Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Dear legacy media: you are not here to influence outcomes and policies you find desirable.

We will not go back.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

All hail the time of the bunny!

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

This blog will pay for itself.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

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Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Bidenomics Whining – Boxing Day Edition

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Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Bidenomics Whining - Boxing Day Edition


It’s not clear to me whether the offended consumer actually *bought* sixteen pounds of prime rib, or if he just objects to the concept of that much expensive meat being on offer at an ‘ordinary’ supermarket…

Perhaps coincidentally, the NYTimes had a big illustrated feature on “The Rise and Fall of Prime-Rib Nation“.

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread: The Week Between the Years

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Some people hate going into the office this week, because it’s impossible to make any progress when so many people are out and/or businesses short-staffed. Some would prefer to be at their office, to finally get some work done without the usual distractions. And then there’s those who are spending time with loved ones they are loving less by the hour…

To everyone, condolences or congratulations… and let’s keep in mind that not everyone is gonna be in the best mood right now.


Possibly helpful information on those gift cards for Hooters / Victoria’s Secret / the chain restaurant that doesn’t have a franchise within 100 miles of your home even assuming you’d ever lower your standards that far:

… Americans are expected to spend nearly $30 billion on gift cards this holiday season, according to the National Retail Federation. Restaurant gift cards are the most popular, making up one-third of those sales…

Gift cards get lost or forgotten, or recipients hang on to them for a special occasion. In a July survey, the consumer finance company Bankrate found that 47% of U.S. adults had at least one unspent gift card or voucher. The average value of unused gift cards is $187 per person, a total of $23 billion…

Under a federal law that went into effect in 2010, a gift card can’t expire for five years from the time it was purchased or from the last time someone added money to it. Some state laws require an even longer period. In New York, for instance, any gift card purchased after Dec. 10, 2022, can’t expire for nine years.

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Late Night Open Thread: Last of the Xmas Content

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Place your reservation now! ‘Perfect’ is subjective, of course; sometimes the imperfections of a particular tree in a particular year are part of the charm… Washington Post gift link, for the curious:

… Justin Whitehill, who leads the Christmas Tree Genetics Program, said the researchers’ goal is twofold: to breed Christmas trees so beautiful and hassle-free that they persuade faux-tree fanatics to convert to the real deal, and to help the growers who sustain a $2 billion industry.

“What we’re doing is using genetics to improve the Christmas trees’ traits to make the lives of consumers and growers better,” Whitehill said. “The focus is on three main traits: growth, needle retention and form. But we’re also working around sustainability and making trees more climate-resilient.”…

The Christmas tree undertaking began in the late 1990s, when those involved with the N.C. State program began identifying the best Fraser firs in North Carolina. With its superior needle retention, conical form and sturdy branches, the Appalachian species is already considered the cream of the crop when it comes to Christmas trees — in fact, the tree jollying up the White House this year is an 18½-foot Fraser fir from Fleetwood, N.C.

So how do you make the classic Christmas tree more perfect?

“We screened 30,000 wild trees originating from the highest peaks of the mountains in western North Carolina, then whittled it down to our best 25,” Whitehill said. That sample of 25 lost the fewest needles, showcased the densest foliage and had the fastest growth rate — trees that could be expected to lose just 1 percent of their needles after reaching a desirable height of six feet in about six to seven years.

To create the trees, the scientists used a technique called grafting, fusing together 1,000 roots from other trees with cuttings from the sample of 25 to ensure the elite Fraser fir genes are expressed at the top of the tree…

And speaking of the perfect tree… YMMV, but John Lewis at #3 below (approximately the 9:30min mark) has to be one of the weirder choices for a feel-good holiday advertisment…

Late Night Open Thread: Last of the Xmas ContentPost + Comments (33)

Ornament Inspection!

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OzarkHillbilly talked about beautiful blown glass ornaments in a thread yesterday – the ornaments at the link were so lovely!

Here’s one of my favorites of all my glass ornaments.

