Cold for Easter.

My god, this cold. It won’t knock me flat, but it won’t let me stand all the way upright. We’re going on day nine, and it shows no sign of leaving. And I’m pissed. Tomorrow I plan to sleep late, finish my taxes and write.

At some point I’m going to have to replenish the tissue stocks, too. What a way to go into a holiday weekend — snotty and headachy.

But it’s just a cold. This is just whining.

Right now, I want to go into the weekend with something new, and as has been the case for months now, the news just keeps on coming. We’re bombing Afghanistan. There’s the seeds of a backlash in Kansas. And in Syria? Oopsie!

And locally? A doctor of immediately indeterminate Middle Eastern heritage is charged with female genital mutiliation. Man, if that’s not a don’t-read-the-comments story, I don’t know what is.

(I just read one. Backing away slowly.)

Have a great weekend, all. Happy Easter. I hope I’m feeling better by the end of it.

Posted at 9:03 pm in Current events |
 

76 responses to “Cold for Easter.”

  1. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 13, 2017 at 9:28 pm

    Don’t read the comments. Never get out of the boat.

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  2. Diane said on April 13, 2017 at 11:57 pm

    Really, the only place in the entire Internets where it is safe to read the comments is nn.c!

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  3. beb said on April 14, 2017 at 12:37 am

    Nancy, at least you don’t have pneumonia. My wife’s cold turned into that. bummer.

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  4. Suzi said on April 14, 2017 at 3:28 am

    Huh? The story is about standard-practice clitoral mutilation, but the really scary element to consider is the comment section?
    How ’bout we start backing away not so slowly from the religious crazies who actively take steps to destroy and control women, and stop focusing on the local crazies who say stupid things when encountering human rights atrocities? Just a thought.

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  5. Icarus said on April 14, 2017 at 7:04 am

    Another place where it’s not only safe to read the comments, but often hilarious

    https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155130266946677&id=359134596676

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  6. coozledad said on April 14, 2017 at 8:36 am

    The really disturbing thing is our unself-aware press that shamelessly encourages every right wing shithead who gets put into the White House to be a sexual surrogate for them and drop bombs.

    As soon as someone manages to set off a bomb for the inevitable reprisal, these old white guys are going to start talking about The enemy within, and that means the same shit that happened after 9/11. They loved those days of liberals=traitors, and they want that shit back so bad they can taste it. The Russian satrap in the White House story reflects badly on old white fucks. Their asses are on fire to move away from it, even as the details begin to emerge- because they were complicit in actual treason.

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  7. Suzanne said on April 14, 2017 at 8:48 am

    I keep thinking about this giant bomb. Last I heard it killed 30-some terrorists. That huge of a bomb for 30-some bad guys? What the [insert expletive]?

    The other thing I keep thinking is that Trump is way worse than I thought he’d be.

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  8. Deborah said on April 14, 2017 at 10:11 am

    Suzanne, I agree that Trump is way worse than i imagined. I thought he would just be a dumbfuck who would embarrass our country and at this point that would actually be preferred. I remember people talking about the possibility of nuclear annihilation with Trump and I thought that was super overblown. Now, I still think it’s overblown but not completely impossible. And not that it will happen in the US necessarily but that somewhere in the world a nuke may fall and that would no doubt set off a series of catastrophic events both environmentally and militarily. Scary.

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  9. Deborah said on April 14, 2017 at 10:14 am

    Icarus, that link didn’t work for me. It might be a private setting in Facebook?

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  10. Bitter Scribe said on April 14, 2017 at 10:18 am

    Never mind the comments. That whole story is horrifying.

    An old episode of “Law & Order” had female circumcision as the plot, with a wealthy family flying in a doctor from their native Egypt to perform the procedure on an 11-year-old (played by a young Emmy Rossum). When I watched it, I thought, How farfetched. Things like that don’t happen here. I guess I was wrong.

