It looks like we all need a fresh thread. Day one of lifesaving went well. Three women, one man, the latter of whom is tall, lanky, and over 200 pounds, i.e., no picnic to tow back to the side, but we made it work. I’m sure much of the class looked like a comedy of errors, but once I got the hang of how to deploy the rescue tube in different situations, it got better.
And I slept like a baby last night. Excellent.
This was the view from day one of morning swim yesterday, which I share just because:
I won’t see the sky like that for a while, because I showed up extra-early. But the solstice is just after midnight tonight (dammit) in my time zone, so come it will. (Dammit.)
One link today: Politics in Cooz’s state. No wonder he’s grumpy. I would be, too. Not that Michigan is much better.
Still growing used to the new fonts. As always, we are a work in progress around here.
Happy Tuesday, all.
MarkH said on June 20, 2017 at 10:34 am
Deborah @57 yesterday – The solstice is not calendar date specific, but the position of the sun to the equator: north of it in the summer, south of it in the winter. The date of the event will vary, from around the 20th to as late as the 22nd. Here’s a helpful guide:
https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/about-seasons-calculator.html
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Jeff Borden said on June 20, 2017 at 10:53 am
I lived in Charlotte from April 1985 until July 1989. While Jesse Helms was a national embarrassment, Charlotte was governed by a black mayor and a Jewish city council member, which was something my previous city, Columbus, Ohio, had yet to achieve. Even then, the contrast between the rural areas who flocked to Helms and the urban areas that shunned him at the ballot box was stark, yet there was a real sense of inevitability that the state would remain moderate going forward. Obviously, that was a false hope. The magazine doesn’t mention Art Pope, the billionaire appointed state budget director of the Pat McCrory administration, but he is a leading reason for this ugly standoff. Imagine if one of the Koch Brothers or one of the Coors or DeVos heirs was given control of a state budget and you can envision what Pope did.
My friends in N.C. are all urbanites save one hippie farmer up near Shelby. They despair of the politics, but it is their home, though one of my buddies and his wife are contemplating a move to Boston. She was once a teacher of the year in N.C., but all the cuts and the cultural wars have her dispirited and looking elsewhere.
And as the article notes quite clearly, the rural representatives don’t give a good goddam about Charlotte, Raleigh, the Research Triangle. . .none of it. The loss of hundreds of millions in investments do not matter. Their political and religious purity does.
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Heather said on June 20, 2017 at 11:06 am
That’s depressing, Jeff. I’ve never been to Charlotte but I am earning a master’s degree online at Queens University of Charlotte–it’s a really good program and there are many NC residents in it, who obviously seem to regard learning, intellectual exploration, open dialogue, etc. as a good thing.
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Jeff Borden said on June 20, 2017 at 11:26 am
Heather, this is all about the city mice vs. the country mice. The NCGA is under absolute conservative Republican control. What’s astonishing is that much of the damage they did occurred while Pat McCrory was governor. The fucker had been mayor of Charlotte with a reputation as a moderate. Once he aligned with Pope and the other loons in Raleigh, he dropped his moderate disguise and became one of them. A few months ago I read something about poor Pat not finding much in the way of work and grousing about being called a bigot. . .just because he was bigoted against those yucky transponders. Karma is a bitch.
BTW, the University of North Carolina used to be mentioned in the same breath as the best of the Ivy League schools for its quality of education, I don’t believe that comparison is being made any longer.
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Deborah said on June 20, 2017 at 12:06 pm
I’ve been to Charlotte many times because my mother-in-law lives there and so does my husband’s sister. I’ve mainly only been to the suburbs, only downtown for a wedding. I’ve always gotten a bad vibe when I’m there, probably all in my head because I know it’s in the south and has so many problems as the article points out.
Thanks, Mark H, I did know that it wasn’t an exact date but that it usually hovered around the 21 or 22, I don’t ever remember that it fell on the 20th. Now the days will start to get shorter, sigh.
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Brandon said on June 20, 2017 at 12:46 pm
Nancy, was it you or JC who chose the new typefaces? What is the cursive typeface? And could this be the body type?
