Can it really be November 19? I feel like I’m on a lard-greased chute to the Thanksgiving Gravy Whirlpool, which will suck me into the Vomit Vortex that leads to the Candy Cane Cave of Christmas Calamities, followed by the New Year’s Rotgut Roller Coaster, to be puked out into 2014. Fuck. I’m not ready.
Open Thread
by Betty Cracker| 175 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Open Threads, General Stupidity
Big R
Um, what’s up with the pop-up video ad in the bottom right corner?
greennotGreen
Negative much? Trim your expectations and enjoy the lights! Get more prepared food from Costco or the grocery, have more pot-lucks, and don’t stress out. I’m even trying not to get too annoyed at Xmas music that started 5 minutes after Halloween. After all, the retailers are trying to have happy holidays, too.
Suffern ACE
I guess it’s not the time to bring up that I will be travelling to Florida next week and was hoping you’d invite me and my small famlily to dinner at your place. There’s only 6 of us.
impliedobserver
The ghost of Tunch is following me.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11242259@N02/10938201006/
JPL
@greennotGreen: Because of global warming, frosty the snowman is not more. Praise the Lord!
Rosalita
I feel like it’s bearing too fast too. But hey, this is funny and it’s getting some people’s knickers in a twist…
Redshirt
Worst time of the year. January can’t come fast enough. BAH!
Yatsuno
@impliedobserver: Tunch iz Ceiling Kitteh. Even in the next world his mighty paw guides us.
raven
@Suffern ACE: We’re on our way Saturday too!
piratedan
while we’re in the holiday spirit:
http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/11/18/mst3k-turkey-day-2013/
agrippa
I just try to enjoy it.
It usually turns out to be enjoyable.
shelly
For me, the phrase ‘Black Friday’ can’t be blasted into oblivion fast enough.
greennotGreen
@Rosalita: Thanks! That was quite enjoyable, even if it is an ad, and even if it probably won’t keep KMart from going under.
elisabeth
I have a fleece I wear every year that reads, “Go fa-la-la yourself” and has accurately described my feelings for this time of year perfectly. I’m hoping this year will be different.
Xecky Gilchrist
The older I get, the more I like Christmas season. The holiday itself is OK, but the preparation is awesome. Call me an Advent Freak, I guess.
Librarian
Since both of my parents are now gone, I have decided never to have anything to do with the holidays, Thanksgiving included, ever again. No traveling, no gifts, no cards, no turkey. I will just stay home, get some work done, and hunker down until January, which can’t come fast enough.
handsmile
Regardless of one’s feelings about the looming holidays (my own mildly paraphrased by BC above), take a moment now or some time later today to read, reflect on, and celebrate the greatest speech in American history, the Gettysburg Address, delivered on this day 150 years ago:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
raven
@shelly: Steely Dan: Black Friday
Mandalay
@shelly:
Your wish has already been granted: our corporate masters have decided that Black Thursday is the New Black Friday.
Betsy
November and December. They’re like a tax on women.
max
I feel like I’m on a lard-greased chute to the Thanksgiving Gravy Whirlpool, which will suck me into the Vomit Vortex that leads to the Candy Cane Cave of Christmas Calamities, followed by the New Year’s Rotgut Roller Coaster, to be puked out into 2014.
I hear that Chris Christie has already won the R 2016 nomination.
@Xecky Gilchrist: The older I get, the more I like Christmas season. The holiday itself is OK, but the preparation is awesome. Call me an Advent Freak, I guess.
I figured out that the key to Thanksgiving is radical simplification, and the key to Xmas is just to buy all that crap beforehand and give it to them when it’s delivered.
max
[‘Really, it’s no big deal.’]
Trollhattan
We’re literally fleeing the state so we don’t have to host wife.gov’s family yet again. So there’s that.
On the good side, football has finally become interesting and today it’s raining for the first time since September (when I believe it rained a total of once).
Yatsuno
@handsmile: It’s Uncle Joe’s birfday tomorrow. Also. Too.
Valdivia
@handsmile:
thanks for the link. Am I wrong in thinking Sam Waterston read it a few years ago at Cooper Union?
Also–I hear it’s Obama’s failure to not go there today. It would have been his failure if he went too. Alas.
Geoduck
Since it’s happening on Thanksgiving this year…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSCmZU0eFJg
burnspbesq
This article will curb your appetite.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115624/exxon-oil-spill-arkansas-2013-how-pipeline-burst-mayflower?a&utm_campaign=tnr-daily-newsletter&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=11183079
Fuck Canada. If they want to move this crap to market, they can build a pipeline to Vancouver.
eemom
Tragedy unfolding in Virginia today — Creigh Deeds, Dem state senator who lost the governorship to McDonnell in 2009, in critical condition after being stabbed by his son, who then fatally shot himself.
Very sad. Deeds is a good man.
eemom
moderation wtf?
