On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Sometimes all you can do is accept the austere beauty of a frozen landscape. From faithful commentor and ace photographer Ozark Hillbilly:
Seeing as I had sent you a “Winter is Coming” post I kinda felt obligated to send you a “Winter is Here” post. Sadly I find I do not have enough snowy pictures that are worth sending. Instead you are getting some from a couple of ice storms.
.
What’s going on in your (frosted, flourishing, or metaphorical) gardens, this week?
SiubhanDuinne
Those photos are exquisite, OH. Really beautiful. Thank you for capturing the delicacy of winter for us.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Burrrrrrrrr
I feel cold just looking at these photos.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Me too, supposed to be 82 here today.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Ramalama
Well, literally got stuck in the nightmare blizzard in Boston last week. Surrounded by homeless people at South Station (I was due to take the train to Providence airport .. just as my airline decided, “ok let’s not fly out today or tomorrow or tomorrow or that tomorrow.”) who were all getting to be more in a panic, and what could I do to help, buy a large pizza? Too many of them. Rent one of them a hotel on priceline someplace not close by? I’d have to go with them to give them my credit card. And it was deep-blizzard by that time. I couldn’t even get a train to the south shore due to the flooding and ice.
Now by the grace of my partner’s financial largess, I am in the French West Indies, surrounded by white French peeps (they’d hate it if I knew I called them peeps judging from the quality of their pains aux chocolate), Black francophone tourists, and the locals, who are mostly Black.
When payment by a client cleared my bank, I sent a donation to Rosie’s Place in Boston. But I was getting all Cole-like in wanting to do something immediate, but failed. Maybe it’s a little bit of guilt – I’m literally not freezing being on a tropical island – but WTF, America? I’m still an American by the tips of my fingers holding me up outside the window frame. I vote early and often. I even wrote letters to the editors, back when.
What do you all do in cases like this?
opiejeanne
Oh wow! Those are beautiful.
It’s too warm here in western Washington and I worry that the cherry trees will try to bloom too soon, before we’re past the danger of really cold weather. The artichoke plants still have green shoots above the heavy mulch, and the parsley which we didn’t bother to mulch has new shoots on it.
Also, a serious question/rant:
Can someone here explain to me why Mark Wahlberg is the villain in the reshoot of so much of the movies? What did he do wrong?
People are yapping about him being “shamed” into donating his entire pay for his work, that it shouldn’t have taken a week, blah blah blah.
One went so far as to say he should have asked what everyone else was getting paid. Oh really? That’s what you do when you negotiate your salary? And you don’t try to get paid the most you can?
My take is it’s the studio and her agent who are at fault here, but mostly the studio for doing the wrong thing just because they could.
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It was 53 Saturday, and sunny. That’s about the temp when we peel off our sweatshirts if we’re working outdoors.
Cermet
Too cold here (most days) to get ice except to cover over streams; however, ice can be ice compared to any blizzard so, glad to see some ice … I mean nice pictures of weather that isn’t depressing but rather uplifting.
OzarkHillbilly
Gardening related: Legal marijuana cuts violence says US study, as medical-use laws see crime fall
See? Gardening related.
Your “Well duuuuuhhhhhh…” moment of the day
Currants
OH those are GORGEOUS photos. Thank you. I was going to say I especially liked the one with the house in it, but then I remembered I also really liked the one with the barbed wire, and the one with the berries, and the one with the evergreen branch tips and the one with…..
Thank you, OH!
opiejeanne
Ozark Hillbilly, is that abandoned house on your property?
HinTN
@Ramalama: Have a drink with an umbrella in it.
HinTN
@opiejeanne:
How about “us” for being such voyeurs?
HinTN
Beautiful photographs, Ozark.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: This.
@rikyrah: Good morning.
satby
@Ramalama: we all do everything you’re doing: donate when we can to charities that try to fill the gaps, vote, and communicate to our elected officials and fellow citizens. And occasionally directly buy a meal for a homeless person. One person’s effect is small, but lots of us doing the same things makes a difference even when it doesn’t seem like it.
Speaking of, one of our own jackals needs help getting through the month. Health issues keeping her from working, and she needs help to keep a roof over her head.
AL or another front pager, can you highlight it? We’re a generous bunch, but this is going slow and the month’s half over.
oldgold
Tired of the frozen tundra and taking a pro tip from the geese, I flew south. Enjoying the the sunny beach.
My winter garden, South of Eden, is perfect. Bad enough to annoy the the hell out of my neighbor, Noah Tall, but not bad enough to attract the authorities.
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
But if you can’t afford to listen to these pointy-headed researchers with their “facts” and their “data”. Legalise the marijuana trade and marijuana usage, and bad things will happen. All the related criminal activity goes away. The justification for arming local police to the teeth (and the associated business opportunities) will be reduced. Fewer people will be incarcerated, and that will hurt the profits of the contractors who run privatised prisons. Bigots in law enforcenent, from Jefferson Beauregard Sessions Eye Eye Eye down to the high-school bully who wound up in a deputy’s uniform, won’t get to ruin the lives of as many people of colour as they would like. That would give them a big sad.
/Snark, of course.
JPL
What gorgeous pictures, and my personal favorite is the one with berries. It’s 17 degrees but later today the temperature will get above freezing.
OzarkHillbilly
@opiejeanne: No, it’s in Crawford Co (next door county) on Turkey Foot Rd iirc. (that last bit is just because I love the names one comes across in the hills and hollers).
OzarkHillbilly
@Amir Khalid:
Actually, everything you said is all too true, all too often, about all too many people.
satby
@Amir Khalid: actually not snark, that’s the Republican thought process. You nailed it.
Anne Laurie
@opiejeanne:
He was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time — and, frankly, I have trouble feeling sorry for the man. He’s got a reputation for being a lousy human being going back to his teenage years in South Boston, when he committed serial hate crimes. He was also, according to Forbes, the world’s highest-paid actor in 2017, mostly for really crappy pictures. Grabbing an extra million-and-change “because it was in his contract”, when his fellow (more respected) performers were Doing the Right Thing, was bound to get him blasted. If I were him, the only people I’d talk about this with, in the future, would be his agency — someone should’ve pointed out to him that this side deal was bound to leak out, and (since the Plummer reshoots were a direct result of the #TimesUp protests) even Meryl Streep would’ve drawn serious side-eye under the circumstances.
The money he gave back is, in his case, immaterial, and it’s not as though the guys buying tickets to Daddy’s Home 3 or Transformers XIV will abandon him. So don’t worry *too* much about a promising career cut short by an excess of political correctness!
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning ?!
@OzarkHillbilly: Ozark, beautiful pictures! You do nice macro photography.
opiejeanne
@HinTN: I don’t follow.
ThresherK
I don’t have a photo, but my icy picturesque morning involved a car door lock tumbler which wouldn’t tumble because of the rain frozen inside it.
I’m lanky and long-limbed enough to have unlocked the wagon hatch (its lock has a little flap over it!), reach past all the clutter which has been in the wagon since our move, unlock the rear door, then go thru that and unlock the front door.
satby
@oldgold: this is honestly the first year I have seen the point of being a snowbird. But that’s only because until the end of today I have to work for someone else. After today if it’s crappy weather out I won’t have to drive in it, which is the only thing that really bothers me.
opiejeanne
@OzarkHillbilly: I like that. Here we mostly have numbered streets which change numbers at every curve in the road, and very few names except for the confusing BelRed Road (Bellevue-Redmond) which continually renames itself as it passes through each new town. I wish we had a few standard street names, like Elm, Oak, Pine or streets named for the many children of a founding father.
There are a few exceptions, and one local street is Cat’s Whiskers Road. They assigned it a number like all of the others but for some reason there is a smaller street sign under it with this name.
Don’t get me started on streets like 124th NE which crosses NE 124th.
OzarkHillbilly
Appreciate all the compliments folks, but the truth is it is almost impossible to take a bad photograph after/during a freezing rain/ice storm. Everyday objects are transformed from the mundane to the mesmerizing. It is nature’s touch that creates such otherworldly beauty and I just walk around trying to capture as much of it as I can. Afterwards I find myself looking at 7 different photos of the same subject, each with a slightly different framing/exposure/lighting angle etc trying to decide which is the best by the tiniest of details and quite often just flipping a coin.
opiejeanne
@Anne Laurie: I don’t feel sorry for him at all. I’m ;not at all worried about his career, and I do know that he’s a jerk (didn’t know about the hate crimes but I’m not terribly surprised). My distaste for him is not the issue here.