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  11. Heather said on April 14, 2017 at 10:29 am

    He’s been in office what, a little more than two months, and he’s already used the largest non-nuclear bomb we have (which cost $300 million by the way–as people on social media have pointed out, that’s a little more than it would cost to get Flint’s water situation fixed). So yeah, I’m terrified, especially since he’s already sent ships to the Korean peninsula.

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  12. Dave said on April 14, 2017 at 10:43 am

    I’m reduced to flipping the finger to the TV every time he shows up on it. It’s scary that a man who thinks he’s so tough but ducked the military every way he could, has control of our military. N. Korea was best left ignored, like his predecessor did.

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  13. Icarus said on April 14, 2017 at 11:04 am

    Deborah, ahh why can’t FB be easier?

    maybe this one? it’s the Gin & Tacos Fb page with the one mocking those couples that are house hunting.

    https://www.facebook.com/ginandtacos/?hc_ref=PAGES_TIMELINE&fref=nf

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  14. Deborah said on April 14, 2017 at 11:13 am

    Nothing particularly new, but well said http://www.ginandtacos.com/2017/04/13/cult-of-mediocrity/ also read the link in his blog post, it’s good too.

    Wow Heather, the cost of that mega bomb added to the cost of the missiles fired on Syria is not that far from a half billion dollars. Now add to that the cost of security for Melania in NY and the cost of Trump’s many weekend vacations and that’s a lotta dough. And the Rs are always complaining about government spending??

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  15. coozledad said on April 14, 2017 at 11:38 am

    Deborah: It’s easier if you remember that Republicans don’t believe in jack shit but power. They’re simply lying garbage.

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  16. brian stouder said on April 14, 2017 at 11:47 am

    So I forgot what MOAB actually stands for, which I learned from Lawrence O’Donnell last night, and I went to good ol’ Google and was reminded – Massive Ordnance Air Blast –

    but NOT before seeing a Moab that is infinitely more pleasing –

    http://www.discovermoab.com/

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  17. brian stouder said on April 14, 2017 at 11:47 am

    (…albeit almost as desolate – although in a good way)

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  18. MarkH said on April 14, 2017 at 12:04 pm

    Yes, Brian, in a definite good way. Why I moved to the West 36 years ago.

    What Suzi and Scribe said x1000. Comments be damned, that story should horrify everyone, especially as the alleged offender (alleged physician) is a woman.

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  19. Deborah said on April 14, 2017 at 12:38 pm

    I’ve been to Moab, UT. Amazing surrounding landscape but the town itself like Taos, NM is pretty tacky. Although I’ve come to absolutely love tacky Taos.

    I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time reading the hilarious comments in Icarus’s Gin and Tacos Facebook page link. A real day wrecker.

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  20. Mark P said on April 14, 2017 at 12:51 pm

    Trump is both an embarrassment and a danger. How embarrassing is it to have to have the president of China educate the President of the United States on Far Eastern politics and history. He didn’t bother to get a briefing before the meeting? What a flipping dumbass.

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  21. Jolene said on April 14, 2017 at 12:54 pm

    . . . especially as the alleged offender (alleged physician) is a woman.

    Am pretty sure that in societies that routinely practice FGM, it is almost always performed by a woman. Am not an expert, but what I’ve read and seen does not indicate that medical professionals are typically involved.

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  22. Jolene said on April 14, 2017 at 12:58 pm

    He didn’t bother to get a briefing before the meeting?

    This is one of the 83,000 things that kills me about Trump. He could get any pretty much expert in the world to brief him about pretty much anything, but he can’t be bothered. Then he finds himself saying idiotic things like “Who knew healthcare was complicated?” over and over again. So, so embarrassing.

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  23. nancy said on April 14, 2017 at 1:01 pm

    Yes, Jolene is correct. This is a female-perpetrated crime. Women are frequently the most merciless oppressors of other women, which I always chalked up to the crabs-in-a-bucket thing.

