For me, I think the truest thing I’ve seen this week is this, from Tim Walz:
If you say you love freedom but you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.
Walz: If you say you love freedom but you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love is not freedom, it is privilege. pic.twitter.com/NldCYoB3xA
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 24, 2025
How about you guys?
The Civics Center / PA Supreme Court Effort – 6x Matching!
Baud
My mirror.
ETA: You broke the blog.
Baud
Lots of good Walz content on Reddit. I’m glad to see his efforts are getting exposure.
RevRick
The $12,000 I laid out yesterday for a down payment on our son’s new used EV. The Third annual UCC Climate Summit this afternoon. The Earth Day sermon I will preach tomorrow that I have just started on in my typical procrastinating style. The meatloaf we’re having for dinner.
WaterGirl
@RevRick: Guess you didn’t like the premise of the post?
Delicate Butterfly
Gosh this is so true. As someone who has been active int eh polyamory community for years, I have been so disappointed about how practically no politicians speak up for me and my family. No democrat who has a national presence has ever even said the word polyamory in a speech. My lovers in my throuple are ineligible for federal and state benefits from one another’s jobs. There is no, and I mean zero, protections from discrimination for us. I could go on and on.
This is what we live with every day.
UncleEbeneezer
“Chicago is just Mississippi with skyscrapers” -Sinners
Baud
@WaterGirl:
There’s an open thread tag.
robtrim
Darn, did someone mention meatloaf?
Someone in the financial world on Wall Street said something true this week, but it was drowned out by a cacophony of b.s. and self-serving rhetoric that made me sick.
Gloria DryGarden
That you have survived 100% of all the bad days and bad things that you’ve experienced.
( of course skipping over any consequences and residual damage)
Also, that trees and lilacs and bulbs bloom in spring in a variety of bright colors and some fragrance. (I’ll take what I can get)
eta thank you for todays picture, the wave at the beach, it is wonderful.
Betty Cracker
I don’t know that it’s the truest thing I’ve seen or read all week, but this sentence about “manosphere” podcaster nihilism rings true:
Read in The Atlantic, of all places!
sab
@RevRick: I gave our stepson the old house when we moved. He finally has a house in the neighorhood he grew up in. If he pays his real estate taxes ( much less than rent, of course) he may get to move himself and his girfriend on to a normal middle class life where every economic downturn doesn’t make you homeless.
Girlfriend has been on her own since her mother died of cancer when grlfriend was sixteen.
Life isn’t fair and most struggling people are not bums or drug addicts. Just didn’t have a privileged start in life.
different-church-lady
It’s not privilege either: it’s dominance.
Professor Bigfoot
I’m gonna have to agree with you, WG. That’s for damn sure the smartest, wisest thing I’ve heard this week.
Since this is an open thread: I got political mail today hammering one of the Democratic candidates for city council at-large positions for being corrupt— it has all the earmarks of sleazy GOP ratfucking.
Here’s the thing tho— it’s from “United for a Better Ohio,” and gives an address in a nearby town (26 miles away.) According to Google Maps, it’s a single family house; and according to voter registrations it’s owned by a registered Democrat.
I can find no reference for a group called “United for a Better Ohio.”
How does one go about digging these rats out of their holes?
Harrison Wesley
@Betty Cracker: Nihilist luxury!
prostratedragon
@UncleEbeneezer: So they’ve been here.
(Actually, if they mean the city at large and not just the very Mississippi Great Migration population, MS is not nearly Catholic enough to get the full flavor. Still, not bad.) Going to see the movie this week.
zhena gogolia
The Walz clip is right up there!
It’s just so clear and forceful. Freedom!
WaterGirl
@Baud: RevRick appeared to be listing things. Not just making a random comment about whatever. He’s a thoughtful guy so I assumed he was sort of responding to the question that was posed.
Also, even if something is an open thread, does it make sense for the first 5 or 10 comments to be totally unrelated to the topic? I don’t think so. Unless the post title is some form of “Open Thread”.
oldgold
Harry Bosch: “Everybody counts, or nobody counts”
WaterGirl
@robtrim: Do you remember what was said, even if it was drowned out?