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jcburns said on June 20, 2017 at 1:25 pm
Spectral is indeed the body copy font, designed specifically for extra screen legibility for long reads—and the wacky summer-y script font is Pacifico (also sourced from Google web fonts.) Nancy has always been very nice about allowing (?) me to experiment with the site design pretty much when I’m in the mood, and we’re old enough friends that if she tells me that something isn’t working, I can yank it out of there without looking back.
I think I thought of tossing a script/cursive in after finding a dusty box of these in the basement. Nance could and did fill thousands of these back in the dawn of journalistic time.
It’s entertaining to see the, ahem, spectrum of reactions here. Always has been.
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Dorothy said on June 20, 2017 at 2:43 pm
I was wondering how you were taking in all the comments, jc! Funny…
We get our new dog tomorrow and I’m a little bit nervous. Nervous she’ll fight with the cat, nervous she won’t take to us, nervous about leaving her in a crate (but I’m going home for lunch for the first week or so) – nervous about everything I guess. And I guess that means I’m a lot nervous. My job is also crazy this week as it’s the last days to have my boss here, who is the current Chair of the department. She’s leaving Friday for a trip out west to celebrate her 50th wedding anniversary with her husband and extended family. The new boss arrives on July 5 and I hear she is much quieter than my current boss. It’s going to be an adjustment. I’m just so used to my boss. But I’m also looking forward to less stress (or I hope there’s less) from a person who is not so quick to yell about something.
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brian stouder said on June 20, 2017 at 3:33 pm
JC – when I clicked into Nance’s site a moment ago, the font was not cursive – and my heart dropped a little!
Then – boom! – it became cursive again….and I must say – that’s the way I like it!
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Charlotte said on June 20, 2017 at 4:49 pm
Charles Pierce on the rumors that Michael Flynn is singing: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a55753/michael-flynn-cooperating-russia-investigation/
I loved my couple of years raft guiding in NC, and met a lot of really interesting, artsy hippie types, but we were always suspect, and there was a constant weight of vigilance. Occasional minor acts of violence, like “dooring” my buddy Denny when he was running gear to the take-out on a small Honda scooter. I hear stuff has changed some up in that corner of the state, but mostly because my friends who stayed had kids, joined the school board, ran for county commission etc …
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brian stouder said on June 20, 2017 at 5:04 pm
That piece regarding the probability that Flynn is singing like a bird – thus causing everyone to lawyer-up, is fascinating.
And – as if in confirmation that another major boulder is bounding down the hill-side, if you look at Fox News’s website right about now, do you know what you’ll see? (wait for it……) Wall-to-wall, screaming headline assaults on (wait….wait…) Hillary Rodham Clinton! They say (breathlessly) she may lose her security clearance…!!
I mean, what?
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David C. said on June 20, 2017 at 6:36 pm
UNC was probably mentioned along side of the Ivy League at the time Helms called it the University of Nigras and Communists. Learning is so lefty.
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Deborah said on June 20, 2017 at 7:24 pm
Sherri, we experienced an empathy gap in the parking lot of a Bank of America in Santa Fe. Two cars roared into the lot one was driven by a young Hispanic woman and the other by an asshole white guy who was screaming at the woman, he called her every name in the book and made a lot of comments about her looks. There was another guy in the lot who had his cellphone trained on the asshole, so LB and I pulled ours out and focused them on the asshole too. He finally got back in his car and squealed out, as we were getting his license plate in full view. He apparently thought she did something wrong to him while driving, may have been some minor infraction but nothing to go apeshit over. The asshole’s face was crimson and screwed up into the most menacing possible contortion.
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Sherri said on June 20, 2017 at 9:07 pm
Deborah, on the flight to SF today, a middle-aged white guy started beefing at an older woman (also white) because he couldn’t find room for his carry-on bag and she had put her jacket in the overhead bin. Like it’s never occurred to him that flights are full, airlines charge for checked luggage, and there’s not enough room in the overhead for everyone’s bag. There were four other people who couldn’t find room, either, but he was the only one complaining. The attendants handled it fine, there was room in first class after everyone boarded there and no one had to gate check, but dude, take a breath.
At least it was Alaska not United! No one escalated the situation, we left right on time, and the flight was uneventful.