But what was he supposed to do that would have been the right thing? Work for the studio for free? The studio isn’t getting the heat it deserves, is part of what I’m trying to point out, but I also don’t hold him responsible if his agent got him a big chunk of dough for his work. Some of the same people who were involved in a thread urging artists/writers etc. NOT to work for free, then they turn around and scorch him for first getting paid and then for not responding quickly enough. No matter what he did in this instance isn’t enough, isn’t good enough, as if he were the one who did her out of a fair paycheck.
opiejeanne
@OzarkHillbilly: Ha! That was like when we were in Venice the first day and I posted some photos to Flickr, and a friend in England remarked that it was nearly impossible to take a bad photo there.
Ramalama
@OzarkHillbilly:
I knew a Conservative dude who loved Quebec province thanks in part to the then-lax marijuana enforcement (now it’s legal). When I asked him how he squared the love of weed and also of tax-happy Quebec, with his conservative stance on everything, he said nothing. But then I mentioned Gov Arnold S of California wanting to make weed legal, and to rake in tax money, he went ballistic.
For that conservative, maybe many others, it’s the very notion of taxes that offended him.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Cole says, hold my beer.
Anne Laurie
@opiejeanne:
Yeah, absolutely, if his agents were worth their paychecks, they’d have told Marky Mark to volunteer to do those reshoots, because dude needs the karma / social media credits waaay more than he needed the cash. And in the stories I’ve seen, that fat check was claimed because Wahlberg had ‘casting approval’, and he (his agency) wouldn’t approve Christopher Plummer until Marky got his money. So you have Star-Cowriter of the Ted series holding (elderly) Acting Legend hostage for couch change, while his Four-Academy-Award-Nominations (female) costar offers to do the job for scale.
All Wahlberg needed was a KICK ME HARD t-shirt with a bullseye… which “his” character will probably wear in the award-winning farce that I’m sure has already been greenlighted for 2019.
O. Felix Culpa
Beautiful pictures, OH! I can appreciate them and savor that fact that I now live in a place where such ice storms are rare indeed.
ThresherK
@OzarkHillbilly: Even barbed wire is photogenic here!
I’m just glad there’s not a narrative a la “Here’s the branch which crashed onto a transformer and took out 1000 homes’ power” or “This is the last thing I saw before slipping and falling like Stan Laurel, wrenching my back, and sticking my phone in the air looking for service.”
Ramalama
@HinTN: Did that, umbrella drink, once last year on the same island — at a bar with “American” in the name. Wonder how long that will last with cheeto hands in power. Anyway, gastric distress for 24 hours as a result. I literally ate everywhere else, road-side stands, backs of trucks, a lady’s restaurant run out of her house with a questionable kitchen, and did not have any hygiene-related hijinx.
In sum: fantastic culinary experiences on “shthole” island; got the runs and vomits by umbrella drink served by white people in an American bar on same island. You do the math.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ramalama: Taxes are govt theft, not the price of living in a civilized society.
Ramalama
@satby: Good work on the jackal notification system.
O. Felix Culpa
@Ramalama:
Thank you for supporting Rosie’s Place! I’m glad to hear it’s still operating. I volunteered there many many MANY decades ago and always thought highly of it. It was the only homeless shelter for women in Boston at the time; maybe still is, for all I know.
ETA: Glad you made it out to a warm and lovely place.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: nice shots dude
O. Felix Culpa
@satby: Thank you for the reminder. I’ll donate later today. Now Ms. O and I are off to feed baby goats and milk their mamas. Cheers!
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: I pay taxes. Where’s my civilized society?
Mary G
Gorgeous. Thanks, Ozark.
OzarkHillbilly
@Anne Laurie:
Ummmmm…. No. Just no. I don’t work for free. I never let a contractor “bank” my hours (hold my overtime hours so they can pay me straight time in a week when I don’t work as much) and I would never take a salaried position because employers will eventually abuse that privilege every damn time. You want me to work above and beyond my contractual obligations? SHOW ME THE MONEY!
I have to agree with Opiejeanne on this one, it’s the studios fault for taking advantage of the women. And that plural is not an accident.
SiubhanDuinne
@oldgold:
Heh.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: In a rich man’s pocket. (almost said, “In Europe because we DON’T pay the highest taxes in the world.” and changed my mind)
satby
@Ramalama: she started it four months ago knowing this month, when her former job would make her pay back her sick days, she would have zero income. Cincinnati has had terrible weather too. And so little collected after all that time, when for a kitten we would have hit the goal. Together, we can get this done!
OzarkHillbilly
Todays gif, a thundering herd of puppys.
thank you Jessica Valenti.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Just donated.
Baud
For your Sunday morning reading pleasure.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/powerpost/new-alarm-among-republicans-that-democrats-could-win-big-this-year/2018/01/13/9be31acc-f8a8-11e7-beb6-c8d48830c54d_story.html
Baud
Now this is something legitimately interesting and possibly game changing.
chris
@opiejeanne:
Winter in Nova Scotia. Went up in the woods with the boys, Bert and Steve yesterday. I had a denim jacket over a tshirt. Ended up carrying the jacket and Steve panting the way he does in the summer. This hoax has gone too far!
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: you rock. I just checked my bank and I can chip in a bit more.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Heh. Gotta love this part:
Please oh please oh please ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease……
Waratah
The first time I saw an ice storm the early morning sun had come out and I looked out the window at a beautiful sight. Now I know how treacherous it can be but I still enjoy the beauty. Thank you for the lovely photos.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: IKR? I had the same reaction.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: I didn’t know about it, which is not unusual as I never read the comment threads I do not participate in. I quite often learn things days/weeks/months later (such as G&T’s wife’s recent travails).
CarolDuhart2
@Amir Khalid: I wonder how they felt when Prohibition ended? While they didn’t lock up every drinker, just busting saloons and speakeasies did a lot for business. That is, when they didn’t shake them down for bribes first. Of course, speakeasies of color probably got raided all the time, just that people didn’t notice.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: she barely mentioned it here, I found out when Scott shared it a couple of days ago. I know we can’t solve everyone’s problems, but we can help one of our virtual friends stay in her house over this brutal winter at least. I can’t imagine having to pay back 100 days of sick leave after having to leave my job after heart surgery. Just cruel.
rikyrah
Ozark,
The pictures are beautiful ?
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: This part cracks me up:
Ummm… A couple things to point out Senator:
#1: the evil witch Hillary isn’t running so people won’t be voting against her.
#2: the evil witch Hillary isn’t running so people won’t be able to assume she will win and just stay home.
#3: We have now had the gut check of a disastrous year of unified Republican govt.
#4: That reality has us really pissed off.
#5: That reality has your supporters suicidal and your fellow rats jumping ship.
But hey, you keep whistling while you dig away. That hole will be your grave.
chris
@OzarkHillbilly: If only there was somewhere that one could study the effects of decriminalisation…
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Their grave or the country’s. Hopefully the former.
CarolDuhart2
I created it 4 months ago but never posted it because I still wasn’t sure about retiring yet. I was going to wait and see about developments before actually doing it because of this issue. I asked around and got no clear answer about whether or not they would actually withhold that last check. I also wondered if somehow I could hold out for another year. Well… thank you all. I felt funny asking for a mere month, but I’ve heard nothing from anyone. I will try to call on Tuesday to see what is going on.
chris
In moderation for the awful S word. Help please.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Having never had a job with sick leave, I don’t understand how one can “owe it back” but am quite sure our corporate overlords have found a way. I ain’t got much, but what I have I can share.
CarolDuhart2
Don’t feel too hard about this. I did get some advanced sick leave which helped me with a lot of paychecks. However, it becomes a financial obligation to be paid back unless waived. But waiving it means taking disability retirement and going through that whole process. A co-worker is being pressured into that and it means dueling doctors and she’s still working. Taking regular retirement means I could just walk out the door.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: if corporations could chain you to a desk and breed you to make more workers they would.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: About this, I refuse to be cynical. Down that path lies surrender.
