Guys, I think we’d have been better off explaining climate change, early on, as something other than simply “global warming.” Most people hate winter; you say it’ll be shorter, and they shrug. Big deal, I planned to move to Kentucky after I retired, anyway, etc.
If, on the other hand, we’d have laid out more details: Polar vortices, blistering summers, super-hurricanes, apocalyptic wildfires, and so on, maybe we’d not be in the fix we are now. Oh well, too late now.
I write this looking out my bedroom window. We’re supposed to get 3-5 inches of snow today, at a time when lots of trees are still retaining leaves, most of those that have fallen have still not been picked up from the curb, and oh my it will all be a melty freezey mess. The upside? I’m working from home today. So there’s a balance.
An appropriately emotioned Veterans Day to you all. (It feels dumb saying “happy,” which I suppose only people who get the day off can claim.) Hope you all had a good weekend. Mine was…adequate. We watched “Midsommar” on the iTunes device, and it was that rarity of rarities — a horror movie I enjoyed, if enjoyed is quite the right word. It was flawed, but every flaw was a defensible choice, and parts of it were simply spectacular.
More Morocco? I thought you’d never ask! A short scooter video that I hope doesn’t clog the download time.
This was our first night in Marrakech. I was trying to capture the insanity of these scooters buzzing through the tight streets of the medina, but didn’t quite get there. But it is a good look at the unfashionable parts of the medina at pedestrian rush hour, and you get a sense of street life. I did notice, when we were there, how much same-sex affection you see on the street, but that it doesn’t necessarily feel…sexual. Women walk arm-in-arm, men with arms slung casually over one another’s shoulders. (Did I already talk about this? This feels like deja vu, but I’m too lazy to check.) Morocco was a big gay destination in the old days, but I don’t think people there are any gayer than they are anywhere else. I didn’t get a this-is-my-lover feeling from any of these couples; it was just different than here, where men have that weird urinal-choice etiquette.
Now that it’s fading into the past, I think about the things I saw that I was either too slow or too polite to get a picture of: The strolling couples, for one, but also the four or five Berber men I saw squatting around a big wok-like pot at lunch hour in the markets, scooping out their lunch (right hand only!) bite by bite. A kid racing toward me on a bicycle in Essaouira, his basket stocked with two sizable swordfish, swords sticking out one side of the basket and tails out the other; I jumped out of his way for fear of incurring a wound I’d have a hard time explaining at a clinic.
Such a magical place.
OK, now it’s snow and work and more snow, and I must get to it. Happy Monday.
alex said on November 11, 2019 at 11:21 am
In Europe it’s not unusual for men to walk arm-in-arm, but in this country we’ve been conditioned to sexualize it. I notice that Gen Y is much more comfortable with same-sex hugs and affection and that people in general seem to be loosening up these last few years. About fucking time.
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Jeff Borden said on November 11, 2019 at 12:25 pm
It seems appropriate to note how the Orange King –did you know not a single tRump has every served this nation in uniform??– compared himself to Vietnam veterans during a 1997 interview with Howard Stern:
In an unearthed interview from 1997, Donald Trump claimed he was a “brave soldier” for avoiding STDs during his single years in the late ’90s.
“It’s amazing, I can’t even believe it. I’ve been so lucky in terms of that whole world, it is a dangerous world out there. It’s like Vietnam, sort of. It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave solider,” Trump said in the interview when Howard Stern asked how he handled making sure he wasn’t contracting STDs from the women he was sleeping with.
The business-mogul-turned-politician elaborated on the fact in the interview, calling women’s vaginas “potential landmines” and saying “there’s some real danger there.”
Also appearing on Stern’s show in 1993, Trump bragged about his promiscuous lifestyle while single and stated that men who didn’t go to Vietnam didn’t need to feel guilty because dating during the AIDS epidemic in the ’80s was also dangerous.
“You know, if you’re young, and in this era, and if you have any guilt about not having gone to Vietnam, we have our own Vietnam — it’s called the dating game,” Trump said to Stern in a 1993 interview. “Dating is like being in Vietnam. You’re the equivalent of a soldier going over to Vietnam.”
Of course this calcified bag of monkey pus “raw dogged” a porn actress while Melania was nursing Barron. Cause he’s brave.
