Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

He really is that stupid.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

In my day, never was longer.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Second rate reporter says what?

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

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Things *Do* Improve, Not Always Predictably…

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Things *Do* Improve, Not Always Predictably…

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If you told teenaged me, fifty years ago, that the Black Vice-President and her Jewish husband would be hosting Ireland’s Indian-ancestry Prime Minister and his husband for St. Paddy’s Day, I would have complimented you on your imagination.

I mean, I’d have appreciated the concept, but I’d never have believed so many pieces would click into place like that!

Heck, I’d have had some trouble believing that Biden dude would ever be more than than Irish-American Pat Paulsen…


A minor Friday Agreement between hostile clans, even…

Reader Interactions

189Comments

  3. 3.

    Baud

    Patrick Layton Paulsen (July 6, 1927 – April 25, 1997) was an American comedian and satirist notable for his roles on several of the Smothers Brothers television shows, and for his satirical campaigns for President of the United States between 1968 and 1996

    My kind of guy.

  6. 6.

    Ken

    Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar are basically twins

    And a thousand conspiracy-themed bulletin boards get another photo and a half-dozen strands of yarn. Crimson yarn.

  8. 8.

    NotMax

    Been some years since last saw either of them so almost watched the entertaining Irish oddity Breakfast on Pluto or else Puckoon again but demanding, insistent naptime intervened.

    Will snatch a slice o’ sleep whenever it comes. Priorities and all that.
    ;)

  12. 12.

    Kay

    A conservative group opposing an effort to enshrine abortion rights into Ohio’s constitution announced Wednesday it is launching a $5 million effort to oppose the initiative.
    The group, known as Protect Women Ohio, released an ad that will run for four weeks on television and digital platforms as supporters of the constitutional amendment work to place it on the November ballot, according to a press release.
    “Moms and dads will be cut out of the most important and life-altering decisions of their child’s life, if this passes,” Molly Smith, a Protect Women Ohio board member, said in a statement, calling the proposal “dangerous.”
    “Under their proposed amendment to the Ohio constitution, the state ‘shall not interfere’ with individuals getting abortions or sex changes, meaning you could be cut out of the biggest decision decision of her life,” a narrator says in the 30-second ad.

    They’re piggybacking on the anti trans panic promoted by outlets like the NYTimes and by several supposed “liberals” like Jonathon Chait. They did the same thing in Michigan in ’22- it got little or no media coverage but I was in Michigan a lot and the anti abortion campaign was actually an anti trans campaign. They lost big in Michigan- it didn’t carry a single candidate or issue – no one actually votes on “woke” – so here’s hoping they also lose big in the much more Republican state of Ohio.
    The print ads in Michigan were amusing. So far up the ass of the Twitter- based, elite media, anti woke, anti trans crusaders that I bet it was completely unintelligible to an ordinary voter. It took me seeing it over to even understand what they were screeching about and I’m in no way a normie voter.

    The pro choice message is pretty simple. We don’t want far Right politicians and religious fundamentalists (or their judges) barging into our bedrooms and examining rooms and hospital rooms. We want them to back the fuck off. We don’t have to lie to oppose them.
    I’ve worked on Ohio issue campaigns before. It’s fun and rewarding especially with such a good issue where the anti choice side = anti trans crusaders because they can’t actually run on being anti choice (unpopular). We’ll need a lot of volunteers. Two birds with one stone! You can beat anti trans crasaders AND anti choice crusaders with one vote! Very efficient! :)

  14. 14.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Under their proposed amendment to the Ohio constitution, the state ‘shall not interfere’ with individuals getting abortions or sex changes, meaning you could be cut out of the biggest decision decision of her life,” a narrator says in the 30-second ad.

     
    L’etat, c’est toi.

  15. 15.

    Another Scott

    @Kay: Yup.  They’ve drunk so much of their own Kool Aid that they think that it’s normal and good for a giant humanoid drink pitcher to break down people’s houses…

    lolgop
    @[email protected]

    On one hand, we have the guys who want to check your kids’ genitals, track their menstrual cycles & force them to give birth after rape.

    On the other hand, we have the fabulous queens who want to read your kids stories.

    Guess who Republicans want you to be terrified of.

    Mar 17, 2023, 20:49

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  17. 17.

    Kay

    @Another Scott:

    The lack of major media attention or investment in covering abortion and womens agency and rights may be a plus in these ballot iniatives- they would just fuck it up. They were caught out with the first set in 2022 – didn’t cover them at all- because they had already announced that no one cared about womens rights and would not come out for them and I don’t think it made a bit of difference in the public understanding of the issue. Media can not bother to show up again. Won’t make a bit of difference if they’re working or not.

  18. 18.

    Another Scott

    @NotMax: +1

    But I was thinking more of things like this (2:51) – for the youngsters who never had onions on their belt like us. :⁠-⁠)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  20. 20.

    Kay

    Have any of the free speech crusaders weighed in on the fact that American women can no longer have a private consult with a medical provider without (gross) GOP politicians and religious fundamentalists barging into the examining room, drowning her out?

    Just super interesting to me which speech matters. Seems to depend wholly on the speaker- anti abortion activists may screech and make demands on individuals who are minding their own business and butt in anywhere they want, women receiving medical care must meekly and silently submit. Federal judges must receive complete deference and must not be questioned, law students can be shut down by law school management.

  22. 22.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    The ultra liberal states of….Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin rejected the anti woke, anti trans Twitter/NYTimes/Substack crusaders so now they’re peddling the same shit they’ve been screaming about for 4 years in a redder state, Ohio. Maybe they can sell it here. Who knows. But they’re going to have to work at it this time.

  23. 23.

    Kay

    More Perfect Union
    @MorePerfectUS
    ·16h
    Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has signed a law guaranteeing free breakfast and lunch for all students in the state, regardless of how much money their parents make. Tens of thousands of food-insecure kids will benefit.

    Some of the blue/purple state governors and legislatures have been really delivering: Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Illinois. They’re outworking a lot of the “bluer” states on the east coast.

  24. 24.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Biden is absolutely right about Irish poets.

