Did you see the movie “Boyhood,” starring Ethan Hawke and one of the lesser Arquettes, among others? I thought it was just okay. But there was one piece of dialogue in it that I really loved and haven’t forgotten — it was centered around the boy (Mason) asking his dad about magic:
Mason: Dad, there’s no real magic in the world, right?
Dad: What do you mean?
Mason: You know, like elves and stuff. People just made that up.
Dad: Oh, I don’t know. I mean, what makes you think that elves are any more magical than something like a whale? You know what I mean? What if I told you a story about how underneath the ocean, there was this giant sea mammal that used sonar and sang songs and it was so big that its heart was the size of a car and you could crawl through the arteries? I mean, you’d think that was pretty magical, right?
Well, here’s another real thing that’s magical — Honduran white bats:
They have white fur, pointy lemon-colored ears and noses, and they live in tents they fashion out of living plants. How cool is that?
Open thread!
low-tech cyclist
As an ex-caver, I think bats in general are pretty cool. But I gotta admit that these little guys are particularly cool, even if they don’t live in caves.
Kropadope
OMZ those are so adorable!!! Looked up more pictures. Their noses are so cute, it looks like they glued little satin fire emblems to their face.
donnah
They look like Pokemon characters!
I hope there is still magic out there. It seems more like dark forces are winning. I’m holding out for some magic.
Rob in CT
Flying rats, ugh. But I like ’em, because they eat insects and I hate insects more than flying rats. Far more.
This was not intended as a political analogy, but it kind of works…
scav
Those are seriously cute little ultra-squeekers, although I think I’m getting some mental angst from a neuron once abused by those talking toys.
Josie
I just said, “Awwww…..” out loud. Those are so tiny and cute it hurts.
Johannes
Adorable–but I’m a bat guy. (Um, not Batman, though, just to be clear…)
socraticsilence
On what planet did having DWS speak pre convention much less take the stage durung the convention seem like a good idea. I have had field organizers with more political savvy than we’re showing right now.
http://gawker.com/ex-dnc-chair-debbie-wasserman-schultz-heckled-with-chan-1784258076
Keith P.
Anyone remember that weird furry creature that was in the news a few years ago. It looked like CGI…it was furry with big ears (not a fennec fox) and eyes. It was like a palm-sized cartoon kangaroo crossed with a mouse. I’m searching for “cute exotic animals” but surprisingly not seeing an image of it. I think it was from South America.
socraticsilence
I should clarify, she may be being made a scapegoat– that doesn’t matter, the entire point of the convention is symbolism and trying to hold to her now (or name her an honorary campaign co-chair) is just dumb politics.
TaMara (HFG)
@Johannes: Sure….sure you’re not…your secret is safe with us.
@Betty – squee on the bat pix, so darn cute. Great way to continue my Monday.
SiubhanDuinne
@Rob in CT:
Bats are not only great at keeping insect populations under control, they are also important pollinators.
In Australia there’s an ad featuring an adorable koala and a flying fox (bat). The koala says “No tree, no me” and the bat says “No me, no tree.” Sometimes the sequence is flipped. It’s a wonderfully simple way of showing the connections.
Keith P.
@srv: Good lord, at least one of his kids has to be current enough to know how an AMA is going to turn out.
rp
You left off the ending and best part of that exchange!!!!:
Mason: Yeah. But, like… right this second, there’s, like, no elves in the world, right?
Dad: [beat] No. Technically, no elves.
The Dangerman
I know it’s just a convention bump…
…but what kind of moron flips to voting Trump when Trump’s idea of Defense is to defenestrate NATO? WTF?
I’d be far happier if a future ratfuck against Clinton (the emails off her home server getting dumped) wasn’t such a sure thing.
raven
Sugar Gliders
Kropadope
@donnah:
Maybe these ones?
Also, I never much liked BJ banner ads, but they got me researching my State Senate candidates today. So score one for them.
rikyrah
The bats are not cute. they creep me out.
dr. bloor
@srv: Difficult to make reddit even more of a cesspool, and yet there it is.
Keith P.
@Keith P.:
Pygmy Jerboas!
cokane
@Keith P.: Thinking of a Coati?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coati
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Bruce K
Is this the wrong thread to admit that reading the news feeds is scaring me to the point where I’m starting to feel physically ill about the future?
Brachiator
@Rob in CT:
These bats feed mainly on fruit.
Honduran white bats. Very cool. But scientifical, not magical.
Keith G
@low-tech cyclist:
Agreed.
No caves here in Houston, but near downtown there is a bridge over our central waterway that is home to a large colony of Mexican free-tailed bats. Watching them take wing for a night of hunting is quite the thing.
A bayou-side hike and bike trail passes under the bridge. The smell will knock you on your butt.
MattF
Hmm. The latest novel in Charlie Stross’ Laundry Files series (‘The Nightmare Stacks’) has elves. And vampires. Recommended, but it would be a good idea to read one or two of the earlier ones first, just to get the concept of magic as a branch of applied mathematics and magicians as bureaucrats.
socraticsilence
I wish the Clintons were as ruthless as Republicans think they are, because currently their loyalty to DWS is setting the stage for some shitty optics at the very least.
