Another busy day today- they all are, aren’t they? I’ve been feeling pretty ok, but I still have this jittery edge to me. It is especially pronounced in the morning, and tapers off as I get moving. Weird.
Spent the day organizing and cleaning. I am going through all my old clothes that I have accumulated over the years and not worn in forever and packing them up for goodwill. While doing so, I have discovered that I never need to buy another pair of socks ever again.
In other news, this piece in the the American Prospect about the shenanigans and criminality at Boeing is maddening.
cain
I hear that taking it to non Goodwill places is better than goodwill. But goodwill is definitely more convenient.
Glad you are doing better !
John Cole
@cain: goodwill is just a generic term for me like kleenex- there are these bins in town for clothes I will just throw them in there. Not sure who runs it.
Martin
Not sure how people are still getting surprised by Boeing.
This entire economy boils down to two drivers: consolidating profits for investors and rent seeking. That’s the economy. Boeing was doing one of those two – it was an exercise for you to figure out which (or both).
Every day pick a company and ask yourself which of these they’re doing, and how that would impact you. You’ll be much better prepared for the next disaster if you do.
Any guesses which of those the global container shipping industry is doing which might have lead to a bridge being knocked down?
Any guesses why housing costs are skyrocketing in certain markets and not at all in others?
Any guesses why you can’t get cheap EVs in the US, but you can in a lot of other countries?
Paul in Jacksonville
I read most of your front pagers. I rarely respond in comments.I do enjoy contributing to On The Road. I admire your grunt bluffness and your no bullshit method of dealing with life. Thanks, dude. (I’m also curious why you call your readers jackals?)
Dan B
The Boeing story is discouraging especially since we live a mile from the original Boeing headquarters in a development Boeing built for black workers. Thankfully Seattle diversified after the Boeing Bust.
OzarkHillbilly
@John Cole:
Once again I have not been getting much sleep. My pain levels are pile driving me deep into the dirt. My frustrations at being unable to do the things that used to be easy as pie, pile up every day. Every time I turn around I am getting yet another bill from some medical establishment I have already paid (according to medicare). I’m about to drop my anger counseling because my youngest needs serious help with his depression (that I passed on to him) but he lives in NOLA and you know damn well that state ain’t about to give him a helping hand and I don’t have the money for both so,…
And well….
I too am tired. I feel overwhelmed every other day if not every day.
I won’t bother saying how I get thru it, just that it’s needle and thread, needle and thread every morning.
Raoul Paste
Sorry to see that only five out of 15 Boeing engineers would fly on a 787 Dreamliner. I did it once, and it was the smoothest quietest flight ever
SeattleDem
Lots of my family used to work at Boeing and every one of them thought M-D poisoned the company. We were glad to see them move the assholes to Chicago and pretty much all sold our stock then. The FAA certified company engineers who could sign off our work were the most tight ass sticklers you can imagine, because they took their responsibilities seriously. We sometimes took questions straight to the FAA engineers because they were more likely to listen to us young punks. I got out of aerospace before the M-D merger, and my family all tell me my timing was good
karen marie
@Paul in Jacksonville: There used to be a site dictionary. I’m not seeing it in the sidebar but I may be blind, so …
I’m sure someone else will be able to tell you the story.
Where did the dictionary go?
John Cole
@OzarkHillbilly: I wish I could do something.
karen marie
@John Cole: Just keep breathing. That’s what I do. I breathe deep and wait for death.
OzarkHillbilly
@John Cole: All we can do is put one foot in front of the other. And when I can’t anymore? I will call it enough.
But right now I have a wife, 2 sons, and 5 granddaughters. Abandoning them is not an option.
And I hate to say it but, yet.
NotMax
Trivia re: socks.
WaterGirl
@karen marie: @Paul in Jacksonville:
The menu with the Lexicon is just above balloon man. It’s right next to About Us, in the same line as the navigational arrows.
If you’re on a phone, you can find the Lexicon as an item in the hamburger menu.
karen marie
@WaterGirl: Duh. “Lexicon.” Hahahaha. I’m such a dope
PS I’m on my desktop (Chrome browser) and I’m not seeing either the “about us,” et cetera, or a hamburger menu, but Paul will be able to find it, I’m sure.
