Not all who wander are lost, some are just seeking the home where they belonghttps://t.co/scsOJfpskX
— David Farah (@DavidkFarah) February 12, 2023
… Hopefully, a purpose that’s not gonna give everyone around you an aneurysm. ‘Stealing’ this one from TaMara’s bailiwick, so I can gift y’all an unpaywalled link:
It had been 36 hours since Bailey the dog disappeared. Her new owner and the animal shelter where she had lived for more than a year knew that every second that passed dimmed the likelihood that she would be found alive…
… Then, deep into the second night after her disappearance, animal shelter employees were notified that someone was pressing their Ring camera doorbell. They opened up the app, which showed the exterior of the animal shelter and its late-night caller: Bailey.
Her doorbell camera cameo ended a 36-hour search for a dog that did not need to be rescued. Bailey knew where she was going and traveled some 10 miles to get there. But she now faced an obstacle she could not overcome. Without a key or opposable thumbs, she needed someone to let her in.
Bailey first came to the Animal Rescue League of El Paso more than a year ago. After housing her for a few months, another shelter transferred her to the rescue league in the hopes that its higher foot traffic would lead to her adoption.
Despite the boost, Bailey languished at the rescue league for more than a year because of “some quirks that were not easy for people to overcome,” including being hyper, untrained and a bit of an “escape artist,” according to rescue league director Loretta Hyde. “She spent most of her life in a shelter,” Hyde said, adding that Bailey took an obedience course during her time at the rescue league.
Bailey’s quirks bubbled up after she was adopted a few months ago, Hyde added. Her new owner returned her three days later because Bailey escaped from her crate and destroyed a piece of his artwork. About a month later, a second owner adopted her. He already had a feral dog that he had painstakingly trained for a year. After a few visits to make sure the two got along, he brought Bailey into the fold, taking the two dogs with him every day to his job training, teaching and competing in martial arts.
All was going well until around noon on Jan. 29 when Bailey slipped her new owner’s grasp as he tried to fit her for a new harness and bolted, Hyde said. He chased her on foot and then by car, but she eluded both efforts. So he called the shelter, which put out an urgent alert on its Facebook page that night informing its more than 33,000 followers that Bailey was on the loose and asking them to report any sightings.
There were at least three over the next 36 hours but none panned out, Hyde said. By the time shelter workers arrived at each location, Bailey had taken off. One of the shelter employees, Yvonne Arratia, was at home in bed and nearly asleep on Jan. 31 when she heard a loud ding from her phone…
Hyde said she gave [Bailey’s ‘owner’] a bit of a scolding when he arrived, telling him to be more careful. He agreed to walk her using two leashes and to get a collar outfitted with a tracker. “We are just lucky that she made it across all these super busy streets and not get smushed,” Hyde said. “She has some street smarts as well.”
Bailey’s odyssey reminded Hyde how amazing dogs are. During her trip, she traveled some 10 miles, crossing over a main drag in El Paso and Interstate 10 to somehow find her way back to the shelter. Hyde said that is a feather in the shelter’s cap.
“She lived at the shelter for soooo long this was home to her,” the shelter wrote on Facebook announcing that Bailey had been found. “She felt safe here. When she got loose she was on a mission to get home.”
Maybe Bailey needs to be the live-in shelter mascot, don’t you think? (Yes, I realize why this is ‘rationally’ a non-starter.) She is a dog built for adventure, and I hope her ‘owner’ can find her some that won’t kill them both!
Honestly, I feel in my heart for Bailey’s ‘owner’, because I have lived with one Houdini dog and known several others. They are about as retrainable as a kudzu vine – you can do your best to deter their natural urge to runrunrun, but they can give much more undivided attention to escaping than the average human can to ‘confining’ them. But that very search for purpose makes them arresting, vital companions.
And, for a martial artist, living with Bailey is no doubt a powerful tool for encouraging absolute mindfulness!
On The Road – Albatrossity – Lake Manyara National Park
WereBear
This also exists in a cat version, the Alpha Cat Type. (It was from Brave New World long before the edgelords stole it, and was in an alphabet before that. Let that usage fade away because they are, truly, more like the zenith, no?)
It might lead to training problems, like Bud-Bud the Oblivious Spud. But he’s almost four now and MUCH better. It was a teen thing :)
But yes, they tend to be challenging and thrilling and those hearts are just as over the top when it comes to love. So whatcha gonna do?
Baud
Bailey cannot be contained!
zhena gogolia
Bailey’s so cute!
I DIDN’T THINK I CARED BUT KANSAS CITY WON! WOO-HOO!
zhena gogolia
Let me do this again, since it does work in edit:
KANSAS CITY WON! WOO-HOO!
Baud
Another Scott posted this about the College Board and DeSantis.
https://allaccess.collegeboard.org/our-commitment-ap-african-american-studies-scholars-and-field
Thought it needed more exposure.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Show off.
raven
Artemis has turned out to be an enigmatic pup. We only had three people over for the game last night and she started by growling at them to the point we put her on the leash. By the 1st quarter she was in her spot on the couch with her head in one of our friend’s lap! She can be great at the dog park but suddenly go after exuberant dogs who she doesn’t know. She’s as affectionate as any dog we’ve had but we think that the abuse she suffered resulted in PTSD that is not going away. Unlike Bailey she ain’t goin nowhere!
