Wednesday Forum
Steven L. Taylor
·
Wednesday, August 25, 2021
·
127 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
Follow Steven on
Twitter
On the “I can’t possibly take a vaccine they haven’t been fully approved yet.” front, my stepdaughter and Sil are finally getting their first shots on Saturday.
So, “Yay.”
(I took the backseat in this drive, letting my wife discuss and persuade her daughter. A couple times a week I would email my wife a link I thought might be helpful, most of which I garnered at Anne Lauries daily Covid roundups over at Balloon Juice. Thank You Anne.)
“I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me however I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. See this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.”
-Martin Luther, 1527
From this AP article:
https://twitter.com/Laurie_Garrett/status/1430307735837478915
COVID peaking curves
https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/status/1430181696952012801
Out of the mouths of babes
This morning the former US Ambassador to NATO wrote this nuanced analysis of how things on the ground in Afghanistan changed over the last year due to negotiations.
It’s worth a read: https://twitter.com/IvoHDaalder/status/1430296057083318273?s=19
Weirdly interesting thread, I cannot stop giggling at some of these.
The past 2 morning s been a bit busy with sleepless nights in between.
Sunday night, Billie Jean decided to engage in some face time with a copperhead. Caught it on the muzzle like dogs always do. Decidedly miserable with swelling on the muzzle and fluid buildup in her neck wattles that night, Mama constantly worrying, texting back and forth with a vet up in STL, and me trying to talk her off the bridge. (I’ve seen this before, painful? yes. fatal? maybe one every 2 or 3 million) Took Mama to work Monday morn and hung out in the vet parking lot until they opened (my truck was back in the shop again*). They crammed her in between appointments, prescribed antibiotics, antihistamines, and steroids. By Tuesday AM her swelling was noticeably reduced and she while still a bit lethargic she seemed otherwise more or less normal. Today, her swelling is all but gone and she is back to being her happy go lucky puppy self, tho a little bit shy of tall grass.
Yesterday, I got my first pelvic stent put in. The other side gets done in 2 weeks. Mostly uneventful with the exception that the general anesthesia wasn’t very general, like not at all. I didn’t think much of it as it is all needles just varying in the size of the bores. The number of needles seemed a bit excessive, I lost count at six or seven, and the size of the needle for the stents felt like they were drilling the Chunnel into my leg. I think it was when he was inserting the stents that I finally emitted a noise that was something between a groan and a gasp. It was a bit violent, and he said something about giving me more of the “happy juice”. Not that it did any more good than the first jolt of it did.
I will be discussing this when I see him for the follow up next week. Something like, maybe give me a local?
The only side effect this morn is my right nut is more than a bit tender. Probably normal but I think I’ll call the office as I was not warned of this possibility.
*my only good news this week: I blew a power steering hose that had just been replaced, so that repair was free. Yay me.
@Jen:
That is glorious. Thank you.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well, that procedure sounds unnecessarily unpleasant. What did they give you as a general?
Again, I’m glad to hear Ms. Billie Jean is feeling chipper.
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1430510845583405057
@Jen: Gotta love Marjorie Taylor Green turning into an amalgamation of Ryan Reynolds and Ryan Stiles…
eta: as long as one isn’t Ryan Reynolds or Ryan Stiles anyway
@CSK: Don’t know, but judging from the fact that I had forgotten that I had posted about Billie Jean yesterday, it may have at least had the effect of short term memory loss. 🙂
@OzarkHillbilly:
I hope you continue to improve.
And in other medical news, the J&J booster apparently jacks up your immune response by nine times.
US parents on what the child tax credit means to them: ‘It literally saved us’
@OzarkHillbilly:
When I had a vasectomy one of mine swelled up to the size of a small kiwi and was hotter than the sun. The Dr. looked at me, shrugged and said “ehhh, that happens sometimes.” When I asked if he was going to help me with it he shrugged again and gave me some pills. His patient care manner left something to be desired. I think about that a lot when I’m trying to decide whether or not to get rid of those little freeloaders.
