I‘m back from the depths of flu-dom and ready to take on the world, or at least some of its most terrible and ridiculous aspects. I’m not quite at full strength yet, so posting may be a bit light for a few more days. But the flu is definitely on the way out. Thanks for your patience and support!
So does anyone want to discuss that picture up there at the top of the post? Everyone else is. Is Kellyanne Conway being weird and disrespectful to the oval office visitors, a delegation from historically black colleges and universities? Or is everybody being mean to her because OMG she was just trying to take a picture with her phone?
I’m going to go with “weird and disrespectful” but what do I know.
@Nikki
Missed youuu!
@kupo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisine_of_the_United_States
I didn’t know eggs benedict was Murican…
I wasn’t originally gonna watch Criminal Minds tonight-Reid is currently in prison, framed for a murder in Mexico (he was in Mexico but almost certainly didn’t do it), and I’m tired of him being the team’s perpetual victim/martyr/punching bag of the universe-but my dad turned it on while I was in the bathroom and I really wasn’t in the mood to go in the other room, and then I got hooked when one of the characters said “manosphere”. I was pretty impressed with how they handled the topic-they got the terminology and the general feel of their fictional manosphere site right and mentioned Elliot Rodger as an example and a possible role model for their unsub, who also wrote a manifesto.
Edit: fun! Double post 🙂
Aww, Axe! I never really left-I just didn’t have time to stay online and talk to you all like I wanted to. I really appreciate how happy you are to see me back! Poppy GIF from Trollsmovie GIFs
Glad to hear you’re feeling better, David, and happy birthday, Ooglyboggles! The concept of driving a car terrifies me, but good luck! Oh, and welcome to the attention deficit division, we have cookies!
OT: I’m less swamped with work this week, but something nerve-wracking happened. There was a bomb threat at Concordia University today targeting Muslims: the CBC wrote, “The threatening letter, purportedly from a group that calls itself Council of Conservative Citizens of Canada (C4), complained about Muslim students at Concordia.” Three buildings were evacuated in the late morning and afternoon while police searched them; no explosives were found.
The whole thing made me angry: racist death threats are not what we need right now. Also, “C4” is a stupid name for a terrorist group. Variables raised to the fourth power might be slightly menacing, but Middle C isn’t very menacing, and alliteration isn’t menacing at all. So they can just fuck off and go away.
@Ooglyboggles
Happy birthday!
C4 sounds like some horrific secret government department in a 90s Doctor Who novel. Those really dark, adult novels.
@Axe
TIL geoduck is considered an aphrodisiac by some people. Huh. I’m not sure it’s worth it if you have to eat that nastiness, though. Blegh.
Let me tell you all how amazingly good onion soup bread is. You take about half a packet of onion soup mix. You take the same amount of butter (or margarine) you would use for a loaf of garlic bread. You mix the two together, then butter the loaf of bread as you would garlic bread. Wrap it up in tinfoil, put it in the oven long enough to heat through.
Try not to eat it all at once.
….. I want some right now….
A quick google doesn’t bring this recipe up, I don’t know where it came from other than my family. Secret family recipe?
In other news, “Oldest traces of life on Earth found in Quebec, dating back roughly 3.8 billion years“.
Aaah so cooool!
@Axecalibur: Middle Name Danger
*Hugs back Yayifications!
@Hambeast (fan of diversity)
*Hugs Thank you!
@CleverForAGirl
Thank you, I hope we get to know each other as fellow commentators.
@kupo
Thank you. I always thought American cuisine was just taking dishes from other countries and mixing and matching to make new things.
@Nikki
Thank you for that. Glad to see you back.
@epitome of incomprehensibility
Yeah driving for me is terrifying, I’ll be able to get over it soon. Oh and woohoo free cookies! Honestly though reading the sites on how to manage reading in ADD is actually helping me focus alot better. It’s like being stuck with a puzzle for hours then finding the solution.
On your topic, C4 can go eat dirt. I hope Concordia makes a statement that they will not tolerate fear mongering from white supremacists.
@Nikki
Same diff on my end. Welcome back, buddy <3
@epitome
http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/196157.gif
Terrorism is bad and scary and stuff, but that fuckin name tho…
@kupo
TIL geoduck isn’t the name of a pokemon being planned for gen 8
@Oogly
Stealing that
I’m assuming “C4” is an attempt to link themselves to the naming conventions for plastic explosives. In that, it’s trying WAY too hard.
I haven’t watched Criminal Minds in a few seasons. It just got kind of old. But I might have to check out the MRA episode on demand at some point.
I never really know what American cuisine is either. Especially since it varies so much by region. I think of Vietnamese food as local cuisine because we have a huge Hmong-American population in the Twin Cities and as a result, we have a lot of good Vietnamese restaurants around here. Ethiopian food is also getting more popular as we’ve gotten a lot of immigration from East Africa in the past couple of decades. Our lakes have a lot of walleye, so that’s another big local food. I’ve never had lutefisk though. That’s supposedly a regional dish around here, but no one I know eats it.
So, yeah. American cuisine varies by region of the country and depends on each region’s immigration past and present and on local plant and animal life.
Tl;dr I don’t know that American cuisine actually exists other than lists of dishes that were invented here. There’s nothing cohesive though.
Well, jello salad seems to be an American invention . . .
@Ooglyboggles
Happy Birthday!
@Nikki
Good to see you again!
@kupo
All bivalves have that reputation, for some reason. Allegedly it’s because oysters and clams resemble vulvas.
I suddenly want to see a US ethnographic map of cuisine based on that data (kinda like those linguistic maps).
