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Open Thread

Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 6:00am
Branches and Vines Quilt (1875)
Ernestine Eberhardt Zaumseil
Metropolitan Museum of Art

I'm drawing a total blank on what to present this 17th of March.
It is St. Patrick's Day, so there is that.
I have an offering of a smattering of Irish musicians and Judy Collins singing an Irish song. That's it!

There was an amusing opinion piece in the Irish Times by Patrick Freyne who wrote about the monarchy and their latest to-do. Here is a small excerpt;

Having a monarchy next door is a little like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns and has daubed their house with clown murals, displays clown dolls in each window and has an insatiable desire to hear about and discuss clown-related news stories. More specifically, for the Irish, it’s like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns and, also, your grandfather was murdered by a clown.

Beyond this, it’s the stuff of children’s stories. Having a queen as head of state is like having a pirate or a mermaid or Ewok as head of state. What’s the logic? Bees have queens, but the queen bee lays all of the eggs in the hive. The queen of the Britons has laid just four British eggs, and one of those is the sweatless creep Prince Andrew, so it’s hardly deserving of applause.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/harry-and-meghan-the-uni...

I have been reading a book called Craft: An American History by Glenn Adamson. In this book, 'craft' is defined as what people make by hand, whether it is the product of a blacksmith, carpenter, silversmith, seamstress or any number of artisans. Our revolutionaries were craftsmen. Paul Revere was a silversmith. He and a variety of other artisans were the ones who hurled tea into Boston Harbor in protest against taxes.

Craft and labor have an interesting and an exasperating history in this country. It was and is continually being undervalued and circumscribed by capitalism. Because of that it has rarely been able to realize its fullest potential. We generally denigrate craft, except when it is put to use to make luxury goods. Occasionally some artisans are able to survive in a niche market.

This TV series romanticizes craft but I think that helps to ascribe a more accurate value to the product. It's a difficult proposition to try and make a living from making thinks by hand (without automation), unless you categorize it as art. I found it an interesting and enjoyable series. This episode highlights a potting studio (along with the potters), a weaver, and a glass-blower.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Noac7NcU3Dc]

Here is another take on craft, this video is about artisanship in Ireland. Here there are several issues presented, among them, the skill it takes to run what looks like a self-sufficient and sustainable farm and engage in the various crafts necessary to make it work. As an added interest (bonus) we see the men work a quarry to extract the stone they need to fashion whetstones. The video is slow-moving but if you get into the zen of it, it's kind of relaxing... meditative (if you have 25 minutes).

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek1k5vV-ySs]

Cue the Irish music; (it's good stuff).

A traditional Irish tune:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCAFK7tQoU0]

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulQGI5-ZCmo]

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lw1T-M_FNc]

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFpFo_N1evg]

Not traditional but Irish

Tags: 
Open Thread
Irish music
craft
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Comments

Submitted by QMS on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 7:24am
QMS's picture

“May you have the hindsight to know where you've been,
The foresight to know where you are going,
And the insight to know when you have gone too far”

Thanks for the OT rand!

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Zionism is a social disease

Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 9:38am

, the Irish have a number of good, pithy expressions. Yours sounds so common-sense and straight-forward but I don't know that I can meet any of those recommendations (except to know where I've been....maybe). Smile

Here are a few more sly sayings:

Wisdom is the comb given to a man after he lost his hair.

May you be at the gates of heaven an hour before the Devil knows you're dead.

May misfortune follow you the rest of your life and never catch up.

May the roof above you never fall in and those gathered beneath it never fall out.

Have a good one, take care.
(edited to separate my non-pithy phrase from the above)

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Submitted by jbob on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 7:58am

I received my second dose of the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine on Monday. I had a mild reaction to the first dose. Sore arm for 3 days and mild flu-like symptoms for one night about 12 hours post vax.
My reaction to the second shot was similar but more intense. My sore arm was worse from the second shot. The sore arm is lessening but still going on today around 36 hours after the shot. Yesterday I had flu like symptoms earlier than 24 hours post shot and much stronger than the first round. For me it was chills and body aches. I took Tylenol and it worked to stave off the worst of it. I took my temp when feeling heavy chills and it was 96.5 F.
I would recommend you schedule a day off after receiving the second shot of the Pfizer vaccine.
That's what I experienced from it.

