the jinx The jinx THE JINX the JINX
the jinx
jinxy
THE JINX
television > police ANY DAY
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Tony Abbott is an idiot, let’s talk about exactly how he’s an idiot (Australia, I feel for you, we Canadians have an idiot right now too):
The suggestion that Indigenous people living on their traditional lands is a “lifestyle choice” has not gone down well among people who think the proclaimed prime minister for Indigenous affairs should know more about Aboriginal culture.
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Tyler gives Liza’s Sally Bowles the treatment she deserves.
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An Untamed State defeats Station Eleven in The Morning News’ Tournament of Books! My own installment will be up soon (I was a Zombie Round Judge) and my only request was that I not be allowed to judge An Untamed State, bc ROXANE. My decision involved more Star Trek metaphors and self-loathing.
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On Remy Denton and Olivia Pope
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I want a dog. I always want a dog, but I want a dog really badly right now and every day I do not get a dog is a personal victory but I think I will be getting a dog before too long. Not a puppy, like a 6-8 month old dog that is a) a boy dog and b) no longer piddling inside and c) will be MY dog and not my husband’s dog and d) will sleep on my bed and e) will be okay with being named Mountbatten and will be either f) a golden acquired from acquaintances who raise them or g) the most hard-luck looking money pit they have at the local pound and if it’s f) then I make a large donation to the local pound and h) I want a dooooooooog gimme a dog and i) I have a NEWBORN what is WRONG with me.
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A conservative reads the Ferguson DOJ report and realizes everything is fucked. His readers are not happy, but they can die in a fire for all I care.
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Please enjoy this delighfully cheesy and upbeat super-cut of movie dance scenes:
Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
I want a dog soooooo bad. We want to wait until our eldest cat dies though, because she is super cranky and aggressive and hates everything and it seems a shitty thing to do to her in her golden years.
I also want a dog soooooo bad. my biological clock is saying ‘u are 28 u need a dog’ I have these two rabbits that I love so so much that basically have free range of my house and I feel like that would not go well with the kind of doge that I want, which is a scent hound. Seriously the only thing keeping me from already having gotten a dog is the near-certainty that it would eat/terrorize my beloved bunnies.
Friends, this isn’t true is it, this thing about Starbucks giving its baristas a remit to talk to Starbucks customers about race relations?
Surely it’s not possible that any person could have either thought of this or, having heard it, thought it was a reasonable idea?
http://fortune.com/2015/03/16/starbucks-baristas-…
Oh yeah, I read about that dude. He’s already done town halls on racism with all the Starbucks employees he could gather around NYC. He talks like he’s maybe thinking about running for president (“our country has gotten off the right course”).
This is…definitely an awkward way to continue that, though. People just want their coffee, and I foresee this is going to lead to at least one person getting a faceful of hot coffee. Hopefully not a barista.
I mean, I’m all for open discussions about race relations, town halls and everything, sure. But as someone who has worked retail AND bought coffee before…dang, what a stupid thing to do for your customers and also an awful pressure to put on your baristas.
I remember when there was a budget crisis last year, and the baristas were empowered to tell people to…I don’t know, care about the budget I guess? I remember because the barista gave me my coffee and said, “keep reaching for those holiday stars”, and I asked him “what does that mean” and he told me, “You know, with the budget crisis.”
Good conversation guys, yeah. I think we’re 80% of the way to getting this thing solved now.
“keep reaching for those holiday stars”, and I asked him “what does that mean” and he told me, “You know, with the budget crisis.”
You know, with the budget crisis.
I can’t stop laughing at this I am so sorry.
I feel so bad for the baristas. If I stop in once a week for coffee, eh, I’ll live, but the people working there? Imagine being a POC working in a mostly white suburb? argh.
Yeah, ugh, especially because like, we don’t live in a culture where we give implicit respect to baristas. If anything, it’s the opposite! This is just going to set them all up to get lectured by old white libertarians in business suits about how racism isn’t real and if they’d gotten a degree in Business maybe they’d have made something of themselves instead of working at the Starbucks.
Old white libertarians loooooooove hanging around coffee shops and lecturing baristas. They’re the wooooorst.
Aaaaaaahhhh. I know. How is this real? I have a really hard time understanding why anyone ever thought this was a halfway okay idea. Like…………..no.
noooooooooooo don’t do this there is no way this goes well oh my GOD
let baristas be there to serve coffee with some banter maybe and friendliness don’t suggest to them that they talk about race relations because the last thing I have ever wanted when I need coffee is a discussion on racism why would you want to make food service even worse
right? you’re already expecting me to pronounce “macchiato” and specify a type of milk before I’ve had my precious caffeine, that’s ENOUGH
Oh, dang, robot_dinosaur — when I open the Toast, the screen often jumps up and down at random and causes me to sometimes hit the wrong button. I think I accidentally reported this comment! I’m not sure it actually worked (the messages that I get from the website are always blank, and thus mysterious), but if you get a notice about it or something, that was the reason. An accident only, I have no quarrel with this comment! I was trying to give it the “thumbs up”!
Reporting me for being TOO AWESOME FOR THIS WEBSITE (there’s no such thing, The Toast is way cooler than me).
And I know CEOs are out of touch as a rule, but it is REALLY alarming that he’s the one behind this, that he thinks it’s at all a good idea.
and that it seems to be delivered with that awful weaselly “you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, but we should be doing this!” managerial language.
This CEO should be required to work as a barista for a 40 hour week. Without identifying himself as an executive. Think that would help? Or is he terminally clueless?
He’s still an adult white man, so he’s never going to have the experience his young minority baristas will have.
Even asking barristas to be friendly while asking them to handle steaming-hot liquids and long lines is asking too much emotional labor! I found it difficult to maintain a pleasant demeanor while working a cash register in a bookstore, one of the greatest places on Earth, especially while standing for eight hours a day. All I want to ask of my barrista is accurate recall of the drink order and price and not being racist themselves. To ask them to lead racial discussions is too much.
Goddamnit Howard Schultz, donate your profits to groups fighting racism, don’t force your employees to shoulder the work.
I will truly never understand this American insistence on cashiers standing all day because otherwise they aren’t being, I don’t know, productive or something. It’s just not so and it’s stupid and harmful.
You mean there is another way? :O
Cashiers in Europe all sit on stools (maybe Australia too?). It’s actually a pretty divisive issue that has led to lawsuits and stuff, with predictable USian moralizing about how people in Europe are lazy and how it’s impossible to be a cashier while sitting down. The whole thing is so stupid and infuriating.
We had stools behind the counter that we were not supposed to sit on in case secret shoppers came in, and could only officially use while doing other obvious work. Frequently boxes would be stacked on them. I can say from personal experience it is very possible to be a cashier while sitting on a stool: the trick is, if there’s ever anything that requires you to stand up (such as grabbing a book on a shelf behind the counter), you stand up. Obvious corollary is obvious: if you are able to sit during the day for reasonable amounts of time, you will not be too tired (and indeed, be more willing) to get up when necessary.
My (American) town just got an Aldi and the cashiers at my job were seething with jealousy that the Aldi cashiers get to sit down.
Frankly, it seems to me that not getting to sit down leads to less productive employees in the long run. I encountered a cashier this weekend who clearly wanted to just go sit down for five minutes and so he skipped out on telling me a lot of the things businesses want cashiers to tell customers. I don’t see how anybody benefits from sore legs when there’s a very simple solution.
The whole issue is shot through with a ton of really shitty gross assumptions about class and education level, not to mention race and gender. It sure sounds to me like a large amount of upper-middle class white people think that cashiers, on some level, don’t *deserve* to sit down, especially when you consider the basic ridiculousness of the arguments against it.
To be honest, it never occurred to me that it *would* be a divisive issue. I thought perhaps it was more ‘we never thought of it and now we don’t want to remodel’ because when I first encountered cashiers on stools in the UK, it seemed like such an obviously good idea.
But now that you’ve pointed out that there *are* arguments against it (of course there are, I was naive to think otherwise), I think you’re right in saying that there’s an unspoken core sentiment of ‘those people don’t deserve to be comfortable at work’. I hate how that sentiment often extends into how upper level management at those retail jobs treats their employees.
Personal experience as an Australian, this is not usual practice in most Aus supermarkets and department stores, though of course it should be.
I worked in Wilkinson’s when I lived in England a few years ago, and to me (after many years of Kmart Australia) stools were a hilarious luxury, so that if there ever weren’t enough and someone apologetically asked me if I minded doing without, I would just laugh confusedly and let them have it.
But I also frequently mixed up one-pound coins with two-dollar coins, because they’re the same size and colour, and would think someone had paid two pounds when they had only paid one. So I guess I deserved no stool?
Bless The Toast for being the only place where this conversation isn’t “My barista can’t even get my drink right, how can I expect them to have any intelligent opinions whatsoever I mean they aren’t, like, REAL PEOPLE or anything.”
As a Starbucks employee, I think this is ridiculously stupid. Most of my customers can’t even manage to have a modicum of good grace during a routine transaction, let alone a heated topic like race. I don’t want to be reprimanded for calling some old white fucks racist either.
