Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Come on, man.

Every day Vance writes another chapter in the book called “Worst VP Pick Ever”.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House" / Monday Night Open Thread

Monday Night Open Thread

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I made soup today. Specifically that lentil soup I saw on the Washington Post website during Covid about a soup so good a nurse ate it every day for lunch for decades. I proceeded to make the hell out of it for several years and then sort of forgot about it for a bit, and I made some today.

I wanted to take a Sunday ride yesterday, so I went to Costco to pick up some staples and price comparison with amazon. Got some produce and some cheese and paper towels and also picked up a rotisserie chicken for 4.99. I have so many mixed feelings about that. First and foremost is that while it is an amazing thing that you can just walk in some place, hand over 5 bucks, and get a thing that had to be born, fed, raised, shipped, slaughtered, and cooked for that low of a price. At the same time, you have to know that that chicken did NOT have a good life, and you have just added to all the cruelty and misery in the world.

What initially lead to this soup is that I was shopping last week and saw a 2 lb bag of lentils for sale for 99 cents. Organic red lentils! I know I already have about 10 lbs in the cupboard, but 99 cents, in this economy? And so I bought them and used a bag of older ones for the coup and put these at the back of the others. Because you never know.

The soup turned out to be pretty good. I had two bowls of it and am now letting it cool down before storing the rest. Thought about the chicken a lot, though, while cooking it. I know I said how amazing it is to get all that for five bucks, but that doesn’t change the fact that picking chicken off a chicken after you boiled it for stock is a pain in the ass. Is it bone? Is it cartilage? I think it’s meat but it feels tendony, etc.

Convenience and the economy really does make it easy to be morally compromised. I could have bought a better chicken had I thought about it, paid 3-4x as much, had to haul it home, freeze it for when I wanted to use it, thawed it and cooked it, and all that. But I didn’t because I saw “$5.00 chicken that’s dirt cheap solves dinner and my soup tomorrow.” And that’s all that went through my head.

I’m so tired of everything being set up that way- the economy, our politics, our health care.

Reader Interactions

93Comments

  1. 1.

    Jharp

    So what is the recipe for those of us who don’t subscribe to the Washington Post?

    It’s paywalled.

    Thanks in advance.

  2. 2.

    Betty Cracker

    Have you watched “The Good Place”? They talk about the problem of the world being set up to morally compromise everyone.

  5. 5.

    RSA

    At the grocery store yesterday I saw some chicken livers, which I’d had trouble finding last year during the holiday season, so I’ll be making a pate for Thanksgiving, from a simple recipe a French friend once gave my wife. Spread on a slice of baguette, a sort of comfort hors d’oeuvre.

  7. 7.

    Jay

    I know I said how amazing it is to get all that for five bucks, but that doesn’t change the fact that picking chicken off a chicken after you boiled it for stock is a pain in the ass. Is it bone? Is it cartilage? I think it’s meat but it feels tendony, etc.

    So, I always strip the roast chicken carcass of meat first, while it’s cold. That lets me get all the meat off.

    Then the carcass (bones broken open) and skin all go back into the roaster with the onion, garlic, carrot, celery and bay leaf base, used to roast it,  (wazzed up) and go under the broiler until the skin chunks are browned slightly.

    then that is simmered off and strained for the stock.

    I always start with a good chicken, not so much for animal welfare reasons, (but that is a part of it), but mostly because they taste so much better, cook so much better.

    It could be worse John, you could have gotten chicken “fingers” at a fast food chain.

  8. 8.

    Scout211

    @Chetan Murthy: Thanks. it looks tasty

    Lentil soup always tastes better with some sort of hot pepper in it. I make lots of different versions but adding the hot pepper, red pepper flakes or cayenne pepper always brings it up a notch from bland to yummy..

  9. 9.

    kindness

    I guess we would all feel morally better if we knew the chickens we got at Costco lived long free range lives in a farm upstate, and died happy of old age.  Yea, I’d be happy for the chicken.  I probably wouldn’t want to eat that chicken rotisseried.  Stewed maybe.

