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623 thoughts on “Speakeasy #2”

  3. Rawnaeris
    3

    I’m wrapping up work stuff. I’ll be gone on my first vacation with Husband for our 5 year anniversary starting Friday, so here’s a preemptive refill of the *hugs*snuggles*headbonks*comforts* (select any combination as needed) basket.

  6. bluentx
    6

    Whew! Good to know Anne . I was afraid either Tony was mixing the drinks too strong right or the wasabi got every one.

    [Not that there’s anything wrong with wasabi or horseradish or strong drinks.]

  7. Tony!
    7

    Hey, did ya’ll hear the one about the white guy that assaulted a cop for no reason, got taken to a jail and got violent with the cops again?

    A police lieutenant said he told a driver – identified as 34-year-old Joseph Parker — to slow down about 12:30 a.m. as he passed through a roadway under construction in Revere, but he said the Wakefield man immediately became combative,reported the Boston Globe.

    “I know why you stopped me,”Parker shouted, and then began complaining about police brutality in Ferguson, Missouri. “F*ck you cops with your guns.”

    Parker’s companions then said he punched the officer “for no apparent reason,” and the officer fell backwards and struck his head on the pavement, knocking him unconscious.

    Two passengers in the car tried to restrain Parker as he attempted to attack another officer at the scene, and several officers finally subdued him and placed him in handcuffs.

    Police said Parker, who had just finished serving a seven- to eight-year prison sentence for cocaine trafficking, tried to kick out the windows inside the police cruiser and kicked “violently and wildly” at officers.

    One of the officers used a Taser on Parker, but they said he continued to struggle with police and mimicked them as he was read his Miranda rights.

    Parker became violent again at the jail, where he stood in a boxing stance and challenged officers to a fight before rushing toward one of them and punching him in the face, police said.

    A booking photo shows Parker shirtless, raising his hand in salute, with some cuts and abrasions on his face.

    Officers said Parker appeared to be under the influence during the encounter, and his attorney suggested medication may have caused him to react in an uncharacteristic manner.

    Lt. Jeremiah Goodwin, of Revere police, suffered a concussion, and the second officer punched by Parker was treated for minor injuries. Both officers are expected to recover.

    Parker was charged with assault and battery, assault and battery on a police officer, malicious destruction of property, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, and a judge ordered him held on $25,000 bail.

    But white privilege doesn’t exist.

  9. Biped
    9

    I WAS gonna pop in and say “yeah, I’m the first!” on the new thread, but I figured that was tacky. Hugs, higgs, tea, chocolate and cookies for everyone. More tomorrow. Nitey nite.

  10. YOB
    10

    I’ve just finished the latest season of Dr Who.

    I’m predicting, right now, that the next incarnation of The Doctor will be a woman.

    [Spoiler Alert: Minor in my next comment]

  11. FunnyDiva
    11

    Oh dear, how ‘rupt am I?

    completely ‘rupt.

    I still *heart* you all, and offer hugs, bacon and fresh pillows for the fort.

    Beatrice, I hope you’re in a better place than the last comment I read from you.  It sounded like you were very, very low and feeling like you were offering only negative things to the group.
    I’m sure many have already reassured you that this is NOT the case.  But I wanted to be sure to say it also.  From me to you.  Because I’ve been in really similar places.  You are not alone in feeling this way.  But this worthless feeling–your brain is lying to you.  It is not true.
    You are valuable.  You are valued.
    And I wish I had more than words to help take away the hurting.

  12. FunnyDiva
    12

    Rawneris,

    Happy Anniversary, and I hope you have a WONDERFUL vacay with your hubby. (and that first got mis-typed as “huggy” which is sort of funny…)

     

    Hi, Anne, bluentx, biped, YOB and Tony!

    As Tony knows, I’ve been elsewhere on the social medias combating white-splainin’ where I can as well as I can.  Because I was seein’ waaaay too much of it in my feed and around the ‘net.  Less in my feed now, but still trying to signal-boost.  (and less because I left a group somebody had added me to, threw a couple of pre-emptive blocks, and disappeared a belittling response comment to an important share without warning, explanation or regret.)

  13. YOB
    13

    [Dr Who Spoiler Alert: Minor]

    Why I think they are prepping for a woman to be the next incarnation of the Doctor:

    1. Steven Moffat is, apparently, on board given repeated supporting statements he has given regarding a woman Doctor.

    2. The Master’s latest incarnation is now The Mistress. This establishes, within the story, that it is possible for an incarnation to be a woman.

    3. In the the coffee shop, the Doctor and Clara both agree that he could return to Gallifrey and be king OR queen.

    *squeee* it would certainly be about damn time.

  15. rq
    15

    Tony

    I think that article should go on the racism discussion… you know, to show the unbiased nature of police!!

    +++

    It is now Day 4, and I’m starting to think this whole working-during-the-day thing might work… Except it makes me sad because (a) I haven’t actually had ANY time to curate any racism articles (like, NONE) and the kids aren’t even around; (b) I have little to no time in the evenings when people are most likely to hang in the Lounge; and (c) the laundry ain’t getting itself done while I’m away.

    On the other hand, my organism seems rather grateful for the more normalized and regular sleep hours, even after half-a-week of going to bed before midnight and waking up before 7. Either I don’t mind waking that early, or it’s just the rush of newness that actually makes me almost happy in the mornings – and I am not a morning person. (I’m expecting this feeling to fade with time.)

    ANyway enough about me, here’s *hugs* for all of you!!!

  16. bluentx
    16

    “It is now Day 4, and I’m starting to think this whole working-during-the-day thing might work…”

    Traitor! 😉

    —

    “Hi!” back to Rawneris !

  19. bluentx
    19

    I’ll think about forgiving you.

    But seriously, I hope the other work ‘issues’ are better now for you.

    —

    Anyone else having problems with the comment box not showing ? Or is just this computer I’m on right now? It sometimes appears if you refresh repeatedly but this time I had to open a new window. *shrug*

  20. Tony!
    20

    I wish there were a way to peer into the heads of housepets. I’ve often had a sleeping cat near/on me and wondered what they were thinking.

  21. bluentx
    21

    wmdkitty:

    Maybe she can hear the coyotes that are howling in the distance here. Three to five of them calling back and forth. Kinda neat but kinda eerie, too. Wonder what set them off this time?

  22. Giliell
    22

    HEYa

    I must stop being nice and let this kid fail hard. Though I have the nagging feeling that it’s going to be my fault. again. Somehow. But this isn’t working. Tell her to get ready. TEll her again 5 minutes later. Tel her again 5 minutes later, ask her waht she did the last 10 minutes. “I got distracted”. 5 more minutes. Tell her that i’ll phone theda ycare that she can’t come to the trip. NOOOOOOOOOOO.

    Tell her to get ready again.

    Leave at the last possible minute in order to catch the bus. And I’m still the bad guy.

     

    +++

    rq

    Now I’m wondering if you and Mr rq are some sort of real word Mr and Mrs Colon, who’ve been happily married for 30 years based on the fact that she works day shifts and he works night shifts

  23. Nightjar
    23

    I do wonder about sleeping/dreaming pets all the time too. I really do. I have had hamsters sleeping on me and… if cats twitching during sleep are dreaming, then I swear, hamsters dream too. A lot.

    rq,

    half-a-week of going to bed before midnight and waking up before 7

    That’s me, whenever I can. More or less. I normally adapt my sleeping hours throughout the year to match waking up with the sunrise, so I wake up earlier in the summer and later in the winter.

    My “alarm clocks” are the morning light and cats (but mostly cats).

    Yes, I am a skylark. And no, the irony of having picked the name of a nocturnal bird for my ‘nym is not lost on me.

    Either I don’t mind waking that early, or it’s just the rush of newness that actually makes me almost happy in the mornings – and I am not a morning person. (I’m expecting this feeling to fade with time.)

    Yeah, you’ll figure that out eventually. I’m not particularly happy in the morning, but I am more active and productive.

    ***

    bluentx

    coyotes that are howling in the distance here

    Cool. All I hear now are collared doves. I’m beginning to find them annoying. Their numbers keep going up for some reason, while turtle doves go down. It makes me a little sad, it’s so rare to find turtle doves these days and it didn’t use to be that way.

  24. rq
    24

    bluentx

    The other work ‘issues’ are at the usual impasse at the moment, possibly reaching a crisis point soon, depending on how the cards fall in the next… phase of issues. Hope yours have improved!

     

    Giliell

    I’ve been wondering the same. I suppose we’ll see! If I’m not getting divorced next March, or not back on the nightshift (barring any unusual circumstances), then I guess I can say I married the right person! 😉

     

    Nightjar

    Oh, I’m not much of a skylark, usually, though when I do manage early mornings, I find I enjoy them – I have to be up to catch a train, though, and I’m a big fan of arrive-early-leave-early, too.

    That all being said, I’ve been working night- and weekend-shifts for the past… 7 and some years? So this diurnal creature rhythm has a certain appeal all its own. 😀

  25. wmdkitty
    25

    I don’t want to drag outside drama in, but I need to vent. I’ll just post the short, no-identifying-details version.

    I’m over on another site, and a commenter (known to be anti-feminist) is claiming that feminists somehow “caused” David Reimer to be (re)assigned and raised as a girl.

    Apparently I’m a “liar” for pointing out that, no, feminists weren’t behind any of that, and “dishonest” for asking for sources for his claims. (Same commenter has also repeatedly engaged in deeply offensive personal attacks.)

    He even claimed I was “flying off the handle” when I calmly asked for sources for his claims. (How sexist is that?)

    Sorry, rant over. I just needed to unpack that.

  26. bluentx
    26

    “Hope yours have improved!”

    Nope. Guess I need to talk to the inspector again. Nothing has changed. Haven’t heard a word from management. The test procedure (I was asking about in the first place) hasn’t been changed (as in changed back to the approved method). We did it the correct way for  eleven years (that I’ve been here) but since I was told they (management ) would be receiving a letter (weeks ago) I’ve heard nothing.

    And tonight was another straw for the proverbial camels back !

    My usual day shift counterpart took the day off and I can’t even tell that anyone was here at all today ! No paperwork done, no lab work done, no filters backwashed… I can’t tell that a plant operator was here, I can’t tell if the supervisor was here… This place has gotten to be such a joke!

  29. Nightjar
    29

    Ew. Ew. Ew. There is no scientific field that the alt-med/health-woo crowd will leave untouched, is there? Ew. They discovered the microbiome and… ew.

    Just found this “How The Microbiome Destroyed the Ego, Vaccine Policy, and Patriarchy” (via The Tree of Life). (And while I don’t find the courage/time to volunteer to curate a Discuss: Science thread over at Pharyngula, you people will have to put up with me here. Sorry.)

    Anyway, you can see where this is going, can’t you?

    Let’s start with vaccines:

    […] today’s political climate and agenda is unilaterally pro-vaccination on both sides of the aisle (conveniently funded by the same industry lobbyists), with a tidal wave of bills across the U.S. set to eliminate exemptions against mandatory vaccination. The rationale, of course, is that deadly germs can only be prevented from killing the presumably germ-free host through injecting dead, weakened or genetically modified germ components to “prevent” theoretical future exposures and infection. This concept is of course intellectually infantile, and if you do some investigating you’ll find it was never quite grounded in compelling evidence or science.

    Get it? We have bacteria in our guts, so vaccines are an infantile concept. Like, obviously. Children should die of preventable diseases because we have bacteria in our guts and so it’s not “us against them” anymore. Makes perfect logical sense, doesn’t it?

    No.

    Now on to “feminism”:

    Since we are all designed to gestate in the womb and come through the birth canal, and since the neonate’s microbiome is therein derived and established thereof, it follows that most of our genetic information as holobionts is maternal in origin. Even when the original colonization eventually changes and is displaced through environmentally-acquired microbial strains as the infant, child, adolescent, and then adult, develops, the original terrain and subsequent trajectory of changes was established through the mother (unless of course we were C-sectioned into the world).

    […] being born in a hospital via C-section and vaccination, will produce, genetically and epigenetically, a human that is so different – qualitatively – from one born at home, naturally, that they could almost be classified as different species, despite sharing nearly identical eukaryotic DNA (remember, only 1% of the holobiont’s total).

    No. No, they most certainly couldn’t “almost be classified as a different species”. That’s just nonsense, no matter how badly you want to shame women who had a C-section and vaccinate their kids. They are vastly more responsible and intelligent than you anti-vaxxer idiots.

    Also, take note how these idiots’ concept of “feminism” means no C-sections and woman-as-incubators kind of thinking. They call it the “Scientific Inevitability of Birth Feminism”:

    And so, 10,000 years later, the world ruled by monotheistic, male-principled religious and cultural systems, both in secular and religious form, it seems that the facts of our biology are now intervening to shake up these largely subconscious belief systems in favor of an ancient truth: women are superior to men, fundamentally. (Though it is not a type of superiority to be used against the “weaker sex”: men, rather but to denote a higher responsibility, and perhaps greater need to be supported by men to get the job done, together, as inscribed in the natural order of things and its inherent design.)

    Yes, the microbiome means no vaccines, birth at home only, and women superior to men. Sure.

    And then there’s this bit of word salad:

    The birth process, also, has been described as the closest thing to death without dying (it is ironic that anesthesiology, which could also be described in the same way, makes obstetrical interventions like C-section and epidural possible, at the same moment that it negates the spiritual experience of natural birth/women’s empowerment we are describing), offering women a window into the ‘in between’ and a direct experience of Source that men, less likely to experience it naturally would later emulate and access through the various technologies of shamanism.

    Ew. Leave my microbes out of your woo, please.

  31. rq
    31

    Nightjar

    You had lunch after that?

    You’re far, far braver than I am!

    From your article,

    (Though it is not a type of superiority to be used against the “weaker sex”: men, rather but to denote a higher responsibility, and perhaps greater need to be supported by men to get the job done, together, as inscribed in the natural order of things and its inherent design.)

    Benevolent sexism for the win! Women need a man to get the job done! What job? ANY JOB! Except for that transcendentalism stuff, that one, women get naturally. Though I must say, I must have really missed out, having given birth three times in a hospital setting: I did not see, feel, hear or experience a ‘Source’. My microbiome must be acting up.

  32. barkeeperin
    32

    Hi all.  This post is really just an excuse to get notifications in my email of new comments because that is far easier than endless refreshing or checking in 100 times a day.

    Unless someone wants to hear about my new guitar being delivered today.

  34. Rawnaeris
    34

    Thanks for the well-wishes folks, we are really excited. The last several years there just hasn’t been time, but our jobs finally are at a place where we won’t be missed for a week.

    We are going to a beach resort whee I expect to pass my time reading on the beach, drinking, and crocheting the baby blanket I’m working on for my SIL.

    —-

    hiya, bluentx, mind if I ask what region of Texas? I already harassed YOB about this. Beginning to think I might be a bit homesick.

    Good luck with the work situation. Speaking as an ex-auditor, if you have an inspector or an auditor who will keep your name out of their reports, tell them all of it. Corrective Actions and threats of removed approvals often work well on management.

  35. Giliell
    35

    Have a wonderful holiday, RAwnaeris

     

    rq

    Well, my greatest fear is that should Mr and i ever get to  actually live together, we’ll probably get a divorce because we can’t stand each other.

     

    +++

    The birth process, also, has been described as the closest thing to death without dying (it is ironic that anesthesiology, which could also be described in the same way, makes obstetrical interventions like C-section and epidural possible, at the same moment that it negates the spiritual experience of natural birth/women’s empowerment we are describing)

    I feel cheated. Neither did I have this “oh shit I’m dying” experience*, nor did i feel any empowerment. I did not feel spiritual at all. It fucking hurt. I tried to break every single bone in my husband’s hand because this is all his fault and I’ll make him suffer. I peed and I pooped uncontrollably because you simply can’t not do it.

    JEsus fuck, you got to be as pecial kind of idiot to turn that into some mystical enlightenment. Moon goddess baby birth feminism. i hate it

     

    *Probably because I was in a hospital wheret he chances of dying are really small

  36. Nightjar
    36

    rq,

    I did have lunch after that, it didn’t help that I apparently got a bit too enthusiastic with beetroots. I like beetroot, but there is such a thing as TOO MUCH beetroot, and I think I went there. That most certainly didn’t help.

    Anyway, rq and Giliell, are you saying you didn’t experience a Source and weren’t offered a window into the ‘in between’? That’s so disappointing!

  37. rq
    37

    The only thing that was in between was the fetus-baby, and that was only in between my legs, and xey were taking the doorway, not offering a window, so… no, not much of a transcendental experience.

    Very disappointing.

  38. Giliell
    38

    Nope, no in between. And I didn’t even get painkiller. I managed to splash blood in my OB/Gyn’s face when he stiched me up afterwards, horror movie style (the splashing, not the stiching), so that was pretty cool.

