.
Fortunately, none of our neighbors are young enough to make our little dogs’ evening a nightmare. Heard a few booms in the distance, but we’re within earshot of a gun club (range open Wednesday evening & Sunday morning) so they’re somewhat inured. So we return to the regularly scheduled fire fizzle-works…
July 4 is winding down, & still no terror strike on America. Once again, ISIS is trying 2 lull us into a false sense of security. Diabolical
— Billmon (@billmon1) July 5, 2015
BREAKING: Intel sources tell @cnn absence of ISIS holiday attacks an ominous sign, urge Americans to be afraid other 364 days of the year.
— Billmon (@billmon1) July 5, 2015
Mary G
It’s just getting started here; the cats are freaking out. I’m going to take them into the bedroom and put down the blackout blinds, play soothing music and feed them snacks.
The parking didn’t fill up nearly as early as usual, but there are a lot of yahoos here this year, who seem to think that honking, speeding and screaming as well as exploding things is just as much fun for the rest of us as it is for them. I hate it when the 4th is on a weekend because they will be doing it all day tomorrow too.
We have had a rash of baby (8-foot) great white sharks in the surf here and I will be rooting for a tourist getting a bite taken out of them. /get off my lawn
Karen in GA
I remember BC by Hart, I think — when did Mastroianni happen? (Also, why does time insist on passing? I’m not getting older, am I?)
Iggy and Muppet seem okay with fireworks. Someone was setting off some boomy ones a few nights ago while I was walking them, and they didn’t seem too concerned.
Schlemazel
I am surprised BC didn’t recommend prayer for wolfie, Hart used to do it all the time. My favorites were the Easter crucifixion panels . . . apparently BC isn’t
Steeplejack
No fireworks here in Threadkill Lane. Heard a few faint thumps earlier, but well off in the distance. The housecat is mellow, plus I think she is getting a little hard of hearing.
One thing this ongoing pets/fireworks discussion has made me realize is that, although there are a fair number of dogs on my street, I never seem to hear any barky/yappy ones. So that’s cool.
jl
Visiting folks. They wanted to go out for Fourth of July dinner. They spent a lot of time looking for an Applebee’s coupon. Very important to use that Applebee’s coupon. I felt my mortality not creeping but racing up to me, but I didn’t say anything. I don’t remember last time in an Applebee’s before. Still no salad bar.
Their cat has picked up a new habit. It likes to go into bathroom or kitchen with a nice echo and yeowl. I was concerned something was wrong with the cat, but they assure me it is healthy, and it just likes to do that. It gets regular vet visits. So, I checked it out while it was yeowling. It was just sitting in the middle of the bathroom making a racket, the cat stopped and looked at me like it was very pleased with itself. I petted the thing and it was purring about as loud as an old pickup. I guess it just likes it.
Neighborhood fireworks and crackers going off. Cat doesn’t seem to mind at all.
andy
This actually the first 4th I haven’t had to work in some time, since we don’t print on saturdays. I was looking forward to the newsroom ritual where the Junior Photographer covers the fireworks and them sprints back to the paper (it’s way faster than driving back).
Not to be, I guess. So I got a Schell Goosetown tallboy and watched the fireworks from the stoop of our apartment building. It was pretty nice until some asshole started loudly playing that goddamn Lee Greenwood song. Luckily something happened to his cd player and we enjoyed the remainder.
I was thinking, watching the parade, that I haven’t seen a paper flower for years. All the floats were some business’s trucks with laser printed banners. Are parades getting like this everywhere?
BillinGlendaleCA
Both of my girls, especially Nikki, are dealing with the fireworks as well as Betty’s dogs downstairs. We can hear the muffled loud booms from the Rose Bowl/Dodger Stadium/Burbank/Hollywood Bowl, and the local pops.
somethingblue
@Schlemazel: The anti-Islam strips were special too. Wikipedia tells me he died in 2007, probably sparing us a lot more along those lines.
cckids
We moved to this place last summer, so this is our first Fourth in this location, and I have to say, it is much, MUCH boomier than anywhere else we’ve lived. A hotel/cas1no is about 4 miles away, but we can hear their huge display all too well.
I’m realizing the upside to our little old Pom’s going deaf, though. He’s always been a complete shivering basket case during fireworks or thunderstorms; now he’s just chilling beside me, looking up now & then at an enormous boom, but not fazed at all.
Lucky for us, none of our cats have ever cared about noises at all.
