I neglected to mention one detail of my Miami trip: Passing along the causeway to Miami Beach, we had an excellent view of Royal Caribbean’s brand-new Icon of the Seas cruise ship, in the Port of Miami, just days away from her maiden voyage.
You don’t know what the Icon is? Well, check it OUT, friends. It’s only what appears to be the world’s largest cruise ship, “the largest waterpark at sea,” with a fact sheet that must be read to be believed:
20 TOTAL DECKS
18 GUEST DECKS
2,350 CREW
(INTERNATIONAL)
2,805 STATEROOMS
5,610 GUESTS
(DOUBLE OCCUPANCY)
7 POOLS AND
9 WHIRLPOOLS
6 RECORD-BREAKING
WATERSLIDES
1,198 FEET, 365 METRES LONG
BUILT AT
MEYER TURKU, TURKU, FINLAND
It’s all caps because I copy/pasted it off the fact sheet, sorry. Also: There are eight separate “neighborhoods” onboard, which I suspect is designed to make this enormous floating city seem smaller, somehow, although if small is what you’re after, why not book a smaller ship? Dumb question, I know. Cruising on this vessel is all about what you’ll tell the folks back home upon your arrival.
It’s as long as the longest Great Lakes freighters, and as tall as…can’t say. It looks weird and top-heavy, but that’s probably my uneducated eye. I can only say that, judging from the view from the causeway, I’d rather be towed behind in a dinghy than go aboard. I recall too many stories about norovirus, Covid, and what was the one that went dead in the water somewhere off the coast of Alabama a few years ago? CNN covered it like the Hiroshima bomb, and maybe that’s to be expected, as surely some of the passengers stranded aboard longed for the sweet fiery release of a nuclear explosion. I remember looking at the long-lens video shots of the ship shimmering in waves of heat coming off the Gulf of Mexico, and thinking: Fuck it, I’d go overboard and swim for it.
But people who cruise purely love cruising, and if that’s what they want, bless ’em. I wonder what the Finnish shipbuilders thought of this thing as they assembled it.
As I write this, the voters of New Hampshire are making their wishes known. This guy is surely one of them, and his story has been a minor social-media topic the last few days, and why not:
BEDFORD, N.H. — “This,” Ted Johnson told me, “is what I hope.” We were here the other day at a bar not far from his house, and we were talking about Donald Trump and the possibility he could be the president again by this time next year. “He breaks the system,” he said, “he exposes the deep state, and it’s going to be a miserable four years for everybody.”
“For everybody?” I said.
“Everybody.”
“For you?”
“I think his policies are going to be good,” he said, “but it’s going to be hard to watch this happen to our country. He’s going to pull it apart.”
As the story goes on, it’s plain this guy is lying. It’s not going to be hard for him to watch, whatever scenario this Northwoods idiot has in his head. He’s going to love it, plainly love it, because it’s going to punish everyone he dislikes, and that is a very long list.
It starts with his brother, from whom he is estranged, because what is family compared to Donald Trump, avenging angel?
Johnson started talking about “Russia-gate” and “Biden’s scandals” and Hunter Biden. What, I wondered, did Hunter Biden have to do with Nikki Haley? “She’s not going to hold anybody accountable for what they’ve done,” Johnson told me. “People need to be held accountable. That’s why you’ve got to break the system to fix the system,” he said. “Because it’s a zero-sum game right now. And to be honest with you, the Democrats are genius. They did anything they could do to win and gain power, even if they lie, cheat, steal. … What they’re doing is they’re destroying the country. Who could bring it back?” He answered his own question: “Trump’s the only one.”
Don’t want to over-paste here, but there is plenty-plenty more, and lest you think this guy is a trod-upon Deplorable, think again. He’s well-off, retired military with a great work-from-home job, a big house worth about three-quarters of a million, and more anger than you’d expect from a man living so well.
I used to think the people who said that MAGA was all about Trump giving people permission to hate others were a little bit dramatic. They weren’t. They flatly despise people they don’t understand, and it makes them feel good to do so.
And so they do.
OK. It has rained, drearily and near-freezingly, all the livelong day. School was cancelled last night, so no morning swim for me. So I’m feeling puffy and thinking I should maybe scrub a bathroom or something.
FDChief said on January 23, 2024 at 3:42 pm
Former colonel Johnson is just a good reminder that every tinpot dictator always has ranks of uniformed flunkies standing behind him. The United States lost, what, half its officer corps in 1861 to treason in defense of slavery?