“Every Advent we entered the purgatory of lutefisk, a repulsive gelatinous fishlike dish that tasted of soap and gave off an odor that would gag a goat.”
““Eating a little was like vomiting a little, just as bad as a lot.”
– Garrison Keillor
@Dalillama: Irate Social Engineer
Thank you! IIRC Aphrodite came from a clam so that might also be a contributor for clams = dicks and vaginas.
To be fair, geoduck looks a bit phallic.
http://www.seriouseats.com/images/2015/05/05062105-tomky-geoduck-adult.jpg
There’s an XKCD strip that’s relevant to gnomic utterances of Rach’s kind…
https://xkcd.com/169/
> Ooglyboggles
Happy birthday ! Have fun with your car !
> about seefood like oysters and the like
Unless i have a bad hormonal system, oysters had never acted as an aphrodisiac to me. I think it is just some kind of urban legend, but if someone has a study saying they have such an effect, well, so be it.
And still about oysters, if you are eating them the usual way (i.e. alive), i suggest you smell them before eating them. If they are just smelling iodine, it is ok. If you think they are smelling a bit strange, i suggest you do not take a chance, cause it is easy to become sick with only one sick oyster, and it is quite unpleasant during a christmas meal to have half the people rushing to the toilets (especially when they are not enough).
This saying, i never have this kind of problem with other bivalves like mussels or clams (and no aphrodisiac effect too), maybe because they have each specific diseases.
And as some of you already say, they are used as “metaphore” for vulva, but in France, it is mainly by men, with a gritty/lewd connotation (to the point they even made a distinction between “mussel” for the supposed “young vulva” and “oyster” for the “old vulva” – understand : “the one i would have relations with” and “nay, she has hit the expiration date” in the PUA style), so i would suggest to not use them unless you are pretty close of your audience.
So hey I’ve finally caught up with this thread. Not sure what to say at this point that hasn’t already been said. I think PoM did a good job of explaining why Conway’s weird pose struck me and a lot of other people as disrespectful, esp. given the racial politics of the situation.
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2017/02/28/im-back-well-mostly-also-kellyanne-conway-did-a-thing/comment-page-3/#comment-1210503
In an environment where everyone else is expected to behave according to protocol, breaking protocol because you know you can get away with it is an assertion of privilege — sort of like Steve Bannon wandering around the white house dressed like a slob while everyone else wears suits, which he has been reported to do. Had Bannon been sitting on the couch in crocs and cargo shorts it would have been a similar assertion of privilege.
Given that women’s bodies are much more thoroughly policed than men’s in this culture I generally don’t talk much about the ways in which women present themselves, at least compared to the amount of time I devote to the assorted weirdnesses of male self-presentation, which I do all the damn time. I mean, just go back a few posts to see another oval office pic featuring a bunch of dudes with weird and off-putting body language.
Anyway, I mainly just put up the pic because everyone as discussing it and I figured a lot of people here would have thoughts on it.
I’m certainly aware that I overlook and/or misinterpret some sexist or gendered things because I’m a guy; I didn’t grow up having my body scrutinized by complete strangers like girls and women do, etc. So I take it seriously when someone says I’m missing something that most women understand implicitly. I’m certainly not a perfect feminist.
That said, a few of the critiques I’ve gotten in this thread seem a bt weird. Kupo, I didn’t actually plug the inauguration day protests more than the women’s march. Maybe I should have plugged the women’s march more, but by the time I got to doing the #resisttrump posts everyone who was going to DC would have already made their plans, and I was already pretty busy trying to pull together posts on Trump’s various cabinet people.
At this point, FWIW, I will probably be dialing back on the activist posts a bit, given how many other activist resources/newsletters there are out there, and will be devoting more attention to the more traditional topics of this blog. My still-lngering flu was a pretty unpleasant, but it did enable me to clear my head a little bit. I’m still Trump-obsessed, but I think the blog needs to be a little less Trump-obsessed than it has been recently.
Also, happy birthday Oogly!
Happy and manyhappyreturnsofthe roundthesun day, Ooglyboggles. Bonne chance avec la bagnole! Roule bien, et fais gaffe aux idiots!
I do not know the woman involved, and just looking at the photo, yes, it looks thoroughly inappropriate. Small things can tell us a lot. I am sure she will argue that she meant no disrespect, but actions speak louder than words.
@ jenora
Thank you ever so much for directing me to this! Wow, it is pretty weird; but when your subject matter is Alan Moore and Grant Morrison I suppose that’s inevitable.
I’m loving it though. I’m a real fan of the Brit comics of that era; especially ‘Action’. So it’s nice to see yet more background on that. I love the format and all the meta-textual elements; it really suits the material.
Have you seen the “Future Shock” documentary? That covers some of the same era. Not in as much detail; but it’s very candid.
PoM – I love Mid Century Menu! It’s a lot like Lileks’ Gallery of Regrettable Food http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/ and Candyboot’s Weight Watcher’s recipe cards from the 70’s (my mom had a bunch of these but gave hers away :/) http://www.candyboots.com/wwcards.html Except there’s hilarious cooking AND taste-testing involved!
Hippodameia said
As far as Jello salads* go, there are a few very tasty ones with fruit, but I think they’re better avoided in general if they’re not dessert. My mom had the 1967 Joys of Jello cookbook. She chose as her signature dish from that tome a “salad” involving lime Jello made with beef bouillon with carrots and celery in it. I cannot abide lime Jello to this day because of it.
*I also include aspics that don’t involve Jello here.