Joseph R. Biden Jr., the 46th @POTUS and an alumnus of the University of Delaware, will deliver the Commencement address at his alma mater for the Class of 2022 on May 28. #UDGrad2022https://t.co/GpYyQOBucZ
— Univ. of Delaware (@UDelaware) April 19, 2022
U.S. to scrap 'conscience' rule for healthcare workers, Politico reports https://t.co/9mmawPRx0k
— Reuters Health (@Reuters_Health) April 20, 2022
U.S. forgives 40,000 student loans, provides aid to millions more https://t.co/VAofW3XD4R pic.twitter.com/JbsaU6ytxj
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 19, 2022
Yes, this is good. Also good, the firm immediately adopting these rules in their contracts with clients
It also shows that, despite what you might think from reading Twitter, organized labor is a large chunk of the foundation on which the Democratic Party stands https://t.co/Yw980LrEhA
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 19, 2022
Orthodox Easter is next weekend. If the Hell his religion preaches exists, Putin and all his enablers are going there, hopefully in the near future…
U.N. SG called for a four-day humanitarian ceasefire for Orthodox Easter today. A few hours later Russia rejected it, saying it would only give Ukraine time to arm. https://t.co/wm2ZgWK5ei
— Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) April 20, 2022
Ukrainian refugee in NJ today told me: Ukrainians back home are advised not to go to church on Easter – most important Orthodox holiday – since Russia may target churches bc of large concentrations of ppl
Not a lot shocks me after covering Syria but I put my hand over my mouth. https://t.co/ZSPiGFl6xK
— Anne Barnard (@ABarnardNYT) April 20, 2022
Very striking how they have changed the name of their war to “special military operation in defense of Donbas.” Putin has given up on his more ambitious goals completely. No “ unification “, “denazification” or “demilitarization “ — clear signs that Putin is losing his war. https://t.co/yYTUniGCqz
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) April 19, 2022
Nicole
I remember thinking how, when time came for my kid to watch Star Trek IV with me, that I was going to have to explain to him the bit where Chekov asks about the location of the “nuclear wessel” and why a 1980s American audience immediately understood the dramatic conflict (and saw the humor of the scene as it’s played for laughs). Little did I suspect before he reached his teen years he wouldn’t need the framework explained. Ugh.
OzarkHillbilly
“Dear ‘collective west’ please give Mr Putin a clear exit to save his face and stop this massacre. Please be more rational and humanitarian.”
– Oleg Tinkov
Yes, “Please dear women, stop making your husbands beat you. Be kind and obedient and he won’t feel so emasculated by your need for a little personal autonomy.”
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: Fuck, no.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s up to Ukraine. They are the ones suffering.
lowtechcyclist
This IS good!
But what I want to know is, why hasn’t this been their rule all along?
NotMax
Is Mr. Peabody a dog groomer?
Discuss, re: Sherman*.
//
*not anywhere close to a serious request
satby
@lowtechcyclist: it always was in Chicago anyway.
Kay
Biden is the most pro labor president in my lifetime. I sure hope they reward him.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@lowtechcyclist:
Maybe it’s one of those things that just never got written down until people realized it needed to be written down? Like “keep this plastic bag away from toddlers”?
Geminid
There will be plenty of brass at the White House this afternoon. At 4pm President Biden will meet in the Cabinet Room with Defense Secretary Austin, Deputy Defense Secretary Hicks, the Joint Chiefs, and the 11(?) Combatant Commanders. This will be followed by a White House dinner for the Defense officials, hosted by the President and first lady Jill Biden.
dmsilev
@Nicole:
Can I just say that I love that this is an official developmental milestone?
BC in Illinois
@OzarkHillbilly:
And also . . .
Note to unhappy oligarchs: It sorta undercuts your concern for the madness of an “insane war” where “innocent people and soldiers are dying,” if you say out loud that your real concern is your mansion and your yacht and your summer at your villa in Italy.
Soprano2
I don’t know why that woman was shocked that Russia would target churches, since they already target hospitals.
Geminid
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: A politcal consultant outfit that mainly works for Democrats recently assisted Amazon in it’s anti-union efforts. This may not have been the first such effort by a “Democratic” firm but it got a lot of attention, hence the new rule.
Kay
Seems like one of the ways to win back or keep younger voters is proudly and loudly supporting employee rights in the workplace. Since Joe Biden is the most pro labor president in decades, that will be easy for him.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: Sure, so he can do it again to another country. Uh, no.
