This is a totally open thread, but also a reminder that we are having a Balloon Juice zoom on Agatha Christie’s Life and Work, presented by kalakal tomorrow (Saturday 5/20) at 8 pm Eastern.
Even if you didn’t participate in the Medium Cool series on Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, this looks to be a fun presentation. kalakal makes a monthly presentation at the library where he works, and this looks to be really interesting!
I hope you’ll join us – this will one hour presentation followed by an hour of discussion / conversation.
We have about 15 people who have RSVP’d so far, and I just sent out the zoom link to those folks. If you RSVP’d earlier and you did not receive the zoom link, please let me know right away.
If you haven’t RSVP’d already, please send email to WaterGirl. Let us know in the comments, too, so folks can see who is coming?
TOTALLY OPEN THREAD.
M31
aww bummer, I’m going to be traveling on zoom call day, BUT, I’ve loaded up some Sayers to read on the plane, starting with Murder Must Advertise, which is such a good one — the office banter is really well done, plus I used to work in a newspaper printing office so the jockeying for position of ads and complaints about sizing/text etc. are very nostalgic for me
Mom Says I*m Handsome
Open thread topic: Has anyone else soured on plastics recycling? I went from “rinse those containers! they’ll be turned into new plastic products by the wizards at the recycling plant!” to “bah, 90% of it goes into a landfill & what’s actually recycled is turned into ugly, low-quality downstream junk, so I’m trashing it all.” I took a class in polymer chemistry as part of my engineering degree, so I know how sensitive plastics are to even minute levels of contamination; there’s no way that Waste Management is being that careful. And I recently learned that the “Reduce/Reuse/Recycle” triangle was invented by the oil companies in the 1970’s, to turn the environmental impact responsibility back onto the consumer. I still am careful with aluminum, glass, and cardboard recycling, because I know those are effective; but plastics? All into the trash now, angrily. Feh.
Alison Rose
@Mom Says I*m Handsome: Yeah, and so much of the plastic we buy (containers, etc) isn’t even recyclable, and yet they put that arrow symbol on it telling us to toss it in the blue bin. It’s pretty aggravating. John Oliver had a good segment on plastics and recycling a couple years ago that was very informative.
Anyway
@Mom Says I*m Handsome:
yeah, I usually stick to these three. And compost …
Elizabelle
Since kalakal’s presentation is for a library, is there a possibility the library will put up a video of it after the fact? Some libraries do, some don’t.
That would be great for jackals who cannot be present for the live zoom.
Jackie
@Anyway: Our recycling no longer accepts glass. Apparently recycled glass is shipped to China and for whatever reason, I forget why, China is no longer accepting.
CaseyL
@Mom Says I*m Handsome: I soured on it a year (?) ago, when a report came out that China – where the plastics were being shipped to be recycled – was instead just dumping everything in the ocean.
I have ever since been as diligent as possible in not buying items packaged in plastic (impossible in some cases, but I do try).
This has led to some accidental comedy, when I’m in the grocery store stroking, squeezing and tapping bottles and jars to find the ones made of glass. I do get the occasional funny look.
It’s also led to me foreswearing bottled shampoo and conditioner forever, as I’ve discovered shampoo and conditioner bars are less expensive, less wasteful, and better for my hair.
kalakal
@Elizabelle: This isn’t the library presentation, that’s an in person thing and isn’t recorded. I believe Watergirl is going to record this one so people can view it later.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
That thing about Agatha Christie disappearing I’d never heard of, till I saw a film someone made about it (purely fictional speculation about what she was doing).
Might have been this one. I saw it with my wife in the theaters. We weren’t married in 1979 but we were dating.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mom Says I*m Handsome: Oy. I’ve been reading this for years— about curbside recycling in general if not specifically about plastics– and it never stops being depressing
I’ve been getting a lot of take-out recently, and my favorite places are all plastic heavy. I wash and save the little tubs for…. something. I’m sure I’ll find something to do with them.