Shakezula
I dunno, I don’t like the commercial bullshit, but I largely ignore that.
We have a neighbor up for Thanksgiving mainly to justify cooking like maniacs. Christmas is spent with husband’s family and aside from the travel and being exposed to many, many, many ambulatory bio-hazards (small children), I always enjoy it.
NYE may find us awake at midnight, or not.
It is also the last time I have set, guaranteed days off until May.
gbear
@Librarian: I treat the holidays the same since my parents passed away 3 1/2 years apart – my dad right after thanksgiving day. The last thanksgiving with dad was really rough because he was pissed at all of us for putting him in hospice care. It was highly unpleasant.
Now my sisters spend the holidays with their own families and I hunker down. We do get together in mid-January but we decided to quit buying gifts for each other. I broke the rule last year and bought each of my sisters something. It wound up feeling a bit awkward.
I do have a black friday ritual. I visit a small pottery show/sale where there’s always something cool to buy for not much money, and then I go to a nearby record store for their black friday sale. Then I’ll go home and nap with the cats all afternoon.
ruemara
I did this back in ’07. Every year, it feels more and more prophetic.
Debating starting the dorayaki batter or the squash filling before I run off to work. The fundraising is slow and I have to prepare for a flea market sale this weekend. Trying unload all my collectable Batman and Star Wars toys. I think the last time I checked, it was all worth nearly a grand. If I can get half that and move them all, it’ll be wonderful. Trying to stay upbeat on the possibility things will be good.
raven
We’ve gone to the Emerald Coast for the past 9 years or so. I fish all week but cook the traditional T-Day dinner and get back down to the beach for a couple of hours.
geg6
Dear FSM, just let me get through Thanksgiving and the next two weeks after it. Once that’s over, I’m off for three weeks. You have no idea how much I need that. I’m so restricted in how I’m allowed to use my (admittedly extremely generous) vacation benefit that I really only get extended time off during the winter holidays and, by then, I’m seriously burned out. I’m teetering on the edge of the valley of total burnout and break can’t come too fast.
Meanwhile, I’ve got to get my house ready to host Thanksgiving and I’m getting exactly one day off next week before the holiday to get it done, along with all the cooking I can do ahead of time. Any ideas about how I can jam 48 hours of work into a 24 hour day?
JPL
@Mandalay: Why aren’t the usual wingnuts complaining about the war on Thanksgiving? It’s the one day that all faiths can spend with their family or at home.
also, too… I like Christmas since the sons visit and we watch movies. This year will be minus a son cuz he took a new job with a 24/7 station.
Mnemosyne
@piratedan:
WOO-HOO!!
Now I know what we’re doing before we schlep up to my brother’s house for a lovely dinner of pressed turkey loaf and Potato Buds. Have I mentioned lately that my sister-in-law is a terrible cook and has no clue that she is?
Valdivia
@geg6:
short of a tardis I have none. :(
hang in there.
Paul in KY
@Betsy: You ladies are the backbone of this season. A lazy as I am, thank God I’m a dude.
ruemara
@JPL: Not as much Christian Outrage Potential as ignoring Baby Jebus by not saying “Merry Christmas”.
@Mnemosyne: Can it be broached that she deserves a rest and to allow someone else to treat her? You know, because she’s such a wonderful person?
shelly
Staff
gogol's wife
@handsmile:
Very nice. You’re a smart guy — you must have had a good college education.
There’s a show on our local PBS station tonight about the Address. We’ll watch it, but my husband has a tendency to time-travel and get very emotional about anything Civil War-related.
raven
@geg6: Me too, I’m taking 9 days now and 2 1/2 weeks in December.
Paul in KY
@geg6: Just hope you’re able to get off the days you want & rest up.
handsmile
@Valdivia:
I believe you’re thinking of Waterston’s recital of Lincoln’s 1860 Cooper Union Address, presented in the university’s Great Hall where the speech was first delivered.
A new film by Ken Burns on the history of the Gettysburg Address, “The Address,” will be aired on PBS in April 2014. For this project, Burns has created a website, “Learn the Address,” encouraging “everyone in American to video themselves reading or reciting the speech.”
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/the-gettysburg-address-as-recited-by-colbert-and-you/?_r=0
At that website, you will find quite a variety of the virtuous and the wicked.
piratedan
@Mnemosyne: we’re visiting my son’s in laws for a hybrid hanukkah/thanksgiving day dinner, so i’ll be getting some satellite of love reinforcements before heading over
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: The bad cooking sucks. As SIL, you can’t tell her & hubby ain’t gonna go there (I assume). Do you need me to send her a communication? Anonymous, of course.
boatboy_srq
@Redshirt: Humbug indeed. The housemate’s unemployed (again), the SO lost (the only surviving) aunt (after losing parent in July and cousins last summer), and the one cousin I’m in regular touch with has no BLEEPing idea what she’s doing for the holidays so we can’t make plans. Advent may be a time of fasting and preparation – but an enforced instance of the former doesn’t make for anything like the latter.