    It’s interesting how you get these outbursts of talent in the same place at the same time: Elizabethan theater, early 20th century Irish writers, scientists in various specialties.

  25. 25.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Gin & Tonic:

    There once was a man from Nantucket

    A genius who created a “duck kit”

    With a bill on his chin he looked up and grinned

    If my tongue was a point,  I’d duck spit

  26. 26.

    Ripley

    @Gin & Tonic:
    There once was a man from Nantucket
    Whose foot got quite stuck in a bucket
    He was heard to declare
    As he fell down the stairs
    AAAaaiieieegghhhh!!!!

  27. 27.

    Skepticat

    It’s encouraging to see stable leaders with genuine smiles.

    But just when I think Maine might be an enclave of mostly sane people, we get L.D. 123, An Act to Eliminate the Educational Purposes Exception to the Prohibition on the Dissemination of Obscene Matter to Minors.                According to a letter to the Press Herald, “L.D. 123 criminalizes librarianship and subjects our communities to costly lawsuits over anything that might be considered ‘obscene,’ from classic literature to an anatomy textbook.”

    I know obscenity when I see it, and this bill is it.

  30. 30.

    Kay

    I don’t think women are moving forward in the US. I don’t think it’s zero sum and I don’t think everyone else has to step back in order for women to move forward, but I also am not willing to pretend that a loss of basic bodily autonomy and agency for women in the US is somehow “progress”. It just isn’t. Women are going backward in the United States. In about half the states they have a lesser set of rights than men do. Women could start moving forward in the US again- it’s possible- but not if no one will admit they are now moving backward. I don’t understand the reluctance to admit it, or even look at it honestly. It’s already happened. What’s the point of pretending it didn’t?

  31. 31.

    Lapassionara

    So, word from Trump is that he is getting arrested on Tuesday, or so I hear. Manhattan DA.

  32. 32.

    Kay

    Right now, today, in the United States, a single far Right federal judge will decide whether any American adult woman amy access a certain prescription medication that is legal, safe and effective.

    The judge may say “no”. He may forbid ALL women in the US from that medication, whether they live in a state that has a full set of rights for women or a state that has a lesser set of rights for women. ALL women will be barred.

    Backwards. A lurch backwards.

  33. 33.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Lapassionara: I just saw the Trump tweet more or less announcing that. I couldn’t read it. I mean, physically, I couldn’t. It’s free-flow gibberish to start with, so your brain freezes. And it’s all caps, which makes it impossible to see where sentences start and stop. Assuming there are sentences, of course. I have no idea

  34. 34.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Kay: We may need civil disobedience against these discriminatory laws. Of course, that’s easy for me to say. I’m not a pharmacist or doctor or pregnant woman who’d be risking arrest

  35. 35.

    Lapassionara

    @Baud: not only are they not the same, one party has gone completely to the right, so far right that it is adopting totalitarian government principles, all in the name of “freedom.” It is a danger to our economy, our standing in the world, and, as Kay points out, women’s lives.

  38. 38.

    Suzanne

    @Narya: OMG her suit is FABULOUS. I love that color. I try to buy things in that color for myself, but they are difficult to find. I feel lit’s more flattering to my skin tone than navy blue.

    I am starting to plan a road trip up to Mass for the Brimfield Antiques Flea Market thing. I hear it is awesome. If anyone has ever gone, I would love some pointers, especially regarding where to stay. I am primarily looking for art — coming from an open-concept 1980s builders-grade home to a 1920s foursquare means that I now have a lot more wall space. Also open to (a few) decorative objects, though I am not too much of a clutter person.

  39. 39.

    TS

    @Kay:

     Protect Women Ohio

    Their first lie is in the names they give their groups – this one almost as bad as pro-life for those who only care about life before birth

    Just saw this in our news

    Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon has signed a bill prohibiting abortion pills in the state and also allowed a separate measure restricting abortion to become law without his signature. 

    I am at a complete loss to understand why any women support these measures or continue to vote for men imposing their will in this fashion. It is taking women back to 18 kids and die at 40.

  40. 40.

    Baud

    @TS:

    I am at a complete loss to understand why any women support these measures or continue to vote for men imposing their will in this fashion

     
    A lot of black people support Democrats.

  41. 41.

    prostratedragon

    @Gin & Tonic:
    There once was a man from Nantucket
    Whose fielding was like Kirby Puckett.
    He chased down all flies
    To disbelieving eyes.
    If one could get by him was luck it.

  42. 42.

    Suzanne

    @TS:

    I am at a complete loss to understand why any women support these measures or continue to vote for men imposing their will in this fashion. It is taking women back to 18 kids and die at 40. 

    Lots of people lack the imagination to think that something bad will ever happen to them.

    It’s a really fucked-up way of thinking, because bad things happen to people all the time.

  44. 44.

    Joey Maloney

    My favorite quote of Pat Paulsen’s: “I’ve upped my standards. Now, up yours!”

  45. 45.

    TS

    @Baud:

    A lot of black people support Democrats.

    And because of that, too many vote for the GOP – I understand that.

    I also think that those with wealth realise they can just pop over to one of the states that support women’s choices so they really don’t care what happens to anyone else.

    We have spent the past few years legalising abortion throughout all Australian states (without previous pretexts of needing multiple doctor’s opinions) and it is frightening to see this legislation could so easily be changed.

  47. 47.

    Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride

    @Gin & Tonic:

    To come up with clean rhymes for Nantucket

    Was a challenge, but I could not duck it;

    First I soared through the breeze

    With the greatest of ease,

    Then I went for the landing and stuck it.

  49. 49.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Suzanne: You’re planning on the May session? (The July one is usually really hot.)

    Brimfield is kind of the middle of nowhere. If you’re coming from the west, you’ll find plenty of options around Springfield. I’d even suggest finding a nice place in the Berkshires (Lenox, Lee, Pittsfield), although you’ll be an hour away.

    Wear comfortable shoes, there’s a lot of walking involved.

  50. 50.

    NotMax

    @Gin & Tonic

    Nantucket’s a town in the Bay State
    Where most of the seafood is first-rate
    Bypass the oyster bar
    When a month has no R
    Else the outcome is far from sedate

  52. 52.