So finding a delusional Trumpenscum collecting retirement pay from DFAS is as shocking as finding racists in a Peoria diner.
It’s reeeeeal simple; they are destroyed, or they will destroy the promise of the American Experiment.
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Brandon said on January 23, 2024 at 3:50 pm
Any thoughts on the Oscar nominations? Who and what were overlooked, or deservedly nominated?
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brian stouder said on January 23, 2024 at 3:52 pm
‘They flatly despise people they don’t understand, and it makes them feel good to do so’. In my opinion, this perfectly encapsulates and describes the impulse within these people. It seems to be like the newest version of the same impulse that drove some fairly horrible human beings to pursue the violent end of the United States in 1861.
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Jeff Borden said on January 23, 2024 at 4:05 pm
When we were in Lisbon a few years ago, the giant cruise ships blotted out the sun along the harbor front: Three massive vessels disgorging thousands of passengers at the same time. They looked so incongruous. I have no beef with cruise fans. At least they’re out exploring the world a bit, but man, these modern ships are the antithesis of stylish design…more like huge barges.
Big news at the Oscars were the snubs of director Greta Gerwig and star Margot Robbie from mega-smash “Barbie.”
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Sherri said on January 23, 2024 at 4:22 pm
Sometimes, I questioned if I was being overly dramatic back in 2016, when I said that Trump’s appeal was that he hated all the right people. But it explained everything so well. And it reminded me so much of too many of the people I had grown up among. White, evangelical, conservative, and full of grievances, regardless of their lot in life.
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Dave said on January 23, 2024 at 4:33 pm
I’m never going to go on a cruise, my wife has very negative opinions about cruises and every time there is an outbreak of any disease that spreads through one or a breakdown of a cruise ship out in the ocean or any little thing at all, she points it out. I know people who love cruises, my brother-in-law, her brother, has been on many, many cruises, they love them, even the handful that they had a bad experience hasn’t deterred them, their most recent one was over Christmas.
I see that ship and think, oh my, I don’t want to be out in the ocean with all those people, it looks like you could be on that ship and never know you were even out floating around if you put your mind to it. What’s the point?
I never understand anything Trump supporters say, much like the New Hampshire lady I saw interviewed on CBS this morning, who said how Trump had great policies and lower gas prices and a strong border policy and he was her man. She believes that garbage. I’m still stuck on how any female, any one at all, supports him, is it the bad boy theory or they simply don’t want to believe the things he is said to have done.
JC, a question, any idea why this site won’t come up on my Kindle tablet. I get a Site Not Found and underneath it says DreamHost. I suppose I could clean out the history and start over.
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Sherri said on January 23, 2024 at 5:19 pm
Josh Marshall says in his newsletter that he can’t tell us how many people reached out to him after Iowa and said “is this really happening? Trump’s going to be the nominee?”
Where have these people been? Of course Trump is going to be the nominee! That’s been obvious. What did they think, the QOP voters would suddenly start caring about something other than who they hate? Or that Trump would withdraw?
The QOP is nothing but a cult of that malignant narcissist, and the Davos men who think that’s fine because at least they’ll get their tax cuts.
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ROGirl said on January 23, 2024 at 5:39 pm
Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig were robbed.
Not sure if this link will work, but Martha is my sister-in-law:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/jan/10/there-is-no-blue-martha-baillie-review-a-tough-and-tender-family-memoir
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Jeff Gill said on January 23, 2024 at 6:46 pm
ROGirl, that made me feel a little better about my father-in-law. Not much, but some. And much sympathy for Martha.
There is so much of this sort of caregiving-slash-unofficial guardianship going on out there, and no good fixes for it on the horizon.
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Joe Kobiela said on January 23, 2024 at 7:18 pm
During the pandemic I was coming back from deep in the Bahamas as we got closer to the USA we started seeing cruise ships anchored east of Freeport, I think I counted around 60 of all sizes, I didn’t know there were that many in the whole world, it reminded me of the battle groups of ww-2 steaming towards Japan.
Pilot Joe
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David C said on January 23, 2024 at 7:36 pm
Flying over cruise ships is as close as I want to come to them. Sounds like you have the method down, Joe. A few Great Lakes cruise ships stop in Green Bay every year. I understand it’s a bit of a pain but not nearly as big a pain as a Packers game day.
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Sherri said on January 23, 2024 at 8:12 pm
It’s tempting to think of our MAGA Lt. Colonel as being hypocritical when he talks about accountability, because he doesn’t want accountability for Trump, but then you remember the wisdom of Wilhoit’s Law:
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
He’s not hypocritical, he’s just operating according to a set of values that don’t make sense to non-conservatives.
