Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

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

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

If you’re looking for someone who’s young and athletic, go watch a fucking movie.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Open Thread

Late Night Open Thread

by | 54 Comments

This post is in: 

These little stories are from an article about people who are making a difference, and I thought little pieces of it might make good late night posts.  A little bit of inspiration, perhaps, at the start of an open thread.

But talk about whatever you want!

In a year that made many of us want to give up, these unsung activists found a way to help others.

h/t hazmat

🌼

The Boat Rocker

Mr. Buchanan, who has helped found three community boathouses, works with organizations that advocate clean water and recreational use of New York Harbor.Credit…Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

In the late 1990s, Rob Buchanan, a former Princeton rower, had an inspiring encounter with a man named Mike Davis, who built replicas of the boat George Washington used to clear troops from Brooklyn during the Battle of Long Island. Mr. Davis, who died in 2008, had been on a mission to open up the city’s waterways to recreational use. Mr. Buchanan immediately felt a calling.

“This idea of the harbor as public space really resonated with me,” he said.

Over the years, he devoted himself to making access to the city’s coastline more equitable, an ambition that has intensified as luxury development has made waterfront access more elusive. He has helped found three community boathouses (one in Manhattan and two in Brooklyn), where volunteers provide free rowing and kayaking sessions. He is also the steering committee coordinator of the NYC Water Trail Association, which advocates clean water and safe boating and helped create the Citizens Water Quality Testing Program to check pollution levels in the harbor.

This year, he began lobbying the city to build a waterfront education center in Sunset Park, which would include work force training for maritime businesses. He joined Rocking the Boat, a nonprofit based in the South Bronx, where he directs programming and teaches boat building to middle schoolers from the neighborhood so that they can feel, as he put it, that “this is our harbor and our estuary,” and that they live in a city that belongs to everyone.

From Six New Yorkers Who Made the City a Better, Cooler, Fairer Place in 2023.  Written by Ginia Bellafante, who writes the Big City column, a weekly commentary on the politics, culture and life of New York City.

In a year that made many of us want to give up, these unsung activists found a way to help others.

h/t hazmat

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

54Comments

  1. 1.

    Maxim

    I’ve really been enjoying these profiles, WG. It’s heartening to see people doing the work and making a difference in their corners of the world.

  3. 3.

    Mike in Pasadena

    Balloon-juice is the coolest place on the net. At least as far as I can tell from my erratic and intermittent visits. Thanks to all the front pagers. Good night.

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    Once again, the jurassic dude above is a troll who has been begging across multiple blogs for decades. Don’t fall for his shpiel.

  9. 9.

    Geoduck

    Here in western Washington State, we’re in a cold snap and Puget Sound Energy is asking everyone not use too much electricity because one of their generating plants went down. :-{ The power hasn’t gone out yet, at least.

  10. 10.

    Shalimar

    @NotMax: The good thing about fiancees when you’re a grifter is that an endless number can die.  You don’t run out of them like you do with grandmothers.

  11. 11.

    Tony Jay

    Well, if that’s the way of it, I’m game.

    I also lack in the fiancé department, have (at the very least) a shitty cold, and don’t want to get out of this nice, warm bed to do all of the things I need to do on Sunday to make Monday a going concern.

    Please send me money, painkillers and lots of Korean food.

  13. 13.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Geoduck: Hopefully your power doesn’t go out and they can get that plant back online quickly.

    We’re at -3° in Chicago, and the backyard wind chimes are a-chiming.

  15. 15.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Tony Jay:

    Please send me money, painkillers and lots of Korean food. 

    Please be more specific about what Korean foods you’d like or you’ll be getting a ton of barbecue because mmmmmmm.

  19. 19.

    Nelle

    Des Moines area, reporting in.  -18, windchill is -38, wind , though, has dropped to gusting 18 (yesterday gusts were over 44 mph).  We won’t open curtains or shades today.  When I lived in Fairbanks, we had colder temps, but rare to have these winds.

  20. 20.

    Geminid

    From Middle East Eye Istanbul bureau chief Ragip Soylu (@ragipsoylu):

      MUST READ comments from Israel’s former domestic intel agency Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon on Gaza War and way forward for peace.

    Ragip Soylu does not normally reprint an entire Haaretz article but he thought this one from January 10 was worth it. It’s long.

       The misconception [within Israel] was that the Palestinians are not a people, and if we allow them to have economic prosperity they will give up the dream of independence. In the end, the Palestinians define themselves as a people.

    They’re willing to kill and be killed for that independence, and the terrorists that are killed turn into martyrs in their eyes.

