The new year — Eve and Day — is one where a certain amount of reflection is almost required. Doing laundry yesterday, I started thinking about the turn of the millennium. In…I think September 1999, a major water main in Fort Wayne ruptured, cutting off service to a big chunk of the city. And how did the affected customers respond? By fleeing to grocery stores to buy up all the bottled water, and yes, I think there were shoving matches here and there over the last case on the shelves.
It didn’t bode well for the feared Y2K bug, coming at the end of the year.
Remember that? Millions of words of fear-mongering, warning that nuclear reactors could melt down, business records disappear (including your life savings), and yes, infrastructure that keeps life going – like municipal water systems – would similarly fail. Advertising for survival goods like dehydrated food, water purification filters and 24-hour candles soared. It was a big topic.
We had a recently turned 3-year-old, wonderful neighbors, and cable television. When the new year began arriving in the Pacific, the celebrations, yes I said celebrations, started. And it was beautiful. CNN covered the rolling party, and as the day wore on, we watched fireworks, bell-ringing and parties breaking out, hour after hour, as the disaster failed to arrive. Tokyo, Sydney, Beijing, across Asia to Moscow, Eastern Europe, Western Europe (Paris’ fireworks were particularly wonderful), Africa. That was the night I learned that Canada’s Maritime provinces have this weird half-hour time hiccup, but that just meant another batch of live party video at the bottom of the hour. Finally it was our turn. A neighbor detonated 2,000 firecrackers in the street, which I feared would awaken Kate but didn’t. We went to bed and got up early to learn what we already knew – that those who had crouched in their basements fearing the worst had been wrong. Life would go on. The computers didn’t fail. The center held.
We had not quite two years of believing that life would get better and peace would reign until al-Qaida changed everything, but it was fun while it lasted. I think of that New Year’s Eve from time to time as kind of a platonic ideal. We made a nice dinner, we drank champagne, we kissed at midnight, we went to bed, we woke up happy and safe.
I hope yours was like that.
As for the Nall-Derringer Co-Prosperity Sphere, this year we went out. For the first time in years. Kate’s band was playing with two others we like at a local club. The theme of the evening was Playboy After Dark, an excuse to get dressed up, and we did. Alan leaned all the way in with a smoking jacket, captain’s cap and gold chain. I just wore a nice dress. Kate, as a performer, went a little further:
The other bands that night were pretty hard core, and they sounded great and loud, but not so loud we couldn’t have a conversation at our table in the back. Here’s Will, Kate’s high-school friend, who plays in the Stools, hoisting his instrument high while the crowd goes wild:
No good shots of Shadow Show, sorry — it was elbow-to-elbow crowded, and we could only see them from way off to the side. If we don’t get Covid it’ll be a miracle. But I’m not sorry we went. It was the polar opposite of 2000, but NYE 2024 was worth all the trouble. And I got a Stools T-shirt.
P.S. I just remembered a detail from 2000-ish: A Fort Wayne man died and the contents of his house were auctioned. He’d been a Y2K paranoiac, and his basement was stacked to the ceiling with canned goods, freeze-dried food and other supplies. If you needed 200 rolls of paper towels, cheap, that was your stop. A colleague wrote a story about it.
So! What else is going on in the world? Nikki Haley steps in it again:
On the heels of a very bad week for Nikki Haley, the Republican presidential candidate said she would pardon Donald Trump if he’s convicted of federal crimes. “I would pardon Trump if he is found guilty,” she said at a campaign event in Plymouth, New Hampshire, on Thursday.
“A leader needs to think about what’s in the best interest of the country,” Haley went on. “What’s in the best interest of the country is not to have an 80-year-old man sitting in jail that continues to divide our country. What’s in the best interest of our country is to pardon him so that we can move on as a country and no longer talk about him.”
Yeah, Nikki, ask Gerald Ford how that worked out for him. Of course, I think it would be excellent for the country to have an 80-year-old man sitting in jail, proving we actually have a rule of law and it applies to everyone, but I’m a crazy dreamer.
Otherwise, I’m going to spend the day doing a whole lot of nothing — maybe taking down the Christmas tree — and eating leftovers. Happy New Year to all of our little community, and fingers crossed we’re still standing a year from now.
alex said on January 1, 2024 at 11:18 am
I welcomed the new year by throwing out my low back and I can barely walk.