Is it 2014 yet?
schrodinger's cat
Thread needs a cute kitteh to bring back the cheer.
Also too, finally wrote down the recipe for Dal with Red Lentils
If you has questions about any step, please ask. Cooking Kitteh’s cooking style is seat of the pants and she rarely works from a written recipe, hence the delay in writing up the recipe.
Mnemosyne
@JPL:
I think you answered your own question right there.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: I feel your pain, MIL is a terrible cook, everything is chopped really fine and then cooked to death.
Valdivia
@handsmile:
yes that was it! Sorry not enough caffeine and too much multitasking so cables got crossed. :)
And thanks for the link to the documentary site.
OT–did you see the two NYRB articles on Arendt, the movie?
Mnemosyne
@Paul in KY:
I offered to make Thanksgiving dinner at our place — nope. We don’t have satellite TV with the NFL package, so my brother will not spend Thanksgiving at our place.
So far, the best I was able to do was to bring frozen mashed potatoes rather than be subjected to the Potato Buds a second time.
I don’t necessarily demand a full turkey but, geez, at least buy an actual turkey breast (with the skin on it) rather than the one you boil.
Valdivia
@schrodinger’s cat:
cute kitteh indeed :)
schrodinger's cat
@impliedobserver: OMG you has two Tunchlets! and they both look pissed. Please to give them tuna, stat.
NotMax
Hannukah coming as well.
Being 6000 miles away from family makes holidays much more bearable That distance was an all caps plus when contemplating moving here 30 years ago).
Likely shall follow my usual Turkey Day regimen – buy a really good steak or London broil, prepare it au poivre along with some spicy couscous w/mushrooms and a veggie.
Did buy a large bag of fresh cranberries (now in the freezer, thank you Costco!) to make my galaxy-famous cranberry-orange relish* in bulk for sometime later on when I’m cooking for a dozen or so at our weekly dinner gathering.
*Gave the recipe to an online friend in Texas, who swore she had zero liking for all and any cranberry sauce. Afterwards, she admitted she liked it so much that she was eating it for breakfast in place of cereal.
Oh, and my annual Thanksgiving tip. If you’re buying a frozen bird, shell out a little more to get a kosher one. Swear to FSM, they cannot be cooked to anything other than moist and juicy perfection, no matter how shaky one’s turkey cooking abilities may be.
JPL
@Mnemosyne: Microwave or crock-pot turkey, yum. I bet the gravy is awesome.
Mike E
Looks like the weather and Zimmerman has rescued Obummer again! Black Jimmy Carter has more luck than the Clenis!!1!argle1!
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
Let’s just say that my best friend’s all-vegan Thanksgiving is sounding better and better this year.
FoxinSocks
Oh, Thanksgiving memories.
My parents are divorced, so my brother and I always go to Dad’s for this particular holiday. Mainly because Mom insists that if you stick a fork in a turkey and -any juice whatsoever- comes out of it, it’s undercooked and needs to go back into the oven until it’s the consistency of shoe leather.
Then for Christmas, we all go to hang out with Mom and my brother, being a good son, helps her out by doing the cooking. All of it. “No, really, Mom, we’ve got this covered. No, we don’t need to put the ham in the oven for an extra five minutes. We already did that. Pinky swear!”
schrodinger's cat
@NotMax: I made some pickled cranberries this weekend, Indian style. In India they usually pickle green mangoes, I used the same recipe but on cranberries instead. They are still pickling, should be ready to eat in about one week.
boatboy_srq
@FoxinSocks: Death by Cooking.
Your mom’s English, isn’t she?
Chyron HR
Did we ever find out who the new AG is going to be in Virginia? I figure I should try to know since I live there and all.
raven
@NotMax: If I were there you’d be eatin Ahi!
geg6
@JPL:
Well, you answered your own question. If there’s no way to paint “Christians” as victims, then there’s no use in declaring there’s a war on it.
handsmile
@gogol’s wife:
[blush]…But as you well know, admissions standards have improved there considerably since mercy was bestowed upon me.
Re your husband: let me then urge some caution (or something potently spirit-lifting later) when the two of you see the film 12 Years a Slave.
Another question for you on Russian literature: any thoughts on Leonid Tsypkin? I plucked his Summer in Baden-Baden from the bookshelf after reading a rapturous essay on the author in the current NYRB. Or are you a primarily a maven of the 19th-century?
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: Wait, people boil a turkey? Really? I’m glad you can’t see the face I’m making.
Redshirt
I spent about 10 years traveling overseas for Thanksgiving and Xmas. It was great, as there were not many other Americans, everything was cheap and plentiful, and flights were easy. Highly recommended – imagine spending Tgiving in Rome rather than at Aunt Gertrude’s?