    Layer8Problem

    The frickin’ Wikipedia article left out Pat Paulsen’s episode of The Monkees. I’m appalled. But I learned he was on The Wild Wild West and Get Smart too, which I should have known, so I learned something.  Always try to learn something every day.

  55. 55.

    Suzanne

    @Gin & Tonic: Yes, planning on May. I am very much looking forward to it. Arizona was relatively unpopulated until 1950-ish, so it doesn’t have the same critical mass of antique and cool old things. I have been enjoying the stuff I find here in PGH.

    What are the price points like? More low-end ephemera stuff, or high-end?

  56. 56.

    Kay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

     I’m not a pharmacist or doctor or pregnant woman who’d be risking arrest

    “Arrest” isn’t the ony issue. Antichoice religious fundamentalists are suing anyone who assists a woman. It’s an attempt to silence women and scare them into sitting down and shutting up. They’re sending a message – “oppose us and we will drag you into court and ruin your life”
    Women in Texas are the property of the men who impregnate them and the state, even if the legal relationship bestowed by marriage no longer exists. This could happen to any woman in the US. Living in a “blue state” provides no protection, just as living n a blue state will provide no protection from far Right federal judges outlawing medications or standard “best practices”medical care for women.

  57. 57.

    frosty

    @NotMax: A wise choice, not rhyming Nantucket, but it still needs work on the rhythm. see Suibhan Duinne* for pointers.

    * I see why everyone types Suburu Diane now. Less hassle from autocorrect. Plus spelled right.

  59. 59.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Suzanne: Wow, wrote a long-ish reply and it went “poof.” Anyway, prices run the gamut. Lots of NYC people come up, so it’s not always the bargain you’d think. But I don’t know much about this stuff – my DIL is a legitimate design/furniture expert, I’m along for the ride.

  60. 60.

    Raoul Paste

    Nan and Jill went up the hill
    To fetch a pail of water
    But the water-well was dry
    And Jill said bye-bye
    And as for the bucket, Nantucket

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    @Layer8Problem

    Recently came across what can only be described as a post-mondegreen and now can’t stop hearing the end of the theme song from The Monkees that way.

    We’re just tryin’ to be friendly
    Come and watch us sing and play
    We’re the young generation
    And we got Saddam Hussein
    ;)

  62. 62.

    Another Scott

    @Gin & Tonic:

    There once was a klutz from Nantucket

    Whose head got stuck in a bucket.

    “Next time I think,

    I’ll try fixing a sink!”

    He no longer wears shirts from UNTUCKit

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    Sam Joeckel walked into his office last week to find his phone and computer gone from his desk.
    “My first instinct was to think someone broke into my office and actually stole my stuff. I calmed down a little bit and figured this must mean that the university has made a decision without telling me,” he told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Thursday.
    Joeckel, a veteran English professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University, lost his job after a parent complained on Feb. 14 to the university president about a racial justice segment he taught in his composition course. What the complaint said specifically, Joeckel still doesn’t know, other than it was alleged he was “indoctrinating” students.

    Fired because a Right wing parent alleged he was “woke”
    I’d say let’s see if the tens of elite antiwokesters with huge media platforms are concerned about the cancellng of this guy, but I already know the answer- we won’t hear a peep out of them because they are frauds and phonies.

  64. 64.

    Suzanne

    @Gin & Tonic: Cool, thank you. I figure, even if I don’t buy a lot, I’ll enjoy the hunt. I enjoy my small-but-growing art collection. And, in this house, I actually have a mantel! So now I need cool stuff on it.

  65. 65.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Canceling people is a negative.

    Being woke is a negative.

    When woke people are cancelled, it’s a positive.

    It’s just math, Kay.

  66. 66.

    MomSense

    Had an amazing day at the swamp.  I didn’t see any of my beloved ibis but I did see three kinds of warblers, a swallow tailed kite circled over us, two red breasted hawks flew over us onto a branch next to us, a barred owl, egrets, anhingas (including watching one hatch!!!) and then alligators.  Typically I’ve  only seen them just chilling l, but yesterday one of them swam into the swamp we were observing.  He then went under the water and swam across the swamp. He came up turned, went back under, and then leaped out of the water jaws open with a fish!  The splash he made was incredible, too. Poor guy next to me had a major camera set up and he was snapping away.  After the leap he said “that was the shot of a lifetime and I didn’t get it”. Alligators are magnificent and terrifying creatures.

    We had plans for another excursion today but my dad is too tired.

  67. 67.

    NotMax

    @frosty

    The problem with rhyming Nantucket
    With anything other than bucket
    Is much of the prose
    Would shock a bluenose
    The upshot is mostly “Nope, chuck it.”
    .

  69. 69.

    Another Scott

    @Kay:

    PBA.edu – FAQ:

    Does PBA offer tenure?

    PBA does not offer tenure; all beginning faculty sign a one-year letter of agreement. After several years of service, faculty may enter an application process in order to receive two- and then three-year letters of agreement, which upon on-going exemplary service, automatically roll-over.

    Interview with him from yesterday (50:27)

    Lack of tenure is a red flag. It invites all sorts of interference with teaching and research. And that’s why RWNJs are fighting so hard to eliminate it.

    This is horrible.

    But the big picture is important as well – Politicians interfering with education instruction is bad, full stop.

    Keep politicians out of the classroom!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  70. 70.

    WaterGirl

    @Kay: Besides the people who are fight against women having agency over their lives and their bodies, who thinks things are not moving backwards for women?

  73. 73.

    laura

    @Baud: Pat Paulson’s brother Fred makes and sells the best, The Hotest, fresh horseradish you can get. It’s called Fred’s. Those Paulson boys each added to life’s rich pageant.

  74. 74.

    John Barleycorn

    There was a young cook from Nantucket
    Who’s meal was so poor that we chuck’d it
    To improve the taste
    And reduce the waste
    You take the corn cob and you shuck it

  75. 75.

    Betty Cracker

    Repubs are backing away from a South Carolina bill that proposed charging women who have abortions with murder. Looks like that’s still a bridge too far for them, at least for now. Nine Repubs who’d signed on took their names off it.