Got awful dusty in here. Stunningly beautiful in it’s simplicity:
The story behind that video:
A love heart made out of sheep: Australian farmer pays tribute to his aunt
@CSK:
Keep in mind those are phase 2 results of the booster clinical trials. This means the antibody levels rose that high. What that means as far as preventing infection and mitigating the severity of illness is yet to be determined in phase 3.
Still, if boosters get authorized, we should all get them.
@Beth: A buddy of mine had his swell up to the size of grapefruits. A lot of ice got used that week. Any swelling I have is minimal which is why I chose the word “tender”. In my ignorance, I would think that would be a vote in favor getting rid of them.
Dang. You know the “how it started / how it’s going” meme? My epidemiologist friend just posted one. ‘How it started’ is a pic of Gwyneth Paltrow. ‘How it’s going’ is a cardboard box that’s stained on the bottom.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I mentioned before that I was low-wattage atheist, and generally I don’t get into religious disputes, but damned if it doesn’t strike me as Christians treat God like a mean Space Monster who hurts them capriciously.
@Jen: Ben Shapiro has the curse of looking as goofily stupid as the things he says.
@Teve: Speaking as a pagan, there’s a jolly good reason why I try to invoke my deities as little as possible: I might get their attention.
And based on episodes up to now, my suspicion is that they look at me as a cross between a lab rat and free entertainment.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Sounds like timely advice for avoiding contracting and transmitting Covid-19.
@Teve:
The behavior described by the Book of Job.
@Teve: I thought the “looks like the babysitter your kids don’t like” was a nice touch on that one.
I figured that something like this would kick in soon, funny that it’s Delta going first:
Delta will charge unvaccinated employees more for health insurance
@Teve: I’m taking that quote up to the local rag in the hopes they might print it. They are pretty right wing, so I have my doubts. Chances are most of their readers would think, “I ain’t listening to anything that dead ni**er said.” anyway.
@OzarkHillbilly: i told my 70-yro antivaxxer mom yesterday that we needed to have end of life discussions tomorrow. “Why would we do that? I’m not at any risk!” She replied. I told her, “people in your age bracket have a 5 to 10% chance of dying from Covid” and she won’t respond.
@grumpy realist: Speaking as an atheist I invoke any and all deities loudly and often. It keeps the believers at least 6 feet away from me.
@Jen:
Delta probably doesn’t like being equated with a virus. 🙂
@Kathy:
Sure, but it’s encouraging news. I got the initial J&J; I’ll certainly sign up for the booster.
@grumpy realist: (bops chalices with Grumpy Realist)
I feel like there should have been a post on Charlie Watts. This one hit me. The Stones are dying of old age.
@Michael Reynolds:
I’m reminded of a decades-old interview with Mick Jagger I read a few years ago, in which he said he couldn’t envisage himself jumping around on a stage at age 40.
The man’s now 78 and still jumping.
@Jen:
Called it! There’s absolutely no way in hell businesses or insurance are gonna eat the costs of the unvaxxed when they can easily pass them along. In fact, I’m shocked it’s so low -$200 a month is piddling change compared to what their rate hike’s gonna be and the cited $40K number. One sick employee would wipe out the surcharge gains off 200 unvaxxed employee a month and the stats say at least 3-4 of those will be hospitalized in that time period.
As for 50% of the unvaxxed who swear they’ll walk off the job if a mandate’s in place, bye-bye and don’t leave an assprint on the door. All of you will be competing for the same ever shrinking pool of jobs and frankly, those employers will take advantage of your stance to pay jack sh$t if they hire you at all. What are you gonna do, go get vaxxed and crawl back to your old job?
@Teve:
She’s 70 – you should be having it anyways. I know older folk like to pretend they have plenty of time left but once you hit the 5-0, you should be starting to make plans. Death comes for us all and the longer you go, the closer the end date gets. Denial just screws over those who are left behind unfairly.