PPS Oh, duh. Now I’m seeing it. It’s on the right-ish side at the top
PPS “Jackal” is not in there!
Spanky
@WaterGirl: Hey, it turns out that “jackal” is not in the lexicon!
From memory, it stems from one snowflake’s description of this place as “a den of snarling, vicious jackals”, a term we adopted with pride.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: And I also picked off 3 ticks today and I am pretty sure there is another on my ass that my wife is gonna have to pick off, there was a Carolina Wren singing his heart out when I just stepped out to take a piss in my front yard (because I can) and Billy and Percy are making my wife feed them by hand (because they can).
I count that as a win.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Spanky: That’s what I remember, and that thereafter the commentators here became the “jackaltariat”
Spanky
@OzarkHillbilly: The Carolina Wren is my spirit animal. It’s not much to look at, loud as hell when it opens its pie hole, and never shuts up.
frosty
@Paul in Jacksonville: The site was described as “A snarling mass of vicious vitriolic jackals.” by some WATB pundit, I wish I could remember who.
Craig
@OzarkHillbilly: I don’t know you, but as a lurker I’ve had the pleasure of your incitful commentary and commitment to this community. Best wishes. I hope things improve for you.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@OzarkHillbilly:
End of March and you’ve already got ticks. There’s a lot of things I don’t miss about living in Central Misery and ticks ranks right up there with those things I don’t miss.
And early, well, early compared to 25 years ago.
Betty
@Spanky: As I recall, there used to be a number of commenters who were more sarcastic who earned the name jackal.
OzarkHillbilly
@Spanky: I love them. Always lift my spirits.
Spanky
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Pulled my first one off on March 14 here in Southern Maryland.
Last year it was at the end of January.
Tony Jay
And that’s when you know you’ve become a man, my son.
Spanky
@OzarkHillbilly: Got one nesting in the wall of my shed, another on a shelf in the garage. Don’t know how they get in and out, but far be it from me to make life difficult for the little clowns.
Steeplejack
Church Lady, April 29, 2010: “This place has slowly turned into a refuge for a snarling mass of vitriolic vicious jackals. Since they’re all pet lovers, that makes it OK.” Vicious was later dropped as unseemly.
A commenter named kdaug claimed to have contributed the phrase, but I can’t find that anywhere.
Spanky
@Tony Jay: It’s also when you can truthfully tell full grown young adults that you have socks older than they are.
OzarkHillbilly
@Craig: Thanx, but it’s mostly Idiocracy. As to things getting better, I’m pretty sure it’s all down hill from here. That being said, I take pleasure in the small things. Needle and thread…
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I got my first tick this year in February. It’s only gonna get worse from here.
frosty
@Steeplejack: Your google-fu is better than mine. I contend that “vicious” is required, just for the rhythm. Subaru Diane, house expert on parodies that scan perfectly, is welcome to chime in.
lowtechcyclist
@Steeplejack:
And it’s been a rotating tag for eons now.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
Wow – I haven’t gotten a tick bite in a dozen years. And up until three or four years ago, the kiddo and I were in and out of the woods all the time, mostly the Corps of Engineers wetland behind my house near the Twin Beaches, but also in the Chestnut Land Trust areas in the southern part of the county.
Matt McIrvin
@Spanky: The fans of Seth Meyers’ “Corrections” web video series (recently concluded, I think) also called themselves “Jackals”, I think for their all-consuming pedantry, and it always sounded strange to me because I knew of a whole other bunch of Jackals.
Spanky
@lowtechcyclist: ACLT is probably where I got mine.
Craig
Just listened to Cruel Summer 3 times in a row on my phone. Something is changing. I feel like I’m slowly turning into a Swifty.
SiubhanDuinne
@Spanky:
@Chacal Charles Calthrop:
@frosty:
@Steeplejack:
It’s funny how memories differ. If anyone had asked me, I would have sworn up and down and sideways that our Blogmeister himself described us that way, in an interview feature that some other blog conducted with John many years ago (but maybe he was quoting a BJ commenter? Or a WATB?). The whole interview used to be linked to John’s nym, but I don’t see it now.