  11. 11.

    jackmac

    Gotta say that the $4.99 Costco chicken is usually vastly superior to the scrawny ones available at my local Jewel-Osco. Besides, the Costco chicken may not have had a great upbringing, but neither has the pork, beef and Thanksgiving turkey many will consume this week.

  12. 12.

    satby

    @Betty Cracker: That was such a good show. And the ending was so perfect I’ll never be able to watch it again.

    Odd that The Good Place and Lucifer ran at about the same time and that both dealt in really different ways with what it meant to be an ethical, humane person. Loved both shows.

  13. 13.

    japa21

    Heard today that the average Thanksgiving dinner this year will cost 5% less than it did last year. Bet if you asked the average person on the street they would say the price went up 50%.

  17. 17.

    mrmoshpotato

    I’m so tired of everything being set up that way- the economy, our politics, our health care.

    US healthcare is cheap? :)

  18. 18.

    Princess

    I used to get meat from a woman in Indiana. She raised pigs who lived in a forest and ate acorns, and she got the rest of the meat from other local small-scale providers. All raised as well as they can be, delicious, and a decent price  for what you get. She vanished at some point early in Covid — sold all her stock off them disappeared, still owing some people (not me) money. Not a trace and many people have looked. I’m afraid it was debt or jail or drugs or some combination of those of worse. I had know her for probably close to twenty years. I think her vanishing is part of the crappy food/economy/life thing John is evoking at the end of his post which is why I mention it. I think of her from time to time and I hope she’s okay.

  23. 23.

    Ohio Mom

    @mrmoshpotato: US health care isn’t cheap but it is a thoroughly corrupt endeavor and we are all complicit the moment we walk into a doctor’s office with a complaint.

    Suffering, whether of chickens or people, is where the money is, I guess. The world remains unredeemed.

  26. 26.

    dimmsdale

    John, your chicken story brought me back to a time years ago when, living around the corner from one of the last live poultry markets in the city, my GF and I decided to go there on a gourmet mission and experience what a REAL fresh chicken tasted like. We go into the storefront market, guy behind the counter asks us what weight we’re looking for, we say “Oh, 2 pounds or so,” he goes thru a door into the back of the shop and comes out with a live (and I mean LIVE) chicken, lovely reddish-brown feathers and a sort of quizzical expression on its face, looking around like ‘well THIS is different!’ Sets it in the scale dish, says to us “That OK?” The GF and I were not quite expecting to meet our chicken this intimately, but we managed a weak nod. Guy goes in the back of the shop carrying the chicken, comes out a couple minutes later carrying a sealed paper bag full of … chicken. WARM chicken. Which we carried back to the apartment, warm bag and all. Later that night we dined on the cooked chicken, and as we chewed it, looking across the table at each other with slightly sick looks on our faces, we agreed it tasted like guilt, mostly.

  27. 27.

    Scout211

    @CarolPW: A squeeze of lime juice works really well too.

    That sounds good, especially with the hot pepper. The recipe in the WaPo uses lemon, as many of the recipes I’ve made over years do.  But lime sounds better.

  28. 28.

    Brachiator

    @japa21:

    Heard today that the average Thanksgiving dinner this year will cost 5% less than it did last year. Bet if you asked the average person on the street they would say the price went up 50%.

    Curiosity made me look it up. From CBS News

    The cost of preparing your Turkey Day feast is likely to be cheaper this year — and you can thank the turkey.

    Turkey costs per pound fell to $1.25 in September, down 43 cents from a year earlier, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

    Overall costs for a typical Thanksgiving meal, including the usual fixings, are also modestly lower compared with 2022, when prices hit a record high. Dinner for 10 will cost an average of $61.17, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. That’s down from $64.05 last year but an increase from $53.31 in 2021. Those figures include the cost of typical side dishes such as cranberries, dinner rolls, green peas and sweet potatoes.