Chyron HR
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well, we’re going to lose Cardin’s seat because of a handful of sociopaths who are going to be convinced (by Russian Facebook ads and Twitter bots) that the primary was “rigged” by letting PG County vote…
satby
@CarolDuhart2: it took my sister with MS three years to get disability, and she was hospitalized multiple times and uses a walker (full blown MS, not relapsing/remitting). People abuse that, so disabled people jump through insane hoops to get it.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Enslavement by any other name still stinks to high heaven.
@CarolDuhart2: Hoping for the best.
Ramalama
@OzarkHillbilly: I have learned that working for free gets me nothing but… nothing. But, I’ve a friend who lives in LA and works in the business and she says this:
“Ridley Scott was trying to fix an expensive movie w/ an IMPOSSIBLE time frame (for consideration to the various awards), and everyone BUT Wahlberg sacrificed money and time to make it happen. ‘It doesn’t happen at all unless I get +$1Million’ On top of that? He kept awfully silent when the press reported he did it for free.”
Sab
@CarolDuhart2: My grandparents retired to a dry county in NC. When the county went wet they continued using their bootlegger, because he delivered snd the liquor store didn’t. His suppliers probably suffered, because he started buying his product from the liquor store.
debbie
@Anne Laurie:
Also, it shouldn’t have taken a week for him to do the right thing. Was he hoping it would blow over and he could keep his money?
And why blame the agent? Do we know the agent knew Wahlberg was making that money?
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Time to again trot out this old chestnut:
The Snow Man Launch Audio in a New Window
BY WALLACE STEVENS
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Ramalama
@O. Felix Culpa: Speaking of .. homelessness in Boston, have you read the excellent memoir: “Another Night in Suck City”? Son of a homeless dude works at Pine Street Inn to see, on occasion, his own father, who’s mentally ill. The son is a poet and a compelling prose writer.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ramalama:
They all kept silent. Why is beyond me. As to
Here’s the world’s tiniest violin….
bemused
I got all teary watching the Steve Hartman CBS segment on 5th class reaction to story of Gilbert and Grace Caldwell being turned away from spending their honeymoon at hotel in Poconos in 1957 for being black. Hartman said the kids were just as upset a month later over their treatment. Their letters resulted in the Caldwells getting that honeymoon 60 years later. One boy said it was good that even kids can make changes.
I have my hopes on the kids turning our country back on the right track.
debbie
@Baud:
Whores doing what they gotta do. Nothing more.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m not cynical. I think we’ll prevail.
@chris: Shithole?
zhena gogolia
@OzarkHillbilly:
But how do you walk?????
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
You have to wonder what took them so long to realize this. I could have told them on January 21, 2017, that there was going to be a problem.
ETA: What will be fun is Trump’s reactions to the candidates’ shunning and refusing to stand near him.
Baud
@Chyron HR: Cardin is pretty safe. That said, we’ll see what kind of campaign she runs.
Baud
@debbie: Bringing back earmarks might be a good thing. Especially once we take over Congress.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Maybe he was hoping to keep the money. Wahlberg is, as I understand it, a raging asshole, but he didn’t grow up trump rich, he grew up Southie poor. If I were making his money, and I was put in such a situation, I too would hesitate to off load $1.5 mil. (in the end I’d probably have split the money with everyone else who worked extra and didn’t get properly compensated).
Yes, his agent knew he was getting that money, he was getting a cut of it because he negotiated it. That was his job.
debbie
@CarolDuhart2:
If your employer won’t work out some kind of compromise or longer-term payment plan, you should contact Sherrod Brown’s office to see if there are other solutions.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: I like.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
I thought Wahlberg had changed his asshole ways. Guess not. Also, I misunderstood that bit about the agent. I’ve heard people blaming Michelle Williams’s agent for not fighting for her, and I’m not even sure her agent would have known about Wahlberg’s deal.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I didn’t think you were.
JohnO
@Baud:
@OzarkHillbilly:
For me the past year and the near future have become sort of a high-tension race; in my head usually between global catastrophe (WWIII etc.) or the D’s winning back a chamber.
And consider this: In this political climate, how much does the fix have to be in that the D’s may win one chamber? The whole situation is horrifying.
Baud
@JohnO: We all know how gerrymandered the House is. The problem with the Senate is that Dems are in a bad year in the cycle. The next two Senate cycles are good for the Dems, by contrast. (The Senate was gerrymandered from the beginning, so you can’t really blame the GOP for that.)
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: The worst thing that ever happened to politics was the end of earmarks. Congress is supposed to have a say in how money gets spent. Also, it is hard to engage in horse trading when all you have is donkeys.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, it’s pretty clear now that the alternative system is worse.
chris
@Baud: Nope, worse than that. In reply to Ozark I posted a bit from a Guardian article on Portugal and neglected to edit the world’s most dangerous word so I’ll try again.
@OzarkHillbilly: If only there was somewhere that one could study the effects of decriminalisation…
Link
debbie
@Baud:
You’re throwing out the baby with the bathwater (such a quaint expression). It’s not impossible to come up with a better alternative system. Earmarks have been horribly abused. Earmarks have been a perfect vehicle if what you’re looking to do is increase inequality.
germy
Wow. We’re watching CBS Sunday Morning, and right now Mo Rocca is doing a segment on gerrymandering.
He’s making it look like democrats are largely guilty of it (“following the mandate of the voting rights act”). Even interviewed a tea party repub.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So Salon is claiming the Republican Party isn’t going to die and Trump is not all that weird. Talk about missing it
Trump isn’t all that weird next to my father (well, if you ignore Trump’s raging misogyny, racism and general feelings of inadequacy). Then again my father can be excused for saying occasionally odd and weird things because he’s old. feeble and knows better that to trust himself taking a major leadership position.
The Republican Party has long ago ceased to be a political party. They haven’t had a policy position since the 2006. The issue is how long will it take the body to realize the brain has died.
chris
@Baud: Nope, the other S word which is much worse. I tried again and that didn’t work either so I’ll try this and see…
@OzarkHillbilly: Portugal has had a little success with decriminalisation.
CarolDuhart2
Hillary won’t be around, except as a donor. So good luck, Republicans, there. And without Hillary, I doubt the Russians will be as interested. Also, since Trump hasn’t gotten them sanctions relief, the investment in a Republican House will be less.
JohnO
@Baud:
I know. 25-8 or so, depending on how you count it.
I go back and forth on the impeachment concept for The Boy King. On the one hand he’s frankly and absurdly unfit for the office (or the janitor job at my 7-11) but OTOH the country isn’t going to get any happier with R’s as long as he’s there. (It is political malpractice that the D’s don’t start focusing their ire at the broader GOP leadership for enabling this moron…)
I suppose if things go to chalk the planet will survive just long enough for all the problems DT is creating to manifest down the road and then be blamed on the D’s. Rinse and repeat and all.
Personally I just don’t think he’ll make it for 4 years for any number of reasons, not least among them that he may love the power, but he hates the job.
Soprano2
Donated. Is GoFundMe going to send me e-mails now? LOL Good luck Carol, paying back sick leave is an awful thing to have to do. My employer has a “bank” of sick leave employees can donate to in order to help other employees with situations like yours.
Patricia Kayden
@bemused: That’s such a sweet story.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: He may have changed his ways, I don’t really know. I don’t get into that stuff too much. As to her agent, agents do what they are directed to do. She probably directed her agent one way, Wahlberg probably directed his agent another way.
CarolDuhart2
@JohnO: I think it will be his health. It’s worth noticing that all we are getting is this ridiculous statement. No details like Obama gave, or for that matter, Shrub.
Nobody has perfect health, not even Olympic athletes. Any 70 year old, no matter how careful, has a ding or two just because of mileage. I mean a 100,000 mile car may be in good condition, maybe even close to excellent, but its still 100k miles with all the wear and tear.
Ever since he’s been sworn in I’ve been quietly waiting for his aides to find him under the Resolute desk babbling and unable to hold his spoon. With his terrible diet to boot, he may not even be able to run anything except out the clock on his one and only term.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: TBH, at the time I thought it was 6 of one, a half dozen of the other. I was wrong.
