.
Sol sistere, “the sun stands still” — longest day of the year, here in the Northern hemisphere, and connected to fertility rites for as far back as we can find records. I do think the green man atop the pole (1:10)in the upper clip is particularly symbolical — myffic, even.
Here’s to a long and fruitful summer, full of outdoor bathing and bonfires and celebrating and such. (And those of you below the equator, may your every day grow longer and more prosperous!)
.
.
dmsilev
Halfway through a week’s worth of “Wake up at 4 to be at work just after 5”. Bleah.
Jack Canuck
What do you mean, ‘midsummer’? (he says while he scrapes a very heavy frost off the car this morning in country Victoria). You northern hemisphere types are always getting these days mixed up!
raven
Nothing but baseball and soccer for over two months!!!!
Linda Featheringill
Ah, Anne. There you are. I was up earlier and looked for the AL praise of summer but it wasn’t here yet. Sigh. But you’re here now and we can start the festivities.
My birthday today, so I’m even older than I was yesterday. :-)
NotMax
First full day of summer.
Hardly midsummer. Not even close.
JPL
@Linda Featheringill: Happy Birthday. Do you have any special plans?
raven
@NotMax: Like to be up on the volcano.
raven
The google thingy is cool today.
2liberal
LINK
things don’t look so good for patriots TE aaron hernandez right now. a real bummer for us patriots fans.
Linda Featheringill
@JPL:
Thank you. Same old stuff today. Tomorrow is more amenable to running around, so I’ll probably go someplace then.
I see that tomorrow is John’s birthday, so I guess that means I’m a day older than he is. At least.
Betty Cracker
Like most native Floridians, I hate summer, when the state turns into a sun-blasted, muggy hellscape that is even buggier (in every sense) than usual. Plus, I work at home, so summer means children are underfoot all day, pestering me for trips into town, etc., when I don’t have time for that shit. Summer’s only redeeming feature for me is the afternoon thunderstorms, which are magnificent.
One thing I’ve noticed about summer is that people tend to carry the regional perceptions of it they developed as children into adulthood. My hubby is from Buffalo, so when he was growing up, summer was a brief respite from the horrid weather typical of that region. He still gets all excited about summer — even though it sucks down here, and even though he has now lived down here for longer than he lived up there. When questioned, he’ll admit that the weather during summer down here is the worst of the four seasons, but it is apparently imprinted on him that summer = good.
@Linda Featheringill: Happy birfday!
@2liberal: Even more of a bummer for the dead guy. Just sayin’.
Mike E
@dmsilev: Heh. And here I’m complaining about my 6am wakeup since Sunday, and I just completed two 14 hr days. I did work two David Chappelle shows tho, so there’s that.
Viva BrisVegas
Now that the days are getting longer, the chooks will getting back to work and I can stop buying eggs.
Almost all the frangipani leaves have dropped and the orange trumpet vine is blooming. It won’t be long before the wattle is out.
But winter is coming.
PurpleGirl
AL — Happy Midsummer solstice. (You always find great videos for holidays. The Swedish Midsummer for Dummies made me LOL.)
Linda — Happy Birthday.
BJers — Happy Holiday. Celebrate.
Raven
Man 67 degrees this morning! It won’t last but it should be great weather for the usually steaming Athfest!
dmsilev
@Mike E: The end is in sight; Monday is the last day of this. It’s unclear who has the worse timeslot; me on the 5 AM to 4 PM shift or my colleague on the 5 PM to 4 AM shift (system can run on its own for up to an hour at a time, hence the non-overlap). Neither of us is having barrels of fun right now.
Comrade Mary
It’s not just Europe that’s flooding: the Calgary area has it bad. There could be over 100,000 evacuated, and it hasn’t even peaked yet.
I just got an email from a client saying that he was evacuated and would catch up with me once he could get all his stuff again.
Momo and his person make a swim for it. They’re both OK, but I think Momo’s person is going to find the mother of all hairballs in his shoe for this indignity.
JPL
@2liberal: After the Falcons, the Patriots are my favorite team but football has little to do with it at this point. I can’t speculate who fired the shots at this point, but it’s apparent that there are a lot of people suffering because of Hernandez’s action. It appears that he destroyed evidence so I’m surprised he hasn’t been arrested already.