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Joe Kobiela said on January 23, 2024 at 8:29 pm
David C@11
No desire to do a cruise, I did fly a charter into Green Bay this year for the last game, Packer vs Bears, wasn’t to bad getting in or out, have had to wait 45 minutes to get out other times I have flown in for games.
Pilot Joe
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Gretchen said on January 23, 2024 at 11:02 pm
My son is getting married on a cruise ship next year. Husband wants to know if he has to go. Yes. Yes, you have to go to your son’s wedding.
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Mark P said on January 23, 2024 at 11:28 pm
I worked for years for Army contractors in Huntsville Alabama. As you might imagine, I was surrounded by conservatives. This was before Trump, but I’m sure most of them are cult members now. I think I have mentioned seeing a car in a handicap spot in a big parking lot at a big building filled with military, government employees and contractors. The car had a bumper sticker that said something like, “The best government is the smallest government.” There he was in a special government-mandated parking space with unfettered access to a government job paying more than most jobs in Alabama, and he wants smaller government. I’m sure he did not see the irony.
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LAMary said on January 24, 2024 at 8:34 am
My very right wing brother in CO, who has about nine serious illnesses/conditions going on, absolutely hates “the government.” He worked for years for NREL, the national renewable energy lab, in Golden, CO. If you suggest that he worked for the government he gets really angry. It wasn’t the government. It was a private company. Of course the only source of revenue for this company was the federal government but whatever. My brother’s medicare is paying for a lot of his medical care and the social worker at the hospital got him a walker and wheelchair through some state governmental entity. But that brother will never admit he benefits from any government agency or policy. Oh, he also has some VA benefits from his VietNam era army service. It’s exhausting to listen to him rant about this shit. Essentially he’s saying he gets nothing from the government but boy are they incompetent delivering it.
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FDChief said on January 24, 2024 at 8:44 am
LAMary: “Ohmigawd the food here is SO awful! And the portions are SO small!”
The trick is that “government” is what greedy darkies get. When you’re an upstanding white conservative patriot you’re just receiving your just rewards. Wilhoit’s Law, IOW.
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alex said on January 24, 2024 at 9:27 am
“Rules are for thee but not for me.” That’s libertarianism but it fairly well applies to arch conservatives. The latter just don’t say it out loud. Certainly applies to my former boss who wouldn’t let COVID stop him from attending Catholic mass or coming to work sick and spreading the joy around. That’s exactly the sort of person who is otherwise upper-middle-class and not only supports but idolizes Trump, and such people are much greater in number than most of us realize.
Last night I watched “Nazi Town, USA” on PBS, the little-known story of the German-American Bund, which in addition the the KKK had a wide following in the 1920s and ’30s and which makes Trumpism seem not at all surprising despite the many great strides we thought we’d made in terms of social justice. I’m rather surprised that I hadn’t heard of it before, but there is a lot of history that has been swept under the rug, perhaps for the sake of maintaining relative harmony or the American mythos. I’m curious now about how active this organization was in my community given the largely German origins of the population. Today I plan to do some digging.
So far online I’ve found a book published in the fall of 2022 about Indiana and the German American Bund and an extract talks about a Fort Wayne chapter being formed in 1937. I guess that would be in keeping with this place being behind the curve as usual; by 1938 the Bund was non grata among both German Americans and the American population in general and here it was only getting started.
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brian stouder said on January 24, 2024 at 12:19 pm
I’ll have to watch for that, Alex. (In the age of streaming, it’s probably only 7 or 8 clicks away, but waddayagonna do, eh?)
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Suzanne said on January 24, 2024 at 1:45 pm
We went on a cruise once about 20 years ago for a wedding and someone else paid for it. It was OK but we have never gone again. This was long before COVID and the horror stories of viruses cruising through the ship, sickening everyone. The days when the ship didn’t go to port anywhere were fairly relaxing because what else did you have to do? But mostly, I didn’t think too highly of it. Lots of people doing a lot of drinking and I could help but wonder how the staff was being treated.
I’ve been wanting to watch the PBS show about The Bund. I did know there was quite a bit of Hitler support in the US but my knowledge is pretty limited. The Fort Wayne chapter organizing as the rest of the country was leaving it doesn’t surprise me. NE Indiana is always about 10 – 20 years behind the curve, isn’t it?
