I want to share a thoughtful take on yesterdays news, from Albatrossity.
We are witnessing, in real time, how Putin uses wedge issues to divide us and stoke anger. His opportunity arose when, last February, his government detained a high-profile black lesbian athlete when she arrived in Moscow to go to her winter job playing basketball in Ekaterinburg. She was busted, tried in a very public trial, and sentenced to 9 years in the gulag.
Now that the Biden administration has secured her release, the Russian propaganda machine has roared into action. MAGA world is howling because 1) Biden 2) is bringing home a black lesbian athlete rather than 3) a white male. Furthermore, some folks who should know better are joining in the criticism, saying things like “she should have known better than to go to Russia”, “she put herself in harm’s way”, or “she committed a crime”, etc. Let’s talk about those for just a minute.
Firstly, she was going to Russia to play basketball because female basketball players don’t get paid what they are worth in this country. Her salary at the best team in a very competitive overseas league was quite good for a female player, more than she gets paid in the WNBA, and yet it was about 25% of the AVERAGE NBA salary. She is arguably the best female basketball player in the world; she is not average. And NBA players only play in one league, female players almost always play the WNBA season and then head overseas for a second season. So, like all professionals who are at the top of their game, she wanted to be paid a salary at the top of the game. Nobody chastises a male for doing that, but god forbid that a woman take the same path. It’s pure hindsight to say that she should have known better.
Secondly, she has been paying in Russia for several years. In February, when she was busted at the airport, Putin needed cover for his Ukraine invasion, a hostage to use in future negotiations involving US involvement in Ukraine, and she was the unlucky target. As far as she was concerned, she was heading to work. As far as he was concerned, she was the ideal hostage. Not just for her fame, and the press coverage, but because he knew that he could stoke a firestorm when he negotiated for her release. She was, after all, female, black, and lesbian as well as a highly paid (read “pampered”) athlete.
Thirdly, was it a crime? Honestly, we don’t know. It is possible that she did have drugs for personal use. It is not likely that the amount of drugs warranted 9 years in the gulag, and it is impossible that she was planning to deal those to innocent Russians. But given that we are talking about a regime that routinely gaslights and lies about, well, everything, we should at least entertain the possibility that she was framed. It happens in the USA too, you know.
Fast forward to today.
The Biden administration negotiated the release of an American, and the Russians made sure that we all know that other Americans, including a white male Marine, were not part of the deal. The Wingnut Wurlitzer hits maximum volume. Russian trolls and bots relentlessly tell Americans, of all political persuasions, that this is a miscarriage of justice, engage in victim-blaming, tell us that there are lots more Americans who would be a better choice for release, etc. Just like in 2016, some of their targets for this propaganda are on the left and in the media as well. All of them, wittingly or unwittingly, amplify the divisive message of Putin and his very effective propaganda machine.
So here’s the bottom line. Putin took a hostage who had a very high value for his propaganda efforts, which are ultimately aimed at dividing this country along ideological and cultural fracture lines. If he could have worked guns and the Second Amendment in there somehow, he would have hit a grand slam. He had no intention, ever, of releasing a white male Marine, and any notion that this was a possibility is simply wishful thinking. He is playing MAGA world like the useful idiots that he knows they are.
The rest of us don’t have to follow him. An American who was treated unjustly by a fascist autocrat is back with her family tonight. That is really all we should care about. Other Americans still are in his gulag, and that is wrong on many levels. I trust that the administration is working hard to get them released, and I hope that they can. But we also cannot let a master propagandist win by making us focus on the negative, the wedge issues, and the what-ifs. We must stop doing his work for him. We’ve seen this movie before, and it didn’t end well.
sab
Very well said, Albatrossity.
