So a couple of life updates. First, over the last few days I apparently ate so many tomatoes and peaches that the corners of my lips are cracked, irritated, and inflamed, and I had to go buy some tallow lip balm from the hippie chick at the Tuesday farmers market. I am on a two day peach/tomato pause because I am a pig with no self control, but fortunately I have a nice rock melon carve up and cooling in the fridge. My tomatoes are coming in all at once and I have been eating them right off the vine and apparently way too many of them.
Second, I have been really working hard at the gym, so I really tried to behave, but the sourdough lady broke out something new- a loaf of dill pickle sourdough and I took one glance at the label and thought “well that sucks because I am for sure not leaving here without that.” I cut two slices up, grilled a chicken breast with a slice of havarti, ONE slice or orange tomato because it has lower acidity, some Duke’s and salt and pepper. It was fucking amazing. It has the essence and flavor of dill pickle, but it is not overwhelming.
Finally, like I said, I have been working hard at the gym, slowly building up my stamina. Today I walked the track for an hour doing a mini circuit- walk 1/2 mile, do 5 minutes on the rowing machine, walk 1/2 mile then rowing machine for 5. I do that for an hour, then I stretch out again and get in the pool. I am only doing 15-20 laps, but I do a lot of resistance training while in there- walking while using the pool weights, mainly focusing on my shoulder. I’ve gotten to the point that I can now do a legitimate freestyle for one lap, but the flexibility is still not there yet.
I want to eventually add some weightlifting, but I don’t want to use free weights and really need to get a trainer to work a program out for me. I think I have so much conditioning and flexibility work that I am going to hold off until when I back in Tempe and do it then. For now I will just keep adding laps and time walking.
I don’t know if I have lost any weight because of my love/hate relationship with my scale, and I limit myself to checking only once a month, but I feel better and Joelle says my “face looks different” and I am buying a smaller swimsuit, so those are all good things. The main thing is I feel so much better and it doesn’t hurt to stand up and my shoulder does not freeze at night, and I can tell a noticeable difference in my lung capacity. Oh- and since I started swimming? No sinus issues at all.
My lung capacity, as I said, is markedly improved. I’ve always been lucky genetically- everything generally works the way things are supposed to and when they don’t it’s because I have pissed it all away. But I still tan like a ten year old Scandinavian and my hair goes platinum, I’ve got strong bones and good bone density, I build muscle easily and if I do the things you are supposed to, lose weight easily and evenly. The problem is I am just a lazy schmuck who falls into bad routines just as easily as I pick up good ones. I let my guard down for a couple days and before you know it a month will go by and I have not worked out. And then years. So now I am just doing what I did when I quit drinking and smoking- this is what we do now, that was what we did then, and there is no point regretting it. But this is us, now. And by us I me and the person in my head.
Related- one of my favorite things to do in the pool is after my laps are done, I just float. I call it doing the manatee, where I submerge my entire fat self except my head, and I exhale. I can feel my body start to sink, and I inhale, and float back up (the benefit of having a lot of ballast, I suppose). And my ears are submerged so all I can hear are the muffles movement of others and the pumps. It’s so relaxing and I am essentially weightless and nothing hurts. Like the Bacta tank Luke Skywalker was in after he nearly froze and had to cut up a tauntaun to survive. Just sit there an focus on my breathing and feeling myself sink and then rise. So nice.
With all the goings on with AI and all the great scifi like things happening, I think one of my favorite sci fi movies, or at least the premise of it, was the movie Johnny Mnemonic, which was based on a short story by William Gibson. The premise was that you could store data in computers in your head with a brain implant, which is not that novel, but what set this apart was that you could record your experiences and other people could view them. Not just view them, though- live the events and experience them- have the same emotions and sensations as if it was you and not them.
It’s not a unique premise, dozens of other scifi shows and books have touched on it- Cyberpunk 2077 most recently called it Braindancing and tons of other shows have had similar things- obviously the Matrix and Caprica and Peripheral and on and on and on. But this is the one that stuck with me.
Think how amazing that would be- to see things the way other people see them. We’ve talked about this before, how our concepts of colors may vary differently, etc. But it’s not just to see them, but to feel them and KNOW them like others do. That would be amazing and think of the uses- relationship counseling, choosing a house with your partner (oh so that’s why they don’t like that kind of design), doctors being able to experience the pain the patient is having, people who can not walk being given the experience of running the olympics, deaf people experiencing how music makes people feel.
That would be so fucking cool. And it would also get to solve the question I always wonder about- do other people have a voice in their head all the time like me and does it act the same way? Do they hear the voice when they type? When they shower do they hear the voice say grab the cloth, grab the soap, get a good lather, is that a new mole you should check that out in the mirror, etc. Obviously it’s not always there, because I, like everyone else, go on autopilot while the voice and I are exploring other things. Is your voice dictating this as you read?
And I just realized if I hit publish on this and it turns out I am the only one with this voice the Bethany Police Department is going to get a bunch of phone calls from all over the country asking for a health and wellness check on John Cole. And then me laughing as my dad unexpectedly gets hauled to the hospital in a straightjacket for an eval because everyone in town knows me as “JG” and dad is “John Cole.”
This is fucking amazing:
The Biden administration on Monday unveiled a new, multi-agency regulatory initiative to target corporate practices that officials claim are designed to waste consumers’ time and needlessly burden them with red tape, in order to maximize profits.
“I think we can all relate to this,” White House domestic policy advisor Neera Tanden told reporters Friday.
“For example, you want to cancel your gym membership or subscription service or newspaper. It took one or two clicks to sign up. But now … you have to go in person, or wait on hold for 20 minutes … just to opt out,” she said.
Dubbed the “Time is Money” initiative, the actions will make it easier for consumers to cancel subscriptions, get refunds, submit health care and insurance forms online, and access high-quality customer service.
In my dream world, after Harris and Walz win and we win the House and Senate and expand the court and give DC and Puerto Rico statehood, we could have Elizabeth Warren and Katie Porter both quit their seats and create the Bureau of Eliminating Annoying Corporate Bullshit and just do shit like this all day. Just get all the consumer protection agencies on steroids and start eliminating shit and making it fucking PAINFUL for corporations to be shitty businessmen. You buy a car, and it needs a new engine or major overhaul in the first 20k miles? You get a new one. No month long waits for repairs and part. You get a new one. They can take the old one, repair it, and sell it used. Or don’t and think about what they’ve done. I don’t fucking care. A salesman tries to sell you a car and adds on 10k worth of bullshit that comes standard already or should, they owe you the cost of what they tried to screw you out of times two. Fucking end car dealerships while we’re at it.
Fuck yeah.
It looks like the livestream shitshow last night featuring dumb and dumberer is paying off for them both:
The UAW has filed federal labor charges against disgraced billionaires Donald Trump and Elon Musk for their illegal attempts to threaten and intimidate workers who stand up for themselves by engaging in protected concerted activity, such as strikes.
After significant technical delays on X, formerly known as Twitter, Trump and Musk had a rambling, disorganized conversation on Monday evening in front of over one million listeners in which they advocated for the illegal firing of striking workers.
“I mean, I look at what you do,” Trump told Musk. “You walk in, you say, You want to quit? They go on strike, I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say, That’s OK, you’re all gone. You’re all gone. So, every one of you is gone.”
Under federal law, workers cannot be fired for going on strike, and threatening to do so is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act.
It’s a serious charge and could be a real problem for Musk, but let’s ignore all that and just soak in the sheer fucking beauty of that press release. As you all know, I am a heterosexual man, but Shawn Fain and his team have me mildly aroused. It’s so fucking nice seeing people in positions of power writing and doing shit the way feral bloggers have for a couple decades. Fucking beautimous, that fucking press release is. God damn.
