ATTENTION. ATTENTION!!! If your #TaxDay sucks here are pictures of a baby coyote that was rescued by the wildlife center I volunteer for…. pic.twitter.com/g8wVJZVSAA
— in March (@KirissieS) April 15, 2019
Him and his four brothers were all stabilized, fed, hydrated, vet checked…. and then were transported to a shelter that has a surrogate mother for them!
— in March (@KirissieS) April 15, 2019
Millions of Americans will put tax checks in the mail today. Meanwhile, the secretary of the treasury and head of the IRS continue to refuse to turn over Trump's tax returns to Congress for reasons even they can't clearly articulate. #TaxDay
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) April 15, 2019
Nikki Haley in 2016: "I am an accountant. I can tell you there is no audit that precludes you from showing your tax returns. Donald Trump, show us your tax returns.” #TaxDay
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) April 15, 2019
Nicole
My friend Jerod Gunsberg posted this on his FB feed tonight and it gave me a lot of comfort after this terrible day. Sharing it with his blessing:
Adam Geffen
I love coyotes. This is a fantastic book about them: Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History by by Dan Flores.
Whereas wolf populations collapse in the face of concerted human predation, coyotes continue to thrive despite massive efforts to erridcate them.
Gin & Tonic
Living and working in a blue state, and unfortunately not being a millionayuh or a billionayuh, I got fucked. And not in a good way.
Aleta
Reposting this NYer cartoon
Major Major Major Major
Knocked out the first scene of the new short story tonight. Fun stuff.
Mai Naem mobile
@Gin & Tonic: Trumpov should give away a Trumpov branded lube tube he should hand out for all the ways he fucks his MAGAssholes at his rallies.
Adam Geffen
@Gin & Tonic:
I empathize. My family was Trump tax fucked as well. We are able to absorb the hit but it was painful.
Adam Geffen
@Major Major Major Major:
Bravo! Writing is such a laborious process for me. I write history (grad student/historian) so all non-fiction.
MisterForkbeard
@Gin & Tonic: Living and working in a blue state, we got hit by less deductions for our house. But since we also made a significant portion of our income this year by selling some old stock, we came out ahead by 30k or so.
Those tax breaks on stock sales had to be HUGE to cover the other increased taxes we got. It has to be a huge giveaway to the truly wealthy.
Duane
@Gin & Tonic: At least Nixon tried to hide his enemies list. Trumpov’s vindictiveness is openly declared. He’s the president of the Red States, not the United States.
Ruckus
@MisterForkbeard:
Give the most to those who need it least.
I think I read that somewhere a while back. Seems that I thought it was illogical then. Now it’s just called republican tax policy. Nice work if you can steal it.
Adam Geffen
@MisterForkbeard:
Yea the changes to state tax deductions killed me this year.
Jay
GOP twitter twitted out a Tax Day twit and is getting ratioed and torn.
Mary G
Same income, $3,000 more tax.
NotMax
Tidbit tucked within an article which I found of interest, so long as it is (properly, IMHO) viewed as an observation and not a conclusion.
Kay
The low quality Trump hires have gotten markedly ruder and nastier lately:
I can’t even believe I have to pay these people. I don’t think they’re employable outside the Trump Administration. Imagine hiring any of them, for anything.
rk
@Nicole:
Notre Dame will be rebuilt. I felt less sad about Notre Dame than I did about the Bamiyan Buddhas. I remember feeling almost grief stricken at that destruction. Maybe because this was an accident but the Buddhas were destroyed by blowing them to smithereens by a bunch of cruel bastards. Notre Dame will be back. They’re gone forever.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: she has a degree from Ouachita Baptist, the Harvard of southwestern Arkansas
ETA: Also, too, “dangerous”. Every president since Nixon, almost every presidential candidate since then, has released their taxes. HRC posted hers on line.
Aleta
Steve in the ATL
@NotMax: figurative myopia of conservatives the world over, or literal myopia?
