RT @BofA_Community Thnk our troops in Times Sq. Use #troopthanks. You could be on our billboard before #MemorialDay | pic.twitter.com/qgGfrH4EbY
— Sam Knight (@samknight1) May 26, 2014
Also, thanks to commentor Trollhattan for a Richard Thompson song I’d missed:
Anybody got some news that doesn’t make one despair for humanity?
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
Every time I recalibrate my irony meter, something like this sends it back to 11.
dms
This. A thousand times over!
SiubhanDuinne
When there’s a non-Memorial Day open thread, I’ll post an amazing burrito rant I saw earlier. It’s really much too frivolous and, well, inappropriately ranty, to sully this thread or most of the ones downstairs.
p.a.
There was an Islamic Leadership Conference at the Baltimore Convention Ctr. this weekend. Area brewpubs were underwhelmed. But us college lax fans and Cleveland Indian fans picked up the slack.
Schlemizel
No, no I can’t think of song that does not make me despair at the moment.
Here is John Prine singing about a returned vet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl9ZkYViEIs&feature=kp
Iowa Old Lady
This is a very sweet story about a goat who missed his best friend, a burro, and was reunited. http://linkis.com/www.care2.com/causes/jtvii
J.Ty
My dad just ran the Bolder Boulder in honor of great uncle Donald, who died at Normandy when he was a kid (as was Donald, I suppose). They wear big “I’m running in honor of…” shirts that you write it on. Finish line pic made me tear up a bit. Also I’m jealous, the Bolder Boulder is fun!
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady:
Interesting that your story is not about humanity.
J.Ty
@Schlemizel: While we’re at it, “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You into Heaven Anymore” by the same Mr. Prine
Long Tooth
Don’t despair, and here’s one reason why:
A beautiful employee of a local market (whom I hadn’t seen for many moons) looks to be around 7 months pregnant. When I saw her earlier today she looked radiant, absolutely radiant. I’m always awed in the presence of that phenomenon, and certainly was today.
Iowa Old Lady
@Baud: It’s sort of about humanity in that people acted to reunite the two animals. Act locally and all that.
catclub
Yeah, whenever Exxon/Mobil or General Electric advertises its sponsorship of some education initiative I just yell at the TV “Pay your fucking taxes.”
JDM
That’s par for the course when it comes to “supporting the troops”. Mouth a few platitudes, rah-rah any war that comes along, then cut their benefits and pay. And you get to foreclose on their houses afterward. Win-win. Along the way don’t forget to demonize anyone who doesn’t want those soldiers killed, and who doesn’t want to cut those benefits.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady:
Hey, cool. I love interspecies cooperation.
scav
Well, if this is the open thread of despair and general sadness, I’ll add my personal, less monumentous droop about the fire at the Glasgow School of Art, even though it did end far better than it might have. I just love libraries with lots of wood (360deg) and all that with added Mackintosh Arts and Crafts? Sigh.
NIce of companies to outsource their PR and other humanizing facade-building efforts to random crowds. Concentrate on the fleecing personnel.
lamh36
Ugh, I could certainly use a mental health break.
My mom is a bi-polar, diabetic with congestive heart disease. All of which combine to make her say some really hateful, mean and spiteful things. Mental illness is already hard to deal with, but when it’s a family member, it’s one of the hardest things to deal with, it can cause an otherwise loving and endearing person and turn them into someone who says some really hateful, mean and spiteful things.
Sometimes you just have to take a moment and step away from them and let them be and calm down. But it’s def difficult.
I’ve got 4 sisters though, and we’ve all had to deal with mom’s illness in it’s various stages for years, so we have an ingrown support system.
We all just get through her episodes together.
Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, but I am trying to salvage the rest of my day.
Bex
@Iowa Old Lady: This should come with a Kleenex alert.
Tommy
@J.Ty: I recall not long after 9/11. We’re in a Wal-Mart parking lot and there are all these bumper stickers and magnets on cars. My father, who did serve, said:
I’ve heard my father cuss like five times in my life and I am 43. He was pissed off.