  39. YOB
    39

    Rawnaeris: 

    We are going to a beach resort whee I expect to pass my time reading on the beach, drinking, and crocheting the baby blanket I’m working on for my SIL.

    For some reason, that statement conjured an image of one of those Corona beer commercials, except with crocheting added. 🙂 hope you have a splendid time.

    barkeeperin:
    In celebration for new guitar, I offer up a pint of <a href=”http://www.grapevineontap.com/index.html#beer“>Sir Williams English Brown Ale</a> brewed about 1/2 mile from my house.

    <strong>Gilliel:</strong> re kiddo and getting ready
    I had the same issue with the YOBling. I suspect that at that age, they really don’t conceive time in any meaningful way. It seemed that there was only Now and Not Now. Mine started growing out of it around 9 or so.

    <strong>Nightjar:</strong>
    Holy crap, that link has so much wrong in it, i think it might collapse into a black hole of wrong. Not sure where to even start unpacking the wrongness.

    <strong>Tony:</strong>
    Yup, Tennant was the 10th Doctor. That DeviantArt is cool. A bit weird, but cool.

    Hi to everybody! *Throws warm fuzzy hugs at everybody*

  41. Anne, Cranky Cat Lady
    41

    I have a question for the Hivemind:  does anyone have experience coping with gallbladder attacks, and if so, what were your strategies?  All right, two questions.

    I’ve done a lot of research on the internets, and most of what I found looks pretty spurious – herbs and purges and cider vinegar – and there’s no way I’m buying into woo, no matter how desperate I am.  Anyway, this looks like it’ll be part of my morning routine from now on, so the sooner I learn to deal with it, the better.

    Thanks.

  43. awakeinmo
    43

    I’ve never had any kids, so I guess I’ll never be spiritually whole.  Or whatever it is they’re talking about.

    Anne Sorry about your discomfort.  If I had any way to help, I would.  How about some tea?

    I had to get my car safety/emissions inspected yesterday.  It passed inspection…barely.   It needs new tires & shock absorbers, among other piddly things.  I knew the tires were pretty worn.  They probably should have been replaced a year ago.  It’s looking like a bit over a thousand dollars to make the car happy.  But I guess a happy car is better than a pooped-out one.   And since I can never get a ride anywhere, I get to sit at the mechanic’s and wait for all the repairs to get done on Monday.  Anyone have book suggestions?

  44. Nightjar
    44

    YOB

    Holy crap, that link has so much wrong in it

    Yeah, I love how it somehow manages to end with GMOs, for some inscrutable reason.

     

    Anne, I wish I could help but I don’t really have any advice. I’m not sure if I’m misremembering, but I think it was Caine who had some gallbladder problems some time ago? Not sure if it was stones or something else, but it had something to do with the gallbladder. Maybe you can ask her?

    Aside from that hopeful thoughts is all I have to offer as well.

  46. Giliell
    46

    Anne

    I only have soft hugs

    YOB

    So there’s still hope?

    I’ve decided that tomorrow it’s her job to get ready in time or she stays at home. I admit that one thing that makes it so frustrating is that her sister, who’s 2 years her junior and not even 6 is totally able to grasp the idea of “if I do the necessary things now, I have time to play later and a good morning”

     

    awekeinmo

    If you like fanatasy, I can recommend Harry Connolly’s THe Great Way Trilogy. It’s been a while since I read fantasy by a white guy that didn’t end with me spraining the muscles in my eyeballs.

    Even better, if you haven’t read it, NK Jemisisn’s Inheritance Trilogy, which is pretty cheap on Amazon.

  47. blf
    47

    Last evening’s wasabi seasoned with sausage, bread, and fried eggs worked so well I just had a similar one tonight:  Wasabi seasoned with bread and even more eggs.  I’m out of sausage, albeit it occurs to me now I have some tofu going walkabout that really needs to be caught and ate.  And I have (well, er, had) a surplus of eggs.  None penguin.  Washed down with a cold Pilsner Urquell.

    No Spam was involved, only edible foodstuffs made from or by recognized critters and a few confused, but recognized, plants.  Some possibly alien.  Which also means no peas or horses were harmed in the making of these snacks.

    Funnily enough, horses are loosely-related to why the snacks:  I’ve only had rather small packed lunches the last few weeks.  A bit too small, it seems (not that I eat big meals, it’s just that a bowel of Gazpacho is insufficient).

    This is August in France, which means “everyone” is on vacation.  Including the restaurant I normally go to for lunch (so the few other restaurants in the area are even more crowded than usual).  The last day at the restaurant before they went on a well-deserved vacation, they served…  Horse.

    I’ve never had horse before, and it wasn’t bad.  (I still think I prefer N.American Bison (“buffalo”).)  I did once try to have horse, at a well-regarded restaurant in Antwerp specializing in fiend, but it was closed on the day…  So I finally got one back on those buggers!

  48. Rawnaeris
    48

    awekeinmo

    Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss is always my first recommendation. However, it gets a trigger warning for childhood rape of the main character.

    Next would be the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, series starts with Storm Front. Note that early Dresden books are true to modern American life with Dresden himself being very white-knight sexist, but one of the things I personally love about the series is that it’s treated as a character flaw, and he starts working on not being that way.

  49. Anne, Cranky Cat Lady
    49

    Thanks everybody, sometimes it’s good just to be able to whine about things.

    Giliell, I’ve been wanting to try Jemisin’s work, but I had no idea where to start.  The library system has all three of them.  Any other fantasy or science fiction recommendations are appreciated.

    Seanan McGuire is one of my favorites, by the way – both her fantasy and her science fiction as Mira Grant.

  50. Rawnaeris
    50

    @Anne, If you like McGuire, you’ll probably love Butcher (if you haven’t already read them) still Urban Fantasy, great rules of the universe layout etc.

    (I’m so addicted to the October Daye books, it’s not funny)

  51. blf
    51

    [T]he laundry ain’t getting itself done while I’m away.

    Yes it will!  Just leave it.  In time, it will either crawl, or more likely, slime, away; or else dissolve through the basket/floor and eventually reach your global antipode (assuming yer on a roundworld, if yer on a disc, it may bother the elephants and star turtle but will more likely encounter a stray collection of magic and turn into, well, something else… if yer lucky…).

    Whether it leaves by crawling, sliming, dissolving, or in a Puff! of magic, there are two benefits:  (1) You never have to worry about it again;  and (2) Someone else will find it and, not knowing this hidden secret, clean it.  Or be eaten by it.  Whatever…

    And, until it leaves, you can bottle any odors and sell it as Compressed Cootie, Pea, and Horse Repellent (Does Not Contain Nuts).

  52. YOB
    52

    Gilliel: hmmm… It could be a personality thing. I know YOBling and I are both exemplary examples of  Myers-Briggs INTP’s with very heavy I and P. Which would explain why our sense of time is complete crap. It has gotten better for both us as time goes by, though. So, yes, there is hope.

    Book Recommendations? I recently finished “Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It” by David M. Ewalt

    I found it to be enjoyable and a fairly quick read but not without its problems. For example: He does talk about the changing demographics of gaming but not to much depth. I would have liked for him to have covered that facet a bit more.

     

  53. YOB
    53

    blf: haha what an image! I’m totally stealing the “Laundry Beast” for my Harry Potter-esque RPG I’m developing for YOBling and friends to play.

    *casts Cleansus Totallus on the laundry beast for max damage*

     

  55. Rawnaeris
    55

    Anne, yes. Only thing I haven’t enjoyed immensely was Velveteen, and that could easily be because it’s not really my cuppa, genre-wise

    Have you read Kim Harrison or Patricia Briggs? Harrison’s series just ended, at book 14ish, Briggs’ series are still going.

  58. Rawnaeris
    58

    Anne, I love Carriger. She is also a delightful person. Went to a talk she gave in DC last year, was expecting a book signing, got an hour lecture on her background as an archeologist and the Finishing Scool series. Plus the expected book signing. I’m still squeeing over that.

    How about Karen Marie Moning? Her Highlander series is great fun, with an erotica bent, and her Fever series is just great Urban Fantasy.

  61. JimB
    61

    We are going to a beach resort whee I expect to pass my time reading on the beach, drinking, and crocheting the baby blanket I’m working on for my SIL.

    That sounds like an EXCELLENT vacation, Rawnaeris. And Congrats! on the anniversary.

    I’m usually in here during the daytime, Pacific time. Getting caught up on the overnight comments.

  62. YOB
    62

    Rawnaeris & Anne 

    Honored First Wife is completely addicted to Moning’s Highlander Series.

     

    Tony:

    Not yet, I don’t. 🙂 but I’ll keep checking.

  63. awakeinmo
    63

    I had a big plastic storage tub sitting in my office for a few months.  My parents had dropped it off here, only saying it was my stuff.

    I finally just went through it all.  Letters and pictures from high school age, over twenty years ago.  Friends who promised we’d stay in touch, but I haven’t heard from in years and years.  Letters and pictures of my brother who died in 1997.  Letters from Grandparents, both dead.

    Wow that was hard.  I was able to throw most of it away , but now I’d like a drink.

    But good news:  the office is now considerably less cluttered.

  66. awakeinmo
    66

    YOB

    Memory lane can often times lead through some pretty thorny bushes.

    This, exactly.  It’s why I have to get rid of most of this stuff.  I would be less functional in the present if I had all kinds of nostalgia around.

  68. awakeinmo
    68

    Thanks, Tony

    I think I’d like to try something I never have before.  You know, looking ahead instead of behind and all that.  I’d like to try a nicely aged scotch over ice, please.  (Does scotch go over ice?)

  74. Lynna
    74

    I have been having some trouble posting on FreeThought blogs (am working on the Moments of Political Madness thread), but at least the site comes up for me. I can read, and it is only troublesome to post comments. I get CloudFlare notices.

    In political news: Ha! Moment of schadenfreude: Donald Trump has often repeated his claim that Mexico will pay to build the bigger border wall that is part of his immigration policy (more of a non-policy, but we’ll let that go). What’s funny is that Donald Trump’s braggadocio is so blatantly off the rails that international leaders have started to call him on it, including Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s spokesman Eduardo Sanchez.
    Trump said:

    “I’ve said they’re going to pay for the wall, and they’re going to pay for the wall.” On an appearance on Sean Hannity’s show, he doubled-down on these remarks, saying that Mexico “will probably just give us the money,” and “not like 98 percent of it, Sean, but 100 percent.”

    Eduardo Sanchez said:

    “Of course it’s false,” he said of Trump’s claim. “It reflects an enormous ignorance of what Mexico represents, and also the irresponsibility of the candidate who’s saying it.”

    “Mexicans in the U.S. work with passion, they do their jobs well,” he added. “His comments reflect an enormous lack of knowledge of the reality in the U.S.”

    Bloomberg link
    Read more: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/08/11/discuss-moments-of-political-madness/#ixzz3ij0rnbui

  75. Lynna
    75

    The rabid rightwing is at it again. This falls into the anti-gay category.

    Mississippi is the last state in the nation that bans adoption by gay couples and this ban is currently being challengedin court by several same-sex couples, prompting Bryan Fischer to warn that gay activists are seeking to reimpose slavery on the south.

    Say What?!

    On his radio showtoday, Fischer declared that “if the homosexual lobby is successful on this, then they will be forcing the state of Mississippi, against its will” to drop its ban on gay adoption, which is nothing more than tyranny and the imposition of slavery.
    “Ladies and gentlemen,”Fischer said, “that is just a form of tyranny. When you compel people to do things contrary to their will, contrary to their conscience, that’s slavery as well as tyranny. So you think about it, who’s bringing slavery back to the south? Who’s bringing slavery back to the Confederate States of America? It’s the homosexual lobby. When you compel people to provide services against their will, that is involuntary servitude, that is slavery. I submit to you that it is the homosexual lobby that’s single-handedly bringing slavery back to the Confederate States of America.”

    Right Wing Watch link

  76. wmdkitty
    76

    Anne, I found that eating less (at each sitting) and avoiding high-fat foods helped. It’s not going to make it 100% better, but it should help get you more comfortable.

  77. Lynna
    77

    Big trigger warning for rape.

    An article in the NY Times looks at the theology of rape promulgated by ISIS.

    Excerpt begins here (I had trouble with the block quoting function not working):
    In the moments before he raped the 12-year-old girl, the Islamic State fighter took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a sin. Because the preteen girl practiced a religion other than Islam, the Quran not only gave him the right to rape her — it condoned and encouraged it, he insisted.

    He bound her hands and gagged her. Then he knelt beside the bed and prostrated himself in prayer before getting on top of her.

    When it was over, he knelt to pray again, bookending the rape with acts of religious devotion.

    “I kept telling him it hurts — please stop,” said the girl, whose body is so small an adult could circle her waist with two hands. “He told me that according to Islam he is allowed to rape an unbeliever. He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to God,” she said in an interview alongside her family in a refugee camp here, to which she escaped after 11 months of captivity. […]

    New York Times link

  78. YOB
    78

    Some days I really don’t want to be a member of this species. Today is one of those days. Imma gonna go hug YOBling now.

  79. Giliell
    79

    Anne

    I love Seanan McGuire, too

     

    Very good: Nnedi Okorafor, “Who fears Death” But with a HUGE trigger warning for rape and violence.

  80. Lynna
    80

    More on the organized nature of the sex trade started by ISIS

    “It was 100 percent preplanned,” said Khider Domle, a Yazidi community activist who maintains a detailed database of the victims. “I spoke by telephone to the first family who arrived at the Directory of Youth in Mosul, and the hall was already prepared for them. They had mattresses, plates and utensils, food and water for hundreds of people.”

    Detailed reports by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reach the same conclusion about the organized nature of the sex trade.

    In each location, survivors say Islamic State fighters first conducted a census of their female captives. […]

    Months later, the Islamic State made clear in their online magazine that their campaign of enslaving Yazidi women and girls had been extensively preplanned.

    “Prior to the taking of Sinjar, Shariah students in the Islamic State were tasked to research the Yazidis,” said the English-language article, headlined “The Revival of Slavery Before the Hour,” which appeared in the October issue of Dabiq.

    The article made clear that for the Yazidis, there was no chance to pay a tax known as jizya to be set free, “unlike the Jews and Christians.”

    “After capture, the Yazidi women and children were then divided according to the Shariah amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the Sinjar operations, after one fifth of the slaves were transferred to the Islamic State’s authority to be divided” as spoils, the article said. […]

  84. Dalillama
    84

    awakeinmo:

    (Does scotch go over ice?)

    Great Cthulhu, NO!

     

    Book Recommendations (Fantasy and Sci-FI):

    I’ve got loads! 🙂

    I just finished Dragon Bones, but Patricia Briggs, Europeanish semi-mideival fantasy, but well done within that scope.

    Tanya Huff has several excellent series:

    -The Blood Books: Toronto private eye solves cases with supernatural elements,
    -The Wild Woods series: A scion of a magical family deals with magical happenings.
    Sci Fi:
    -The Confederation of Valor series: Sergeant Torin Kerr of the Space Marines kicks ass, takes names, and learns the reason behind the centuries-old war against the apparently genocidal Others.

    -The Necromancer Chronicles, by Amanda Downum: necromancer secret agent in a non-European fantasy setting. (Not to be confused with The Chronicles of the Necromancer, which I didn’t really get into).
    -The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone: I’m not even sure how to describe these; the first one involves a junior necromancer hired by a magical law firm to investigate the death of a god and then resurrect as much of him as possible.
    The Deed of Paksennarion and sequels by Elizabeth Moon: A teenage farmgirl runs off to join a mercenary company, and becomes a stupendous badass. Generic fantasy setting.

    -Arctic Rising, by Tobias Buckell: A near-future thriller in which Anika Duncan is a UN monitor tracking illegal dumping in the Northwest Passage. She’s shot down by a ship carrying a nuke, leading to a scramble across the melting arctic with help from her smuggler girlfriend and Agent Prudence Jones of Caribbean Intelligence (he stars in his own novel, Hurricane Fever, which is also good).
    -Xenowealth series (same author): Starting with Crystal Rain; there’s limited carryover of characters between the books but it helps to read them in order. Caribbean themed space opera. (The first one is on a lost colony and lower tech).

    -Zoo City by Lauren Beukes: Set in South Africa in a world where people who carry the guilt of murder acquire animal familiars, each of which grants their human a magical power.

