Now this is what I needed: A few days away. Hello from Canada:
This is the view from where I am, just outside Leamington, Ont. That’s Lake Erie. Typical November sunrise, nothing too special. I’m disappointed my phone couldn’t catch the colors — such as they were — no matter how I monkeyed with the exposure. I might be suffering iPhone 14 envy, having seen some of the amazing photos you lucky ducks are posting. But the ol’ 8 Plus is doing just fine otherwise, so I’ll endure.
Anyway, we’re on a getaway, me and a girlfriend. Just a couple days spent enjoying an off-season waterfront Airbnb, seeing the sights. You know what sights there are to see in Leamington? This:
A terrible picture, I know, but: Greenhouses. Thousands of acres of them, most built in the last decade or so. Leamington was already the Tomato Capital of Canada, and then they figured, hey, if we put glass over those fields, we can grow a lot more. And so they did, and this is why the produce terminal in Detroit is the first stateside stop for many of the vegetables consumed in my part of the U.S. (A fair amount of cannabis, fully legal in Canada, comes out of this area, too.) Last I checked, there were about 3,000 acres of greenhouses in this neighborhood, with more planned, although the light pollution is pretty serious, and the growers and environmentalists are trying to work things out. I can tell you that after the sun went down last night, there was still a band of light at the eastern horizon and as for the west, visible from my bedroom window, it was perma-sunset: That pink glow behind the trees, all night long.
The tomatoes they produce aren’t as good as homegrown, but they’re a lot better than the winter tomatoes I remember. I use them in salads in January; they’re fine. And I really enjoy the spinach and lettuce, peppers and cucumbers we get from here.
Today, I’m thinking Point Pelee for some bird-watching. Also, more sitting around in the hot tub, and also perhaps another couple episodes of “The Crown,” a show neither of our husbands is into. (I do recall Alan’s priceless line from when Charles and Diana were splitting up, mid-’90s. I explained it all to him, and he said, “No wonder he spends so much time fishing.”)
A bar cheeseburger may be in my future today, too. With a locally brewed lager. O, Canada.
I don’t have much bloggage, mainly because I’m still marinating in serotonin from the election. You have your own takes, but I think this is an interesting look at what might transpire in 2024. Beyond that, I think I’m going to turn my focus to Thanksgiving, and all I have to be thankful for.
Joe Kobiela said on November 14, 2022 at 8:40 am
Can confirm the brightness of the grow houses, when you depart Cleveland Burke lakefront airport they turn you out over the lake and you can clearly see the glow, you need to be sharp on your instruments skills as black lake + boat lights + distant glow lights can induce vertigo very quickly.
Pilot Joe
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Jason T said on November 14, 2022 at 9:07 am
As you may remember, my bride and I honeymooned in Leamington. A lovely little town. We liked it enough we went back for our second anniversary. We’re overdue for a return.
My bride was then employed by Del Monte Foods, and her work ID was enough to get us into the then-Heinz plant for a quick visit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSaB03Umzrs
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Julie Robinson said on November 14, 2022 at 11:03 am
We traveled over the weekend too, back to the world of 1959, where Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint are beautiful and glamorous in North by Northwest. It was a promotion for our niece’s book, and as a bonus she sold quite a few copies. I haven’t seen many Hitchcock movies so it was new to me. Very fun.
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alex said on November 14, 2022 at 4:34 pm
A bright pink emanates from our grow room but it’s the overwintering geraniums. Hope it doesn’t crash a plane.
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Deborah said on November 14, 2022 at 7:05 pm
We tried having a spider plant on a shelf in the bathroom in Santa Fe, the room has no windows so we got a grow light for it. It made the bathroom have a creepy glow at night so we’re not doing that anymore.
But we liked having a plant in there.
It’s winter in Chicago, snow and sleet tomorrow.
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basset said on November 14, 2022 at 10:56 pm
Nancy, you haven’t mentioned Kate and the band in awhile – how are they doing?
