That’s how you write a headline, people.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) February 19, 2025 at 12:29 AM
I've always loved trains
— Hemry, Local Bartender (@bartenderhemry.bsky.social) February 17, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Made a video to celebrate spacex taking over air traffic control, please enjoy
— Hemry, Local Bartender (@bartenderhemry.bsky.social) February 17, 2025 at 6:35 PM
nothing inspires confidence like the world's most accident-prone rocket company joining forces with a reality TV lawyer
— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) February 16, 2025 at 11:47 PM
“My face-eating leopard is eating peoples’ faces? Why does nobody tell me about these things?!?… “
SWAN: DOGE and SpaceX employees are now working directly at the FAA and DoD, agencies that have billions of dollars of contracts with Musk's companies or regulate them. How is that not a conflict of interest?
TRUMP: Well I mean, I'm just hearing about it— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) February 18, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Ya think?
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) February 18, 2025 at 10:00 PM
Once again, for the slow readers…
Trump claims he's working to reduce federal spending, including by indiscriminately canceling govt contracts.
Over the last decade, Musk's companies SpaceX and Tesla were awarded at least $18 billion in federal contracts
abcnews.go.com/US/musk-work…— Catherine Rampell (@crampell.bsky.social) February 18, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Musk's wealth is massively leveraged on expectations of big future earnings, a lot of which come either directly from the government or from control over the political environment.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) February 18, 2025 at 2:55 PM
‘We hate him too’
Big crowd at the SF Tesla dealership protesting our unelected overlord. A tiny sign hangs from an upstairs window
— Ruth Malone, RN, PhD (@remalone.bsky.social) February 17, 2025 at 3:31 PM
War for Ukraine Day 1,090: The Trump Administration Surrenders to Putin![On The Road - lashonharangue - Botswana - Boteti River [2 of 2] 5](https://balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Photo-3-Copy-of-DSC02951-edit-80x80.jpg)
Debbie(Aussie)
I’m going to repeat myself, dumb & dumber!
Martin
Like 25 years or so ago, possibly too long to still be relevant, I was at a work luncheon with a Boeing VP who was in charge of the ATC overhaul. This wasn’t a full replacement of the then ATC system, but an upgrade of the existing system, some of which dated back to the 60s.
He was explaining the complexity of the US system, where you have extremely permissive laws around private aircraft combined with the largest military air forces operating out of nearly every state. Having a system that can accommodate a quarter million Cessnas as well as SR-71s and god knows what else the military is flying that you aren’t supposed to know about is not simple. Throw in news helicopters and the like and regions like NYC and LA which have half a dozen commercial airports within a single ATC region where a LOT of handoffs are needed and this shit isn’t easy by any means. This was also a time when commercial air freight was exploding in volume.
And any ATC overhaul/replacement needs to be done hot because the nation cannot tolerate shutting the system down for a few days to fire up the new one, and also isn’t willing to pay to do it wholesale. I can hear the report now ‘Sure, we can do it. We’ll lose a few passenger jets, but it won’t be an unacceptable number’.
NotMax
How did the composer of the 1812 Overture describe it?
SpaceUnit
Fuck Fortune Magazine.
They’ve been sucking Republican cock for forever. Guess the investor class is finally getting nervous.
Brutusettu
Illegal ham fisted cuts to government combined with regent Musk funneling contract work to his companies?
How long before state/local sales taxes start to feel the hit of regent Musk firing both random workers and also those in charge of keeping an eye on him? How long until other private/public sector people that regent Musk didn’t fire start to get reduced work because lost revenue?
YY_Sima Qian
I guess I am staying out of the US until the new ATC system has the “kinks” worked out.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@YY_Sima Qian: I wish I had that option, but with a time bomb in my chest and surgery already scheduled for this spring, it looks like I’m going to be at the mercy of people who apparently think “Mercy” is the name of a feature entertainer at a strip club.
SpaceUnit
@YY_Sima Qian:
The US is going to be working out its “kinks” for quite a while.
Consider Somalia.
scav
Ironic if all this provides an utter burst in Amtak bookings no, huh? Sneaky sneaky Biden . . . .