We went out for dinner, then came home and went to a neighbor’s party and stayed past midnight. Then I came home and suddenly got the inspiration to hang a picture high up on a wall. Something one should never do after having quite a few.
And the bottle of Vicodin I was hoarding for special occasions like this one? Nowhere to be found.
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Little Bird said on January 1, 2024 at 11:21 am
Happy New Year to everyone here. But not to my neighbors who live behind my building. Those people set off some fireworks that couldn’t possibly be rated for amateurs. They set off THREE of the window alarms in different rooms! And, according to Deborah, they set off similar fireworks on the Fourth of July, which caused the window alarm in her room to go off.
But earlier in the evening I held a very small get together with my friends in the building. Everyone brought something to eat and the food was amazing! None of us had any desire to stay up late so everyone was gone by around 9. Oddly, we all forgot about the Prosecco in the fridge.
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Mark P said on January 1, 2024 at 11:26 am
Ah, yes, Y2K. I remember the fear mongering in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Airliners falling out of the sky was my favorite. I could never, and still can’t, understand why no one seemed to look at the experts who were spreading the fear: consultants who could Y2K-proof your computer or your commode. Not long after the world ended on that night, I read that the results were the same in countries that did not spend millions on preparing as in the countries that did. But, hey, all the government codes were Y2K compliant. To this day.
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David C said on January 1, 2024 at 11:56 am
If anyone set off fireworks last night, I slept through it. I’ve been off work for the past little bit over a week and we’ve had one sunny day. Today was supposed to be another but not yet. Fuck the weather gods. I’m sick of gloom.
The Maritime Provinces New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island are on Atlantic time. Newfoundland and Labrador is the only province on the half hour.
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Deborah said on January 1, 2024 at 12:18 pm
Ah yes Y2K has a special memory for me, that New Year’s Day we found our property in Abiquiu, it was the 7th property the agent showed us that day, I think we set it up for New Years Day because we were leaving town to go back to St. Louis where we lived at the time and the agent agreed. We had 4 views we were interested in and would have been happy with any one of those, but when she showed us the one we bought we had all 4 of the views. We started out with 37 acres and kept increasing it until now we have 100. Our neighbors call it Central Park and they’re happy that it didn’t get developed into 10 different lots (covenants wouldn’t allow you to sell less than 10 acres to a plot). We got our acres for a fraction of what it costs now.
We went to a neighbor’s last evening, I thought we’d be back at the cabin by 9, it was actually 7:30 when we returned, but it started at 4. It was a smallish gathering with our favorite neighbors as it turned out, so quite enjoyable.
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Peter said on January 1, 2024 at 1:19 pm
A very Happy New Year to all of you in NN World. Alex, hope you’ll be ambulatory soon.
Oh Nikki, Nikki, Nikki. Although I think the wisdom of Ford’s pardon is debatable, it certainly would be different today if Nixon had sat in a jail cell for some time. Generally speaking, the country did move on after the pardon and didn’t talk about Nixon, but that’s because Ford tried to get the government back to normal, and Nixon took the hint, and by and large stayed silent. That’s not going to happen this time, and everyone knows it.
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Icarus said on January 1, 2024 at 2:36 pm
The difference between reading this blog on an iPhone versus a home computer is easily illustrated by that picture of Kate.
HAPPY 2024!!!
We haven’t stayed up since the kids arrived but last night that changed because they decided they wanted to wait up. It was tough for all of us but we did it. I guess we have turned another corner in the land of parenting.
According to my blog, last year I came back from the break to get two rejections from a couple of roles I was hoping to have the tough spot of choosing between. This year I got a new role back in November. It is another contract position but it has potential, methinks.
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LAMary said on January 1, 2024 at 2:51 pm
Still feeling like crud but son Tom stopped by and I shared with him my favorite NYE song, performed by Allen Sherman. It goes:
I know a man. His name is Lang. He has a neon sign.
And Mr. Lang is very old so they call it old Lang’s Sign.
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ROGirl said on January 1, 2024 at 3:29 pm
NYE 1999 I was in Toronto at my brother’s. He’s a musician and he had a gig playing klezmer music at a cafe. Later we watched the fireworks on the harbor from their 2nd floor back windows.
On New Year’s Day we went to the movies and saw Amelie. It remains one of my faves.
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Suzanne said on January 1, 2024 at 3:41 pm
Happy New Year to all! We got together with relatives, including a niece & her family from Colorado, and made it to midnight! The company included my right wing brother who is the epitome of the angry white man, but we mostly all just ignore him anymore. He doesn’t get the hint but we just go about our business as he blathers on. I no longer want to waste my precious time and mental energy with him, so I don’t.
