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.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

So many bastards, so little time.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Let there be snark.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

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

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

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

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

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

Not all heroes wear capes.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / I Would Love To Be There

Reader Interactions

65Comments

  1. 1.

    NWO Joe

    Those also look like the wide parts of the Columbia River about 30 miles before it empties into the ocean at Astoria. Beautiful!

  6. 6.

    AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team

    Looks beautiful!

    I have a (seemingly) bright spot to share with you all: a ‘big job’ (full-time, excellent salary, benefits, etc.) that sent me a written offer in March, then went on a hiring freeze, told me yesterday they want to hire me starting mid-June!

    I’m still a little hesitant after the last go-round, but it’s pretty cool to imagine being able to pay bills consistently, and practice the work I love so much, since I’ve been self-employed for 20+ yrs and earning very, very little the last 8 months. Fingers crossed it all works out.

    Ty for helping me stay sane in the lean months. BJ is a key part of my mental health.

  12. 12.

    Suzanne

    Yeah, this looks great.

    I got back a few hours ago from a work trip to Naples, FL. When I first stepped out of the airport in Fort Myers on Tuesday, and I felt that hot, humid air hit my face, I instantly let out that same UUHHHHHHHH that I would do in Arizona when I had to go outside on hot days (so, eight months of the year). Naples is lovely, for sure, but I don’t know how anyone can endure that weather.

    I spend much more time enjoying outdoor life here in PA.

  13. 13.

    Keithly

    Reminds me of Parker Pond in Fayette, ME, where my parents have a year-round camp.

  15. 15.

    Martin

    https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143241658 Copy/paste of WaPo article.

    Business executives including Kind snack company founder Daniel Lubetzky, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, billionaire Len Blavatnik and real estate investor Joseph Sitt held a Zoom video call on April 26 with Mayor Eric Adams (D), about a week after the mayor first sent New York police to Columbia’s campus, a log of chat messages shows. During the call, some attendees discussed making political donations to Adams, as well as how the chat group’s members could pressure Columbia’s president and trustees to permit the mayor to send police to the campus to handle protesters, according to chat messages summarizing the conversation.

    One member of the WhatsApp chat group told The Post he donated $2,100, the maximum legal limit, to Adams that month. Some members also offered to pay for private investigators to assist New York police in handling the protests, the chat log shows — an offer a member of the group reported in the chat that Adams accepted. The New York Police Department is not using and has not used private investigators to help manage protests, a spokeswoman for City Hall said.

    Be careful when accusing university leadership for their responses. Universities have limited agency here. I think Columbia fucked up quite badly here, but holy shit were there a LOT of outside forces leaning on them to do so.

  17. 17.

    eclare

    Those photos are other-worldly.  Wow.  I would love to take a dive off of that platform.  Last one in is a rotten egg!

  19. 19.

    Steeplejack

    Boring! Where are the noisy speedboats, the teenagers joyriding on Jet Skis, the drunken crowds blasting Jimmy Buffett on their houseboats?!

  20. 20.

    arrieve

    @Martin: I just finished reading that article in the WaPo. (Gift link). Even though I shouldn’t be surprised that this kind of thing was going on–it’s been obvious that so much of the outrage about the student protests has been carefully cultivated–I was honestly shocked by the details. And the complicity of our idiot mayor was just the cherry on top.

  22. 22.

    JoyceH

    The photo remind me of the idyllic spot in the Progressive commercial. We could go there and be practicing gratitude and manifesting abundance.

  26. 26.

    Barbara

    @Martin: So it turns out that being Kind isn’t actually better than being nice. That just seems spectacularly off-brand.

  27. 27.

    SFAW

    The photos and lake are beautiful. Makes me want to drive up there — wherever “up there” is — this weekend.

    Lots of beautiful lakes in Maine. Were I to win PowerBall or MegaMillions, the second thing I’d do would be to buy something lakefront there. I like Thompson (good-sized, clean, deep, loons, and [I think] less power boat traffic than Sebago or Long Lake). Crescent (Raymond) is big but not too big, a little shallow but not bad, Pleasant (Casco) is (to my mind) similar. I hear Rangeley is nice, but a bit far for me. [Although my sculling glory days* are long past, I want to be able to put my 1x in the water and go for a nice long row. Or maybe get Mrs. SFAW to join me in the 2x. Under a mile is a little too small for my taste. Yeah, I’m a picky SOB.]