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Deborah said on June 20, 2017 at 9:14 pm
I’m not getting a good feeling about the results of GA 6, keeping my fingers crossed for Ossof, but…
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alex said on June 20, 2017 at 11:12 pm
They’re calling it for Handel. But I’m trying to look on the bright side. This was an election that shouldn’t even have been close, proving that the cup is half full of people smart enough to know better and motivated enough to vote, not three-fourths empty. And things can only get worse for our feckless leader before the 2018 election season.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 21, 2017 at 12:26 am
I find Spectral to be easy on the eyes for reading. That’s a font I’ll be keeping in mind. Thank you, JC.
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Mark P said on June 21, 2017 at 1:16 am
The Handel margin was much greater than the polls indicated before the election. I saw something on the news about the percentage of Republicans who voted vs the percentage of Democrats. It looks like the Democrats didn’t vote. I don’t really understand why most Republican voters vote the way they do, but damn, Democrats, why on earth aren’t you getting off your lazy asses and voting?
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alex said on June 21, 2017 at 7:31 am
The Wednesday morning quarterbacks who say that Ossoff should have gone low instead of high are full of shit.
Here’s an interesting new analysis of the reasons Clinton lost. Apparently the most flexible demographic, small in number but enough to tip the scales decisively, are the populist know-nothing independents who shifted their allegiance from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016. These are, evidently, white-Christian-identity bigots who also love “big government” and can put aside their animus when the teat is waved in their face just so.
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brian stouder said on June 21, 2017 at 10:42 am
Alex – couldn’t agree more!
These times are somewhat trying, and more than a little deceptive.
Usually (in my lifetime), one thinks of elections as a fuel-stop; we’re on the right road, and headed for a good place, and doing our best (even if we take a wrong turn, here or there)
But the last big election was more like – we picked up a hitch-hiker, who has now taken over the steering wheel, and the ‘adults’ in the car keep nodding in agreement as he proposes dropping off the kids (and old gramma, and sickly Uncle Frank) on the roadside, and letting them fend for themselves.
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Deborah said on June 21, 2017 at 10:55 am
What in the world is wrong with people who don’t vote?
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Mark P said on June 21, 2017 at 11:38 am
Ossof was not a strong candidate. In fact, he might have been one of the worst candidates the Democrats could have fielded. He was young and unknown, and he didn’t have a decent resume. His charisma level was in the negatives. His campaign was certainly not negative. He talked about what he would do, not what his opponent would do. Some of the ads from other sources were certainly negative, but not Ossof’s. On the other hand, he didn’t talk about what I think people wanted to hear. It’s great that both parties in Washington waste taxpayer money, but so damn what? I never heard him talk about health care, making the wealthy pay their fair share or about the influence of Russia in US politics, and the refusal of the Republican Party to take it seriously. I think he should have come out swinging, but he didn’t seem to really have the personality for that kind of campaign. The Democrats need a rabble rouser, someone who can tell the truth and stir things up. The surprising thing is that such a poor candidate did so well.
Handel’s campaign, on the other hand, was nothing but negative. Some of the accusations against Ossof were so laughably, transparently false that I don’t understand how anyone would believe them. One ad had a Handel supporter saying that we don’t need another politician in Washington.That was absurd. Ossof is definitely not a politician, and Handel is almost the perfect example of a typical politician. She has been in Georgia politics for years. In the end, I think all the election proved is that Georgia is red, and Republicans will vote for a Republican. Plus, a whole lot of them are stupid.
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Suzanne said on June 21, 2017 at 11:38 am
I don’t know why people don’t vote, except that I think for many, they believe it doesn’t matter, really. So they don’t bother.
It’s interesting to read the pundits today after the GA election. They still don’t get it. It’s not about the Democrats message so much as it is that the GOP/Fox/talk radio propaganda machine has been incredibly successful. I am reading today that the GA election proves that running against Trump is not enough to win, but it was more than enough for Trump who succeeded by not being Hillary. She was vilified enough for years that people believed it.
I don’t know how you fight against people who believe that a vote for a Democrat is a vote for Satan. It goes way beyond politics. It’s ideology.
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Mark P said on June 21, 2017 at 11:48 am
Suzanne, If that’s what the pundits are saying, it only confirms my opinion that they’re idiots, or at least not paying attention. Ossof did not run against Trump, or even the Republican Party. I think that fact might actually have hurt him.