@rk: Notre Dame is still going to lose to Georgia again!
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: it’s actually the Liberty University of Southwest Arkansas
And on that note, I’m going to bed. My mind is having trouble processing the fact that I’m actually in Atlanta tonight.
Ruckus
@Mary G:
Did my taxes about 3-4 weeks ago. Because the forms were all changed and the instructions and the forms didn’t all seem to be written by people attempting to get the same results, at best I could see I was getting a not insubstantial return from the fed, first time in a few years, normally I pay a bit. Got a letter 2 weeks ago or so and yeah, what I suspected, the law, the forms and the instructions/worksheets were written either by several groups that didn’t speak the same languages or they hate each other and refuse to talk about what the results should look like. Still, paid about $80 less than the last few years, but the figures said I was supposed to get back a little over $800. Good news never sits in my corner if there is money involved. The letter sounded like this was a rather common thing, and no fines, penalties, no explanations.
Kayla Rudbek
@Gin & Tonic: same here. My spouse and I will have to adjust our withholdings.
Bill Arnold
@Adam Geffen:
Likewise. The SALT cap cost me several K. This aspect increased taxes on the upper middle class living in high tax areas to partially pay for tax cuts for the rich. Our children and future (non-rich) selves will pay much of the rest. Vulture capitalism mapped to the political realm, brought to us by Boss Trump and the Republicans.
There are a lot of unhappy local Republicans. Of course, the serious local believers are saying that it’s the state’s fault, that we should all move to low tax/low service/cheap labor (formerly Confederate) states.
Ruckus
@Kay:
I’m glad I don’t hire people any more. I’ve hired a lot over the decades and some were great, most were OK, a couple were decidedly not. Having to weed out the trumpers would make the process a lot less desirable and it wasn’t all that then.
Adam Geffen
@Bill Arnold:
“that we should all move to low tax/low service/cheap labor (formerly Confederate) states.”
I love my mostly blue state of MI and my very blue city of Detroit. ?
But that SALT cap this year. Eek.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
They’re extra belligerent lately. I wonder if their horrible boss is bellowing at them and humiliating them more often. I think they lash out at others because they can’t stand up to him.
Adam Geffen
@Bill Arnold:
I thought I read somewhere that the Trump tax changes sunset in 5(?) years? Is that correct?
danielx
Went to see Patti Griffin last night in a venue with room for about 150 people standing up, and I do mean “room” – one room with a bar running along one side. Anyhoo, this is one of the tunes she played; I like this live version better than a couple of others on the y channel.
Kind of a universal tune……if you have a chance to see her, do not miss it.
Patti Griffin – When It Don’t Come Easy
danielx
@Kay:
They have that whole ‘suck up, punch down’ concept down to a T.
Bill Arnold
@Adam Geffen:
Thanks for the book recommendation.
Can’t say I like ’em, but they’re interesting beasts. When they start carrying on at night, I make noises back, and usually get them to shut up. (No clue/don’t care what the neighbors think. :-) Eastern Coyotes are a bit bigger; some significant wolf and dog mix-in.
ola azul
@Jay:
You got time/inclination to field a sailboat rigging question? Curious to get your input onna atypical (cuz of existing mastcap/rigging limitations) approach to flying an asymmetrical spinnaker if willing.
No worries if not your bailiwick or otherwise indisposed.
Bill Arnold
@Adam Geffen:
A Year After the Middle Class Tax Cut, the Rich Are Winning (Ben Steverman, Dave Merrill and Jeremy C.F. Lin, December 18, 2018)
ola azul
@Kay:
Ding-ding-ding!
(That, and they’re petulant lying whiny-ass self-justifying chickenshits by nature. Also, too.)
Adam Geffen
@Bill Arnold:
Welcome.
“When they start carrying on at night, I make noises back, and usually get them to shut up.”
That’s awesome. :)
Funny thing. When I’ve been camping out west or even in northern Michigan I’ll hear them making their racket pretty regularly. However, I never hear them in the city even though I know they are living in my neighborhood and surrounding area.
