Labor Day is about honoring the dignity of the American worker. And that’s what our economic strategy is all about, too. pic.twitter.com/qiGnatgrKt
— President Biden (@POTUS) September 6, 2021
When workers are heard, when unions are strong, our country is strong. pic.twitter.com/2xOZrkV3F1
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) September 6, 2021
President Biden visited union workers in New Castle, Delaware. on Labor Day, offering sandwiches and selfies pic.twitter.com/4XMYK4eFKL
— Reuters (@Reuters) September 7, 2021
President Joe Biden approved major disaster declarations greenlighting federal aid for six New Jersey counties and five New York counties affected by devastating flooding last week. Biden is scheduled to visit the region on Tuesday to survey storm damage. https://t.co/WxBr8KNGN3
— The Associated Press (@AP) September 6, 2021
Another good thing:
A towering statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, is set to get taken down Wednesday, more than 130 years after it was raised in tribute to a Civil War hero now widely seen as a symbol of racial injustice, state officials said. https://t.co/HtllqpHy1I
— The Associated Press (@AP) September 6, 2021
Dorothy A. Winsor
“Hero,” AP? Really?
Steeplejack
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
AP not quite woke yet.
WereBear
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Good point. Once we get away from the Myth of the Lost Cause (and the Bonekemper book is so awesome I’ve read it twice) he hardly looks heroic, on a military OR personal level.
The Wisconsin school board who stopped free school lunches and then, under pressure, reversed itself; it’s a good example of their Authoritarian mind.
Someone has to be under their feet. Almost literally. They feel uplifted by these petty social games all for them to demonstrate conspicuous consumption markers!
It’s sick. We aren’t a baboon troupe. We just, so often, act like one.
NeenerNeener
I logged into work this morning and we now have a vaccine mandate at my employer. If you’re not vaccinated they don’t want you in any of our buildings. I had to dig out my vaccination card and enter all the pertinent info (I’m House Moderna) into our HR system.
Hope this gets some of the “vaccine hesitant” off their butts and into a pharmacy.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Also, “racial injustice” seems a little time for “slavery.”
Viva BrisVegas
Now’s the time to replace Lee with a statue of a real Civil War hero and Virginia native, General George Thomas, “Rock of Chickamauga”.
debbie
@WereBear:
That’s the story of most of the country’s history. Each new group of immigrants vilified by the group that came before them. Over and over. What’s sad is that we never seem to progress beyond that.
germy
debbie
@NeenerNeener:
At my work, we have to upload a photo of our vaccination cards to avoid having to log in every day before work to certify we have no symptoms. They’re really trying to get everyone vaccinated without saying it out loud.
Anne Laurie
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Well, not to you or me or other sane people. But you can’t deny the man still has his (noisy, dangerous) fan club…
Baud
@Baud:
Time = tame
Baud
Steeplejack
Okay, here’s a small but nagging problem that perhaps a tech-minded jackal can help me solve: lately the little notification gizmo on my Android phone (Samsung Galaxy S10e) quite often gives me the current weather or the weather forecast for the wrong location, one that is a couple of miles away from my modest rooms in Threadkill Lane. It doesn’t happen with a weather app or when I search for “weather” on the Google, and it doesn’t happen with the weather notice on my lock screen. I get correct results there. It happens only in the little notifications where you get a tiny icon in that top line of the screen next to current time, wi-fi, battery and other notifications like incoming email, texts, etc.
I have plunged into the Google notification settings and, per Internet advice, tried several solutions, including turning off weather notifications, turning off my phone, restarting it and then reactivating weather notifications. That didn’t work. So now I am looking at a wacky suggestion to do all of that plus remove the SIM card from my phone and reinstall it. That feels like it might be getting into Ivermectin territory, so I thought I would ask here and see if one of the resident techno-weenies has run across this problem or has any advice.
Thank you for listening to my rant. As a token of thanks, I repost this rare picture of Schrödinger’s cat.
geg6
No work for me this week as I have taken some much needed vacation time. No plans and certainly no travel. My friend who is a flight attendant says flying is too horrible to even contemplate for non-insane people, so that was never contemplated.
However, the week off ends with my older niece finally getting married after two tries at holding a wedding during a pandemic. All guests are required to show proof of vaccination and, boy, did that cause a bunch of butthurt and rescinded invites. Since it was the relatives who nobody really likes, no one is sad about it. I’m excited for her and for her wonderful fiancé and the two babies they have produced while attempting to get married these last eighteen months.
Another Scott
@Steeplejack: i was seeing the same thing for a few days a few weeks ago on my S20+. It eventually went away.
I use NOAA Weather and its temperature indicator on the top bar and that was off 10 or more degrees. It’s fine now.
I’ve got the August security patch.
I figure that Samsung briefly broke something and eventually fixed it.
HTH a little. Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
raven
work!
Starfish
@WereBear: The school board was not quite as awful as they sounded, but they were still bad.
