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What’s going on for fun in your neck of the woods, tonight?
Anne Laurie has been a Balloon Juice writer since 2009.
Early Morning Open Thread: Happy Solstice!
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Here in the northern hemisphere, Winter 2012 officially begins at 6:12am EST, per the Washington Post:
… The higher the latitude, the faster daylight is gained or lost on a daily basis throughout the year. This is true whichever hemisphere you live in.
If you live in a northern city with very short days now, the good news is that you’ll gain daylight at a faster, more noticeable pace than places to your south. So, even though the coldest days of winter have yet to arrive, increasing daylight is something to look forward to.
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Now that the Mayan Long Count has rolled over, what’s on the agenda for the Last Weekend Frenzy Before Xmas?
Early Morning Open Thread: Happy Solstice!Post + Comments (102)
Thursday Recipe Exchange: Holiday Gatherings
From our Food Goddess, TaMara:
Happy day before Solstice! With five days until Christmas, I hope you’re all set to go. Christmas Eve dinner is once again at my place, so I still have some shopping to do. The menu is set and I’m keeping it pretty simple: A classic Spinach Lasagna (recipe here), garlic-cheese bread, salad and an ice cream sundae bar for dessert. Plenty of good coffee, wine and friends will complete the evening.
Since this is a time of holiday potlucks and house guests, I thought it would be fun to highlight some recipes that are easy, but elegant.
The first recipe is a Christmas morning favorite: German Pancakes with walnut sauce (recipe here). Easy, easy recipe that will wow any overnight guests. And there is a bonus Santa Cookie recipe at that link.
And if you’re asked to bring the dessert?
How about JeffreyW’s Sweet Potato-Pecan Pie (recipe here). Pretty to look at and delicious.
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Thursday Evening Open Thread: Full Godwin
You know who else got more people to vote?… No doubt irked that mere bloggish upstarts like Megan McArdle threaten his longheld place on the Worst People in the Media World list, George F. Will goes there:
[Voting] turnout has not increased as the electorate has become more educated and affluent and as government has become more involved in Americans’ lives…. The stakes of politics are agreeably low because constitutional rights and other essential elements of happiness are not menaced by elections. Those who think high voter turnout indicates civic health should note that in three German elections, 1932-33, turnout averaged more than 86 percent, reflecting the terrible stakes: The elections decided which mobs would rule the streets and who would inhabit concentration camps….
Via Mr. Charles Pierce, who gets paid (not enought) to Read These Idiots.
Thursday Evening Open Thread: Full GodwinPost + Comments (48)
The NRA As Paranoia Vector & Neofeudalist Tool
Mark Ames, who has been writing about ‘rampage massacres‘ for the past decade, discusses Newtown and “The Hick Fascism of the NRA“:
… Until now, I have largely avoided getting dragged down into the gun control debate, in part because gun proliferation doesn’t explain why “going postal” first exploded into the culture in the late 1980s, and has worked its way into the American DNA ever since. Gun control or lack thereof doesn’t explain why these kinds of rampage shootings only appeared in the late Reagan era and spread ever since then. And there must have been my own personal prejudices too — I grew up with guns, and despite a couple of bad episodes involving guns and a drunken violent stepfather, I have a reflexive contempt for people who haven’t gone shooting and tell you that gun control laws are the answer.
Well, guess what? Their knee-jerk solution is more right than mine.
Passing gun restrictions today probably wouldn’t do much to slow down rampage massacres, at least not for awhile — but the politics of sweeping gun control laws could have a huge transformative effect over time. It’s no longer possible for me to ignore that fact.