SpaceUnit
@scav:
They’ll defund rail as well. Daily trainwrecks.
satby
@scav: I’m on an Amtrak train to Flagstaff right now. Uncrowded, wide roomy seats in coach, quietly snoozing people on board. Not really a fearful flyer, but not looking forward to a trip I’m taking by air in April. Or the one in May to Ireland either. At least that one won’t be on an American carrier.
Mai Naem mobil
Hope you’re feeling better Anne.
I’m generally not this kind of person but I’m really beginning to wish something bad happens to Edolph. This guy really needs to be sent back to Canada or South Africa whichever he wants. I’m sure there’s plenty of people who’ll chip in to send him and all 12 of his kids on a one way trip
Also, how the fuck is it legal for this POS to enter whatever department he wants to enter in the US and just start firing people. WTF? He’s not even been elected dog catcher. Edolph’s got a real backpfeifengesicht and no amount of plastic surgery is going to change that. That’s all I have to say.
Baud
Some good news.
p.a.
Sept Alaska cruise paid for, Boston to Seattle flight. That gives us months to see how if the system, uhhhh, crashes😱, but living in New England I guess some extra travel to fly Montreal/Vancouver has potential. How integrated are US/Canada ATC systems? Fuckups working here won’t affect internal Canadian flights?
And yes, would love to do the transcontinental rail trip, but time is an issue, as well as Amtrak is probably above-the-fold on the Reich’s institutional deathlist.
TBone
Oh I love that they hung the tiny sign but it makes no sense that it’s so very tiny. It’s a sign that their courage is also tiny. Grow a pair, people!
TBone
We are driving if we ever get the time to get out of this house. I’ve been planning a cross country train trip for years also too. When I found out I was on the No Fly List I stopped trying to plan air travel anymore. I was taken off a flight to the George W. airport in Texas and waylaid at Dallas Fort Worth.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EuvlVo1QdLU
After finally arriving and completing my short vacation, I went home, packed up my shit, and DROVE back to Texas for a year.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@SpaceUnit: Except the vast majority of the rail network is privately funded. The railroads are the only transportation mode that builds and maintained their infrastructure. The exception is some track in the Boston to DC Amtrak corridor and maybe a couple other limited areas. Everywhere else Amtrak trans run on freight rail lines owned by whichever Class 1 railroad operates there (CSX, BNSF, Norfolk South, etc.).
Amtrak does have to maintain the locomotives and ratl cars. Still, you’re much more likely to survive a derailment unscathed than a plane crash.
lowtechcyclist
Hemry, Local Bartender:
I’m still pissed at the Republican governors who back in 2009-2010 killed Obama’s plan to start up a high-speed rail network in the U.S. by saying, “not in MY state you won’t.”
I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but every time AL includes Hemry in one of these threads, I get Liz Phair’s “Polyester Bride” as an earworm. (It’s got a recurring line, “I asked Henry, my bartending friend…” close enough.) That’s not a complaint, btw.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@p.a.: Rebook your flight out of Montreal. Not that long a drive, probably even decent rail service from Boston.
TBone
We had a saying (biker gang nomenclature) in DelCo:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AMVX0tzaTwk
I T C O B was another popular tattoo before tattoes were “cool.”
MagdaInBlack
Received my 1st SSecurity payment. I am no longer a SSecurity virgin.
p.s. edit because SS doesnt seem like a good abbreviation given the current political climate.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
As a Federal worker I’m intrigued about how far down the bureaucracy this “police your own conflicts of interest” thing goes.
Because we’re supposed to be bound by very strict ethics guidelines that bar even the appearance of conflicts of interest. But if that no longer applies to the guy at the top maybe I can start taking bribes from industry stakeholders? I could use a nest egg just in case Elon’s axe falls on me next.
Baud
@MagdaInBlack:
Congrats!
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: 🎉💜🤘
Suzanne
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Yeah. My company is a federal contractor, and I have to take all the ethics training annually. I can’t accept anything more than a sandwich and a bag of chips, and even then, I would check. “Police his own conflicts of interest”, what the fuck.
It’s so blatantly obvious that Elmo is in this to make money, and made a deal with FFOTUS to deliver his tech bro fanboys to him in exchange for control over our government agencies.
TBone
I would like to tell some Road Trip stories today but do not have time – you are all spared hahahaha!
