caucus99percent free-range politics, organic community

was overflowing with rejoicing worshippers. I enjoyed the opportunity to see it being used for a service apparently very important to its flock, rather than only as a film locale or tourist favorite.

During that same trip, I went to see Les Invalides on a random weekday. Some others, whom I assumed were fellow tourists, taking it all in, were scattered in the pews. I sat in a pew near the entrance to view the interior of the church, whereupon organ music began and a couple of bridal attendants entered, followed by the most beautiful, beaming bride I've ever seen in real life to this day, wearing an incredible ensemble. At that point, I noticed a couple of men near the altar in old school, formal morning suits, striped cravats, cutaways and all.

Why she was getting married on a weekday morning, I don't know. But, I like to think that she's had a marriage as beautiful as she was that day.

So, in my own way, I was very blessed by visiting both iconic churches, having nothing to do with religion. I never would have planned either visit the way it happened. So, thank heaven for serendipity. (-;

[video:https://youtu.be/sixf2iJsi14]

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 8:08am

Wonderful story reminds me of

@HenryAWallace
a delightful dinner in the old town of Monterosso in a terrific restaurant when all of a sudden locals in black tie and gowns started coming in followed by the bride and groom, a wedding party; we restaurant patrons joined in the fun.

Days on Saint-Michel, ah... splendid; fortunate to have the memories.

The glass design intrigues me, rather cool, imo.

Thanks for sharing.

Submitted by HenryAWallace on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 9:43am

I have to share something else as well and I can't think of

anywhere to share it, other than an open thread. I hope people see it.

I like the glass design as well and love using a church to feed the poor, as someone supposedly once charged everyone to do. I am not, however, sure how I feel about the spike in the center.

I should have mentioned the design in my prior post but got lost on Memory Lane, 'cause sweet memories are too sweet for me to resist.

Anyway, here's my new share. Enjoy!

Submitted by janis b on Sun, 05/19/2019 - 12:36am

I think the white fingers

@HenryAWallace

are too obvious. It makes it more of a joke (which it obviously is in a sense) but I think it would be more impactful if the hand was black and it took a minute to get the creepy association. Plus, it's missing a finger!

Submitted by HenryAWallace on Tue, 05/21/2019 - 1:25pm

Mickey Mouse's hands don't have 5 fingers, either.

@janis b

Maybe the idea is that Biden is cartoon-like. If the hands were black, the T shirt would tell a whole different story. Biden acts as though he is entitled to take liberties with the bodies of women of all ages and colors. I would be surprised if someone with black hands shared that view.

Submitted by janis b on Wed, 05/22/2019 - 10:08pm

Thanks for that Henry, a much better interpretation.

@HenryAWallace

I hadn’t considered the alternative association, but you’re right. It’s good I’m not a graphic designer.

Submitted by HenryAWallace on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 6:55am

I love Caucus99percent's open threads. Each has its own

wonderful personality. The school kid's joy of weekends, winter and spring school vacations, snow days, etc. is so ingrained in me that, by now, it may have become part of my DNA. That may be why I feel happy approaching the weekend with NCTim's funkin' Friday thread, followed by starting the weekend with Smiley's Special Saturday thread. So different and I enjoy each one so much.

Although I don't remember the interview or the interviewer, I do remember that Tim Conway was one of the funniest persons I'd ever seen interviewed. And that ain't nutthin' in my book.

Anyway, happy weekend, Caucus classmates. Soon, school will be out for the Summer!

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 7:32am

Good morning, Henry,

@HenryAWallace
Always a pleasure; here's Johnny and Tim.

Submitted by HenryAWallace on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 8:11am

Thank you, smiley7. The ability to preserve images and sound

is also a blessing! Poignant sometimes, but a blessing nonetheless.

Submitted by Raggedy Ann on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 7:52am

Good morning, smiley ~~

Everything has an expiration date.
Qu'est-ce qui est a toi?
Je ne sais pas.
Tim Conway's came up
and we are laughing less today.

Have a thoughtful day, everyone!

—

"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 8:13am

Avoir une très bonne journée merveilleuse, RA.

@Raggedy Ann

Submitted by Raggedy Ann on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 9:12am

I live the French language.

@smiley7
La chanson francaise m’a inspire

—

"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Submitted by The Aspie Corner on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 8:32am

Monsanto Hit With 2 Billion Dollar Verdict

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

—

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.