    – The Honor Harrington series by David Weber; sprawling military space opera (often glossed as Horatio Hornblower* IN SPACE!!!). There’s thirteen books in the main sequence and another dozen or so (I’ve actually lost track) spinoffs. Weber is a very prolific writer. The main sequence follows Honor’s career from green lieutenant to rear admiral, at which point she becomes a supporting character, because an admiral’s job tends to be pretty boring and tedious to live, let alone read about. Fair warning on the Honor Harrington books: characters die. A lot. Important, major characters who you’re invested in and have huge parts in the story. Often without warning. Because that’s war.
    -The Safehold series (also by Weber): A naval officer downloaded into an android body fights to break the technophobic religious stranglehold on humanity’s last colony before the genocidal aliens that did for the rest of the species find them.
    -The RCN series by David Drake: Another, somewhat grittier, retake on the days of wooden ships and iron men, this one’s described as Aubrey-Maturin** IN SPACE!!! Aubrey is played by Daniel Leary, country gentleman, while Maturin’s role is covered by Adele Mundy, duellist librarian.

    -Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy is among the coolest space opera to come down the pike since ever. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

    -Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series follows London cop Peter Grant as he navigates the supernatural wainscot world

    – Charles Stross’ Laundry Files: Lovecraftian horror meets office politics and nerd humor.

     

    There’s more, but this is already a huge wall of text.

    *The protagonist of a series of high seas adventures in the Napoleonic wars, by C.S. Forester. Considered to epitomize the genre. It was made into a TV series on A&E in the late 90s.
    ** Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend Dr. Stephen Maturin, co-stars of the other iconic tall ship naval saga, by Patrick O’Brien. The film Master and Commander is based on these books.

  85. blf
    85

    (Does scotch go over ice?)

    Only if you believe British Industrial Cheddar is cheese, horses are not an evil plot, peas have taste, Miracle Whip is not a conspiracy, the thugs are not out to get you, AGW is a scam, Darwinian evolution tries to explain stellar evolution, the mildly deranged penguin has ARrrgGhhH! (well, let’s not bother with that one), and at least six impossible things before breakfast.

    Of course, if you don’t drink Scotch before breakfast, the answer is convoluted, which the margins of this blog are too narrow to contain.

  86. wmdkitty
    86

    The person I was complaining about last night finally posted a “source” for his assertions. From ReturnofKings. Because, you know, a well-known MRA website is totally going to convince me. *laughing*

  87. blf
    87

    Just a bit of warning on the daesh sex slavery/trade:  There are a lot of fake videos/reports out there.  Reputable organizations like AI are, probably, basically correct, but there is also a huge amount of nonsense, or at least extrapolation “backed” by fakery.

  89. JimB
    89

    I think blf has provided the definitive answer to the Scotch/ice question. 🙂

    (Although a splash of water is permissible, if you must.)

    Some great book suggestions above – I’ll add my favorite(s) in the SciFi category: Iain Banks’ Culture novels.

    And speaking of Scotch, he wrote a travelogue about touring several distilleries, Raw Spirit.

  92. AlexanderZ
    92

    I’ve been away for awhile. Sorry if I missed anything or anyone:

    Beatrice

    Please accept this belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

    Anne

    I’ve done a lot of research on the internets, and most of what I found looks pretty spurious – herbs and purges and cider vinegar – and there’s no way I’m buying into woo, no matter how desperate I am.

    Woo can be useful. When nothing else helps, a placebo effect is as good as it gets. That’s why I used to go to a chiropractor for a time, and I don’t regret it even though chiropractics doesn’t work. This approach requires a bit of Doublethink, but I was made in the USSR so it never was a problem.

    Tony! this one is for you:

    Comic History: The Rise and Fall of the Comic Book Empire. The other 12 parts are linked in the right sidebar. Be sure to watch it before the 20th this month – this is when Disney will remove the videos permanently.

    ——–

    I haven’t been feeling well lately. What I thought to be just heat related problems turned out to be some sort of a heart condition. More test are needed (is an intravascular ultrasound going to be unpleasant?), but the new medication are helping.

    Anyway, I’ve played Guess Countries: U.S. States today and could only guess 38 (did you know that there is a place called “Maryland”? Fascinating where people can live nowadays), but did manage to get 5 out of six bonus territories. Guess Countries: Europe was a walk in the park, but I only found four bonus answers.

  94. barkeeperin
    94

    Anyone interested, I have posted a photo of my new precious over on my blog.  Hopefully, it’ll be the beginning of me actually posting things again.  (At some point, I will be making crappy phone videos of myself playing, so you have that to look forward to or cringe away from.)

  95. Rawnaeris
    95

    So I kinda sorta just realized the place were going has a dress code for the restaurant which reads thusly,

    Note: To respect the harmony and elegance of our resort we inform you that the dress code in the specialty restaurants is smart casual.  For gentlemen the use of long pants, closed shoes and shirts with sleeves is required.

    Is Husband going to be embarrassingly underdressed or obviously American tourist if he goes to dinner in khaki slacks and a nice polo shirt?

  96. blf
    96

    “My precious“?  Do you tend to lurk in deep caves, eat everything raw, and have a dislike of stupid hobbitses, tricksy hobbitses, always keeping it from us… yes, my precious. We wants it!

  98. JimB
    98

    Is Husband going to be embarrassingly underdressed or obviously American tourist if he goes to dinner in khaki slacks and a nice polo shirt?

    I think he’ll be fine. Sounds to me like the dress code is to keep people from wearing beach attire into the restaurant.

    Enjoy!

  99. bluentx
    99

    Catching up.

    On the joys of childbirth:

    – “Oh, shit! I’m dying !!” experience— nope

    – Spiritual experience— eh, nope

    – Want to strangle hubby experience— yep  [If he tells me “Just breathe through it” ONE MORE TIME….]

    – Want to strangle anesthesiologist experience— Oh, yeah! [Yelling at me “DON’T MOVE !!” while administering the epidural I eventually agreed to. “You expect a nine month pregnant elephant to bend double AND not move a centimeter while experiencing a major contraction AND having a needle inserted in the spine , Jackass ?!” ] I didn’t say it– out loud.

    – Want to strangle one of the OB/GYN’s (labor took me through two shifts of hospital personnel).— yep  [I specifically asked him NOT to give me an episiotomy — he did it anyway on the sly.] His cut got infected the ‘natural’ tear did not.

    The closest thing to a’spiritual experience’ I can think of was my friend E calmly sitting by my bedside knitting. After each contraction she would set the piece aside, recover my feet and legs with the blanket I had kicked off, ask in one way or another how I was doing and go back to knitting. Very calming just watching her work the needles. She was my ‘backup’ in case hubby was stuck at work or otherwise delayed in getting to the hospital when I went into labor. I should have stuck with the backup. She was helpful– hubby was annoying ! : )

    rawnaeris

    Enjoy your… what did you call it… a vacation… WHAT’S THAT ? 🙂

    Also, I’m in north central tx, a little south west of DFW. About a two hour drive from YOB. As you know, two hours in Texas = ‘Just down the road’.

     

  100. barkeeperin
    100

    Rawnaeris

    I’m with JimB — sounds like they don’t want people coming in wearing sandals and swimming trunks and tank tops.

    blf

    I was going to call it “My New Baby” but my wife suggested a different title.

  101. Rawnaeris
    101

    *deep breath* okay, thanks ya’ll. just needed to check. Appreciate it.

    —-

    blueintx, I went to college out that way 🙂 my old profs have been saying its been hotter even than usual in the hill country this year.

  102. carlie
    102

    Hi everybody. I lost the link to the page but rq sent it to me. 🙂

    Anne – we might be gallbladder buddies! I had my annual exam this week and finally mentioned how every now and then I have this thing where it feels like a giant hulk hand is squeezing all of my torso organs and I feel like I want to die and I throw up all night but then the next morning everything is ok? And my NP was all uh-huh, lie down and let me poke this part and see if it hurts, and guess what IT’S YOUR GALLBLADDER DOOFUS.* So next week I have to go get it ultrasounded to see if it’s being a jerkbladder.

    awakeinmo – that’s rough, I’m sorry. I have cried out that particular pain to this song before: https://youtu.be/mWyFW1siCwQ

    Rawnaeris  – our anniversary is this week too. We celebrated by me staying at work until 7:30 interviewing job candidates. 🙁

    Everything is going okish, but super busy.

    *not really, she is kind and funny and I love her and will literally cry if she ever quits because she is that good and doesn’t fat-shame me and gives me all the options and lets me pick what to do and she’s the best NP ever so much that every visit I’m tempted to send her a thank-you card for being a good health care provider instead of a mean one but that seems weird to do

     

  103. bluentx
    103

    Posted too soon.

    rawnaeris (cont.):

    As for the job situation– The inspector promised she would make my report anonymous. It’s been so anonymous I can’t tell if my supervisor has been contacted as promised.

    YOB

    At times I can’t scroll down in the comment box when using my phone. 🙁

    Plus, when making my last comment this morning it was sent to moderation. Because it was a new Speakeasy ? And/or because that comment was done on my phone? *shrug*

    —

    Memory lane can often times lead through some pretty thorny bushes.

    Yep, and it can produce some jaw dropping history, too! Going through my parents papers after my dad died I came across some strange things.

    1)Why did they keep paperwork for property they bought in the 1950’s (and sold in 1971) but not the property line survey map they paid for (c. 1970’s-80’s) on the property I currently occupy?

    2) What looks like an original (or at least very old) birth certificate for my dad. Why does it have a different day of the month than the date he always celebrated?

    3) If anyone wants to start a Racism Museum I have a couple of documents to offer. On official  parish letterhead (was campaigning with public funds legal then?) letters from the Political Boss of Plaquemines parish Louisiana (the peninsula below New Orleans) Judge Leander Perez. (A DixieCrat apparently.) [Brace your self if you go to read his wikipedia page- ugh!] The letters are so blatantly racist ! Why should you vote for Perez ? ‘To keep the ‘coloreds’ (sp?) out of OUR schools’ ! etc. etc. [Despite Brown v. The Board of Education (1954) desegregation of LA schools didn’t happen until 1967-68 (somewhere around there as I recall).]

    Rawnaeris

    Hotter than usual ? I don’t about that  (locally). It’s always hell in August and this year it didn’t break the 100 mark until July (unheard of  in the last few years) !

     

     

  104. bluentx
    104

    Anne

    No experience with gallstones just kidney stones. Hope you get relief soon.

     

    Carlie

    Sorry to hear that you and Anne have so much in common (in this way at least). 🙁

     

    AlexanderZ

    Glad the meds are helping. Good luck with further tests.

     

    *hugs* all around

  105. Tony!
    105

    Oh my god. When is life going to stop taking a shit on me. Please. Some time soon.
    I went to pet Kayta and she has blood coming out of her rear. I don’t know what to do. I don’t have a car. I don’t have money. For all I know she could be dying and I CAN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

  106. Rawnaeris
    106

    Bluentx, ah, well that’s good. I’ve got relations out Possum Kingdom way who have hit 105+ for the last week, which is somewhat unusual for that part of the hills.

    Also >.< for kidney stones. I’ve watched Husband experience them (usually at 3 am) and it’s not a pain is wish on my worst enemy.

    —

    carlie, yay! Anniversary! Boooo! Working late.

    —

    bioed?!

  107. Rawnaeris
    107

    Trying that again,

    biped?! I haven’t heard nor seen Ogvorbis either. 🙁

    —-

    Tony! Oh shit, man. Is there an animal hospital near you? The local VCA will take phone calls for free to assess if something is an emergency and give first aid advice.

    fuck I’m so sorry I’d be flipping out.

  108. Anne, Cranky Cat Lady
    108

    Tony!, oh dear.  I don’t know what I can do from here, but I’m hoping for the best.  If there’s some way to raise money for you, include me in.

    carlie, there are a lot of clubs I’d rather be in with you than the Gallbother Club.

    I’ll just refill the hugs basket, looks like we’re going to need it.

     

     

  109. Biped!?
    109

    Friends, up top on the menu bar this is a Donate button. It goes directly to Tony’s PayPal account. If you can help out Tony and his doggie I’m sure he would be grateful.

  110. bluentx
    110

    Rawnaeris

    Possum Kingdom ? Why they’re practically Yankees !!! 🙂

    awakeinmo

    Yay for passing safety/emissions inspection! I spent $650 on tires today and they told me I’ll need a brake job soon ! Whoopee for vehicle maintenance ! At least I got it (the Toyota) paid off a couple months ago– now I can save up for all the repairs to come. 🙂

     

  111. Tony!
    111

    I just contacted the emergency vet clinic and they said to take her in and have the doctor look at her would be $90. Of course right now I have $5. Fuck my life.

  112. bluentx
    112

    Rats it didn’t offer edit time.

    I was going to add:   “It’s always something!”—– Roseanne Rosanna Danna

    And while in the tire shop I was reading the local paper. A letter to the editor criticized our state representative for… EGADS !!… (possibly) accepting contributions from ebil Planned Parenthood !! *

    Funny… I was pissed at him (after the Wendy Davis filibuster) for voting FOR the clinic killing bill. I posted on FB that he should be ashamed of voting to limit women’s access to health care…. He’s an M.D. !

     

     

    * Worst of all– the writer was a woman. *sigh*

  113. Biped!?
    113

    People, please donate to Tony. The vet care can’t wait. Tony is doing an awful lot for us by hosting this site. We need to support him now. Thanks.

  114. Tony!
    114

    All:
    Several people in the FB Pharyngula social thread donated money to me through PayPal, so I have the $90 to cover the doctors visit…tomorrow. It takes around 12 hours for the money to go through. The e-vet said they need the money up front. She’s not drinking water and her breathing is kinda sluggish. I’m worried she won’t last the night.

  116. Tony!
    116

    Ok. I have a friend who can front me the $90. She’s on her way to pick me up so we can take my cat to the vet. I’m worried about what I’m going to do after this though. There’s no money for an operation or any medication. I’m also worried she might be so far gone in her health that I’ll have to put her down.

    I’m scared.

  120. Rawnaeris
    120

    Please let us know what happens, Tony. We care. All paws crossed for a good outcome.

    ^this a million times this. Tony, I’m so sorry I can’t do more to help from here.

  126. Giliell
    126

    OH FFS

    One of our elevators has been broken for weeks.

    They say they need a spare part that has been ordered. Really? What kind of company are you? I thought I’d seen your elevators in the big shopping malls in Berlin, I doubt they’ll have to wait 4 weeks for a spare part.

    Now, this led to long waiting periods.

    But after the strain of having to work basically non stop in 35°, the second elevator broke down this morning. Did I mention that I live on the 13th floor? Did I mention that I have to move luggage for 4 people and 3 weeks downstairs tomorrow? And unfortunately, I don’t have the Luggage.

    I’m going to google how much I can short the rent right after I ask my old neighbour if she needs anything, because it’s a holiday tomorrow, so she can’t go shopping…

  127. Giliell
    127

    OH FFS

    One of our elevators has been broken for weeks.

    They say they need a spare part that has been ordered. Really? What kind of company are you? I thought I’d seen your elevators in the big shopping malls in Berlin, I doubt they’ll have to wait 4 weeks for a spare part.

    Now, this led to long waiting periods.

    But after the strain of having to work basically non stop in 35°, the second elevator broke down this morning. Did I mention that I live on the 13th floor? Did I mention that I have to move luggage for 4 people and 3 weeks downstairs tomorrow? And unfortunately, I don’t have the Luggage.

    I’m going to google how much I can short the rent right after I ask my old neighbour if she needs anything, because it’s a holiday tomorrow, so she can’t go shopping…

    Well, as I write it started working again. I hope it stays that way…

    Tony

    *big hugs*

    Sending something now

    bluentx

    2) What looks like an original (or at least very old) birth certificate for my dad. Why does it have a different day of the month than the date he always celebrated?

    When my grandpa’s youngest sister moved to the nursing home, she divided most of her posessions among the family and my mum got the “Family Bible”. Why does a family of atheists since my great-grandparents’ time have a Family Bible? Because back then when you got married you got a Bible (even though it was a civil marriage*) and in the back of that Bible there were pages where marriages, deaths and births were documented.

    Some interesting tidbits: My great grandpa’s first wife died very young, not long after their wedding. About exactly one year after her death, the first possible moment it was “decent”, he got married to my great grandma. 6 months later my grandpa was born. Both women had the same first name.

  128. Tony!
    128

    The vet said that she either had a bacterial infection, kidney failure, or a thyroid problem. She ruled out the kidney infection bc Kayta’s kidneys felt fine. She couldn’t do more without running more tests, which would have cost a lot of money. She suspected thyroid problem though bc Kayta’s pupils were really dilated and her heartbeat was really fast (250-something). I couldn’t afford to do any other treatment, and I didn’t want her to suffer…

    So I put her down.
    And since I couldn’t afford to have her cremated, now I have to go out back and bury her. The let me sign a promissory note that gives me two weeks to raise the additional $113 to cover euthanasia costs.

    And I can’t stop crying. I haven’t felt like this since Micah died.

  129. Giliell
    129

    Tony

    Big hugs

    I’m so sorry to hear. Let me remind you that you’re a wonderful person and that you did the best for her. There should be a little money in your paypal account. NOt enough, but I’m sure there’s more folks who can keep you afloat.

