President Biden Delivers Remarks on the Economy and Lowering Prices for the American People at 2 pm Eastern.
“We will begin shortly.”
Open Thread.
And Now, A Word from Our <s>Sponsor</s> President (LIVE)Post + Comments (142)
This post is in: Biden Administration in Action, Open Threads, Politics
President Biden Delivers Remarks on the Economy and Lowering Prices for the American People at 2 pm Eastern.
“We will begin shortly.”
Open Thread.
And Now, A Word from Our <s>Sponsor</s> President (LIVE)Post + Comments (142)
by WaterGirl| 30 Comments
This post is in: Balloon Juice, Pet Calendar
So many pet crushes, so little time.
Subaru Diane suggested a pet calendar update – what a great idea!
We are going with Cafe Press again this year. They raised the cost to us, and you guys swore a blood oath that you wouldn’t mind if we raised the price, so calendars will be $27 each this year. We have a Calendar A and a Calendar B again this year.
We’re sticking with the December 1 goal again this year as the first day to order calendars. They usually go out within a day or two after ordering.
Hoping the mock-ups will be done by Monday, 11/29.
I hope to be able to put up the verification links in the sidebar by Friday 11/26. Saturday 11/27 at the very latest. That is your chance to correct names that are misspelled, check to make sure that all your pets are indeed in a single calendar, make sure we have a heart if you have lost your beloved pet, and that there isn’t a heart if you are still together.
Pet photos are organized into individual months and then into Calendar A and Calendar B for each months. This is where we are now, and we are about halfway there.
An update from the pet rescue will go up soon – I asked them for an update so we can all see how our calendar dollars and donations are being put to good use! I have received the info from the pet rescue folks… but I haven’t had a chance to put the post together yet.
What am I forgetting?
by WaterGirl| 13 Comments
This post is in: Iceland, On The Road, Photo Blogging
I was so surprised by how accessible natural beauty was in Iceland. A lot of the waterfalls I visited were just off the Ring Road. I didn’t need to hike into the wilderness or up a mountain to see these beauties. To be sure, I did do some strenuous hikes. I tried to hike up to see the crater of the volcano that erupted in March. I made it about 3/4 or a mile, climbing about 850 feet, before I threw in the towel. But generally I found that in Iceland, nature’s beauty is accessible to everyone.
On The Road – MissWimsey – Chasing waterfalls, Part IIPost + Comments (13)
This is Öxarárfoss.
by WaterGirl| 31 Comments
This post is in: Iceland, On The Road, Photo Blogging
I spent seven glorious days chasing waterfalls in Iceland, a country that has been on my bucket list for a while. I’ve spent the pandemic hiking every forest preserve within a couple of hours of Chicago with my doggos. So the minute I got my second shot in April, I booked the trip. Originally it was going to be four days, but there was just so much I wanted to do that I tacked in an extra three days. Since this was a solo trip, I didn’t do anything too dangerous, like hike 12 miles up a mountain. I also mixed it up: some guided tours/activities and some self-driving activities.
During my vacation, I visited the Golden Circle, the closest to Reikjavik; the glaciers in east Iceland; and Snaefellsness Peninsula in west Iceland. I hiked to an ice cave; took a boat ride on a glacier lagoon; tried to hike up to the volcano that erupted in March (it’s no longer active although the guides say that the area has had a lot of earthquakes in recent days); and generally just explored this country that has so much natural beauty.
On The Road – MissWimsey – Chasing Waterfalls in IcelandPost + Comments (31)
Thingvellir is a historic park and one of the main stops on the Golden Circle, a route that features many tourist sites recommended for travelers with very little time to explore the country. The park was the site of the country’s first parliament, an open air venue, from the 10th to the 18th century. The valley sits on the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, which you can see in nearby Silfra.
This post is in: Open Threads, Popular Culture, TV & Movies, Culture as a Hedge Against This Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We're Living In
BG is at a neighborhood party, so there is no Medium Cool tonight. He offered to tee up a post anyway, but Medium Cool without BG just isn’t Medium Cool. (Maybe lukewarm, but definitely not Medium Cool.) So I let him off the hook, but BG will be back next week!