Elizabelle
The Deeds story gets sadder. Son was hospitalized for emergency mental health evaluation yesterday. They could not find a psychiatric hospital bed for him in several western Virginia facilities. So he was sent home.
More details at http://www.timesdispatch.com.
Not good at linking w my cell phone
Ash Can
@Rosalita: Is that ever cute! Thanks for the link!
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
They do if they’re white trash. I’m sorry, did I let the mask slip again? ;-)
I suppose that she thinks it’s an improvement over the days when we would order in from Mimi’s Cafe, because home-cooked is always best, amirite?
ETA: And note that it’s not “a turkey.” It’s a boneless turkey breast roast, aka a bunch of meat pressed together in a mold.
geg6
@Paul in KY:
No problem getting that time off, simply because the University is shut down for two of those weeks. I’m taking the third week off during the week before Christmas, which is finals week here. I don’t usually get a lot of students or parents asking questions during finals week (16th through the 20th), so it’s a week that my superiors have deemed me as non-essential. Pretty much every other week of the year, I’m considered too essential to have more than a day or two off at a time.
Anyway, after the Thanksgiving madhouse, I’m not planning on doing much for Christmas. My nieces really only want cash these days, so very little present-buying needed. No way am I putting up a tree, unless I can talk John into letting me put up my 4-foot artificial pre-lit. I really have no energy for dealing with all the garbage you have to deal with when you have a real tree. I want to celebrate the holidays by doing as little as possible during my time off, other than watching some movies and tv that I haven’t caught up with throughout the rest of the year. I’m especially hoping to get through all the currently available seasons of Downton Abbey. I know I’ve come to it late, but I’ve seen three episodes so far and I’m hooked.
cckids
@Rosalita: Ha, I put that up last night, in a mostly dead thread. I think it’s a scream. I’m sure some will be shrieking about it.
Huh. Kmart. From the “ship your pants” ad to this one. You go, guys! Don’t know who their new ad agency is, but they should keep it.
Amir Khalid
When will someone think to declare a war on Festivus?
NotMax
@raven
And loving it.
All those stories and shows and movies with family holiday gatherings from hell are but pale imitations of my clan.
Worst Thanksgiving ever may have been when I was maybe 8 or 10. After a particularly ardent blow-up, we ended up in the car, in the rain, eating bologna and cheese sandwiches from a truck stop vending machine for dinner.
One of the best Thanksgiving movie scenes.
Betty Cracker
One time I was marooned at the dorms for TG (I was in a snit about something and stayed there to sulk). It was just me and a handful of mostly foreign students rattling around a deserted campus, and we staged the first annual Thanksgiving in a Can feast, using our hotpots, microwaves and toaster ovens to prepare the meal. Did you know whole boiled potatoes come in a can? The do! Or did in the late 80s, anyway. The downside is, they taste like…can.
shelly
Daily Caller and Breitbert.com are up in arms! Obama recites the Gettysburg Address and leaves out ‘one nation under God..’ Impeach!
MomSense
@raven:
Missed you on an earlier thread (yesterday?) but wanted to know I’m keeping you and your bride in my thoughts for good medical news. Hoping she feels much better.
I’m completely unprepared for the holidays. Started working on a very involved project in August that had me working evenings and weekends in the office and then more projects hit requiring extra hours and now all of a sudden it is Thanksgiving and soon Christmas and I am in the weeds!
Did score an awesome turkey source because the childhood friend of my son decided to become a farmer and has nice plump turkeys for sale. I have given up meat and poultry but the kids and guests are expecting the works.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: When my roommates were, lower income countrified Americans, this is why I always gave them a day off for the holidays. Because gourmet cooking does not mean you add chicken to the hamburger helper mix or another type of cheese to the mac above and beyond the orange powder. Bless you, and your tum this Thanksgiving.
Tone in DC
To paraphrase Edward R. Murphy… that’s fucked up, Gus.
I’m doing food procurement this year (note this not quite the same as cooking). I’ll get a partially cooked bird and ready made trimmings. If I entered my kitchen with actual culinary designs in my mind for November 28th, severe structural and victual damage would ensue. And then my neighbors shaking their heads afterwards, to the tune of “Burning Down the House”.
Bubblegum Tate
Wingnut talking point o’ the day: The Census was ordered to fake the 2012 election job numbers report. INPEECH THE MUSLIN!
Mike E
@Amir Khalid: Save your grievances for the Festivus pole.
cckids
@ruemara: Have you posted a link here to your fundraising yet? (if so I missed it). I know I’ve admired your work you’ve posted in the past, & would be happy to send a bit your way. You’ve shown integrity & grace in dealing with the storms that have hit your life lately. Here’s hoping things will look up.
ruemara
Not to be cranky, but the Fox network job application has some very odd questions. rate your “Global Acumen”? Does this mean I’m physically rounded (sadly true) or I know world geography or am up on world politics? How does this relate to the job I’m applying for? Very odd. Not sure what to answer.