    My vague recollection is that MomSense is/was somewhere north of Cumberland County, but I’m probably worng about that. Either way, I’m curious re: which lake we’re looking at in those beautiful pictures.

    * “Glory days” not meant to imply I was ever any good — on my best day, I was well below mediocre –just that I loved it, and would get on the water when I would get a chance.

  28. 28.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    @Martin: so now we know how “organic” the opposition to all the protests is, although it cracks me up that at least one member of this group of must-vote-for-Trump-because-he-cuts-my-taxes rich bozos think they need to put out anti-Hamas propaganda. Nobody supports Hamas, so that’s truly a waste of their money.

    of course, once they figure that out, they’ll just switch to trying to shut down any form of diversity at these schools….

    @AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team: congratulations! Keep us posted

  29. 29.

    Martin

    @arrieve: I’m not surprised. I’m not sure how to put this to not offend people. I think when you have two marginalized groups and one finds more success than the other, and individuals become accustomed to leveraging this success against the majority that marginalized them, they sometimes lose perspective when they leverage that success in the same way against the other marginalized group that hasn’t found the same success, and that makes them look like a bully. And I think they get a bit confused how they can be both marginalized and a bully.

    I’ve observed this between an ascendant asian community in my city and other marginalized groups. I’ve observed it with the gay community against the trans community. I don’t mean to suggest that it’s widespread, just that those individuals that ‘made it’ suddenly find they have tools to fight and maybe fight against people that they shouldn’t be. Billionaire vs 20 year old college juniors is a pretty fucking unfair fight no matter whether you agree with the college students or not.

    And when you get half of Congress cheering that fight on, well… And of course, it’s pretty fucking hard to shame the NYC MOTUs which is a whole dynamic in and of itself.

  30. 30.

    Martin

    @Barbara: Well, nobody argued that being kind applied to everyone, just that it was a general property of the city writ large.

    Put another way, nobody went broke betting on billionaires being assholes, regardless of where they were from.

  33. 33.

    Kelly

    I received an email confirming the Marion County Oregon Clerk has accepted my ballot for the May 21 primary. All Oregon ballots come with a postage paid return envelope but I submitted mine via the drop box by the library. Oregon has used vote by mail (or rather vote at home) since 1987 without a problem.

  34. 34.

    Chet Murthy

    @Martin: Ehh, I don’t see pro-Israeli billionaires as a “marginalized group”.  They’re just rich men pushing their agenda like any other group of rich men.  And to the extent that they’re pushing a pro-Israeli agenda, sure, they have a right to do that, just as I have a right to push a pro-Ukrainian agenda.  But just because I’m brown doesn’t somehow make me a member of a marginalized group pushing that agenda.

  35. 35.

    NotMax

    Wait until she moves into the new house. Then the jackals can parlay in the cabin.
    ;)

  37. 37.

    Chet Murthy

    @🐾BillinGlendaleCA: wait, wut?  “June gloom” ?  In SoCal?  What’s that?  I thought down there was the land of sunny skies and rain so infrequent that drivers don’t know how to cope with it ?  [yes, you can tell I’ve hardly ever been to SoCal – once to San Diego is all]

  39. 39.

    Martin

    @Chet Murthy: Yeah, typically in late spring we get a heavy marine layer coming in at least through the morning.

    It’s barely gone over 72 all year. It’s been oddly cold.

  40. 40.

    Chet Murthy

    @Martin: OK, so that’s what we here in SF would call …. pretty nice and warm.  I personally prefer if the temps never get above 70F.  B/c nobody has Aircon, and when it gets into the 70s/80s, houses start to get hot and stuffy.

  41. 41.

    Martin

    @Chet Murthy: Ehh, I don’t see pro-Israeli billionaires as a “marginalized group”

    I would say Jews definitely are, regardless of whether they are billionaires or not. Being a billionaire only buys you so much space on that front, as Soros might observe.

  43. 43.

    Chet Murthy

    @Martin: When Jews in America advocate for Jews in America, they’re acting like any other group  *in America*.  And  yes, in that sense they’re a marginalized group.  But when Jews in America advocate for Israel, they’re not acting as a marginalized group, any more than when Hindus in America advocate for Modi (spit).

    Or at least, I don’t see them as being so.

  44. 44.

    Hoppie

    @Chet Murthy: We’re in May gray right now. June gloom is a couple of weeks away.  It all has to do with offshore currents, and it is VERY boring.  PLEASE do not move here, thank you very much.