Botsplainer, fka Todd
Possibly the most disgusting comestible I ever heard of:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2345114/Could-coffee-blended-BUTTER-energy-The-unlikely-brew-shrinks-waistlines-improves-cognitive-function.html
Feel free to gag. I did.
Omnes Omnibus
@Botsplainer, fka Todd: I like a good amount of 1/2&1/2 in my coffee, e.g., my two cups this morning, and I like butter. I even like butter in some beverages, e.g., hot buttered rum. The idea of butter in coffee, however, is as gag inducing as you suggest.
PeakVT
I celebrated yesterday by getting up at 4:30 yesterday to watch the dawn on the lake. This morning was forecast to be cloudy (and was).
Ben Cisco
New ERP system rolls out a week from Monday. Pucker factor is set to 11, and the knob’s been broken off.
I’ve been in this business a long time, and the next ERP rollout that goes off without a hitch will be the first I’ve seen.
PurpleGirl
@Botsplainer, fka Todd:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Butter belongs on toast, muffins, corn, popcorn, and such. Butter and hot rum go together.
But butter IN coffee, no way. That’s an insult to both butter and coffee.
Weirdest and most useless coffee addition: Fat-free Half-n-half. Why?
R-Jud
@Botsplainer, fka Todd: Even grosser are the people who put coconut oil in their coffee instead. My weightlifting coach does, and over the course of a long training session I’ll pass by his mug and see the oil forming beads on the surface. Blech.
JPL
@R-Jud: How are you doing?
Soonergrunt
Hot and humid, hot and humid, hot and humid. Oh, did I mention heat and humidity? Now that our backyard faces south and not west, we can actually use it in the evenings because it won’t be 125 degrees out there, and we have a good sized shaded porch.
This being Hotlahoma, I think we’ll have another summer of 60+ days over 100 degrees.
Omnes Omnibus
@Soonergrunt: Is it just the Lawton area that is hot and dry? FWIW it should be around 90 and humid in Madison today. I hates it.
Schlemizel
@JPL:
The Intertubes say a warrant has been issued
Sports – they build character!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@2liberal: This is completely shallow, but as a forum owner, I LOVE the rank titles y’all have going there.
Cassidy
@Schlemizel: Well, looks like Tebow has a job now.
Mustang Bobby
Second day of the CityWrights playwriting conference here in Miami with all sorts of theatre people from all over the country, including agents, actors, and guests like Tina Howe (“Museum”). They did a cold reading of my short play “Last Exit” and it came off very well for not having any rehearsal time, and I may have found an actor for my other short play going up next month at New Theatre. Oh, and apparently the Miami team won some big basketball game. That would explain the light traffic this morning in downtown Miami.
Anya
This quote is from Crooks and Liars, and I gotta ask, when they did they turn into Chuck Todd? Where did this “Germany gives Obama the cold shoulder” come from? It’s not based on reality. I was in Germany during this time, and I am puzzled by this. Germans I met were so stoked about his visit it’s scary. His approval in Germany is in the 80s. What am I missing?
@Linda Featheringill: Happy Birthday, Linda!
R-Jud
@JPL: Eh. Waiting for a follow-up scan next Friday to see if I’m going to need surgery or not. I think I will, and honestly, I’d be relieved. I just want this thing out.
JPL
@Cassidy: Tebow time.. My son was on chat yesterday and typed that the one thing about Tebow is he will do whatever the team wants. I responded that you know another thing about Tebow is, that it’s unlikely he’d murder someone.
Botsplainer, fka Todd
@R-Jud:
I just looked at a pic. The coconut oil resembled a quarter cup of lard.
JPL
@R-Jud: Thanks for responding. I missed earlier posts after your tests and have been thinking about the Bean’s mom.
R-Jud
@Botsplainer, fka Todd: That’s basically what it is. Plant-based lard. I love my gym, I love my coach– I hate a lot of the crap that comes with the Paleo diet stuff.
@JPL: Thanks so much! I am really hoping this will all be sorted out by the end of July.
Bean’s doing pretty well, too. Writing her name, counting on beyond 100, and other things they thought she wouldn’t do for several years yet.
raven
This Michael Jackson sleep stuff is pretty interesting.
Kay
So Boehner’s screw up on farm bill directing media attention to food stamps, which is good.