“You want that…black?”
Oh, man, there were some good twitter jokes about the new beverages Starbucks was going to introduce, but the only ones I can remember are “What About Black on Black Tea” and “Not All White Machiatos”.
“Flat White Privilege”
“With a shot of Irish Cream Suffered Too”
on the one hand, I think there’s something to the idea that customer service interactions are the place where we are most likely to encounter people who are different from us, but given that most of us don’t want to have more involved conversations with cashiers or baristas beyond ordering and paying, I don’t see it working out very well. Also, anything that stands between coffee addicts and their beverages seems like a bad idea.
This is so fucked in so many ways! I’m a barista at a different coffee chain and there’s just no way for this to work. The power dynamic between retail employees and customers is already so messed up. Customers are racist and sexist and homophobic TO MY FACE and I feel powerless to do anything, especially when they (and they usually are) are regulars.
Honestly my job is 25% making espresso drinks 25% ringing stuff up 25% cleaning and 25% apologizing/debasing myself to entitled customers who demand obeisance for things that are not my fault. There is no way in hell these people would listen to my thoughts on race, and I’m white (admittedly: also very young and visibly queer/gender nonconforming)
I mean, if this were Starbucks’ official mandate to its baristas to just tell the shit off at customers for being racist, I guess I could get behind that, but I don’t think that’s what they have in mind.
Is it possible that the people who run Starbucks just straight up have no idea what it’s like to work at a Starbucks?
Surely not.
I would love for this to mean “Starbucks employees, you have official permission to tell off, argue with, or explain things to customers who make racist remarks, at whatever level on the angry-telling-off-to-gentle-explanation spectrum you feel is appropriate, and management at all levels will stand behind you and not give in to any ‘WELL she didn’t have to be so RUDE about it and I want her DISCIPLINED’ bullshit from customers who didn’t appreciate being told off.” But I find that super unlikely. I think it’s much more likely to be like standard retail policies along the lines of “Employees, we expect you to convince at least 70% of customers to sign up for our mailing list, but if anyone complains to us that you were too pushy about the mailing list, we will apologize profusely and scold you in front of them.” Engage with customers about racism and race relations! Just make sure you do it in a way that won’t piss anyone off! Good luck!
My favorite of these moments was when two undergraduate women were discussing Marx’s views on the alienation of the worker from the products of his labor, as I was carefully sweeping around the table they were using.
I WANT A DOG TOOOOO
Is it something in the air? We all need a puppy at one time? Coincidence?
My husband is looking at dogs and is speaking to a trainer about getting and training a dog to be my service assistance dog/plus pet.
It’s evolution. Now is the right time to get a puppy to help with our summer hunting & gathering. (My cat disagrees and my partner disagrees, though, so no puppy for me yet.)
augh my wife is always insistent that we’ll one day get a dog, but I know that she doesn’t want one and will never actually approve of one. We will never get a dog, but I will always have that dream.
Mr. BHam has never been a dog person and he’s always promised we could get a dog “in the future” but I, like you, secretly knew drastic measures would be necessary to actually get him to fulfill his promises. I truly didn’t think it could be done, but we’ve been visiting local animal shelters every few weeks or so just to meet some dogs–no pressure/absolutely no way we’ll come home with one–and it’s worked a treat! We’re now talking a timeline of getting a doge at the end of the summer and Mr. BHam even actually said he was excited!
What I’m saying is, there might be hope for you? I hope there’s hope! Dogs are the best; everyone should have that joy.
Hmm this is a good idea. Maybe it is possible!
I want to get a Czechoslovakian wolf-dog, though, so also when we watch Game of Thrones I keep pointing out how great those dire wolves are.
Dogs seem nice but the thing that always dissuades me is the way dogs smell – and then your apartment smells like that too. Honest question: Do some dogs not smell like dogs? do you learn to like it (?!)? Or does your nose just stop smelling it after a while?
I think all dogs smell like dog, but some smell more (I’m looking at you, labs!) and some seem to smell less (poodles).
Once I dog-sat for the STINKIEST golden retriever. I wish I had given him a bath while I was watching him.
Ugh I love all dogs but Lab smell is the WORST, I can barely tolerate being in most Lab owners’ houses.
Haha I can attest to the stinkiness of labs. My family dog was a lab mix for many years. Mostly it was because she farted a LOT. In retrospect maybe the cheap food (all we could afford, so please tamp down your impulse to tell me poor people shouldn’t have dogs because dogs should only be fed fresh free range deer guts or something) gave her some digestive issues. However, she just had a doggy smell. Especially when wet. TBH I kinda liked it, though.
Can confirm, I have a lab and he smells terrible! But I like his big goofy face, so…
Aw, my lab is only stinky now because he has an ear infection (again, ugh), usually he doesn’t stink, really! Or potentially I’m delusional and can no longer smell him…
It has to do with the amount of dander. This is why some dogs are labeled as “hypo-allergenic” (WHICH IS A LIE FROM THE PITS OF HELL) – they produce less dander so they a) don’t cause allergic reactions that are as severe as other breeds, and b) don’t smell quite so..doggy. Somebody mentioned poodles down thread, and those are a good example. Mutts also tend to produce less dander, although it obviously depends on which breeds are involved in your mutt-heritage, as do short-haired breeds.
thanks, that is helpful!
either my dog doesn’t smell* or I’ve gotten used to it.
*some times he really smells, but that’s usually after a big hike or a swim in the river or something.
My dog’s natural smell is lovely and mellow and soothing. It’s only when she’s gone off and rolled in pee/poop/poop and pee/something dead that she smells horrible.
I love the smell of my Italian Greyhound. When we cuddle I like to put my face right into him and take a deep breath. This habit has apparently transferred and now my partner knows what I am up to when I sniff him all the time.
my sister has a Pomeranian (which I think might be a less common version of the breed? or slightly mutt?) who smells ADORABLE all the time even when it’s been a while since her last bath and I always want to just cuddle her close and stuff my nose against her head. (which, luckily, she adores being cuddled close and sniffed at, so win-win!)
my mutt that was a cross between lord knows what but likely golden/spaniel/beagle at some point only smelled good when he’d just had a bath, but he loved to jump the back fence and play in the river while we were at school, so maybe not a good comparison. I love the smell of dog, though, so maybe I’m just weird. even when Sport stank like wet dog and brackish mud, I wanted to give him giant bearhugs
Honestly, my dog usually smells great because she’s an apartment dog and can’t roll around in gross stuff outside. And I give her regular baths with shampoo that makes her smell like cupcakes.
Dog smell is stronger for oily-coated dogs like retrievers who were bred to swim and shed water. Dog smell is also stronger with outdoor dogs. Sweating, rolling in stinky stuff, etc. But brushing every couple of days and a bath once a quarter does the trick, usually. I hate dog smell, too, but even my friend’s energetic outdoor retrievers don’t smell bad to me because he bathes and brushes them regularly. So it’s about human commitment to brushing and bathing.
PSA: Don’t bathe your dogs too frequently. Bad for their skin. Once a quarter plus the occasional emergency unscheduled bath when they roll in half of a dead frog. No, I did not make that up. My old boy enjoyed that half of a dead frog almost as much as he enjoyed rolling on dead fish. Dead fish that had been in the sun for hours. May the gods rest his soul.
I think the bath frequency issue depends on the dog- we give ours a bath every 1-2 weeks (mostly because we go to the beach a lot) and her skin is fine.
Also depends on climate. Warm weather bathing is not so irritating to canine skin.
Oh yeah, definitely.
…HALF. D:
My pit mix smells like Doritos. It is… odd. Then again, so is she.
Most dogs’ foot pads smell like Doritos. It’s the type of yeast that grows there. Perfectly normal and healthy.
I think that all dogs can get Wet Dog Smell, so unfortunately there is no getting around that. But some definitely have more smell than others. Between my partner and I we have four dogs and none are particularly smelly. I think you would notice as soon as you met the dog, so at least it would be easy to avoid.
the sniff test!
I think hypo allergenic ones might smell less? My former dog (yorkie) and current dog (cairn/poodle) mix have had no smell issues, unless I don’t bathe them for a few months.
What’s the old saying? If you have one child, you might as well have two children and a dog? Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s it. Dooooo it.
Or you might just have three dogs (my dream)
So, can I make that one child and two dogs? For some crazy reason I’m dying for another dog, even though my life is insanely busy and my job requires travel and 3.5 hours of commuting a day. (Maybe that’s why…)
Yes, please! Two dogs. My life became so much easier when I went from one to two dogs. Bad dog behaviors almost always result from boredom or loneliness. Dogs are not built to be alone, ever. With two, they are never lonely or bored. My First dropped most of his many bad behaviors overnight when we got Second. But take your first dog along to interview potential second dogs. You want to choose a Second that First gets along with.
On the other hand, I heard that “Going from one child to two is like going from owning a dog to running a zoo.”