TBone
Today’s HCR is a must read if your blood pressure can stand it.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-18-2025
Baud
Elon Musk proves to me that the number of people who care about billionaires and corruption is confined to a small segment of the Democratic Party.
Maybe that will change, but that hasn’t been the state of the country so far.
YY_Sima Qian
@scav: Amtrak is waaay too slow for most people in most circumstances.
TBone
I am in fine fettle today.
Suzanne
@YY_Sima Qian: I have enjoyed taking Amtrak for up to approx. 6-hour trips in the northeast region. It’s about the same speed as car travel, when one considers fill-ups and restroom breaks. But it’s absolutely unusable for most of my travel, which is for work, and I don’t get to pick the destination or have the luxury of time.
Amtrak is not a solution to this.
Suzanne
@Baud:
Same with democracy. These are abstractions, and most normies are only looking at their immediate sphere.
If one looks around the world, there are, and have been, millions of people living under corrupt and undemocratic governments, mostly peacefully. Trains running on time, and all that.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Exactly. The majority of US society is a consumerist society, and that includes many on the Democrats side. People want instantly delivered stuff and experiences. Fewer think abstractly and long term.
Republicans haven’t had a good track record of running things well, so maybe that’ll work out advantage. But that won’t fix the underlying mentality.
Mai Naem mobil
@Baud: good. Hope this means the end of the cancer that is Joe Rogan. Just another garbage grifter disinformation douchebag.
raven
Social Security deposit on time.
Suzanne
@Baud: I will be copiously fair and note that, IMO, the quality of much of our public sphere, and public life, isn’t great. So I can understand the frustration. But my reaction is almost always to strengthen it, to give it more resources in order to improve it, rather than to scrap the whole thing.
A lady in Michigan understood that her mandate was to fix the damn roads, and she did.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Things are never great. To me that just become an excuse for checking out and indulging in consumerism. That’s what MAGA is all about. And Trump’s destruction is what you get when you take things for granted.
mrmoshpotato
@satby: Enjoying your trip on the Southwest Chief, eh?
TBone
@Suzanne: 💜 Big Gretch!
Suzanne
@Baud: I agree with you. But as a messaging strategy in this consumerist society, any first-year-intern marketer would tell you that you have to tap into something that people are genuinely feeling if you want them to find you credible. The feeling is what matters, even if that feeling has been stoked by disinfo, because feelings are deeply motivating.
It absolutely made me wince and headdesk when I saw campaign messaging about protecting democracy and the economy being great. My first thought was that’s not going to land, that is not convincing people that we are hearing them. It’s not reflecting their feelings back.
TBone
My science experiments for creating a Bionic Cat have been an amazing success! Mixing test tubes and measuring potions, hahaha!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7rXhXLsNJL8
different-church-lady
“The face eating leopard wasn’t supposed to eat my
faceENTIRE BODY!!!”TBone
@different-church-lady: bwahahahaha! I’m feeling just a bit sinister.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Nothing we say is going to land unless we abandon one of our values. It’s our values that are out of fashion. We just don’t want to admit it.
TBone
@Baud: smashin’ fashin’ is a value.
TBone
I can’t bear to look at the new plague post just yet. Music to stay right here by:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf-MaLXgl3A
sab
If I was going to trust anyone with my money it sure as hell wouldn’t be the guy with 400 billion who still wants more.
Baud
@sab:
Rich people love taking risks with other people’s money. It’s what they do.
Doubly so when they’re completely unregulated and unaccountable.
sab
@NotMax: The one and only cereal shot from guns.
Pow!
TBone
@TBone: after joining the ACLU which required your Social Security number back then.
TBone
@sab: ha! Thank you for your comment or I’d have missed NotMax being prescient again as well as his extra sensory perception. I watched, interruptedly because cats & supper time, one of my favorite Quaker movie classics last night. Friendly Persuasion rings all my liberty bells!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_Persuasion_(1956_film)
Isn’t THIS ironic:
prostratedragon
Like a cow that insists on running human society. Complete with brand.
TBone
@prostratedragon: I heard the sizzle when I read your words.