Mary G
ola azul
@danielx:
So very excellent.
Patti play Florida? Was one of my wife’s faves when she was alive. (Not entirely sure I could make er thru a live performance by Patti, tho, must confess; think the crush of associative memory it’d unleash would be unendurable inna public setting.)
Kay
@ola azul:
Why do they have to be so nasty and unpleasant all the time? Would it kill them to just answer a question normally and reasonably politely? It’s like a daily assault. They do it so often they have to keep ratcheting it up- now they just flat out call people stupid.
Adam Geffen
@Bill Arnold:
I think what I like about them is that while so many animals (plants too) just fall before human environmental change or active eradication, coyotes just keep going along. Something about their flexibility and endurance just gets me. :)
Ruckus
@Mary G:
No kidding.
Bet they could pay for the total rebuilding with whats under the couch cushions. Or some of their gold and gem stone encrusted art work lying around, and I mean literally, lying around in the back end of the vatican.
MobiusKlein
@Adam Geffen: I was killed because the K-1 forms are still late, and had to guess, paid thousands.
Can’t blame R’s for that.
MobiusKlein
So tax day is still in the future.
Adam Geffen
@Bill Arnold:
Thanks for that Bloomberg link. Extremely informative. (And depressing/irritating.)
Steeplejack
@ola azul:
Fixed your bad link: “Florida.”
Darkrose
I’m still waiting on the confirmation from my advisor on my concluding statement, but I’ve submitted everything and EPORT IS DONE Y’ALL! I still have another month of school including two more status reports for my internship, and I’m kind of stressing about my job interview next week, but I’m about to be a librarian!
In celebration, I am now going to get high and play video games, because student.
Jay
@ola azul:
No problemo,
jayfarquharson at the gmail place.
Adam Geffen
@MobiusKlein:
I recently learned I’ve been paying my city’s income tax incorrectly the last two years. I moved to Detroit but my employer is not in the city so doesn’t withhold city income tax. I was using the wrong forms and paying the wrong amounts. Big mess that took several days to sort out. Can’t blame the R’s for that either. ??
Adam Geffen
@Darkrose:
What video games?
danielx
@ola azul:
Check tour schedule on her site – she plays about everywhere from what I can tell. And I totally understand, I’ve seen her three times and all three times were occasions where you felt like you were seeing and hearing someone transcendent.
Major Major Major Major
@Bill Arnold: oh, that’s right. Nasty and not-new republican trick, that.
ola azul
@Jay:
Got it if you wanna delete (wasn’t expecting fRon dor service!). Tx. Was gonna throw it up here, but if you prefer, will send to geeplace.
SFAW
@Steve in the ATL:
Fake News!!!!!
Jay
@Mary G:
France owns the church, the Catholic Church just leases the building and pays for upkeep.
The building should also be insured.
ola azul
@Steeplejack:
Tx. Very kind.
SFAW
@Kay:
“The fish rots from the part of the body that’s shoved up the Traitor-in-Chief’s humongous ass,” maybe? [Assuming Devin Nunes made room.]
Redshift
@Kay: It’s always projection with these clowns. Trump certainly isn’t smart enough to read his own tax returns (and even if he was, he’s too lazy to read ten pages, let alone “thousands”.) So as usual he and his minions accuse everyone else of what they know they’re guilty of.
Jay
@ola azul:
Geegee place is probably best
Suzanne
I am getting very large and uncomfortable and grouchy. I can’t tell if Spawn the Younger is getting more whiny or if I am getting more annoyed. But EVERYTHING brings sobbing tears…..stubbed toes, falls off the scooter, blah blah blah. i just want some damn peace.
