Sadly for Laura ( and mincebrain) among the panellists was the wonderful Joe Lycett, who like Dinsdale Pirahna, is grand master level in sarcasm. This is hilarious and also very effectivehttps://twitter.com/i/status/1566349321750171648
artem1s
@Denali:
I think it’s a weird American thing that there is so much pressure to reside in close proximity to immediate family. Especially considering how easy it is to communicate with people who are at a distance now. We live in an age where we can fly across country or around the world in a few hours. We can communicate long distance for virtually nothing compared to the 1950’s. And we can see one another while we do it. It wasn’t until COVID that people started to see how free they actually are to travel and live in far flung places. In the 50’s moving cross country might very well have meant not seeing family again for decades. But that’s hardly the case now. But then again, I’ve never understood the nostalgic pining for small town or suburban America.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: I think they’re tightly entwined, and if anything it’s the racism that gives space to the “deserving” complaint.
Conservatives invented the crime of “loitering” to keep lazy Black people from lounging around sucking hard-earned tax-money from good, hard-working, Christian (wink wink) people.
I’m sure most jackals remember Reagan winning a landslide by running against “welfare queens driving Cadillacs” and “strapping young bucks buying T-bones with food stamps.”
It comes to this: white people have been encouraged to believe Black people are “lazy and shiftless” for the last century and a half.
“They’ve been calling us lazy ever since we stopped working for free.”
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@catclub: My bro in Scotland is not looking forward to this winter. Heating costs are going to quadruple?!!
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: My family has that super-strong Protestant work ethic thing, to an at-times horrifying degree. Work work work, the foundation to everything else. Live in a shithole with a million roommates if needed to maximize earning potential, especially when young. Choose where you live based on cost of living vs earnings. As a result, none of us ever grew up in one place — everyone experienced at least one cross-country move as a kid. There is no family business or trade or property to inherit, so get an education and figure it out. Mr. Suzanne’s family is different…. my MIL keeps saying that she wants us to live near them and I’m like, “WTF?!”.
Frankensteinbeck
@germy shoemangler:
There is a whole lot of “Tolkien based this on Norse culture, which was white!” in there. Sorry to burst your bubble, guys, but in that time period travel between Scandinavia and the Eastern Mediterranean and West African coast was common. The Vikings were sailors, and they were used to colored faces in their communities.
It’s actually crazy to realize that the Bronze Age in the Middle East happened because of tin shipped in from Britain. Ye Olde Timey maritime travel was vastly more sophisticated than we imagine.
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
When the modern American SFF community was developing in the mid-1900s, some serious bigots got to define the content. Then in the 80s and 90s it became one of the major targets of youth bullying, with the (to me) bizarre result that a big chunk of the victims embraced toxic masculinity harder than their abusers. Misogyny and racism go hand in hand. By no means are these assholes the majority now, but damn are they throwing shit fits because the Other is entering their space.
Matt McIrvin
@artem1s: I moved far away from family to go to grad school and stayed in New England after that. But I know my parents really like living about an hour’s drive away from my sister and her family, so they can have a lot of contact with her daughter as well (though I know she’s now looking at colleges that are further from there).
Meanwhile… my wife’s family mostly live in this area, broadly speaking (her mother lives essentially next door right now), and they have close-knit enough relationships that I think my wife would have a really, really tough time moving much further away from them. But her brother moved further away (closer to my folks, actually) and she often laments the lack of contact with him.
There seems to be a pattern that men are more willing to move further away than women; Americans are vaguely matrilocal.
satby
@Darkrose: We would kill for a 49% humidity in the midwest during hot spells. About 10 (?) days ago it was 88° with 90% humidity, but it wasn’t raining. So it felt like temps over 100° but sweating doesn’t cool you at all. I am so not a tropics person
kalakal
@Chris T.:
Concerning, where’d you see that?
Most of the problems I’ve heard of are lens dislocation due to capsular bag weaknesses (the lenses themselves being ok) and that’s always been a possible complication. I won’t last 50 years but if it is the case there are numerous problems after 15 or 20 yrs then it’s very concerning as it’s not an uncommon pediatric procedure.
satby
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Go if you can. I really enjoyed Glasgow.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: Eh. Lots of my friends who complain are complaining about their own family members or neighbors or co-religionists. They love them and they’d never say so to their faces, but away from them, they’re thrilled to complain about their “lazy” cousin or the family from church who gets free lunch for their kids.