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Julie Robinson said on January 1, 2024 at 3:51 pm
Little Bird and I are on the same page about the fireworks folks, who didn’t stop until three-ish. I’m just tired, but we had some traumatized animals and a 91 yo who will be complaining all week.
Our daughter had friends over for game night, and our son and DIL went to a game night themselves. Drinking didn’t happen here; possibly did at the other party but they also stayed overnight. In the best tradition of parents, we retreated to the bedroom and watched a movie.
We also got our tree untrimmed. The first batch of guests had little kiddos who got tired of the games and wanted to play a new game called take the ornaments off the tree. We got a couple of bins out and let them play to their hearts content. Because of the cats there were just a few breakables higher than they could reach. Paging Tom Sawyer!
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Jessica said on January 1, 2024 at 3:56 pm
I worked for a computer consulting company at the time, with lots of government clients. The threat was real though rather exaggerated. Many of the critical systems had no usable documentation and were written in obsolete or at least unfashionable computer languages, or even in assembly language. Lots of retirees had a bonanza out of that. We mainly did assessments and handled two or three system conversions.
Had nothing been done, there were real consequences. The places where nothing was done with no consequences were probably those where the infrastructure and programs were developed after 4-digit years were standard. In the US many critical systems were developed when every bit was precious and using 2-digit years saved tons of bits. And nobody thought these systems would still be in use in the next century. That’s the really crazy part.
If computers had come into civilian use at some time other than mid-century, the risks of 2-digit years would have been obvious at the time. Just a bit of bad luck there.
Incidentally, I was on a cross-country flight when the clock turned. The pilot came on at 12:01 and offered everyone a celebratory drink.
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Heather said on January 1, 2024 at 5:10 pm
Happy New Year, everyone! I wish you all peace, joy, and good health in the year to come.
I was going to go to a friend’s small gathering last night, but she had some chest congestion and canceled. She tested negative but wanted to be careful as several friends have fallen victim to Covid yet again. I don’t like going out on NYE so was somewhat relieved. Instead, the boyfriend and I made a fancy dinner–caviar, foie gras, and filet mignon, the last of which we ate with a spicy Laotian sauce he made. All delicious. Stayed up til midnight and I was hoping to see some fireworks in my neighborhood, but alas, only heard some. It snowed a little bit yesterday so it was quite pretty outside and snug inside.
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Joe Kobiela said on January 1, 2024 at 6:25 pm
At midnight last night we had a 80lb Golden Retriever in bed due to the neighborhood reenactment of d-day, 2000 the wife and I took our plane up for a look at all the fireworks, circling over Fort Wayne looked like going into downtown Hanoi during rolling thunder. Got the first run of the year in and a trip to the ymca to lift while the wife walked this morning, currently watching Michigan vs Alabama Rose Bowl game kinda pulling for Michigan in honor of Dexter friend and the big 10.
Pilot Joe
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alex said on January 1, 2024 at 9:04 pm
Remembering Y2K NYE …
Some friends had relocated from Chicago to Cocoa Beach, Florida, and hosted a weeklong house party in their fabulous digs for a bunch of us who had all been part of the same social circle. It was like a cross between Big Brother and The Big Chill. From there, a group of us traveled to Marathon Key and took over the Islamorada, a resort consisting of a bunch of beach cabins, which were mostly vacant. Splendid and memorable, even though we were all smoking copious amounts of weed. I even recall that the weather was somewhat on the chilly side.
Today I managed to host a dinner party despite my infirmities. I can walk okay as long as I’m bent over and keep my low back convex rather than concave.
Funny, I brought up Ann Althouse the other day and a day later saw an old post from the early aughts in which Coozledad savaged her with some inspired lyrics. Wonder what he’s doing now.
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Jeff Gill said on January 1, 2024 at 9:20 pm
This Ohio adherent has to admit that Michigan and, yes, Coach Harbaugh, earned some respect this evening.
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Julie Robinson said on January 1, 2024 at 10:20 pm
It does get chilly here, 48° tonight in fact.
And just as I got into bed the damn fireworks started up again.
We only have one person who ever watches football here, and he knows I won’t tolerate it in the same room as me. The misogyny, the violence, the commercials; none of that is okay.