    This campaign will have no picture of victory, no raising of the Stars and Stripes over Iwo Jima, or like Yossi Ben Hanon raising an AK-47 over his head at the Suez Canal at the end of the Six Day War, or even like the image of Yassar Arafat being forced to sail to Tunisia after the First Lebanon War.

    No, if anyone thinks the Palestinians will surrender even if [Hamas leader] Sinear returns to his maker, they don’t know the Palestinians, or Hamas.

    The war to establish and defend Israel has been going on for 140 years, since the first aliyah in the late 19th century.

    We won in March, 2002. At the Arab League Summit in Beirut, the Arab countries surrendered and waved the white flag. They withdrew from the Leagues decision in 1967 known as the ‘Three Noes’– no to recognizing Israel, no to negotiations, no to peace. In March 2002, they agreed to recognize Israel and establish full relations with it based on UN and Security Council resolutions that Israel has also signed.

    That’s how the ‘three yeses’ policy was created: yes to recognition, yes to negotiations, yes to peace with Israel. The tragedy is we refuse to recognize our own victory and continue to fight. We’ve turned war into an end in itself….

    This is only about a third of Ayalon’s piece. To be continued below.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    @Geminid:

    In March 2022 2002, they agreed to recognize Israel and establish full relations with it based on UN and Security Council resolutions that Israel has also signed.

     

    We keep hearing about the accords during the Trump years, but this is the first I’m hearing of the March 2022 deal.

  23. 23.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: More of Ami Ayalon’s Haaretz piece:

       ….Yes, to avoid the debate that is tearing Israeli society apart, centered around what we came here to be, as a people in this land. The cabinet’s decision not to discuss ‘the day after’ turns this war into a military conflict with no diplomatic objective.

    This is a situation in which it is impossible to define ‘victory’ which is always defined in diplomatic terms, and the huge risk is that this is when war becomes the end, not the means.

    Yes. Out of all the disputes, this is the main problem. If we don’t decide where we’re going together and what the values are that bind us together, there is a risk that we will keep fighting [wars] together because that’s the only time we’re not fighting one another.

    Our togetherness is hollow if it is an escape from the real debate that we are unable or unwilling to have, as the intensity of the dispute may lead us to civil war.

    Yitzhak Rabin was murdered precisely because of that. Because of the great question of who we are and why we are here.

    The collapse [within Israel] was within several layers of misconception: first and foremost, a diplomatic conception that started with the collapse of the Camp David peace talks and [then Prime Minister Ehud] Barak’s declaration that there is no partner [for peace] on the other side.

       The Palestinian Authority has recognized Israel within its pre-1967 border and agreed to territorial swaps. It agreed that the right of return would be discussed as part of negotiations. We have to talk with anyone who will talk with us based on these principles….

    One more excerpt to come.

  24. 24.

    Betty Cracker

    @NotMax: Whoa, there’s a blast from the past! His business model has improved a bit. He used to show up in one thread denouncing commenters as neoliberal shills before showing up in the next rattling the begging bowl, which was counterproductive.

  27. 27.

    sab

    Our grumpy cat and our anxious cat just got into a screaming hissy fight (vocal only, no claws out) in the upstairs hall, so all the other cats came rushing from wherever to watch. That broke up the fight. So I think I will get up and feed everyone their daily can of wetfood.

  32. 32.

    Geminid

    @Geminid:

     ….Since Netanyahu’s return to the Prime Minister’s Office, he has designed a a policy of ‘managing the conflict’ while deliberately weakening the Palestinian Authority and strengthening Hamas in order to avoid diplomatic negotiations.

    Netanyahu was wrong in thinking that this policy would buy him political time and refused to see the threat posed by Hamas. Shin Bet chiefs told Netanyahu, ‘You don’t know Hamas,’ and demanded action to weaken it militarily. The lack of a diplomatic process turns Hamas into the only one fighting for national liberation in the eyes of the Palestinians.

    On the way to the day after, we have reached a three-way juncture. There are only two ways out, and for now we are refusing to reach a decision and because of the disputes tearing our country apart, we also refuse to understand that not making a decision is also a decision.

    One way, which I believe in, leads to a Jewish and democratic Israel in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, a state with a Jewish majority. It will be a long process, with ups and downs, that will last perhaps 40 years and require us to make internal concessions and reach understandings among ourselves.

    If Israel takes this road, the Arab countries that have ratified the Arab Peace Initiative, like the western democracies, will be on our side. I believe that this road leads us to a safe, Jewish, and democratic Israel.

    The other road is the one pursued by those who mistakenly believe that the occupation is a security asset and others who believe we have no right to give up land in the land of Israel, even if this means endless war. In my view, this is a messianistic perspective that does not recognize the limitations of reality.