Last night’s event didn’t just go poorly for Elon, either:
Again, whenever I talk about things like this, I am not taking things for granted, but it sure FEELS like Trump and his team are deep into pants shitting territory. My only real question is when Trump will start publicly firing people? Before or after the DNC.
Then we’ll get the “new and improved Trump ver 11212.2” by the compliant media, and we’ll read pieces about how Trump is laser focused something and different somehow this time. That will last about three days before he does a rally in Pigfart, Alabama and tells the crowd that black people shouldn’t be allowed to vote and that the real reason he wants to close the border is because all Mexicans smell funny to him and by the way did you notice how nobody talks about the real benefit of oceans rising is more beach real estate. And the crazy thing is I only made up two of those things, he actually said that about beachfront property last night in his chat with Musk:
Musk and Trump were talking about geopolitics when Trump pivoted to discuss existential global dangers — in his fashion.
“The biggest threat is not global warming, where the ocean’s going to rise one, one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years. The big — and you’ll have more oceanfront property, right?” the former president said. “The biggest threat is not that. The biggest threat is nuclear warming, because we have five countries now that have significant nuclear power, and we have to not allow anything to happen with stupid people like [President Joe] Biden.”
He’s so fucking dumb it’s painful. He’s the greatest fucking advertisement for the inheritance tax ever. I have no idea if he has a voice in his head but if he does I know god damned well it is drooling. Fuck, it hurts my head listening to him.
That is it for me. I am off to have some cantaloupe and watch, well, I think I am going to watch an X-Men movie I haven’t seen since my drinking days, or the before times, as I call them. Speaking off, I guess I missed another anniversary of my quitting drinking. Oh well.
War for Ukraine Day 902: Even More on the Kursk Offensive
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
Starfish
That thing where you are able to do freestyle is really impressive. Your shoulders have been a mess for a long while.
Urza
I’ve always thought the only way to stop bad corporate behavior is to have fines set at the amount of profit made + extra, likely double that amount to make sure there’s no incentive to do it or even cheat around the edges
And also anyone giving the orders should face appropriate jail time with no corporate shields to prevent it.
Geoduck
The voice doesn’t drool, it’s his father telling him again and again how much of a worthless screw-up he is.
MagdaInBlack
@David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch: I love it ! 🤗
Grumpy Old Railroader
I (re)started going to the gym also. But they stopped me on my way out. I was told “We understand they are labeled free weights but that doesn’t mean you can take them home.”
Regnad Kcin
JOHNNY MNEMONIC had an insane cast: Emilio Estevez, Rene Russo, Anthony Hopkins, Buster Poindexter, Sir Michael Philip Jagger…
Doug R
It’s a good time to catch up on X-Men movies as the Deadpool & Wolverine movie is a great big wet sloppy kiss to them.
It’s rated R for good reason, but I think you can handle it.
twbrandt
Has Drudge been Walz-pilled? It’s quite astonishing to watch him absolutely pummel Trump and Vance.
Geoduck
@twbrandt: Drudge has never been a Shaitgibbon fan.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
I thought the whole point of Tesla was to stop global warming? Guess not, or at least not anymore.
Ohio Mom
It’s going to be a bear, and a long-drawn out one, to get compliance on one-click unsubscribe, but it is a noble effort I thoroughly endorse.
There are so many subscriptions that a gullible person can impulsively sign up for — looking at you, Ohio Son. Ohio Dad has spent gobs of time unsubscribing, as have some other autism parents I know.
I am guessing there will have to be a complaint process because there is no way anyone can know about all the subscriptions out there, there is an endless supply of them.
Geminid
@twbrandt: Matt Drudge turned on Trump several years ago.
Ken
Yes, I have the inner narrator, and it’s most insistent when I’m cooking. “And now he’s slicing the tomato, but keeping one eye on the bacon so it doesn’t burn, and he’s got to get the timing right for the toast…”
twbrandt
@Geminid: I’ve been ignoring Drudge for a long time, so I didn’t know. Good for him!
Villago Delenda Est
‘You Do Not Know Anyone As Stupid As Donald Trump’ — Fran Lebowitz
AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
Love you John
NotMax
Pedant voice alert.
straitjacket
;)
Sister Golden Bear
For my fellow Gen X-ers… artist Jef Czekaj is offering t-shirts (and coffee cup!) riffing on Raymond Pettibon’s cover artwork/text for Sonic Youth’s 1990 album, “Goo.” All profits will be donated to the campaign.
Yes, I have a great need.
Ruckus
I am not taking things for granted, but it sure FEELS like Trump and his team are deep into pants shitting territory.
According to rumors, shitforbrains has been shitting his pants for a number of years. Something about he’s so full of it that there is nowhere for it to pile up inside any longer, it has to emerge and go somewhere. And as long as he’s got pants on…….
Another Scott
Glad things are going well JC, er, JG.
Meanwhile, …
[ womp, womp ]
More, please.
(via AngryBlackLady)
Cheers,
Scott.
Jackie
JC, I’m so proud of you!!!
PS Could we get Steve and Max pics? I don’t recall if you’ve posted ANY since you’ve been back from Arizona?
Ruckus
@NotMax:
How do you know it’s not a jacket made of steel (stainless…although he is cheap so possibly not) so it remains straight? And can’t be chewed off.
Old Dan and Little Ann
Nice work, JC. Speaking of lung capacity I have a great idea for a new swim even for the LA Olympics in 2028 and beyond. The underwater 100 meter swim. I am sure these olympic swimmers can hold their breaths for a minute to 90 seconds. If any part of their bodies appear above water during the race they are disqualified.
NotMax
Incidentally, do not have and never have had a separate or distinctive inner voice. Heck, barely make use of the outer voice anymore.
West of the Rockies
@David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch:
There may be hope for Baud after all!
Chet Murthy
John, as a fellow “injured shoulders” guy, can I suggest:
I injured both my shoulders putting up too much weight with not enough proper form. Had to get “AC joint decompression” on both. And PT for both. So I learned three kinds of exercises:
And all-in, that takes me about an hour to do. All small-muscle exercises, light weight. Today I did 30min in the pool, and then those exercises, and some PT for my knees, and that was 2hr in total. And I was wiped at the end. No big-muscle, big-weight needed.
RevRick
Car dealership owners are the largest single group earning over a million dollars per year in the United States. And their industry organization is one of the biggest contributors to the GOP. So, yeah, John, car dealerships are a huge obstacle to progress, and they get a legally sanctioned advantage that requires you to buy a vehicle through them. (Economists call this advantage a “rent”).
RSA
What a classic, rambling, excellent John Cole post. Thanks for this.
Yes, almost all of us have an internal monologue carrying out a streaming narrative of our experiences. Some philosophers argue that this phenomenon is closely tied up with consciousness.
Stanislaw Lem wrote a very funny short story, “Altruizine,” in The Cyberiad, in which the population of a small town is accidentally made privy to everyone else’s thoughts, feelings, pains, desires, etc. It does not go well.
Elizabelle
Keep on keeping on at the gym. You are doing great. And I love swimming and “jogging” in the pool. The water is such a gentle cushion. Fun is fun.
Nelle
I’m going to put in a huge recommendation for EGym, which I use at the YMCA, for resistance training. My Y has 10 machines that everyone works in a circuit. After one is trained to use them, you get a band with a chip that remembers your measurements and the program and weight that you were last working on. Everything is timed – orange phase, clean the machine and go to the next machine. Blue phase, do your workout. Depending on what you are doing (Basic, Basic Negative, Toning, Weight Loss, Strength building, probably some others), the blue phase consists of doing the resistance as paced by a little up and down ball.