    This American Life / The Heart podcast did a piece on a modern American girl who’d had FGM, directed by her own mother. (The story in essay form.) It’s a truly barbaric cultural practice (NOT religious). Some women talk about wanting to “look tidy,” which I guess refers to the extensive labia removal that frequently accompanies the procedure.

    And please, let’s not equate this with male circumcision. Men lacking foreskins have no problem having sex and deriving pleasure from it. Not even close to what happens to girls.

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  24. Jolene said on April 14, 2017 at 1:29 pm

    I just googled “who practices FGM?” The results confirmed the idea that it is generally performed by women.

    More than you want to know on this topic from the United Nations Population Fund. Ugh!

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  25. Julie Robinson said on April 14, 2017 at 2:03 pm

    For those who watch Call the Midwife, (and if you aren’t, you should be, because it’s not a cozy little show, but tackles gritty issues every week), there is an episode on FGM this season. It’s barbaric and heartbreaking, and normally is perpetrated by other women because of cultural restrictions on men seeing women. The women have spent their lives being told no man will have them without FGM.

    As Nancy says, it’s nothing like circumcision, because it interferes with every single natural function, including normal elimination. Horrible, horrible, horrible.

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  26. Jolene said on April 14, 2017 at 2:10 pm

    I’m a fan of Call the Midwife too, Julie. The first five seasons (six episodes each) are available on Netflix. Current episodes on PBS, with the two episodes already shown this season available through OnDemand. Dry sweet, but, as Julie says, very serious too.

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  27. Jolene said on April 14, 2017 at 2:11 pm

    Not dry sweet, very sweet. Sheesh!

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  28. Dexter said on April 14, 2017 at 2:53 pm

    Health: I have commented how I jettisoned my doctor and the goddam Parkview Medical System back in November of 2014. I then joined the V A medical program and have been amazed at the care I have gotten , all good. So I went Monday for a checkup and review of labs. My doc is a wonderful lady of about 44 I’d guess, and she meticulously went over all the paperwork and stunned me: “You’re healthy as a young horse and if you keep doing all these right things , why, you’ll likely live to be 100.” Then she laughed, but I did not ask her why she laughed. When I went to her in 2014 she seemed to be amazed I was even alive. She changed about half my meds around, sent me to Ann Arbor for more complete tests, and now all I am supposed to do is quit the fucking donuts and pancakes and eat more green vegetables, a small order, but hard to comply with for me, since we have the World’s Best Donuts about a half mile away. “Under Pressure!
    pushing down on me…”
    MOAB …one damn-scary bomb…one mile destruction zone with 100% kills in the zone, and with deep penetration as well, going deep, deep down into the tunnels and collapsing them and killing killing killing. Kind of sickening but the target was ISIS I heard, and I say Fuck You Isis. And Trump did say “I am going to bomb the SHIT out them!” Armada on the way to the Korean Peninsula, Pence in South Korea, MOAB dropped, Assad saying “I know NOTHING…NOTHING!”…and now hit it Sonny! —“The beat goes on, and the beat goes on.”
    Pressing down on you, no man ask for…”

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  29. LAMary said on April 14, 2017 at 6:04 pm

    I read MOAB and think of the certification required of emergency RNs. MOAB is management of aggressive behavior.

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  30. beb said on April 14, 2017 at 6:34 pm

    Went to Huffington Post for some “light” reading. Pretty Depressing. Here are some of the headlines–
    Some of the feadlines on Huffington Post:

    White House Adviser Who Opposes Paid Leave, Equal Pay Now Working On Women’s Issues

    Rape Survivor Listens As Judge Praises Former Mormon Bishop Who Abused Her

    8 Million Californians Have Been Drinking Polluted Water For Years

    Leaked NSA Malware Threatens Windows Users Around the World

    Decades Of Sexual Abuse At Elite Connecticut School Documented In Report

    DeVos’ Pick to Head Civil Rights Office Once Said She Faced Discrimination for Being White