Soprano2
We have a dog who could sit at the base of a 3 ft chain link fence and jump over it without touching it. (Saw it myself or I wouldn’t have believed it.) He didn’t run away, he just wanted outside the fence. We were in the process of replacing the fence, so we got a 6 ft one. That solved the problem, and he’s happy now. He had lived at the rescue for a year, maybe that’s why! I have a lot of sympathy for Bailey’s owner! (This dog tore up a lot of things early on, too, I have several “souvenirs” of him from that time.)
WereBear
@raven: The tips in my post link above can help with dogs, too. I tried various calming supplements I learned from cat rescue.
It sounds like she’s very happy in her home. But it might help at the dog park.
raven
@WereBear: She gets a “cbd calming” treat in the morning before we go but I haven’t seen any difference in her. She is really happy almost all of the time. Her morning ritual with the kids going to school is really fun, she’s great with the little’s and can’t wait to get her treats! We think it is our lot in life to get to worry about our critters!
oldster
“Strike out to find your purpose”.
I kept striking out until I found my purpose was to make the opposing pitcher look good.
Then I just played different games. That was not my purpose.
raven
Checkout Artie and her dog friends chasing a drone at the dog park!
Baud
@raven:
Heaven on earth.
Kay
@Baud:
Rings true. It’s concerning how good DeSantis and Rufo are at fooling these people. Why would they have ever have thought this was good faith?
What do DeSantis and Rufo and the rest of the cancel culture/CRT screamers have to do before people start using some common sense in dealing with them? You’re PERMITTED to consider past behavior when dealing with people. It’s not “open minded” or “fair” to ignore it- it’s ridiculous and dumb. Their past behavior is information – context, on which to consider whether they are operating in good faith. It is reputation.
David Coleman, who runs the College Board, is paid 1.5 million a year. He shouldn’t be be this sloppy.
Baud
@Kay:
I quipped yesterday that the NYT will print a retraction. They won’t because they’re garbage.
WereBear
@raven: And so rewarding.
raven
@WereBear: Yep, we wouldn’t have it any other way.
OzarkHillbilly
Maybe Bailey just thought her new owner was an asshole, trying to make her fit his idea of what a dog should be. My father tried that with me and in return I made his life a living hell.
Kay
“Failed to answer” I thought they wanted a debate?
In other news the “free speech and debate” enthusiasts cancelled Roberto Clemente. His life story-what happened to him in his life– has some parts that might make white conservatives feel …icky, so they threw his biography in the trash.
Baud
@Kay:
I heard about that. Looking forward to seeing how Florida baseball teams handle Roberto Clemente Day this season.
OzarkHillbilly
@zhena gogolia: You won’t hear any more from me this AM, gonna watch the highlights and then go o/u the GDs.
Kay
I got your “kowtowing to a loud and demanding minority” right here:
It’s a majority AA district. Why are white conservatives deciding what books they’re permitted to read?
Baud
This is all a distraction from Rihanna’s baby bump.
Kay
@Baud:
The cancel culture substackers say is it doesn’t matter because children don’t read library books anyway- they can find out about Roberto Clemente on their phones!
Why this cavalier brush off doesn’t also apply to their 4 year freak out about the Oberlin Student Council or 40 rowdy law students at Yale is not explained. Oberlin and Yale “cancel culture” meant the End Of Free Speech and Scholarly Debate. A state with 22 million people pulls hundreds of books from public schools and they yawn.
Ridiculous people. Bad thinkers. I absolutely blame them for this. They lent the far Right legitimacy and now that the chickens have come home to roost the brave free speech warriors ran away.
PAM Dirac
Just went through the beagle escape with my daughter’s dog. The dog was adopted after he spent 2 years in a FDA lab. He was slowly getting socialized with home life and their other two dogs, but one day he slipped out of his harness and ran. They posted flyers, knocked on doors, put out cameras, even hired trackers. Got a few sightings farther and farther away, but could never get sight of him. There was even a night where it go down to around 15 degrees. I didn’t think he could survive the cold, let alone all the traffic (Fairfax, Va). It was getting close to 2 weeks when they started getting a bunch of calls on Saturday morning and finally got the to area when he was still around. They had people who really knew what they were doing and instead of chasing a scared dog, they set out food, and set up cameras. They found an area he was coming to and set up a trap. Around 2 Sunday morning they got him. He was 5-6 miles from home across 4-5 very busy roads. It’s a happy ending, but it was sure traumatic.
Geminid
@Baud: I was scanning around the AM dial a couple nights ago and heard the Clemente book ban discussed on a Pittsburgh sports show. The hosts agreed that the ban was stupid.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Sounds like scholars are roasting the College Board people for their wimpy response and that’s what motivated the belated denunciation. Well, good for the scholars since someone needed to call DeSantis and his minions out for lying, and the College Board people weren’t doing it.
Kay
Here’s the pompous, overwrought Harpers Letter complaining about cancel culture.https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
Do none of them speak up regarding censorship and book bans in public schools because that isn’t about their own careers?
There are 50 million public school students. Because it’s not Oberlin or Yale or the NYTimes it doesn’t matter?
