Yeah, we’re becoming a pets, wildlife and home improvement blog. Here’s a gorgeous female merganser flawlessly pulling off a ‘do most humans would do well to avoid:
There’s a lot of shit happening in the world that would normally make for blog fodder:
1) Trump’s pissing contest with the planet’s other nuclear-armed narcissist with absurd hair.
2) The fact that public outrage caused the GOP House to back off its bid to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics — and the shitty Beltway media is giving Trump credit for it.
3) Megyn Kelly’s migration from Fox to NBC, which isn’t a good sign for those of us who’d rather have all our New Black Panther Party / Black Santa hysterics at a single network.
4) The Keith Ellison vs. Tom Perez contest for the DNC chairmanship has become a BernieBro vs. HillBot proxy war. (Yay! I missed those!)
5) Bill and Hillary Clinton will attend the human shit stain’s inauguration, presumably after being assured that the Trumpenproletariat mob won’t rise up and jail them…or worse.
I could go on. But honestly, I don’t have a coherent thought about any of these topics unless “BLAAAARRRGH!!!” or “Fuuuuuuck!!!” count. So, birds it is. Open thread!
PS: Bald eagle nest cam live stream here — feeding in progress!
The Moar You Know
Given the rhetoric coming from Twitler and his goons, that’s a really bad idea. If my last name were “Clinton”, I’d be out of the country by now at my house in a newly adopted nation of residence/citizenship.
ETA: Dems showing up legitimizes him. The Dem party simply doesn’t get it. I don’t think they’re going to until they’re formally outlawed (see next stage, NC, 2017). And probably not even then. Dems need to drop clear out of the process. No votes, no appearances with Orange Hitler, nothing.
trollhattan
Spouse and spawn will be marching on the state capitol, Saturday the 21st. Proud of them.
p.a.
@The Moar You Know: Yes, agreed. Really a WTF? moment. Is it that living former Presidents always go? So Hillary not joining her husband would look like sour grapes? Hil should stay away, and if questioned take a page from a former co-worker of mine who had multiple DILLIGAF t shirts to wear. It stands for: Do I Look Like I Give A Fuck.
brendancalling
He’s up on the roof with his boids. He keeps boids.
Got off of work a little early, learning some tunes for a rockabilly gig with this cat scheduled for January 28…
O. Felix Culpa
Maybe Bill and Hillary are attending to show that, unlike the orange buffoon, they have dignity and class and they aren’t a-scared of him. Better than hiding out and looking like sore losers, which orangeymandias would surely claim. Frankly, they’re in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t position, and I think they chose the better and more courageous course.
In other news, the Resistance has begun: the NAACP occupies Jeff Sessions’ Alabama office to protest his nomination.
Spanky
So does Megyn Kelly’s departure from Fox mean that the post-Ailes Fox is worse than the days when Jolly Roger roamed the halls? Yowza!
Spanky
I hope Hillary shows up in a wheelchair, a la Cheney.
zhena gogolia
@O. Felix Culpa:
Yeah, I can’t get too excited about this.
zhena gogolia
@Spanky:
I hope she gets up and paces around behind him while he’s speaking.
Chris
Not to excuse the shitty Beltway media, but if Trump can be convinced that there’s something in it for him to be seen as pushing back against unpopular proposals from the Republicans in Congress, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Spanky
@zhena gogolia: ROFL! Muttering “nasty, nasty man”
O. Felix Culpa
@The Moar You Know:
As commenters on this topic at LGM noted, Trump is legitimately the President-elect according to the electoral rules in place. Our focus needs to be on delegitimizing and resisting his policies and nominees.
That said, I will not watch one nano-second of the inauguration and will be marching on Jan. 21st. Vive la résistance!
SiubhanDuinne
I’ve been following that eaglecam for several days on FB. I’m not sure how a mother bird sitting on a nest can be so compelling, but I stare at it for 15 minutes at a time, absolutely mesmerized.
@Spanky:
@zhena gogolia:
I wish for both of those things. That would be some must-see teevee right there.
JPL
@O. Felix Culpa: The NYTimes printed a special puzzle section before the holidays, and I saved it. I plan on doing a giant crossword on inauguration day.