Can we talk about The Americans? At least for a little while?
I hadn’t watched in years – 4 seasons behind! – but recently started watching again. What a great show. I am about to start the final season – and I’ll confess that I watched the series finale a couple of days ago. Sue me. I wanted to know whether they went back.
SPOILER:
They went back. I wanted them to stay in America and live happily ever after. Are they sociopaths? One of the reviews of the finale said the Jennings were sociopaths. The Vietnamese kid Tuan who didn’t give a shit if his buddy died in his strategic suicide attempt as long as it moved the pieces on the board to where they were supposed to go – now he’s a sociopath.
But it seemed to me that there were good people on both sides. (For real!) At least some good people, it addition to the awful ones.
I think Stan is a good guy. Phillip is a good guy. Oleg is a good guy. I guess I am using “good guy” is a stand-in for someone with a moral compass. I was fond of Gabriel by the end. I feel sorry for *Martha; if I were Martha I would be very bitter. I hope Phillip and his son get to meet.
So there’s my shallow people-oriented take.
What made this such a great show? Great writing? Great acting? All the disguises? The sex? Relationships? Was it a metaphor for all of our lives? Was it that very few people were all bad or all good? What about the ending? I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live in Russia, with all the corruption, living in fear all the time. Plus it’s really fucking cold.
The one thing that made no sense to me was that Phillip and Elizabeth would want to go back.
So we can start with The Americans, and then talk about whatever comes up.
*Though it looks like Martha might get a child of her own? So maybe not bitter after all?
This post is in: Adam Schiff Midnight in Washington Book Club, Open Threads
A month ago I put up a post asking if there was interested in a weekly book club to discuss Adam Schiff’s book Midnight in Washington.
Interest in a Weekly Book Club to Read & Discuss Adam Schiff’s Book Midnight In Washington?
Here’s a list of people who indicated they were interested:
Book Club – Adam Schiff’s <i>Midnight in Washington</i>Post + Comments (100)
A Good Woman
Ajabu
Alison Rose
Almost Retired (+1 book)
bemused senior
Betty
bluegirlfromwyo
brantl
CasieL
Damned_at_Random (+1 book)
debbie
eddie blake
ellie
grandmabear
HeleninEire
HRA
Jack the Cold Warrior
Jackie
Jean
Jess
Jim, Foolish Literalist
JoyceH (maybe)
JustinW (+1 book)
Kalakal
Krakengonewild
Low Key Swagger
Middlelee
narya (+1 book)
PatrickG (+1 book)
peggy
Ramona Rosario
Renie (+1 book)
Ruckus
sam
SiubhanDuinne
skerry
thruppence
WaterGirl
zamphuor
Zelma
?
Between the pet calendar, the fundraising and being down with a bug for a week, nearly a month has passed. I assume everyone on the list is interested. Yes? Who else is interested in participating?
A few people offered to buy copies for other interested folks who aren’t in a position right now to buy the book, so if you resemble that remark, let us know in the comments or send me email. Hopefully we can figure out a way to get a book for everyone in that position who wants to participate!
Now we need to figure out the day of the week and the time of the day. Are weekends good? Maybe during the day? Are evenings better? Let us know in the comments.
I’m thinking we won’t start until after Thanksgiving, and we can take a week off at Christmas if we want to.
Update: It’s looking like we will start in early January.
This post is in: Civil Rights, Guest Posts, Politics, Racial Justice
The Thin Black Duke published this smart, thoughtful piece on Medium this week. I asked him if I could share it here, and he graciously agreed. ~WaterGirl
by The Thin Black Duke
Sometimes there is no goddamned bottom to how cruel white people can be, especially when you’re a dead black man in White America:
BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — A judge denied mistrial requests on Monday at the trial of three white men charged with murdering Ahmaud Arbery after defense attorneys claimed jurors were tainted by weeping from the gallery where the slain Black man’s parents sat with the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Sure, the defense attorneys are doing their job, but their motion for a mistrial was callous, idiotic, and reprehensible. And in spite of their ridiculous courtroom theatrics, black people aren’t going to forget the reason why this murder trial is happening:
Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael armed themselves and pursued the 25-year-old Black man in a pickup truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood on Feb. 23, 2020. Their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan joined the chase and took cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery three times with a shotgun.
Then again, the defense attorneys didn’t care about the black people in the courtroom, not at all. No, the targeted audience was the other white people in the crowd, and the distasteful and unsubtle implication the lawyers were trying to make was how awful it was that black people were openly expressing their grief in front of everybody.
They were speaking in code, a secret and ancient language that only white people in White America can understand, and when you read between the lies and translate the hidden message underneath, this is what’s really being said: How dare you try to make us feel guilty?
Trouble is, white people aren’t always innocent bystanders, and looking the other way most of the time when bad things are happening to black people makes them accomplices. That realization makes them uncomfortable.
Guest Post: The Thin Black Duke – An Injustice!Post + Comments (101)
Not surprisingly, that discomfort probably explains this:
Support for Black Lives Matter movement is declining, according to new poll
A new poll shows a decline in support among Americans for the Black Lives Matter movement, a year and a half after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and other high-profile deaths of Black people in encounters with police sparked a global outcry.
Unfortunately, some white people are only comfortable being around with black people when they’re being entertained by them, and when black people aren’t singing or dancing or telling jokes or catching a football, white people get nervous. Especially when black people ain’t smiling.
And in White America, when white people get nervous, black people die.
As comedian and radio host D.L. Hughley commented, “The most dangerous place for a black people to be is in a white man’s imagination. We live in an America right now where we have evolved … but we inherently believe black people are criminal.”
And I’m sorry, but these are facts, not opinions. (What some white people call “paranoia”, black people call “common sense”.)
Tamir Rice was a child playing with a toy gun who was shot to death by a white cop. Breonna Taylor was asleep in her bed when three white cops rushed into Taylor’s apartment and shot her. Stephon Clark was in his grandmother’s backyard holding a mobile phone when he was shot twenty times by white cops.
So many unjustified fatalities, so little accountability.
However, the three cowardly white trash morons who murdered Armaud Arbury are going to jail because even though they’re white men, they made the mistake of shooting a video of the killing and, more importantly, they weren’t wearing police badges.
Still, thinking about black people in White America as target practice is infuriating, and it makes me sick to my stomach. It doesn’t help that expressing grief or outrage at this never-ending brutalization is either ignored or trivialized by too many white people.
It brings to mind a sign I saw at a BLM protest that clearly and powerfully expressed the frustration black people feel about the dilemma we’ve been stuck in for most of our lives:
“We march, y’all mad. We sit down, y’all mad. We speak up, y’all mad. We die, y’all silent.”
Conversely, white men in White America not only have permission to be vulgar, mean-spirited assholes in public, they’re rewarded for it. Worse, you can even get away with murder. The latest odious example is Kyle Rittenhouse, the stupid Pillsbury Doughboy of white male mediocrity and remorseless killer of two unarmed men.
I really hope I’m wrong, but I believe that Rittenhouse is probably going to walk out of the courtroom a free man.
Why? Because this punk is the embodiment of the hatred that White America has for black people, so Rittenhouse’s murderous rampage was inevitable, and the systemic racism deeply embedded in this country made it ridiculous easy for him to get a rifle and act out his violent fantasies.
(Hey, you’re gonna need a AR-15 when a savage horde of predatory jigaboos drive up in their Cadillacs looking for the white wimmen. Ain’t got no time for no nonsense like “background checks”.)
Although the two men that Rittenhouse killed were white, don’t forget that the reason this wannabe Rambo traveled to Kenosha in the first place was to “protect” the city from BLM protestors.
Greg and Travis McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan are going to jail because every once in a while White America needs sacrificial lambs to pretend that racism doesn’t exist. But if Rittenhouse is acquitted, he’s a role model for all the other copycat vigilantes in White America to admire and emulate, and the United States becomes a more dangerous place to live in, and not just for black people. Everybody.
(Killer cops don’t need anymore help killing black people. Seriously.)
Ironically, Kyle Rittenhouse is the homicidal sociopath that a delusional White America imagines black people to be. Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, Stephon Clark and Ahmaud Arbery weren’t criminals. Rittenhouse is.