  76. 76.

    FastEdD

    My colleague Matt was one of my students in Summer School, and many years later he was a fellow teacher at CMHS. He still works there and we’ve been friends for 40 years. Performed in bands together too.

    He told me the story about one kid who kept wearing T Shirts with cuss words on them. Matt’s been known to use a few f bombs when appropriate, but as an educator he responsibly told the kid he couldn’t do that and to wear it backwards. One day the kid showed up to school proudly sporting his new shirt that read:

    THE MAN FROM NANTUCKET

    Matt just laughed and laughed and told the kid, “You win. Nice shirt!”

  80. 80.

    opiejeanne

    @Kay: I read last night that Wyoming’s state lege had voted to outlaw abortion pills.  This seems to have flown under the radar and there’s barely a peep about it today.

  81. 81.

    opiejeanne

    @prostratedragon: Washington state is seeing a lot of women coming from other states in order to get health care including abortions, mostly from Texas but especially from Idaho because it’s next door.

  86. 86.

    sdhays

    @TS:

    I also think that those with wealth realise they can just pop over to one of the states that support women’s choices so they really don’t care what happens to anyone else.

    This idea is insidious and also really lacks imagination. If you have a medical crisis, you don’t have time to get on a fucking plane to fly 1000 miles to get the basic care you need before you bleed out/develop a life-threatening infection/etc.

    All of my life “abortion” has been bandied about like it’s something on a menu, as if “elective” abortion is the only thing that happens. But it’s not. Lots of abortions happen to people who want to be pregnant and have children but things don’t work out. Now, their “choice” is to flee their state if they have the means or fucking die.

  87. 87.

    RR_Mikey

    Posts like this about a celebration day at the White House are so uplifting.  There was never anything like this during the reign of the blob.

  88. 88.

    dmsilev

    So, if Trump is offered bail, will the courts insist on having the cash put in escrow or something, given his long history of nonpayment of debts?

  89. 89.

    Geminid

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m guessing Trump will make bail for these charges. I mean, I’d like to see him spend a few months in the Riker’s Island jail, but I expect he’ll be free to harangue his followers next Saturday..

  93. 93.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    He calls for protests if he is arrested.

    He’s calling for violence…”take our nation back”…same words as when he incited an insurrection. The Soros dog whistle. It’s ridiculous that our media won’t report what his words mean.

  95. 95.

    Spanky

    @Suzanne: Never been, but I know people who hunt rusty iron there, so can’t help on the art. But as G&T says, there is much walking, and pray for rainless days in those fields.

    And prepare to carry purchases long ways back to the car. I.e., take a husband.

  97. 97.

    PAM Dirac

    There once was a girl from Nantucket

    Who carried her wares in a bucket

    Nothing that was bought

    Evoked impure thought

    So all you low class pervs can suck it.

  98. 98.

    Geminid

    @Omnes Omnibus: Well, the joke flew right by me. I am just a simple meteor.

    But now I’m hoping for bad weather for the rally, maybe a hail storm. And tornado watches.

  100. 100.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Geminid: I did hear somebody say that the standard procedure would be for him to be held in a cell after fingerprinting and mug shots, while waiting to see the judge. But even a couple of hours would probably be too much to hope for.

    I’m going to take my satisfaction from the fact that he’ll be processed at 100 Centre Street, where my daughter and I spent 72 hours in 2004 at the behest of Michael Bloomberg and the RNC (me outside in various courtrooms, her inside somewhere in a holding area with hundreds of others).

    She went to check out the protests at the RNC and was watching one of them start to assemble in lower Manhattan when the police put up a fence around the crowd of 2000 or so, arrested them, and held them in a cell without a hearing, without doctors, without access to lawyers, and without charges until George W began his speech 3 days later, at which point they unceremoniously dumped them all out the back door of the courthouse.

  102. 102.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Geminid: You made me look. High of 75 and mostly sunny. I was a little surprised he wasn’t going to Iowa, but I’m sure he’s waiting for the weather to grow more clement.

    I wonder if Stephen Miller had to explain why Waco or if the penny dropped right away

  103. 103.

    James E Powell

    @Kay:

    Naturally every professor in Florida & all the first amendment anti-cancel culture people have rallied to this person’s defense.

  104. 104.

    Burnspbesq

    Taoiseach Leo is a little conservative for my taste, but as a symbol of an increasingly pluralistic and inclusive Ireland, he’ll do just fine.

  105. 105.

    Orange is the New Red

    @Suzanne: I have been going to Brimfield for 20 years or more. Lived next town over for 10 years. Happy to give pointers. There is good basic info online as well. I suspect local hotels raise prices those weeks, get what you can as soon as you can.

  107. 107.

    LiminalOwl

    @Skepticat:

    @Kay: Have you seen this lovely bit of self-contradiction? Teachers cannot discuss reproductive anatomy with children of less than seventh-grade age.  (Per The Mary Sue blog; I haven’t yet found a primary-source article.) Someone asked one of the pols if that meant that one of the (many) girls reaching menarche  could not ask her teachers for info, and was told yes.  Though it sounds like they might generously make an exception for that case.

  109. 109.

    LiminalOwl

    @Suzanne: Haven’t stopped there, but the time spouse and I drove through (because GPS), it was a ten-mile traffic jam.  You might want to plan accordingly.

    (Also, we are less than an hour away, if you’d like to meet for tea or a meal.)

    I agree about dark green and wish clothes in that shade were easier to find.

  110. 110.

    MomSense

    Welp, I was actually going to brave the pool today (not a pool person) but it’s closed.  The red tide is bad and I don’t feel like swimming with dead fish, jelly fish and something that makes your eyes burn just walking by.  With all the multi million dollar homes on the beach here you would think they would have an interest in taking better care of their oceans. WTAF

  111. 111.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Amir Khalid: more like the first ex-POTUS to post bail.

