Something Short, Something Brief, Something Abbreviated, Something Quick

Early this week I have a surgery in the family--nothing terribly serious, just cataracts, but because of additional health problems, it's challenging, and I'm the support person. So this week's OT will be a lot shorter than usual. Hope y'all don't mind, and I sure hope that by Wednesday morning (now from y'all's point of view) I'll be able to be here with you. It's pretty unclear how much I will need to be at a family member's house.

Something/Someone Old
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Last night I dreamed I was singing along with this song, and didn't know all the words. Some guy was also there singing along with me. Smile

This song is by Blind Melon, off their eponymous first album from 1992 (I love the word "eponymous").

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A lot of the bands I listened to in my teens were people older than me, but Blind Melon was my generation.

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Three of them were from Mississippi. I have no idea if those three guys had lyrical input, but the lyrics sure resonate with me as a Southerner. But it could be just that the ones from Indiana and Pennsylvania were rural guys, too (lines like "as I wipe eye bugs away" don't turn up in many bands' lyrics).

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I haven't really listened to any of their subsequent albums; they only released two albums before the Shannon Hoon, the lead singer, committed suicide via cocaine overdose. They broke up after that, though they released an additional album of outtakes called Nico, after Hoon's infant daughter. I thought the proceeds were to go toward a college fund for her, but there seems to be conflicting information on that--I also saw that proceeds went to a fund for helping musicians and artists with addiction.

Something New
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This is a cool thing I found on Kickstarter. I know I'd like to find a button-down shirt that fit me properly:

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Even with the heightened awareness about inclusivity on social media, the fashion industry has a long way to go. That's why one new designer is taking matters into her own hands. Katie Cooper started a Kickstarter last month for her brand "Button Brigade," which is a line of gender neutral and size inclusive button-ups.

"I set out on a mission to update my wardrobe but I left every store empty-handed. Nothing fit and there is nothing more frustrating than trying on a bunch of clothes you like but coming up short," the designer tells Teen Vogue. "The only shirt I could find that fit okay were in the little boy's section of a department store. I'm a grown woman and I shouldn't have to shop in the little boy's section for something as basic as a button-up shirt. I knew I couldn't be the only one with the problem so I started asking friends and doing my research and there is an overall lack of gender-neutral clothing."

Something Borrowed
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Apparently the band Green Day covered this song by John Lennon and donated the proceeds to Save Darfur. I'm including both versions. I've been a Lennon fan since I was a child. He was often an asshole, but I always liked him for his honesty.

Warning: neither of these songs is happy, and since the second one is about Darfur, well--don't click through unless you are feeling emotionally strong enough to hear clips of people talking about their experiences during the genocide.

Here's Green Day's take, thinking beyond borders:

Something Blue
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I've never been a big fan of abstract art, so Mondrian isn't one of my faves. But when I saw this 1910 painting, I reconsidered. Then I found out it was from his "luminist period" where he was experimenting with light effects. I am a huge fan of that, so it's no wonder I like this:

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I also like that he named it "The Red Tree," though most of the color is shades of blue.

How are y'all today? I hope I'm around to hear (read) the answers!

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Arrow's picture

Have a good day!
(Quick/short enough?)

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I want a Pony!

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Arrow Oh, Arrow, I didn't mean you all had to be brief. I just had to.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

riverlover's picture

Done about 6 months apart. It sure is nice having true colors again. And my lenses are set to reading distance so I need to wear glasses to drive. But read eye-naked.

I spied another mouse in the kitchen. Traps are here, just not set. PB at the ready for bait.

Have a good if iffy day. Brink of war because of hawks is no fun.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@riverlover All days are iffy. I try to accept that as a basic condition.

And I'm not talking about the automatic mortality we all face as humans.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

The Aspie Corner's picture

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jb8PErSerQ]

This certainly won't end well.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@The Aspie Corner Disgusting excuse for a human being. Now it's finally becoming politically correct to say so. Occasionally liberals will eventually catch up with people who are actually aware how power operates. Reactionaries won't, of course.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

The Aspie Corner's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal Whether about 'Cultural Marxism', the 'Deep State', or their favorite fallback, 'The Jews'...because, you know, every Jew (or related to one) is a billionaire according to right-wing logic.

Centrists will continue to enable or even support them outright because anything even remotely left-wing scares the shit out of them. This identitarian shit under the watchful eye of the CIA is living proof of that.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@The Aspie Corner Lots of leftists talk about the Deep State. Reactionaries are late comers to that conversation.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

The Aspie Corner's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal Why validate reactionaries if you understand how systems work? At the end of the day, it's all just capitalism, a system rich assholes and their goons refuse to let go of.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@The Aspie Corner No. It isn't.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@The Aspie Corner I mean that the term Deep State isn't inherently reactionary. I agree with you about capitalism and the goon squad. Deep State is just a word describing one part of the goon squad.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

The Aspie Corner's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Things went well, thank goodness. Quite well, actually. And my mom is enjoying the meatloaf and potatoes and brownies we made for her (she said "we need to get the other one scheduled quick so we can get some more brownies") Smile

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

enhydra lutris's picture

noisy coyotes. Glad to hear that the surgery went well. There are a lot of possiblr bad jokes here today, dealing with briefs, of course, such as why legal briefs aren't and whether boxers wear them. Well, there are dishes to do and the desert beckons, so everybody have a good one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@enhydra lutris Cold here too. No doubt because the cold air is not at the poles where it's supposed to be.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Cold here too. No doubt because the cold air is not at the poles

.... or Eastern Colorado .....

where it's supposed to be.