Steeplejack (phone)
Damn it, Cracker, Patricia is the major Arquette!
ETA: And she won an Oscar for that very movie. Harrumph.
Percysowner
@Bruce K:
I can’t say it’s the wrong thread, but you aren’t alone. I’m really scared and I will be until the election. If Hillary doesn’t win I’ll be scared for a lot longer than the election. I’m just going to go knock on doors and register voters and drive people to the polls and do everything I can to get the vote out.
raven
@Bruce K: Yes, two thread back you can read that we’re all going to die.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator:
I say the little white bats qualify under definition #2.
Bill Arnold
Enjoyed that one, a lot. Strong new characters. (The elves are … not Tolkien-derived elves. Most definitely not.)
Definitely agree on reading the series in order, though.
Crashman
@Bruce K: Feeling the exact same way, if it’s any consolation. Not sure how I’m going to survive until November; the anxiety is eating away at me.
Barb2
I’m an animal lover. The current animal – non human – cognition research is amazing. Bird migration. Then there is the African Grey Parrot named Alex. And the rest of the parrot gang who work with Irene Pepperberg. We are learning new things about animal thinking.
Those of us owned by companion animals know our guys can think, and plot.
Bats are good. The fruit bats of the Caribbean are huge. Then the tiny fluffy white bats. Cute over load!!!
dr. bloor
@socraticsilence: She’s going to be invisible. The announcers will gab about it, and then America will promptly fail a multiple-choice test on “Who is DWS” tomorrow morning.
And a part of me wonders how much of her hire is a message to Vladimir Vladimirovich about what’s coming down the pike if his little game fails.
Bill Arnold
Here’s a nightmare cuddly, one of my favorites:
True Facts About The Mantis Shrimp
Used that video to quiet a boy recently who was going on and on about various dangerous predators.
Miss Bianca
OMG, the cutest bats on the planet!!
rikyrah
CNN’s Harry Houck Promotes Video Calling On Obama To “Ban Niggas”
Video Claims “More People Murdered In A Day By Niggly Bears Than In A Year By Grizzly Bears”
CARLOS MAZA
CNN law enforcement analyst Harry Houck promoted a video that calls for President Obama to “ban niggas” in order to reduce violent crime, continuing Houck’s long history of peddling racist tropes about the African-American community.
On July 25, Houck posted a link to a video on his Twitter account featuring Atlanta radio host and men’s rights activist Tommy Sotomayor, in which Sotomayor said that Obama should “ban niggas” because black men commit more violent crimes than other groups. Houck tweeted the video with the comment, “He knows what he’s talking about!”:
rikyrah
Exclusive: Suspected Russian hack of DNC widens — includes personal email of staffer researching Manafort
Michael Isikoff
Chief Investigative Correspondent
Just weeks after she started preparing opposition research files on Donald Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort last spring, Democratic National Committee consultant Alexandra Chalupa got an alarming message when she logged into her personal Yahoo email account.
“Important action required,” read a pop-up box from a Yahoo security team that is informally known as “the Paranoids.” “We strongly suspect that your account has been the target of state-sponsored actors.”
Chalupa — who had been drafting memos and writing emails about Manafort’s connection to pro-Russian political leaders in Ukraine — quickly alerted top DNC officials. “Since I started digging into Manafort, these messages have been a daily occurrence on my Yahoo account despite changing my password often,” she wrote in a May 3 email to Luis Miranda, the DNC’s communications director, which included an attached screengrab of the image of the Yahoo security warning.
“I was freaked out,” Chalupa, who serves as director of “ethnic engagement” for the DNC, told Yahoo News in an interview, noting that she had been in close touch with sources in Kiev, Ukraine, including a number of investigative journalists, who had been providing her with information about Manafort’s political and business dealings in that country and Russia.
“This is really scary,” she said.
Chalupa’s message is among nearly 20,000 hacked internal DNC emails that were posted over the weekend by WikiLeaks as the Democratic Party gathered for its national convention in Philadelphia. Those emails have already provoked a convulsion in Democratic Party ranks, leading to the resignation of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz in the wake of posted messages in which she and other top DNC officials privately derided Bernie Sanders and plotted to undercut his insurgent campaign against Hillary Clinton.
dmsilev
@Bill Arnold: It was a fun read. And as to the elves, I think at least one character referred to them as ‘Pointy Eared Fuckers”, which should give a hint as to their general disposition.
piratedan
@Bruce K: it’s alright to be concerned, but doing so with the tacit understanding that the media is in the business of gathering clicks for revenue not information. It’s a long summer and the forces of self interest rule the headlines…
we have the usual pupu platter of media menu
a) Dems in disarray – check, the DNC e-mail leaks
b) willful blindness to how they were leaked (no follow up on Wikileaks being completely in the bag for the Russians and who stands to gain from said release of information)
c) Trump convention bounce – because nothing says I’ll vote for the white racist than a bunch of MSM fluffers telling us that this is all oh so very normal and that open descrimination against minorities is what America great after all…..
d) they have a horse race narrative to sell
Lets face it, we’re all so very concerned about what took place at the DNC while a bunch of folks behind the scenes talked about campaign strategy in regards to who to possibly help in regards to their preferred candidate who had been a faithful Dem pol for the last 30 years over a guy who joined in the last year and insulted them at nearly every opportunity…. man tough call there to figure out why humans were being humans.