What a bunch of phonies. Not about “speech” at all. Instead, as always, it is about their stupid careers and their own inflated sense of their relevance and importance in this country.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Absolutely ridiculous😠
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
They’re such a piss poor defense for a public entity as huge and important as public schools. I swear, public school students deserve better adult advocates. These people are weak and they suck.
The College Board looked at Christopher Rufo and said “now there’s a legitimate scholar! He’s on the up and up!” Christ. Just turn it over to the students. They’re probabky better judges of character.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
But we need to recognize this as a win. Oftentimes, institutional actors often never call out Republicans.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Betty Cracker
When the College Board people finally got around to responding to the FDOE’s buffoonery, they were fairly scathing:
The FDOE’s shitty and embarrassing work product here is as predictable as the sunrise since DeSantis stocked the board with Qanon kooks and religious fanatics.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I nominate “Does this blog promote Black Panther thinking” for the rotating tag.
Matt McIrvin
I have an escape-artist cat–she’s supposed to be an indoor cat only, always has been, but she really, really wants to be outside and exterminate all the wildlife around our house (which is why she’s supposed to be indoor–well, that and all the things around here that can take a house cat). She’s very good at slipping out during any split second while the door is open, and it helps that she’s completely black and difficult to see in low light.
Fortunately, our neighborhood is pretty quiet and when she gets out she is generally begging at the door to come back in before too long. And lately it’s been a little easier to keep her in; I think she’s mellowing out as she ages.
Cameron
@Kay: Because it’s a slippery slope. If you don’t keep a close eye on what they read, they’ll start accepting transgendered M&Ms and the downfall of Western civilization is sure to follow.
The Thin Black Duke
In Florida, Jim Crow won. Time to start putting up the “White Only” signs.
frosty
In my life I’ve only had one dog that would come when called. The others were all runners.
The queen of escapers, though, was our German Shepherd Nell, who once jumped out of a second story window when we weren’t home. Also found on the porch roof contemplating a jump after that.
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly:
Fortunately, the people who tried that with me weren’t family .They ran away when I tried the living hell thing.
Which solved the problem.
frosty
@Soprano2: At our previous house put in a 5 ft fence with a lattice at the top in the backyard because chain link wasn’t an obstacle to Nell. I let her out when it was done and it only took her 10 minutes to leap up, put her paws through the lattice, and lever herself over the top. Gone! (We always found her though).
marklar
@Betty Cracker: “Does the course promote Black Panther thinking?”
I sure hope so! Here’s a couple quotes from King T’Challa:
“We let our fear of discovery stop us from doing what is right. No more.”
“I have lost my way. I have lost my very soul. To get back, I must see beyond myself, beyond my deepest truths. To get back, I must see things not as I feel them to be, but as they are.”
—(from Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, Volume 1, 2016)
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Love the “children don’t read library books and what they learn in school doesn’t matter” defense.
This is from our Public Intellectuals who insisted that the Oberlin course catalogue was an existential threat. “Oh, the 50 million kids will learn that shit on TicTok!”
Who do they think goes to college? People who went to K-12, right?
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I actually loved inspirational biographies as a kid. Complete sucker for those. I also often still learn new things in required “continuing education” for lawyers whereas all the rest of America apparently requires no further education at all, ever, and will have a huge, whiny hissy fit if you insist they take any, so maybe I’m an outlier.
I’m up for a continuing ed course in institutional racism – I bet I’d get something put of it. All of these people are apparently done learning, they are so extremely LEARNED they can learn nothing else.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: When I was a child with no internet, the public library was my lifeline of fairly accurate information.
Even though I’ve come to look back and see how the Dewey Decimal system IS racist, shall we say :)
I’m wondering if the fact their society was even more rigid and manipulative when these people were children, and that’s part of what is making them freak out today.
For someone who spends their lives in a circle of restricted information, our world looks like it has gone mad.
Anyway
@zhena gogolia:
Boo! Hiss!
Still bitter after last night…
PS Fancy schmancy color didn’t come with copy…
Litlebritdifrnt
I love this story. We had a Chow/German Shepard cross called “Dweebe” (thanks to my husband). She was delightful but very protective of the homestead. In her mind the homestead had to be protected against all enemies and the only way she could do that was to leave the homestead and sit in the driveway across the street and monitor for intruders. We could never keep her in, we fully fenced the yard and she would just dig her way out. We put up an “electric” fence and she would look at it, look at me, and you could see the thought bubbles over her head “so burned belly or stay in the yard? Oh well what’s a burned belly”. When we re-fenced the yard (chain link) we did the trick of laying chicken wire in the ground three feet at the edge of the fence. Dweebe would go to the fence and begin to dig, hit the wire and then move a couple of inches back and begin to dig, on and on until she got to the chicken wire free bit of earth and began to dig. The most spectacular hole was the result of her efforts. Three feet away from the fence, thence two feet down, thence three feet to the fence, whereupon she came upon a massive Carolina Pine tree root, thence one foot down below the tree root, thence one foot up from the tree root, thence three feet up into the swamp/forest. I kid you not I could have rented this thing out to the producers of the next Colditz movie. And, after all that effort where did she go? To sit in the driveway across the street to watch the homestead. It got to the point that if the Animal Control people were around or if they were called out, they would wander up to her in the neighbour’s driveway and say “OK Dweebe, no monsters today, time to go home” and walk her back to the gate, lift her up and pop her back into the back yard. She and all the animal control people became great buddies. I never once had to go to the pound to break her out. The oldhand Animal Control people would introduce newby employees to the neighbourhood with the following Newbie “there’s a dog in the driveway there” Oldhand “yeah that’s Dweebe, she is protecting the homestead we’ll stick her back in the yard” Newbie “but is that allowed?” Oldhand “its Dweebe, its what we do” . Anyone who has ever had a Houdini dog will understand this. As an aside, as she got old her adventures dimished and she went to her other favourite spot, the second step out of the kitchen into the yard where she went to sleep and never woke up. I still miss her.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: Hard to be scathing alone, is my take.
