Very different from most this year, as with every other pillar of our lives…
How coronavirus has changed Ramadan for Muslims this year https://t.co/u60LlwW4pE pic.twitter.com/BK5ESqM04q
— CNN International (@cnni) April 23, 2020
But charity is always in season, regardless of faith, even if that’s just ‘faith in common humanity’:
Country star @BradPaisley explains how his free grocery store in Nashville has adapted to the coronavirus pandemic and expanded to incorporate deliveries. pic.twitter.com/NnxbFtja3s
— AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) April 22, 2020
Even in our crazy divided country, most people are (mostly) sensible…
Amid pockets of protest, only 12% of Americans say efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19 go too far. About twice as many say they don’t go far enough. https://t.co/tbZOwCo04I pic.twitter.com/mgvx2125rz
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 22, 2020
And we’ve still got things to look forward to…
Former first lady Michelle Obama is a unique figure in a polarizing political environment. As Joe Biden looks to unite Democrats, her support could be key. https://t.co/2y2m2ezhI5
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) April 22, 2020
Baud
OzarkHillbilly
Suddenly I feel like future generations should not be burdened with pensions for Republican Congress critters or their staffs. I’m not sure where this sudden change of heart comes from. Oh yeah:
If there is a worst person in American govt than McConnell, I don’t know who they could be.
WaterGirl
@Baud:
I got to the 29% figure and thought “how the hell is it that only 1/4 of young people think Trump has made their lives worse?”
Then I got to the 39% who believe their lives are no different. What planet are they living on?
!5% think he has made their lives better? WTF, over.
WaterGirl
Love seeing Michelle Obama’s beautiful face in the tweet above!
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Before Covid, Trump didn’t have a direct effect on most people.
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly: Moscow Mitch should bankruptcy himself to the bottom of the Marianas trench.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: Young folks have a well known propensity for not paying much attention to things outside of their immediate environment.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
rikyrah
@WaterGirl:
I hear you ???
WaterGirl
@Baud: Note for my diary:
“On 4/23, I disagreed with something Baud said.”
I think Trump has had a direct effect on most people, since Nov 2016. Immigration, kids in cages, grift, corruption, women’s rights, nazis, the list goes on.
My life has been different since day 1.
Granted, this is a whole new level of “direct effect” but young people would have had to be living in cages not to see all the damage Trump has been doing for the past 3 years.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
This was the first thing I heard this morning. I am hoping someone with a national platform stands up and points out exactly how much tax money from blue states flows to Kentucky.
rikyrah
Uh huh
Uh huh ??
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Most of those things you’ve mentioned don’t affect most people’s day to day life (or haven’t yet.)
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly:
And he doesn’t have the excuse the Mango Mussolini might have, like child abuse and dementia. I gather McConnell has enjoyed a lack of a scrappy, challenging, background. According to his wife and children, he’s just a waste of plasma.
WereBear
@debbie:
Especially since blue states are being deliberately starved of funds.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Maybe they don’t affect people’s lives – if they don’t have a heart, or a soul, or don’t care about other people.
Granted, I am not the kid who has been locked in a cage, and I am not a Dreamer in fear of being deported, but watching Trump destroy our democracy has certainly had a direct impact on my life. Nearly every day.
debbie
@WereBear:
I think governors should set up something where residents can choose to send their federal taxes to their state treasurers instead of the IRS. No other way to ensure the funds are spent in the state. See how Moscow Mitch likes that.
hueyplong
@OzarkHillbilly: Totally get your point about McConnell, but we haven’t seen what Cotton would do with McConnell’s power.
Jeffro
@rikyrah:
Down the memory hole faster than election eve “CARAVANS!!!1!”
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Trump’s election proves that there are a lot of people like that.
debbie
@Baud:
And McConnell proves that there have always been. ?
satby
oh sweetie, all that only affects people who pay attention to the news, and not even directly. Most young people are very low info voters. How did you think Wilmer could bamboozle them so easily?
Baud
@debbie:
He’s hurting the people he should be hurting.
WaterGirl
We got the sad news in the morning thread yesterday that Steeplejack lost his beloved housecat, Stella, on Friday.
I loved hearing the stories over the years – the housecat on her heating pad, the housecat hard at work at her workstation. I asked Steep if he had any pictures he could share with us.
Here’s Stella, the lucky girl who won the kitty lottery and got a second chance, a new life with Steep, where she was pampered with a heating pad and her own workstation.
THE HOUSECAT IN SEPTEMBER
AT THE WORKSTATION
WaterGirl
@WaterGirl: What a beautiful girl!
satby
@WaterGirl: Beautiful kitty Stella was. Condolences again to Steeplejack.
@rikyrah: Good morning! I’m getting to be so late to the morning threads anymore ?
prostratedragon
@WereBear:
America’s example of the banality of evil.
WaterGirl
@satby: We can trade back, if you like. You can go back to getting here early and I can go back to getting here late. :-)
OzarkHillbilly
@hueyplong: Yeah, McConnell is smart, powerful, competent, and adept at using all the tools at his disposal, but Cotton doesn’t have his power and has much yet to learn.