I told my elders that unless you want me to plan what I think is an appropriate end for you, you better get your affairs in order and let me know preferences. Did you know there’s companies out there that turn ashes into fake jewels? One recalcitrant aunt was informed we’d cremate her, turn her into tacky costume jewelry for the kids to play with and eventually get forgotten about and donated to a thrift shop; any property we end up with would be sold and funds donated to the charities supporting causes she hates. So tell me now what you want, get the paperwork done and designate your heirs / caretakers / powers of attorney for if you don’t, remember it’s up to *me* what happens and you ain’t gonna like it. She got to work on it and told me I’m outta the will 🙂
My epidemiologist friend talking about Covid and pregnancy:
https://www.self.com/story/covid-19-vaccines-pregnancy
.. https://twitter.com/ryanstruyk/status/1430517103799455744
COVID-19 new cases trend:
@charon:
Do you ever get the feeling we’d do better at such efforts if people grasped exponential growth?
Take the classic case of the lily pad that doubles in size every day, and takes 30 days to cover a huge lake. If we take the 30th day as the peak, then just 5 days earlier the pad covered 1/128 of the surface. That seems small, when catastrophe is mere days away.
Thing is, without understanding exponential growth, you’ll never get widespread agreement to take measures such as lockdown over a finding of ten existing cases in a city, much less for ten cases in a country.
@Teve:
I’ve mentioned Mexico is vaccinating by age groups. When the 50-59 group got started, the government also included pregnant women of any age. This has remained the rule as subsequent age groups come up.
@KM:
I can’t imagine caring what happens to my corpse. Do people not know how death works? Funerals etc… are for the living, they should decide whether they want to lose a day of work, or god forbid fly across the country, to moan about me being dead. Michael’s dead, let’s all go to Nordstrom for black mourning outfits?
Cram my body in the bin and haul me out to the curb for Wednesday morning pick-up. The recycling bin would be best, at least some sanitation worker sorting at the conveyor belt would get a good story out of it. I was like, bottle, can, egg carton. . . dead dude! Whoa!
I was reading a couple articles in Bulwark this morning and both matter of factly noted the Afghan withdrawal was “disastrous” and “shambolic,” as if it was an obvious fact. But is it? As I was noting to a for Marine colleague who was also apoplectic, so.far, the US isn’t fighting our way out, there are no pitched battles or overt war-like combat, there have been no US casualties I am aware of to date and alot of people have been evacuated in a short amount of time. All in the middle of a war zone in which we lost. So, not bad. The media on this has been so awful and crazily hyperbolic.
it would be like a beat reporter for a football team that started 0-3 and the person writing it was a disastrous start to the season, but then they win there next 4 games, that same reporter wouldn’t still be referring to a disastrous season, the narrative would change. But with these people it seems the withdrawal will always and forever be a disaster no matter what happens, and that’s just journalist malpractice. But it seems that’s what’s happening and the narrative is fixed. It’s total bs from our media.
(Sorry for the trivial sports analogy in relation to the actual war reporting situation, it was just my attempt at an analogous metaphor.)
I found the “…except Tiffany” in this amusing.
https://twitter.com/woodruffbets/status/1430561762705870851
@Michael Reynolds:
I’m with you: They can stuff me in a Hefty trashbag and toss me into a landfill. What do I care? I’ll be dead.
I mentioned this in the Moulton-Meijer thread, but I’ll reiterate it here: The World Bank has frozen aid to Pakistan in view of the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul.
@Kathy:
The special effect team at Corridor Crew did a great video on exponential growth using the Colorado River and a hiker as the metaphor. It really works because everyone knows the Grand Canyon is big, and the SF/X lets you see how it works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e02eiX866N4
@clarkontheweekend:
Too many people who spent 20 years constantly telling us that Afghanistan was “turning the corner” have a vested interest in pushing the “Biden screwed up the withdraw” narrative so that people don’t start asking them tough questions. Reporters don’t want to do the work of getting new sources, so they just keep parroting the same old people they’ve been talking to.
