Advent Week 1: Got Yer Stollen Election Right Here, Bub

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[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

We’re already deep into the holiday season, barreling toward the winter solstice and the darkest part of the night for the northern hemisphere.

Some of us observed Diwali, the five-day Hindu festival of lights which began on November 12.

Some of us observed Thanksgiving a week ago this past Thursday – and before that, in Canada on Monday, October 9.

Ahead of us lies Hanukkah beginning this coming Thursday, December 7, the last candle to be lighted on December 15.

Christmas falls on Monday, December 25 with the winter solstice before it on December 21.

Boxing Day on the 26th coincides with the beginning of Kwanzaa, the end of which coincides with New Year’s Day – seven days, seven candles marking the principles of Kwanzaa in between.

Busy, busy, busy between now and the end of the year setting things alight to stave off the darkness.

This year’s Christian observation of Advent – the four Sundays marking the time until Christmas – will be very short since Christmas is observed the Monday immediately following the last Sunday of Advent. As a child my Catholic family observed Advent with calendars marking down the days and a candle-decked wreath lit each night at dinner as one of us kids would recite an Advent prayer.

A short advent like this meant my youngest sibling would get the full benefit of the shortest week. They’d only have to recite their prayer once whereas the other three siblings would have to do the entire week at dinner each night, lighting a respective number of candles on the wreath counting down the weeks.

I disliked being first as the oldest child because it meant the first candle lit would be the shortest by Christmas. If only life was as simple as that, if my only annoyance was a stubby guttering candle.

If I’d known more then about all the holidays during which candles and lamps were lighted, I would have committed to bonfires from the end of October to New Year’s Day.

~ ~ ~

Speaking of burnt offerings, I’m going to turn up the heat.

I’m sick and tired, utterly fed up with that orange-tinted fiberglass-haired scofflaw’s continued Big Lie about the 2020 election.

It’s been more than three years since Donald Trump lost the popular vote and weeks shy of three years since he and his conspirators whipped up an insurrection to obstruct the House’s electoral vote count.

And yet he just won’t stop cramming his Big Lie in every too-willing journalistic orifice he can reach. As recently as this past Tuesday by way of his feckless lawyers on a fishing expedition he demanded materials from active criminal investigations to support his Big Lie.

Less than three weeks ago Trump’s Big Lie bullshit was amplified by that hack House Speaker Mike Johnson who tossed his Christian beliefs aside to kneel and kiss the ring of his GOP grift master:

Asked about Trump’s efforts to challenge his loss in 2020 — including recent reporting in which his former allies said Trump planned to refuse to leave his office — Johnson was unwavering.

“It can’t be about personalities, it’s got to be about policies and principles,” Johnson said, arguing that Trump’s were superior to Biden’s.

Asked again about Trump’s frequent, false claims that the election was stolen through widespread fraud, Johnson said, “I take him at his word, I do believe that he believes that.”

Pressed on Trump’s well-documented airing of lies and misleading statements, Johnson said, “There are a lot of people in Washington who say things that are not accurate all the time.”

But he maintained that Trump’s views about the 2020 election results are “deep in his heart.”

“He just felt like he was cheated in that election,” Johnson said, “and I think that’s a core conviction of his.”

That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works in a democracy. Johnson is wholly unqualified to represent his constituents because he thinks the outcome of voting is voided by a single man’s “policies and principles” – which in Trump’s case are jokes because he has no principles or policies except propping up his ego and assets.

If it’s the season to bring light to darkness and make the season bright, let’s torch his Big Lie.

~ ~ ~

To that end we’re going to have a stollen election this Advent season – a start on Festivus for the Rest of Us who reject the Big Lie and enjoy baked goods.

Your challenge should you choose to accept it:

– Find a baked holiday bread or cake which must include dried or candied fruit in the dough/batter. By find I mean locate a recipe;

– Share the recipe you want to see made, or are going to make in this month’s Advent posts;

– Find a baked holiday bread or cake containing dried or candied fruit which you have bought in the past or are going to buy this year to enjoy at home or share as a gift with friends;

– Share details about the source or the baker from whom you’ve purchased this baked treat;

– Tell us about any background behind this baked good whether you’ve made it, are going to make it, are going to buy it, have bought it in the past.

Links to photos and recipes are greatly appreciated though you should note that links may take time to clear moderation.

The last weekend of Advent we’ll revisit these panettone, babka, fruit cake, panetón, christopsomo, pan de natale – whatever your cultural heritage calls it – we’ll vote on one which sounds the most delicious and appealing.

Let’s light a candle and let the stollen election begin!

~ ~ ~

This is an open thread.

Sandra Day

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Sandra Day O’Connor has passed away. Don’t let anyone spoof you, she was one of the nicest, brightest and best people you could ever hope to meet. Gracious is not enough of a word to describe her. She went from the smartest girl in the room at Stanford Law to not being able to get a job because they were all helmed by men. From the NYT and Greenhouse:

“During a crucial period in American law — when abortion, affirmative action, sex discrimination and voting rights were on the docket — she was the most powerful woman in the country.
…
Very little could happen without Justice O’Connor’s support when it came to the polarizing issues on the court’s docket, and the law regarding affirmative action, abortion, voting rights, religion, federalism, sex discrimination and other hot-button subjects was basically what Sandra Day O’Connor thought it should be.

That the middle ground she looked for tended to be the public’s preferred place as well was no coincidence, given the close attention Justice O’Connor paid to current events and the public mood. “Rare indeed is the legal victory — in court or legislature — that is not a careful byproduct of an emerging social consensus,” she wrote in “The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice,” a collection of her essays published in 2003.
…
The idea seemed so novel that Ronald Reagan’s promise during his 1980 presidential campaign made front-page news. Only two years before that, a Broadway comedy, “First Monday in October,” featured a conservative female Supreme Court justice, and the very idea was played for laughs. When life imitated art on July 7, 1981, Paramount moved up the release date of the movie version of the play by five months, releasing it in August. Ultimately, of course, it was Sandra O’Connor who had the last laugh.