Patricia Kayden
@The Moar You Know: And here is Kellyanne gloating about Bill and Hillary falling into line behind Trump.
J.
I’m totally down with the pets-wildlife-home-improvement blog format. Nice pic of the meganser. Looks a little like Don King.
Also, is it just me or do y’all think those bald eagles totally know they are being watched — and are plotting to kill us? (I’m addicted to the eagle cam and have been trying to figure out if I passed that nest when I was in Fort Myers.)
Speaking of plots to kill… I was surprised to read that Bill AND Hill would be at Trump’s inauguration. No good will come of this, at least for Mrs. Rodham Clinton.
japa21
Actually, I think Kelly knows that staying at Fox will never allow her to be considered a legitimate journalist which she desperately wants to be known as. Unfortunately for her, she doesn’t have the skill set to be one. But then again, neither do 95% of the other “journalists” on TV.
Chris
@O. Felix Culpa:
I live in DC, but fuck if I’m going. The odds of it turning into a riot are high enough and I want no part of that shit. (No idea if the first punch would be thrown by Trump’s CREEP analog or by Black Bloc cretins on the other side, though I have a pretty good idea who’d be blamed regardless).
But to be honest, I probably wouldn’t be going anyway. I got sick just in time for the Obama inauguration and didn’t go. The friend who did go told me it was so packed it took her eight hours to fight her way through the crowd to a metro stop.
SenyorDave
I have mixed feelings on Hillary attending. Its hard not to since Bill, as an ex-president, will be there. But it does somewhat legitimize the predator-elect. Somewhat off topic, I would love to see someone senior in Democratic party call out Trump on his birtherism, and specifically mention that it was a racist narrative. Even if Trump weren’t an amoral pig I would hate him for the birther nonsense. The media gave him a pass on it like his other racist shit. He really is as loathsome a person who isn’t in jail as I’ve ever seen. I hope there is karma, and he comes back in his next life as something he so richly deserves. Maybe one of those flies that eats dead animals and shit. Damn, three days into the new year and I already broke my resolution to stop wishing ill on Trump.
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: She was feeding the hatchling just moments ago! That was some must-see ?! Now she’s just sitting, but as you say, also compelling.
bystander
I vote the Clintons sit this one out. I wish Obama didn’t have to be in proximity either, but he has to be. Michelle should phone in her regrets too.
O. Felix Culpa
Actually, those responses seem eminently and coherently apropos to me.
Thanks for the duckie and the eagle cam.
germy
@japa21:
By moving to NBC she joins the Greats, such as Matt Lauer.
Belafon
@Patricia Kayden: That’s a fake account. Hover over the link and you’ll notice the el’s have been replaced with aye’s.
JPL
@Patricia Kayden: ugh
JordanRules
@Patricia Kayden: That’s not her Twitter, but I’m sure she’d agree.
germy
That merganser looks the way I did on November 9th.
Belafon
4) The Keith Ellison vs. Tom Perez contest for the DNC chairmanship has become a BernieBro vs. HillBot proxy war. (Yay! I missed those!)
I really don’t understand this one, but then again, while I was pro-Clinton, I was never “never Bernie”.
Patricia Kayden
@germy: Will be fun when she starts waxing wise on how Jesus and Santa are White guys and other NBC journalists have to smile politely. She’s a race baiter and going to NBC isn’t going to change that.
p.a.
And Gretchen Carlson cohosted the 9am (EST) Today version. Is she a fill-in, or employee? AFN? Ailes Fugitive Network.
germy
@Belafon: There are other candidates for the position we never hear about. Here are all the declared candidates:
Raymond Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party since 2007
Keith Ellison, U.S. Representative from Minnesota since 2007
Thomas Perez, United States Secretary of Labor since 2013
Sally Boynton Brown, Executive Director of the Idaho Democratic Party since 2012
Jaime Harrison, chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party since 2013
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
We’ve made a lot of the resemblance to the rise of the Nazi Party, but today I’m thinking of parallels to something else.
