Gin and Tonic made a comment this morning that got me thinking, so I used the wayback machine (aka View Posts by Month/Year in the sidebar) to look at what we were talking about a year ago.
One year ago today in Balloon Juice posts:
DougJ was raising money for Warnock and Ossoff.
Adam was writing about disinformation in PA.
Betty was writing about Justice Ginsburg being honored at the capitol.
David Anderson was writing about the “real Republican healthcare plan”. And we had a Claire update!
John was writing about a cool kitty cave that rolls around.
Anne Laurie was writing about the media stenographers missing their tire swings. Plus a Covid thread.
I was writing about the CA propositions and also put up a Taking Action post about helping in swing states.
If there was a quiz where you had to match posts with writers, I think we would all ace the test!
?
What didn’t we know one year ago today?
We didn’t know whether we would have Biden or another 4 years of total disaster.
We didn’t know if we would keep the house (or that we would lose seats)
We didn’t know if we would get the senate.
We didn’t know that Warnock and Ossoff would win.
We didn’t know what would happen with the Supreme Court after RBG.
We were facing the possibility of full-on disaster and we had no idea how things would come out.
We didn’t know whether democracy would survive after the November elections.
And here we are. We hold all 3 branches of government Biden is our president, and we hold the House and the Senate (by a thread) but we do hold them, which is everything. Yet it’s still not enough – because we don’t hold them at levels that allow us to be safe. Crazy ideologies have control of the highest court in the land. I can’t even bring myself to call it the Supreme Court anymore. And we have 2 democrats who have lost the plot, and once again everything is on the line.
We only came out of November/January as well as we did because we worked our assess off and donated like fiends. We are facing a lot of the same questions today, but for a lot of people, our emotional reserves are depleted. Some of us are worn out. We are scrapping with our friends.
Still, the barrage of evil doesn’t stop, and sometimes I wonder if these people ever sleep. They are like the energizer bunnies of anti-democracy forces. Anti-woman. Anti-immigrant. Anti-everything-that’s-good. Sometimes often it’s terrifying. And overwhelming.
We need to fight. We need to ramp up our efforts. What do we do to get our energy back? Whatever is is that we need to do, we need to do it now, because there’s work to be done if we want to hang on to this country that we love.
So what do we do about it?
zhena gogolia
Dear WaterGirl, just a correction to “We hold all 3 branches of government (2 of them by a thread) but we do hold them, which is everything.” We don’t hold the judicial branch, not by a long shot, thanks to Turtle.
Ivan X
Great post, great question. Not sure I have an answer yet.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: I was, of course, thinking of the 3 as the presidency, the house and the senate.
Updated up top with the complete picture.
Steeplejack (phone)
@zhena gogolia:
Yeah, I was about to say. I guess she means the House and Senate as two branches
ETA: Missed it by that much.
James E Powell
This may be the most important proposition revealed by history: At the time, no one knew what was coming. ― Haruki Murakami, from his novel 1Q84
Cermet
Then call it by its proper name: The Inferior Court.
Any sane person will immediately know what court your naming.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
Thanks for the correction.
As for what to do — all I can think of is to ignore the media. It hurts that they seem to have forgotten what TFG was like, the constant flow of corruption, criminality, and malicious incompetence. They do not give Biden any credit for anything, and it’s demoralizing. But I keep up my donations, and I try to spread the Good Word whenever I get a chance.
Josie
I was thinking about this when I received your email about the Zoom meeting. It seems as though we are always three steps behind, solving what has gone before instead of looking in creative ways to the future. We were looking for ways to stop the terrible Texas voting laws when they were already a foregone conclusion. We should be looking for ways to deal realistically with those laws, as well as the abortion law. Sorry, this is a stream of consciousness post, and I don’t have any answers. I am frustrated, but I refuse to give up hoping for better ways of dealing with these monsters.
The Thin Black Duke
Never make it easy for the motherfuckers.
Fair Economist
The big thing I can think of that’s not already going on is an organized pressure campaign on Sinema and Manchin. Make their phones ring off the hook endlessly until reconciliation passes, like we did to save Obamacare.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: As for what to do…. I am going to the Madison march in a little while and then I am going to do some anti-Johnson volunteering. I have donations set up. I keep doing what I can. It is all any of us can do. What we can can do can very from person to person and from day to day. A few years ago, my brother told me and my dad that my grandfather had given him this piece of advice: Do something for your house every day. I think it is a good thing to adapt to politics: Do something to fight the fascists every day. It will add up and people will feel better about themselves.
Nancy
I’ve had to step back and slow myself down recently. Since I’m not a manically evil engerzier rodent (can’t bring myself to call them bunnies), I was tired, depressed, and burnt. I second Watergirl’s choice of ignoring the media.