    Trump Taps EPA Reject To Run Military Draft

    ‘Clean Sheets’ Means An ‘Easy Life’ For Jailed Immigrants, Fox News Says

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  31. Deborah said on April 14, 2017 at 7:10 pm

    This afternoon I went to my first physical therapy session, mostly an evaluation. It was cool in part because the building I went to for the session was a brand spanking new one that I actually worked on a bit before I retired. It used to be RIC (Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Chicagoans here may recognize that). Now it’s called the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab. The new interiors and graphics of the building are fantastic, the exterior architecture not so much. All I had to do with it was when it was in the very early conceptual phase when we were trying to convince the client to do some neat stuff. My Physical Therapist was fantastic, a very enthusiastic guy who was extremely knowledgable about the spine, I learned so much from him compared to the neurosurgeon I had met with the day before. I may not have to have surgery if we can manipulate the impingement physically, by putting the toothpaste back in the tube so to speak. I have some homework to do, exercises that I’m to do 10 of every hour between now and Tuesday. If it doesn’t work surgery will probably be required. Fingers crossed.

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  32. Deborah said on April 14, 2017 at 8:19 pm

    Chicagoans tomorrow at 11 am in Daley Plaza a protest is scheduled to bring attention to Trump’s not releasing his taxes, and to encourage him to do so. Then there will be a march but the route is unclear. My husband and I will be going to that, unless my foot drop makes it impossible to do the walking required.

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  33. coozledad said on April 15, 2017 at 7:00 am

    Awww. Now the white people get to drink them some heavy metals too.
    https://twitter.com/Austan_Goolsbee/status/852507443515011072

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  34. David C. said on April 15, 2017 at 7:22 am

    Get a second opinion before you have back surgery, Deborah. I learned a lot from the back problem I had last year. The first is that most back problems resolve themselves in a matter of 8-12 weeks without surgery. I was in such pain at first that someone promising me relief with surgery could have rushed me unnecessarily into it. I read recently that new protocols for back pain treatment were released based on the majority of studies showing surgery has outcomes no better than more conservative treatments. It sounds like you have a good PT though. I’m sure he’ll put the toothpaste back into the tube like you said.

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  35. Deborah said on April 15, 2017 at 8:33 am

    David C, it’s not the pain it’s the foot drop that’s causing the probable need for surgery. I’m going to faithfully do the exercise each hour until Tuesday and then I go back for another physical therapy session. If by that time this exercise hasn’t manipulated the stuff pinching the nerve to retreat than I’ll most likely need the surgery the PT says.

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  36. alex said on April 15, 2017 at 9:18 am

    Dunno if anyone’s following the pregnant giraffe live cam, but she’s finally very belatedly giving birth. At the moment she has two legs sticking out of her ass. What a process…

    http://www.wfaa.com/news/nation/watch-live-giraffe-cam-at-animal-adventure-park/413484525

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  37. Deborah said on April 15, 2017 at 9:35 am

    Alex, thanks for the heads up. I called Little Bird and woke her up (an hour earlier there) she’s been waiting and watching for this for weeks.

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  38. alex said on April 15, 2017 at 9:39 am

    What a tease! She pushes them out, sucks them back in, pushes them out…

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  39. Jolene said on April 15, 2017 at 10:48 am

    People are, of course, commenting on the birth of the giraffe. One of the best: You people asking about gender are so rude. Let the baby decide for itself. Keep your cisnormative oppression out of here.

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  40. Joe Kobiela said on April 15, 2017 at 10:54 am

    Call United, they’ll pull that giraffe out.
    Pilot Joe

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  41. David C. said on April 15, 2017 at 10:57 am

    Oh, FFS. Can the Queen tell him to just fuck off or hit him with her handbag or something? Since when does a guest get to dictate the terms of his welcome. The UK press will screw him over better than they did W’s five fajita stuffers.
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trump-demands-gold-plated-welcome-xjnffdq32

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  42. coozledad said on April 15, 2017 at 11:30 am

    Maybe the Brits can arrange to have his fat, incontinent ass whipped through the streets like they used to do with their own Mosleyite trash.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cable_Street

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  43. Julie Robinson said on April 15, 2017 at 11:36 am

    Pilot Joe for the win!