NotMax
Not to be depressing, but thus far neglected on this day to post link to Dietrich‘s powerful rendition of Seeger.
Also the conclusion of Oh! What A Lovely War.
Schlemizel
@lamh36:
No, don’t feel bad – come here and unload. Not only do you need a vent – what you are going through is incredibly painful and no amount of understanding the situation will make all the pain go away – but you will find people who will offer you sympathy. Thats not much but its something & sometimes its enough to get you through.
J.Ty
“After the War“, Timothy P. Irving. Uh, spoilers I guess, but it turns out his old war buddy heard the song after it started circulating and called him up and was like “Different Hector Gonzalez, I’m actually still alive”, so a bit of a Streisand Effect nice twist to the story there.
ETA: @Tommy: Nice.
RSA
Not news, but I’ll give it a shot: My wife and I used to have dinner with two veterans from WWII. Ray was in the Army, Walter the Navy. They’d tell us stories, sometimes, about what had happened back then. (For example, Walter was stationed in the Pacific, near Alaska, and his group had to deal with Japanese balloons carrying incendiary devices toward the mainland. Crazy–I’d never heard of fire balloons before.)
One evening Ray said, “Have you ever heard of the Flight of Honor?” He and Walter had apparently been contacted and asked whether they would like to travel to Washington DC to see the National WWII Memorial. He described their trip, with some pomp and circumstance on a tour in DC, and I could tell that he was pleased and maybe even a tiny bit proud of the experience.
It turns out there’s a non-profit organization, about ten years old, with the sole purpose of flying veterans to DC to visit the memorials of their war. They favor more senior vets, because time is growing short for them. I’m happy to know there are such things happening today and people making them happen.
Schlemizel
@J.Ty:
I do like Mr. Prine.
I’m trying to convince Mrs. S to sing “In Spite Of Ourselves” on our 50th, in 2024. Neither of us can carry a note in a bucket but its a song that would make allowances for that
Tommy
@lamh36: Not sure I’ve heard these three things in a single sentence:
I wish I had something “smart” to say, but alas I got nothing. That is horrible.
NotMax
@RSA
IIRC (memory is increasingly a tricky devil) at least one of those balloons managed to make it as far inland as Colorado.
The Fat Kate Middleton
From my four year old darling, as I walked her to the car: “This was the best day of my life, Gwamma. Please don’t ever die!”
J.Ty
@Schlemizel: Haha, nice. The other mister and I don’t agree about country/folk, so that wouldn’t be in the cards, but cool idea!
I saw him live at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass a few years back. Right after Patti Smith iirc. Steve Martin was there one time too, that was cool.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@lamh36:
I will keep you in my thoughts. Thank you for sharing your very difficult situation with us.
Sir Laffs-a-Lot
No pictures of sock clad Cole feet encased insandals.
Tommy
@RSA: One of the most amazing things ever, was a Vietnam Vet taking me to Rolling Thunder in DC (were we lived). It is hard to put to words how amazing it was. To talk to somebody, and I got the “in” cause I was with a Vet, drinking out of a 40 in a paper bag, well I can’t really explain.
Iowa Old Lady
@lamh36: That’s tough. It’s like losing someone you love repeatedly over time. I admire your courage.
Suzanne
In addition to everything else that happened this weekend, Spawn the Younger just fingerpainted her door with the contents of her diaper.
J.Ty
@lamh36: My mom and siblings had to go through something maybe not similar, but still shitty. Grandma has Alzheimer’s. It’s really hard. I’m sorry to hear you’re going through that with your mother.
RSA
@lamh36: I wish you the best, and I hope that you have enough patience and love and support to get through. Dealing with irrationality is hard, especially in someone you know really well–it’s as if the past doesn’t matter, or as if it’s only the bad parts that matter. Have a good evening break, at least.
JPL
@lamh36: Please don’t be sorry for sharing your woes. This is Balloon Juice.. Please take care and take a break but post pics of that beautiful niece of yours.
RSA
@NotMax:
Wow. That’s comic book villain stuff, isn’t it?