Scout211
I have read about the new pivot toward the right for CNN, now under new management. But since I don’t watch any broadcast or streaming news, it doesn’t affect me. Yet. I get my online news from CNN.com daily and in my experience, CNN.com hasn’t yet made a pivot, except for the opinion pieces (which I ignore). I am hoping that management leaves the online site alone. I check other online news sites but CNN seems better to me and breaking news is posted sooner.
My guess is that they will eventually either change their reporting to the right (like their cable channel) or require a subscription and either of those events will likely be the reason I stop clicking.
But so far, their news articles seem the same and many are quite good.
eclare
@Princess: Great point and example!
Matt McIrvin
@Frankensteinbeck: I think it’s ruefully amusing to read old self-congratulatory rants by science-fiction fans about how science fiction is the genre uniquely welcoming of change, and contrast that with the perpetual butthurt of the genre’s grognards about anything that threatens to alter the character of the place in the most superficial way. They only welcomed the future because they thought they knew exactly how it was going to turn out–any deviation from that has to be some kind of crime.
Meanwhile you have women and non-white authors embracing science fiction and fantasy precisely because they see the potential of using it to imagine other ways of being, and also talking about the threats they face every day in fabulistic ways–and this pisses these sclerotic old fans off SO MUCH.
Geminid
@Frankensteinbeck: The Phoenicians shipped a lot of British tin. That’s one of the reasons they tried hard to keep Greek ships out of the Atlantic.
I guess some tin was hauled overland across France. It was valuable stuff even after iron was produced.
satby
@Uncle Cosmo: most people eventually need reading glasses after cataract surgery anyway even if they don’t immediately after. I’m sorry you didn’t get the result you hoped for, sounds like he oversold the multifocals. They’re not for everyone IMHO, and of course I ANAD.
When I qualify for it, which will be years away (and that delay also delays the corneal transplant I’ll need sooner), I’m just opting for good distance vision replacements. I know I’ll always need glasses for something, but that’s ok. The miracle is they can fix things that used to, and still does in other countries, cause blindness.
kalakal
@Matt McIrvin: That’s how my parents were. They earned and they did well by us. I just wish my dad had lived longer to enjoy it but my mother had a great life up till her mid 80s. Good for them
@artem1s: My family and I were fairly nomadic. There were times when we were on 3 different continents. I don’t have roots in the sense that I can go back to a place where I was born and lived for most of my early life and see the people I grew up with. There’s a lot of places I have a strong affection .
What I do get is being tied to people, you don’t leave family when they need you
As the song says Wherever I leave my hat…
Matt McIrvin
@satby: I’ve needed distance-vision glasses for most of my life, and for a while, the main effect of my eyes aging and getting more farsighted has been that I just don’t wear them for anything else.
I’ve gotten to the point that very weak reading glasses actually help for close-up viewing. But I’m not quite used to them yet–I still feel a lot of eyestrain when I use them even though the text looks super sharp. I tried getting an intermediate prescription for computer displays at one point but now I find it’s best to just not wear glasses for that.
Kristine
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
My first SF convention ever was Glasgow 1995. I was initially overwhelmed but wound up having a great time. I’ve fallen away from cons of late but strongly considering a return trip. I liked Glasgow.
O. Felix Culpa
@Suzanne:
My family is loosely connected geographically and well-connected emotionally. We have made major moves cross-country and internationally for various reasons. My siblings and I live somewhat closer to each other now (meaning Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico) as we’re aging, partly because we want to be no more than a day’s drive from our parents. But there was NEVER any expectation that we should stay in the same rabid RW little town we grew up in to be near them. We were encouraged to leave, which they did eventually too.
Chief Oshkosh
@Suzanne: I have a similar background, and I understand your sentiment, but I do wonder sometimes what it would’ve been like to remain near family. Part of the motivation to move for employment, though, beyond getting paid for skills and developing a career, included moving to more interesting places with more enjoyable people. Who wants to live surrounded by assholes and with few prospects for an interesting life?
Now, imagine if at least opportunity existed in some of these places. Not just job opportunity, but also opportunity for a fulfilling intellectual life. Maybe that’s what Uncle Joe is aiming for long-term?