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4dbirds said on January 24, 2024 at 2:23 pm
Going on a huge ship with many people is the one thing I don’t want to do. I have no interest in being on a floating petri dish. So what did my husband give me for Christmas? A cruise to Alaska in September. I don’t want to go. I’ve tried to get him to stop the gift-giving for years but he refuses to do it. I had to smile and act pleased but since it is paid for, I guess I’m going. I’l leave my mind open. At least this ginger won’t be in the hot sun on this cruise.
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Icarus said on January 24, 2024 at 2:25 pm
My kids are finally back in school after a week + 2 snow days. We don’t have snow remediation down here because it only averages 1 inch per year and apparently the storage and maintenance on snow plows and salt trucks aren’t worth the cost for the off-year when you get 8 inches followed by below-freezing temperatures.
It’s really hard to WFH and manage a couple of bored kids. Luckily we discovered a schoolmate lives across the yard. This had its own challenges of course.
It was rough because we just got back from the extended Xmas break. Then it was MLK day (when it snowed) so technically my kids were home more than they were at school so far in 2023.
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Sherri said on January 24, 2024 at 3:20 pm
Dominic Gates is the Seattle Times’ Boeing reporter, and he is excellent. Yesterday, floating around social media was a comment on a random website from an anonymous Boeing whistleblower about Boeing’s process failures that led to the door plug blowout, and by today, Gates had verified the details in the comment with his sources and published.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-not-spirit-mis-installed-piece-that-blew-off-alaska-max-9-jet/
Boeing longtimers talk about Boeing the way HP longtimers talked about HP post Carly, with sadness and frustration for what was once a great company that built world class hardware.
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Dorothy said on January 24, 2024 at 3:20 pm
If one of my kids was getting hitched on a cruise ship that’s the only way I’d ever get on one. But before the invitations get printed I’d make damn sure I’d do everything I could to talk her out of it (the other one is already married). It has never interested me one whit; my oldest sister, though, used to love going on them. She’s too wobbly on her feet now to ever go on one again, and she’s super fearful of Covid despite the fact she’s had all her shots. I used to think she was the epitome of coolness but that was when I was 12-14 years old. I’m glad that phase is behind me.
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Mark P said on January 24, 2024 at 3:59 pm
My wife and I took an Alaska cruise after we got married in 2005. We flew to Anchorage, then took a train ride to Denali. We came back to Anchorage after a few days to board the ship. It stopped at a few tourist traps, visited Glacier Bay NP, then transited down to Vancouver, from which we flew home. I enjoyed most of Alaska, and the transit south was nice because we took the sheltered route where you could see land on both sides of the ship. The food was so-so, and most of the shipboard stuff was inoffensive. It was ok overall, but it did not make me want to take another cruise.
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Deborah said on January 24, 2024 at 4:46 pm
When my right wing sister was a young mother her husband was a Lutheran school teacher and they barely had 2 nickels to rub together. They had 3 young daughters to feed so my sister signed them up for food stamps and WIC. She complains now about people getting that same help today and it makes me furious to hear her crabbing about it.
That cruise ship sounds absolutely horrendous, the last place I’d want to spend time, ever. My one experience on an overnight cruise from Helsinki to Stockholm was awful, everything about it was a huge mistake. The only good thing about it was it was only one night of my life. Never again.
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LAMary said on January 24, 2024 at 5:57 pm
A message for Julie..my homeowners insurance company will stop my coverage on May first. 25 years. No claims. My agent is looking for another carrier who will cover my area. No hurricanes here. Just brush fires.
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LAMary said on January 24, 2024 at 7:22 pm
Phillip Roth mentions the pro nazi organization in New Jersey in one of his books. The Plot Against America? Paterson had a lot of first generation German Americans and a lot of Jewish citizens.
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Jeff Gill said on January 24, 2024 at 8:38 pm
I hear it snows less in San Diego than Ann Arbor.
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Julie Robinson said on January 24, 2024 at 8:41 pm
Oh, Mary, I’m so sorry. Insurance companies really suck, don’t they? At least they gave you some time. We only have until Feb 18, and have they given us an answer after the reams of paperwork we submitted three weeks ago? They have not.
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alex said on January 24, 2024 at 11:09 pm
Speaking of insurance, I’m about to take the leap from COBRA health coverage to a marketplace Silver plan that’s considerably less. I’m totally blown away by how well subsidized this program is. Low deductibles and low drug prices compared to my shitty and expensive employer-provided plan. And we have Biden to thank for this.