Roger Moore
The fireworks have turned Dr. Jakel into Mr. Hide. Hopefully they’ll taper off soon.
srv
Terrorist Fog Terrorizes Bay Area Fireworks Watchers
Homeland Security Advisory System: Scary Gray
It’s like Stephen King’s The Mist and Pearl Harbor here
Felonius Monk
@efgoldman:
Sorta looks like the Marching Gestapo!
feebog
Sounds like a fucking war zone here tonight in my usually quiet corner of the SF Valley. Luckily my big boy is unfazed by the noise. Happy 4th everyone.
Ruckus
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Just walked 2 blocks west and could see everything at the Rose Bowl except the very lowest shots. Old Town Pasadena has a lot going for it.
opiejeanne
@Mary G: I was going to say the same, just getting started here. I’m so far north that the sky still isn’t dark. It sounds like a war out there.
There were dogs howling a while ago but their owners must have put them inside, poor babies. My cat is being very mushy right now.
slag
Discovering that Obama and His Geeks: http://www.fastcompany.com/3046756/obama-and-his-geeks is, while hagiographic toward the geeks (of course), worth a read:
opiejeanne
@Felonius Monk: Panzer division is what it reminds me of, although I don’t know why I would think that, but those are not uniforms I’ve ever seen on our troops.
jl
@efgoldman: The image was a little jarring. Those RI state police?
Also: some communo-monarchist Star Spangled Banner for everyone
Stravinsky’s Star-Spangled Banner Orchestral Version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHYCqFfpNGQ
opiejeanne
@jl: That was beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
jl
@opiejeanne:
Thanks. I wonder whether there are any vocal arrangements of Stravinsky’s version.
Now to make up for that, I am on a calliope kick this Fourth:
“America the Beautiful”,Clara-Belle the Calliope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fJN94A4KV4
NotMax
Really good sale on pork loin the other day. Just seasoned one up and slid it into the oven. (For the literalists, yes, it’s in a pan. :) )
Something haven’t prepared for years.
Yatsuno
Booms happening all over the place. My poor border collie is so freaked out he didn’t even eat dinner tonight/
Karen
Wasn’t Hart an anti-semite?
Mike J
Uniformed people are firing artillery at Seattle on TV. I think they’re supposed to be there though.
And KIRO TV is demonstrating amateur hour again. No sound for the fireworks display.
NotMax
Some music for the 4th.
Liberty Bell March
Stars and Stripes Forever
Same, but a capella.
Major Major Major Major
Repost from below; it’s my cat’s first 4th with us.
Samwise the Brave of The Shire just jumped up on my lap and I had to assure him, “they’re just noises. Don’t worry–there’s no such thing as outside.”
Tree With Water
No fireworks hereabouts this year of the drought, but things are jumping anyway. California sees North Carolina’s shark attacks, and raises it a great white shark migration:
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Cluster-of-great-white-sharks-has-Monterey-Bay-6365673.php#comments
sharl
@Karen: I’d forgotten about him and his comic strip. He wasn’t so much specifically anti-Semitic or anti-Islamic, but more of a Christian absolutist, i.e., along the lines of ‘there is Christianity, and there are a bunch of other faiths, all wrong’. His 2001 Easter strip was widely criticized (anti-Semitic), and he took at least one swipe at Islam. Much of that is summarized here (scroll down a bit) in a way that jogged my memory.
I wonder if he’d be stumping with Huckabee or someone of that ilk, if he were still alive…
Tommy
@NotMax: Pork loins are something I seem to almost never cook but when I do I always think to myself this is wonderful why don’t I do this at least once or twice a month. Even more strange because pork is about my favorite protein.
SWMBO
Repost from below.
Something for the dog lovers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWl7pRugjbo
Esme's Mom
@feebog: Long live Canoga Park! I miss Cavaretta’s.
cckids
For everyone complaining about the booms/smoke/etc from the fireworks, now there’s something else to worry about: gay chemicals in fireworks!! No wonder they come in rainbow colors!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Lame duck contines to refuse to limp
later in the article, they point out that this is the most aggressive use of clemency by a President in decades, and Obama will be commuting as many as 80 sentences. Out of 33,000 applications.
And of course, if he really cared he would have done this on day one!
NotMax
Meant to post the basic recipe for a classic Margarita on an earlier thread, and plumb forgot.