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  44. BethB from Indiana said on April 15, 2017 at 12:07 pm

    Deborah, I have had one back surgery to “put the toothpaste back in the tube” as you said, and then two more surgeries to have rods implanted in my lower back at L-2 to L-5 (they called this a lumbar fusion). I would give anything not to have had the last two surgeries. I can’t cut my own toenails anymore or lean over to remove my compression stocking that I have to wear as a result of an issue from the second back surgery. What a mess. Try intense PT and then shots if needed. With MS and other issues, I did not need the back problem. This is just my experience, not a medical opinion!! Good luck.

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  45. Joe Kobiela said on April 15, 2017 at 2:17 pm

    Deborah,
    Chiropractor, accupuncture, deep tissue massage, try anything and everything before surgery.
    Pilot Joe

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  46. David C. said on April 15, 2017 at 2:31 pm

    Maybe the Queen has an old horse-drawn shit wagon on one of the estates that they could paint gold for Trump.

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  47. Deborah said on April 15, 2017 at 3:04 pm

    I hear you guys, thanks for the advice. This surgery is less aggressive/invasive, out patient, home the same day (as long as everything goes according to plan, of course) no fusions. They do a very small incision on the side of the spine, insert a tiny device through the muscle and suck out the goo. They say it will alleviate the foot drop immediately. I’ve been doing the exercises every hour for a full day now (except when I’m out and about or asleep). There is actually a tiny, tiny improvement so I’m hopeful.

    On a completely different note we went to the tax day Trump protest in Daley plaza. I was very disappointed in the turnout, only a couple thousand people. It’s an incredibly beautiful day in Chicago, which you think would have helped but maybe because it’s also Easter weekend, people were too busy. About 10,000 people signed up to go on the Facebook page and 25,000 said they were interested. They sure weren’t there, wish they had been to make a bigger splash. Maybe people have given up on Trump releasing his tax returns and felt that it was useless. A state senator, Daniel Biss spoke at the rally, he’s running for governor, he introduced a bill in the IL legislature that if Trimp or any pres candidate doesn’t release 5 years of recent tax returns he/they won’t get to be on the state ballot in 2020.

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  48. Little Bird said on April 15, 2017 at 4:48 pm

    The protest in Berkeley turned ugly. Really ugly. People are beating the crap out of each other.

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  49. Deborah said on April 15, 2017 at 4:58 pm

    Yeah in Berkley, Trump supporters showed up too.

    Curious what the Republicans in our midst think of Trimp not revealing his tax returns. Trimp says the people don’t care, but polls show that 74% overall think he should reveal them.

    I want to know where his income comes from, especially Russian mobster money laundered dough. I also want to know if he’s as rich as he says he is (because it’s probably another one of his lies) and I want to know what percent he pays and if he’s got a bunch of money stashed overseas, because you know that’s patriotic. It is another lie that he can’t reveal them because he’s being audited. But he could at least reveal the latest because they wouldn’t be included in the audit, even though it’s a load of baloney that being audited must keep him from revealing. What is he hiding? It must be bad, or he would reveal them, why is he making it a big deal?

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  50. Sherri said on April 15, 2017 at 5:59 pm

    No doubt Spayd is a capable journalist. The problem is that she’s exactly the wrong sort of journalist for the job. She shares with many successful newspaper editors I’ve met a set of predilections that conspire to make them champions of the status quo even when they think they’re contesting it. She traffics in anecdotes rather than data, evinces little tolerance for intellectual exercise, and settles complex disputes via “the smell test.” Those traits often serve them well: You don’t beat the competition on a big breaking news story by overthinking it. You win prizes from committees of veteran newshounds by following in journalism’s hallowed traditions, not flouting them.