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
Completely awesome: interactive video of Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.”
Rosalita
@cckids:
yeah, the some of the puritans are screaming on Kmart’s FB page, about how they will now do all their shopping at… Walmart
Anoniminous
Look forward to Thanksgiving. It’s a wonderful time of the year. Grocery stores sell their frozen turkeys at a super loss-leader price and we grab four or five.
Since this is an open thread, here’s some InfoBites:
Newspaper Advertising Revenue
Newspaper Circulation as % US households
Newspaper Readership by age
If I was in the Industry I’d be freaking out. Only the Wall St. Journal, USA Today, and New York Times have circulation over a million. (No link due to hitting my limit.) The holding company’s circulation is more than that, naturally, but with declining demand, they’d better take a hard look at their business model PDQ or they won’t have a business.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Higgs Boson’s Mate (Crystal Set): That’s awesome.
shelly
The Census was ordered to fake the 2012 election job numbers report. INPEECH THE MUSLIN!’
***********
Amazing how they’re still fighting the 2012 election.
handsmile
@Valdivia:
Oh yes, and found myself in agreement for the most part with Lilla’s appraisal of the von Trotta film. Didn’t think all that much of the film myself, but glad to have seen it as it provided some context on the reception of Arendt’s book that I had not adequately appreciated.
But Lilla is at his most venomous in the current NYRB. His victim is filmmaker Claude Lanzmann and his recent film The Last of the Unjust on Benjamin Murmelstein, the head of the Judenrat at Theresienstadt. Make yourself a strong pot of tea and enjoy a master at his craft.
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
@Rosalita:
As if they didn’t already.
cckids
@shelly: “Under God” wasn’t in the original draft of the speech.
NotMax
@shelly
Take it you won’t be clicking to peruse the fliers at blackfriday.com.
Mike E
@shelly:
Fix’t for historical accuracy.
MomSense
@handsmile:
We had to memorize it for 8th grade English class. I still remember the feeling when I first read it and realized it was not a BS assignment after all. Abe and that speech were the real deal.
FoxinSocks
@boatboy_srq:
Ha! Actually, she’s Polish-German .
cckids
@Rosalita:
Given the state of KMart’s parking lot every time I drive by it, I’m pretty sure they are already doing their shopping at WMart.
ETA: Or, what HBM said at #89
FoxinSocks
@boatboy_srq:
Ha! Actually, she’s Polish-German (family lived right on the constantly shifting border until they had to flee to Krakow during WWII).
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
I think that’s code for “Do you know your wingnut talking points?”
Bubblegum Tate
@shelly:
Rather hilariously, the wingnut from whom I got that talking point also is linking to a Politico poll that says Romney would beat Obama today. That totally counts as an election, right?
Chyron HR
@Higgs Boson’s Mate (Crystal Set):
NEWSMAX POLL: How does it feel to be on your own? Vote here now!
ruemara
@cckids: I haven’t. I’m highly embarrassed about the whole darned thing. Rather hoping I trip over a large diamond or something. It feels odd to ask for things, especially when so many are surviving a disaster. It feels even worse when you’re used to doing for yourself. I’m half inclined to return the $30 collected so far out of deep West Indian shame reflex. But it’s given me the most hope out of anything that wasn’t a job interview. I wish I wasn’t so conflicted about it.
@Mnemosyne: Well sure I do- wait, OOooooh. You mean do I believe them and/or can repeat them convincingly. Luckily, this is not for that part of Fox. Just their blow things up on film division.
Don’t judge. At least I did not apply for the Koch Brothers gig doing media. I have some scruples.
NotMax
@MomSense
Happen to see this?
Mike E
@NotMax: Check out the OBAMA! comments on the retraction post, heh.
cckids
I’m looking forward to the holidays. I like the cooking & especially the baking. I love decorating my house with the things I’ve collected over the years. And, online shopping FTW, I hope to not have to set foot in a mall. Of course, we learned a long time ago to just pare down the gift giving to what we want to do – for people we truly care about.
My younger kids will be home from colleges, our oldest is holding his own against a re-emergence of the MRSA that has been around for years, my dad is feeling better after a new type of chemo for his leukemia. We’ve had holidays in the past 5 years where we were not at all sure if we’d all still be among the living by Christmas, so this year is looking pretty good.