I’ve been rereading a long-ago Roberta Gellis romance set in the French First Republic. (For those unfamiliar with Gellis, she initially started writing because she read a book that seriously fucked up the historical period it was supposedly set in.) The characters are present for the massacre at Abbeye, are part of an “underground railroad” getting Girondists out of France, and I’m now at the point where the Committee of Public Safety has been established.
It’s been an interesting read, to say the least.
dww44
@O. Felix Culpa: Right now I buy into your rationale. I don’t believe the Clinton’s attending lends legitimacy to Trump. It does, however, lend credence and support to long established traditions and political norms.
By golly, though, it’s gotta take some serious cojones for HRC to attend this. I don’t envy her. Maybe the upside for her is her attendance may begin to dispel all those “lack of stamina” arguments we keep hearing from both sides of the divide.
O. Felix Culpa
@JPL:
Oooh, great idea! Exercise the mind and have fun. Avoid giving Donnie eyeballs or mental space, for at least one day.
bystander
@zhena gogolia: In a ridiculous hat.
SenyorDave
@Patricia Kayden: Will be fun when she starts waxing wise on how Jesus and Santa are White guys and other NBC journalists have to smile politely.
That was somehow lost in the shuffle. I remember how incensed she was over the black santa, which gave rise to her great pronouncement that Jesus was as white as the pure driven snow. Should have stayed at Fox, she might have to actually watch herself.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
you peed in the bed now lie in it
A small sliver lining to the rain of shit we’re in for, it’s not gonna be so easy for a lot of people who think Trump’s win was theirs, too.
A Ghost to Most
@SenyorDave:
A yellow-haired dung beetle?
Michael Bersin
Apparently Vicky Hartzler (r) [MO – 4] is one of the few representatives to own up to voting to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics last night. I heard from someone I know who called her office and a staffer tried to spin that “oversight would still be valid.”
StringOnAStick
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ooooh, that tweet pleases me. They really did think putting Chaotic Evil in charge was going to make their lives easier? It is to laugh.
mai naem mobile
The Clintons are incredibly stupid to attend the inauguration and I don’t think either one is stupid. This is normalizing this illegitimate POS and it isn’t going to help you in the future if L’Orange Fuhrer decided to have a Krystallnacht and have you as one of the ‘instigators’ against the Fatherland. Disappointed!
LAC
“Soooooooo disappointed in Clinton, Why oh why is she doing this?” Something tells me that this will not be discussed much here.
Good for her that she is being gracious, even if it is with a shit for brains orange tinged buffoon. I cannot even watch this blight.
O. Felix Culpa
@dww44:
Agreed. She’s one tough lady and the contrast between the amazing, intelligent, accomplished person we should have had as president and who we will get is almost impossible to bear. Damn. Onions in the house again. Excuse me while I sniffle.
Yarrow
Even if former presidents attend inaugurations because that is the custom and the norm, there is even less requirement that spouses attend. Bill can go and Hillary can stay home and the norms will still be observed. There’s zero reason she needs to attend the inauguration of the man who led “Lock her up!” chants.
Do former Secretaries of State or former Senators attend because it’s the norm? No? Then she can stay home. Bill can go.
Michael Bersin
@O. Felix Culpa:
In our small ‘burg we’re bringing an artifact from January 20, 2001 out of retirement for a Funeral for Democracy in front of the county courthouse on the square…
Shana
@trollhattan: Older daughter will be marching on the 21st in downtown DC as will 3 friends of a friend who will be staying in our house although we’ll be out of town. One of them is a friend of my BFF so I feel fairly confident we’ll come back to a standing house.
That Sunday Times puzzle was fun. Not too hard, just took a good long time.
Betty Cracker
@Patricia Kayden: To me, it underscores the wisdom of ignoring TV news — all of it.
mai naem mobile
@p.a.: well I waa thinking that maybe Ailes was taking over NBC but I forgot he’s probably got a very long non compete clause and Kelly and Carlson sure as heck would not be going towards Ailes. Lumpy must be using his pull at NBC to get these people where he wants them.
Shalimar
@germy: Andrea Mitchell. Kelly’s show was announced as afternoons and weekend. Since her Fox show gets more viewers then MSNBC’s entire primetime lineup combined, I assume she asked for afternoons or they are going to be firing someone soon to create a primetime opening.