Spanky
An ex-Marine who was drummed out with a Bad Conduct Discharge for larceny, not the “retired Marine” I heard described on MSNBC this morning. The MSM is only too willing to do Putin’s work for him if it damages Biden.
bbleh
Were one inclined to be uncivil, one might be tempted to point out the apparent irony — no wait, make that HOWLING HYPOCRISY — of chest-thumping, flag-waving, more-patriotic-than-thou MAGAt-Americans first slavishly following a fundamentally corrupt narcissist hopelessly compromised by financial obligations to Russia and obviously abusing the powers of his office to advance Russian interests and then mindlessly (or in some cases apparently deliberately) amplifying anti-American Russian propaganda.
Putin is both an adversary and in many respects evil, but at least he’s got some smarts. The MAGAts are little more than useful idiots.
(Hmm, maybe that IS kind of uncivil. Alas…)
caphilldcne
Thanks for this. The comments in this topic at Charlie Pierce’s shebeen had me seeing red. I’m linking to this if I encounter any more useful idiots in the wild.
Amir Khalid
Albatrossity is quite right, and his argument is eloquent.
I’m just waiting for dr. bloor to wade in.
WaterGirl
Just like in the aftermath of Sept 11, they do some damage to us, but America does the worst of it to ourselves.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Well put!
There are too many idiots out there – many of them “useful”…
Ella in New Mexico
Excellent thoughts, Albatrossity.
@Spanky:
Wow! I didn’t know that detail. Although it doesn’t make him a spy deserving to be stuck in a Russian gulag.
jackmac
The Former Guy has plenty of opportunity to seek the release of the imprisoned (and disgraced) ex-Marine during his term in office. Not much being said about Trump’s failures.
pacem appellant
Here fυcking here!
MattF
I’ve seen the FOX anti-Griner take (e.g., Tucker Carlson et al) characterized as ‘projection’, which is just silly. It’s racism, along with a good old dollop of homophobia. You can get all psychological about some RW things, but the easy explanation is the correct one here.
trollhattan
If you’d like to know why WNBA players go to Russia et al in their offseasons, this 2019 interview of Sue Bird and Diane Taurasi will clear things up.
https://30for30podcasts.com/episodes/the-spy-who-signed-me/
The postscript is also the only cautionary note one requires.
As to Griner and “why did she bring drugs?” well, as our own cops have amply demonstrated there can be no drugs and drugs, simultaneously.
In addition to Russia I also can’t fathom why any American travels to Iran or North Korea, but they do anyway. Seems demented to present yourself as a hostage amuse bouche.
Indonesia is now telling potential tourists they will NOT be checking marriage status, having just made extramarital sex against national law. Nice work there, mates.
Kent
Who also has both Canadian and Irish citizenship. What are Canada and Ireland doing to get him back?
sab
@Spanky: The guy has enough problems at the moment, but I agree, I just didn’t want to pile on since he has already spent years in Russian prison.
Ruckus
@jackmac:
Trump’s failures.
SFB has failures?
He didn’t seem to fail at selling out our country.
He didn’t seem to fail at screwing as many Americans as possible.
He didn’t seem to fail at being a failure.
He didn’t have failures, he is a FAILURE.
A failure as president, a failure as a citizen, and a failure as a human.
At least he’s on a losing streak…..
JoyceH
You know, there are plenty of worse ways that Putin has impacted the everyday lives of the Russian people, but for the basketball fans, it probably adds insult to injury that their basketball viewing is really going to suck now.
Kent
You could say the same thing about Mexico. Americans have been kidnapped by the cartels in Mexico. Probably more than have been held by Russia and Iran combined.
Spanky
@sab: My point had to do with our own MSM, who wants to portray him much more sympathetically than he perhaps deserves.
sab
@trollhattan: My sister has spent the last fifty years of her life teaching about Chinese culture,trying to build a bridge where once there was a wall. How is that different from what Griner was doing?
Chetan Murthy
@Kent: Did our State Department issue grave warnings to those traveling to Russia, back when Ms. Griner was doing it? Did our DOJ and Treasury forbid US companies from doing business with Russia? Block our allies from using our financial system to do business with Russia? Or is it only madness when private citizens do business with Russia? What about when [as I mentioned yesterday] Dell (doing business in Russia) sends over employees to Russia? Is there a difference between them and Ms. Griner?