My decision involved more Star Trek metaphors and self-loathing. I become an oddly devoted TOBologist (by which I mean reading as many books as possible that aren’t all about men so no thanks, Wittgenstein Jr and A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall and then lurking in the comments) every year this time, so I can only interpret this comment to mean that S11 is in fact going to be resurrected as a zombie.
The more I think about S11, the less I know how to think about it. I found myself really enthralled by the comments yesterday, except the really gross ones that GOT MIREILLE’S NAME WRONG (like wtf) and were all “her rape was too traumatic!”. Those reminded me, sadly, of the need for a book like An Untamed State. It was an interesting matchup because An Untamed State is all about experiencing and processing that trauma, right? And in S11 the heroine literally forgets the most traumatic part of her experiences. Anyway, I’m sure lots of toasties are joining me in lurking in the comments – see you (not) over there!
I am very happy that Roxane wrote this book and even happier that it is so succesful… but I’ll admit I haven’t been able to bring myself to read it yet. How do you tackle a book like that? How do you get yourself in the right frame of mind? And do you plan some time after reading for self-care?
I had to stop halfway through. When I was reading it, I was at the beach on vacation with my family for a vacation that is traditionally the most relaxing time of the year, and I just – maybe selfishly – didn’t want to think about trauma that week. I still have my bookmark in, though, and I do want to pick it back up.
I read it on a Friday night when I knew I didn’t have any outside obligations, and dang I could not believe how difficult it was to put down. I needed breaks from the brutality but the book was so damn good I couldn’t take them. And it was very difficult to explain to my partner that no, I am not getting out of bed because I am reading a very disturbing book, and yes I am going to need snuggles but definitely no sexy snuggles later, but seriously how do you explain BOOKFEELINGS to someone who’s never read it and probably never will?
I dunno, no advice, just commiserating. Actually, wait, here’s advice: read the Toast Untamed State book club posts when you finish. Or some other reviews/discussions in safe forums. It was nice to read folks geeking out about the writing & analyzing the characters, kept my brain from focusing on the UGH VIOLENCE HORROR it wanted to focus on.
Came into work because I am bad at self-assessing my level of sickness and because I had picked out a cute outfit. So I’m probably going to zombie through the day, but at least I look fly.
The only thing stopping me from getting a dog is my roommates, and the fact that I will soon be applying for three years of voluntary underemployment and tuition payment. Can’t put a dog through that, even though I’m sure having a dog would help my mental state quite a bit.
Ok, is there any way to manage to have a dog during that time? Maybe start a small doggy savings account for unexpected expenses and also get it some cheap doggy insurance? Because my cat was an absolute lifesaver during law school and then grad school. A dog is different, of course, in that they don’t sleep 20 hours a day, but if you can find a way to make it work, I recommend it. Snorgling a warm furry tummy is deeply therapeutic.
Dogs actually sleep for a lot of the day, so this is not as unreasonable as you might think.
#teamdog
My elderdogs sleep 20 hours a day. Some dog breeds are known to sleep 20 hours a day. Consider adopting older dogs. And research sleepy breeds.
Or schedule regular volunteer time at the local shelter. They always need dog walkers.
I did that on Friday and regretted it SO MUCH. By 2pm I was so miserable and just begging for the day to end so I could go home, but by then it was too late to have someone take over my receptionist duties for the day.
What I’m saying is: if you can go home, don’t force yourself to stay. Don’t regret it!
Also, holy crap, I’m desperate for a new dog. Mine died 3 years ago and I miss him so much, and I know a pet would help me in a lot of ways – a dog moreso than a cat because of mandatory walks – but I can’t even afford rent on my own apartment, and my parents do NOT want animals in the house. There are ways to keep a dog on a very tight budget, but the roommates part makes it a lot more difficult, if not impossible (as in my case).
You could do dog walking or dog sitting to get your fix + make some extra money. If I didn’t have a dog, that definitely what I would do.
The cognitive dissonance in those Red State comments, oh my god. WELL SURE THEY DID ALL THE BAD THINGS I GUESS BUT IT’S FINE AND ALSO NOT RACIST THOUGH, SOMEHOW.
I really shouldn’t have looked at them as long as I did. What’s striking is how ready everyone is to accept that cops can be corrupt, hitting you up for every possible fine and then some…but RACIST??? NO! Racism does not even exist anymore, it is only a progressive lie.
Cops are only prejudiced against white men. Everyone else, they buy coffee and drive them home before respectfully wrapping them in the finest cashmere blankets.
Ahahaha, if only. I would like a fine cashmere blanket.
I have to settle for rubbing my face on the cat.
I don’t understand how these people are so vehemently committed to denying the obvious racism. What do they get out of it? I saw so many comments proclaiming a belief that black people just commit more crimes – is that really a belief they want to hold sacred, rather than admit the possibility that the PD disproportionally targeted Ferguson’s black citizens? I’m disgusted.
They keep saying WELL but the town is mostly black, OF COURSE black people commit more crimes there, and that is the only reason! Um. Ok guys. I guess that explains racism across the board, let’s pack this up and go home to our mothers!
It really feels like some of these cats have philosophically painted themselves into a corner — like, their primary avenue of attack against liberal policy is that the principle behind it isn’t real, so now they’ve got no choice but to deny the existence of institutional racism whenever it comes up.
See also “global warming”.
(re-reading this, I basically re-stated what you said? Ah well, I am going to go have more coffee)
I think some of the refusal to recognize racism is that if you recognize racism exists, then the policies that one is lead to support are for big government and more taxes. They by definition can’t believe that racism impacts black people, because then they might be forced to help black people.
Same thing with global warming. They can’t abide that if global warming is real, it would involve more regulations and government action, so it’s easier to just deny global warming.
Now the smarter conservatives will say racism and global warming are real, but there’s nothing to be done about it, so ¯_(ツ)_/¯. Which is also bs, but a bit harder to refute.
Yeah, and I also think that a lot of this has to do with the identity politics of the conservative movement — they’ve created a political party that’s predicated on the implicit idea of “strength.” i.e., uncompromising moral values, the seriousness of your convictions, &c and so forth, so the problem is that, with the crowd that they’ve built their politics on, they CAN’T acknowledge that racism or global warming exists, even if it means that they could pivot to a stronger rhetorical position. Even conceding just the terms of the argument to the liberals (that is, saying, “all right, we both agree that racism is real, now let’s discuss the best thing to DO about it”) is going to be perceived as a weakness and whoever does it will get subject to that kind of vicious, internecine policing.
This is…I mean, I don’t know, I think that pretty much all conservative politics are proto-fascism at least, but this is DEFINITELY proto-fascism, and the problem with fascism is that it’s always a loser’s strategy. It buys you short-term successes, but at the expense of ever doing anything that a civilization requires for its long-term survival, so in the end it’s always doomed.
Proto-fascism. I just wanted to co-sign that.
Identity politics. Yes indeed. My large extended family is mostly deeply conservative and simultaneously insecure in their personal identities. Without the packaged conservative attitudes, they would not know who they are. They must cling to everything conservative. They have no other option, in their minds.
So much this.Identity politics is the worst. I cannot handle how I can’t get people to, say, admit that there is child abuse occurring in a given community, because people reject the evidence that is there — and growing! — and dismiss the messengers as being bitter maladjusts. >:|
Yeah, I think the worst part of identity-based politics is how, no matter what the arguments are or how they’re presented, everyone always presumes that YOU are doing the same thing that THEY are.
“It’s impossible that you could legitimately believe in climate change and want to do something about it! You just like being liberal so you can think you’re better than me!”
bleurgh
THIS. It’s projection on such a weirdly-focused scale, it became the only way I could understand some of the comments I would see/receive back in 2008:
Them: “[MEMBERS OF GROUP] are only voting for Obama because they don’t want people to think they’re racist!”
Me: “What are you talking about, I’ve never worried about people thinking I’m racist, I have some vague concerns about his policy on Iran” (true story) “but other than that, we’re pretty aligned on policy, I don’t see the connec — OH. You’re saying, the only reason YOU would ever vote for Obama is because you don’t want people to think you’re racist, which you must be worried about at some level or you wouldn’t be thinking about that.”
And understanding that made me realize that people’s descriptions of hated groups’ motivations are simply what they themselves would do in that situation. Identity politics screw you up until you become that which you hate. (And I say this as someone who works really hard not to let identity politics rule her life.)
It’s like rapists thinking that all men would rape if they could get away with it, or worse, that all men DO rape, but that some of them have figured out how to get away with it.
Yes! Though there is a lot of identity politics on left and right — but it is more rigid on the right.
Disturbing to see how many people were just taking it as a valid working assumption that “the Holder DOJ and liberals are lying” and trying to work out what was going on with that as one of the assumptions — the premises. So messed up. How can you have a democracy if you assume that about fellow citizens? One of the best definitions I’ve come across of a working democracy (besides, obviously, 1 vote 1 person), was: you can walk up to a stranger and have a reasonable conversation with him/her in a public space, despite your differences — that you feel able to do that.