As part of the CARES act, there was some free food for everyone. They thought that their school district was not getting the money they were due from the federal government for poor students because people who would qualify for normal free and reduced lunches were not applying because they were getting free food anyway.
As the discussion got amplified, all nuance about what happened was completely lost, and these folks got threats.
debbie
@geg6:
Well, that’s happy news in this chaotic time! Enjoy every minute of it!
Steeplejack
@geg6:
Best wishes to your niece and her beloved! ?
The Thin Black Duke
Good morning. I wrote about my mother yesterday, and it helped me quite a bit. I want to thank everybody here for helping me work it out.
narya
The powers that be mandated vaccinations at my workplace as well; during the conversations around it, I was shocked at how many people remained unvaccinated. We are a HEALTH CARE organization, and we started vaxxing folks in January (including staff), and we have generous sick time, so losing a day (or more!) of work for feeling crappy would not be an issue. There’s language around religious or sincerely held belief exemptions, but I don’t know how far that will truly fly. We’ve even started talking about boosters, though haven’t developed any plans around that yet, at least as far as I know. And, really, I’m still working from home, so, again, I can drop down that list if need be. IOW: one of the easiest places in the country to get vaccinated, and still there are dolts.
Steeplejack
@Another Scott:
Thanks for the feedback; at least I’m not crazy. I have the August security patch.
germy
germy
I’m older than Casler, so I witnessed how the workplace changed. Bosses got nastier and more aggressive, and suddenly there were weekly layoffs and restructuring.
I saw a talented old man, an illustrator and designer, who’d been working faithfully at his desk since the 1950s, ordered by a young guy in his early 30s to clean up his stuff and leave. The old man was in tears.
The ’80s was the beginning of the demoralized workforce.
debbie
@germy:
Is M&M pro- or anti-O’Keefe?
germy
@debbie:
Anti, judging from the other tweets and retweets.
His sarcasm might be a bit too dry.
debbie
@germy:
I was there too. KKR and all those Bain types were after the company where I worked. It was a real misery, less about job security than blatant assholism.
Steeplejack
@germy:
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of shitbirds.
Great audio. I haven’t heard “Five Feet and Rising” in decades, probably. Classic Cash.
Soprano2
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Evidently they’re being dragged all over Twitter for that characterization. It tells you how ingrained the “Lost Cause” mythos is that they used that descriptive without even thinking twice about it. That’s what most people of my age were taught – that Lee had no choice but to go home to defend his home state, even though he was an officer in the U.S. Army, and that what he did was a heroic act of a deeply ethical man. Phooey….
mrmoshpotato
Hmmmm…..odd spelling on “was a statue of a racist, slave-owning, treasonous traitor who took up arms against the United States”
ETA – added “slave-owning”
Nicole
@The Thin Black Duke: That’s a beautiful piece. And I hear you. My dad died in 2016, and when I went home to visit my stepmom a couple weeks ago, she asked me to help her with a new answering machine system, so that my dad‘s voice would still be the one heard on the outgoing message. And his photo is still the one that comes up when she calls my iPhone from her landline. I think the grief evolves over time so that when you see their number scrolling on your phone where the picture comes up or their Facebook page announces it’s their birthday, you’ve reached a point where you’re happy to be reminded of them.
That first year, though… I’m sending you virtual hugs. It’s rough. And you’re right; everything important in my life is on my phone too! I never thought about it before.
The Thin Black Duke
@Nicole: Thank you, Nicole. I’m not a guy who cries easily, so it’s difficult finding an outlet for what I’m feeling. As I said, going through the process with the folks here helped. This getting older stuff is a trip, ain’t it?
Eunicecycle
@The Thin Black Duke: I haven’t been able to erase my dad’s last voice mail, and he passed away 5 years ago. I even transferred it to a new phone. Not to make this about me, but just wanted to say I understand.
And I’m sorry about your mom.
raven
@Eunicecycle: We kept my mom’s last message to my brother and it’s been 15 years.
Soprano2
Yep, I started my adult working career in 1983. I’ve never had an employer that I felt was in any way “loyal” to me; even my college career counselor told me to watch out for myself, because no on else would, and not to be loyal to a company because they wouldn’t be loyal to me. It’s amazing to me that so many people don’t seem to remember the things that happened in the ’80’s, all the layoffs and the jobs being shipped to Mexico. I think it all started with Reagan breaking PATCO. Pretty soon industry was following his lead, and unions got a lot weaker. Lots of people act like jobs only started being sent to places like Mexico after NAFTA passed; they don’t realize that NAFTA was a reaction to all the jobs going to Mexico in the 1980’s, and was actually an attempt to stop it!