Doing things that bring a small bit of good into the world helps.
At the end of August I found an ethical source of Monarch eggs and caterpillars. I bought eggs on the verge of becoming caterpillars. I have lots of healthy milkweed plants in my yard, so I was able to provide food and a safe place for almost 20 butterflies to develop, drink flower nectar, and fly away. My tiny contribution to helping an endangered species. And it was fun to watch them.
topclimber
Get laid more.
Tony Jay
@zhena gogolia:
They haven’t forgotten El Hefty, they just miss him. Every day he gave them copy. A scandal, a call to violence, a mangled insult they could ply their trade over for, oh, at least an hour. Sure, he was destroying the country and making the lives of millions a living hell, but he was great for them and they miss him so much it hurts their little wooden hearts.
Biden is boring. He just wants to fix things and pass legislation that will take all the excitement of imminent doom out of things and that just sucks for their future bestseller plans. He wouldn’t even give them a repeat of the Afghan War when they told him they wanted one. He’s acting like DC is his place and it’s not his place, but they’ll show him.
Fuck, as they say, them.
Tony Jay
@topclimber:
Personally I’m looking to fill more than five minutes. Any other ideas?
Sure Lurkalot
@Nancy: That’s so cool and it must have been fun to watch. We spotted a mantis in our garden yesterday for the first time in years (not that they might not have been around) and it was a pretty sight.
MomSense
When my dad was a kid he used to go build forts by the river near his family’s farmhouse. He had worked on one fort for a week and it was almost finished. He went home to have lunch and when he went back to his fort he found it had been completely destroyed by the neighborhood bully and his posse. Of course he went home upset and my grandmother went back with him to inspect the scene. She told him that there are two types of people in the world, builders and destroyers and that he was a builder. It wasn’t exactly the comfort he needed in that moment, but it stuck with him and we were certainly brought up with that bit of wisdom which we have tried to continue.
I know that my gardens take years to establish and that if I just stopped working them, they would be gone in about six months.
Building, creating, giving – all take energy and vision. Building must be actively supported.
Destroying is much easier. That’s part of why it is so hard to sustain constructive change.
We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. It’s not comforting, but that’s our world.
topclimber
@Tony Jay: Five minutes a month adds up.
RaflW
I would say we have one Senate Dem who has probably lost the thread (she’s wandered around, but drifting rightward, her entire elected career). And another who has had his thread pulled by corporate donors for his entire career.
Meanwhile, 22 House Dems joined nearly all Republicans to vote to preserve the flow of military weapons to police departments around the U.S. I’m not sure we can say these “moderates” (are you moderate if you align with the GOP and against 198 of your fellow Dems!?!) have lost the thread.
Rather, they and the medicare-shoud-have-its-hands-tied group (same pppl? Probably) are the same fucking sellouts we’ve been having to deal with for years. I know the purity patrol won’t work, so I agree with the premise at top that we need to enlarge our damn lead in Congress. If we weren’t on a knife edge all the time for votes, Manchin could preen and we’d performatively salute (we need his vote for maj ldr) and move on without him.
jnfr
Great post. I am so very grateful that we are out of the Trump administration.
Damned_at_Random
A year ago, there was no CoVid vaccine. I often wonder what the Q anon types would have latched onto if they didn’t have the vaccine to drive the crazy. Would masks have been enough? Or would they refuse to wash their hands as well?
On a personal level, my spousal unit had not been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma so I had more disposable income to throw at politics. Maybe by the midterms, I’ll be back in the game.
Feathers
@Fair Economist: I was watching Advise and Consent the other day. Found myself wishing Congressional hearings on Manchin’s daughter’s insulin grifting were on the table, as well as whatever awfulness is undoubtedly in Sinema’s past.
Have also probably been reading and watching too much Agatha Christie. There has been much speculation as to why she’s had such an upswing in popularity. I’m convinced it’s because her villains inevitably end up being the wealthy and outwardly respectable types.
Sure Lurkalot
I agree that the media are most exhausting. I get more news reading media criticism than I do the “source”. I have already quit the NYT and Wapo often seems to be following the same path. Last night on the so-called liberal station, there was Robert Kagan’s article and a real live Steve Schmidt, whose words and warnings don’t erase their profound complicity. Still, I don’t see how you avoid the “news” and still be informed.
Tony Jay
@topclimber:
Oh my aching back!