@Jen:
Tiffany is fortunate her mother chose to raise her on the opposite side of the country from DJT.
This country gets stupider every day.
Video: Dripping Springs man strips down to underwear during school board face mask debate
@Scott:
How does divesting oneself of one’s attire illustrate the need for face masks? Perhaps this is explained later in the article, but I don’t have access to it.
@CSK: From an old twitter or tumblr post:
When I die, I want my remains to be scattered at Disneyworld.
Also, I don’t want to be cremated.
@CSK:
@Michael Reynolds:
Great lines from mediocre movies…
Scatman Crothers in Better Off Dead: “It’s a cryin’ shame, throwin’ away a perfectly good white boy like that.”
@KM: I like the idea of “Swedish death cleaning”. Am going to start my own clear-out/clean-up as soon as I finish getting over my surgery.
(This is partly because of having acted as administrator of the estate for a close friend of mine–and I STILL haven’t gotten all of his stuff out of the back closet. At some point I’ll be able to dump all the paperwork and good riddance.)
@Michael Reynolds:
100% agree. Though I do want to share that, in the future, when the time comes that you shuffle off this mortal coil–those of us that remain will definitely toast your memory with the best Whiskey we can find (unless you’d prefer a different libation).
I think it’s always good to let folks know how others will celebrate their passing prior to it happening… provided it doesn’t involve taking a dump on their remains or something along those lines.
BTW, if other OTBers have any “do this in remembrance of me requests, please share them now”–I always appreciate an excuse to celebrate someone’s memory… especially when you can do it with booze.
@Michael Reynolds:
I *do* care what happens to my corpse, but only in a certain way: I do not want to be embalmed and put in a sealed coffin. I want to go back to nature. Give me a “natural” or “green” burial that allows me to decompose naturally and become part of the earth.
Or put me in the body farm and let people learn from me rotting.
@Scott: So, he was actually making a strong pro- mask point that most people will entirely miss because he took his pants off?
On the topic of unique body bequeathment, this one is a favorite: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/grover-krantz-donated-his-body-to-science-on-one-condition-38726179/
Perhaps my favorite was a friend who once asked to be sealed in a polymer in the “Superman” pose and launch into space so his remains might travel the universe. He never mentioned whether or not we were supposed to tie a cape around his neck or not.
@Jen: That was weird. JK Rowling actually looks like Sammy Zayn from WWE before he grew his anarchist beard.
@Scott:
Thanks. I thought it might be something like that.
@Mike in Arlington:
If I’m reading this correctly, and the person who doesn’t wish to be cremated also wants his or her remains to be scattered at Disney World, does that entail strewing body parts around the place?
@Mikey:
Donate my body to science. If someone can learn something from it, great. If I’m too old to be a cadaver, strip me down for a teaching skeleton–and include a note that say “Okay to play jokes with me”
And if nobody will take my body, plunk it in the ground and plant an oak tree on top of it.
@mattbernius:
I will be incredibly insulted if people aren’t getting thoroughly tanked on good scotch and chewy beer when I die.
@Mu Yixiao:
This reminds me of a line from The Big Chill spoken at Alex’s funeral reception: “They throw a great party on the one day they know you can’t make it.”
@Michael Reynolds: If you’re just going to throw it away anyway, donate it to the local medical school so students can get some use from it. If your statement was merely posturing, then carry through with whatever plans you haven’t made yet.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Think I’d rather be bit by a copperhead. Have a quick recovery.
@Michael Reynolds: @CSK: A song for you for the occasion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZq9sDyb8wQ
@Just nutha ignint cracker: (And it even has banjo for Jax.)
@CSK:
I suspected when Tiffany (how many strippers are named Tiffany?) got involved in the reelection campaign, it was because she was threatened to being written out of his will. I bet she’s pleased she doesn’t have to lawyer up.