Which means it’s also no longer possible for me to ignore the National Rifle Association, and its hick fascism politics that’ve been poisoning our culture ever since the NRA’s infamous “coup” in 1977, when the NRA was taken over by far-right fanatics led by a convicted murderer and onetime US Border Guards chief named Harlon Carter — whose previous claim to fame was when he led a massive crackdown on Mexican immigrant laborers called “Operation Wetback.” …
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Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Gifting
Taking the good news where we can find it, from the NYTimes:
No Big Hits, but Bookshops Say They’re Thriving
… While Bookscan does not include e-books and covers only roughly 75 percent of retail outlets, this year’s figures provide a snapshot of the fragmented holiday sales picture as a whole: independent bookstores report that a range of books are moving nicely, but there are mixed numbers from Barnes & Noble, the nation’s largest book chain, and solid but not stellar growth in digital sales. Independent bookstore owners say they are thriving even without that surefire best seller because of a wide array of options this year: everything from Barbara Kingsolver’s “Flight Behavior” (list price $28.99) to Chris Ware’s expensive graphic novel “Building Stories” — which comes with 14 components, including bound volumes, a board and a tabloid newspaper ($50) — to attractive impulse buys like “I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems by Cats” ($12.95)…There are many reasons bookstores point to for their successful holiday season. President Obama, they note, set the stage when he took his daughters, Sasha and Malia, to One More Page Books in Arlington, Va., on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, where he snapped up 15 children’s books.
Small bookstores report that they are also benefiting from the popularity of Kobo e-readers, which were designed for independent bookstores and allow customers to buy e-books through the independents’ Web sites, as opposed to say, Amazon…
Ms. Anderson’s was a familiar story across the nation, according to the American Booksellers Association, a trade group for independent bookstores. Dan Cullen, a spokesman for the association, said that in-store book sales for November, which includes Black Friday and the start of Christmas shopping, were up 10 percent compared with 2011 figures….
My own “doorstop of the moment” read is Andrew Solomon’s Far From the Tree: Parents, Children & the Search for Identity. It’s worth every bit of the attention it’s garnered, although I wouldn’t recommend it for expectant parents or those of young children. (And if you don’t have a convenient independent bookstore, remember that purchases through the front-page Amazon link in the right-hand column help keep the Balloon Juice servers running.)
What books, hardcopy or digital, are on everybody’s gift lists / wish lists this gifting season?
Target the Gun Profiteers Makers
There are a slew of newly visible, Serious & Constructive ideas about improving gun safety in America, shaken loose by the latest tragedy. Mr. Charles P. Pierce at Esquire starts near the top of the food chain:
If you read nothing else in the wake of the tragic events in Connecticut, you should check out the story that the socialist-liberal-fascists at Fortune have put together on who precisely it is that makes an unholy buck on murder in this country…
This could be the start of something real — a disinvestment campaign, modeled on the one aimed at companies doing business in South Africa and, later, at the tobacco industry, on the part of police, and fire, and school teachers’ unions to remove their money from the marketing end of mass killing. A campaign that would redefine gun violence as a public-health crisis, as David Satcher tried to do years ago, and to redefine it on the balance sheet, where that would really count. This could be the start of holding the people who really make the money accountable for how they make it… The paranoia stoked by NRA fundraising — which, alas, seems to have worked its dark magic on Adam Lanza’s mother — is not directed merely against sensible gun legislation. It’s to sell more guns to the people who marinate themselves in that paranoia, so the people who make the guns can make even more money. That’s the place you want to paint the bullseye.
As befits its audience, Gawker‘s Drew Magary uses ruder words:
… One of the amazing things about the gun control debate in America is the remarkable success with which gun manufacturers—Sig Sauer, Glock, Smith & Wesson, Ruger, The Freedom Group (yes, it’s called the fucking Freedom Group)—have been able to avoid the conversation altogether. When you think of Glock, you think of a gun, and not of the company behind it. That needs to change…
Gun manufacturers profit off of mass violence in America. See for yourself. Every time a massacre happens, gun sales go through the roof because liberals cry out for gun control, and then conservatives flee to buy as many guns as possible just in case those shady folks in the GUBMINT come calling for their precious arms. They’ve succeeded in getting gun owners to disguise their love of shooting shit under a bullshit pretense of one day having to form a militia just in case Hitler II gets elected President. And they’ve succeeded in letting those people fight their flame wars for them. You have to hand it the gun industry, really. It’s an ingenious little sales cycle they’ve created. Every massacre draws attention to the product, yet somehow NEVER to the people ultimately responsible for their production.
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