Kay
@Baud:
I went to a party to mark the re-opening of the public library last night. They renovated using levy funds so this was a “thank you” to voters and volunteers. It’s a Carnegie library and it was really in disrepair. Needed new roof, new front stairs, new electrical. Anyway, it seems like every Democrat in the county was there. They feel good about their prospects- more optimistic than what I read (and write) online. It was kind of nice- they seem to be over the ’16 loss and rallying. The new mayor came. It’s “nonpartisan” here, the mayor’s office, but I did a forum with her at the high school in ’16 where I was the Democrat and she was the Republican and it got really heated around voting rights- she’s an angry wingnut under her thin veneer of reasonableness. She was standing with her husband amid groups of people trashing Trump. She looked uncomfortable.
I’m glad they’re hopeful.
Yarrow
@OzarkHillbilly: Your photos are gorgeous! I love how ice storms coat everything. It can be so beautiful.
jeffreyw
Ice storms make for some pretty pictures, transforming mundane scenes into fantastical wonderlands. I would rather there not be ice storms with their concomitant woes but so long as they occur let’s take advantage!
JohnO
@CarolDuhart2:
Yep, that’s one of the many possibilities.
I don’t want him martyred in any way. And if you’re right and he doesn’t drop somewhere in full public view a truly disturbing number of people will cry foul and THAT will be no good.
I always knew there were a lot of morons and a**holes in this country. Nov. 2016 shocked the living snot out of me by giving me what I consider to this day a pretty precise count.
Barbara
@OzarkHillbilly: It is possible to understand why Wahlberg and his agent stood their ground but unfortunately for Wahlberg the incident perfectly captures people’s instincts about what makes him a jerk, in addition to embodying the expression, “the meanest man I ever saw/ was always just within the law.” He had power and he exercised it to maximum advantage. It ‘s not wrong but it’s not inherently admirable either.
Betsy
@OzarkHillbilly: Those pictures are so beautiful. Ice is hard on the trees and powerlines, I know, but my goodness, you have made some beautiful pictures.
Can only imagine how you were able to get out there and move around.
ETA: Good to see this beauty today. Was down about things. Thank you.
rikyrah
@germy:
The person I’d put on tv talking about voting rights is Ari Berman. Knows it cold.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I agree. I don’t watch cable anymore so maybe he’s on now but he didn’t used to be. Who knows more on the pro-voting rights side? I can’t think of anyone. He should be heard more.
rikyrah
Top House Republicans See Likely Democratic Takeover
Trump’s day of reckoning … The one thing that could dramatically diminish President Trump’s chances of avoiding impeachment and chalking up legislative wins is Democrats winning the House.
And, thanks to series of recent developments, Trump knows this no longer just seems plausible, but probable.
Hill sources tell us that a House Democratic takeover is now likely.
One strategist close to Republican leaders believes that a loss of the House is “baked in,” and said top Republicans don’t see a way to avoid it.
It would take a flip of 24 seats for Dems to take over. The average loss for the president’s party in his first midterm is about 32 seats, and we’re hearing forecasts of 40+ losses.
You can’t predict outcomes this far out, but these hard facts scare the hell out of Republicans:
Eight House GOP chairs have retired: You don’t climb to the top of power in Congress and leave unless you feel confident your reign will soon end. (Another factor: Chairmanships are term-limited from a Gingrich-era reform.)
https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-am-acf12d03-0336-4f2c-9b76-2278e30f21b7.html?source=sidebar
rikyrah
Matthews’s Sexism Needs to Be Canceled
by D.R. Tucker January 14, 2018 POLITICAL ANIMAL
What the hell was he thinking?
MSNBC’s “Hardball” host Chris Matthews joked about drugging then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton before sitting down with her for an interview in early 2016, according to exclusive outtake footage published by New York magazine’s The Cut Friday.
“Where’s that Bill Cosby pill I brought with me?” he asked. The joke was a reference to accusations that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted women.
He laughed while staffers around him prepped for the Jan. 5, 2016, interview at an Iowa fire station during the Democratic primary season.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/01/14/matthewss-sexism-needs-to-be-canceled/
debbie
@Kay:
Did you hear John Husted’s arguing with the veteran whose registration was canceled while he was fighting overseas? “All you had to do was open your smartphone.” What an ass.
I am so hoping this glimpse at his crassness ends his political future. (Yeah, I know.)
germy
@rikyrah:
Oddly enough, CBS wasn’t interested in talking to him. Spent lots of time with the tea party guy, though…
Princess
So, this is what scares me about that Wa Po article:
Who is he going to bomb? Or allow to bomb us?
debbie
@rikyrah:
Great news, but I don’t believe Trump knows this.
OzarkHillbilly
@Barbara: Wahlberg did what he thought was in his best interests. If I had been in his shoes, I might very well have done the same. Over the years there have been countless times where bosses asked me to do something they had no right to ask for. Sometimes, if I thought my boss was a good guy in a bind who needed a little extra help, I would say “Yes.” Other times they were complete assholes who pushed everything to the absolute limit, constantly demanding more and more and more, and I said “No.” It helped that I had a union backing me up when I did so. In other words, I had the power and I used it.
Wahlberg may or may not be an asshole, but that is a separate issue entirely. Me? I’m definitely an asshole. ;-)
JohnO
@Princess:
Right.
IMO is it completely ridiculous to put anything past this “man’s” need for self-gratification.
It’s could be a very tight race.
Brachiator
@OzarkHillbilly:
Still, I (and everyone else, of course), appreciate them anyway. And I am not going to see anything like this for real out here in sunny Southern California.
I take them as a sweet moment of calm before I peek in and see how the guests on the various Sunday pundit shows try to normalize and rationalize Trump’s racism.
CarolDuhart2
@JohnO: I don’t either. But unfortunately it’s probably out of our control. True, no one wants this, but a lone crazy…
One of the best assets for the #Resistance is that woman-led, we have trod a peaceful path-registering voters, running for office, correcting errors. We have provided no space or platform for anything remotely violent. Even Antifa has not indulged in pro-active violence or the revolutionary posturing that provides a cover for same.
Compare with Obama’s report:
PHYSICIAN TO THE PRESIDENT
THE WHITE HOUSE
March 8, 2016
MEMORANDUM FOR JOSH EARNEST
ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND
WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY
FROM: RONNY L. JACKSON, MD, FAAEM
PHYSICIAN TO THE PRESIDENT
SUBJECT: The President’s Periodic Physical Exam
President Barack Obama has completed his fourth periodic physical examination as President of
the United States. I performed and supervised the examination with appropriate specialty
consultations and diagnostic testing. The exam was conducted during the month of February
2016, as the President’s schedule allowed. The President’s previous physical examination was
completed in June 2014.
The purpose of this exam was to provide the public with an update of the President’s current
health status and to ensure the President continues to enjoy all the benefits of good health. This
examination focused on evidence-based health screening and disease prevention.
With President Obama’s consent, I release the following health information:
Vital Statistics
Age: 54 years, 6 months
Height: 73.5 inches
Weight: 175 pounds
Body Mass Index: 22.8 kg/m2
Resting heart rate: 56
Blood pressure: 110/68 mm Hg
Pulse-oximetry: 98% room air
Temperature: 97.8 degrees
Physical Examination by System
Eyes: Visual fields were normal. Uncorrected bilateral visual acuity was 20/20. Fundoscopic
exam was normal bilaterally. No ocular pathology was discovered.
Head/Ears/Nose/Throat: Normal exam of the head, ears, nose, and pharynx.
Neck: Normal thyroid exam. No noted Auscultation of the carotid arteries
normal.
Pulmonary: Lungs clear to auscultation.
Cardiac: Heart exam normal. Regular No murmurs or other abnormal heart sounds
noted.
Gastrointestinal: Normal exam. No masses, hepatomegaly or splenomegaly noted.
Genitourinary System: Normal exam.
Musculoskeletal: Normal and unremarkable musculoskeletal exam.
Jeffro
We’ve gotten so used to it, and Republicans obviously plan to do nothing about it, but this is pretty extraordinary: Examine Trumpov’s Head, Doctors Say
I mean, Hillary could cough and suddenly Republicans are up in arms questioning her stamina and fitness for office. This guy is bugfuck crazy AND senile, and…oh…nothing to see here.
rikyrah
The next GOP panic: Governors’ races
Republicans concede that a handful of once-competitive battlegrounds are nearly out of reach for them in 2018.
01/14/2018 07:06 AM EST
Buoyed by November election results, a surge in fundraising and expectations of a massive liberal wave, Democrats are preparing for an assault on one of the GOP’s most heavily fortified positions: governor’s mansions.