Reasons I like it? No appointments (though sometimes so popular that one has to wait to enter the circuit), I’m managed by the program so I can go on automatic but I don’t have to interact with another person. And no one is sitting at any one machine and looking at their phone. One circuit takes about 20 minutes and I do two circuits, three times a week.
And it works. I started because I take care of my grandson two days a week. When he was a bruiser of a baby at 10 months, I thought, I’m not sure that I can safely take care of him. I’ve been doing it for 15 months. I can get a bio strength assessment whenever I want. I did one a week ago. I’m 73, but I have the bio strength of a 35 year old woman. Now, I’m inflexible and slow, but at least I can haul the now 2 year old when I have to. is
My husband used to just swim, but after he was exhausted carrying the boy and I just plucked the boy from his arms and carried him in, DH doing the machines too. He finds it a good compliment to his swimming.
I think you can go to the Google Machine and find where the EGyms are located. A number of YMCA’s have them.
NotMax
@David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
Shall toss it into the mix again:
Star Walz: A New Hope.
;)
Jeffro
@Sister Golden Bear: oh. my. god.
SO cool! thank you!
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Scott: Both need to feel pain.
Winsomeone
That was the first time I ever heard him laugh, chuckle, or giggle – when he talked about about going in and just firing the striking workers. Joyless, hateful, sick MF.
zhena gogolia
@David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch: Very cute!
Chet Murthy
@Nelle: That sounds really cool! I searched (EGym has a Google maps thingie on their homepage) and the only ones near me are down in Sili Valley. Ah well.
TF79
@Sister Golden Bear: that is a rad shirt!
Yutsano
Mark Robinson can just fuck all the way off with his hypocrisy.
BigJimSlade
That must be John’s longest post ever! What fun :-)
Gretchen
Katie Porter lost her primary to Adam Schiff, so she’ll be free to take a position in the Consumer Protection Agency or something like that. It would be lovely to have her full-time job be grilling greedy corporate types.
RevRick
I applaud your efforts, John, to learn healthier habits. There’s a history of diabetes in m family, so when my A1C hit 5.7, I knew I didn’t want to duplicate the 18-year descent into diabetic hell that took my dad’s life at 80, so I get in my daily 7,000 steps and have lost 30 pounds. (Since walking 7,000 steps can get boring, I pick up litter as I go.)
Last summer I endured a nasty bout of sciatica, and discovered I had scoliosis, so besides my walks, I have a daily routine of exercises to stretch and strengthen my core. Yeah, it gets harder to stay in place healthwise.
Timill
@Sister Golden Bear:
I think this link doesn’t involve Facebook on the way to the site.
me
The bullshit constitutional amendments in Wisconsin have both apparently failed. https://www.tmj4.com/america-votes/wisconsin-residents-reject-two-constitutional-amendments-during-august-primary
thalarctosMaritimus
I posted this story last night, because John’s cat bar scene reminded me so much of a dog bar scene that I’ve imagined (except his was better!), based on when I drove across Seattle with a taxidermied sun bear hanging out of my hatchback.
Because it was late when I finished posting, Krackenjack asked me to repost it tonight, to catch the night shift earlier on.
==========
Back at the University of Washington about 20 years ago, I had to pick up a taxidermied sun bear from a donor, and deliver it to the psychology department.
My hatchback window was not big enough to get the bear all the way into the hatch. So I tied it half hanging out of the car with tons and tons and tons of rope, and drove extra slowly to avoid mishap.
As I was driving to the University I drove past a parked car with a dog in it and the dog immediately started barking his head off. I’ve often imagined what his conversations with his friends were like after that, and think it’s much like the bar scene you described, John.
”It was a bear hanging out of the car; I swear to Dog it was a bear!”
“Yeah, yeah, Tommy, sure, it was a bear in a car. Have another drink.”
(exchanges knowing glances with other dogs in the bar)
==========
The reason for the psychology department is that the leader of the project was a grad student in psychology. We were working to figure out the reproductive cycle of sun bears, so we looked at cell samples from their vaginal vaults (basically, sun bear Pap smears, but not from the cervix), hormones in their poop (they were fed different grains, so we could tell whose poop was whose), and behavior (here’s where the psychology came in). Are they acting affectionate, avoidant, or aggressive, and do those behaviors line up with the patterns in the cells and the hormones?
A donor who had worked in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War had a taxidermied sun bear as a gift from that time, heard about the project, and donated it to the UW.
And that’s how I came to chauffeur a taxidermied sun bear across Seattle.
dlwchico
@Regnad Kcin: You are thinking of the movie Freejack.
narya
@RSA: there was also a Gilligan’s Island episode like that, IIRC.
Wombat Probability Cloud
Really glad that the gym endorphins are your friend these days. Good on you.
Imagine if we could Johnny Mnemonic with other species, too. That’s my wish.
Scout211
Teamsters Black Caucus defies the national leadership and endorses Kamala Harris.
dlwchico
If you dig Johnny Mnemomic check out Johnny Mnemonic: In Black and White.
It gives it a whole new vibe. Makes it a better movie, I think.
SiubhanDuinne
I am dead serious when I note that my inner voice talks to me in a variety of foreign accents. French, Russian, Yiddish, Irish, German, British Upper-Class Twit, Cockney….
No idea why. It’s not all the time and AFAIK it’s untriggered (has nothing to do with anything I’ve been reading or listening to). Kind of fun, actually, but I have no idea why it happens.
rikyrah
I love your life recaps, Cole.🤗
Leto
@Old Dan and Little Ann: funny enough, the IOC had to put in rules because that was close to happening. Swimmers underwater create less resistance, and move faster, than being on top of the water. It was getting to the point where off the start, and at turns, they were swimming almost half the length of the pool underwater. So 2-3 Olympics ago, they restricted it to 15 meters. The next time you see a swimmer dive off at the start, the swimmers have to be above water by that red marker that’s on the lane dividers.
The swimmers who come closest to that? The 50meter sprinters. Apparently they don’t take a breath in that race once they hit the water. I think that’s insane.
Kayla Rudbek
Cole, I thought everyone has an internal monologue.
I’m still unpacking from the weekend on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake (the advantage of a long car ride is that I managed to finish off two projects on the way there, but I have to weave in ends and give the projects a bath aka wet blocking). And I managed to start a new embroidery project on the beach Saturday and then finish it off yesterday (although embroidery is different from knitting in that there’s less of a defined finish point until the cloth is completely full of stitching).
When I was a kid, packing for a trip involved lots of decisions about books and few decisions about clothing. As a younger adult, the decisions were about clothing, shoes, and accessories. Now that I am middle aged, the decisions are about what crafting projects to bring with me, and a few decisions about clothes (mostly along the lines of will I be running, cycling, swimming, etc), because most of my leisure reading is in Kindle or Apple Books. Labor Day is less than a month away so I need to start planning for the crafting over the long weekend (monochrome embroidery works great for the beach and I have another kit that will be a good one).
2liberal
I think Tesla gets an exception.
Gretchen
John Cole: what kind of shoulder exercises are you doing in the pool? I also have a bad shoulder and water-walk.
Jess
Good for you, John! I highly recommend kettlebells instead of (or in addition to) free weights. They are more about natural movement and using all muscles together, rather than isolating muscles. Much more effective and really works the core and improves posture. See Mark Wildman on YouTube for more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k17RKV9Dq8w
Scout211
@me: I read that news article you posted. What a relief that those two constitutional amendments did not pass. First, they were written in confusing legislature legalese and second they were designed to take power away from the Governor. But you wouldn’t have guessed the second by reading the first. Yikes. I’m surprised that the voters were informed enough to figure it out and vote it down.