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Suzanne said on June 21, 2017 at 12:38 pm
Mark P, they are more saying it was a referendum on Trump and that Ossof’s message did not resonate with voters.
I still contend that it’s not about the Dem’s message as much as it is that for so many a Democrat and a Demon are the same thing. Their message really doesn’t matter much.
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Scout said on June 21, 2017 at 1:24 pm
I found myself feeling disproportionately upset and feeling defeated by the Osoff loss. All the polling and early voting showed him slightly ahead and yet he lost by 5%. Because… turnout? I find I have no faith in our election system. Between the gerrymandering and the known fact we were hackable by the Russians, I feel like it’s all fixed now. I’m feeling a little crazy, actually. I know I need to step away from Twitter and focus on something else.
But not this: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40339730?SThisFB
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Jakash said on June 21, 2017 at 2:32 pm
I imagine most of y’all have seen the 2010 tweet by Governor Pence making the rounds: “It’s simply wrong for legislation that’ll affect 100% of the American people to be negotiated behind closed doors” Uh, that’s infuriating, of course.
But have you seen this charming one, featuring Dr. Jane Goodall, which demonstrates that Twitter in not *just* for ramping up one’s outrage?
https://twitter.com/phil500/status/876424981206454272
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Danny said on June 21, 2017 at 2:44 pm
Jakash, Dr. Jane Goodall is a good egg! Great video.
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redoubt said on June 21, 2017 at 3:22 pm
Turnout may have been affected by the weather. It poured down here, mostly during daylight (voting) hours. Some homes & businesses in part of the district were flooded; to those being rescued from floodwaters voting was probably a low priority.
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brian stouder said on June 21, 2017 at 3:43 pm
Et tu, Flint airport?
Some guy stabbed a police officer in the neck; Fox News is suggesting (but not yet calling this) an ‘act of terror’ (I suppose they’re waiting to see if this is a crazy white guy, or a crazy guys of some other ethnicity)
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Mark P. said on June 21, 2017 at 4:34 pm
Suzanne, if it was a referendum on Trump, it took place only in the minds of the pundits. No one, absolutely no one, even as much as mentioned Trump or even congressional Republican legislative goals. The Republican ads tried to tie Ossof to Nancy Pelosi, who must have taken Hillary Clinton’s place as the chief demon in Pandemonium. Some of their ads were filmed in San Francisco, where all the hippies live, you know, and those leftover 1960’s hippies were campaigning for Ossof.
On the other hand, I think they are right to say Ossof’s message didn’t “resonate” with the voting public. That’s pretty much what I was saying. Of course, it’s easy to say that a candidate’s message didn’t resonate with the voters when the candidate loses. That doesn’t take much insight.
On the other other hand, if Ossof had won, I might have happily said that it actually was a referendum on Trump.
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Icarus said on June 21, 2017 at 4:53 pm
Help me out here….this seat that Ossof was running for, would he have had to run for it again in 2018? if that’s the case, I can almost understand why they didn’t go balls-to-the-wall trying to win that seat for this or other special elections, just to have to ramp up again in less than 2 years.
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brian stouder said on June 21, 2017 at 4:54 pm
Just for the record, the R’s spent a shit-load o’ cash, too – for their narrow win in what had been a a cake-walk district for them.
http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2017/06/19/the-race-for-georgias-6th-district-now-costs-more-than-50m/
In all, left-leaning groups and Ossoff combined for about $2 million more in ad spending than Handel and conservative allies during the runoff phase.
On the GOP side, two groups accounted for the lion’s share of spending.
The National Republican Congressional Committee shelled out more than $6.7 million on ads in the race. And the Congressional Leadership Fund – a super PAC with ties to Speaker Paul Ryan – spent about $5 million on airtime. The group said it spent another $2 million on other costs, including a field operation aiming to target 300,000 voters by Tuesday.
Two other conservative groups – America First Policies and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – each chipped in at least $1 million more.
The tally is still emerging – and one estimate by a nonpartisan advocacy group Issue One has the total cost at roughly $60 million. Atlanta residents can be sure of one thing, though: After Tuesday, the relentless ads in the proxy fight between the two parties will stop. For a while.