Great news about your Mom, by the way. Multo grazie a Dio and congratulations to her!

And my mom is enjoying the meatloaf and potatoes and brownies we made for her (she said "we need to get the other one scheduled quick so we can get some more brownies")

Tell her to take her time. Let the current eye heal all the way. And you can tell her it's so you can send a friend to Colorado for brownie supplies (snark!) !!

Hope y'all don't mind, and I sure hope that by Wednesday morning (now from y'all's point of view) I'll be able to be here with you.

Now I'm not Southern, and therefore not a native speaker. And my Southern translator is based on the language of Spartanburg, South Carolina. According to the same, since there are more than one of us, you should have addressed us as "all y'all" (or "awl y'awl if speaking Texan). But then, Floridian might work differently.

Wink

Seriously: Today's a great day for the infirm amongst us. Your Mom's surgery went victoriously, and I myself successfully walked to the kitchen of my apartment for the first time since I fell last Friday and hurt myself getting back into bed. So congratulations to your Mom and please let her know she's in my thoughts!

Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@thanatokephaloides Than, I was wondering where you were! I'm so glad you're going to be OK!

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@thanatokephaloides I think it's up to the person whether you say y'all--you (pl) all--or all y'all all of you (pl) all.

Personally, I think the first is better; less redundant. But it might be a regional difference, as you say!

Of course, technically the whole thing is redundant, because the correct grammar says that "you" can be singular or plural all on its own; but some English speakers rightly assess that having the same word mean a singular and a plural is confusing and annoying in practice.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

riverlover's picture

@enhydra lutris @enhydra lutris Meanwhile the rain-of-6-days has not yet started. April showers are cynical now. It was flurrying this AM.

Dog seems again to be recovering. No Vet call. She can shoot through her dog door again. Still running slightly silent for her.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

orlbucfan's picture

I am a major Beatle freak. John Lennon was a reason why.

The guy was a major talented musical writer aka 'bard.' His 2 bros, Paul and George, were major talented musicians who learned how to write off ole John. I always watch for and enjoy your OTs. Rec'd!!

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Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@orlbucfan Me too. Always my favorite Beatle. I was devastated when he died, though I was only 12.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

I love the comments on this tweet

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@gjohnsit They have no answers, period. That's why they constantly talk about Trump.

It's scary how well it works.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

mimi's picture

who was killed in Berlin Germany on April 11th, 1968. Our media cover his movement and assassination today in TV, as it is the 50th anniversary of his murder, it'sb asically a remembrance day of his life cut short so brutally. It was also the time I arrived in Berlin after I had finished highschool and more or less my baptism into into adulthood and political life as a student. The images in the video in the first link bring back a lot of memories to me. His American born wife is still living in Berlin today and she is a wonderful inspiring voice among all noise from all sides around til today.

If you want to distract yourself a little bit from the other awful happenings around the world, have a look and have a good day.

Attack on Rudi Dutschke on April 11, 1968
and
Three gunshots 50 years ago that led to revolution on the streets of Germany
As I don't know if this article is behind a paywall for you to see, I post it here, because I paid for it. Hope it works.

Three gunshots 50 years ago that led to revolution on the streets of Germany
Rudi Dutschke. Photo: DPA
On April 11th 1968, a right-wing fanatic shot Rudi Dutschke three times from point blank range. The assassination attempt on the leader of the student movement sparked revolt on Germany’s streets.
Half a century ago on Wednesday, Dutschke was one his bike cycling down the the Kurfüstendamm, West Berlin’s famous shopping mile, on his was to the pharmacy to pick up cough drops for his infant son.

But he stopped when a slight young man approached him and asked if he was Rudi Dustchke. When he replied that he was, the man pulled out a revolver and shot him three times - twice in the head and once in the shoulder.

After hours of surgery, Dutschke survived. But he would not be able to speak again for three years. Eleven years later he died in the bathtub on Christmas Eve after suffering a seizure related to his brain injuries.

The shooter, 23-year-old Josef Bachmann, had pictures of Hitler hanging on his bedroom walls and was trained with weapons by neo-Nazis. He later killed himself in jail.
The incident was one of the defining moments of post-War German history, contributing to the radicalization of the 1968 student movement and leaving a black mark over the name of Germany's largest newspaper group, Axel Springer, which owns the tabloid Bild and the conservative daily Die Welt.

A professional revolutionary

Born in East Germany in 1940, Dutschke grew up in a protestant family which “never saw a contradiction between Christianity and socialism," as he later wrote.

He soon proved himself to be an uncomfortable figure for East German authorities though, declaring his support for German reunification and refusing to be conscripted. Banned from studying sports journalism, he went to West Berlin in 1960 to study sociology and found himself trapped in the democratic enclave by the erection of the Berlin Wall a year later.