No night lights here, with Mrs B’s blood sugar alarms, my senior-citizen bladder, and the cat hammering on the bedroom door whenever she wants something to eat it doesn’t feel like I sleep at all most nights.
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Dexter Friend said on November 15, 2022 at 1:26 am
I live in Williams County , Ohio, and as I drive towards Stryker and on east into Fulton County I am besieged by tomato fields. Started in greenhouses, in May the plants are taken to huge fields. One farmer harvested 40 tons this season, usually, 30 tons. A good year. Scattered alongside rural roads are old beat housing trailers which migrants live in during the harvest. In 2022 they no longer work for pennies ; almost all trailers have new shiny big trucks parked in front. During harvest, you’ll always hear espanol spoken in Dollar General and Walmart. They dress well and spend tons of dough. And they mask, while nobody else here does at all, ever.
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Heather said on November 15, 2022 at 10:10 am
It’s great to hear the migrant workers are being paid decently, Dexter.
Woke up to snow, sigh. We really went from shorts to long underwear weather in about a day here in Chicago. Not sure what happened to fall.
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Jeff Borden said on November 15, 2022 at 10:18 am
For you tomato lovers. . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TWwyhCVBDg
Our nation dodged a bullet aimed straight at the heart of our democracy last week. But we are hardly out of the woods. All my newspapers today are filled with stories about what the hapless asshole Kevin McCarthy is facing in his quest to be speaker, a journey that so far has cost him his morality, his credibility, his dignity and his manhood. Now, he faces the prospect of jousting with far right-wing idiots like Jockstrap Gym, MTG, Chip Roy, Gaetz, etc.
It’s likely he will have to promise an effort to impeach Joe Biden to get his coveted position. There will be pressure to slash aid to Ukraine, though perhaps the retaking of Kherson will blunt that effort. There will be calls to investigate the Justice Department, FBI and any other agency who questioned the actions of the Orange King.
That said, I am confident in far-right overreach. They won’t read the tea leaves from last week because it doesn’t match the world view they’ve formed within their own informational bubble. They will continue to say and do appalling things with regularity, but over time, the majority of citizens will tune them out. We have an estimated 25% to 30% of Americans who do not live on the plains of reality, who spit in the face of facts, data, science and empirical evidence, who believe to their very core the Sky God is the true leader of our nation. Those who cater to these deluded fools can have them.
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Sherri said on November 15, 2022 at 1:24 pm
Did a quick trip to TN this weekend to lay eyes on the parents. The good was getting to see my new great niece. The bad was listening to my mother complain about nearly every relative, some long dead. Hours of complaints about their shortcomings, going back decades. I would have tried to redirect her, but she can’t hear, so conversation is next to impossible, especially if she doesn’t want to be redirected.
And I mean she really can’t hear; she has had hearing problems going back to her thirties, has had surgery, wears very expensive hearing aids, everything.
But I’m lucky, because they’re 84 and still active, still able to drive and take care of a huge yard and have a garden and get up and down steps. They’ve outlived all their parents and grandparents and aren’t quite sure what to make of it, and my mom is 100% sure she’s going to have a stroke because her mother and her grandmother both died of strokes, but mostly they’re okay.
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Icarus said on November 15, 2022 at 2:58 pm
Meanwhile in Georgia….
https://theatlantavoice.com/saturday-voting-forbidden-during-us-senate-runoff-due-to-robert-e-lees-holiday/
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alex said on November 15, 2022 at 3:51 pm
Icarus, that’s so fucking ridiculous it makes me glad I live in Indiana.
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tajalli said on November 15, 2022 at 4:11 pm
Loved the tomato song, Jeff Borden.
That 25-30% you referred to live in the Abyss of Idiocy.
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Dave said on November 15, 2022 at 5:15 pm
Hot off the Florida press. The despicable Rick Scott is going to challenge McConnell for his leadership position. Since they did so well with their candidates and Scott has such great ideas, besides being a crook, will he get any support? I’m surprised Cruz hasn’t thought of doing this but maybe he realizes everybody hates him.