Give Cotton time tho. Evil he is but he’s no moron.
NotMax
Mr. Otis. meet the
futurepresent.Reimagining buttons in China so one needn’t touch possibly infected ones.
Sab
@satby: Kay’s youngest wasn’t low info. There was something deeper with Wilmer’s appeal that we need to figure out. I think they were misguided, but I don’t think that all of them are idiots.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: I wish I had the space for a pad for Miss Kitty. As is she lays on all the cables holding everything together or else right in front of me where my coffee goes.
WaterGirl
@Sab: Bernie speaks to their righteous anger!
Immanentize
@WaterGirl: So don’t be hard on the Youngs!
The poll looked at 18 to 29 year olds. For simplicity, let’s just make it a 10% each year cohort.
That means by year, 3 years worth found their lives worse, 4 years found it the same, and a year and a half found it better. Is that unlikely?
People who are 18 and just able to vote were 14 or 15 when Trump took office. (And the 29 year olds were 24 or 25). I bet their lives have actually changed very little as they are still generally at home in highschool during those years. Likewise those in college — up through 25 — probably didn’t see much change and in fact were constantly told that it was a great economy to be graduating into.
What’s amazing is that 30% of that age group said their lives are worse. That is a large number for a group that is mostly unaware, often protected from outside forces, or just entering a decent job market.
This tells me, once again, that the kids are alright.
Baud
@Sab:
The Democrats can’t mimic Wilmer’s appeal without throwing loyal voters under the bus. Wilmer’s appeal was his outsiderness. The Democratic Party can’t be outside itself. Best thing to do is cut out losses and pursue more productive avenues for attracting voters.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: Point taken. Can we both be right?
Princess
@Sab: This is absolutely correct. Same with my kid. And all the kids who voted for him and will certainly vote for Biden (though with it were someone else) who are in the large majority of Bernie supporters. They’re not stupid and they are not uninformed.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Love the name Miss Kitty. Homage to Gunsmoke? Or coincidence?
One of my nicknames for Miss Willow is “Miss Girl”. That started in the couple of days before I found her real name, and it kind of stuck.
BobS
@WaterGirl: If 39% think their lives are no different, it may be that avid videogamers are over-represented in the poll.
With respect to Michelle Obama, there’s one way her support could assure a landslide in November. Inasmuch as we’re at an existential point for American democracy, I hope she reconsiders what she’s said about the subject in the past.
Immanentize
@WaterGirl: Young people today have a lot to be angry about.
Anne Laurie
@WaterGirl: Kids have to learn how to think beyond “me”, much less “me & mine”. Your parents and mine spent the time, while we were young & impressionable, to show us how we’re all connected (like it or not).
Too many kids, these days, are being raised by parents who’ve been thoroughly inculcated with the glibertarian/’conservative’/talibangelical theory that one’s common interests don’t extend beyond (some of) one’s family members, plus maybe the folks from your HOA / sports fan group / church. And they must be right, because look who’s in the Oval Office!
I can remember being in college, and how many kids were extremely incurious about learning anything about other people. They had a microscopic interest in the lives of their team / frat / club members — but only if those lives were just like theirs, because finding out that ‘Our Kind’ might be from a different background, the ‘wrong’ religion, god forbid gay or a secret nerd or something extremely gross like that, was a personal affront. And I’m not talking ‘dumb jocks’ necessarily… some of the yes-I’m-a-Mensa-member, wanna know my SAT score? folks had the biggest meltdowns when confronted with ‘different’.
That was in the early 1970s, back when ‘think different’ was being promoted as a net positive. I can only assume kids these days are at least as prone to assuming that, as long as they can access their personal friends, look for potential sexual partners, and procure their intoxicant of choice… well, only a weirdo would have any problems in their world, amiright?
Now they can’t hang out with the guys, they have to text their FWB / be careful their parents in the next bedroom don’t hear the pr0n video, their dealer doesn’t do no-contact delivery… it must be The Oval Offical Occupant’s fault!
WaterGirl
@BobS: It’s a pretty safe bet that she won’t change her mind, but dreaming doesn’t cost a dime.
edit: If Biden is smart, Michelle will be on the selection and vetting committee.
Immanentize
@WaterGirl: of course. But it is unlikely we will ever get parents to generally stop doing all they can for their kids to see that life does not bite them in the ass too hard too fast.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: Yes they do. I didn’t mean that as snark or mockery. The exclamation point was for emphasis.
There is SO much to be angry about.
Brachiator
@satby:
I don’t know that it is being low info voters. Most young people don’t care about politics at all, in some ways rightfully so. They have more important stuff to do, like going to the beach.
But there are always idealists who are impatient for big social and political change and who gravitate toward a potential candidate who promises to shake the system. When I was a teen I would read about young activists who were all for Clean Gene McCarthy, and bemoaned anyone who would compromise with the system.
And I always keep in mind this little nugget.
raven
oops
WaterGirl
@Immanentize:
I think that’s in the job description. As it should be.
Chyron HR
@Baud:
“We’ll put a stop to that!” – Bernie and The Revolution
Immanentize
@raven:
Did you glue your hand to the truck bed boards?