JPL
@ruemara: Read the cooking instructions on the butterball site. haha
Ash Can
@shelly: The best thing about this latest fake outrage is that it made me look up the Gettysburg Address to see what the truth actually was, and I learned about the several versions of the speech, how they came to be, and how they differed. (Cliff Notes version of the kerfluffle: Obama omitted the mention of God because he recited the version that Lincoln actually gave at the battlefield, which — you guessed it — didn’t mention God.)
schrodinger's cat
@ruemara: You could be the BJ mole in the enemy’s base.
srv
ZImmerman’s bail only $9000. Says the gf went crazy and set him up.
raven
@MomSense: Thanks, the tests are in the next 3 days.
ranchandsyrup
Thanksgiving is bittersweet for me. It was my dad’s favorite holiday and he’s no longer with us. The first couple were pretty tough after he passed. We decided that we should do the holiday with friends instead of family for the past couple of years and then do an “off-cycle” thanksgiving for family. Working well so far. I deep fry a turkey every year. Gonna do it out on the beach again this year, which is a lot of fun.
raven
@ruemara: Brine that mofo.
cckids
@ruemara: Ah, I understand. Best of luck with the sale of the collectibles, are you e-baying? You are in the best time of year for it.
MomSense
@NotMax:
I did see that!!
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: Sorry to hear that. My family can cook (yay)! The NFL stuff on Thur (Thanksgiving) is on regular TV, I thought).
handsmile
@Amir Khalid:
So will it be Cristiano Ronaldo or Zlatan Ibrahimovic who will be playing in Brazil next summer? The second leg of the European qualification playoffs for the 2014 World Cup kicks off in a few moments.
Although Sweden is down 1-0 after last week’s match in Portugal, for reasons both of family heritage and the principles of good sportsmanship (i.e, Portuguese thuggery), I hope to be hoisting a glass or two of aquavit after today’s match.
And unless les Bleus can pull off something miraculeuse in Paris today against Ukraine, Franck Ribery and Hugo Lloris will be watching the World Cup from their Mediterranean villas.
JPL
@raven: I’m going to try a dry brine this year and hope it comes out as moist.
Fingers crossed that your wife is okay.
some guy
one more 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals nominations blocked. any chance Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid will be relent and get his caucus to act on this?
NotMax
@raven
That’s one reason I like the kosher birds. They’re already brined, and not injected with whatever cocktail the mass market ones have within them.
Paul in KY
@geg6: Just hope you have some good downtime :-)
Jebediah, RBG
@ruemara:
I hope you won’t. If accepting help is a serious problem, promise yourself that you will pay people back when you are able to. Remember, no one who offers help is being forced, and they will get some pleasure from seeing you able to do the work you want to do.
catclub
@Shakezula: “It is also the last time I have set, guaranteed days off until May.”
What about Easter Monday? Groundhog Day? St. Patrick’s? President’s Day? MLK Day? Mardi Gras?
karen
Thanksgiving Day happens to also be the first night of Chanukah so scrambling comes earlier this year. I won’t be able to make it to NY to my folks this year but they’re having a Thanksgiving dinner here on Friday the 22, then they give out holiday baskets, with the stuff to make a good Thanksgiving dinner. It’s from donations so I have no idea what will be in it but there will be a whole turkey. I’ve never cooked a whole turkey or even a non pre-cooked one so it will be interesting. I wish I could get people presents for Chanukah and Christmas but my unemployment runs out so that’s a no go.
ruemara
@cckids: Nope. I seem to be the world’s worst at sales. even easy on-line shit. So I’ll be outside at a flea market. Maybe all my ads should feature cat pics, with Batman. Misleading advertisement is fair, right? Oh yeah, scruples. Dangit.
Ben Cisco
@shelly: So it was the unabridged edition of the speech, then?
Older
@boatboy_srq: My folks were mostly Scots, and mostly low-land Scots, which meant English style cooking (mostly). It’s not all boiled, you know. If you haven’t had roast beef with Yorkshire Pudding, you’ve missed out on a great and festive treat.
Then one year, my entrepreneurial uncle bought a turkey farm, and after that it was turkey all the way.
Every once in a while, I get the urge to replicate (really, to imitate) that kind of feast. It’s somewhat more trouble than turkey, especially if you haven’t got the equipment (rotisserie grill and many hours to cook and oversee cooking).
Just thinking about it carries me back …
MikeJ
@Amir Khalid:
I think Seinfeld was the most overrated TV show of the past 30 years. I’m in for WoF.
raven
@JPL: thx
Soonergrunt
@Amir Khalid: when it becomes the dominant religious expression among older, wealthier, white people.
SATSQ.
Mike E
@JPL: Did the “dry” a couple of years ago, it rocked the house. Apples, onions, celery and carrots.
cckids
@ruemara: Good luck! Speaking of misleading . . . there’s this.
HelloRochester
My mom this morning countered an article I posted to my facebook wall about the Young Texas Conservatives having their “Catch An Illegal Immigrant” contest on campus with a snide “both sides do it” by telling tales of the knock-out game (young browns hit non-browns on back of the head for sport). When I went looking for info about it, many of the google searches turned up reposts from redstate and then even more racist websites and then a smattering from local news outlets. I smell “wilding” and “rainbow bracelet parties” and “2 gallons of semen pumped from Rod Stewart/BonJovi/Justin Bieber’s stomach” and “Laffer curves” and other urban legends. Is this an actual thing, or a total bullshit thing? I couldn’t find a Snopes for a clean debunk. Little help?