Honus
@Baud: they celebrated Jackie Robinson day. One wag replied to a tweet by a republican congressman “imagine if we could teach why he wasn’t allowed to play until 1947”
Dorothy A. Winsor
God, I hope so
ETA: I see Marklar got there first. Curses.
Princess
@Kay: Because they’re not conservatives, it doesn’t matter. This has always, always been about protecting conservative speech and the speech that big money pays for. It’s not about protecting free speech. At my university they shut down students protests when certain speakers came or planned to come to campus (Steve Bannon!). They didn’t care about student speech, they care about certain speech. The people here were among the founders of FIRE, the organization tasked with tut tutting about Oberlin.
evodevo
Yep…I can sympathize with the new owner…our current rescue, a mini-border collie, also shares a lot of those traits…she can shed a harness while running backward faster than bob’s yer uncle, and WON’T come when called, while running at top speed up the hills and down the hollows. No obedience course would bring her to heel lol. HOWEVER, she does adore us in principle, and will come back if my husband starts up the RTV ( she LOVES riding around the farm in it – if you say the word “kubota”, she jumps for joy lol). LOTS of quirks, too smart by half…but we are all getting used to one another over time…
Kay
@WereBear:
Rufo said “we’re in charge now”, meaning the far Right.
Excellent job fighting authoritarians and censorship in education. Great work.
Apparently they thought Christopher Rufo and Ron DeSantis would create a “welcoming space” for all views, this, in spite of the fact that Rufo outlined his completely dishonest plan to cull all the liberals and eradicate public schools, in detail, in numerous interviews. He TOLD them.
Anyway
@Betty Cracker:
Makes me livid that the Board had to be called out in order for them to respond. Our institutions are hollowed out — they are shit scared of Rethugs and have lost sight of their purpose and mission.
evodevo
@Kay: I bet the only reason he put this “protest” out was because they got a gazillion communications calling out their cowardly kowtow to DeathSantis, and now “regret” the move. I wonder if some big donors raised hell. Also they have ~1.5 BILLION in their kitty, so it’s unlikely any of FL’s machinations could affect their bottom line in a real way…https://www.therealcollegeboard.org/finance
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly: That was my first thought as well. Bailey decided this new owner was not for her.
Princess
If you read what Chris Rufo says — about white people feeling badly — and then you read what former Stormfront white nationalist Derek Black says about how that movement draws people in, the two are identical. Rufo isn’t paving the way for Nazisim, he is one. Not incidentally, Black was turned away from white nationalism at New College of Florida, the one Rufo is charged with destroying:
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2013/leaving-white-nationalism
Kay
@Princess:
“Our CAREERS are at stake here! What if we’re…..CANCELLED!”
Once it was no longer about them but instead about state actors direcing what the masses read and hear they lost interest. Also, DeSantis is legtimately powerful and opposing people with real power involves too much risk. Better to scold the Oberlin sophomores. Easy win there.
zhena gogolia
@OzarkHillbilly:
???
Honus
@Geminid: you do not dis The Great One in Pittsburgh.
the Pirates have a decent history (for a baseball team) on race. The Pirates owner extended a standing invitation to the owner of the Homestead Grays to attend major league games in his box at Forbes Field. The Pirates fielded (sort of inadvertently) the first all Black lineup in 1971. (Dock Ellis was on the mound. I personally celebrate Dick Ellis Day every June 12, along with Loving Day). With the Grays and the Crawfords, and players like Paige, Gibson and Bell, Pittsburgh was the center of Black baseball in the pre-war era.
eclare
@Matt McIrvin: Cats that I have had over the years have mellowed out about being outdoors as they got older. But you know cats, they can be stubborn about things for a *long* time!
Spanky
@zhena gogolia: Well, I’m guessing “GDs” is “granddaughters”. As to the rest? Beetz me.
kalakal
Well sucky news this am.
Mrs kalakal and I have both tested positive for Covid. Bit of a fever, sore throat, nasal congestion. Very annoying after 3 years.
Seem to have caught from friend of the spousal unit who paid a visit. Vexing as all 3 of us have been super cautious. Symptoms started yesterday
Betty Cracker
@Honus: The Pittsburgh Pirates’ spring training facility is in Bradenton, FL. If the management made the decision to move their operation to a state that isn’t run by white supremacist authoritarian goons, I bet that would get people’s attention.
