It’s another real scorcher. When I arose at 4:00 AM to heed nature’s call, the temperature in the buildings hallways and rest rooms was still 92°. When I took my shower, a bit later, I was sweating, before I was dry. I cannot cook on the stovetop, because I cannot open the door to keep cooking fumes from setting off the smoke detector, because super-hot hallway air floods my apartment when I do. That is why extreme heat is such a problem for me, even with A/C in the apartment. Today’s high is forecast at 95°. ARGH!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:42 (average 8:31). To do it click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From The New Yorker: Presidential candidate Donald Trump revealed a little-known episode of personal heroism from his youth on Saturday, telling an Iowa audience that he narrowly avoided capture in Vietnam by remaining in the United States for the duration of the war.
“The Cong were after me,” Trump said, visibly stirred by the memory. “And then, just in the nick of time, I got my deferment.”
The former reality-show star said he had never shared his record as a war hero before because “I don’t like to boast.”
He said that he only disclosed the episode now because “the way this nation treats our deferment veterans is a disgrace.”
Trump complained that he received no official commendation or medal for his heroism, calling the lack of recognition “shameful.”
Andy May have missed the point. It would have been heroic, if Hairball had been captured. If he had, Vietnam would have released all prisoners much sooner, just to get rid of him too.
From NY Times: A group of protesters repeatedly confronted Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland during a town hall discussion with liberal activists here on Saturday, demanding the Democratic presidential candidates address issues like discrimination and police brutality.
Chanting, “What side are you on, my people, what side are you on?” and “Black lives matter,” the demonstrators moved to the front of the ballroom about 20 minutes into the event as Mr. O’Malley discussed proposed changes to Social Security. They remained there, heckling the candidates and posing questions, until organizers shut down the event, one of the centerpieces of the annual Netroots Nation conference.
The protesters included members of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration and GetEqual, as well as Patrisse Cullors, a founder of the Black Lives Matter movement. A representative of the demonstrators took the stage to inform the event’s audience of what was happening, specifically that they were seeking policy proposals from the candidates on racial issues.
Both Sanders and O’Malley tried to answer the protesters, but the demonstrators prevented any discussion that was not related to their issue. While I fully agree that racial issues are very important, and we need to address them, they are not the only issues we face. While I fully agree that black lives matter, I’d like to think that even though I’m not black, my life matters too. Speaking as an activist that started organizing and demonstrating for civil rights in the 1960s, I cannot support people and organizations, whose behavior is what I would expect from the Tea Party. I remain an activist in support of equality for ALL.
From Daily Kos (classic 10/2013): Judd Legum, editor-in-chief of Think Progress, provided the perfect illustration of what it means to Republicans when they demand "compromise" from Democrats:
Nothing has changed since.
Cartoon:
25 Responses to “Open Thread–7/19/2015”
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5:39 (average 8:31[!]) The breed may be, but the puzzle didn't seem "always eager to please."
Do you have a microwave that will run without setting off the smoke alarm? If not, it does sound like cold cereal, deli, and salads are not just on the menu, they are the menu.
New Yorker – Pure Donald. No wonder he's the front runner.
NY Times – If I were black, I might well feel that racism is the only issue. Yes, your life matters, TC, so does mine – but ours have always mattered. That is why blacks feel that whites or any other group who respond to "Black lives matter" with "All lives matter" are missing the point. (Suppose a penny said, "Pennies matter," and a hundred dollar bill responded "All money matters.") I do agree that a candidate who is willing to answer the question "What are you going to do?" should be allowed to do so without interruption. But I can sympathize with, I can practically feel, the frustration.
Daily Kos – Loved it then, love it now. I think there has been one slight change – in the quoted dialogue, the Republican appears to be trying to act as if the proposals were reasonable. I think they have abandoned that.
Cartoon – Republicans, of course, wear their trousers on their heads. Or at least, over their heads. Certainly, covering their heads.
I agree with you, Joanne, the frustration of the protesters at the town-hall meeting is almost palpable from the article. I can understand their need to protest too.
Yeppers! TC, it’s a SCORCHER! And just as soon as you get thru with that heat, it comes my way! And vice versa! Geez! We gotta get to a COOLER season!
That tweet from Judd Legum is true ever more, NOW!
Andy was sublime!
3:16 Cute doggy!
3:43 I stopped to pet the dog. (I think there is something wrong with the average time.)
2:48 I can smell that "wet dog smell" from here! Very homely looking in a comfotable kind of way!
