Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

This blog will pay for itself.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Motown is Joe-Town!

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

I really should read my own blog.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

American History and Black History can not be separated.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

We won’t go back.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickel?”

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

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Respite

Respite Open Thread: While We Wait

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I’m still around, but getting lots of writing done, so stepping away has been good for that process. Thanks to folks for the emails with climate and kindness stuff, I do appreciate it! I’m really missing Steeplejack’s emails filled with kindness topics these days.

I spent the morning listening to one of my favorite new comedians, Josh Johnson. He never fails to make my day better. This is from his recent Denver appearance. I queued it up to the bits on Biden and Harris, but the entire set is a riot.

I’m on my second batch of Palisade peaches and I’m in heaven. They really are the best. But honestly, any fresh peaches can’t be beaten (I say this so the blogfather doesn’t call me to argue about whose peaches are best, LOL)

Respite Open Thread: While We Wait

The critters are all doing fine, I do post weekly pictures (here) every Friday if you miss them (recipes, too). Reggie is growing like a weed and eats his weight in food every day (I don’t think that’s an exaggeration).

Respite Open Thread: While We Wait 1

I do have two climate posts stockpiled that I’ll post on a weekend when we are not awaiting fun news from VP Harris – I’m ridiculously excited to have her officially nominated on my birthday. I don’t know if she’ll wait for the VP pick then, as well, but that would be fun, too.

We’re on fire here – three so far – so no gardening and only quick walks for the dogs. Too smoky for anything else but closing up the house and turning on the air purifiers.

This is an open thread, I’m crawling back under my rock to write, so try and play nice.

 

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Respite Open Thread: Jasper is Eight

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Thought we could use a breather…Respite Open Thread: Jasper is Eight

This guy turned eight this week and you’d never know it. You’d never know he looked like this two years ago when he came to live with us. A little grayer, but still jumps around like a puppy with a touch of ADHD.

Dog Blogging: Need Your Thoughts

I’ve gotten nothing done today that was on my list, but some days are like that. I have a climate post ready to go for tomorrow, but we’ll see how the day goes. I may have to buckle down and do some serious writing instead.

The rest of the critters are all doing fine. I’m posting Furry Fridays over at my writing blog every Friday if you ever wonder how the other furry/feathered critters are doing.

This is a RESPITE thread. Tell us your good news.

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Some Saturday Respite: A Periodic Post…

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I continue to be astonished at the fundamental, to-the-bone soulless moral depravity that seems to be required in Trumpworld. I know I shouldn’t be surprised given how clearly and how often they’ve told us who they are. But I guess I’m glad that I still have that reflex moment of “unbelievable!” when presented with stuff like the Trump spokesman’s defense of the pickup-lynching image discussed in the post below.  It’s my way of refusing to normalize that evil in our public life. Trump’s behavior and the lockstep (goose step?) responses of his supporters should never be reduced to “Trump-being-Trump.” So I don’t. I won’t.

But one cannot live by rage and disgust alone. So enjoy this, perhaps the best interpretation of the organization of matter at the atomic level that I’ve ever seen.

Some Saturday Respite: A Periodic Post...

What else is there to say?

Well, perhaps this:

Happy Saturday. This thread is as open as the quest for the island of stability.

Image: Randall Munroe, “Periodic Table Regions,” XKCD 2913, 2024

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Respite Interlude Open Thread: October Project

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Can’t say this grabs my attention the way Ariel or Bury My Lovely did, but that was sooo many years ago (and Mary Fahl‘s voice is irreplaceable).

This is nonetheless pleasant, and the pictures are well matched to the lyrics…

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Good News Open Thread: That’s A Big Boy

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Just a few fun tidbits I’ve gathered the past week. (Just a note, this was all supposed to run yesterday, but breaking news pushed it to another day).

The entire thread was a great mood lifter (can’t be said about much of twitter these days)

Good News Open Thread: That's A Big Boi

Brian definitely has resting annoyed-face.

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You Will Thank Me Later

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This post is apropos of not much at all.

But hey–a little literary fun never hurt anyone, amirite?

So here goes:

Sunday afternoon I was looking for an off-center way to help my students make the transition into writing longer, more explicitly narrative non-fiction about science–longer and more story-like than straight news.

I started poking around the endlessly enjoyable neighborhood of very short fiction, and stumbled across an example that begins like this:

The short essay on “The Improbability of the Infinite” which I was planning for you yesterday will now never be written. Last night my brain was crammed with lofty thoughts on the subject–and for that matter, on every other subject. My mind was never so fertile. Ten thousand words on any theme from Tin-tacks to Tomatoes would have been easy to me.

You Will Thank Me Later

That was last night. This morning I have only one word in my brain, and I cannot get rid of it. The word is “Teralbay.”

Read the whole thing (it’ll take you all of five minutes, with a headwind).

I loved a lot about this little story. For the my classroom, I wanted the students to see how cleverly much the story wasn’t about its plot–and how skillfully its themes were woven through character, and all the character development (all eleven paragraphs of it) came via action. The author never belabored the reader with explicit description–which is to say, never told the audience what or how to think about what was going on.

That’s something the young writers I’m working with this time find it very difficult to do: how to avoid the urge to make it REALLY CLEAR what they mean and why it matters. This piece shows that such explicit telegraphing of intention not only isn’t necessary, but actually gets in the way of the convincing the reader.

There’s some very nice structural work going on in it too, a nice play between exposition and action, stuff that if you squint just right you can map onto recognizable narrative non-fiction approaches.

But all that, of course, is the sort of stuff I’m supposed to notice and like. But if I’m being entirely honest, I will say that what I loved most about the piece was the way it gave me a very new read on its author, a much slyer and gleefully less nice figure than the one I’d imagined. Much more fun, and a much more interesting fellow with whom to (imagine) downing a brandy and soda (not all the soda, Jeeves). Guess before you look.

Utterly, randomly open thread. Have fun, y’all.

Image: Catherine M. Wood, Still life with onions and tomatoes 1891

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Respite Thread: Laughter is Good

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geg6 posted this on her FB page and I had to steal it.

Albatrossy sent me this one:

These are all me, LOL

 

I think someone sent this to me, but I didn’t make a note when I bookmarked the video. Identify yourself!

Zookeepers at Denmark’s Odense Zoo thwarted an escape attempt by a flock of their penguins after following a trail of wet footprints. The zoo joked, “Perhaps our penguins [have] seen ‘The Penguins of Madagascar’ too much?” in a statement posted with the video on November 10.

I am off to the Botanic Gardens for their Halloween event and then out to dinner. I’m hoping there will be some ice cream involved somehow. Have fun and share some videos/stories that make you laugh. So I can come back later and enjoy some more smiles.

 

 

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