It has taken me a while to get this done as my computer is acting up — switching pages, freezing etc — and I know it was not my Annie trying to help. It has been pouring rain all day, and I mean pouring! So without further adieu, let’s get this show on the road!
Jig Zone Puzzle
Today’s took me 4:24 (average 4:38). To do it, click here. (This link will automatically open to a new page.) How did you do? In defence of my time, this blinkity blank computer was playing games. Arrggghhhh!!!!!
Short Takes
YouTube — Trump’s Weir Lie About Raking in Finland: A Closer Look
You have to hand it to Trump, he sure does know how to lie and make himself look like the global village idiot! There is only one problem, there are also approximately 61 million American voters who voted for him and they are all in the category of village idiots on the world stage.
Canadian Press — Five hundred cows, two luxury cars, $10,000, two bikes, a boat and a few cellphones made up the final price in a heated bidding war for a child bride in South Sudan that went viral after the auction was pointed out on Facebook. It is the largest dowry ever paid in the civil war-torn country, the government said.
The highest bidder was a man three times the 17-year-old’s age. At least four other men in Eastern Lakes state competed, said Philips Anyang Ngong, a human rights lawyer who tried to stop the bidding last month. Among the bidders was the state’s deputy governor.
“She has been reduced to a mere commodity,” Ngong told The Associated Press, calling it “the biggest test of child abuse, trafficking and auctioning of a human being.” Everyone involved should be held accountable, he said. …
“You can’t call it bidding as if it was an auction. It’s not bidding. If you see it with European eyes you’ll call it an auction,” government spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny told the AP. “You have to see it with an African eye, as it’s a tradition that goes back thousands of years. There’s no word for it in English.”
I disagree with Ateny — this is an auction. This is slavery, no different than the slave markets in the US South from previous centuries. And with girls as young as 10, this is child abuse! Tradition be damned in this case and others like it! Child marriage with dowries occurs in a number of countries including Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. WHO says there are 39,000 child marriages every day . . . EVERY DAY!!! Check out some more statistics at World Economic Forum. But of perhaps greater concern to me is that this all occurred on Facebook which was very slow to react. We know that Trump values money over people, and now we know Facebook does too.
Insider — Utqiaġvik, the northernmost city in the US, had its last sunrise on Sunday, November 18. Utqiaġvik, the northernmost city in the US, had its last sunrise on Sunday, November 18.
Previously known as Barrow, this Alaskan city won’t see the sun again for 65 days. The next sunrise will appear on January 23. …
Located 330 miles above the Arctic Circle, Utqiaġvik won’t be plunged into complete darkness for the next two months. Instead, it will experience “civil twilight,” which happens when the sun is six degrees below the horizon and creates a little illumination to see things outside. Civil twilight lasts for six hours per night, but it will decrease to three hours per night by the end of December.
Click through for a picture of what daytime looks like at 1130 hours in Utqiagvik. This is referred to as “civil twilight” which lasts for about 6 hours per day, decreasing to 3 hours at the end of December. I lived in northern British Columbia and can attest to the phrase “long winter nights”, although ours were not quite as severe as we had actual sunrises and sunsets. Our shortest days were about 5 hours long and then plunged into complete darkness. In the summer however, this civil twilight would approximate the nighttime which lasted from about 2300 hours until 230 hours . . . then the sun rose again.
Cartoon — How many people remember where they were, what they were wearing and their reaction to the news that JFK was assassinated?
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
May 29, 1917 – Nov 22, 1963 (age 46)
Posted to Care2 HERE
8 Responses to “Squatch’s Open Thread 22 November 2018”
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You Tube: I was blown away by his idiotic “raking” comment, and had the sense that it was a lie to support his denial of global warming…which could not possibly have caused the fires…they only had to rake, regularly, to avoid such a blaze! Children learn to lie, in order to save face, and for him that’s about all he has, the image of him, which is growing dimmer as every single day goes by. His previous lies have painted him into so many corners that he can almost only, now, lie to protect his lies.
CP: This may be a cultural norm in some places, but that does not make it anything less than a form of slavery, supported by a hugely misogynyistic (sp?)culture. The young woman is being treated, simply, as a possession, like one of the cars offered!
Insider: Clicked through…that would take some serious getting used to. Next year we are moving the other way, of Florida. More sun, more tornadoes as well, and maybe more clout with each vote.