The fire today was heartbreaking. Just devastating. I was also annoyed by some hectoring going around my Facebook feed about “How come white people are sadder about Notre Dame than they are about the black churches?”. Ummm, because—THANK GOD—no one died in any of these fires, but Notre Dame is an irreplaceable work of human greatness and beauty. And most neighborhood churches (including my own) are not? I am sad for the black churches because of the fear created in the hearts of the church communities, and less so about the buildings themselves. I am sad about Notre Dame because of the damage to an incredible artifact, a place where I was bowled over by the transcendent power of art, one of the greatest constructions that humans have ever created ever. Why does everything have to be binary or a fucking CONTEST? (I was heartsick about Palmyra, too, FWIW.)
eemom
@Jay:
Not just the building, but whichever subcontractor accidentally started the fire, and the prime contractor who hired it, and the various managers of the renovation project, etc. etc. Beaucoup des avocats will make beaucoup des euros.
ola azul
@Kay:
fwiw:
Gotta notion that if yer always on offense (even pissily) and if none dare call you a liar to your face (IOKIYAR!), you are afforded the undeserved luxury of never having to defend your insupportable fig-leaf positions.
That, and even tho it’s technically untrue but metaphorically apt: The fish rots at the head, and the minions follow that rhetorical slime trail to its logical conclusion.
eemom
@Mary G:
Fun fact I learned just recently: the Catholic Church is NOT financially responsible for all the gazillions of dioceses and archdioceses that have rightfully been sued out the wazoo for enabling their sicko priests.
I have no idea how the financial structure of the world’s oldest and deadliest criminal enterprise works, but I confess that information surprised me.
Redshift
I’m still on the White House email list (either a glutton for punishment, or keeping track of what they’re up to) and today the proclamation from the Orange Ass (officially, though it was written much too well) was “Happy Tax Cut Day!”
There basic message was “ignore your lying eyes telling you you’re getting screwed, here are several wingnut publications saying everyone got a tax cut and everyone will benefit from giveaways to business!” Good luck selling that one to anyone but the 27%.
Oh, and a repeat of an earlier email mocking Democrats because all their predictions about the tax cut were WRONG! (ignoring, of course, the predictions that it would result in stock buybacks, not jobs, and that the rich would get millions for every dollar you get, etc.)
Assholes.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
Insecurity?
Fear of inadequacy?
Lack of logical thinking?
Lack of humanity?
All of the above?
For what it’s worth, a friend has lost 2 homes, on the same lot to fires. Both caused by natural disasters. He and his wife still live there, in their third home on the same lot. Say if it happens again, they are moving. Some people don’t see everything binary. Some only see it that way.
MoCA Ace
Got screwed to the tune of nearly $3,000 because of SALT and changes in deductions for education. Scrimped and saved for years so the spawn could go to college without racking up huge debt and this is what we get. Fuckers.
The Dangerman
@Kay:
If there were any justice, some of these fuckers would be picking strawberries and cleaning toilets for the rest of their lives.
I might take pity on a few of them and actually give them a toilet brush.
Suzanne
@Ruckus: FWIW, I made a donation to the GoFundMe set up for the churches in Louisiana today, specifically because I was sad about Notre Dame and it seemed like an appropriate way to make my sadness somewhat productive, but the whole implication that losing an unequaled masterpiece that stood for nearly a thousand years is just White People Problems really pissed me off.
The other bullshit today has been the douchebags who oh-so-helpfully pointed out that the Catholic Church has done some bad shit and that religion is the opiate of the masses and all churches should burn because religion is for the weak, bruh. Fuck these people, too.
My nose won’t stop bleeding and I still can’t breathe and that may be making me pissier than usual.
oldgold
Blue State professionals got hammered by Trump’s Tax Treachery.
SALT and professionals being excluded from the QBI deduction cost them bigly.
Ruckus
@eemom:
Same way as when I was a freshman in HS (catholic technical and I’m not catholic and was already an atheist) the local cardinal came to visit. Arrived in a Rolls Royce limo was of course wearing silk robes and had diamond, emerald and ruby rings on his fingers worth the debt of any number of small third world nations. Asked the kid next to me who owned the jewelry and limo. “Oh they aren’t his.” Can anyone else wear them or be chauffeured around in the car? “No.” Then effectively they are his, no matter what the paperwork says. Sure he won’t inherit them when he dies but then he won’t care.