The cop who shot Ashli Babbitt is going to reveal his identity to Lester Holt tomorrow night. I hope he has excellent security, because the Trumpkins will be gunning for him.
www,rawstory.com/ashli-babb/
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I didn’t realize I had a theme song. Thanks.
@Sleeping Dog:
Oh, doubtless you’re right about the threat.
Apparently it was Donald who insisted on naming her Tiffany, on the grounds that it was “classy.”
For the nerds: Today is the 30th birthday of Linux.
Well… That didn’t take long.
Only Fans drops plan to ban porn.
@KM: Maybe I’m an outlier on this shit, but I just got to say the way I look at it, once I die it just doesn’t matter anymore.
@Michael Reynolds: Amen. In my ideal world they would toss my body in the Mississippi and let the crawfish and catfish have me. But that will never happen, so….
Whatever.
@CSK: I saw it as more of a Lady Godiva type protest.
Why would a group of high school students and their parents, take a summer trip to Afghanistan, when a withdrawal date had been scheduled. And why would DoD issue special visa to enable the trip and then not revoke the visa?
@Mikey:
I want the “pieces” of me to rejoin the cycle of life rather than just being sequestered somewhere for eternity. A big part of that is being an organ donor, so hopefully some of me will go on living in other people, but I would like the leftover cremated and then have a tree planted on them so I end up incorporated into a new organism.
@Mikey: That’s pretty cool. I’ll add this to the list of my considerations.
@CSK: Industrial meat grinder.
@CSK: Maybe they’re imagining using a chipper. It’d get a more even distribution, particularly if they were graded afterward.
@CSK: I do what I can. 😉
@Stormy Dragon:
With my luck, I’ll outlive my organs…
A naked baby helped Nirvana sell millions of records. Now 30, he’s suing the band for ‘child pornography’
Well, OK 🙄
@Sleeping Dog: I’ve read the article twice and can’t figure out what the hell went on there…are these Afghan families who live in the US who went “home” to Afghanistan to visit extended family? I don’t think that this was a “hey, cultural enrichment time” trip, but it’s not clear.
REGARDLESS. Dumbest idea of the year, if not decade. Who approved ANY of this??
@Mu Yixiao:
Steven Wright –
“When I die, I want to donate my body to Science Fiction.”
@CSK:
I suspect the news there is the Pentagon and State are abiding Biden’s call for contingency planning should we extend past the Taliban’s Aug 31 deadline. If this goes bad we want Pakistan’s cooperation, bigly, willing or no. By putting a preemptive head-lock on their cash by a demonstration of our influence at the World Bank we indicate to the Pakis seriousness.
Does anyone hope to end up as Soylent Green?
Me, I’d like to be placed somewhere I might end up fossilized.
@Kathy:
You could be like Tollund Man. Just leave instructions that you wanted to be interred in a northern European peat bog.
@Kathy:
Considering Mexico City is built on a swamp and sinking a couple meters a year…. stay where you are an you just might get your wish (though sooner than you expect). 🙂
@CSK:
Or, based on the bog burials, the subject of The Triffids song Jerdacuttup Man.
It’s weirdly like Biden know what he’s doing:
Afghans with legal papers will be able to travel beyond Aug. 31, Taliban tell Germany
@DrDaveT:
“Is life worth living? That depends on the liver”
@CSK:
@Mu Yixiao:
The major issue is when such places will be excavated for development.
I’m thinking some exhausted mine in a remote area, excavated deep and with lots of flooding issues.
@Mu Yixiao:
Done and done!
And that type of can-do-can-drink! attitude brings us to:
@DrDaveT:
I think this is honestly going to become increasingly common for many folks.
@DrDaveT:
GASP! How dare you defame such a high work of art! Good Sir! I’m flabbergasted! Mediocre! Nonsense!