  130. Nightjar
    130

    I’m so sorry, Tony.

    I know how it hurts. Just keep in mind that you did the best thing for her, she was lucky to have someone care for her as much as you did.

    *hugs*

  134. carlie
    134

    Oh, Tony. I’m so, so sorry. But you did the best thing for her. I can’t say it well, but I read an essay once that talked about how owning pets is a special kind of responsibility, because to put them first we have to understand that needs are not the same as our needs, that first and foremost we have to keep their suffering level minimal, because they simply can’t understand pain. It’s a selfish pet owner who overmedicates and over operates and won’t let go, just because they want to keep the pet longer, while the pet is suffering. Doing the best thing for them in terms of pain often means doing things that make us hurt worse, but that’s the sign of a true, best kind of pet owner, that you’re willing to take on that pain to take it away from them.

  136. bragimike
    136

    I really sorry to hear your sad news Tony!. But, as people have said: you did the right thing and ultimately, that’s all we can ever hope to do.

    *hugs*

  139. YOB
    139

    Tony:

    I’m so so sorry to hear the news. I’m also echoing what Carlie said. It is so true.

    Also, don’t be afraid to memorialize Kayta in some way, if you think it will help.

    one of the things we did, as a family, to help cope with the loss of our cat, George, was to plant a tree in the backyard. We had to put him down due to a urinary infection complicated by a heart condition, this last spring. The treatment for the infection would have crashed his heart and we couldn’t afford a feline cardiologist. I couldn’t bear the thought of him going into arrest during the night, so I made the hard call.

    The next day, we were trying to console one another by remembering his exploits. One of the weird things he would do was try to eat our food. I don’t mean the meats and such. He would try to eat corn, broccoli, anything on our plates really, even peas. That is when YOBling came up with the idea to plant a fruit tree, in his memory. Of course, it had to be a fruit tree, because he loved to eat so much.

    so now we have George’s pear tree in the yard. The act of picking one out and planting it, and seeing it every day is/was so very cathartic for my whole family.

     

  142. FossilFishy
    142

    It used to be that the only bravery we ever heard about was that of those who had the wealth and power to be noticed beyond thier immediate surrounds.  Sure, feats of arms and daring-do got recorded too, but such folk were also exceptional in thier society.  The everyday bravery, the awful choices that those of us without means, without power, without advantages physical or circumstantial have to make again and again just to get by vanish from history like they never were.  And let’s be clear about this: facing up to the endless grind of disadvantage is bravery.

     

    There are those who think that the immanent threat of gun or bomb must surpass the threat that poverty places upon a person’s life.  And they’d be right if such threats happened at the same rate.  But they don’t.  My mother had to chose between buying bread or milk because there wasn’t enough money for both, week after week, for years.  To carry on in the face of that on top of all the thousands of other difficult decisions that came from poverty, that is bravery too.  A quiet, unassuming bravery of the sort that never used to get its own story, never gets the celebration that a just world would offer it.

     

    You may not see it, but we do, we see the courage that you possess.  Not everyone has the strength to continue to be a good human when life is shitting on them as it seems to have been doing to you of late.  And by not hiding it away from us we are enriched by your example.  Your story, told here and reaching all the way around the world by the wonder of modern media makes a difference.  A cold comfort that when you’re hurting so, I suspect, but it’s true none the less.

     

    Thank you Tony.

     

    Thank you for trusting us with your story.

     

    May the next chapter be written in brighter, joyful colours.

  143. Tony!
    143

    Thank you all. I appreciate it.
    And special thanks to Fossil Fishy. That was beautiful and moving.

    ****
    http://recoveringfromreligion.org/support/
    ” We are helping a dual US/SA citizen in Saudi Arabia who has been outed as a nonbeliever to their father. Their safety is at risk. With your help, we can bring them to the United States almost immediately. We have verified their identity and are working alongside Faisal Al-Mutar of Global Secular Humanist Movement and other Arabic activists to assist in this effort as quickly as possible by providing a flight and temporary/short-term emergency lodging.”

  144. Lynna
    144

    Tony, so sorry to hear about the death of your cat, and about the difficulties associated with having to say goodbye to Katya. One thing I did that helped me process the death of a friend’s pets was to write a little eulogy for the pet. Remembering and writing down that pet’s eccentricities helped me to focus on good times shared. Grief is grief and there’s no way you should avoid that anyway, but mixing grief with tender memories, or even with humor is a way to get through the day.

     

    In other news, Chris Hayes hosted an interesting interview last night. A Republican talked about his fellow Republicans, the GOP in general, and Donald Trump in particular. Bruce Bartlett was a senior policy analyst for George HW Bush, and he’s still a Republican, just an unhappy one.

    “Oh, I love Donald Trump,” Bruce Bartlett said. “Because he exposes everything about the Republican Party that I have frankly come to hate. It is just filled with people who are crazy, and stupid, and have absolutely no idea of what they are taking about. And the candidate no matter how intelligent they may be just constantly have to keep pandering to this lowest common denominator in American politics.”
    The harshness of the comments shocked Chris Hayes. He said it seemed like an elitist generalization. One can be sure there was a journalistic wink wink in Chris Hayes’ push back.
    But Bartlett continued. “I think it is pretty obvious to anyone who follows politics,”Bartlett said. “The problem is to use a term that I don’t like, it’s not politically correct to point out the obvious. And again I think Trump is pointing this out. Among other things, to follow up with your comment, one of the things that we are seeing very clearly this time more than any other year is that issues don’t matter. Policies don’t matter. The only thing that matters is attitude. And Trump has exactly the right ‘chip on your shoulder’ attitude that many many people find extraordinarily attractive that is completely divorced from whatever he is saying about the issues which is precious little.”

    Associated links:

    Daily Kos link

    News Busters link (some rightwing nonsense on this page)

  145. Lynna
    145

    “When in doubt, it must always be the parent’s choice,” Fiorina responded, adding “We must protect religious liberty and someone’s ability to practice their religion.”

    That’s Republican candidate Carly Fiorina talking about vaccination of children.

  146. YOB
    146

    Policies don’t matter. The only thing that matters is attitude. And Trump has exactly the right ‘chip on your shoulder’ attitude that many many people find extraordinarily attractive that is completely divorced from whatever he is saying about the issues which is precious little.”

    He’s got that part nailed, at least as far as many (especially rural) Texans I’ve met seems to indicate. Most especially my brother and my dad. They both LOVE the Trumpster. When I ask them what they think of his policies they just shrug and say “don’t know,
    don’t care.”

    I don’t talk politics with them anymore. Doing so just makes us all mad, and me sad for the state of our future.

  147. Lynna
    147

    Rabid rightwing radio host, Bradlee Dean, continues to call for the death of President Obama.

    “If what was happening in this country was happening in a foreign country, the people in this country would have called for military strikes, as well as an all-out manhunt for the dictators that were guilty of the same things Barack Hussein Obama and his criminal administration are guilty of here in America,” Dean said. “Yet, because it is happening here, the people have somehow deceived themselves into believing that what they have allowed is not as bad as what is happening over in Third World countries.” 

    Right Wing Watch link

  148. Lynna
    148

    […] They both LOVE the Trumpster. When I ask them what they think of his policies they just shrug and say “don’t know, don’t care.” […]

    YOB, that is just depressing.

  149. Lynna
    149

    hmmm — hope they have solved all the problems at Pharyngula on FreeThought blogs. I wasn’t able to access the site for several hours, but it seems to be back online now.

  152. YOB
    152

    Lynna: very much so. They blame Obama for everything bad (even stuff that started before he took office.) I’ve pretty much given up trying to talk to them about politics, social justice, etc. After so many years of just not getting through, I just don’t have the spoons for it. At least, not with those two.

     

  153. Saad
    153

    Guy trolls people on Facebook about Target’s removal of gendered aisle signs by pretending to be a Target rep

    Some of his replies are hilarious.

    One person even manages to bring Shiria [sic] law into it.***

    His response:

    Judy, we at Target would like to say one thing:

    Allahu akbar

     

    *** I can’t understand for the life of me why so many right-wing doofuses think Islam or Sharia law are liberal things. Outside of the superstitious elements, Sharia is almost wholly compatible with the ideal right-wing Christian society.

  154. Tony!
    154

    Saad:
    I’m guessing it’s because they lump everything they don’t like into one group. It’s all black and white. Where white is male, hetero, christian, cis and everything they don’t like is black. Huh…I just noted the subtext of that.

  156. Saad
    156

    Yeah, that’s probably it.

    Heh, the figure of speech “black and white” takes on an additional layer of meaning in social justice.

    Also, I bet many of these people’s first exposure to Islam was through the sentence, “Obama is a Muslim”.

  157. Giliell
    157

    Good evening

    Testing the sitefrom the tablet

    Quite userfriendly so far

     

    Saad

     

    I suppose that conservatives hate sharia because they wish they hadn’t had to abandon biblical law some millennia ago

  158. Tony!
    158

    Giliell:
    Good to know about the user friendliness of the site on a tablet. I’d wondered about that (and now I wonder why I didn’t check it out on *my* tablet…sheesh).

  160. YOB
    160

    Oh wow. If you have a face that is prone to being palmed do not read Jennifer Ward’s comments on the Target Troll Doll Facebook post. Bryan Fischer award anyone?

    There are others, of course, but hers are the ones that I found first most.

     

  161. opposablethumbs
    161

    Tony, I’m so very sorry. carlie and FossilFishy and the others have said it way better than I could; it’s a hard hard thing to bear, but you did right by Katya. I’m sorry you have to cope without her, but you made sure to reduce her suffering to as little as possible. She was lucky to live with someone like you.

  163. JimB
    163

    Well, I’m glad it’s Friday. I’ve been exhausted all week, and am looking forward to lounging about the house getting caught up on some TV shows and reading.

    Hopefully all I need is some rest; if not then probably a medication adjustment will be in order. We’ll see how I feel on Monday.

  164. Lynna
    164

    I received a reply from PZ regarding our difficulty posting comments on Pharyngula:

    We seem to be undergoing some kind of hack attack right now.

  168. FossilFishy
    168

     barkeeperin :

    (At some point, I will be making crappy phone videos of myself playing, so you have that to look forward to or cringe away from.)

    I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.  😉

  169. FossilFishy
    169

    Tony.  You’re welcome, I just wish I was in a position to offer you more than words.  This winter has been the worse for sales since we took over our store.  Had exactly one customer today.

  170. Giliell
    170

    You know, if gender really was that obvious and unchangeable, wouldn’t these people be able to pick out the boy toys and girl toys without needing the store to put clear labels on them ?

  171. Nightjar
    171

    Awesome. So, naturally, PZ on vacation means someone is going to try and stir up some shit. While trying to drag this place into it, of course.

    *sigh*

    (Problem reported to PZ already, BTW)

  173. Lofty
    173

    Nightjar, I can’t see anyone with more than half a brain falling for that slimy trick. Honestly, the depths some people sink to to cause trouble.

    Oh and on another note, yer squirrels in Yosemite have The Plague. Ugh.

  174. Nightjar
    174

    Lofty,

    Yeah, I think you’re right. I guess we should at least be grateful for that: they are really, really pathetic, which sort of undermines their ability to cause trouble.

  175. Giliell
    175

    Tony

    Just giving you a heads-up: Some bastard is kind of impersonating you and linking here. I reported it already. Gods, those trolls are so predictable

  176. opposablethumbs
    176

    Over on the Discuss Racism thread at FtB – there’s a troll in aisle 86 posting under the name of “tonysan” and pretending (oh, the plausible deniability!!! They carefully avoid claiming to be Tony!, they just imply it!) that they are actually Tony! writing to insult PZ and persuade people to come here instead.

     

  177. Lofty
    177

    opposablethumbs, the troll has posted the same shit on six separate threads, just showing how utterly stupid thems is. It’ll be wiped clean soon no doubt, PZ said he’d look in a few times a day.

  180. Nightjar
    180

    Regarding the Discuss: Racism thread, I award the troll extra stupidity points for trying to sort of impersonate Tony worrying that “you all” are still commenting on PZ’s blog… right after two comments by Tony on that very same thread.

    Edit – Oh, ew, troll is responding to people over there now. Best not to feed.

  182. Xanthë
    182

    All (but one) of the troll’s comments have been erased by PZ. They seems to have scored high on the authoritarian clichés, low on factual observations. Next step probably to morph and try again. Oh well, Tony, you know you’re doing the good and right thing when you get hostile jerks trying to ruin it on you. (Details: the troll had an email address explicitly named “slimer566” at a well-known web e-mail provider.)

    Again my sorrow Tony that you had to put your kitty cat down, but you spared her further suffering. Thanks too, FossilFishy, for your words.

  183. Tony!
    183

    Thank you everyone. It feels strange to only have one cat in the house (Cassie-seen here ). For 20+ years, I’ve had at least 2. At some points I’ve had four.

  185. Beatrice
    185

    Gad, people are horrible.
    As I see it, that’s reason number 293582792355383 why societal pressure to have children is harmful. At least some of the people who go on to abuse their children wouldn’t have even had them in the first place if it wasn’t expected (or even pushed on them).

  187. blf
    187

    The answer here is a Very Probable NO: Was Sardinia home to the mythical civilisation of Atlantis?: “A comet plunging into the sea could have triggered a tidal wave that devastated bronze age settlements on the island, say scientists”.  (The term and plural are both disingenuous, there is only one wannabe — described as a “writer and journalist” — who is making the claim.)

    Besides referring to tsunamis as “tidal waves” (whether that is the fault of The Grauniad or an indication of the clewlessness of teh von Däniken wannbe is unclear), there is also the not so minor problem, as robustly pointed out in the comments, that there is no other trace of a tsunami in The Mediterranean from about that time.  And the unsupported claim that it must have been a comet (which, as the comments point out, if true-ish, it would far more likely be a fragment of a comet).

    The comments also point out that Plato wrote about a far more ancient event, not one a thousand or so years previously, but one around nine thousand years previously.  I must admit, however, I’ve always assumed Plato’s “nine thousand years” is like the many “forty somethings…” in, e.g., the holely babble, and means lots rather than being meant to taken literally.

    And finally, the mildly deranged penguin — who has personal experience with several of the sinkings (but has also always denied pulling the plug for some of the Atlantis sinkings) — is still giggling after read that load of, ah, pea droppings.

  188. Anne, Cranky Cat Lady
    188

    People can indeed be very horrible.

    Tony!, looks like you’ve really arrived, if you’ve got your own troll imitator.  Some people have way too much free time.

    Another morning, another attack of the gallstones.  At least now I know what it is.  I’m not ready for my usual coffeeshop breakfast this weekend, but I’m still going out yardsaling – we need stuff from TJ’s anyway.

  189. blf
    189

    And I’ve only just now read (some of) Mr Shoop’s, I mean Tony’s, recent, ah, cat problems.  I mean problems with caring for a cat.  The mildly deranged penguin has stopped giggling about that silly Atlantis claim and is now assembling a cheese memorial.  To a cat.  Since she(Her Penguniness) is a bird, either the cat in question was a good flying student, or, extremely likely, she(the mildly deranged penguin) respects Mr Tony and is happy at his good deed whilst also being sad at his loss.  So am I, and hence I will attempt to borrow the TARDIS key from the extremely annoyed mouse so we can make a delivery.  However, as we must deal with a mouse, I anticipate problems.  (If the cat is “Tom” that would help…)  Therefore, despite use of a TARDIS (hopefully), delivery may be delayed.  Actually, since we are (hoping) to use a TARDIS, make that “delivery will be unpredictable, except for being at the most inconvenient but precisely correct moment”.  So I’ll try to ensure the cheese memorial isn’t too green and does not contain too many penguin bites whenever it arrives.

  190. blf
    190

    I’m still going out yardsaling

    I read that at first as “yardsailing” and wondered what you used for a keel…

    Having said that, the Urban Dictionary does define yardsailing as what is probably meant:  “A phrase used to describe the art of shopping at large numbers of yard sales, garage sales, and estate sales.”

  191. blf
    191

    Beatrice, Poopyhead is (1) On vacation, and (2) Has been traveling(/ill/…).  And, speculating, a “non-USAian” thread seems hard to define or participle in, whilst a “UiS(not?)Alien (to the rest of the world)” thread seems amiable to definition and participation.  Unfortunately, both also seem like troll-bait.

  193. Caroline Kelly
    193

    Hi All,

    Thanks to Giliell I found the the Speakeasy. Sorry to hear about your cat Tony and I hope you have enough to cover all the expenses. I am so happy to see so many regulars here . YAY!