Get me, I’ve become part of the Do Something Caucus after all this time.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
on another note: My phone just told me the stock market turned downward on Qevin pulling his negotiators out of the debt ceiling talks with the White House
persistentillusion
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Doctor Who also did an episode centered on her disappearance, with of course, slightly ridiculous sci-fi add-ons like a six foot wasp
ETA: as a Whovian, an embarassing amount of my understanding of science, math and astronomy comes from Doctor Who. Oh well, knowledge is knowledge.
Elizabelle
@kalakal: Thank you.
I shall be attending, with an adult beverage. (ETA: should probably be gin-based, no?)
Time to get back to reading some of these classics, maybe in July and later. (Primaries before then!)
I used to absolutely LOVE PD James, but picked up one of her mysteries I’d enjoyed before, and found it really slow going. A slog, and I put it back down.
I think the internet, and Law and Order style storytelling, has withered my attention span.
But it is always good to work on getting it back. The look at the world between the two great wars is fascinating; another time. Already another country, for me.
Thank you again for including us. And good luck with your presentation.
NotMax
Open thread? Hooray!
Excess, excess, more excess (half hour tour). Vertigo vistas. A space where one needs to buy Windex by the drum.
To my mind, much too little countertop space in the first kitchen. Also, why is so much of the furniture in these places so uninviting, coldly stark or just plain ugly?
(Also, in case anyone was wondering about those legally required casement windows, yes they open but only wide enough to let airflow in, not enough to tumble out from.)
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I learned that the Norman Conquest (of England) was in 1066 from a Batman comic as a kid. Part of some clue Batman was deciphering. That little factoid stuck with me for life for some reason, despite not finding out till many years later what the “Norman Conquest” was.
NotMax
Throw a Zoom invite my way, if you would be so kind. You already have one of my e-mail addresses. It will be 2 p.m. here, so 50/50 chance of attendance (prime siesta time).
Alison Rose
Heyyyyyy: The U.S. will support training Ukrainians to fly F-16s
NotMax
@Ceci n est pas mon nym
Fondly remember gently chuckling while reading 1066 and All That many, many moons ago. Dunno if the slim tome holds up.
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle: Try Ruth Rendell. She’s a snappier storyteller than P. D. James.
Although I did recently enjoy The Black Tower and Death of an Expert Witness and Shroud for a Nightingale. The TV series with Bertie Carvel was pretty good!
patrick II
Due to two recent mass shootings, Serbia has changed its gun laws — 30 days to turn in your unregistered weapons or 15 years in jail. There have been 130,000 weapons (guns, rifles, grenade launchers) turned in so far.
A sane country with a rational response to murdered children.
this is from patrick II. Somehow my name got blanked on this post.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: It didn’t when I tried to reread it, but that rereading was also long ago, so I’m not sure how I’d react now.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia: I love PD James but I think she got a little rambly and self-indulgent in her last couple of books, a bit political too (one of them is set in a private clinic and there’s some droning about the evils, or least aggravations, of the national health service). I suspect got to point where she could tell her editors to pound sand and print (as was) what she gave them, and she did and they did
ETA: Referring to the Dalgliesh books, I didn’t read the Jane Austen thing
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Ever read Sarum?
patrick II
Short comment to get my name right.
Serbians have taken a more rational attitude towards gun violence than we have and join Australia and England which have radically changed their gun laws in the face of mass shootings, particularly at schools.
Jackie
Chris Hayes tore into Pudd’n Boots last night. I found myself standing and applauding. Well worth watching!
https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/hayes-party-of-parents-rights-pushes-child-health-care-bans-174878789626
WaterGirl
@NotMax: I just sent you the zoom invite.
What you probably don’t know is that the incoming email RSVP is how I track who is interested and how I track who needs to get an update if something changes. The incoming messages go into a special mailbox for that event.