    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/04/liz_spayd_is_failing_as_the_new_york_times_public_editor.html

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  51. Sherri said on April 15, 2017 at 6:14 pm

    RIP, Bob Taylor. You may not have heard of him, but he was a force of nature who influenced the way you use your computer today. He was also a friend and mentor to both my husband and me. We both did summer internships in his labs, my husband at Xerox PARC and me at DEC SRL. When my husband took a job at PARC rather than SRL after grad school, we got a very disappointed call from Bob, who had left Xerox in a rather rancorous departure.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/technology/robert-taylor-innovator-who-shaped-modern-computing-dies-at-85.html

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  52. Deborah said on April 15, 2017 at 6:31 pm

    Sherri, the Xerox Parc building was designed by the architecture firm my husband and I worked for in St. Louis, but they have a San Francisco office where I think most of the work was done. Gyo Obata was the main designer though who lived and worked mostly in the St. Louis. It was designed in the 70s, I didn’t work for the company until the 81 but the project was used in marketing materials for years, so I saw it all the time. I think they designed another campus for Xerox too, but I don’t remember where it was. Gyo is in his mid 90s now, they say he still goes into the office every day.

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  53. Sherri said on April 15, 2017 at 6:48 pm

    Deborah, the PARC building is iconic in Silicon Valley. The way it fits into the hillside is beautiful. The interior is a bit too 70s-ish, but the exterior was great, with multiple courtyards and decks highlighting the view from the hill as well.

    (PARC stands for Palo Alto Research Center.)

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  54. coozledad said on April 15, 2017 at 8:11 pm

    If there ever was any question that Andrew Sullivan was a racist, it can be laid directly to rest now:
    https://twitter.com/montie/status/853276267810082816

    This is what the middlebrow consensus chasers give us. The otiose prose of bloated apartment hunters. The cheerleaders for the alliance between wealth and cheap semieducated Brit imports.

    I know there are people out here who love Sullivan. They’re idiots.

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  55. Jolene said on April 15, 2017 at 10:24 pm

    This list of documentaries showed up in my FB feed. All streaming on Netflix or the like. Worth checking out.

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  56. jcburns said on April 16, 2017 at 12:10 am

    Sherri, that’s so cool that you have experience with Bob Taylor. For me, he was just an (important) guy in books like Dealers of Lightning and What the Dormouse Said —which, for some reason, I read again and again.
    Back around 1984, I was commuting from Atlanta to Sunnyvale/Cupertino to rent a piece of TV equipment for one week every month, and I made more than one drive-by of the PARC facility, aware—kind of in awe—of its importance.

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  57. Deborah said on April 16, 2017 at 12:11 am

    I’m one of those idiot people who have off and on liked Sullivan. I have to admit he’s an odd duck who can go apoplectic about things at the drop of a hat. He can be soooo wrong about things and yet I read him, or at least I used to when he still had his blog. I don’t really know why, I simply wanted to know what he had to say.

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  58. Crazycatlady said on April 16, 2017 at 3:30 am

    Now my poor hubby beb has the screaming yuckies. He’s getting what I have. Bad cough, headache and nasal congestion. Mine turned into pneumonia so I have to watch him now. So take care, Nancy!

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  59. coozledad said on April 16, 2017 at 7:45 am

    This creep needs a bullet:
    http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/white-supremacist-caught-on-video-sucker-punching-woman-berkeley-protester-faces-calls-for-arrest/

    The country is insane, and numerous highly paid enablers have brought us to this point.

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  60. coozledad said on April 16, 2017 at 8:00 am

    https://twitter.com/EdgeofSports/status/853325071108255745

    Folks like Sullivan and Jeffrey Lord have no idea what America is. They’ve never had to fight for it the way its black and brown citizens have. I have nothing but admiration for people who still think the game is worth the candle, because right now, and for the past four hundred years, the whites in this country have defended racism and white privilege as a cornerstone of American nationalism. They do it unconsciously when they lack the balls out hostility to join their advocates in some Nazi parade.