1½ oz. tequila
½ oz. Triple Sec
1 oz. lime juice
Moisten rim of glass with lemon or lime, then dip in salt. Shake liquid ingredients well with ice, strain into prepared glass.
(Steer clear of tequila myself if have any choice in the matter. Tastes like spoilt turpentine to me.)
sharl
Apparently Hillary Clinton’s campaign had a moving rope line today to restrain reporters covering her, and boy are some of the media all steamed about that; one can go here or here – and many other places I’m sure – and scroll down the time lines a bit to view photos and read indignity.
She’d better be careful, or the media will start treating her with contempt and disrespe…BWAHAHAHA, I do enjoy kidding around here on the intertubes.
Actually I have mixed feelings about this, but mostly what I take away from it is the total lack of self-awareness and perceptual insulation that appears to afflict her traveling media and/or their editors and bosses. They must surely have some idea of the low opinion in which they are held!
I doubt this hurts her much at all in the primary campaign, and – assuming she makes it into the general – I’m not even sure it will hurt her there. The GOP will certainly try to make something of it, like they’re doing now, but wingnuts aren’t exactly media fans themselves (though for different reasons).
trollhattan
We got home from our party duties and I found the dog asleep in the bedroom. Every stereo in the house was tuned to opera, loud, so she was unaware of the chaos outdoors (the 4th has not been a good holiday for her). Was eager to go into the yard but only made it two steps out the door and errrrrt, about face and back inside.
So I have to sit here and wait for the fireworks to stop, then take her outside. Otherwise there will be hell to pay at three-thirty tomorrow morning.
Mike J
@Tree With Water:
You think that’s bad for tourism? Try this: Testicle-eating fish return to New Jersey
Steeplejack
@cckids:
Pretty sure that’s a spoof site. But funny.
jl
@efgoldman:
” Not clicking, not after that out-of-tune mess your posted in the afternoon music thread, Damn, it was ghastly. As bad as bagpipes! ”
But you loved the link to the Boot Hill Steam Whistle Blow festival, right?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@sharl: I have mixed feelings, too, I think pols should talk to the press, but our media is so useless…
I chuckled at this in the feed you linked to
Does it not occur to Gwen that no-one who doesn’t appear, or whose greatest desire in life isn’t to appear, on Morning Joe will really give a fuck about those photographs?
ruemara
For a moment, I thought there were no fireworks or something, since it was 9 and nothing going on, then something large exploded.
jl
@sharl: Moving rope line? I’m surprised they don’t have cages for the press loons after the HRC Scooby van stampede
Watch The Lapdog Media Chase After Hillary Clinton’s Scooby Van For Table Scraps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgxQe9vYrj8
Mnemosyne (tablet)
We got some doggie karma tonight. We went up into the hills of Glendale to see fireworks from multiple angles. On our way back to the car, we found a little dog who had gotten out of his yard and run off. Luckily, he had tags with his name and address, so we were able to take him back to his house and put him back in his yard (we were able to call his owners on their cell phone — they were still in Redondo Beach trying to get back after the fireworks there). Poor little guy didn’t want us to go, but we had to.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Heh. Missed that thread due to naptime. Bunch of Sousaphobes, huh? ;)
Yeah, it wasn’t E. Power Biggs level (or Virgil Fox, for that matter), but was the only one I could find during a very fast search which didn’t have a static image.
The Liberty Bell video was the late Carlo Curley, another preternaturally talented (but not as popularly lauded) tickler of the pipe organ.
jl
Grateful Dead, Star Spangled Banner on slide flute and kazoo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJehQlHuat8
jl
This hasn’t been posted yet?
Jimi Hendrix, The Star Spangled Banner [ American Anthem ] ( Live at Woodstock 1969 )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjzZh6-h9fM
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@NotMax:
My boss’s husband does a very similar recipe, but with Cointreau instead of triple sec. Best margaritas ever.
sharl
@jl: Ha, I remember that! Eh, it’s like Jim, Foolish Literalist said upthread: it’ll give em something to whine about on Morning Joe – and Joe will be glad to hear all about it and commiserate. After all, media circle jerks are the really important thing, amirite?
joel hanes
@NotMax:
National Emblem March, E. Bagley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUPT3uG75G8
A pinnacle of martial music :
First Suite In E-flat, Gustav Holst
in a particularly wonderful performance
(although I prefer Fenell and the Eastman, I couldn’t find it on Youtube)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKIGs59nRc8
cckids
@Steeplejack: I know – my uncle posted on FB, and WAY too many people took it seriously.