O. Felix Culpa
@Michael Bersin: Appropriate commentary and gesture of mourning. Good on you!
ETA: Sad that it has to be revived from 2001. I truly thought we had learned our lessons from 2000. I was wrong.
Yarrow
@Shalimar: Still seems like a demotion to me. Afternoon show, not premier evening show. And weekends? Is it MSNBC or NBC itself? MSNBC is big on prison shows on the weekend. Is she replacing that?
germy
Anyone else see those “My Pillow” commercials a hundred times a day, on TV and online?
germy
@Yarrow: Will she have a glass desk?
Jolly Roger insisted on those for his female hosts. Maybe she’ll bring it to NBC. Not sure what their policy is regarding legs.
debbie
@Chris:
That stupid move to castrate the OCE only proves that the real swamp is the GOP. And that it was the very first action taken is the icing on the cake!
Shalimar
@Patricia Kayden: Other MSNBC anchors had Pat Buchanan on their shows when he was promoting his pro-Hitler book on WWII. I think they’re used to worse.
Michael Bersin
@O. Felix Culpa:
I still can’t believe after all these years I’ll still be protesting (or covering) the same shit.
Yarrow
@germy: Some of the hosts on MSNBC have glass desks, don’t they? To be honest, I haven’t watched it in so long I don’t know who’s on it anymore. Not even sure what channel it is.
Betty Cracker
Eaglet is feeding right now!
Starfish
Betty, your pictures have been excellent.
Shalimar
@Yarrow: Seems like a demotion to me, too. It must be a ton of money, or they have made promises beyond what is public now.
zhena gogolia
@JPL:
That’s a great idea! I already did it, unfortunately. Couldn’t resist. And there was a contest to enter by 12/28 (I guess I didn’t win).
Yarrow
@Shalimar: Does she have young kids? If so, maybe she wanted earlier hours to be home with them in the evening. Still think a prime time show is a bigger deal. Daytime shows are more filler.
germy
@Yarrow: Me neither. I get all my news from the eaglet.
zhena gogolia
@SenyorDave:
I made no such resolution.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Nice! Let them whine away; they’re as screwed as the rest of us.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker: Squeee!
zhena gogolia
@dww44:
That’s why the wheelchair is a bad idea, funny as it would be.
cope
@Betty Cracker: I haven’t watched TV news in years except when at my sister-in-law’s house fixing something for her…she is a perpetual TV news watcher though, thankfully, mostly CNN or MSNBS (not much but better than other choices, I know).
I now have serious bird picture/camera envy and am thinking that I need to move up the digital camera ladder (I’m using a Kodak digital with 36X optical zoom that has fallen on hard times). I get a big teacher bonus in the spring and I may make the move then.
Until then, keep the wildlife pics coming.
cope
Timurid
Stop normalizing, dummies!
Betty Cracker
@Starfish: Thank you! All credit goes to my new camera.
@germy: Excellent idea. He or she is tucked in for the night after a blue crab feast, so no more news today.
Chris
@debbie:
“The real swamp is the GOP” has been my stance all along, all the way back to when Trump was just one of their candidates.
He has found a way to distinguish himself from what I think most Republican candidates would’ve done with the blatant Putin fanboyism, but the fact that the GOP by and large has happily excused this (even after suspicions of something as serious as Russia tampering in a U.S. election) as a lesser evil than Hillary’s Emails just means they were basically capable of this all along, it just wasn’t their first choice of crime.
NoraLenderbee
GMAFB. Hill and Bill should spend Jan 20 on a cruise to Tahiti, with no phone, no internet, and no cares.
Yarrow
@zhena gogolia: Maybe she should show up in a “Nasty Woman” t-shirt. Or maybe a uniform with a nameplate that says “Militant Feminist.” Honestly, I think she should just go on a vacation to a warm location, have random people take pictures of her on the beach, maybe drinking umbrella drinks or playing with the grandkids. Living life well is the best revenge. Let Bill go on his own.