    I frankly think the media should stop reporting about all the preparations for a TFG indictment for security reasons. I am pretty sure NY’rs are smart enough to not put themselves in danger when he does get indicted. They’ve had enough practice with all the terrorist threats, UN meetings, TFG visiting there between ’16-’20 etc. All this reporting just eggs on the MAGAts and let’s out details nobody needs to know. Yeah, i know about the ‘it bleeds, it leads’  stuff but lots of these media people live in NYC. Don’t they even care about where they live?

  112. 112.

    dnfree

    @Baud: I didn’t realize Pat Paulson died so young.  He had great campaign slogans.  “We can’t stand Pat”, for example.

  113. 113.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Now and forever and always, His Kevin

    Kevin McCarthy @SpeakerMcCarthy

    Here we go again — an outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues political vengeance against President Trump.

    I’m directing relevant committees to immediately investigate if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.

  114. 114.

    Quinerly

    Kevin McCarthy on Twitter this AM:

    “Here we go again — an outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues political vengeance against President Trump. I’m directing relevant committees to immediately investigate if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.”

  116. 116.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Kay: that judge is going to release the decision right when the TFG stuff goes down in the hope that it gets forgotten and he’ll probably be right because the political media can only pay attention to one major issue at a time.

  117. 117.

    Another Scott

    @LiminalOwl: We can’t let Bulgaria or Nigeria beat the USA in the teenage grandmother competition!!

    “@official_EMMYJ: The world’s youngest grandmother is Nigerian, and she was only 17. Mum-Zi was just eight years and four months old when she gave birth to a baby girl in 1884. From Nigeria, on an island called Akwa Akpa, now known as the city of Calabar. @Gidi_Traffic pic.twitter.com/1XDbBKZ5fA

    — GIDI (@Gidi_Traffic) October 7, 2021

    :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  118. 118.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Quinerly: Kevin needs to just go back to picking out the pink Starbursts(or was it skittles?) to send to his Orange Overlord. Really, he’s more useful doing that.

  120. 120.

    Quinerly

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Great minds…..

    I’m listening to MSNBC. Had to Google to find the Tweet.

    I have no idea how all this ends. I woke up thinking maybe we would be better off as a country if Trump flees. Don’t get me wrong. I want him prosecuted on all levels. I am just so weary. How one man…a fucking low class, bankrupt, degenerate, game show host can destroy a country….what he has unleashed on this country. My mind still has a problem processing this.

    Had hoped today to get back to my beautiful side yard…a work in progress with these new flagstones and JoJo’s turf. 5 tons of sand was delivered Tues. But 6 inches of snow dumped on me here outside of Santa Fe. Now I’m stuck inside with MSNBC on in the background.

  121. 121.

    Geminid

    @Quinerly: Did you get snow at your place? I read that four hikers had to be rescued from the Sandia Mountans yesterday. They’d come all the way from Michigan to hike the La Luz trail

    Ed. Now I see you did get snow. I guess it will melt fast. It could make for more wildflowers in coming weeks

    Are you placing the flag stones? That can be fun if you don’t do too much at once.

  125. 125.

    sdhays

    @Quinerly: The country needs to pop the bubble on the idea that Presidents can’t – and shouldn’t – be prosecuted. It’s a very toxic idea. Ex-Presidents and Presidential candidates shouldn’t have get-out-jail cards, and future Presidents and candidates should be given evidence that they can’t count on that “rule” anymore.

    I suspect we wouldn’t be here if Ford hadn’t pardoned Nixon and allowed the country to “suffer” through a prosecution.

  128. 128.

    Quinerly

    @Geminid:

    Pretty sure biggest snow of the season. My friends out on highway 14 in Cerrillos and Madrid got 8″. We got about 5″ here in Eldorado. Pecos got more.

    Miguel and I were going to hit the yard hard today and tomorrow. He can only work on weekends. I had 21 railroad ties and rebar coming yesterday but couldn’t deliver because of the snow. Now everything pushed back at least a week. He can only work next Sun.

    I’m impatient to put down 3 pallets of flags and a 1000 sq ft of fake grass for my dog to have his own private doggie park….First World Problems while the country is imploding.

  129. 129.

    Another Scott

    @Mai Naem mobile:

    Kuulpeeps.com:

    According to Lyall Archibald’s 1936 book, The Future of Taboo in These Islands, Mum-Zi was a member of Chief Akkiri’s harem in Akwa Akpa (now Calabar), who would later be the father of her daughter.

    Her mother was a few months older, according to that link.

    Wikipedia lists a Peruvian mother who was 5 years 7 months (Caesarian).

    :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  130. 130.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Kay:

    We don’t want far Right politicians and religious fundamentalists (or their judges) barging into our bedrooms and examining rooms and hospital rooms. We want them to back the fuck off.

    The bodily autonomy issue is one that I wish had more prominence in fighting off the 500+ anti-trans bills.

    But potential normie support for trans people’s bodily autonomy is one major reason they’re framing us as predatory pedophiles.

    @Kay:

    Just super interesting to me which speech matters.

    It was never about free speech, it was about freedom from pushback and from consequences.

  132. 132.

    Quinerly

    @Geminid:

    3 pallets. Two pallets of the really large ones. One pallet of the smaller ones. Side yard patio already has some down that Miguel and I reconfigured in the Fall. So that was my initial experience (as his assistant) in laying the huge ones. Adding about another 130 sq ft to that. This turf was a left over roll I got for almost 1/2 price, so I’m making the the yard fit the turf and getting rid of pea gravel. Adding some flags in the main backyard around the koi pond and some more flags out front.

    This project was also to keep my mind off of Trump.

  133. 133.

    Quinerly

    @Geminid:

    I like Miguel quite a bit. Smart. Has a 40 hr a week job with Albuquerque school system. This kind of job is side work. I could find cheaper labor, closer but I really like him. Sincere, conscientious. Wants to please. Probably could have done anything with his life  if not for birth circumstances and poverty. I like helping him. He seems to like helping me. We chat a lot. He doesn’t charge me for chatting. He’s actually interesting to hang out with.

  134. 134.

    Kay

    @Mai Naem mobile:

    because the political media can only pay attention to one major issue at a time.