As always, I might be wildly misremembering.
BlueGuitarist
Via politicalwire
SiubhanDuinne
@frosty:
Heh. Thanks. I’ll work on it.
TBone
@BlueGuitarist: 😎🤣💙
Baud
@BlueGuitarist:
Hahaha.
Ohio Mom
@cain: For some reason, there is something of a meme that Goodwill exploits people with disabilities so that the top executives can make lots of money.
Just like there is an exception to the minimum wage law for restaurant servers, there is an exception for people with disabilities who work in sheltered workshops. These are people who are very disabled, except nowadays we say they have high support needs (sounds better than the previous term which was low functioning).
The work done in sheltered workshops is things like stuffing envelopes, putting labels on boxes, etc.; I once visited the old Easter Seals sheltered workshop in my neighborhood and they were folding open cardboard supermarket displays. You know, those filmsy things blocking the supermarket aisles that are just begging for a cart to knock them over. Anyway, it’s not exactly high-level skilled work and some people have argued that raising the pay level would price the workshops out of the market for such menial tasks.
That argument is becoming moot these days because sheltered workshops are being phased out (the one in my neighborhood closed) and are being replaced with what’s called community based programs consisting of smaller groups, because that is seen as integrating the participants into the community.
There is a lot of controversy in the disabled community about this change. Some people are all for it but many families of the high support needs individuals are angry and distraught. They say that the sheltered workshops were the least restrictive environment for their family members and that community-based programming is apt to occupy many fewer hours of their family members’ time.
Similarly, there is a big push to end the sub minimum wage, and those families of high support needs individuals are against that too.
I’m agnostic on all of this because I don’t have a dog in that fight. Every argument I hear, for and against, sounds reasonable to me. Like much in the disability community, we are talking about such a wide range of circumstances that there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
All that said (probably much more than you wanted to know), Goodwill is not the only organization running employment programs for the disabled. And while it is true that Goodwill’s top executives make obscene salaries, so do most executives of large, national nonprofits. It’s disgusting but I don’t think its fair to single out Goodwill.
TL/dr: no reason to avoid Goodwill, they are no better or worse than other similar stores. Though St. Vincent dePaul is anti-abortion, so you can probably avoid supporting them.
Baud
Via Reddit
frosty
@SiubhanDuinne: When I googled it I got a link to The Daily Dish via The Atlantic (2010). It’s possible that Andrew Sullivan came up with that description.
Matt McIrvin
(Correction: “Corrections” still seems to be going on at the moment, though Meyers has been saying or implying that he’ll end it with the 100th episode, by some idiosyncratic definition of “100th episode”)
lowtechcyclist
I’ve been doing a bit of the same. I used to wear slacks and a dress shirt to the office, then it became jeans (in good shape) and a dress shirt. And then the pandemic, and the ‘reimagining’ of the Census Bureau HQ’s office space, and I didn’t go into the office at all during the last 45 months of my career there.
So now I’ve got all these slacks and dress shirts, most of which I will never wear again. I’ve already given some to our local thrift store, and now it’s just a matter of deciding which few I’m going to keep so I can give the rest away too.
Also neckties: now that our parents’ generation in my family and step-families have died off, our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners have ceased being jacket-and-tie affairs. The rest can go to the thrift store, which I’m guessing even they don’t want. Because if people like me almost never wear a tie anymore, people who get their clothes at thrift stores definitely don’t.
Ohio Mom
@Spanky: That is pretty much my memory of how the nickname “Jackals” came to be but I must say, I have never liked the term.
We are justifiably nasty about right-wingers but we are softies otherwise. We are very caring people with wonderful senses of humor.
I like to think of myself as a Juicer.
Baud
@Ohio Mom:
I do too, but that’s mostly because of the human growth hormones.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Man I feel ya. I keep thinking I can get better too but all the PT in the world hasn’t done shit but make me hurt more. I’m gonna try Tai Chi and see if that might help but I’m skeptical.
Steeplejack
@SiubhanDuinne:
Could be. That was just the earliest reference I could find.