SatanicPanic
@Chris: kids, there was a resistance, but it died because the metro stations were crowded
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
And now the baby is trying to stay up late. Momma keeps trying to tuck him in for the night, and he’s all “No! Read me a story! I wanna glass of water! Sing me a song! I have to go toidy! I’M NOT EVEN SLEEPY!!”
O. Felix Culpa
@Michael Bersin:
Inorite? Sigh. I have a dear friend in Joplin, so I’m familiar with the – shall we say, challenging – political environment in Missouri. Much support sent your way from New Mexico!
delk
My husband just accepted a job offer. He had been underemployed the last two years. We have been waiting to hear back since November and were hoping to know by Christmas but we’ll take it as something good happening in 2017!
ps–Gav is doing great and has a check-up tomorrow afternoon.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
SOL (Snorting Out Loud)!
SiubhanDuinne
@delk:
Two pieces of excellent news! Congratulations on both!
Cacti
I read that if Keith Ellison is chosen as DNC chair, Alan Dershowitz has promised to resign from the party.
Damn you Dershowitz for giving a reason to support Ellison.
O. Felix Culpa
@delk: Congrats on job and Gavin health! Two good things about 2017. May there be many more.
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: I could seriously stare at that nest all day! My husband keeps saying, “Are you watching those eagles again? Again?!? Yes. Yes I am.
Elizabelle
@delk: That’s wonderful news!
And no more excitement from Gav, for a while.
Gvg
I keep expecting Fox to implode. Rupert is on his last legs, kids probably have different plans. Ailes is gone. GOP has been taken over by insanity, not just Trump, but crazy voters with conflicting wants and the party leader hates women. I think a lot of women at that company may decide to leave. Didn’t one of them sue Fox? That tends to make it hard to stay. The conservative movement people have been considering Fox to liberal for awhile, that may be hurting their market share?
El Caganer
Trump being the bullying oaf that he is, I figure there’s a good chance he’ll go out of his way to insult HRC at the inauguration.
Kathleen
@Shalimar: Didn’t Rachel call him “Uncle Pat”? Megan will fit right in.
debbie
@delk:
Congratulations! It must feel great to be flooded with good news. Did you ever figure out how Gav was exposed to rat poison?
Michael Bersin
@O. Felix Culpa:
I’ll be driving to Jefferson City tomorrow morning for the noon opening of the legislative session. We use the opportunity to take as many photos of legislators as we can (there are 163 in the House) from the side gallery (not open to the public) so we have file photos for our stories on bills, legislative action, or campaign finance.
SiubhanDuinne
@El Caganer:
I suspect it’ll unfold something like this: HRC will be on the stage, a close-up of her will appear on the JumboCam screens (whatever they’re called), Trump’s supporters in the crowd will start chanting “Lock her up! Lock her up!”, Trump will beam seraphically at them for a couple of minutes and then, ever so graciously, make the “No, no, it’s okay” gesture.
I’d almost bet on that kind of scenario, but since I have no intention of watching any part of the proceedings, I may never know.
Lizzy L
Like President Obama and the First Lady, the Clintons are paying respects to the institutions of the country by attending T’s inauguration. I understand it, and I honor them for it. But, oh, damn, I really wish they wouldn’t.
Aleta
She could easily pass for a contender in the Westminster dog show Topiary Group.
trollhattan
@zhena gogolia:
What if she’s petting a floofy white cat in her lap? “I’m a nassssty, nassssty woman, Donny.”
Aleta
@brendancalling: wow. So good.
delk
@debbie: I talked with our management company and the city department and both said that it would be very difficult for Gav to have gotten into the poison without my husband or I noticing. He would have had to dig it up, it is not left out in the open. I hate to think it, but it might have been put out on purpose by somebody.
O. Felix Culpa
@Michael Bersin: You do great work! I’ll send my MO friend the link to your blog. I’m sure she’ll find it interesting.
Miss Bianca
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Hate to say it, but from the Amazon description it sounds an awful lot like every other novel on the French Revolution I’ve ever read, except for A Place of Greater Safety, by Hilary Mantel. Or in other words: Aww, those nasty revolutionaries! Just going berserk on the aristos for *no reason whatsoever*!