He remained a vocal proponent of socialism and dedicated himself to becoming a “professional revolutionary.” As a leading figure in the Socialist German Student Union, he decried what he saw as the injustice of capitalism and the imperial policies of the US in Vietnam.

In February of 1968 he told a crowd of enraptured students at the International Vietnam Congress in Berlin that “it is the duty of every revolutionary to carry out the revolution." Spiegel was just the largest German magazine to name him the face of the revolution, printing his face on its front page.

Dutschke was calling for revolution in a country in which almost half of Germans still insisted that Nazism was in principle a good idea, according to a representative survey from the time. But he was also calling for a break with the USA at a time when West Germany - and West Berlin in particular - was heavily dependent on American military support.

For the pro-American Bild newspaper, he became a figure of loathing, earning comparisons on its pages with Hitler and Napoleon.

Most infamously, Bild told its readers in early 1968 that ‘“all of the dirty work [of tackling the revolutionaries] shouldn’t be left to the police and their water cannons."

Tens of thousands of “upright Germans” listened to a call to arms by Bild and marched through Berlin carrying placards describing Dutschke as "public enemy number one."

The student movement themselves were hardly angels, though. Just days before the attack on Dutschke, left-wing radicals who later went on to create the RAF terror group bombed a shopping centre in Frankfurt, saying they would keep up their campaign against capitalism until people stopped consuming.

'Bild shot too'

Photo: DPA

As news spread of the shooting on Dutschke, it didn’t take long for the student movement to turn on Bild, saying that “Bild shot too”. That evening students marched on the Axel Springer building in Berlin's Koch Straße and threw Molotov cocktails through the windows.

In the following days street battles swept across the country, hitting Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne and several other major cities. Tens of thousands of students took to the streets and were met by 22,00 police officers with water guns.

Two people were killed in the ensuing chaos and hundreds more were injured. In Munich students raided an Axel Springer building and ransacked the offices.

But Klaus Rainer Röhl, a leading figure in the student movement, later wrote that the attack on Dutschke took the wind from the sails of the student movement.

“He had called people to the tough and lengthy march into the corridors of power through which he was preparing the greatest success of this movement,” he said, referring to Dutschke's call for students to involve themselves in politics.

But with the assassination attempt “the student movement lost the exhilaration and ease that it had at the beginning,” he wrote.

These days, the newspapers of the Axel Springer group concede that their reporting of events went too far.

“Bild and Welt did indeed report on the West Berlin student movement in increasingly harsh tones,” Die Welt recently conceded. “Often the boundaries of good taste were broken, and defamation and inflammatory slogans were mixed into the articles.”

Half a century later it is hard to say whether Dutschke or the Axel Springer newspapers had the last word on the 1968 student protests.

Bild is still Germany’s biggest selling and arguably most influential newspaper.

But, in a sign that the students did eventually get the upper hand - achieving cultural supremacy on minority rights, environmental issues and sexual liberation - one conservative politicians called this year for a “conservative revolution” against the 1968 generation.

And the Axel Springer newspapers have to live with the legacy of their campaign against Dutschke in one other way too. In 2008, Koch Straße - where the media giant still has its headquarters - was renamed Rudi Dutschke Straße.

All the best to you.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@mimi The things I don't know. Thank you, mimi, for letting me know. I have so little of the history of socialism. Part of the effect of an American education. You have to be pro-active in this country to find out things that a)happen elsewhere, or b) have anything to do with socialism or left-wing anarchism, either here or elsewhere. Those two things have to be Evil, and that's all you need to know about them.

Me, I feel I should know things even about philosophies that are pretty obviously evil, like Nazism. It seems better to know things than to not.

I have a rather odd take on the being-thrown-out-of-the-Garden-of-Eden story, as you might imagine.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

is better than most people could produce on their best day, so no apologies from you are in order.

Glad the surgery went well and hope the next goes even better. I approve the choice of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, which is my personal number one comfort meal, with a side of either buttered green beans or buttered carrot coins. It's also one of my favorite things to order in a diner I know to be good. Bland, buttery, easy to eat, knife unnecessary. Nothing more comforting to me!

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace Thanks, Henry. Always good to "see" you.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

gulfgal98's picture

My walking partner and I went, as per usual, for our daily walk early this morning. We both live in what would be called the center of town, less than a half mile from city hall and the courthouse. As we were finishing our walk and standing in front of her house, she said that she thought she saw a turkey walking through a neighbor's yard, about a 100 yards away. Sure enough, we really DID see a female turkey walking down the street and toward the small park across from where she lives. Shok

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@gulfgal98 How wonderful! I assume you mean wild turkeys. We have a flock that occasionally roosts in the cemetery behind my back yard.

I had my doubts about living near a cemetery, but actually it's incredibly peaceful and even beneficent in vibe.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

gulfgal98's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal it was a wild turkey hen. I am only 3/4 mile from the center of town walking distance and I have seen deer in my yard and my neighbor's yard. S o it is not unusual to see wildlife passing through. Unfortunately the coyote population has expanded and is taking over the habitat around here.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy