We went sailing yesterday, and it was perfect for it — clear and sunny and a steady-but-not-overpowering breeze out of the southwest. Motoring into the marina, we passed a smallish Boston Whaler flying a largeish — like, queen-size bedsheet size — American flag from one side of the Bimini top. Behind it, I could see another flag flying, and call me a cynic, but I had a strong feeling what it would be, and sure enough, the breeze lifted it so we could see: LET’S GO BRANDON.
Reader, I flipped him the bird. Don’t think he saw it, but I’m not letting that stuff go anymore.
This will be a bit of a mishmash. As usual, I start with an apology for my scarce presence around here. I’ve been working a second job this summer. Here’s a clue: I have the best tan I’ve had since high school.
Which is to say: I’m a lifeguard at a local waterpark. It has been a crazy summer, and I will tell you more about it when the season officially ends for me after this week. I got into it because I kept reading about the lifeguard shortage keeping pools from opening, or keeping them on shorter hours, but it’s turned out to be so much more than that. The biggest surprise is how physically exhausting it’s been. It’s not the physical activity (which isn’t all that much), but the sitting in the sun all day, even with shade umbrellas and sunscreen and frequent breaks and chugging water, just saps my strength. I can’t believe I actually thought I’d ride my bike to and from the park every day (four miles one way). I often end the day scowling at my car because it’s one space away from the closest possible spot in the parking lot. And there’s a mental exhaustion that comes from keeping focused attention on the water, especially when most of the people in it can’t swim.
Fortunately, Alan has stepped up and usually has a delicious meal waiting for me when I come through the door at 7 p.m. But I go from dinner to a couple hours of TV to a half hour of reading in bed to zzzzzzz.
My thoughts are with our California readers, especially L.A. Mary, as they deal with the hurricane/tropical storm. It looks like the worst of it is over, but SoCal simply isn’t set up to deal with rainfall of this magnitude. (Of course, many areas where it’s common aren’t anymore, either. :::raises hand:::) But I just read the the L.A. River peaked well below flood stage, and is falling now. So that’s good.
Here’s a funny story about Ron DeSantis’ awkwardness, which may have already been discussed in comments because it’s a few days old, but honestly I haven’t even glanced at ye olde comments in that time. Still, it’s a gift link and this made me laugh:
As he sought to connect with voters and donors, critics said DeSantis had resembled — to quote a couple of posts — “a robot put together from scrapped spare parts from Disney’s The Hall of Presidents” or “an extraterrestrial in a skin-suit trying to learn to be human.”
Been there, felt that.
Finally, Neil Steinberg expresses for the millionth time the jeez-would-you-GO-AWAY-already feeling so many of us have, but it still seems worth saying:
It’s the whining that most exasperates me. Don’t they ever tire of it? Yes, Donald Trump is famous for the lies that firehose out of his mouth, as easily as he draws breath and almost as often.
But it’s the constant complaining that drives me mad, if I didn’t tune it out — I can’t imagine watching Trump’s interview this Thursday with Tucker Carlson, his half-clever way of drawing whatever scant interest there might be away from the first Republican presidential debate, a gathering of gnats, all of whom, with the exception of born-again Chris Christie, can’t even muster the internal fortitude to string together a few critical words against the liar and bully, fraud and traitor whom they would defeat.
Yep.
OK, I have to do a few chores around this dump, drink some water, maybe clean my bathroom. I had some photos to share, but for some reason the server isn’t accepting them. I’ll try again later. Thanks for tolerating everything.
Jeff Gill said on August 21, 2023 at 11:09 am
You don’t read the old comments? This aggression shall not stand, man…
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nancy said on August 21, 2023 at 11:20 am
Honestly, I try. But the last few days…
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Julie Robinson said on August 21, 2023 at 11:45 am
Nance, have you tried electrolytes? I’ve always pooh-poohed them, but we’re working out in a (hot) garage twice a week, and they’ve made a big difference. We buy them in big bags at Costco and pour them into water. Our trainer encourages us to drink one before we come and one while we work out.
When I’ve been overheated at the Mouse House a full sugar/full caffeine Coke or Pepsi has revived me. Another Florida thing is a portable fan with a mister. I haven’t bought a neck fan yet, but it’s under consideration!
We celebrated our 44th anniversary this weekend with a fancy meal and a musical, Sondhein’s biggest hit, A Little Night Music. Full orchestra; bliss.
Tonight we’re hosting another group from the State Department’s exchange program. Honduras if I paid attention.
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Mark P said on August 21, 2023 at 12:43 pm
Way back when … I mean waaaay back when, I was at Lake Tahoe preparing for a marathon on Labor Day. I drank lots of straight water before my long runs. I sloshed for a while. For my 20-mile training run, I stashed some diluted orange juice at my turnaround point. I never had any problems. Of course, I was 27 at the time, so there was that. if I felt dragged out that evening, a bowl of ice cream revived me. Ahh, ice cream — health food!
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nancy said on August 21, 2023 at 12:46 pm
Weirdly, or perhaps not-weirdly, I’ve found a smoothie from the concession stand is helpful when I’m wilting. The sugar seems be the magic ingredient.
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Alan Stamm said on August 21, 2023 at 1:40 pm
Hope the waterpark lookback will include accounts of the (few, ideally) times you and the rescue buoy left the chair.
Don’t be modest now, water safety pro (aka lifesaver).
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Icarus said on August 21, 2023 at 1:46 pm
when I did the marathon/long run thing, we would use these gels that were pretty much glucose replenishers. The first generation tasted terrible but then, like kids’ medicine, someone figured out how to flavor them, probably with more sugar.
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Sherri said on August 21, 2023 at 2:54 pm
Yep, sugar is key. Quick-acting carbs. I use Emergen-C packets in water during training sessions (very diluted, one packet per liter of water.) Gatorade, for all the electrolytes in it, has lots of sugar.
Caffeine is the key for the mental exhaustion. Coffee is the preferred pre workout of many a powerlifter, but I’m not a coffee drinker, so I use a pre-workout that contains caffeine.
The three most important performance enhancing supplements that almost every powerlifter uses are caffeine, protein, and creatine.
In the old days, my grandparents’ refrigerator was always stocked with Cokes and RC Cola for the men working the tobacco fields.
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Bob (not Greene) said on August 21, 2023 at 3:07 pm
Nancy,
I also look forward to reading about your exploits as a lifeguard. We can trade lifeguard stories, although my run ended in the mid-1980s when I finally had to get serious about life. I also worked at a pool where no one knew how to swim, and I am here to tell you — there were days we were going in the water left and right to pull people out. Man, that was a fun job!
In other news, in one week I am leaving journalism, hopefully for good. I’ve been the editor (and sole full-time reporter) of the same newspaper, covering three towns, for 20 years. I am not only sick of hearing my own voice, the grind has simply worn me out. It’s been a heck of a run, but after turning 60 last year, I simply want to do something else. Not sure what’s it’s gonna be, but not this.
Not sure if Kim is still lurking around this site, but she was one of my first co-workers here back in 1991 and a great role model for a guy who needed a career, but whose clips were term papers on art history.
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Suzanne said on August 21, 2023 at 3:48 pm
Abortion is now illegal in Indiana.
https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/2023/08/21/indiana-supreme-court-wont-rehear-near-total-abortion-ban-ruling-putting-law-back-in-effect/
Several of the regional hospitals run by Parkview Health have already announced they will no longer have labor & delivery departments.
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LAMary said on August 21, 2023 at 5:12 pm
The waiting was the hardest part. Waiting to see if we got 60mph wind or three solid hours of hard rain. Not much wind to speak of and off and on rain of varying intensity for about 18 hours. And a smallish earthquake. When I went out to my car this morning it was covered with wet leaves. So covered it looked like camouflage. Working at LA County dept mental health is pretty interesting even if I’m just a clerical type. Met a few American Indian social workers.
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Dorothy said on August 21, 2023 at 6:19 pm
I hate that MAGA-ites have commandeered the American flag and act like only they are allowed to display it. And when they do, it’s always SO BIG AND SO OBVIOUS. When I worked the polls in early August, one of the workers wore flag cowboy boots, a flag cowboy hat, jeans and a flag colored wispy, flowy, covery thing over a red tee shirt. Almost like some kind of gossamer robe. I thought she looked like someone headed to a Trump rally. As far as I know, no one spoke to her about it because she was in the outfit all day. But we’re not supposed to wear anything that has anything to do with politics. I felt guilty thinking she should not have had that on, but since there was so much of it, the vibe I got was pure MAGA.