PPCLI
A towering statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, is set to get taken down Wednesday, more than 130 years after it was raised in tribute to
a Civil War hero now widely seen as a symbol of racial injustice,the losing, blood-soaked traitor bizarrely described by an international news organization as a “Civil War hero”, who led the army defending barbaric and sadistic chattel slavery to a humiliating and well-deserved defeat, state officials said.Hey, AP, I fixed it for you. No charge.
debbie
@The Thin Black Duke:
I think writing is probably the best way to cope with this loss, and I hope you can get to the place where her memory will bring a smile instead of a tear.
My father died well before cellphones were even invented. My primary memento at this point is his level. No particular reason that it’s that, but it’s my version of your voicemail. It’s not going anywhere.
The Thin Black Duke
Thanks, everybody. And yeah, my mother’s number ain’t going nowhere.
mrmoshpotato
@geg6:
(Future) Congrats to the newlyweds, and congrats on them
culling their herd of friendsavoiding plague rat relatives.ETA – re-read, edited
The Thin Black Duke
Why am I in moderation? Wah.
WaterGirl
@The Thin Black Duke: I am trying to figure that out.
Soprano2
@debbie: I went through my mom’s bathrooms on Sunday. She had sewing stuff in there. She was an amazing seamstress; she made most of the clothes my sister and I wore until I was in 5th grade. Now that I think about it, I’m surprised I didn’t find any of our dresses in her closet along with my sister’s Campfire girl T-shirt and Bluebird uniform (what do I do with them?). I found her sewing gauge. Even though I don’t have any use for it, I kept it because I associate it with her so much. I have the small glass tray my father used to put his keys and wallet in; that tray sat on the corner of our counter when I was growing up.
Also, ladies, you should have a pact with your best friend that, when you die, they will immediately go to your house and remove things you wouldn’t want your children to know you had. Sheesh……
The Thin Black Duke
@WaterGirl: It’s 2021, Jake.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Geminid
@Viva BrisVegas: Some have suggested that Charlottesville’s Lee statue be replaced with one of a local Black man who fought for the Union.
The disposition of Charlottesville’s Lee and Jackson statues has not been decided. The city is considering proposals from museums that want them. The best suggestion I’ve heard is to drop Lee and Jackson along with their horses into the Atlantic over one of the artificial reefs the state is building to enhance fish habitat.
rikyrah
@The Thin Black Duke:
That was beautiful ❤️
zhena gogolia
@PPCLI: Lovely!
WaterGirl
@The Thin Black Duke: Well, that was easy. You changed the email you are using for Balloon Juice!
When you do that, it’s like you are new to WordPress so the first comment has to be manually approved. If you post additional comments before the first one is manually approved, then all of those have to be manually approved.
Try posting a comment again now?
edit: Looks like you already posted a couple of comments after I released you, and they went through automatically. So you are good to go.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Well, it’s Project Veritas, so shrug emoji.
But that is such a great song, so kudos to them for using it!
Woodrow/asim
@The Thin Black Duke: I lost my Mother over a decade ago, and it still echos in my life all these years, later.
Ken
There’s a joke in there about why you should hire a wedding planner rather than trying to figure it all out yourself. It does remind me of this XKCD.
The Golux
@germy:
Something I’ve always wondered about space debris: at any particular altitude, aren’t all orbiting objects traveling at the same speed? How is there such a large difference in speeds between objects?
rikyrah
@The Thin Black Duke:
It’s too soon. I think that you need an entire year before the ache stops throbbing. You have to go through all the firsts without them.
My mother had a landline phone. We lived together. I haven’t had an actual phone hooked up to it in years. I just disconnected it two months ago.
My mother passed in 2008.
Starfish
@germy: I am not sure if it will cheer you up to learn that the children are all mercenaries now.
I got my first job in the dot com boom to bust. It was not uncommon for those of us with engineering degrees to have multiple job offers and then watch a layoff happen every few months in our first job. Raises were never on the table because we did not want to see another layoff did we, so we did not get cost of living raises thinking we were trading them off for job security that we never had or would have.
Now, the recent graduates are entering the work force with college debt, so they are looking for the biggest raises, and they will leave in a year or two to go find that biggest raise and that biggest title bump.
PST
@debbie:
Agreed. The only sense in which we progress is that after the last set of immigrants makes some money and starts voting in large numbers we accept them into the country club (unless they’re Black) and let them help us hang onto the majority that allows us to vilify the next bunch to come along. I don’t mean to suggest that the process is clean or quick, or without lingering prejudice, but our political and economic elites include many members of formerly excluded groups, some of whom are happy to pull up the ladders after they climb aboard.
mrmoshpotato
@narya:
(insert disgusted Obama shrugging here)
ETA
Someone will work out the math for the catapult and counterweights.
germy
@The Golux:
Is there a difference in speeds, though? I don’t know.
sherparick
@Viva BrisVegas: Yep! Also, “The Rock of Chickamaugua” was very woke: “[T]he greatest efforts made by the defeated insurgents since the close of the war have been to promulgate the idea that the cause of liberty, justice, humanity, equality, and all the calendar of the virtues of freedom, suffered violence and wrong when the effort for southern independence failed. This is, of course, intended as a species of political cant, whereby the crime of treason might be covered with a counterfeit varnish of patriotism, so that the precipitators of the rebellion might go down in history hand in hand with the defenders of the government, thus wiping out with their own hands their own stains; a species of self-forgiveness amazing in its effrontery, when it is considered that life and property—justly forfeited by the laws of the country, of war, and of nations, through the magnanimity of the government and people—was not exacted from them.”