  194. blf
    194

    I was thinking of sailing a yard out on the ocean, rather than sailing on a yard…

    In the later case, said “Mountain board” might work as a keel-substitute.  In the former case, I suppose strategic placement might reduce reef damage in the event of a collision, and could even increase the hilarity value.  However, as an actual ocean-going (or even bathtub-going) keel, even attached to a very small lawn, I have sufficient doubts that I’d want to see some creationists or thugs try it first.

  196. Tony!
    196

    Hello Caroline. Welcome in.

    I do indeed have a good bit of money to cover the expenses for that, as well as some bills too, thanks to the generosity of people here, as well as several donors who saw Dana Hunter’s post at FtB (she put up a fundraising post for me yesterday, and I’m so thankful she did so). I’ve been trying to log into FtB to post on her blog, but I’m still encountering problems accessing the site.

  198. Anne, Cranky Cat Lady
    198

    Sail out into the neighborhood, sail around here and there, eventually sail back to harbor again…  I have a keyring tag with the Tolkien quote “Not all those who wander are lost”.  Works for me.

    Oh, Hi Hi, Caroline! The pillow fort is over here if you need to hide from the universe, or just take a nap. Just watch out for Hobbes.

  199. YOB
    199

    Welcome, Caroline.

    if you wander out to the courtyard, avoid the mulberry bush. The surly Pomeranian thinks it’s hers and she can be…surly

     

    blf: if you want to sail a yard, maybe this? Sail a yard?*

    *sailing as in waterborne vessel, not sailing sailing 🙂

     

     

     

  200. Caroline Kelly
    200

    Thanks YOB, and I will stay far away, as will Teddy my wonder dog, who is a Rat Terrier and would probably get his ass beat by the Pomeranian. He got a mean beatdown by a cat a few weeks ago, who just boxed his face over and over while Teddy the Wonder Dog did umm… well… nothing. Made me wonder though:0 Okay, he barked and jumped up for more, which is something, just not what I expected.

  202. Biped!? (formerly Morgan!?
    202

    Hey, I just spotted Rowan Vet Tech upthread! Is this your first foray into “The Roost?”

    Good to see you.

    About kitties. I am a dog person, always have been. Somebody somewhere said that makes me a conservative shithead. Not true. A shithead, maybe, a conservative, no.

    An anecdote… Before we decamped to the mountains I lived in an older but gentrifying neighborhood in Los Angeles. I would walk my two big corgis (one weighs 40 pounds, one weighs 30, and neither are fat) around several blocks every afternoon. Just around the corner from my house lived an unfriendly group of people who owned a black cat. It was a normal sized cat, but it was the most aggressive feline I’ve ever met. Even if I crossed the street to avoid walking in front of this cat’s house, it would come charging across the street and try to attack the dogs. It evidently did this to all dogs and most people. It once succeeded in clawing me. Nasty critter. The fellow who owned the beast would stand on his front porch and watch and laugh. Several of the neighbors called Animal Control, but nothing was ever done about that evil cat. We moved.

  203. Tony!
    203

    biped:

    Somebody somewhere said that makes me a conservative shithead. Not true. A shithead, maybe, a conservative, no.

    In my book, being a dog person (or just someone who doesn’t like cats) does not make someone a shithead or a conservative. IMO, when no one is harmed by the tastes or preferences of an individual, no justification for said tastes is necessary.

  206. Giliell
    206

    OK folks, I’m off for our holiday.

    I know I’m very privileged to be able to do this, but the non-sentinent heavens know I need a break. Especially after we spent half an hour today searching for my wallet, which apparently I put into the “technology backpack” with the camera and I have absolutely NO memory of this.

    I’ll say hello from Barcelona, I know they have WiFi.

     

    P.S.

    I’m a dog person, too. I’ll probably never have one, but I really love them.

  208. Tony!
    208

    There’s always something going on in the world that angers, outrages, scares, or depresses us. We see this news on a regular basis. Many of us keep up with such news. Over time, it can be draining. Sometimes, reading good stories can be a boost. A recharge if you will.

    Here is a good story. One that brought a smile to my face and a literal FUCK YEAH. It’s a story about a 17-year-old kid who may very well have saved a woman’s life by way of bystander intervention:
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/malyk-bonnet-teenage-hero-saves-woman-from-kidnapping-1.3191795

  209. Anne, Cranky Cat Lady
    209

    My best friend (since high school) is a dog person and a liberal.  I’m a cat person and a liberal.  She has always had very well-behaved dogs, so even though I’m afraid of dogs, I get along fine with hers.

    For whatever that’s worth.

  211. Giliell
    211

    Thank you!

     

    Oh, and this makes my heart go soft. I haven’t heard of this film project so far, but the idea seems wonderful, especially if they have a black sherrif. Should make some idiots’ bloodpressure go boom

  212. Beatrice
    212

    Have fun, Giliell!

    I was channel surfing and now I’m stuck on The Sound of Music. Somebody save me! I hate that movie, but it’s like watching a train wreck.

  213. Lynna
    213

    […] last week, a polio vaccination campaign in Kenya faced an unlikely opponent: The country’s Conference of Catholic Bishops declared a boycott of the World Health Organization’s vaccination campaign, saying they needed to “test” whether ingredients contain a derivative of estrogen. Dr. Wahome Ngare of the Kenyan Catholic Doctor’s Association alleged that the presence of the female hormone could sterilize children.
    Ngare is a practicing gynecologist with no infectious disease experience. […]

    Such stupidity. Ngare also mentioned eugenics, and that “vaccines can cause autism.” Apparently, vaccines have also been used to spread HIV and cancer.
    So, yeah, both politicians and religious doofuses (Catholic Bishops) are buying into this stupidity.
    NPR link

  214. Lynna
    214

    After bogus, deceptively edited videos about Planned Parenthood were released by rightwing minions of the anti-abortion movement, many Republican politicians (and a few Democrats) were all gleefully grabbing this latest opportunity to push for defunding the organization.

    In some states, regulatory legislation is being considered in addition to defunding efforts.

    Investigations into Planned Parenthood are so numerous that I can’t keep track of them, but one thing is clear: the investigations are turning up NO EVIDENCE of wrong-doing on the part of Planned Parenthood. In fact, there’s been such a dearth of negative results that some politicians, including Idaho’s rightwing governor, have refused to open their own investigation. Those investigations do cost taxpayers money after all.

    Officials in states including Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, and South Dakota have not been able to turn up any evidence that Planned Parenthood clinics are violating state laws and regulations regarding the collection of fetal tissue donations. Records obtained from other states, like Kansas, reveal that some Planned Parenthood clinics don’t even give their patients the option to donate this tissue.

    “In every state where these investigations have concluded, officials have cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing,” Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of Planned Parenthood, said in a statement released on Friday. “We’ve said all along that Planned Parenthood follows all laws and has very high medical standards, and that’s what every one of these investigations has found. This campaign by anti-abortion extremists is nothing less than a fraud.”

    Donating tissue from aborted fetuses has beenlegal for decades. Scientists can use the biological material, which is a rich source of stem cells, todevelop new ways to treatAIDS, spinal cord injuries, diabetes, cancer, and eyesight loss. […]

    Republican lawmakers inArizona,Wisconsin, andCaliforniahave recently taken steps to make it more difficult to donate fetal tissue. The legislation is moving quickly in Wisconsin, though Gov. Scott Walker (R) hasn’t yet indicatedwhether he’ll approve itif it makes its way to his desk.

    State lawmakers have also pressed forward with attempts to strip Planned Parenthood of its taxpayer funding. This week,UtahandArkansasbecame the latest states to end their Medicaid contracts with the organization. […]

    This tactic is also unlikely to be successful for abortion opponents, though. States are not legally permitted from discriminating against qualified Medicaid providers, which hasthwartedsimilar defunding efforts in the past. That’s why the Obama administration has already startingwarning state officials that they shouldn’t end their contracts with Planned Parenthood.

    Think Progress link

  215. Lynna
    215

    Jeb Bush is somewhat confused when it comes to “Common Core” standards for education in the USA … and he wants his base of supporters to be even more confused. The more confusion, the better. Why? He’s afraid he’ll loss votes thanks to a rightwing conspiracy theory that Common Core is the deceptive plan of the Big Bad Federal Wolf Government to take over education.

    […] While speaking at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines on Friday, […] Bush tried to talk his way around a question about the Common Core Standards Initiative, an education policy initiated by the National Governors Association that tries to bring education standards into alignment nationwide.

     

    “The term ‘Common Core’ is so darn poisonous, I don’t even know what it means,” Bush said. “[But] I’m for higher standards — state-created, locally implemented — where the federal government has no role in the creation of standards, content or curriculum.”

     

    The evasive answer appears to be an attempt to sidestep widespread Republican opposition to the policy, which is rooted in the misconception that it amounts to a “federal takeover” of the education system — even though the standards were created by state governors, not the federal government, and developed at the state level. […]

     

    Bush’s bobbing and weaving over the issue contrasts starkly with Ohio governor and fellow GOP presidential candidate John Kasich, who has been open about his support for Common Core for some time. When pressed about the issue in an interview with Fox News in January, Kasich refused to back down, pointing out that Common Core isn’t the federally-mandated school curriculum that some conservatives make it out to be.

     

    “The Common Core was written by state education superintendents and local principals,” Kasich said. “In my state of Ohio, we want higher standards for our children, and those standards are set and the curriculum is set by local school boards … Barack Obama doesn’t set it, the state of Ohio doesn’t set it. It is local school boards driving better education, higher standards, created by local school boards.”

    Link

  216. Lynna
    216

    Here’s an interesting comparison of Bernie Sanders to Jeremy Corbyn. Corby is a socialist politician and a member of Britain’s Labour Party. It seems Corbyn is enjoying a surge in popularity.

    And, oh joy, there’s even a note about fashion — not Bernie’s fashion, but Corbyn’s.

    […] Until a few weeks ago, Corbyn was widely viewed as a hopeless anachronism within post-Thatcher British politics, a ‘60s throwback with bad clothes, […](Actually, compared to the fashion-hopeless Sanders, Corbyn cuts quite a stylish figure in a distinctively English ascetic mode.) Now, he may be within days of becoming Labour’s parliamentary leader, and its prospective candidate for prime minister in the 2020 national election.

    Like Sanders, Corbyn has long advocated for a rejection of austerity politics and a return to seemingly outmoded policies of ambitious social spending, government activism and higher taxes on big business and the rich. He has proposed universal childcare and free higher education for all,  […]

    Well, nobody’s laughing at the old-time lefty crackpot now. What few saw coming – and this happened with Sanders too – is that those old-school social-democratic ideas only sound outmoded to those who have been around long enough to be relentlessly indoctrinated with the Reagan-Thatcher ideology that the era of Big Government was a dreadful failure and that the true path to prosperity involves endless rounds of tax-cutting and “belt-tightening.” To younger generations raised amid the depressing, pseudo-Calvinist piety of permanent austerity and downward mobility, the revolutionary notion that the government might actually help you get an education, find a job, afford a decent place to live and raise your family — instead of just standing there and scolding — doesn’t sound old or tired in the slightest. […]

  217. FunnyDiva
    217

    Tony!
    So, so sorry to learn about Katya.  I know how very much that hurts.  I’m glad for everyone who’s been generous to you financially.

     

    Giliell–Gute Reise!

     

    Hi everyone.   I can’t seem to facebork AND speakeasy at the same time…
    I really do want to get back to hanging out with all y’all over here, though!
    It’s very challenging hangin’ with folks who don’t share my FTB/SocialJustice background.
    And an away-from-computer friend last night accused me of throwing Dan Savage “under the bus.”  Dan F*cking Savage does not know I exist.  It is just not possible for me to throw anyone with that sort of platform and audience anywhere, let alone under a bus.
    I think she was saying I’d hurt her feelings awhile back when she was picking up the alt-weekly he writes for and saying I’d found some things he writes problematic so wasn’t reading him any more.  That I’m sort of OK with–she felt I was criticizing her choice of reading, and that was probably an accurate reading, knowing me (but without remembering the incident).
    Also, for me to do that–criticize and no longer read Dan Savage for saying things I find problematic (probably punching down either at women [I am one!] or trans*folk or both)–is alienating an ally and that’s very bad…and I can’t do that.  Because white gay men NEVER dismiss or ‘splain to/about women or trans*folk.  Never happens.
    Ai yi yi.
    How do I alienate someone who doesn’t know I exist?!  And, I’m sorry, you do not get to tell me who I call an ally, nor that allies should not be criticized.
    I mean…and she just got a master’s degree in strategic communication from a local tiny new-age-y university.  And how dare I say there are complete strangers online that I just dismiss without engaging or educating them on how they’re being total 101-level asshats!

     

    I love her…I do, but f*ck me I was not prepared for that level of Not Even Wrong.  Just because you’ve been doing feminism for 20+ years doesn’t mean I’m a total neophyte, don’t assume you know where-all I get my social justice education/discussion, and you still don’t get to ‘splain to  me like this based solely on you’ve been at the rodeo longer than I have.

     

    Oh dear…sorry for that rant.  I’ll just hang out and join the general conversationalizing for awhile now, shall I?

  219. AlexanderZ
    219

    Tony

    I’m sorry about Kayta. You’ve done all you could. 15 years is a long time for a cat, and I’m sure she delighted in her time with you and her playmates.

  220. FunnyDiva
    220

    That’s OK, then.  I don’t mind slow.
    FB’s just been going so fast since this “Leave Berie ALOOOOOOONE” thing blew up last week.

    And with the zeal of the newly converted, I”ve been trying to learn more and signal-boost the “YO!  White liberals like me need to STFU and hear what #blacklivesmatter and other black activists and just affected black people are saying.”  Especially the “YO!  You do NOT finger-wag at black people and ‘splain them how they’re doing their activism all rong and need to be polite and ax nicely” messages.
    Because dat shit, as you know, srsly pisses me the fuck off.

    And I was just on the wikipedia-machine last night.  Has it really been SIX YEARS since a cop murdered Oscar Grant on an Oakland BART station platform?  I guess I’ve been noticing and learning and refining my views on racial justice (as in, it’s past time, all-us-all white fuckers!) longer than I realized.

  221. FunnyDiva
    221

    So, Tony!
    what, if anything, would you like to converse about?

    I found the intro to “Slavery by Another Name” to be amazingly powerful.

    especially when he describes how his WSJ article which led to the book was received differently by white people and black people.  I might think about keeping the “not surprised” kind of comments to myself…
    It broke my heart to read how his black readers were feeling relieved–because they were sort of afraid their continued poverty and underclass status was because they really were inferior.  That eliding all the post-Civil War continued enslavement made it easy to bolster that narrative–so much that many internalized it.
    DAMN!  I’m really glad most black people don’t act like they hate me just because I’m white…but I’m starting to really understand at a visceral level how that anger turns to that hate (in some not-white people), and I’m starting to believe at a visceral level that I really can’t blame them for that.
    If it’s not too silly–it’s kind of like in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”
    when Roger Rabbit says “If a ‘toon killed MY brother, I’d hate me, too!”

     

    yeah, as I said early this week: my whitefeels don’t matter a hill of beans in light of this history, AND in the ongoing murder of black women and men by white people…

  222. Tony!
    222

    I’m definitely going to have to get that book, because I want to read more of the history he uncovered. Even though I know it’ll be a tough read.

  223. AlexanderZ
    223

    bluentx

    Thanks. The meds are working even better now and I’m starting to reduce the dosage. I’m always amazed at modern medicine. I have no idea how people can hate modern medicine when even the tiniest pill can do.

    carlie

    I’m tempted to send her a thank-you card for being a good health care provider instead of a mean one but that seems weird to do

    Everyone wants to be thanked, especially doctors since they get to see a lot of shit during their work. Two of my doctors even gave me their personal numbers so that even if they’re not in the clinic I could call them and ask for advice.

    FossilFishy

    There are those who think that the immanent threat of gun or bomb must surpass the threat that poverty places upon a person’s life.  And they’d be right if such threats happened at the same rate.  But they don’t.  My mother had to chose between buying bread or milk because there wasn’t enough money for both, week after week, for years.  To carry on in the face of that on top of all the thousands of other difficult decisions that came from poverty, that is bravery too.  A quiet, unassuming bravery of the sort that never used to get its own story, never gets the celebration that a just world would offer it.

    QFW! As someone who saw guns and bombs firsthand I can say with complete certainty that military courage is highly over-rated. The whole point of boot-camp is to condition the soldiers to stop thinking and do as they’re told. When I was volunteering for guard duty at the most exposed point I wasn’t being brave – I was only looking for a place where others are less likely to disturb me (everyone gets used to gun fire, but I couldn’t stand the yapping of several other soldiers).

    Lynna and YOB

    Policies don’t matter.

    Krugman has a different take on this. I think he’s right. YOB, would your family be so pro-Trump if he had said something pro-immigration? When people say “policies don’t matter” they usually mean that they know enough about the policies that matter to them that they don’t care about any other policies.