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, shit. I am a dumbass. The march is next weekend. So I won’t be doing that today. I guess I can watch UW vs Nd and then go doing the anti-Johnson volunteering.
jackmac
Since this is an open thread I’m pleased to report that I beat the rush and am now triple-vaxed! Got my booster COVID-19 shot at a local CVS on Saturday morning after they opened online signup on Friday. Staffers report a deluge of people seeking vaccinations (plus flu shots and regular prescription pickups) is expected as the day progresses, so I feel fortunate to sneak in at the start of the day. The process went very smoothly and the CVS staffers were professional and friendly. I also received my flu shot two days ago at an overwhelmed nearby Walgreens, but only after waiting 90 minutes past my appointment time. I feel as protected as is possible, but still plan to WEAR THE MASK.
Almost Retired
Here’s some positivity for you. I was telling my sister about the blog’s efforts to money-bomb small voting rights organizations. She’s the VP of Development (fundraising) for a somewhat major University back East, and has also worked in that capacity at Museums and non-profits.
After mocking me for ten minutes for playing with my imaginary internet friends, she noted that we probably don’t even realize the extent of the benefit we provided to Voces and Four Directions, et al. beyond just the value of the money donated.
Institutional and larger donors love seeing an organization with a wide and dispersed donor base when deciding which non-profits to support. Therefore, she figured, we’ve made these organizations more attractive in connection with their grant-writing and fundraising efforts.
So if she’s right, that’s pretty cool!
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: The only media information I get is from comments here. I can ignore the media pretty well. But all the stuff the other side is doing that barely gets reported by the mainstream media, that is the stuff of nightmares.
Baud
@Almost Retired:
Fixed.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
WG, I’d love to see something like this become an occasional feature. One, five, ten or more years ago today (or some arbitrary date or number) this is what BJ was posting and discussing. Nice compilation and reminder of what was on our minds. Thanks for doing this.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Feathers:
Allen Drury was a wingnut’s wingnut, but Trump and his minions being manipulated into power by Putin would have caused him existential angst. Every one of them looked, talked and acted like a Drury villain, but from the conservative side. Whole thing played out like a photo negative of a Drury book.
Heidi Mom
@The Thin Black Duke: Many years ago I read The Comedians by Graham Greene, and in it (as best I can remember) the protagonist asks the guy who led a doomed-from-the-start revolt against the brutal rulers of Haiti why he even attempted such a thing. His answer: “To hold the bastards up.”
raven
I just scheduled the booster for 3pm!
sab
WG, you are a real asset to this blog.
Scout211
I am not a fan of the “you’re doing it wrong!” “no, you’re doing it wrong!” so thank you to WG for reminding us that overall, balloon-juice is not doing it wrong.
I do want to add that I live with a normie and I am surrounded by normies where I live. None of those people have any idea what Politico is and they really don’t care. So getting all upset about Politico as the new Fox Lite is probably wasted energy. Fox News is still the main driver of the misinformation and the hate of the liberals. At least for the folks in my neck of the woods. Just my experience. And I don’t mean “you’re doing it wrong!” At least I hope I don’t mean that. LOL
Edited for clarity
Dorothy A. Winsor
@jackmac: Mr DAW tried to sign up for a booster at Osco and they said he couldn’t get one unless he was immunocompromized. He’s 77, which I thought was good (bad?) enough. Maybe it was because he was looking for a Moderna shot.
Major Major Major Major
I sort of gave up on making political predictions a couple years ago. Shit’s just too weird. I did predict that we’d have good vaccines by early 2021, so yay for me. My friends looked at me like I had two heads.
RaflW
@Josie: It is important to fight rearguard actions, but it is a slog. As a gay person who has had to live through Reagan ignoring AIDS, Clinton doing the execrable DADT, and of course the wave of anti-marriage amendments, we fought back and fought to a loss a LOT. And then we started winning.
Last night I watched an episode of The Voice. I watch very little broadcast TV (and even then, I stream it later). But there was a father-son duo where the son very openly talked about his transition. It was so well done! The personal struggle, the discovery of what’s possible, the deeply loving parents.
I say this because while the GOP is currently advancing all sorts of anti-trans garbage legislation, the culture is moving. The GOP will be on the wrong side of this, as they so often are. In the big picture, they’re the ones fighting the rearguard action.
Let’s keep at it!
Damned_at_Random
@Dorothy A. Winsor: No Moderna recommendations yet, but if he is concerned, he could reach out to his doctor. A physician’s recommendation might carry some weight (My Dr. is in a large practice and they have shots on site)
jackmac
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Just Pfizer is available at the moment, but hopefully Moderna and J & J get the okay soon. I hope he can get the booster very soon.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Just do what we did to get a full cycle of Pfizer after Moderna jabs – lie. Say you’re unvaxxed and go to a drugstore you didn’t use before.
This is America – there are no central registries because freedumbs – make that work for you for a change.
Scout211
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
https://www.vaccines.gov/
The guidelines are now stricter as they added the 65+ adults. We currently aren’t considered eligible if we had Moderna.
emphasis added
Nelle
@MomSense: Thanks for this. I know i have to feed my quiet side and my creative side or I’m quick to plummet, deep and dark.