    They barely cover it. When they do “cover” it it’s to profit off of women who are volunteers and open a vein and tell their personal pregnancy stories on op ed pages. They only cover women when they’re exploiting them for profit.
    I wish women would stop playing along. Don’t submit any more free content to the NYTimes or the Washington Post. Stop letting them line their pockets on your personal stories. They won’t pay women to cover abortion? Then for God’s sake don’t do volunteer work for them.

  135. 135.

    Quinerly

    @sdhays:

    We DEFINITELY wouldn’t be here if this had been addressed with Nixon. I agree with you that Trump must be prosecuted. I’m just so fucking tired of it. I feel like we had a bit of a break from Trump 24/7 and I’m selfish….I was enjoying it.

  136. 136.

    gene108

    @Kay:

    I’d say let’s see if the tens of elite antiwokesters with huge media platforms are concerned about the cancellng of this guy, but I already know the answer- we won’t hear a peep out of them because they are frauds and phonies.

    During the Red Scare of the 1940’s and 1950’s the focus is usually on the Hollywood actors and directors, who got blacklisted.

    There were also a lot of other people who lost their careers, because they might’ve been communist curious in the past or weren’t conforming to whatever standard was being set down.

    It began 70 years ago this month: June, 1952.

    The superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia summoned a veteran English teacher named Herman Aaron Beilan to his office for what he described, in writing, as “a matter of importance.”

    In this fateful meeting, the superintendent, Louis Hoyer, asked Beilan a question:

    Were you, in 1944, press director of the professional section of the Communist Political Association?

    We don’t know what Beilan thought as the question tumbled out of Hoyer’s mouth. Maybe he felt it coming. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he wondered how the superintendent even knew about a political post he’d held eight years prior.

    We only know that Beilan didn’t answer. He asked to consult a lawyer.

    Hoyer said he could. Beilan left.

    Six years later, Beilan’s attorney would retell that story for the United States Supreme Court. By then, Beilan had lost his job. He was tutoring on the side and selling cleaning products door to door.

    https://whyy.org/episodes/schooled-red-tape-the-untold-stories-of-philadelphias-1950s-teacher-purge/

  137. 137.

    Leto

    ACAB: Police stopped a Black couple in Tennessee – and took their children

    Nearly a month ago, Bianca Clayborne, Deonte Williams, and their five children were on their way from Georgia to Chicago for Clayborne’s uncle’s funeral when a highway patrol officer stopped them in Manchester, Tennessee.

    That moment – about 60 miles outside Nashville – has since upended their lives as Clayborne and Williams try to regain custody of their children after they say state authorities “kidnapped” them on account of a minuscule amount of marijuana in the car, the Tennessee Lookout first reported.

    The separation described by Clayborne and Williams fits into a historical pattern of US child welfare services dividing poor, Black and Indigenous families in particular on the grounds of alleged neglect and abuse, fueling disparities in who gets to remain a family and who doesn’t.

    …

    In Clayborne and Williams’s case, the trooper stopped their car on 17 February for having dark tinted windows and driving in the left lane without actively passing, according to citations reviewed by the Lookout. The officer searched their car and found five grams of marijuana, a misdemeanor offense. He arrested Williams and took him to a local jail. Clayborne followed, as her kids cried.

    While Clayborne waited for Williams’s release on bond, an officer restrained her while state officials took custody of her five children, including her four-month-old baby. Courtney Teasley, an attorney representing the family since late February, said that Clayborne and Williams’s case reflected “how government systems that say they are there to protect have the ability to use those same protections to oppress”.

    Saying Tennessee’s children’s services department was “abysmal,” Teasley said her clients’ children now face being removed from Georgia “to some school that they know nothing about”.

    “We already know that … [most] children being hurt are the Black children,” Teasley added. “Shining a light on this [shows] what’s being done to Black people in real time. That leads to mass incarceration and everything that comes with it: generational trauma, the school-to-prison pipeline.”

    The state’s children’s services department ultimately alleged that Clayborne and Williams’s children were being abused to obtain an emergency order to take them away. The removal went through though court records showed a state case worker brought in after the stop “discovered only the father had been arrested”, the Lookout reported. Still, that same day, the agency received a court order to take the children away from Clayborne and Williams.

  138. 138.

    Ohio Mom

    @SiubhanDuinne: Thanks for the link. The article says the “bill would ban girls from talking about their menstrual cycles in school.” Are they going to get some kids to wear wires to rat out other kids?

    How does anyone know what kids are saying to one another in the playground, at the lunch table, lined up waiting for the school bus, and so forth? There is lots of informal socializing in school, it’s an important part of the day.

    Just another aspect of this proposal that is wildly nuts.

  140. 140.

    Kay

    Before any more women do volunteer work for the NYTimes and the WaPo and submit their personal pregnancy stories to the editorial pages of those media businesses for the media companies to profit off of, I wish women would ask how much those media companies have invested in covering abortion and paying women to cover it. Money. How much did they spend.

    Don’t open a vein for these assholes. They’re exploiting you. They  want the gory stories of blood and anguish in pregnancy for clicks and advertiser dollars but they aren’t willing to invest any money on coverage or pay women to cover abortion. Don’t play along. No more free labor.

  141. 141.

    Geminid

    @Quinerly: I hope your koi are safe. The one pond I built was in Waynesboro, Virginia and the owner ended up installing netting over it because a local heron would fly in and eat the koi.

    And a water garden supply place over in the Shenendoah Valley thought somebody was sneaking in at night and stealing their expensive koi. It turned out to be a muskrat from the nearby stream

  142. 142.

    Quinerly

    @Ohio Mom:

    The articles I was reading yesterday focused on teachers. Example….11 year old girl gets her first period while in class. Goes to the teacher for help….what to do. Teacher can’t discuss anything about it with her and can’t help. Essentially, the girl is on her own in the bathroom.

    I can’t believe I am typing this shit. What is happening to this country?

  144. 144.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Quinerly: I tend to agree that this country would be better off if Trump flees. He’s going to ratchet up his calls for violence at every turn and a lot of his followers, both those with and without a tenuous connection to reality, will listen, are listening. His enablers will make it worse. And the media, well here’s an example of how useless they will be:

    @JakeSherman
    and its with this backdrop that House Republicans head to their retreat in Orlando. It will run from Sunday to Tuesday.