— George Henry Thomas, November 1868.[37]
BC in Illinois
“Space junk” reminds me of the short-lived (8 episode) 1978 Richard Benjamin TV show QUARK.
My favorite character was Ficus Pandorata, Quark’s Spock-like (or Data-like) science officer, who is a “Vegeton”, a member of a race of sentient plant life. [“I’ve just lost an argument with a plant.”]
My favorite moment was in the episode “May the Source be with you,” when the Source (voiced by Hans Conreid) gets a first look at the death star: “Wow–that’s BIG!” “SOURCE !!”
Go to Wikipedia (from which all knowledge flows) and check out the description of the episodes.
Why do I remember this, after 43 years? I dunno. Maybe Friday nights in 1978 were really slow.
Starfish
@Woodrow/asim: I am not sure how we could have navigated this year if it was not for my mother.
My younger sister was diagnosed with cancer in March/April. My mom has been living with her constantly since, then except for one week in May when I went and stayed there while my mom returned home to deal with her bills. She is going to finally go home later this month.
I could not have done what my mother has done. My sister would have driven me completely bonkers several months ago.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Nicole
@Soprano2:
Ha! The universality of children discovering their parents had a life outside of them. That’s why aunts and uncles rule; they tell us all the stories our parents never would. I cherish the tale of my mother (who died when I was a child, in the 1980s), going with my dad and aunt and uncle to a strip club (in south central PA, so we’re not talking a high class joint here), and being so embarrassed that she couldn’t get out of the car. And she was just going as a spectator, it’s not like she was going to dance. My mother would have been horrified to know that I know that story, but I love it.
germy
I’m glad the younger people are looking out for themselves.
Folks my age, we remembered how conditions were in the 1970s, when companies offered to pay for our continuing education, and we had free breakfasts (!) in the cafeteria. When we weren’t worked like dogs, and then cheated.
So when everything went downhill in the ’80s, we thought maybe we were the ones at fault. That maybe if we found a different company we’d find the right conditions. But every new place I worked at had been emboldened by morning in america.
NotMax
Can’t avoid smiling. The little dude‘s joy is super infectious.
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Agreed. Hero? Some day when his papers are allowed to be opened it probably is going to be quite an eye opener as to what Marse Robert was really like.
WereBear
@Soprano2: Hey! I came too late to the thread about your rescue cat.
And yes, this was a life upheaval for him, and he might have found that venturing out into the wild — now that he has something better — to be an upsetting experience.
Encourage him to stick close to home. Let him get used to having one :)
lee
I’m thrilled to see the ‘verify your miscarriage’ is the phrase we are using as pushback. I (as well as others) had been mentioning that on multiple sites since the Texas bill was first created.
If I were to pick a company to focus a boycott on it would be Toyota. There are a several reasons for this.
Kattails
@PPCLI: elegantly put.
Kathleen
@The Thin Black Duke: I am late to all the threads so I haven’t had a chance to send you my deepest condolences on the loss of your mother. I’m glad you got so much support here. I read your piece and it was beautiful. My experience with grief (I’ve lost both my parents) is that there are no “right” or “wrong” ways to grieve. Just follow your heart and soul as your guides. Holding you in light!
lashonharangue
@The Golux: They are all going fast to remain in orbit. They are not in the same orbit so sometimes their paths cross.
martha
@The Thin Black Duke: you are not alone. I lost my dad last November and I still have his phone and check his email every few days. I haven’t even thought about deleting him from my contacts yet. I’m definitely not ready yet.
Ken
@The Golux: No, because of a couple of factors. Anything in an elliptical orbit will be travelling faster than circular speed at the low point of its orbit, and slower at the high point. Then there’s orbital inclination, for example something in a polar orbit crosses the equatorial orbits at right angles. There’s also a few satellites in retrograde orbit, giving a chance of a head-on collision.
The Golux
@germy:
The quote implies that the collision involves a differential of ten times the speed of a bullet. If both objects are traveling at that speed, there’s no collision.
Drdavechemist
@The Golux: Satellites are carefully placed in near-circular orbits with nearly constant speed, but debris is most likely in a random elliptical orbit with a speed that varies as the distance from Earth changes. I have no idea how different the speeds might be, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the difference was quite large if the debris started in a very different orbit.