So when I got the survey asking me how I thought the day went, what could I tell them about how I thought the VLM managed the day, etc., I didn’t hold back. I straight out said I thought she should not have been dressed like that and probably should have been sent home to change her clothes. I don’t know her name. But if anyone took the time to tell this (what I said in the survey) to the VLM, I’m wondering if that will disqualify me from working the polls anymore. If so, I don’t care. I was honest. We have rules we’re supposed to follow and I think she didn’t follow them. A tee shirt with a flag on it would have been okay by me. But she was head-to-toe flag screaming, and it felt out of place to me.
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LAMary said on August 21, 2023 at 6:42 pm
I remember when right wingers went nuts when Abbie Hoffman wore a flag shirt. All sorts of Nixon loving types were citing the rules of flag display and getting very worked up about that flag shirt.
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Julie Robinson said on August 21, 2023 at 7:40 pm
Dorothy, that poll worker would have been sent home from our location. Our daughter is the poll clerk and she doesn’t mess around. No one is allowed in except to vote, no one can take pictures, the official observers from the parties are not allowed to speak to any of the poll workers. Anyone who dares gets politely but quite firmly slapped down. Sarah would have sent her home.
Our Honduran visitors are all engaged with women’s issues; one as a policewoman, one as a children’s worker, and one heads a domestic violence shelter. The issues are pretty much the same as here except even worse. Plus super-high unemployment.
One of the women started to cry and we learned that she just lost her husband and had seen her son here in Orlando for the first time in 17 years. He can’t go home since he’s here without papers.
I mentioned my sister’s time in Guatemala almost 50 years ago, how proud she’d been to get a treadle sewing machine for the community. Women could sew clothing for their families in a fraction of the time as by hand. Her biggest challenge was machismo, and that one really got them going. It’s no better now than then.
Suzanne, didn’t Parkview take over most of the small town hospitals? What cowards they are.
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Kim said on August 21, 2023 at 7:47 pm
Bob(NG) & Nancy, yes, I lurk! Believe it or not (Bob, I know you don’t because you know me), I’ve had little to say. Know that I do appreciate the forum.
I remember when you came in for an interview back in the 1900s – such idealistic babies we were. (An aside: You and your wife were such natural and normal parents you made it seem like my husband and I might be able to do it, too! Three adult kids later, I wonder if we should’ve paid closer attention. I kid.) I know you have done a great service to the communities, surely more than most can comprehend. On behalf of humanity, I thank and salute you and journos everywhere.
Like you, I look forward to the lifeguard tales to come. One of my kids did it for a couple summers before refusing to do it for another season because it was “literally life-or-death stressful.”
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nancy said on August 21, 2023 at 8:17 pm
I — personally, as in Just Me — told a poll worker in November 2020 to take off a Biden pin that she’d put on in the last hour of voting. “But a nice man gave it to me!” she said, referring to an earlier voter. “It doesn’t matter,” I told her. “We all had the training.” I couldn’t believe she’d even consider putting it on.
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diane said on August 21, 2023 at 9:08 pm
Back to electrolytes, my husband went through radiation this summer and for a variety of related reasons was getting very dehydrated. The dietician at the cancer center recommended something called Liquid IV. They are packets you mix with water and can buy at Costco. They really helped him. My friend’s daughter is a paramedic and athlete and she also recommended them.
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Julie Robinson said on August 21, 2023 at 9:18 pm
Diane, those are the ones we’re using. I need to dilute them extra and pour over lots of ice, because the flavor is reminiscent of the prep drink for colonoscopies. But working out in 95° and 3000% humidity, we get a little light headed from time to time. She is waiting on a contractor to install AC, but waiting on a contractor is what you do here. Maybe by next summer.
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alex said on August 21, 2023 at 10:07 pm
Too bad lifeguarding isn’t a skill I can trade on in my dotage, but surely I can find something part-time to do to pay for health insurance until my Medicare kicks in. I’d even consider journalism.
I am so looking forward to retiring. I have about two months to go and I haven’t announced it yet.
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Jeff Gill said on August 21, 2023 at 10:33 pm
The flag schtick would get you sent home in Ohio as a pollworker. Even in this heavily Trump favoring county.
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Sherri said on August 22, 2023 at 12:44 am
Ronan Farrow on Elon Musk: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule
Billionaires are a policy failure. Bring back the marginal tax rates of the Eisenhower era!
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Dexter Friend said on August 22, 2023 at 5:17 am
Back in my younger days, a syndicated doctor’s column ran in The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel and maybe The Toledo Blade. The doc was a fitness nut who ran many races of varying miles. He was harsh on cigarette smoking but advocated pipe smoking as a harmless pass-time, and he smoked a pipe too. He advocated drinking one or two beers just before the race for hydration.
Now we all know beer is a diuretic and is the last thing runners want before a race.
I cannot pinpoint when people began lugging a bottle of water around, a practice never seen when I was young. I know by the early 90s just after I put alcohol behind me I never went anywhere without a diet cola can, but soon switched to a water bottle. I still carry a water bottle just about everywhere I go and never drive without 2 water bottles just in case I break down and have to wait for a couple hours for a wrecker.
By the way, that doctor must have known that pipe smoking causes lip, mouth, esophageal, and stomach cancers…my brother-in-law died of stomach cancer at age 47 and he smoked Latakia tobacco constantly.
Why have cigarettes not been made illegal?
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Dorothy said on August 22, 2023 at 5:22 am
Now I don’t feel so bad for thinking she was in the wrong to dress that way. Before the polls opened at 6:30 am, I snapped a distant picture of her from the back – her face is not visible – just to show my husband later at home. Also it briefly entered my brain that it showed proof of what she was wearing, in case it came up later in the day and she had switched into different clothes that she had, perhaps, kept in her car. Anyway, it’s history now and I hope my comment on my survey works its way down the information chain to the VLM.
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Dexter Friend said on August 22, 2023 at 5:23 am
Alex, head for The Big Rock Candy Mountains, “where they hung the jerk
That invented work…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMAPOQedRxA
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David C said on August 22, 2023 at 6:06 am
Back when I was doing metric centuries on my bike, my hydration drink was diluted OJ with a few shakes of lite salt for potassium and sodium. It worked well enough and tastes better than Gatorade. I think Gatorade, every flavor, has an aftertaste that tastes like sawdust. Vile stuff.
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Suzanne said on August 22, 2023 at 8:42 am
My electrolytes were low during cancer treatments. My doctor first recommended Gatorade and my response was that I had drunk that for colonoscopy prep so no, not gonna drink it no matter how low those electrolytes are! So he recommended Mio Sport, a little bottle of flavored liquid that you squirt in your water. It’s good and certain flavors have vitamins & electrolytes & now I am addicted to it. Thanks Doc!
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robert said on August 22, 2023 at 10:34 am
When “they” say “Let’s Go, Brandon”, I say “Dark Brandon is kicking your a**!”
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FDChief said on August 22, 2023 at 10:40 am
That Elmo piece is kind of terrifying because of all the tells that the MuskRat gives re: his design to rule the rest of us – he’s targeting places like satcoms where the USG has “privatized” (i.e. left to the robber barons).
The Ukrainians are finding out what happens when things you desperately need are controlled not by some faceless bureaucrat but a ketamine-addicted rich wingnut. If We the People can’t rope and tie this whacko we’ll find out, too, and we won’t like it.
I really hate where the showrunners are taking this plot line…
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4dbirds said on August 22, 2023 at 11:19 am
Three years ago, smack in the middle of Covid, I went down to Florida for detox and rehab for alcoholism. My intervention was an adult child telling me he’d never see or speak to me again if I didn’t get help. I mention this because, one I am almost three years sober, thank the goddess, but also because part of the treatment were enriched IVs called banana bags. My insurance paid for them while I was in detox but didn’t when I was in rehab. Go figure. Anyway, I think they helped me feel better. Last month, I was in Vegas to play a couple of events in the World Series of Poker and noticed there were businesses on the strip who offered this service. I almost got one because of the heat and also because how tiring playing hours of a mentally challenging game can be.
I am 68 and still working. I have this fear of losing my edge if I stop working. I also like where I work, the people, and our mission. If Trump wins, I may reassess. He doesn’t care for civil servants, and I don’t want to be his punching bag.