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FDChief said on January 2, 2024 at 8:44 am
For several years I lived out on Portland’s west side – part of the Tualatin Valley, the suburban enclave over the Portland Hills from the Beehive of Terrorism itself. New Year’s night there was always interesting, because amid the fireworks was a surprisingly large amount of actual gunfire that would have delighted the guests at an Afghanistan wedding party.
One year that included an immense blast that rattled the windows just past midnight; probably pyro but it sounded like someone had upgraded from small arms to an actual cannon, and who doesn’t shoot in the new year with an artillery piece, amiright?
This year I enjoyed a new experience New Year’s Day; loaded the bogu bag and shinai and played two hours of kendo at the Portland Kendo Club’s hatsugeiko, the traditional “first practice” of the new year, followed by a potluck. Great kendo, good training, lots of fun with kendoka from all over Portland plus family, big kid energy, great food, just a terrific way to start off the year.
Hope all here have the same.
And, as always, ceterum (autem) censeo the GOP esse delendam.
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Dexter Friend said on January 2, 2024 at 8:48 am
Had the band taken a break and I was the DJ, I would have queued Allan Sherman’s classic, “You’re Getting to be a Rabbit with Me”.
“You used to be a bunny at The Playboy Club
But you’re getting to be a rabbit with me…”
Y2K for me seemed silly as I was throttled flat by that damn flu in 1999. 2 weeks, lost 28 pounds, sick as hell. Finally at midnight that year, I made it up to the local courthouse lawn for fireworks and a short band concert and speeches. And now, after a Z-pak, steroid burst, vitamins and all, I have relapsed back to feeling about 50% strong. Non-Covid19 virus that is just sweeping this area.
I am just disgusted by Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians. Biden talks of a scaled down process to eliminate evil Hamas, then supplies Netanyahu with bombs to kill every goddam living thing in Gaza. Joy Reid really laid it out the other day…I bet she got scolded for that.
People who love the rapist Trump just do not watch the news. They just like Trump and they hate Biden, I guess because Joe has gotten more done for America in 3 years than Trump got done, period.
Drunks like me do not make resolutions, we just try to ensure that maybe we can wake up sober the next day; We call it ODAAT. One Day At A Time.
I just passed the 31 year milestone with nary a drop of the devil sauce.
No big deal, as we all have a ration of booze allotted to us. I just drank my barrel dry back in 1992.
And we old pensioners got a whopping raise! I got a couple double sawbucks a month or something…gonna play more lotto jackpots because I chase my losses like a loser, and because my time to win is nigh.
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Deborah said on January 2, 2024 at 9:37 am
Today is LB’s birthday, this one is an end of an era, next year for her is the big one. We’re all going to a natural hot springs place to soak, it’s what LB wanted for her BD instead of going out to eat, which is fine by all of us.
I started the dry January routine, I’ve done it years before and it wasn’t so hard. One of the things they say to help you stick with it for the long hall is to tell people, so I’m telling you all. I had gained 5 lbs since coming to NM a month ago, always happens because LB cooks so well, and I eat too much, plus the holiday season. We got 4 boxes of chocolates from various people and I ate the lions share. Anyway, stopping the alcohol intake will help me get back to where my jeans aren’t kinda tight again.
Speaking of jeans, a couple of weeks ago or so Nancy, you wrote about wearing skinny jeans and feeling out of it. I’m think I’m going to where skinny jeans for the rest of my life, I don’t care what the fashionistas say, the baggy in the leg jeans are not for me, while they look fine on other people, I can’t see myself in them. After having said that when we go to Tokyo later in Feb/Mar I’ll probably see them everywhere and break down and get a pair, who knows.
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Jeff Gill said on January 2, 2024 at 2:10 pm
Just throwing this link here and saying if you are 60 or older and have any kind of ties to the Chicago area, there’s all sorts of memories evoked here of the politics and media culture of the city. You’re being dumped in the middle of a short series she’s running with one more to go, but this is delightful all by itself.
https://roselandchicago1972.substack.com/p/mike-royko-50-years-ago-today-november
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Jeff Borden said on January 2, 2024 at 2:35 pm
Ten-plus years in Columbus as a non-OSU grad (Kent State, 1973) soured me totally on the Buckeyes, which inevitably led to embracing Michigan football simply to be a contrarian. I was thrilled by the Wolverines beating the Butteyes earlier in the season, but over the moon at their triumph over Alabama. I see a national championship for Jim Harbaugh and his players.
The new year will be a tough one since it’s an election year, but I’m not going to panic about a restoration of the Spray Tan Era. The bastard is going to be convicted
somewhere…maybe multiple somewheres. Will it matter to the zombies who worship him? Hell no. They’re incapable of rational thought. They ARE deplorables. But they remain a minority…quite probably smaller than we think. No rational voter is casting one for a bugshit crazy asshole, rapist, crook and con man who openly promises a fascist government on Day One.
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alex said on January 2, 2024 at 4:02 pm
Thanks Jeff Gill. I’d forgotten what a brilliant writer Mike Royko was and now I want to dig out one of my old anthologies of his columns.
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basset said on January 2, 2024 at 4:02 pm
No NYE happy times with the neighbors for us, as usual our only holiday invitation was a Christmas event full of strangers related to my former work. Didn’t care to watch the tv coverage, couple drinks down after dinner and in bed by ten.
Have a couple NYE stories to share from past years, out in the woods right now typing on my phone so I’ll wait till I get to a real keyboard.
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Julie Robinson said on January 2, 2024 at 4:14 pm
Dad knew Royko, as a fellow journalist and shared the opinion of his brilliance. Love the “Real Mayor Dailey” appellation. Don’t have time to read the whole column right now, still haven’t looked at Sunday’s newspaper. Just coming to say I hate all insurance companies. Not only am I dealing with the homeowner’s company and their paperwork demands, am also negotiating through hospital billing for Mom. Think Jarndyce v. Jarndyce in Bleak House.
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Sherri said on January 2, 2024 at 5:40 pm
Michigan will definitely be favored over Washington, but I’ll be rooting for the Huskies. I’m not a huge UW fan, but I have enjoyed watching this version of the team. I love watching a beautifully thrown deep ball, and Micheal Penix, Jr throws the deep ball as well as any I’ve seen, and he’s got great receivers on the other end. Nick Saban tried to hire away UW’s offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, but he turned down Alabama to stay in Seattle and direct an offense that’s fun to watch.
Also, I like left-handed quarterbacks, which Penix is, and Penix is a great story of overcoming multiple injuries, playing 4 injury-shorted seasons at Indiana before transferring to UW where he’s finally put together a couple of healthy seasons.
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Sherri said on January 2, 2024 at 6:03 pm
Meanwhile, the NYTimes, convinced of its journalistic independence, has once again let the right wing set its agenda and spent way too many column inches on alleged wrongdoing by a liberal woman, wildly blowing it out of proportion, and succeeding in driving her from the field. Claudine Gay has resigned as president of Harvard. Christopher Rufo is claiming victory.
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Julie Robinson said on January 2, 2024 at 6:45 pm
Apparently most of the Washington coaching staff came from Indiana University, where they had considerably less success.
Happy Birthday, Little Bird!
The Finding Your Roots program tonight will use a photo of my great great grandparents, the interracial couple from Nebraska. We don’t know if one of the guests is a cousin or if they are just using the photo as an example of interracial couples from the 1800’s. Waiting with baited breath.
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Deggjr said on January 2, 2024 at 8:31 pm
At the time of Y2K, I worked for a small subsidiary of a large investment firm. On NYE I watched the fireworks displays in the European capitals and figured Y2K was not going to be a big deal. Close.
While our client service systems worked fine, our accounting system was inoperable for three months. We were unable to send out bills. It’s not easy to explain “we can’t produce your bill” to a client without sounding like an idiot who works with idiots.
The parent company was so big, we were the rounding error on their revenue figures. Our paychecks still cleared.
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Dexter Friend said on January 2, 2024 at 9:18 pm
I still have my Punch 8 for Harold Washington pin. I read Royko whenever I could buy a Sun-Times, then every day when he declared no fish would allow itself to be wrapped in a Sun-Times as he jumped over to The Trib. I patronized the Billy Goat Tavern a few times but if Mike was in there, he would have been in back at the celebrities table, so I never saw him.
I always liked it when Slats Grobnik appeared to share an opinion that Mike took off on. Slats was sort of a composite of friendly characters in Mike’s world. Mike suffered with his Cubs and enjoyed his 16 inch softball games in the park. He also judged and cooked in the rib fests in the park. He died too damn young. I read “Boss” when it dropped. Re-read it over the years a few times. Classic.
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Deborah said on January 2, 2024 at 10:52 pm
I read “Boss” too, eons ago. I sat in Richard J. Daley’s chair at his desk in city hall while he was mayor, long story how that came about.