Regarding the county where I live (northeastern Indiana), a friend of Nancy’s (Mark the Shark) once said that our local Republican machine would elect a giraffe, if it was nominated.
Anyway – traditionally the non-presidential party does well at the mid-terms, so – as Linus would say – we have another chance at kicking the football
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Mark P. said on June 21, 2017 at 5:03 pm
Brian, you would not believe how many political ads there were on Atlanta TV for a long, long time before the election. Several would air, one right after another. It will be a relief not to see them for a while. The TV stations are crying.
Icarus, every representative has to run every two years. That’s both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good because it gives more chances to get a bad one out of office (in theory, usually not in practice) and it’s bad because, as others have pointed out, a representative finishes one election and then pretty much has to immediately start campaigning again.
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Jolene said on June 21, 2017 at 7:01 pm
Help me out here….this seat that Ossof was running for, would he have had to run for it again in 2018? if that’s the case, I can almost understand why they didn’t go balls-to-the-wall trying to win that seat for this or other special elections, just to have to ramp up again in less than 2 years.
The winner of this race does, indeed, have to run again in 2018, but I don’t think that’s any reason to think Ossoff didn’t do everything he did. Both sides invested heavily, and turnout was high. Am pretty sure Ossoff would be much happier to have won, even if he had to run again next year. It certainly is easier to win as an incumbent than as a neophyte.
The best explanations I’ve heard are:
A. It’s Georgia. They vote for Republicans.
B. Ossoff, while a bright, pleasant fellow, had no real ties to the district. He was not, for instance, a small businessman, a churchgoer, a PTA president. He was “not a good fit to the district.”
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Sherri said on June 21, 2017 at 7:37 pm
It’s a gorgeous sunny day in San Francisco, and my husband and I have spent the day in one of our favorite places: the Exploratorium. We used to love to come up when we lived here, and now that they’re in a new building, it’s even nicer. The best company holiday party I ever attended was the year my husband’s company held its party at the Exploratorium.
Now we’re resting at the hotel before we find dinner and go see Hamilton. For today at least, I don’t care about politics.
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alex said on June 21, 2017 at 7:41 pm
He was “not a good fit to the district.”
Sam Nunn’s daughter ran for office in Georgia a while back. Guess she wasn’t a good fit either, but she didn’t come thisclose to winning.
Just got my Excalibur food dehydrator from Amazon, a day later than promised. All good so far except one of the control knobs is missing its innards and is fucking useless. It’s not worth shipping it back over, but it chaps my ass. At this moment the house is aromatic with drying garlic scapes, so it’s calming me down.
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Suzanne said on June 21, 2017 at 9:21 pm
This is the bottom line on the victory in GA from I tweet I saw today:
“My R relatives who actively dislike Trump(!) still think anything Dems say is lies. They wouldn’t even listen to the Comey hearing (lies).”
The resonance of the message of a Dem candidate is largely irrelevant to a great swath of the population. “Anything Dems say is lies.” If you have not been around people like this, it is hard to understand. I am not calling them stupid, deplorable, ignorant, or anything else. Many are decent hardworking, family loving, successful, intelligent people. But for them, a vote for a Democrat is a vote for Satanic forces, for evil. It really is that simple.
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Mark P said on June 21, 2017 at 9:51 pm
Suzanne, you’re a kinder, gentler person than I am. I know some of those decent, hard working, successful people. I worked with some of them (in Alabama, but pretty much the same as Georgia). I liked them. But I know a lot of them voted for Trump, and for Repiblicans down the line. They voted against their own interests, and what’s worse, against the interests of their friends and relatives. I call them stupid to avoid calling them something worse.
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Suzanne said on June 21, 2017 at 9:57 pm
Mark, that is what makes all this so incredibly frustrating and maddening. Why can’t they see what they are doing to the whole country?
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Deborah said on June 21, 2017 at 11:39 pm
I’ve been reading “The Handmaid’s Tale” and will watch the Hulu series eventually. Wow, is it depressing. While it is obviously much more extreme compared to what is happening today in this country, it’s not outside the realm of possibility, at least not to me, especially when I read some of your comments here about people you know. I don’t want to know those people.
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