So with no incoming email, that kind of messes with my system. :-)
Just so you know for next time!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: ah, perhaps not coincidentally, The Beast has put out a troof calling on his minions to hold out for “EVERYTHING THEY WANT (including the kitchen sink)“
WaterGirl
@patrick II: Fixed you.
kalakal
@NotMax:
I loved the exam questions
“Contract, expand, and explode the Charters and Garters of the Realm”
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The Jane Austen thing isn’t too bad. (It isn’t too good, either.)
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: No.
zhena gogolia
@patrick II: They have no 2 amendment or USSC.
UncleEbeneezer
Went to a SwingLeft happy hour last night and it was nice to get out and reconnect with other politically-active Dems/Progressives in the area. The only downsides were that there was a Lakers game on so the bar was pretty crowded, loud and hard to snag a table. And I had to kindly smack down some bullshit that one dude was saying about the “epidemic of Trans.” I explained to him that the rise in people identifying as Transgender is only because they are finally feeling safe to do so. I didn’t even get into the fact that “epidemic” is a loaded term with a negative connotation. After a few minutes I realized he was just repeating a bad phrase he heard somewhere but didn’t actually have any animosity towards LGBTQ people. But it sure does show just how easily Transphobic language and framings spread even among very liberal/progressive people.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Fine (IMHO), albeit weighty, beach/airplane/casual read.
zeecube
@Jackie: Twas a righteous rant.
eclare
@NotMax:
OMG I would be on the verge of a panic attack 24/7 if I were forced to live there.
Mom Says I*m Handsome
@UncleEbeneezer: I may be misstating it but the phrase I’ve heard (about people’s reactions to trans issues, for example) is “a strong belief, weakly held.” In other words it’s a strong visceral initial reaction that breaks down with the slightest inquiry & conversation. The good news: It’s frequently easily disrupted. The bad news: There are millions of people, with billions of unexamined beliefs that “need” correcting (presumably when we send them to FEMA camps, are we still doing that?).
Roger Moore
@Mom Says I*m Handsome:
Yep. It’s not a big deal for me because my trash company pinkie swears they separate recyclables at their plant, so we don’t need to have a separate recycling bin. I assume this means they separate anything valuable and economical to separate (i.e. metals) and send the rest to the landfill.
As far as plastics specifically, my impression is that the best approach is likely to be ripping them apart into their component parts and treating them as feed stocks to make new plastics. It’s nowhere near as economical as being able to just melt them down and reuse them like you can do with metals, but it may be cheaper than starting from petroleum, especially if petroleum prices keep going up. I’m also deeply skeptical of a lot of the “plant based” plastics. My impression is those are kind of like using corn-based ethanol as a fuel; it sounds good but takes so much energy to make it work that it’s mostly just greenwashing.
patrick II
@zhena gogolia:
Until 1990, we did not have a 2nd amendment that was bizarrely interpreted as it is now. “Arms” were necessary for a militia not as an individual right. We tend to think it was always this way, but the country got along much better for 200 years when the 2nd amendment was interpreted by people who could read.
Not to mention the right to bear arms is being treated as an absolute right at a level no other right achieves. Rights live in constant conflict with other rights and the rights of other people. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theatre, but you can bring a gun into one.
It’s this way because people with money have paid to mythologize the cowboy and make the individual with a gun a false national myth. Wyatt Earp was enforcing gun control at the shootout at OK Corral. But the very profitable gun lobby has paid to get politicians and judges to see it their way. It doesn’t have to be, and certainly not because of a purposful misreading of the 2nd amendment.
NotMax
@eclare
:) Come shudder by me.