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Jeff Borden said on August 22, 2023 at 11:23 am
I won’t vote for a QOP candidate for any office so long as it’s infested with MAGAts and their enablers
But I’m likely to watch the debate in Milwaukee for shits and giggles. Just watching Pudd’n Boots trying to look human should be good for numerous laughs. Chris Christie is gonna beat DeathSantis like a government mule.
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LAMary said on August 22, 2023 at 11:43 am
4D, When I was 18 I told my father, an alcoholic, to not show up at my high school graduation unless he was sober. He didn’t show up. A year later he died after falling down a flight of concrete stairs. Do I regret telling him to stay away from my graduation? No. Fact is there was a strong chance he wouldn’t have shown up anyway. He frequently had passed out by that time of day. I know he had a sickness. I suspect it’s genetic since he father and one of his sons had the same sickness. But he had a choice to stay sober for one evening, sickness or not.
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LAMary said on August 22, 2023 at 11:53 am
I want people who write or talk about food to learn how to pronounce some words frequently used when talking about food. Today I heard about an unappetizing seasoning called tumoric and another food I’d avoid called gluttonous rice. It’s tuRmeric, people. And it’s glutenous rice. These aren’t tricky foreign words.
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4dbirds said on August 22, 2023 at 11:54 am
LA,
One of the lessons learned in rehab was don’t be surprised if an alcoholic chooses drinking over you. Although I am not a 12 stepper, I do believe one thing they teach; the only end for an alcoholic is homelessness, jail and/or death. They used to add the ‘nut house’ but do they exist anymore? I’m sorry you didn’t have the father you should have had and I’m sorry for the mess I left in my wake.
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alex said on August 22, 2023 at 12:40 pm
4d, I’m sorry to hear you had to go through that. I had no idea.
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Jeff Gill said on August 22, 2023 at 1:04 pm
4dbirds, I tip my hat to your work on sobriety. That’s not easy, and I’ve watched many good people fail at it.
As for civil servanthood, I’m approaching a tipping point where the juvenile court will have to replace me if I’m too long out of service (FMLA doesn’t apply to me as a contract employee, but they’ve been fairly kind, considering this last year). If I stop serving as a mediator, I will miss it, but the big MAGA push this last year has included a “plank” of sorts of opposition to restorative justice . . . not that any of them would know what it was even if I tried to explain it to them (and I’ve had some practice runs on that very attempt). So it may be just as well that my time comes to an end as we see a resurgence towards incarceration and punitive responses to all manner of minor offenses, let alone the caustic solvent of capital punishment.
Meanwhile, I’m watching from a distance as the metal detectors and secure doors increase, and this Friday I am excused from a mandatory meeting on encountering threats during home visits, which is packaged with us all getting sized for bulletproof vests. On my biweekly run home I got in early enough Friday to talk to my supervisor about it, and he laughed and said “we’ll just buy you the biggest one they have” (I’m 6’5″) and we talked about how we’re neither of us likely to wear them for our home visits — we’re diversion officers, for pity’s sake.
But nearby urban juvenile court staff have been shot at recently, and so it goes. At least we’re still reaffirming that we are not and won’t be an armed juvenile court staff. For now.
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Sherri said on August 22, 2023 at 1:30 pm
Congratulations and welcome, 4dbirds. It’s been 21 years of sobriety for me.
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4dbirds said on August 22, 2023 at 1:49 pm
Congratulations, Sherri. Being sober is a great way to be. I really wasn’t much of a drinker until my second born died ten years ago. I drank to dull the pain of my grief. I never drank at or while working but as soon as I was off, I would plop down on my couch, open up the vodka and drink until I passed out. I cringe when I think about the things I said to people, the drunk texts and emails to friends and family, the very public mental breakdown I experienced and what a horrible person I’d become.
Jeff, I work for the Inspector General of a Federal Agency. We look for signs of fraud, waste, and abuse in our agency. Trump had no problem firing IGs, who are supposed to be objective and not political. We have no political hires in our office. I don’t know if I can continue if our office is made into a political arm of an elected individual. I don’t understand the mindset of people who want to use the state to punch down on others. I don’t think I’d last long in your job.
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Deborah said on August 22, 2023 at 4:25 pm
Good for you 4dbirds. Lots of hard work there, kudos to you.
We’re working on another patio project at the Santa Fe condo. I leave for Chicago on the 16th of Sept so we have plenty of time. Basically we are making a proper patio where we made a makeshift, seat of our pants one before we owned when we were renting. This time we’re leveling it all and doing it right. It will be so much nicer, but it’s a lot of physical work. I must say I’ve been sleeping well since we started this.
I wanted to be in NM through the growing season because we made a lot improvements to the land around the Santa Fe condo building this summer. We closed down the cabin in Abiquiu for the season, my husband went back to Chicago already, so won’t be going back to Abiquiu until winter.
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Sherri said on August 22, 2023 at 5:16 pm
Age is just a number…
https://imgur.com/t/mitch_mcconnell/MnEDIKg
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Mark P said on August 22, 2023 at 5:30 pm
LAMary, there seems to be some difference of opinion when it comes to turmeric/tumeric. They are both considered correct, although the tur- version is probably older. Some people are quite adamant about it. Personally, I have never heard the tur-version; I admit I’m not a chef, so I don’t hear the tu- version much either.
My iPhone wanted to autocorrect “tumeric” to “turmeric.”
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Sherri said on August 22, 2023 at 5:48 pm
I can never think about turmeric without recalling a long ago flame war on an old Usenet news group about whether it was okay to substitute turmeric for saffron in a recipe. The discourse got quite spicy!
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LAMARY said on August 22, 2023 at 6:14 pm
If a recipe calls for a small amount of saffron I figure it’s for color not flavor and I use turmeric.
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alex said on August 22, 2023 at 6:15 pm
I wouldn’t put turmeric in my paella any more than I would put saffron in my dal. People really care more about the coloring of their food than the taste?
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David C said on August 22, 2023 at 6:41 pm
For the past couple years I’ve worked with a Scot. After that, I let people pronounce things any way they choose. I don’t even flinch anymore at noo-cu-lar, libary, ashphalt or any of the words that were fingernails on a chalkboard to me. If I can understand it, it’s fine.
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Dorothy said on August 22, 2023 at 7:26 pm
The spice bottle in my kitchen cabinet is spelled T-U-R-M-E-R-I-C and I assume they’re all spelled that way, all over the world.
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susan said on August 22, 2023 at 7:29 pm
Sherri, Photoshop™®© is one’s friend.
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Brandon said on August 22, 2023 at 7:43 pm
“Safflower vs. Saffron.”
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Sherri said on August 22, 2023 at 7:57 pm
These don’t seem to be photoshopped (they describe Mick as “frail”), and he still looks better than McConnell. It was just for a laugh, anyway.
https://okmagazine.com/p/mick-jagger-assisted-security-leaving-80th-birthday/
FDChief, I used to say that at least it was a good thing Musk couldn’t be president. Now I’m not so sure; he may have more power than he would as president.
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Deborah said on August 22, 2023 at 8:20 pm
My husband is one of those people who goes by color rather than taste when it comes to food. He readily admits that his taste buds are shot, probably because of his allergies all of his life. He can’t tell subtle differences, also he’s an architect who pays attention to color and texture. He prefers strong flavors probably because he can taste them.
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Deborah said on August 22, 2023 at 8:22 pm
I’d like to see McConnell move like Mick does. That would be a hoot.
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Bitter Scribe said on August 22, 2023 at 11:16 pm
Whenever I see a picture or video of DeSantis smiling broadly or laughing, he reminds me of no one so much as Richard Nixon. They both had/have that slightly off quality that makes them look like alien beings faking human merriment. The eyes widened to show the whites, the jaw that gapes just a little too much — it’s distinctly creepy.
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LAMary said on August 23, 2023 at 8:14 am
Alex, I’ve seen bread recipes that call for a tiny pinch of saffron, clearly it’s to make the dough yellow, not to enhance the flavor. I’m not dropping a few bucks to make it yellow. A pinch of turmeric works.
Also, I’d be OK with that spice being pronounced TOORmeric. Perfectly fine. No to tumoric.
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FDChief said on August 23, 2023 at 9:29 am
The US has always been far too accommodating to malefactors of great wealth. Both our political systems and our money-worship make it a feature, not a bug.