ETA that Ken got there first.
sab
@germy: The very people getting the free workplace benefits like reimbursed graduate degrees were the ones who voted for Reagan. Pulling up the ladder of success behind you was part of their value system. I went to business grad school with them.
Kirk Spencer
Edit – And not the first to answer, I see.
Scamp Dog
@The Thin Black Duke: it’s still “Mom & Dad” on my phone, even though Dad’s been gone for 10 years now.
Matt McIrvin
@germy: There’s usually a difference in velocities, for all the reasons Ken explained. Difference in inclinations is a big one. If two objects are traveling at about the same speed but in different directions, that’s a huge difference.
Immanentize
@The Golux: They do not go at the same speed, depending on size and orbit.
That said, the issue is that orbits are not round but elliptical, so path Intersection opportunities increase as we put more satellites up (thank you not at all Musk).
Then, when there is a collision, or a micro meteor hits something, it spews in all directions — like a bullet exit site. The biggest concern, as I understand it, is massive cascading satellite loss if there is a central orbit collision or explosion, etc. where the resulting debris hits more satellites which create more debris, etc.
Chief Oshkosh
@germy:
Yep. Reagan did it to the federal workforce in spades. PATCO is an obvious example. More subtle was his administration’s attack on federal worker infrastructure. As near as I can tell (this is just my experience and experiences told to me by others), he decided that all of those fairly nice federal buildings (many built by his betters – FDR and scions) were symbols of a degraded, soft workforce that just had it too nice. So, he cut ongoing services and maintenance. The p-plant system has yet to recover.
bemused senior
Regarding Robert E. Lee’s papers, in looking for a link to the book of his letters I read, I found this interview. Very much worth reading. https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2008/januaryfebruary/conversation/letters-robert-e-lee
Immanentize
@BC in Illinois: 1978? Fridays were for Midnight Special!
Chief Oshkosh
@Eunicecycle: Same here. Condolences to you and TTBD.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Zapping incipiently dangerous debris also not an option, as the Jewish space lasers are offline for the holiday.
:)
brendancalling
Speaking of work, I just got hired full time as a substitute teacher for the Burlington School
District. 35 hours a week, decent hourly wage. Not sure if I’m union, but even if not this sets me up for a FT teaching position next year.
lowtechcyclist
@Steeplejack:
And even before clicking on the video, the “M&M Enterprises” was a clear tipoff. They were the ultimate bad guys in Catch-22, corporatizing the war and profiting off doing business with and conducting operations for both sides.
Nelle
@germy: My husband submitted a two week notice after he saw the direction of the company with new managers after a buyout. They didn’t read it for a week, and then stormed in and ordered him out within thirty minutes. They watched him contemptuously as he gathered his stuff and cleaned off his desk, throwing a lot in the trash. He even asked, “May I just throw this out as I won’t need this since I won’t be working here?” They snapped out a yes and he tore papers and dumped them. (I think this was in 89.) Then they ushered him out and told him not to have any communication with people that worked there.
Idiots all. A few weeks later, he got a frantic call from them about billing for his work. He politely told them that he was forbidden to talk to them. He had been one of the highest earners and he had torn up all the billing for work in progress, in front of them and with their permission.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
@sab:
Whenever people go all “hero,” I hear Chuck D:
Fight the Power
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@The Thin Black Duke: Sorry for your loss.
Immanentize
@NotMax: DAMN! I was done atoning and I was looking for a little Jewish Space Laser payback to strike down Nazis in space and on the moon.
Immanentize
@brendancalling: Excellent! And you can also now easily pick up some coats before the winter!
(Local humor)
What are you teaching? I know teachers are in very short supply. So kind of a probationary year?
Taken4Granite
@The Golux: If they are in circular orbits at the same altitude, they have the same speed but not the same velocity. You need three numbers to specify a circular orbit: the altitude, the inclination, and the ascending node (longitude in inertial space where the orbit crosses the equator). Communications satellites in low earth orbit need to have inclined orbits to be visible from the places on the ground they serve.
If you allow elliptical orbits, then things get even more complicated. Objects move faster near perigee than near apogee.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I can see the guy not having the heart to take up arms against his own community. The again Lee joined the outside and did a lot get his neighbors killed in futail attacks like Malvern Hill and generally prolonging the war after it was clearly lost.
Steeplejack
@bemused senior:
Interesting, yes. Thanks!
Betty Cracker
@The Thin Black Duke: I’m so sorry for your loss. Everyone is different, but in my experience, it takes at least a year to feel normal about going on with a big hole in your life like the loss of a beloved parent. There’s no other choice, so you just keep going and learn to live with it. It’s true that the memories get happier when you get further from the loss, or at least they did for me.
PS: My mom died in 2014, and her contact info is still in my phone. I think it always will be.
bemused senior
Well, I vanished down a rabbit hole at the NEH and found a perfect description of the Texas pregnancy surveillance law in this article about fugitive slave catchers: https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2011/septemberoctober/feature/when-the-slave-catcher-came-town: “a hideous deformity in the garb of law” . Describing the Fugitive Slave Act, of course.
eclare
@Immanentize: Most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamp.