  30. 30.

    Prescott Cactus

    I’m pretty sure that the Costco rotisserie chicken is a loss leader, just like the $1.99 hot dog (AUD$2.50).  One of the founders told the incoming CEO “I’ll kill you, if you raise the price of the hot dogs”.

    At some point in life, if you are lucky, you just have to say “f k- it”, and let all of that go to remain (somewhat) sane.

    We do what we can when we can.  Please be careful taking my advice, as I couldn’t even pica decent nym.   Prescott Cactus, wtf.

  31. 31.

    Neal Schier

    Not to be a prude at my old age, but why is profanity not only so accepted at all times in all places, but is considered to be “expressing passion” and “telling it like it is?”

    At my age I am far from a delicate being, but as one who has had a lifelong appreciation for those who can express themselves clearly, rationally, and with style, I find the vulgarity just wears me down and takes a lot out of life.

    Yes, language is fungible and ever changing and I dig that. Heck, they could not even show a toilet on a late 1950s/ early 60s sitcom, but as one who, at my very best, aspired to reach the middle of the pack intellectually, I want something “better from my betters.”

    I guess what I am saying is that while a little spice to an expression often adds that little something extra, the constant potty mouth of many today makes me immediately lose respect. Why do people not even try anymore? Why the coarseness? It’s everywhere.

    Anyone else or is it just me?

  35. 35.

    Scout211

    @Michael Bersin: That’s good news!

    From your linked article:

    He was challenging an appeals court decision that ruled his ballot language for an abortion initiative was too biased and argumentative.

    This means that the appeals court decision will stand — keeping the court-approved ballot language.

    The court also declined to take up the case challenging the fiscal note summary, meaning the ballot will reflect the Auditor’s summary, not Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s “$12.5 billion” figure.

    It also means that abortion rights activists will soon be able to begin collecting more than 171,000 signatures by May 6 in order to secure ballot access.

    $12.5 billion?!  That’s a lot of abortions that the state will now absolutely have to pay for if this ballot initiate is voted into law. /s

  38. 38.

    Scout211

    @BR: A Biden birthday photo

    Is that real?

    Someone at the White House actually fit 81 candies on a tiny cake and then started a giant bonfire?

  45. 45.

    chrisanthemama

    Dude!  Don’t beat yourself up–the world is only too happy to do that for you–and not over rotisserie chicken.

  47. 47.

    citizen dave

    Can’t believe no other jackal has gone here, but it is stupid, so I will: “And so I bought them and used a bag of older ones for the coup”

    I too am saving my old lentils for the coup.

     

    A few years ago I became creeped out when passing (or they pass me) the open-air cage trucks full of live animals on their way to….well, I’m sure they are just being relocated to a heavenly place of rolling hills and unicorns.  (I will still not look over at them)  Haven’t been seeing as many of these trucks, either ’cause I drive less, or there are less of them, or they do their business at night, whatever.  I look at the morals like this: if we don’t eat meat, or it gets grown in a lab, it’s not like all those meat animals are going to be born and live out magical lives.  They just won’t be born.

  48. 48.

    Betsy

    I agree totally about the commoditization of that poor chicken and all its friends.

    And yes I make a trip every year or so to get some meats raised by people I can talk to personally and I bring back frozen chickens and pork cuts and keep them in the freezer for roasting or braising. It’s a pain sometimes.  I just can’t look at the torture meat in the supermarkets though.

    Not only for the poor animals that are tortured and treated like garbage all their lives, but the same for the humans that have to work in the shit-filled warehouses where the chickens are grown, and the slaughterhouses where horrors take place.

    People  complain that buying meat from farmers you can talk to and farms that want you to see how they take care of their animals is expensive.  I notice none of those folks  are saving money on food by eating a lot of beans.

  49. 49.

    Betsy

    I agree totally about the commoditization of that poor chicken and all its friends.

