Super! [DOT 19/12/20]

Duper

19/12/20 MegMegMcGee 27

Year-end for me at work is a little insane, so apologies for not keeping up with y’all here. I’m not even sure what’s going on in the world outside of my basement office, but I imagine it’s a little bit of bullshit followed by more bullshit…but perhaps some glimmers of hope in there as well? ‘Tis the season, anyway!

Never fear, though, because Brain Drain will be along shortly and perhaps you can use your Saturday afternoon to whip up some of Butcher’s clam sauce or something else delicious and throw yourself a party.

This is why we can’t have nice things:

Meanwhile:

Covid patients are treated in parking lots, hallways and lobbies of a California hospital that, like the nation, is struggling to keep pace with the pandemic
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/california-hospital-covid-capacity/?itid=hp-top-table-main

Well that would be nice…I saw a joke on Twitter that said the second stimulus check was a ‘pizza party’.

Congress is negotiating a new round of stimulus checks. Here’s when you might get the cash
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/18/politics/second-stimulus-check-distribution/index.html

Not enough money in the world….

Stonks!

Dow falls more than 100 points as lawmakers struggle to seal last-minute stimulus deal
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/17/stock-market-futures-open-to-close-news.html

What would your name be for this?
Also, is it just me or is ‘heritage’ a pretty loud dog whistle?

Enjoy your Saturday as much as this dog enjoys snow!

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27 Comments

  1. This is all well and good (or bad) but when we talk about Malia Obama’s Harvard boyfriend quarantining with the Obamas for a while?
     
    https://nypost.com/2020/12/18/malias-obamas-boyfriend-quarantined-with-the-family/
     
    (The NY Post, I know, but this article is not an Obama slam and it’s not behind a paywall.)
     
    So…WHAT WAS THAT LIKE? I little stressful perhaps? He’s British, though, and sounds like he comes from a lot of money, with a last name to match that is probably pronounced “Fessen” or something, so maybe old money. Maybe he wasn’t as fazed by this as you or I would be. I’m sure the Obamas are lovely people but they’re obviously not neglectful parents, and very attentive to their daughters, so living under their roof…plus, doesn’t the grandmother, Michelle’s Mom, live with them too? Secret Service I’m assuming? 
     
    This is going to haunt me for the whole day, but in a good way. When we first moved into this apartment we vowed to keep it as clean and clutter-free as possible, at least the public areas. Obama had just been elected. While cleaning I used to joke with The Better Half, “Hurry up, the Obamas will be dropping by at any minute.” Now imagine your position is you will be dropping by the Obamas and living with them. 

      • …pretty sure that name would be pronounced far-kah-son…& it is about as posh as you think…quite possibly the sort of name you expect to see crop up in debrett’s peerage…so maybe you’re right about him being acclimated to there being “staff” around?

        …but given how charming obama seems to be I have to admit I can imagine him having a quiet word with the secret service folks about keeping an eye on any boyfriends-of-daughters so I almost feel sorry for the kid

        …apparently didn’t put him of his feed, though…that article suggests his addition to the household upped the groceries tab by 30%…which by the numbers would seem to indicate the boy eating more than his share

        …although I think some of the extra is presumably due to the same effect a lot of us have experienced onnaccount of being home more…does have me wondering though…is it unfair to assume that a kid named rory farquharson is classic case of white pivilege?

        …I suspect obama saying he didnt want to like him but came around to the kid is meant to be a jocular reference to a father automatically disliking his daughter’s boyfriends…but…well…that name is something of an uphill proposition in the likability stakes…so maybe its just further proof the man is relatable…after all, I kind of liked omar from the wire, too…so I guess now that’s a couple of things I have in common with an articulate president…which is nice?

        • If I ever write a memoir I am going to have to devote an entire chapter to My Life Experience Among The British Upper Classes. Not among the nobles or the Royal Family, but among people one rung down. Dated information, this was many years ago, but eye-opening for this American of modest background who was taken in very generously by one of these families and who opened their home to me when I had cause to go to England, which I did, often. 

          • SERIOUSLY, Cousin Matthew!!!
            We NEED the Memoir!😉🤣💖💖💖💖
             
            Covid & this whole soft-shut-down time  WOULD be the PERFECT time to be watching the Telenovela made from it!!!!!

            • This is not a particularly interesting story but:
               
              When I went off to college I made friends with a British guy on my dorm floor, among others. He was extremely down-to-earth. Thanksgiving loomed and I said, “I think the two of us will be the only two left in the dorm, if they even allow this.” “Why aren’t you going home?” “I don’t have any money—” We made a deal. He rented a car for us and he drove (International Driver’s License, so as an 18-year-old this all made perfect sense at the time) to my family’s very ordinary suburban tract house. On the drive I asked him, “Why aren’t you going somewhere?” “Where I went to school you only returned to your parents at Christmas, briefly, and then maybe in the summer, if you didn’t spend it somewhere else.”
               