But it’s up for reauthorization by Congress next year with no guarantee of passage and Trump promises to dynamite the whole thing just because.
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Brandon said on January 25, 2024 at 3:42 am
Looking at the January 2006 posts, and realizing how the kind of melismatic singing excoriated in this blog back then hasn’t been in fashion for at least a decade. Whisperpop has predominated these past few years.
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Jeff Gill said on January 25, 2024 at 8:33 am
Plus mumblecore.
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basset said on January 25, 2024 at 9:35 am
A nice quiet river cruise would be more our speed: anyone been on one of those?
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Scout said on January 25, 2024 at 10:42 am
Bassett, we are considering a European river cruise, likely in the south of France. If anyone here has any recommendations, input is welcome.
Our homeowners went up $800/yr and we’ve had no claims. We’re shopping around.
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Snarkworth said on January 25, 2024 at 11:43 am
I agree that the monster ships are unappealing, but small-ship cruises can be enjoyable and river cruises are great because you can see so much of the countryside. I like being able to step ashore and explore a city I wouldn’t have otherwise seen.
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Sherri said on January 25, 2024 at 12:37 pm
Cruise ships seem more like floating resorts than floating hotels. What I’d like is a cruise ship that really is a floating hotel. I’m just there to sleep. It sails during the night, during the day it puts into port and I can go wandering in a different city. I’m not looking for shopping and entertainment on the ship.
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Jeff Borden said on January 25, 2024 at 12:40 pm
The American Nazi movement was large enough to fill Madison Square Garden in 1939. There’s a short film –about 6 or 7 minutes– on YouTube under the title “A Night at the Garden.” It’s nauseating. And when a Jewish man tries to get on stage, he is attacked and stripped of his clothing. It is a part of American history that gets very little attention despite the fact Chsrles Lindbergh and his America First movement was just fine with Nazis.
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Mark P said on January 25, 2024 at 1:15 pm
Sherri, our Alaska cruise was kind of like what you describe. We boarded in Whittier, and sailed overnight to a few ports, like Skagway and Sitka. I think it was after visiting Glacier Bay that the ship just sailed straight down to Vancouver during daylight hours as well as at night. We treated the ship as a hotel. Since we were gone during the day, all we did onboard was eat dinner and then go to our room.
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Deborah said on January 25, 2024 at 1:28 pm
That’s interesting Jeff G, I had not heard of Mumblecore before, and it’s not surprising because I have only seen a couple of films listed in your Wikipedia link, “Frances Ha” and I forget the other one. I watched the “Girls” HBO series, that’s about it.
And Jeff B, I first heard of the Nazis in the US only recently, I think one of the podcast series that Rachel Maddow had was the first time I heard of it. Amazing to me that I was in my 70s when it first came to my attention.
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Deborah said on January 25, 2024 at 1:31 pm
Scout, if I were going to the South of France I’d do a driving tour, it’s so beautiful, one of my favorite places on earth. Driving through the countryside is amazing.
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Sherri said on January 25, 2024 at 1:41 pm
Got new inclusionary zoning regulations through Planning Commission last night, just as news dropped today that half of renters in the US are cost burdened. That means they spend more than 30% of their income on rent.
So, no, I don’t feel bad that developers might not get a 6% return on their development.
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Jeff Gill said on January 25, 2024 at 2:21 pm
Hat tip & deep bow towards the west; well done, Sherri.
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Julie Robinson said on January 25, 2024 at 4:12 pm
Yay, Sherri!
A friend has done two Viking River Cruises; loved the first but on the second they traveled during the day instead of at night. Every day they would get to their destination just as everything was closing down. They also picked up Covid both times.
Our insurance is over 7K now, and we finally heard back this afternoon that they are missing paperwork. Instead of the company telling us, they had the local agent call us, and English is very definitely not his native language. He didn’t actually understand which piece of paperwork was needed. I requested the information in an email, from the company. In the meantime, we sent everything again. I feel ragey.
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ROGirl said on January 25, 2024 at 5:36 pm
Last year (in March or April) my insurance agent sent me a photo the insurance company had taken of my property from a drone. There are a lot of trees near the side of my house, although they don’t extend over it. The picture was taken in the summer, so from the drone view the foliage looked like it covers my roof. My agent came over and took pictures of the trees without any leaves, and was able to see that they don’t encroach on my house. Eventually she let me know that my insurance wasn’t being cancelled.
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Deborah said on January 25, 2024 at 5:44 pm
Sherri, good for you and the planning commission, that’s a big deal.