It’s a far cry from last summer, when Democrats bottomed out at the state level. Back then, after West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice switched allegiance to the GOP, the number of governorships in Democratic Party hands fell to just 15, a historic low.
But the atmospheric conditions have changed since then. Republicans are hampered by an unpopular President Donald Trump. Suburban voters are threatening to desert the party en masse. And Democrats have seen a massive increase in their fundraising numbers after gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey in November.
The GOP is forced to defend 13 states that former President Barack Obama won — from Maine to New Mexico to Wisconsin — while Democrats are protecting just one — Pennsylvania — that fell to Trump.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/14/governor-races-2018-midterms-republicans-340218
Kay
@debbie:
Don’t underestimate him. He’s really slick. I was surprised he took the lower slot with DeWine. I have an “independent” friend who met him at a fundraiser and she was just raving about how MODERATE he is.
DeWine is amusing because it’s rare to find a person who so eagerly abandons any pretense of integrity in pursuit of power- any power. Congress, governor, AG- he doesn’t give a shit. He’ll say anything to get any job.
This is one of the most cowardly things I have ever seen in Ohio politics:
There was a brief period where Republicans in swing states saw some advantage to being pro-voting rights- immediately prior to them all climbing aboard the racist voter fraud bandwagon. DeWine and Santorum were part of it. They then spent the next 3 years denying it happened. Oh, you should have heard them at the time! They were Christ-like in their charity. Republicans went further Right on voter suppression the following year and DeWine and Santorum ran away from voting rights but not quite fast enough. The religious Right have been full of shit for a long time. Trump was just the icing on the cake.
geg6
@debbie:
From what I saw on tv, they are both represented by the William Morris Agency. So, the agent could easily have known.
Kay
@Princess:
My husband worries about this too, but I don’t (as much). Trump’s a coward. He can’t even fire people. I don’t think he’ll do it.
He likes wars that are conducted on Twitter, so he can wear his robe and jammies. He’s incredibly superficial and vain- he hires people based on if they look like they should have the job and he follows celebrity news obsessively. Wars are messy and dangerous and serious. Not his arena.
JohnO
@Kay:
I agree with that analysis, Kay, but don’t believe you’re factoring in what he’s capable of doing when cornered in any way, which changes anyone’s calculus.
The man is freakishly devoid of redeeming human characteristics.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: And if he did do it, I suspect it would have the polar opposite effect of rallying people behind him. They remember Iraq like it was yesterday. Wait a minute, it is still FUBAR all these years later. If there is a terror attack 70% of the people will blame him because they already know how incompetent he is. Bush at least read the intelligence report before saying, “OK, you’ve covered your ass….” People know trump won’t even have read an intelligence report.
Barbara
@OzarkHillbilly: I think comparing your own circumstances to that of someone whose actions are usually and intentionally in the public eye and whose self-interest depends a great deal on retaining public approval, is inapt. If Wahlberg’s agent and publicist think the only thing that matters is wringing another million out of the studio because he can, when everyone else has agreed to be paid at scale, then Wahlberg should fire them. But Wahlberg is a true asshole, in the sense that he has no instincts for when he ought to be better or more gracious than he needs to be.
debbie
@geg6:
Then Michelle needs a new agent ASAP.
Brachiator
@Barbara:
To the contrary, he did exactly what he was supposed to do. If he negotiated to have approval power, he was in his rights to use it. And Michelle Williams got paid. People are upset on her behalf because she didn’t get paid as much as Wahlberg. I think this part sucks and would never spend a nanosecond defending it. This part must change.
But as the bigger star in the project, and theoretically the bigger box office draw, Wahlberg rightly exercised his power. The studio would have screwed him if it could, because that’s what they always do.
Christopher Plummer only had 4 days to prepare for the role, but I don’t know if this was factored into his salary.
ETA. When making the 1973 film The 3 Musketeers, director Richard Lester shot so much material that the producers thought about trying to release a long movie with an intermission. Ultimately, they decided to release The 4 Musketeers as a sequel 6 months after the release of the first film. But the actors only got paid for one movie and had to sue. Later on, contract rules were changed to stipulate the number of films the actors are signing on for.
And that’s why they call it show BUSINESS.
debbie
@Kay:
Can a short, wizened, little man be a whore? If so, DeWine’s it. I still haven’t gotten past his statement about PP “steam cooking” babies.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Your photos are all stunning! There is something magical about ice storms, especial horefrost. It’s gorgeous, and it’s fleeting, both of which add to the magic.
@jeffreyw: Your photo, too!
germy
Barbara
@Brachiator: I don’t care about Wahlberg, I have never seen a single movie he has been in and won’t be seeing this one either, and I loathe the hamburger show, but I can see that having to do a reshoot under the circumstances is an unexpected development beyond anyone’s control and might, just might, cause someone to consider what they can do in a slightly different light. The alternative was scrapping the movie.
CarolDuhart2
Not only that, Kay, but from what I’ve read elsewhere, the military is pretty well drained. Manpower is at its lowest in decades. Afghanistan and its needs alone have done it. And its not just the Army. The Navy is suffering manpower shortages too. Part of the problem with those naval accidents that there’s not enough sailors to man all the ships properly. And this is peacetime (of sorts) Should it be war? Short of a draft-nobody brown is going to volunteer for Trump. And the brown groups are now the only ones with sufficient youthful manpower to draw from. And our immigrant recruitment where we gave immigrants citizenship in exchange for service-we deported several DACA recruits.
BruceFromOhio
@Ramalama, never turn away. You can’t help everyone, and the situation you were in at the train station would overwhelm any mortal. Unless you can use your Jesus powers and divide the loaves and fishes, turn the water into wine, you’re stuck doing mere mortal things – vote, get others to register and vote, pick a charity and stick with it, take care of yourself so you can take care of another when it is necessary, and don’t ever turn away. You can’t help everyone, but you can help someone.
@satby: Dropped some coin in that for Ramalama and for you, because s/he cares enough to say so, and so did you.
May Gaia bless your lands, your loves, your lives, and the gardens of your souls.
Gin & Tonic
@CarolDuhart2: What has been scarcely noticed is that the Obama statement you reference, along with the doctor’s official biography, have him as *RONNY* Jackson, MD The statement issued by the White House is attributed to “Dr. RONNIE Jackson.”
Either the good doctor forgot his own name, or he didn’t issue that statement. Also, medical doctors *never* sign themselves as “Dr.” but as “FName LName, MD.” And they never make value judgments – if he didn’t say PBO was in “excellent” health he wouldn’t say that about DJT. I had a disagreement with Adam about this – he asserted that we will get an objective report, and I asserted that we will get nothing of the sort.
Anyway, finishing my coffee and off to the hospital to bring my wife home. She may need home care this week for IV antibiotics, and will be on a pretty strict regimen of rest, but at least she’ll be home. Hospitals suck.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I agree. Someone here was saying “terrorism” doesn’t have the same punch it did because we have regular gun slaughters with much higher casualty counts. I don’t know what happened- exhaustion at being jerked around emotionally using fear, Iraq debacle, rational comparison to the “risk” of being slaughtered by a gun nut, but something seems to have shifted. They can’t get the same fear reaction on terrorism anymore. I don’t really “worry” about being involved in a gun nut incident, but I am aware of it in my office. I’m making a risk assessment. I didn’t used to do that. It’s just been incorporated into the things I think about. My people are often upset. Bad things are happening to them. They cry and yell and lose their temper. If they’re a certain kind of man, one I feel is likely to be armed, I’m alert to the risk. I had a Saturday appointment the other day that I shouldn’t have taken, because I’m alone there. I stood up and used my most commanding “mother” voice and said “let’s go” because I wanted him OUT of there- pure instinct. I walked out to parking lot first,like we’re going together, he followed, and then I hurried back in and closed the door. This is just part of my life now. I don’t know if he’s armed. I can’t be the only one who has adjusted to this reality. Terrorism seems like a abstract fear compared to getting shot.
sdhays
@Princess: I don’t think Trump really understands the relationship between W ginning up a war as the election season started and Republican gains in 2002. I think the depth of his “analysis” is “Republicans gained seats in the midterm elections under W in his first term, so it will be the same with me because I’m better than W and everyone likes me!”.