    Sully hasn’t earned his ticket here and he needs to go the fuck home.

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  61. coozledad said on April 16, 2017 at 8:22 am

    Caroline O. has been doing work our paid journalists have failed miserably at.
    https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/04/15/todays-berkeley-beat-down-planned-action-by-the-alt-right/

    My wife and I are attending a conference on how people can fill the void created by our suckass newspapers and corporate friendly television coverage. for example, our local paper refuses to give any ink to the regional DA’s involvement in a criminal employment scheme. The only paper covering it is a good sixty miles away.

    One reason is two or three old white bastards still run the county, and they can send a pickup truckload of Duke Energy skinheads out to beat your ass if you piss them off. Our paper has nothing but cowards and ass kissers. The Greensboro News and Record has to take up their slack.

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  62. basset said on April 16, 2017 at 10:52 am

    Nice little surprise yesterday. Mrs. B and I went to the Nashville Sounds minor-league baseball game (the Sounds are in the Pacific Coast League, figure that out), bought the cheapest tickets, brought a blanket, and sat down on the grass just past center field.

    Just as we were getting settled, two young women in team shirts showed up and offered us a free seat upgrade. Well, sure, why not… they take us up to the $35 club-level seats on the second level behind home plate, get us seated, and tell us we the team mascot, a big red and yellow chicken, will be along shortly and we will be talking with him on scoreboard video. Now, the Sounds’ scoreboard (https://goo.gl/images/K8dLg8) is just huge, guitar shaped with all kinds of stuff happening on screen… so, sure enough, in the first inning here he comes and we, as the winners of tonight’s “Best Seat In The House” promotion, have to say “Go, Sounds!” for one and all to hear.

    And they really were the best seats in the house, we got pictures and sent them all around. Good trade, still nine dollars for a beer though.

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  63. Joe Kobiela said on April 16, 2017 at 10:55 am

    Nice treat, for you and Mrs B
    Pilot Joe

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  64. Deborah said on April 16, 2017 at 11:04 am

    $9 for a beer at the ballpark!! Shows you how long it’s been since I’ve been at a ballpark. Cute story Basset.

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  65. Deborah said on April 16, 2017 at 12:22 pm

    For some reason I seem to have lost all of my bookmarks in Safari on my iPhone. I’ve restarted 3 times and nothing has changed. I don’t use Chrome much on my iPhone because I don’t like the interface as much. Oh well, here’s to being a tech idiot.

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  66. basset said on April 16, 2017 at 1:24 pm

    Still have the menu from last night, which includes… chicken tenders and fries, $11… 1/2 pound cheeseburger, $10.50… 16-ounce domestic beer, $9… bottled water, $4.50… bottled soda, $5… and up on the club level, $10 for a mixed drink, $16.50 for a double, $10 for one of those little prepackaged plastic glasses of wine. There’s a really good pizza place just two blocks away, so on the rare occasion we go to a game we eat there first.

    And the reason the Sounds are in the Pacific Coast League, along with Omaha, OKC, Des Moines, and New Orleans (the “Baby Cakes,” gotta love that name): for many years there were three Triple-A (one step down from the majors) leagues, in the east, middle, and west of the country. The middle league (American Association) broke up in 1997 and the east and west leagues took in some of the teams. Indianapolis went to the eastern (International) league, Toledo and Columbus were already there. Dexter will probably have something to add on this.

