Jim Gaffigan? Rats. Though I do have to say I don't find him nearly as funny as I used to. In fact, I can't remember the last time I watched him on YT, or anywhere else.
Are we recommending comedians? If so: Josh Johnson! He has a mighty YouTube presence. Some of his posts are for channel members only (which I am not) but most are free. He is my newest Favorite Comedian.
GftNC - Home is not "wherever we are," though being able to feel at home wherever you are is a gift.
I have lived in Seattle since the mid-1970s (aside from a few years interregnum when I had to go back to Florida), and have been in my current house for nearly 30 years. I agree with you whole-heartedly that the thought of moving is fairly horrifying.
OTOH, if I ever do have to relocate, I hope I have the grit and spirit to make an adventure out of it.
I wonder if I'm a born nomad, because I have no sense of an ancestral "home." I've lived in different parts of the country and liked or disliked them for what I found there, not for any larger ethnic or familial attachments.
The yearning for a "true homeland" has been at the foundation of many wars, pogroms, dispossessions, and conquests - either by an entity out to capture the homeland, or the former inhabitants thereof trying to reclaim it.
In dramas where conflict is central to the plot, there is often a scene where the main character loses a loved one - a sibling, usually - to that conflict. And thereafter the main character burns with a special rage for vengeance. I've always considered this either bad plotting, a form of "fridging" or - if it does happen in real life - sheer lunacy. It's a WAR, you nitwit; one that you and your loved one willingly signed up to fight, or even instigated yourselves. People die in wars. Maybe if you didn't want to risk your loved one, you shouldn't have pushed for this battle, eh?
I kind of feel the same way about that yearning for an ancestral homeland. Maybe the way you lost it was horrific and unjust, but inflicting similar or worse damage on the people currently occupying it (who may not even be the same ones who drove your ancestors off) will only set up another cycle of dispossession-revenge-war. If it were as clearcut as getting rid of the usurpers and replacing them, that would be one thing. But it is seldom that clearcut.
The I/P horror is non clearcut beyond description, with claim to the same bit of land going back generations on one side, centuries on the other, possibly millenia on both sides. At what point do ancestral claims cease to be arguable? One generation? Ten? A thousand? At what point do past atrocities justify, or cease to justify, current and future ones?
Someone once said, "'Home' is where you bury your bone." I've always liked that.
Home is where you make it. Wherever you find yourself, you can bury your bone there.
lj - Mostly muscle stiffness in my legs and back, because I am deliberately doing difficult-for-me hikes. Predictable, explicable, and - so far, knock wood - non-permanent.
I have a history of getting banged up and not paying much attention to it, unless (1) I need to go to an ER; or (2) the hurt doesn't go away after a few days. I've fallen on trails (have a patch of numb on my right leg from a fall that smashed a nerve). I have a tricky knee from bending and twisting while over-enthusiastically ripping up invasive blackberry vines. I've been kicked, bitten, and stepped on by horses; broke my arm riding. (Well, not *riding* per se; it was the falling-off-the-horse part that did the actual breakage.)
One impairment that might be age-related, or due to my history as an ex-smoker/current vaper, or a combo of the two, is I have to stop and rest frequently to catch my breath if I'm going upslope. Doesn't happen on the flat, only if I'm climbing. Stairs or trails. It's been that way for a few years now, and at least doesn't seem to be getting worse (knock wood, again).
I have never been consistently active and fit long enough to establish any pattern. I have years of being very fit followed by years of being a complete couch potato. Here I am, turning 70 in a few months, and I can't really gauge my status because I'm always in between.
On the one hand, I can still hike for miles and manage elevation gains of up to 1000' without much trouble. The only aches and pains I get are normal ones, gone after a hot shower or a night's sleep.
On the other hand, elevation gains of more than 1000', or any hikes in 80+ degree weather (never mind humidity) are so much more draining than I think they should be. My lungs seem to get a weird spongy feel, which DuckDuckGo tells me could be COPD or fluid, gee thanks.
I have told a friend I'd love to go with her on her next Mt. St. Helens summit hike. I have a LOT of conditioning to do before that, and am hoping I am capable.