But seriously, the primary in August, after the RNC by a month and the DNC only days away? That seems wrong.
Jackie
@Winsomeone:
That was my thought, too! Now we know what amuses him enough to chuckle/laugh: Firing strikers.😡 I hope Sean Faine wins his lawsuit!
Jackie
@BigJimSlade: You must not have been around during his drinking days lol
Mousebumples
@me: I saw that too, yay!
me
@Scout211:
The presidential primary is in April, this primary is for other local partisan and congressional races.
A lot of money was spent to educate the voters especially after the amendments on the April ballot passed (which thankfully weren’t as bad as these).
Jess
Internal experiences of others: I really wonder about the dumb, selfish, mean people. What joy are they getting from being this way? I’ve had my fair share of moments of being dumb, selfish and mean, and it really wasn’t a nice experience, mostly because I knew I could be better. But some people just can’t envision being any other way, it seems. They can’t rise above. What is their internal reality like? Do they even have one that they’re aware of?
Chet Murthy
@Jess: I fear that everyone is the hero of their internal fairy tale. Bad guys? Their story is that everybody else is bad, and they’re the hero tryin’ to make good. It is what it is.
Scout211
Thanks. I didn’t know that.
Jackie
@Scout211: Thanks for posting that! It was paywalled, so I couldn’t read it, other than the opening sentence.
I don’t know how large the National Black Caucus of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters are, but I hope they are large enough to be influential!
BSR
Longtime lurker here to say that this seems like the longest and most normal post for a while from you – my inner voice told me to reply and say that this sounds like you are doing just fine. Now it’s telling me to hit “post”…
Chet Murthy
@Jackie: Could there be a more …. cutting demonstration that MAGAtry isn’t about “economic anxiety” but actually about racism, misogyny, homophobia ?
Scout211
Sorry! The article was very short, most of which I posted in my comment. I’m not sure why I was able to see it because I don’t have a subscription.
laura
I beseech thee! If you have righteous sourdough pickle bread, do not sleep on making a tuna melt, or a tuna charlie, or a hot creamed tuna on toast. But definitely, make some tuna-centric goodness because that pickle bread was made to undergird a hot tuna mess-o-goodness.
Kirk
That’s been the training target for the 50 since before I was on a high school swim team back in the 1970s. Turning your body and head to breathe loses a tiny tick of the clock. The more strokes you manage in freestyle between breaths the faster you go.
Butterfly, breast, and backstroke have your head out of the water anyway so that’s a different game.
Regnad Kcin
@dlwchico: blrrggghh. Maybe I have an unresolved Keanu – Mick fantasy going on 🤪
FDRLincoln
@Ohio Mom: one time my autistic son got into our Amazon account and ordered every episode of Star Trek ever made.
Amazingly, Amazon gave us a refund when we explained what happened.
Bettencourt
@Regnad Kcin: Um, do you just realize you listed the cast of Freejack, not Johnny Mnemonic?
(looks like someone beat me to it)
Johnny does feature Takeshi “Beat” Kitano, which is pretty awesome all by itself.
wjca
Rest assured that there some of us out here who are out of step on this, as on so much else. No internal monologue. No internal dialogue.
Ah, the things I apparently miss out on.
BigJimSlade
@RevRick: Keep up the good work! I look at walks and the elliptical machine as a good excuse to listen to podcasts and music, so that helps pass the time.
CaseyL
JC, that is a great workout, and good on ya for keeping at it! And seeing results consistently is just what you need to keep keeping at it :)
May I suggest you pay less attention to your weight. As you trade fat for muscle, your weight might not change as much as you think it should, because muscle weighs more than fat. You might weigh the same, but it will be distributed much differently.
Regarding internal voices: I’ve always had at least one, and it’s constant. Sometimes I have more than one and they argue with each other when I can’t make up my mind about something. Insofar as they “sound” like anything (I mean, it’s all in my head, it’s not like actual sound), they sound like me. Sometimes in exasperated tones. I can’t imagine not having an internal voice, not having ongoing conversations with oneself. Seems lonely.
3Sice
Elon: “Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed but now they are full cities again,”
flump: “That’s great, that’s great,”
Elon: “It is not as scary as people think, basically”
Them boys ain’t right.
Sister Golden Bear
@dlwchico: Just watched a cinematography video on YouTube (one of my new obsession) that made a pretty compelling argument, with examples, the vast majority of movies look better in black and white. Wes Anderson being the exception that proves the rule.
hitchhiker
@Nelle: Love this so much, first the Egym thing, which is a GREAT idea, and second the grandkid as motivator.
One of my daughters had twins during the actual insurrection on 1/6, and her sister had a boy 11 months later. I am now 72, and i can tell you that taking care of those twins during that first year — which we did for one full day a week — was fucking exhausting.
And like you, I started a strengthening routine so I’d be able to keep up. They’re 3 and a half now, and their cousin is 2 and a half. Not much carrying required, but their gear is now getting heavier. Little damn bikes and the occasional need to move a car seat.
Sadly, Mr H is pretty severely disabled, so he’s never had a hope of being able to carry them around. Instead he focuses on finding them music and making fart jokes, both of which they’re all enjoying these days.
I want an Egym.
Jay
@3Sice:
Dem boys iz weird,…..
Old Dan and Little Ann
@Leto: I always enjoyed seeing how many underwater laps I could complete in in-ground pools as a kid.
Sister Golden Bear
@3Sice:
Kayla Rudbek
@wjca: as the sayings go, “talking to yourself is not a sign of insanity, but interrupting yourself is more of a problem” or “of course I talk to myself, I need an expert opinion”
Kayla Rudbek
@hitchhiker: my sibling complains about the weight of my godson’s bikes (the complaints started when he upgraded from his first balance bike to a bike with pedals) because someone has to carry it home when my godson gets tired…
Mousebumples
In additional good election news, it sounds like Rep. Ilhan Omar also won her primary.
piratedan
well, there are times when my internal voice adopts a regional dialect that is not my own, but sometimes I have to self-chastise when my own theme music seems off-key.
NotMax
@laura
While everyone has a personal favorite concoction, just in case: how to make New York deli tuna salad.
;)
Seonachan
@Sister Golden Bear: Repo Man’s always intense!
sab
@FDRLincoln: My autistic granddaughter (age 10) has never met password protection that she cannot break.
Sally
Umm … if the oceans rise, there will be less ocean front, or water front, land. Less land, shorter coastline … yes? I realise it depends to some extent on topography of the waterfront land, but in general.
It’s like Putin assumes that global warming would work to his advantage. For warm ports, maybe, but as the perma frost melts in Siberia, that land is becoming less habitable, and much less arable. Due to the methane escaping.
Sally
Yes, I have an internal voice. It yak, yak, yaks at me
HumboldtBlue
ronno2018
Keep exercising MR. COLE! (actually, I think Luke was not focused on his breathing when inside the Tauntaun carcass). Science Proves Luke Skywalker Should Have Died In The Tauntaun’s Belly (gizmodo.com)
SiubhanDuinne
@FDRLincoln:
A week or so ago, I ordered a few t-shirts from Amazon. They were all exactly as ordered except for one, which was size S (I always order L or XL). I went to Amazon’s return site, told them I must have made an error in my order, and awaited their instructions. They immediately responded that they were refunding my $ and I didn’t need to return the shirt. So I took it to the laundry room and left it with a note for anyone who might use it.