MomSense
@ruemara:
I used to work at a hotel that served as the press HQ for the Bush summer white house and the FOX cameraman was a great guy–one of the only nice people in the whole WH press corpse. He was also a photographer and he stayed for a few days after everyone left so I gave him the locals tip about beautiful places and the time of day to photograph them.
He was so burnt out working for FOX.
I hope your sale goes well and that you get lots of money for your photography. Please don’t fret about asking for help. We need artists in this world desperately.
boatboy_srq
@Older: The last of the clan who left the Auld Country migrated from the Isle of Wight about 130 years ago. I still have a few relations over there, and I know the cuisine well. There are few things that beat a steak’n’kidney pie and a pint of bitter, or real fish’n’chips, or the roast you mentioned. I just recall the Anglo tendency to cook everything beyond consumability. Fortunately, that’s changed in the last decade or so, but it’s still valid for most Anglo-American food destruction -er, cooking. I’m actually looking forward to introducing the S.O. to cuisine Anglo style (it’ll be a good distraction) – and at the same time attempting to teach my favorite cousin how to cook (without killing anything or anyone).
schrodinger's cat
@ruemara: How about setting up your own Etsy shop?
karen
@HelloRochester:
Whether it’s both sides or not, you’re mother clearly won’t believe that both sides didn’t do it so how about “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Chyron HR
@MikeJ:
Why, this comment is a Ziggy! Some charlatan has stolen a Ziggy and passed it off as his own!
scuffletuffle
I usually go to Thanksgiving at my ex’s house…she is a gourmet cook. The few time we both went to friends for the holiday (also gourmet level cooks), she insisted on repeating the entire dinner on the Friday so we could have stuffing, gravy and candied sweet potatoes, which they will not serve. Win win for me…there’s never too much turkey!
srv
@HelloRochester: Does she support locking up all Young Conservatives as criminal thugs, or will she squeal nuance?
Cause you know, all blacks are bad because a few kids beat up some old guys once.
Amir Khalid
@handsmile:
Their shocking behaviour in South Africa last time around earned them a chewing-out from the French sports minister herself, for the way they dragged their country’s name through the mud. It might do Les Bleus some good to sit out a World Cup or two.
This time around Sweden and Portugal both have fantastic players with the bad luck to be from the wrong country, when it comes to qualifying for the world cup. George Best had the same problem, only worse; he was one of the best, or perhaps the very best, who never played in the World Cup because the rest of the Northern Ireland team was nowhere near as good as he.
I generally regard internationals as a distraction from the real business of club football. Of course, it may well be because Malaysia hasn’t had a decent team since it ruled South-east Asia in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Bubblegum Tate
@srv:
Ah, the Marion Barry “bitch set me up!” defense.
ranchandsyrup
@HelloRochester: It happens. Reports going back to the 90’s. The extent to which it happens is the question. It’s not a “violent new trend” as it is described over the past couple of weeks. It’s also not always perpetrated by blah or brown people and it doesn’t always target white people.
Ash Can
@HelloRochester: How about just asking your mom to get back to you when she finds a story about the Massachusetts state OFA organization sponsoring a knock-out-game competition at Harvard?
Paul in KY
@HelloRochester: There have been isolated situations of young men (all shades) cold cocking an unsuspecting person (a man) for shits & grins.
If a group of snickering young men come up around you & one has a video camera or cell phone shooting at you…beware.
? Martin
@Bubblegum Tate: Someone is now regretting not having killed her. He could have kept his guns that way.
schrodinger's cat
I can has 20,000 hits on my tiny blog! Thanks BJ peeps.
Suffern ACE
Ugh. I know that it was always destined to be “temporary” and its demolition has been in the works for years, and they weren’t going to win that lawsuit, but the end of 5 Pointz has kind of got me down.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@schrodinger’s cat: Right? I think I got twelve thousand a day for a week when John linked to my blog.
Suffern ACE
@Bubblegum Tate: Other people always seem to be getting him in trouble.
jc
Will someone please advise me how to talk to my poorly informed relatives at Thanksgiving, about the ACA, about Libertarians, about Ayn Rand?
PaulW
I slipped off my pace on the NaNoWriMo writing last night, just couldn’t stay focused. I will continue my efforts tonight.
I wrote up about George Zimmerman highlighting the destructive habits of Angry Guy Syndrome.
realbtl
I’ve got a turkey on order from the local Hutterites- no crap injected or fed it. For the last 20 years I’ve used my trusty old fashioned Weber and it makes a great bird. Having kids, grandkids and a couple of single friends over.
