I’ve been debating a writer’s thread this weekend and YES won out. So there will be an one at the usual time, 12:30/11:30/10:30/9:30.
Two things caught my eye today:
For our New England friends, the Tall Ships are coming.
— Miss T (@TaMaraRullo) April 21, 2017
There is a great slideshow at the link.
And this adorable video, love the kid giving CPR to the mascot. Thrilled he knows how!
Saving children from foul balls – just another reason to follow @AlbertGator on Twitter! #GoGators pic.twitter.com/44j6FgkpXa
— Florida Gators (@FloridaGators) April 19, 2017
My day is off to a very slow start. How are you getting through your Friday?
Open thread.
Yarrow
That kid is adorable!
Me too. Can’t seem to concentrate. Have a ton to get done today and can’t even seem to get started.
Paula
Gonna be out of town this weekend — going to the Science March in DC! I’ll check in next week. Have a good one!
brendancalling
I do my best not to blogwhore, but speaking of writing, I dropped this little gem earlier this week.
Pertinent to Friday, it’s going quickly so far.
WaterGirl
@brendancalling: If “this little gem” is supposed to be a link, it’s not working. If I hover over it, the 3 words are underlined but it’s not showing as a link.
WaterGirl
What’s the Schrodinger’s Dog thing about on Cole’s twitter feed to the right? I don’t get it.
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: I noticed that too. I assume it’s something in the last few days on his blog, if he doesn’t post the specific linky.
Cheers,
Scott.
TaMara (HFG)
@WaterGirl: He changes up his twitter handle as it suits him.
brendancalling
UGH. This link should work. DERP.
Uncle Cosmo
Did I miss something? Late last night I thought I saw (in passing) a headline on MSN.com to the effect that Chaffetz is not resigning from Congress. Now I can’t seem to find it. WTF?
Another Scott
@Uncle Cosmo: Politico:
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike J
@Uncle Cosmo:
WaterGirl
@brendancalling: I like your story!
Marmot
So who is this writer?
::drops fountain pen::
Miss Bianca
@Another Scott: that statement sounds an awful lot like “jam tomorrow, and jam yesterday, but never jam today.”
brendancalling
@WaterGirl: I have another one coming about yelling at racist Aussie dude-bros later…
Percysowner
For those people who were upset that the ACLU is “pissing and moaning” about the announcement that Sessions intends to prosecute WikiLeaks and Assange, this just in Sessions won’t rule out prosecuting media outlets besides WikiLeaks.
The ACLU knew whereof they spoke, and they are sadly right on the money that the twerp Assange’s rights need to be defended and they kind of need to stop this in its tracks, no matter how repugnant WikiLeaks, et al. are because Sessions intends to come after anyone who reports what the Trump Administration and the Republicans don’t want reported.
Mnemosyne
Yay writer’s thread! I’ll see if I can check in before I have to leave for the LA Times Festival of Books. For any locals going, I’ll be volunteering at the LARA (Los Angeles Romance Authors) booth from 3-5 pm on Sunday. Short, stocky bottle redhead wearing big sunglasses.
Mnemosyne
@Percysowner:
I’m fine with the ACLU defending Assange. I’m not sure he specifically qualifies as a journalist, or that Wikileaks qualifies as a news outlet, since they don’t do any actual reporting. It would be nice to have that clarified, however.
Some Guy
Go Gators. That kid giving Albert CPR is priceless.
hovercraft
Does anyone know anything about this Dina Titus? Is this a good thing?
Nevada Dem rep considering Senate run against Heller
By Jordain Carney – 04/21/17 01:11 PM EDT
Democratic Rep. Dina Titus (Nev.) is eyeing a bid against Sen. Dean Heller in 2018, arguing the Nevada Republican is vulnerable.
“It’s going to be interesting. I’m thinking about it. Some people have talked to me about the possibility. It’s a hard decision,” Titus told KNPR, a Nevada NPR affiliate station, when asked who could challenge Heller next year.
She added that if she doesn’t run against Heller, she’ll run for reelection to her House seat because she’s starting to gain “clout” in the House.
“That’s part of the consideration. … It is hard to walk away from where you think you can make a difference,” she said. “Whoever runs I’ll certainly be helping them, if it’s not me, and I think we can take him out.”
Heller is viewed as the most vulnerable GOP senator up for reelection in 2018 during a Senate cycle that is very favorable for Republicans. Democrats are defending 25 seats, while Republicans only need to defend nine, including Nevada.
hovercraft
@Percysowner:
This is what I said last night, you can’t pick and chose, either you defend everyone or no one. Even the most despicable deserve to be defended. It’s the whole first they came for……….. and I said nothing…………..
SiubhanDuinne
@Another Scott:
The piece you linked continues to quote Chaffetz:
Yesterday we discussed his weird instruction to Trump: “Open your kimono and show everything.” This is, to me, a really odd locution although it is apparently a common phrase in business dealings. But now this repellent image of being given multiple enemas? Who talks like this? Who thinks like this?