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  67. ROGirl said on April 16, 2017 at 2:24 pm

    If you haven’t heard this on the radio, it’s worth a listen.

    https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/614/the-other-mr-president

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  68. coozledad said on April 16, 2017 at 2:58 pm

    As the media busts its ass to try and normalize Nazism and our white nationalist president, his Svengali Steve Bannon, and his probable Martin Bormann, Stephen Miller, this is something all Americans need to hear. It’s too long for most of the dumbasses, and it will offend whiny old white bastards, but seriously, fuck those people.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOB_ix10–I

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  69. Bitter Scribe said on April 16, 2017 at 5:11 pm

    Back in the 80s, when the Mets were going through a sucky spell, you could slip the usher $5 and he would take you to a corporate box seat on the first base side of Shea that wasn’t being used that day. Great way to see a ballgame.

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  70. Deborah said on April 16, 2017 at 5:19 pm

    Coozledad, great link at #68, probably a little long for some, but very worth it.

    ROGirl I can’t listen to that TAL link until after 7pm today for whatever reason. Looking forward to it. I love TAL.

    Still doing my exercise that the PT recommended and I had a wee bit more success with my foot today so I’m even more hopeful. My arms are so sore from the exercise though, I have bad upper body strength since walking has been my exercise for years, I’ve neglected the upper body. I’m supposed to push myself up on my stomach, sort of like a push up arching my back down while my hips and legs are anchored to the floor. It’s important that I let my back arch way back in to squeeze the toothpaste back in but since my arms aren’t strong enough to hold me up to do that, I’m probably not getting the full effect. I wish I had Nancy’s guns right now.

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  71. Deborah said on April 16, 2017 at 6:03 pm

    I’ve mentioned here before that we live in an architectural significant building in Chicago and we get students outside photographing all the time. Today a very clean cut looking young man was out on the plaza between the buildings in our complex taking photos and he politely stopped me to ask me some questions as I was leaving to run some errands. I could tell by his questions that he was astute and conscientious so I invited him up to our unit to see it all from the inside. He was ecstatic, he was a student from Monterey, Mexico. He was very polite and obviously thrilled. He’s been making a car trip around the US looking at schools for a graduate degree and looking at famous architectural buildings, his name is Fernando and he was delightful. Once up in our unit he remarked on every piece of furniture we have, he knew of each designer and even the technical names of the furniture. I gave him our email addresses and he promised to keep in touch. That makes me so happy.

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  72. Sherri said on April 16, 2017 at 6:56 pm

    Back from Walla Walla, where it was sunny! The concert was good, it was great to see my daughter, and I celebrated my birthday today by having breakfast with my daughter and then having a relatively pleasant drive back across the state. Only one more trip to Walla Walla on the calendar!

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  73. susan said on April 16, 2017 at 7:19 pm

    Sherri, the Walla Walla valley is really beautiful, especially in the spring. Well, all of eastern Warshington is so beautiful in the spring. The wildflowers in the shrub-steppe areas have to be some of the most varied and spectacular florescences around. Those who don’t know better think this area is a vast wasteland. Politically, yes. Botanically, nope!

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  74. Sherri said on April 16, 2017 at 7:46 pm

    Walla Walla itself is a wonderful little town, compact and walkable with good restaurants, because it’s Washington’s wine country. If I still drank, I’d definitely come back for weekend visits, and it’s been enjoyable visiting the town for the last four years, but I doubt I’ll be returning anytime soon. Probably more likely to head towards Spokane if I find myself going to eastern Washington.

    Whitman College has been great, too; my daughter has loved it. I don’t think I’ve heard any complaints from her. That matches the experience of every Whitman alum and parent I’ve ever talked to. They are uniform in how much they love the place. My daughter fell in love pretty much the moment she stepped on campus.

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  75. David C. said on April 16, 2017 at 8:03 pm

    You didn’t stop at the Ace Novelty Company and get a Pipe Full of Fun, Kit Number 7?

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  76. Sherri said on April 16, 2017 at 8:49 pm

    Maybe that should be the name of a cannabis store in Walla Walla! The actual ones are Walla Walla Cannabis Company and Walla Walla Weedery. Redmond is home to two now: Always Greener and Hashtag.

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