We’re going to Japan in less than a month. we’ll be spending a week in Tokyo and a week in Kyoto. If anyone here has any recommendations for places to eat there please let me know. We have our hotels, and places to see but not the eating part yet. My husband has some former students who are working in Tokyo and they told us there are places to eat that are very casual and there are places to eat where you let the chef choose for you, as if those are our only options. I’m leery of letting the chef choose for me but I’d probably be missing a lot if I don’t try it.
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Dave said on January 25, 2024 at 6:47 pm
My sincere sympathies, Julie Robinson, we wonder what our insurance would be now in the now nearly 46 year old home we owned in Florida. We know we would have had to put a new roof on by now or we wouldn’t be insured.
We recently looked up to see what the person who bought our home is now paying in property tax, it’s about $2,400 more a year than what we paid, double, in other words, with the Florida value increases between the time we bought the property and the time we sold it.
Trump is really doing some name calling now, does anyone think that he will continue to alienate more people and his base will shrink? One can only hope. I didn’t know people this bad on playgrounds when I was a kid.
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Julie Robinson said on January 25, 2024 at 7:48 pm
If you are an old person who has lived in your house forever, your taxes are increased at a very low rate. The person who buys your house gets to catch up with all the increases and start paying at the higher rate. Is was a nice idea for those on fixed incomes to be able to stay in their homes.
But now people who have paid off their homes are going without insurance because they can’t afford it, especially oldsters. The moment your roof reaches 20 years, they will insist it be replaced. So they get dropped and can’t find any other insurance at all. So they end up being priced out of their homes, stop doing repairs and maintenance, and the house becomes a tear-down.
How has the legislature responded? By making it harder to sue the insurance companies.
This legislative session, they’ve got their eyes firmly on the important issues. So the House passed a bill banning the use of social media for those under the age of 16. Even if they have their parents’ permission. Srsly. And no kid will have a clue how get around that, will they?
At least they withdrew the bill to help pay Trump’s legal bills when the Governor said he’d veto it. So, sanity briefly prevailed.
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Brandon said on January 26, 2024 at 12:16 am
Julie Robinson, is this what you’re referring to?
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Julie Robinson said on January 26, 2024 at 9:11 am
Yes. See that paragraph towards the end? Regulators allowed companies to strip out their profits, then either stop writing policies in Florida or declaring bankruptcy. That’s the crux of the problem.
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Scout said on January 26, 2024 at 2:22 pm
The jury is now deliberating the damage award for Shitler after he stormed out in the middle of Carroll’s attorney’s closing arguments, and immediately started shitposting on his crappy app. Pretty sure he continues to do himself no favors and I’m praying they slam him for a huge settlement.
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Sherri said on January 26, 2024 at 3:00 pm
Alabama executed a man with nitrogen gas today, trying to claim it as a “humane” way of execution.
I don’t think there is a humane way of killing another person, but whose suffering are we trying to minimize? Suffocating a person with nitrogen gas isn’t a way of minimizing their suffering as they die. Probably the best way of minimizing suffering while dying would be a gunshot to the back of the head, but really, the suffering our system wants to minimize is the executor’s by obscuring who is directly responsible for the death, and that’s impossible with the gunshot to the back of the head.
We want to kill people without taking responsibility for any suffering, and that is impossible. One of many reasons that I am opposed to the death penalty.
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brian stouder said on January 26, 2024 at 3:07 pm
Scout – you and me both! I will confess- umpteen years ago I watched bits and pieces of the Donald’s ‘reality’ tv show, and even then he reminded me of the wizard of Oz – ie- a bumbling fraud – and yet our country elected him. As I have previously confessed, back in the day (40-plus years ago? Are you kidding me??!) I was a Reagan guy…. so I sort of get why Trumpy people might have originally bought into his schtick; but how can the Trumpet section reconcile that lunk-head’s overt support for the violent assault on the United States capital?
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Jeff Gill said on January 26, 2024 at 4:46 pm
$83.3 million, eh? I wouldn’t take a check from him for it, that’s for sure.
Judge Kaplan, to the jurors as he dismissed them: “My advice to you is that you never disclose that you were on this jury.”
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Deborah said on January 26, 2024 at 6:09 pm
OMG $83.3 million!!! He probably won’t end up paying that much but still, that’s a lot. Hopefully it sends him completely off his rocker, heck he might even stroke out.
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Brandon said on January 26, 2024 at 6:09 pm
More on the melisma phenomenon, with a focus on Whitney Houston.