In case there is any interest in seeing a tree decorated almost entirely with blown glass ornaments, here is my tree in 2020.

If you watched both videos, that would be one complete spin around the tree.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

Open thread!

Ornament Inspection!Post + Comments (21)

War for Ukraine Day 670: Christmas in Ukraine

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A screen grab of NEIVANMADE's Christmas 2023 art. It shows Joseph and Mary standing over the baby Jesus in a crib/manger. All have Orthodox style halos. The sky behind them is a dark blue and there is a golden thatched roof over them. To the left of the top of the roof's center a star/comet is visible.

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

https://twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1739325794726379724

I’m going to start tonight by including the information that Dr. Luba shared with us in the comments last night. The first thing she shared was an answer to the question regarding why President Zelenskyy referenced the first star in the sky:

Many holidays begin on the eve or are celebrated on the eve–Kupalo, St. Andrews night, etc.  Xmas is no exception.

Folks are supposed to fast until the first star is seen; only then can Sviat Vechir (Holy Night) proceed, with its ritual dinner or pagan origin.

Dr. Luba then graced us with this much longer explanation in a subsequent comment:

About tonight, a few things I have written in my FB groups:

Most of our (Ukrainian) customs date back to antiquity, to the pagan era of our history. Although christian backstories have been created for some of our customs, truth be told, they predate the arrival of christianity to our land.

Sviat Vechir (now Xmas Eve) is one of those ancient rituals. It is a continuation of old pagan traditions which were adopted by the church when it couldn’t wipe them out. Kylymnyk notes that this night was not only the night when our dead ancestors came in from the cold to celebrate with us (they winter in the didukh, which is brought into the house this night), but also the night when the gods came to visit.

The didukh was brought into the house on Sviat Vechir; it was a sheaf formed of grain from the family’s fields, first, last, or best depending on local tradition. Ukrainians once believed the spirits of dead family members did not leave, but lived out in the fields and helped to grow the crops. In the winter they would come in, and live in the didukh. When the didukh was brought into the house, all of the family’s ancestors came with it.

Dazhboh came to see how people had used the gifts he gave them the last year, of good weather and fertility. Veles, the god who protected livestock, came to see how the livestock had been treated.

For Dazhboh, people wanted to show off their bountiful harvest; the food served that night should include a bit of everything the household/farm had produced that year: grains, vegetables, fruit, honey.

For Veles, the people wanted to show how well they had treated their animals. The animals themselves were given special foods that day, nicely groomed, and prayed for, so that when Veles questioned them, they would praise their master. And, of course, no meat or poultry were served that night, nor any animal products like milk or cheese. (Fish was OK because it was wild caught, and not farmed.)

Тhe number of dishes served varied throughout Ukraine; it could be 7, 12, 17, or some other number. Twelve was probably the most common, and they symbolized the 12 months of the year.

And bear in mind that the only two mandatory dishes were uzvar and kutia. Both are made from the simplest ingredients, which date back to, according to ethnographers, our hunter-gatherer days: grain, honey, poppy seeds, nuts and dried fruit.

An empty space was left at the table for the ancestors. Uzvar and kutia were left in the pokut, the corner with the family icons, for the ancestors to partake of. And other food would be left out, overnight, so they could enjoy it, too.

…….the meal would begin only after the first star was sighted. The meal always began with kutia, a mixture of grain (usually wheat), honey and poppyseeds.

Our ancestors believed that kutia was the food of the gods (uzvar was the drink of the gods). It is an ancient food–Khvedir Vovk, the Ukrainian ethnographer, believed it came to us from the neolithic era. Its component parts–grain (wheat or barley), honey and poppy seeds–are foods that were eaten by our ancestors at the dawn of history, when agriculture was first being established.

Kutia was prepared three times, all on “Eves”–Sviat Vechir (the eve of Rizdvo), the eve of the old New Year (January 13, Shchedryi vechir), and on the eve of Yordan (Vodokhreshchenia). They were known as Bahata kutia, Shchedra kutia, and Holodna kutia (rich, generous, and hungry kutia).