Taken4Granite
@Steeplejack: I don’t know much about Android phones (I live in Apple’s world), but I have observed that some web sites, notably Google, assume that I am in the same place as my ISP. This makes using Google to find stores near me that sell item X a problem, because my ISP is 55 miles from my actual location. Maybe the weather app in question is using something other than your phone’s actual location to serve up the weather?
Alternatively, it could be showing the weather at the nearest observing site to you, and not attempting to adjust for your actual location.
Nelle
@debbie: I’ve got my dad’s level, hammer, and that flat carpenter’s pencil that was always in the front, upper pocket of overalls.
That first year was such a year of firsts..first Thanksgiving, first Christmas, first birthday without him. For me, after a year, it was as if a cloud I hadn’t realized was over me had lifted a little. I wasn’t morose or anything, just more pensive, I think. I wasn’t totally up for the ebb and flow of life in modern America.
The rigidity of Victorian mourning, with black dress turning at suitable time to purple, may be overwrought. But I wish we had a visible way to signal to others of our species to back off to someone in fresh grief, to be gentle to them. I guess being gentle to fellow creature might not be a bad path, no matter when. (Then I see the idiots out their, mouths foaming with anger, and I think thoughts unbecoming to one raised Mennonite,)
All this, The Thin Black Duke, is to say, I’m so sorry for your grief and loss. Be gentle with yourself and trust the love that was planted in you.
Steeplejack
@lowtechcyclist:
The Twitter “M&M Enterprises” is mocking Project Veritas. They’re not the bad guys here.
NotMax
@Taken4Granite
I check the weather by using windows. With a lower case “w.”
;)
mrmoshpotato
@Nelle: HAHAHAHA!! That must’ve been damn satisfying.
How did he start telling you this story “You’re not gonna believe this…”?
And how long did he keep from laughing?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Speaking of the US Civil War, yesterday my nephew’s fiance was going on about how men are too much like men from the Civil War. “Oh?” I ask, “you mean to many beards and cigar smoking?”, thinking, what did someone just attacked a senator on the US Senate floor, and she said, no men are too repressed. I gather what it really was her trying to justify her her fetish for Chines historical gay porn as something noble and uplifting, because porn is something guys do, I guess, but I was sitting there thinking she had obviously never read anything about the 1860s if she thinks men in that era hid their feelings in the slightest when you have McClellan writing whole inner dialogues to his wife and then letting them get published.
Kids these days.
sab
@bemused senior: Thanks!
FelonyGovt
@The Thin Black Duke: That’s a beautiful piece. My mom died in 1980 (!), so no technology. But I have ton of letters and other personal items of hers that I will never get rid of.
Kristine
@Immanentize: I loved The Midnight Special. That and Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert introduced me to David Bowie and so many other great musicians.
Miss Bianca
@Nelle:
This story warms the cockles of my liver this morning.
narya
@Nelle: I am sitting through an HR meeting right now, and I cannot tell you just how happy this makes me.
Steeplejack
@Taken4Granite:
Thanks for the input. My phone’s actual location typically does get used, because most weather apps show “Seven Corners” when I’m at home (area in Falls Church, VA) and accurately follow me around (Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, etc.) And even the one notification that I’m complaining about sometimes gets my location right.
It’s maddening, and I can’t find any rhyme or reason to it. I brought it up on the off chance that some jackal might have experienced it and have one neat trick to fix it. I might have to give the SIM card thing a try.
eclare
@The Thin Black Duke: That is so moving. I still have my mom’s old school address book. I have no idea who most of these people are.
I am so sorry about your mom. It’s tough. Hugs.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Oh? Someone doesn’t trust the ol’ trusty weather rocks?
Ksmiami
@Soprano2: Most of our National problems with the fascist Rt wing can be laid at the feet of Ronald Reagan from the drug war sink to pernicious homelessness to Evangelical extremism. It’s all been brought to this cruel and stupid moment
NotMax
@Enhanced Voting Techniques
The late Taylor Negron, “I share too much.”
:)
Nicole
I love reading everyone’s anecdotes this morning of the things they hold onto from people they love who are gone. It makes me sad because grief makes you sad, but also makes me feel us all connected, as grief is one of the great constants of the human condition. It’s the price we pay for love.
Immanentize
@bemused senior: Thanks — I think I will post that up for my students
WaterGirl
@brendancalling: congratulations!