That’s what needs to happen here, IMO. People of good will who don’t live in Florida and aren’t onboard with this bullshit need to boycott the state and say why. People who DO live here and aren’t onboard with this bullshit need to speak out.
eclare
@Litlebritdifrnt: Awww…what a sweet story. Haven’t seen you in a bit, hope you’re doing well.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Thanks! I’d missed that when Another Scott originally posted that. It was worth reading.
zhena gogolia
@kalakal: I’m sorry! I have three students out this morning, so I have to eff around with GD Zoom
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, I didn’t think I cared either but I was kind of looking forward to the noise in the streets while safely ensconced in our Philadelphia B & B.
Instead, it was eerily quiet. Just an occasional anguished yell.
I wasn’t even sure I was going to watch the game, but I decided to turn it on with the sound off, and then gave it my full attention for much of the second half and was really hoping Philly would pull it out. I heard that weird remark about “all that genius” talking about Murdoch’s box and Elon Musk.
KC just seemed unstoppable.
I mentioned to my wife earlier in the day that I had never figured out what a “conversion” was, I just knew there was something you could do to earn 2 points. I finally looked it up and figured it out, so I was proud of myself when I actually knew what was going on when Philly scored one.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@kalakal: Bummer. May your symptoms continue to be mild.
eclare
@kalakal: Hopefully your cases will stay mild!
lowtechcyclist
@oldster:
Makes me think of those Despair.com posters. Something like “maybe your purpose in life is to make other people look good by comparison.”
frosty
@Betty Cracker: We’re leaving today, as it turns out, after three weeks in the Keys. Maybe Georgia next Snowbird season?
Spanky
@lowtechcyclist:
Had that one in my office.
Soprano2
@Kay: I can guarantee you that Bill Maher, who was super wrapped around the axle about something that happened to a University of Chicago professor, won’t say a word about the removal of books from school libraries in FL because somehow that doesn’t affect him. I tried to search the U of Chicago thing – something about a hypothetical where the professor indicated two racial slurs with a first letter only and getting in trouble for it – but I couldn’t find it. I did find where a student there got a teacher a lot of threats by posting about her proposed course, “The Trouble with Whiteness”, and how he’s trying to get it completely shut down because reasons (hurts white people’s feelings, I guess). So the “free speech warriors” only want speech that doesn’t hurt their feelings. Strange definition of “free speech”. I’m sure the signers of that stupid letter are super proud of this result. /s/s/s/s/
Honus
@Betty Cracker: to be fair, pretty much every MLB spring training facility is in Florida except for the west coast teams that train in Arizona. And alas, the progressive leadership of the pirates is well in the past. The team has been owned for the past few decades by a wingnut publishing family.
You are correct though about moving training camps out of Florida. Many of Clemente’s specific complaints were about discrimination he faced during spring training in florida after he came to the Pirates from Montreal.
As an aside, when people tell me the Clemente was the first Hispanic player to win the MVP I like to point out that Clemente was born in the United States (Puerto Rico) but George Washington wasn’t.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Bad dog, Ozark, bad dog! :-)
WaterGirl
@marklar: I thought they were talking about the other Black Panthers from the 1960s.
WaterGirl
@kalakal: Oh, I’m sorry. Free at last after 5 years of shots, and now you get Covid. Totally sucks.
Nukular Biskits
Had a beagle that was an escape artist. She would climb a chainlink fence to follow that nose.
Ultimately, I had to install a “hot wire” fence to keep her in, something I didn’t want to do but, when she was hot on a scent, absolutely NOTHING else would deter her, including traffic on the busy road in front of the house.
Unfortunately, she passed away a couple of months ago after a long life.
Betty Cracker
@Honus: I was wondering if anyone had raised the idea of moving spring training in the local Pittsburgh paper, and someone did in a letter to the editor. Letter writer Steve Banks of Carrick made a really good point here:
I know team owners skew rich, male and white so mostly “conservative,” but their balance sheets depend on a diverse talent pool. Time to make some noise.
@frosty: Tybee Island is beautiful and close to Savannah, which is a really fun city.
Honus
@WaterGirl: You mean the one that started the Free Breakfast for Children program, supported women’s and gay liberation and opposed police violence?
Soprano2
@frosty: OMG, that is infuriating!! I don’t know how you managed it, I was at my wits’ end with Max before we put up the 6 ft fence. We couldn’t leave him in the house when we were gone because he chewed on things; we put him in a pen with a higher fence, but that was problematic especially in the winter because every time we tried to put a tarp over it to shelter him he just tore it up! The 6 ft fence did something to him inside; after that he was a much better, more manageable dog. I don’t know his history, but he had major separation anxiety.
Honus
@Betty Cracker: I completely agree. If the Yankees, Dodgers Pirates and others would move spring training out of Florida it would be a huge statement and financial hit to the Nazis. It wouldn’t seriously impact the teams and it’s not like there aren’t other willing and suitable locations at this point. Puerto Rico for one place has numerous baseball facilities and could use that economic shot in the arm.
unfortunately, it would take a coordinated effort by a group of largely tight wing owners.
frosty
@Betty Cracker: We’ve been there! Camped at Skidaway Park on our way south too. Also love Jekyll Island. It’s true, there are other choices than your home state.