Sandra Day O’Connor was one of the good people in life, as was her too early departed husband John. Print and visual media will tell you the obvious, good and bad. I’ll tell you something different.

Long ago, one of her sons was kind of a friend. He lived in their house while she was mostly away in Washington. There was a raging party at said house, and there was a long line of girls at the main bathrooms. So I, ahem, went outside by the side of the house. As one does.

After finishing business, I walked out toward the front. Where there was suddenly some kind of black car/limo. It was Sandra Day. She came home early. During the party!

I helped her with her luggage and then asked a freaking sitting member of SCOTUS, if there was anything else I could do?

The response was: ‘Can you get me a beer”? So I could and did. Discussion with Sandra Day was incredible for the rest of the night.

Hard to describe how wonderful she was. Saw her occasionally at the local grocery store. Always a beautiful human. So, say what you will, she was better than that, she was.

Breathing Room: Thanksgiving Day Emergency Cooking Aid

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Someone in my social media feed suggested in a few years it would be obvious artificial intelligence was to the internet what microplastics are to the environment.

Another pundit cracked wise yesterday about AI, wondering how many cooking disasters would happen today because folks relied on answers they found on the internet.

The amount of crap out there on the internet generated by AI is already dangerous. It’s not helped by the business models search engines and browsers use to elevate content.

The biggest challenges on Thanksgiving are generally about cooking a turkey. Butterball brand has answered related questions for years now and is trustworthy source because their brand is at stake – they’re committed to your positive turkey cooking experience.

But here’s the nature of the problem: if you should search Google for “Butterball turkey how to” the top result is goddamned dead bird site X.

You can’t blindly trust cooking information off X right now; there’s simply too much false information and spoofed accounts. This scenario should also tell you something about X: they spent a huge wad of cash to be the first search result instead of spending money on moderation to fight back the proliferation of crap on X.

Go directly to Butterball.com instead, double checking the URL to make sure you didn’t enter a typo.

The same goes for instructions on any brand name product – don’t search for them without first going directly to the brand’s site.

The next best alternative for information is going directly to food and cooking sites you’re already familiar with and trust – like

foodnetwork.com

bonappetit.com

allrecipes.com

whatscookingamerica.net

seriouseats.com

thekitchn.com

marthastewart.com

saveur.com.

These links are not endorsements, merely shared for ease of access and AI avoidance. One personal exception is whatscookingamerica.net — this has been my favorite site for cooking prime rib and standing rib roast. Never had a bad meal relying on their information.

~ ~ ~

If you’re one of those folks who need help today, feel free to ask in comments here if you don’t trust the results you’ve received online. The community here is pretty good at finding factual material.

I’ll offer something tried-and-true which I’ve made in volumes to keep on my shelf after forgetting to buy pumpkin pie spice mix one year but needing it at the last minute.

Pumpkin Pie Spice Mix

Per pie:

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

Sometimes I add more ginger and cloves for a spicier tasting pie.

Don’t have pumpkin pie spice mix, but also don’t have all those ingredients? Do what you can with what you have on hand, be creative. Add more vanilla to the pumpkin batter, maybe even add some finely grated lemon rind to replace the ginger.

And if your guests don’t care for the result, blame AI search results.

Then go to penzeys.com and order their pumpkin pie spice mix to restock your shelf. That’s another tried-and-true resource.

One more warning: there has been a proliferation of phishing in search engines using the same technique the dead bird site applied, only buying “sponsored” slots at the top of results pages.

As a rule I never, ever click on “sponsored” links anymore. Too many have been bought by crooks who spoof a similar-looking domain name, use nearly identical content matching real brands, and then attack folks who click on their fallacious link.

~ ~ ~

Other emergencies which may occur on Thanksgiving:

– If you are going to attend a family event at which there are persons who make you uncomfortable, plan ahead for an emergency exit. Organize an “emergency” call or text placed by a trusted friend at a specific time(s) so that you can gracefully leave before things get worse.

– Fires are the most common accident on Thanksgiving. Make sure flammable non-food items are kept clear of the stove or grill. Have a box of baking SODA (never powder) or salt for small grease fires, sprinkling the powder directly on the flames and not from the side. A pot lid may also work to suffocate small fires. Keep ready an appropriate fire extinguisher on hand though once used the cooking area will be contaminated. Better to prevent fires including avoiding overloading electrical outlets and power strips. Can’t hurt to read this overview before getting too deep in the kitchen: https://lifehacker.com/how-to-put-out-every-kind-of-kitchen-fire-1849732334

– Burns and cuts are the most common kitchen injuries on Thanksgiving Day. Make sure you have your first aid kit at hand. Go to this link for more information about treating injuries: https://www.webmd.com/first-aid/kitchen-first-aid

– Know where to take injured if the person needs more help than you can offer. What’s the closest emergency room or urgent care facility? Have you checked the route from your house for recent road construction? I mention this because a couple friends have had to drive to the ER during the last two weeks, one in the middle of the night. Thank goodness there wasn’t any impediment on the road.

– Learn unexpectedly you’ve been around someone who has COVID? Get away from them, leave closed spaces. Viral load matters; the more virus particles, the sicker you are likely to become even with a vaccine or booster, though vaccine/booster makes it far more likely you’ll have a mild to asymptomatic case. Gargle with salt water and use a saline nasal spray immediately after an unexpected exposure to reduce the amount of virus particles in your throat; saline lavage regimens have reduced illness due to COVID (see https://acaai.org/news/new-study-gargling-with-salt-water-may-help-prevent-covid-hospitalization/). And for gods’ sake wear an N95 mask in public shared spaces with persons whose health status you don’t know because the pandemic isn’t over no matter how much corporations want you to believe otherwise.