Woodrow/asim
Yep — I think I fell down the same rabbit hole that bemused did, with a link to an article about Robert E. Lee’s letters (among other points):
Speaking of. One of the hardest books I’ve ever read — to answer someone who asked me this question about the Union in the Civil War in a comment a few days ago — was a book literally called THE UNION, if I recall correctly (I’ve resold it since I read it). The author uses primarily (and primary) sourcing from solider’s letters + newspaper reports to make the case that the average union solider fought for just that — Union — and not to release my ancestors from the shackles of bondage. The latter was, indeed, very much a tactical decision, and the aftermath (from what I’ve read to-date) more one of moral outrage among politicians and those who did advocate for Negro rights, than of the average US citizen.
It’s one thing to “know” it, intellectually. It’s another to spend page after page reading people who could give a damn if your great-great-grands were in shackles or not, so long as all the States remained as one — and things could go back to “normal” for them and theres.
I think on all that, too often these days.
brendancalling
@Immanentize: I’m a sub, so wherever they need me. But when I’m fully certified, I’ll be teaching English (and, when I move back to Nashville, ESL).
MomSense
@bemused senior:
Keep Top Eye Open – just as relevant now as it was when it was first used by abolitionists in Boston who were protecting fugitive slaves.
Amir Khalid
@BC in Illinois:
I too remember Quark. I liked it; it was, pardon the pun, pure cheesy lowbrow comedy. Radio TV Malaysia bought a lot of oddball shows back then; a show with less than a full season of episodes would have come at a bargain price.
The Golux
@Ken:
@Drdavechemist:
@Kirk Spencer:
@Immanentize:
Thanks to each of you. I should have thought of each point you made!
Adam C
@Dorothy A. Winsor: My thought too. WTF did Lee do that was “heroic”?
J R in WV
@Steeplejack:
Well, not crazy based upon your weather report bug… rest of universe still out for discussion~!~ ;~)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Woodrow/asim: I got the impression that for most of the North the attitude was “we’re fine, as long as the slaves are in the south” and what had them pissed was the South was trying to inflict slavery on their states threw Dred Scott, and then this shaky and slow enlightenment in their thinking. Apparently the black soldiers made a huge impression on the Northern vets because for most of them they were the first blacks they had seen outside a minstrel show.
Uncle Cosmo
Describes my people (Italian-Americans) to a T. Spat on & shat on in my parents’ lifetimes as greasy swarthy anarchists and crooks, godfathered into whiteness after WW2, happy, nay, eager to yank the ladder up behind them for any other group.
And that ought to be a lesson for all of yinz who imagine that registering lots of Latinx & getting them to the polls will necessarily cement a Democratic majority. That ethnicity is culturally and religiously conservative, familiar with survival in failed and failing authoritarian banana republics, and riven in a dozen ways by nation of origin, socioeconomic status, and degree of European ancestry. It’s not for nothing that W and Jed were trying to broker a deal on immigration – they saw the potential for assuring a permanent GOP majority.
(Don’t believe me? Consider the disturbing frequency of Hispanic surnames [& those with Hispanic mothers, e.g. George P Bush] associated with RWNJ/protofascist activities, and reconsider.)
Steeplejack
@J R in WV:
Touché! ?
mrmoshpotato
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
We need to know some scenarios.
rikyrah
@NeenerNeener:
I.was happy to get the email from HR. The deadline is October 15.
Get the shot or get another job.
rikyrah
@brendancalling:
Congratulations?
J R in WV
@The Golux:
@lashonharangue:
Plus not all orbits are circular; a very high-speed orbit that is highly elliptical could cross a much slower circular orbit at a very high rate of speed compared to the slower object.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah:
“Jab or Job…Your Choice!” sounds like a winning slogan to me.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@mrmoshpotato: There is a whole genre of East Asian period gay romances that the Chines were making movies out of, and now the Chines Communist are throwing a fit over. Less Bodice Ripper and more Hanfu rippers from what I gather. I assume a lot of “I could see in Master Sung’s eye that he was not one to allow Confusus to limit his behavior”
Suzanne
If you haven’t read this, you should.
OH MY FUCKING GOD, GET THE FUCKING VACCINE ALREADY, YOU FUCKING FUCKS
Eunicecycle
@Suzanne: I think I need a cigarette after that. And I don’t smoke.
laura
@brendancalling: great job and good news! I hope that you can join the union. Check with your HR and see if/when you are offered a full time credentialed position if your prior service is creditable for vesting in the pension (many public employers will credit prior service so long as there is no break in service).
Jerzy Russian
@Suzanne: That was Fucking Wonderful.
Emma from Miami
@Nelle:Give your husband a bunch of hugs and his favorite meal from me. He is a legend!
PAM Dirac
@Chief Oshkosh:
I worked at NIH during this time. The cleaning staff were federal employees, so as you say, were considered to be insufficiently taken advantage of. Cue the miraculous advantages of the private sector. Cleaning services were contracted out and of course the job creators were looking to hire the most desperate people they could find to maximize the exploitation. Unfortunately most of them had never worked in a lab before. Little training and little oversight led to many, many problems with radioactive and biological waste ending up in the regular trash. I would be shocked if any federal money was saved, but more money went to the important people and little people were made to suffer, so I guess it was a big success.