  46. 46.

    Hoppie

    @Chet Murthy: Well, I can see a half dozen cranes building new housing out our north windows, but I expect anybody in SF can see the same.  The rightwing narrative about California is a little, er, uninformed.

  47. 47.

    SectionH

    @🐾BillinGlendaleCA: No no, well at least in San Diego, we have May Gray right now. Graypril was last month.  June Gloom is next month. Then we’ll have The Fog of July, then Fogust. September is Fogtember. I can’t remember the one for October, but yeah, at least 7 months have names about fog, marine layer coming in, and so on.

  48. 48.

    Chet Murthy

    @Hoppie: I don’t actually know what the construction situation is like in SF: my car got totalled in spring 2021 by a joyrider, and since then I only take public transit, and haven’t really started traveling around the city a bunch.  But I do see that rents are down about 22% since 2015, and 15% since pre-pandemic.  So I guess it’s fair to say that we don’t have as much of a housing crisis as we did before.

    It was cray-cray in 2015.  I mean cray-cray.

  50. 50.

    Chet Murthy

    @Melancholy Jaques: Nice!  I have to say, I’ve missed our version of that: the fog rolling in from the sea in summertime; it seems like these last few years, there’s less and less of it, sigh.

    I remember back in the early teens, there were days when the fog was coming over the hills of Diamond Heights like a wave crashing onto a beach.  Just lovely.

  52. 52.

    opiejeanne

    Will the Real Bob Ferguson. please stand up?

    Washington state’s Attorney General is running for governor. He made a bit of a splash defying Trump and suing the Trump administration for all sorts of antics, and with our current governor, Jay Inslee, not running for another term (we have no term limits), Ferguson seems like a shoe-in. So some bright -idea guy, a conservative activist, recruited two other guys named Bob Ferguson to run for governor as Democrats. He tried a dozen before he got two live ones. Story here: https://www.foxnews.com/media/washington-governors-race-loses-two-bob-fergusons-attorney-general-bob-ferguson-issues-legal-threats

    This is the interesting bit and the reason the two other Bobs bowed out really quickly, but Ballotpedia was slow to recover from the confusion so they had no Fergusons listed for the governor’s race from Monday until tonight:.

    It’s a felony under Washington law for someone to file for office with a last name “similar to one who has already filed for the same office, and whose political reputation is widely known, with intent to confuse and mislead the electors by capitalizing on the public reputation of the candidate who had previously filed.”

  54. 54.

    Chet Murthy

    @Martin: i think this sort of rat fucking was tried in florida and actually succeeded.  One presumes Florida has no such laws.

  55. 55.

    bobbo

    These are gorgeous photos. The fourth one is a masterpiece. I would blow it up and frame it

  58. 58.

    Barbara

    @Martin: It was a reference to the ad campaign for Kind bars.

    What I object to is how underhanded they are, not their views per se.

  59. 59.

    Currants

    @AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team: congratulations—that is wonderful and (I’m sure) welcome news—I hope you’ll enjoy it even half so much as I imagine you will. I know from experience what  a relief it is to see the end of a “Rob Peter to pay Paul” period; it feels a lot safer to take a deep breath—even more so when you’re not just working but have had at least two paychecks (aka when it starts to really feel real). All the best to you!

  60. 60.

    Currants

    @MomSense: wonderful! I’m going to be at a workshop at Sabbathday Lake  Shaker Village at the end of May—am staying btw Freeport and Portland (well, sleeping, since these are all-day workshops, hah). Are you closer to the ocean or more inland?

  62. 62.

    evodevo

    @Martin: Is this a repeat of the Pinkertons breaking up strikes in the early 20th century?  Sounds like the oligarchs are moving back to those days.

  63. 63.

    MomSense

    @Currants:

    I love Sabbathday Lake.  I used to work in Portland but now I’m north and west of Augusta.

    I’m going to try and meet up with JanieM so maybe we can all get together.  Right now I’m an hour and fifteen minutes drive from Portland.  There is a bus from Portland to Augusta and that’s only 15-20 minutes from the lake.  I could always pick you up.

  65. 65.

    Traveller

    Images 1, 3, and 4 are just pure Art and could easily be blown up to 20×30 wall size prints, (depending of course on how many underlying pixels there are)….regardless this is great work. Traveller

Comments are closed.