@Tommy: Good times, I’m thinking.
Schlemizel
Back in the mid 90s I was flying from SF to Mpls. I noticed an older guy wearing a 3rd armor cap. Since he was in a row alone I slid over and asked if he minded but was he with Patton in Europe. Turned out he had been and we spent a fun hour with him telling funny stories and me asking questions. I had read that they were required to wear ties even in combat & he confirmed that story (Patton was nuts). I mentioned the nickname “old blood and guts” and he laughed “Yeah, his guts but our blood!”. After a bit I said I didn’t want to take all his time but I appreciated hearing his stories. I also shook his hand and said The I wanted to thank him for what he did and the country owe him for that. He said nobody had ever said that to him before & thanked me. He seemed genuinely please. That made me feel good.
JPL
@Schlemizel: What a nice story. My dad was at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed and I did not know until I was in high school. His brothers fought in Europe and there was a big game of one upmanship. My father was a retired navy commander but he never won those stories. I’m not sure he cared.
I really enjoyed all their stories but it was years later that I realized what my dad did.
Suzanne
@lamh36: Hugs to you. Unload all you want. I understand.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@Schlemizel: Beautiful story. Thank you for sharing.
Mandalay
Well I never thought that the German legal system would cheer me up, but this really looks like a step in the right direction:
I’m sure lawyers will come up with a gazillion reasons why this approach cannot and must not be allowed to happen here, but damn, that just seems so appropriate, fair and reasonable.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@lamh36: Caregiving is hard, and with mental illness it’s twice as rough. Glad the sisters are supportive.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@The Fat Kate Middleton: I’d follow the kid’s orders if I were you.
Ruckus
@lamh36:
Plenty of virtual shoulders here.
Plenty of people with experience caring for people with issues. Grandmother lived with us with dementia. Both parents had Alzheimer’s. None of it is easy, especially when it’s you involved. A good friend told me about his mom with Alzheimer’s when my dad was getting towards the end and it helped to know what to expect and that others had gone through it.
Lay it on. We’ll buffer for you.
Schlemizel
Since I bitched about the MLB yahoos earlier I was glad to see this tweet:
Old Hoss Radbourn @OldHossRadbourn
I held my wounded sergeant in my arms. “Fret not,” he whispered. “I am dying. . .and MLB will honor me with $20 patriotic camouflage caps.”
Dads family were mostly Marines, visited all those lovely Pacific Islands in the early ’40s. They were very old before they did much more than joke about things. One I remember from Iwo Jima involved a lunch break in a crater being interrupted by a Japanese soldier with a grenade. The thing went off early & the only damage was that the guy holding it was sprayed across the lunch. His rear end ended up in one guys lap & they all thought that was hilarious & laughed themselves sick over it. Yeah, none of them was ‘right’ as far as I could tell – I can’t imagine why.
rikyrah
Anti-woman website predicts more Elliott Rogers if society doesn’t provide them with sex
By Tom Boggioni Sunday, May 25, 2014 22:42 EDT
A website popular with the online Pick-up Artist community responded to Elliott Rodger’s murderous Santa Barbara rampage, saying it could have been avoided if Rodger had ‘game,’ like they profess to possess, before concluding that “more people will die” unless society provides men with more “sexual options.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/25/anti-woman-website-predicts-more-elliott-rogers-if-society-doesnt-provide-them-with-sex/
NotMax
Basic statistics on American wars graphed.
Tommy
@RSA: Yes it was. Amazing times. I was born in 1969. At the time many of them where being drafted and deployed. They liked to talk about it. Well not really, but with other vets around they’d open up.
Maybe the only women I’ve loved was a vet from the first Gulf War. Loved her and she had terrible things to say. Things that pained her to the point I wasn’t mature enough at the time to deal with it. Later what I’d hear from these vets was like a factor of 100 times worse.
The Pale Scot
Well, on the downside my polka junkie neighbor/landlord Ivan and his wife are deaf. I just spent 2 hours hours taking their bedroom apart looking for her hearing aid. Which was screaming incessantly like a cricket but I couldn’t find it until I brought my canister vac in to suck away the layers of dust.
