Because caipirinhas in Brazil.
Open Thread – Life purchased at the price of chains
Via wrenchwench at Little Green Footballs, this particularly fine article by Alex Tizon is probably one that should be read in private if you don’t want to be reduced to a blubbering mess at work like me.
The ashes filled a black plastic box about the size of a toaster. It weighed three and a half pounds. I put it in a canvas tote bag and packed it in my suitcase this past July for the transpacific flight to Manila. From there I would travel by car to a rural village. When I arrived, I would hand over all that was left of the woman who had spent 56 years as a slave in my family’s household.
Her name was Eudocia Tomas Pulido. We called her Lola. She was 4 foot 11, with mocha-brown skin and almond eyes that I can still see looking into mine—my first memory. She was 18 years old when my grandfather gave her to my mother as a gift, and when my family moved to the United States, we brought her with us. No other word but slave encompassed the life she lived. Her days began before everyone else woke and ended after we went to bed. She prepared three meals a day, cleaned the house, waited on my parents, and took care of my four siblings and me. My parents never paid her, and they scolded her constantly. She wasn’t kept in leg irons, but she might as well have been. So many nights, on my way to the bathroom, I’d spot her sleeping in a corner, slumped against a mound of laundry, her fingers clutching a garment she was in the middle of folding.
Open Thread – Life purchased at the price of chainsPost + Comments (54)
A prayer for those who could not finish their prayers
From the address given by Imam Hassan Guillet at the funeral for 3 of the Quebec City mosque victims, Ibrahima Barry, Mamadou Tanou, Azzeddine Soufiane:
[ETA Gandhi’s favorite bhajan. It describes who can be called a Vaishnav JanThe society that could not protect them, the society that could not benefit from their generosity still has a chance. The hands that didn’t shake the hands of Khaled or Aboubaker or Abdelkrim or Azzedine or Mamadou or Ibrahima, that society can shake the hands of their kids.
We have 17 orphans. We have six widows. We have five wounded.
We ask Allah for them to get them out of the hospital as soon as possible.
Did I go through the complete list of victims? No.
There is one victim. None of us want talk about him.
But given my age, I have the courage to say it. This victim, his name is Alexandre Bissonnette.
Alexandre, before being a killer he was a victim himself. Before planting his bullets in the heads of his victims, somebody planted ideas more dangerous than the bullets in his head.
This little kid didn’t wake up in the morning and say ‘Hey guys instead of going to have a picnic or watching the Canadiens, I will go kill some people in the mosque.’ It doesn’t happen that way.
Day after day, week after week, month after month, certain politicians unfortunately, and certain reporters unfortunately, and certain media were poisoning our atmosphere.
We did not want to see it. We didn’t want to see it because we love this country, we love this society. We wanted our to society to be perfect. We were like parents, their kids [are] smoking or taking drugs and your neighbour says that your kid was taking drugs, I don’t believe it, my son is perfect.
We don’t want to see it. And we didn’t see it, and it happened.
or God’s person. Written in Gujarati by Narshi Mehta in the 15th century. Via commenter schrodingers_cat]
A prayer for those who could not finish their prayersPost + Comments (50)
Open thread – Someone should ask Frederick Douglass what he thinks….
Further to my earlier post, I want to note that I am not suggesting for a moment that Australia holds any high moral ground when it comes to immigration and race relations. It isn’t what anyone would call a good actor in this situation.
Its attempt to fob off a thousand refugees on America is just the latest gambit in aid of a longstanding policy of systematic, heartless abandonment of its international obligations over the last 20 years, under governments of both stripes – demonising refugees, capturing them before they enter Australian waters, and then shipping them off to concentration camps foisted upon Australia’s client states by fiat and run by profit-driven corporates, stripping desperate, endangered people of protection, agency and dignity, all while allowing most Australians to pretend the refugee problem doesn’t exist.
And this is by no means a recent phenomenon. Australians have dabbled happily in racism since the white invasion – from the odd massacre and the old blanket trick, to language tests and White Australia, up to the appropriation of an entire nation from its legally nonexistent indigenes, the ongoing poverty/health/everything else crisis amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and full scale genocide.
Still, Australians have, at the very least, avoided electing a petulant ambulatory yam as their head of state. People like Cory “man on dog” Bernadi and Pauline Pantsdown still comprise the nutty right down here, rather than the entire government, unlike some countries I could mention.
However, the lesson here is not that Australia is any better than America.