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: That’s a great quote! A lot of self-awareness there.
robtrim
@WaterGirl: Something about buy low, sell high!
UncleEbeneezer
@Delicate Butterfly: Even very liberal/progressive spaces are distressingly stuck in traditional, small-c conservative views on sexuality, kink, and relationships. It’s depressing.
WaterGirl
@Professor Bigfoot:
You say that as if that might be a shocking thing that has never happened before! :-)
different-church-lady
@UncleEbeneezer: What if my kink is kink-shaming?
WaterGirl
@Professor Bigfoot:
Boy, I have no idea. Was it addressed directly to you at your email? Were there other recipients?
different-church-lady
@WaterGirl: The Professor could have just started there and it all would have gone a lot smoother.
WaterGirl
@oldgold: Yes! I love that.
I am so sad that this is the last season. I am waiting to watch it until the last episode is released, and I haven’t checked to see if that has happened yet.
UncleEbeneezer
@prostratedragon: Enjoy. Amazing film that will move your soul. The music/score alone is worth the price of admission.
zhena gogolia
@UncleEbeneezer: Delicate Butterfly is, unfortunately, being “satiric.”
They Call Me Noni
When the law does not apply to lawmakers you are not being governed. You are being ruled.
Read it on a yard flag when shopping on Etsy.
WaterGirl
@They Call Me Noni:
Truth.
robtrim
@robtrim: I’m being facetious. Our capitalist betters have corrupted society so completely that reform is an outlier. Lies are the coin of the realm.
WaterGirl
I am still watching all the great Buttigieg clips that are on Hullabaloo. Just one more. I’m gonna have to find a link to the entire 3-hour show.
I also loved her commentary after the clips.
Preach!
WaterGirl
@robtrim: Ha!
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Is this what gave it away?
TF79
@Professor Bigfoot: google search turns up absolutely nothing for “United for a Better Ohio,” so clearly some sort of shell operation. If it’s sent through the mail, was the postage paid or waived or was it hand stamped? I don’t know the rules regarding the USPS and political adverts, but presumably they aren’t delivering it for free, which means presumably they have to register somewhere as an entity…
scav
True: in accordance with facts or reality. Or, as a verb: bring (an object, wheel, or other construction) into the exact shape, alignment, or position required. I can see in these times, especially in this warped, pervasive and frankly exhausting environment, finding the stablest, most reliable and most unabashedly real thing to be a sandwich. (Or a weed in my exact case. A pile of mulch. It needs to get from here to there.) Peoples’ words? Inspiring? Absolutely. Aspirational? Yup? An exact description of where we stand now? ahhhh. Closer to the verb end of things, something we need to do, to fix, to bring into balence.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I didn’t realize there were different types of open thread. I’ll try to remember.
robtrim
@Baud: Life is an open thread,
lowtechcyclist
@UncleEbeneezer:
You may be right about that, but the absence of legal protections against discrimination for polyamorous people isn’t exactly evidence of that.
There are a very small number of protected classes, and they have been so defined because the need they had for protection against discrimination was pretty obvious. If you’re being discriminated against for reasons other than your being in one of those classes, yes, you’re SOL.
If I were working in the private sector, I could be fired because I crack a lot of bad puns, since punsters aren’t a protected class. No recourse at all! But that’s just life: whatever discrimination we punsters encounter isn’t severe enough to warrant protection. My WAG is that the same is true for polyamorous people, though I’m open to evidence to the contrary.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: More like what one scholar calls “the irony of origins,” or in plainer terms, “consider the source.”
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Some people (NotMax, for ex.) will wait patiently for an open thread to comment of ephemera that was not appropriate other threads. Exactly how many comments should one wait before going rogue in a themed open thread? It’s not in Emily Post.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Betty Cracker: I hate the manosphere. We have some very good friends here in the DC area who are pretty sure their son voted for Trump. She’s a progressive woman, he’s a New Jersey (suburban NYC) Jew and they’ve raised the kid culturally Jewish but the manosphere. I even told the kid I might lose my job as a Fed if that butthead gets elected but I’m not sure it made a difference.