Woodrow/asim
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Those were reasons, yet I would contend they were reasons more from the Northern leadership, and not the only reason.
A contrast: when you read the succession documents around the War, each state seems to roll up to “This state loves slavery, and here’s 20 other things that tick us off about the North.” So, too, are there a diversity of opinions in the North on the War — both why there is one, and what its goals should be. But the vast majority of Northern opinion, both on high and the fairly new “on the ground” research I’ve seen, rolled up to “stop those ijiots from leaving the Union” as the critical, central thought.
It’s certainly what Lincoln led with, as one key example.
That said — they recognized the South left because of slavery. You’re right they didn’t care much for having slavery imposed upon them. But keep in mind — it wasn’t until the South fired upon still-Federal land that this War actually began. Firing on Fort Sumter made all the words and paper and planning spilled on succession real, and concrete, and I content that this is what the North was reacting to. Everything prior to that, from the Northern perspective, was the South posturing for yet another in the long series of compromises worked out, up until that point.
Soprano2
Thanks for the information, that’s exactly what we are doing. I know for sure he’s gotten used to being fed. :-) We’ve gotten our most cat-friendly dog used to him, and him used to the dog; now this dog can come onto our front porch and sniff him, and everyone is OK with it. As for sticking around the house, Killer has pretty much done that since he came back. He spends a lot of time in the little house my husband built for him; I think it makes him feel secure to be in there. I’m really hoping we can bring him inside by sometime in October. When we have the front door open he looks in there, and seems curious, but has only tried to come in a time or two, and he quickly runs out. A lot depends on how fast we can get our other dog used to him; that’s the dog who, until a couple of years ago, had never lived in a house with a cat, and thought cats were something you chase! He’s mellowed a lot in the past two years, though.
Soprano2
My husband would highly approve of this; it’s the kind of thing he would definitely do. Assholes, I worked for people like that, haven’t we all?
Soprano2
My sister died in 2012, and all her info is still in my phone, and I doubt I’ll ever delete it. I think this is a universal thing.
Geminid
@Woodrow/asim: The attack on Ft. Sumter was a key moment in Virginia’s seccession. A state convention had been debating the question for some weeks. When Ft. Sumter was captured and Lincoln called for 100,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion, the Virginia Convention rejected Lincoln’s call on an 85 to 55 vote. Then a vote was taken on seccession. It passed 85 to 55.
Virginia Congressman Roger Pryor had gone to Charleston to persuade the South Carolinians to “strike the first blow.” But when Pryor was offered the honor of firing the first shot, he shrank from the task. Another Virginian, agronomist Edmund Ruffin, stepped up and fired the cannon. After the Confederacy fell in 1865, Ruffin killed himself
North Carolina Governor Zebulon Vance took a different view after the Confederate armies surrendered. He wrote in his diary, “Thus ends the Rebellion. The people were never for it, only the politicians and the newspapers.” North Carolina had been the last state to secede.
The Mugster
@Taken4Granite: Excellent point, and one that can be easily checked by @Steeplejack at darksky.net/forecast/. Just type in a zip code (or full address) and it will ID your nearest weather station, which may of course be different by a few miles from where your phone is located.
Just Chuck
@WereBear:
Heroic perhaps not, but I haven’t read anything to refute that he was indeed a brilliant strategist. At least until Pickett’s Charge.
Kirk Spencer
@Just Chuck: He locked into the idea that all they needed to do was capture DC and victory would be theirs. The result was a series of probably futile operational campaigns that bled men and materiel without success.
He was brilliant at grand tactics and very good at operations. Strategy, not so much
Geminid
@Just Chuck: Lee’s reputation was earned facing poor Union generals. His “most brilliant victory” at Chancellorsville was made possible by the collapse of Joe Hooker’s moral courage. Even then, the number of Condederate soldiers killed was greater than that of the U.S forces he defeated. And aside from it’s effect on Northern civilian morale, the battle bore no fruit.
Lee’s aggressive tactics led to irreplacable losses at Gettysburg, a battle that Lee mismanaged from beginning to end. While Lee himself inspired loyalty among his commanders and troops, jealousy and rancor between his generals created problems Lee’s minimal staff could not resolve.
Lee was able to intimidate his opponents until Ulysses Grant was made the Union’s commander in chief, and then supervised Meade’s Army of the Potomac. British historian W. B. Fuller considered the Lee’s generalship in the “Overland Campaign” to be his best. But there Lee had to fight defensively.
While Lee carried enormous prestige among the South’s civilians, the reputation he earned in “Lost Cause” history was overblown.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
All I can say is DAMN. Now that’s a sales pitch. I doubt it will be all that successful at getting people vaccinated but even it only gets one person to get the shot(s) it would still be worth reading, if only to practice the one english word which seems to known around the world.