    That road leads to a single state, in the area currently occupied by seven million Jews and seven million Arabs.. it is a violent reality in which Israel will lose its Jewish and democratic identity. This reality leads us to the Great Arab Revolt of the 1930s, to a religious conflict drawing in the most radical and violent groups on both sides.

    The former Shin Bet chief finishes his statement with a proposal which would have seemed preposterous 101 days ago:

       As part of an overall deal which includes the release of the hostages, we must release Marwan Barghouti.

    This is the case for two reasons. Both because the return of the hostages is the closest thing possible to a ‘picture of victory’ in the current Gaza campaign, and because Marwan is the only Palestinian leader who can be elected and lead a united Palestinian leadership toward a path of mutually agreed separation from Israel.

    Marwan Barghouti is currently in an Israeli prison, sentenced to five life terms for his role in leading the Second Intifada including the suicide bombing campaign which claimed over 650 Israeli lives.

  38. 38.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Rajip Soylu is a seasoned and level-headed jouurnalist who has been following this war from a neighboring country. I figured that if he found Ami Ayalon’s statement important, it probably is. It certainly clarified a lot for me.

  39. 39.

    Geminid

    @Geo Wilcox: That’s possible. But Ami Ayalon is not some starry-eyed idealist, but is rather a very “hard” man. He might be the Shin Bet chief who ordered Marwan Barghouti’s arrest in 2002.

  40. 40.

    Princess

    @Geminid: Really interesting and provocative in a useful way. Thanks. I wonder what reception it is getting in Israel.

    Netanyahu needs to go, the sooner the better. He is a block to any kind of hopeful change because his only interest is in himself.

  41. 41.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: Appreciate your transcription effort — it’s an intriguing essay. I’m tempted to copy-paste what you offered here into a front page post for wider discussion, but I’m not sure that would be ethical use of IP. (I don’t have a problem with people copy-pasting lengthy excerpts into comments, but it seems more ambiguous ethically to reproduce paywalled content without a gift link on the front page.)

    The Netanyahu government seems unlikely to release Barghouti, but that’s an interesting idea. PA’s Abbas is well into his 80s and has been marginalized so effectively via the sleazy Hamas-Netanyahu partnership that he seems an unlikely vector for real change. Maybe Barghouti could be.

  42. 42.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: If a front pager cares to correct my error in the 6th paragraph I would greatly appreciate it. I typed “2022” instead of 2002 and that will be confusing for readers.

  45. 45.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: After 100 days, this conflict seems frozen, just like the larger problem has been more or less since the Six Day War in 1967. There is a lot going on though, even if we can’t see it today.

    For one thing, the neighboring Arab countries that recognize Israel are working on a plan to revitalise the Palestinian Authority. They are very serious about this, just as they are very serious about solving this problem that has destabilized the region they live in for for many decades. I count Saudi Arabia in this group as they have essentially recognized Israel de facto and are leading this effort.

    As for Israel, it’s clear thst Benjamin Netanyahu will never take the road Ayalon says must be taken. But this conflict is  entering a new phase now, it seems to me. What was a shocking emergency 100 days ago is now a long, grinding crisis with no clear end, as the former Shin Bet chief points out. The question of political leadership that was set aside during the emergency is now itself becoming urgent.

    This has become apparent over the last 10 days. Relations within the government and tge Knesset are getting rancorous. Last night’s demonstration in Tel Aviv numbered 120,000 people, in a pouring rain. The purpose was to press the government to deal for the hostages. A large demonstration in Haifa was more explicitly anti-Netanyahu.

    I would make no predictions here, except that I will be reading journalists Barak Ravid and Noga Tarnopolsky and the Times of Israel very attentively..

  49. 49.

    WaterGirl

    @Betty Cracker: I had the same thought about front-paging this.  I think you should do it.

    I factor in “would the author want what he has written to be disseminated far and wide?” and if the answer is yes, as long as there is clear attribution, I would go for it.

    My two cents.

  53. 53.

    pieceofpeace

    Oops…wrong thread, obviously!

    Thank you Geminid, this is informative and with some hope emerging.

  54. 54.

    Hob

    @Betty Cracker: ​
     Well he didn’t only do those two things, he also spent a lot of time posting comments here that were just promotion for his blog. Never stayed around for any discussion, didn’t seem to ever be reading/listening. And that was after he’d previously deleted his blog while making a flouncing-off comment on Daily Kos about how he was sick of the grind of trying to get more viewers for his blog, and had decided that blogging is silly and he was going to devote his time to better forms of activism. I could never figure out what his deal was, or how much of this personal misfortune was real.

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