I mean, sure, I also *personally* find it a little unfathomable why people would visit our geopolitical adversaries, visit dictatorships. But our government has effectively said “sure, it’s OK, go ahead, it’s fine”.
trollhattan
@Kent: Hell, I know an American couple who own a house on the beach in Baja. Interesting choice but there ya go.
sab
@Spanky: I agree with you. It shows the horribleness of their (Russia and Republican) propaganda machine. You can only defend the one innocent person by further damaging the other innocent person.
trollhattan
@sab: They seem completely different? Not sure what you’re asking.
zhena gogolia
You write as well as you take photographs of fierce birdies, Albatrossity. Thank you!
sab
@Chetan Murthy: Normies with busy and successful lives don’t actually follow politics or global events much at all. They are busy elsewhere.
karensky
@Kent: Great question!
sab
@trollhattan: Why are they different? Some people follow the arts. Others follow sports. Trying to show we have more in common than differences.
She went to Russia years before Ukraine war.
ETA Although after the Ukraine war it will be well past my lifetime before I could belive that many Russians have more in common than different from us.
UncleEbeneezer
The guys on the Meidas Touch podcast said that Griner got convicted for having “trace amounts of CBD oil” though I’m not sure of their source. Nine years for CBD oil (which doesn’t even get you stoned) is absolutely absurd. Also, they noted that the guy that the US released was going to be released anyway in the next 6 years. Also, even the Whelan family applauded Biden’s choice because they knew there was no chance of Russia releasing Whelan. So you take the deal you can get.
I’ve been so disappointed to see so many people fall for this (imo) pretty obvious Russian disinformation campaign.
Citizen Alan
@Spanky: This. What really kills me about this bullshit propaganda framing is that if Whelan was coming home instead of Griner, every single one of the assholes screaming now would instead be complaining that Biden released an arms dealer in exchange for “some low-life criminal who got dishonorably discharged” while leaving “a beloved Olympic athlete to die in a gulag on trumped up charges,” which only proves that “Democrats are the real racists.”
We went through the same thing with Bowe Bergahl. Fox swine who were complaining literally the week before Obama was weak because “we don’t leave soldiers behind” switched positions on a dime and blasted Obama for releasing terrorists in exchange for “the American Taliban.”
trollhattan
@sab: WNBA players go overseas primarily for a big paycheck–much bigger than what they earn in the WNBA or being on the USWNT. True of many sports TBH, including several USWNT soccer players. College basketball players who don’t get drafted–same thing. Minor league baseball players, you name it.
It’s a career, relatively brief, and pro athletes need financial stability before their bodies say “enough is enough.”
Re-creating It’s a Small World is not high on the agenda, generally speaking.
Lyrebird
Albatrossity, All I can say is,
Ayup.
Plus, ditto to what @zhena gogolia: said.
patrick II
People seem overly optimistic about what you can get Putin to do and when you can get him to do it. He will let Whelan go when and why it suits him. Putin is evidently interested in a trade for Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov currently held in Germany on murder charges. The U.S. and Germany have not yet been able to come to terms on that particular trade.
sab
@trollhattan: I realize that it was probably primarily about money, but there was also an aspect of “this game is a great thing about America.”
ETA But I speak as a basketball fan.
BruceFromOhio
Albatrossity, this is so fucking right on, thank you. And thank you watergirl for fp’ing something good.
Chetan Murthy
@trollhattan: There’s a term I learned over at CrookedTimber: “to Steelman an argument”. It refers (IIRC) to making sure to attack the strongest version of an argument. And that’s why I think it’s right, to attack the version of the argument where Ms. Griner went to RU simply for the paycheck. B/c if you can defeat that one, then you can defeat all the weaker versions.