  146. 146.

    Mike in NC

    @Suzanne:  Maybe be late to chime in, but we went to Brimfield about four years ago. My brother and his wife live on the South Shore. We enjoyed the fair even though we didn’t spend a lot of money. Mostly just walked around and took in the dealers. We stayed at some motel in Springfield that night on account of the weather (heavy rain). You will like the fair; everybody who loves to poke around a flea marker would, too.

  147. 147.

    Quinerly

    @Geminid:

    The koi are huge. Supposedly 15 years old. I need help this year getting the pond healthier. I think the 4 are too big for the size of this pond. Would love to find a home for a couple of them. But, Santa Fe being Santa Fe, I was told no one wants “used koi.” They are well over a ft long.

    I named them…the really flashy one is Mick. The cute one is Keith. There’s Ron in the background. And the albino one….my ghost koi is Charlie. Ron could go. Maybe Mick. Keith and Charlie definitely stay.

    When I lived in the inner city of St Louis all those years I had a goldfish pond. Finally gave up on the fish. Raccoons would raid it in the middle of the night. Bite the heads off and fling the little bodies.

  149. 149.

    Leto

    Manslaughter conviction of 21-year-old Oklahoma woman who suffered miscarriage sparks outcry

    Pregnancy advocates and others on social media are expressing outrage after a 21-year-old Oklahoma woman was convicted of first-degree manslaughter earlier this month for having a miscarriage, which the prosecutor blamed on her alleged use of methamphetamine.

    Brittney Poolaw, who is a member of the Comanche Nation, according to the Comanche County Detention Center, was sentenced on October 6 by a jury to four years in state prison. Poolaw’s attorney filed a notice of intent to appeal on October 15.

    Prosecutors argued that the miscarriage Poolaw suffered was from her use of methamphetamine. An autopsy of the fetus showed it had tested positive for methamphetamine, the Associated Press reported, but there was no evidence her use of the substance is what caused the miscarriage. The autopsy showed the miscarriage could have been caused by a congenital abnormality and placental abruption, when the placenta detaches from the womb, the AP said.

    But the state said she had violated the Oklahoma’s manslaughter statute, which says homicide is manslaughter in the first degree when the offender is “engaged in the commission of a misdemeanor; in a heat of passion, but in a cruel and unusual manner, or by means of a dangerous weapon; or when perpetrating unnecessarily either while resisting an attempt by the person killed to commit a crime, or after such attempt shall have failed.”

    National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) said in a statement that the state’s murder and manslaughter laws don’t apply to those who suffer miscarriages, defined as pregnancy losses that occur before 20 weeks of pregnancy.

    “Even when applied to later losses,” NAPW said, “Oklahoma law prohibits prosecution of the ‘mother of the unborn child’ unless she committed ‘a crime that caused the death of the unborn child.'”

    It literally doesn’t matter what the law states, the Christofascits are coming for everyone and everything.

  150. 150.

    Bupalos

    @TS: I think most of the conversations I see here opining about why identity x would do something so clearly against the interests of identity x – coming to the conclusion that they don’t understand that it can and will hurt them – are really selling these causes way way short.

    I think they are much more holistically and coherently about fleeing modernity and a desire to retreat to a fictionalized past in the face of a future they consider too terrifying. Opposing abortion is positively about recreating a stable and strict Christian hierarchy. It isn’t about “saving babies” as they claim but nor is it about “hating women” as many on our side boil it out. It’s about fear, and the fantasy that a strict Christian society can address the things these people are afraid of. And we are pretty ineffective opposing it because we too are too caught up in our own kinds of doomsaying about the present and future to speak up for the benefits to everyone of the progress we have made and are going to make.

  151. 151.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @sdhays:

    Ford was an idiot for pardoning Nixon, but given Trump’s insanity I’m not sure that a successful prosecution of Nixon would have deterred Trump from committing criminal acts.

    Trump deserves to die in solitary confinement in a supermax federal prison, but I’ll settle for him losing the 2024 election.

  152. 152.

    frosty

    @Geminid: We’ve had to do the same thing. Lost all of our goldfish to a local heron and I figured out how to put a net over the pond. It’s strung over 3/4″ plastic conduit and looks pretty ugly, but we still have all our fish.

    I need to redo it to look better. Another thing on the post-retirement to-do list.

  154. 154.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Quinerly: Will these nut jobs be happy when they shut down half of the hospitals? When their relative dies on a 45 minute ambulance ride to the closest facility, it will be Biden’s fault, no doubt.

    Sooner or later, fewer people will want to be in a medical profession in this country. Your level of providing care depends on the patient, not any objective standards, and you risk arrest and/or death threats to boot.

  155. 155.

    oatler

    Every fresh Q hell makes me believe that THIS is the death spasm, but it just keeps bringing  more destruction. “Dying by inches from the ankles upward”.

  156. 156.

    Quinerly

    @oatler:

    The way I feel.

    Plus, the nuts high jacked my nickname. Since lawschool my nickname was “Q.” And, sometimes even, “The Q.”

  157. 157.

    RedDirtGirl

    @Kay: There is a great tweet that has side-by-side photos of Governors Walz signing this bill with Sarah Sanders signing the Child Labor Law. The expressions on the faces in the second photo are priceless.

  158. 158.

    Quinerly

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    What they are doing to community hospitals needs more press.

    My brain is to a point that I can’t comprehend this. Hospitals and schools. They want to wallow in untreated sickness and ignorance.

  159. 159.

    Geminid

    @frosty: Maybe you can find someone with a stand of bamboo. That stuff grows back as fast as you can cut it. If you get some that’s fresh cut, you may be able to lap and lash two together at their tops and make an arch.

    Bamboo is very invasive, but it can be useful for light construction. There is a stand of it on the land where I live and a couple friends have taken some for tomato trellises. There’s plenty more if you want to drive to Greene County, Virginia and get it. There ought to be some closer to you though.

  160. 160.

    piratedan

    there once was a lass from Nantucket

    who went to the southwest on a junket

    she went to a bar

    to sample drinks from afar

    instead of the beers that were just served in a bucket

  161. 161.