Reading that link reminded me of an acquaintance, a hardcore conservative who lives in STL and keeps a blog. I had forgotten all about him so I went to his site and, amid a bunch of eye-roll-inducing paranoia about Obama, he actually had a pretty reasonable take on Ferguson. Like “hey, I know most of my fellow white conservatives think racism is a myth, but the more I look around me in this city the more I realize that we have a really serious problem.” That sort of made my morning. It makes me hopeful that people can see what’s under their own noses in spite of ideological conditioning and that the outcry over this might actually be having an impact.
It was so weird being over there and reading through the comments. I felt like I was in an alternate universe (I’m used to reading comments here and AVclub, though I occasionally just have to dive into places like Slate or something to see the crazy).
They got arrested more and charged with fewer offenses that actually involve evidence but THERE’S NO PROOF BLACKS AREN’T JUST INNATELY CRIMINAL
Not racist, I could hypothetically have a black friend someday.
For me, every day that I don’t have a dog is a personal failure. But due to apartment size/policies, money issues, and other stupid stuff, it looks like I’ll be suffering and dogless for at least another year 🙁
Same. Also I fear that puppy would want to “play” with my chinchilla too much and then he will be an ex-chinchilla. 🙁
My little sister for most of her life begged for pets. She wanted animals in the house so badly, but my mom absolutely refused. She has a slight phobia of dogs and a distaste for cats, but mainly it was that my baby brother had really bad asthma. We got a family fishtank at some point as a placating thing, because brother also really wanted pets, but it wasn’t the same. Eventually when my parents separated, my dad agreed to let my sister prove she could take care of animals by getting some dwarf hamsters. Sister was 10-11 years old, though, and didn’t always want to keep the cage and habitrail and so on in her room during cleaning or whatever.
Finally, both of our grandfathers died within 9 months of each other, and our parents’ divorce was starting to finalize. Dad decided it was time to get a dog, maybe hoping it would be therapeutic for us kids, maybe because he just wanted one himself, who knows? But we got Sport from the humane society and he was about 6 months old, still a puppy but decently big – he had to have been at least part golden and part spaniel, and his puppy behavior mimicked those two breeds. He loved digging under our backyard fence and playing in the river, which we were one block from, and stalking lizards and squirrels. We sometimes put the surviving hamster into its ball and let it roam the first floor of the house, and Sport was always fascinated with watching them. He also really, really liked licking things that he wanted to know more about or to show affection for, just like a baby.
You can probably imagine what happened one rainy day…
My sister had just spent the weekend giving the hamster habitrails a thorough cleaning and changed all the shavings and rearranged the tubing and cage layout, but she left the contraption on the first floor coffee table instead of closing it up in her second-floor bedroom. We went to school, and since it was nasty outside and we hadn’t filled in the last hole Sport had dug, we left him inside the house. He was confined to the first floor during the day.
We came home and discovered a very gloomy dog, tail between his legs, ears down, asking for comfort. He had pushed the cage off the coffee table so that the hamster had escaped, and then apparently tried to get it to play with him. We still have no clue if he was seeing the hamster like a toy, a friend, or prey of some kind (he never intentionally killed lizards or squirrels, but enjoyed chasing them), but that poor thing was maybe a foot from the cage and completely, soaking wet with dog slobber, apparently dead of either a) drowning or b) heart attack. The dog was so upset! (everyone but my sister thought it was hilarious and was secretly grateful)
I miss that dog so much, damn. This probably didn’t help with your chinchilla worries, but it’s likely that if you keep them separated when you’re not watching they’ll both be okay!
I am in the same boat!
1.5 years until either I enter a PhD program, where I will be making money (thanks science!) and therefore able to support a canine in this city… or until we move and having a dog will seem like a more practical life choice.
Are other towns just way more tolerant with their pet policies or is there basically no way to even have a dog except owning a house or running a covert underground dog smuggling operation out of your rental
SOMETIMES I WONDER THIS VERY THING. In the apartment hunting I’ve done, it seems very difficult to find a pet-friendly place (here in Boston) unless you can afford crazy high rent or want to live in a dump and have a landlord who doesn’t care. I’m hoping that once things improve for my partner and I, we can get up into a higher rent bracket and will thus have more dogportunities.
If not, then there’s always the dog smuggling operation!!
I live in Portland, and many/most apartments allow pets (with a deposit and/or a rent hike). We are a city of pet lovers.
I can’t financially commit to a dog yet, but we’re dog sitting for five weeks starting next week, for a friend’s dog we already know and love. I can’t WAIT.
Handshake of empathy! We are not allowed to have a dog because we’d get evicted and would have to pay literally twice the rent to continue to live in our area, but I miss having a dog in my life so very much. I find it helpful to creepily hang out at the park where all the dog owners take their dogs whenever I can.
I want to adopt the work dogs. The work dogs are two border collies, and I live in a 3-bedroom house with only a small backyard.
BUT I LOVE THEM.
Also, I can’t handle the emotional responsibility of having an animal that would pine for me that much while I’m gone, but mostly it’s the space thing.
I just finished The Jinx last night and I am HERE for it.
I’ll post my somewhat spoilery thought as a subcomment.
I’m not sure the bathroom ‘confession’ is what the producers (and maybe cops?) think it is. He very well could have been miming what he thought the director would say to him vs. confessing to the murders. This is not to say that I think he’s innocent by any means, just that it isn’t the smoking gun they’ve set it up to be.
Also, learning that they’ve been sitting on this evidence for two years makes me really uncomfortable.
The envelope is the smoking gun, for me, the confession was just the creepy icing on the cake. And honestly, the cops had the evidence first and never noticed it was evidence, so I am thoroughly Team Make Your Awesome Movie And He Will Still Go To Jail Thanks To You.
I totally agree about the envelope, but the cops never had that, right? It was in the possession of Susan’s stepson and then it was given to the film crew who put it into a safe deposit box.
It was in her apartment first, which was all evidence.
ok, yes, you’re right
Totally agreed on the confession aspect. It was my understanding that they hadn’t known about that piece of tape for two years but that they had a ton of footage and it took them two years to find it. This NYT article has pretty good background on when the filmmakers started talking to police:
“Mr. Jarecki, who was also the show’s director, and Mr. Smerling struggled with whether to bring the letter to law enforcement authorities. If they did so too soon, their lawyers told them, they could be considered law enforcement agents in the event of a prosecution, possibly jeopardizing the material’s admissibility in court, Mr. Jarecki said.
They also wanted to preserve a journalistic privilege not to disclose sources or testify in court. Still, Mr. Smerling said in an interview, “We had a moral obligation and an obligation to the families of the dead to see that justice was done.” They began speaking to Los Angeles investigators in early 2013.”
I think that Durst’s high priced lawyers will probably be able to delay any conclusion to this while Durst is alive, which is infuriating. I mean, he spent $1.5 million on the trial in Texas where he was found to have killed his neighbor in self-defense despite dismembering the body afterwards.
If they did so too soon, their lawyers told them, they could be considered law enforcement agents in the event of a prosecution, possibly jeopardizing the material’s admissibility in court, Mr. Jarecki said.
That’s a fascinating complication I don’t really understand: how does an independent agent, and one Durst is voluntarily cooperating with, get reckoned as a law enforcement agent? It certainly made me more sympathetic to Jarecki et al. when I learned it.
Of course then there’s Gawker’s rundown of the timeline: What Happened Between Robert Durst’s Confession and His Arrest? IDK what to think now (other than I should go take a walk or work on something else). Ultimately, I think that docudrama, entertainment, and criminal justice make for uneasy bedfellows that work at cross purposes at times.
I agree with your comment. Also, sometimes I worry about armchair scrutinizing this kind of thing, especially right in the middle of it all happening — Jarecki et al have said they’re not commenting on this because they’re going to be called as witnesses, and I bet the media coverage of the Jinx finale is going to be used by Durst’s lawyers as a way to throw out the envelope as evidence/inability to find an unbiased jury. Isn’t it acceptable for people just to not know things until the trial?
I agree about what he could have been doing with his little monologue in the bathroom (and that’s how his attorney will spin it), but man, that nervous burping episode was the creepiest part for me.
I loved watching them prep for the interview with RD– going through the docs in order, what questions to ask when, etc. I could watch like 10 more hours of just that. Also, I can’t imagine how anxiety inducing that must have been. We’re going to corner someone we believe to be a murderer about those murders, this seems like an excellent idea and not at all threatening or scary!
Also, the “can you tell me which address is from your letter” was just a mic drop moment.
Watching them prepare for that interview was so tense I felt sick at points.
That was my immediate thought, too: When I’m preparing for, or recovering from, a contentious conversation, I often talk to myself much like that, anticipating or reiterating what I imagine my interlocutor’s position or belief might be. It’s plausible (though by no means obvious) to me that Durst is going over how it looks to outside observers, true or otherwise, not spontaneously confession his guilt in supposed privacy. (Of course, both could be true: he could be guilty and going over a conversation with someone who presupposes his guilt.)