And I think it’s easy to defeat this version, too. Many US companies did/do business with Russia. Many of our allies do so today. Our government doesn’t stop them, or even work hard to dissuade them. And if some US companies’ employees were jammed-up by the RU govt, they’d be going to our govt for help, unashamedly. Our Congresscritters would be yelping about it, too. To hold Ms. Griner to a higher standard is just wrong. She was going there for work — actually very elite work — much more elite than Dell tech workers going to debug some problem with Dell Russia’s servers.
Leslie
Well said. Thank you.
pacem appellant
@Chetan Murthy: Yes, this is steelmanning. A very popular phrase on philosophy Tube.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man#Steelmanning
sab
@trollhattan: Got a problem with women going overseas to earn money they can’t earn at home? She is almost the LeBron James of women’s basketball, and she makes what an average NBA player makes at home, and you fault her for going abroad for more money in a brief career.
WaterGirl
@BruceFromOhio:
As opposed to my usual not good? :-)
zhena gogolia
@pacem appellant: I learned it from a student! It’s a good one.
Chetan Murthy
Has everybody seen the video of Ms. Griner on the plane home? The …. look of warmth and …. happiness ? relief ? contentment ? on her face, is great. I mean, she’d be justified in just being wrapped in a ball of hurt after what she’s been thru. But she seems pretty strong and at least is in high spirits.
Over at Kos they got it right: the RWJs are freaked-out b/c they can’t stand a Black Lesbian being happy, having things work out for them.
Tehanu
Shared this on Fbk (for what that’s worth) — really a beautifully written post.
What particularly struck me when I read about this yesterday was Whelan’s brother saying “It is so important to me that it is clear that we [i.e., the Whelan family] do not begrudge Ms. Griner her freedom”. Now that’s class, which none of the screeching MAGAts will ever have if they live to be 100.
sab
@WaterGirl: I almost commented to that “yet another good from WG.”
geg6
Excellent post. Took my scattered thoughts and put them down plainly and in a more organized fashion than I could manage.
zhena gogolia
@Tehanu: Yes. His family has acted nobly.
RaflW
Side topic, but a top DeSantis donor who was under investigation for suspected sex crimes killed himself.
The guy rented a condo to DeSantis in the 20-teens. I’m imagining the howler monkeys if, say, a top potential ’24 or ’28 Democratic name in the presidential sweepstakes were to be this closely associated with a putative sex offender. Who then unexpectedly ends it all.
patrick II
Fewer people watch the WNBA than the NBA and the WNBA’s TV contract is not in the same universe as the NBA’s, so their players get paid less. In the U.S., more people watch women’s soccer than men’s. If it was a matter of just domestic audience the women’s team would get paid more, but the men’s team salary is augmented by membership in an overwhelmingly popular world tournament and their salary ends up about the same.
Women tennis players’ pay is equal (thank you Billie Jean King) and women gymnasts make a much better living than the guys (try naming a recent male gymnast).
Professional sports are in the entertainment business, and their pay is mostly measured by audience share.
karen marie
@Spanky: This has me just nuts.
My mind is blown that he was the “director of security” for one of the top 25 auto parts distributors in the country. How the fuck does someone with his background get such a job
@Kent: And British. He’s a national of four countries.
Chief Oshkosh
I was happy when Trevor Reed was brought back home in April. It brings me joy that Ms. Griner is back home and will be with her loved ones for the holidays. I hope and expect that I’ll be just as happy when Mr. Whelan is brought home.
As to the shitbirds whining about any of this, Trump didn’t lift a fucking finger to get Reed or Whelan out of Russian prisons, so they can fuck off. And I don’t particularly give a crap whether a drug dealing whackjob or an gangster arms dealer are walking “free” in Russia right now. They’re in their own hells and will be to their dying days, which are coming anon.
Cheryl from Maryland
Great take, Albatrossity. Also, I find that Whelan was being interviewed by the Western Press the very day Ms. Griner was exchanged – https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/politics/paul-whelan-cnn-interview-brittney-griner/index.html- more evidence that Putin baited the hook and the Press and the GOP took it.