And the media will roll this around in their mouths and not worry about how that tasty morsel was prepped for their consumption
and still no one has asked Trump about his tax returns and where the fuck are they…. No one has asked Pence why it was okay to fast track corporate tax cuts at the expense of cutting off food programs for kinders and preschoolers. It’s still in the move along – nothing to see here stage of the campaign.
I fully expect the Dem ticket to get their own bounce too, when they actually begin to speak about things that matter, opportunity, debt, jobs, human rights….
Feathers
Love the bats. Used to sneak up in the attic during the day to watch them sleeping. My parent’s house in Virginia is on the upper side of hilly cul de sac, which makes the front side of it a defacto cliff. The attic vent was home to lots of little bats just hanging upside down, chilling.
WaterGirl
@Keith P.: What is an AMA in this context?
edit: ah. AMA reddit ask me anything.
The Thin Black Duke
@dr. bloor: Ah, that is a perceptive observation, thank you. Hillary knows how to play the long game.
Barb2
Bernie needs to feel important. But lots of people don’t like him.
He needs to be appointed to an ambassadorship somewhere. But where?
Oh I know, how about Antarctica?
So drop a prefab unit somewhere in Antarctica. Fully stocked.Drop in the new ambassador.
Jane has to come along, doesn’t she?
schrodinger's cat
Avagha Rang Ek Zala (All colors became one) sung by Kishori Amonkar is pretty magical. It was written by a Dalit untouchable woman in the 14th century, in praise of Vithoba of Pandharpur. Do remember that according to the caste rules she could not even enter the temple but had to worship from the steps of the temple.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack (phone): Yeah I wondered who the lesser Arquettes would be.
I have only seen Patricia Arquette in CSI:Cyber, which is possibly the worst TV show ever created.
justawriter
I forget who said it first but, not only is the universe more interesting that you imagine, it is more interesting than you can imagine.
Bess
@Barb2:
No need to be that hard on Bernie. I’m sure there will be an opening in Unimportantstan.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
I was mainly joking with you.
Ectophylla alba. Beautiful and delightful
Jessica Alba. Also beautiful and delightful
La casa de Bernarda Alba. Beautiful, but very dark magic.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
Maybe David (“Scream”) Arquette.
Miss Bianca
@Johannes:
Yeah, but you would *have* to say that now, wouldn’t you?
Brachiator
@Barb2:
Bernie will be just fine in the Senate.
catclub
@WaterGirl: Is anyone going to ask Trump to release his tax forms?
I would think a theme for Democrats should be promises that trump has broken, and promises he has never fulfilled.
Charity donations, dead developments, etc.
Another theme: who is going to do all these promised changes with Trump. He never wants a partner, he wants at best a lackey.
schrodinger's cat
@schrodinger’s cat: Sorry forgot to include the link
Avagha Rang Ek Zala
Brachiator
@Johannes:
Trying to imagine a Batman costume that was white, with pointy lemon-colored ears.
Brachiator
@catclub:
He was asked about it on one of the Sunday shows. He lied that FEC filings show him to be wealthier and more cash rich than he says. Then he mumbled some crap that people would misinterprete his tax returns and make mountains out of deductible molehills.
Then he talked about audits, but weakly half promised that he might sorta in September either release them, or talk about releasing them.
JimV
No Virginia, there is no magic. And many of the real problems we have? Due to magical thinking. Here’s what I like about the universe: it makes sense. Not saying I’m capable of understanding everything, but if I worked hard enough I could understand a lot of it. That’s what I want in a universe.
Miss Bianca
@Barb2: Simple – just tell Jane you’re setting up the University of Antarctica, and she’s going to be in charge.
Keith P.
@Brachiator: I like how he claimed Romney lost because he released his tax returns.
Ella in New Mexico
Bats!!! <3 I love them so!!!
My heart thanks you for that post, Betty. It was a good palate cleanser after catching up to the news this morning.
Here's my gift back to you…he's pretty darn cute too…as are most Flying Foxes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVz8rvIl_vY
Brachiator
@Keith P.:
Trump is very adept at improvisatory bullshitting.
workworkwork
@Bruce K: That’s why I decided to concentrate on ‘nerd stuff’ today – grading papers, doing course development, writing up my lecture notes, etc.
My wife yells at the TV whenever Trump comes on so I switched her over to Apple TV where we have the Acorn app. She’s now watching Series 2 of “William and Mary” and cuddling with the cat.
workworkwork
@Bill Arnold: Fred Saberhagen wrote a short story called “Smasher” where mantis shrimps defeat an invasion of killer robots. They sound pretty awesome.
WaterGirl
@catclub: I really liked that Tim Kaine asked about Trump’s taxes in his Saturday speech.
Theodore Wirth
Very cool! You rule Betty!