K-Mo
@Baud: IMHO things are going to get palpably worse for a lot of people. It used to be a valid rule of thumb that the President doesn’t actually have much effect on the economy, despite getting the credit or blame – most of what people feel is the vagaries of the business cycle which is notoriously hard to control. But this administration is pulling on so many threads in the economic fabric that an unraveling is more likely than not. When unemployment hits double figures there will be widespread suffering. That will put the potholes and long lines at the DMV into perspective.
K-Mo
@Suzanne: You’re not wrong, and yet, still, we need a better way to combat and correct the effects of disinformation.
sab
@sab: I never liked the 1812 Overture. I am relieved to hear Tchaikovsky also didn’t like it.
suzanne
@K-Mo: Agreed. Disinfo whips up a lot of these feelings, and it’s incredibly difficult to fight feelings with logic. Anyone who’s ever dealt with a toddler tantrum can testify to that.
Matt McIrvin
@scav: I’m expecting them to try to shut down Amtrak entirely, since that’s been a wet dream of the US right ever since it came into existence. It’s operated as a for-profit semi-public entity, not a government agency, so I don’t think they can just fire everyone. But they can cut off its federal money (illegally, as always) and let it wither.
In the few areas where passenger rail is profitable (basically the Northeast Corridor and nowhere else), of course, private operators can jump in and take those profits without having to subsidize rail in markets where the government was propping it up. So Acela might end up privatized (but forget any major infrastructure improvements, that costs money) but a lot of places would lose what train service they had.
different-church-lady
@Martin: “Move fast and break airplanes.”
different-church-lady
Anyone gotten their cheap eggs yet?
prostratedragon
One for our devil series a lityle while back that I somehow forgot: “El diablo, Ray Baretto and Benny Moret.
Around the time it came out I heard them do it in, of all places, St. John the Divine. While they were playing a ferocious thunderstorm started up. The sense of the words is, “Get thee behind me.”
Baud
Surf’s up!
sab
@different-church-lady: I hoarded four dozen a while ago. My stepdaughter is coming by today to get a dozen,
trnc
Not needing our money is not the same thing as not wanting our money. In fact, there are plenty of examples to indicate that the less billionaires need, the more they want.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: One value– the value of all human beings and their worth as human beings.
The only way Democrats are going to win most Americans* is to deny the human rights of people who aren’t straight, white, and Christian.
*See Toni Morrison
Kay
@Suzanne:
For a kind of different take about how to reach people, look at worker to worker organizing. I think you’ll find some of what you’ve talked about here. It’s a step further though – it recognizes that the media environment is wholly arrayed against us and poisoned – intrinsically Right wing. That includes social media – owned by billionaires, they’ve turned it to their ends now, just like traditional media.
People at Starbucks and Amazon recognized this and started talking to others in their workplaces. They made spreadsheets of who knew whom, “mapped” their workplaces and identified the people other people listened to. They went UNDER the billionaires, not over them. Its different than traditional union organizing. I feel like if things got really, really bad – and every sign I see indicates they will – this is a way through.
Its like how BC talked about guerrilla marketing with signs. It recognizes that improved marketing might not work in an environment where the Right has captured all media.
https://www.ucpress.edu/books/we-are-the-union/paper
Suzanne
@Baud:
I’m not sure of that. I think most people hold their values more tenuously than we think, or than they think. And what is most important to them at any given time shifts a great deal with circumstances, moods, styles, etc.
I also don’t think we do a great job creating an overarching narrative of what our values even are, and I think that’s because we’re trying to hold together a fractious coalition.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: This is why I’m a fan, Kay.
You churn out so much that make me go, “hmmm, I didna think of it that way.”
Peer to peer networking and organizing that goes around the right wing media ecosystem entirely, that’s not in any way dependent on “media” at all.
A lot more work, but effective.
Kay
@Suzanne:
I want to think about what an opposition might look like when all media is a broadcast of Hannity kissing Musk and Trumps ass in a North Korea-like propaganda broadcast. Post “marketing”, if you will. When marketing is no longer an option because they own all the outlets.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: The value they hate is our commitment to civil rights, formed by Black people and used to protect EVERYONE.
The attack on trans rights right now is the first domino and they’re pushing it HARD– and some folk on our side are saying we should just abandon the rights of trans people.
fuck that. We give up THEIR rights, then who will be next?