Procopius
I’m not sympathetic. I’m glad Griner is free, I’m glad she’s back in the States, but I don’t agree she was wrongly arrested or imprisoned.
Every country has its own drug laws. I’m pretty sure (I can’t read her mind) that she expected to go through customs without being closely examined, and didn’t think much about taking a hashish-based cartridge in her luggage.
She’s lucky she didn’t go to Singapore, where she would have been hanged.
Jaybird
@trollhattan: We know a bunch of ‘em. We used to live there, too. It was, at one point, not a crazy choice. I’m not sure I’d agree now; glad we never bought.
BruceFromOhio
@WaterGirl: Sorry that came out wrong. Something soooo awesome from a comment.
Ihop
There are no retired marines. They are all marines. I have a number in my life.
I don’t know if someone who earned a dishonorable discharge is still a marine. That’s not the issue.
She was a hostage, chosen for that purpose.
Putin is desperate, and every fuckbag in the west still willing to carry his water needs to be exposed.
Alison Rose
Thank you. This is excellent. Gonna share this.
Stacy
Some Fox News-watching acquaintances of mine on Facebook keep repeating that Griner “hates America.” Does that come from something truth-adjacent, or did Fox make it entirely up? If they’re just going immediately for “gay black female athlete” = “hates America” now though, that’s hardly surprising.
sab
@karen marie: My family has been here for 300+ years. Just circumstances. So only US. If we’d had the option for broader horizons we’d have done it (maybe). My mother contemplated applying for an Irish passport. My sister speaks Mandarin and preCovid spent half her years in China. The rest of us just stay home beacause we like it, and suspect we are missing out a bit.
Almost Retired
Great post. It seems to me that the information about Whelan’s bad conduct discharge and multiple passports has not been released to rough him up, but is actually relevant to his defense. There is no way a guy with this profile would be recruited to spy by the American intelligence agencies. Not that Putin’s claim wasn’t ridiculous on its face, but it doesn’t stand up to the slightest whiff of logic.
Chetan Murthy
@Stacy: I have no idea where they got it, but if I were to *guess*, it’d be b/c she was playing basketball professionally in Russia. I mean, “harrumph and ahem, why wasn’t she playing IN AMERICA, HENGHHHH!!111!!!!!ONE”
Darkrose
Excellent post, Albatrossity. Thank you.
zhena gogolia
@Procopius: Спасибо, очень интересно.
Darkrose
@Stacy: It’s because she, along with her teammates, took a knee during the National Anthem after Brionna Taylor’s murder.
Dan B
Watergirl; Great post, thanks for putting it on the front page!
Betty Cracker
Testing out a new royal icing recipe for the upcoming annual Drunken Aunties Cooking Night. It tastes good — marshmallowy! — but I need to thin it out
Kay
My take on Biden is that he knows what he’s doing on all things foreign policy, more so than any president in my lifetime, so he completely ignores the screaming mob who know little or nothing.
He’s very confident in these decisions. He doesn’t care what they think.
Chetan Murthy
@Darkrose: Good for her and her teammates! And wow, so that’s why Faux made that slur. Crrikey.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Oooh. The snowflake cookie is pretty.
I hate baking so my son in law is bringing his mother’s cookies for my whole house full o guests.
She’s from (and in) Pittsburgh. They’re nutty for cookies in Pittsburgh. They have the “cookie table” at weddings.
Ella in New Mexico
@Chetan Murthy:
In hindsight, I think the West and Western businesses should have been far, far more hesitant to embrace Russia pretending to be a more open society, ready to become equals with the rest of the world, when what we’ve also known they’ve really been doing is using the information they gather from the people and companies who go there to conduct psyops that exploit our differences and bring us down from within.
If we didn’t already seen this from the 2016 election we have to see this now after Ukraine. The Britney Grinder incident only magnifies what their real intent is: to destroy the West by exploiting our own worst enemies and tendencies, right here at home.
RSA
Gift article in the Washington Post for background.