TS
Washington Post has a sad.
3Sice
CNN tonight – Mags called him disoriented. Coverage is not good in either tenor or on the facts.
I think it is clear down ticket (and the not South African big money) wants him gone, but he’s got debts no honest man can pay.
Craig
Johnny Mnemonic, the story is one of the best little stories ever. Molly is one of my favorite ever characters. Gibson was creating sick stuff. I’m going to go dig Burning Chrome off my shelf. That movie is a crime against cinema.
3Sice
@Seonachan:
That don’t mean nuthin’ Miller – a lot of straight guys like to watch their buddies fuck a couch.
SiubhanDuinne
@HumboldtBlue:
Everything I hear or see or read about Tim Walz makes me love him just that much more. I’m sure he has a shadow side because we all do, but I can’t imagine that it’s very terrible.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Which reminded me to check the status of the final item ordered July 16 during Prime Days. As of today, for the first time, it is showing up as shipped, supposedly to arrive on Monday next week.
wmd
I had a new personal best swimming last night – 1100 yards in 31:58. I’m normally around 34:00. I’ve been doing the 1100 yards every time I get in the pool, as long as I get in with 35 minutes before it closes.
I do a 25 yard sprint every 100 yards. Ive had bruised ribs from tripping and falling in July and had curtailed the sprint, but I’m back… and like I said personal best.
I’m also a fat old guy, with about a decade on John. Keep at it. You’ll get there.
mrmoshpotato
@Craig: Which movie is a crime against cinema?
Craig
@Sister Golden Bear: that’s hilarious.
Wave Function Collapse
I have to add to the comments about inner monologue. Does anyone else have one that is a relentless heckler?
Y’know, Relentless Heckler would make a good band name….
catbirdman
You’re inspiring me, Cole! Keep it up!!!
OB-118
I don’t have inner monologues. I do have a few inner dialogues, but they are widely dispersed between inner committee meetings :)
cain
@3Sice:
The down tickets are stuck with him. They can’t change now and if they tried all the blue states will fuck him them up. Like Ohio tried to do to us.
But also they don’t have anyone that can bring voters in like Trump can. Even this version of Trump.
StringOnAStick
Inner monologue used to be a mix of just observation but with some ugly depression-based absolute slams against myself that would just drag me down. Then I did two major facilitated psilocybin journeys and the negative voice went away; it’s been over a year so I’m pretty sure it’s gone for good, along with the depression that exited with it. Now my inner dialogue is pleasant and often fun to even silly. Such a lifesaving change!
HumboldtBlue
The Dying Gaul
There’s a story there…
Chet Murthy
@StringOnAStick:
I assume you mean that you were working with a professional who administered the drug, monitored your state, etc? How did you find such a professional? I also suffer from depression, and …. well, I’ve read that hallucinogenics can help. I’m not the sort of person who self-medicates.
The Dying Gaul
@thalarctosMaritimus:
There’s a story there…
wjca
@Kayla Rudbek: As I heard it, the problem wasn’t talking to yourself. It was “arguing with yourself.” Especially if you kept “losing those arguments.”
BigJimSlade
@Jackie: Lol, I don’t remember which year I came in, but, yeah, it must’ve been after that.
laura
@NotMax: love the son’s critique.
spouse and I have always maintained separate finances and tuna salad recipes. I love some dill pickle, lemon juice, red onion, kalamata olive, celery and mayo, he likes some ungodly concoction that might as well contain raisins.
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
My inner voice most often sounds like me.
However.
Sometimes it does sound like 10 yr old me. I mean it’s still me but when I’m having fun, that 10 yr old sometimes speaks up. Still swears but the voice is funny….
BR
Apparently there were 60,000 on a Republicans for Harris call tonight.
Chet Murthy
@BR: I’m still baffled by this upsurge of support for VP Harris, that wasn’t there for Biden. Truly mystified. But hey, I’ll take it! It’s all good!
BigJimSlade
@StringOnAStick: Awesome – congrats! I’ve been reading a book about mushrooms called Entangled Life. One section of the book talks about how it works. It seems to quiet down the sort of “normal” part of the brain which is doing all your daily executive tasks stuff and lets the rest of the brain chime in. Just don’t ask about what one fungus does to a carpenter ant, lol.
BigJimSlade
Cole, the guy in my head isn’t as focused as yours. While showering I may think of everything under the sun and over it, too. Then a couple minutes later I’m asking myself if I soaped up yet.
HumboldtBlue
‘Republicans for Harris’ want conservatives to vote Democrat in 2024 to topple Trump
Jackie
@BR: That’s AWESOME! I saw the Mayor of a city in Arizona who endorsed Kamala say he’s going to be at the DNC Conference hint he’s going to speak at the Convention. I’d love to see one evening of the Convention dedicated to “Republicans for Kamala”!!! It would be amazing!
And freak out TCFG!😂
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@HumboldtBlue: wow, just another data point on how practically perfect Tim Waltz is. Thanks for the link.
rikyrah
@wmd:
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@SiubhanDuinne: ditto!
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
@Chet Murthy: The normies have always responded to someone who’s very charismatic, who is electric.
NotMax
@Chet Murthy
Breath of fresh air is invigorating.
StringOnAStick
@Chet Murthy: A legal network of facilitation professionals exists in Oregon, there’s several practitioners here in Bend. It’s very much a “you get out of it what you out into it” and I’d done lots of personal work by myself and with the facilitator before the actual journey. Google is your friend, most of them have websites. With the change in drug legality due to issues with drug abuse, especially in Portland, things are in a bit of a Gray area now. If you’d like to discuss this offline my email is kitcoh at the gmail thing.
I’d suggest reading Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind and also watch the Netflix series by the same name.
StringOnAStick
@BigJimSlade: That book is on my list. I’m reading The Other Half of Life right now, about the microbial world and so wonderfully written.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@ronno2018:
I seem to recall that Mythbusters ran an actual test of the parameters of that scene and came to the opposite conclusion?
wjca
If there wasn’t going to be an upsurge, what would have been the point of changing candidates?
HumboldtBlue
This is why we read this blog. Fuckin’ nerds.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@wjca: At the time, it felt to a lot of us like it was a “stop the bleeding” maneuver. The ease of the transition, and the excitement that got uncorked, took a lot of people by surprise, across the political spectrum. One of those things that only seems obvious in retrospect.
prostratedragon
@Villago Delenda Est: “You just don’t.”
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Morning pre-caffeine thought:
Noticing Drudge turning on Trump (I remember when he was the darling of the wingnuts), and the significant number of one-time reliable wingnuts who have turned away, I’m starting to wonder what was the tipping point for them? What’s the point at which they say “this is not okay”?
I personally would like to call it the Cole Threshold, in honor of Our Gracious Host, who hit that point with the Terry Schiavo situation. Granted, it wouldn’t always be a moment of moral clarity (for Mike Pence, it was less a moral crisis and more a case of “oh my God the leopards are about to eat MY face”), and not everyone has a Cole Threshold.
Gloria DryGarden
@Ken: this inner narrator is a great time to substitute L2, or whichever language you are practicing. My French teacher in high school said to practice 15 minutes a day. I remember as a teen, using code switch, inserting French phrases into my internal dialogue during chores. I’d be in the kitchen, going, “je fais la vaiselle. Je n’aime pas faire la vaiselle,” “depuis tout ça je vais lire mon livre dans mon bedroom.”
Like that.
I forgot this tablet doesn’t know I’d like French and Spanish. So I have to retype everything, because autocorrect objects. My android knows. I’ll have to look in settings. How tiresome.
