Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

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

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Everybody saw this coming.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

The willow is too close to the house.

Giving up is unforgivable.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

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

Republicans in disarray!

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

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

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

This chaos was totally avoidable.

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

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

You are here: Home / Politics / Education / TGIFriday Morning Open Thread: Happy Nice Stories

TGIFriday Morning Open Thread: Happy Nice Stories

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Even by recent (low) standards, this has not been a cheerful week, so…

Per the Associated Press — “National Teacher of the Year helps diverse students and their families thrive in rural Tennessee”:

… [Missy] Testerman has a special affinity for children from other cultures who comprise just a fraction of the 650 students at the pre-K-8 Rogersville City School. That is why, after 30 years of teaching first and second grade, Testerman got an endorsement to teach English as a second language in 2022…

On Wednesday, the Council of Chief State School Officers announced that Testerman was chosen to receive the national title from among the state teachers of the year. First lady Jill Biden surprised Testerman during a nationally televised appearance Wednesday morning with a bouquet of flowers and the news that she and the nation’s other top teachers will be treated to a state dinner at the White House.

As Teacher of the Year, Testerman will spend a year traveling the country as an ambassador, urging other teachers to become strong advocates for their students and fellow educators.

As a second grade teacher, she created a curriculum using a diverse array of famous Americans that blends literacy and social studies. Today she works with 21 children whose first language is not English. She said her students speak five different languages, with their families hailing from five countries on four continents. Among them are children just beginning to learn English and older children close to mastery of English.

Watching a child acquire another language is “an amazing, magical transformation,” Testerman said. “There’s a level of excitement in a learner when they realize they are able to understand the language they are hearing around them.”…

The first full sentence she teaches students with no English is, “May I please use the bathroom.” It may sound trivial, but it’s vitally important for her students, along with basic phrases like, “I need some water, please,” or, “I need a pencil, please,” she said.

“Just to see how they light up at being able to give themselves a voice is just incredible,” she said.

Testerman also develops close ties with the families of her students. She goes out of her way to help them navigate American culture and integrate into the community. That includes things like teaching them about the local library system or the post office. She also takes steps to help her longtime neighbors in this Appalachian town of about 4,500 people to accept the newcomers.

“Simple gestures such as sitting with my students’ families at high school graduation or a school play goes a long way in helping them find acceptance in our rural area, since I have belonged to this community for decades and others trust my lead,” Testerman wrote in her finalist application…

Testerman said she primarily uses a translation app to communicate with her students’ parents. It works well, although it’s not perfect. After she was announced as a finalist, she got “a really sweet note from a mama about all the things I had done for her child,” she said, but with one language gaffe. The opening line? “Congratulations for nothing!”

On the Crazy Train vibraphonists:

Reader Interactions

187Comments

  4. 4.

    Gin & Tonic

    @NotMax: I saw Anthony Braxton playing one of those at the old Jazz Workshop in Boston. Thing barely fit in the room (it had a very low ceiling.)

  5. 5.

    Trivia Man

    And marimbas, glockenspiels, drums, and bass. A monster rhythm section for sure. Great job!

  6. 6.

    Raoul Paste

    I think you’ve really read the room, if I am any indication.  Didn’t sleep too much, there is too much cruelty in the news

  7. 7.

    Baud

    This means that at certain times of the day (planes excluded), the nearest humans are on the International Space Station ~416 km (256 miles) up

    Pedantry alert. Need to exclude other ships too.

  8. 8.

    Trivia Man

    @Baud: I wonder how frequently planes and ships pass by that closely. A couple hundred miles in the pacific is a small slice. If it will help this amazing fact become more technically correct perhaps “the closest human habitation” will suffice. People do live on the station but not in transport  vehicles.

    (Excludes the super secret undersea bases inhabited by the hippie-scientist communes who split for good in the 1960s)

  10. 10.

    satby

    I love how excited the kids are that they begin by jumping in rhythm to the opening notes before they begin playing.

  11. 11.

    RevRick

    @Baud: This piece reminds me of a similarly large group of, I believe, South African children playing a piece of classical music on xylophones. The sheer joy of it brought tears to my eyes.

  14. 14.

    RevRick

    @Baud: Rotate that map northward until it just brushes Alaska and you’ll see the Pacific Ocean almost completely constitutes its own hemisphere!

  15. 15.

    Jeffro

    In other good news…we have our first brood of bluebird babies here!  Momma Bluebird hatched five(!) of the little cuties.

    (thank goodness – we’ve certainly been putting out enough dried mealworms and other bird food to raise a whole flock =)

    Have a happy Friday peeps!

  18. 18.

    RevRick

    Yesterday, Mousebumples posted a Franklin and Marshall poll showing Biden up over Trump in Pennsylvania. Today, Susquehanna University published a similar poll with Biden up by 4% in PA, and offered a quite granular explanation in a piece on RealClearPolitics (a GOP leaning website). The article states that in this cycle Trump’s support may be overstated, because of the enthusiasm gap in poll responses.
    Anyway, according to the SU poll, Biden is winning independents by 2-1 in PA, performing even better in the Philly metro, while Trump is showing weakness in the areas he overwhelmed Clinton in 2016, particularly around Harrisburg (Cumberland County would be a bellwether).

  19. 19.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A group of migrants who were sent to Martha’s Vineyard in 2022 by Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, can sue the plane company that transported them, a federal judge has ruled.

    In a ruling issued last Friday, the US district judge Allison Burroughs said that the migrants who were shuttled from Texas to the wealthy liberal island in Massachusetts can proceed with their legal claims against Vertol Systems, the plane company which was contracted by Florida to carry out the flights.

    The 77-page ruling, which also named DeSantis, Florida’s transportation secretary, Jared Perdue, and other state officials as defendants, said that the Venezuelan migrants and the immigrant rights group Alianza Americas “sufficiently alleged” multiple claims including “civil rights conspiracy” and “civil conspiracy”.

    It’s been said that everything trump touches, dies. I guess the same goes for desantis.

  20. 20.

    brendancalling

    God bless Ms. Testerman for teaching in that miserable, anti-education state. If memory serves me correctly, Tennessee teacher salaries are very low. I think they cap out around $65K, depending on the county. Also, TN is one of those anti-immigrant, anti-brown people, anti-LGBTQ+ states, so it’s gotta be really tough to teach anything “diverse.”