    This tells you all you need to know about Trump supporters, since he has been vocal on relatively few issues – mainly his xenophobia (whether it is economic xenophobia against China or your run-of-the-mill bigotry against Mexicans). When people say they support Trump they seem to be saying that all that “God and Country”, “Protect Our Troops”  or “Save The American Economy” rhetoric is just empty words to them. What they want most is a racist in power.

    Then again, I’m not USian, so I maybe full of shit.

    Giliell

    Have fun on your vacation!

    Rowan Vet Tech and Caroline Kelly, hello!

  224. FunnyDiva
    224

    Tony!
    can you get a public library card?  I’ve got it from mine as an e-book, and read it in my web browser, no device needed.  My tax dollars at work, but free at the point of use!
    or we’ll email and I’ll figure out how to get you the .pdf e-book version…

    in the meantime, I’ll see if I can’t copy-pasta the passages I’m talking about (unless you’ve read the whole intro)  it just…floored me.  Gut punched.  Never imagined how differently two groups of readers would experience that article.  Mind.  Blown.

    Also the Henrietta Lacks book (Immortal Life) if you haven’t read it yet.  (when you’re ready, of course…I can try to re-read it at the same time if you tell me you’re starting)

  225. vereverum
    225

    Giliell 8-15 2:39AM

    You know, if gender really was that obvious and unchangeable, wouldn’t these people be able to pick out the boy toys and girl toys without needing the store to put clear labels on them ?

     
    In a word, No.
    They are authoritarians both ways, up and down, and Target, as a corporation, is an authority figure (think about their view of corporations). It and others tell them (by ads) what to buy and they buy it. Their primary scripture contains no rules about toys for children, therefor the Target authority figure gets the nod because they must have someone in authority make the decision. If something happens later on that calls into question the gender related propriety of their child playing with a specific toy, then they can claim that they are not responsible for a bad decision but have been misled by a corrupted authority, throw the inappropriate toy in the trash, repent, and all is well again.

         I hope you had a pleasant trip, (i.e. no “Are we there yet?”  “Are we there yet?” “I hafta go right now!” stuff), and are enjoying Spain.

  226. FunnyDiva
    226

    AlexanderZ

    When people say they support Trump they seem to be saying that all that “God and Country”, “Protect Our Troops”  or “Save The American Economy” rhetoric is just empty words to them. What they want most is a racist in power.

    This USA-nian thinks that’s actually a fair interpretation.  But then, all those other catchphrases have a specific, exclusionary of non-whites and poors and libruls and not-our-kind-of-Christian subtext anyway, one that is not incompatible with “yee-haw, I can vote for a racist like me!”
    unfortunately, this past week has revealed very starkly the racist, white-supremacist side of USAnian  white liberals–the one we like to pretend we don’t have.
    So I’ve been spending more time lately critical of my own political “side” and combating that racism…on the “remove the beam from thine own eye first” principle.

  227. FunnyDiva
    227

    cute…edit clock ran out before I finished:
    […]principle.
    (eta: therefore I’m not as concerned with the stoopid from the GOP/TeaParty at the moment.  In no way patting myself on the back or requesting an ally cookie.)

  228. Tony!
    228

    Funny Diva:
    A public library card? I never, ever thought about that. All the times I’ve thought about getting a book, I never thought about that. I feel like you’ve just hit me with two clue-by-fours back to back.

    All that said, I wish I read more. I’ve read only a handful of books my whole life. Excluding books that were required while in elementary, middle, and high school, I’ve read maybe a dozen in my 39 (almost 40) years on this planet. A huge part of the issue is that I prefer to have visuals with my reading material (which is one of the reasons comic books appeal to me). Another issue I found over the years is that it takes me a hella long time to read even a short book. Several years ago, I read Richard Matheson’s 1954 book I Am Legend*. It’s a fairly short book clocking in at 162 pages. I really enjoyed it, but it took some time to read. The main reason for that is something I find I can’t really control: while I’m reading, I’m also simultaneously and uncontrollably trying to visualize what I’m reading. Like, everything. From what a character is doing, to where they are, to what they’re wearing…everything. This slows down the reading process significantly for me.I think this may play a role in why I don’t like reading books so much. Which sucks, bc one of my favorite things to do is go to a bookstore and get lost in the sci-fi or fantasy section and read the back covers of books. I *want* to read more, but it’s…I dunno. I doesn’t come easy to me? I’m not sure how to put it.

    *I loathe, loathe, loathe the Will Smith adaptation from a few years ago. It was so wildly different from Matheson’s novel that I feel they should have called the movie something else.

  229. FunnyDiva
    229

    Well, if you’re in a town/city/county that has a public li-berry system, they’ve got graphic novels and DVDs and downloadable streaming media and and…oh so much stuff for free!

    hope it was the good kind of clue-by-four.

    Fortunately, “Slavery by Another Name” is also a documentary film–if the li-berry has the book, chances are they also have the film in one format or another.  Haven’t seen the film, just putting that out there.

     

    I must confess, I’m a nearly life-long reader, and so my frame-of-reference is “of COURSE everybody reads”.  So your experience with books is foreign to me–but I’m listening to what you say about that, OK?  Sounds like your brain just processes stuff very differently than mine.

     

    Do audiobooks work for you?  does having the words in auditory format change anything?  There are some amazing readers out there now.  Also radio-play adaptations of lots of cool stuff.  Like that classic BBC LOTR from the ‘8os.

    So, yes, if you’ve got a public library system check it out.  Larger ones with multiple branches–you can request anything from their collection online and pick it up at your most convenient branch.  And many have extensive free downloads of music and video and audiobooks and ebook.

     

    You’ve got such a good mind, and such a great heart and such curiosity–I want you to have as much library experience as you choose to consume.  If you live somewhere with a public system, it’s already Your Tax Dollars at Work, go thou and grab thy pieces of information and entertainment pie!

  230. Anne, Cranky Cat Lady
    230

    I finished my latest UFO.  Look, shiny.

    Now I get to clean up the explosion-in-a-craft-store that is the current state of my little Room of My Own, and figure out what to play with next.

    I also have a tote bag of seed and bugle beads Aged Mum gave me last time I visited her, that need sorting and repackaging to fit into my storage system.  We went through some of her craft supplies together.  Talk about depressing; I remember buying a lot of those things for, and earlier, with her, and now she can’t even work with them. 🙁

  232. FunnyDiva
    232

    Anne, those look great.

    but this was descriptive gold:

     <blockquote>it looks like a cross between a diatom and a mandala, and it sparkles like whoa</blockquote>

    because, srsly…it takes a special and awesome sort of person to see a mash-up of tiny ancient fossil and ancient south-asian art form!

     

    and I am sorry to hear about your mum.  That is very tough.  I saw my mum cope with this, and realized she could be badass in ways I’d never suspected.  Because she had to.

     

  233. Nightjar
    233

    AlexanderZ,

    Glad to hear you’re doing better! As for this:

    I’m always amazed at modern medicine. I have no idea how people can hate modern medicine when even the tiniest pill can do.

    True story about my grandma.

    (Well, first some background. She doesn’t hate modern medicine as much as she’s afraid of it. She thinks it’s harmful, all of it, because it isn’t natural, you know. Me and my father like to joke that she was a pioneer in alt-med/anti-vax nonsense. (My father also says that she almost killed him because of her refusal to vaccinate him.) It has always been a challenge to get her to take the pills she needs. She reads the package insert obsessively, and then obsesses over some contraindication or side effect. “See, I can’t take these because it says here it isn’t recommended in cases of kidney problems.” “But you don’t have any kidney problems, grandma.”. “Yes, but look here, I may get them!” *sigh*)

    When she was prescribed some pills to manage her hypertension, she refused to take them at first. We tried to convince her. Told her she could die, told her she would die younger, told her everything. But it took a few crisis for her to really fear for her life and take the damn pills. Except… she was visibly anxious about taking them. She was afraid something would happen. So, what did my grandfather do? Got her into the car, drove to the nearest hospital and parked right in front of the emergency department. Then she took the pill and they waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing happened. They went back home.

  234. Rowan Vet Tech
    234

    I also imagine/visualize everything I read in books, but such things flow so easily from my imagination that it doesn’t slow me down unless I want to savor a particular passage. The downside is that I so strongly visualize what’s happening in a book that I enjoy that I entirely lose track of the rest of reality. In a way I cease to ‘see’ the page I’m reading, so it’s almost like dreaming.

     

    I figure this tendency will come in handy during my colonoscopy on Monday. I’m not going to be sedated for it, so I figure I’ll just bring my nice hefty copy of the Lord of the Rings and ignore the rest of the proceedings.

  235. wmdkitty
    235

    Okay, am I the only one who finds this Chaos guy to be way creepy?

    He seriously feels like he’s entitled to ignore women’s boundaries because (somehow) respecting other people’s boundaries “isn’t respecting his boundaries”.

    I’m totally skeeved out, man.

    EDIT: Link in next post, I borked the link.

  236. wmdkitty
    236

    Here’s the conversation.

    He’s trying to use Autism as an excuse now. Look, I’m not exactly a social genius myself, and I sympathize, but come on! You don’t go “flirting” with someone, and then start screaming “abuse” when they tell you to knock it the fuck off. Further, you don’t get to get all upset because your victim calls it harassment!

    I need a Silkwood Shower now.

  237. blf
    237

    Mr Tony is such a good writer I’d simply assumed he is also an obsessive reader for the simple reason that, in my experience, that seems to be true.  I cannot think of another good writer who, as far as I know, isn’t also an obsessive reader.

    A similar thing as Mr Tony explains happens to him, “over visualizing” let’s call it, sometimes also happens to me, and yes, it does indeed interfere with the reading process.  In my case it is, at least partially, deliberate, or to be more correct, the start of “over visualizing” seems to have a deliberate-like element to it.  I believe that I tend to treat it as a cue to take a break, but since I’ve never really though about the phenomenon before, that could also be a load of rancid peas.

    No suggestions for Mr Tony, other than the obvious:  Check out yer local public library system, and get a card.  Wear an Ook! badge.

  242. blf
    242

    I’m up and on the PC before 5:30

    Whether that’s AM or PM, it is far too early.  Another puzzle is why you felt the need to get up on top of the PC at all.

  245. blf
    245

    And THBPBPTHPT!

    Well, yes, Bill the Cat is a more appealing presidential candidate than all of the thugs and, probably, all of the dummies.

  249. Lynna
    249

    What the ever loving …?

    Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems desperate to go to war, and he wants Republican Congress critters in the USA to help him.

    Israel is willing to invest quite a lot in putting the military option back on the table. Defense Minister Ya’alon threatened last week in the media that Israel will resume targeted assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. It was strange, because in the past, Israel didn’t make its threats in the media – according to foreign reports, it conducted its assassinations in secret. Ya’alon’s comments were not for Tehran’s ears, however, but for Washington. […] It’s important to Israel to create the impression in Washington that approving the agreement would lead to war.

    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4690949,00.html

     

    Netanyahu is probably posturing for political gain, but he also has to be taken seriously. Der Spiegel reported that Defense Minister Ya’alon hinted at Israeli attacks on five Iranian scientists.

    And in 2014, several media outlets reported that President Obama’s administration had exerted pressure to stop targeted killings of Iranian nuclear scientists.

    So, now we see Netanyahu basically blackmailing the Obama administration with threats to begin targeting killings again if the Iran Nuclear Deal passes.

    In one tiny bit of good news, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) put out a “Strategic Outlook” that did not mention the Iranian nuclear operations as a security threat to Israel. This is an indication that the IDF is no longer backing Netanyahu.

    Unfortunately, we have lots of Republicans in Congress who will gleefully back Netanyahu. Those Republicans would love to see the Iran deal fail, if only to stick it to Obama.

  250. blf
    250

    The secret life of food and drink — in pictures:

    Imagining a spark of personality in food and drink is all in a day’s work for Kuala Lumpur-based illustrator Chow Hon Lam. “I like storytelling,” he says. “I will look at what I’m eating and try to imagine, if I were them, what would I do? Would I have a hobby?” The result is The Daily Lives of Food and Drink, a collection combining surreal situations with vibrant illustrations.  […]

    I particularly like the sashimi one.

  251. AlexanderZ
    251

    Lynna

    Netanyahu is probably posturing for political gain, but he also has to be taken seriously. Der Spiegel reported that Defense Minister Ya’alon hinted at Israeli attacks on five Iranian scientists.

    There is a peculiar thing going on with Iran and Israel at the moment. On one hand, the IDF has been demanding bigger budgets based on the “Iranian threat” for thirty years now, Bibi jumped on this bandwagon relatively recently. On the other hand, IDF has professional and personal interests with people and organizations from other armies (you don’t really expect a retired Israeli colonel to start working in a department store, no they usually work as security consultants or weapon “experts” in various places), which means they can’t say things that will bring them into direct conflict with military officials from other countries. On the the third hand, the Syrian civil war has  brought instability to the Golan border with possible attacks from Hizballah, Revolutionary Guard infiltrators and other Iran-allied forces, not to mention the entirely chaotic Daesh presence.

    In addition to that Bibi is under a lot of stress lately. His main financier is Sheldon Adelson (who you may remember as a firm supporter of Romney in 2012), and with USA going into another election frenzy, Bibi might be being pushed to play his assigned role in service of the Republican agenda. If that wasn’t enough, his latest push to give a local gas tycoon a sweet deal on off-shore drilling has failed recently, with various PMs demanding tighter regulation of the gas market and some decent tax revenue from the deal.

    Finally, Israel have, supposedly, already been involved in various covert ops targeting Iranian scientist, so that’s nothing new. A physical attack on Iran by Israel is highly unlikely when Iran has Russian S-300 missiles, and a USAnian war with Iran won’t happen as long as Obama is in the White House.

  252. Biped!? (formerly Morgan!?)
    252

    US civil rights activist Julian Bond dies aged 75

    Damn, damn, damn and damn. We need our wise elders to live forever. We need as many as we can get. We need to stop murdering our young who could become wise elders. We need to stop murdering.
    RIP Julian Bond.

  253. AlexanderZ
    253

    Nightjar

    That story reminds me of my great-grandma. She was close to 100 years old in the 80s when the news about the AIDS epidemic hit USSR. Having heard everything she needed to know on the radio, she declared herself infected and demanded immediate medical help.

    My mother called the family doctor for a house visit. The bemused doctor tried to explain that there are no AIDS cases in Russia. Didn’t work. Then she tried to explain that you can only get infected through sex, which made my great-grandma even more certain of her illness (and prompted her to call the doctor a “nosy hussy”). Defeated, the doctor gave her some pills and a shot. The pills were saccharin and the shot was regular infusion mix, but that was enough to calm grandma down.

    FunnyDiva

    This USA-nian thinks that’s actually a fair interpretation.  But then, all those other catchphrases have a specific, exclusionary of non-whites and poors and libruls and not-our-kind-of-Christian subtext anyway, one that is not incompatible with “yee-haw, I can vote for a racist like me!”

    You’re right. I didn’t thought about how those phrases can have racist context as well. I approached them as a general militaristic/authoritarian/religious/elitist call to arms, rather than a racist dog-whistle.

    ———–

    I’m also a slow reader. I also like to occasionally close my eyes and watch the book unfold in my imagination.

    However, I’m also not reading as much as I used to. For me, it’s very difficult to get into a story where I dislike every character or find their behavior irrational. That’s why my preferred escapism is video games – I can choose my own story.

    I still read popular science, though. I’ve recently finished The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and I want two weeks of my life back!

    Ah, who am I kidding, I’ll simply waste them on something else.

  254. FunnyDiva
    254

    AlexanderZ
    I wasn’t criticizing you, btw.  As a USAnian who’s followed this stuff for a few years now, the dog-whistles are obvious to me.  They wouldn’t be if we were discussing politics outside of North America (and I wouldn’t catch all of the ones in Canada…Mexico is really a closed book to this “anglo”)

     

    Tony!  Hugs.
    Of course you are still sad.  I’m glad you’re able to have Kayta’s ashes back to keep.  That helped me when my Buster Kitten died.  I was pleased to discover that the outer cardboard box contained a nice, low-key sealed urn–it now has his collar, now-dusty sprigs of rosemary that had flowers on, and his portrait in shrink-plastic that I’d done years before.

    Kayta was lucky to have you.  I’m sure she knew it that first day when she joined you for a nap and claimed you for her own.  The hard part is that the hurt when we lose them is directly proportional to the strength of that loving bond.

    I’ve never been able to think of a way for it to NOT hurt like a motherfuckah when I lose a pet–or anyone I love loses a beloved pet–other than maybe not loving them, not making that bond in the first place.
    And that’s no way to live.  IMO that’s having none of the love/joy, and just spreading out the hurt into that vacuum.