Betty Cracker
Here’s an excerpt from a pro-DeSantis letter to the editor in my local paper:
It’s completely batshit and bears no resemblance to reality, but this person thinks it’s the God’s honest truth, and the newspaper’s editors thought it was okay to publish these awful lies without identifying them as such.
Geminid
@BC in Illinois: Turkey is still hospitable to rich Russians. Antalya and other cities on it’s southern coast already are destinations for Russian tourists. This is fitting, because in ancient times that rocky “Cilician” coast was infested with pirates.
Soprano2
I’m glad to see that the Biden administration is making progress on fixing all the various FUBARs around the student loan program. But because he’s not issuing an executive order to forgive $50,000 of student loan debt for every borrower (that’s sure to be immediately suspended when someone sues over it, and then would be fought over in the courts for years), I’m sure the people who are agitating for that won’t give him any credit for this progress. I think some supposed Democrats are their own worst enemy, because they refuse to see progress on issues and instead only complain about what’s not been done.
OzarkHillbilly
@BC in Illinois: Billionaire world problems.
Jeffro
Sure hope the DNC is paying attention…there’s an easy layup to be made here…
Kay
It’s a skewed sample because Tim Ryan also has very solid labor support, but the biggest applause line at the two events of his I’ve attended have been for Amazon Union.
Democrats could really do something with this going into the midterms. It doesn’t need to be limited to “unions”. They can extend it to rights in the workplace. It’s a good fit even in places that are not traditionally or “legacy” pro labor.
We don’t teach labor history so I think a lot of young people are simply unware that this thing exists and has a long history in the US. Maybe that doesn’t matter. They seem to be embracing what may be their first exposure to the ideas anyway. Maybe it’s better that it’s fresh to them and comes without baggage.
The Thin Black Duke
@Kay: Probably not. I remember how unions deserted New York mayor John Lindsey when he implemented affirmative action policies.
Soprano2
I’m thrilled that they are going to withdraw that odious, misnamed “conscience” rule for healthcare workers. They should call that the “right to refuse to treat” rule, because that’s what it really is, a way for people to refuse to treat people whose choices the worker doesn’t agree with. I can’t imagine being a gay or transgender person having to worry about being transported to an ER where a doctor or nurse would refuse to treat you! How any anyone think this is a good idea?
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: Everybody wants a magic pony.
Baud
@Geminid:
That’s usually how these things happen. Some incident reveals a hole in the way things are, so people act to change things.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I blame the editors.
Geminid
@Soprano2: I think that many Democrats will give President Biden credit for progress on student loans. For some advocates of comprehensive student loan relief, the credit may be grudging.
Some of the most vociferous advocates are not Democrats anyway. These people will give the President no credit at all.
Kay
@Jeffro:
Don’t discount what will be ferocius backlash by very wealthy conservatives. I think it’s worth it and D’s are down so far I think it’s time to take some risk, but they will pour money in to GOP Senate candidates and it will be brutal.
They were going to do that anyway because the Trump tax cuts alone are an absolute windfall to the wealthest segment and they will do just about anything to keep those, so I’d just go full out.
The good part of being in a bad spot is it gives you license to try new things – necessity is the mother of invention and all that :)
Baud
@Geminid:
I’m less optimistic, but I’ll hope for the best. Same with labor.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I do too. The paper routinely publishes bullshit like this, and they publish rebuttals too, which is what they say in their defense when people call them on it. But it seems like the editors should take some responsibility for amplifying eliminationist rhetoric.
catclub
I wonder how many republicans are thinking: Amazon=big company owned by liberals, union will hurt the libs.
Now ask if Chik-Fi-Lay workers need a union, or Exxon.
Geminid
@Baud: I am interesting to see how well these loan forgiveness programs operate between now and the August date of the moratorium. I don’t think the administration is just kicking the can down the road. They want existing mechanisms to work better but I expect they are working new administrative and legislative initiatives to deal with the problem.
The legislative initiatives probably won’t make it out of Congress, but they could be a good campaign issue and might even pass in the “lame duck” session. In the meantime I think that the moratorium will be extended once again.
Jeffro
I’d have to agree and the more public the fight, the better. We welcome the GOP’s help in painting itself as the party of the super-rich! =)
Related: a large majority of the country wants to tax the rich just because. No need to even spell out how we’ll spend the money, just tax. the. rich. Why not? It’s “fiscally conservative”, LOL. Another easy layup, Dems.