Ohio Mom
@lowtechcyclist: My local community college has a free store for interview outfits for their students. If you lived in Cincinnati, they would love your jackets and slacks — they have a lot of low income students just scrapping by.
Maybe one of the DC area community colleges has similar student population?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Spanky: One of my colleagues used to tell his students that his beard was older than they were.
Ohio Mom
@frosty: If Andrew Sullivan is the source for “Jackals,” I like that name even less.
Starfish
@Ohio Mom: Our local Goodwill had a major issue with the employees intercepting anything of value and selling it online to make up for their low pay.
The minimum wage for disabled workers is like $3.50 an hour. Given that the national minimum wage has not been raised in a long time, a lot of places that have bumped their minimum wage should be bumping this wage as well.
HinTN
I donate to AmVets. Yes, downsizing the wardrobe and almost everything else feels really good!
mrmoshpotato
Hot diggity Huskies!
raven
@mrmoshpotato: Jesus, I had high hopes and it looked like we had a shot until halftime.
lowtechcyclist
@Ohio Mom: That’s a good suggestion. I can ask around.
Jay
@Ohio Mom:
@Starfish:
When the Tech Company I worked for was privately held, we had an employment program for the differently abled.
The work was part time, tasks were menial, like assembling boxes, packaging up hardware kits,…….
They were paid the standard assembly wages, $15 hr, with some benefits,
When we were bought out by the Fortune 100 Corp, a “Charity” was contracted to run the program offsite, and the workers pay dropped to $2.50 hr, with no benefits, and the “Charity” made a small fortune.
mrmoshpotato
@raven: UConn’s 28-0 run didn’t help.
raven
@mrmoshpotato: We couldn’t throw it in the ocean. Maybe Purdue can hang but I doubt it.
mrmoshpotato
@raven: Yeah – there was a welded lid on the bucket.
SiubhanDuinne
@frosty:
I found the interview with John Cole I was thinking of (naked link below, as I don’t think the link embed worked), but I was mistaken that it was the source of “jackals” as a term for the BJ commentariat — snarling, vicious, or otherwise. He did refer to us as “dyspeptic, curmudgeonly, and off color,” so there’s that.
https://ordinary-times.com/2009/11/16/the-evolution-of-blogging-an-interview-with-john-cole/
Ohio Mom
@Starfish: I suspect the employees selling the more valuable donations on the down low weren’t disabled. I know my local Goodwill has a rule that employees of a store (who from my observation, aren’t disabled) can’t buy anything from that location — no first dibs.
It must be a problem across the resale world, employees claiming (by stealing or paying) the best stuff. Though another set of problems nonprofit resale stores are facing is all the online ways would-be donors can sell their clothing and other things themselves — FB Marketplace, Poshmark, etc.)
Ohio Son is currently participating in a community-based work program run by Easter Seals, and is making $10.45 an hour (Ohio’s minimum wage), though the job is only for two days a day (thus fulfilling the prediction of the parents who were against closing the sheltered workshops because the alternative programs wouldn’t keep their adult children sufficiently busy).
Ohio Son really wanted to work at a museum, and the participants in this program work in a museum, taking tickets and cleaning. But it isn’t challenging or interesting enough so he is looking into other options.
As a high school student, he participated in summer work programs, one run by Goodwill and the other by a local nonprofit, and also got paid minimum wage.
As I described in my long comment, the sub minimum wage is paid at sheltered workshops (the disabled person bagging your groceries at the supermarket is making the regular wage for that position).
I agree that the pay rate could be raised — but not so much that the participants lose their government benefits! That leads us to, the limits of how much a disabled person can make and save should definitely be raised (Sherrod Brown was working on that, the last I heard).
It’s all very complicated.
Scout211
I just noticed that there are two links to balloon-juice posts from today on memeorandum right now. Have we moved up to an almost top 9,500 blog?
Ohio Mom
@Jay: Grrr! That’s a horrible and sad story. I’m guessing what happened was similar to what happens every time jobs are outsourced — like when someone high up says, let’s outsource the cleaning staff, or whatever.
The (pie-in-the-sky) solution to this is a national law requiring employers to hire a certain percentage of people with disability. As I understand it, the federal government has a policy to hire the disabled, and the state of Washington has a similar law.