Josie
@RaflW:
Thanks for this. Combining your wisdom with Omnes’ idea of doing a small thing each day is a good way to keep on going and doing my best.
My thanks also to WaterGirl for such a thoughtful post.
Dorothy A. Winsor
That’s helpful. Thanks everybody
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Nelle: When I’m not writing, I get depressed. It’s like self therapy. Maybe all creative work is like that.
Nancy
@Sure Lurkalot:
Summer where I live was either raining or too hot, so I could have missed all kinds of interesting creatures. Haven’t seen a mantis in a long time.
I am going to keep trying to foster Monarchs and other butterflies native to my area now that I have a sense of how to do it. It was majorly cool and exciting.
James E Powell
@Tony Jay:
Not only that, but covering Biden means they have do their homework to understand what he is talking about.
Covering Trump was like watching an old school sitcom. You didn’t need to see any of the previous episodes to enjoy the show.
WaterGirl
@Almost Retired: Your sister is very smart! Voces has talked about hoping to leverage the new field organizer position, and the ~ 8k we raised above that, into possibly a couple of regional field organizers.
So in these efforts to fund the boots on the ground organizations, we are making a real difference, and not just for 2022, but beyond.
May a
thousandhundred Georgias bloom.James E Powell
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s one of the best big games so far this year.
MagdaInBlack
@MomSense: Thank you for that very fine thought. I needed that.
H.E.Wolf
@MomSense: Your grandmother’s words were very wise. To be a builder instead of a destroyer: that’s a good orientation.
As far as small, concrete actions go: I’m back on my [redacted] with PostcardsToVoters.org. In honor of our Floridian jackals, I’m writing to Democratic voters in FL who haven’t yet signed up for FL Vote By Mail, with 3 brief sentences on how to do so.
PTV also has postcard campaigns for Democratic candidates for VA state legislators: early voting for their elections in Nov. 2021 has recently begun.
Although it’s a very small drop in the bucket, it adds up… and perhaps it will help FL in 2022.
Another Scott
@Dorothy A. Winsor: My 75-year-old step-mom in Mississippi was able to get a Moderna booster a few weeks ago. His physician might be able to arrange it for him, or have suggestions.
FDA.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
Emerald
@SiubhanDuinne: Concur. Great idea.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Very glad to hear that. Perspective is a wonderful thing.
edit: doesn’t losing RBG feel like a million years ago? Much longer than a year.
lee
I just got a text from a friend in Montana. They wrote that Montana has gone to ‘comfort care only’ the same as Idaho and Alaska.
My Google-fu is failing me and I can find any news articles about it.
Can someone verify that about Montana?
Major Major Major Major
@Dorothy A. Winsor: i genuinely worry about people who don’t have a creative outlet.
Allegedly writing right now, actually. Second draft of my novel, chapter 2.
WaterGirl
@sab: Wow, thank you. That is so nice to hear!
Benw
Kick names, take butt
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I love your dad.
Nelle
The adrenaline rush for journalists is real. Both my son and daughter have journalism degrees. My beohew is with a TV station and I saw them on “alert” for “something happening.” I blame their great grNdfather, a writer who escaped arrest from the Red army by five minutes in 1920.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Major Major Major Major: I’m writing a first draft. Scratch that, a zero draft. It’s a pile of random stuff. Once it’s done, life will be better.
I think people need projects. We choose writing. A friend of mine is visiting all the national parks, monuments, etc and getting stamps in her park service “passport.” Anything like that is good for the psyche.
Nelle
@sab: Absolutely. We get locked into the tunnel of present woe, so this retrospective was good.
RaflW
@Omnes Omnibus: All good stuff. I will go to an Oct 2 Women’s March, and have done some boosted donations of late.
We can also be tracking the positive and amplifying them. Even if it’s small. For example, the MN Dems have formed a pro-choice state House caucus and they’re working on legislation they’ll carry next session.
Yes Texas sucks. Yes FL and other states will try to move similar bills. But that stuff is toxic and they’re waaay overconfident. Work the backlash! The GOP is out over their skis and gonna wipe out on this one.
It’s interesting. The politics of abortion are shifting rapidly, IMO. For decades the Dems were toing the R framing line “safe, legal and rare” was a gross capitulation to the moralization police. Abortion to at least 12 weeks (I could use more info, I’ve also heard 15 weeks) should be utterly uncontroversial. And later than that for all sorts of medical reasons.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
Yes. Feels as though the Bony Carrot has been around forever.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: It feels like 5 years ago that I sat on my porch watching the Kavanaugh hearings, going back and forth between hope (this will surely disqualify him) and despair.