It is (as if we needed to be reminded) that, with the ascendency of the Wanker in Chief, the bedrock assumptions of our international polity are shattered, and for the next four years we’re all going to be more rooted than a five dollar hooker in a Kings Cross dunny.
Open thread – Someone should ask Frederick Douglass what he thinks….Post + Comments (66)
Crikey, what a drongo
Malcolm Turnbull may be a bit of a cock, but he’s going to come out of this looking quite good domestically, if only from sheer relief he isn’t Donald Fucking Trump. Standing up to a rich dickhead gets you a fair bit of kudos down here (even if you’re a rich dickhead with a sideline in migrant scaremongering yourself). Malcolm might be a folk hero in the line of Ned Kelly and Breaker Morant come morning.
Mark Kenny in the Sydney Morning Herald:
The corollary point is that Trump is the Mad King: volatile, vainglorious, and untrustworthy. Turnbull is right to handle him with kid gloves. …
Australian government sources confirm the Washington Post’s story is substantially correct. Trump was angry, did describe the Obama deal as the worst he’d seen, and did treat the Australian leader with contempt.
But Turnbull persisted.
Presumably someone who stood up to Margaret Thatcher, Kerry Packer, and Conrad Black has seen bravado and alpha-male bullying before.
Heroically, the government still hopes to salvage its deal over the 1250 refugees, despite equivocations and a bizarre tweet by Trump on Thursday afternoon which appears to have all but killed it off.
The pre-eminent danger now is not this precarious deal, but the risk of sustained damage to the US-Australian relationship.
Trump is now gainsaying his own private commitments, via Twitter. This is an extraordinary situation and one that is almost impossible to manage. American prestige is on the line.
World leaders be warned: Trump’s conversations are not private and his word, unreliable.
Australians take their relationship, and their long history of mateship, with America very seriously. This won’t damage that greatly long term, but I don’t think Lord Dampnut (h/t Anymouse at LGF) will be getting an invitation for a Presidential* tour of Australia any time soon.
This saddens me, because I was looking forward to seeing Australians welcome Trump. The protest signs would have been epic. And I might have had the chance to sneak a funnel web spider into the reception and drop it down Donald’s pants. Those things are fucking terrifying.
Open Thread
Miss you – Gabrielle Aplin
Lying to You – Goldroom
Bring on the Presidential* tweetstorm
The federal court for the Eastern District of New York has officially issued an emergency stay, halting President Donald Trump’s executive order banning immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S, The Verge reported Saturday.
The court ruled on a habeas corpus petition filed by the ACLU on behalf of two Iraqi men who were detained at JFK airport Saturday following Trump’s ban. Both men, Hameed Khalid Darweesh and Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshaw have been granted entry to the United States since.
Acting-President Bannon is going to be pissed.
ETA: As a couple of commenters have noted, this stay of the EO is limited to a certain class of individuals and is just the start of the fight, but it’s good news. At least it gives the brave people who are at airports fighting this a solid basis to demand that Dolt 45’s orders stop being enforced here and now.
Open Thread – Poking the beast
Our requests are eminently reasonable, shared by leaders of both parties. I'll return this letter to @SenateMajLdr with the same requests. pic.twitter.com/IMT7ZtJFjV
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) January 9, 2017
Open Thread – Music and Dog
Pedro is on guard defending me from the vacuum cleaner of doom.
Obstructionist Open Thread
p.a. says:
November 12, 2016 at 10:36 pm (Edit)
We have to be hard. They are now beyond ‘usual evil’ (h/t Dumbledore). We can’t do anything to soften their incompetence. Total noncooperation. The Constitution and the progress of the last several generations is at stake. If their supporters can’t learn (and they can’t) they have to be kicked back into apathy. And yes it sucks; lots of people will be hurt.It would be lovely to ask for legislative quid pro quos, but without the SC it’s all smoke and mirrors.
mai naem mobile says:
November 12, 2016 at 10:36 pm (Edit)
The way to fight the GOP in Congress is to ask for something that you know they aren’t going to give you. Something that is popular and polls well. $15 minimum wage, mandatory paid leave, universal pre-K, therapy animals for vets… whatever It has to be something the GOP isn’t offering on that legislation. It has to be your idea and it has to be ridiculously expensive for their business supporters that you won’t get it. No compromise. It gives you an excuse to vote against the legislation and you can sit there and say that the GOP is indeed against puppies and kittens.
So this. This is what I mean by obstruction.
Don’t work with the Republicans to make crappy laws they and the media will spend the next four years and three elections blaming on our side because we voted for them.