~ ~ ~

Got any tips you want to share for last-minute problems on Turkey Day? Share in this open thread.

Breathing Room: What’s on Your Holiday Menu?

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I can tell from my social media feed that many folks are both restless and preoccupied. I’m sure it’s partly because they’re trying to wrap up work before the Thanksgiving holiday, partly because some folks are already traveling, and partly because some folks are already working on holiday preparations.

I’m among the last group. I’m not having turkey at home on Thursday in observance of the day with family; it’s going to be just us empty nesters and whatever large piece of beef or venison is occupying too much room in the freezer.

This will be the first year one of my kids hosts the holiday feast, though. We’ll be celebrating on Saturday because my youngest must work on Thursday but has Saturday off.

I’m reminded of my childhood holidays which were frequently shifted around because my mother was a nurse and always worked at least one holiday. Babies don’t stop arriving, heart attacks still occur, accidents still happen, no matter the day of the year. Health care professionals still show up to serve those who need care regardless of holiday observations. Thanks to all of you in health care and other first responders who will be on the job tomorrow.

Some manufacturing industries also have no time off; they run 7/24/365 and somebody needs to be on the job to keep production running, to keep systems in a stable safe mode. Chemical and pharmaceutical plants are just a couple examples; they often can’t shut down production altogether, or they can reduce operations but still must keep machines in a steady state because it’s more challenging to bring a system back up from a down state. This may be in part because of profitability, but it’s often about safety. Thanks to all the folks who will continue to work through Thursday for these industries.

Ditto for the shipping industry – ships don’t stop dead in the ocean, trains don’t stop on the tracks, trucks may pause at rest stops but they still keep their schedules. Again, profitability may drive some of this, but safety and security are also reasons why shipping continues. Thanks to all who will continue to work tomorrow to keep things running smoothly on Friday and beyond.

So while my youngest works tomorrow in one of these can’t-stop industries, I’ll be working on cooking and baking foods for the delayed feast on Saturday.

~ ~ ~

This year I’ll be spatchcocking a fresh turkey. This has caused no small amount of amusement in the family group chat. But spatchcocking – or butterflying, if you want to avoid the time suck the other word may set in motion in your conversations with friends and family – is the fastest way I know to roast a whole turkey.

It’s also a good approach if you discover the frozen bird you bought hasn’t yet fully thawed, but you’re going to have to do some surgery with a mallet and cleaver rather than kitchen shears and a knife. Ask me how I know this…

My eldest who is hosting the feast on Saturday will be occupied until noon; this is the primary constraint dictating spatchcocking the bird. We can’t get the bird in the oven before 12:30 p.m. and their older half-brother will be bringing little ones who need to eat earlier than later. Which means I have about 2-3 hours to cook a 13-pound bird.

I’m going to remove the bird’s backbone on Friday evening along with the breast bone and cartilage, then brine it overnight. I’ll just leave it in the brine bucket while we travel, then slap it on parchment in the bottom of a broiler pan while the oven preheats after noon Saturday.

For spatchcocking see: https://www.seriouseats.com/butterfiled-roast-turkey-with-gravy-recipe

For my favorite brine see: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/good-eats-roast-turkey-recipe-1950271 (I skip the allspice berries and candied ginger, add halved garlic cloves and a sliced thumb of fresh ginger instead.)

The host is fixing mashed potatoes and green beans along with a cherry pie. My youngest has been assigned pumpkin pie duty because it’s both their favorite and their most frequently made dessert.

For Impossible Pumpkin Pie see: https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/impossibly-easy-pumpkin-pie/ (Super easy because crustless!)

I’ll handle squash rolls, sweet potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, and a crudites platter. Nothing super fancy, relatively safe territory since there will be children present.

There’s a couple bottles of homemade hard cider my youngest made and left in my wine cellar; I’ll probably take those along with a Riesling and a moscato to enjoy with the turkey and dessert.

What are you preparing for this Thanksgiving holiday? If you’re not cooking, what are you expecting to eat?

~ ~ ~

In all the preparation for the holiday, let’s not forget that tomorrow’s holiday arose from colonists celebrating survival of their first year in the new world. They arrived on already-occupied lands, contributing to the eventual dispossession, deaths, and erasure of indigenous peoples, their nations and cultures.

Descendants of colonists continue to erase indigenous peoples with book bans and suppression of culture, preventing education about Native Americans as part of this country’s history.

It should be no surprise that Thanksgiving Day is marked at Plymouth Rock as a day of mourning by the heirs of dispossession and erasure.

For some of us this is intensely personal and not merely an interesting factoid one can drive by, even for those of us who walk in both indigenous and colonialist worlds.

On whose lands will you be celebrating your colonial holiday?

You can identify those tribes on this interactive map at: https://native-land.ca

I, a descendant of Kānaka Maoli of the Nā moku ʻehā territory, will be observing the holiday with family on the ancestral homelands of the Council of the Three Fires — the Ojibwe (or Chippewa), Ottawa (or Odawa), and Potawatomi tribes.

If you want a little light decolonizing, it’s worth rewatching Amber Ruffin’s How Did We Get Here from last November which tackled erasure of Native Americans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4BkHmUHR1k

~ ~ ~

This is an open thread.

In Memoriam: Rosalynn Carter

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Former first lady Rosalynn Carter died this afternoon at age 96, two days after entering hospice. Her husband former president Jimmy Carter remains in hospice care where he has been since February this year.

Born in Plains, Georgia, Rosalynn came from a working class family. She was salutatorian of her high school graduating class and accepted at state public school Georgia Southwestern College. She left college when she married Jimmy which was typical for young women in 1946.

Carter differed from her predecessors Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon, and Betty Ford; she’d sought not to be a typical First Lady. This may in part have been due to her southern working class upbringing, the changing times during which her husband was in the White House, and in part the continued role raising their fourth child Amy while her husband Jimmy was president. While her three older brothers were adults at the time, Amy was only nine when her father was inaugurated.