St. Patrick's Day around the Albany NY area is very much overblown. I see it as an excuse for people to claim a false Irish heritage, drink too much alcohol and act stupid.
Make sure to wear your brightest Orange clothing today!

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Submitted by lotlizard on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 8:30am
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https://www.livescience.com/why-are-carrots-orange.html

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Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 10:11am

about orange carrots and the Dutch. I almost wanted it to be true but fun anyway.

Orange carrots were later used by the Dutch state to reinforce the burgeoning nation’s national color, said Stolarczyk, which could explain where the rumored connection between William of Orange and the carrot comes from. But it seems the carrot came first and the independent country, second.

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Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 9:50am

, for the second round. Thanks for the report. I will be taking my parents for their second shot this coming week, I am a bit nervous.

Big street parties are usually an exercise in overindulgence, usually I avoid them. We have our own version of a street party in San Antonio called fiesta. I haven't been in many years, although when we did go we generally had a good time (except for the time when a fight broke out at the outdoor Stevie Ray Vaughan concert right around us. We left.)

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Submitted by lotlizard on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 8:17am
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Unlike in Germany, there’s no 5% cutoff excluding small parties, so polls see at least 15 parties earning at least 1 seat in the lower house of parliament:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2021_Dutch_general...

The top candidates of the six largest parties, including the populist Geert Wilders and the country’s current prime minister Mark Rutte, took part in a 45-minute election TV special for kids:

https://jeugdjournaal.nl/artikel/2372636

Ha ha, each had to pretend to give a very brief classroom-style “spreekbeurt” (oral report) about why people should vote for their party (and especially why that would be good for kids). There was a minor embarrassment for the woman from the Socialist Party when she did hers, because, while everybody else was a good boy or girl and stayed within the time limit, she got carried away and went more than 50% over, and one of the kids called her on it.

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Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 10:21am

that there is no exclusion of small parties with the result that 15 separate parties might obtain at least one seat. The question is, does this make any difference?

I watched this video where a Green Party candidate in the UK explained how useless the Green Party actually is (in the UK).

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Submitted by lotlizard on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 11:04am
lotlizard's picture

 
Oligarchs and deep-staters probably find it just as easy to manipulate the legislative process as a whole, but it is definitely fairer in the sense of not depriving minor-party voters their voice.

For example, in last Sunday’s election in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, around 1 vote in 8 was “wasted” because the party chosen didn’t make the 5% cutoff. Twelve percent, that’s a lot of people disenfranchised even though they went through all the trouble of casting a ballot.

The 2013 German federal election was even worse. Fully fifteen percent of those who voted went unrepresented in the Bundestag for the next four years because of the 5% rule. That was because both the business-friendly Free Democrats and the then anti-EU-currency-union Alternative for Germany narrowly missed the cutoff that year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_German_federal_election

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Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 12:51pm

, it is definitely a better system. Even the German system sounds better than ours. Ours is truly undemocratic and it looks like the new legislation that they are trying to pass will make it very much worse.

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Submitted by The Voice In th... on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 1:48pm


if not forever.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Submitted by JtC on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 8:22am

Thank you Steve Earle.

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Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 10:26am

. You can count on the Irish (and the Americans) for some great music.

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Submitted by Dawn's Meta on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 6:44pm
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face. Thanks everyone for the Irish tunes.

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 9:35pm

, haven't seen you in a while. Hope you are doing well. It's a good day for music.

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Submitted by Dawn's Meta on Thu, 03/18/2021 - 8:26am
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So much to do IRL with the house. We've had to almost rebuild the entire thing with all the systems as well.

Put some information on trolling versus trawling in JS' EB with photos.

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1 user has voted.
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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

Submitted by lotlizard on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 8:49am
lotlizard's picture

https://www.qwant.com/?q=malik%20halfacre%20indianapolis%20stimulus%20check

Also, Atlanta massage-parlor shootings appear to have an anti-Asian element to them:

https://www.asian-dawn.com/2021/03/17/mass-shooting-in-georgia-massage-p...

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Submitted by The Voice In th... on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 10:59am


So he kills Asian-American women in Georgia. because, of course, they have control over the Chinese government. Or maybe they pollute his precious bodily fluids.

Torn between locking him up for life in a nuthouse or just a bullet in the face like he gave those innocent women.

Georgia is famous for nuts, but I had thought that referred to pecans.