Elmo just makes it creepier by being…well, creepy. Ford was a stone racist prick but generally kept it on the downlow. Elmo revels in airing his issues. Both are the natural enemies of true self-rule; you can have either great inequity or popular sovereignty – not both.
But at least Ford was content to be a plutocrat on his own time. Elmo, and his contemporaries, seem to want to be, and want to be SEEN to be, the modern royalty.
There’s an app for that; Google “the national razor”…
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Mark P said on August 23, 2023 at 9:48 am
Ah, language.
People insist on denying its change, but it just keeps on changing. I used to insist that “to beg the question” meant “to assume that which was to be proved,” but the rest of the world insisted otherwise. I was outvoted. And words end up being what the rest of the world says they are, not what I want them to be. The world will vote on turmeric or tumeric. Get out the vote! Give your friends and neighbors a ride to the polls! I have no dog in that fight. I don’t use it anyway.
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alex said on August 23, 2023 at 10:54 am
Gifting a great long-form read. News from West Dutchistan:
https://wapo.st/45fqyTk
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Icarus said on August 23, 2023 at 10:59 am
It really annoys me when a recipe calls for a spice/herb I don’t have and it is 1) really expensive and/or 2) sold only in a quantity beyond what any mere mortal would consume in a lifetime.
or when you have ground mustard but the recipe wants mustard seeds.
I do think a lot of it depends on the sensitivity of your taste buds. Sometimes omitting an ingredient is noticeable, other times I think it doesn’t make too much difference.
Finally, those influencers on TikTok who throw a zillion ingredients in their recipe are just making sh*t up and stealing from one another.
now get off my lawn.
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Jeff Gill said on August 23, 2023 at 12:10 pm
Cumin is hard to find around here. Blank slot in two stores. Had to buy insanely expensive “organic” cumin, twice the price ($8 instead of the usual $4 a bottle goes for now). Is there a cumin shortage like the rooster sauce troubles?
I make hummus with cumin, which I know isn’t to everyone’s taste, but I gotta have it.
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Dorothy said on August 23, 2023 at 12:26 pm
Jeff I imagine you don’t get to Columbus very often, but if you do, try to remember to stop by Penzey’s, a fabulous store that sells spices. They do online ordering, too. I used to think they started in Pittsburgh because that was the first location I ever visited. But now they’re in lots of places. I’m positive they’d have cumin. They sell in small bottles, large bottles, and cellophane bags that is economical – you get the bags after you have bought a glass or plastic bottle of the spice. Almost our entire spice cabinet is made up of Penzey’s products. You’d love all the options they have!
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-to-pronounce-turmeric_n_584eba41e4b0bd9c3dfd8091#
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Julie Robinson said on August 23, 2023 at 12:26 pm
We used to buy our spices in the bulk section of the coop in Fort Wayne. You could buy a little or a lot and they were pretty cheap too. Haven’t found an equivalent here, or any place that carries ground celery. Not celery salt, not celery seeds, just ground celery. First world problems.
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susan said on August 23, 2023 at 12:45 pm
Jeff, are there any Mexican food stores in your area? They’d have bags of cumin seeds. And I agree about cumin in hummus. That’s the way I make it, too. I toast them a bit in a cast-iron pan on top of the stove. You know what makes your hummus even better? Cook your own garbanzos. What a difference that makes, compared to using canned beans.
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alex said on August 23, 2023 at 12:49 pm
I swear by Penzey’s India Ground Cumin. Very fragrant and puts anything in a jar in a grocery store to shame. First got turned on to the brand when I lived in Chicago and I restock on spices every so often at their store in Indy or I order online. Big fan of their steak seasoning and salad dressing dry mixes as well.
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David C said on August 23, 2023 at 1:46 pm
I’ve been to Penzey’s warehouse in Milwaukee. It’s the best smelling place in the world. You look out the window between the store and the warehouse and see huge burlap bags full of spices from all over the world. Added bonus is Bill Penzey pisses off the RWNJs.
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Suzanne said on August 23, 2023 at 2:16 pm
I LOVE Penzey’s! I wish there was a store near me, but no such luck. I need to order soon to replace some of the spices that apparently didn’t make the move or if they did, I can’t find them. I am waiting for a good deal but I can’t hold out much longer. Their spices are great!
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ROGirl said on August 23, 2023 at 2:29 pm
There’s a Penzey’s nearby, I also shop at a Middle Eastern (Chaldean) grocery store that has a huge selection of bulk spices, grains, beans, nuts, etc.
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Deborah said on August 23, 2023 at 3:48 pm
My go to place for spices in Chicago is the Spice House on North Wells, it smells fantastic on almost the whole block. It’s an offshoot of Penzey’s somehow. There’s another spice place in Santa Fe called Savory Spice Shop which is also an offshoot of Penzey’s so we can get a lot of the same things in either place. The difference is some of the combos, for instance LB likes a mix called Lake Shore Drive in the Chicago Spice House that you can’t get other places, so I buy it for her and send it or bring it in my luggage when I fly to Santa Fe.
Jeff G, are you still going to be in NM Labor Day weekend? If so, the weather is pretty good, maybe even a little rain.
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David C said on August 23, 2023 at 4:52 pm
The Spice House is owned by Bill Penzey Jr.’s sister. The Spice House was the original founded by Bill Penzey Sr. Bill Jr. broke away to form his own company and is the larger of the two. Bill is political, his sister isn’t. There’s said to be some tension between the two.
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alex said on August 23, 2023 at 6:03 pm
As long as Bill shares my politics, and has the balls to tell Trumpers he doesn’t give two shits about losing them as customers, I will be a devoted patron.
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David C said on August 23, 2023 at 6:13 pm
Damn straight, Alex. I’m sure he doesn’t care if they buy their salt and pepper from him or from Kroger.
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Brandon said on August 23, 2023 at 9:00 pm
There’s said to be some tension between the two.
There is.
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LAMary said on August 23, 2023 at 10:15 pm
There’s a huge supermarket a half mile downhill from me. They accommodate the gentrifiers now but originally they were all about the Mexican/Guatamalan/Colombian customers. Now they do a great job for both. Excellent fresh herbs, lots of cumin, ground, seeds, whatever you want. Mexican and Italian oregano. Chilis dried and fresh and many varieties, lemons, limes, at least two varieties of each and excellent tomatoes. Always. They also sell my secret vice, squeezy frozen coconut milk bolis. You know those nasty fruit flavored things in a clear plastic tube? These are much much better. They also have Korean popsicles in flavors like green melon. Northeast LA is still great. Even if there are places selling bagels for eight dollars each and pizzas for 60 bucks.
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Suzanne said on August 24, 2023 at 9:04 am
Pretty much sums up living in Indiana.
https://jodybritten.medium.com/the-bubble-75bb65882b6f
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Jeff Borden said on August 24, 2023 at 10:28 am
My idea of watching the RNC debate last night was conceived as something that would be fun. And some of it was. . .who was the bigger asshole, Ramaswamy or DeathSantis. . .Christie got off a couple of shots. . .Haley was eloquent in defending aid to Ukraine. But, overall, I found myself depressed and downbeat.
All but two of them –Christie and Hutchinson– signaled they would again support a traitorous bastard facing 91 indictments in four different jurisdictions, the only *president in history to refuse to transfer power peacefully and the mastermind behind the defiling of our Capitol. All reinforced their support for a national abortion ban and a pox on Scott for suggesting states where it’s illegal allow the procedure up to the moment of birth. None addressed climate change. Or economic inequality. Or the epidemic of gun violence. Or the declining faith in our elections. Or the rapid growth of hate crimes and eliminationist rhetoric. Or the role the most powerful nation in the world should play on the global stage. . . aside from the pinheads who declared all other nations must pay up for our protection. Or science denial. . .unless you count Ramaswamy declaring climate change “a hoax.”
This is not a party equipped for the future. This is not a party reading the national zeitgeist. This is not a party willing to grapple with vexing problems that require nuanced and multi-layered approaches. All of them remain slaves to “the base,” and if there were a better word to describe fans of tRumpism, I can’t imagine what it is.
I wouldn’t vote for any of them.
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FDChief said on August 24, 2023 at 10:47 am
Oh, they “addressed” climate change, alright; none of them – 0 for 8! – raised their hand to agree that’s it’s even a thing.