O. Felix Culpa
@satby: Co-signed. Glasgow is worth visiting, especially if you’re interested in Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
becca
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I had bad cataracts,. I know that because when I walked outside after the first eye was done and saw brilliant green grass and stunning blue sky for the first time in years. That was wonderful.
In my former blurry world, mirrors were kinder and things looked cleaner, but seeing vivid colors again is worth the trade off.
If I had known the surgery is so painless and quick, I would have done it years ago. Wish you the came smooth experience!
Suzanne
@Chief Oshkosh:
I had a few years, as a kid, where we lived near extended family. I loved it. The circumstances just happened to line up that we were nearby, close enough that I went to school with my cousins. I was shocked to learn that many of my new classmates also went to school with their cousins, because their families stayed fairly proximate for generations.
I get that obviously the outlook is different in different families and in times of life, but I think it’s less about privilege than it is about the relative value of work/opportunity vs. responsibility to a community. No one in my family moved away because their circumstances were good where they were, they moved because their circumstances were limited where they were and they could not count on the community/larger family to support them.
Miss Bianca
@hedgehog mobile:
*waving from the central mountains* Sounds great!
Mousebumples
Re – living near family discussion that’s on going –
I enjoy being “near family” but to me that means within an hour or two by car. I went to college 6 hours away, which was good for my independence, but I enjoy being able to see my grandmother (who is in her late 80s) every month or so, and allowing my kids to spend time with their grandparents. (free babysitting isn’t anything to complain about either!)
My SIL just got an accepted offer on the house across the street from my MIL. That’s a little too close for my tastes.
J R in WV
@frosty:
Also, don’t forget “Avast me mateys!” and “Ahoy!” For homework you can visit “Talk Like a Pirate Day” websites.
satby
@Matt McIrvin: yeah, presbyopia is the gift that keeps on giving. I’ve gone from a high Rx (-8 combined) for myopia and astigmatism to under -2 myopic, which feels like not needing glasses at all for distance (still do, of course).
My astigmatism has gotten worse and now fluctuates due to the eye condition I have: Fuchs Dystrophy, which can be underdiagnosed and why I mention it. Fuchs occurs in about 4% of adults over 40, so not super common, and it’s genetic. My Fuchs is severe, for many people it never gets to the point of surgery. But for people who have constant worsening astigmatism, that can be a cause.
MagdaInBlack
@Chief Oshkosh: Yes, I think just maybe that’s exactly what Uncle Joe is aiming for.
oldgold
@satby: In the spring time of my dotage, the old eyeballs are not what they used to be. Something I am grateful for each time I have occasion to peer into a mirror.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne:
Speaking as someone who *didn’t* value staying close to her family, and is in fact the only person in my extended family who still lives west of the Mississippi, I do feel compelled to point out that *that* choice, ironically, turns out to have been an “incredible luxury” of sorts.
Because I didn’t have kids who desperately needed a family member to babysit so I could rush off at a moment’s notice to a randomly-changing retail schedule.
Because my parents were considerate enough to die early of cancer so they didn’t need me to shepherd them through the process of living with dementia or resettling them in assisted living.
Because none – well, only one – of my family members needed me or someone else in the family to look after them for some reason.
But other people *do* deal with these life situations, so I’m not sure I would call it an “incredible luxury” for them to make the decision to stay close to their families. Some of them may feel like they have no choice *but* to do so – so it’s not an “incredible luxury”, but an all too sadly credible necessity.
Matt McIrvin
@satby: My distance prescription (which includes some astigmatism) has become amazingly stable: the last time I went to the eye doctor, which was years after I should have, it came out completely unchanged.
Suzanne
@Chief Oshkosh:
The case that has caught my attention is that murder case of the Wagners who murdered the Rhodens in Pike County, Ohio. One of the aspects of that case that struck me the first time I heard about it is that both of these families were, like, clans. It would obviously be superior if places like Pike County, Ohio, has something more to offer.
Eunicecycle
@Matt McIrvin: My dad always said he wanted to die and go broke on the same day.
Miss Bianca
@artem1s: A “weird American thing”? My experience visiting other countries has given me the impression that it’s a “weird American thing” to MOVE far away from where you were born/grew up/have family.
satby
Repeated for emphasis. You may think that poverty would inspire a move, but if that move means leaving a home, even a shitty one, for potentially living out of your car while looking for work with a poor education or few qualifications; well that’s a big gamble. Add in dependents, and it’s not doable. Being poor is EXPENSIVE.