Right now I’m reading what sounds like the flip side of your book – and a companion piece to Hilary Mantel’s: “City of Darkness, City of Light” by Marge Piercy.
ETA: I think we’ve got a *long* way to go before we get back to revolution, French *or* American style. Our peasants don’t realize they’re peasants, for one thing, and persist in believing that their class interests align with those of the aristos.
SiubhanDuinne
@delk:
A beloved childhood cat got into poison that was deliberately put out by our next-door neighbor. It was among my first real losses as a kid, and I was devastated.
SgrAstar
@O. Felix Culpa:
I like that interpretation and think it’s spot on. Good insight, and good for the ex-prez and Hills to show everyone what graciousness and hope for our country actually look like. For the rest of us…RESIST.
Hovercraft
I for one heartily endorse this new BJ policy, nature and the home improvement odessy know as “this fuckin house”. Your bird pis are great, it almost makes me want to come to Florida just for the wildlife. Then I remember your two legged wildlife, commonly referred to as Florida Man/Woman, and I remember why I have no plans to ever visit again.
Patricia Kayden
@delk: See, Trump got elected and has already got your hubby back to work. Thanks Trump!!
/s
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
LOL. Too perfect.
SenyorDave
@Kathleen: Didn’t Rachel call him “Uncle Pat”? Megan will fit right in.
Yeah, he was everyone’s crazy, Nazi uncle. Because we all had one of those growing up, right?
Steeplejack
@SiubhanDuinne:
Motorized wheelchair banging him in the shins and making him hop out of the way.
jharp
“Bill and Hillary Clinton will attend the human shit stain’s inauguration”
Very disappointed to hear of this.
Yet maybe there is something in that for us?
O. Felix Culpa
@SenyorDave:
Actually, I had a whole crazy, Nazi family (on the maternal side). The real deal. Although their offspring all became lefties. Well, all but one, who has bizarre aristo aspirations.
Steeplejack
@Patricia Kayden:
That’s a fake account. Some of the l‘s are capital I‘s.
ETA: What Belafon said. D’oh!
Steeplejack
@JPL:
Do you have a link for that? I looked for it and couldn’t find it when it first came out. Is it for subscribers only?
Turgidson
@SiubhanDuinne:
And the dolts in the courtier media will be over the moon with how gracious and presidential Hair Furor is being and how surely this time he is making the long-awaited pivot.
Mnemosyne
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
I really like Roberta Gellis. I think I still have her book that takes place around the signing of the Magna Carta.
Technically, she’s romance, but not so romance-y that non-genre fans can’t appreciate her. But I never imagined that Ronald Moore would fall for the Outlander books, so I may not be giving non-genre fans enough credit.
Humdog
@Betty Cracker: dead thread, I am sure, but you are fascinated by the nest because your own so recently emptied. Enjoy the eagle family, we need to take our happy wherever we find it!
TriassicSands
I seriously doubt if Megyn Kelly has any significant political principles at all. She’s making a ton of money and will do what it takes to fit in and make things run smoothly. If I’m right, that probably means she will be a staunch supporter of “both sides do it” once she’s working at NBC. She may even become the Queen of False Equivalence. Is that an improvement? Not really.
debbie
@delk:
It’s horrible to think it was intentional. Keep an eye on the neighbors who complain about too much barking or poop not being picked up.
Elie
My concern w Hillary was from the git go when she conceded so quickly and has been pretty quiet since. My question is if she was not going to fight for the right thing and protect us and the system, what the fuck was she doing? Sure I can partly see the need to support the process and system, when does one fight? There comes a time when you have to make that call as a leader and patriot. Something about her attendance feels off
O. Felix Culpa
@Elie: I get your frustration, but how was HRC supposed to protect us? With what authority or power? My guess is that she was as gut-punched as the rest of us…more so, because SHE was the one who lost to the shitgibbon, when she had every reasonable expectation to win. Can you imagine, after all those years of hard work and getting knocked down and getting up again and getting knocked down and getting up again…to get knocked down again, with finality? And such a cruel loss, to such a poor excuse for a human being. Frankly, I’m surprised she can get out of bed in the morning.
It’s up to us to defend ourselves.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: Win!