Spanky
@Betty Cracker: Thin it? Cripes! I’m lucky if I can get mine thick enough not to bleed all over the adjacent white icing. That blue piping looks mahvelous!
Darkrose
@Procopius: I like the way everyone assumes that she wasn’t set up. No way Russian police would plant drugs on someone! As someone who’s vaped before, the idea that you’d pack half-empty cartridges in your luggage makes no sense. Assuming that you really didn’t think you’d get caught, why wouldn’t you pack full cartridges? And certainly there wasn’t enough there to justify the smuggling charges or the sentence.
sab
@Kay: I respect her, but she is from California way off on the left coast. I hope Ms. Harris learns a lot from Pres Biden. I am sure she will.
We lost a lot when Beau died.
Chetan Murthy
@Ella in New Mexico: We agree 100%, and I would expect that our State, Justice, and Treasury departments would be aggressively pushing, inveighling, and using the force of law, to dissuade American businesses and citizens from visiting or doing business with Russia. I would expect that pressure to be relentless, with very explicit warnings to all Americans who book travel to Russia.
None of that changes the past, though.
Mike in NC
It came from both of Trump’s two shitstain adult sons. They may well have heard it on FOX.
Albatrossity
Thanks, all, for the kind comments. I had just had enough of folks, some on the left, victim-blaming Griner and ignoring that Putin knows what buttons to push and what fractures to exploit. It may not be racist to complain that she was released, but it sure is racist-adjacent, and feeds the narratives that keep us divided. We MUST stop letting a puppet-master pull our strings.
trollhattan
@Chetan Murthy:
Let me state very succinctly that I am not questioning Ms. Griner. She had played overseas before and here she was, again. I presume she, her agent, and people in the US government and US Basketball have had open discussions of the possible bad outcomes with each overseas contract, and that she returned with a clear head about that.
What am also asserting is that there are countries to which travel has risks well above other nations, especially those visiting from certain high-profile ones. I will leave the tale of my friend Dan’s mother, who died while birding in Iran, for another time.
sab
@Betty Cracker: I don’t actually like iced cookies to eat (iced-=ick) but no other cookie is as gorgeous
gwangung
@Procopius: And I find your remark to be remarkably credulous of Russian police, who’d I give less of a benefit of a doubt than their American counterparts (who we KNOW frequently lie to justify themselves)
@Darkrose: Yeah, there’s that, too. CBD oil? Wayyyy lower quantities to make it worth smuggling? Riiiiigggght.
VOR
I agree w/ Albatrossy’s premise: this is ginned up to provoke the MAGA fools. Britney Griner is an American and the US government ought to be doing everything possible to get her back. Ditto for Mr. Whelan, who was arrested by Russia during the Trump administration and was not repatriated by said administration.
Apparently a deal to bring back Ms. Griner was possible but not a deal to get them both. The Biden administration would be criticized no matter what it did, so they made the deal which was possible.
Mr. Griner made a lot of money playing basketball in Russia and had been doing it for several years. Many other WNBA players have second seasons in Russia. As stated in the post, she was simply going to work for the same team she had played for several years in the past and not doing anything novel.
Ms. Griner was arrested on February 17, 2022, a full week PRIOR to the Ukraine attacks. The Wikipedia article says a dog signaled detection of traces of marijuana on her luggage. She had been prescribed medicinal cannabis in Arizona, which is illegal in Russia, but none was found. Per Wikipedia, she was charged with having vape cartridges containing less than a gram of hash oil.
Mr. Griner seems perfect to rile up the MAGAts. She is black. She is an out lesbian. She looks like a professional athlete, not a model. Her height, tattoos, and athletic appearance probably trigger some feelings in MAGA men. They claim she kneeled during the playing of the US anthem, like many other athletes have. She called for ending the practice of playing the US national anthem before games. Based on these last two items, the MAGAts shriek that she hates America.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: A cookie table?!? Yes please!