A lot of you are looking through a middle class filter where you can afford to move, afford housing when you get there, will have a job waiting, and can have the funds and the time off work to go back and see family occasionally. Or have the money for an ISP and equipment to Zoom or Facetime with family you can’t visit. NONE of that is a reality for a sizable population of this country. And not just in the rural areas.
delphinium
@Miss Bianca: Yeah, both my parents were gone by the time I was 25 so am different than most people in that there wasn’t an obligation to stay where I was due to family (especially since 2 of my siblings lived elsewhere already). But do definitely think about how life would have been different had they lived to old age.
satby
@oldgold: 😂😘
Suzanne
@Miss Bianca: It’s obviously different in different families. My MIL lives in the same town where she grew up, and she cared for her father for years before he died, which tied her there. But she inherited his property when he died. None of my family members have ever been landowners or business owners and so have always had to follow work. Nobody has much of anything to inherit. That’s why even having a “place” where your family is “from” seems like a privilege. Obviously the limitations can go both ways.
MagdaInBlack
@satby: And thank you. I’ve been “biting my tongue” on commenting on this subject.
Uncle Cosmo
Same story here. For many decades I had learned procedures to deal with my poor vision – need to see close up, remove glasses; need to see far away, put on glasses – which are now completely reversed and need to be relearned (by someone in his 70s). I shudder to think what might happen if I’m driving and I can’t quite make out something in the distance and reach for eyeglasses that would render me effectively blind once I put them on.
I’m pretty well resigned to having to pay for full eyeglasses to wear all the time, probably progressives with the bottom for close-in vision, the middle for computer work, and the top essentially without correction for distance vision. A very, very long and costly distance from “never needing glasses again.” :^(
Karen S.
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I had cataract surgery 30 years ago (I was 28 at the time), and I was so happy to have it. The ophthalmologist did the left eye first and then the right a few months later. He said he was shocked at how dense they were. It was a bit strange being awake the whole time knowing what was going on, but it was worth it. Good luck to you!
Suzanne
@satby: Poverty has inspired lots of moves. Hell, poverty inspired entire waves of immigration and settlement across this country for generations. Yes, it involves a lot of risk. It always has. Whether or not the risk is worth taking or if one has responsibilities in the place where one is already are cultural questions.
J R in WV
@Chris T.:
Wife also went for high quality distance vision, and has that. She still wears glasses all day, they are her current close-up requirementin the bifocal area, and the rest of the lens is unmodified clear material.
I suspect I will go that route also, having worn glasses since I was in kindergarten. Expecting to have both clear close-up vision and distance vision from a single lens implanted after cataract removal is way over optimistic. Even with the $5000 extra special modern lenses. I can afford that, but do I want to? What’s the downside if they don’t work as expected?
satby
@Uncle Cosmo: that is too bad, I’m sorry you’ve had such a disappointing outcome.
Brachiator
@Scout211:
I did not realize that this had happened. It explains a recent incident where the CNN White House correspondent asked a Fox News level stupid question.
This change is not good. Reporting will inevitably be affected.
Some years ago there were 2 all news radio stations in Los Angeles. KFWB had been around for decades. One day I was listening to a story which included some side commentary about Democrats which was alarmingly biased and false, but delivered blandly along with the news story.
I actually stopped and did a google search and saw that the station had been sold to a right wing media group. I immediately stopped listening and don’t even know if the station is still in the news business.
satby
@Suzanne: which circles us back to the Biden Build Back Regional Challenge. So that people have some opportunities whether they elect to leave or stay. There’s no one right path that suits every situation.*
*Poverty absent dependents is how come I exist. All of my great grandparents came over during the Irish famine as teens or unmarried twenty-somethings.
Chris T.
@kalakal: I saw an ad for the procedure (not that long ago, some time this year) and, being who I am, immediately started looking for articles on long term evaluations and recommendations from academic ophthalmologists. The news was mixed at best. I think they’ve improved some techniques since 2005 but the impression I got was “wait until you have some actual issue such as cataracts”.
Eunicecycle
@J R in WV: my optometrist said I was the first patient to ever be excited about having cataracts. I am very nearsighted and anxious to be able to see without glasses. But she said it might be 5 years until I can get the surgery.