This is the “China climate hoax” strain of GQP run wild. This IS the Republican “climate policy”; drill, baby, drill.
The rest of the nonsense is just garbage. But that? Climate is the existential problem of our times, our Hitler, and the GQP is determined to be our Chamberlin.
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Julie Robinson said on August 24, 2023 at 12:43 pm
Didn’t watch and don’t care to give them any of my energy. One of them will win the nomination and will be a crap candidate we must work to defeat. The end.
Instead I would like to give thanks for the life of Mimi Rolland, who by all accounts humanized Ian, late head of Lincoln Financial. Lincoln became a progressive employer with huge impact, and the Rollands started a group that pushed the school system to make massive changes, starting with full integration. They also gave lavishly to arts groups. They weren’t perfect but they were pretty good people.
Mimi arrived at our little non-profit one year in the midst of never ending winter, an office built from everyone’s garage discards. Nothing matched, everything looked cheap and ugly, no windows whatsoever, old fluorescent lighting. In a fit of desperation I had taped calendar pages of landscapes and flowers on the walls, and bless her, she went right for those, commenting on the colors and the composition and how much they added to the office. She boosted my spirits considerably that day, and I’d guess that was typical of her.
Mimi and Ian owned many priceless works of art, but she chose to notice my feeble efforts instead of the ugliness around her. Cheers to Mimi.
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Suzanne said on August 24, 2023 at 1:21 pm
I didn’t watch the debate but I have read bits about it. I can’t understand the mentality of these people who apparently agreed that Pence did the right thing on Jan 6 but also said they support the man who urged Pence to do the wrong thing & wanted him dead. I understand it’s politics & spin but this is brain dead politics.
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alex said on August 24, 2023 at 1:37 pm
Thanks for that link, Suzanne. My brother and his former wife bought their first home in Fishers 30-some years ago, back when it was rural and unspoiled. I see the same kind of rampant development headed toward my little piece of paradise, and there’s just no escaping it, nor the neo-fascist political haze that seems to have stalled over this part of the midwest.
Didn’t bother with the debates or with the Tucker Carlson freak show, but I’m glad to read that everyone had their knives out for Ramaswamy. His shit keeps popping up on my Facebook feed and he’s nuttier than all of them. When he boasted that he was polling evenly with Pence and ahead of Haley in the competition with Trump, I commented that it’s like polling evenly with syphilis and ahead of emphysema in a ranking of what’s less unpleasant than having stage IV cancer.
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Scout said on August 24, 2023 at 2:13 pm
I don’t know how we even call what happened last night a ‘debate’. Every single one of them are or have been apologists for the apocalypse of hate and stupidity the orange tumor unleashed on this country. None of them, as pointed out in previous comments, addressed anything that really matters. None of them stood up for women’s rights, voting rights, children’s rights not to be terrorized by gun violence, or the super biggie, the planet in decline due to climate change. They’re all empty suits hoping trump dies or ends up in jail so they can cash in on replacing him.
I love that Bill Penzey Jr took a stance. He has more integrity in his pinky finger than all of those enempathic dipshits on that stage last night plus the empty headed clown that did his own pathetic shitshow.
When people say taking a political stance is alienating half the country that is inaccurate. At this point only 25% of Americans identify as Republicans, only 25% as Democrats and the rest identify as Independents. So when the media breathlessly reports that 70% of Republicans support trump that is not even close to half the country. I’m aware that many Independents lean more right than left, but the fact they don’t want to identify as Rs makes me believe they are not in the cult and won’t vote for more treason, chaos and hate.
If you haven’t read Dr Richardson’s letter this morning, I am linking it below. The policy grownups we have working for us right now do not get the recognition they deserve. Hell, we ALL deserve for the media to do a better job reporting just-the-facts about what this admin is doing instead of the 24/7 firehose of trump’s BS they’re constantly shoving down our throats. No wonder we can’t move on, they won’t stop giving him the oxygen he demands. No wonder those 8 poor dumb muthafuquers are polling waaaaay behind the cult leader.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-23-2023
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Little Bird said on August 24, 2023 at 3:29 pm
The Spice shop in Santa Fe apparently is owned by someone who learned the trade from The Spice House in Chicago. At least that’s what I understood when I spoke to the owner shortly after it opened. I might have misunderstood what she said. The Santa Fe shop has some great stuff, but it pales in comparison to the Chicago store. Also the Chicago store suffered a fairly bad fire several years back, which is an absolute shame, the scents by that that point must have permeated the floorboards, I can only imagine how the fire must have smelled.
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Sherri said on August 24, 2023 at 3:38 pm
I want to tell a good story, about something happening in my backyard.
Let’s go back to the early 70s, when the aerospace downturn led to Boeing layoffs, and the Eastside suburbs of Seattle were bedroom communities full of Boeing workers. Some of those laid off Boeing workers got together to help each other out, and from that an organization called Hopelink was formed, which today is the major social services agency on the Eastside (and where my daughter works, in the energy assistance program.)
In the early 90s, a strip mall in Redmond was for sale, and Hopelink and a few other nonprofits and community leaders created a new nonprofit called the Together Center to buy this strip mall and create a nonprofit center, a one-stop place for differing nonprofits to find below market space and clients to find services.
Thirty years later, the Together Center paid off the mortgage on the by now deteriorating strip mall, and took a leap of faith. Instead of selling the by now very valuable property, they redeveloped it. This meant a significant capital campaign, for an organization that had no donor base, just goodwill. They succeeded, and this September 9, the grand opening of the new Together Center will be held, with 20 nonprofits and 280 affordable housing units, in the heart of downtown Redmond!
I’m grateful for the people who showed vision for what could be, even when things looked dark, and all the people along the way who have made it happen!
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Dorothy said on August 24, 2023 at 3:56 pm
I am teaching a neighbor to knit. Today she came over for lesson #2. We were supposed to knit last week but she told me her brother was giving her all kinds of problems (he lives in assisted living) and could we reschedule. So today after she sat down I said “How’s your brother?” And out spilled a story.
Apparently this guy is being via Facebook Messenger by someone who says she’s in love with him, and wants to be with him. It’s been going on for a few months now. But of course (as you can predict) now all of a sudden she needs money. First it was $300. Then it was $10,000. My neighbor is telling him it’s a scam – probably some man in Asia and now her brother is an easy mark. He’s lonely and anxious and mad that his wife divorced him, his health is shaky, and he wants someone to come take care of him and get him out of Assisted Living. He’s never even seen a picture. Guess why?
I feel like there HAS to be some way my neighbor can intervene and report this scam to Facebook. I asked if she can do a screen shot of the person’s account. I am not sure if neighbor knows how to do that. She’s same age as me, a retired OR nurse, but somewhat backward when it comes to technology.
She told me her brother’s first name and I found him in her friends list in seconds. I did a screen shot. Is there a way for ME to notify Facebook about this guy’s interactions with someone in Messenger? I feel like I want to help her because she’s at her wit’s end. His own son has already cut off a relationship with his dad because he called at 4 AM recently to ask his son to get $$ out of the bank to help him. What are her options? Does anyone know?
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Jeff Gill said on August 24, 2023 at 4:24 pm
Dorothy, there is effectively nothing that can be done externally. Only a full court press on the person being scammed, to convince them of what they don’t want to believe, is going to resolve this. You can report them if they’re saying they are Jon Bon Jovi and in love with them (that’s happened), but even if you can find and prove the person is using a fake name and a stolen profile pic, you can’t even get the account shut down. And often, in the face of overwhelming evidence, they’ll scream at YOU for not understanding their love, and the nature of their relationship, and shut you out.
Then you hope that some quiet day they come back and say “help, I think this is not right” and you do what you can then.
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Dorothy said on August 24, 2023 at 5:03 pm
I had a sinking feeling this was going to be the case, Jeff. Thanks for confirming. He’s 72, and refuses to listen when his sister tells him it’s not a real relationship. He did not send $10,000 (he doesn’t have it but thought his sister would lend it to him), but twice now he had her help him send $300 in Walmart Gift Cards, which of course ‘she’ claims she didn’t receive. He says everyone at the assisted living home hates him because he supports Trump. Imagine this story being multiplied by the hundreds and we see what a sad world many senior citizens find themselves living in. His sister is about ready to wash her hands of him. I asked if there were other siblings, and she has a sister in Tennessee.