Rosalynn was a staunch advocate for mental health care during Jimmy’s governorship in Georgia. She remained one as First Lady, serving on the National Association of Mental Health’s board of directors.

While Jimmy was in the White House, the 1972 Equal Rights Amendment faced an initial 1979 deadline for ratification. Rosalynn supported the ERA; honored by the National Organization for Women, she spoke at the 1977 National Women’s Conference. Her advocacy included campaigning for Bob Graham, an ERA proponent who was elected as Florida’s governor in 1978 and eventually as Senator in 1986. She played a direct role in ratification by the 35th state, calling a fence-sitting Democratic Indiana state legislator to ask them to vote for the ERA.

Her humanitarian work didn’t end when her husband left office. Co-founding with Jimmy the Carter Center, her continued mental health care advocacy was folded in with other initiatives including disease prevention, conflict resolution, and advancing peace and democracy. In later years she worked alongside her husband on Habitat for Humanity projects.

The Carter Center published a press release this afternoon which included a statement by Rosalynn’s husband:

“Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” President Carter said. “She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”

Rosalynn and Jimmy celebrated their 77th wedding anniversary earlier this year; she is survived by her spouse, their four children, 11 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

Television by Frank Okay via Unsplash

Breathing Room: What Are You Streaming Now?

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Autumn is solidly upon us now; my neighborhood’s trees are at peak color. By this time next week we’ll be wading through dead leaves as the first freeze is expected tonight, triggering leaf fall in earnest.

Which means this weekend — sandwiched neatly between the end of golf and other warm weather sports and the beginning of leaf raking and firearm deer season — is the one weekend available for binge watching streaming series and movies.

I admit to being an Asian drama fanatic. My Netflix profile looks so very different from my spouse’s and my son’s because their viewing habits in our shared account. Spouse watches a lot of westerns and war films and comedies; my son watches a lot of stand-up comics, comic and drama series, and a few odd documentaries.

Mine is chock full of K-dramas, Japanese and Korean anime, Chinese series, Taiwanese movies, and some Bollywood romances.

I really need to take Korean lessons on Duolingo because I want to be able to listen to some shows in Korean rather than watch them so closely because I rely on English subtitles. There are enough differences between the English subtitles and voice-over dubbing which affect one’s perception of what’s happening that I really want to know what it is I’m missing in the original Korean.

The last series I finished watching was Under the Queen’s Umbrella (on Netflix), which was a big hit in South Korea last year. It was a 16-episode historical fiction drama set some time and place in the Joseon dynasty (some time between the 14th and 19th century).

I’ve watched enough K-dramas now that I have favorite actors; this series features a couple of mine who I recognized right off without checking the cast list.

What I found appealing about this series was the political intrigues within and without a fictional monarchy. I don’t know enough about Korea’s history let alone the Joseon dynasty, but there must be some actual history from across dynastic Korea to bolster this series’ writing. It makes it all the more interesting knowing the complexity on screen mirrors reality to some degree.

One only needs to read the Wikipedia entry for the Joseon dynasty’s first queen to grasp the truth of this.

It has always cracked me up how American audiences have devoured fictional fantasy epics like Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings trilogy, epics which are framed upon conflicts within monarchies and dynastic politics. The appeal is in part because it’s fantasy to Americans – we have no true dynasties, we rejected monarchies from the nation’s inception.

All of which makes me wonder what Koreans find appealing about a series like Under the Queen’s Umbrella. Is it the popularity of the actors, many of whom in this series are both young and very attractive? Is it the familiar yet fictional story line? Is it the political machinations, an entertainment like the U.S. version of House of Cards?

After watching the Queen’s Umbrella series I am so very glad we do not have a monarchy, that our country doesn’t have to rely on leadership by succession — no matter how nice the monarch or how smart their successor. Nor do we have to worry whether legitimate offspring born of more than one than one wife will succeed or that illegitimate children born to concubines/consorts will contest succession, possibly by a coup.

We have all the challenges we need within US democracy; they’re challenges by choice and not permanent. Imagine an unelected King Trump being succeeded by his coke-headed son Donnie Jr., his succession potentially contested by his brother or brother-in-law because they have more business support or foreign sponsors.

*shudder*

What have you been watching that you’d recommend? What have you been watching that you think we should avoid?

This is an open thread.

~ ~ ~

ADDER:

Username Convention

The site’s standard for usernames upgraded a year ago this month to protect community members’ privacy and security as well as that of the site.

Usernames new and old should be:

  • unique;
  • a minimum of (8) letters;
  • letters and numeric characters are acceptable;
  • avoid all numeric character names;
  • avoid characters except dash or underbar (some existing names may need to change eventually to replace other characters).

Contributors, moderators, and long-time community members who have accrued more than 1000 comments and participated in comments over a decade may be able to keep their usernames. This is subject to approval.

All community members should use the same email address each time they comment. We don’t even ask for a working, validated email address, just that the same one is used every time.

New users may share their personal website’s URL, but they should include that same URL in the provided field each time they comment. If a URL was not added with the first comment, a URL should not be added for future comments.

If you have been asked four times to change your username to meet the site’s standard but do not change your name, your identity will be added to the auto-moderation list until a username has been updated to comply with the site’s standard.

Why does the site need this standard naming convention?

It is too easy for trolls and bots to spoof identities, especially simple common names like Bob, John, Jane, Anna. Once a troll/bot launches a new identity, they can gradually begin to poison the site’s comments. The problem will get worse over time as trolls/bots begin to use AI to create identities and comments.

The new naming convention makes it easier to pick off trolls/bots when they make their first comment.

Why can’t community members use a login with a password?