    And to those of us who bond with non-human living creatures, there’s no such thing as “just” a cat.  Some otherwise very decent people just don’t understand that, but IMO that’s a lacuna in their understanding of life.

    so, grieve on.  Kayta was worth grieving.  And keep reminding me how you’re not SuperShoop! because I can be pretty self-centered that way and forget other people are hurting while they’re going on with their life.

  255. Lynna
    255

    Alexander Z: thanks for that post up-thread about Bibi, and Israel’s current situation. A lot of in-depth information there. Thanks again.

    I especially was appreciative of this:

    In addition to that Bibi is under a lot of stress lately. His main financier is Sheldon Adelson (who you may remember as a firm supporter of Romney in 2012), and with USA going into another election frenzy, Bibi might be being pushed to play his assigned role in service of the Republican agenda. If that wasn’t enough, his latest push to give a local gas tycoon a sweet deal on off-shore drilling has failed recently, with various PMs demanding tighter regulation of the gas market and some decent tax revenue from the deal.

    Sheldon Adelson is a menace on both continents. It almost always comes down to money and to personal relationships (sometimes sleazy power-based relationships). That’s kind of disheartening.

    I also don’t think it is less-bad news for Israel to target Iranian scientists now just because they’ve done it in the past and we didn’t end up with nuclear holocaust in the area. To my mind, the ever-closer incestuous relationship between rightwing republicans or billionaires and conservative leaders in Israel signifies a deepening of the threat of war, and not a same-old, same-old situation.

  256. Dalillama
    256

    Kind of ‘rupt.

     

    Tony!:

    *hugs* We also have the ashes of a beloved cat on a special shelf.

     

    AlexanderZ:

    When people say “policies don’t matter” they usually mean that they know enough about the policies that matter to them that they don’t care about any other policies.

    This tells you all you need to know about Trump supporters, since he has been vocal on relatively few issues – mainly his xenophobia (whether it is economic xenophobia against China or your run-of-the-mill bigotry against Mexicans). When people say they support Trump they seem to be saying that all that “God and Country”, “Protect Our Troops”  or “Save The American Economy” rhetoric is just empty words to them. What they want most is a racist in power.

    That’s exactly it, though.  ” I Hate Immigrants” isn’t actually a policy position, nor is “Support the Troops” or “Make America Great Again”.  Trump supporters don’t care if his policy proposal is to quintuple the size of the Border Patrol, or build a big wall on the Mexican border, or round up and shoot anyone who can’t show proof of citizenship; they support him because he talks about how much he hates those brown people.

     

  257. FunnyDiva
    257

    Hi, Dalillama!
    Nice to see ya.  Let’s be a bit ‘rupt together.

     

    ‘cept I’m off to hike in away-from-computer-land now.
    here’s some hugs and pillows for the pile.

    CU L8R!

  258. carlie
    258

    Tony – we still have our cat’s ashes, going on three years on. We meant to sprinkle them around the house in the flower bushes when we got them back, but have never been able to part with them. Every logical part of me says how ridiculous that is, but… there they sit. And I’m not moving them, not one inch.

    I’m also very surprised that you claim not to be a reader, given the way you write. And I’m not saying “claim not to be” because I don’t believe you, but because I think you’re overlooking something – how much are you reading on threads? You curate! You blog! That’s a huge amount of reading. Huge. Just because it isn’t in a bound journal doesn’t mean it’s not reading. I bet you read a lot more than “bookish” people who don’t internet.

  260. Rowan Vet Tech
    260

    Not allowed to eat solids today. My boyfriend just microwaved lasagna. It smells like the tastiest thing ever. I don’t even normally like lasagna. I’m forced to angrily drink apple juice instead. I don’t like apple juice. grrrrrrr.

  261. Tony!
    261

    carlie:

    Tony – we still have our cat’s ashes, going on three years on. We meant to sprinkle them around the house in the flower bushes when we got them back, but have never been able to part with them. Every logical part of me says how ridiculous that is, but… there they sit. And I’m not moving them, not one inch.

    I know what you mean. In fact, your comment reminded me of another cat that I had to put down a few years ago. Actually, I say a few years ago, but when I just went to check on her ashes, I saw that it was 2005 when I put her down (her name was Kara and she had kidney failure). For some reason I thought it was more like ’08 or ’09. In any case I’m right there with you. For all that I know it’s not logical to continue holding on to her ashes, and that I ought to spread them to the four winds, I’m not going to do so.  Perhaps that will change one day, but I don’t anticipate that happening any time soon.

     

    I’m also very surprised that you claim not to be a reader, given the way you write. And I’m not saying “claim not to be” because I don’t believe you, but because I think you’re overlooking something – how much are you reading on threads? You curate! You blog! That’s a huge amount of reading. Huge. Just because it isn’t in a bound journal doesn’t mean it’s not reading. I bet you read a lot more than “bookish” people who don’t internet.

    I may have been unclear.  It’s a very specific kind of reading that I have difficulty with (and ‘difficulty’ is really the wrong word to use; it’s more like ‘time consuming’)-books. Novels. That kind of thing. You know how fictional authors world build? They’ll describe the worlds they’ve created to help immerse readers in their work.  Well for me, as I’m reading, it’s like I’m visualizing that world, and I can’t turn that off. It slows down the process of reading. Makes it more of a slog to get through than something enjoyable. Does that make sense?

    It’s different when I’m reading blogs or news articles. There’s no subconscious world-building going on.  So I can process things much easier. And yeah, I read a *lot* of stuff on the Net.

  262. Tony!
    262

    Rowan:
    ::hugs::
    When will you be able to eat solids again?

    (I’m the opposite regarding lasagna and apple juice-I love them both)

  263. Rowan Vet Tech
    263

    Regarding ashes: I have the ashes of almost every pet I’ve ever had… and even several foster animals.

     

    There’s Aussie, the doggy who got me over my fear of dogs. Next to him is Diesel, a cat I adopted at 13 years of age when a client wanted to euthanise him because he was diabetic. I had already known this cat for 6 years, having taken care of him while he was boarding. There was a small fight between myself and a coworker over who would get to have him. I won because of ‘seniority’. Every now and then I look at the placement of those boxes and say “Awww… You’re being such a good doggy with the kitty, Aussie!”…. Aussie tried to eat cats.

    I also have Sago (my first foster kitten) and the rest of his litter (raised by others). I have Holly Trinity, the german shepherd puppy I had for 24 hours.  I’ve recently added Prune to the ‘collection’.

    Someday, “when I own a house”, I want to take half the ashes and plant them under young trees so I can have a memory grove.

  266. Rowan Vet Tech
    266

    Thanks for the hugs. I’m playing the ‘ignore your paranoid fears’ game all today and tomorrow because a tiny voice in the back of my head is saying things like “omg they’re going to find out you have colon cancer at 32” or “They’re going to perf your colon and you’re going to die of peritonitis” and other stupid obnoxious things.

  267. Caroline Kelly
    267

    Hi everyone , AlexanderZ, I nod in all directions.

    Tony, I visualize everything, and because I get that about me now I am turning it into a superpower:) Also I avoid long novels for the same reason and read a lot of non-fiction. Also sad seems appropriate for loss of such a longtime companion. Thanks for sharing the story from Canada about the local hero.

    I see this place can go a bit fast for me too, but it is more user friendly for me, so yay.

    Happy Vacation to Gilliel.

     

     

     

  268. blf
    268

    Not allowed to eat solids today. My boyfriend just microwaved lasagna.

    Stick yer boyfiend in teh blender / food processor / bacon slicer / LHC.

  271. bluentx
    271

    blf :

    From the Doonesbury link : “The Texas Declaration of Secession”

    Huh, I don’t remember going over this in Texas History class. O’ course, that was back in the dark ages (7th grade) ! Plus, as xenoTexaphobic as it was (even) then, I don’t recall there being such pride in the fact that Texas was a Confederate state when I was in school– just a fact of history.

     

  272. sff9
    272

    Tony!, I hope it’s not too weird coming from a stranger (I’m a mostly-lurker on Pharyngula, where I appreciate your comments a lot), but I’m so so sorry for you. Kayta looked friggin adorable and your comments about her are heart-wrenching. I also hope your situation will improve soon!

  273. Tony!
    273

    sff9:
    Thank you. I appreciate that.
    And you’re no stranger. I recognize your nym and I’ve seen your comments around Pharyngula in the past.

  274. Nerd of Redhead
    274

    Hello Tony and everybody. I hope I am welcome here, with PZ’s blog being so quiet these days and no thunderdome/mended drum it’s not the same there any more.

    PZ suspending me didn’t help. I initially felt betrayed because he was the one who inspired me to fight evidenceless dissenters and trolls the way I do.

    Sorry about your cat as well Tony.

     

  277. Tony!
    277

    Man, cats sure are strange. I just caught Cassie (my other kitty) laying in her litter box. Not pooping or peeing. Just laying in it. I’ve never seen her or any other cat do that.
    Does explain why I keep finding bits of litter on the couch.

  278. rq
    278

    <a href=”http://www.wimp.com/latvians-make-worlds-only-ice-carousel/”>Why Latvian life expectancy is so low</a>.

    Eh. Edit here. Messed up the link, turns out you can’t correct that sort of thing during edit time. Ah well. Old habits blablabla.

  279. bragimike
    279

    Morning rq I love the ingenuity and ridiculousness of the carousel! I can just imagine someone looking at the ice and going “I’ve got an idea!”.

  280. rq
    280

    bragimike

    I’m pretty sure there’s alcohol involved somewhere, too. 😀 Then again, winter is long and the human brain needs to do something with itself!

  282. bluentx
    282

    Am or pm greetings to everyone. .. where ever you are !

    Before I proceed with my Friday * just wanted to check in.

     

    * Channeling Ogvorbis again

  283. Saad
    283

    “It is true that two wrongs don’t make a right, as we love to point out to the people we have wronged.” – James Baldwin

  284. YOB
    284

    Good morning, all.

    I see we had a Nerd sighting. *waves*

    Tony: re Cassie and letterbox: I used to occasionally catch our cats doing the same thing. They also liked to lay IN the bathroom sink.

     

    Doonesbury Comic: I remember spending a LOT of time going over the Alamo and Sam Houston, etc but I have no memory of discussing the Confederacy or any Texas involvement in the Civil War. (Of course, that was 33 years ago and I’ve slept since then.)

  286. blf
    286

    Bloggers ridicule Chinese film placing Mao Zedong at key wartime conference:

    Chinese bloggers have ridiculed a blockbuster film that attempts to place Mao Zedong at the centre of a second world war summit he never attended.

    The Cairo Declaration — a big-budget war movie produced by a company with ties to China’s military — hits cinemas this month as part of Communist party commemorations of the 70th anniversary of Japan’s surrender.

    Its focus is the Cairo conference, a 1943 meeting near the pyramids at which Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and China’s Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek gathered to assess the progress of the war against Japan and plot Asia’s post-war future.

    […]

    Chairman Mao, who became the Communist party’s leader in 1935, played no role in the historic dialogue […]

    Yet that didn’t stop the Cairo Declaration’s producers using Mao as their film’s main poster boy.

    Chinese internet users mocked the Great Helmsman’s unexpected Cairo cameo, producing dozens of spoof posters that placed figures including Kim Jong-un, Gollum, Saddam Hussein, and the Minions at the conference. One fake poster features Chinese president Xi Jinping — born 10 years after the meeting. Another carries the image of blind dissident lawyer Chen Guangcheng who fled China in 2012 after escaping from house arrest.

  287. barkeeperin
    287

    rq

    No fair, I don’t even have an old guitar and you’re already getting a new guitar? No fair!

    I missed this somehow.  I’ve had my “old” acoustic guitar for 13 years.  And I have my dad’s guitar, which he bought in the 60s and has handed down to me since he doesn’t play anymore.  And this one was 1/3 off on eBay as a floor demo model.

    FossilFishy re dinky video of me playing

    I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

    Done.

     

  288. Tony!
    288

    Blast rips through Bangkok; reports of 27 dead:

    A motorcycle bomb exploded outside a Hindu shrine in the center of Bangkok on Monday, with reported casualty figures of 27 people dead and many more injured.

    The blast in the Thai capital — for which no group claimed immediate responsibility — occurred near the Erawan shrine, a popular tourist destination with relatively little security located near the Grand Hyatt hotel and shopping centers. Many Thais also worship there.

    Immediate reports of casualty figures varied, but Channel News Asia said that 27 people had been killed, including foreign tourists.

    “All I can say now is there has been an explosion in central Bangkok involving a motorcycle bomb,” deputy national police chief Aek Angsananont told Reuters.

    There have also been reports of a secondary device being found at the shrine. Bomb disposal teams were said to be working to defuse the device.

    CCTV footage showed the scene seconds before and after the explosion, which sent nearby pedestrians scurrying for safety. In addition to those killed, up to 80 people were injured in the blast, prompting concerns that the death toll could still rise.

  289. Rowan Vet Tech
    289

    Lemon-lime gatorade is beyond disgusting. I still have 20 ounces to drink, and each mouthful is threatening to come back up.

    Fuck you colon and the misery you are putting me through.

  290. Biped!?
    290

    Rowan, didn’t you say that you will be undergoing this colonoscopy sans anesthesia? Why?

    When I had mine done they used propofol, the same drug with which Michael Jackson overdosed. I understand why he abused it. If you are a serious insomniac it puts you immediately and blissfully to sleep. If used properly, you wake up very quickly and without aftereffects.

    I had several polyps removed and I do not want to know how that would have felt if I had not been anesthetized.

    And yes, lemon-lime Gatorade is tres disgusting.

    Be well, and keep us posted on how you are doing.

  291. Rowan Vet Tech
    291

    Because I react strangely to many sedatives. Valium, for example, makes me aggressive and agitated. And due to the fact that a common side effect of propofol is apnea (we use this drug in veterinary hospitals), I’d be pissed if I wasn’t also intubated… and they don’t intubate.  And I don’t want to be intubated anyway.  So yeah, can’t have any gabba agonists, can’t have opioids (apnea while conscious and hypotension), and the one muscle relaxant they used on mom, at only a half dose, had her practically paralyzed.  I don’t trust most meds of that sort; mom and I react pretty much identically.

    The removal of polyps actually feels like nothing. Your intestines pretty much only feel stretch. Mom gets it done unsedated as well.

    10 ounces to go. Immediately drinking some sierra mist afterwards is helping.

  292. Biped!?
    292

    Rowan, the possibility of any of those reactions is beyond scary. I now stand corrected and educated. Thank you. When is this procedure being done? I’m assuming early tomorrow morning.

    Ain’t modern medicine wonderful? It sure beats any of the alternatives.

  293. Rowan Vet Tech
    293

    It’s at 3:30pm today.   I’m going to bring my giant tome of The Lord of the Rings with me and just read through the whole thing. I doubt it can be any worse than my worst period cramps. My acute appendicitis was, on a scale of 0 to period cramps, about a 5. I’ll survive, and be cranky. But I’ll survive.

  294. YOB
    294

    Rowan: my sympathies to you regarding the med proc. As far as the Gatorade flavor, lemo-lime is their only flavor NOT disgusting to me.

  296. JimB
    296

    Getting caught up after the weekend.

    *hugs* for Tony.

    Enjoy your vacation Giliell.

    Good luck with the procedure, Rowan. You are a stronger person than I; I’m not looking forward to my first age-appropriate colonoscopy in a year. (I’m not sure how much my recent experience with a nasal endoscope in the ER will translate. 🙂 )

    Hello the recent familiar-to-me ‘nyms. Somewhat similar to sff9, I am a long-time lurker/reader at Pharyngula but never got around to posting. Trying to participate a bit here when I can.

    I’ll be over here, keeping a close eye on the Scotch.

  298. Anne, Cranky Cat Lady
    298

    Tony, is that like one of those old coffee commercials?  “We’ve installed hidden cameras and replaced their expensive Scotch with our apple juice.  Now let’s see if anyone notices.”

    I think I’m feeling better today – I still had to contend with morning gallbother, but I vacuumed the livingroom and completed three jewelry projects including cleanup.  One step forward…

    I’ll just leave a nice big batch of fresh hugs over here.

  300. JimB
    300

    That’s…..that’s just not right. And at the start of the week, too.

    I hope that’s not a harbinger of things to come. That could make this a very long week.

  301. Tony!
    301

    Fine. Ok.

    I won’t replace all the Scotch. I’ll just ensure there’s a 50/50 split between Scotch and apple juice. That’ll taste good, right?

  303. YOB
    303

    Question for the Hivemind?… Barflys?… Speakeasiers?…um…All Y’all.

    Does anyone know of a good site that examines tabletop gaming from an SJW angle? I’ve found that video gaming is well represented but not so with tabletop games/gaming culture. I’ve seen quite a few threads around the various board game (geek 🙂 ) sites where any mention of SJ is immediately shut down or buried.