  21. 21.

    frosty

    @Raoul Paste: I couldn’t tear myself away from the news (and BJ) yesterday. Seemed like a cascade of awful, along with favorite commenters getting on each other’s nerves. I hope to do better today – gotta pack up for our eclipse (clouds, really) trip.

  22. 22.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)

    Thank you for that story on Ms. Testerman. As an EFL instructor, I am in the field of education, but it never ceases to amaze me the number of talented, passionate and dedicated teachers that are out there given how much more they would probably  receive if they moved into another job.

  23. 23.

    brendancalling

    Also speaking of music, if you’re in Philadelphia I’ll be playing at the Philadelphia Brewing Company this evening from 8-10 with the New Country Gold Classics (which, TBH, is the old Country Gold Classics as a quartet).  2440 Frankford Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19125

  24. 24.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Trivia Man: Someone with waaaaay too much time on their hands could probably generate a map of the world showing the areas where the nearest human habitation is (at times) the ISS. Probably significant areas in the Pacific and some spots in the Atlantic as well, and somewhat larger regions were the ISS in a polar orbit.​

  25. 25.

    dmsilev

    @Uncle Cosmo: ISS is in a reasonably high-inclination orbit, which is kind of a nuisance for NASA but it was done that way because of the International part of the name; it makes launching and rendezvousing from Russian spaceports easier. Still not polar though; it’s about 50 degrees.

  26. 26.

    Another Scott

    DoL report: +303,00 jobs in March, Unemployment Rate 3.8%.

    “Everyone” is surprised that the economy hasn’t cratered under the Demonrats, yet.

    Why won’t the economy crater like it’s supposed to when the GQP isn’t in power???!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  27. 27.

    schrodingers_cat

    Is Biden getting any credit from the usual suspects for calling out the Israeli PM? Has the self appointed BJ spokesperson of Dearborn Arab-Americans said anything yet?

  29. 29.

    schrodingers_cat

    @frosty: I attended a Zoom lecture given by a botanical illustrator for the Smithsonian yesterday. Guess what, she uses drafting tools for her work. And here I thought I was the first person to think of that bright idea. Good to know that my instincts are on point!

  30. 30.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @brendancalling:

    What songs are on the Country Gold Classics playlist? How far back is gold?’

    ETA – I’m in Los Angeles, so probably won’t make it to see you. But have a great night!

  36. 36.

    rusty

    @NotMax: Our youngest daughter is a music education and performance major in college for saxophone.  Her conservatory just got a contrabass, they are crazy expensive!  We are looking forward to seeing it in performance.

  42. 42.

    satby

    Speaking of great teachers, this guy is also amazing. And I really appreciate that a male teacher is modeling better problem solving for male children as a counter to all the messages boys get about “pesky wimmen and their silly rules”

    Link goes to a Root article on the viral video.

  45. 45.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: They are indeed. One of my Twitter mutuals likes to say that there is no horseshoe only white people uncomfortable with black (and other undesirables in their eyes) people having any kind of institutional power

    ETA: I am paraphrasing.

  48. 48.

    Soprano2

    @Another Scott: I can’t wait for my bank’s annual luncheon where their financial people come down and talk about their forecast for the coming year. I might ask if they’re disappointed there hasn’t been a recession yet, since they were forecasting one at the luncheon last year.

  49. 49.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: Mine has taken to biting my nose and hands if I’m not feeding him when he wants food. It’s pretty annoying – just meowing gets the point across!

  50. 50.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)

    @satby:  Thank you so much for sharing that. I am doing an Ed.D. right now. My last class was on global diversity in education. It was a fascinating class and eye-opening on so many levels. My current class is on curriculum and instruction. Yesterday’s WaPo had an article on how America is legislating a curriculum blue and red divide with students potentially learning very different things depending on whether they live in a red or blue state. I do not envy educators in the US. At the same time, stories like this keep me hopeful as to what we can accomplish in education in the future.

  51. 51.

    satby

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Yeah, insufficiently funded, and the bond is missing required documents. Needed to be corrected by last night. Should be interesting. I hope he doesn’t get another 10 days to correct it.

  52. 52.

    Scout211

    @Another Scott: @Jackie:

    DoL report: +303,00 jobs in March, Unemployment Rate 3.8%.

    You both beat me to it.  The “surprising” good news jobs reports.  Nice.

    I really enjoy these SOMETHING GOOD* open threads early each morning.  Thank you AL, for these SOMETHING GOOD* open threads each morning.

    These morning threads with GOOD NEWS* are a nice way to start the morning.

    *why all caps? No particular reason.  😉

  53. 53.

    Geminid

    @frosty: Good luck on your trip. A friend and I caught the 2017 at a point in eastern Tennessee maybe 40 miles north of Chattanooga. We had to do some last minute driving to get out from under some clouds, but just in time we found a clear place on the outskirts of a podunk town. What I remember best was how, as the eclipse progressed, a street light came on and the night insects started buzzing.

  54. 54.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    Is Biden getting any credit from the usual suspects for calling out the Israeli PM? @schrodingers_cat

    If every left-wing social justice warrior in the world, save for one, decided correctly that Biden was our best bet for humane policy in the Middle East; you would still be here fixating on that one outlier. Guaranteed.

    Touch grass.

  56. 56.

    Baud

    We actually won’t know how much credit Biden gets before the election. The important thing for me is that we give him credit where it’s due, even if it goes against conventional wisdom, like with the economy.

  58. 58.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Jeffro:

    In other good news…we have our first brood of bluebird babies here!  Momma Bluebird hatched five(!) of the little cuties.

    The bluebirds of happiness!

  59. 59.

    satby

    @tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat): I hope you were able to watch the video in the article too! One of the bigger challenges I had as a single mother of boys, with a hostile ex who constantly undercut me as just a crazy, unreasonable woman (aka “typical”) was finding male counter weights to that attitude to model behaviors for my kids. Fortunately, I did; I don’t doubt how important a teacher like this (sadly still) anonymous teacher is. For all kids, not just black ones.

  61. 61.

    Geminid

    I was glad to read about the substance of of President Biden’s conversation, but I am waiting to see if Israel follows through on their new promises. If they do and the humanitarian crisis in northern Gaza is resolved, I will give Joe Biden a lot of credit.