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Sherri said on August 24, 2023 at 5:09 pm
Even if by some miracle, you were able to get that account shut down, there would be another one. And another one. And one after that. Because her brother is an easy mark, and social media is full of these scammers.
I regularly get friend requests (which I reject) from totally bogus accounts, and people who follow me on Instagram to DM me (whom I have to block.) And I’m not even all that active. Someone who is unhappy, unwilling to face the reality of their situation, and looking for someone to rescue them from that reality, would be bombarded with scammers.
(An aside, the flip side, a friend of mine in her mid-60s who is a widow, has gone on dating sites looking for companionship and someone to do things with, and has mostly found men looking for, in her words, a nurse with a purse.)
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Deborah said on August 24, 2023 at 5:28 pm
Sherri, great story about the Together Center, does my heart good.
Dorothy, that’s a sad story about scammers taking advantage of the elderly.
Seeing all of the mug shots is crazy, mainly I’m waiting to find out how much Trump weighs when he gets arraigned, I’ve read that there are bets out there that he’s up to as much as 275.
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Julie Robinson said on August 24, 2023 at 5:52 pm
Sherri, groups like Together Center are holding back the dike for so many. Good on them. And I get those IG requests too, almost everyday. It skeeves me out and I stopped using it altogether for several months. I still only post sporadically. Our nephew works in computer security and says we also shouldn’t be on Facebook for the same reason.
Dorothy, scammers work at it full time and your neighbor’s brother sounda like an easy mark. Sis can stand firm about not helping him send gift cards, but ultimately there isn’t much else she can do.
I’m betting Trump is north of 275.
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Dorothy said on August 24, 2023 at 5:57 pm
What do you suppose Melanoma does around the residence when Dumpy has to jet off to one arraignment after another? Does she rearrange the furniture so he trips over it when he comes back home? Does she go out shopping and come back laden down with bag after bag after bag and then hides them in one of the 26 closets in that place? Or maybe she just stores them on the stage now that all the boxes of documents are cleared out of the way. Maybe she goes into his makeup drawer in his bathroom and messes it up, or adds dirt from the garden into his foundation? It’s fun to think about all the possible things she could get into, isn’t it?
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Deborah said on August 24, 2023 at 6:28 pm
I suspect that Melania is laughing all the way to the bank. Will she ever divorce him? I suppose it depends on how generous her prenup is.
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Scout said on August 24, 2023 at 7:30 pm
My guess for the tumor’s weight pool is 305.
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Dave said on August 24, 2023 at 7:39 pm
This lady lives down the street from me and went public with her story, which I imagine most folks would never do. I know other folks in the neighborhood who told her that it was very suspicious and tried their very best to get her to quit sending the scammer money but she was headstrong and thought she’d found a true late-life love. She’s a widow who moved down here from Michigan, where she’d lived all of her life, to be close to her only child and family.
https://www.wrtv.com/news/wrtv-investigates/i-fell-in-love-westfield-woman-83-heartbroken-after-losing-98k-in-online-romance-scam
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FDChief said on August 24, 2023 at 8:22 pm
So the leadership of the Wagner Orchestra seems to have found out the hard way that Putin don’t do “forgive and forget”. You take his coin, you stay bought.
I wonder if any of the Eight Dwarfs on stage last night thought about what that means for the GQP..?
The climate stupidity is worse for the rest of us. But for these traitor wannabes..?
And I’m sorry we’re missing the Poolwatch pics, if just for the hair-tossing/slow-motion-running-with-the-plastic-torpedo-thingy-on-a-rope…
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Deborah said on August 24, 2023 at 9:41 pm
What? Somehow Trump’s weight is listed in Fulton Co at 215 and he’s 6’3″. Can that be accurate? When my husband was his heaviest in 2000 he weighed about 215 and he was 5’11”, now he weighs about 160 at the most, but when he weighed 215 he was a lot thinner looking than Trump. Did they let Trump declare his own weight and height? Weird, doesn’t seem possible.
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Peter said on August 24, 2023 at 9:55 pm
Deborah, he was allowed to give his own height and weight, and that’s what he said.
If what he said it true (bear with me for a minute…) that would mean he’s the same height and weight of Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson.
Sure………
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alex said on August 24, 2023 at 10:08 pm
Our hearts go out to elderly widows being scammed by soulless sociopaths, but not so much for middle-aged rubes victimized in much the same manner by Republican pols. Just sayin’. Maybe what Trumpers really need is not our contempt but our pity. Perhaps that will convince a plurality of them to self-correct. Worth a try.
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Julie Robinson said on August 24, 2023 at 10:34 pm
ABC News solemnly reported the Secret Service had security concerns about the amount of time he spent on the inside. Therefore his team was allowed to fill out part of the form in advance. Others similarly self reported height, weight and hair colors that were obviously false. But supposedly he was fingerprinted.
Really, the jokes just write themselves.
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Sherri said on August 24, 2023 at 11:58 pm
I will say that in addition to the obviously fake accounts sending friend requests and the like, I do also occasionally get DMs from guys who appear to be real people, wanting to chat and be friends. Not nearly as often as my younger, cuter female friends, but still. Those get an automatic block as well; why do men think I would want to chat with them when I don’t know them? Telling them no doesn’t work, you have to block them.
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Dexter Friend said on August 25, 2023 at 2:09 am
Trump is at least 330 pounds, He’s a fat fuck.
I quoted DeSantis’s rant about storming across the Rio Grande and killing drug mules, cartel heads, and drug-lab workers “on DAY ONE !!”.
And Facebook warned me. Me ! Let them warn DeSantis. What the FUCK!? “Hate speech”. “Violation of community standards” I was just reporting on the world-watched debate. I love ever’body, darlin’…don’t chew worry none about little ol’ me….
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LAMary said on August 25, 2023 at 10:11 am
The mean face trump is doing for his mugshot reminds me of little kids trying to look scary and mean. His reputation for acting like a huge toddler seems to apply to everything he does.
Who knows what Melanoma might score if she dumps his orange ass. I doubt he has any assets that he hasn’t mortgaged or lied about owning. Melanoma can keep that Golden Girls caftan thing she wore to fly out of DC.
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Jenine said on August 25, 2023 at 10:32 am
Advice tangent from spice convo above – don’t take massive amounts of turmeric (however you pronounce it) as a supplement. It’s marketed as an alternative health treatment for detoxing (of course). Toxicologist Dr. Josh Trebach [https://twitter.com/jtrebach] has warned about turmeric poisoning. Using generous amounts as a spice is fine, just don’t eat weirdly huge amounts.
Noting here that anyone reading who is 300# or better is still a worthy human being. And yes, I’m glad DJT is ‘engaged in the justice process’.
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Suzanne said on August 25, 2023 at 10:59 am
My cancer treatments affected my liver to the point that I had to have a number of tests, including a liver biopsy. In the end, it was fine, just that all the chemo made my liver very angry. It finally calmed down & all is well. I bring this up to add to Jenine’s comment above because every GI specialist I saw asked me if I took any supplements. They all told me how bad most are for you and how you really don’t know what is in them. One doctor particularly warned against green tea supplements & said it’s super bad for the liver.
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Mark P said on August 25, 2023 at 11:17 am
Trump’s mugshot name: Pouty McPoutface. Or is that Pouty McLardbutt?
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ROGirl said on August 25, 2023 at 11:46 am
He’s a whiny bitch, too.
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alex said on August 25, 2023 at 12:14 pm
I like the new mugshot. His mouth looks like a butthole in most of his photos and it’s nice to see it shut for once.
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Jeff Gill said on August 25, 2023 at 12:27 pm
I’m 6’5″ and was last 215 in the Marine Corps, where they were very helpful with fitness guidance & exercise options. My driver’s license still says 240 and sadly that’s not true, but I’m not going to argue with them over five pounds. There’s no way Trump is less than 280, more like 300 plus; I said this elsewhere on social and had a Trumpy friend say something about how he’s been working out (no idea, didn’t ask) and had I seen him lately — my response was yes, I saw a picture of him golfing from two weeks ago in a tucked-in polo shirt, and he looked 320 easily. There was no rejoinder.
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Sherri said on August 25, 2023 at 12:45 pm
Trump isn’t 6’3”, either. Look at pictures of Trump and Obama standing together. Obama is 6’2”, and to my eye, is taller.
Maybe once upon a time, Trump was 6’3”, but he’s closer to 6’1” now. You do get shorter as you age.