KrackenJack
@StringOnAStick: One of my favorite features of this full service blog (in addition to empirical Tuantaun biology) is reading recommendations. The Other Half of Life sounds like it’s right up my alley, but I can’t seem to locate by the title + “microbes”. Any hints to track it down? TIA
Gloria DryGarden
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: it occurs to me, I could ask you. I used to be able to count to 10 in Greek, but I’m going blank on 9, it’s enough like Spanish and French that I’m all twisted up.
The kids where I stayed in Athens taught me. I suppose I should google it and not bother people.
Cali mera…
Craig
@mrmoshpotato: Johnny Mnemonic
Dahlia
@KrackenJack: The Hidden Half of Nature
Gloria DryGarden
My inner voice, if I’m lucky, dictates poems and letters to me. The trick is grabbing a pen, or an electronic notepad asap, because it goes by fast.
sometimes the inner voice is quiet and deep, but it affects my mood, so I have to dive under to hear it, and straighten myself out.
I didn’t know there were people that don’t have an inner voice. Is it introspection, or just different brain styles?
this could be as interesting a discussion, what kinds of inner voice dialogue do you have, as the group discussion of how each person memorized a phone number. I still remember being amazed, in a circle of 20-30 people, no two answers were the same. I thought it’d be simple VAK. But nope.
Craig
@HumboldtBlue: Truth!
Kathleen
@Wave Function Collapse: I’m suing my inner voice for mental cruelty. Since I have my law degree from the Law & Order University of WETV Reruns I can defend or prosecute myself depending on my whim.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Gloria DryGarden: “Nine” in Greek is «εννέα» – “enn-eh-a”.
Gloria DryGarden
@Kathleen: mental cruelty! So right. Wasn’t that part of official woman training?
Sister Golden Bear
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: You’re correct, the Mythbusters showed Luke would’ve lived. Experimental findings > theoretical hypotheses.
Gloria DryGarden
@Kathleen: mental cruelty! So right. Wasn’t that part of official woman training?
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: thank you. I went googling, and it turns out I had it in my mind that 5,6,7, were pentá, hexá, and heptá, like our geometric figures, but it appears I had it wrongly stored in my head. Google said its pende, Eksi, eptaá. Is it possible the kids taught me a variant in their dialect, and those are in use?
I’ll have to redo this in my memory places. Dang.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Gloria DryGarden: Pronunciations have changed over the years, generations, and centuries. A lot. Heck, in the time since I learned basic Greek as a kid, things have changed. “Pente”, “exi”, “epta” are how you say “five, six, seven” in modern Greek, but there’s been a lot of linguistic drift since English stole those prefixes back in the way-back-when.
Chris T.
Free weights aren’t necessary. Just be careful that whatever machines you use move the way your joints would move if you were using free weights (well, “if you were using them correctly“). I tend to like free weights though because they are more like what you might do with actual heavy stuff. They’ll whack on stabilizer muscles (e.g., all those rotator cuff ones). This has both good and bad parts as well of course. Note that using heavy weights is not required either! “Weight bearing exercise”, good for bones, just means carrying shit around! If you can’t do good form with 10 pounds, try eight pounds (7.5, pink “lady” weights, whatever). It’s a good idea to try something heavier now and then just to test it out, but you can do a lot with the lighter stuff, especially as when you are starting out. A lot of it is actually teaching your brain / nervous system how to work your body correctly.
That can be good for helping with the “correctly” part (cough, ahem).
David_C
I have both the narrative and a soundtrack in my head. I just do walking and low-weigh dumbbells but I keep a spreadsheet going to show how much working out I’ve done. Used to be a running training log, but those days are gone. A cardiologist colleague said that going from couch to regular walking (and swimming), 3 or so days a week, gets one the greatest benefit. More is good, too, as long as it doesn’t lead to injury. Great workouts!
raven
What is Weight Bearing Exercise?
Princess
@HumboldtBlue: Haha. Cry more, Kellyanne.
Baud
@HumboldtBlue:
What a monster..
Matt McIrvin
@Chet Murthy: People are not logical about politics. You can’t effectively do politics unless you accept that.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
This.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I talk to myself all the time. I like an appreciative listener
waspuppet
@HumboldtBlue: You know, there’s actually probably an element of truth to that, except it’s testament to how much people despise Donald Trump. But Kellyanne is either too stupid to know that or too fascist to care.
I don’t have voices talking to me—not ever. I explain myself, or things, to imaginary people. My father was a professor and I probably should have been.
And it’s dangerous to my health that I just found out that dill pickle sourdough bread exists. I’m probably just holding on thanks to the fact that dill pickle peanuts aren’t nearly as widely available as they should be.
Matt McIrvin
@waspuppet: She’s perceiving how people project their hopes and ideals onto political candidates they like, but doesn’t have the self-consciousness to understand that this doesn’t only happen on the other side. Or she doesn’t care and is just being rueful about it.
Seeing people mentally turn the loathsome and absurd Donald Trump into some kind of golden Adonis was truly amazing–if that spell is finally breaking and the same kind of thing is happening to an unambiguously more deserving person, well, I’m not going to cry about it.
TBone
I saw some discussion of the ACAB phenom here yesterday and I’m wondering if anyone saw this Digby post. Maybe not ALL cops, but these bastards certainly!
https://digbysblog.net/2024/08/13/real-america/
What, and I cannot stress this enough, THE FUCK?!?!
Geminid
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: My recollection is that Matt Drudge turned against Trump during Trump’s first term. I don’t follow Drudge but when I heard of this I checked him out and saw his news aggregation site was highlighting anti-Trump stories. Drudge seems to be a political loner with no particular loyalty to either party.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Yep, that.
Was it you who once observed that lots of people seem to vote on candidate affect? IIRC, it was in the context of the Fetterman primary race. Anyhoo, it’s true. And maybe another way of saying “vibes.”
Kay
@HumboldtBlue:
Trump’s favorability is now at or close to the highest it’s ever been, so I think that’s one of the reasons they’re enraged – they thought that was a good sign for November, and it was. Of course, Harris’s is now higher than Trumps and Walz is higher than any of the four.
Usually people like him less the more they see him, which may be one of the reasons he only does one or two events a week (appearing) but he’s never been able to shut up so he does things like X or calling in to media – that helps us. People need to be reminded.
Ken
@Matt McIrvin: “The Emperor has no clothes! And he’s old, and slurs his words, and can’t string two coherent thoughts together, and lies a lot, and is a multiply-convicted felon, and….”
TBone
I have an inner narrator. She also does my reading. She is weird, but mostly in a good way. I don’t “hear” her, but the words are constant.
Kay
@Geminid:
I waited for the Will Stancil returns last night. He lost – came in 2nd of 3- but was very gracious about it.
I hope he runs again. I think he’s great.
prostratedragon
I somehow have managed to silence much of my inner narration. When it pops up, it’s generally first person. Years ago I was having a lot of problems with the multitudes speaking up, so I told them they’d have to use a Bullwinkle filter, which of course I then usually ignored. This actually worked.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: The way Kamala Harris went from a low of -17% net favorability in mid-July to net positive in the most recent polls, without visibly changing as a person, is, in fact, a sign of how little sense all this makes, and if I were politically opposed to her it would be pissing me off.
But most people who were not super politically engaged mostly vaguely associated her with the Biden administration and had been getting little information about what she was doing, then when Biden dropped out of the race she stepped in dramatically as a leader, and it does make sense to credit that as positive evidence.
