Open Threads

Regarding our fund-raising yesterday, Svensker passes along an email:

*****, I’m almost too overwhelmed to write. I am utterly agog. Over 200-some-odd people — utter strangers to me — have contributed to my health expenses through PayPal and as of right now it adds up to about $5,000! Tears are streaming here! I’m sputtering, blithering here, in amazement and gratitude and relief.

Please pass on my bottomless thanks to these wonderful people who chipped in whatever they were able to afford. I just can’t get over it. I wish I could make a quilt for each and every one of you! I’m afraid I don’t have the strength to thank you all individually, so I’ll leave it to you, *****, to let them know from me how humbling it is to see the goodness of the human spirit rise to the occasion at a time like this and give a frightened artist hope and strength to carry on. My very deepest, most awestruck thanks to everyone. You’ve all give me yet another opportunity to try to learn the grace of accepting generosity instead of resisting it, the most important lesson I learned from my breast cancer diagnosis in 2004.

Big love to all of you. I’ll never forget this.

**** ********

Names redacted. At any rate, I would say that was a smashing success, and hopefully this will help her with some peace of mind as well as help with the financial mess she is in. Thanks to all of you who pitched in a hand, and hopefully she will be back to full speed sometime soon and back to quilting and trying to lead a somewhat normal life. And here is to hoping at least a portion of that is spent on a big piece of beef, some mashed potatoes, peas, and some cobbler.

Update on Svensker’s FriendPost + Comments (63)

Bobo in tomorrow morning’s Times:

You wouldn’t know it some days, but there are moderates in this country — moderate conservatives, moderate liberals, just plain moderates. We sympathize with a lot of the things that President Obama is trying to do. We like his investments in education and energy innovation. We support health care reform that expands coverage while reducing costs.

(but we think he’s turning into a radical left-winger, natch)

Moderate? What happened to worshiping Edmund Burke and Hayek and Oakeshott and all those other guys? What happened to kicking it in Gstaad with William F. Buckley?

What concerns me most is the very real possibility that Brooks will now dig up some long forgotten hero of moderation and begin quoting him as if we all were supposed to know who he was. Are there any moderate intellectual writers I should start boning up on right now?

Maybe a neomoderate?Post + Comments (77)

Sorry for the lack of posts, and there is a ton going on, including the updates on the wiretapping stuff, the reform of the Rockefeller laws in NY (I forget who I was reading that was talking about that), and a whole host more, but I woke up this morning with a sinus headache that has, through the course of the day, gotten progressively worse. I am now starting to feel serious flu related stuff as well.

Oh wells.

Open ThreadPost + Comments (76)

A couple of days ago, frequent commenter Svensker talked about a friend of hers who had some problems, and I asked her to elaborate a little and find out if there was anything we could do to help. We emailed back and forth for a few days, and here is the back story:

I have an amazing friend on the west coast. She’s smart, funny, quirky and a fantastic artist, who designs intricately detailed, one-of-a-kind art quilts made from found textiles. A number of her quilts have been acquired by the International Quilt Study Center & Museum at the University of Nebraska. She survived a bout with breast cancer a few years ago but was feeling good as she approached her 5 year remission anniversary, she had a decent job as an editor, and life seemed pretty good.

Then a few months ago she got laid off from her editing job. She managed to keep up her health insurance, which is good,thing, because she was just diagnosed with liver cancer—treatable, but expensive, even with insurance. She was struggling to bring in some income (e-bay, on-line selling, freelancing editing, etc.) and seeming to do OK…then I didn’t hear from her. Called, e-mailed, nothing. 2 weeks go by. She e-mailed yesterday to say that she’d just got out of the hospital, where she was admitted after collapsing at home. Reason she collapsed? Malnutrition. Isn’t it lovely not to have enough money to pay for food AND medical expenses?

The doctor’s trying to get her strength up before they begin chemo, which they hope to start next week. My friend’s trying not to think about the fact that she is piling up huge bills on her co-pay and, at the same time, doesn’t have much energy left over to work. As an older single woman without any family to fall back on, her options right now are pretty slim.

If you’d like to “meet” my friend and see some of her work here’s a link to a show that Oregon Public Broadcasting did about her in 2000.

At any rate, I was hoping she would have some quilts for sale and we would be able to advertise those, but she has been too sick to do any of that, so here instead is a paypal link. If you can toss in a couple bucks to help out a member of the extended Balloon Juice family, that would be great.

Give A Hand If You CanPost + Comments (149)

Another nugget of greatness from the Breitbart piece John just wrote about:

Anonymous liberal commentators, the rabid pests of the new media, sought out the most popular conservative blogs to flood the zone with familiar Rush Limbaugh slanders. Their goal: To demoralize the right with layer upon layer of media domination. Only talk radio with its emphasis on Socratic debate over raw emotionalism and with Mr. Limbaugh in the driver’s seat has escaped the left’s clutches of pure media dominance.

Socratic debatePost + Comments (121)

Have at it.

CBS Sunday MorningPost + Comments (17)