OzarkHillbilly
@Barbara: I put myself in his shoes and decided that I might very well have done exactly what he did. I have no problem with his actions in this case. Business is business, fuck graciousness**. If that makes me an asshole, then I guess I’m an asshole.
**if the shoe was on the other foot as it has been in my long and anonymous career, I can assure you the bosses had no hesitation about fucking me, up to and including laying me off the very next day for requesting days off from time to time to help take care of my Alzheimered father when my mother had open heart surgery.
ETA for clarity
Gelfling 545
@OzarkHillbilly: Maybe if someone told Trump he might be able to build his wall with the proceeds…
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Between last night when I rode back seat of a scooter all over Saigon and today, when I played a convincingly great game of Frogger while walking to the bar at the Rex, I’m gaining some mastery over this city.
Went out on the Mekong earlier today – stunning.
The only thing that’s bugging me is the overwhelming smog and extent of smoking. Hanoi was a little easier.
Just one more canuck
@oldgold: I was wondering where my old neighbor moved to
WaterGirl
@satby: I have been trying to think of something I could do to mark your retirement at the end of your workday today. It’s not quite the season for ordering bulbs for your new house!
So in your honor, I just doubled my donation to Carol’s sick-pay GoFundMe.
In honor of everything you do to help people and animals every single day. No matter what your bank balance is, you always manage to give something. It wasn’t that long ago that I was asking you if I could send your GoFundMe link to Anne Laurie so she could front-page it, and I recall that we blew through your funding goal faster than the speed of light, and not only met your goal but doubled it.
Go satby! Today really is the first day of the rest of your life.
Brachiator
@Barbara:
I don’t know that Wahlberg is an asshole. Also, I know it’s social media and the Internets, but I don’t see that what he gets paid is anyone’s business.
ETA The complaints that Wahlberg is an asshole reminds me of the complaints that Actress X is a b#tch, usually because she is just trying to do her job in the face of stupidity and hostility.
OzarkHillbilly
@Barbara:
There were other alternatives.
Brachiator
@satby: Do I read this right, that you are retiring?
Congratulations, and best wishes for the next phase of your life.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
Glad your wife is getting out of there and hoping for her speedy recovery.
That Ronny/Ronnie thing — This wouldn’t be the first misspelling to come out of the White House.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: Good news. Does she have PIC line for the antibiotics? I have experience with those, and the rush to the ER when they break off.
raven
@Gin & Tonic: Oh good, I’m glad she’s coming home.
Patricia Kayden
Loving Joy Ann Reid’s show this morning. She’s got the pastors cussing up a storm talking about Trump.
raven
But hey, we are all fucking prefect here so keep up the fire.
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: Donnie’s press office still needs work. :-/
Tuesday should be interesting, if he’s allowed to answer questions.
Cheers,
Scott.
gene108
HAPPY PONGAL
BruceFromOhio
@rikyrah:
NO No no! This is the same “Hillary’s going to be the next president” bullshite that sank us last time – Dems MUST campaign like they are twenty points behind in EVERYTHING. Support your local candidates, vote in your primaries and your generals, get your friends, relatives, neighbors, people on the street to register and vote, and MAKE SURE THEY ARE REGISTERED TO VOTE. We absolutely cannot afford a moment of complacency because the two-bit soulless ratfuck criminal fascists ruining this country think something is ‘baked in.’
Run as if your lives depend on it, and then run up the score so there’s no question about anything.
Yarrow
@Gin & Tonic: So glad your wife is coming home! Take care of yourself so you can take care of her too. Order some food and have it delivered if that can make everything easier for you. Wishing you both the best.
The doctor’s name being misspelled has been noticed, but the media seems to be studiously ignoring it. I tend to agree with you that we will not get an objective report.
Once again, norms are ignored and now the norms need to be changed to laws or requirements of some sort. Every president is required to submit to a physical and an objective report must be made public within 7 days and must include X items and lab values. I’d add that every president over 70 need to have a neuro evaluation and those results must be made public.
JMG
Based on an encounter many years ago, I can testify that Mark Wahlberg can indeed be an asshole (so can most of us from time to time, me certainly included). But he shouldn’t be ripped for doing something good, even if shame and bad publicity were the reasons. Actions matter more than motives.
Raoul
Light snow and +2F here after an overnight low of -10. It’s sort of bracing and refreshing to have a real Minnesota winter — and I know I’m in a distinct minority for holding that opinion. I actually hope for some -20 nights this week so we can keep some of the invasive critters at least diminished for a bit. I believe the ash borer can’t take -20, for example.
I don’t miss the ‘tree-cracking cold’ of a couple decades ago (-40 [not windchill!] can do some crazy stuff to trees!). But our boreal forests rely on some of this intense cold to survive. I have no fantasy that they will, over the next 50 years. But selfishly, I want them to last as long as they can.
I have also seen a 2-4 week long-range estimate that says we might get some real snow (with moderating temps). That’d be great, too! We had an annoying warm snap that exposed bare patches. If MN is gonna be cold and a bit grey, I want snow to brighten things up! Yeah, I’m greedy that way.
Ohio Mom
@WaterGirl: I answered your heart surgeon question in the Saturday night recipe thread but it is in moderation for some inexplicable reason. It was a very detailed answer; the executive summary is Steven Park at TriHealth Heart Institute in Cincinnati.
Anne Laurie, can you liberate my comment? It is the last one in the meat loaf thread. Thanks!
Yarrow
@BruceFromOhio:
And double check that you are still registered. People are getting dropped from the rolls. Make sure you’e not one of them.
BruceFromOhio
@Yarrow: This! If the bastards can kick a serving soldier off the voter rolls, they can kick off anyone!
chris
This is glorious!
OzarkHillbilly
@BruceFromOhio:
If you look around you, you’ll see that no it isn’t the same. Our people are pissed as hell and bound and determined to change things up. Moderate Republicans are damn near suicidal.
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: Well said. Congratulations, satby!
I too upped my donation to Carol’s fund.
Note that it’s easy to donate anonymously, but you have to be careful. On the first page, there’s a small checkbox under the fields where you enter your name. Make sure that box is checked before you leave it for the next page (sometimes it seems to uncheck the box after you check it).
Good luck Carol, and Mrs. G&T and everyone else. We need to stick together to fight Donnie and his minions!
Cheers,
Scott.
Ohio Mom
@Gin & Tonic: Coffee?! What happened to the big breakfast?
Glad to hear Mrs. G&T will be home soon. Rest when she rests, and don’t be surprised if the quality of the visiting nurses is um, uneven.
In my experience, they send the smartest one the first day, and after that it is pot-luck. Don’t put up with anyone too incompetent though. If you complain loud enough, they’ll assign you someone else.
Patricia Kayden
@JMG: Can’t stand him and only watch movies where he is not the star.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, bosses suck. When my dad was sick and I had to travel to Chicago very frequently, my boss said “take the time off, whatever you need”. “I’m behind you all the way.” It wasn’t very long before I started getting “the look”. People at work like to say they support you, but it’s only true only until it inconveniences them. My friend, who had the same boss, used to say, “yeah, he’s behind me alright, he’s standing so far behind me that I can’t even see him anymore”.
Even at the university, they use people up and spit them out. Loyalty is still expected, but it’s only one way. We are supposed to be loyal to THEM. Fuck that. I am so glad to be out of that system. And don’t get me started on how women are treated differently from men, and paid differently from men, even at the “liberal” university.
Yarrow
Interesting.
raven
@Patricia Kayden: that’ll show him.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: satby will still have her soap business, etc. But yes, as of the end of the day today, she is no longer working for someone else. Her job at the eye place ends today.
Yarrow
Reposting without the hashtags because I got sent to moderation.
Patricia Kayden
@raven: Well it makes no difference to him but it helps me.
Patricia Kayden
@Yarrow: Wikileaks and Russia must be so sad to hear this.
WereBear
@Ramalama: Reading it right now. Very good stuff.
WaterGirl
@Ohio Mom: Thanks! I had just checked that thread one last time, hoping for an answer. I’ll keep that tab open in the hopes that your comment will be freed. thank you!
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: To be honest, I always believed that it would be nigh impossible to flip the House due to gerrymandering. Good to see that this November may prove that belief to be wrong.