We have Pastor Niemöller’s words to show us they will eventually get around to YOU, too.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m looking at the Space X/FAA crossover. Leaving aside the less than stellar Space X record, those two things are not the same, despite both being about things that fly. The FAA has a much wider range of factors to consider
ETA: I should read the comments first, Martin at comment 2 says this much more clearly than I do.
Suzanne
@Kay: That’s brilliant.
One minor point I would make, though…. the “guerilla” stuff is absolutely marketing. Political communication is, like, a generation behind retail sales tactics. There have been a lot of companies who have hired pro firms and they engage in these sorts of messaging tactics. Will we have to stop depending on traditional and social media? 100%. Marketing isn’t buying a goddamn ad or sending out direct mail that people throw in the trash without looking at it. Good marketing can be absolutely creative and transformational. And what worked in 2016 or 2020 probably will not work now. If we could stop hiring David Axelrod and James Carville, and hire some muralists and cool organizers and musicians instead….
different-church-lady
@Professor Bigfoot: Democrats ain’t gonna win even if they do. Which is yet another reason not to.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne: Maybe we could have some giant puppets.
Kay
@Professor Bigfoot:
They reached out to existing labor unions at the outset and were rebuffed – Starbucks has high turnover, its low wage, its mostly young women and minorities – labor unions saw it as a huge lift with very little pay off. So they had to invent their own model. The creator of the model at is the daughter of Afghan immigrants – she’s US born.
Glory b
@Suzanne: One more time, people know what the Democrats stand for and what our values are.
They just don’t want to vote for the party with the black people in it.
The Democratic party hasn’t won a majority of white voters since 1968, after the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.
That’s a pretty durable indication of where they are.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne: Right now we’re fighting on the margins — it only takes one more voter with shitty values to flip the binary state to fascist.
But it feels like we’re losing ground rapidly. Fascism is scary popular right now. How we reverse that tide I don’t know. The only thing I do know is that kindness won’t kill them.
Suzanne
@Kay:
Marketing is a discipline that often uses media, but it doesn’t have to. If they own all the traditional outlets, we change tactics.
Example: MLK insisted that protestors wear suits and “respectable” clothing to protest. That’s marketing. That’s imagecraft. That’s not about major media outlets.
different-church-lady
@Kay: The underinformed side of me (a.k.a. my gut) thinks they could sense the entrenched corruptions of existing unions. (Which is not to knock unions, but is to note that every organization that starts off with good intentions can get corrupted, because that’s just the human way.)
Kay
@Suzanne:
I just think about what media did with “woke” – the absolutely ferocious backlash to Black people objecting to police killing them or women objecting to sexual assault in the workplace – and it feels hopeless to go thru them. They created Donald Trump. They love this.
The Right went over them – it purchased all of them. Ordinary people are going to have to go under them, back to face to face and a spreadsheet with names and addresses and connections on it.
different-church-lady
@Glory b: I keep saying it: we’re going to find out just how deep the sparrows-and-curtain-rods model goes: will MAGA be willing to go as far as to die as long as minorities die first?
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
Dollars to donuts, I would bet $500 if you asked 10,000 Americans under the age of 35-40 which political party supported the Civil Rights Act, probably 40% of them could not tell you the right answer. I would bet that probably 25% of them could not tell you that there was ever a law called the Civil Rights Act.
And, similarly, if you asked those same 10,000 people what the Civil Rights Act has to do with trans people, probably 40% of them could not make that connection.
Kay
@Suzanne:
Ok. My definition is more narrow but yours works. I just wish we had a better word.
catclub
I listened to that before the election. Afterwards? No.
Suzanne
@Glory b:
I think you are dramatically overestimating the civic awareness of Americans.
prostratedragon
Krugman today:
And he explains succinctly why.
Glory b
@Suzanne: Exactly! A lot of people have completely reinterpreted the Civil rights movement.
MLK got parade permits when he could, didn’t block roads or anyone from going about their business, meticulously followed the rules and laws as they applied to white people, didn’t resist arrest, sang while behind bars, didn’t deface property, etc.
All of the conflict and confrontation came FROM WHITE PEOPLE OPPOSING THEM, not from their side.
They went through intense training, making sure their behavior was beyond reproach.