Betty Cracker
Regarding inner monologues, I have a sarcastic critic residing in my brain who heckles me when I make dumb mistakes. For example, last night I was trying to pour some red sauce from a pan into a container with a narrow-ish opening. It would have made sense to use a funnel or at least conduct the operation over the sink, but I was confident I could do it flawlessly on the counter, and I made a big fat mess. “Well, that didn’t work out, did it genius?” I don’t experience the heckling as psychologically damaging, but it can be tiresome.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I’ve said that but I’m not the first to mention affect. Vibes does seem to be the trendy new word for the phenomenon.
Recent events have so cemented my view that the old criticism that Dems lose because they get policy wrong is misguided
ETA: Vibes is a better term because it takes account of circumstances other than the candidate.
TBone
@me: that is a win to celebrate! Ilhan Omar also won.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Rule Number One of organizing is and always has been “meet people where they are”. The job is not to change people into the people you think you should have or what people should be but to meet them where they are. That’s what that means. “Where they are” is they don’t know that much about her but they really like her so far. That’s a perfectly fine place for them to be and she’s met them there.
TBone
@Betty Cracker: I have that part too! Sometimes she shouts 😆 and I put up a big, red STOP sign in my head so she will STFU.
Baud
I don’t talk to myself. I’m not really interested in what I have to say.
TBone
@thalarctosMaritimus:
Well? Are they/do they?
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Kamala has been great. But I also wouldn’t underestimate thr cathartic feeling people get from taking someone’s scalp. The entire right wing is built upon getting people addicted to that feeling. It’s an unfortunate part of human nature.
Kay
I jeer at reporters all the time here – I try to narrow it to political reporters because I don’t have a problem with much of the media’s work – I think political reporting is really bad though.
But I watch the State Department briefings on Gaza and I have to say foreign policy reporters are impressive. They’re always prepared, they always know the background and context (you can tell by how they set up the question) and they’re serious. This is not clowning around with gotchas for social media hits.
Every day they go in there with hard questions about Gaza and every day the State Department spends 30 minutes stonewalling or reciting the same tired, meaningless canned lines they’ve been saying for 10 months but the reporters are bearing witness to what’s happening with their questions, and it’s important. I admire them.
Raven
It’s an odd morning at the dog park! No Chili Dog, no Oatmeal, no Jake no Harley! Poor Artemis!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: I’d love to take Trump’s scalp. Metaphorically, of course. I wouldn’t touch it really.
Geminid
@Kay: His two competitors seemed to have merit so I’d say Will Stancil did fine. I imagine he learned a thing or two about practical politics, and maybe about himself as well.
I was glad to see Rep. Omar win her primary. I was very sceptical of Ihlan Omar at first, and she did have some rough months in early 2019. But Omar has won my respect since. The way she handled the Republican move go kick her off the Foreigns Relations Committee last year impressed me. Omar made them look small.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: I thought he might be staying home because being shot at scared him. It would scare me. I might not want to go out and stand in front of crowds.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Right. A big problem we have is that it’s harder for libs to get motivated by that feeling because it’s not a very nice attitude to have.
Kay
@Geminid:
I donated to Stancil because some of the criticism of him online seems nasty and like piling on. First centrists and Blue MAGA Dems piled on him and then Leftists went crazy vicious, so he’s now been attacked by basically all of Twitter except the Right. But frankly Twitter is sort of gross. I watch it like you rubberneck at a crash on the interstate – it’s not a wholesome or enlightening or a good “interest”.
I have lost a lot of respect for Rachel Bitecofer reading Twitter. She wrote the other day that Muslims are “conservative” or “Republican” (I don’t recall which term she used and I think she pulls Tweets – I couldn’t find it again). It’s just not true. The majority of Muslims in the US are not Arab, for one thing, they’re Pakistani or Indian, and Pakistani and Indians Americans vote 80% D. Arab Americans vote 70% D (or did). She just pulled that out of her ass because she was angry that the NYTimes poll has a Msulim subgroup voting for Trump. The subgroup was EIGHT people. That’s not a typo. 8. WTF is she doing?
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Observing the trajectory of “the Squad” has been fascinating. I’ve been hoping they would keep evolving as a real force for practical progressive politics, and the better ones have, IMO.
There was lots of anti-Squad crowing when Bowman and Bush got picked off in the primaries, but I see it as part of the movement’s evolution. The more practical pols survived while the overt grandstanders outlived their political usefulness. Circle of life! ;-)
Kay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Oh, that could absolutely be true. It must have been traumatizing. He’s not really high energy though and never has been. That whole narrative is just bullshit. He doesn’t work hard. She does. It’s as simple as that.
Manyakitty
@Baud: I think plenty of us are ready for ‘not very nice.’
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I think Biden brought them inside the tent in a really smart way – on domestic policy – so for the period where he needed them for big legislative packages, or at least not to vocally oppose. Obviously he lost some of them on foreign policy but bringing them in was smart, first two years. He absolutely made a believer out of AOC.
JML
@Geminid: still very skeptical of Ilhan Omar, who has too many stumbles and ethical lapses while doing little for her district. I think she’s a narcissistic shitbag and the Mpls area deserves better and needs more.
That said, Don Samuels was a weak primary candidate and wouldn’t have been any better really. But since Ilhan supporters consistently call anyone who disagrees with her or criticizes her a racist, it’s going to be tough to get a top-tier candidate to primary her.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
But letting them craft some legislation and then essentially saying “go sell this to your colleagues” (which they couldn’t do) was smart. It puts the onus on them, which is where it should be. He said he would sign whatever they ended up with. They couldn’t sell the childcare and family leave part (because America hates women) but that was because they couldn’t get the House.
Quinerly
Interesting short piece on Laura Loomer. Looks like she is auditioning to be wife #4.
https://popular.info/p/how-trumps-infatuation-with-a-racist
Kay
@Geminid:
The housing Leftists are just unbearable. I had no idea. That’s an urban thing so I didn’t know. There is no housing plan that will ever meet these insane requirements. Stancil was right – they’re impossible to work with.
Quinerly
This looks cool. Any Atlanta area BJ peeps attending?
https://www.foxtheatre.org/events/detail/jimmy-carter-100/
https://saportareport.com/rock-roll-president-jimmy-carters-100th-birthday-celebration-at-fox-theatre-upholds-his-musical-legacy/columnists/manderson/
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I agree. Pelosi was in on that effort too as Speaker, and it was smart politics on their part to bring them inside. You’ve said before and I also agree that it’s absurd how little credit Biden and elected Dems get from some on the left for pushing big policy goals forward.
Biden got us out of Afghanistan. He openly called the Reagan trickle down economic theory out for the bullshit it is and did practical things to build working class wealth.
It was fitting that Congressional progressives stuck with him after the debate debacle, even if the effort ultimately failed. He damn well earned their loyalty.
Kay
(((Harry Enten)))
@ForecasterEnten
32m
Why did Harris do well in those NYT polls last week in the key battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin? Harris is doing significantly better than Biden among Trump’s base of white working class voters. If she puts up these numbers with them, she’ll win.
This is so funny. No one predicted that. That’s what keeps me engaged. You just never know :)
True for Obama too, btw. Not “Trump voters” but WWC. My county went from 45D/55R w/Obama to 25D/75R w/Clinton and Biden had the same and my county is probably 90% WWC.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
It was SUCH a missed opportunity for the Left. Not all of them. Bernie and AOC got it. But Christ almighty, he undid REAGAN! They should have been on every show and every social media platform supporting him. I’m to the Left of center in the D party, on some things quite far Left, criminal justice and immigration, but I’ve always pulled up short of joining The Left because they just suck at politics. It’s a fatal flaw. They shoot themselves in the foot over and over and over. Also- the childcare portion of their legislative plan was just bad work. Junk. It’s like no one has ever challenged them to actually produce something before :)
Betty Cracker
@Quinerly: Loomer is so awful. For a while there, I was afraid she was going to be my House rep — she has shopped a couple of deep-red FL districts to knock off “RINOs.” But state gerrymandering saved the day for us by swapping out one corrupt old legacy Repub for another, and Loomer went on to narrowly lose (and loudly proclaim as stolen) the primary for the district across the river. Whew! The corrupt old fuck-knuckles are bad enough. Loomer is just nuts.