Meanwhile, LB had a good birthday, one of the better she declared.
I decided my one word resolution is going to be “create”, I’ve taken up watercolor painting lately (I never did it before and I’m lousy at it so far) and block printing again which I used to do many years ago.
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Sherri said on January 3, 2024 at 1:09 am
Bretbug Stephens opines in the NYTimes that the problem is not that Claudine Gay has resigned, it’s that she never should have been hired, that academia has ceased striving for excellence but rather diversity. (Not that I would classify Larry Summers as striving for excellence, but then, I’m not a mediocre white man.)
I read this the same day I was reminded of the story of Lynn Conway. Lynn Conway is multi-award winning computer scientist/electrical engineer, with critical contributions to the ways computer chips are built. She is also a transgender woman, who was fired from IBM when she chose to transition, despite doing groundbreaking work. She transitioned, started over with a new identity, and went on to do more groundbreaking work at Xerox PARC and the University of Michigan, finally coming out some 30 years later.
Diversity doesn’t come at the expense of excellence. Excellence is lost because of the lack of diversity.
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alex said on January 3, 2024 at 4:59 am
Stefanik’s bragging distastefully as if she had just bagged a hunting trophy. That’s what should be getting the ink, not the false “plagiarism” accusations (the brouhaha is all about a tiny few incomplete citations, for God’s sake). And the “yes or no” congressional inquisition was a fucking farce. Whoever destroys Stefanik’s career will be the real hero in this sorry episode.
Well, I’m on my third day of low back pain so bad I can barely move. I thought it would dissipate but it hasn’t, so I plan to get it checked out today, although I’m not sure where. If my last experience with the ER is predictive, they’ll give me some worthless pain med like Ultram and schedule me with an orthopedist who can’t get me in for two months by which time I won’t have a problem anymore. But at least I’ll have met my deductible. That is, if I stay with COBRA vs. ACA, which is a whole ‘nother conundrum. I have until January 15 to figure that out.
Good thing I retired, though. My asshole boss would be accusing me of faking it in a scheme to work from home.
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Dexter Friend said on January 3, 2024 at 6:13 am
When my nephew graduated from DePaul with a major in politics in some definition, he was hired to work on Richie Daley’s staff. I playfully asked him to please get for me a suitable-for-framing photo of the Mayor. He did it. In fancy packaging, an 8 x 10 glossy arrived , signed by Daley, in white ink over his blue suit. A very professional photograph.
Nephew Jon proceeded to work in many city departments before starting his own consulting business.
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David C said on January 3, 2024 at 6:37 am
Alex, the only doctors who have helped me when my back or neck gave out have been physiatrists. They specialize in rehabilitation and don’t do surgery so you’re not going to get the bum’s rush into the operating room. The advice they’ve given me isn’t too profound. Each time it’s been that there’s no pain relief that will do more good than harm, that I’d likely feel better in 6 – 8 weeks, and to do as much as I feel able to do. They’ve always been right. The reassurance that chances were very high that I’d get better without any serious intervention helped.
After you’re feeling better, get a book called “The Back Mechanic” by Stuart McGill. He’s a doctor of physical therapy in Canada. The book has lots of advice on changes in your life to lower the possibility of getting re-injured. The calls that part back hygiene. Then he has exercises to strengthen your core muscles he calls the big three (a modified stomach crunch, side planks, and bird dog). I’ve been doing them since my last episode of back pain about five years ago and I haven’t had any problems and am able to do more physical labor.
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alex said on January 3, 2024 at 7:08 am
Thanks David C. Some years ago I had a sudden onset of horrible pain and weakness in my right shoulder and arm. When I got in to see the ortho doctor, he told me it was being caused by my neck and he wanted to perform a discectomy and fusion. I happened to have some friends visiting from Europe at the time and they told me that the rest of the world considers this sort of treatment downright barbaric and needless and they suggested that I do physical therapy instead. That’s what I did and I’ve had minimal to no problems since, and I have exercises (chin tucks, traction) in case it ever flares up.
Definitely could use some core strengthening.
I’m hoping if I go to the ER that they’ll give me some muscle relaxants because the spasming right now is just horrible. I have unbearable pain if I cough or sneeze or try to roll over in bed, not to mention the sheer agony of standing up or walking.