I’m not much of a baker except once a year for DACN. My sister and I have been doing this Christmas cookie baking madness for at least 20 years, so now it’s expected and we can’t quit!
Chetan Murthy
@trollhattan: I certainly agree with your second paragraph. I would never visit countries that don’t enjoy a democratic form of government, and with which our country was not on good terms. Period.
VOR
I imagine Ms. Griner’s imagined sins are:
– a US Olympian playing basketball in a foreign country. Who was probably paying her several times what her WNBA team did.
– Kneeling for the national anthem after the Breonna Taylor killing as part of the wider George Floyd protests.
– Publicly calling for sports teams to stop playing the national anthem before games.
Betty Cracker
@Spanky: I use meringue powder and cream of tartar (whatever the hell that is) to thicken it. None of the recipes I tried with egg whites, etc., thickened enough.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
They got married in Pittsburgh so I found out about it:
One of my sisters paid a good baker to make her cookies to bring to the wedding reception and then LIED and said she made them. Hysterical. Just bold as brass accepting compliments. You can’t say anything because you’d sound so petty at a wedding reception “she’s LYING about those COOKIES” – I should have asked the DJ to announce it.
Amir Khalid
@Procopius:
Back in the 1980s, an American man was hanged in Malaysia because his personal weed stash exceeded the 15gram threshold for presumption of capital drug trafficking. I have always thought that sentence excessive, for what was at worst a misdemeanor in the US.
I don’t see how it helps to keep harping on Brittney Griner’s crime, to insist on condemning her repeatedly for her recklessness. I don’t see the point in flogging that dead horse. What’s important, after all, is that she is free and safe with her family again.
sab
@Kay: I would say laughing my small donkey off but that would play down my position.
WaterGirl
@BruceFromOhio: I was just teasing you, it’s all good.
ian
@RSA: That was an informative article to read. Thank you for posting that, I learned something from it.
WaterGirl
@Dan B: I am always thrilled when Albatrossity writes something I can post. He is an excellent writer, and always thoughtful.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I always so jealous of your drunken aunties cookie nights.
Those are two very good-looking cookies.
surfk9
@Betty Cracker: Tomorrow begins our annual cookie-palooza. My wife and I were both professional bakers in our past. We will be making shortbread three ways, spritz butter cookies, almond bars, Mexican wedding cookies and some spiral sugar cookies to mail to our friends and family around the country (if they haven’t been received by the middle of the month we start getting phone calls). Later in the week we will make coconut cranberry chews and snicker-doodles for those folks closer to home.
My wife was raised in a family full of artists. At some point the adults all decided to stop buying each other gifts for Christmas. They could however give each other something they made. You could still buy gifts for kids. I loved the idea and we have observed that tradition for the last almost 30 years
Bill Arnold
A useful discussion earlier this year of current-Russia’s approach of banking hostages for use in future prisoner swaps.
Russia is not currently and collectively a civilized country.
Prisoner Swaps, Putin Style (August 8, 2022, Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan)
CarolPW
@Betty Cracker:
I was told long ago cream of tartar was scrapings from the sides of wine barrels. I just bought some myself to make some Christmas cookies, and was surprised to find it in the spice area rather than with the baking soda, corn starch, and baking powder in similarly sized containers (might give you some idea how long it had been since I had needed any).
WaterGirl
@CarolPW: I can’t eat snickerdoodles because they have cream of tartar in them. This will sound crazy, but when I eat something that has cream or tartar as an ingredient, I get super irritable. I mean irrationally irritable, crabby for no good reason.
We discovered this when I worked at the University. There was a company that came around every Wednesday. You would order whatever snacks and sweets you wanted, and they would deliver them the next Wednesday and take your order for the following week.
I used to order these incredible lemon cookies. I LOVED THEM. The people who worked for me started calling them “crabby cookies” because after I would eat them I would get, well, crabby. For no good reason.
So I had to give up the lemon cookies :-( and I have since noticed a similar reaction whenever I eat something with cream of tartar. If I get super crabby, I check the ingredients.