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9 users have voted.
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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 1:01pm

, as these murders always are. Now I want the corporate media to portray the perpetrator of this crime as the completely monstrous human that it is. Then I want society to shun, shame, punish, and ostracize the guilty person to the greatest extent.

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Submitted by MrWebster on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 10:34am

Several years ago was talking to a Irish co-worker in Ireland. He said that the day had no religious basis and was really a holiday and celebration of Irish nationalism and culture.

Sorta ironic in a big picture way. The English forced colonialism and violence on the Irish, and they in turn gave the English their best poetry in the English language.

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Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 12:20pm

, about poetry, colonialism and turning the tables. The artists of Ireland responded by returning violence with exposure, awareness, poetry, and possibly a stronger sense of one's own culture and solidarity (and to be sure, violence on their own part).

The Harbour by Eavan Boland

This harbour was made by art and force.
And called Kingstown and afterwards Dun Laoghaire.
And holds the sea behind its barrier
less than five miles from my house.

Lord be with us say the makers of a nation.
Lord look down say the builders of a harbour.
They came and cut a shape out of ocean
and left stone to close around their labour.

Officers and their wives promenaded
on this spot once and saw with their own eyes
the opulent horizon and obedient skies
which nine tenths of the law provided.

And frigates with thirty-six guns, cruising
the outer edges of influence, could idle
and enter here and catch the tide of
empire and arrogance and the Irish Sea rising

and rising through a century of storms
and cormorants and moonlight the whole length of this coast,
while an ocean forgot an empire and the armed
ships under it changed: to slime weed and cold salt and rust.

City of shadows and of the gradual
capitulations to the last invader
this is the final one: signed in water
and witnessed in granite and ugly bronze and gun-metal.

And by me. I am your citizen: composed of
your fictions, your compromise, I am
a part of your story and its outcome.
And ready to record its contradictions."

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Submitted by QMS on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 1:08pm
QMS's picture

prefer a Jamesons on ice

only about 33 1/3 irish
got a mick in my name
orange by the bye

Sláinte mhaith

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Zionism is a social disease

Submitted by The Voice In th... on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 1:50pm


but good in Irish coffee too.

Not Irish but appreciate product excellence.

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2 users have voted.
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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Submitted by QMS on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 2:06pm
QMS's picture

with a Guinness chaser Smile
used to be a bartender ))

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Zionism is a social disease

Submitted by smiley7 on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 6:12pm
smiley7's picture

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Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 9:07pm

, sounds unpleasantly like rot and decay, in cold salty water. Brrr.
A Jameson, no ice, will last me several hours and will keep me warm. (You can have the Guinness though, not my thing).

I have Irish ancestors as well, both sides of the family. I never got to meet the ones with the brogue. They passed shortly before I entered. It would have been lovely to have known them.

I have zero knowledge of the Irish language so don't know what you said, but it is intriguing. Some kind of salutation I suspect. Smile

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Submitted by lotlizard on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 11:21am
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9359141/Is-Meghan-Markle-prepar...

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Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 12:25pm

. People don't realize they have to continually give the boot to monarchy. So far we've only done it once though. We've been doing a very bad job of it for my entire lifetime.

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Submitted by Lily O Lady on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 3:45pm
Lily O Lady's picture

and too many seem to be fine with that.

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 5:46pm

, they're not thinking clearly.

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Submitted by Lookout on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 12:06pm
Lookout's picture

An ounce of prevention rather than a pound of cure this morning. After almost 4" of rain and big storms due tonight I cleaned my drainage system along the road. Came through pretty well. I did go out to buy tractor gas (have to go to town for non-ethanol gas) in case have a tree over the road. This time of year I keep the box scrape on the tractor. It is the poor man's bulldozer.
box scrape.jpg
My rig is quite a bit older than the picture, but still works as well.

Preparing for the worse and hoping for the best tonight with the predicted tornadoes. We're in a lower risk - 15% chance of a tornado within 25 miles. Most of the state is in the 30% chance.

So happy St Paddy's day!
fire.jpg
Driving out paganism and bringing Christianity is a common theme (Think King Authur)
st paddy.jpg

Just a little background of the myth...

Take care and have a great day!

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

Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 12:31pm

. Good luck with your weather. Hope you get the benefit of rain without the possible damage caused by too much or too extreme, either wind or water.

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Submitted by ggersh on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 5:55pm
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Tornado alley season has begun

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Submitted by magiamma on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 3:18pm
magiamma's picture

Thanks for the ot.