And don’t tell me there aren’t sites out there at LEAST this dumb. Did you see Sarah Palin’s idea for solving California’s water crisis? The stupid is nuclear.
Steeplejack
@cckids:
You never know. I find myself erring on the side of “You know that’s a spoof, right?” instead of going right into the hearty laugh. Saves a lot of embarrassing moments.
Radio One
I haven’t read BC in years, but Mallard Fillmore’s “tribute” to Johnny Hart was pretty funny.
wasabi gasp
First the sharks, then the humongous turtle of perpetual longing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq4UZli0_Hk
Fred
BEST WAY TO HELP DOGS WITH FIREWORKS FEAR
Ignore, ignore, ignore. If you try to reassure them you are telling them that you approve of their panic.
We had a crew of goldens that were all afraid of thunder, fireworks and gunfire. The momma dogs would teach it to their puppies. When the booms would start we would all sit on the sofa and try to calm them. They would all just shiver and cry.
Then there was a dog we had placed badly and after a year we heard it wasn’t going well so we bought her back. She was afraid of everything. Except boom boom. But when the Booms started she would jump on the sofa and wag tail because it was boom boom party time. Oh boy, we all get pets!
We had been rewarding and feeding the fear in those dogs.
When we decided to move from America to Sweden we knew we couldn’t take our girls (they would have to sit in quarantine for a couple months and we couldn’t do that to them) so we waited until they had all passed away. In Sweden we started over with a new crew. When the booms started on New Years and the worried looks and little cries began we turned up the TV a bit and ignored, ignored, IGNORED. Now we have girls that are not afraid of thunder, fireworks or other booms. But Amber is afraid to walk on wooden docks. I don’t know what to do about that.
NotMax
One more (electro-modernized, this time) piece of quintessentially American music.
(Boy, it must have been frigid as all get out that day.)
NotMax
@joel hanes
Nice.
And here’s “America” performed down under. Appreciate that one of the chorines playing a Puerto Rican is a young lady of obviously Oriental heritage.
Zinsky
@efgoldman: “God-damned terror-hunting be afraid complex is as self-perpetuating as the military-industrial complex” — they are one and the same, my friend. The Pentagon did one of the slickest switcheroos in history when they succeessfully swapped Islamic terrorists for Communists as America’s biggest bogeyman in the early 1990s. Of course, Islamic terrorists are less of an existential threat to the U.S. than measles, but people still don’t want to question the Pentagon taking 60% of their tax dollars for weapon systems that have nothing to do with fighting terrorism. We should be asking the rubes who watch FoxNews every day, “Are you sure you are hating the right people??”
Cervantes
Billmon is the ISIS vanguard. His tweets are mere distractions.
gogol's wife
@Steeplejack:
I got up early this morning when I realized I think I gave you the wrong margarita recipe last night (I haven’t made them in a while, as friends have gotten more abstemious). It should be 5 parts tequila, 3 parts lime juice, 2 parts Cointreau. That other recipe would be REALLY strong. It’s strong enough this way. No more than two to a customer or you’ll be carrying them home.
Bobby Thomson
@efgoldman: the other day I saw scans at the gym and Leslie Blitzer couldn’t have been more obvious about trying to gin up something with Iran. Haven’t seen full court propaganda like that since 2003.
Another Holocene Human
@Schlemazel: I can’t even look at “BC” without having flashbacks to the ugly nasty preachy smarmy passive-aggressive religious rants. Horrible.
Another Holocene Human
@efgoldman: CBS is running for FOX News of broadcast channels.
Jparente
@Mary G: I lived in a sleepy village on L.I.’s North Shore. I know from Yahoos! I always root for the Baby Sharks.
Another Holocene Human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
If America really cared they wouldn’t have re-elected Shrub, who appointed the ideologue who hired the ideologue (or promoted?) who was holding up all the damn applications!!
Another Holocene Human
@NotMax: Dead thread, but your link isn’t working and Oriental is a rug.
Another Holocene Human
An African-American played a Polynesian in South Pacific (a deeply racist movie ostensibly about how prejudice is wrong). The ways of race-bending, they are mysterious.
chopper
@Another Holocene Human:
imagine an oriental woman waving the stars and bars!
Matt McIrvin
@Schlemazel: After Johnny Hart died, the people who took over the strip seem to have done an OK job returning it to the occasionally clever gag strip that it was before his gradual descent into religion-fueled obnoxiousness.