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s not about giving the toddler his pacifier so that he’ll behave; it’s about teaching him why he mustn’t do that. If Putin decided to give Ukraine the benefit of rationality and humanitarianism, by ending his unprovoked war of conquest and withdrawing all Russian forces to behind the recognised pre-2014 border, then he might deserve some rationality and humanitarianism in return. But not one moment before then.
Baud
@Geminid:
While a tiny sample size, what little rhetoric I’m seeing online is of the “or bust” variety.
But the Internet isn’t real life. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
Anne Laurie
Because Putin very publicly wraps himself in the mantel of ‘protecting our one true Orthodox religion’. Easter is, of course, the most important holiday in the Christian calendar, and the tradition of a religious truce is deeply embedded in Christian culture.
Of course he’s a hypocrite — to all observers, Putin’s only god is Putin — but this is like wiping his nose, or some body part, on the altar cloth. He’s so convinced he’s got his subjects cowed, he won’t even fake a decent adherence to the norms he claims to protect.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
WaterGirl
@Geminid: I saw that and I was hoping for a public event, but alas that was not to be.
Soprano2
@Kay: It’s not hard for people to understand abusive behavior by employers, and that it needs to be reined in. Hearing that workers have to wear adult diapers or pee in a bottle because they literally cannot get enough break time to use the bathroom is going to be horrifying to most people. No one should have to work in conditions like that.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: Yep, the “One Weird Trick” thing. Just wave a magic wand and instantly make everything better. That’s why I’m so impatient with the people who decided after a year that Joe Biden has let them down. They’re never going to find anyone who can satisfy their demands, because those demands are unrealistic.
rikyrah
@The Thin Black Duke:
White socialism has always been acceptable. It’s when benefits spread out to ‘others’, that it became SOCIALISM ???
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Soprano2
@catclub: I finally went to Chik-Fil-A last week because it was convenient and I had a gift card. I don’t understand what all the fuss is about – it’s a fast food place that sells chicken. I messed them up because I used cash at a register where they don’t take cash (I guess that’s a thing now). I got chicken nuggets. The employees were about as friendly as employees at other fast food places.
Wapiti
@Jeffro: a large majority of the country wants to tax the rich just because. No need to even spell out how we’ll spend the money, just tax. the. rich.
In many folk tales, the villain is the town miser. I think it’s that the tales are teaching children to help their neighbors, because when things get bad enough, the hoarder’s house gets ransacked.
Rich people are our misers. Scrooges. Hoarding more wealth than they can use in several generations.
Baud
@Soprano2:
I thought the only thing with them was that they were anti-LGBT.
Soprano2
@Anne Laurie: But I’m sure he sees only the Russian Orthodox Church as meriting that protection, and says as much.
Soprano2
@Baud: What I’m talking about is hearing people just gush about the level of service they provide, how their employees are so much nicer than the employees at other fast food places. I honestly didn’t see a difference.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, pure tinfoil hat nonsense.
My suggest reply.
“Indeed Mr X is correct, as we see with Putin dictatorship in Russia; totalitarian governments go to great lengths to emasculate and humiliate their’ nation’s youth threw forced gay sex with their security forces, resulting in a generation of traumatized men who rampage about the countryside stealing domestic appliances. As true Americans should all be on our guard against similar attempts by domestic authoritarians to creating a horde of washing machines fetishists. God did not mean for man to have a unnatural relationship with a vacuum cleaner”
jonas
@Soprano2: I think the administration’s made good progress on helping people who got screwed by scammy for-profit schools that loaded them up with debt and worthless degrees based on false advertising. Same with those who had thought their loans would be forgiven through public service, but got caught up in DOE red tape that denied them their legally-owed relief. The stickier wicket is just wiping debt out for regular borrowers who took out loans, got their degrees from regular universities, but now have trouble paying them back for whatever reason. How that would work legally, or politically, is not clear.
Ken
@Baud: That, and they squirt sugar water into the chicken before cooking it.
jonas
@Anne Laurie: Tom Nichols has a very disturbing piece up at the Atlantic now about how Putin has basically turned the Ukraine war into a religious Crusade with patriarch Kiril as his most fanatical booster. The Ukrainian orthodox church broke from Moscow a couple of years ago over the annexation of Crimea and the separatist movement in Donbas and is now being cast as some kind of heretical sect that must be destroyed (along with all the “Nazis”) at all costs. Insane stuff. But important to understand, too, imho.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@jonas: It’s even more insane when one considers both Putin and the Russian Patriarch are ex-communists. In other words they are atheists.