    And yes I make a trip every year or so to get some meats raised by people I can talk to personally and I bring back frozen chickens and pork cuts and keep them in the freezer for roasting or braising. It’s a pain sometimes.  I just can’t look at the torture meat in the supermarkets though.

    Not only for the poor animals that are tortured and treated like garbage all their lives, but the same for the humans that have to work in the shit-filled warehouses where the chickens are grown, and the slaughterhouses where horrors take place.

    People  complain that buying meat from farmers you can talk to and farms that want you to see how they take care of their animals is expensive.  I notice none of those folks  are saving money on food by eating a lot of beans.

  50. 50.

    laura

    A couple few years ago, the San Francisco Chronicle’s food section printed an article ranking local rotisserie chickens and the hand’s down winner was the Costco $4.99 which the article focused on as the one which Bay Area Chefs identified as their choice for the night off work eating. It’s a loss leader, so the consumer price doesn’t reflect the cost to retailer. I don’t have a Costco membership, but I’ve asked a neighbor who works there to pick me up one once every few years- it is sure convenient for making an emergency chicken pot pie. Those chickens are on sale, and you might as well take advantage of a good product at a very reasonable price from a decent company employing Union Workers.

  53. 53.

    TaMara

    @dimmsdale: Oh, totally get that. Don’t get me started on cooking my first (and only) lobster. 😯

    My grandparents had chickens and my aunts (who are similar ages to me – big family) and I had the chore of gathering eggs AND helping grandpa kill chickens for grandma to then scald and freeze. I was around 5. I think that makes me pretty okay about the process. At least they got to run around the farm for a few months beforehand.

    BUT – I’m a horrible omnivore. Don’t ever name your food and I doubt I could kill anything anymore. I stopped hunting with my dad before I hit double digits. So I freely admit I’m a hypocrite.

  54. 54.

    Betsy

    @kindness: Ypu must be kidding.  Chicken from small pasture farms is richly delicious, and after you’ve eaten a few of those, all feedlot/industrial torture-raised  chicken tastes like bland, sticky mush.

    I laught when I see all the flavorsome sauces marketed to make factory chicken taste like anything.

    And pork from small farms on pasture is another level of sensory rapture. You can taste that essence of pork all the way down to your toes. A little of those sausage drippings goes a long way in a pot of greens, making them something you’d fight for.

  55. 55.

    Narya

    I decided a few years ago that I would use some of my privilege to purchase “ethical” food, especially meat, as much as I can. Thus, I mostly eat meat a friend has hunted or meat from a small mostly organic producer (a friend calls it “hippie meat”), and I try to source most of my veggies from my CSA, and my fish from small-boat fishers. Dairy, too, mostly. I am extremely fortunate to be able to do this. It’s a small thing I can do, and I do not expect others to make the same choices. But if another being is going to die to feed me, I do not want it to have lived a tortured life.
    I know my little efforts don’t amount to a hill of Rancho Gordo Bean Club beans, but, I can AFFORD to make this choice, and I  am willing to forego things to make it. Part of why The Good Place resonated so much for me is my own attempts to find an ethical path. And, I hope that my business helps these producers stay in business. But I would never presume to tell others that I am on the Only Right Path.

  56. 56.

    Betsy

    @Narya: Exactly this.

    But, it doesn’t take privilege to do it.  I did it for YEARS – decades, actually – when I had *nothing*, lived in a tiny apartment, drove a car worth $800, poverty-line income.  I wasn’t going to give my money to torture factories that are ruining (immigrant) human lives too. And poisoning the environment in the process.

    You do eat less meat – and when you do eat it, every morsel gets used, including the bones for stock.

  57. 57.

    glc

    @rikyrah:

    That’s the  “Shut up and vote for us” school of political campaigning. Not sure what the upside of that is. Other than maintaining internal control of the party, regardless of how the race goes. Which is a concern, but maybe not one to be bandied about so unsubtly.