Ohio Mom
@Ohio Mom: Two HOURS a day.
Baud
@Scout211:
I can’t believe we’ve gone mainstream.
mrmoshpotato
@Ohio Mom:
I was hoping for some wildness in the spacetime continuum.
Citizen Alan
@Steeplejack: man, is that a blast from the past! After reading the link post, I scrolled down for further comments and was shocked to realize that back in 2010, everyone still seemed to love glenn greenwald and still thought Sully had redeeming features!
Ohio Mom
@Citizen Alan: As a wise person once observed (Maya Angelou?), “When you know better, do better.” We know better now about both of those two clowns.
cintibud
Whoa! As a long time St. Vincent DePaul volunteer I must object to that characterization! SVDP has NOTHING to do with abortion policy! Our pantry feeds hundreds of Mt. Airy families – many of them former inner city residents who have had to leave the gentrification of OTR and West End neighborhoods. Recently we have had a huge increase in recent non English speaking Latino immigrants as well. Twice yearly we provide vouchers to families and individuals to our SVDP stores where they can use them to purchase donated items. A couple months ago when we saw some immigrants with no coats and wearing shorts in the winter we ran out and purchased coats to give them. Every Christmas we provide nice gifts to the children of our regular clients AND to the solo adults (usually elderly) as well. For many those are the only gifts they receive. Our pantry is 100% volunteer – no one is drawing a paycheck and the vast majority of our supplies are from the state supported Freestore/Foodbank and donations. We do not proselytize. We aren’t supposed to anyway but that’s not our mission. We simply follow Jesus’s example.
We help so many people, no questions asked. Please don’t apply purity tests to us. It doesn’t hurt the Catholic church, just the people we are trying to help.
Ohio Mom
@mrmoshpotato: I hope my correction to my typo wasn’t too confusing. Ohio Son only earns money for two hours of work a day.
That no doubt keeps him under the amount of earned money that would jeopardize his Social Security and Medicaid.
People in sheltered workshops earn less per hour for more hours, and probably comes out close to the same total amount.
It’s a question of what you value more, (whatever you think is) a fair wage OR keeping someone with limited opportunities engaged and productive, in a group of peers, for a longer period of time a day? There’s an argument that quality of life is promoted in the second scenario.
Villago Delenda Est
@BlueGuitarist: Hello, 911? I’d like to report a murder.
Lyrebird
@cintibud:
When I lived in the Southwest SVDP was my go-to for donations, thanks for filling in more.
Ohio Mom
@cintibud: Oh, I’m sorry. I actually shop at the SVDP store on Reading Road in Mason. I’m not a purist when it comes to thrifting.
I know SVDP does good work (we donated the insulin Ohio Dad stopped using because of a med switch to the SVDP pharmacy downtown) but they also make pro-life statements they publicize on the internet. And money is fungible, maybe if the church wasn’t spending so much money squashing women’s rights, they would be more money for feeding the hungry.
if it makes you feel better, I’m currently fed up with my religious community. Well, have been for a long time. Instead of finding ways to move contemporary Jewish practice forward to meet our changing times, they have made themselves into the auxiliary to support Israel. The foolishness of this is made more apparent everyday.
Anyway, thank you for your good works!
sab
Yikes. I just turned seventy and have a lot of really nice girl suits I will never wear again and I want to clear my closet. Came up empty in my not very extensive inquiries of local charities.
sab
@Ohio Mom: I am Christian not Jewish, but my first husband was Jewish, and I learned a lot marrying him.
I am so sorry that you are feeling estranged from your traditions since they seem so good.
We all are feeling lost these days. Bad politics infects everything.
Ohio Mom
@sab: How about https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/local/2019/05/06/dress-for-success/5239216007/r
Though when I tried giving away my work clothes, they were out of style. A-line skirts just look dorky nowadays.
SWMBO
@lowtechcyclist:
I’m always a day late and a dollar short.
If you have old neckties that you don’t think anyone else will want, call a quilt store or quilt guild. I have seen some amazing quilts pieced using neckties. Gives them a new life and purpose.