Ugh. Just leave already and spare us your perverse images.
hovercraft
These people are truly awful people.
But hey, it’s working for them.
PaulW
I finished and submitted a short story for the Florida Writers Association collection contest, so that is safely out of the way.
I am now finishing on that damned novel project to get it self-published in time for an August comic-con in Albany GA (this will be my first con as a person on the Artist Alley).
GregMulka
After the first 98 seconds of my day, all time is overtime. On call weeks are the best. Hooray for writing thread.
Miss Bianca
@hovercraft: Don’t see how it could possibly be a bad thing…almost any Dem being better than almost any Repub…
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: Calling him a “journalist” renders that word pretty meaningless. If anything he used to be a social critic. Then he went after those sweet sweet rubles and IMHO sold out any integrity he might have had.
hovercraft
Reason number 58,734,094 that the NY Times is garbage.
This from the GOS, no linky to the Vichy Times.
Ted Nugent has said a lot of appalling things in the last few years, and the New York Times really does not want you thinking about that when you consider Nugent’s evening in the White House Wednesday. According to Glenn Thrush’s report on the dinner Donald Trump hosted for Sarah Palin, Nugent, and Kid Rock, Nugent is “a guitar demigod, knife-between-the-teeth hunter and conservative provocateur.”
Serious question: Did Thrush lift that directly from a Nugent press release?
Casually dropped into the middle of a series of gushing quotes from Nugent about how amazing the White House evening was, we learn that he “has referred to former President Barack Obama as a ‘mongrel’ and to Hillary Clinton with an array of unflattering epithets.” Uh, yes, that’s one way of putting it.
To put it another way: “Subhuman mongrel.” “Toxic c*nt.” “Suck my machine gun.” “Worthless bitch.” And those are just the things this man who “continue[s] to use the word ni**er at one time or another” has said publicly. Makes you wonder what he said in his four hours hanging out at the White House with Donald Trump, doesn’t it?
Thrush’s article has some cute little details if you think there’s anything cute about violent racists in the White House, but either way, there’s no excuse for giving Nugent a platform for this:
Mr. Nugent chortled when asked if he regretted his comments about Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton.
“No! I will never apologize for calling out evil people,” he said, arguing that Mr. Obama “intentionally dismantled the American dream for eight years.”
By, you know, presidenting while black. Not that Glenn Thrush and the New York Times are indelicate enough to spell that out.
ruemara
Maybe I should participate in the writer’s thread. I have too much writing to do and I’m not staying motivated to do it. Can’t fully blame it on the surgery, but it’s not helping. Goal is to film 2 shorts this year over the summer and I’m determined.
@hovercraft: Making Republicans spend money on every seat is a good thing.
hovercraft
@Miss Bianca:
Of course I’ll take any democrat over a republican, I meant is she a strong candidate, does she have a good chance of winning? We need to get our strongest possible candidates to run against these assholes.
Yutsano
@hovercraft: Comes from the safe district around Las Vegas. From what I understand pretty solid Dem. Also will have the backing of the gaming unions. And Heller has looked like a total idiot in his town halls. Could be worth kicking in for.
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
Multiple small “grassroots”-sized donations are a handy way for foreign governments to launder illegal donations.
Just sayin’.
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
I don’t know about that specific politician, but Nevada is turning pretty strongly blue and they have a lot of crackerjack women Democrats there. I wouldn’t write her off, especially if Trump’s policies tank the one major industry in Nevada — tourism.
schrodingers_cat
@hovercraft: NYT is garbage for one more reason, their movie critic for Hindi movies has no fucking idea what she is talking about. I recently checked a review recently about Shahrukh Khan’s 2017 release Raees (Rich)
This wrong on its face, Shahrukh Khan made his name in negative roles, like really negative, a stalker who kills the family of the object of his affection, at the beginning of his career. The entire tone of her reviews is so damned condescending. Garbage NYT is garbage, Also, stop fucking calling it Bollywood.
hovercraft
04/20/2017 07:28 pm ET | Updated 1 hour ago
Georgia Is Trying To Block Newly Registered Voters From Taking Part In Fierce Runoff Election
This is just typical, said the Georgia NAACP chief, who is suing the state.
I really hate these people.
schrodingers_cat
@hovercraft: The only way the Rs can win is by cheating and undermining democracy.
Mnemosyne
So G has been in Chicago all week, which means that all of the cat care he normally does has been falling to me. I was all proud of myself for keeping up on it until this morning, when I discovered I had been skipping the step of giving them fresh water. D’oh! ?
hovercraft
@Yutsano:
Good, we need more strong democratic women in the senate. I’ll keep my eye on her.