    I know that I’m talking about a very niche-y niche , but in all of y’all’s internet ramblings, maybe some one found something some where.

     

    Full disclosure: if I can’t find one, I may have to start one of my own. 😮 Which is a concept that both terrifies and intrigues me.

  304. awakeinmo
    304

    Hi all!

    Dispensing hugs without a prescription.

    re: pet ashes, I intended from the beginning to spread my dog’s ashes in the yard, but it still took me a few months to feel really right about doing it.  There’s no need to rush things like that.

     

  307. YOB
    307

    *spit take* Aaahhhh! Who put WATER in my… Ahem…”water”?!

     

    Anne, glad you’re feeling a bit better.

     seconded

  308. AlexanderZ
    308

    Greetings newcomers!

    Nerd

    PZ suspending me didn’t help. I initially felt betrayed because he was the one who inspired me to fight evidenceless dissenters and trolls the way I do.

    It wasn’t a good month for PZ, and the stress shows. A couple of times I thought he was going to ban me as well. Good to see he has lifted the ban and you’re back to commenting.

    Lynna

    I also don’t think it is less-bad news for Israel to target Iranian scientists now just because they’ve done it in the past and we didn’t end up with nuclear holocaust in the area.

    It’s bad news, no doubts about it, but nuclear holocaust isn’t even a remote possibility. A nuclear war between India and Pakistan is more likely than that. At most there might be a small incursion into Iran allied areas, but with Israel’s relatively recent failures against Hizballah even that is a very remote possibility.

    Dalillama

    …they support him because he talks about how much he hates those brown people.

    My point was that this is as close to “policy” as he needs to come. They know that he can be counted on to harm non-white USAnians in some way and they know that he can’t or won’t give specifics for political reasons. They accept that. They only need to make sure that he is sincere in his xenophobia.

    It’s not mannerism – it’s implicit policy.

    blf

    In case you had any doubts that the so-called 1% desperately desire chattel slavery…

    That does not surprise me in the least. Giving the current frenzy over Corbyn’s candidacy across both parties, it’s quite obvious what the UK political system is all about.

    Rowan

    Good luck with your check-up.

    I’m going to bring my giant tome of The Lord of the Rings with me and just read through the whole thing. I doubt it can be any worse than my worst period cramps.

    Lord of the Rings isn’t that bad 🙂

    The Silmarillion, on the other hand…

    JimB

    I’m not looking forward to my first age-appropriate colonoscopy in a year.

    I can’t stand colonoscopies either. I’m always afraid that the doctor will find something that I can’t explain  – like a dead porcupine or a rabid ferret.

  311. FunnyDiva
    311

    Tony!
    thanks for signal-boosting Sincere Karabo over at Notes from an Apostate. you pointed to his “Why ‘all lives matter’ is bunk” post.  And then I read his “Why #sayhername matters if #blacklives matter” and…DAMN!  He GETS IT with a capital GETS IT.  With bonus smack-down of “waaaahhh Y U Use Big Werdzzz” comment from a hater.

    A new stop on my blog-reading rounds.

     

    Also, too, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” is available as an audiobook, if that’s more attractive than printed words.

     

    Now, back to catch up on comments…

  312. FunnyDiva
    312

    Dunno ’bout the straight apple juice for scotch substitution, but I hear the Johnny Jump Up is a sought-after commodity! (“load more” under the video description for the lyrics)
    Hard cider, stored in used whiskey barrels.  Yeah, I’d give that a go!

  314. blf
    314

    The, ahem, “apple juice” is made from apples.  Well, mostly apples.  Just don’t use a metal jug.  Also, avoid stairs, at least unless until yer certain which way gravity is pulling.

  315. Rowan Vet Tech
    315

    The doctor and nurses repeatedly asked if I was *sure* I didn’t want sedation. I think it simply makes things more convenient for them. At it’s worst, for all of 30 seconds, it was like a bad period cramp. Not one of my “oh gods, kill me now”, vomit-from-the-pain period cramps, but just a ‘bad’ one. And then that was done with and it was just a little crampy. Nothing awful by a long shot.

    I walked out of the recovery area, saw my mom, and ‘sang’ “My colon’s better than YOUR colon!” because YAY NO POLYPS AT ALL! I get to go back in 5 years, not every other like my poor mum.

     

    And for the rest of today I get to be all gassy, wooooo.

  316. JimB
    316

    Rowan, I raise a glass* to your “no polyps”.

    Not to mention going through that with no sedation.

    *sniffs and cautiously sips to confirm glass contains actual Scotch

  319. JimB
    319

    I guess I won’t mention that I accidentally poured you bourbon then

    Sigh. Oh well, it’s the end of the day, one distilled spirit is as good as any other. Certainly for toasting a good medical exam.

  321. Tony!
    321

    Wow. I can’t believe I read this article on Fusion. It’s called How Hurricane Katrina changed pet rescue forever. It should have been called ‘How the Humane Society wasted resources during the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina by utilizing the “talents” of a woman who claims to communicate with animals”

    And the article just discusses this so matter-of-factly. As if the reader should just take her words at face value.
    Here’s an excerpt, where she claims to have talked to a pit bull:

    When the water started to go down, I had to jump back in it, because I was up high on the white thing (refrigerator). I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get down. So I jumped in again and swam to a countertop in the kitchen … It was dark, and then there was water, and I was standing up to breathe, and then it was dark again. It seemed like it went on and on.

    Who knew that the thoughts of dogs were not only in English, but composed in much the same way as human beings.

  322. FossilFishy
    322

    A decade or so ago I had a bout of ulcerative colitis.  After a year on NSAIDs it cleared up and hasn’t come back.  Hooray for modern medicine!

    As you might imagine this involved a number of colonoscopies.  I was nervous the first time for obvious reasons.  The Dr was great, very matter of fact, treated me like an object in fact, and I was okay with that.  It made it easier to pretend that I cool with the whole thing.

    The second time they asked me if it was okay if a student sat in.  “Sure.” said I.  I’m always happy to help folks learn.  I walk into the exam room to find that the student was a person of a gender and physical form that I find very attractive.  Yikes!  All of a sudden I’m all nervous again, for no good reason.  This shouldn’t matter, but somehow it does.

    I hide my embarrassment as best I can.  I’m all “Hey, nice to meet you.” indifferent like.  I get up on the table in my backless gown, all nonchalant and old-hand-at-this.  Then they put the heart rate monitor on my finger….

    ….beepbeepbeepbeepbeep…

     

    My heart rate must have been around 120bpm, and that staccato racing of beeps put paid to any pretence I had about being cool.

    Ah well, all for the best really.  Later on when I whimpered and mewled out “Please stop.” in a pathetic little voice, it couldn’t have come as surprise to anyone.  🙂

  323. JAL
    323

    Well, my apartment complex made the news. We’ve been stuck with temperatures inside of at least 85 degrees for a week and a half. Then on Friday, it went completely out. It went over 100 degrees inside. The management is all “open and honest” will the reports saying they order the part they need to replace two weeks ago, but why weren’t we told? Why didn’t get something to cool off then? Then didn’t start handing out window ACs til today, when the news showed up.

    Yeah, I’ll be asking for money of the rent as I’m sure will other since I did the math. It’s 25 bucks a day. At the least, I’m not paying for the four days with no AC. Add in the lying, denying, avoidance shit they pull the previously week and a half and I’m about to fucking explode on the management here.

    At least we got City Officials in on it too. I SO plan on throwing some weight around to make this shit even because what they pulled isn’t right.

    Otherwise, it’s a lot of drama with Mom’s husband as she finally smartened up and left him. She’s in a safe place now with good people who know what they are doing. But since he knows where we are, he’s been harassing us, including a threatening note on Sunday. But I can’t get a restraining order because I can’t take off of work.

    Little One is doing great in school. And the new building is great and they’ve at least relaxed one stupid part of the dress code: making girls wear shirts under their dresses to hide their shoulders. Not enough but it’s a start. She’s actually wearing some now that a neighbor gave us after their daughter grew out of them.

    The job is going so well. I love it. And the people. We’ve got a postdated check in for the rent to stop the court process and with my second check we’ll be caught up Sept. 4th. Though it sucks because I feel like a scrub at work since I’m so behind. I need a haircut, haven’t had one in 6 years. But that’ll have to wait til my 3rd check at least. Oh well, it’s getting better.

    Tony, *hugs* I’m so sorry about Kayta. :*( You did the best you could for her and that means a lot. And I’m crossing all my digits for a job for you. You deserve better than this bullshit. Any place would be lucky to have you.

  324. Rowan Vet Tech
    324

    Fossilfishy…. urgh. Hugs on offer, if wanted. That sucks. 😛  My doctor was a fairly attractive and fairly young guy. Yay awkward making.

    I’m also so highly needle-phobic, and was terrified that they were going to want to place a catheter even though I wasn’t getting sedated, that they had to take my blood pressure 3 times. It was crazy high the first two until I was able to kill the last of the residual needle-panic.

     

    Biped… thanks, I guess? 😛  More of the lovely awkward, because they blow up your colon like a fucking balloon was aforementioned quite attractive doctor saying “If you need to fart, just do it. Just don’t push because then it backs the camera out.”

    Sure doc, like I’m totally going to allow myself to fart on you. Because that wouldn’t be godsbedamned embarrassing to hell at all.  The only benefit is that because my intestines are sparkly clean, there is absolutely no smell.  On the other hand, I’m now wondering if I’ve killed off most of my gut flora and I’m wondering if I need to go like… lick dirt or something. 😛

  326. FossilFishy
    326

    barkeeperin

    Welp, I guess it’s put up or shut up.

    Here you go.  (Youtube link) Me playing a song I wrote called An Apology to My Child.

    Please read the video description.  And I’ll add that, yes that mic stand has no actual mic in it.  I don’t have a PA, but I use the stand to practice my mic technique, which from the video you’ll see is terrible.

  327. Rowan Vet Tech
    327

    JAL, I’m glad things are (kinda?) improving a bit. And while I wish that it had not taken the news coming to your complex, I’m glad that you now have that bit of leverage against the complex managers.

  329. Anne, Cranky Cat Lady
    329

    Hugs, with extra special ones for JAL and Rowan.

    After I slayed all the household usefuls on my list for today, I played with shiny things. Read about them here.  I did a lot today; I just hope I didn’t do so much that I’ll be exhausted tomorrow, because tomorrow is laundry and shopping day.

     

  330. FossilFishy
    330

    Rowan Vet Tech, ah well,  misery loves company!  🙂  I don’t have much of a problem with needles, but I do have severe problems with anaesthetics and opiate pain killers.  One of those problems is being unable to urinate.  When they bolted my knee back together I ended up begging them for a catheter, my bladder hurt way worse than my recently sliced and stitched knee.

    JAL Yikes, at least things are getting better for the most part?

  332. FossilFishy
    332

    Thank you Biped!?.

     

    The thing has changed a bit since that recording, but looking at it I’m going to change some of it back.  It’s funny how a little time (Or a lot, has it really been over a year? Crazy) can give one some perspective.  That tune is also the one that gives me the most grief when I try to play it live so I like that it’s the best of the phone recordings I have.

  334. FossilFishy
    334

    chigau

    In order:

    Potatoes
    Tomatoes
    Carrots
    Cucumbers
    Green beans
    Be…..Holy Hell!  What is this thing made of dirt and spume!?  Burn it with fire and salt the metaphor that it rode in on!!!!111!!!1!

  335. chigau
    335

    that posted without my permission

    anyway, a friend whose parents have a LARGE garden stopped by

    as soon as the freezing and pickling is done, we have alot of food

    I love serious gardeners.

  337. FossilFishy
    337

    Anne

    [Dons HazMat suit]

    [Frantically shovels beets in Anne’s direction]

    [Runs away shuddering and screaming…]

    Get them off, get them OFF!!!

    [collapses unconscious due to hyperventilation]

  338. chigau
    338

    FossilFishy

    So far the beans and tomatoes have been blanched and thereby made into food.

    The rest have until Wednesday. Then they, too, will be pickled or froze.

    Metaphors will be composted.  With malice.

  339. FunnyDiva
    339

    Rowan: yay for no polyps and a clean colon!

    Fossil Fishy:  I’m glad you get relief from modern medicine.  I hate pain and don’t tolerate it well, so I feel for ya!

    JAL: boo on the slimy landlord, and YAY! for Little One.  Wishing you both the best.

     

    Anne, I love your shiny things.
    Those are beautiful teaspoons…and I like that you now have something you use regularly to remind you of P’s mum.
    And…I’m dying to find out the name and retail value of that pattern…I can’t he’p it!  Old sterling is one  interest my mom and I can share without controversy!

    these are one of our family pattern, and I have spoons ‘zactly like this.

  340. Anne, Cranky Cat Lady
    340

    FunnyDiva, thank you!  I don’t know anything about the spoons, but I think MiL said that a neighbor gave them to her mother, which would’ve been in Minnesota, probably in the 30s?  They’re a pretty random assortment of several patterns, some monogrammed, along with some cake forks.  At the time, she just thought the daughters would like to use them for tea parties.

    And I covet your gryphon spoons!

     

  342. FunnyDiva
    342

    Anne,
    that’s really sweet of MiL.
    and, not to be too mercenary…
    sterling’s got a reasonable monetary value…if there’s not greater sentimental value.
    many patterns are long out of production, so some can be quite collectible…especially to those who want to expand the family set or what-have-you.

     

    If ever you have the spoons (heh!)  to just take photos of the teaspoon handles for detail (and the backs if you can get the marks to show up), I could mess around with some field identification…but only if that’s interesting to you.
    That roses and rosebuds one is really lovely.

    also, too:
    mmmmmm, roasted beets! with a balsamic reduction/orange zest glaze.

    Also, also too:
    GRYPHON SPOONZ IS MINE ALL MINE!
    And the knifes have mother-of-pearl handles! (though those aren’t mine yet…).

    But, see, if you knew what all sterling ones you had, you could trade for gryphons…or sell what you don’t want and spend that on what you do.
    sorry…sorry…like you need another collecting hobby!

  343. Pteryxx
    343

    Heya all, well I flailed and scrabbled my way to the Roost finally.  I’ve been scarce and will still be scarce; I was out of state and came back to find the place I lived was getting sold, so it’s been a scramble of hauling and salvaging into a different spare room in a different city.

     

    Tony! thanks so much for making this space.  It was a horrible feeling to get back from travelling and find that my online home had vanished at the same time.  My condolences about Kayta; she had in you someone who cared deeply for her.

     

    JAL I am so glad to find you here and that at least some portions of your life these days don’t suck.  I should shortly have in my hot little talons a certain hardcover book with your name on it, in a manner of speaking.

     

    YOB  re tabletop game reviews with an SJW bent, how about the Geeky Gimp for starters.  Also the Mary Sue mentions tabletop gaming once in a while.  I don’t know of any SJW boardgaming blog with any volume, but if you’re willing to write a review or two, the Mary Sue might run them as guest articles.

     

    *tired anklehugs* to everyone I missed

     

    *crawls under the pillow fort with only tail sticking out*

  344. chigau
    344

    The most recent time that the SO had surgery involving the abdomen, we tied a rope to the foot of the bed.

    Shoulders and arms were fine and could get SO upright enough  to hobble to the toilet.

  345. FossilFishy
    345

    Ha, good solution chigau.  Unfortunately, my problem wasn’t lack of mobility, I stood on one leg, still dopey from the anaesthetic, drain tube running from my stitched knee trying to pee into the jug.  Opiates clamp my bladder sphincter shut.  It’s awful.

    Thanks FunnyDiva, but you miss-read that a bit.  I can’t tolerate these things to the point that the last surgery I had, which was suppose to be a quick day surgery to remove the wire that was put in to hold my knee together while the tendon healed, ended up being a three day stay in hospital.  I vomited for eight or so hours and then my heart went into severe tachycardia and atrial fibrillations.  Fun times.  You know they’re worried when the doctor leaves the room in a hurry and the nurse won’t give you anything other than a poker face.

  347. Brony, Social Justice Cenobite
    347

    Can I ask a general question?

    I’ve been working over a proposal for a Discussion on “activism best practices” at Pharyngula but I’ve been needing to get some thoughts out on screen before I actually do it. Proposing and managing a topic like that has me thinking about unknown bias issues given the fact that I was involved in recent chaos at FTB, even if it was commenting. So I’m doing a post where I write about factors that might go into morals and ethics of shaming given that I supported it’s use inside and outside of FTB.

    I’m almost done with it but I was wondering if asking about a question about that here would be appropriate if it was kept impersonal and general. Or would getting that close to trouble given recent events?

  349. barkeeperin
    349

    FossilFishy

    Nice and more advanced than anything I can do at the moment (there’s a reason I did an early exercise instead of anything else).  My first impression is haunting in a good way.

    Rowan

    Yay for clean colon.

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