  62. 62.

    Betty

    @RevRick: Really pulling for Adam’s former colleague in Cumberland County, Rick Coplen. He is hoping to win the nomination and beat Scott Perry, but there are six Democrats running against him. I think that shows the Democrats believe they have a good chance of winning. Music to my ears!

  63. 63.

    Betty

    @brendancalling: The Governor is pushing really hard for a big school voucher program that the public schools are fighting, especially those in rural areas who would be hardest hit.

  65. 65.

    narya

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I remember seeing an article somewhere that documented a bunch of men thinking they could return Serena Williams’ serve. My dudes, you’d be lucky if you could SEE the ball.

  67. 67.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: Biden policies are reversing decades of Reaganite economic policies. You know the neoliberal policies progressives used to rail against. So now they have moved the goal posts and have replaced neoliberal with capitalist. Which again means anything that they don’t like.

    I give Biden full credit for the full employment economy.

  70. 70.

    Baud

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Dead enders on the economy are loud but small in number. On the economic issue, I’m more concerned about the Republicans and their rich allies like Elon Musk, and the media.

    ETA: I agree that Biden is taking on Reaganomics, and it’s put up or shut up time for our side.

    ETA: Unlike Trump and Bush, Biden didn’t inherit a good economy.

  71. 71.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)

    @satby: It is very important that students see people like themselves in teacher positions. That teacher will have no idea of what seeds he may have sewn or the ripples he may have set in motion. We truly must do more to diversify the teaching profession and encourage people to enter it

    ETA: I’m glad you found a role model for your children.

  73. 73.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Betty: Thank you for alerting us to the multiple Democratic candidates running for the nomination in PA-10!

    I googled the 6 Democrats (thank you, Ballotpedia), and noticed that only 1 candidate has any experience as an elected official: Shamaine Daniels, a woman of color who has served on the Harrisburg, PA, City Council since her election in 2013, and who ran against Scott Perry in 2022 (and thus presumably knows his m.o. pretty well).

    The other 5 candidates are 2 white male military vets, 1 rich white male entrepreneur, a white woman, and a Black man who has some (unelected) public service on his resume.

    For more info on the candidates, go to Ballotpedia and click on each candidate’s name. Their individual pages have links to their campaign websites and social media.

    https://ballotpedia.org/Pennsylvania%27s_10th_Congressional_District_election,_2024_(April_23_Democratic_primary)

  74. 74.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: Dead enders on the economy are loud but small in number. On the economic issue, I’m more concerned about the Republicans and their rich allies like Elon Musk, and the media.

    Agreed.

     

    @Baud: However fighting on two fronts is tiring.

  76. 76.

    brendancalling

    @Melancholy Jaques: We’re opening with “San Antonio Rose,” then jumping right into “Looking at the World Through a Windshield,” then “Mind Your Own Business,” and then “Monk’s Blues.” We’re also doing “Old Cowhand” (with the Sonny Rollins intro). We’ve got this Ray Price vibe going, so there’s a distinct jazz edge to what we’re doing.

  77. 77.

    rikyrah

    I was sort of busy yesterday, but inform me if I’ve got this correct:

     

    The Orange Menace’s bond in NY is in question, because the company giving it to him:

    1. Is shady itself
    2.  Might not have the funds to cover it
    3.  Isn’t licensed in NY State

    Is this correct?

    If so, I think they thought they’d pull the OkeyDoke on AG James.

    Lips so pursed.

  79. 79.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @brendancalling: I hope you have a couple Beyonce tunes prepped in case you get requests ;). Very cool.  What instrument do you play? I played drums in a Country cover band for a year or so but it was all modern tunes that were basically rock.  But we did get to play one gig that was all classic/oldies at a casino and that was fun because the songs were so much better, imo.

  81. 81.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    It’s my understanding that in chilly weather Sphynx cats actually appreciate being dressed up by their humans, unlike most other cats. But I have to say my first thought when I saw this was “Tell Cersei. I want her to know it was me.”

  82. 82.

    H.E.Wolf

    @tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat): @satby: It is very important that students see people like themselves in teacher positions. That teacher will have no idea of what seeds he may have sewn or the ripples he may have set in motion. We truly must do more to diversify the teaching profession and encourage people to enter it​

     I taught for years in a field in which I was very much an outlier… although the majority of the students were more similar to me than they were to the majority of my fellow accredited instructors.

    Whenever I walked into a classroom for the first time, I could see the light dawning on the students’ faces – all of them, not just the ones whom I resembled. Instant horizon-widening ! :-)

    I also curated my visual teaching materials to include a wide variety of practitioners, instead of the very limited range most of my colleagues used; and my published articles focused on historical examples who had been overlooked because of their variance from the norm.

    I like to imagine that I set some good ripples in motion and sowed some seeds that bore fruit later on….

  84. 84.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    I just posted something but don’t see it up there; maybe the link was bad?

  87. 87.

    blindyone

    Here I am on the East Coast visiting family and hoping to see a bit more of the eclipse next week than I can in SoCal but I wasn’t expecting an earthquake. 😆

  88. 88.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @rikyrah:

    They support Israel cause they wanna bring on The Rapture.

    I think this is an oversimplification.  More of them simply see Israel as our proxy in murdering as many brown people as possible rather than being Rapturists.

    There totally are plenty of Rapturists.

    And almost none of the elected GOP give a shit about Israel or Israelis themselves.  They hate Jews.

  90. 90.

    Caveatimperator

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    And for many of them, they hate Jews but love Israel because it means they can shove the Jews out of the way. If Israel exists, there is no need for Jews to live here.

  92. 92.

    OzarkHillbilly

    This gave me a chuckle.

    Lisa Rubin@lawofruby
    My younger daughter told me this morning that at recess and lunch, she and her friends reenact the Taylor Swift show, calling it “the Errors Tour.” Because they sing all the songs and attempt the choreography, “but with lots of mistakes.” I love this for us.

  93. 93.

    tam1MI

    @rikyrah: Right wing politicians, no. But the article is about a fight that broke out between 2 right wing pundits, Candace Owens (spit) and Ben Shapiro (spit).