He’s an OK kid but pretty unmotivated except for sports. No extra curriculars, certainly not a job but he’s graduating from high school this spring so that’s not all that unusual. May be going to Arizona State next year because he didn’t get in to most of his top choices for college. They’re pretty sure he has a fake ID and is going to bars on the weekends.
Meanwhile his younger sister by 2 years whose going into her sophomore year in high school has lined up a physical therapy internship for herself this summer. Yet I’m sure when his sister laps him on the career track it’ll all because the system totally screws white males because the manosphere tells them so.
But it’s really that nothing really matters for upper middle class white guys because they’re comfortable and insulated from worry and to some extent consequence. So why just goof off? Worked for SCOTUS “I like beer” ok.
On one level I do worry about men and boys, especially boys, who are falling behind on a lot of metrics and can’t be considered fully autonomous until adulthood. So the system is failing them in some ways and something should be done about. But a lot of for current male adults seems to expecting things to be handed to them on a platter even if they just goof off all the time and that’s not a realistic expectation.
UncleEbeneezer
@different-church-lady: Plenty of people are into that.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Really? I am surprised. You see no difference between a thread about impeachment that has an open threads tag and a thread that says Saturday Night Open Thread?
Serious question, not trying to start an argument.
UncleEbeneezer
@lowtechcyclist: Cracking bad puns at work can at least be viewed as something relevant to how you do the job. Having a non-traditional relationship doesn’t have fuck all to do with job performance. But it’s very much something people have to hide from employers (like many LGBTQ people still do). And I can easily seeing Trump/Republicans trying to find ways to weaponize DOJ against them.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
The substantive post might engender on topic comments, but in terms of commenting norms, I don’t see a difference.
I try to honor whatever an OP asks for. But if there’s no caveat, then I feel free to say anything.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Clearly Emily Post needs to be updated!
WaterGirl
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Sadly, for white males, that’s a more realistic expectation than it has a right to be.
NotMax
Week isn’t over yet.
Like Micawber, I expect something to turn up any time now.
;)
no body no name
I’m not shocked the manosphere interview went well. The manosphere is not what most here claim it to be.
lowtechcyclist
@UncleEbeneezer:
‘Hide’ in what sense? It’s not like it’s something they can look at you and see unless you cover it up.
Again, I’m open to evidence that polyamorous people experience sufficient discrimination that they should be a protected class. Just that I’ve known a few along the way, and they’ve never mentioned its being an issue for them.
@UncleEbeneezer:
They’re trying to find ways to weaponize the government against anyone who isn’t white, male, straight, Christian, pro-Trump, etc. Line forms on the right.
Omnes Omnibus
@no body no name: Educate us then.
WaterGirl
@no body no name: Please say more.
edit: I see that Omnes and I both had the same idea.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Be afraid. Be very afraid.
WTFGhost
Re: “it’s not freedom, it’s privilege, you defend:”
I remember making a similar point, thinking about Gitmo. We had Republicans – probably Inhofe, stupid, and evil – bragging that the menu options served to them sounded good. Because everyone knows that “freedom” is nothing compared to a meal with a good-sounding food description, served by military cooks, who have never been known for serving slop, with a good sounding name, to our brave men and women in uniform, except for most days ending in a “Y”.
@WaterGirl: It depends on what urge I have to speak my mind, when I see “open thread”. If it’s a “here are pictures” open thread, I’m less likely to go serious or dark, but if there’s “impeachable offenses” that fits with my general grumpiness.
@different-church-lady: That’s okay, so long as you’re only kinky with kinksters giving informed consent. Shame them for their kinks! “How dare you like being tickled with an ostrich feather! Don’t you realize how destructive that is to modern feminism?”
“But… we’re both gay. Men. Gay men!”
“How DARE you QUESTION me? You’re getting whipped for your insolence!’
“Oh, please, no, not the whip!”