Imagine how many times a day moderators would have to help a commenter with a password problem. That’s time not spent on moderating comments or writing material to contribute to the site.

Furthermore, maintaining a list of user identities with passwords means retaining a potentially hackable database of personal data. It would force the site to comply with personal data regulations, again pulling resources from moderation and contribution.

The current WordPress-based system only contains what metadata users leave on servers (like data left on all internet-accessible servers including time/date/IP address/device), what they voluntarily enter as username/email address/URL (none of which is validated and assumed to be pseudonymous), and the comments users publish at the site.

Why doesn’t the site use a different comment system?

Nearly every comment system requires more personal data with one validating factor making it appetizing to hackers and putting users at risk.

The current system has worked adequately for roughly 16 years — not perfectly but it’s withstood the traffic from multiple presidential and mid-term elections, a large number of scandals and crises, serving roughly 650,000 comments (not including another ~200K comments which were spam/trolls/bots).

Why isn’t this comment convention automated?

We’re working on it. Developers have been engaged but design time is an extremely valuable commodity.

When there’s more to report on the status of an upgrade we’ll share it. Bear with us, and keep in mind:

  • We don’t ask for real names, real email addresses, nor other personal data like phone numbers or credit card numbers for validation.
  • We don’t take advertising which may harvest your information as it does on other commercial websites.
  • This site operates on donations from readers and commenters and volunteer work by contributors and moderators. Your donations pay for Marcy’s time, hosting, developers’ labor and maintenance.

Thank you for reading, for your comments and your support.

#UsernameConvention

Three Things: This Week’s Massive Dickhead Award Goes To…

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This last week was bad. We were swamped with dickheads, more so than usual, and some of them bigger dickheads than the usual fare.

There are so many it’s worth assessing who was the champion dickhead this week.

Below are my top three. Tell us in comments who you’d have picked for this week’s Massive Dickhead Award.

~ 3 ~

WINNER: Rep. Patrick McHenry (R, NC-10)

This asshat became the Acting House Speaker after the ultra-fascist faction of the GOP House Caucus led by Matt Ephebophile Gaetz forced the feckless Kevin McCarthy out of the speaker’s role.

McHenry chose to come out swinging rather than settling calmly and rationally into the speakership.

Within hours of McCarthy’s removal, McHenry booted Nancy Pelosi out of her office while she was out of D.C. escorting Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s body back to California. She was not accorded a reasonable amount of time to attend the funeral service and return to D.C. to clean out her office.

He then blew off the Congressional delegation in need of air transportation to California for Feinstein’s funeral.

…the House Republican leadership did not allow a plane to transport the late Senator’s colleagues from DC to SFO. After the late Senator passed, Rep. Zo Lofgren contacted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy to request air transportation for colleagues to attend the memorial service.

This is a courtesy any delegation is traditionally afforded to allow members to travel together to honor a member who passed away. But, Rep. Lofgren, who’s the delegation representative, never heard back from McCarthy. According to Thompson, she made the same request of Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry but also didn’t get a response.

“It’s just sad commentary on the House Republican leadership where they wouldn’t allow a plane to come back so her colleagues can pay tribute to this great legislator, great Senator remarkable leader,” Thompson said. “I’m assuming some people will not be able to make it because of that.”

Sloppy if not arrogantly thoughtless. A slap at the state which is the fifth largest economy in the world, with the largest congressional delegation, as if McHenry doesn’t think anything of winning Democratic seats in California.

There have been 39 representatives and senators who’ve died in office since 2000, and at no time has there been such a pointed dickishness toward the congressional delegation traveling to funeral services, regardless of the political party in control of the House or Senate.

But this is McHenry’s SOP, has been since at least 2008. He demonstrated his sloppy thoughtless arrogance then:

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon told a North Carolina lawmaker Tuesday that he couldn’t re-air a video he’d shot in Baghdad after accusations surfaced that he breached operational security in detailing enemy rocket attacks.

Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican, traveled to Iraq with other lawmakers for the first time on March 22. The video was the second incident stemming from that trip that has drawn unwanted attention to McHenry. Earlier, he was criticized for berating a guard in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone for not allowing him into a gym there because the congressman did not have the proper identification credential.

The new criticism stems from a video that was featured on his Web site last Friday. Shot in the Green Zone, it showed McHenry gesturing to a building behind him and saying that one of 11 rockets “hit just over my head.” Then he named two other places struck by the rockets.

As in 2008, his unthinking reflexive behavior is a sign McHenry is not capable of governance, only peevish pettiness which pisses on the American public and their needs for rational effective government.

Our country deserves and needs better than massive dickheads who believe owning the libs is the job for which the American public pays them. It’d be nice to think the GOP thinks so, too, but they actually allowed McHenry to pull this bullshit and spit on congressional comity at a time when it’s most needed to negotiate a budget. Thanks to North Carolina’s persistent partisan gerrymandering, the GOP ensures both NC-10 and the country are stuck with this prize-winning jerk, at least through the 2024 election.

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SECOND PLACE: Vladimir Putin

Killing 50 civilians including a child with a missile, wiping out half the village of Hroza while its residents interred a loved one is both a war crime and the height of dickishness.

Way to win hearts and minds, Pooty, you kidnapper and murderer of children.

You’d think he’d have learned something from U.S. errors in places like Iraq and Afghanistan but nope. He just doubles down on his criminality.

Added asshole-ishness: this agitprop trying to stir up shit between the U.S. and Israel immediately after the attack by Hamas.

Unlike Putin, POTUS can walk and chew gum, isn’t hiding in their ill-gotten fortress of solitude, and isn’t obsessed with toxic nostalgia for the past like the decades-plus effort to restore the USSR.

The U.S. also has a defense budget larger which makes Russia’s look like nothing – we can manage more than one challenge.

But that’s the point, isn’t it? All Russia has in its arsenal is cheap influence operations amplified by cringelords?