BTW it was the most pompous, disgusting display of wealth I’d ever seen up close in person. It might still be, I can’t think of another. That was one cardinal.
ruemara
@Suzanne: Errrrm. Hey. The black church is a community structure. It means something to us. The southern black church is often the center of where black residents organize their political power, not just their spiritual power. And we’re really damned correct to ask why 1/10th the same horror isn’t being felt by the general population of America, who’s done the unholy lord’s work in wiping their minds of the many, many terrorist actions they’ve taken against minority groups right here. So as we see racial violence crop up, it’s not a contest for us. It’s growing anger at the way this country is *still* acting as if the bad old days aren’t coming back faster than you think. I’ve wanted to see Notre Dame too. I respect it’s place in history and art. I was heartbroken watching the tower fall. But I also know that it’s built with money just as dirty as the soot and nothing here is pure. I get where your sadness and anger is coming from, I do. But I think you can extend some understanding on how communities here feel as we reel from our places of worship being destroyed without so much as a peep. We’re nothing here & we’re afraid.
Kent
@Adam Geffen: The personal tax changes sunset. The business tax changes are permanent
Kent
@Adam Geffen: The personal tax changes sunset. The business tax changes are permanent@eemom:
They are all independent entities when it comes to money, and more importantly, liability.
However, let one of those far-flung diocese decide to ordain a woman, or married priest, or even an openly gay priest, and we’ll see how independent they actually are when the Vatican responds at the speed of light.
Suzanne
@ruemara: I completely understand the importance of a church to a local community, and I acknowledge that the burning of black churches is a terrible act with a long, frightening, devastating history. The tragedy for me with these church burnings isn’t the loss of the buildings themselves, but the damage to the sense of safety of the community.
Telling people who are sad about the loss of an irreplaceable cultural artifact ***on literally the day it is burning down*** that they suck because they express sadness about it is pretty shitty.
Kent
Anyone still on this thread? I’m in the Pacific time zone and just got home from my kid’s piano lesson so just getting caught up.
On the subject of taxes. It turns out that literally MILLIONS of red state truck drivers are getting screwed by Trump’s tax cuts. To the tune of thousands of dollars. Oops. Tariffs for farmers and tax hikes for truck drivers. He’s hitting is base hard and good.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/04/trump-tax-bill-truckers-truck-drivers-deduction/
Jay
@ruemara:
Like the Parish Churches, Notre Dame was built with local money by the locals, as a community center.
Unlike the Parish Churches, as a historic monument, it’s owned by France.
And unlike Notre Dame, which seems to be an accident, the Parish Church fires were terrorism.
They added hate crimes to the charges today.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
OK so now I know what not to say.
If you read what I wrote at #67 you’ll see that I hold no love for religion. But I also hold no hate for people who want to believe. I do however for all the wealth I see people who often can barely afford give and what it gets used and most often wasted for. I actually applaud you for giving to those churches. They aren’t wealthy I’d bet, probably like the Presbyterian church I attended as a kid. We moved into one of those post WWII cracker boxes in southern CA the week I was born and my dad helped build the church as I was growing up. I’m going to a party in about 6 weeks for all of us that grew up in that town, most of us going to the same schools for 12 yrs, many of us to the same church, to celebrate our 70th birthdays. I have fond memories of most of the people, some of the schooling and none of the church.
eemom
@Ruckus:
Yup. I fucking hate them, flat out hate them, wholeheartedly and without exception. Hate them even worse than the republicans, given how the murdering, raping, torturing and robbing have been going on for well over a thousand years without even the pathetic hope of an impeachment to put any kind of brakes on it.
ruemara
@Suzanne: You’re asking people who haven’t been consoled to react well to others being consoled.