@Delicate Butterfly: Sad, but, what can you do, besides blame the Mormons and engage in genocide in the state of Utah, which would be universally condemned by all decent people, and more than a few members of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints?
Okay, there are probably constructive things you could do, instead, but, still, those Mormons, getting “poly” everything outlawed.
prostratedragon
Having heard so much this week, I find it hard to isolate. Tim Walz’s statement, which I had heard before, will do; unfortunately, too long for a headline tag. Here’s a runner up, which says something I’ve felt since Newt took to basking in the sun:
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: I’m so old I can remember when every thread was open.
Professor Bigfoot
@TF79: I assumed there has to be some sort of rules about that. The postage square reads:
PRSRT STD.
US POSTAGE
PAID
Cleveland, OH
Permit #810
Perhaps there’s a way to search on that permit number.
Gin & Tonic
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: This dude you’re speaking of has parents. Sounds like they haven’t done their job.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I consider that being in good company!
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: They all are, eventually!
zhena gogolia
@prostratedragon: Very true.
no body no name
@Omnes Omnibus:
A lot of these guys aren’t political. At all really. When I’m at the gym it’s mostly dudes talking about UFOs or lion vs grizzly. They give people a fair shot as a general rule. It’s very approachable and easy.
As long as you don’t show up and scream at the top of your lungs like people here do “let me tell you why cutting social security is not as bad as not transitioning 12 year old trans kids” it’s going to go OK.
The manosphere is also racially, religiously, and sexually diverse. It’s not fat white men in their 40s or young white ugly incels. That’s so far off base I think we lie to ourselves that it’s that to feel better. I think we constantly lie to ourselves about people who aren’t us. It’s a wild place. This is a group of people that loved Crockett dunking on MTG and praised AOC for gaming on stream while tanking Elon Musk for cheating at games.
I don’t want to relitigate 2024 but I do think Harris should have gone on Rogan. Yeah sure telling a VP to come to you is rude but that’s how these things go. The rules have changed. Showing up to stone hour with Rogan and also Hot Ones would have done a world of good. Like it or not we don’t get to in the issues we want or the way we want. We need to shut up about them and go with what works. Or we can lose. Forever.
Scott
In a similar vein: You can’t say you love America when you hate most Americans.
H.E.Wolf
For “true-est thing”, I want to thank Miki for a comment yesterday, pointing out that I’m fortunate to be able to stock up on household items before I need them; and that lots of us are not in a position to do that. I appreciated the reminder!
RevRick
@WaterGirl: I apologize for transgressing the premise of this post. I thought I was, in fact, honoring it, though somewhat obliquely, because little this past week has been more real for me than the 12 grand, or learning how to advocate for dealing with climate change, or dealing with a pressing deadline. And Katherine Hayhoe, the keynoter at the Earth Summit, gave some incredible suggestions.
But again, I apologize and will try to be more mindful.
WaterGirl
@RevRick: No, no, no. :-)
At first I thought you were answering, but the “meatloaf” threw me, so I thought maybe you were mocking the premise.
So I asked the question. I did not mean for it to come off as scolding.
Maybe I need to lock myself in my room this weekend and not talk to anyone until I get it together.
:-)
frosty
deleted
RevRick
@WaterGirl: This is an example of how easy it is for people to talk past one another on the internet. The meatloaf comment was meant to be playful. Alas, it fell flat…badly.
Please do not lock yourself in a room. Flowers are blooming. Because you do such a great job of tilling and keeping the garden that is this website.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@no body no name:
She. Did. She reached out to him; he was the one who didn’t bring her on.
People keep bringing this up and they keep getting corrected.
Kayla Rudbek
@They Call Me Noni: now that’s something that would be great to embroider or cross stitch!
The Nameless One
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: Isn’t there more to it? Harris wanted to do an interview on a Friday when she was in his vicinity. Rogan said it was his day off. Then he cancelled his day off and interviewed Trump and later claimed he could interview Harris as long as she took a 3(?) hour flight to go to him.
Seems a clear case of rodent fornication on Rogan’s part