Speaking of cringelords…

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THIRD PLACE: Elon Musk

Why this guy bothers with American citizenship is beyond me given his reluctance to respect its government.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday sought to force Elon Musk to sit for a deposition as part of an ongoing investigation about his purchase of Twitter, now known as X.

The SEC said Musk failed to appear for testimony as required by a May subpoena despite agreeing to show up last month at the SEC’s office in San Francisco.

Musk waited until two days before the scheduled date to notify the SEC he would not appear, regulators said. They’re now seeking a court order to force Musk to comply.

Musk’s response this week was pure DARVO:

Elon Musk called for an overhaul of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday, the same day the agency sued him in an effort to compel him to testify about his purchase of Twitter, the platform now known as X.

“A comprehensive overhaul of these agencies is sorely needed, along with a commission to take punitive action against those individuals who have abused their regulatory power for personal and political gain. Can’t wait for this to happen,” Musk wrote on X in response to news of the SEC suing him.

So predictable: deny the abuse, reverse victim-abuser order. Poor Musk is the victim, won’t somebody deal with the mean old SEC?

The acquisition of Twitter by this narcissistic git very much needs investigation. As noted previously, Musk was so desperate to avoid Delaware’s Chancery Court after he sued to stop his acquisition last year that he threw in the towel and proceeded to buy Twitter.

What is it that Musk doesn’t want revealed in public record?

An alleged proponent of free speech, Musk appears to have shrugged off an egregious persecution of civil rights though it’s his platform which has been at the heart of the Saudis’ charges and death sentence against Saudi citizen Mohammad Alghamdi for their tweets.

Besides blowing off the SEC’s subpoena and blowing off free speech, Musk also managed to both screw up his own company’s product and spit in the face of media outlets which have continued to bolster the sagging social media platform.

Musk decided headlines make tweets look bad so he’s had them removed. Before the change if a news outlet included a link to a news article in their post, the article’s headline would appear next to an image served from the link so that users would know what the link was about and the tweeter could add a prefacing blurb in the tweet’s body.

Now the user must allocate their post’s text to adding a headline. Jay Peters at The Verge does a better job of explaining the problem (red markup mine on image below):

In short, Musk stiffed news media the most with this move which he claims improves the platform’s aesthetics.

Ri-ight. Because all the white supremacists and TERFs and other haters don’t damage the platform at all.

Bloomberg’s finally coming around about the moral argument against the former bird app, but it’s infuriating they can’t see the business argument is right there, too, thanks to Musk’s constant degradation of service.

What happens when journalists are targeted by intelligence operatives because Musk has decided maintaining privacy of personal data shared with the former Twitter is now an inconvenience, or that data is just another fungible to be harvested without regard to users’ privacy and security and the FTC’s consent decree?

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Honorable Mention:

Matt Gaetz, because a pumpkin has more smarts and savvy than this shit stirrer who launched the ouster of Kevin McCarthy thereby setting McHenry loose to be a bigger dick than usual.

At some point we need to call Gaetz and his wrecking crew anarchists because that’s what they are – they don’t give a fuck about the republic and keeping it, they just want to destroy it.

Let’s hope this next week we run into fewer dickheads.

Who’s on your list of Massive Dickheads from this past week? Who has screwed over more people and undermined democracy in a big way? Share your nominees in comments.

This is an open thread.

Trash Talk: The Trashiest Talk Ever Trashed

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[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

I’m braced for the crabbing sure to come with this post: “But this is Trash Talk, it’s supposed to be about sports!”

Uh, it’s TRASH talk, which is talk about trash. Not all trash is exclusively about sports.

There are also more sports than those contained on a field or played with a ball, for that matter. Like the sport of celebrity watching — just ask Golf Magazine.

This week’s Trashiest Trash Talk covers the intersection between sports trash and celebrity trash — when popular performer in Entertainment Industry A meets popular performer in Entertainment Industry B and begins dating.

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Travis Kelce, tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs, has something going on with mega pop star Taylor Swift.

In case you have not been on the planet the past few weeks, here’s what’s been happening: Kelce, who plays for the Kansas City Chiefs, confessed awhile back to his brother Jason Kelce, who plays for the Philadelphia Eagles, that he had unsuccessfully tried to slide his digits to Swift via a friendship bracelet at the Kansas City stop of her “Eras” concert tour.

People became invested. Travis Kelce later said he “threw the ball in her court” and told Swift, “I’ve seen you rock the stage in Arrowhead. You might have to come see me rock the stage in Arrowhead and see which one’s a little more lit.”

Plot twist: Swift showed up at his game last Sunday and sat in a suite next to his mom. Swift and Kelce – now known as “Tayvis,” “Traylor,” “Swelce” or “K. Swift,” depending upon who you ask – even left the game via Kelce’s convertible. Photos have since surfaced of the two of them together looking quite chummy.

It’s not an unbelievable pairing. Both Kelce and Swift are 33 years old, Kelce being only a couple months older than Swift. They’re from neighboring Rust Belt states; Kelce is from Westlake, OH and Swift was from West Reading, PA. They both have established careers and aren’t hurting for money or attention though Swift’s income is far greater by a dizzying magnitude.

Unsurprisingly, the internet has gone bonkers about this couple. Kelce already had a good size fanbase because of his achievements on the field (“one of the greatest tight ends in NFL history (top five, to be exact). He’s also won two Super Bowls, has 825 receptions for 10,000+ yards, and 71 career touchdowns“) and appearances off the field (star of E! Entertainment’s Catching Kelce reality TV dating show as well as advertising appearances).

And then there are Swift’s Swifties — a legendary massive fandom who’ve followed her work as far back as 2004.

Will any of the buzz around this pair do anything for NFL football? Many football fans may find all the hoopla a distraction from the sport. But it’s possible a new audience and a new generation of football fans may emerge from this pop culture convergence.