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Dexter Friend said on January 3, 2024 at 7:32 am
Basketball legend Bill Walton had so much back pain he was reduced to crawling on the floor for a long time. He documents this in his 2016 book “Back from the Dead”. Finally he found a California surgeon who built him a new skeleton of the back, lots of hardware. Within weeks he was riding that giant bicycle of his from San Francisco to LA.
I was blessed at birth with a certain future: arthritis, especially of the lower back. My back aches , my hips hurt. With my bad hip, left side, causing 43 years of limping, I have developed adult-onset scoliosis. Dad had late-in-life back pain. Both grandfathers suffered with arthritis mostly in the lower back. Ain’t life grand? I cannot take inSaids, no aspirin products. I take all the acetaminophen my doctor allows me. It helps. At 74, using a rollator or 2 canes, I am definitely not a candidate for the Olympics. Where’s my pills!
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Deborah said on January 3, 2024 at 7:46 am
Alex, that sounds horrible, so sorry you’re going through such pain. I feel for you. After having sciatica I had a discectomy, if I hadn’t had foot drop because of the disc situation I wouldn’t have had the surgery, physical therapy would have eventually helped by itself. But the pain was excruciating and no position eased the pain except walking for some reason.
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Jeff Gill said on January 3, 2024 at 10:04 am
A year old story about the then six year old effort to unseal materials possibly about to be opened up this week. With Doe 183 at the center of the whole lengthy seven year old effort to keep them quiet. And the secondary center (next to the infamous private island) just twenty miles to my west.
I don’t feel incredibly healthy these days, but I still think I will live to see a large amount of institutional naming rights in central Ohio undergo significant revision.
https://www.businessinsider.com/doe-183-ghislaine-maxwell-jeffrey-epstein-case-sealed-documents-2023-1
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Jeff Borden said on January 3, 2024 at 10:05 am
As someone who really booted high school –graduated in the bottom one-fourth of my class– I came to greatly admire those who attended the Ivy League schools and other institutions of note such as Stanford, Duke, Berkeley. My grades got me into a land grant college, which was just fine and prepared me well for my professional life.
Now, I look at the elite schools with an entirely different gaze and not because the Harvard president booted her response to a question meant to elicit outrage or her sloppy academic work. Nope. Most of the leading lights of the decidedly dumb MAGA movement are highly educated graduates of those very same schools. The MAGA hack who took down Gay, Rep. Elise Stefanik, is a Harvard grad. So is Ted Cruz, Ron DeathSantis, Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Mike Pompey and Tom Cotton. Josh Hawley has a Yale degree. Sen. Foghorn Leghorn (John Kennedy of Louisiana) was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.
Whatever this collection of mean-spirited, sedition-minded, authoritarian worshipping assholes learned at their fancy schools certainly didn’t add up to them become great and inspiring leaders. Perhaps they took their cue from Groucho?
“I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.” — Groucho Marx.
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alex said on January 3, 2024 at 10:45 am
So my brother gave me a bottle of Tizanidine 2mg, a muscle relaxer, that he had left over from a surgery. You can take up to 8mg at a time not to exceed 36mg per day and you’re supposed to titrate up. I took just one 2mg tablet and it knocked me out for two and a half hours.
I had always hoped the Epstein-Maxwell scandal would take down the Orange Turd.
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susan said on January 3, 2024 at 10:50 am
Steve Brodner’s the best illustrator of Republican freaks.
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Jeff Borden said on January 3, 2024 at 11:15 am
Amen, Susan, amen.
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susan said on January 3, 2024 at 11:32 am
Steve Brodner did this gem back in the day.
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Sherri said on January 3, 2024 at 12:01 pm
Elise Stefanik thinks that if she just carries their water hard enough and long enough, those white men in power in the GOP will think she’s good enough to be one of them.
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Jeff Borden said on January 3, 2024 at 12:36 pm
My contempt for George Will continues to grow (or is it sink?) Here, the bow-tied establishment avatar and past winner of the Upper Middle Class Twit competition says Joe Biden is exactly like the orange cancer. May 2024 be the year old, out-of-touch white right-wingers like Will are put to pasture.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/01/03/biden-disdain-constitution-senate/
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David C said on January 3, 2024 at 2:16 pm
I was never very impressed by Ivy Leaguers. Then I became acquainted with one and I became completely not impressed. This one went to Dartmouth. He said he ran everything through the Socratic method. His Socratic method was like a fundamentalist’s Jesus. It told him what he believed was exactly true. He was an adamant global warming denier. He read a book by an economist, of all things, that told him what he wanted to believe so that was it and anyone else was stupid if they didn’t think the same. Seeing as economists see to know fuckall about the economy and wouldn’t believe anything they said outside of their area at all. Any time he was clearly losing, he threw down “What college did you go to”? Oh, Grand Rapids Community College and Ferris State University. “I went to Dartmouth” so I was wrong, I guess? I don’t see that the Ivy’s tell you so much how to discover the truth as they teach you to argue that they’re right and everyone else is wrong. I know it’s an example of one but when you see all the mediocre failsons coming out of elite universities it’s hard to believe otherwise.
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Jerrie in MidMd said on January 3, 2024 at 2:22 pm
Greg Sargent is no longer at the Post and George Will is still writing. That says it all.
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Sherri said on January 3, 2024 at 4:27 pm
What liberals need to learn is that when right-wingers start this nonsense, it’s always in bad faith. When dealing with bad faith arguments, *never accept the premises.* Don’t get tied up in arguments about whether Claudine Gay plagiarized or not (since there wasn’t obvious wrong-doing as in the case of the former Stanford president, which the NYTimes in the concern for the integrity of academic leadership ignored), change the premise. Defend the job she was hired to do, which was run a university, not be scholar-in-chief.
Don’t let the people arguing in bad faith set the terms of the discussion. Don’t be suckered into arguing about what they want to argue about.
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Deborah said on January 3, 2024 at 5:10 pm
My husband who went to Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in the 70s was then and still is very impressed with Harvard. When he was a student there he said there were definitely groups of students who had gone through the machine that exists to get rich kids accepted there. Those students usually came from multigenerational upper crusts, had gone to the right private prep schools and felt entitled to be superior to everyone else. My husband came from a small town in central Illinois, public high school and had gotten his undergrad degree from the University of Illinois and after that got drafted and served in Viet Nam, so he didn’t fit in their category at all. In fact my husband said that a couple of them essentially point blank asked him, “How did YOU get here from THERE”.
Anyway, after the Stefanik grilling of the Penn, Harvard and MIT presidents about antisemitism, my husband was curious about her background and sure enough he found that she indeed seemed to be one of those kind of students, wealthy upbringing, private prep schooled etc etc. She aligned herself with other students and professors of a like mind during her time at Harvard. Those folks don’t like the fact that “lessers” can be admitted to their alma maters and that those lessers then succeed in the world that they shouldn’t be allowed into. Thus Stefanik and her crowd have a lot of grievances to air and boy do they.
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Julie Robinson said on January 3, 2024 at 6:01 pm
During college I dated a former Ivy Leaguer and I wasn’t too impressed with the education he’d gotten at Princeton. Of course, he had flunked himself out, so there’s that. High school was Cincinnati Day, la-di-da.
My family always went to state schools, and my Dad said he’d pay for any state school, even with out-of-state tuition, but not private. Specifically Northwestern; he thought they were overrated too. College is more about what you put into it than the school’s reputation. There are great professors everywhere, and of course, a few not so great.
My hateful uncle from Iowa has died, 18 months after a severe stroke. He even managed to bug me in his self-penned obituary with mentions of his work speaking about Creationism and the Perfection of the Bible. He refused any care except my aunt’s, saying he couldn’t give up the beautiful view from his windows. He didn’t mind using up every bit of the energy of his wife just so he could keep his views. Well, actually, he shout-mumbled it all, according to his son.
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Sherri said on January 3, 2024 at 6:03 pm
I’m awaiting the NYTimes coverage of Neil Gorsuch’s plagiarism.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/gorsuch-writings-supreme-court-236891
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Sherri said on January 3, 2024 at 6:28 pm
Here’s a gift link to Claudine Gay’s op-ed: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/03/opinion/claudine-gay-harvard-president.html?mwgrp=c-mbar&unlocked_article_code=1.K00.igJp.XJdzejdIbpJ0&hpgrp=ar-abar&smid=url-share
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alex said on January 4, 2024 at 8:41 am
Congressional Republicans tried to pull the same shit on Dr. Fauci, but at least he had the courage to give as good as he got instead of being caught like a deer in the headlights. Nevertheless, the whole exercise was designed to discredit him in front of their raging rube constituents and it worked. Hillary Clinton held her own as well, laughing out loud at the absurdity of their questioning for eight grueling hours. “But her e-mails.” The university presidents went in there unprepared for the ambush.
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