On the upside my neighbor/landlord Ivan and is wife are deaf which means I’m having a martini and blasting DP Made in Japan at 11.
Ivan showed me a photo of his elementary class that gathers every Memorial Day at the Dover Ohio observances. There’s like 25 WW2 vets in it, out one elementary class of a very rural area.
Fuck
JPL
I am a member of five siblings born either in Norfolk or San Diego spread out between wars. My older brother is fifteen years older and is now retired from the Air Force and another brother is retired from the Army. Long story short my dad retired when I was seven. As a child I loved going to Virginia Beach and all these young navy men would buy me treats. In my thirties, my sister burst my bubble when I said don’t you remember how much fun that was and all these sailors would buy us ice cream. She said “you dumb ass, dad was there boss”.
We also went to Catholic schools and I loved the monsignor because he would transfer the bad nuns to the home for bad nuns. The same conversation she burst that bubble. I was naive what can I say. I’m still pissed at her.. haha
The Pale Scot
Oh, and while I was cleaning I found a Tennessee Ernie Ford gospel vinyl album with sheet music.
And Barry Manilow II,
no ones perfect.
Elizabelle
@lamh36:
A hug to a favorite Balloon Juicer.
Quite the trifecta. Very glad you have your sisters on your side; they’re invaluable in situations like this.
Tell us all about it, anytime you need.
NotMax
@The Pale Scot
Something always subconsciously knew, but the magnitude of the effect of deployment in WW2 (and of women entering the labor force) was made stark by a mention in a history and compendium of the institution which one of my colleges recently sent to all alumni.
Normally the campus had a 50/50 split of men and women students, more or less.
In 1944, total students (all four years’ classes): 360 women, 75 men.
The Pale Scot
@lamh36: Peace be upon her, family with strokes an dementia, yea, a lot of us are in that cue nowadays.
Tommy
@JPL: Oh a military brat. Know that. I recall in high school. A speech class. I was asked to give a speech about what shaped my life. I said I had moved a lot. That I learned at an early age friends were cool, but hard to find. So I learned how to just walk up to random people when we moved and say:
I can admend that to say I’ve done it a lot since then. That walking across the room to talk to this person or that person, well something I am used to. If they reject me, so be it. But I’ve found “Hi my name is Tommy” works well as an intro.
I got an A for that speech and like to think at some levels it opened up the rest of my life for myself.
JPL
@Tommy: I didn’t know I was a military brat though.
Tommy
@JPL: And I didn’t either. My father was in fact Civil Service. So we never lived on a base. Out in the “public.” Made going place to place a lot harder.
Anne Laurie
@lamh36: You have earned the right to vent, sister. My mom, long since deceased, had the same issues. Except I was the kid she never got along with, so the hard work fell on my siblings, especially my two youngest brothers. All you can do is enjoy the “good” episodes, while you can, and try not to over-invest during the bad spells. Glad you have your sister-network to help, and you’ll be in my prayers…
gbear
@The Pale Scot: Was the Tennessee Ernie Ford album ‘Sacred Songs’? That was my dad’s favorite record when I was a little kid, but I always thought the title was ‘Scared Songs’.
scav
@rikyrah: Why don’t the PUAs take up their needs for sexual submissives on-tap on-demand with the Daddies Dating Daughters crowd that is trying to (re-)impose an even bigger bottleneck on supply? On the upside, the latter are probably raising the adoring passive types the former most prefer. Downside should be obvious. As should be the Amusingside.
Tommy
@Anne Laurie: Hard thing to care for another. My mother cared for my father’s dad. He openly hated her. And by open I mean I knew it at like 10. She just wasn’t good enough for their son. I should at this point note my mom is a fucking rock star.
I wonder if he got in his last days my mother was there for him 24/7.
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
All I can say is, hard as it will be, try really hard to make allowances and not take anything she says to heart right now, even if it’s hurtful in the moment. It will help you remember her more kindly later on.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: Good thoughts for you, your sisters, and your mom.
ulee
“Not to be all stalkerish..” Worst pickup line ever. But at least he tried.