UncleEbeneezer
@Mom Says I*m Handsome: This guy was myopically obsessed with environmental issues like single-use-plastics. He didn’t really seem to have any strong feelings about social issues whatsoever. Which is very weird to me, but this is definitely a pretty common type of Dem organizer/activist, especially if they are white men, and they are a significant chunk of our coalition, in my experience. He was just repeating something that some lady who came to talk to his group about chemicals/plastics said in her presentation. Not even really co-signing it. So I give him the benefit of the doubt and just assume he’s clueless about Trans issues like most 50-60-something white dudes. He took the correction amiably and didn’t get defensive about it so I think he’s fine.
gene108
@patrick II:
I doubt any of those countries has a Second Amendment.
It’s the biggest impediment to sensible gun laws.
Roger Moore
@persistentillusion:
That was actually the original point of the series. In the original series, the Doctor was a much less important character than his two companions, Barbara and Ian, who are history and science teachers at his daughter’s school. The basic idea was that they would go either forward in time, do science fiction stuff, and have to solve their problems using science, or go back in time and participate in historical events. Either way, the show would be educational, or educational enough to satisfy some demand that kid’s TV have educational content rather than being pure entertainment.
NotMax
Unseasonal steady rain outside.
i shoulder the blame, having done some yard mowing yesterday.
gene108
@patrick II:
It doesn’t matter if we had a more rational reading of the 2A until the last 30 years. Gun nuts want to be able carry guns everywhere and Republicans want to accommodate them.
The use of the 2A in law and legislation has gone crazy. There’s no putting the guns everywhere ethos back in the bottle with the 2A on the books.
MomSense
@Mom Says I*m Handsome:
I switched to Blueland products and they are awesome. Even the packaging is compostable. I use it for all cleaning and laundry now. I think pod save america and sisters in law have discount codes
ETA Fleece and polyester, really all synthetic fibers, are horrible. Not only do they clog landfills because they do not decompose, but every time you wash those fleece items you release micro plastics. I know that companies like Patagonia were trying to do something positive with all those plastic drink containers but we have known for so long about how destructive fleece is. Natural fibers are the way to go, especially wool.
Jay
Thread,
replace “National Security Experts” with vatnicks or tankies.
Geminid
@Alison Rose: In other Ukraine news, President Zelenskyy made a surprise visit to the Arab League summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia today. A Times of Israel article has a picture of a smiling Zelenskyy shaking hands with a smiling Crown Prince bin Salman. I don’t expect anyone here is going to print it out to hang on their wall.
patrick II
@gene108:
That is my point. Parts of this country has gone crazy for guns and people think it has always been this way, but it hasn’t. People with money have mythologized the gun and propagandized fear as part of a larger effort to create an aristocracy with fascist overtones of absolute freedom for the entitled and information-managed slavery for the proles. The country has been propagandized. I am old enough to remember when people did not even think of carrying a gun everywhere to “protect” themselves. There was trust built into the culture. Now there is fear. A rational country would not let the misreading of the 2nd amendment bring us to the place we are.
Geminid
@gene108: I think Scalia’s opinion in Heller allows reasonable regulation of firearms. Plenty of gun safety laws have been passed and upheld since. That could change this year of course, when the Court hears a couple important cases. But it might not.
trollhattan
@Mom Says I*m Handsome: The plastic and petroleum industries, seeing looming mandatory recycling ahead, devised our current number labeling scheme and ran copious ads encouraging we consumers to sort and recycle the stuff ourselves, shifting the post-sale lifecycle burden away from them. And congress and regulators fell for it so that even now, the makers are not responsible for the fate of their products.
Meanwhile, in 2018 China stopped accepting our recycling, which has closed off the main “pipeline” the US formally used to send our recycled material down. So it piles up.
Aluminum recycling makes economic sense while plastics all cost more to sort, handle, ship, do something else with, than simply manufacturing the stuff from raw materials. I guess until the actual full lifetime cost is forced upon plastic products–be they the product itself or its container–we shall remain awash in mountains of unwanted discarded plastic debris that has no residual value.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Thanks for that! I just put up a thread with that.
trollhattan
@Geminid: It’s also Assad Jr’s return to the Arab League since the Arab Spring slaughter of his own people. Lovely.