Rain coming tomorrow. Going quilting today. Love the quilt you picked. That's a lot of work. Applique is something I steer away from but do love a lot of the work.

At least this is getting some press. Finally.

The climate crisis can't be solved by carbon accounting tricks

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/03/climate-crisis-car...

An astonishing global shift is under way: 127 countries have now stated that by mid-century their overall emissions of carbon dioxide will be zero. That includes the EU, US, and UK by 2050 – and China by 2060. Companies are enthusiastically signing up to similar “net zero” goals. Finally the international community seems to have accepted the scientific fact that we need to stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere to stabilise our climate. Dare we hope that the climate crisis can be brought under control?

Perhaps, but big problems remain. Long-term commitments have not resulted in sufficient near-term actions. The world is on track for emissions to be just 0.5% below 2010 levels by 2030, compared with the 45% needed on the road to net zero by 2050. The pivotal Glasgow Cop26 climate talks in November will need to tackle this. But a more insidious problem is emerging. Net zero increasingly involves highly questionable carbon accounting. As a result, the new politics swirling around net zero targets is rapidly becoming a confusing and dangerous mix of pragmatism, self-delusion and weapons-grade greenwash.

The science of net zero is simple: every sector of every country in the world needs to be, on average, zero emissions. We know how to do this for electricity, cars, buildings and even a lot of heavy industry. But in certain areas, including air travel and some agricultural emissions, there is no prospect of getting to zero emissions in the near future. For these residual emissions, greenhouse gasses will need to be sucked out of the atmosphere at the same rate as they are added, so that, on average, there are net zero emissions.

Making this work requires carbon removal, also known as “negative emissions”. This can be low-tech, like restoring forests, as this takes carbon out of the atmosphere and stores it in trees. Or it can be hi-tech, like using chemicals to strip carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and then pumping it deep underground into safe geological storage. In theory this is all fine, as pragmatically some carbon removal is needed to balance hard-to-reduce emissions: but negative emissions and offsetting alone are not a route to net zero.
...

(edit: remove copy paste garbage)

Take good care y'all.

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

Submitted by smiley7 on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 6:40pm
smiley7's picture

the day goes well with the Leprechaun gifted me in London's West End by a mesmerizer almost fifty years ago.

Chose not to go out to Murphy's on the beachfront, but thought about it midday. It's the local's place, always has music, loud music, bikers, tourists and fishermen.

Sharing this with everyone i know: https://www.turbulent.be/

Dreaming of installing the turbulent, somewhere.

Ta for this celebration

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Submitted by QMS on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 7:32pm
QMS's picture

double shot

thx mucho

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Zionism is a social disease

Submitted by magiamma on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 8:07pm
magiamma's picture


here's another water link for you

https://peopleswaterproject.org/resources/

The next few months are a crucial time to organize. With the infrastructure plan on the horizon, we have an opportunity to push for the inclusion of pieces of the WATER Act. The People’s Water Project will be meeting every other week (Tues at 4pm ET) to strategize and plan on the WATER Act and ways we can unite in our fight for water justice. We’d love to have you join us! If you are interested in getting more involved in the coalition work, please just respond to this email (just to me, not reply all) and let me know that you’d like to get on that list.

If anyone is interested I can forward the email to you

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

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Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 9:50pm

, great to see you. Hope you are doing well. Thanks for the music contribution, very nice. I don't listen to this type of music often enough and I'm enjoying the various samples very much. I think I will have to extend my 'Irish music' listening session further into the week.

Thanks for the Turbulent link. Very interesting, although we don't live by a river, my MIL does.
So glad you stopped by, take good care of yourself and take some deep breaths of that salty ocean smelling air for me, I can smell it in my mind.

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Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 03/17/2021 - 9:26pm

. Sounds like a wonderful afternoon....going quilting. I'm glad you enjoyed the quilt above, it's quite something isn't it. And yes, a tremendous amount of work, time, and patience.

Thank you for the link. It is irritating to see the net zero targets morph into a... "dangerous mix of pragmatism, self-delusion and weapons-grade greenwash".

I saw the article you linked last week sometime, I think it may have been in lookout's WW. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/full
It's such a good article , I bookmarked it, it is very clear, understandable and a great summary of what's going on.

Take good care yourself magi, thanks for stopping by.

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