The ridiculous combover and the bad tailoring and the orange makeup doesn’t make him look younger and more svelte, it just draws attention to what he thinks he’s hiding.
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David C said on August 25, 2023 at 1:06 pm
Trump working out is a joke. I’ve hear he’s told others that he believes that you’re allocated a number of heartbeats in you life and you waste them by exercising.
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Jeff Borden said on August 25, 2023 at 1:18 pm
What cracks me up about tRumpanzees is how they picture him as a physical stud. You’ve all seen him photoshopped onto the body of Rambo, Rocky, a superhero. . .yet he is clearly very flabby, reputedly wears lifts in his shoes (which contributes to that odd forward-leaning cant of his), dyes his hair (even daughter Ivanka has laughed about his use of Just For Men) and wears as much makeup as a drag queen. Yes, he plays a lot of golf, but always drives a golf cart and, according to Rick Reilly’s book on how the orange tumor plays, “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains tRump,” he even drives onto the greens, which I’m told is a big no-no in golf. And let’s not even bring up his steady consumption of greasy fast food and Diet Cokes.
My guess: 6-foot-1, 290 pounds.
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Julie Robinson said on August 25, 2023 at 1:54 pm
Jenine, I don’t think anyone is fat shaming here. I readily admit that I share that status. What we’re commenting on is the ridiculous lies about his height and weight. Someone put up a comparison picture with a professional athlete (maybe a football player?) who is reported as the same height and weight. Said athlete was muscular with a six pack. For years Trump has made fun of others as fat, while refusing to see the fat plank in his own eye. (Matthew 7:3-5, about judging others.)
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Deborah said on August 25, 2023 at 2:33 pm
And he thinks his long red ties are slimming.
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LAMary said on August 25, 2023 at 2:35 pm
I’m no sylph myself. I’m not fat shaming Trump. I’m calling him a liar. And a silly vain one at that.
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LAMARY said on August 25, 2023 at 2:47 pm
…and he should have held a flashlight below his face to look reeeealy scary in his mugshot.
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Mark P said on August 25, 2023 at 3:12 pm
Trump to someone at one of his rallies in 2019: “That guy’s got a serious weight problem. Go home. Start exercising.”
Trump at a recent rally: “Christie, he’s eating right now. He can’t be bothered. Sir (to a person who called out at the rally), please do not call him a fat pig. I’m trying to be nice. Don’t call him a fat pig. You can’t do that.”
Trump is the most self-unaware person in public today. He has often shamed people he considers fat. He needs a little of his own medicine.
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Scout said on August 25, 2023 at 4:30 pm
Calling out tumorump for his ludicrous claim he’s 6’3″ and 215 is not fat shaming, it’s LIE SHAMING. Y’all might enjoy this compilation.
https://twitter.com/CalltoActivism/status/1695096855657316433?s=20
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Deborah said on August 25, 2023 at 5:09 pm
The way Trump has an unrealistic perception of how weird he looks is a mental illness, I think.
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Dorothy said on August 25, 2023 at 8:19 pm
None of us are fat shaming him at all. I have no room to talk. But as Mary and others said, it’s his lying about it that we all have a problem with. He lies like he breathes – continuously and wouldn’t recognize truths about himself even if he was recorded on video or sound. He denies even things he himself said. His mental illness issues extend waaaaay beyond how he looks.
The best part of these upcoming trials is going to be watching lots of former associates turn on him and rat him out, and it will be delicious to see how it sends him over the edge. Over and over and over again.
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LAMary said on August 25, 2023 at 10:09 pm
He especially calls out overweight women. Women have to look like models or rather sex workers saying they’re models, to please the orange slime.
The money is on Mark Meadows doing a lot of talking. If Rudy wasn’t crazy he would realize that talking would keep him out of prison.
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Deborah said on August 25, 2023 at 11:05 pm
I should have said Trumps inability to perceive the weird way he looks is part of his mental illness, he obviously has many aspects to his malignant narcissism and psychopathy. We’re all very familiar with what those are.
I keep reading mentions that Trump has sold Mar-a-Lago to his business. Is that true and if so what’s up with that?
edit: never mind, I’ve read it’s not true.
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Joe Kobiela said on August 26, 2023 at 8:53 am
Kinda sums up how I feel about this situation.
The betting odds say the next election will likely be a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
It’s odd, since polls show most Americans don’t like either man.
There are good reasons for that.
Trump is simply mean. He humiliates people, taking pleasure in mocking them publicly.
In his real estate work, he’s famous for not paying little people who work for him. He stiffed a cabinet builder, a dishwasher and a plumber. No one is too small to get bad treatment from Trump.
It’s sad that, today, America is so divided. Trump makes that worse.
Of course, Biden is divisive too. Running for office, he promised, “I will draw on the best of us, not the worst.”
But now that he’s president, he does the opposite. He calls his opponents “full of anger, violence, hate and division.” This is drawing on “the best of us”?
Then there are the lies.
Trump lies even about unimportant things, like the crowd at his inauguration, ratings for his TV show, even claiming he won a nonexistent “Man of the Year” award. And of course, he lies about the big things, like winning the last election “by a landslide.”
But Biden lies too. When Georgia required voters to show identification, Biden called that “Jim Crow on steroids.” He said that again and again. But that’s a lie. Jim Crow stopped Black people from voting. After Georgia’s law passed, a poll found “zero percent of Black voters said they had a poor voting experience.”
Biden has long lied to advance himself. He claimed he was “the first in his family ever to go to a university.” But he wasn’t. He plagiarized that line from a British politician.
He lied about his law school performance, saying he graduated in “the top half of (his) class.” He actually ranked 76th out of 85.
He repeatedly says he was arrested at a civil rights protest, but that’s not true.
This year, one cruel lie caught up with him. For years, Biden insisted he had six grandchildren, refusing to acknowledge the seventh, his son Hunter’s daughter, born out of wedlock. Only when even liberal media criticized him did he finally acknowledge the little girl.
Then there’s the corruption.
I hate political prosecutions, but so much of what Trump does is just sleazy. He paid a porn star hush money and lied about it. He refused to return classified documents and lied about that. He pressured Vice President Mike Pence not to certify electors, then whipped his supporters into a frenzy about it.
But Biden is corrupt too. Asked about his son’s work in China, Biden firmly responded, “My son has not made money in … China.”
But his son admits making money from China.
Biden claimed he “never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their business, period.”
But his son’s business partner says Hunter put his father on speakerphone when Hunter met with potential business associates.
Maybe Biden’s lies aren’t lies. Maybe he’s just old and confused. But that’s disturbing too.
Recently, he announced that the United States “plans to build a railroad from the Pacific all the way across the Indian Ocean.” Across the ocean?
On “60 Minutes,” he committed America to a possible war. Asked if “U.S. forces … would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion,” he responded “yes.”
The president’s national security adviser quickly took that back. But it was the fourth time Biden committed the U.S. to a war to defend Taiwan, and the fourth time his staff took it back.
Biden is 80. I’m old, too, but I’m not trying the be president.
Trump is old too. He’s 77, but calls himself “a young vibrant man.” A few years ago, he got a doctor to approve a letter saying Trump would be “the healthiest individual ever elected!” That doctor later admitted that Trump wrote the letter himself.
These are our choices! Two old, corrupt liars? Can’t we do better?
John Stossel is an award-winning news correspondent who was the co-anchor of ABC News’ “20/20.”
john stossel
John Stossel
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alex said on August 26, 2023 at 10:01 am
John Stossel is a right-wing harpy who writes stilted columns and the above is just another stinking burst of flatulence out of his tired ass.
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jcburns said on August 26, 2023 at 10:04 am
Joe, I’m confused. Is most of your comment pasted in from John Stossel? I’m really not interested on his take on Biden…it’s clear that he doesn’t like him. Well, OK.
I think Joe Biden and team have done a lot to rebuild our economy and infrastructure. Are you in favor of that? I sure am.
Do you care about Joe Biden’s son? I don’t. Don’t think Hunter Biden has a thing to do with how we’re functioning as a nation.
Oh, and as a Georgia resident, I DO think the law Biden was criticizing is “Jim Crow on steroids.” A lot of Georgia leaders think so too. So, well.
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Julie Robinson said on August 26, 2023 at 10:52 am
Usually PJ just copies and pastes without attribution, so I guess it’s a step forward? Otherwise, what Alex and jc said.