Thank you, Trump for acting the fool and making this flip possible.
raven
@Patricia Kayden: I won’t watch ANY movie with that fucking pig John Voight whether he’s the star or not.
Patricia Kayden
@Princess: Because of 9/11, Bush 43 had loads of goodwill and used this to invade Iraq. Trump has no such goodwill. If he starts a war, it would lead to further erosion in his favorability rating and greater losses in Congress.
mai naem mobile
@JMG: My instinct is not to believe Wahlberg unless it’s verified. Also, he says he’s giving it in MiChelly Williams’ name. What does that mean? Does Michelle Williams take it off as a charitable tax deduction? Or is it just in honor of her? That leads me to my guess that it’s probably a donation done in his foundation’s name so it will be a charitable deduction for him. The scumball he is leads me to think it will be $2M less of his that will go to some other charity he was going to give it to. Also, I believe he and Michelle Williams share agents so that makes the agent a scumball too.
StringOnAStick
I think Putin’s crew will be even more involved in screwing with our next election; his goal is chaos for us while he tries to restore Russian glory by tearing his enemies down. Plus he’s one of the absolutely richest guys in the world so he’s got plenty to invest in his “projects”. Moving his troll farm from their old 4,000sq ft office to their new 12,000 sq ft digs over New Years is an obvious sign of his intentions. My political calls, emails and post cards this week are all about demanding federal focus on his attacks on our electoral systems.
I usually work part time but this month I’m covering for a coworker so is full time plus 2 days this week that are very long continuing education classes I have to complete to renew my professional license. Long week, long month, and the other part time person bagged out twice last week over back stuff no one had heard of before. She’s such a resentful shit stirrer that I suspect she missed work as a passive aggressive way to make it clear she didn’t like working full time either. I wish she’d just retire and go all in on helping her husband’s business so we could hire some one else. As it is I suspect my full time period is about to be extended significantly.
As for having to pay back your sick time, I had to do that in consulting engineering in the 1990’s, so its not new. I had done tons of hours on a water law case and fought bronchitis twice because of excessive hours worked, been billed out at triple my normal rate for courtroom work, and still they dinged me for every hour when they shuttered that office. No wonder I changed careers.
WaterGirl
@raven: Is there a cliff notes summary about this Walberg thing? So everyone on some movie (which still appears to be un-named) was asked to work for free or for peanuts in order to meet some deadline to be considered for some un-named award, and everybody but him agreed to work for peanuts and he insisted on his full amount? And he’s a bad person for doing so, but then he came out and gave the money back and we still think he’s an asshole? We’re supposed to feel sorry for some movie studio that makes a zillion dollars on these films?
Patricia Kayden
@raven: I’ve watched a few films where Voigt was a minor player. I guess he stopped starring in movies after the 70s.
Feel the same about Clint Eastwood after that empty chair RNC speech. Arghhhh.
WereBear
@Jeffro: In fairness, how many Republican Senators are in that same leaky cognitive boat?
And the House? They start out low-IQ and just roll from there.
raven
@Patricia Kayden:
raven
@WaterGirl: IMHO it’s bullshit. Actors don’t negotiate as some kind of team sport. People don’t like him so bitch and whine no matter what he did. fuck it
WaterGirl
@raven: Why the Voight hate? I thought he was in some vietnam movie, but it looks like I’m wrong about that.
WaterGirl
@Ohio Mom: I just sent Anne Laurie an email message asking if she could un-moderate the comment or send me an email with the info you posted.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl:
No, we’re supposed to villify Mark Wahlberg for having done what we can only dream of doing while everybody else involved didn’t.
raven
@WaterGirl: He’s the worst of the worst right wing asshole on the planet.
“The Oscar-winning actor explained his choice thusly: “He’s an answer to our problems. We need to get behind him. The Republicans need to unite behind this man.
“We need somebody to go in and reconstruct us in a sort of way, get us back to where we were, who we need to be.””
WaterGirl
@raven: Did not know that. I read almost nothing about movie stars and royalty.
JohnO
@WaterGirl:
Voight a true wingnut.
scav
Looks to be a sunny day, less chilly than the ones to come and one with no houska obligations. To the shotweed defences!! Nah, I’ll also indulge myself by clearing up the hellebores so we can see the emerging flowers and encouraging the entirely unexpected snowdrops. But that shotweed will be going down, gerrymandered into the neighbors yard or no (Actually, they are the nice neighbors, so won’t mind me pursuing a congressional metaphor into their iris bed.)
Patricia Kayden
@raven: Looks like he’s been busy since the 70s then. Never watched “Heat” but heard rave reviews about it. May have to check that one out despite Voigt.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Sadly, I just googled. I’m all for equal pay, but it sounds to me like the actress needs to get a new agent. And be pissed at the entity that thinks it’s okay to pay genders differently. But according to the google article, he’s a big star and I’ve never heard of her, so surely that could affect the pay.
I share your sentiment – fuck you, pay me. Though I struggle with actually taking that stance in real life. If you know what you’re worth and are wiling to stand up for yourself, that’s an awesome thing.
*But I never read about movie stars, so maybe she is a big deal and I have just never heard of her.
raven
@WaterGirl:
WaterGirl
@raven: @JohnO: Ugh. Glad to know all that.
PJ
@OzarkHillbilly: @Ramalama: @Brachiator: @Barbara: @OzarkHillbilly: You may be screwed by your employer, but no one is ever going to screw Marky Mark out of his millions (except the public, by shaming him). He is the star of “All the Money in the World.” That picture got made, for that budget, because some producer believed that Wahlberg is worth X amount in box office. The movie was finished, post-production was complete, everyone had been paid according to their contracts (and you can believe that Wahlberg got paid more than everyone else, including Kevin Spacey), and it was a little more than a month away from being released and considered for Academy Awards when the news broke about Spacey. That meant the end of that movie – it would get terrible press, no one would go to see it, it would get no awards, and it would likely not get released for all of those reasons. Maybe it would be quietly released for streaming a few years down the line, but that would be it. From an artistic standpoint, it is a bad feeling to know that something you worked hard on will never be seen, but the lack of release can also affect the future salaries of the people who worked on the film (above and below the line), particularly if their participation would have been boosted by awards.
But Ridley Scott believed he could reshoot Spacey’s part with Christopher Plummer, and that they could save the movie in time for its release before the end of the year so it could be considered for awards. And everyone involved in the reshoots agreed to do that work for scale (the union minimums) over the Thanksgiving holiday, because they believed in the project and they wanted it to be seen and considered for awards this year. Michelle Williams didn’t ask for more money, Ridley Scott didn’t ask for more money, everyone worked for scale, except for Marky Mark, who saw his chance to squeeze an extra $1.5M out of the studio because he had casting approval. If he didn’t give the approval, the reshoots would not happen, and the movie would be shelved. He was the only one, except perhaps for Ridley Scott (it sounds like he did not have final approval on the stars because it’s been reported that the studio made him use Spacey over Plummer in the first place), who had that power, and he used it to his advantage, knowing that everyone else was working for scale. Why not make some extra change while he’s at it? Because it’s a dick move, using what is a bad situation for everyone else who worked on the movie to his sole advantage, particularly when he knows it’s being widely reported that everyone worked for scale and he’s sharing in the public belief that the artists sacrificed their time and money to make it happen. And someone saw that it was a dick move and released the info about him, so that, in the end, he was forced to do the right thing. His “I got mine, and I’m gettin’ more, sorry suckers” attitude is what is killing this country.
Brachiator
@Patricia Kayden:
I think that Heat is a wonderful film filled with great performances. If it helps, Voigt has a very small role in the film.
WaterGirl
@raven: My previous “ugh” wasn’t strong enough. I truly do not get it when people who seem to have a heart and soul turn into raging hateful republicans.
JohnO
Shooter is a great sniper/revenge movie, with MW at least playing a good guy up against the evil government flunkeys, and for a bonus has the radiant Kate Mara as his love interest.
Hard for me to judge on the $1.5M thing. Lots and lots of unknowable things going on there but I tend to lean towards not pretending I would’ve done otherwise.
raven
@WaterGirl: She’s a wonderful actress. She was especially good in “Meek’s Cutoff” a film about a lost wagon train. The film was made in a square rather than wide-screen to give the world view of the women who wear these restrictive bonnets. She gives gut-wrenching performance in Manchester by the Sea and many other wonderful performances. Check out her films.
Brachiator
@PJ: It was a dick move for the producers to expect everyone to work for scale.
Patricia Kayden
@Brachiator: I’d say he is an a-hole because of his racist conduct. https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-01-12/reconciliation-mark-wahlberg
Just not a cool dude, in my opinion. I’m also not cool with him telling movie stars to shut up about politics. They have as much right to talk about politics as any other citizens.
PJ
@WaterGirl: Most movies do not make a zillion dollars. Whether or not a big budget “art house” movie like All the Money in the World would be profitable is iffy, and highly dependent on whether or not it got any award nominations or awards. Because of the presence of Kevin Spacey, it definitely would be a total write-off whether it was released (and made back some tiny portion of its production and promotion budget) or was, as is more likely, just shelved.
The question is not whether you should care about the studio having to pay Marky Mark an extra $1.5 million just because, the question is whether he should have used his power over the reshoots to his sole advantage or not, and not countered the misconception that he had done it for scale.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
You should check her out in My Week with Marilyn. Or see her in The Greatest Showman, in theaters now.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: Or everyone says “I’ll work for scale if everyone works for scale”. Or everyone agrees to work for 10% of what they originally signed on for. But if people worked for scale and then found out other people did not work for scale, I’d say they made a poor decision or are blaming the wrong people.
raven
@Patricia Kayden: You know what? 52 years ago I was forced to go in the Army or jail for a series of punk-ass crimes. I fought in a racist war that killed millions. I guess I should just walk outside and shoot myself. Or maybe you are free and you could do it?
Ohio Mom
@Kay: You have a voice that isn’t commanding? If so, hasn’t come through in any of your comments ; )
Seriously, how scary.
Brachiator
@Patricia Kayden:
I am not going to judge anyone based solely on what they did at age 16.
And sadly, this is America. If you throw out the work of every artist who was a racist, you would probably be left with a handful of books and movies.
PJ
@raven: If you don’t see the difference between being conscripted into a war and deciding to beat someone almost to death for fun because you hate their ethnicity, I don’t know what to say.
Villago Delenda Est
Jon Snow to Sansa Stark: “Father always told us that Winter is Coming.”
JohnO
@PJ:
Sure, framed like that it IS a dick move. But the details matter. You (nor I, nor anyone really but the principals) don’t know if MW has some long-simmering feud with someone involved (like if there was someone else pulling a BIGGER dick move) or any of the infinite (literally…maybe MW did what he did because he had been fighting with his wife, or was just in a pissy mood when he made his decisions or you name it) and it only appears that he changed his mind under public pressure when in fact after he stopped his fight with his wife and slept on it for a few days he reconsidered.
I just know if I was famous I would hate it when someone claimed to understand all MY motivations, for good or bad. It’s ridiculous because life is too complicated for anyone else to have a clue about the inner workings of anyone they don’t know pretty intimately personally.
I don’t care about MW, so the only details I know came from here but it strikes me that if the studio was contractually obligated to pay him a $1.5M someone (maybe not MW himself) in the scenario that broke out is doing something RIGHT on his behalf.
HeleninEire
@debbie: Just saw the movie (All the Money in the World). Too long, and for a kidnapping movie it was incredibly boring. Michelle Williams was good, though. But I would not recommend it. I was even disappointed in Christopher Plumber with whom I’ve been in love since the Sound of Music. Maybe it’s that JP Getty was just such an asshole.
raven
@PJ: I wasn’t conscripted I was given my choice between Army and jail. And I don’t really give a fuck what you say.
Ohio Mom
@WaterGirl: Thanks!
I was about to do the same so you spared me.
I am trying to get lots done today — jumping up in the middle of threads to put laundry in dryer, etc. As s result, I am losing my place.
Patricia Kayden
@raven: If you beat up an Asian person for no reason while shouting racist slurs in peacetime, then yeah. You were conscripted into the Vietnam War. Wahlberg has no excuse for his violent behavior.
J R in WV
@opiejeanne:
Sometimes you seem as though even when you can read, you can’t comprehend. Try harder to understand why everyone, EVERYONE else in a conversation is perceiving a different angle than you are…
I don’t even know who these people (well, I never heard of this Mark Wahlberg guy, even I know the other actors involved) are, but even I can see when gross inequalities are taking place.
ruemara
@opiejeanne: your lack of knowledge is the problem. People did come back and work for scale, publicly saying they would. Wahlberg being a scumbag and asking for his contractual rate then parading around like he’s an ally was textbook arrogant bastard. It wasn’t about a negotiating error. This was a show of solidarity and he blew it.
Amir Khalid
I am a happy football fan this weekend. Liverpool are at home to Premier League leaders Manchester City, unbeaten this season, and leading 4-1.
J R in WV
@satby:
Thanks Satby!! I commented a couple of times, but sometimes a comment is lost in the outrage of the thread. I also kicked in for Carol, and will again if it comes to that.
You’re right, we would have already hit this modest goal for a kitten, this is a fellow commenter for years now who needs a hand to get from employment to retirement without losing her home!!
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Michelle Williams has won awards. Google her, she’s not an unknown.
debbie
@Villago Delenda Est:
I just finished watching the seventh season. Yowsa!
CarolDuhart2
@Gin & Tonic: Good luck to you and your wife. Recuperating at home has its benefits, like watching the TV you want all day, eating whenever you feel like it and not having to deal with a roommate.
And Obama wasn’t the only one who released a detailed report:
https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/08/20010804-2.html
Kathleen
@CarolDuhart2: I just saw the post this morning and donated. Good luck, Carol. And Happy New Year (belated)!
Kathleen
@satby: Thanks, Satby, for your efforts.
Glidwrith
@satby: Done
WaterGirl
@ruemara: Helpful info, that makes sense, thank you!
Kathleen
@Another Scott: Thanks also to you, Scott, for alerting me about Carol’s link in previous thread(s). I’m way behind in reading posts.
Ruckus
@Ramalama:
A couple of weeks ago I was at the market and a fellow had a table out front with a petition to lower CA’s new higher gas tax. It’s just horrible that we want well maintained roads and that no one took notice that cars that get much better mileage would reduce the amount of money generated so two things were wrong. First that CA encouraged cars with better mileage and second that they raised the gas tax in response. Nothing about how well the CA economy is doing so pay could be adjusted, nothing about how we need the roads here because while we have mass transit, it really isn’t rapid transit, just that we can not have taxes to pay for those things, those common needs things that we all benefit from.
TomatoQueen
@Amir Khalid: 4-3, a wild game, one of the best this season. And how often do the Liverpool fans sing YNWA at the end of the game?
Ruckus
@debbie:
And yet the major change as I understand it is that there are no earmarks now, so everyone has to fight and either gets everything or nothing. So people end up not negotiating but opposing.
The system is not perfect in any way because you have people that want and you have people that don’t want to give in and now you have stalemate or bad policy. There is no great way for people with diverse (as if that word says close to enough) ideals and needs to compromise if you remove all the benefits of compromising. You end up with people grouping together for asinine reasons to get what they want and fuck everyone else. Progress in a democratic society such as ours is supposed to be requires compromise. Earmarks give that compromise the opportunity to work, removing them renders compromise useless. And as money is the lubricant of compromise in a society, that or murder, we need earmarks.
Brachiator
@ruemara:
I’m not sure that I see the solidarity thing as anything but symbolic. The producers crunched the numbers and saw that they could pay Wahlberg and get the movie made.
People who feel strongly about this should reward the other actors by going to see the movie.
smedley the uncertain
@BruceFromOhio: THIS! We were too complacent the last time. this smells like a rat fvck…
opiejeanne
@ruemara: Ah, I stand corrected. I only had a little piece of the story before now. Thank you for taking the time, I do see why he is to blame if all this is the case.
opiejeanne
@J R in WV: Thanks for calling me stupid. I didn’t have the whole story until a couple of people laid it all out. I only had a small piece of the story and it looked to me the way I described it, but you couldn’t take the time to explain it to me, could you. Kind of hurts even though I don’t know you other than here, and I thought we were on friendly terms. .
satby
@WaterGirl: Tears of gratitude dear friend. Thank you.
@BruceFromOhio: and more gratitude and thanks to you too Bruce.
No One You Know
@debbie: Yes.
In the meantime…donated.