WaterGirl
@Honus: Yep! The “scary black men” who did any number of good things.
Jeffro
@zhena gogolia: AMAZING WASN’T IT???
I heard an awful lot about this Philly defense over the past couple of weeks…not a lot about the KC offensive line, though. Hmm…
Betty Cracker
@Honus: The players are the key. If they’re onboard, the owners will have to follow. Pulling the Roberto Clemente book is the sort of outrage that could galvanize people, maybe. Hmmm. Off to google “how to contact MLB players association”…
@frosty: There’s nothing like the Keys, but yeah, there are lots of other warm-ish places to go. Jekyll is also nice. :)
Jeffro
Can’t be said often or loudly enough. 100%
Matt McIrvin
@Litlebritdifrnt: That was a dog with a sense of purpose, no question.
zhena gogolia
@Jeffro: I didn’t actually watch it. It’s just that I was born and raised in KCMO, and in church yesterday the minister actually asked prayers for the Eagles (not totally explicitly, but it was clear enough), so I had atavistic pride when I saw the outcome this morning.
Jeffro
I like this one (can’t remember the one-word theme, but I remember the picture and the quote):
*picture of a cargo ship about to finish sinking
*quote: “It could be that the purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others” LOL
ETA: I looked it up and the theme is ‘Mistakes’. =)
geg6
@Honus:
Bottom Line Bob, worst owner in professional sports.
MisterDancer
Of course the College Board didn’t understand what the DeSantis Admin was about, until it hurt.
Media downplays and soft-sells it as another round of the kind of performative bullshit that “Conservatives” playact as. The real harm they do is always seen as secondary to the political plays, the shit “they” say to reporters when they are tire-swinging them at their parties, yanno?
The fact that DeSantis ain’t playing that game, but a much more brutal and Authoritarian one, is lost. The fact that this is, as Thin Black Duke says, Jim Crow shit is ignored. So of course the College Board, a billion-dollar company, is isolated and disconnected from the reality, until it slaps ’em in the face, over and again.
Until blood is drawn.
Jeffro
@zhena gogolia: oh man, it was a tough game to watch for a while. Down 24-14 at halftime.
Mahomes after the game: “I play better when I’m behind”
I dunno, could you at least try playing well when you have a lead? Or just try to have a lead for once? See what it feels like – why not? You guys don’t always have to wait ’til you’re down by 10-14 points(!)
Anyway, the KC car magnet gets a victory lap today and then it goes back on the garage fridge for the next six months. =)
Soprano2
Well hells bells, just found out a little while ago that our cleaning supervisor has been “relocated” to the treatment plant – permanently! He was a good guy who came into a bad situation with another supervisor who didn’t want to help him at all; he was way in over his head, and he could never overcome that. Now I’m wondering if some people in our cleaning area are going to be next on the chopping block, the powers that be certainly aren’t messing around….
Jeffro
FYI the Post has an automatic “political Valentine’s Day card generator” up – kinda meh but a little funny.
The Times has up a “generate a Valentine via chatGPT” piece up, and honestly, it’s kind of cool.
Don’t forget to get those flowers and cards today, folks!!
(And the over-priced chocolate-dipped strawberries at Wegman’s, too!)
Soprano2
@Jeffro: KC has been able to come back in the second half all season long, it wasn’t a surprise to fans. People who want to talk about the holding call should also talk about the “fumble that wasn’t”. The Eagles got lucky with that call IMHO.
zhena gogolia
@Jeffro: Are you from KC?
Soprano2
@Jeffro: I’ve been ordering the Despair calendars since they first started making them. I love them, because the pics are good enough to fool people unless they really read the caption. February’s this year is “Independence: In light of the total absence of leadership, I’ve decided to follow myself”. LOL
Jeffro
Fixed that for ya. ;)
I know it’s just ‘their thing’, but every now and then they ought to think about going up by a touchdown or two in the first half. Just to see how it feels.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anyway:
The College Board is a corporation. Admittedly, a nonprofit one, but a corporation nonetheless.
Miss Bianca
@Litlebritdifrnt: Awww…what a story. Good to see your nym again!
Raoul Paste
We had a dog who dug underneath our fence and came back five days later. It’s enough to make you believe in miracles..
Dorothy A. Winsor
In breaking news, Michael Flynn is a crazy person.
Jeffro
@zhena gogolia: Nope – I’m a Northern Virginia kid. I got started rooting for KC back in the early 90’s. I just wanted a team OTHER than the ‘Skins to root for (ideally, in the AFC) and was like, “great rushing game (Christian Okoye), awesome defense (Derrick Thomas), some great rivalries – I think I’ll go with the Chiefs”.
And…here we are! =)
Soprano2
@Jeffro: I don’t disagree. Must be a psychological thing for them.
Jeffro
@Soprano2: LOL – that quote is not too far from what I used to tell some of my co-workers from time to time: “in the absence of clear direction from above, I am going to make the call and keep on going.”
The one I used to have in my office was the one with the picture of a Mayan temple that said ‘SACRIFICE: All That We Ask Is That You Give Us Your Heart’. Not sure I would have that one up today!