Dexter, back in the seventies, there were numerous tomato fields in and around Putnam County, OH, specifically in the Leipsic area. Somehow, they mostly seemed to have disappeared by the time I last saw the area, circa 2010.
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alex said on November 15, 2022 at 7:11 pm
Also just in, Tom Emmer edged out Indiana’s election-denying Trump cocksucker Jim Banks for House Whip, which per the WaPo has inflamed the kookoo caucus and will make Kevin McCarthy’s life sheer hell.
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Suzanne said on November 15, 2022 at 9:25 pm
Poor Jim Banks. He still doesn’t get that the cool kids Don want him in their clique.
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Dexter Friend said on November 16, 2022 at 2:17 am
Who knows? I heard this bastard is challenging K Mc.
“Stephen Joseph (Steve) Scalise is an American politician who is the United States House of Representatives Minority Whip and representative for Louisiana’s 1st congressional district. Scalise is in his eighth House term, having held his seat since 2008.” *Wikipedia*
I watched Fox for,hell, maybe the first time since Hector was a pup, for like 30 minutes because NBC network stations refused to televise the Orange Azzholio’s rambling speech in which he did declare for a 2024 run at the White House. What a goddam fucking windbag!
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Dexter Friend said on November 16, 2022 at 2:29 am
caution. Rape.
https://nypost.com/2022/11/15/jennifer-siebel-newsom-wife-to-california-gov-asked-to-fake-an-orgasm-in-court-during-harvey-weinstein-trial/
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Deborah said on November 16, 2022 at 12:59 pm
I was reading an article in Mother Jones online about news anchors running for various political offices. I was struck by this sentence “People across the political spectrum trust local TV news more than any other news source”. That is the opposite of us, we never watch local news, never have. We don’t watch news much on TV we get it online but it’s the NYT and WaPo mainly, sometimes NPR, Politico and bits and pieces here and there when I used to read Twitter. I rarely read anything on the Chicago Trib site, only if I hear a bunch of helicopters over the city, I’ll check in to the Trib’s breaking news. I never read the Sun Times, not because I don’t like it but it’s not on my radar screen for some reason. As far as print magazines we get the New Yorker, the Atlantic and The New York Review of Books. I watch cable sometimes, when I’m in Chicago, MSNBC Chris Hayes and Rachel when she’s on. I was surprised to read that the majority watch and read local. I realize my husband and are the weird ones.
Kari Lake is the most well known candidate, former news anchor, but a local weatherman in NM was running for governor also as a Republican. Both lost. Apparently it’s the people who choose and promote candidates who select news anchors and such because they’ve got tested screen ability and are trusted by their built in audiences. To me they seem to be wind blown bimbos who read what’s in front of them.
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Mark P said on November 16, 2022 at 1:53 pm
My one up-close look at making the sausage of network news was in the ‘70’s when I was a reporter covering a trial in Aiken SC. An obstetrician had been requiring welfare moms-to-be to be sterilized before he would provide care, and the next closest dr was about a half hour away. There was a civil suit against him. The trial was a week or two long, and at the very end, the SE reporter for CBS (I think) Judy Woodruff, blew in, talked to a few reporters, and then left for the network affiliate in Columbia to do her report. She asked a print journalist to call and tell her the verdict, so she could give an authoritative account of the trial. That’s when I said f**k network “news.”
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jcburns said on November 16, 2022 at 3:59 pm
Augusta GA would have been way closer to Aiken.
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Mark P said on November 16, 2022 at 4:11 pm
Augusta is where the patient would have had to go to find an obstetrician that would accept her. Aiken and Augusta are about a half hour apart. Columbia is about twice as far. I don’t know why Judy W went to the Columbia CBS affiliate rather than Augusta for her report.
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Julie Robinson said on November 16, 2022 at 4:40 pm
Ouch, Judy Woodruff is supposed to be one of the good ones. I don’t much like any TV news but am often in the room when the national broadcast is on. Orlando local news is populated by serious looking men and bimbo looking women. I dunno, maybe it’s a southern thing.