But the handwriting match, which the police could easily have made themselves years and years ago when both documents were in their possession, looks pretty damning — though defense could argue that knowing there’s a body in a home isn’t the same as being a murderer.
The only part of the “bathroom confession” that I think is definitive is when he says “I’m caught” immediately following the big envelope reveal. Regardless, this is no Adnan/Jay situation, because there is no way that Durst is not a straight up murderer.
Doesn’t he say “there it is; YOU’RE caught”? Which could be interpreted as him mimicking what he imagines Jarecki is thinking about him?
But yeah, he’s guilty.
I JUST FINISHED IT AND HOLY COW. That was some amazing TV. Like, I did not really know much about it going in, so like, every little new detail, like how he’s one of the richest dudes in American, Susan Berman’s mob ties, all that, was just like, HOLY FUCKING SHIT.
But there are a couple of things I don’t get:
If a dude has that many aliases that you know about, why would you believe any paper trial that put him anywhere?
Why didn’t LA have those guns they found in his posession in Galveston tested for a match for the gun that killed Susan Berman like IMMEDIATELY?
What the fuck did his female alias do to get on America’s Most Wanted List?
I’m pretty sure that weird blinky thing he was doing was a nervous tic for when he was lying, which was the entire time.
Oh also ALSO
Where do y’all think Kathie’s body is? I mean, it was clearly not going to be in the lake right outside the house. Too obvious. How well did they search that weird cubbyhole they found, because that is totally where I’d bury and hide a body.
Honestly? I think he probably disposed of Kathie’s body in a nice, convenient body of water. That’s what he tried to do with the guy in Galveston and he strikes me as so purely narcissistic that he wouldn’t really attempt to be clever at all or change his MO. I think that the fact that he was a wealthy man in a wealthy community with a famous name at a time when DV issues were taken even less seriously than they are now really shielded him from any kind of meaningful scrutiny.
This Vanity Fair article from 2002 gives a good overview of the violence in their marriage (which Durst certainly downplayed during the documentary): ““He slapped me.” That’s what she had said at the beginning, during her first years in med school. He disapproved of her career, wanted her at home. She played it down. Bobby had lost his temper, she’d say, as if it had been a fluke. Not until later did she tell how Bobby had pulled her out of a family gathering—by her hair.”
There’s also this, which is horrifying, from Doug Durst: “Before the disappearance of my sister-in-law, Bob had a series of Alaskan Malamutes, which is like a husky,” Douglas Durst said. “He had seven of them, and they all died, mysteriously, of different things, within six months of his owning them. All of them named Igor. We don’t know how they died, and what happened to their bodies.
“In retrospect,” he says, “I now believe he was practicing killing and disposing his wife with those dogs.” Douglas also mentions that Robert would use Igor as a verb, claiming, “When he was in jail in Pennsylvania, he was recorded saying, ‘I want to Igor Douglas.'”
D:<
I want a dog. A chihuahua. When I get back to my small flat I want to hear somebody bark. https://youtu.be/Xp3NhS9dQP0
It just occurred to me to post this as a response, and I also thought “No-one will recognise it”.
Everything is better than the police, not just television.
Haven’t you ever seen Peter Pan? Getting a dog after having a baby is a sound financial decision, they are basically nannies you don’t have to pay.
“will be MY dog and not my husband’s dog”
This part is the tricky part. The dog chooses their person just as the wand chooses the wizard.
Yeah, but bacon helps.
True. Our cat chose my husband, and I am a consolation prize when husband is not around. But that’s OK, because it made my husband realize that a pet is a two person project.
Pretty much every dog my family has ever owned has been my mother’s dog. They like the rest of us very much, but my mom is MOM OMG MOM IS HOME/MOM WHERE IS MOM I AM BEREFT.
You are correct. Most of the time the dog chooses. However, since there are only two humans and two dogs in my house, my dogs have no choice. We gain only one dog at a time. When we had only one, he was mine because he knew me long before he met Mr. Rose. When we gained the second, she had no choice but to bond to Mr. Rose. Our first forbade her to get too close to me; I was taken, spoken for. He was most emphatic about it. After my old boy died, we got another dog and this one had no choice, either. He had to bond to me because the little female made it very clear that Mr. Rose was taken, spoken for. It helped that I spent the first week of his arrival flat on my back with a bad cold. I made the new boy lie on my tummy for hours at a time. He got the idea quickly that he was mine.
So you can manipulate a dog’s primary bond.
This is more or less how it goes in our household, too.
What kind of dogs do you have? They all sound so sweet.
You are so kind to ask. I am incapable of a short post about my beloved little monsters. Search for “Belgian barge dog”. I don’t identify them online because they are so rare and I am so easily identified with my matched pair. Please excuse my paranoia.
Standard disclaimer: I do not recommend this breed. They were not bred to be pets. These dogs were bred to make their own decisions and to work alone. They do not care whether humans are pleased with them. Smart enough to know what any given command means, unresponsive to commands because they have other plans.
And then there’s the contrariness. If you see one coming to you and make the mistake of saying, Here!, that dog will likely stop, turn around, and walk away, rather than appear to comply with your command. They have an image to maintain.
They are not patient with children. If a child accidentally hurts them, they will bite, hard, not a warning nip.
These dogs end up in shelters after being abused for defiance. When that’s what their bred for. Making their own decisions. Working alone.
So, experienced dog people only. And only those with a strong personality and low expectations for obedience.
This was a great post! I didn’t mean to invade your privacy by asking about the breed! They sound so special, and are beautiful, and definitely sound like they’ve got a good owner in you.
So basically, cat people. The best dog people for this breed are cat people.
Exactly! Guard dog / house cat combo.
“Oh, you don’t like me today. Ok, I respect that. I’ll just be over here if you want to hang out or whatever. We’ll go for a walk later.”
I never wanted dogs to like me because I hated dogs, but both the family dogs decided I was Theirs To Protect – both my dad’s dog when I was born (he refused not to sleep under my crib when I was an infant, and followed around anyone who was carrying me), and my Sport dog whom we adopted from a shelter at 6 months old when I was 13. I did everything I could not to bond with Sport (though, to be honest, I did name him – everyone else said “let’s name him Scooter” and I was like “over my dead body, we’ll name him Sport, because Scooter is a stupid name” and that was that), and then one day I was home sick from school with horrible cramps, and he spent several hours trying to make me feel better, and suddenly I realized he was my bestie for life. ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
scooter, wth?? your 13-y.o. self had good taste.
Right?! Looking back, ‘Sport’ is also a kind of awkward name, but it’s what my grandfather called all the boys in the family, and he’d just died that month, so it was kind of in Pa’s memory, so less dumb.
Dogs are the best. Our spaniel mix spent SO MANY HOURS being cried into when I was in middle school and full of hormones and convinced that NOTHING IS FAIR EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE I HATE YOU PARENTS and he was so sweet and so patient. I miss him.
Yes, I miss my baby doggy so much. He also got cried into a lot, and used as a hot water bottle when I was hurting (so lucky he didn’t mind being cuddled!), and he was the perfect size to roughhouse without one of us injuring the other. It was the worst when I had to move out of my dad’s house and couldn’t bring him with me to my mom’s, and then he started getting old and sick.
Being the Foodgiver is usually successful.
How can you talk so much about dogs and not have any photos of dogs in the post??
I desperately want my own dog, too. I was driving with a coworker this weekend and we passed an adorable dog with its human. I went, “DOG!!!!!!” and he said, ” Have you never seen a dog before?” I’m just very dog deprived!
That is the proper and reasonable response to seeing a dog.
I have seen many dogs and I still yell “DOG” or “PUPPY” every time I see one while driving. Regardless of whether there are other people in the car or not.
I DO THIS TOO. It is a fun game! It was also way more challenging when the snowbanks were taller than most dogs walking around; then I had to try and spot them by looking for humans with leashes.
The other day I was walking down the street with a friend and complaining about work. It came out like “This job makes me feel like – A PUPPY!!!!!”
Best part was that the owner of the puppy heard me and gave me a weird look. Like excuuuuse me for getting excited about your beautiful spaniel and its wee little boots, dude. If you don’t want people yelling “PUPPY” around you then stay home.
I do this too and I own two dogs…
YUP.
I don’t understand your coworker’s confusion.
When you see a dog, you have to inform them that they’re a dog. Loudly and repeatedly, in a squeaky voice. YES THEY ARE.
How will they know, otherwise?
Also I tend to inform dogs, whether they can hear me or not, that they are very good doggies YES YOU ARE WHAT A GOOD BOY.
Always. I start scratching them and then say, “Oh, who’s a good boy? WHO’S A GOOD BOY? YOU’RE A GOOD BOY!” because you have to answer so you don’t put them in an existential funk a la this poor puppy:
The look on that dog’s face seriously almost made me tear up, he looks so happy to be a good dog! In my defence I am pregnant and therefore tear up at anything, but awww, so sweet!
It does the same to me and I have no similar excuse. DOGS.