Sad!
CarolPW
@WaterGirl:
My most favorite of all family traditional Christmas cookies has cream of tartar in it (which is why I just bought some). More than half of the family cookies had walnuts in them, and they gave me painful sores on my tongue and cheeks (tannins I think, and red wine does the same thing). Didn’t make me cranky though because that was my default mood as a kid.
Darkrose
@Betty Cracker: Those cookies look amazing!
I rarely bake these days, aside from Trader Joe’s box mixes–their gingerbread is so good! Our CSA box includes a lot of baked goods, though, and we discovered some excellent maple sugar cookies they have for the holidays. They’re great with tea, coffee, and cider.
Albatrossity
@WaterGirl: That’s really interesting. Cream of Tartar is basically the potassium salt of tartaric acid, which is also found in lots of fruits like grapes, bananas, tamarinds, pomegranates, most citrus fruits, etc. As pointed out above, this salt precipitates out of wine as it is aging, so the original source was indeed the scrapings of wine barrels. Sometimes in an aged red wine you can find crystals of potassium bitartrate on the cork when you pull it. Do some of those other fruits make you cranky too?
And thank you for your kind words about my writing. This is a great place to share ones thoughts in writing, and there are plenty of good wordsmiths here!
Bill Arnold
@pacem appellant:
First saw steelman on weird sun twitter, some of which is collected at weird.solar.
list of men (Vessel Of Spirit, Aug 3, 2016 )
Honus
@Kay: and you have to have boxes at the cookie table so everybody can take some home.
Can’t believe she lied about making the cookies though. That is unheard of as much as failing to have a TV off to the side so the men can slip away to watch the WVU-Pitt game during the reception
Tony G
@Citizen Alan: For some reason, the right-wing swine who are attacking Brittany Griner and complaining about the fact that her release — not that of Paul Whelan — has been arranged, are not mentioning the fact that Whelan was arrested by Russia on December 28, 2018 — roughly halfway through the Trump presidency. Somehow, in the last two years of Trump’s presidency he never bothered to do anything to try to get Whelan released. He didn’t want to bother his boss, Vladimir Putin.
Gretchen
@Tony G: John Bolton sa
@Tony G: John Bolton says that Trump was offered the same trade for Whelan and refused it.
Gretchen
I see a lot of similarities between comments on the Griner exchange and comments on Meghan Markle. The black lady is always in the wrong.
WaterGirl
@Albatrossity: No, those fruits do not make me cranky. Red wine makes me feel like crap, though. Not sure that’s the same thing.
Albatrossity
@WaterGirl: Good to hear that; it would really suck to have to avoid all those yummy fruits.
But also a bummer about the red wine!
Geminid
@VOR: Ms. Griner’s biggest sin was to help make Whelan a victim of affirmative action.
Eta Reticulist
Why is the comments section of this Brittney Griner article being hijacked by photos of cookies and comments on cookies? That is completely disrespectful to the author, the subject of the story, and the readers of the story! Can a moderator please move the cookies photos and comments into the “comments section” of an article about cookies? Thank you very much!
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As for Brittney Griner, people need to remind social media of the possibility that she never “broke the law” in the first place, but was set up by Russia and only “confessed” on the (poor) advice of her lawyer in (vain) hopes of getting leniency. People also need to remind social media that no deal for Paul Whelan was possible. It was either Griner for Viktor Bout or no deal at all.
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Furthermore, people need to inundate social media with the question of why didn’t Traitor Trump ever get Whelan freed between mid 2018 and early 2021, since he’s supposed to be so “artful” at making deals? But instead, he failed, or actually didn’t even try. Loser! President Biden’s Administration got a political prisoner home and will keep trying to help others as well.
WaterGirl
@Eta Reticulist: Hi there. Welcome!
Your first comment on Balloon Juice has to be manually approved, but after that your comments will show up for everyone right away.
Until/unless you change your email or you comment from a new device, then your first comment after has to be moderated, too.