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FDChief said on August 26, 2023 at 11:25 am
Joe’s diatribe is a perfect example of how utterly fucked we are.
Here’s an utterly unhinged bag of political nonsense larded with dangerously stupid ideas about everything from climate change to human gender on one side.
And a bog-standard US politician on the other.
And Joe (or his ChatGPT) wants us to both sides that shit, and he’s one of 70-odd million Americans who are all in with that, too.
It’s like you’ve got contractors working on your house and one group might be using some substandard lumber while the other is making sheetrock out of dynamite.
I’m fine that not everyone is down with taxes.
But that there’s a huge group of my supposed-fellow-citizens who want to run our country on their whacko MAGA nonsense?
There’s no bothsidesing that, and only a dishonest broker would even try.
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Suzanne said on August 26, 2023 at 1:19 pm
Pilot Joe, testimony from Hunter Biden’s business partner shoots down the notion that Pres Biden was involved in the business.
“However, though pressed repeatedly, Archer offered no tangible evidence that Joe Biden’s role in his son’s work was more than saying hello during their daily family calls.”
https://apnews.com/article/hunter-biden-congress-oversight-republicans-devon-archer-16bab963461fe48ee3baccc51e693c9c
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Diane said on August 26, 2023 at 2:12 pm
The thing that is so disappointing about pilot Joe is that he is intelligent and yet thinks repeating incomplete, out of context garbage hobbled together by a hack like Stossel is something persuasive. It is people like Pilot Joe that make me worry about the future of American democracy.
Intelligent people who are happy with nonsense just because it says what they want to hear are the problem.
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jcburns said on August 26, 2023 at 2:16 pm
I’m just hoping that there WON’T be a moment where Joe Kobiela says “surprise! I’m really John Stossel!”
I like our Joe Kobiela WAY more than that. Also, I read his posts on the Trains magazine site and they are entertaining and informed, although sometimes as poorly-typed as the ones here.
But I’m also a big Joe Biden fan, so…
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Jeff Borden said on August 26, 2023 at 7:12 pm
John Stossel? John Fucking Stossel? The libertarian loon asshole? How very “Wrong Way” Corrigan. He’s such a douchenozzle I actually laughed when he was hurt by a pro wrestler when Stossel called him a fake to his face. What a dumbass.
There isn’t a human alive who hasn’t lied. The one fib the aviator states by Biden was absolutely plagiarism from a British politician. Oooooh, that’s scary, as the great Count Floyd would say, and it happened, what, 30 years ago? Did Hunter Biden try to cash in on daddy’s name? Yes. Certainly, not to the extent of Tweedledumb and Tweedledee (Donny Cokehead Jr. and Eric) and not even in the same universe as Prince Jared and Princess Nepotism. Fine. Throw him in prison. I don’t care. He’s a fuck up. But nothing Biden has done. . .not one fucking thing. . .compares with the orange tumor’s efforts at treason and sedition. The whole QOP slate. . .including the aviator’s crush Ron DeathSantis. . .is typhoid in human form. The party is cancerous. Hazardous to the national health. May disaster befall it at every level.
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ROGirl said on August 27, 2023 at 8:30 am
I was on jury duty a few weeks ago, and while it was a pretty straightforward case (with some unusual details) that only took one day, everyone on the jury took it seriously. We went into the jury room not agreeing on much and worked through the evidence carefully (asked to view some video of the incident several times) before everyone agreed, and rendering our verdict. Everyone was treated fairly and respectfully, and the legal system worked.
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basset said on August 27, 2023 at 10:08 am
Last time I was on a jury, and it’s been awhile, our count was 11-1 in favor of conviction after the first half hour in the jury room, and stayed that way the rest of the day and into the next because of one juror whose only contribution to the discussion was to repeat “I can’t vote to convict a black man.” And that was all he’d say, no explanation or anything. So no verdict from us, the case (street drug sales) got rolled in with several other offenses and the defendant did a plea bargain on the whole package.
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FDChief said on August 27, 2023 at 10:47 am
For some reason I never get picked for jury duty. Got called maybe 20 years ago, spent the day in the waiting room, never got picked.
My Bride is a jury-duty magnet; she’s been called up maybe half a dozen times, picked for a jury twice.
Her second involved a woman who’d kited checks. Her guilt was obvious, and the bulk of the jury was baffled that she’d insisted on a (or her PD had let her go to) trial.
But it was her lucky day; several of the jurors spend the entire deliberation period inventing ridiculous explanations for how the woman hadn’t done what she’d obviously done. The foreperson reminded them that the standard was a REASONABLE doubt, not “any utterly whack doubt you can pull out of your backside”. No good; the jury was deadlocked and the State of Oregon was on the hook to try this petty crook again.
Go figure…
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David C said on August 27, 2023 at 11:46 am
The closest I’ve ever been to jury duty is calling the hotline and being told that all the cases that week had been settled and I was off the hook for another three years.
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Mark P said on August 27, 2023 at 12:00 pm
I was on one jury and an alternate on another. It was not a rewarding experience. As a retiree, I might have had time to serve on a jury, but I had to opt out as an old person, although the real reason was that I can’t leave my wife at home alone that long.
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Little Bird said on August 27, 2023 at 1:05 pm
I got called for Jury duty about a month ago. I couldn’t go because I had shingles. But my doctors note never made it to them and I got a notice that I could be fined $500 and/or serve six months in jail. We FINALLY got it sorted out, they finally got the note and I was cleared. Here in New Mexico you get a mailed notice. Have to go online to register and then you can be required to show up at any time for the next THREE MONTHS. And it’s a complicated process.
But I honestly couldn’t go, any of the other people there could have been severely immunocompromised, or had never had chickenpox or the vaccine. I wasn’t in particular discomfort, but I couldn’t risk infecting anyone else.
I’ve been called for jury duty before, in Chicago, but never even got interviewed for a trial. Just sat in a room for 8 hours with a bunch of other people.
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Julie Robinson said on August 27, 2023 at 1:50 pm
Called lots of times, served only once and still have occasional nightmares of the brain splattered radio that we passed around from jury member to jury member. Will decline to serve again if called to a criminal case. Call me over sensitive but I am what I am.
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Deborah said on August 27, 2023 at 1:56 pm
Called for jury duty a few times in various places I’ve lived, have been on jury panels but never got chosen, always wanted to be.
We’re having a glorious day in Santa Fe, clear skies but I wish it would rain. Some of the things we planted are coming to the end of their growing season so I won’t be as obsessed with hoping for rain.
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Sherri said on August 27, 2023 at 3:05 pm
Served on a jury roughly 30 years ago, and it was pretty awful. A child molestation case. When we began deliberations, one of the jury members couldn’t handle it, and deliberately did something to get herself kicked off the jury. So we had to begin deliberations again with the alternate.
I’ve only received one summons since then, but didn’t have to report.
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basset said on August 27, 2023 at 4:20 pm
If my experience is any guide… you don’t want to make a restroom stop as you’re all heading from the judge’s instructions to the jury room. Did that on another case, and by the time i got there everyone else had already elected me foreman.
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Dave said on August 27, 2023 at 5:20 pm
I’ve been summoned for jury duty three times, the first time I was excused and the second time, the defendant’s lawyer thought I might be too safety-conscious. I also got a summons for federal jury duty once after I retired, when we still lived in Fort Wayne but were spending winters in Florida. I called and asked if it was cast in stone and should I plan on not going to Florida but was told I was excused, they weren’t in the business of canceling retirees spending the winter in Florida.
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Dorothy said on August 27, 2023 at 6:45 pm
Twice I have been selected for jury duty but both times I was excused. First time was because I was nursing a baby, and had never offered a bottle since I was a stay-at-home mom. The second time I was babysitting in my house for three other kids, and if I’d had to go to jury duty, other families would have had their job attendance impacted, too, so was allowed to miss that time. Now I’d really love to do it. Fingers crossed I get picked sometime.
I used to be secretary to a patent attorney. We had a nice law library as part of our department and on my lunch break sometimes, I’d read some of the cases in the legal journals we had on the shelves. It’s likely that if I HAD gone to the courthouse back when I was selected, I would probably have been excused because I’ve heard that if you have a family member in law enforcement (one of the screening questions they ask), my answer would have sent me home. My brother Dave was an FBI special agent at that time. He’s retired now.
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