Someone else (or perhaps you?) referenced this strip here months ago, and I would like to thank them (or perhaps you?) for this. A printout is the only decoration in my office, and I cannot wait until I have a full-time dog to love. My fiancee’s dog (and accompanying fiancee) is a 4-hour drive away, and my landlord is very anti-dog, so I do not get to remind the dog how excellent he is nearly often enough!
It may well have been me! I am pretty sure I’ve posted it here before because I just love it so much. I wish you an imminent reunion with the dog (and the fiancee, I suppose, too)!!
I call it puppy vision. It’s a personal mission to spot all dogs and to speak of it aloud. Do other people NOT do this? Weird…
I hope this assuages your need for doggy pics a bit:
A+ dog
They always look so self-conscious at the end of a big spazz. It’s adorable.
YESSSSS. I love the upside-down-and-staring-at-you pose. My parents’ dog is A+ at it because you can usually see his stubby former stray teeth and he looks extra-ridiculous.
Additional dog! Also a cat, just to be on the safe side:
Dogs!
It’s the polite thing to do! Otherwise your human companions might miss seeing an excellent dog.
If I’m out with someone I always point out dogs, and often when I’m by myself I will get really excited and smile at dogs (sometimes I say hi) without really paying much attention to their owners. I used to feel weird about this until my friend got an obscenely cute dog who I have spent a fair amount of time walking and I got to witness just how many people smile at her/say hi/point her out and say “dog!” without ever really acknowledging me. It’s glorious.
My mother had your dog theory but with cats. Never worked. She remains convinced that if we had purebred himalayans they would have loved her most, but alas we had ingrate shelter cats.
We have two cats. The cats adore me, but treat my husband like the hired help. He feeds them and gives then treats. I never feed them.
They greet me at the door, sit on my desk and follow me around. My husband keeps trying with catnip mice toys and salmon bites but they are aloof to him.
Cats are jerks.
When I was little our family adopted a kitten our aunt found wandering in the open space just behind her house. He was a beautiful, healthy long-haired tabby who had obviously been born somewhere nice and fed regularly for the first month or so of his life, but he’d been out in the wild long enough to get really hungry and really skittish. He decided he liked my mother and would come out from under furniture (including cars–he hid under recently-parked cars in our garage all the time because they were warm) ONLY for her. He’d run away from my sister and me (not surprising, we were grubby-fingered children). But he would SPIT and SNARL and HISS and act like someone was attacking him when my dad got close to him for months after we brought him home.
My dad was persistent. He went out and bought all the fancy cat accoutrements that kitties like: scratching post with a perch on top, dangly toy, cushion bed, dried anchovies for snacks, etc. The pièce de resistance turned out to be a fine-bristled brush. When the cat was sleeping, my dad would sneak up on him and slowly, gently, brush his long fur with the brush. And the cat LOVED it.
By the time he died in his mid-teens he was my dad’s cat, no question about it. The cat bed sat on my dad’s footstool littered with stray hairs, and the brush sat on the table next to my dad’s chair, and that was where they both spent their evenings: dad in his chair and cat on the footstool, dad brushing the cat’s fur for 5 minutes straight every evening to put him to sleep and then watching tv while this blissful cat drooled all over the cat bed.
I miss that cat.
This story is doing things to me right now. The brushing!!
This story! Your dad! That cat! So many feelings right now!
My mom’s boy cat loves my dad the best. He shows this by sitting on the back of Dad’s chair, playing with his glasses, and otherwise being a pest. Dad *hates* that cat. Like, actually hates it.
Nicole, my dog is so great with babies and toddlers and school-aged children! He was a 8-9 month pound puppy and there was a tantrum phase that happened that wasn’t GREAT but now he is a fine scholarly gentleman who plays hide-and-seek with my toddler niece and they lay on the ground together while she pets him and talks to him and it is purely, purely wonderful. He is her favorite member of our household and she gets excited about visiting Uncle Amanita (I’m a lady) at Dog’s house. Dogs + babies forever and ever and ever amen.
I am looking so forward to having kids that I have a chunk of my savings account marked for their unexpected expenses, but I refuse to acknowledge that my cat will hate my offspring and likely try to steal their souls. Maybe I can turn her into a dog.
haha, this can be a very good combo. My friend’s baby’s first word was GAK! which meant “cat,” and she perks up amazingly when their 3 cats go by, even though they mostly stay out of her arm’s reach. It made her a much more alert baby. It also really helped her learn how to be gentle. She did a great job meeting my pet rabbit at age 18 months; they really enjoyed each other, she petted him, and they even shared toys (rabbit toys are almost identical to human baby toys — rattles and balls and teether/chew-toys!), and I don’t think it would have happened without the previous cat-training.
Hee hee hee re Television > Police, an hour later I’m realizing you were talking about the literal things and not late 70’s punk/rock bands. I didn’t remember a Television song called “Jinx” but vowed to check it out.
Oh, good; I’m not the only one whose mind immediately went there. Anyway, it’s not saying much. To my knowledge, there are no bands that are better than Television.
I read the “Jinx Jinxy Jinx” lead in and immediately thought of Jinx Monsoon, Drag Race winner and Seattle treasure.
I have no idea what is happening with Australian politics right now, Tony Abbott and co just keep fucking up in the most awful ways. Minister for Indigenous Affairs: “living in remote indigenous communities is a lifestyle choice” that cannot be supported. Services for disadvantaged people getting cut saying that it’s unfair for taxpayers to subsidise them. Trying to deregulate how universities set fees by trying to play like it’s an elite minority going to university who have bundles of cash to throw about. All Australian media in a flap about the fact that Abbott’s chief of staff is a woman who apparently (gasp!) isn’t best friends with every person in his party and and everyone is trying to make out that she’s clashing with the female members of cabinet. I can’t even keep up with how quickly things keep changing for the worse.
Whatever, here’s a Vine of him EATING AN ONION, SKIN AND ALL
Australia, how did you guys elect an actual reptoid as your Prime Minister?
Between Abbott, Harper, and Cameron, my long running belief that parliamentary systems are better is taking a beating. Then again, it’s not like we don’t have plenty of awful pols too.
Many of us would like to know, also.
(Although I’m less worried about how we managed to elect him and more about how we get rid of him and his ilk.)
It’s really shameful, isn’t it? I’m embarrassed. We’re all embarrassed. Even my comically-conservative very-old grandparents admit he could be doing better, AND they’ve finally given up ragging on Julia Gillard.
I personally treat him as a bad joke, a wince-inducing three-year comedy act, but each time this happens it gets harder and harder to force a smile.
everyday he says something more stupid than the day before, it’s truly an amazing skill to be so willfully stupid. And that onion thing is just…bizarre.
My latest theory is that he is a robot built by Rupert Murdoch to implement his agenda, but the robot has a glitch and has gone rogue, and now even Murdoch doesn’t like him any more!
He keeps declaring himself Prime Minister of various groups, and then being actively terrible for those groups. Abbot, wtf?
Oh, have you met Alaska’s politicians? Where these people dredge themselves up from, and the most recent WTF from a longtime clock-puncher whom I feel sounds like a giant clogged artery. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ch…
Sweet Christ, that version of Jane Horrocks singing “Cabaret” was profound. The pain, anger, and desperation (combined with those arm muscles, NGL) was wrenching.
YES I came here to say the exact same thing! I think the best versions of Cabaret are the ones where you realize how fraught everyone’s situation is. There are no winners in Cabaret, and (to me, anyway) that makes it one of the most human musicals I’ve ever seen. It’s very powerful when done well.
Agreed.
Jane Horrocks is phenomenal. Little Voice is one of my favorite films just because of her bodily and vocal transformations in each song.
When I saw that movie (on a friend’s DVD), I had to stop it and read the box to confirm it was actually her singing all those voices. AMAZING.
It was amazing! She is awesome.
I am so mad that I didn’t bring my headphones into work today because I want to listen to it so badly.
Okay people, tell me happy stories of how you got a dog and it didn’t make your cats go bonkers. Because I desperately want a dog and I’m afraid it’ll ruin my pretty much perfect cats.
My family got our golden retriever when she was a puppy, so when she arrived, she was only slightly larger than the larger of our two cats, Simba. Simba proceeded to inform the dog, very rapidly, that HE was in charge, and the dog accepted this and continued to defer to him for the rest of his life, despite growing to at least five times his size. So Simba had no problems with it. Our second cat was always skittish (possibly thanks to Simba), so although she was skittish around the dog for most of her life, that wasn’t a personality change.
We have two dogs and two cats. The cats don’t care for the dogs much but the dogs love to chase an play with the cats (however they are not aggressive with them otherwise). When we were in an apartment we gave the cats peace by keeping them separated with a baby gate. Now we have a house though, so the cats live upstairs and the dogs stay mostly downstairs.
Since I got my dog my shy cat is probably twice as affectionate. I guess she is getting less passive attention and now has to work more for my affection, but she is now a big-time lap sitter/bed cuddler. Also, she was a grown-up and the dog was a puppy when we got him, and it only took one loud cat yowl (from some transgression we didn’t see) for him to learn to stay the eff away. Now they don’t really interact except for occasional butt-smelling (dog), but they also don’t seem to mind one another. She was a really good cat to begin with, and is still a really good cat, and if this shy cat can live with a dog unscathed, yours will probably be ok too!