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Jakash said on November 11, 2019 at 12:33 pm
Since there was a pretty good response rate, I thought perhaps there’d be a tabulation of the “that one, or this one?” photo vote tally from the last post. The result seems to be 9.5 to 5.5, in favor of the first version, not counting that the Proprietress herself leaned toward the first.
I just thought it was odd that nobody commented about how the doors in the first picture were blue, but then they appeared to be gold in the second picture. 😉 (Uh, that’s an attempted “The dress” joke, lest there be any confusion.)
Jeff B.,
I suppose you think that the STD/Vietnam comparison should be something that would be a deal-breaker for Evangelicals and flag-waving Republican patriots of any creed. Oh, yeah, you’re right about that!
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Jakash said on November 11, 2019 at 1:37 pm
A very short piece from Eric Zorn of the Tribune, exhorting us to choose “Cult 45” as the go-to term for Trump supporters. Since I’ve long been an aficionado of Dolt 45 as a moniker for the grifter-in-chief, himself, it’s an easy sell to me!
https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/eric-zorn/ct-column-given-their-unshakable-devotion-to-their-leader-it-s-fair-to-say-that-trump-s-strongest-suppo-20191111-story.html
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Deborah said on November 11, 2019 at 2:16 pm
It snowed in Chicago, I think it’s pretty much over now, don’t know how many inches, it looks like less than an inch from our perch next to the lake, but it’s hard to tell from up here. There is a lot of ice falling off of buildings, thank goodness I don’t have to walk anywhere today. Staying home doing laundry and making a big pot of chili, just the thing for a day like this.
Cult 45 is perfect. Trump is really outdoing himself lately in the vile Tweet department. He has no leg to stand on as we all know and he does too of course, all he does is use ridiculous ad hominem arguments and repeats himself ad nauseam. Anyone who falls for that crap is beyond me.
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beb said on November 11, 2019 at 3:11 pm
The Ur-Dumpf came to the USA a century ago to avoid the German draft so draft dodging seems to be something baked into their blood. I never serviced either but I know better than to pretend that I’m better than a veteran.
My hobbby is old time fiction (the pulps) and I often see comments about two fellows walking “arm in arm.” I have no idea when that went out of fashion.
I wanted to link too this story:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/11/politics/whistleblower-lindsey-graham-donald-trump/index.html
The headline read “The super weird Republican argument about the whistleblower.” I was wondering what new super-weird theory they had come up with, but it’s just this claim that unless the whistleblower is revealed this whole impeachment thing is illegal. The article does a good job of explaining why it’s not important to reveal who the whistleblower was and mentions the chilling effect that exposing the identity of a whistleblower would have on future whistleblowers. But it does mention anything of the obvious, which is that demanding to know who a “squealer” is is something out of a gangster movie. The gangster wants to know not so he can met his accuser in a court of law, but so he can have the guy whacked. It’s important, I think, that people emphasis how much like a gangster Trump talks and acts.
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Jeff Borden said on November 11, 2019 at 3:36 pm
Leningrad Lindsey is doing everything in his power to descend into the primordial ooze with the Orange King. He is utterly without principles or morals. When he dies, they won’t bury him. They’ll flush him.
With “Jockstrap Gym” Jordan of Ahia, defender of pedophile physicians, and Matt “Seven DUI’s” Gaetz of Floriduh leading the clown show in the House, we are in for an amazing shit show, ladies and gents.
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JodiP said on November 11, 2019 at 5:23 pm
Well, my weekend was pretty rough. My mom, who had been in hospice for just over two weeks, became unconscious early Saturday. She passed away yesterday. I am incredibly grateful this hospice house existed. It is quite a haven for the person and families.
I’m also grateful for my mom, who never dwelled on negative things (sometimes to a fault…but I’d rather that than someone who was pessimistic. Easier to learn to dwell in discomfort, I think, than to unlearn baseline negativity.) Because she worked, I also had to cook for the family and hired hands in my early teens. As you all know, I still love cooking. We had a last game of rummy on Thursday, and she won, despite my best effort!
Today I had to get a few things at the local food co-op. A cashier that I always go to was there, and when she asked how I was doing, I said I was hanging in there. “Just hangin’ in?” “Yeah, my mom passed yesterday.” She came around and gave me a long, warm hug, telling me her mom had also passed. She talked as she rang me up. It had been twenty years since her mom had died, but she assured me I will always fee her presence.
The scooter video reminded me of my recent Florence trip, when my VRBO host took me to a pizza place on his small motorcycle. Things happen when you travel solo.
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Deborah said on November 11, 2019 at 5:24 pm
Beb, your last statement hit on something I kept thinking about as I was watching the Scorsese movie “The Irishman“ last night, that is how much Trump acts and talks like a mobster. it was very clear in the movie, it felt to me like that association was intended.
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Deborah said on November 11, 2019 at 5:30 pm
Oh Jodi P, I’m so sorry. I’m so glad you had a good time with her Thursday. A loss like that is hard, wish I could give you a hug too.
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beb said on November 11, 2019 at 5:39 pm
It turns out that snowblowing is a lot harder when there’s a thick layer of leaves underneath. Also, the ground being warm made a later of slush as well.
David Jay Johnson talks about this in his 2016 (?) The Making of Donald Trump. Trump was an acolyte of mob mouthpiece Roy Cohen. He clearly made a deal with the mob for the cement to build his first building. He knows mobsters and how mobs operate.
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Deborah said on November 11, 2019 at 6:10 pm
Actually Beb, the mobster that owned that cement company was a character in the movie, his mobster name was Fat Tony (I think his name was Tony Soleri or something like that) and he was one of the ones ordering the whacking of Jimmy Hoffa (who was no angel either).
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Deborah said on November 11, 2019 at 6:33 pm
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-mob-organized-crime-213910 Trump was fairly mobbed up and Roy Cohn was for sure.
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Deborah said on November 11, 2019 at 7:06 pm
Fat Tony was Tony Solerno not Soleri.
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Julie Robinson said on November 11, 2019 at 7:54 pm
Sending you lots of hugs, Jodi, and I’m glad she was still able to give you a run for your money almost to the end. The cashier was right, she will always be with you, and I hope you’ll have lots of the good memories like you’ve already mentioned. Be very, very kind to yourself over the next days, weeks, and months.
Because we want to be able to give my mom more help, we’re moving to the same apartment complex where she lives. (Little Yellow Retirement apartments, for those of you in the Fort.) A place is becoming available in the next month, and we have our house on the market. It’s been a mad rush, but we are looking forward to living more simply, with much less stuff. Of course that means we have to get rid of lots of stuff; therein lies the rub!
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Heather said on November 11, 2019 at 9:23 pm
So sorry, JodiP. I hope eventually you can find some comfort in your happy memories of her.
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Suzanne said on November 12, 2019 at 9:04 am
My symapthy, JodiP. Your mom sounds like a wonderful person! May she rest in peace and you find comfort in memories of her.
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4dbirds said on November 12, 2019 at 9:53 am
My condolences Jodi P. Your mom will always be with you.
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Bitter Scribe said on November 12, 2019 at 10:07 am
I live in a seen-better-times exurb of Chicago that has a surprisingly vibrant classical music scene. Sunday night my sister and I went to a performance of opera classics by the local symphony with the local chorale, plus a series of vocalist soloists. One of those was a family friend whom I hadn’t seen since she was 12 (but my sis is really tight with her and her family). Plus one of the chorus singers was the guy who painted my condo this summer. You just don’t get that kind of personal connection with a big-city philharmonic.
Condolences, Jodi. Both my parents are gone, and it still hurts sometimes.
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Dorothy said on November 12, 2019 at 11:18 am
I’m so sorry, JodiP, that you lost your mom. It’s been 26 months since mine passed and it still feels raw much of the time. What a great clerk to give you that nice long hug! I find myself being selective about who I mention my mom to because invariably I get choked up if I talk about her. I’m not sure that will stop any time soon.
In other news my hubby and our daughter had a wonderful weekend in Austin TX. This was an idea that daughter dreamed up after his thyroid cancer last September. They were supposed to fly from their respective cities and meet up in Detroit last Friday, but hub’s plane was delayed by several hours. He decided to jump in the car and drive the 3 hours to Detroit and it all worked out beautifully. However, coming home yesterday they were delayed out of Austin and got to Detroit much later than they should have. I booked a hotel room at the Detroit airport just in case (two queen beds in case they had to share); she got to D.C. around 2 AM and he’s driving home from Detroit as I type this. He should be home in an hour.
On Saturday they went to a venue where Jimmy Vaughan, Stevie Ray’s brother, performed. They really liked the show. And on the plane to D.C. Laura spied Jeff Daniels in first class, and then again she was next to him on the sidewalk outside the airport as she hailed a cab. Oh – Lindsay Graham was on her flight Friday to Detroit. Man if I had seen him you can bet I’d have given him an earful and a half.
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Scout said on November 12, 2019 at 11:40 am
Sending warm condolences your way JodiP. Even when we know it’s coming, the finality is heartbreaking. May her memory be for blessing.
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Jeff Borden said on November 12, 2019 at 12:43 pm
Check this out and despair.
https://www.robertfeder.com/2019/11/12/daily-northwestern-nothing-apologize-except-apology/
Please be advised this newspaper is NOT part of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. A friend who’s a graduate just corrected me on that fact. Still, this story is so fucking sad.
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Julie Robinson said on November 12, 2019 at 4:54 pm
Jeff Daniels must have been heading home for a well-deserved rest after finishing a year playing Atticus Finch on Broadway. Eight shows a week for the entire year; he chose to not have an understudy and went on even when he was sick. If that had been me I wouldn’t have been heading back to Michigan, I’d be going some place sunny and warm. Some place with umbrellas on the drinks.
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Dorothy said on November 12, 2019 at 6:54 pm
Julie. Jeff Daniels was on the plane headed out of Detroit and landed in D.C. I know he’s a resident of Michigan though. Years ago my youngest sister lived in Michigan and she picked up a brochure about a theater group that Jeff founded or sponsored. I have the brochure somewhere in a box of my old scripts and programs.
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LAMary said on November 12, 2019 at 9:07 pm
So sorry, Jodi P.
I think Trump is a gangster wannabe. He might have dealt with the mobs plenty but I suspect they had the upper hand and he was giddy about hanging with them.
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Andrea said on November 12, 2019 at 9:27 pm
Dear Jodi,
Condolences to you and your family. I am glad you got to play one last game of Rummy with her! She went out on a winning streak.
Re the student journalists at Northwestern, I thought the Dean’s statement was exactly right:https://www.medill.northwestern.edu/news/2019/statement-from-dean-whitaker.html
Full disclosure: I am a proud Medill grad.
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alex said on November 12, 2019 at 10:05 pm
So sorry for your loss, JodiP. I’m caring for parents in their 90s and appreciating every precious moment even if at times it can be frustrating. Wish I could make them quit driving, but then I remember that they could never keep me down when I was young and just as naively determined to do as I wished. There but for the grace of the God I never believed in.
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Deborah said on November 12, 2019 at 10:23 pm
LA Mary, that’s so true about Trump.
I’m at Uncle J’s again. I’m making that delicious French pork stew that I read about on nn.c a while back, for dinner here tomorrow night. There will be 20 people at the dinner. I bought all of the ingredients in Chicago before driving up here, I needed to buy 12 lbs of pork, which consisted of 3, 4 lb pork butt roasts. I bought the leeks and fennel which I was worried about being able to get this time of year. I’ve only made this stew once before, I’m tripling the recipe, making it in a giant pot. I think it will be a hit. Someone else is making a salad and dessert, we’ll also have fresh French bread baguettes from a local bakery.
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Dexter Friend said on November 13, 2019 at 2:45 am
Dorothy, JD sponsored a theater company in Chelsea, MI and sort of over-saw the productions and wore other hats there too. That was about 20 years ago.
Jodi, so sorry for your loss.
On Veterans Day I watched the usual programming from Washington like I always do. Then I went to OnDemand to re-watch Area 60, a doc on the section of Arlington National Cemetery where some of the dead from the two current wars are buried. I was amazed; it had been 11 years since I had watched it. Little girl singing happy birthday to a gravestone, brothers of the dead napping atop the dirt of a grave, wives lamenting and crying…it was appropriate to watch it alone on that solemn day. One lady had lost her husband during the last vestiges of the Vietnam War. She told of how when she was freshly widowed an older lady told her the love she shared with her husband would grow stronger with time, and she told a young woman it was true, and would be for her too. I don’t have a clue how all that works with the women who hopped around in bed with other soldiers when their husbands were deployed thousands of miles away or the really good women who re-married at some point, which probably most did, eventually. Actually, I never gave it much thought at all.
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beb said on November 13, 2019 at 3:15 am
Jeff Daniels founded the Purple Rose Theater in Chelsea Michigan. It’s a hour’s drive or more from Detroit. It’s still in operation.
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Joe Kobiela said on November 13, 2019 at 9:13 am
Good thoughts your way Jodi,
Highly recommended you catch Escanaba in the moonlight, Written by Jeff Daniels it’s very funny, especially if you know anything about yoopers and deer hunting.
Flew out of Detroit Tuesday morning to Miami, what a change of weather, currently in Cancun for a few hours, then back to Miami.
Stay warm
Pilot Joe
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Jakash said on November 13, 2019 at 12:48 pm
Regarding the kerfuffle at Northwestern referred to by Jeff B. @ 22, Neil Steinberg covers the matter clearly and smartly, as is his wont, in today’s column. He concludes by quoting a poem that summarizes what he thinks is the lesson of the incident, for the journalism students. “You have to like it better than being loved.”
But that’s not before firing off this blazing paragraph:
“College is a challenging time. But it’s supposed to be the challenge of toughening yourself to face the world as it is, in all its unfairness. Not the challenge of shouting down anyone you don’t like, or sealing yourself off in your own little crib of self-regard, wrapped in a soft blankie of privilege, demanding that life fluff your pillows while you practice the yowls of grievance you’ll emit whenever your delicate skin is brushed by the gnarled hand of reality.”
https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2019/11/12/20961126/daily-northwestern-university-editorial-apology-jeff-sessions-campus-protest-steinberg-nu-medill
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Suzanne said on November 13, 2019 at 1:56 pm
Anyone out there watching impeachment hearings? Twitter is lit up.
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Jeff Borden said on November 13, 2019 at 2:38 pm
Jakash,
Neil Steinberg is about as close to being a public intellectual as you can get. He’s not just read all the great classics, but he understands them. He quotes everyone from Milton to Zappa and always in the proper context. He’s the anti-Albom.
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ROGirl said on November 13, 2019 at 3:28 pm
I’m sitting at the airport waiting for my delayed flight to Nashville, listening to the hearings on NPR. Starting to board, I’m in steerage.
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David C. said on November 13, 2019 at 6:22 pm
I listened until Devin and Gym started ranting. tRump apologist Ari Fleischer said it was really bad for tRump. The MAGAts will think it’s all sunshine and smiles for their dear leader but I can’t see how anyone who watched the networks thinking so.
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Deborah said on November 13, 2019 at 9:40 pm
I’m at uncle J’s so haven’t been able to watch the hearings although I tried to keep up on my iPhone from time to time. Uncle J should be kept away from stress as much as possible in his condition.
I’ve spent the better part of the day making the French pork stew. It’s a miracle that I didn’t cut one of my fingers off cutting 3, 4 lb pork butt roasts into 1” squares, that was by far the hardest part because mainly all of the knives were dull. But the stew was a big hit with the guests and everybody had a good time.
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Ann said on November 13, 2019 at 9:49 pm
I’m so sorry, Jodi. My mom turns 95 next month and I told a friend this morning that I may look back on this as one of the best times of my life–having some purpose in caring for her but freed, thanks to expensive assisted living, from the hands-on part. She’s a Wellesley graduate and it really broke her heart when Hillary lost. You can guess how she feels about the orange one. She was watching the hearings today and I asked her if she thought the Democrats did a good job and she said no. I hope that’s not the general impression. On one hand we’re both ready for her to die (bless her heart, she’s even written her own obituary) but I know I’ll be heartbroken when it happens.
Nancy, keep those Morocco stories and photos coming.
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Dexter Friend said on November 14, 2019 at 2:01 am
I watched the hearing for 4 hours then the re-cap shows this evening. The best part of the day was watching Chris Matthews on Hardball laughing his ass off after airing a clip from Jim Jordan’s nonsensical attempts to bait George Kent and especially Bill Taylor. During the live telecast the best part was Taylor chronicling the second call , which most people knew nothing about. It is clear as a sky of azure blue to me: Trump will soon be impeached, and I mean as quickly as possible, which isn’t soon enough for me.
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