I genuinely don’t think a lot of people understand how angry POC, especially younger ones are. Alright. Dropping it.
Aleta
@Mary G: Thanks.
Suzanne
@Ruckus: I am just fucking sick of the goddamn edgelords who are going around acting like they are smarter/woker/more Libertarian than everyone else because they found some opening or framing to call people hypocrites for caring about X but not Y…..when it is eminently possible to care about the loss of all of these churches, and the Tweet I read this morning about contributing to the GoFundMe for the Louisiana churches in honor of Notre Dame was an awesome and constructive response and I immediately pulled out my credit card once I read it. Not to mention the fuckheads who never pass up an excuse to shit on anyone’s religion as supposed evidence of mental or intellectual weakness. Newsflash: most of us are aware that the Catholic Church has done some seriously bad shit, and yet those of us who can manage to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time can recognize that it has still created a lot of meaningful moments for people.
These people remind me of those who show up on the internet on the day that someone fucking died and go around talking about how much that person sucked while other people immediately nearby are sad. Even if it’s true, it’s just not fucking helpful in that fucking moment. Lord.
Ruckus
@Kent:
He’s not smart, he’s not good. For anyone paying any attention it was obvious. It’s only gotten more so. But the people who voted for him will have to learn the hard way, that’s wired into their brains.
Kent
@eemom:
Back when I was in the Peace Corps in Guatemala long time ago I encountered Cardinal Casariego who was the Archbishop of Guatemala (somehow I guess you can be both a Cardinal and an Archbishop at the same time). Anyway, he was a complete authoritarian who worked hand-in-hand with the military regime at the time. Traveling around the country with a military escort and denying that the military was involved in death squads and the killing of priests. When confronted with the deaths of activist parish priests he famously said “they got what they deserved” He would ceremoniously bless the Guatemalan Army tanks with holy water before they would go off to massacre indian villages which they did by the hundreds. He was one of Pope John Paul’s favorites because he was carrying on the good fight against the ‘commies’
That was my introduction to Cardinals.
eemom
@ruemara:
No, actually it’s worse than that.
She’s telling the unconsoled who lost their OWN churches to hate-driven arson that they are “shitty” for daring to interrupt the “sadness” of the privileged upon the news of some accidental damage to an abstract cultural artifact thousands of miles away.
Don’t drop it. It’s sickening.
Suzanneo
@ruemara:
You’re right, I am. And I’m sure that’s a reaction born of my privilege. It strikes me as cruel, to see people who are sad about something and then in that moment of sadness try to make them feel worse. But I need to remember that pain only begets more pain and try to see things from other points of view. I’ll try to do better. Thanks for the very kind change of perspective. Have a great night.
Suzanne
@ruemara: You’re right, I am. And I’m sure that’s a reaction born of my privilege. It strikes me as cruel, to see people who are sad about something and then in that moment of sadness try to make them feel worse. But I need to remember that pain only begets more pain and try to see things from other points of view. I’ll try to do better. Thanks for the very kind change of perspective. Have a great night.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
The world has changed. The people in it not so much. The actually biggest change for humans is two things, communications and medicine. The medicine gets distributed in this country all out of proportion to need. I saw several billboards in the last three days on how to freeze away fat, no exercise, no sweat necessary. I lived a month ago in a rather well off part of LA and there were plastic surgeons advertising. Now I’ve known people who needed plastic surgery to repair stuff but the amount of money spent to make barbie/ken dolls out of people is asinine as long as others have no healthcare at all. The other, communications has widened our exposure to a wider variety of people, which in of itself doesn’t sound bad. But the exposure is constant and allows like minded assholes to meet with other assholes and reenforce their stupidity. It also exposes us to more assholes who like to spread their assholyness around. And yes it allows us to see the ugliness, the selfishness, the self pity, those who don’t realize they should never speak out in public, the basic stupidity, inherent in humans. It really hasn’t protected us at all, maybe it will some day.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: Actually Notre Dame was built with the wealth of the French Jewish community in the 12th Century stolen from them by the King of France, as I had to explain to a good friend of mine from France who told me, when I emailed to check on her, that she did not know until today that the Jewish community of Medieval France donated to build the Cathedral. Not so much…
eemom
@Adam L Silverman:
meh. As Jay will explain, those Jews were just laying the groundwork to fuck over the Palestinian Arabs 500+ years later.