    The idea that we’re effectively in a one-party state and should just adjust to that reality is not going to go down well as a messaging strategy. Whether or not it’s the case.

  58. 58.

    Chetan Murthy

    @glc: On the other hand, it’s simply an acceptance of the fact of Duverger’s Law.  I mean, it’s all well and good for people to stamp their feet that It’s.  Just.  Not.  Fair.  that issue X isn’t important to the Democratic Party, but when not(X) is a core tenet of the GrOPers, for these people to decide to withhold their vote from the Dems ….. well, it’s suicide.

    But people have committed suicide before.  Like 2016.

  59. 59.

    Narya

    @Betsy: my hunter friend gets wild turkeys in the spring. You can’t eat the wings and legs like commercial birds—lots of tendons and icky bits. But! He does those pieces in a crockpot overnight, pulls it apart, and ends up with tasty shredded meat and stock. He also gets legs from his uncle and friend, so that’s not being wasted either.

  60. 60.

    Bupalos

    @citizen dave: And that would be better.

    I appreciate the honesty and dissonance of Cole’s post here. While there’s something a little off about complaning about the way the world offers us these opportunities to be lazily unethical, the sentiment is recognizable to us all.

  61. 61.

    mrmoshpotato

    Watching Colbert, and the orange shitstain says he’d “sign 4 or 5 papers” before the inauguration.  What a pile of shit who sucks dictator ass.

  62. 62.

    way2blue

    A friend just ‘harvested’ 20 chickens on his ranch, they had a better life such as it is.  Longer and actually able to run around in a large coop.  Laying chickens, not the fast turnaround ones with breasts so heavy they can’t walk without falling forward.  Still.  Sticking them head first into one of those cones.  Eesh.

  66. 66.

    Frankensteinbeck

    So, uh, if anybody heard Musk threatened a ‘thermonuclear’ law suit against Media Matters, he did indeed file.  I’ve been reading lawyers on Bluesky go over it, which I’m not sure how to link.

    Summary:  It is unbelievably stupid.  It was filed in Texas based on ‘some of our viewers live there’ so he could judge shop two of the most radical judges, which will get the suit tossed right there.  His primary argument is that Twitter lost business (no evidence cited) because Media Matters as a progressive organization desires (no evidence cited) to make Twitter look bad.  They did this by setting account parameters that make explicitly Nazi content appear next to big corporation ads, but then pretended (no evidence cited except one edited, out of context quote that still doesn’t say it) that these are normal, random, common results.

    Fun details include that they sued the writer as well as Media Matters, then forgot to mention the writer anywhere else in the document.  If the suit is not instantly dismissed, defense will get to question the advertisers in discovery stuff like “So how much appearing next to swastikas and Hitler praise are you okay with?”  Media Matters can sue in California saying that the jurisdiction is wrong.

  67. 67.

    Gretchen

    @Scout211: Ashcroft is claiming the taxes that all those taxpayers would have paid when they grew to working age if they hadn’t been aborted would amount to $12 billion.  He doesn’t count the number of educated young people fleeing Missouri as soon as they can get out to get away from R governance.

  68. 68.

    TS

    @japa21:

    Heard today that the average Thanksgiving dinner this year will cost 5% less than it did last year

    If it’s like the surveys in my world – it is because people are eating less or buying cheaper options, not because prices are falling.

    My food/grocery bills are up 25% on last year – and that is after dropping off the junk food (that I shouldn’t have bought in the first place).

  70. 70.

    brantl

    @Neal Schier: You’re right, a huge part of the English language vocabulary is being lost. people swear a lot, and don’t use the mot juste, much, any more.

  71. 71.

    Ramalama

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: my French / Algerian sister in law made lentil soup with all the ingredients from the recipe in the Washington post but also dashes of Apple cider, a tiny dash of nutmeg, and a few ground cloves. The vinegar is key.

  73. 73.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I’m so tired of everything being set up that way- the economy, our politics, our health care.

    And our brains, John. That is where it all begins.