So my family moves a lot. A whooooole lot. And at some point my little sister was promised a cat whenever they moved next. When they moved, there was a couple of week gap in which the dog was left in Location A while we had Christmas with my grandmother and then arranged a flight for the dog to Location B. It was in this gap that we got a cat. The cat is an agoraphobic former street cat. The dog was (RIP) a bassett hound who thought the entire world was her playground and everybody and everything was created to pet her forever and ever amen. So when they finally met, the initial interaction went something like this:
Dog: A TOY! Oh, a fuzzy toy of my very own, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU she is mine and I will love her and also chase her because WHAT FUN, A TOY THAT MOVES!
Cat: Predator! RUN!
Dog: RUN! MY FAVOURITE GAME!
The cat was not fond of this game, but she got tricked into it frequently. One day, the dog got her trapped in a corner and was sniffing her and the cat lost. her. shit. and clawed the dog’s nose. Betrayed and looking mournful as only a hound can do, the dog backed up and let the cat go. Being a dog, and thus an eternal optimist, she tried to initiate a game of RUN! a few hours later. The cat was backed into a corner, raised its paw, and the dog ran backed up. The cat was satisfied. Except cats, it turns out, do not take Psych 101 and have never been taught that when you condition somebody or something like that, there needs to be occassional reinforcement in order to continue getting the desired response. So one day the cat got cornered and raised her paw, and the dog, being ready and willing to learn a new game, leaned herself over on her stumpy bassett legs, and raised her front paw as well.
(Split in two because it was apparently too long for one comment. Sorry, Toasties!)
I once lived in a big house with three roommates, one of whom moved in with a 90-lb yellow dog while I was keeping a friend’s tabby cat for the summer. The dog was super interested in sniffing the cat’s butt and licking his ears. The cat was super annoyed by these attentions, but not afraid, and would in fact hang out waiting for the dog to show up so he could make a velveted swipe at her nose. I don’t know if they would have ever become friends, it was a real Garfield and Odie situation, but no one was hurt and there was plenty of room for all.
Ask at the shelter for dogs that grew up with cats. There are many. True for my pair of dogs. Even so, make sure cats have a dog-free space to retreat to because dogs just don’t know when to quit.
If you get a puppy when your cats are already adults, they’ll usually teach the puppy not to mess with them. We got our dog as a puppy when our cats were 2 yo and 1 yo. The cats quickly taught her who was boss, and one of the cats actually became good friends with her- 4 years later, they still play together all the time. The other cat was skittish before we got her, and he still doesn’t love her, but he tolerates her and will occasionally cuddle with her if she is lying quietly.
It’s definitely a good idea to have dog-free places that the cats can go to help them feel safe- we have a cat tree, and when the dog was younger we also put a baby gate in front of our bedroom so the cats could jump over it if they wanted to escape the dog for a while.
I was worried about introducing a dog to my two cats – the older one is a cranky, delicate princess who hates noise, change, and pretty much everyone besides me. And the younger is a hyperactive pest with no sense of self-preservation (they make it work, I tell myself…).
We don’t know if our dog lived with cats, but he wasn’t at all interested when the shelter staff brought him into the cat room, so we figured it would probably be ok. The day we brought him home, Cat #1 fled into out bedroom and didn’t come out for a while, and Cat #2 ran straight up and bopped him on the nose (still a thing, they play tag up and down our stairs). For about the first three weeks we didn’t leave them alone unsupervised – either we were with the dog or he was gated in an upstairs room. Everyone settled in fairly smoothly – dog learned that Cat #1 is scary, powerful, and should not be looked at directly, and Cat #2 is a chill bro who he can’t play too roughly with or he’ll be scolded. The cats still have one room gated off so they can enjoy a dog-free zone if they feel like it.
So, it can be done! Also, if you get a dog from a rescue, they often have dogs fostered with families and you can look for one who’s currently living with cats.
It can work! I have 2 cats who have been in a cat only house for 8 years and we went through a breed rescue group for our 5 year old dog.
– Make sure to allow the cats to have rooms/spaces that are theirs and theirs alone and have “escape routes” to evade any dog nonsense (My Cat From Hell has some good ideas/examples).
– Try to go through a rescue group or with a dog that has been fostered with cats so they know the temperament and likely behavior of the dog with cats.
– Avoid greyhounds (since they’re trained to chase fur covered cat-sized bait) and herding breeds (stalking and chasing instincts) unless they have been specifically fostered with cats and you can witness their tolerance of felines.
– Give everyone time to adjust.
– Make sure the dog cannot get to the litter box or they will eat cat poo (ugh!!)
We are now two years later and while the cats and dogs aren’t BFF snuggle buddies, we can all sit on the couch together without anyone getting upset and territorial. We are firm with the pecking order though — at night the dog sleeps in the crate in our room while the cats get free reign of the house; she (the dog) is not allowed on our bed at any time because the cats sleep with us (we call the bed Catland) but she’s allowed on the couch and the kids’ beds. One cat is a dainty, prissy asshole and he STILL swats at the dog when she walks by a little too close to his personal space but the cats behavior has not significantly changed overall (he was a dainty, prissy asshole before we got the dog). Cats will be 10 years old in April and have all their claws, dog is almost 7 so with the right animals and with preparation, it can work.
Now go forth and get a nice doggie.
Why does the toast hate me?
That dance mix makes me happy. I recognized so many of the movies (Cry Baby! White Nights! CENTER STAGE!) and there were so many more that I wished I did.
I saw White Nights for the first time last year at the Chicago International Film Fest and afterwards Taylor Hackford did a Q & A with the audience. The most important fact is he said the movie was the most significant piece of work he’s ever done because it’s how he met his future wife, Dame Helen Mirren. Later he talked about the performances and said, “…and Helen is great because…well, she’s Helen fuckin’ Mirren.”
So at least he’s aware that he’s unworthy of her presence (as we all are really.)
Ugh everyone what the hell I cannot believe I live in a country where I see the words “Impasse Over Sex Trafficking Bill” describing an actual dispute occurring in the actual government. HOW IS THIS EVEN HAPPENING. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/us/politics/imp…
Also I met a big dumb poodle yesterday and now I have an Ache in my heart.
This isn't going to help you I'm afraid – we had an Alsatian, a golden retriever and a little Lhasa Apso and then got a cat – we picked the bolshiest one in the litter to ensure it wasn't going to be scared of the dogs.
Fast forward a couple of years and that cat was so fearsome that no dog in the neighbourhood would go near it. My brother wouldn't be in the same room as it.
If it helps, I doubt it was the dogs – they were surprisingly chill about the whole thing. I think our pusskins was batshit crazy from the off. So if your cats are already nice, they might be fine!
My dog's natural smell is lovely and mellow and soothing. It's only when she's gone off and rolled in pee/poop/poop and pee/something dead that she smells horrible.
So, can I make that one child and two dogs? For some crazy reason I'm dying for another dog, even though my life is insanely busy and my job requires travel and 3.5 hours of commuting a day. (Maybe that's why…)
I was in the same “I want a dog!!!” boat as many of you until last month when I GOT A DOG! She’s the best thing ever, a 4lb4oz chihuahua/Pomeranian/whoknowswhatelse mix. She’s snuggly, but doesn’t need constant attention and is fine sitting by my sewing table wile I quilt. I’m also pretty lucky to be able to take her to the office with me, where she spends most of the day asleep in her crate under my desk. She’s very well behaved and we’ve only had a few accidents. We go for walks in Liberty Park so she can bark at the ducks and run away from the geese and cower in fear at the skateboarders. I adopted her from CAWS.org after going to an adoption event at Petco and meeting the volunteers who helped me find the right dog for me.
Also, she’s super cute.
She’s adorable. Hooray for adoption! Hooray for mutts! And best of all, hooray for keeping her with you. Dogs aren’t built to be alone. You are a fantastic dog guardian.
WHAT A CUTIE
OMG I want to hug her. She’s adorable. Congrats!
She is so adorable!!
Here’s my puppy (still a puppy though he’s 7 years old), and my next dog is totally going to be a shelter dog, because my husband had this guy from a puppy, and he totally has the “what’s in for me?” ungrateful beagle attitude, who has never known a day’s anxiety in his life.
https://instagram.com/p/0UC9XfPGgl/?taken-by=raqu… (and I’m using the instagram link because I can’t figure out how to embed pictures on intense debate..)
In that second picture she looks like a tiny Max from the original How The Grinch Stole Christmas cartoon! Love her!
Yes yes yes it’s those paws, she is Max from the Grinch.
PRECIOUS
SO JEALOUS that you can bring her to work with you. I have sneaked my dog in once or twice for work on the weekends, but it’s not something that’s actually allowed.
guys I know it’s not an OT but Nicole wants a dog so I’m calling it relevant WE MIGHT BE FOSTERING THE BEST CAT EVER OMG
He is 12 years old and has a people face, and was born missing his aft paws! There are still legs, but they end in tiny wee stumps instead of toe beans (which incidentally, his fore beans are PINK).