Jackie
Debit talks halted. The Party of Trump is pouting.🤬
“House Republicans have paused their debt-limit talks with the White House, Punchbowl News reports.
The two sides are at an impasse on several issues. No follow-up talks are scheduled at the moment.
Said Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA) to Bloomberg: “Look, they’re just unreasonable.”
Meanwhile, Donald Trump urged Republicans not to make a deal “unless they get everything they want (including the kitchen sink.)””
eclare
@CaseyL:
What brand of shampoo and conditioner bars do you recommend? I switched a while back to bar soap from liquid for that very reason, no plastic.
Kayla Rudbek
@Mom Says I*m Handsome: I’m mad at Fairfax County for stopping glass in the regular recycling. People are lazy and aren’t going to drive their glass to a central location so now the glass goes into the trash
Geminid
@trollhattan: The other Arab states have accepted that Assad is here to stay. I’ve read that they figure that if they resume relations they might be able to curb Iranian interference in Syria and Lebanon.
The Turkish Presidential runoff has taken an odd turn that concerns Syria. Turkiye has given shelter to 3.7 Syrian refugees, and 3rd place finisher Sinan Ogan made their presence a big issue. Opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu is going after Ogan’s voters, and delivered a speech where he said Turkiye had “10 million” refugees and he was going to send them back if he won the runoff. So now Erdogan is accusing Kilicdaroglu of being illiberal!
Betty
I have not been able to imagine how a debt ceiling deal could be reached since my Rep, the execrable Scott Perry, demanded repeal of the IRA. Biden has to take unilateral action. The language of the 14th Amendment seems clear. Even Angus King has said so.
Montanareddog
@zhena gogolia: Ruth Rendell’s books are good but fairly traditional whodunnits. I prefer the psychological thrillers she wrote under her Barbara Vine nom de plume. Particular favourite, The Blood Doctor. I found the ending heartbreaking.
Torrey
@WaterGirl: I’ve sent a request to join the Zoom. Rereading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which is reminding me how very witty she was.
@patrick II:
Not disputing your point about the saneness of the Serbian firearms buyback, but it’s worth noting that Serbia is currently sane with regard to this particular issue at this particular time. They’ve had their, um, moments in the past. As have pretty much all countries that have been around long enough to have had the chance to be stupid about something. I thought this was worth mentioning, as it might offer hope that the U.S. will get sensible about this particular topic. Eventually. Maybe. We have approached degrees of sanity within living memory.
persistentillusion
@NotMax: That author, whose work I have enjoyed, did a series of subsequent similar books. The one on London was quite good IMO.
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
@Montanareddog: Actually, Rendell wrote three kinds of books: police procedurals (the Wexford books), the Barbara Vine books, and a third category: the psychological suspense novels published under her own name, which usually feature a character on the brink of insanity at the start who tumbles over the brink before the end. Those are good but bleak.
patrick II
@Jackie:
I can’t help but point out the obvious and note that Trump wants this country under the Biden administration in disarray because it will help his chances to be president again. The country can go to hell and he and his quislings do not care.
zhena gogolia
@Montanareddog: I meant Ruth Rendell writ large.
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
@Betty: If the 14th Amendment were that clear and simple, I suspect other administrations would have tried it before. Just to name one problem in the language of the amendment on its face: what does it mean to say that debt is “authorized by law”? You might think if Congress appropriates the money in the budget that would be enough, but if Congress thought so why did it pass the debt ceiling law? On the other hand, if “authorized by law” means something like “incurred in accordance with the laws that govern the budget process,” the debt ceiling law is one of those laws, and a reasonable lawyer could argue in good faith that any amount appropriated by Congress which exceeds the debt ceiling is *not* authorized by law until Congress lifts the ceiling. (I’m not saying that’s right, only that it’s not obviously a frivolous argument.) That’s just one problem that occurs to me from the face of the amendment. I’m sure a creative lawyer who knows the relevant federal law better than I do could find more.