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne
@bystander:
Now I’m picturing Michelle O and Hillary doing a spa day together, maybe with Jill Biden along for extra laffs. It’s a nice picture.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Miss Bianca:
Haw! Not a bit. The heroine’s father was a member of the Estates-General, a pro-Republican nobleman, and the family’s troubles stem from a personal vendetta. The book actually picks up after the Revolution, when grudges and jockeying for individual power starts making everything come apart. I’m not all that familiar with the First Republic — it was never really my “period” — but the conversations and musings seem to come from what a fairly well-informed person of the time would believe and conclude. And most of the “mobs gone mad” versions of the First Republic never mention the war with Prussia and Austria. (Didn’t a lot of that start with A Tale of Two Cities?)
No, what first made me think of recent events was how orchestrated the massacre at Abbeye is. I was struck by how much that mob reminded me of Deadbeat Donnie turning his crowds on protestors and on reporters. I agree we’re a long way that sort of thing taking over; I’m just thinking that his fans at the rallies weren’t very far from it. Fortunately, there’s not a lot of them.
(I much prefer the second book in the series, which is a Napoleonic spy caper. I wore my paper copy of that one out.)
Miss Bianca
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Heh. Well, blurbs can be deceiving…if you say she’s a good writer I’ll check it out – the First Republic being kind of “my period” these days…
ETA: Yes, personal vendettas certainly collided with revolutionary fervor to make a nasty mess…I always imagined I’d have been a fervent revolutionary who ended up with my head chopped off because I either pissed off the wrong people or didn’t suck up to the right ones.
SiubhanDuinne
@TriassicSands:
She held back potentially significant negative information about Trump until after the election, just so she could flog her memoir to maximum effect. If I had ever been tempted to have any sympathy or respect for her (rather unlikely to begin with, I admit), that realization would have put me right off her.
Fuck her. My only regret is that I’m sorry I don’t watch NBC/MSNBC now, so I could make a point of turning it off forever upon news of their hiring her.
Jane Austin
I’d like to see the Clintons and any other Dems suppressing yawns during the speech and maybe even nodding off for a while.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Miss Bianca: Fair warning that the ebook version appears to be an OCR with typical Ellora’s Cave editing. Nothing really strange, but the punctuation is occasionally … odd.
You should check out her bio. Gellis was quite an impressive woman.
JGabriel
@O. Felix Culpa:
I’m pretty sure the electoral rules in place forbid Presidential political candidates from accepting foreign campaign assistance or calling for foreign governments to commit illegal acts on their behalf like Trump did when he asked the Russians to hack Clinton’s emails.
So, no, Trump is not a legitimately elected president. Trump is a traitor to the country, to our electoral system, to our political system, and to our constitution. We were just too cowardly, craven, or powerless, to pursue prosecuting and convicting him before it was too late.
Xboxershorts
True Story with a merganser, A chimney, and a wife who always thinks “worst case scenario”….
We lived on the outskirts of one of the smaller towns (Population ~900) in very rural Potter County, PA. Population ~15,000. One day, on a spring morning about 5 years ago, we awoke to some vicious noises in out fireplace. (It was blocked off to prevent heat loss as there was still lots of snow on the ground and in the forecast) But this animal was making some god awful noises and Laurie was hysterical. OMG, it’s huge, OMG it’s rabid, OMG, it’s got huge teeth!
She convinced me to put protective clothing on, so I donned the old leather bomber jacket. Some heavy duty welders gloves and she shows up in the living room with a motor cycle helmet and insisted I put that on too.
Se, we’re about to open the fireplace when in walks my next door neighbor. An old timer who grew up just up the road. he looks at me and laughs. Pushes me out of the way and opens the fireplace, pushes up the flue and grabs this wood duck by the legs and pulls it out and hands it to me.
My wife, the one who hysterically insisted this angry rabid creature that was going to claw out my eyes, bite out my jugular and rip my heart clean out of my chest, the one who made me put on level 40 leather armor, made sure she got it all recorded in pictures. Me, in full leather armor, full face motorcycle helmet, gauntlets of weld holding a harmless wood duck.
And she had the gall to photoshop it too