Central Planning
My dad was a Navy medic in Vietnam and would tell me of the constant terror he lived in while over there.
On the other hand, he would tell me stories from over there that make me think he served with Joseph Heller. Catch-22 (I know, WW2) seems more like a documentary than a piece of fiction.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
Fox has the B team on duty today. Nothing on their front page about White House blowing the cover of the CIA station chief in Afghanistan. CNN has it in 35 pt font…
Belafon
@Mandalay: I could see that being ruled more on the lines of being property of both parties since they were in a personal relationship, rather than a business relationship. Therefore what is to be done with the pictures would either have to be agreed to by both parties or decided by the courts. I am not a lawyer either, so I don’t know how it would work out exactly.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@rikyrah: That article quoting the “pickup artist” is, um, very enlightening. So women are supposed to provide sex on demand for any man who wants it…and we’re supposed to be virgins when we settle down with that “nice guy?”
I’m sure it’s just my dim little ladybrain, but I’m not seeing how that works.
Elizabelle
@Tommy:
Not hard to imagine that scenario. Your mom is even more a rock star!
Roger Moore
@RSA:
It was desperation. They obviously didn’t have the wherewithal to attack CONUS with any kind of conventional force, but they wanted to do something. One of the things they did was to try sending incendiaries by long-range balloon with the idea that they’d spark forest fires. Some of them might even have succeeded, but they’d still be a drop in the bucket compared to forest fires started by natural causes.
scav
@Roger Moore: To be fair, the US had an incendiary bat bomb program and burnt at least part of our own military camps with an errant release. At least we didn’t expect the bats to find their own way to Japan though.
Botsplainer
@RSA:
I knew a guy from my Antiochian Orthodox parish (we’re about 55% Lenanese, the rest tending to be a mix of Russians, angry Greeks that refused their own parish due to sullen feuds and Ethiopians). He spoke only a smattering of English, and was from some Godzilla-forsaken village somewhere in the border between Russia and Ukraine, and was possibly one of the gentlest, happiest, kindliest men I ever knew.
What I didn’t know until he died was what a badass he was. He’d slogged through the entire war in the service of the glorious and gallant forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, gotten lucky enough to be on the American side of the lines at the end and wasn’t returned. The US Army was good at recognizing badasses, put a uniform on him and stuck him with a ski unit in Korea, where he ultimately saw heavy action.
I wish I’d known he was Red Army; his war story wouldn’t have involved pranks at the mess hall.
Roger Moore
@Schlemizel:
My grandfather never talked very much about his service (WWII, artillery, Normandy through VE Day) until at least 50 years later. Finally, his division published a book about their experience during the war, which prompted him to write his own memoirs. They were mostly about the people he knew and what they were like, but they inevitably included stories about what they were doing, and that included some really disturbing stuff. I still can’t shake his description of the battlefield after Falaise Gap, which he described as being so full of bodies that he could have walked for miles without stepping on anything but corpses. It’s hard to see how you could ever be entirely sane after an experience like that, especially knowing that you had played a role in creating that horror.
PurpleGirl
@The Pale Scot: I don’t care for Barry Mainlow but the Tennessee Ernie Ford vinyl is a gem. I don’t particularly like gospel but his voice is amazing and any thing he sings is worth listening too.
YellowJournalism
@lamh36: You need a hug, a big bowl of popcorn, and someone to give you a break to watch a comfort movie. Rant to all of us for now.
Mike G
@Roger Moore:
About 300 Japanese “fire balloons” were found In North America. News was kept secret so as not to alarm civilians. They were not successful at causing any significant forest fires. They were found as far away as Michigan. One was found in Finland. A few were not located until the 1960s.
They were responsible for the only US-mainland civilian deaths of WW2 due to enemy action. A pastor and some children found a balloon in a forest in Oregon and it exploded, killing six.
The Pale Scot
@gbear:
I think so, I’m going to take another look after I stop hacking up dust balls
gene108
@lamh36:
Hugs.
I hope things get better for you soon.