Ruckus
@Kent:
Not well versed but I think it goes
pope (the pope is bishop of Rome)
patriarchs
major archbishop
cardinal
archbishop
I looked it up and the cardinal I saw was McIntyre. It appears that while he wasn’t as bad as the one you are acquainted with, he was not a very nice person. To say the least.
Adam L Silverman
@eemom: Given that most people don’t know this, I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt here as I did with my friend. She is older than me, a highly educated woman whose father was a French Marshal, but she grew up in the post WW II period and was shocked to learn in the early 90s, when I explained it, the truth about Vichy France. Unlike Germany, the French in the post WW II period didn’t do a very good job owning up to their recent history in their educational system. Now imagine what isn’t being taught about what happened in the 12th century.
Suzanne
@Ruckus:
There are definitely times that I wonder if we weren’t better off in the pre-Internet days.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
How many countries could similar be said about?
Most?
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
I’m not surprised that some of the money for the Cathedral wasa King and others, buying indulgences for sins and crimes.
As a kid, I was used to modest, severe, timber framed churches.
Travelling through the Gaspe and the North Shore of New Brunswick, you would see tiny village after tiny village, mostly 2 bedroom, unpainted saltboxes, and a massive Cathederal. Stone, copper roof, stained glass, carillion bells.
The guy who spent his life, conducting usury, overcharging farmers and fishermen, got a bronze plaque, or a stained glass window. The people who barely made a living but tithed regularly, not so much.
Jay
@Ruckus:
All of them.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
No, we weren’t.
Because those assholes were still there, they just had a smaller audience. At least now we know what’s out there in the dark, instead of just being sure it was something. It was, it just wasn’t as obvious what. 60 million people voted for DT. That should tell you there is a lot of work to do in this world. 63 million voted for a far, far better person. That should tell you that all hope is not lost.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: A lot. What actually happened is she swung past my house to pick something up and when we went into the sitting room (as it was called in Scotland), she heard French coming from the TV. I was watching a BBC documentary on WW II and that segment was dealing with the Vichy regime. She sat down, started paying attention, and then started crying. I will never forget her looking up, tears in her eyes, and stating: “they never taught us this in school”.
Ruckus
@Jay:
That’s humanity for you.
For as many people trying to be better, there are as many trying to be evil. And as evil doesn’t mind that you die if you get in it’s way it takes a long time to expose it and deal with it.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: Also: Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Arizona, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia…
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: If you call it religion, you can pretty much get away with anything.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
As you may have suspected I already knew the answer. I’ve traveled a lot and known people from a lot of different countries and I’ve seen this first hand on more than one occasion. That is one of the things about better communications, we can share information, history and learn, hopefully how to be better.
ola azul
@Jay:
You’ve got mail!
Look for subjectline: “(atypical) halyard block position for asymmetrical sail”.
Thanks for agreeing to take a peek, curious if you reckon it’s doable, inadvisable, bug-nuts crazy or what-havs.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
I did notice that your list was not dead ended.
Seemed like it’s maybe 38 short. Although those are pretty good examples of the concept. Funny what they have in common and how they’ve dealt with it.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
And so many have.
Darkrose
@Adam Geffen: Final Fantasy XIV.
Betty
@Mary G: According to France 24, all the churches in France, including Notre Dame, are owned by the government. The Church just runs them. Doesn’t mean the Church shouldn’t contribute. And of course, it makes sense to support those churches in Louisiana.
Dopey-o
@Betty: the churches in Louisiana and the cathedral in Paris mean different things. It’s not a contest.