On a more whimsical note, I was about to wish us all a happy Autumn Solstice Eve when I looked up what date it actually is and - ???- the Autumnal Solstice is September 22.
Solstices and equinoxes always being on the 20th or 21st was good enough while I was growing up; it should be good for the current generation!
We really need to bring GIGO back into daily conversation and peoples' general awareness.
Not just the concept that original premises shape the reliability of output from the very start, but a concept of being extremely skeptical about the reliability of any information that really turns your crank.
Er... I'm one of those longtime readers, but infrequent commenters. This is awful news, and I do hope ObiWi can migrate. I have no tech skills whatsoever to offer, but would be happy to kick in some expense money.
I love maps. All kinds: altases, road maps, city maps, world maps. Give me a map to use, read, ponder, and I can be absorbed in it for hours.
I remember, when I was in Athens (Greece, not Georgia), getting my hands on a fold-out street map, assuming I'd be able to make some sense out of it based on knowing the general names of streets, and where things like markets and bridges were. And I remember the delightful/terrifying feeling of not, in fact, being able to do that even a little bit. Thanks to the different alphabet, I was unable to tease out any meaning at all. Terrifying for obvious reasons, but delightful because it was rather fun to see one of my most-cherished objects - a map! - manifest as incomprehensible.
Michael - The issue of records being kept, preserved, and accessible for more than one generation is one I think about a LOT. Just seeing how quickly electronic media become obsolete makes me shake my head in bleak wonder.
We can read the direct writing of people from thousands of years ago - multiple thousands of years - right up to, what, a couple generations ago? When did people stop writing letters or keeping written journals?
It just seems like humanity, or at least the industrialized portions, is engaged in a headlong rush to erase itself from the record. (Which, considering where we are right now as a species, is kind of understandable, though no less alarming.)
hairshirthedonist: I would love to be wrong, but I think not. The blood-and-bone MAGAs are not (IMO) sentient in a traditional sense: they are outrage-tropists, who respond automatically to the Outrage du Jour. Doesn't matter if it directly contradicts yesterday's Outrage du Jour.
No object permanence, no problem!
I do like the idea of a thousand (liberal) churches blooming!
But the point of a church endorsing candidates/parties is that its congregants then vote, as a bloc, as their church tells them to vote.
The Sacred Assembly of the Mechanical Pencil probably doesn't have enough adherents to constitute a voting bloc.
Perhaps a "Sacred Assembly of Really Cool Mechanical Tools No Longer in General Use"? You could get the self-propelling pencil folks, and the people who still love their Texas Instruments calculators, their slide rules, and anyone who still knows what a protractor is, and there may be quite a few rotary phone fans waiting for a spiritual home!
novakant:
"But let's also remember that the good old days were those of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. "
I think that's when the split started on ObiWi. We had 500+ comment posts about torture, with people who recognized torture as an atrocity, full stop, arguing with people who thought torture was justified and useful. IIRC, most of the original front pagers were still around, and most of them were Iraq War hawks.
I am a woman, and a Boomer.
I used to spend some time seeking out conservatives sites and voices, hoping for rational conversations about policy ends and means, but then they reached the logical end of modern US conservativism and went nuts.
I mean, this isn't me saying "Conservative thought is nuts" just because I'm liberal.
This is me saying "Conservative thought is nuts because it actively celebrates things that conservatives once swore they were opposed to, purely because their media leaders have told them to"... or, I dunno, just because they own the US government now and they can do whatever they want...?
And what they want is neo-feudalism, with concentration camps...?
I still drop in at Volokh Conspiracy once in a while, but the lunacy is in full swing with most of their FPers... and the comment sections are cesspools.
I could re-subscribe to The Atlantic, where some non-rabid conservatives have found a home, but they don't represent any actual political movement - and not enough of an opposition to their Party's current manifestation - so I'm not sure what the value is.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk”
Jim Gaffigan? Rats. Though I do have to say I don't find him nearly as funny as I used to. In fact, I can't remember the last time I watched him on YT, or anywhere else.