Kutia is one of the two “Mandatory” dishes for Sviat Vechir (uzvar being the other). A jar would be placed in the “corner” of the house where the icons were kept, and should remain there until the old New Year. On Sviat Vechir children often took servings of kutia to their godparents (and sometimes other relatives).

The ritual character of the dish is emphasized by the old custom, in which the head of the family approached the window, or went out into the courtyard with the kutia and, turning to the frost, invited him three times to come in to dinner with his family. When frost does join them, he is advised not to appear, do not do evil to the crops, etc.: “Frost, frost, come eat kutia with us, but if you do not come, do not come to the rye, wheat and all the pashnytsia.”

Kutia was served, usually first, and everyone shared. It was usually used to foretell a plentiful harvest and family happiness; a spoonful would be thrown at the ceiling–the more that stuck, the more bees and honey there would be. After dinner a portion was left on the table with everyone’s spoons stuck in it; this portion was for the souls of the deceased, and it was left overnight. If, in the morning, someone’s spoon was found turned upside down, that person was supposed to die in the next year.

The Russians, of course, decided to continue their attempts to punish Ukraine into surrender last night and today:

https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1739250888584347716

https://twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1739172592026521989

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

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Another Xmas Movie Open Thread: Tales from the Muppet Xmas Carol Archives

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From GQ, in 2016:

The best thing about Michael Caine is his laugh, which is a warm, loud “heh heh heh.” The second-best thing about Michael Caine is The Muppet Christmas Carol, the greatest puppet-based holiday film of all time. Caine sings. Caine does a restrained jig. Caine wears an old-timey dressing gown… Michael Caine loves it just as much as you do…

Michael Caine: To start, my daughter, who is the mother of my grandchildren, was then seven, and she had never seen me in a movie. I had never made a movie that a 7-year-old can see. And so a man mentioned the Muppets and I said, “That’s it! I’ll do that!” And it’s A Christmas Carol, it’s a fabulous tale! You’ll be old Scrooge, it’ll be marvelous! And it was absolutely perfect at that time for what I wanted. I could make it, and my daughter could see it. That’s why I did it. And it was lovely…

When you’re talking to Kermit, where do you look? Do you look him in the eye?

Yes. You look him straight in the eye. It’s like talking to a real actor. And the guy is just down below, buried in the floor. And it’s very funny when you see [the puppeteers] rehearsing, because they’re in the corner, and they haven’t got the dolls on their arms, and they’re just talking to each other with their hands. It’s very funny. One of the best things about it is that puppeteers, compared to actors, are much nicer, gentler, kinder people. They’re really the loveliest of people. I’d never worked with a cast where every single person was lovely. You always get a couple of actors who think too much of themselves. But these were all kind, gentle, loving people and I had the best time…

 
Xmas Content - STOCKPILE
NYMag‘s culture blog Vulture, in 2017:

“You know you’re an alcoholic when you misplace a decade,” says songwriter Paul Williams. “And, essentially, the ’80s were gone for me.”…

Two months after Williams got sober, Jim Henson died.

“We already knew that Jim wanted the Muppets to live beyond him, because that’s why he was selling to Disney,” says Dave Goelz, a veteran Muppeteer best known as the Great Gonzo. “The question for us was: Were we up to it? Did we want to try it? And we all felt that it was our life’s work — it wasn’t just a job — so we decided to try.”

Rather than making yet another movie about the backstage antics of this zany menagerie, the team decided to cast the Muppets in roles from a classic book: Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Jerry Juhl, head writer on The Muppet Show, wrote a screenplay that surrounded Dickens’s own prose and a human Ebenezer Scrooge — played by Michael Caine — with Kermit as Bob Cratchit, Miss Piggy as Mrs. Cratchit, and Gonzo as the narrating Dickens himself. The result was a charmingly faithful adaptation of the famous redemption story, with a never-better Caine playing Scrooge utterly straight, treating his Muppet co-stars as if they were, as he said at the time, “the Royal Shakespeare Company.”…

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