Rep. Latta comes here and meets with “farmers” ( many are not farmers but people who own farmland, but I digress) and essentially sets it up as farmers versus food stamp recipients. That’s a good political pitch because farmers can then tell themselves THEY’RE not the budget problem, food stamp recipients are.
So this is political, like everything else they do, but the GOP want to make that divide clearer, by taking food stamps out of farm bills altogether.
But the only reason many Democrats vote for farm bills is because of food stamps. So I’m wondering what Boehner’s end game is here.
Chyron HR
@Anya:
Yes, but those people are all Schwartzbottenkopfs, so their opinions don’t count.
Amir Khalid
@Viva BrisVegas:
I haven’t heard the Aussie expression “chook” since I quit watching The Sullivans more than three decades ago.
Cassidy
@JPL: I know he’s not incredibly popular in these parts, but the people I know who knew him/ went to college with him say he’s an incredibly nice and genuinely polite and considerate. I really don’t think his religious views are as apeshit as his parents’. I could be wrong, though. either way, I hope he can transition to a new role as a tight end or back of some sort.
@R-Jud: If you have to put “Paleo” in front of it, it ain’t paleo.
@Kay: There is no end game. Cleek’s rule is the rule of congress.
Poopyman
@Kay:
Happy hour.
JPL
@Cassidy: My son is a big Peyton fan and did take the time to ask who is Wes Welker playing for now… The Patriots training camp should be fun.
raven
@Cassidy: He sure as fuck isn’t popular in Athens! Fucking Gators.
Poopyman
@Cassidy: Seriously. My first reply isn’t just snark. I’m certain Boehner would rather be somewhere else, but he’s addicted to all the perks of power.
JPL
@R-Jud: I just clicked to your site and love the drawing. You might have to buy a frame for that.
piratedan
@Linda Featheringill: congrats Linda, may your day be full of small victories and unexpected miracles.
Kay
@Cassidy:
Well, but there WAS an end game, politically, and it was to use food stamps to demonize poor people ( and Democrats, by extension).
Latta has been setting farmers against food stamps for at least a year, and Romney and Gingrich used food stamps politically.
So that’s why they want to cut food stamps loose from Sacred Conservative Ag Subsidies, but if they succeed, food stamps get hurt, but ag subsidies get hurt too.
I’m just wondering if the political calculation that drove the food stamp attack collapsed first, because it was dumb and short-sighted.
Betty Cracker
@Cassidy: And good god are his parents’ religious views ever ape-shit! Still, my impression of Tebow himself matches up with your description.
rdldot
@Betty Cracker: I live in Houston and agree about the summers. But I moved here from Missouri for the weather! From October til May the weather is great – nobody lives here for the summers.
Kay
This is all against the backdrop of another problem that Republicans have which is white working class voters.
Republicans believe that those voters didn’t come out for them in 2012. OH Democrats believe this too. So not just Latinos and women and AA, but white working class. NOT voting for Democrats, but instead not coming out at all. Obviously, Republicans can’t start losing a subset of their white voters, too.
BUT, my entire client base are white working class, and MANY of them receive food stamps.
So hopefully the political calculation is just wrong.
raven
@Kay: Don’t these “white working class” people on food stamps blame the fact they they are on food stamps on, you know, those “takers” on food stamps that are bringing the whole thing down?
Just One More Canuck
@JPL: That’s a pretty low bar, even for football
piratedan
@raven: objection your honor assumes a logical conclusion when tribalism is in effect.
muddy
@raven: http://www.upworthy.com/were-teaching-kids-history-but-were-leaving-this-entire-bit-out-2?c=upw1
I’ve posted this link a couple of times already, I just find the first basis to be appalling entirely. Excellent speech.
raven
@muddy: Well done.
Kay
@raven:
That’s the political calculation Republicans are making, but I don’t know that it’s true. Most of them are politically disengaged. They would be the people who are “sporadic voters”.
I saw an analysis of 2012 county by county and it wasn’t broken down by income, but the counties where white turn out was down tell something about income.
Anyway, OH Democrats are going with “GOP lost white working class turn out” and I think the GOP are too.
So, Democrats will focus on class and income, but Republicans can’t do that, they have to use race or urban-rural.
Should be interesting :)
raven
@Kay: Here’s hoping!
schrodinger's cat
What do people do for hay fever? I am taking Allegra, doing neti but I am still sneezing a lot, any one has any home remedies that I might try?