Kay
@Suzanne:
What worker to worker organizing would do right now is reach out to the fired federal workers and look for those who are undergoing a brutal recognition that an unelected billionaire fired them, although they were employed by the federal government. This experience will be radicalizing for some of them – they’re currently living the authoritarian billionaire tech bro future that we all fear. They’re the first.
Suzanne
@Glory b: That’s an important element of why they were successful.
That stuff shouldn’t be necessary — their cause was righteous even if they blocked streets and wore casual clothes — but tactics matter.
But that is generations ago now. My mom was too young to vote. The people who lived through that time are old, and values are difficult things to transmit from generation to generation.
prostratedragon
That this poster requires more than a second of reading might be a problem to some who need to see it, but maybe it could be broken up into a comic strip and the boxes posted sequentially in public places.
Psssst! No one tell him about the NY Fed!
oldgold
@Suzanne: Dollars to donuts, I would bet $500 if you asked 10,000 Americans under the age of 35-40 which political party supported the Civil Rights Act, probably 40% of them could not tell you the right answer.
I am not sure about that, but I am pretty sure more than 40% would be confused by “dollars to donuts”.
TBone
I was called away by an unexpected emergency shitstorm involving real shit. How apropos for today. I have managed to remain relatively unscathed but the carpet’s in a sorry state! Poor Noah has had to have his nether regions scrubbed and many hot from the dryer towels placed and replaced on his butt because I can’t use the blow dryer on him or throw him in the clothes dryer and my electric blanket is in storage because night sweats.
The TBone Challenge is strong today.
The first time we gave him a bubble bath, he caught cold and we can’t have THAT again.
AM in NC
Reposting my comment from end of Betty’s “Guerrilla Actions” dead thread from last night. Hope that’s not a blog-foul . . .
I’ve been thinking of little guerrilla actions I can do, and currently I am using small sticky-notes with hand-written messages.
Sticky notes because it is easier on retail employees who are tasked with removing the stickers people put up. Hand-written because then it’s obvious it’s coming from a real person.
“I didn’t vote for higher prices, did you?”
“I didn’t vote for King Musk, did you?”
“Team USA or Team Unelected Billionaire? which side are YOU on”
And stick them on gas pumps and in grocery stores, bus-stops, everywhere.
TBone
TBone
@AM in NC: that’s an amazing act of courage that I can copy! For free! Post-it Notes came in the mail from various animal rescue donation stations.
ETA:
LFG!
suzanne
@oldgold:
To be honest…. I don’t know what that really means, either. Shall go look it up.
I remember my college roommate — an honor student — saying, “World War II? Was that the one with the Holocaust in it?”.
Never underestimate utter dumbassery.
AM in NC
@Baud: Holeeeee shit
NotMax
@oldgold
Crypto Kreme.
//
TBone
@AM in NC: I thought it looked suspiciously similar to being AI generated because I am a natcheral born skeptic.
AM in NC
@TBone: Even as AI it’s deeply, primally scary!
frosty
@MagdaInBlack: You can use SSA instead of SS.
TBone
@suzanne: reminds me of a college biology class where we learned about Agent Orange being a plant hormone that encourages growth too quickly, causing the flora to die quickly. An all giirls college at the time. One “student” looked up and stopped from filing her nails for a moment to ask the stupidest question I have ever heard, and I NEVER disparage question askers. It was SO stupid that I spoke up in class loudly to insult her lack of, well, everything that results in one wanting or needing to go to college in the first place. I can’t even repeat her dumbassery, it was that offensive.
TBone
@AM in NC: agreed. And I’ve been in a small ship at night on Galveston Bay during a storm involving water spouts, where I was taught to drive the ship by radar only because we could see nothing through the looking glass. We had to get to the crew, no ifs, ands, or butts!
I’m never seasick.
rebelsdad
@TBone: same here. Plus I love a good road trip.
schrodingers_cat
@Glory b: They did what the Satyagrahis did in India’s freedom struggle. It was politically very potent. And for the first time in India’s history Gandhi got women to take the streets in protest.
prostratedragon
@TBone:
I had heard of this place in Portugal, but these are the most dramatic shots I’ve seen. Try this one about a young photographer who takes shots from the water.
Glory b
@Suzanne: True, but the point was the intense strategizing behind the scenes.
Glory b
@schrodingers_cat: Right, they were very influenced by the struggle in India.