Geminid
@Kay: The Stancil wars raged on Twitter in the months leading up to the 2022 midterms. Stancil even retweeted me once as an example of the depths to which his critics would sink in their attacks. One of my highlights on that platform!
I don’t Tweet on my own account, but I reply some and Michael Paulauski had reposted a reply I made to him. Stancil and Paulauski had this big Twitter beef going on at the time.
The two were noisy adversaries, both argumentative white males in their late 30’s. They were (and are) amateur polemicists with Twitter followings. Stancil’s day job is with the U. Minn. law school, researching housing and metro land use policy. Paulauski lives in Hoboken, New Jersey and works for Walmart in their IT or “devops” cohort.
Twitter is a very weird place.
Dave
@Kay: Sounds like falling into the same misapplied heuristics, biases, and assumptions that every human if vulnerable to just in a particularly unfortunate public way with that reaction.
Another Scott
@Quinerly: Neato. Be-earlied HBD to Jimmy!
The Fox Theatre is an amazing place. Awe inspiring inside.
I see that Andre 3000 is going to be playing there in November. Should be a fabulous show!
Cheers,
Scott.
Dave
@Kay: It’s probably multiple factors but I strongly suspect that is playing a role though sublimated; he is unlikely to admit even to himself that it impacted him in that manner.
So any convenient rationalization to avoid doing something he nominally seems to love will be latched onto. And the guy was already a master at rationalization.
Though I do agree I doubt it’s just that.
I live with fairly intense PTSD and even though I’ve spent years working on it the self protective denial can still be strong and have undeniable impacts on my behavior and reactions. Undeniable when I step back and look at it that is. In the moment it’s can be much harder to consciously recognize. And well of guy there he is not exactly known for his introspection and quiet thoughtfulness.
Dave
@Betty Cracker: Truthfully in extremely gerrymandered bright red districts I almost prefer nonfunctional schmucks like Boebert and Loomer would have been. There are limits Greene is sufficiently vicious, she has a sort of focused eviler Real Housewives cunning the other two don’t, that I’d rather she be replaced with just as bad voting wise but otherwise bland republican.
It’s not so much the heightening the contradictions (it could work; maybe) but that people like Loomer and Boebert are so dysfunctional that they get in the way of functional malignancy.
Geminid
@Kay: I think the “Squad” also learned a lot from interactions and relationships with their peers. The House Class of 2018 brought a lot of talented and capable Democrats into Congress, especially the women. These new Representatives came from all kinds of districts and collectively knew a lot about practical politics.
Geminid
@Kay: Stancil also attracted the hostility of Elon Musk’s flying monkeys on occasion, and there are some really vindictive weirdos in that group.
Princess
@Betty Cracker: I think the main way the “Squad” has developed is that they ceased to be a “Squad”. It was always more of a media creation intended (in my view) to isolate them and define them as radical. They jumped on it in the beginning because they did and do share broad political goals. One by one the most successful and productive members of the group have broken away from the constraints of being seen as a group— the first was that Rep from MA whose name I forget. More power to them.
Quinerly
@Betty Cracker:
I remember when she was running. A real nutcase. I have only heard about her since Trump. Guess he brought her out of the woodwork.
Kay
@Geminid:
I stopped reading Twitter for a long time – I never posted on it and still won’t – but I got back in for the Biden withdraw issue to try to see where people were on it. But I’ll probably get out again. I forgot how it keeps people sort of hopped up in a way I don’t think is healthy. The “Blue MAGA” thing has been particularly upsetting to me because as I have said here I think the Democratic Party has an actual duty and responsibility now to remain rigorously grounded because it is one of the few functioning institutions and the only institution that has had any success at all against Trump. The anti Trump coalition is an amazing thing, but it is a coalition so vulnerable to splintering. It can’t. We’re the only thing standing in the way of fascism. I mean that sincerely.
jame
Preceding Johnny Mnemonic, Brainstorm was made in 1983, on the same premise you described of being able to record an experience that others could share. It took a rather dark turn because the US military wanted to use the device for brainwashing and torture. And of course, one of the guys on the research team had to find a sexual use for it.
Quinerly
@Another Scott:
It is amazing. I saw Phantom of the Opera there around 1997. Love Atlanta.
My old St. Louis also has a beautiful Fox Theatre of the same era. I saw many productions there, including concerts. (Joe Cocker, John Denver, Sammy Davis Jr, Little Feat, Dr. John, Gladys Knight, BB King). My old law school (Saint Louis University) was inner city and within walking distance. Free student tickets to many shows 1982-1985. The Fox had undergone a major rehab in the early 1980’s, after falling on hardtimes in the 1970’s.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Theatre_(St._Louis)
I wasn’t around but the Grateful Dead did a pretty famous show there in 1971.
Kay
My granddaughter puts loose change she finds in my house in her backpack. So I think this is technically stealing (not a big deal at all but she’s four so probably not too soon to tell her she can’t take things) so went to correct her but then she said “my backpack might be jingling but that’s just the zippers” which I find hysterical so I cannot discipline her. This child just defeats me in a way none of mine did.
Betty Cracker
@Dave: Never thought of it that way, but you’re right.
@Princess: Good point. I think Pressley is the rep you mean.
@Kay: Hilarious!
Dave
@Betty Cracker: That said I can understand how painful it would be to be ahem represented by say Loomer.
wjca
The “Cole Threshold” (the “I just can take this any more” point) may join Cleek’s Law in our vocabulary.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
She goes to a hippie preschool and her (lovely and kind) teacher told my daughter “oh we know she picks up things she likes. She’s quite the magpie!” My daughter said “or a hoarder” because she is, after all, my daughter.
Paul in KY
@3Sice: Those remarks are just sick.
Paul in KY
@Sally: Gotta remember these dudes are just stupid, stupid, stupid. You are correct, of course
Paul in KY
@Wave Function Collapse: For sure a punk band!
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: I have one of those too! Tiresome little shit at times.
StringOnAStick
@KrackenJack: Sorry, I messed up the name. It’s The Hidden Half of Nature by David Montgomery and Anne Bikle.
AnthroBabe
I enjoyed John’s long rant last night. You are such a mensch, John!
Would love to have a BJ meetup when John is in Tempe – but not till Phoenix has reasonable temperatures.
Ann McClenahan
Awesome post, John. Super happy to hear you are making this happen for yourself!
BigJimSlade
@StringOnAStick: Great! I read science-y things at bed time because I like them, but they’re not so exciting that they’ll keep me up :-) I’m also reading The Master Builder now – about cells running things more than DNA.
waspuppet
@Kay: He definitely thought it would be All Hunter Biden All The Time at this point, and probably already knew the “game-changing revelation” that Uncle Vlad’s friends were going to spring on everyone in mid-October which our wealthy media class would run with unquestioningly. He had no idea there would be work involved.
KrackenJack
@Dahlia: Thanks!
@StringOnAStick: No worries. I’m always Googling to find the actual name of books I want to recommend.
I had no idea the late night threads went round the clock.