              Huh. I think he had a really fun time in the up-close-and-personal look at the striving middle class. We remained close, my sophomore year I became a roommate of his in a quad, and then I upped and decided to go on a Junior Year Abroad. This was against my university’s wishes, because I didn’t go on one of their programs, there was no way I could afford it, but when I got the acceptance letter I marched into the Study Abroad Office and said, “This is what I’m doing. If you don’t want to take me back, fine, this hosting university has now accepted me as a full-time student.” I had to get at least three or four waivers to pull this off (ah, the cockiness of the impoverished 20-year-old).
               
              In the meantime I connived to share an apartment in an entirely different city with a high school friend/old boyfriend of mine for the summer. He went to college in yet another city. Vagabond that I was, I had everything with me and was planning to fly to Europe to start the Junior Year Abroad from a flight from there. The English Friend, who was also gay but with whom I never slept, stayed in our university’s city that summer but came to visit me in early August.
               
              “I’ve had a note from my mother.” “Oh, and how is she?” “It’s for you, ecktuelly.” The gist was that My English Friend and I would fly to England together (British Airways ticket enclosed) and I would stay with them for a couple of weeks to acclimate myself to Europe. Then I would travel on to the Continent to begin my program. All this to repay my kindness for letting My English Friend to stay three nights in a dilapidated Levitttown-ish ranch house for three or four nights months before.
               
              So we flew into Heathrow and there was a guy waiting for us. “Oh, that must be your father! This is very generous of—”
               
              “No, it’s the driver, Mr. X. Do me a favor. Don’t ask a lot of questions and make no assumptions. Just be very polite and incurious. After about 24 hours you’ll get the hang of it. My mother will see to that.”
               
              Maybe I’ll post Chapter 2.

  2. …on the heritage thing…I’m hoping it’s context-dependant?

    …because on the space force thing it does feel dog-whistle-y…but the “heritage distilling co.” are the makers of that BSB 103 bourbon Ellie & I are both wishing it was easier to acquire more of…& I didn’t get a sense of any dog-whistling when I last made it I to one of their storefronts

    …would hate to have to hold my nose drinking that stuff…would be kind of a crime to spoil the taste

        • …I don’t know a whole lot about bourbon, although I do know that BSB 103 is dangerously tasty…generally I’m more at home with the single malt scotch end of the spectrum

          …but broadly speaking I’d define quality as anything you like the taste of that doesn’t make you think the cost was a rip off so that larceny probably counts?

    • It’s when you get into *both* “heritage” AND “culture” being in that slogan, that it DEFINITELY reads as dogwhistle-ey (hell, for White Supremacists, FULL-out Foghorn & Bat-signak showing!!!😬😬😬) here…
       
      Because in that dirty, gross, subculture, it’s ALL coded language around “Saving our Culture” and “Protecting our Heritage”….
       
      So along with “Mission” being in there, I suspect that the ProudBoys, and other assorted members of White Supremacist “culture” are going to glom on to this slogan right quick…🙃🤢😕 

      • huh…i guess heritage and culture are international dog whistles
        tradition too over here
        last few years ive been hearing all of those a lot…. mostly in conversations that go along the lines of we took in all these immergants and are allowing them to take our jerbs and subvert our culture and national identity
        its especially disapointing when someone you previously thought of as smart says it
        its gotten noticably worse since the rona
        everything sucks now! blame the immergants! if we run out of those we still have the gays!
        would it kill people to look at themselves for a minute before casting blame?

  3. seems we wont start vaccinating here till january 8th
    aparrantly the gubment first needs to set up locations and some kind of registry system and plan out logistics yadieyada etc… basically instead of just sending all the vaccines we have out all willy nilly and letting it be a clusterfuck they are taking the time to organize a well planned complicated clusterfuck…wich i assume will be delayed further coz the gubments efforts to organize it turned into a clusterfuck
    not that im in a particular hurry to get it..my part of the country is still pretty rona free with just 2000 cases and about the same in the neighbouring counties… really…you kinda have to go out of your way to catch it here
    that said if i do get it itll be when i go back to work in january as some of my coworkers are going to have or go to large christmas and new years eve parties

    • …fingers crossed you don’t succumb to a co-working vector…& that for once a municipal effort actually performs as advertised & the vaccines get rolled out smoothly across the board come the new year

      …stranger things have happened & all…if 2020 hasn’t been proof of that I don’t know what is?

      • fingers crossed for the co worker thing for sure
        but i think the shock of the gubment not inadvertently creating a massive clusterfuck is more likely to kill me than rona is
        i know my gubment…its gonna be late,overbudget and barely functional…and probably come with unintended side effects

        • kinda like the rona contact tracer app they sent a tech company into crunch for to get it done in a few weeks only to then sit on it for nearly 3 months as they couldnt agree on the rona laws that would allow its use

  6. I honestly didn’t even realize the Space Force was a real thing. I just assumed it was one of those stupid things trump wanted that would never happen. Because what even is it? Is this because they semi admitted aliens existed or something? 

    • Can we get her on why Florida’s results were so biased for Trump also? I tried finding her email, but I’ve been drinking since 1, and lost all patience . And I can barely hold my phone up, and had to edit my typos about a dozen times in this post alone .

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