Dennis and Sarah finally succeeded in their quest to watch the Artemis lift off. They got home about 3:30 in the morning and are completely wasted today.
Jim Banks and Rick Scott are both losers. Too bad!
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Sherri said on November 16, 2022 at 5:12 pm
This is almost as good as an Isaac Chotiner interview, in terms of getting people to say incriminating things: https://apple.news/AFUTpk5oESaKElagO0ElKow
Some context, if you don’t follow crypto – Sam Bankman Fried, aka SBF, is a 30 year old MIT graduate and son of two Stanford law professors who until a few days ago was supposedly worth around $16 billion dollars and ran a prominent crypto exchange, FTX. Now everything has collapsed in what looks like epic fraud, and customers of his exchange have lost everything, basically. The short version of the story is that he used customer deposits in the exchange for his investment company Alameda Research, and a margin call wiped him out at an inconvenient time. The exchange was conveniently located in the Bahamas, to avoid any hint of regulation, basically him and his college buddies shacked up in a big house fleecing the suckers and having sex with each other.
It’s really hard to find anything in crypto that *doesn’t* look like an epic fraud, really.
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Suzanne said on November 16, 2022 at 6:46 pm
I ran across this recently, long but very informative about how crypto currency operates
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2022-the-crypto-story/
It’s interesting that people are drawn to crypto because it’s lack of oversight but then cry foul when that lack of oversight causes them to lose money.
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David C said on November 16, 2022 at 7:58 pm
I’ve always wanted to watch a rocket launch. They say the best part is seeing it start to rise a few seconds before the roar hits you.
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Julie Robinson said on November 16, 2022 at 8:17 pm
They could feel it shake their bodies. It also lit up the entire sky. We caught a couple of launches when we were down here visiting, and it was enough for me. The middle of the night thing is no longer appealing.
How did anyone with a lick of sense not think crypto was a scam?
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Joe Kobiela said on November 16, 2022 at 10:16 pm
Saw 3 shuttle launches 1 at night from around 4 miles from the pad. The sound and vibration are stunning.
Pilot Joe
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MarkH said on November 17, 2022 at 12:04 am
Woodruff worked at Atlanta’s CBS affiliate, WAGA, from 1970-75 as legislative reporter and anchor. In ‘75 she went to NBC as general assignment reporter covering the southeast, then to the Today Show in ‘83. She was definitely in the area for that twisted OB/GYN story. That is surprising conduct for Woodruff.
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Mark P said on November 17, 2022 at 1:15 am
I couldn’t remember what network Woodruff worked for. I believe they assigned her to cover Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign, probably assuming he wouldn’t win. When he did, Woodruff rode his coattails into the big time.
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Jeff Gill said on November 17, 2022 at 7:09 am
I did not know that werewolves kill vampires. This election season is teaching me so much.
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Dexter Friend said on November 17, 2022 at 7:20 am
DeKalb County, Indiana, Judge Stump, years ago, forced a young woman who was called “retarded” then to have sterilization performed, court ordered. The notoriety as it was came in the form of a letter to Penthouse Magazine’s letters from readers page. A man at work who loved his porn mags went around showing the story to all of us. It was an outrage.
Well, today I get a shot in the arm for Omicron virus protection.
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Dorothy said on November 17, 2022 at 7:32 am
A question to the ladies (well, maybe guys get this too…?) but have any of you been diagnosed with osteoporosis? I just found out I do have it. And like my mother used to do, I’m going to be taking Fosamax. I’m just wondering what impact this has had on anyone’s day-to-day lifestyle. I’m trying to get out and walk more now that I’m retired. I’ve just started to take daily vitamins for women over 50. I know I need to lose weight – what else is new?
Happy birthday (I think I’m a day late) to Kate who has become such a lovely young lady. And tomorrow my brother Joe turns 70. That means five of my siblings are in their 70’s. Yikes!