There are already multiple articles with explainers about football aimed at Swifties.

Imagine what Swifties could do to ticket and merch sales this season given the size of Swift’s audiences like the one in Kansas City which set the “Tayvis” buzz in motion. Kelce himself could earn another $5-$10 million this year; his merchandise sales exploded by 400% last weekend thanks to the “Taylor Swift effect.”

Given Taylor’s has already met and been hanging with Kelce’s mom at the game last weekend, this is going to be this season’s personality angle to watch.

There’s just one problem — a rather ugly downside. If this couple doesn’t last, you can expect a crash spread across entertainment media and yet another mega hit record complete with breakup song about a tight end.

Swift is expected at MetLife Stadium tomorrow night to watch Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs against the New York Jets. Kickoff is at 8:20 p.m. ET.

The NFL has already been capitalizing on this in its promotions, of course. Can hardly wait for the breakup song swatting that kind of opportunism.

~ ~ ~

Speaking of Taylor Swift, the pop star deployed her own “Taylor Swift effect” for the benefit of democracy this week:

“…Just days after Swift urged Swifties to register to vote on National Voter Registration Day in an Instagram Story, shocker, they listened and signed up to do their civic duty in record numbers.

On Wednesday (Sept. 20), Vote.org’s communications director, Nick Morrow, wrote on X (fka Twitter) that Swift’s plea resulted in a tidal wave of new registrations. “Fun fact: after @taylorswift13 posted on Instagram today directing her followers to register to vote on @votedotorg, our site was averaging 13,000 users every 30 minutes. 13!” he revealed, noting the cosmic coincidence of the bump coalescing with the singer’s favorite number. …”

More of this kind of opportunism, please and thanks!

~ ~ ~

In other sports news —

• The 44th Ryder Cup’s Day 2 just wrapped. As a family member concisely put it after yesterday’s golf matches wrapped up, “Team USA got waxed!” Team Europe led the US as they teed off this morning at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club near Rome, Italy; they hung onto their lead through the end of play today. It’s not looking good for Team US this year.

• Green Bay Packers sent a message to their ticketholders encouraging them to resell their tickets to Packers’ fans after this Thursday night’s game when the Detroit Lions won 34–20, propelling a sea of blue jersey-wearing Lions fans onto Lambeau Field. Apparently the sight got Packers’ dander up more than the Lions’ holding the Pack to a mere total 27 yards rushing.

• As anticipated, MSU Spartan’s head coach Mel Tucker was fired this week for his “inappropriate and unprofessional conduct” relating to interaction with a sex abuse prevention activist. Tucker has indicated he’ll sue MSU for wrongful termination.

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Bring your trash here; consider this an open thread.

Trash Talk: Won’t Somebody Think of the Children Edition

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[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

Bonus second Trash Talk today, a day with perfect football weather here in Michigan — temperatures in the upper 60s to low 70s , partly cloudy, light wind out of the southwest. The scent of freshly mown grass mingled with smoke from tailgaters’ grills, heightening anticipation for today’s games. Depending on where you live, games may already have wrapped or are underway as they are in East Lansing, Michigan.

~ ~ ~

Anticipation doesn’t fully describe what Michigan State University fans and students are likely feeling today. You may already have heard about a new scandal centered on MSU’s football coach, Mel Tucker, who has been accused of sexual harassing behavior by activist Brenda Tracy.

The entire situation reeks because MSU was caught flat footed in its response to the situation in spite of the university’s past history dealing with scandal related to sexual abuse. You’ll recall the prosecution of former osteopathic physician Larry Nassar based on charges he sexually abused dozens of girls and women gymnasts during his practice affiliated with USA Gymnastics and his career with MSU. It took nearly a decade from the first complaints by athletes before Nassar was convicted and jailed.

Here’s a timeline of events related to the allegations about to Mel Tucker:

April 28, 2022 — During a phone call between Tracy and Tucker, Tracy alleged Tucker made sexual comments about her and engaged in nonconsensual masturbation.

December 2022 — Tracy filed a Title IX complaint with MSU.

July 25, 2022 — Rebecca Leitman Veidlinger, an outside investigator hired by MSU, completed the Title IX investigation into Tracy’s allegations.

September 10, 2023 — USA Today published a story disclosing Tracy’s allegations against Tucker, revealing Tracy’s identity. Though Tucker acknowledged to the investigatore he masturbated while on the phone with Tracy, he claimed they were engaged in consensual phone sex, denying misconduct.

September 10, 2023 — MSU suspended Tucker without pay and asked former associate head coach/co-defensive coordinator Harlon Barnett to assume the role of Acting Head Coach in addition to his role as Secondary Coach.

September 13, 2023 — Michigan State University Trustee Dianne Byrum demanded MSU conduct an investigation in the leak of Tracy’s identity which appeared in USA Today’s report. “I am disturbed and outraged by recent reports indicating the name of a claimant in a sexual harassment investigation was intentionally released in an apparent effort to retaliate against her. We should unequivocally condemn attempts to silence or retaliate against victims,” Byrum said.

September 14, 2023 — MSU announced the return of retired former head coach Mark Dantonio to assist Barnett. Dantonio will take on the role of associate head coach.

A hearing has been scheduled for the first week of October, the outcome of which may decide Tucker’s continuing employment with MSU.

Reporting about the allegations has been far from neutral. This report by USA Today — Mel Tucker made millions while he delayed the Michigan State sexual harassment case — published on September 14 assumed Tucker was deliberately delaying the hearing when he refused to accept the August 22-23 dates.

Never mind that August is the busiest month for an NCAA coach. MSU Spartans players attend a preseason camp beginning August 3. Dorm move-in dates are August 22-24. First classes are August 28. The team had 15 practices scheduled between the end of camp and the season opener on September 1.