    From the article:

    But in November, after the war began in Gaza, her (Candace Owens) critical views on Israel became a problem for her colleagues. She highlighted the death of Christians in one Israeli airstrike. In one post, she wrote, “There is no justification for a genocide. I can’t believe this even needs to be said or is even considered the least bit controversial to state.” (She is not the only far-right figure accusing Israel of pursuing a genocide; Infowars host Alex Jones has done the same. In his case, he vocalized a fear of Palestinian refugees’ coming to the U.S.)

  96. 96.

    Kay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Well, they’re talking about the Foreign Assistance Act which is a US law that forbids the US to offer assistance to any government who (directly or indirectly) blocks humanitarian aid from the US.

    Thats the law they were asking Biden to enforce so they’ll wait to see if it’s enforced. They’re assuming that’s the US law that would have been violated with the attacks on the aid workers.

    But I’m not their self appointed spokesperson – I just read them.

  97. 97.

    Captain C

    @NotMax: Oh, hell yes!  Side, ah, note:  if anyone has a spare $50K or so and wants to get me something nice, a contrabass sax would be a great gift.  Just sayin’ :^).

  98. 98.

    blindyone

    @Captain C: Thanks for the info. 4.8 was noticeable even to me an earthquake vet who lived through the Sylmar and Northridge ones while a resident of the SF Valley.

  99. 99.

    Matt McIrvin

    @blindyone: I didn’t feel anything, but I was in a Zoom meeting and everyone to the west of Boston seemed to feel an earthquake. I assumed it was somewhere in New England, not in New Jersey!

  100. 100.

    Kay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    The Foreign Assistance Act is huge and covers all matters relating to “foreign assistance” – one of the requirements for foreign assistance is not blocking US aid – I think my original comment was unclear.

  106. 106.

    Kay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Theres also a set of laws called The Leahy Acts that forbid US military aid going to governments who don’t protect civilians in a conflict ( and protect civilians is measured by how many civilians die in terms of this law) so they also lobby Biden on those.

  107. 107.

    Captain C

    @narya:

    a)  I’m pretty sure if she hit me with a serve it could possibly bounce back all the way over the net.  Possibly.  Does this count?  Or, only if I survive?

    b)  “C’mon ref, you have got to be kidding me!  That ball sounded at least 3 inches out!  You know you didn’t see it either!”

  109. 109.

    lowtechcyclist

    @rikyrah:

    They support Israel cause they wanna bring on The Rapture.

    Instead, they’d bring on the end of civilization through global warming.  If they ran the world for the next 50 years, nobody would be living within 500 miles of the Vale of Megiddo, from which Armageddon draws its name, two centuries from now.

  113. 113.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Captain C: There’s a story that an umpire and a hitter got into a similar (joking) argument over a pitch from Nolan Ryan: “Come on, anyone could hear that ball was outside.”

    (Checking: the umpire was Ron Luciano and the hitter was Mickey Rivers, from Luciano’s memoir, The Umpire Strikes Back.)

  114. 114.

    Mousebumples

    @rikyrah: doesn’t Linda sing on 1 or more songs, as a featured artist, on Beyoncé’s country album?

    (spoken word on Spaghettii, per a quick check)

    I’ve been tearing up as I listen to Bey’s covers of Blackbiird and Jolene.

    Both great original songs, and I love Beyoncé’s versions,too.

  116. 116.

    zhena gogolia

    @MazeDancer: I was in class, and was so focused on teaching I didn’t notice it. The students had to tell me. But I’m insanely afraid of earthquakes, so now I’m sitting here terrified it’s going to happen again.

  117. 117.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)

    @H.E.Wolf: Thank you for this. We don’t always know how we have influenced the students who come before us, but every once and a while, one returns to say hello, to check in, and there before us is evidence that what we did mattered. I’d be interested in reading your articles. Although I am not working in the US, I find the history of education and what is hidden or missing from the curriculum fascinating to learn. Now, however, I need to get to my homework. I have a presentation to prepare on the psychology foundations in curriculum.

  118. 118.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mousebumples:

    I’ve been tearing up as I listen to Bey’s covers of Blackbiird and Jolene.

    Both great original songs, and I love Beyoncé’s versions,too.

    I love that Paul and Dolly are both so happy with Beyoncé’s versions. They’ve been openly supportive. It’s a nice thing to see.

  119. 119.

    blindyone

    @Matt McIrvin:  I’m a bit north of NYC. My daughter was on a work meeting zoom with colleagues in lower Manhattan. We all felt it. Things were shaking in the house. No damage. Curious how it felt in the taller city buildings. I’m shutting up now because I don’t want to bigfoot an interesting discussion here. (I’ve heard that’s JC’s responsibility 😆 )

  121. 121.

    Kay

    The Foreign Assistance Act discussion is interesting because the mainstream media based the US action on the “celebrity” of the chef – that’s what turned the tide on opinion, blah, blah but the activists are looking at it as a violation of US law that the Administration could not ignore or else THEY (The Biden Administration) would be violating US law. Biden himself would be acting unlawfully if an attack on aid workers could be proven.

  122. 122.

    japa21

    @tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat): My son is a HS history teacher at a Catholic HS in Chicago.  One of his most cherished mementos is a letter he received from a former student.  The student had been a RWNJ (undoubtedly due to his parents).  My son never called him out but, as he does with all his students, pushed him to justify his thinking and to examine where his beliefs originated.

    The letter from him came about 6 years after the student graduated.  The former student it a very belated thank you.  He didn’t realize at the time just what learning to look at things critically and think things through would mean and even resented my son a little.  But over time, it became a normal aspect of how he approached life and made a world of difference.  And he was no longer a RWNJ.

  123. 123.

    JGreen

    @RevRick:  I know the thread has mostly died out, but I actually have seen and heard a contrabass flute.  We had a flute choir out here (SF Peninsula) which had one.  The group was called the Magic Flutes.  The contra was a prime attraction.

     

    I’ve also seen and heard a contrabass sax played by a member of sax ensemble called the Nuclear Whales.  The player couldn’t carry it; he played it sitting down with the sax on a special stand.  The thing looked like it was over six feet long.  Amazing.

  125. 125.

    Matt McIrvin

    The 2011 Virginia earthquake that cracked the Washington Monument and shook the pictures off the walls in my sister’s house was a 5.8, so this one was significantly weaker than that.

  129. 129.

    Matt McIrvin

    A thing that probably desensitizes me to ground shaking is that I live near the train tracks and there are freight trains going by all the time.