Dang! That dawg was my lunch!
I'm with Joanne on the Netroots one TC. There was a post a few days ago which asked that whites read it at least twice before commenting about why the author didn't discuss racism with whites. Marian Edelman sent out a powerful piece and video about the rage being appropriate yet needing to teach how to control and direct it-a lesson those with white privilege may never need to learn. O'Malley said he would release his policy proposal on it soon (he has done some very detailed and specific policy releases on other subjects). His entry into politics was as a prosecutor in the era when both DEM and GOP candidates usually included tough on crime as a portion of their profile. I hope Bernie does likewise (not sure whether or not he made that promise).
AB captures the Trump absurdity well as does Legum on GOP compromise.
Microwaves and toaster ovens use less energy than stovetops and ovens for most types of cooking. I usually try to cook a batch or two of something and freeze it in serving sizes in the spring to reheat in the microwave in the summertime.
Thanks, JL. I saw both of those pieces and a few others. These situations are not easy calls.
You are clever to freeze in the spring for summer. I tend to freeze for fall and winter because I like cold stuff in summer – but a frozen meal is easier even than that, and if you made it yourself, you know what's in it. BTW, did you notice I forgot sandwiches? Being allergic to wheat, one avoids bread, so it just didn't occur to me LOL
I'm glad you saw them Joanne. My friends who need to be gluten free are finding more and more breads without wheat (or the other grains with gluten besides wheat). They do tend to cost a bit more.
You're welcome Joanne. The nature of protest has always been to chose a when and where that should force a response from those you want to do something; thus the protest choice makes perfect sense to me.
Neither candidate was there with a position or policy to address their concern despite it being a part of the national conversation for more than the year since Garner died.
If my biggest concern was getting home without being killed for no good reason, policies that do not address that concern would be irrelevant to me m like if they required me to manage to live despite the high risk on my own without policies to help in order to have them help me.
Puzzle — 2:48 I can smell that "wet dog smell" from here! Very homely looking in a comfortable kind of way!
The New Yorker — "“The Cong were after me,” Trump said" Andy has captured the narcissistic fool's true self. Such a bloviating cretin! With Trump around, the primaries feel like such a long way off,
NY Times — Not only do other issues matter, but other issues also affect African Americans as well as Latinos, Asians, whites. Disrupting a gathering like that does not garner respect nor support.
Daily Kos — "Nothing has changed since." — Sadly, you're correct. If anything, they're more intractable than ever . . . to the point of being totally blind.
Cartoon — I certainly knew what they were but had no idea of the history. No wonder Republicanus/Teabaggerum don't like them! It is what they represent. Here is a bit from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomers_(clothing)
"Fashion bloomers (skirted)
Also called the "Turkish dress", "American dress", or simply "reform dress", bloomers were an innovation of readers of the Water-Cure Journal, a popular health periodical that in October 1849 began urging women to develop a style of dress that was not so harmful to their health as the current fashion. It also represented an unrestricted movement, unprecedented by previous women's fashions, that allowed for greater freedom—both metaphorical and physical—within the public sphere. The fashionable dress of that time consisted of a skirt that dragged several inches on the floor, worn over layers of starched petticoats stiffened with straw or horsehair sewn into the hems. In addition to the heavy skirts, prevailing fashion called for a "long waist" effect, achieved with a whale-bone-fitted corset that pushed the wearer’s internal organs out of their normal place. The result was a feminine population which, as one medical professor warned his students, was of no use as cadavers from which to study human anatomy.
Women responded with a variety of costumes, many inspired by the pantaloons of Turkey, and all including some form of pants. By the summer of 1850, various versions of a short skirt and trousers, or "Turkish dress", were being worn by readers of the Water-Cure Journal as well as women patients at the nation’s health resorts. After wearing the style in private, some began wearing it in public. In the winter and spring of 1851, newspapers across the country carried startled sightings of the dresses.
Bloomer craze of 1851
In February 1851, Elizabeth Smith Miller of Peterboro, New York wore the "Turkish dress" to Seneca Falls, New York, home of Amelia Bloomer and her temperance journal, The Lily. The next month Bloomer announced to her readers that she had adopted the dress and, in response to many inquiries, printed a description of her dress and instructions on how to make it. By June many newspapers had dubbed it the "Bloomer dress".