TaMara
Hey, I’ll take my good news where I can find it. Thanks!
lowtechcyclist
@geg6:
Worse than Dan Snyder? That’s impressively bad!
lowtechcyclist
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Should be something in there about preserving the sanctity of our bodily essence.
James E Powell
@Baud:
I don’t see this as a win. For DeSantis the College Board is an almost perfect enemy. The general public has no idea who the College Board is or what they do. They will believe that it’s a bunch of fancy pants pointy headed intellectuals who don’t eat at diners & probably hate America and the troops.
Matt McIrvin
@James E Powell: The College Board is a ridiculous institution. It’s a lot like DeSantis vs. Disney but with less cultural cachet; there’s a “root for injuries” element here, where part of the problem is that they opened by being timid about opposing DeSantis’s tyrannical behavior and then got pushed by public outcry into responding with a halfhearted fight.
Baud
@James E Powell:
I think that’s the wrong take. It’s not a “win” of the overall war, but people pressured the College Board to push back against DeSantis. If we lose when people refuse to push back against DeSamtis, we need to treat the opposite action as a win.
Conservatives always make enemies out of people who stand up to them. If that makes it a win for conservatives, then we will never win anything.
Matt McIrvin
@eclare: Once, when she got out, she ended up holed up under the porch while a young coyote hung around the front yard scratching itself and making eldritch coyote noises. I was hoping the experience would make her think better of running outside, but that newfound trepidation lasted about 30 minutes.
UncleEbeneezer
@Kay: Have you seen this interview with TNC about the current wave of book bans? It’s very good.
oldgold
In the springtime of my dotage, I
sometimesoften miss cultural/ symbolic references. Last night during the Super Bowl halftime performance, were the white blobs swarming about Rhianna supposed to represent something? My personal assistants, all millennials, are claiming they represented sperm.UncleEbeneezer
@Dorothy A. Winsor: He has publicly used exact wording and phrases from Qanon and the I Am cult. Dude is seriously deranged.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I see it as a win in the sense that the College Board learned that a defensive crouch before a bully like DeSantis draws a swift kick in the arse from the scholars he’s censoring. So, maybe the CB won’t be so goddamn flinchy next time. Maybe they’ll remember their mission, which is to prepare kids for a college education, not to be used as a handy egghead foil for a tinpot wannabe dictator.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, and not just them. It’s an example pour les autres. Do we think the College Board is the last entity DeSantis will try to bully or lie about?
CaseyL
@Soprano2: I love the Demotivational stuff! Ordered a few posters years ago for my then-office, and was amazed when no one complained. As you say, the photos are nice enough that people don’t realize the message is the opposite of what they think.
Among my faves, because it was subtle, was a photo of a penguin waddling along, wings akimbo, with the caption: “Until you spread your wings, you’ll never know how far you can walk.”
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Excellent point. One of the reasons DeSantis feels so emboldened is that corporations, institutions, agencies, etc., are walking on eggshells so he doesn’t go after them. It’s a vicious circle — the more they roll over, the more emboldened he becomes and the more outrageous his actions. Typical authoritarian playbook.
Ken
@CaseyL: My favorite was “The journey of a thousand miles often ends very badly”, with a picture of a salmon leaping upstream into the open mouth of a bear.
OldDave
@Soprano2: I once substituted a Despair poster for one of the mundane ‘motivational’ posters in the company breakroom. The change went unnoticed for years, which told me all I needed to know about how many people actually look at the damned things.
Scout211
What?! Oh my. I have no idea if that was the subtle message in her performance, but I love that the youngs are all talking about it. It will be the best trigger for the MAGA scolds. I can’t wait.
The kids are alright.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: Well, he’s got the legislature and state SC under his thumb, so he’s el jefe in Florida. I hope he gets nailed for that vile stunt he pulled with luring immigrants in Texas to go to New England, because within Florida’s borders, he looks untouchable.
catclub
The cognoscenti know that western civ has already fallen, lo these 1700 years ago.
catclub
@Ken:
Mine is “Teamwork: Sometimes it demands individual sacrifice” and shows someone NOT being pulled back into a raft.
Gin & Tonic
Betty Cracker
@Cameron: Yep. If DeSantis is held to account, it will be from forces outside the state. As you probably heard, last week the GOP supermajority statehouse retroactively redefined the terms of the “immigrant relocation” fund so that DeSantis can spend millions of Florida taxpayer dollars flying undocumented people to and from anywhere he wants. In a just universe, the so-called “fiscal conservatives” who authorized that would spontaneously combust every time they opened their yaps about spending.
catclub
@CaseyL:
Also: Picture of Eagle — “Leaders are like Eagles. We don’t have very many of either around here.”
Sure Lurkalot
@Kay:
This is where we are going with this “anti-elitist” embrace of ignorance. IMHO, the most important “things” I got from schooling was a love of learning and curiosity about the world.
I’m reading Andy Borowitz’ book Profiles in Ignorance. The satirical tone might not be funny all the way to the end but it is a good read. Reminds me a bit of an updated Idiot America, written by Charles Pierce in the GW Bush era. Only emphasizes how this is not really a trend, just a lingering malaise.
lowtechcyclist
There needs to be a poster of DeSantis with the caption, “We don’t need no education, we just need some thought control” because that’s pretty much where he’s at.