    CaseyL

    Just saw this on YouTube, and had to share, because it is a lovely instance of humans doing good things for other humans, and for the environment, successfully:

    Incredible Invention – Quiet Drones delivering medical supplies

    Mark Rober is a former NASA engineer who is into challenging people (esp. kids) to get into science and engineering.  He dreams up elaborate projects, carries them out, and films the whole thing.  He’s a bubbly, enthusiastic ambassador for Science.

    I subscribe to Rober’s YouTube channel, and I may have posted some of his videos before.  Possibly his backyard obstacle courses for squirrels, carried out over three years, each one more complicated than the last, with a continuing cast of squirrel characters.

    Anyway, check out this one.  It will put a smile on your face for any number of reasons.

  162. 162.

    Amir Khalid

    @Quinerly:

    I named them…the really flashy one is Mick. The cute one is Keith. There’s Ron in the background. And the albino one….my ghost koi is Charlie. Ron could go. Maybe Mick. Keith and Charlie definitely stay.

    No Little Mick?

  165. 165.

    StringOnAStick

    @Quinerly: Pea gravel makes excellent water-saving mulch for low water use garden plants, so you might want to save that for placing around plants and shrubs to help reduce water loss from the soil.  You’re close to High Country Gardens if you have time to go look at their demonstration gardens.

  168. 168.

    Ohio Mom

    @Quinerly: Yes, I know the law is aimed at controlling teachers but I was taken off balance by the Washington Post’s wording about “banning girls from talking.” Maybe the reporter phrased it badly?

    When Ohio Son was in elementary school, I was occasionally tickled to see him have the exact same experiences I’d had decades before and hundreds of miles east in NYC, such as recorder lessons in third grade and the separate boys and girls puberty talks, led by the school nurse, in fourth grade.

  170. 170.

    PAM Dirac

    @Baud:

    Winner.

    Thank you. It’s an honor I’ll remember for as long as I can. It took me a while to respond because my wife, my dog, and I went out to our favorite local winery to pick up a few bottles of their bubbly (made with Grüner Veltliner and Viognier grapes). It seems the odds are increasing that multiple celebratory bottles of bubbly will be necessary in the near future.

  172. 172.

    cain

    @Kay: ​
     
    It just isn’t catching with the rubes – it’s because they don’t know any trans people causing problems or doing much of anything. Priests on the other hand…

  173. 173.

    cain

    @Kay: I was pretty flabbergasted. When I was growing up in indiana, we had free lunches. I certainly don’t remember paying ! (it could have been rolled into the school fees dunno)

    Oregon doesn’t have free lunches for all that we are blue and have blue majorities – we don’t seem to be doing much in this regard. The cost of education and just about everything is just way high. Combining food and rent here – I just don’t see how a couple can even afford a kid especially with both kids working.

  175. 175.

    Quinerly

    @Ohio Mom:

    Who fucking knows who it is aimed at?  Old White men making laws about girls’ bodies. I think I read a snippet in one piece that a Repug involved in this didn’t know 11 yo girls can start their periods….without warning. This is the same crowd that don’t believe raped women can get pregnant….”the whole body shuts down” crowd.

    With that said, I didn’t read  WaPo piece because of the paywall.

  176. 176.

    cain

    @Ripley:

    There once was a cat from Nuntucket

    Whose fur was so soft you wanted it to pet it

    she would get all the stares

    yet she declares

    none shall touch it

  177. 177.

    Quinerly

    @StringOnAStick:

    You can’t fathom how much pea gravel I have moved…by drywall buckets from this side yard to front areas for cactus beds. No pea gravel has been wasted or harmed! The layout here is such with walls, gates, steps, paths that I couldn’t move with a wheelbarrow. I started moving this last May. A little bit everyday. At least 5 buckets a day. Pretty much everyday, weather permitting. It became an obsession and exercise program. Gravel was at least an inch thick, 3 inches in some spots. At least 2000 sq ft of gravel. Now have extensive cactus beds out front. Three piles of “back up” gravel on south side of a wall that look like I like I have 3 bodies stacked under each pile. I’m waiting to be called out by the HOA over the “bodies.”

  178. 178.

    kalakal

     

    @Gin & Tonic:

    There was a young lady from Nantucket

    Who went on holiday in Phuket

    When she told her friends where she’d been

    There were suggestions and comments quite obscene

    She said, you can take your innuendo and stuff it!

  180. 180.

    Joy in FL

    @CaseyL: I just watched the video. It is awesome, and I’m so glad that I now know about Zipline. It also expanded my thinking about drones, which is a good thing, too. There are some really good things being done by a lot of people. Thanks for the link : )

  183. 183.

    Suzanne

    @LiminalOwl: Ooooh that would be fun! I will have the Spawns, so I am not sure how much flexibility I will have. Is there a good coffee place nearby? That will be easier than a meal.

  184. 184.

    Kathleen

    @Kay: The TV ads I’ve seen state that the measure opposing State interference is “cutting out the parents” from having a say. By their own admission the measure specifies “State”! They’re vomiting word salads again. Throw in a few “workes” and “all lives matter” and you’ve got a Rethuglican outrage generator mad lib.

  185. 185.

    Kathleen

    @Kay: To your point – I read article in WaPo yesterday about child marriages and my takeaway was: “have to respect religious beliefs”, “no one is getting worked up about it”, and “kids can’t vote”.

  187. 187.

    pluky

    @Kay: A parent complaining about a module in a college student’s class sufficed to get a professor fired! This helicopter needs to land; it’s way passed the nuisance phase.

  189. 189.

    LiminalOwl

    @Suzanne: There’s a nice coffee place in East Longmeadow. Looks like there are several in Springfield, but we haven’t been here long enough to investigate.  Spouse loves Dunkin’ and doesn’t look farther afield.
    No, I lie; we had good coffee at two different breakfast places in, I think, West Springfield. One of them also had an amazing assortment of tea, and was quite family-friendly.

    Really don’t know Brimfield at all yet, but can start researching.

Comments are closed.