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 8:44am

Good news; wll Bayer pay?

@The Aspie Corner

Reminds me to follow the Monarchs.

Thanks for the vid and have a fun day.

Submitted by Lookout on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 9:03am

Good morning folks

A nice trade day this morning...got a long stout rope for $1 and a 4' square for $2. Summer has arrived ahead of the solstice, and it looks like 90's all week.

Tim was so funny...loved his Mrs. Wiggins routine. Laughter is curative and healing.

Hope you all have a weekend full of laughter and joy!
Hope you enjoy Carl's whistling song. (4 min)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_wwpc4LvEY]

—

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 9:14am

Good buys, Lookout,

Love the music, thank you.

Joan's version of Stew Ball, an old favorite.

Submitted by mhagle on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 10:30am

McHale's Navy

And doing movies with Don Knotts. Those are my beloved childhood memories of Tim Conway.

Thanks also for the great memories in comments here today. Wonderful.

Have a great day everyone!

—

Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 10:45am

Hi Marilyn,

@mhagle

Great fun:

Have a fun weekend.

Submitted by magiamma on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 1:38pm

Good afternoon

Thanks for the great OT. I laughed and laughed. I will remember to do this more often.

Have a good one, everyone...

—

Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7034945/Statue-Liberty-Museum-o...

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 9:36pm

Happy you enjoyed.

@magiamma

Submitted by lotlizard on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 2:10pm

$ $ $ I got yer “more and better Democrats” right here

Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, Henry Louis Gates, Nicky Hilton Rothschild and James Rothschild, Michael Bloomberg, Jeff Bezos, Oprah Winfrey . . .

♩♫ How does it feel to be one of the Beautiful People?

Submitted by mimi on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 4:37pm

Was there a wax works of the prominent figures in it?

@lotlizard
I think they just came to look if their own statue had already been placed.

Otherwise I think it feels like Russian oligarchs and Republican billionaires playing in a mud pie.

—

https://mymodernmet.com/brigitte-schuster-cat-ladders/

Submitted by lotlizard on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 2:37pm

And homemade cat ladders are a thing in Bern, Switzerland . . .

(via Naked Capitalism)

Submitted by magiamma on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 3:54pm

Sweet

@lotlizard
Looks like the cats actually get outside. Nary a one outside did I see anywhere in Berlin the whole time I was there.

—

Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Submitted by mimi on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 5:13pm

true, now that you say it, when I was there, I saw none either.

@magiamma
When have you been there?

It is quite weird for me watching on German TV today documentaries of Berlin from the year 1975 (like I saw it today just a couple of hours ago). I lived there back then, but today they can put together old images, quotes and scenes from former East Berlin and West Berlin, which was obviously not possible back then. I left Berlin and Germany in 1979.

I never had seen folks being interviewed that were from former East Berlin - today - long after reunification, or not so long ago from the last couple of years. I couldn't relate. I was flabbergasted of how much more progressive and liberated former East German women were compared to West Berlin women. It showed me how little we knew about East Germany in the seventies and how much Western propaganda about the Eastern propaganda missed to talk about the essential things, like women's equal rights for example. Eastern German women were much more emancipated and independent than Western German women. For me that is a huge suprise. I considered them entrapped in a communist system and not free, that's all I saw back then.

It is amazing to see how much I missed, not being in Germany, about my own country. At the same token I feel that I was dumbed down and hold back living in the US. But that too is not quite fair to say.

It is a very confusing experience I am going through. Everywhere I look I see only so many things I don't know about and it is so embarrassing. On the other hand considering what was given to me in my bio I wouldn't have known how to do better or different. I worked all the time and never learned that what I wanted to know. On the other hand I learned a lot of things I preferred not to have learned. Unfair.

Strange life.

—

Submitted by magiamma on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 10:25pm

Mimi I was there

@mimi
For two summers around 2009. I barely could speak by the time I left. Learned to love opera. I walked all over. The whole length of the wall. The culture was way different for me. Some things I loved and others not so much. Much of it seemed way advanced to me.

That east German women were acculturated so differently does not surprise me. I felt out of place in many ways. Maybe you have to be somewhere longer. It sounds almost like you are a foreigner in your own country. Though it is my experience that you can never go back. Things change and you change. Which leaves me right back at my - be here now, love the one you are with - cause why not and what else. There is beauty there just for the seeing. It is in you. Be well.