Ken
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: They were atheists, when it was required for their careers. Now they are theists, for equally good reasons.
opiejeanne
We are going to be in Chicago in early May for three days, but the rising numbers of Covid 19 make me wonder if it’s too risky for a meet-up. The 6th, 7th, and 8th are the days. We have tickets to the Cubs game on the 6th, and barring a tie forcing the game into extra innings (free baseball!), we should be available after 6pm. We have no set plans to be anywhere at a given time on the other two nights. Our goals so far are to visit the Art Institute and the Field Museum, and figure out the rest when we get there.
Roger Moore
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
IOW, they are opportunists who will attach themselves to whatever structure will give them power. When that was the Communist Party, they called themselves communists. When that’s the Russian Orthodox Church, they call themselves orthodox. If they were in the American South in the 1920s, they’d be in the KKK.
raven
I still owe $3800 on my student loans, I wonder if I qualify
eta Nah
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Booger
@Baud: That and their performative xtianity for refusing to be open on the sabbath because Baby Jeebus hates folks who eat waffle fries when they should be eating his body and drinking his blood.
ryk
I knew someone who looked into purchasing a Chik-fila franchise. He described a lengthy questionnaire used to determine if he was christian enough to be allowed to sell their mediocre chicken sandwiches.
ian
@Soprano2:
I am as confused at the 15 year old who took the order
different-church-lady
@OzarkHillbilly:
Don’t you just hate it when a country won’t let you conquer it the right way? Why can’t they be more reasonable about it?
Gin & Tonic
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: They are both ex-KGB as well.
Baud
@Booger:
I don’t much care about that. That’s not something that hurts people.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Soprano2:
The Anything Less Than Everything Is Nothing ethos is unhealthy, and it’s being encouraged by a number of politicians who should know better
Baud
Why are comments closed in AL’s post?
Booger
@Baud: Just sayin’ that’s their other claim to fame. That keeps them from being listed on Interstate Highway ‘attraction’ signs, among other things.
Baud
@Booger:
Gotcha.
Ruviana
@Baud: I too am wondering this.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: she has had it with our nonsense?
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It’s the most logical explanation.
Frankly, I don’t blame her one bit.
Ruviana
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Harsh but fair.
different-church-lady
@Baud:
FYWP don’t give a shit. FYWP just closes what it wants.
gvg
@Soprano2: The owners had an announced policy a few years ago of firing gay people and refusing to hire them, plus punishing franchises that didn’t follow this policy. That caused a boycott and many people piled on claiming that their chicken was awful both in taste and health. I like the taste myself and don’t care for a lot of gourmet food. I even like some fast food and do not like trying new things…but I am not typical. Anyway the policy was extreme right when things were going well for gay rights. Sort of an early backlash. Now even more horrible laws are getting passed and from what I can see, the franchises are now ignoring the anti gay policy if they want to…would probably be impossible in a short labor market.
kindness
Oh my…. Annie’s LibsofTictoc post above has closed the comments. That must have been some ugly back and forth to do that so quickly.
schrodingers_cat
Why do privileged people keep insisting that the ugliness we are witnessing in politics has to do with economics. I see it here and I see it in India too. Is the truth that difficult to face
Economics is most certainly a factor but is not the most important one. It is the loss of cultural hegemony that bothers the privileged people. They can’t stand it that those who they deemed inferior have made strides towards equality and success.
Soprano2
@ian: Now there are places where they have registers that can’t take cash, only “cashless” options like debit or credit cards or Apple Pay. They literally cannot make cash transactions at those registers. WalMart has them at their self-pay lines.
Tenar Arha
@Betty Cracker:
Yep. Publishing a letter like that without commenting that it’s a stew of lies and conspiracy theories, well it is a complete abdication of the editors. Refusing to exercise editorial judgement by publishing letters like this, they might as well volunteer to publish letters for Stormfront.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@gvg: my nephews and their cohort love it, and I’ve heard that their success prompted other FF chains to up their chicken sandwich game. I think it’s Pop-Eyes that had one that for at least a few weeks people were calling crack on a bun, and I read an article in if memory serves The Chicago Tribune saying that McDonald’s chicken sandwiches are now really good. I haven’t given in to that particular temptation. I avoid fast food because I’m a fat, middle-aged man, and when I do succumb to the instant gratification of unhealthy but satisfying food handed to me through my car window, it’s egg McMuffins
Soprano2
Yes, it is.
Geminid
@Baud: The “all loans or bust” folks are prevalent on Twitter. They get a lot of pushback, though, from people I follow including @Kenneth Hoise of Pfizer and @Sasha Beauloux to name a couple. I was introduced to these and many other Black Democrats through Ragnarok Lobster’s Twitter account. He also turned me on to Magdi Semrau, aka “Mangy Jay.”
Soprano2
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I will say the one nice thing about Chik-fil-A was I could get grilled chicken nuggets, which are much healthier than the deep fried variety. No other fast food place I’ve been to offers that. What I didn’t see was a much higher level of service than you get at other fast food places, which I’d been led to expect there.
schrodingers_cat
News from India: Muslims homes were demolished in Delhi even though a court had issued a stay on the demolition. Cackling hyenas of the Modi’s courtier press were laughing about it on Twitter.
different-church-lady
@schrodingers_cat:
You answered your own question: in America, money is identity.
Suzanne
@kindness: Seriously, WTF happened?!
different-church-lady
@Geminid:
The thing that really irritates me about this hot-button is that forgiving the existing loans isn’t going to do anything to solve the root problem going forward. It’s such a “I’m gonna get mine” attitude. Yeah, everyone who ever went to school gets off the hook, now what about everyone under 18 today? Screw them, who cares how much education costs or how they’re gonna pay for it?
Geminid
@Suzanne: Has Cancel Culture spread to Balloon Juice? Or am I just panicking?
Jay C
@kindness:
Yeah: I can’t recall the last BJ post I saw with no/closed comments.
Baud
@Geminid:
I could see trolls infesting that post, but AL hasn’t put up any kind of info.
Betty Cracker
@kindness: She may have just accidentally hit a button and closed comments before publishing it. We’ve had some horrendous comments meltdowns here before without closing comments, so my guess it isn’t that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I’m assuming she either clicked or didn’t un-clicked something she didn’t intend to and then went to tend to her garden or her pets
Peale
@Betty Cracker: That’s my guess. There wasn’t time for there to be any comments. I think it was posted with the comments closed.
Betty Cracker
I’ll email AL to inquire, but she’s nocturnal and may not see it.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: Nope it is not the whole story
I will give you two counter examples
How many stories have we heard of prominent black people being stopped and hassled at routine traffic stops.
In the 2002 Godhra pogrom where Modi made his name a Muslim ex-MP was hacked to death in his home.
MP= Member of Parliament
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: As someone who supports really broad student loan cancellation, like everything from a public school and much from private schools, I think this is a walk-and-chew-gum thing. I do want to lower college costs significantly for current and future students. During the Boomer years, the breakdown on average was somewhere around 75% of the cost of attendance was paid by taxpayers at public schools, and the other 25% was paid by the student/family. I’d like to see the feds refuse to lend to any university that didn’t get back to that ratio. I could also see forgiving 75% of the student debt at public schools to leave 25% for the borrower. Personally, I’d like to see states link tuition to the minimum wage, so if they want to raise one, they have to raise both.
Geminid
@different-church-lady: One legislative proposal by Representative Conor Lamb (D-PA) would have every American given a $10,000 voucher they could spend to retire student or finance education beyond high school. I don’t know if the amount is sufficient but I like the principle.
I’m hoping Democrats fight for free community this fall, in both Congress and in political campaigns.
I think that the most social benefit would come from universal Pre-K education. Magdi Semrau says that would be a “gamechanger.” But universal Pre-K is a only part of a greater solution to bring us a more equal society and a more competent work force.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Elizabeth Warren keeps tweeting at Biden every day about canceling student loans by an executive order.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: I agree there’s no one cause. Anyone peddling a theory that attributes our increasingly unhinged politics to a single cause is full of crap, IMO. It’s complicated. Even within the right-wing hate machine, they’re perfectly capable of peddling intersectional hate memes — for example, “Silicon Valley tech lords/WDW are trying to turn kids gay/trans” is a popular smear, combining economic populism with anti-LGBTQ themes.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: @kindness:
I have no inside information, but it’s likely that the wrong box got checked on a post.