I’m also 99% sure that’s where my name comes from. That movie apparently had a HUGE effect on me when I was a kid. Don’t ask why my name isn’t Monique. I’m pretty sure that’s a whole can of mental worms I don’t even want to open with my therapist.
Fodder for the Billionaire’s Space Race:
Some years ago, Bezos paid a small fortune to salvage the first stage engines of Apollo Saturn V rockets from the bottom of the Atlantic.
Musk might be able to do him one better, by salvaging the Apollo XI ascent stage of the lunar module, the Eagle, from lunar orbit.
If it’s still there.
@Beth:
Once biking I topped a rise on a trail and it was three people abreast walking on the bike trail.
I jerked savagely left, braked, threw body weight left so I would go down fast and not just plow through them.
Major skin rash / bruise on hip. I also bounced my boys off the crossbar during the process. Walked like I was 90 for 10 days two weeks. I waddled. Slowly. Carefully. Painfully.
The swelling down there was downright disturbing.
Those should not be that size.
It was very disconcerting.
@CSK: I think the original author left it vague and left it to the reader’s imagination to fill in the details.
I am a bit reluctant to answer much more than that. The problem is that, given my imagination, I need to be very circumspect in my answer, or I might be visited by the nice men with the huggy coat and the pretty pills. They can be quite insistent.
I mean, I don’t need THAT again, know what I mean?
@Mu Yixiao:
I downloaded and installed my first copy of Linux as soon as they had shared libraries. My available hard disk wasn’t big enough to hold all of the little utility programs when each contained its own static copy of the standard C library.
On my list of odd Linux stories was the day I got to work and Legal had taped off my office. I was named in the discovery phase of one of the lawsuits we were always involved in. Talking to the supervising attorney while a tech was making images of some of the hard disks in my office, I noticed that they weren’t touching my Linux box. “You know,” I observed, “anything to do with that case that’s in my hands would be on that Linux disk.” He held up a copy of the discovery order and told me, “It requires an image of any Mac or Windows hard disks in your possession. Doesn’t say anything about Linux.”
@Scott:
For the better part of 3 decades, suit/tie (or a minimum of sport coat, slacks, tie) were required at law firms. My response was a variety of tasteful, silk ties. With the exception of the Jerry Garcia tie, every one was either Disney, Warner Bros., or Betty Boop characters. The characters were such that you had to be close and look closely, or else it was merely a pattern. One lawyer got in my face about wearing a “serious” tie. The next day I wore a 70’s vintage gold thread paisley over sky blue silk bow tie. A bow tie on me looks like a Cessna prop on the nose of a 747. That was the last time they asked me to wear a serious tie.
@Beth:
Would it help to note that it’s my little brother’s favorite film? 🙂
@CSK:
Dammit! I meant that the World Bank has frozen aid to AFGHANISTAN.
@DrDaveT:
I didn’t see Scatman Crothers in the cast listing.
@flat earth luddite: Excellent! One year my children bought me a very nice tie for my birthday with all the Warners’ cartoon characters. When I worked for the state legislature, I wore it on the last day of the session, which was always insane in more than one way.
@mattbernius:
I told certain family members that they’d be sure to get tickets to the event, since they’d sworn they’d dance on my grave…
At the time, I also told them I was opting for burial at sea, out past the 10 mile limit. Have a nice walk back…
https://mobile.twitter.com/duty2warn/status/1430625768648822784
@mattbernius:
Now, that’s the right answer. Whether it’s, ‘we’ll miss the old crank,’ or, ‘about damn time,’ whiskey is absolutely the appropriate beverage.
@Michael Cain:
Looney Tunes. What could be more appropriate?
@CSK:
That’s because he ain’t there. I never saw the film but I was curious and did a little investigation. The actor who said that line was named Steven Williams. The clip of him saying the line is here. I have no idea how anyone could mix him up with Scatman Crothers, who was in his 70s at the time and died just a couple years later, whereas Williams here was a youngish guy (and he’s still alive today).