Sab
@Anne Laurie: The kids you describe are absolutely not like my stepkids. We have three kids and had money enough for one to go to college. They have all had to support themselves since high school. The oldest kid’s fiancee has supported herself since her mother died when she was sixteen. They all are currently risking their lives working in essential jobs.
WaterGirl
@Anne Laurie: I wonder if it makes a difference where one went to college? And maybe when?
I agree with a lot of what you wrote, but your third paragraph describes a very different world than I experienced when I went to college.
We humans are complicated creatures, aren’t we?
JMG
1968 was without doubt the worst year of my lifetime for the United States of America. But for turned 19 that year me, it was a tremendous year. I was aware that things were going to hell, but it wasn’t as important as like girls and drugs and rock and roll. This is the nature of being young. It’s part of the human condition.
NotMax
Under an hour long slice of presidential election history on TCM at 11:15 a.m. Eastern time this morning, Primary, covering the 1960 Wisconsin Democratic contest.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: My wife named her, not sure if they ever had Gunsmoke on Spanish TV. Pretty sure it was just laziness that was the impetus for “Miss Kitty”.
raven
@Immanentize: No I posted something already posted like how teachers retirement doesn’t look so good now.
rikyrah
I remember this ????
WereBear
From what I’ve seen, it was the tutoring in civics and pinpointed the sources of their crappy prospects. They “knew” all this stuff, but over and over I was told, “No one had ever explained it to me before.”
Thanks to Republican education undermining, no doubt. Mr WereBear and I got 8th grade civics. That used to be standard. When did that end?
CindyH
@Sab: agreed – my nephew is very well informed, very smart, campaigned for Hillary, yet fell into the Bernie camp this past year. I don’t get it, but he isn’t an idiot or naive. Privileged maybe.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Can I quote you on that?
Anne Laurie
@WaterGirl: Oh, that’s terrible.
Condolences, Steep!
Baud
@rikyrah: I wouldn’t have remembered.
rikyrah
@satby:
Me too.
Since I have been working from home, my getting up time is different.
Haven’t been able to sleep, so that’s why I have made the threads earlier the past few days ??
Sab
@WereBear: Yes. In Ohio we had POD, aka Problems of Democracy, as a required course.
Immanentize
@raven: Do you think Georgia will go after pensions?
raven
@JMG: Ha! I turned 19 too.
Brachiator
@Anne Laurie:
Depends on the college and the crowd you ran with. I remember going to college in part to get away from people like this, and college life was filled with people who were curious about the world, for the most part. You would of course, run into Future Tight Ass Republicans and others. And some of the supposedly most activist revolutionary types were frauds to the bone.
A little later on, I remember meeting this guy, the boyfriend of a coworker who proudly noted that he had never in his life (age 26) read a novel. He went to college, but cribbed all his papers from Cliff Notes. He was happy to live a thoroughly unexamined life.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: The school of hard knocks is an excellent educator. Both of my sons enrolled in it before the ink on their diplomas was dry. But even before then I did not shelter them too much. Mostly I just worked at keeping them alive.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Yup. That third paragraph is about as far away as it is possible to be from both the high school and the collegiate reality I experienced during years prior to through a bit after the times mentioned.
OzarkHillbilly
@JMG: Do you mean to say that there are things more important than girls, drugs and rock and roll? The things I learn here.
Anne Laurie
Some of it, IMO, was the proverbial ‘grandparents side with the kids, in united opposition against the parents’.
Some of it was that Bernie has a simple answer to everything… simple and unworkable, when not completely wrong, according to us old jaded people. But simple answers to complicated problems are always appealing to the young — thus the continuing appeal of Ayn Rand, not to mention the GOP.
And some of it is just that all the kewl kids were boosting Bernie. Who wants to hang with earnest lanyards when there is such a hip, vibrant alternative, according to the guys on Apple’s TopTenPolitical podcast list?
raven
@WaterGirl: The tribe I belonged to in Champaign-Urbana was on the fucking barricades.
rikyrah
????
Betty Cracker
@Baud:
I think that’s partially true but not the whole story. You’re right that Sanders defined himself as outside the party — the agent of a hostile takeover — and so did the hardcore “bend the knee” followers. But most of Sanders’ supporters are Democrats who are looking for more radical solutions to what ails us as a country because their futures have been blighted and they’ve witnessed massive institutional failure and they don’t believe incremental change will make a difference in their lives.
I find plenty of fault with these voters for not understanding how change happens (the necessity of compromise, the need to build coalitions, the fear of or lack of appetite for radical change among many fellow Democrats, etc.), but I don’t blame them for being angry. They have plenty of reason to be.
Write the hardcore Berners off — agreed. They’re as lost as the Trumpies. Oppositional defiance is their default setting. But writing the larger group of Sanders supporters off would be a huge and fatal mistake for Democrats, IMO. Biden seems to get that, which is cause for optimism in my book.
Soprano2
I think it’s not just young people who mostly think about things from their own personal experience. I daresay if I took a poll of all my co-workers today, most of them would say their lives hadn’t changed much since Trump was elected (some would probably say even better, since quite a few of them support him) until the pandemic hit. The truth is that most people who don’t pay attention to politics like we do wouldn’t have seen much difference in their day-to-day lives since Trump took office, especially if they don’t consume much news. They were going to work, raising their kids, taking care of their parents, and all the other stuff we do every day, and most of those things wouldn’t have changed much if at all. These people are only vaguely aware (until lately, anyway) that Trump tweets terrible things, or they don’t think those things are terrible if they are aware of them (again, Trump has around 65% support where I live). I think we who are more politically “aware” overestimate how much people pay attention to national and world events, because we pay a lot of attention to those things. Of course, lots more people are paying attention now, because these things have affected their personal lives
It’s amazing to me how many people seem to think we can just “turn the economy back on” like it’s a switch or something. I was talking to a co-worker who with his wife has a print shop where they screenprint clothing. He says he’s had to lay off everyone except him and his wife. They had a bunch of T-shirts and hats they ordered for various schools – now all of those orders are cancelled, and they’re stuck with a bunch of special order items they can’t return. They’re still open, and barely surviving. “Turning the economy back on” isn’t going to do a thing to help them. If my pub opens on May 4th, how many customers will we have? What rules will we have to follow, and will they cut our capacity in half? How many customers will we have even if we are open? I really think a lot of people are still in denial about this situation, because they’re too scared to think about it.
raven
GOP Rep. Pete King Shreds ‘Marie Antoinette’ Mitch McConnell’s Bankruptcy Plan
rikyrah
rikyrah
satby
@Princess: my youngest kid was a rabid Bernie supporter four years ago, but thankfully had grown out of it this time. And I have seldom talked to a Bernie supporter who was well informed, and I talked to many, many, many. They might be aware of how the current system screwed them, but actual knowledge of history, civics, or governing, nope. I never said they were stupid or idiots, but many young people are low info voters, and @Immanentize: and @Anne Laurie: both detail different facets of why.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
Unfortunately, this is going to drive Trump nuts and cause him to push harder to “open up the country.”
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I’m not writing off people who supported Sanders. I’m saying you can’t appeal to them by trying to be Wilmeresque. Wilmer’s appeal was not primarily policy-based; if policy were king, Warren would have won the progressive lane, if not the whole primary.
I agree Biden has done a good job in trying to bring people together. Only time will tell whether the fish will bite.
Skepticat
With all the terrible things happening in the world, it was this relatively small thing that finally set my hair on fire. I emailed the Maine congressional delegation in protest and have been encouraging others to scream a bit as well.
This should be called Operation Incredibly Wasteful and Stupid. It accomplishes nothing but polishing _____’s fat posterior with federal dollars. I cannot imagine how expensive this will be at $60,000 an hour for each squadron, even with the current gas glut, but with the economy in free fall, I can think of much better ways to spend taxpayers’ dollars and to thank first responders, essential personnel, and military service members—perhaps by giving them protective equipment and not forcing pilots and aircrews to barnstorm around the country for no reason other than Some Egomaniac’s need for a show.
But my tears over Steeplejack’s loss of the lovely Stella dampened the flames in my hair a bit.
NotMax
@WereBear
Some public schools called it Civics, others Social Studies. For a single year only (thankfully) one school I attended, in a fit of parodic proletarianism, renamed the entire curriculum Citizenship Education.
satby
@Brachiator: let me introduce myself to you, I was the jackal who kept pointing out that a certain young man certainly wasn’t too young to become president, and had no trouble with his “lack of experience” because he demonstrated great executive management just in the way he ran his first national campaign, as well as in who he chose for advisors. We had a plethora of great candidates, including one who as the youngest was still a few years older than other nations leaders.
rikyrah
???
Chyron HR
@Immanentize:
You’re right! For instance, did you know that subway fares are fascism?
@Princess:
They’re just very mad about Nancy Pelosi’s freezer (or fascisteezer, if you will).
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
Thanks for this.
And thanks again to everyone for their kind comments yesterday.
Anne Laurie
@Brachiator: Freshman (contemporary term) dorm, at a large Midwestern land grant university, which accepted anyone who graduated with a state HS diploma *and* also insisted that freshmen live on campus. And more or less simultaneously, the college SF society & Tolkien Fellowship (some, but not complete, overlap between those two) and fledgling Star Trek club. My (female) dorm mates ranged across the rural/urban & the top-to-bottom of the middle class, but most of them had seldom crossed the state line. My fellow sf/fantasy nerds were slightly less homogeneous, but still tended to assume that ‘everyone’ grew up in a three-bedroom detached ranch, with two white (possibly divorced) parents of opposite sexes. And in the midwest, of course. Lovely people, most of them, and kinder to an angry introvert than I deserved. But I spent a *lot* of time surprised at how incurious even the smartest people could turn out to be…
satby
@WereBear: This. And don’t underestimate the role that relentless propaganda plays in what people “know” now.
Edit: it’s like I’m suddenly in Lake Woebegone, where everyone’s children are above average.
rp
I can’t stand Sanders and think he would have been an awful president, but I don’t think his appeal is hard to explain; it’s the inverse of Trump’s appeal on the right. And I don’t mean that in a completely negative way. Like Trump, Bernie says what many people are thinking but few politicians dare to say out loud. On the right, that’s blatant racism and white nationalism. On the left, it’s that the 99% are getting screwed by the 1% and that the system needs to fundamentally change.
rikyrah
Brachiator
@Soprano2:
We are not just scared or in denial. This is new. We have not really had a major pandemic in over a hundred years, if you go back to the Spanish Flu.
I was talking to my younger brother the other day, and he didn’t even know that as a kid I stood in line at the school cafeteria to get that magical sugar cube with the polio vaccine. This was before his time and he never really had to know anything about that disease that frightened so many people.
I have been listening to the NPR economic programs Market Place, Planet Money and Make Me Smart. Some episodes feature restaurant owners who are working with local officials to help design the new post pandemic rules.
On one show, there was speculation about reduced seating, staff who would wear masks and gloves, and the use of one-time disposable menus. More emphasis on takeout and the sale of alcohol with takeout orders, requiring new kinds of containers.
But smart people are right on the money, that the new world is not just about going back to normal. I got nothing but respect for all the people trying to figure this thing out.
Betty Cracker
@Soprano2:
I think you’re right about that.
satby
@raven: yeah, but the draft made one focus on civics in a way that the lack of a draft doesn’t.
louc
I want to submit this utterly beautiful and uplifting video out of Ireland encouraging people to stay home. It’s called The Phoenix. “We will get through this.”
NotMax
@Chyron HR
Cue Charlie on the MTA.
:)
Gin & Tonic
@Brachiator: The President of Ukraine is 42. The median age of his government is ~40. His first Prime Minister was in his 30’s
The Prime Minister of Armenia is 45
The Prime Minister of Finland is 34.
Why the US prefers geriatric leaders really escapes me.
Brachiator
@Anne Laurie:
I confess that I went to one of those fancy ass Ivy League universities. A different kind of crowd. But I also saw up close and personal those close minded people who believed that their role in life was to make sure that society did not change and was always safe for “the right kind of people.”
There were also, of course, the Star Trek nerds. Some of these people went on to design rocket ships.
germy
Collect all the Front Pagers!
MattF
Jen Rubin takes a cudgel to McConnell’s stupidity.
Dorothy A. Winsor
We did our bi-weekly grocery shopping early today. Every single person we saw in the store wore a mask. Also it turns out I’m one of the people screwing up the one-way aisles. They’re marked only by arrows on the floor at the aisle entrance and I didn’t even notice them until we were halfway through. Even after that, I kept forgetting to look because we were going down as few aisles as possible.
satby
And for what it’s worth, my line about low info voters and Wilmer was throwaway snark.
Baud
Chris Johnson
@WaterGirl:
39% grew up in a political environment run by Republicans since Reagan, in which everything about the discourse is set by Republicans and rightwingers, and you know it. Obama could have done so much if he wasn’t totally hobbled by the entire system being slanted toward Republicans. Might seem a bit unfair or a bit abstract, but to young people Dems have been on the run their entire lives, and they have no personal experience of… put it this way, how many were alive when Bill Clinton was President?
If they didn’t think their lives were valueless garbage before you’d have nearly 70% of them hating Trump and the present-day Republicans in spite of everything the Republican-controlled media can do to muddy the issue. I think the kids are all right, they’re just in hell. Ain’t Trump who’s going to get them out, and they do know that, those that haven’t gone totally insane.
Trump is winning WAY less than the crazification factor with young people, and rightly so. Even if you are crazy you don’t necessarily buy what he’s selling.
germy
rikyrah
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Brachiator:
Were reduced seating to happen, rents would have to go down – a lot. Rent is a huge expenditure for restaurants, all of the leases are triple net, and a large number actually includes a “books inspection” clause so that supplements are paid with higher foot traffic.
Were I to assign a cause for a lot of restaurant failures, I’d say ridiculous expectations on the part of commercial landlords is at the top.
Steeplejack
I would love to hear Mitch McConnell explain the distinction of how the Republicans’ $1 trillion tax cut is not “borrowing money from future generations.”
Oops, sorry, it’s stealing from generations present and future. My bad.
Uncle Cosmo
@NotMax: Seems pointless if not downright stupid: You’re still touching buttons (unless you’re carrying that box around with you, which is bulky enough to be a PITA). And all you really need is a pencil in your pocket (nestled in a small cloth or cap part-filled with 70% alcohol) to push the regular elevator buttons with impunity.
(Brings to mind the old urban legend in which NASA spends >$1M to develop a pen that will write in the microgravity of outer space, while the Russian space agency, with classic peasant pragmatism, equips its cosmonauts with pencils…)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@raven:
The Vietnam War and the draft had a way of getting young people’s attention.
Immanentize
@NotMax: Hand Charlie a Sandwich!
We used to have this as the “fight” slogan of the writing/filmmaking/artsy/party group we created in college:
“Victims of Myth”
MattF
NYT article on how virus was circulating around the US for a month before anyone was really paying attention. I think many people, including me, have suspected this.
Steeplejack
@Uncle Cosmo:
The second part of that video (0:15) seems to show the person putting a finger above the pad but not touching it.
Not a very clear video, to be sure.
Chris Johnson
@Steeplejack: Yeah, that’s hologram buttons: registers ‘touches’ on just floating images of buttons. Pretty neat.
NotMax
@Uncle Cosmo
Ah, but they’re not real buttons, they’re holographic images. Suppose the theory is that the flat smooth horizontal surface on the permanently installed unit sticking out from the wall is easier to run a wipe over (notice the provided ones to the right) than the regular buttons.
I do agree it seems to be overenginering the solution.
rikyrah
@rikyrah:
Trying this again
Aussie Sheila
@Chyron HR:
Actually, if I was a member of the Democratic Party, I would be furious about that ridiculous segment. How clueless do you have to be to show off an obviously very expensive freezer, stocked with ‘specialty’ ice creams. Who was the audience for that?
Talk about ‘signalling’ ‘corporatist’ democrat.
I get That people here don’t grok Sanders, but your collective sense of political smarts has deserted you if you think that segment reflected well on a party that claims a semi populist mantle. It was atrocious in the light of the suffering being experienced by millions.
NotMax
@Chris Johnson
Shall posit that somewhere in a lab someone must be working on holographic elevator operators.
Cute (in a choice of ethnicities, hair colors and ages), in snugly fitted uniforms, projected as the sex of one’s choice.
;)
Amir Khalid
I’m listening to Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s special Covid-19 Ramadhan TV address. He’s announcing that
He also refers to the fight against Covid-19 as jihad, which in the sense of a righteous effort is strictly correct.
Brachiator
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Yep. In Los Angeles county, officials are looking to see what might be done with respect to commercial leases. And of course food and supply costs, as well as labor costs might also rise as owners try to accommodate social distance and other health requirements.
In some communities, though, landlords may try to hold out.
Immanentize
@Aussie Sheila: How’s that coal exportation industry going down under?
Omnes Omnibus
@Aussie Sheila: That’s one point of view.
PenAndKey
At 35 I know I’m one of the younger commenters here, but there’s a lot of truth to this from what I’m seeing in my interactions with my peers. Bernie was never my first pick primarily for one reason and one reason only: he never showed he had any capability to coalition build and actually run a government. I knew that because I’ve paid close attention to politics since middle school, but like the rest of you here that makes us the oddballs. Most people don’t pay as much attention to politics as we do. It’s why we’re here and they’re not.
But still, if I’m totally honest with myself I can see Bernie’s appeal. Literally my entire adult life I’ve watched the GOP and their bought and paid for media enablers shift the cultural zeitgeist straight into Bircher territory. When I was a kid I remember being inspired to pursue science because of Al Gore’s talk about the VentureStar initiative. I watched the economy boom (on shaky foundations, but as a kid I didn’t know that), and put up with more “House Flipper” shows than I could stand. Even Clinton’s impeachment trial was somewhat abstract because things were still running well. Then Bush v Gore happened.
Since then I’ve watched Darth Cheney nominate himself for the role of vice president to the bumbling legacy frat pick, watched 9/11 in real time, then Katrina shortly later. In my life I’ve feared a return of the draft while politicians and the news stoked nationalistic revenge fantasies, starved to the point of emaciation trying to work through a recession in rural Wisconsin, and watched the one bright spot that was the Obama Administration get systematically dismantled due to an influence campaign/sabotage orchestrated by FOX News, the leaders of the New York Times, and Russian psyops. All while being plugged into the web and on first name basis with multiple people around the world who live in actual sane societies, but not having the resources myself to actually move my wife and children there.
To say that a large part of me would be perfectly happy to burn the whole system down and start over, and support someone who looks like they’re willing to do the same, is an understatement. I often feel like the only difference between me and many of Bernie’s supporters is that they’re still idealists. Me? I’m cynical and (I think) pragmatic enough to recognize that incrementalism and coalition building is necessary to actually change things. If I honestly thought that burning it all down and trying a French-style revolution would do more than trigger a Reign of Terror 2.0 I’d probably be right there with them.
Baud
@Aussie Sheila: It’s bullshit. At most a segment like that would earn a tsk-tsk for about a day. The people pushing it a week later like it’s the worst thing in the world since EMAILS! are people of bad faith. We should scorn them.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@NotMax:
My son has been declared an essential worker for a defense contractor. They got permission from the DOD to disable the keypad entry locks to their offices and just go with card readers. I was glad to hear they’ve done at least that. I’ve been thinking it’s only a matter of time until he gets sick. There have been confirmed cases in his office.
Crashman06
@PenAndKey: I’m 38 and I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here in your description. I agree.
raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor: No, really???
Dorothy A. Winsor
@raven:
I knew you’d be surprised. :-)
PenAndKey
@Crashman06: In a way it feels like fatalism. Even the people who say their life hasn’t changed much in this poll? Sure the people polled are just a little younger than us, but when you feel like your life already sucks and you don’t see any realistic chance of it getting better, it can take a heck of a lot to actually register as “worse”. And let’s not forget that for many people the start of Trump’s presidency was riding on the economic wave that Obama left him. If you’re not paying attention to more than your own job, family and hobbies that might have looked alright. Sure, we knew about the cages, and the court packing, and the deregulation/gutting, but there was a veneer of “this is better than the recession we just got out of so things might be better now” going on. It was false, obviously, but when your paycheck is doing better than it has in years it doesn’t take much to be naive but optimistic.
NotMax
Sampling Costco’s Kirkland brand London dry gin. Not great but above passable, sort of like a lesser version of the Beefeater brand.
The pull-and-twist off corked cap is deucedly troublesome for arthritic hands to grip and deal with, though, as the rim of the cap are is not knurled. Shall need to buy a better brand (with a screw off cap), finish that, thereafter pour the contents of a Kirkland bottle into that empty.
/first world problem.
Raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor: shocked! :)
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: Oh, Stellas are the best. What a lovely housecat she was!
Coming up on the anniversary of losing my Stella – my big old rescue Shepherd-Rottie mix. I had to put her to sleep on April 24th, 2018. Watson, poor starveling puppy, came to us on April 28th. Life is weird, messy, heartbreaking, and occasionally beautiful.
Tdjr
@louc: Okay thanks. Now I’m blubbering.?
Amir Khalid
@Aussie Sheila:
It’s just premium ice cream in a nice freezer, both of which Pelosi can easily afford. I don’t see what the big deal is.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Going off on a tangent, is it just me or do some brand of premium ice cream really suck? There is such as thing as too damn much butterfat and too much sweetening. Also too overwhelming flavoring.
Never found Ben & Jerry’s (back when it was really Ben & Jerry’s) particularly toothsome, with the exception of the rarely seen in the wild rum raisin.
PenAndKey
@Amir Khalid: The cynical answer why it’s a “big deal”? Because it feeds into the elitist narrative pushed by the GOP against Democrats since forever and she should have known better. The actual answer? It’s not actually a big deal, but it’s a familiar narrative the GOP and media love to use.
Actually, those aren’t mutually exclusive. Does nobody remember Malkin’s “but their countertops!” attack line? It’s ridiculous, and you’re bloody right that she shouldn’t be ashamed of a nice fridge and premium ice cream, but to many people anything less than a dinged up secondhand unit filled with Kemps and too much ice buildup is fancy.
Miss Bianca
@Aussie Sheila: oh, fuck off. Seriously.
Do I have a fancy freezer full of ice cream? I do not.
Am I the woman who is practically single-handedly responsible for making sure that the workers of America get ANY damn relief in the face of Republican rapacity, greed, arrogance, and denial? Also not.
The people who spend their time ginning up this type of outrage are also the people who made damn sure that we got to where we are in the first place, because oooh, emailz! And generalized unspecified Democrat corruption! And incremental progress made by broad coalitions is just not pure or fast enough for me, so it’s icky! People who sound a lot like…you.
So please, just fuck off.
NotMax
@PenAnd Key
Stereotype demands it be filled with Nutty Buddies.
;)
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: There is always a puritanical streak somewhere in left leaning parties. It manifests in different ways at different times, but it shows up in epithets like champagne socialist and limousine liberal. The attacks on Buttigieg for an event in wine cellar are another example. It tends to come from the more class conscious, Marxist influenced end of the left, but it also shows up on the straight-up populist side as well.
I don’t particularly hold with it myself. I am sure this comes as a great surprise to everyone.
Salty Sam
@WaterGirl:
@Immanentize:
Hard nope! As a single dad after my wife passed, I tried that path, only to watch my two boys start sliding into a not-good place. After some serious coaching, I began letting them get bit in the ass by life, and stopped helicoptering them. The turnaround was amazing, and I overheard elder brother explaining how and why this was a good thing to younger. They both left home right after graduating high school, have supported themselves completely on their own, and are independent thinkers who loathe Trump with every fiber of their being.
Never, ever cripple your children by making their life too easy. Love them with all your heart.
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
I suppose Republican politicians get to enjoy their expensive whiskey and fancy-restaurant dinners without scandal.
WaterGirl
@raven: Yep. My older sister was at UI then, belonged to a sorority, and still she was also on the barricades.
She changed a lot when she got married and became an evangelical christian.
Immanentize
@NotMax: Talenti Gelato, Pelosi’s choice, is way too sweet for me. Jes sayin’
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: Oddly enough, there is populist streak on the right too. Richard Nixon’s ” I should say this—that Pat doesn’t have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat.” It appeals to the petite bourgeois sensibility of a section of the right as opposed to the working class sensibility on the left. It is, of course, funny because the leaders on both sides tend to be at least upper middle class.
raven
@WaterGirl: It happened to plenty of folks. There are some serious fucking right wing nuts who were part of that tribe,
PenAndKey
@NotMax: Yup. The most hilarious part? Talenti is barely more expensive than Kemps or Nutty Buddies and it’s often sold just down the aisle in any major grocery store. The fact that anyone is seriously talking about this, even for a moment, shows how idiotic political commentary can get. Me? I’m more of a Cedar Creek guy myself and I’m sure there are people who would call me elitist for it despite the fact it’s the biggest section of my local grocery store ice cream aisle and obviously the best selling.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Too much freakin’ labor involved, anyway.