Are we recommending comedians? If so: Josh Johnson! He has a mighty YouTube presence. Some of his posts are for channel members only (which I am not) but most are free. He is my newest Favorite Comedian.
On “Rule Six, there is NO … Rule Six!…”
GftNC - Home is not "wherever we are," though being able to feel at home wherever you are is a gift.
I have lived in Seattle since the mid-1970s (aside from a few years interregnum when I had to go back to Florida), and have been in my current house for nearly 30 years. I agree with you whole-heartedly that the thought of moving is fairly horrifying.
OTOH, if I ever do have to relocate, I hope I have the grit and spirit to make an adventure out of it.
"
I wonder if I'm a born nomad, because I have no sense of an ancestral "home." I've lived in different parts of the country and liked or disliked them for what I found there, not for any larger ethnic or familial attachments.
The yearning for a "true homeland" has been at the foundation of many wars, pogroms, dispossessions, and conquests - either by an entity out to capture the homeland, or the former inhabitants thereof trying to reclaim it.
In dramas where conflict is central to the plot, there is often a scene where the main character loses a loved one - a sibling, usually - to that conflict. And thereafter the main character burns with a special rage for vengeance. I've always considered this either bad plotting, a form of "fridging" or - if it does happen in real life - sheer lunacy. It's a WAR, you nitwit; one that you and your loved one willingly signed up to fight, or even instigated yourselves. People die in wars. Maybe if you didn't want to risk your loved one, you shouldn't have pushed for this battle, eh?
I kind of feel the same way about that yearning for an ancestral homeland. Maybe the way you lost it was horrific and unjust, but inflicting similar or worse damage on the people currently occupying it (who may not even be the same ones who drove your ancestors off) will only set up another cycle of dispossession-revenge-war. If it were as clearcut as getting rid of the usurpers and replacing them, that would be one thing. But it is seldom that clearcut.
The I/P horror is non clearcut beyond description, with claim to the same bit of land going back generations on one side, centuries on the other, possibly millenia on both sides. At what point do ancestral claims cease to be arguable? One generation? Ten? A thousand? At what point do past atrocities justify, or cease to justify, current and future ones?
Someone once said, "'Home' is where you bury your bone." I've always liked that.
Home is where you make it. Wherever you find yourself, you can bury your bone there.
On “We are all Usain Bolt now”
lj - Mostly muscle stiffness in my legs and back, because I am deliberately doing difficult-for-me hikes. Predictable, explicable, and - so far, knock wood - non-permanent.
I have a history of getting banged up and not paying much attention to it, unless (1) I need to go to an ER; or (2) the hurt doesn't go away after a few days. I've fallen on trails (have a patch of numb on my right leg from a fall that smashed a nerve). I have a tricky knee from bending and twisting while over-enthusiastically ripping up invasive blackberry vines. I've been kicked, bitten, and stepped on by horses; broke my arm riding. (Well, not *riding* per se; it was the falling-off-the-horse part that did the actual breakage.)
One impairment that might be age-related, or due to my history as an ex-smoker/current vaper, or a combo of the two, is I have to stop and rest frequently to catch my breath if I'm going upslope. Doesn't happen on the flat, only if I'm climbing. Stairs or trails. It's been that way for a few years now, and at least doesn't seem to be getting worse (knock wood, again).
Not sure that answers what you wanted to know...?
"
I have never been consistently active and fit long enough to establish any pattern. I have years of being very fit followed by years of being a complete couch potato. Here I am, turning 70 in a few months, and I can't really gauge my status because I'm always in between.
On the one hand, I can still hike for miles and manage elevation gains of up to 1000' without much trouble. The only aches and pains I get are normal ones, gone after a hot shower or a night's sleep.
On the other hand, elevation gains of more than 1000', or any hikes in 80+ degree weather (never mind humidity) are so much more draining than I think they should be. My lungs seem to get a weird spongy feel, which DuckDuckGo tells me could be COPD or fluid, gee thanks.
I have told a friend I'd love to go with her on her next Mt. St. Helens summit hike. I have a LOT of conditioning to do before that, and am hoping I am capable.
On a more whimsical note, I was about to wish us all a happy Autumn Solstice Eve when I looked up what date it actually is and - ???- the Autumnal Solstice is September 22.