WISH US LUCK
Good luck with lovely lovely cat with a little hat!
What a handsome gentleman!
One of my cats has similar head markings, which were described in her adoption paperwork as a “jaunty cap”.
I am referring to it as a toupee in general conversation, but I like thinking of it as a jaunty cap even better. GUYS HE IS SO SWEET. He rubbed up on MrChouffe and me for ages last night, and purred, and was generally adorable.
what a sweet faaaaace! Those cheeks look ever so skritchable.
He is excellent at rubbing his cheeks on convenient hands and faces.
Oh, he’s obviously wonderful.
Thank you for fostering!
I think I’d be terrible at fostering. I would just adopt all of the animals.
Dog-owning friends that work full time: how do you make it work? Walk when you get up and as soon as you get home? I have been debating this for quite some time because I live by myself and would have nobody to look after a canine companion during the day, but I also haven’t had a dog since I was very, very young (Louie passed when I was ten, I have been relegated to fish and only recently a chinchilla since then) and I kinda…I forget how that works?
I WANT TO BE A GOOD DOG FRIEND BUT DON’T KNOW HOW
I go home on my lunch break. And I have two dogs, so they are never lonely or bored.
Yeah, ours goes out before we leave (around 6:30 am) and as soon as I get home (around 4 pm). She’s nearly 4 years old, and we only started leaving her all day a few months ago, and we still don’t do it every day (my boyfriend is able to bring her to work sometimes). It definitely doesn’t work for puppies or highly energetic dogs. You could look into either hiring a dog walker (rates vary hugely- I did it as a college student a few years ago and charged about $15 a day, whereas some places I’ve seen charge $40 a day or more) or taking the dog to “daycare.” Or maybe try asking any unemployed/underemployed friends if they’d be interested in walking your dog, either for money or for some kind of service exchange?
You can also do daycare once or twice a week, and/or a dog walker once or twice a week, so pup is not home alone all day every day. I bet after one day of daycare you would get a day of totally zonked dog anyway.
Once they are grown up, they do sleep most of the day anyway even when you’re home. And crate training is great, too, if your dog will do it. I have one who’s great at it and one who breaks out no matter how he has to injure himself to do so. Get ’em a crate and wear them out good on the weekend and once a week and they should be fine.
And then post pics here.
One thing I miss about our old apartment location in Ballard / Magnolia was there was an awesome trainer / daycare nearby. They’d come pick up and drop off your dog, for like $30 a day. Less if you pre-paid a bundle of daycare days. Now we have a (small) yard though so on balance it is better now.
We have a 9 month old lab puppy (ie an energetic monster) and this is what we do:
1-2 days a week he stays home and I drop in on my lunch break to let him out and play a bit.
1-2 days a week my boyfriend doesn’t leave for work until 1 or 2 pm, so pup is home alone until 5 or 5:30 when I get home.
1 day a week he goes to daycare and play his little puppy butt off and then he sleeps forever.
On days where he’s at home alone for any period of time I usually take him on a walk or to the dog park right after work. Every once in a while I’m just not up for it or the weather is terrible and we have a rousing game of tug and fetch in the apartment.
It’s hard for the first six months, when you’re working on house training and then it gets easier. A lunctime dog walker is a good idea until they get settled in.
Or look into more low maintenance breeds — I have a beagle mix who snoozes all day until a burst of energy in the evening so manages work days just fine (although, my biggest suspicion is that he *likes* being home alone so he can plot every day, Pinky and the Brain style, to open the fridge and cupboards).
I’m lucky enough to be able to take my dog to work with me now, because it is more convenient for my boss than for me to go home at lunch every day.
Our dogs sleep all day. Out to do their business in the morning, then they can go run around out back as much as they want after we get home. The corgi goes in a crate since she can be randomly destructive.
We have an 18 month old lab and he manages fine alone during the day. He generally gets a morning and evening walk, and then he sleeps all day. Even when one of us is home on a weekday, he will often take himself outside (we have a fully fenced backyard) to snooze in the sun or wander around and ineffectually chase pigeons that land in the yard. He has a burst of energy after dinner time, but he is truly fundamentally lazy 🙂
We do not go out so much in the winter, but I usually walk when I go home. He gets lonely but I try to give him all the snuggles when I get home, and try not to leave him alone on the weekends too much? I feel guilty about it like all the time but when he gives me that face I yell, “I HAVE TO WORK SO I CAN BUY YOUR FOOD!!”
I don’t think he minds all that much though, as he goes back to bed before I even leave for work in the morning, the traitor.
We always kept our Sport dog out in the backyard during the day or else when he got older, in the florida room (cement floor, enclosed, large enough to sleep in the sun or frolic if he felt like it). He was crate-trained eventually (reluctantly on his part), but he wouldn’t tolerate it for more than an hour or two. My sister’s a teacher and her pomeranian is crate-trained, so that she basically hangs out in there during the day. They go out right before sis leaves for work, and as soon as she gets home. Since the dog is a tiny pom, she doesn’t need as much room or anything as my dog (more like a golden retriever size) did, and she’s usually pretty content to doze all day. Sister is a runner, though, so the pom gets plenty of exercise at least once a day!
Sigh. I seriously need to learn how to dance.
Only one brief glimpse of the inimitable Christopher Walken, though! So here’s that one.
I ended up getting a dog after jonesing hard for several years, and it was the best decision I ever made. It went down like this:
ME: I’m going to the pound now to look and and play with dogs but do nothing else.
HUSBAND: There is no way it will happen as you describe it. I better come too.
Five years later, I still think my dog is the best creature in the whole world. Plus, he can eat bees!
I got my first dog under pretty crazy circumstances too. Never had one growing up because my parents never wanted one (too much work, we had just about every other animal you can own). Went into the shelter to look at another dog but he looked like too much work / trouble for a first time owner.
My now wife saw the sweetest lab/pit mix being all nice and quiet in a kennel there as we were leaving. I went ahead and got him. Turns out he was silent ’cause he barked his voice away in the kennel! And is a super loud dog. Also quite a handful because he does not know how to greet dogs politely at all and prefers barking his head off (and has super pit strength). It has been an interesting experience, but he is a total sweetheart when he is not being a brat (or a totally ninja-silent food thief) and I regret nothing.
We got a corgi to try and give him companionship and hopefully mellow him down a bit. Instead she mostly picked up all his bad habits :P. But at least they aren’t lonely.
This is why I’m pretty much barred from going to shelters. Also, I haven’t had my own dog yet, and my current cat is one I found outside when she was a kitten, so I’ve never actually had to pick out a pet and I would totally be the person who goes, “Oh, you also want me to adopt this other dog so it’ll have a friend? And another cat so my cat won’t feel outnumbered? That seems totally reasonable. I will do that.”
Yet another buried comment to put out the Toast signal for a Bay Area meetup either this weekend or a weekday evening! There’s been plenty of interested parties, does anyone have strong feelings about where it should be? I propose either a picnic or a bar with a large patio….
I found this: https://www.zagat.com/b/san-francisco/the-8-best-…
Have you been to any of those?
My husband has been hinting about his desire for another dog. We had to euthanize our elderly dog a couple of weeks ago (lymphoma) and it has just occurred to our lab mix that she might be lonely.
As much as I love dogs, I’m thinking of getting a couple of kittens instead. The elderly dog was very cat like in nature, so I think it will be a better match and less work than a second dog. I’m probably wrong on the “less work” bit.
I’m so sorry you lost your elderdog. But you did right by that animal, not letting her/him suffer. ::hugs::
No, that’s just rain. On my face, yes. Rain. Only on my face.
Dogs make life worth living. Just celebrated the tenth birthday of mine over the weekend and it was a great way to spend a Saturday. Celebrating ones dog.
I mean, seriously though. Not to get too heavy, but during a particularly dark chapter, my pup did bed checks. Like, he’d wake up in the middle of the night, trot down the hall, stay with me till I fell asleep if I was awake, and then trot back out to his bed. Hasn’t done it before or since. He also recently learned to high-five & just today, did NOT try to eat a dead pigeon. (Landmark decision on his part.) What more could one want from a companion?
New metric for success: do not try to eat a dead pigeon. I’m doing great so far today!
Went through a very recent, difficult breakup in which I had to move out from my BELOVED dog, so all of this is breaking my heart!
Oh no! Hugs to you!
Oh, that is a double breakup. Dogs are harder to get over than humans, IMO. Dogs never act with ill intent, so we’re never tempted to hold a grudge. Humans, on the other hand…
I’m so sorry you’re hurting. I cannot imagine moving away from a dog. ::hugs:: seem inadequate.
Tony Abbott has done many, many stupid and insulting things. One of which was knighting Prince Phillip.
That makes no sense in all sorts of ways. These insolent colonists!
I want dog but i didn’t know how ??