Betty Cracker
@muddy: He’s 100% right.
schrodinger's cat
@R-Jud: Coconut oil has a very strong smell, so putting in coffee sounds really gross. I am not a big fan of these food fads, one year it is flax seed, then it is salmon, now coconut oil seems to be having its day in the sun
Cassidy
@Kay: I get what you’re saying, so yes there was a short term goal. By “end game” I was assuming you meant a long term plan or strategy and right now there isn’t one. I get the impression that Boehner is completely winging it knowing that either a) the teabagegrs are going to be the end of them or b) hoping to ride it out and have something that resemble s aplatform in 8-12 years time.
@Poopyman: I don’t think he’s addicted at all. I think he sees himself as the steward of the GOP, like some sort of action move hero, hoping to give them just enough life to ride out the current environment.
Cassidy
@raven: The Dawgs have never liked winning, so I understand that. ;)
@Betty Cracker: Sometimes I feel sorry for the guy. All the attention and expectations and I think he just wants to play football, I’m guessing one of the few things he really loves and the only way he got away from them growing up.
PaulW
@raven:
GO GATORS!
(just stop getting arrested, you guys! What the f-ck, you all think you’re playing for Bama or something?! JUST STOP IT… cries)
handsmile
Today officially begins my least favorite season. That the nights will now start to grow longer helps to mitigate my distress.
For NYC readers, this evening (5:00-8:00pm) there will be a Swedish Midsummer Festival in Wagner Park at Battery Park City. (South Ferry on the #1 train or Bowling Green on the #4/#5 are the closest subway stations.)
The celebration offers Swedish fiddling, folk-dancing, and food (sadly, no lutefisk), as well as extraordinary views of New York harbor and downtown Manhattan. I’ve been enjoying this annual event, cosponsored by the Swedish Consulate, for a number of years and it’s a great deal of fun. (A flask of aquavit is recommended, but not strictly necessary.) Get there as early as you can: each year brings more and more non-Scandinavian celebrants with their own peculiar solstice rituals.
raven
@PaulW: I just we’d stop the unilateral automatic herb suspensions and be like the rest of the SEC.
PaulW
The jury for the Zimmerman trial is going all-women. Trial starts Monday.
maya
It’s fun waking up on the left coast and reading about all you southern and center-right nation BJers getting scorched and soaked in sweat. Presently 49* @ 7am with a fine layer of dew all over the front (sw facing) deck. Will warm up to about 75*. Been like that so far with only 1 day at 96*. Nobody that I know here has an air conditioner. The Pacific is about 10 miles away as the Osprey flies and this is what keeps everything under control. Go another 5-10 inland and it gets hotter.
Been thinking of moving to a more central locale but the climate here is non-duplicable and that’s a big plus. Was raised on east coast, NY, Jerz, but no interest to return there. Why?
Kay
@raven:
And it didn’t work in 2012. It didn’t bring white working class out to vote against Obama.
They’re trying it again.
PaulW
@raven:
I’m still waiting to hear what happens with UMiami. It’s been, what, 3 years investigating so far? Considering 1) the scope of the scandal with the gambling, the prostitutes, the payoffs, and 2) that this is Miami’s third (or fourth?!) run-in with rules violations in a DECADE; I’m all for seeing their football program get hit with the death penalty and automatic kick-out of the Bowl-qualifying conferences (ship them off to the Sun Belt conference and promote FIU to ACC).
kindness
Happy Summer Solstice everyone.
Blessed be.
raven
@maya:
Day after day
More people come to LA
Hey, don;t they know
The whole place slippin away
Where will we go
When there’s no San Franceeesco
Better get ready
To tie the boat up in Idaho!
or, for the hipper
And if California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: I am with your husband and I have spent summers in Bombay when I was growing up. I am pretty sure Bombay is as bad as Florida or even worse where humidity is concerned, but these mangoes more than made up for the humidity. Of course New England summer weather is wonderful, and I enjoy it despite my allergies because I love being out in the sun.
PaulW
My co-workers were talking about today being midsummer and talk switched to Shakespeare’s Midsummers Night Dream. We talked about how appropriate it would be to name our kids after the characters from the play, except half the women were saying “you wanna name your kid Bottom?”, and the other half couldn’t remember the names of the young lovers chasing after each other.
raven
@PaulW: As a Hokie by marriage I say, Fuck em!