:)
WaterGirl
@Aussie Sheila: I couldn’t care less how much an elected representative’s refrigerator cost, or how much ice cream is in their freezer, or what brand the ice cream is.
Or how rich they are.
I care about how they do their jobs. Nancy Pelosi does a stellar job, is still doing yeoman’s work at 80 or nearly 80. If expensive ice cream is her vice, she can eat it every day as far as I’m concerned.
I don’t think that makes her tone deaf, and it doesn’t make a whit of difference to me. But John Edwards $400 haircuts? I thought the was totally tone deaf.
Signed,
My freezer has 5 pints of vanilla Haagen Dazs ice cream in it at the moment, and I am not rich, by any means.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Came across a plebeian brand of huckleberry ice cream a few months back. Wouldn’t purchase it regularly but wouldn’t eschew it either.
MattF
@Immanentize: Well, I assume the reason I can never find either Talenti Double Dark Chocolate or Sea Salt Caramel is that they both sell out the instant they hit my supermarket’s freezer shelf.
ETA: And yes, Talenti DDC contains vermouth.
Geminid
Does anyone really care about Nancy Pelosi’s ice cream? I’ve seen people pretending to care, but they just have an axe to grind.
NotMax
@Geminid
She was cognizant enough not to display the refrigerator compartment, stuffed with French champagne and Iranian caviar.
//
Elizabelle
@Immanentize:
Nancy Smash is ready for some sugar after dealing all day with Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell.
And: her figure — I would guess Ms. Pelosi eats about 3 spoonfuls max. I don’t know. Have not been following ice cream gate.
She is impressively disciplined, though.
And she relaxes with a long bath at the end of her days. Maybe a bubble bath. I’ll try to find a great LA Times article about her, from a few months back. Like 2019 …
satby
@Salty Sam: late back to the thread, but what you said. A few scrapes when the stakes are small and non-life-threatening let them grow up independent and aware that there are consequences to everything. Which is much easier to learn at a young age than it is when the parents are no longer in the picture and the “child” is an adult. And as a single parent with very limited resources, I wouldn’t have been able to smooth over many bumps to begin with, which I pointed out to the kinder when required. Now they thank me.
Geminid
@Elizabelle: Did you watch Hakeem Jeffries nominate Nancy Pelosi for speaker in January 2019? Very inspirational. He had me smiling, and she was smiling too. Worth seeing if you want some cheering up. I don’t link but maybe someone will check it out and put up a link
CindyH
@Gin & Tonic: wonder if it’s the money influence in our politics that may be so much higher than other countries? Seems that here, once elected, politicians have to spend an inordinate amount of time fundraising.
Yutsano
@Elizabelle: There is a strain of Italian woman that doesn’t gain weight no matter what. Look at Giada di Laurentiis and her mother. Some of that is watching what they eat but some of it is genetic. Nancy is still very much a nonna. Just a really thin one.
WaterGirl
@NotMax:
I would say it all depends on how one defines premium ice cream.
I eat haagen dazs ice cream because they have just a few ingredients, way fewer ingredients that some of the other so-called premium brands.
I LOVE Ben & Jerry’s flavor that’s called something like chocolate brownie fudge, but I feel like crap when I eat. I looked at the ingredients, and there’s a lot of crap in there, not just milk, cream, eggs, etc.
Same for Greater’s ice cream, even their mint chocolate chip is dyed green, and it has what I consider crappy ingredients. I don’t feel well after I eat it.
If part of what makes ice cream premium is just how it tastes, and how it’s marketed, but doesn’t take into account the ingredients used and the additives added, then in my opinion many so-called premium ice creams are not actually premium at all.
More than you ever wanted to know…
WaterGirl
@Salty Sam: I totally agree with this, too.
Sab
It is very shallow of me but I am really enjoying the discovery of various people’s natural hair color. Mine is the natural gray it has been for the last fifteen years
ETA: Also, I love Michelle Obama’s new hairstyle.
PenAndKey
@Sab: That’s no more shallow than my minor enjoyment of the fact that, because I developed a receding hairline in my 20s, I’ve been buzz cutting my head for years so nothing’d changed for me. My son’ll look like a beatnik by the time this is over, but as long as I remember to shave I’m good.
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
Our local high-end ice cream is Homestead brand, which is a small co-op dairy just over the ridge into Virginia, near the famous Homestead resort. They make 4 flavors, vanilla, chocolate, butter pecan and black raspberry. OMG that is good stuff, and you are absolutely correct, the fewer ingredients in ice cream the better~!!~
Although I have never noticed “feeling” better or worse from Ben and Jerry’s, of which Chunky Monkey and Cherry Garcia are our favorites. Just not as sensitive, perhaps?
James E Powell
@Aussie Sheila:
Actually, if you were a reasonably sentient member of the Democratic Party, you would immediately recognize the ice cream story as the usual bullshit that is made into a big deal by people who want to elect Republicans. And you would treat it with the scorn it deserves.
PenAndKey
@James E Powell: Those aren’t two mutually exclusive recognition points.