  133. 133.

    Kay

    @japa21:

    I think the legal angle is important because Biden himself is directing the aid to Israel so he would actually be legally vulnerable under a scenario of a proven attack on aid workers. He would not be in compliance with the Act and no one in his administration could assist in it or they too would be vulnerable.

  134. 134.

    Suzanne

    I have been Michael-Jackson-eating-popcorn-gif watching the right wing freakout between the “Christ is King” Christian nationalist assholes and the pro-Israel-at-all-costs conservative assholes. God, it’s so satisfying when the worst people in the world fight. Rooting for injuries.

  135. 135.

    Soprano2

    @JGreen: My high school band had a contrabass clarinet. My best friend played it. That was quite an instrument. I’ve seen a contrabass flute in a flute ensemble, too. I was in one for a couple of semesters when I was a lot younger. I tried to blow it but couldn’t get much sound out of it, you have to loosen your embouchure a lot to play it.

  136. 136.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Matt McIrvin: Heh, reminds me of the first time my wife spent the night in my Bourbon Mo apartment that was just 100′ from the tracks. She shot up out of bed yelling/screaming when the 2 AM freight came thru. I rolled over and said, It’s OK Honey, it’s just a train.”

  137. 137.

    Chief Oshkosh

    Some great commentary from Josh Marshall on Biden’s response to the killings of WCK workers:

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/its-all-down-to-him

    It’s All Down to Him
    Josh Marshall

    The killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers has over the last two days triggered a wholesale shift across the U.S. political spectrum. But most particularly and significantly it’s triggered a shift from the White House. Today President Biden called for an “immediate ceasefire” along with comments from other administration officials that elaborate on a broader policy shift. In response now there are cries of betrayal from Netanyahu dead-enders as well as misgivings even from some of Netanyahu’s fiercest critics that the upshot of these events is that Hamas will live to fight another day with its brigades still holding out in Rafah.

    But coming to this crossroads, which to me is a very positive development, is really all on the current government in Israel and the man who orchestrates every one of its strategies, Benjamin Netanyahu. Joe Biden has gone to every possible length to support Israel in its quest to destroy Hamas’s military capability after the terrorist paramilitary group invaded Israel with multiple death squads on October 7th. He has done that even through vast destruction to the basic physical infrastructure of Gaza and vast loss of innocent human life. He has maintained this in the face of tremendous geopolitical fallout. He has continued to do this even in the face of real damage to his political standing at home and chances for reelection in November.

    To remind ourselves of all of this, I want to go back to something I saw and was astonished by roughly six weeks after the October 7th attacks. It’s a brief video that comes from the Talking Feds podcast. It’s a snippet of Michael Oren, the Israeli diplomat and sometimes politician, also a historian of real note. In it he uses this bracing metaphor to describe what Biden was doing on Israel’s behalf. I’m just going to include the text here and then the video …

    “Joe Biden — what he used to tell me, because I spent a significant amount of time with him — he used to always quote his father, and his father used to say to him, ‘[n]ever crucify yourself on a small cross.’

    “He is crucifying himself on a very large cross, and that cross is us.

    “And we have to be appreciative of that. We have to try to help him to help us as much as we can. We can’t always, we can’t agree to an open-ended, cease fire — I don’t know if he even wants that.

    “But he’s really crucifying himself here. And it’s something that historians will write about, I’ll write about.

    “I’ve never seen anything — I’ve been in U.S.-Israel relationships, I don’t know to tell you how long, as a practitioner and a historian for 50 years. And I’ve never seen anything like this.”

    It is an arresting and powerful statement. And he uses a metaphor that is so profoundly loaded that I remember at the time being kind of floored by it. It’s worth remembering this as we hear the expected bad faith complaints coming from many of the usual suspects.

    The shift, to the extent it is a shift (I will come back to that later), is entirely on the Israeli government. From the beginning of this horrid saga, the Biden White House has made a series of quite limited demands which do not impact any of Israel’s core security interests. Not just what might seem to be core interests from a U.S. perspective, or even that of a Democratic administration, but in fact what many Israel hawks recognize as its core interests.

    Just a couple of examples: allowing or facilitating the Palestinian Authority’s return to Gaza at the end of the conflict. There is, unfortunately, very, very little constituency at the moment within Israel for a two state solution. But having the PA operate in Gaza hardly binds Israel to any such outcome. There are very legitimate criticisms of the PA. But again, allowing this or not impeding it doesn’t meaningfully limit Israeli policy. Being so implacably against it is simply a continuation of all the 21st century Netanyahu governments’ policy of building up Hamas at the expense of the PA. It’s quite literally how we got here.

    Then there’s food. Many in the U.S. and internationally underestimate the complexities of getting a sufficient amount of aid into Gaza under current conditions. Israel demands, very reasonably, that it be able to inspect aid shipments for weapons and dual use smuggling. It’s also very hard and dangerous to oversee and secure aid shipments into a warzone. But these are the kinds of responsibilities you take on when you cause this level of destruction.

    We could cite numerous other examples or go into greater depth on these. But what they amount to is the Biden White House saying to the Israeli government: we are going to support you, but don’t make it totally impossible for us. And that is what the Israeli government has done at every single stage of this. It’s really no surprise because it is quite simply in Benjamin Netanyahu’s nature, the casual duplicity. But it is also in his interest. His personal interest. These are decisions which not only match his beliefs and ambitions. They are key for keeping his current coalition intact. Which is to say, keeping himself in power and out of prison.

    I often hear from readers who say, does it really matter if Benny Gantz becomes Prime Minister? Isn’t he a hawk too? Yes and yes. And to be clear, I don’t have any particular brief for Gantz. Would he have fought something like this war? Well, we don’t really have to ask. He has. He’s been part of the war cabinet since the first week. But it’s been widely understood that Gantz and his colleague Gadi Eisenkot, himself another former IDF chief of staff, were basically fine with the PA playing a role in or running a postwar Gaza. It’s really very literally not much skin off Israel’s back. Preventing it matters if you not only don’t want two states now but need to do everything possible to make sure it doesn’t happen 10 or 20 years from now. It matters if your power is based on the support of settler fanatics who want to keep building new settlements on random hilltops in the West Bank.