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Mark P said on January 26, 2024 at 6:48 pm
What might really make Trump stroke out is not being able to go on a rant that will land him in court a third time.
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Julie Robinson said on January 26, 2024 at 7:36 pm
Well, that execution sounds absolutely horrific, and the fact that they pulled the curtains meant they didn’t want the audience to see how it was transpiring. Some Alabamy official was on the news tonight crowing about their new method and I wanted to vomit.
So the E Jean Carroll news is much much better. Considering what she’s been through, it’s not enough.
We are moments away from a hosting a house concert here at Lake Shannon Farm, as we fondly call our little house. (And we harvested 20 yellow pear tomatoes this morning!) Our dear daughter offered the church building for a Flamy Grant and Derek Webb concert, and got slapped down for it. She did not ask permission in advance. Thus, it is here.
The pair are both Christian music singers, with Flamy performing in drag. That was the problem for one certain member, who is a performer himself, and whose wife often appears with drag performers. Go figure, eh?
As for the music itself, I know nothing, having stopped following Christian music after the era of Bach and Handel. I just met Flamy, and he’s charming.
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basset said on January 26, 2024 at 9:22 pm
Sitting outside a church meeting hall right now, nice place, affluent neighborhood, while Mrs. B takes her first tentative dip into contra dancing. Live band, live caller, they are doing it up right.
She seems to be having a good time, less so for me.
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brian stouder said on January 26, 2024 at 10:17 pm
You sound like a good husband, indeed!
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basset said on January 26, 2024 at 11:47 pm
No, afraid not. This one was my idea just to get out of the house, never been a dancer myself though. I sat in an anteroom so I wouldn’t have to go try to be social, we left at halftime.
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Sherri said on January 27, 2024 at 1:57 am
Suzan DelBene is my Congress member, and she’s head of the DCCC this time. We’ll see if her approach is effective, but this article matches my experiences with her.
https://wapo.st/42gfbtv
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Jeff Gill said on January 27, 2024 at 6:37 am
And as an amusing aside, the US federal bankruptcy trustee has filed suit on Rudy Giuliani’s behalf for unpaid legal fees against Donald J. Trump. Rudy can’t object, either; he’s filed bankruptcy, so the trustee has standing to demand Trump pay up to reduce the indebtedness.
Heh.
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basset said on January 27, 2024 at 9:03 am
Heh indeed. Nobody’s going to pay anybody anything, this is all for show.
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Sherri said on January 27, 2024 at 1:28 pm
Let’s just take a minute to appreciate that it’s an 80 year old E. Jean Carroll who is unafraid to stand up to Trump and the Magats, despite the inevitable death threats, while no one in the QOP, even the ones leaving Congress, will dare say a word against him because they’re so afraid. He wants a border deal scuttled, Mitch McConnell says yes, sir, Mr. Trump.
The chickenshit cowards of the QOP will talk privately about how they wish Trump would go away, but they won’t risk anything, not even their own peace and comfort, to even slow him down slightly. From Paul Ryan to Lamar Alexander, they just slink away quietly.
Courage is not cosplaying with AR-15s and camo. Courage is actually risking something.
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Sherri said on January 27, 2024 at 2:45 pm
Can someone explain the border “crisis” to me, except as racist fear-mongering? I live within 100 miles of a border, though not one that promotes racist fears, and I live in a city where 45% of residents were born outside the US, so immigration is not some scary concept. It’s just my next door neighbors, literally, who were born in China.
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David C said on January 27, 2024 at 2:54 pm
The brown horde has replaced the yellow horde. The Rs have been playing around with it for years. During Obama’s administration, Obama decided to support an immigration bill from John McCain. Since it was being supported by Obama, McCain voted against his own fucking bill. They want an issue, not a fix.
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Scout said on January 27, 2024 at 3:31 pm
I live 180 miles from Nogales AZ, a border town. I have no idea what the MAGAt haters are banging on about either, other than trying to exploit a made up crisis because obviously, that’s all they’ve got.
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LAMary said on January 27, 2024 at 8:15 pm
Right there with you, Scout. I’m about 125 miles from the border. We get some of Abbott’s buses here. Local churches have shelter and food for arrivals. There are a lot of homeless people in Los Angeles. No question about that, but they are not all recent border crossers. Lots of veterans and people displaced by the rental costs going up steeply, lots of people with psychological or addiction issues.
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Sherri said on January 27, 2024 at 9:00 pm
Penn Jillette, the magician, used to be a libertarian. Not any more. From a recent interview:
For so long, you identified as Libertarian. What changed?