@schrodingers_cat:
At this point is there any part of the paper that’s worth the paper it’s printed on? The Book Review? Anything? Don’t say the crossword, that’s totally in it’s own category.
ruemara
I have an odd question. Any of you have had surgery with very large incisions? I’m all healed up or sealed up, rather, but sometimes they ache and itch or feel tight and it makes no sense at all. I’m rather sick of them. And if you get a little sweat into some, it’s annoying. I know it’s just 8 weeks but I’d have thought that part would go away, even if the seams aren’t ready to fade. How long did yours take? I don’t need anti-scratch gloves, it’s not as bad as that.
Mnemosyne
I just sent an email to Miss Bianca with this comic, but my fellow Hamilmaniacs/Shakespeare fans will also appreciate it.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
I had small incisions with my knee (laparoscopic), but it took quite a while for them to calm down. My surgeon advised me to massage them with cocoa butter to prevent scar tissue from forming inside — you may want to ask your doctor if it’s okay to do that.
LurkerNoLonger
@hovercraft: Hate. Loathe. Despise. None of these words do justice to how I feel about Republican politicians and voters. We need a new, more powerful, word.
germy
schrodingers_cat
@hovercraft: No idea.
Here is Shahrukh Khan in Swades, where he plays a NASA scientist who returns to India to work on rural electrification projects based on RL person who started AID India. He is not playing a naif or a buffoon.
Composed and sung by A. R. Rahman, Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera.(This land of yours…)
Rahman is of course known in this country for Jai-Ho and the score of Slum Dog. India predigested by a British person for the global market.
JanieM
@ruemara: I had a caeserean with a vertical cut when my son was born. Not to bring bad news, but the scar itched for at least a year. I wasn’t up on fancy skin care then (not that I am to any great degree now), but if that was happening to me now I might use Mnemosyne’s cocoa butter suggestion, or maybe massage it with argan oil, which I find incredibly soothing when my skin is dry and itchy, and which I had never heard of back then. (And as Mnemosyne suggests, maybe ask a doctor if that’s okay first, although I have never gotten much use out of doctor-recommended skin treatments.)
raven
Got off the beach for a few hours. The families start showing up at 10:30 or so and leave around 4 so I’m chillin til then.
schrodingers_cat
@raven: I has a jealous. Which beach?
schrodingers_cat
@ruemara: Vitamin E oil. Coconut oil. I also like Clinique’s moisturizer.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: Been doing it. I make an amazing shea coconut oil balm. But some days, it drives me nuts. I feel like a piece of oiled leather is stuck to me.
@JanieM: Arglebargle. Looks like I’m in for a long, itchy summer.
Thanks, you two! Gonna be one oiled up itchy gal with random skin issues.
jacy
@ruemara:
My abdominal incisions were each different. The c-section one was extra-large because the kid was sideways and apparently reluctant to enter the world — it was numb for years, and is still numb in spots but never itched. The abdominal laparoscopy healed quickly and never gave me any problems. I had two neck incisions for exploratory, one on top of the other a few months apart — those give me a hell of a time. Whenever I get stressed or upset or agitated, that incision itches like mad and it’s been healed for over a year. The doctor doesn’t know why it should do that, unless it’s that the blood flow patterns changes and it gets increasing blood flow when I get agitated. I’ve found that constant moisturizing with a high-quality moisturizer (and I mean like every hour) makes it better when it’s bothering me.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: Heh heh heh…as the Bard himself says, “I can no other answer make but thanks, and thanks, and ever thanks.”
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Again, it may be different because my incision was over a bone, but he definitely said to get in there and massage it fairly hard to prevent scar tissue formation. Since yours are in areas where the squishy vital organs are, it may be advisable to ask the doc when you can safely put a little pressure on those spots.
Raven
@schrodingers_cat: Seagrove, Fl.
eclare
@Raven: Oh, I love that area, hope you have good weather!
Phillydude
I thought the Tall Ships were all hurtling toward the Korean Peninsula? At least that’s what I was told.
Mnemosyne
Back to writing: the fun thing about writing historical novels and looking for people of color for them is that you re-discover forgotten historical figures like the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, who was the son of a French aristocrat and a slave woman who became a champion fencer and a composer accomplished enough that Mozart swiped melodies from him.
ruemara
@jacy: ugh. the human body is a marvel of disgusting and annoying things. ok.
@Mnemosyne: Ok, I have my last follow-up next month. I don’t think I can massage much right now. I can’t even lay on my stomach.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Healing takes time, and itching is one of the signals that the healing process is occurring. Annoying, but true.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: To say nothing of another accomplished son of a planter and a slave woman who became an acclaimed military leader…no, not Hamilton…Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, father of Alexandre Dumas, and General in Napoleon’s army.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
True fact: the Chevalier de St. Georges was Dumas’ commanding officer during the French Revolution. St. Georges created the first black battalion in French history.