I wonder if these past 5 years are aging us like the years can do with US presidents.
Major Major Major Major
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Projects! That’s what it is. Well put.
Working on another YA novel?
WaterGirl
Speaking of creative outlets, we are featuring a wonderful artist at 2 o’clock blog time.
Another Scott
@lee: From a week ago: MontanaFreePress.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cermet
@MomSense: Entropy always wins; it can be delayed and for very short periods, reversed (at a high cost to everywhere else) – like death (entropy also) it has the final say in all matters of the Universe great and small.
Jackie
A year ago we were anxiously waiting for Covid vaccinations. I just got my Booster today! I live with my son and young grandkiddos, so I’m protecting myself from them – until they are able to get their own vaccinations! SOON, I HOPE!??
Nelle
My superheroes ( can you tell I’ve been caring for a 2 and a 4 year old racing around in capes?) are those who have worked for civil rights , not for years or decades, but centuries. Rather humbling, isn’t it, to take so much defeat and murderous oppression and still keep taking one step after another? Humbling, to say the least.
So, the positivity rate in my county is 14.2%. Gov. Reynolds signed into law a anti-mask mandate in June, which was just temporarily overturned by a judge. So now, school board hearings are brawls about masking and the school board elections are hot. Someone is funding an explosion of signs for anti-mask candidates.
So, you know what Iowa body bags are called? Reynolds Wrap.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Nelle:
They just can’t help themselves in ditching this fetish, can they? Why not contact Biden voters about it?
And the notion that they’re seeking counter-power contrary takes can’t be correct – they weren’t reaching out to Clinton voters in 2017 and beyond to ask about policy preferences or reactions to investigations. Nobody went to Brooklyn coffeeshops or bodegas for news snippets. People weren’t being asked their political views in Louisville’s NULU or Highlands neighborhoods, Lincoln Park in Chicago, Cambridge MA or Seattle.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Major Major Major Major: Yes. Though I’ve been thinking about how traditional YA fantasy feels different than a contemporary YA I’m currently reading. I think it’s because in quasi-medieval settings, young characters often do things we think of as adults. They’re not sequestered away in high school. They work. They may contribute to their family’s support. They can have wide reaching impact in a crisis situation. That’s why an editor from Sourcebook says they decided YA fantasy = fantasy about young characters, period. The border between adult and YA in fantasy has always been porous.
Hm. I seem to have spilled thoughts here. Apologies!
Another Scott
@Cermet: Back in the late 1970s, the University of Dayton engineering school newsletter had a comic called “Entropy Man”. It was clever. I wish I could find it somewhere.
“Entropy, Entropy, Entropy!!”
Cheers,
Scott.
H.E.Wolf
@Cermet: “Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done…. ”
[and of course, the final lines]
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45392/ulysses
jeffreyw
We got our booster jabs yesterday and celebrated by visiting the local Chinese buffet.
Steeplejack (phone)
@SiubhanDuinne:
Amy Covid Barratry*, as I saw someone put it on Twitter.
* “Groundless or vexatious litigation, or the incitement to same.”
lee
@Another Scott: Thanks!
Omnes Omnibus
@Cermet: OTOH, as long we are here, we may as well do something.
wmd
We’re maintaining a list of ways to be active. We can find actions that appeal to us individually and find a way to have fun doing them.
We can listen and help each other when we feel despair at the election subversion plans and laws making everything futile. This shit can’t prevail and we’re going to have a lot to celebrate when we beat it. And have a lot of joy in the work to get there.
zhena gogolia
@jeffreyw: I still can’t get one in CT. I don’t know what they’re waiting for.
raven
@jeffreyw: Any side effects?
Major Major Major Major
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’ve been thinking lately about the differences between Western YA and Japanese shounen media. Have you dug into it much? It’s the biggest form there, iirc, but it tends to have a more Romantic/positive texture. They’re also better about having student characters whose lives are not defined by school, and worlds that are not defined by the students’ schools.
My Hero Academia is I think the second-biggest property there now, and it’s really interesting to contrast it with Western school-focused and superhero stories. And yeah–because of disruptions to the adult world, the kids are encouraged to start doing grown-up hero stuff (their dream anyway).
Harry Potter, of course, the classic counterexample. The universe centers around some boarding school. Nobody has an interesting life after.
BC in Illinois
@Another Scott:
Entropy! Entropy! That’s our Cry!
E N T R o . . . [cheer dies out]
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major:They belong to a genre of British children’s books, which center around elite boarding schools. Enid Blyton, Wodehouse and many others have contributed to this genre.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
Yes, I wonder that myself. At going-on-80, some of it is surely owing to the vicissitudes of normal ageing, but TFGism and living through a global pandemic have certainly accelerated things!