I completely have not used the word Libertarian in describing myself since I got an email during lockdown where a person from a Libertarian organization wrote to me and said, “We’re doing an anti-mask demonstration in Vegas, and obviously we’d like you to head it.” I looked at that email and I went, “The fact they sent me this email is something I need to be very ashamed of, and I need to change.” Now, you can make the argument that maybe you don’t need to mandate masks — you can make the argument that maybe that shouldn’t be the government’s job — but you cannot make the argument that you shouldn’t wear masks. It is the exact reciprocal of seatbelts because if I don’t wear a seatbelt, my chances of fucking myself up increase — if I don’t wear a mask, the chance of fucking someone else up increase.
Many times when I identified as Libertarian, people said to me, “It’s just rich white guys that don’t want to be told what to do,” and I had a zillion answers to that — and now that seems 100 percent accurate.
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brian stouder said on January 27, 2024 at 9:12 pm
Sherri – I’m not being sarcastic (nor snippy) – thank you for the refreshing and thought-provoking posts above!
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susan said on January 27, 2024 at 10:13 pm
Sherri, in what publication was that interview?
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LAMary said on January 27, 2024 at 11:20 pm
LA County has a huge Asian population. I haven’t heard anyone complaining about it. There is also a large Armenian population, a Jewish Iranian population, a Filipino population and my office is near a part of LA called Little Bangladesh. There is a lot of noise about the number of homeless living on the streets. Not about their ethnic origins.
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alex said on January 27, 2024 at 11:59 pm
Too bad she waited until after she had nothing to lose.
https://wapo.st/3SfSP6X
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Sherri said on January 28, 2024 at 2:06 am
The interview is from Cracked, found here https://www.cracked.com/article_40871_penn-jillette-wants-to-talk-it-all-out.html
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Jeff Gill said on January 28, 2024 at 7:08 am
A note on homeless veterans: I am not saying there aren’t any, because of course there are. Having said that, this is a population that politically has gotten huge attention in the last twenty years. If you work with transitional housing programs, that’s the easiest money to get in many ways. Our veterans housing funds we struggle to spend each month, because we have trouble finding enough homeless vets to place, and there’s latitude on their discharge status. It used to be if you had a general discharge, let alone a less than honorable discharge, you couldn’t receive any veterans services, and for HUD at least that’s changed.
The other thing is if you work directly with populations of people who are unhoused, you learn quickly without even looking for it that many people who are unhoused who wear veteran hats and have “am a vet” signs and talk about having served will quickly reveal they never were in the service they claim. Occasionally it will turn out they had a brief, tragic series of events around mental health that led to a less than honorable discharge after a short period which they narrate into combat service and medals and activity with special services, which is its own challenge, but we can help them. More often, they turn out to have no service history at all.
We had an emergency warming shelter open for three days last weekend; during the pre-dawn hours a guy was talking to two others by the coffee pot (we had 22 in that night, about half slept at any given time overnight) about his service in a number of places. He was making a wide range of implausible claims, and given enough time, he inevitably came to where he received the Medal of Honor. I shook my head: he saw me, the other two didn’t. Later that morning he came over and thanked me for not saying anything, and said “I get carried away sometimes.” I told him I understood, and was glad to help him rein it in. Then he went on to try to tell me about parachuting into Grenada . . . I kept my sigh to myself and listened as we got him a fresh cup.
But veterans who are homeless are not as common as it may appear. IMHO. If you know a veteran who is homeless, there is funding out there that’s accessible for them, just check around.
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LAMary said on January 28, 2024 at 12:43 pm
Being a place that is generally warmer and politically less nasty about homeless people I think we might be seeing more vets than colder cities get.
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susan said on January 28, 2024 at 1:11 pm
Thanks, Sherri. Interesting interview.
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Dave said on January 28, 2024 at 3:38 pm
I saw the news last night that said the Icon of the Seas set sail on its maiden voyage yesterday.
I knew a fellow who spent twenty years in the Army who went after one of those men because he knew the uniform and insignias he was wearing were all wrong. I think he shamed him because it upset him that he’d spent twenty years and had no sympathy for someone masquerading as a veteran.
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Sherri said on January 28, 2024 at 4:36 pm
I can understand a real veteran being upset at someone masquerading as a veteran. But I can also understand why someone might masquerade as a veteran. This country is so obsessed with only helping the “deserving”, those worthy of our help, rather than recognizing that everyone deserves help.
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