But sure, Tucker was delaying the hearing. Never mind that USA Today then hammered on Tucker’s wages which surely reflects the intense pressure Tucker’s been under to improve on the Spartans’ past lackluster performance.

The inability to find workable dates in September was a more legitimate problem, but September with a new team is also just as sensitive for NCAA football coaches. The October date makes a lot more sense (and is hardly the kind of extension a certain former president demands for criminal charges).

The intense public scrutiny about this case also wouldn’t have emerged had not USA Today decided to publish its September 10 and 14 pieces. The public would  have heard after the October hearing that Tucker was fired if it was determined he violated Title IX, or perhaps the public would never have heard anything if it was determined his behavior had no affect on education under Title IX.

Detroit Free Press shared an interview conducted by FOX 2 Detroit with Tucker’s employment attorney, Deborah Gordon. She’s one of the best employment attorneys in the state and also recommended for representation in Title IX cases. Her explanation of what Tracy and Tucker can expect from the hearing is worth a listen. And yet the Free Press also takes a position by not pushing back against Gordon’s claim to FOX 2 that Tucker was a “high profile guy” who Tracy wanted to “go after. And she did it.”

Of course Tucker’s attorney would say this. What kind of attorney wouldn’t do that for their client?

MSU Spartans play No. 8 ranked Washington Huskies at home in Lansing today – kickoff was at 5:06 p.m. ET.

Expect players, their families, friends, and fans to be quizzed about the scandal because the media needs clickbait.

Can’t imagine what current students and their families as well as prospective students and families are discussing at home about this situation, because nobody in the media is thinking about them at all, nor teaching them about the concept of assuming innocence until one is proven guilty.

~ ~ ~

Disgust as a “conservative” emotion — ?

We kicked around some disgusting GOP behavior in comments last evening beginning with South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s skanky on-again-off-again-can’t-stop affair with GOP consultant and alleged sexual harasser Corey Lewandowski. I mentioned studies I’ve run across which found “conservatives” respond more negatively and more intensely to prompts which are often labeled disgusting. See the study linked below for a list of research, some of which underpinned the article in The Atlantic also linked below.

Elad-Strenger J, Proch J, Kessler T. Is Disgust a “Conservative” Emotion? Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2020 Jun;46(6):896-912. doi: 10.1177/0146167219880191. Epub 2019 Oct 16. PMID: 31619133.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31619133/

McAuliffe, Kathleen. “Liberals and Conservatives React in Wildly Different Ways to Repulsive Pictures.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 7 Dec. 2022, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/the-yuck-factor/580465/.

The fundamental problem with this is that many so-called conservatives regularly engage in disgusting behavior and yet this doesn’t shape their voting.

Take the obnoxious example of Lauren Boebert who acted like a particularly nasty spoiled brat recently. TPM has an overview and a video documenting Boebert’s latest public wretchedness:

There’s Videotape! Annals of Feral Lauren Boebert …

Why do GOP voters in Boebert’s district put up with her? This isn’t the first shitty behavior on her part. Even her business which has poisoned consumers giving them bloody diarrhea hasn’t been enough to stop them from voting for her. “Conservatives” in her district didn’t care. They voted her back in for a second term in 2022.

Ditto for Marjorie Taylor Greene and her sorry love life — okay, sex life, because her experiences don’t sound like they’re based on deep affection (It’s the DailyMail, brace yourselves for the photos of her extramarital partners). Just sex and a general disrespect for the traditional Christian institution of marriage with its demand to have and hold a partner while forsaking all others.

Why aren’t “conservatives” in her district disgusted by her readiness to swap sweat, voting her nastiness back into office?

You can surely think of many other examples of disgusting behavior by right-wing candidates and officeholders, like former GOP Senate candidate and spouse abuser Eric Greitens.

Or the mack daddy of marital disrespect, Newt Gingrich, who’s treated animals better than his ex-wives.

And of course The Donald whose proclivities have been hidden by catch-and-kill operations, although not always successfully.

We all know by now that hypocrisy makes not a lick of difference to so-called conservatives. They’re happy bashing on Hunter Biden for his drug addiction, trashing Joe Biden for continuing to love and support his son in spite of Hunter’s challenges.

Why do conservatives’ brains react differently, then to images of disgust, while failing to act constructively on disgusting behavior?

How does the left more effective appeal to conservatives’ disgust when it’s also obvious their disgust can be generated deliberately, as Chris Rufo demonstrated with his attacks on critical race theory?

How do we address this disparity between research results and real life in a way that makes a difference to our nation’s children? Because they’re being taught sexual infidelity and abuse is okay if you’re a Republican, disrespect for vows, oaths, partners is also okay, and other sordid behavior like vaping in shared public space disregarding others’ health is just fine if you’re a Republican.

Sunset Musings III and Trash Talk

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A few of you may remember Sunset Musings II regarding the fall of Grandpa Pricky. Most were likely not here back then.

So Casa de bmaz has today lost yet another noble centurion. Grandma Pricky. We are devastated. People nationally keep yammering about the heat in the daytime in Phoenix. But it really is not the daytime temperature that is the real problem, it is the extent it simply does not cool down at night like it used to. Call it a heat island, call it a heat sink, whatever. But it is killing normally resistant desert plants. Grandma, at only 20 feet tall, was not quite as big as Grandpa, but is the same level of loss. These beautiful cacti were here long before the bmaz family, and we have been here a long time.

If you want to know more about saguaros, take a gander at Sunset Musings II. The same process of slicing and dicing will take place as to Grandma. Sigh.

As to trash talk, the Singapore Grand Prix from Marina Bay will go off tomorrow morning. Unlike most every other Grand Prix in history, Singapore is run in dark with lights. The surroundings at Marina Bay are spectacular, the track itself not so much. But neither Red Bull, not Verstappen and not Checo Perez, even made it out of Q2. It will be an interesting race watching them climb up for the podium.

No music today, we are singing only funeral dirges for Grandma.