  74. 74.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    His primary argument is that Twitter lost business (no evidence cited) because Media Matters as a progressive organization desires (no evidence cited) to make Twitter look bad.  They did this by setting account parameters that make explicitly Nazi content appear next to big corporation ads, but then pretended (no evidence cited except one edited, out of context quote that still doesn’t say it) that these are normal, random, common results.

    Wait, Xwitter has a checkbox that says “show me Nazi content next to big corporation ads”?

  76. 76.

    Geminid

    @Matt McIrvin: Speaking of “Nazi content next to big corporation ads,” I saw a report that House Speaker Mike Johnson met with Orange Churl Donald Trump at Mar-a-Loco last night.

  78. 78.

    Matt McIrvin

    I’m so tired of everything being set up that way- the economy, our politics, our health care.

    It can be hard to separate out what of it is malice aforethought, what is the unrestrained market/capitalism at work, and what is just the unavoidable workings of the world.
    But so much of making a better world has got to be structuring policy so that it’s easier to do the right thing than the wrong thing. But we’d rather insist that it’s all down to “personal responsibility” which means that it’s on everyone to jump through the hoops and navigate the obstacles to doing the hard right thing instead of the easy and attractive wrong thing. It builds character, right?

  82. 82.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Threads is super cool. Joe Biden knows that :)

    Seriously it’s like 100 million accounts versus 2 million accounts. It’s a no brainer for a campaign.

  83. 83.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I’m not going to vote for him unless he joins Mastodon.

    ETA: the timing of him joining Threads is interesting, given all that’s going on with Twitter recently.

  84. 84.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    My youngest told me Mastadon has an “instance” (or whatever!) where US Lefties gather. They reject Twitter, Bluesky AND Threads as too commercial. Just steer clear of that Baud! DO NOT let them suck you in.

  85. 85.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Heh. I signed up for the main Mastodon instance.  I like plain vanilla.

    I’m not sure the lefty instance would want me.  I’m too unconventional and speak uncomfortable truths.

  86. 86.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Both Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald are attacking Media Matters to suck up to Musk.

    Lol. I remember when they were young, bold contrarians speaking truth to power. Now they’re just bitter middle aged white guys commiserating with one another, backing a lawsuit to sue the reporter who criticized a billionaire.

  87. 87.

    Mr. Longform

    I’m a bit surprised that those folks who feel guilty about eating factory-farmed animals or who worry so much about animals being treated badly that they look for ethically-killed animals to eat just don’t solve the whole problem by not eating animals.  Not the people who don’t feel guilty or who don’t worry about such things – I’m not arguing that they should do anything differently; I’m just genuinely curious why those who express such concerns for how animals are treated don’t take the easiest route to alleviating that problem.

  88. 88.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: A Mastodon instance, the very nerdy mathstodon.xyz, is where I went, though I still use my old Dreamwidth blog (migrated from LiveJournal when the Russians took over) for some longer-form posting.

    The vibe on Mastodon reminds me a little of the late Google+. That implies to me that Mastodon will never take over the world, but I don’t think it’s intended to. I liked Google+ and still miss it.

    But it’s not free of issues of its own. A lot of Black posters, many of whom tried to migrate over in the mass exodus from Twitter, found that the atmosphere there was not congenial to them, also wanted features they found essential that Mastodon didn’t have, and got a lot of pushback (particularly from the old core of geeky Europeans) when they complained about it. Some big instances are way too tolerant of bad behavior. Some users found instances that they found friendlier but some of this is inherent to the federated model, which basically demands that you cut yourself off completely from instances that are causing you grief (and if a big chunk of the community is there you’re out of luck).

  90. 90.

    Xavier

    Lentils, water, garlic, black pepper, cloves, and lemon. That’s it, and you won’t believe it’s fat free.

  93. 93.

    currawong

    We have rotisserie chickens available at the supermarkets here in Australia.

    They’re known colloquially “batchelor’s handbags”

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