SiubhanDuinne
@Steeplejack (phone):
Perfect!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Major Major Major Major: I never heart of Shounen, so I just went and looked it up. I found a list of the 35 best. It does look interesting. Someone in my writer group told me he was watching Kiki’s Delivery Service which is not on that list and may not be shounen for all I know, but it may have some of the same qualities you’re talking about
Steeplejack (phone)
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Kiki’s Delivery Service is a great movie, regardless of genre. Highly recommended. Currently streaming on HBO Max.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Steeplejack (phone): Then I’m flattered because this guy said my work reminded him of Kiki
Yutsano
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Kiki’s Delivery Service is definitely not a shounen. It is, however, a delightful little movie with a charming dub and probably the best cat in animation.
EDIT: Which Steep beat me to. :P My fault. I got caught up in the trailers.
JustSuze (finally stopped lurking)
@zhena gogolia: I’m in NW CT and I and spouse are scheduled for Tuesday. I set up the appointments last week, hoping the CDC would approve.
Josie
@Steeplejack (phone):
I have watched Kiki with my granddaughters multiple times. Great movie for kids and adults both.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
It was made by Hayao Miyazaki, who did My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, etc. All great.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
RaflW
One of the things I’ve been thinking about (I believe I mentioned it once in a thread the other day): How about postcards to school board members? They’re under a ton of pressure and even threat right now.
A short, organized effort to mail out cards that say “Thank you. Your work is really important, don’t let the MAGA nuts get ya down” (or something even less overtly ‘political’ but grateful and encouraging)?
I’d very much be interested in helping figure it out and launch it as some one-off BJ helpful hit. WaterGirl has my email address if that sounds do-able and worthwhile (I’m nominally in the Texas group, but admit I’ve been struggling to focus on that – my experiment in reaching back to where I lived 25 years ago hasn’t resonated with me as I’d thought it might).
WV Blondie
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: [T]hey weren’t reaching out to Clinton voters in 2017 and beyond to ask about policy preferences or reactions to investigations. Nobody went to Brooklyn coffeeshops or bodegas for news snippets. People weren’t being asked their political views in Louisville’s NULU or Highlands neighborhoods, Lincoln Park in Chicago, Cambridge MA or Seattle.
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: That’s because sane, rational people are boring as hell. But the problem is not just the outlets, honestly – it’s us, the general public.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Josie:
Totoro, too, I hope. Spirited Away might be a little edgy, depending on their age.
Bill Arnold
@Sure Lurkalot:
I go through Google News (on a not-logged in browser) and their “world news” full subfeed (“More World”) every day, and using “View Full Coverage” for anything that looks like it is being spun to see the spread of spin. Reuters The Wire is also a useful aggregator, and there are others (including a few paid aggregators) that are similarly not egregiously partisan.
It is, I agree, disheartening how much the US media is attempting to spin up narratives that will increase their revenue without regard for the truth and/or consequences of those narratives, and with a RW tilt aligned with the politics of media owners. (The international media isn’t significantly better, and the UK media is worse.)
There needs to be more Tit-For-Tat, IMO. For instance, it could be said that the Arizona Cyber Ninjas (laughable/incompetent/partisan) “audit” showed evidence for significant Republican voting fraud. Cyber Ninjas reported what they assert are anomalies and flaws in the Arizona voting processes, and perhaps those flaws and anomalies explain the several-hundred pro-Biden shift in votes that their “audit”/recount uncovered. (Bullshit argument to be clear, but no more so than Trump’s complaints in the last day.)
Instead, we have media reporting on Trump’s complaints about the “audit”, and others complaining that anyone is talking about it at all, and meanwhile, a few Republican legislatures continue to push forward on replicating it, because they don’t yet see any damaging downside in the media coverage.
HinTN
@Major Major Major Major:
Two Heads
https://youtu.be/H6EOjD2fEg0
Only the best for my puppy!
Dorothy A. Winsor
Once again, I am in awe of the BJ hive mind
sab
@H.E.Wolf: I hope you keep popping in and reminding us about PTV.
Yutsano
Well there is one certainty: Chuck Grassleyis running again. Sigh. This probably moves Iowa out of gettable status unless a true Drumpfkin decides to primary him and somehow wins.
RaflW
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: It’s a tell. They feel like they’re ‘urban liberals’ so that voice is already represented (even as they parrot conservative framings like ‘fiscal responsibility’ and ‘tax cuts boost the economy’). So they feel like the poor invisible, maligned rural conservative is under-valued and must be interviewed ad nauseam in small town cafes.