I think the 14th Amendment argument is worth making, but only in conjunction with other constitutional and statutory arguments that others have spelled out.
trollhattan
He hates the Irish?
zhena gogolia
@Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride: I love the first two categories and can’t stand the third category.
Montanareddog
@zhena gogolia: I guess A Judgement In Stone ust be one of the 3rd category – a psychological thriller, not a Wexford, published as a Rendell. I don’t think I have read it. Have you seen Chabrol’s film of it, La Cérémonie, which is marvellous?
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
@zhena gogolia: It takes a certain masochism to read that last category (or maybe sadism). Maybe the pleasure of reading them ( if any) is that it’s a relief to come to the end and realize whatever your life is like at the moment, it’s got to be better than that.
zhena gogolia
@Montanareddog: no
Jackie
@patrick II: Obviously 😉
Jackie
@Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride: Lawrence Tribe is considered the expert on this, and he and Biden have been talking.
That this hasn’t been done before now falls under the now extinct *no former president has ever been indicted before* category: There always has to be a “first time.”
Mom Says I*m Handsome
@Kayla Rudbek: Grrr. Glass is straightforward to recycle: Separate brown, green & clear. Burn off labels, burn out gunk. Skim slag. Pour into new shapes. Good as new.
Aluminum is even smarter. The energy cost to generate aluminum from ore (bauxite) is immense, but after it’s been formed into an aluminum can it melts at a low temperature, cleans up easily, and is easily formed into good-as-new shapes. I think aluminum recycling is the biggest environmental bang for your economic buck.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: I have liked what I have read of Ruth Rendell. Excellent suggestion.
kalakal
@zhena gogolia: Original Sin is very good
Elizabelle
@Mom Says I*m Handsome: I admire the Germans, who do just that. Bins where you sort glass by color, and bins for paper, plastic, metal, and food waste recycling. The Spanish are good in that respect, too.
Bins at grocery stores and near fire stations and other publicly accessible locations. At apartment houses, even smallish ones.
Should look up what the Germans actually do with their recycled materials.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@kalakal: My favorite of hers, probably.
@Montanareddog: I hadn’t heard of that. I’ll have to look for it
also, I’d forgotten about Barbara Vine books, I’ll have to peruse that section next time I’m in a bookstore
JoyceH
I think I missed an earlier request for RSVP? Anyway, I’d like to Zoom.
dnfree
@NotMax: I have to thank you for your periodic reminders about TCM movies. My husband is an enjoyer of classic movies and we recorded several of the Preston Sturges ones you recommended. We watched “Hail the Conquering Hero” last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. So keep the recommendations coming!
WaterGirl
@JoyceH: I tried sending you the zoom link but I got an “undeliverable” message. Please send me an email that I can reply to.
Andrya
@Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride: @zhena gogolia: I love all of of Rendell’s work, but I hate to say it, two stories in Category 3 are particularly dear to me:
“Catamount” about a woman who wants to see the local mountain lion (it ends badly) resonates with me because from 1974-2004 I worked as a mathematician in an aerospace factory in a rural area with lots of wildlife. One day in the late 1970s I walked (alone) within 15 feet of a mountain lion at 6 am, erroneously believing they were no threat to humans. When I got to my work station I told the guys I was working with “I am so lucky! I got so close to this gorgeous mountain lion, with the sky lit up by sunrise, it was so beautiful!” They told me bluntly that I was damn lucky the mountain lion wasn’t hungry, and next time I was to call them to come and pick me up in a truck.
Then there’s “Piranha to Scurfy” about a guy whose sole occupation is writing mean letters to published authors criticizing their grammar. (I suspect Rendell was working off some personal resentment here.) This story also ends badly. I think of this story every time another commenter on BJ blasts me for not writing well enough.
I’ll be there in the Zoom tomorrow night!