Betty Cracker
@srv: I read they removed his guns and required electronic monitoring, though. Fucker had added an AR-15 to his collection, according to the 911 call. That sumbitch will go down in a hail of SWAT bullets one day.
schrodinger's cat
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: You have a blog? Link please? Most likely, you are just pulling my leg.
dmsilev
@karen:
Talking with my mom the other day, she announced that she was going to add latkes to the planned Thanksgiving menu. After I pulled my jaw off the ground, I asked her if making a labor-intensive-at-the-last-minute dish was really the right choice (all that frying right at the time that the gravy is being cooked, the turkey carved, the roast veggies coming out of the oven, etc., etc.). Thankfully, she’s planning to pre-cook and re-heat the latkes. Not taste-optimal, but far far more practical.
Ash Can
Just spotted a tweet posted by a commenter at LGF that the arrest and jailing of George Zimmerman kept him in one place long enough to be served the divorce papers from Shelly Zimmerman that he had been dodging. Karma 1, GZ 0.
waratah
One of the local caterer’s is offering smoked beef tenderloin. Has anyone had smoked beef tenderloin, and did you like it. I like that you can buy it by the pound.
IowaOldLady
Christmas shopping sends me into a panic, and that’s despite the fact that I ship baklava to half my list and books from Amazon to the other half.
Suffern ACE
@Ash Can: I seriously wonder about humans. He’s obviously “moved on” from the wife and has a kid on the way with the girlfriend. He might as well pay the wife now. Does he think that divorcing later will go better for him?
gogol's wife
@handsmile:
I tried to read Tsypkin but got angry at the way he treated Dostoevsky in the beginning (building the whole plot around Dostoevsky supposedly having been flogged in Siberia). It’s on my shelf and I keep thinking I should read it some time. I have the same problem with Coetzee’s Master of Petersburg. There are plenty of documented unsavory aspects to Dostoevsky’s life, you don’t have to make stuff up. We won’t go near “12 Years a Slave.”
gogol's wife
@handsmile:
I haven’t seen any great improvement in the quality of the students over 25+ years!
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@schrodinger’s cat: Old news, drpaul2012.wordpress.com
Ash Can
@Suffern ACE: Seeing as he’s never really shown any evidence of possessing intelligence, honesty, or basic human decency, he’s probably running from a divorce trial because he’s afraid it would reveal financial assets he’s trying to hide (he’s claimed he’s $2.5M in hock and is being assigned a public defender). The one I really wonder about, though, is the girlfriend. The thought of any woman even wanting to get near this turd, let alone have a kid with him, horrifies me beyond words.
Trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
We should conduct a pole.
Trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
I’m simply going to echo a comment from yesterday: This fucking guy.
schrodinger's cat
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: You can reanimate it when Paul the Younger runs.
Valdivia
@handsmile: sorry this reply is late (real life called). I heard about the article before it came out and it is interesting that he thought of the two as together, part of the same story. Have been saving them because sincerely I haven’t had time but will do over the holiday weekend and we can compare notes after!
Matt McIrvin
@Ash Can: Though newspaper accounts of the speech all include the phrase, and it was inserted into copies made after the speech, which suggests that Lincoln might have inserted “under God” extemporaneously.
Why, why did it have to be “under God” of all things? aka The Only Two Words In The Pledge Of Allegiance (inserted 1954)?
(Apparently the insertion into the Pledge was inspired to some degree by the Gettysburg Address.)
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Think of it as a Kickstarter — people pledge money now to get things off the ground, and you give them something in return later.
PaulW
Anyone else mention today is the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln‘s
attempt to sell Tupperware at a house partyuh, speech at Gettysburg?handsmile
Sad handsmile…..
Sweden lost to Cristiano Ronaldo (2-3, 2-4 agg) this afternoon, so no Blagult in Brazil next summer. A bitter defeat.
That France managed to demolish Ukraine 3-0 (3-2 agg) in their match, and so qualify for the 2014 World Cup, does ease the pain a soupcon.
PurpleGirl
@Matt McIrvin: No, the insertion of “Under God” was to differentiate the US from the evil, godless Commies in the USSR.
Suffern ACE
@PaulW: Oh, I guess this is the RW outrage of the day – Obama snubbed the commemoration at Gettysburg by not showing up, and that by not showing up he is showing some kind animous to the country. Now, apparently he would be the first president since Taft to commemorate the speech, but that hasn’t stopped the freakout.
Jebediah, RBG
@handsmile:
Handfrown?
handsmile
@Jebediah, RBG:
Clever, that. For a moment, the frown was turned upside down. :)
@PaulW:
It’s been one of the topics throughout this thread, beginning at #17 above.
Teiresias
Wasn’t there supposed to be a revolution today? How’d that go?
Mnemosyne
@Teiresias:
I guess that, contrary to popular belief, the revolution was not televised.