Even as the Senate is incredibly, lopsidedly over-representative of rural and conservative power. Maddening indeed.
zhena gogolia
@JustSuze (finally stopped lurking): We’re in central CT. Our doctor won’t do it (I had Pfizer), and neither will Stop & Shop or Walgreen’s. They say they’re waiting on guidance from the state.
HinTN
@Yutsano: I think a Dem actively and ruthlessly campaigning against Grassley could win. It’s not ageism to play video of him having clearly lost the thread.
Bill Arnold
@RaflW:
Yep. Arrogance and overconfidence are exploitable weaknesses.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Yutsano: Dear god, surely Grassley is ready to let flights of angels carry him to his rest
JoyceH
@Feathers:
I’m a big Christie fan, and I think a lot of her appeal is that her killers almost always have rational motives. (And it’s usually financial gain.) So few high profile murders in real life have rational motives; it always seems to be a case of ‘he just snapped’. So rational plans, even for murder aforethought, are soothing.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
He’s one those politicians that will probably die while still in office. I don’t understand it either, except perhaps Grassley likes the power and prestige of the US Senate too much to give it up
raven
@zhena gogolia: I went straight to the pharmacy. I think they are in it for the dough and ready to go!
James E Powell
@wmd:
One thing I wish we had was better feedback on how effective our various activities are.
zhena gogolia
@raven: Not here.
Josie
@Steeplejack (phone): Yes, I may have memorized Totoro. The three year old sings the song (absolutely on key).
ETA: Their dad is a film expert, so he’ll know when it’s time for Spirited Away, I’m sure.
Yutsano
@HinTN: @Dorothy A. Winsor: Polls have suggested a majority of Iowans don’t want him to run again. Whether that can be used against him is another matter. But he hasn’t come close to losing a race since his first run at Senator and incumbency will matter a lot. If there’s a clean Dem primary there shouldn’t be a reason why this should be an easy race for him.. Then again I don’t see why we should just give up on Alabama.
JoyceH
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
For the past few years of Strom Thurmond’s life, he was basically a geriatric case being tended by his staff and not really doing anything that could be described as working. Someone at that time described the Senate as adult day care where they pay you rather than make you pay.
zhena gogolia
I just broke down and joined Netflix. One too many people recommended The Chair to me. Plus I want to see The Crown.
Plus lots of Armitage material.
James E Powell
@zhena gogolia:
I love it for the Nordic Noir.
Another Scott
Helpful reminder, …
Yup. Everyone needs to keep this in mind. And Texas isn’t the only state like this.
In response to this thread:
Grrr…
Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@RaflW: I was interested to see that California Congressman Eric Swalwell was one of the twenty-two Democrats who voted with Republicans on the police equipment bill. I haven’t checked to see if he gave his reasons.
RaflW
@Yutsano: I don’t wish Chuck ill, but one suspects he’s aiming to die in office. Yes, people live to 94. But he’s already kinda mentally wobbly. The median age in the US is 38. Maybe being 2.3X that when seeking another six year term is a signal that retirement is a fine and noble choice?
Not that Grassley is fine or noble.
raven
Boosterized!
Geminid
@HinTN: Former Congresswoman Abby Finkanauer has announced for the Iowa Senate seat. She won a close race in her purple district in 2018, then lost another close one last year. I don’t know how strong a candidate she will be, but at age 34 Finkanauer will certainly provide a contrast to octogenarian Grassley.
Scout211
@Another Scott:
That right there is why my father (many, many) years ago insisted all three of his daughters put at least one of the monthly bills in our names and not our spouses. That was in the 1970’s and he was a staunch Republican. He said he wasn’t a “women’s libber” but did champion his three daughters’ rights. And he was in the business world and could see first hand what happened to women who did not have their own financial history on record.
Even in this day and age, when our mortgage (which is in our family trust, which is in both our names) was bought by another company, they would only deal with my husband until I pushed and pushed and finally got a supervisor on the phone to actually look at the deed. Sheesh. It turns out that this mortgage company is in Texas! Go figure.
RaflW
@Another Scott: Texas is terrible, but some of that is the whole g.d. federal “real ID” bullshit. I tried in MN to get mine last year and basically couldn’t, even with a passport, shortly-expiring MN DL, and bills in my name.
I gave up at the time and got a “not real” DL and then went through the hoops to get a replacement SS card, the magic piece I was missing to ‘prove’ who I was.
Meanwhile, I think when I get my passport renewed in a few months, I’m going to order the Passport Card along with. It will meet TSA requirements when, eventually, “not real” ID is no longer sufficient to gain admission to airport concourses. I also occasionally drive to/from Canada and hope to be doing that again once Covidia Problematica is waning.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@raven:
YAY!