Glory b
@different-church-lady:
https://www.dyingofwhiteness.com/
suzanne
@TBone: Specifically with respect to the Civil Rights Act…. I guarantee you that tons of people (maybe most) who vote Republican think that Republicans support civil rights. I am willing to bet significant sums of money that there is a distressingly large cohort of people who interpret the Civil Rights Act as delivering equality for black people but who don’t understand the underlying value of equality under the law in society, and thus don’t see any connection between the struggles of that time and the struggles of trans people today. That through-line is not abundantly clear to as many people as we hope.
That’s what I mean when I say that I think people don’t know what our values are. I also think a lot of people don’t think about their values at all. They might know who’s in our coalition…. but that’s not the same thing.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: I’m starting to think that, if we ever do get into power again, that a renewed voting rights act has to get passed – *and* that you need to take a civics literacy test every few years to qualify to vote. Just like you have to take a driver’s test to keep your driver’s license.
Le sigh. Listen to me advocating literacy tests for voters. Like that didn’t have a poisoned history. (however, the thought of some white MAGAt having to take it and howling in outrage does make me smile.)
satby
@mrmoshpotato: indeed! The other one that goes directly to Phoenix (Maricopa) doesn’t run every day, and since I have to take a bus either way I chose SW Chief and Greyhound from Flagstaff to Phoenix/ Tempe.
Joey Maloney
@sab: ” Heck no, my sister whored half of ’em!” is the punchline to a joke that just delighted me in 5th grade.”
satby
@Miss Bianca: it is appalling how poorly informed the general public, and especially the MAGA contingent is about how their government works. Just like with vaccines, success has bred ignorance, apathy and now disaster.
TBone
@rebelsdad:
@prostratedragon:
Thank you for the respite replies! I am scattered between chores and too much other stuff to do and I appreciate each MOMENT these days – a lesson relearned and desperately needed!
suzanne
@Miss Bianca: From what I observe, I think many people — maybe most — don’t think about values with respect to political life at all. Like, it’s just about forwarding interests to them. Money for this program, money for that program. They think everything the government does is transactional and self-interested, because that’s how they’re used to looking at life. It’s a symptom of extreme individualism. to go through life only looking out for oneself, to the point that you don’t develop a moral imagination of other people or of collective interests.
But that’s what I mean when I disagree with Glory B about many people not knowing what our values are. The people I’m talking about usually don’t even have an idea about what it means to stand for something. To have values and things you believe in that would lead you to behave in a way that doesn’t forward one’s self-interest.
TBone
@Professor Bigfoot: meant to say aye! Good mornin’ matey, avast! Ahoy!
TBone
@Joey Maloney: are you a fellow Phillyian?
TBone
@suzanne: I almost HAFTA slap the stoopid out of some people. Thank Gawd that the Communion wine is at the Church!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@satby:
By design. 40 years of slowly strangling public education by the right wing.
Two, possibly three or more generations of people who lack critical thinking skills are signing in, signing up … and voting. Or worse, running for office.
Joey Maloney
@TBone: Lived in Bucks County until high school, does that count?
satby
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: And not just public education, but also public discussion as moderated and promoted by our media. And not just news media, but entertainment and mass publishing (like magazines).
TBone
@Joey Maloney: absofuckinlutely!
TBone
@prostratedragon: I meant to THANK YOU earlier than right now
Mo MacArbie
@suzanne:
Dead thread, but this is one of my current peeves. “Dollars to donuts” refers to lopsided betting odds. You are so confident in your position that you will bet your dollars against something that cost—I don’t know, a dime a dozen?—way back when.
Today, dollars to donuts is even money.
Kayla Rudbek
@AM in NC: oh, I like this. And since it’s easily removable, it’s not vandalism (maybe littering at worst).
Kayla Rudbek
@AM in NC: oh, I like this. And since it’s easily removable, it’s not vandalism (maybe littering at worst).
Kayla Rudbek
@Miss Bianca: test can be administered verbally and/or answered verbally as long as it’s on the record, in my opinion. And no cheating either!
Chris T.
@Mo MacArbie:
Not sure where you’re getting your donuts, but the really good ones here are $3 or more each. ($30 if it has egg custard. OK, not really, but soon!)