@Kylopod:
I think you said it was Scatman Crothers who spoke the line you liked. That’s how I read your comment, anyway.
@CSK:
That wasn’t me, it was DrDaveT. I’m not sure I even heard of this film till today when reading this thread. I just was curious after you mentioned he wasn’t in the cast listing.
@Kylopod:
Kids today don’t know thier history or culture at all. Next thing your going to be telling me you never saw “One Crazy Summer” either.
@Michael Reynolds: It’ll be a little of column “a” and a little of column “b” (like any good celebration). I would gave added cigars, but then my wife would make sure I immediately followed you into the great hear after.
@Matt Bernius:
A gift, in case you do need to discuss cigars with your wife:
@Kylopod:
You’re right. I clicked the reply button for the wrong post. Sorry.
@mattbernius:
I have a $1300 bottle of Willett Bourbon in my booze shelf* – unopened. My wife has instructions to only open it when I die when surrounded by friends, after I’ve been created and dumped in the ocean.
*Willett Family Estate Single Barrel 22 Year Old Straight Bourbon Whiskey – for those interested in the exact bottle.
@Michael Reynolds:
I told my oncologist that I smoked 3-4 cigars a month, more or less, and did a drink at night. Her reply was to the effect that they didn’t count as smoking. Apparently much better than my pack/day habit from 12 till late 20s, especially 40 years later…
But SWMBO hits suborbital when she notices
I’m totally having my ashes used to create synthetic diamonds for my kids to wear. Haunted jewelry is awesome, I am going to have SO MUCH FUN messing with anybody who messes with them! And even if I end up at a thrift store, I’m totally willing to haunt the enemies of whoever buys me. While I’m sitting on a shelf waiting to be sold, I’ll happily haunt random politicians and the like. 😛
@Michael Reynolds:TY! Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with health risks and everything to do with smell risks.
But I might be able to convince my Ojibwe friend to come over and we can claim is a cross cultural celebration of your life and your works. That’s about the only time I get to enjoy a cigar.
@EddieInCA:
Suddenly my splurging on the occasional, slowly consumed, bottle of Suntory Hibiki seems deeply inadequate.
That, my dude, is a baller move.
I recommend youtube’s Ask A Mortician for all your death options. I hope aqueous cremation will be legal in whatever state I expire.
Big fucking surprise. It’s almost one year since my Grandpa (a Sturgis local) died of COVID. Kinda blows me away I’m still trying to convince my siblings the vax is worth it.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/south-dakota-covid-cases-quintuple-after-sturgis-motorcycle-rally-n1277567
@Matt Bernius:
Oh, well I’m not allowed to smoke cigars in the house. I’m searching for a less whipped way to put it, but yeah I’m not allowed. Hard to argue really.
@Michael Reynolds:
We’re lucky. We can go out on our decks, by the pool and enjoy cigars… or indica….
…in January and February. There is reason you paid what you paid for your house.
@Michael Reynolds: @EddieInCA:
I am not to be trusted around cigars.
After 20 minutes I space out because I am concentrating on the conversation and inhale like it’s a cig.
After inhaling cigar smoke everything tastes like cigar for the next three days.
I am not to be trusted around them. I fuck up.
I really wanna try ayahuasca but without the retreat bullshit.
Like, I want and probably need the guidance, but I do not want other tourists fucking my energy up.
I wanna solo.
@Michael Reynolds:
My dude was a monster Stones fan. I did not get it myself, but assiduously did not criticize. You like what you like. Not my business.
The super cool thing about Jon’s Stones addiction was we went places to see them. Travelled.
In my taste palette the Stones are neutral beige.
I really enjoy travelling by car to a weird destination for a strange thing. I space out and watch the world transit by. It’s fascinating.
No prob with the Stones. Just not my jam, but I came to really like Wild Horses as a song.
For me it was the journey and not the destination.
Bullshitting and jawing at each other for hours on end. That is life. When reality is right there just outside of your car bubble.