PaulW
@Cassidy:
Designated driver?
raven
@PaulW: I like the Woody Allen version!
Omnes Omnibus
@handsmile: Could you please explain why you used the word sadly in connection with the absence of lutefisk?
PaulW
@2liberal:
To all Patriots fans:
this is what happens when your Hoodie coach is the devil.
Signed;
everybody who hates the Patriots like they were the Yankees.
Chris
@Anya:
Everyone Knows the Daily Show, like all media, is liberally biased. If they report that Obama has an approval rating in the eighties in Germany, they’ll be accused of shamelessly shilling for their candidate. So they take his popularity down a peg in the interest of realism, and to prove that they’re not liberally biased at all. Surely, if they do it enough times, right wingers will notice, appreciate and stop calling them biased liberals, right?
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s probably because he likes Moxie.
maya
@raven: At 1400′ I don’t sweat the tidal Apocalypse, but we do get some very torrential downpours every ten years like clockwork. Mudslides almost inundated the house on New Year’s eve 2005, (our own mini-Katrina) but I had left the circular construction road mostly intact in the backyard (it slopes up to a hill) and the mud slid away from the house down the driveway and down to a soft landing on the bottom terrace. FEMA Jim came out our way and I got enough $$$ to not only repair the damage and put in cross drains and ditches in addition to 4 truckloads of crushed rock for my road – 1/4+ mile long. We lucked out as FEMA was embarrass about NO and took every effort to make us happy. We is all white around here so I guess that helped!
BTW, how did the ‘test’ go?
Cacti
Unlike most of the country, summer here in AZ is the season that no one looks forward to.
C’mon fall!
2liberal
@Betty Cracker:
it looks like aaron is on the path to Get What He Deserves assuming he actually was involved with the murder (seems very likely from what i am seeing)
Punchy
@Linda Featheringill: Happy berfday Linds!
2liberal
@Cacti:
at least isn’t monsoon season yet. (I live in tempe)
handsmile
@Omnes Omnibus:
Jellied irony.
@schrodinger’s cat:
Moxie and lutefisk: the perfect gastronomic solution. The hideous taste of one masking the hideous taste of the other.
I believe one must be a true Mainiac to endure the beverage. Sadly (and in this context I’m nothing but earnest), I’m just an occasional visitor. But you did time there. Any lingering after-taste for Moxie’s charms?
Maude
@NotMax:
We will have the first full day of summer tomorrow. It started at 1:04 a.m. here on the east coast. You are ahead of us.
ruemara
@Anya: Facts don’t matter, setting the narrative to know-nothing Americans (including liberals) does. that’s how things roll here in the land of propaganda.
Fuck summer. I finally have a dream and it’s about trying to stretch my budget to buy some marked down items. Bloody hell, I don’t need that. That’s reality. Fuck everyone in charge.
schrodinger's cat
@handsmile: I never developed a taste for it. One of my friends used to guzzle it by the gallon. Eeww.
raven
@maya: All good!
moderateindy
The summer solstice is just an excuse for Godless, and pagan furiners to celebrate by touching each other’s naughty places without any intention of procreating.
Real Murkins celebrate this day properly, by shooting our guns, then thanking Jeebus for writing the Constitution that requires us to have those guns to protect against godless liberals, pagans, and those excessively pigmented takers that are ruining this country by promoting hoaxes like evolution, and global warming. All hail the sacred trinity, The Father, The Son, and Capitalism. (we’ve replaced the Holy Spirit, because seriously what’s the point of the Holy Spirit? Still, we needed 3 things, because anyone who watched Saturday morning cartoons in the 70’s knows that; 3, it’s a magic number!)
Yatsuno
@moderateindy: Save the Schoolhouse Rock bit (becuz librul hippie education) I have an odd feeling some wingnut out there is writing that exact column. Sigh.
Jebediah
@raven:
God damn, I love that song!
“Don’t the sun look angry through the trees…”
Dude had his issues, but he sure could write a song.
Ruckus
@Linda Featheringill:
How is it possible that you are older? I’ve never met a woman between age 29-70. It’s magical, one day you are 28, the next 29 and a few later you are 70. Actually it is a pretty nice deal if you can get it.
Happy birthday.