‘Toon: It did not come through, but, I certainly recall where I was: I had just come out of an economics class, with Prof. Varma (even recall that!) at college, heard about it in the elevator. The news was on in people’s cars, on the street!
His raking comment just shows how truly ignorant he is. Of course firefighters rake the ground — it helps to expose fires and disturb the fire fuel but Trump is too stupid to know this. I know this from CGIT (similar to Girl Guides) when we were shown how to extinguish camp fires.
Have you got your swimming gear and snorkel ready when you move to Florida? You will likely need it when the state goes underwater!
I don’t know why the picture of JFK did not come through. It was certainly on the system and showed every time I was in. Although you are not the only one who could not see it.
The one for the 22nd was 6:09 [5:01] Maybe he’ll feel pity for a poor, sick kitty and bring you one?
The one from the 23rd I did, and I saved my time but managed not to bring it with me. It was worse than yours, though. And only the first one counts.
NBC – Finland has been trolling him mercilessly over this raking business. What is scary is that people believe the craziness. (At least the lasy the toddler was pointing at WAS fat.) Seth has a good handle on the real causes.
Canada – There are children getting married all the time in the United States. Some states have not set an age of consent, let alone a minimum age for marriage.Many that have allow exceptions with parental consent. Is the age of consent and minimum age for marriage set federally in Canada, or it that up to the provinces? If so, are the provinces consistent? Are exceptions allowed? I don’t know about you, but we here need to take the logs out of our own eyes before we start talking about others.
Insider – I couldn’t live there. I wouldn’t be able to drive at all, all winter.
Cartoon – I can’t see it either, but I was home silk screening Christmas cards. In two colors, with a third added by hand. Based on the carol, “Tomorrow shall be my dancing day.” I should have been in class, but I was feeling unwell, and did not learn for another month that being home was making ir worse (pinprick gas leak.) It was years before I learned that both C. S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley had also died that day.
Ah silk screening! I learned that in high school fine arts . . . grade 11 I think. Very enjoyable! You are ambitious doing your Christmas cards that way.
As to child marriage in Canada, the short answer is:
Logs??? I think sometimes we have the whole damn tree in our eyes!
Yes, I WAS ambitious with silk screening! I only did it twice and that was more than enough.
Good answer – better than what we have – yet still not where it needs to be, I think.
Incidentally, the picture is showing for me now, but I also updated my AMD driver this morning, sp I can’t be sure whether that’s why or whether it’s something else.
Thanks for this Open Thread and working your way through it despite a unwilling computer boycotting you and a willing cat trying to help, Lynn.
NBC: So you keep an eye on Seth Meyers too, Lynn. I always like his intelligent and humorous comments on Drumpf and this one is certainly no exception. But I liked your comment best. If Drumpf is the village idiot in the eyes of the world and many in America, then the 61 million Americans that support him also fall into that category. All I can add is that those 61 million were well prepared by Republicans AND their masters by their dumbing down of America.
CP: There was little international uproar about this, wasn’t there. It was mentioned, but not stopped by first world countries. Afraid to interfere, i.e. pull the plug on internet, because it is an African “tradition”, were they? Hypocrites. Of course it is an auction on a slave market. Identical to the slave market auctions that have been held in Africa and the Middle East long after those in America stopped.
Insider: The same holds for the most northern towns/villages in Scandinavia and for the Laplanders who traditionally follow their reindeer in that region. It’s a very hard life without sunlight, leading to depression, cabin fever and a lot of domestic abuse. Light therapy may be of some help, but isn’t affordable for all. You need a lot of electricity for it, to start with.
Cartoon: I hope you don’t mind I put JFK’s picture in your article, Lynn. It wasn’t visible for one reason or another. I couldn’t get it to centre, though. Sorry.
I was not yet eight at the time, but I remember my mother getting very upset when she heard the news on the radio and I remember watching the eight o’clock news with her (my father was on a late shift), which was unusual, and which made a lasting impression on me.
I don’t mind at all but I don’t understand why the picture was not visible to some. It was certainly visible to me the next day. Likewise it was visible today so I did try to centre it. I put it in the same way I put the ‘Consent’ graphic in. Weird!!!
I was eleven in 1963 and grade 6. When we heard, it was total disbelief and a lot of tears. My teacher, Mr Daughan, scrapped his lesson plan and did some talking around JFK etc. Of course, being Canadian, it did not affect us as much, but still it was frightening that such a thing could happen in that day and age.
Thanks all.