We have a really good Democratic Party platform we worked out a couple of months ago for… some unknown reason. Over half the voters at the last election voted for that platform, so our representatives in Congress should demand that our policies – guaranteed college for all, climate controls, minimum wage, abortion rights, as well as mai naem’s list, be considered and debated in Congress. Every single Democratic elected representative should plot and scheme and finagle and barge their way onto the media and into the offices of Republicans everywhere, and demand our policies be debated here and now.
Yes, most, if not all, of our demands will get knocked on the head, but our reps would have stood up and argued for what is right, and been seen repeatedly and publicly doing so.
This government is going to be brutal. Millions of people are going to get hurt, whether the Democrats fight, or cravenly participate in the evisceration of Obamacare, of gay marriage, of women’s right to make choices about their own bodies.
And while I’m at it – call those things by the names the wing nuts have taken from us and take them back – we want Obamacare to survive because it is one of the proudest accomplishments of our President, President Obama. We want gay marriage to survive because it is right. We want women to keep the right to, yes, have an abortion.
Let us own what our side has done to better this nation.
Let them own what they do to destroy it.
Saturday Evening Open Thread
TS says:
November 12, 2016 at 8:28 am (Edit)2008 – Republicans lost the house, the senate and the presidency – they then proceed to impede in any way possible (with the help of a few dems) anything that the President tried to do. They stated it was their goal and they voted 100% in unison. The Media helped them with their non stop attacks on the new President – and the support of the birthers.
Democrats now need to stop talking about why and how & who won the vote and what is wrong with the electoral college & who should lead the party & how they can attract the undesirables. Democrats should be working as a united group to impede each and every thing this government wants to do. Don’t assume they can just “do it” – didn’t work that way in 2009/10.
This lot have NO idea what the President does – nor how he does it. Time to work non stop to show them up every hour of every day.
WereBear says:
November 12, 2016 at 9:46 am (Edit)@Enhanced Voting Techniques: What are Republicans? CUT TAXES AND SERVICES.
What are Democrats? TAKE CARE OF PEOPLE.
There. Done. You’re welcome.
New tag: Election 2018. Should get a lot of use, I suspect.
Artists In Our Midst
As promised, herewith your Artists In Our Midst thread.
If you are any kind of creator – artist, writer, blogger, photographer, musician, inventor, designer, sex toy entrepreneur, gardener, whatever – professional or otherwise, and you want to give yourself or your stuff a plug, please do so.
If you’re not and you know someone who is, get in a plug for them, or ask one of our talented creators to make you something you never thought you wanted, but which would bring a bit of joy into your life.
Don’t forget our Balloon Jobs thread. There are all sorts of clever people who might be perfect for your business, and all sorts of job opportunities and suggestions on offer.
My plug is for the Etsy shop of linocutboy, whose work is just lovely, and includes the magnificent big bunny above.
Balloon Jobs
In the aftermath of The Shittiest Tuesday Ever, two comments struck me most.
In the first, someone noted that now, more than ever, besides setting up the circular firing squads, the thing we most need to focus on is our communities, on protecting and preserving what we have and helping those who are going to be fucked over in the next four or eight years (just like Alain and some of you others are already trying to reach out to those in our community who are afraid in these uncertain days).
The second was Doug!’s reminder that this community – this strange collection of oddballs, weirdos and freaks that we have collectively created – first came into its own the last time our lives and our liberties were under threat from the White House.
I’ve been slack in my involvement in Balloon Juice, but it’s time for that to stop. But what can I do here anyway? Post music, swear a lot, write the odd stupid story to maybe make you laugh, and things like this Jobs thread. It’s not much, but if I can’t be there on the ground working with you right now (being on the other side of the world), perhaps it’s a good start.
This is a Balloon Jobs Thread – If you are looking for work, or looking for someone to work for you, or you know of any work opportunities, please post. This is a firing squad free zone.
There will be an Artists in Our Midst thread later in the weekend as well.
Thank you to all of you for putting up with me and getting me through the last few days.
I love you all (well, almost all of you – you know who you are).
Sarah
Music Open Thread
I just can’t right now, so I’m going with music
Late Night Open Music and Nothing to do with the Election Thread
Hello kiddies… are we all enjoying day three million of the 2016 election campaign?
I’m distracting myself from refreshing PEC just one more time by listening to the big, beautiful and very sexy Lizzo, while baking laxative-laced treats for the Trump campaign after party.
What’s keeping you sane? (I know, there are some fundamental assumptions there that may not be justified)
Late Night Open Music and Nothing to do with the Election ThreadPost + Comments (137)