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alex said on November 17, 2022 at 7:47 am
The Respect for Marriage Act, which will enshrine Obergfell and Loving should Alito and Company do away with them, looks like it’s a done deal.
The new law even has the support of one of Indiana’s Senators, Todd Young. Perhaps he wanted to set himself apart from our other Senator, Mike Braun, who once told a reporter that interracial marriage should have been left up to the states, then pretended that he misheard the question when his embarrassing interview was seen by a wider public.
Braun is rumored to be considering a gubernatorial run in ’24, and so is former Gov Mitch Daniels, whom I suspect is actually eyeing a run for the White House, where he will position himself as the sane alternative in a primary field of cray-cray.
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ROGirl said on November 17, 2022 at 8:46 am
Dorothy, I had a bone density scan earlier this year and I was diagnosed with osteoporosis. NY doctor prescribed Fosamax in the weekly dose. I took it for a few weeks and started getting brain fog and headachy, so I stopped taking it. I had a checkup shortly after that and told him. He gave me a referral for a specialist , there’s a yearly infusion you can get. I haven’t followed up yet.
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Mark P said on November 17, 2022 at 9:09 am
@Jeff Gill — You can learn a lot by listening to Georgia Republicans, not just about werewolf-vampire MMA, but Jewish space lasers, too. Since Walker seems to have some trouble telling the difference between the movies and real life, I would like to get his views after seeing ‘Idiocracy.’
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Deborah said on November 17, 2022 at 9:28 am
I too have osteoporosis, was diagnosed a few years ago. I first got the infusion that lasts a year but it gave me headaches that lasted for weeks so only did that once. After that year was up I was prescribed Alendronate Sodium Tablets which I take one once a week. My doctor warned that it can cause acid reflux and to take the pill first thing in the morning, to stay upright after taking and drink lots of water for an hour before eating or drinking anything else. I did that every Sunday morning for about a year and I got tired of that routine once and made myself coffee and had no acid reflux so now I know it doesn’t cause me to have acid reflux and I eat and drink coffee normally on those mornings now.
There is also a pill you can be prescribed for only once a month. I got my Dr to prescribe that but my insurance won’t cover it so I’ve been taking the once a week pill now probably forever. It’s kind of a pain to remember especially during the pandemic when I lost track of which day of the week it was because every day was the same.
My bone density has not gotten worse, it rarely gets better.
Plus I take a calcium vitamin twice a day.
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Julie Robinson said on November 17, 2022 at 10:22 am
No osteoporosis here. I got my Dad’s sturdy Irish peasant farmer bones instead of Mom’s dainty bird bones. She took Boniva and/or Fosamax but there are issues with long term use* and her density did build back so she discontinued them. After eight years without she has a mild case again, and has been encouraged to do more weight bearing exercise, which we’re working on. And we both take calcium of course.
*The reflux is one, and the other was a paradoxical weakening of jaw bones.
Pray for me, y’all; I’ve gone over to the dark side. An annual Mouse House pass in my name has been purchased. It has to do with son’s fiancee singing there and mother’s desire to see Animal Kingdom and I will try to be cheerful though it’s not in my nature.
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Deborah said on November 17, 2022 at 11:04 am
Wordle in 2 today, only the second time that has happened.
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Dorothy said on November 17, 2022 at 11:06 am
I haven’t started the Fosamax yet, but my doctor said if I start to have throat burning or stomach burning to let her know immediately. She did already direct me to take it once a week, to keep upright for an hour after having it, and to take the pill with a large glass of water. Things that some of you have mentioned, too. I’ll put a reminder on my Google calendar for the once a week dose.
My dog gets a Phycox once a day and the reminder pops up at 7 AM. But now that I get Olivia off the bus most week days, she likes to give it to her. So I only have to remember to give it to Nes on the weekends.
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susan said on November 17, 2022 at 11:39 am
Herschel Walker, check.
(via Thomas Bishop)
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Deborah said on November 17, 2022 at 4:20 pm
Susan, that link was fantastic, hit the nail on the head. Whoever Thomas Bishop is, he’s good.
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