Soprano2
@Geminid: The early childhood years are key. That’s one reason I used to read “Daily Howler” every day, because he knew a lot about that issue because he taught in Baltimore inner city schools for 12 years. He’d make the point that if kids are way behind in 3rd grade it’s almost impossible for them to catch up, and they usually drop out by high school.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I think the Amazon union complicates some narratives because it’s 60% AA and Latino. That’s what I mean about the benefit of not carrying the baggage of the whole mixed bag of labor history. They’re younger so they’re not harkening back to the labor union members beating up hippies at the 1968 convention or Reagan firing the air traffic controllers. It didn’t limit their effort – if they know these things at all (and they may not, being born in 1993 or thereabouts) that didn’t stop them from trying.
In a weird way Joe Biden’s perhaps ole timey views on the value of labor circled back and became relevant again. Because it’s as “kitchen table” as it gets, what they’re asking for. Wages, work hours, health care, safety.
schrodingers_cat
I am pro-labor and pro-unionization but against populism both from the right and the left because it inevitably leads to otherizing vulnerable minorities.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: How do you define populism?
RaflW
Mentioned this in Adam’s nightly UKR thread before bed but worth repeating what self-acknowledged Orthodox Christian Tom Nichols said about the Russian church yesterday:
“The Russian church under Patriarch Kirill I (who climbed the greasy pole of ecclesiastical politics to become the leader of Russian Orthodoxy in 2009) has willingly entered into a nauseating symbiosis with Putin, picking up the chains of the old KGB and slapping them right back on the church’s wrists.”
ian
@Soprano2:
I get that. I was confused why you went with gift card, then switched to cash. Not that it is any of my business, but it threw me for a loop while reading.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: The classic definition. Talk of revolution, of people vs. the elite. Us vs. them rhetoric. Promise of quick solutions to difficult problems. All or nothing rhetoric.
PST
@opiejeanne:
You may already be familiar with the geography, but in case you’re not, getting from the Field Museum to the Art Institute is a pleasant one mile stroll through the park (or just a skootch farther to walk along the lake). I’m personally not worried these days about indoor get-togethers, even in shared spaces if not overcrowded and sharing a table with vaccinated friends, but Chicago should also have lots of open outdoor venues by May, although weather cannot, of course, be guarantied.
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat: @Betty Cracker
And distrust of the long grinding work of democracy.
Geminid
@Soprano2: Magdi Semrau taught elementary school kids. She explained that her Twitter handle “Mangy Jay” was what her students called her; at the time her name was Magdelena Jacobs.
Semrau only occasionally talks about her teaching days, but that experience comes out sometimes. She also has a good base of social science knowledge, and when she reviewed an article in Jerkobin Magazine about a data-based strategy to win working class voters, Semrau found the methodology so slipshod she said, “I feel like I just found a child eating crayons.”
Later in the review she added, “Someone come talk me off this ledge I think I’m having a brain bleed.”
sab
@schrodingers_cat: With you on this.
sab
@ian: When you get a gift card from somewhere you disapprove of you have to go there. Otherwise they get the money without having to dish out product. That isn’t right.
sab
@Geminid: Thank you for this comment. I love Mangy Jay but I didn’t know the back story. Child-eating-crayons will stay in my mind forever.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: Okay, I can see why you find it so disturbing in that case. Our definitions differ, so your alarm seemed excessive until I realized we were talking about different things, or at least different degrees of similiar things.
Geminid
@sab: I learn a lot from Mangy Jay, or at least, I try to.
smedley the uncertain
@Betty Cracker: The Blog Lords #1 comment ‘Test” may be indicative. I just answered it with a signal report and it was accepted and posted. INT over.
taumaturgo
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Everyone should be aware that the Chik-Fil-A chicken sandwich has between 55 -85 ingredients depending on the addons. Garbage in-Garbage out.
opiejeanne
@ian: If the gift card doesn’t cover the entire order, it has to be paid for in some manner.
opiejeanne
@PST: Thanks. I’ve looked at the map and at the estimated walking times/distances between things. I’m pretty sure we want to take the architecture tour on the river, but that will depend on the weather.
Miss Bianca
@Geminid: Colorado state house just passed universal Pre-k bill. We also guaranteed the right to abortion. We seem to be headed in the right direction, on the state level. Although we sure have our fair share of RWNJs, as well.
O. Felix Culpa
@opiejeanne: You DEFINITELY want to take the architecture boat tour, unless the weather’s cold and wet. It’s an exercise in misery under those conditions; otherwise it’s sublime.
opiejeanne
@O. Felix Culpa: Thanks.