—

Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Submitted by mimi on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 11:36pm

oh, ok, then you basically had experiences I never had

@magiamma
may be you are much younger than me?

Online communications are so ... difficult and in a way meaningless, if one never knows who is ones conversation partner. I read now you are an artist. Sorry for never having checked you out before. I can imagine you must have felt completely lost in Germany. Online we live in our own bubble and it's hard to understand the other person's bubble without destroying it. If I have done that with what I was saying, I apologize.

Thanks for taking the time to listen and be as well as you can be.

—

Submitted by janis b on Sun, 05/19/2019 - 1:08am

You're right mimi,

@mimi

it is a bubble, but differently than bubblegum it doesn't pop so easily as long as trust is generated.

Submitted by mimi on Sun, 05/19/2019 - 5:44am

quite honestly, I only trust things I have seen

@janis b
and experienced in person. The rest, online conversations, books, news articles, I acknowledge their existence, read them, get agitated about them, but trusting them? No. I also think I can only understand those things I have experienced in person, live, the rest I believe I can understand, but basically never know it's true and if I really understood correctly.

So, ... when do we have a meet-up with you? May be in Florida? Who else could come down there?

—

Submitted by janis b on Sun, 05/19/2019 - 10:47pm

I'll be at my mom's from mid-july to late september.

@mimi

There's one extra bedroom if you come ; ).

Submitted by mimi on Mon, 05/20/2019 - 1:15am

would be so great to meet people in person

@janis b
especially when one looses his mind due to old age...
I sleep in a tent or hammock. No bedroom required. (Well if my bones will still carry me).

—

Submitted by janis b on Mon, 05/20/2019 - 11:57pm

Don’t loose your mind or you might lose it, mimi

@mimi @mimi

Whenever my parents had a house full of visiting family, some slept in beds, some on air mattress on the floor of the bedrooms. Roger, my former husband, and I chose to sleep on a mattress on the floor of the screened-in porch. We got to be in the fresh air (un-air conditioned), and away from the maddening crowd.

Since there’s no screened porch anymore, unless mosquitoes are allergic to you, you’ll have to accept a comfortable bed in the house ; ).

Submitted by smiley7 on Tue, 05/21/2019 - 12:07am

May i bring a tent?

@janis b

Submitted by janis b on Tue, 05/21/2019 - 12:34am

Yes, you may!

; ))))

Submitted by magiamma on Sun, 05/19/2019 - 11:17am

mimi, lol

@mimi
no offense taken... none. I meant I could just barely speak German by the time I left. Lots to love there. They are ahead of us in many ways, advanced, in the way they live on the planet - recycle, young kids required to learn to ride bikes (many to dodge on the streets), etc. I spent every spare moment I could in museums. They abound and are amazing. gave many a tour to all who came to visit me of the Jewish Holocaust sites, memorials, museums monuments and most amazingly the little bronze circles cemented into the sidewalks in front of the houses of Jews that were killed there. Of course they did not have all the names. Mind boggling. Great experience all and all.

maybe you are not younger than me, just sayin'. heh...

—

Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Submitted by janis b on Sun, 05/19/2019 - 1:04am

Sage advice, magiamma

@magiamma

for all of us.

Submitted by janis b on Sun, 05/19/2019 - 12:45am

Thank you for your observations

@mimi

and perspective. They are unique to you because of your experience in time and place. They may be incomplete and confusing but they are yours.

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 05/18/2019 - 9:39pm

Cute, cat burglars.

@lotlizard

Submitted by janis b on Sun, 05/19/2019 - 12:47am

'Cute cat burglars'

That's as cute and funny as Conway!

Submitted by smiley7 on Sun, 05/19/2019 - 12:19pm

For real ...

@janis b
Cheeky cat Denis, now known as Denis the Menace to his neighbours, with his haul of stolen goods

He has taken men’s boxer shorts, a pair of shoes, a cardigan, a dog chew, dozens of pairs of socks, a chamois leather, tea towels, seven car sponges and a cuddly toy.

Victims of the two-year-old black and white cat’s antics often turn up at Mrs Newman’s home in Luton, Bedfordshire, when their belongings go missing.

The first theft was recorded just a week after he was let out of the house for the first time, with his stolen stash growing week on week until he began carrying home T-shirts in his mouth, often having to jump over garden fences along the way.https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2205461/Real-life-cat-burglar-F...

Hi janis,

Submitted by janis b on Sun, 05/19/2019 - 10:49pm

Hi smiley