    On food, I expect someone like Gantz would say, we really need to destroy as much of Hamas’s army and military infrastructure as possible. Joe, you tell us what you need to make it possible to support us in doing that. Netanyahu’s approach has been you give us the support we want and, as for the things you need, fuck you. And also fuck you again. And also I have a coalition to manage so don’t put me under this kind of pressure. And also fuck you.

    A big reason we are here in the current standoff over Rafah is that the current Israeli government has steadfastly refused to make any plans for what happens after this war concludes. Even many IDF generals have been irate about this because generals need a political outcome they are fighting toward. But he won’t give one. And the reason is because his political coalition doesn’t allow it. And also because he doesn’t want to. And he’s the only thing that matters.

  138. 138.

    Matt McIrvin

    I do think it’s interesting that the main third-party candidate we’ve been fretting about, RFK Jr., took the super-ultra-Likud position on Israel-Palestine. That makes him less of a threat with regard to people who want to defect from Biden because they’re outraged about Israel murdering Gazans, and more of a potential threat with people who would be upset if Biden cuts Israel off.

  139. 139.

    japa21

    @Kay: It also switches it from an emotion based protest, or purely anti-Dem, anti-Biden protest, to something more tangible.

    And it also focuses on a specific course of action, providing aid, rather than more illusory things, like snapping fingers and a cease-fire occurs.

  140. 140.

    Jay C

    @JGreen:

    That clip with the giant sax was weird: I had just seen one on TV! An old (1962) episode of I’ve Got A Secret on a rerun channel: three men came out, and the one’s “secret” was that he was going to play an instrument that needed the help of the other two guys to handle: it was (of course) a contrabass sax! Which I had never seen (and never again til today!).

  141. 141.

    Captain C

    @JGreen:

    I know the thread has mostly died out, but I actually have seen and heard a contrabass flute.  We had a flute choir out here (SF Peninsula) which had one.  The group was called the Magic Flutes.  The contra was a prime attraction.

    I once saw a flute quartet that had a contra.  It was very impressive.

    I’ve also seen and heard a contrabass sax played by a member of sax ensemble called the Nuclear Whales.  The player couldn’t carry it; he played it sitting down with the sax on a special stand.  The thing looked like it was over six feet long.  Amazing.

    I’ve heard of them; not sure if I’ve heard a recording (at least recently).  Contrabass saxes are indeed huge and most players use a stand; depending on the maker, they’re usually about 6’4″ to 6’8″ tall and roughly 40-50 pounds.  Apparently someone actually made a full-on subcontra sax (not a tubax) which is an octave lower than a bass sax(!), which itself is an octave lower than a tenor, and it stands around 9 feet tall.  I would love to try and play it, though I’m not sure at all if I could get a note out of it (I got to play a bass once and even as a bari player, it took a lot of wind).

  142. 142.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Soprano2: My daughter played bassoon through high school and college, and in the latter orchestra sometimes played contrabassoon. But that’s a rarely-scored-for instrument, and insanely expensive, so we never bought one. Anyway, after graduating college she drifted away from playing at all.

  143. 143.

    trollhattan

    Florida Man lets Bible do  the talkingstriking.

    A Florida man was arrested after he allegedly assaulted a Walgreens store manager with a Bible on Easter Sunday.

    Peter Owens, 35, was arrested and charged with felony battery after the incident that unfolded at a Walgreens store in Clearwater Beach on March 31, according to an arrest affidavit from the Clearwater Police Department.

    According to the affidavit, Owens entered the Walgreens store just after 11:30 p.m. to purchase a pair of headphones when he got into a verbal altercation with a store employee over the merchandise.

    The argument escalated after the employee got the store manager involved. Owens then allegedly smacked her in the face with a Bible after she asked him to leave the store.

    Officials also said that this was not Owens’ first run-in with the law. He has one prior conviction for battery and was convicted on that charge in March 2020, according to the affidavit.

    Police were able to locate Owens shortly after and take him into custody. He told police that he hit the store manager with his Bible because “she was being rude to him,” the affidavit said, adding that “he did not mean to hit her.”

    Owens was released from the Pinellas County Jail the next day after posting $5,000 bond.

    However, Owens’ crime spree did not stop there.

    Less than 24 hours after his release, Owens was arrested again.

    According to an affidavit from the Tarpon Springs Police Department, Owens allegedly stole men’s shoes and a box of Cheez-Its from Walmart.

    The affidavit described that Owens allegedly grabbed the snack and took it into the bathroom with him before selecting a pair of shoes from a shelf and ripping the tag off them. He then tried on the shoes before allegedly shoving them inside a duffle bag.

    Owens was stopped by a loss prevention officer when he allegedly walked out of the store without paying.

    Police were notified and Owens was arrested once again and transported to the Pinellas County Jail. As of Wednesday afternoon, he remains in custody on $150 bond, according to jail records.

    Big day.

  144. 144.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: When my wife and I were first dating she lived in a little studio apartment in downtown Malden, MA and seemed able to sleep through alarming-sounding altercations happening out in the street. When I asked her about it, she mentioned that she’d slept through a pipe-bomb attack across the street when she was visiting Vilnius, Lithuania.

    Then we had a baby and with that, we both seemed to completely lose the ability to sleep through stuff.

  145. 145.

    Captain C

    @Gin & Tonic:

    bassoon…insanely expensive, so we never bought one

    I played one for a little bit in high school.  Lots of fun.  Like you say, though, insanely expensive, and I don’t have several grand to buy an instrument that I’ll basically only putter around on.

  147. 147.

    Kay

    @japa21:

    They have never expected Biden to control Netanyahu. It’s always been about US actions and US law.

    The demand was never “place” conditions on US aid – they’re not asking Biden to invent some – it was enforce the conditions that are in place in the Fireign Assistance Act.

  148. 148.

    tam1MI

    @Kay:

    Kay
    APRIL 5, 2024 AT 11:21 AM

    @japa21:

    I think the legal angle is important because Biden himself is directing the aid to Israel so he would actually be legally vulnerable under a scenario of a proven attack on aid workers. He would not be in compliance with the Act and no one in his administration could assist in it or they too would be vulnerable.

    This is the same crowd that insisted that Biden could forgive everyone’s student debt with A STROKE OF HIS PEN. A STROKE OF HIS PEN!!!! Ignoring every single legal expert who tried to tell them that no, an Executive Order doing that would not pass Constitutional muster. Then, when Biden did what they were demanding and surprise, surprise, the Supreme Court immediately shot it down, they all took it, not as a lesson learned, but as sure proof of Biden’s perfidy.