Solstices and equinoxes always being on the 20th or 21st was good enough while I was growing up; it should be good for the current generation!
On “Kuzushi and Charlie Kirk”
We really need to bring GIGO back into daily conversation and peoples' general awareness.
Not just the concept that original premises shape the reliability of output from the very start, but a concept of being extremely skeptical about the reliability of any information that really turns your crank.
On “Excelsior!”
Hi, lj!
I just got your email with the links to the archive and this new site.
Many, many - oh, a googolplex! - of thanks for preserving and continuing ObWi!
On “What to do?”
Er... I'm one of those longtime readers, but infrequent commenters. This is awful news, and I do hope ObiWi can migrate. I have no tech skills whatsoever to offer, but would be happy to kick in some expense money.
On “The law of the letter”
I love maps. All kinds: altases, road maps, city maps, world maps. Give me a map to use, read, ponder, and I can be absorbed in it for hours.
I remember, when I was in Athens (Greece, not Georgia), getting my hands on a fold-out street map, assuming I'd be able to make some sense out of it based on knowing the general names of streets, and where things like markets and bridges were. And I remember the delightful/terrifying feeling of not, in fact, being able to do that even a little bit. Thanks to the different alphabet, I was unable to tease out any meaning at all. Terrifying for obvious reasons, but delightful because it was rather fun to see one of my most-cherished objects - a map! - manifest as incomprehensible.
Michael - The issue of records being kept, preserved, and accessible for more than one generation is one I think about a LOT. Just seeing how quickly electronic media become obsolete makes me shake my head in bleak wonder.
We can read the direct writing of people from thousands of years ago - multiple thousands of years - right up to, what, a couple generations ago? When did people stop writing letters or keeping written journals?
It just seems like humanity, or at least the industrialized portions, is engaged in a headlong rush to erase itself from the record. (Which, considering where we are right now as a species, is kind of understandable, though no less alarming.)
On “Your Schadenfreude monitoring open thread”
hairshirthedonist: I would love to be wrong, but I think not. The blood-and-bone MAGAs are not (IMO) sentient in a traditional sense: they are outrage-tropists, who respond automatically to the Outrage du Jour. Doesn't matter if it directly contradicts yesterday's Outrage du Jour.
No object permanence, no problem!
On “An open thread on July 4th”
I do like the idea of a thousand (liberal) churches blooming!
But the point of a church endorsing candidates/parties is that its congregants then vote, as a bloc, as their church tells them to vote.
The Sacred Assembly of the Mechanical Pencil probably doesn't have enough adherents to constitute a voting bloc.
Perhaps a "Sacred Assembly of Really Cool Mechanical Tools No Longer in General Use"? You could get the self-propelling pencil folks, and the people who still love their Texas Instruments calculators, their slide rules, and anyone who still knows what a protractor is, and there may be quite a few rotary phone fans waiting for a spiritual home!
"
novakant:
"But let's also remember that the good old days were those of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. "
I think that's when the split started on ObiWi. We had 500+ comment posts about torture, with people who recognized torture as an atrocity, full stop, arguing with people who thought torture was justified and useful. IIRC, most of the original front pagers were still around, and most of them were Iraq War hawks.
"
I am a woman, and a Boomer.
I used to spend some time seeking out conservatives sites and voices, hoping for rational conversations about policy ends and means, but then they reached the logical end of modern US conservativism and went nuts.
I mean, this isn't me saying "Conservative thought is nuts" just because I'm liberal.
This is me saying "Conservative thought is nuts because it actively celebrates things that conservatives once swore they were opposed to, purely because their media leaders have told them to"... or, I dunno, just because they own the US government now and they can do whatever they want...?
And what they want is neo-feudalism, with concentration camps...?
I still drop in at Volokh Conspiracy once in a while, but the lunacy is in full swing with most of their FPers... and the comment sections are cesspools.
I could re-subscribe to The Atlantic, where some non-rabid conservatives have found a home, but they don't represent any actual political movement - and not enough of an opposition to their Party's current manifestation - so I'm not sure what the value is.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.