During the summer of 1851, the nation was seized by a "bloomer craze". Health reformer Mary Gove Nichols drafted a Declaration of Independence from the Despotism of Parisian Fashion and gathered signatures to it at lectures on woman’s dress. Managers of the textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts, gave a banquet for any of their female workers who adopted the safer dress before July 4. In Toledo, Ohio, sixty women turned out in Turkish costume at one of the city’s grandest social events. Bloomer balls and bloomer picnics were held; dress reform societies and bloomer institutes were formed.A grand festival in favor of the costume was held at New York City’s Broadway Tabernacle in September.[10] In August, a woman who had spent six months sailing from Philadelphia around the Horn to California with the reform dress packed in her trunk disembarked to find that the dress had preceded her and was being displayed in the window of a San Francisco dress shop. Interest was sparked in England when Hannah Tracy Cutler and other women delegates wore the new dress to an international peace convention in London. "
If their issue were our own issue that the candidates were not talking about, would you applaud them? Just food for thought…
I am proud of those women!
I agree Edie–and I am proud of anyone willing to speak up for themselves and their own issues–silence is so complicit.
Well, there you go. I have known for a long time that women were under-represented in medical research (probably most people here have), It never occurred to me that the start of that may have been because their clothing made them such poor medical specimens. Bit – hey, researchers! We don't dress like that any more! Study us, willya?
Wow, it was only 92 here today, can't believe you are getting so much wicked weather,Oregon is not supposed to be that hot. Your smoke detector must need to be replaced if cooking sets it off. Sorry you are having so many problems.
The New Yorker: Trump would not be above saying what Andy has said, he should ask Dubya to join him, since he used the National Guard to stay out of Viet Nam.
NY Times: I agree with you, TC. All lives matter, but the protestors should have given Sanders and O'Malley a chance to answer. Do you suppose they were Republican trolls?
Daily Kos: This is a perfect description of Republican compromise.
Cartoon: Love it. They would prefer that women have NO rights.
What can I say with such scorching heat day after day; "keep your cool" will probably make you lose it, TomCat. With weather like that it's probably best to eat cold food like salads, but even the basics of these (pasta, potato) need to be prepared (i.e. cooked) at one time or another. Is there a way to temporarily foul up your smoke detector? You should have an extraction fan above your cooking top, but you haven't now so that's no use either. I feel for you, TomCat, because you need to eat regularly, I know. Keeping my fingers crossed that the heat will subside soon.
The New Yorker: Comedians like Andy are living through golden times with Donald in the race and who lost any restraint he might have had in the past. It's almost too easy to be satirical these days. No wonder Jon Stuart was biting his fist when Donald said he would run. He must have seriously reconsidered retirement at this point in time.
NY Times: The protesters may have a point in that Democratic candidates have not said much on the issue until now, and although it'll never be the center piece of Bernie's social-democratic agenda, he should perhaps pay a little more attention to these votes that are really going to matter in the end. The behavior of these protesters however didn't seem to be focused on getting the racial issue on the agenda of the candidates as much as protesting per se, making their point ony, prevent anyone from saying anything at all about it and finally having the meeting shut down because of their persistence. Not a very constructive way of behaving at all,but it seems to become the only way in American politics rapidly.
Daily Kos: It was funny AND true in 2013, and it's still funny AND true in 2015. And that makes it sad but true.
Thanks all. I do use my microwave for quick heats.
In the demonstrators, I guess I'm just old fashioned. My civil disovedience technique was honed by MLK during Vietnam Summer, and he taught us that, even while disobeying authority, failure to treat opponants with respect defreated the purpose of the disobedience, because it shifts focus from the issue to the behavior. It would serve the demonstrators well to learn from the man who has done more than any other to advance civil rights.
Please remember that no action took place until white pastors joined MLK and were at risk of the violence police and others subjected the protestors to; there has been a year+ of mostly peaceful protests yet these politicians were not prepared to address the concern and issue, demonstrating it is not currently effective.
Perhaps this Daily Kos explains it better than I did:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/19/1403596/-About-the-blacklivesmatter-Protest-at-Netroots-Nation?detail=email
Great article. I have shortcutted it (if that's a word.)
See today's lead article for a better way.
re.Bridge collapse in California(afterpassing inspection.)"Infrastructure?'What,s that!.?.
Just what is it going to take to get through to the Repugs? a massive disaster? ,I guess "Wise after the event MIGHT do it!
Daily Kos explains it again today:
Dear Progressives: You Have a Tone Deaf Issue *Update*
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/19/1403677/-Dear-Progressives-You-Have-a-Tone-Deaf-Issue?detail=email