    If the activists are grabbing onto this as the One Weird Trick that force Biden to bend the knee to them, fine. Maybe it will work. But don’t be surprised if it turns out that the activists have willfully misinterpreted the laws in question and it doesn’t work.

  152. 152.

    JML

    @narya: there was a big swing on this when Serena was heading into retirement and people were talking about her as the greatest tennis player of all time. Absurd how many random dudes were all like “I could take her”.

    As someone who has been playing tennis for a looooong time I kind of enjoyed telling them they were crazy. I’d usually go with “I’ve played a lot of tennis, and even when I was at my peak, in the best shape of my life, the only way I even take a point off Serena is if she gets bored or starts playing left-handed or something. That’s a point, not a game or a set, let alone a match.”

    People don’t understand that the difference between players at the higher levels isn’t linear, it’s more like logarithmic when you assess a high school player vs a college player vs a pro player.

  155. 155.

    topclimber

    @Matt McIrvin: Felt nada here in Greater (hah!) Albany NY. But I am a bit unsteady on my feet these days, even way before Happy Hour, so maybe it just seemed normal.

  156. 156.

    narya

    @JML: Exactly! One of my nephews was D1 in javelin–which is a sport that’s just obscure enough (not all high schools have it) to get him scholarships. His last year he made the NCAA regionals . . . and was at the bottom of the list, in terms of distance. And the other guys were METERS ahead of him; he wasn’t even close, on his best day ever. So someone who held (maybe still holds?) his high school and college records was not even close to being the best at his sport. Seeing that kind of gap is enlightening.

  157. 157.

    Captain C

    @JML:

    the only way I even take a point off Serena is if she gets bored or starts playing left-handed or something. That’s a point, not a game or a set, let alone a match.”

    As someone who hasn’t played tennis in decades, and was never very good at it, when this all came out I thought of 3 ways I could conceivebly, through no fault of my own, be awarded a point against Serena if I played a set against her:

    1.   Serena, being kind since I have acknowledged that I will never get a point off of her, is not trying to kill me with her serve.  However, being human, she accidentally sends one straight at me.  Through some ancient survival instinct, I somehow manage to block the shot with my racket, and as it flies back, it hits the net and falls to the ground on her side, just beyond what she is able to return.
    2.  Serena has gotten bored, and decides to see if she can score a point off of herself using me as a human backboard.  Having timed the flails which I am laughably calling a swing, she fires off a nasty serve, which, through no fault of my own, bounces off my racket, and goes screaming down the line just past Serena’s own outstreched racket.  Yes, fellow jackals, Serena Williams has scored a point on herself using me as a moving human backboard (let me assure you I had nothing to do with this except being a useful part of physics).
    3.   I serve an ace.  You laugh and say, no way.  But consider this:  In a set, I have 24 chances to get a serve in (3 games, 4 points each, 2 attempts per serve).  Somehow, one of my serves actually lands in, and Serena takes one look at my 30 mile-an-hour fluttering duck power and falls over laughing, as she has never seen something so hilarious on a tennis court.  By the time she pulls herself together, the ball has dribbled its way to her.  Of course, if I get another one in, she’ll be able to hold it together and I will be doomed, but I have technically been awarded a point thanks to my comical ineptitude.
  158. 158.

    Kay

    @tam1MI:

    They’re not “grabbing on” to anything. This is US law.
    Of course the US puts conditions on aid to foreign governments. Hell they put conditions on federal aid to states.
    Just because there was no discussion of US law regarding aid on Balloon Juicce doesn’t mean it hasn’t been discussed . Both of the State Department employees who resigned raised both the Foreign Assistance Act and the Leahy Acts as reasons they quit.

  159. 159.

    tam1MI

    And two minutes of searching on Wikipedia confirms my suspicions. The Human Rights section of the Foreign Assistance Act is a Sense of the Congress or Non- Binding Resolution. It has no legal force whatsoever. Biden isn’t out of compliance with anything in the act.

    Of course, if your main goal was to throw the election to Donald Trump, smearing Biden as a President flouting the law would be a tactic…

  164. 164.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @JML: Yeah having watched professionals play and practice up close, even as a 4.5 (5.0 on a very good day) player, I know it would be very tough to win a point off of any Pro.  Andrea Petkovic said something similar on a podcast recently.  She was like “People, especially Men who maybe even played in college, No, you wouldn’t win a game against a Pro.  You wouldn’t even win a point!  Just stop with this nonsense.  There’s a reason we get paid to play tennis and you don’t.”

    I got to hit recently with a guy who is playing professionally on the Challenger circuit.  He is ranked 800-something in the world and is the #1 Inter-Collegiate player in SoCal.  I could rally with him and hit an occasional winner if I surprised him with a DTL FH (which I’m very good at naturally, for some reason) but that was really only with him playing 75% of his full ability or so. If we were playing a real game/set/match with serving and returning and everything else and yeah, unless I got lucky with a surprise shot or he inadvertently shanked a ball (which even Pros do) I would be lucky to win a point.  This is a guy who is not yet good enough to even qualify for 250 level pro tournaments, let alone Majors, let alone win 23 Slams.  The level of play of Serena, Nadal, or any of the GOATS is just almost unfathomable.

  166. 166.

    japa21

    @tam1MI:

     

    @Kay:

    I think you may be talking around each other.  There is some similarity between those calling for Biden to dismiss all student loans and some of those protesting the Gaza situation.  Hell, you can find people to protest just abut anything, specially younger folks.

    Then there are those who base their protests on something tangible.  Those are the people Kay is talking about.  Even if their reading of the law is incorrect, which I don’t think it is, they are not just protesting for the sake of protesting, or to bring down Biden.

    To paint all the protestors with the same brush is like what the RW does with BLM protestors when some violence breaks out.

  167. 167.

    JML

    @Captain C: lol, that’s pretty much it.

    I mean, when I was in a shape other than round I was actually a pretty good tennis player. but I wasn’t really good enough to play in HS (too short) and while I could play competitively with a friend in college who did play in HS…it’s just a different world. Martina Navratilova is 67, a cancer survivor, and long retired and she would absolutely whip my ass…and I’m quite a bit younger. (I hear she’s lovely and would probably be kind about it, lol)

     

    @narya: yeah, the gaps are wild. a friend of mine played HS baseball and got to stand in against a former pro who was 20 years retired at that point and the pro had to tell him not to flinch out of the box, that he wasn’t going to hit him with his curve. My buddy was like “you cannot imagine the difference”.

  168. 168.

    Kay

    its in the US code, Title 22

    ”if the President becomes aware…”

    specific to humanitarian aid by the US

    I think Van Hollen has referenced it too, and Bernie Sanders – sorry for mentioning Sanders on BJ but he is a senator

  169. 169.

    Kay

    Biden wouldn’t have been aware of the strike on the aid workers so they’re not saying he broke the law

  170. 170.

    Captain C

    @JML: I read a book on how to watch soccer by Ruud Gullit (’80s Dutch soccer star) and he mentioned that after he retired, he and his similarly-aged retired pro friends would sometimes play against good (but not pro-level) 20-somethings.  He said the kids were at that point physically similar talent-wise to the ex-pros, perhaps even a little better, but the ex-pros were able to think so much more quickly and better than the younguns that they (the ex-pros) won pretty much everytime.

  171. 171.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @JML:  Martina Navratilova is 67, a cancer survivor, and long retired and she would absolutely whip my ass…and I’m quite a bit younger. (I hear she’s lovely and would probably be kind about it, lol)

    Well, unless you were Transgender.  She is sadly fucking odious and vocal in her TERF sentiments.  It’s especially gross given that she herself had her own body and gender policed so heavily not that long ago.

  172. 172.

    cain

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    And almost none of the elected GOP give a shit about Israel or Israelis themselves.  They hate Jews.

    Funny AIPAC has the most traction with them. One right wing org to another.

  173. 173.

    tam1MI

    Looks like I owe an apology to Kay.  I just looked up the Leahy Law and yes, there is something to it.  It looks like, however, the problem is not that Biden is refusing to comply with a clearly set out law but that law itself and it’s application are muddy enough that an argument can be made that it doesn’t apply here.

    For one thing, the law only applies to specific units of a military, not the military as a whole, so the Leahy Law can be applied to the unit of the military that attacked the aid workers and it wouldn’t even make a dent in overall aid to Israel.

    The Leahy Law applies only to assistance to specific units, and does not necessarily affect the level of assistance to a country, even when implemented.

    Secondly, there is this clause in the law:

    The Foreign Assistance Act version requires that the government of the country in question “is taking effective steps to bring the responsible members of the security forces unit to justice”

    Netanyahu has already said there will be an investigation into the attack (he said it in the most mealy mouthed way possible, but he said it).  As long as Israel conducts even a fig leaf of a trial of the soldiers responsible, they are in the clear.

    Finally, there is this giant loophole in the law:

    First, the Department of Defense version includes a waiver that allows the Secretary of Defense – after consulting with the Secretary of State – to waive the requirements of the provision if “extraordinary circumstances” warrant it

    “Extraordinary circumstances” like Israel being hit by the largest and most deadly terrorist attack in the history of their country, perhaps?

    But, like I said, there may be something there.  But it looks to me like “something” that would have to be hashed out in a lawsuit*, not “something” that could be thrown at Biden with demands he “comply”.  For all we know, the Biden Administration has already complied – applications are generally not publicized, the Biden Administration may have already reduced aid by the amount represented by one dude operating a drone.

    *A lawsuit that could my well end up at the Supreme Court where the Shitbag Six would be all too happy to strike it down.

    So, yeah, it may be worth a try.  But I think it may be a long shot.

  174. 174.

    Kay

    I’m on a tour but just google Van Hollen and Foreign Assistance Act and he links to the cite

  176. 176.

    Kay

    @tam1MI:

    I just don’t understand your anger. Biden is complying with the law. Five Democratic Senators have raised these two laws – weeks ago- is your position they’re trying to elect Trump?

    my assumption was Biden would comply with federal law.

  177. 177.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Captain C: Conan O’Brien managed to beat Serena Williams at Wii Sports Tennis, which is an interesting indication of how much that has to do with the actual game.

  178. 178.

    topclimber

    @Kay: I suppose you have already mentioned Biden’s Executive Order last month “authorizing a swift cutoff of military aid to countries that violate international protections of civilians.”

  179. 179.

    tam1MI

    @Kay: I was responding to this:

    Biden himself is directing the aid to Israel so he would actually be legally vulnerable under a scenario of a proven attack on aid workers. He would not be in compliance with the Act and no one in his administration could assist in it or they too would be vulnerable.

  181. 181.

    JML

    @UncleEbeneezer: well, that’s a damn shame. I hope she comes around, but some people grow and some people just grow old. you would think she would know better after everything she went through, but sometimes even people who fought hard for equality get locked in a tunnel later in life. it’s sad.

  182. 182.

    Ruckus

    @narya:

    I worked in professional sports for 20 yrs part time and 10 full time. That gave me a perspective that I did not expect about humans.

    That there are, and likely always will be people in the world who think that because they are male they will always be the head of everything and that woman are second class at best. And they are as wrong as it is possible to be. Just the not so simple act of growing a human and delivering it to the world is a concept that really no man can really, fully understand. We do not have the perspective. We can understand the process and help medically. But why humans who cannot do that think they are superior is beyond me. Yes we are 2 sides to the same coin, but those 2 sides are far different than just being one or the other side of a coin.

    Thankfully.

  183. 183.

    Timill

    @Captain C: It does happen like that sometimes…

    Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was an amateur cricketer of some note – good enough that MCC called on him in a emergency. He got exactly one wicket in all his first-class appearances; that of Dr W G Grace, the Babe Ruth of his day and sport.

    Conan Doyle reckoned that he was so much worse than the usual first-class standard that WG just wasn’t paying attention.

  184. 184.

    Kay

    @tam1MI:

    it’s hard for me to tell but I think you’re (still) reading the wrong law –

    I’m at tge Foreign Assistance Act

    the other issue is the Leahy Act – that’s where the civilians come in.

    Im just going to skip this discussion if it’s going to be so angry.

  185. 185.

    topclimber

    @Kay: “Looks like I owe an apology to Kay.” See #172.

    Maybe it’s time to just take the win?

Comments are closed.