@JoyceH:
Strom Thurmond is the other Senator I was thinking of. I think DiFi might be in that same boat
Marmot
If you’ll indulge me, there was a comment in the previous thread complaining about the gloom-n-doom, with responses saying that’s how ya motivate large groups of people, that’s what the Repubs do and it works for them, etc. (I don’t want to dig them up, partly because that seems like shaming.)
Anyway, there’s a line between sowing outrage, which is what you see on the right a lot, and cultivating sadness. It’s spurring people to action versus demoralizing them.
Please more “This is terrible and unAmericsn and you shouldn’t stand for it, here’s what you can do!”
Less “We are so fucked in 2024.”
Adding: this is more for commenters than front-pagers, of course.
Nelle
@RaflW: It is my suspicion, unimpeded by facts, that Grassley is running to hold the seat in the family name. He will retire or die with the expectation (and maybe a quiet promise) that the R governor will appoint his grandson, Pat Grassley, a power in the state legislature, to hold the seat for another four or five decades.
Nelle
@Scout211:
Scout211
@RaflW:
Be sure to leave your SS card either in a sleeve that is removable or naked because my first attempt to get my real ID was thwarted because my SS card was laminated. I didn’t even remember doing it. I thought I had scored a miracle to even be able to find the darned thing. I was able to go back with my 1099 form but that only covers people who are on social security.
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Creative work most often takes your mind off of personal issues because to do it well you most often have to focus on the work, not on things that you can only change a tiny bit. None of us can make huge political change on our own, we do our bit and if we do our bits together that makes all the bits into a bigger more powerful bit.
You write, others paint (Had an aunt who painted and was pretty good, my sister did also and thought she wasn’t all that good but at her memorial a lot of her paintings were displayed about an art gallery and people got to see that in fact she was quite good.) My point is that creativity takes effort and thought and if we do that we focus on that, it’s something that we have more control over, we get to effect the outcome. We all do creative in different ways, some don’t do creative at all. I worked in metals, often in very tight tolerances, I worked with others, sort of like Chihuly does his blown glass. Artwork is more pleasing to the eye, what I did supposedly created things that people could use, but the effort created one off things that many people did not know how to do, like Chihuly. Art is many things, not all of it or even most of it forwards the progress of humanity, but it is a part of humanity. What art does is tell us that we do not have to be rote followers, we can, in our little ways, bring progress to the greater humanity. You do that, Chihuly does that, many others do that.
Progress is what makes us, conservatism is what holds us back.
Not all progress is forward but we relish progress because it helps make the world a better place, most often one very small step at a time.
RaflW
@Geminid: It’s a USA Today property now, a sad funhouse mirror reflection of their finer days, but the DesMoines Register has a poll out already.
“The latest Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll results show Grassley leads 55% to 37% among likely voters. Another 7% are not sure who they would vote for in a head-to-head matchup, and 1% would not vote.”
Very early days, and outside of IA-01 I don’t know if she’s as well known.
As a side note, it’s interesting to me that IA population grew by 4.7% in the last decade. They beat WI by a bunch (3.6% for the badger state). MN grew by 7.6% by comparison (phew, we kept our full congressional cadre).
JoyceH
Boosted! I wonder what my superpower will be? I hope it’s a cool one.
Another Scott
@RaflW: Mean life expectancy for 88 year old men in the US is 4.75 years (as of ~ 2019). It’s probably lower now because of COVID-19. He’s cutting it close…
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@RaflW: Finkenauer will probably do as well as anyone the Democrats put up. Even the best candidate doesn’t prevail against a state’s demographics. Iowa went for trump by 9% in 2016, by 8% last year. Finkeauer has a fighter’s chance, though, and Grassley’s good health is not a certainty. But he might win even if he is in an ICU on election day.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: stories which have well defined roles for adults that kids can aspire to! Unlike Harry Potter.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
Do you say that because Harry grows up to be an auror?
Major Major Major Major
@Dorothy A. Winsor: shounen is traditionally aimed at instilling virtue in young men but it’s quite a bit broader these days. Nearest cultural analogue might be Marvel movies, but it’s a bad comparison since most of those aren’t about teenagers.
Can be pretty violent, not required.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
D’oh! I forgot about Snape and Dumbledore
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
To add to this, a common trait in a lot of shonen protags is that they are “all-loving”, mostly easy-going characters that often change rivals/enemies into allies through friendship
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
Yet another thing at the FBI that needs to be examined carefully by the IG and Congress…
Cheers,
Scott.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): and like everybody in the universe is just obsessed with what happens at this school. All the plum jobs involve supporting the school. Hogwarts Hogwarts Hogwarts. Horribly underdeveloped world.
gwangung
@Major Major Major Major:
And apparently schools elsewhere are straight up stereotypes and caricatures, verging on racist….
Denali
@Nancy:
Source for monarch caterpillars?