Suzanne
@satby: That’s interesting….both Mr. Suzanne and I have Italian great-grandparents who gave birth to our grandparents within days of getting off the boat. I also have ancestors from Cornwall and Saxony that came over as entire families. And Irish ancestors who brought their young children, too.
J R in WV
@Eunicecycle:
Yeah, me too. Can’t wait to have good distance vision after years with myopia and minor astigmatism.
Wife had very odd eye problems,, one eye was nearsighted and the other far sighted. She had been injured as a kid, hit in the face with a golf club above one eye, which may have caused some of that problem.
She tried to work it with reading glasses, decided after a month or two to go with all day glasses with no prescription in the main portion of the lenses and prescription up close correction for reading. That’s my plan too! Can’t wait. Well, I can wait, I have to.
StringOnAStick
@MagdaInBlack: People who parrot the “no one wants to work, just sit home and collect free money” include our neighbour, a woman who suffered a severe brain injury 2 years ago and is pretty scrambled. She’s a strong liberal on everything else but this resentment thing is stuck in her head.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: Strangely (or not – our priorities in life do seem to change sometimes as we get older), I now find myself thinking every now and again about moving to be *closer* to my family, after having taken such pains to separate myself from them earlier in life.
I think a lot of that has to do with my favorite sister’s death – I was just back east for her memorial service, and meeting up with my niece’s family, including her dad’s side of the family, whom I had never met before. Sis lived in New Mexico for many years while I lived in Colorado, so “close” to me means “less than a seven hours’ drive.”
And in the last years of her life, despite adoring New Mexico, she moved back east to be closer to her only grandchild. “Closer” meaning she moved to Maine while my niece’s family lived in Baltimore!
That said, I probably won’t be moving anywhere anytime soon. But I do find myself wondering how my life might have turned out if I had moved to Maine to my parents’ place up there when I had the chance. Maybe it would have stayed in the family that way, and maybe, even, everyone in my family would still be speaking to each other, without the bitterness that selling that place off engendered…
Anonymous At Work
kalakal
@Chris T.: Thanks, food for thought, I’ve seen a few bad news stories, but the problem seemed to be underlying physical problems not the lenses going wrong as it were.
Another Scott
@kalakal: “I’m very right wing!”
rofl.
What brainiac thought it was a good idea to have him on their Fluff the Tories with Laura K. show??
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@artem1s: Others have made this point, and probably better, but it’s really really hard to move on average when only 64% of people (as of 2020) could pay an unexpected bill with cash.
Moving is disruptive and scary and risky and humans don’t like those things. But it’s also expensive. Lots and lots of people are pretty much trapped where they live now because they have no savings and little credit. And it’s a big problem – still.
Here’s hoping that Powell and the Fed backs off before throwing millions out of work and dumping them in yet another economic hole that they have trouble climbing out of. So far, he seems to be threading the needle, but he needs to watch the data carefully and act appropriately.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Suzanne: Apparently my FIL “rode the rails” out west during the Depression. (My MIL made him shut up when he wanted to tell stories about it. “Oh Joe!!” ;-) People can’t do that now.
Times are different. As satby said, it’s expensive being poor.
I think all of our stories have some truth to them, but we’re describing parts of the elephant. Lots of things are going on simultaneously.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@Miss Bianca: So my grandfather (who I lived with until I was 16 and who was my father figure after my own father took off) grew up in grinding poverty. Like learned to drive a truck at age 10 in Juneau because his mother and sister died and his father was a drunk and he needed to work to eat. In his working years in the 50s, he moved his wife and three kids from Seattle to NYC — to take a promotion — and apparently my grandmother never got over moving away from her parents. Five years after they moved, her father had a stroke and died, and she didn’t get to say goodbye. Decades later, my grandfather said that it was his biggest regret, moving the family away. The irony is that all of his kids and grandkids have done the same thing. It’s been drilled into all of us.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I also use my glasses frames to create eyebrows :-). (I have some, but they are as white as my hair is now).
Obvious Russian Troll
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Did you see the RWA scandal from a couple years ago? Romance has its share of problems. It was disappointing, especially as my late mother was a member and I had heard good things about it in comparison to SFWA.
(This is not to defend SFF writers and fans, who I am all too aware have their own problems with race.)
The Lodger
@kalakal: This guy could be the British Colbert Report era Stephen Colbert.
justinb
@OzarkHillbilly: Thank you