(No apologies to Pink Floyd for altering the lyrics, given where Roger Waters is coming from these days)
Soprano2
@OldDave: I love that so much! That’s where they got the idea originally; the founders were working for a place where lots of people were being laid off. They were in the break room looking at the motivational posters and started riffing on what they should really say. When they got laid off, they started despair.com.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, I read about that – I’m curious what sort of powers the guv and the legislature think they have on any sort of interstate activity. It’s a good excuse to waste a lot of FL taxpayer dollars while pumping up his Meanest MAGA Of Them All cred, though.
Kelly
When I lived in town our backyard had a 3 foot fence which Alice an Aussie Shepard could easily jump. But she didn’t. However if we left the gate open she’d escape, returning an hour or two later very pleased with herself.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/KtPe9UyZtCWyAsRcA
Matt McIrvin
@Sure Lurkalot:
“Meritocracy” has a lot of problems–is often exploited to just reinforce and morally justify existing power hierarchies–but we often forget that the idea is a liberal reform relative to the most common prior alternative, which is to openly declare that power comes from having the right daddy (usually just going back to someone who killed a lot of people for it).
And when people attack education or expertise in the name of anti-elitism, usually they’re just doing it in service of the control of acknowledged reality by those with the most money or the biggest stick. Or both.
But it’s gussied up with talk about taking back control by the people.
eclare
@catclub: Hahaha…hilarious
eclare
@Kelly: Who’s a good girl!
Matt McIrvin
@WereBear: According to the information they were given access to as kids, almost everyone worth thinking about on a daily basis was “normal”–that is, a cis heterosexual white Christian with a certain distinct set of values and well-defined social and gender roles that they were more or less born into.
If that’s no longer the case, it just reads as howling chaos.
If you grew up in a stable middle-class situation in postwar America, you saw this subconsciously or not as your end of a social contract, the other end of which was that society would provide you with the means for a decent living.
If you weren’t that lucky, but you still had the markers of a “normal” person, you were still exposed to media telling you all this and you may well have come to the belief that sinister forces had already stolen your birthright.
mrmoshpotato
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Was Dweebe part heavy machinery? That dog knew how to dig!
And the Animal Control story is hilarious.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: Yeah, it appears the worms have arrived.
(not actually a) Dr. Th0th Evans
@Kay:
Montanareddog
@Matt McIrvin:
That seems to have been Michael Young’s exact point when he coined the word in The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy
A warning that “meritocrats” can harden into just another self-perpetuating caste as they exploit their knowledge of the pathways of credentialism and power to their caste’s (and their offspring’s) benefit
Matt McIrvin
@Montanareddog: And that’s pretty much what the College Board is about, too. I don’t see them as particularly furthering education.
It’s all an illustration of the old rule that when a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good metric. And we have to step back and ask what the metric is for.
mrmoshpotato
@Jeffro:
They’re just keeping it exciting! LOL!
Jeffro
@mrmoshpotato: but I already have enough of that kind of excitement in my sportsfan life…I also follow the “Cardiac Cavs” (UVA’s basketball team) =)
StringOnAStick
I had my own big game yesterday, competing in an uphill ski race (this is going to an Olympic sport next time I think). My goal was not to finish last, and I achieved that. At 64 I was the oldest woman in the race by at least 5 years, and costume rocked, chain mail from a silvery knot fabric with the Welsh red Dragon with a hello kitty head, all handmade by me for a costume thing years ago, but the gold pipe cleaner crown on my ski helmet pulled it all together.
Betty Cracker
@StringOnAStick: Haha, that costume sounds fabulous, and congrats on completing the course not-last! (I would have definitely collapsed and had to call 911 to haul my exhausted ass off the slope if I tried something like that!)
Two rabbits
A hundred and fifty comments into this and nobody mentions the dog ringing the doorbell!
I must be out of touch with modern canine behavior. Do they work on that at all the shelters?
If I had a dog that ran 10 miles “home” and then used the doorbell, I would have to give up all my selfish retirement activities and spoil the dog.
WereBear
@StringOnAStick: That sounds awesome.
StringOnAStick
@Betty Cracker:
@WereBear:
Thanks, it was something to do I guess; I’m not really the “race” type but my husband did it last year so I decided to join him. He’s an animal and got 18th place in the recreational division, everyone ahead of him was 38-41, and he got on Medicare last month. The elite division did the same course twice, and the winner did two rounds of skiing and 2,000′ of climbing twice in what it took the winners of the recreational division to do one time! Insanely fit people in body suits!
cckids
@StringOnAStick: That sounds amazing! Well done:) Would love to see pics of your costume!
So uphill skiing – like cross country? I’m intrigued.
cckids
My knees would have seceded from my body almost immediately.
oldster
@StringOnAStick:
“My goal was not to finish last, and I achieved that. ”
Ha! I would have achieved that easily.
By not finishing at all.
Hats off to you and your spouse — you must be terrifically aerobically fit people.
Another ScottI
@Baud: I cannot take the credit. It was MisterDancer.
All thanks to MD for the pointer.
[eta:] Extraneous characters in the login boxes…
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Baud: The original pointer was from MisterDancer.
All thanks go to him.
Cheers,
Scott.