Hey, Suz. We made it through the Mayan Alpaca Lips, as Punaise put it, and we had a lively Book Salon where bluewombat/Jon just shined!

Fabulous day!

DELBERT!!

hey dearie — how’s the nard tonight? wasn’t that a great books salon with our very own blue wombat today!!!

hey that guy — how’s your day today?

It was so nasty down here, I barely looked outside – but I did some…ahem…baking this evening and now, I feel no pain.

That was the best Book Salon evah…! ;-)

Aloha, Suz and lln pups…! !

i heard norcal got hit pretty hard with that latest storm… only had about 0.40″ of rain today.

my dead rain gauge started to work again during the night..

aloha tut — right up there with the john dean book salons in my book. and a whole lotta fun

how’s paradise tonight?

Did FDL do a book salon with Lizz Winstead when her book came out?

i don’t know…. bev would know

Thanks for your kind words. It was an extraordinary experience.

Hey Suz. I’m not sure what to do. I think FDL is leaving me behind. Maybe I’m getting old.

Don’t downplay your contribution, or Dearie’s — you were active parts of it. And Tuezday showed up, too!

hey blue — how ya doing tonight?

hey margaret — why do ya think that???

Ah, another Book Salon stalwart enters the lists!

We actually had more Sunshine than rain today…! Still mighty chilly for these parts, tho…! ;-)

dood, i was just a cheerleader… you were the star

I’m still high from the experience. Writers work in our caves in solitude. To field such a wide range of intelligent questions (but this is FDL, after all) and to be surrounded by so much good will and affection — I was deeply touched.

yanno margaret, there has always been an ebb and flow to the lake…. the community is always changing but the core of fdl is the same…

Hey, Girl, you’ll have to run to catch up with some of us oldsters!

That was awesome, bw…! Not only a great Salon, but, a very enjoyable build-up to it…! *g*

It’s just that so many people seem so outraged about everything, all the time. I don’t want to name specific posts or anything here but in a lot of cases the diaries seem to be trending toward some left field version of infowars.com. Then, when I try to be rational, I get attacked for trying to bring reason into a conversation. It’s all very confusing and depressing to me.

one
of
us

you totally deserved it and the book stands up to scrutiny from everyone except that stupid feith person over at teh wsj.

I haven’t read your book yet, but I will say that the conversation at the salon was lively and active…. more comments than on most!…. lots of give and take. Really fun! I think your book will do well!

We’re an articulate and impassioned bunch here, but, realizing that things are intramural here, I always try to concentrate on issues rather than ad hominem stuff, and it’s my impression that most if not all people in here are like that. I’m sorrry if you’ve run into some exceptions lately.

things are very unsettled all over the place and that certainly shows up here too. i don’t know how its gonna settle out but know that this is the place for me to be be when it does. jane’s instincts have always been so dead on… i have faith

Her full name is Gena Katz Feith. I’m curious if she married into the family of Douglas Feith, the No. 3 person in the George W. Bush Department of “Defense,” whom General Tommy Franks called “the dumbest f***ing guy on the planet.”

*heh* Semi-Articulate at least, myself, specifically…! ;-)

Thank you very much. I was stunned at the number of comments — I was typing continuously for three hours.

Given that my book is not a serious political tome or even a political tome at all, and given that some of the threads today had about 10 comments, I was expected traffic to be light. Not the way it turned out.

No “semi” about it. Your comments and questions were right on the mark.

I hear you. Sometimes I just suffer from outrage fatigue, if you know what I mean. And we’ve had some newbies who can be really nasty. Sometimes I do kind of wish to go back to more thoughtful times. Still and all, there are enough smart and thoughtful folks that I keep hanging in. I think that sometimes you get guff because you are so straight and rightfully uncompromising…. weaksters can’t handle that. Just know that you have people who have your back, even if we don’t always speak up. I often read the morning posts later in the day…. too late to stand up to the dopes. Your intelligent and thoughtful comments are appreciated… please know that.

she has to be if she is stupid enough to think your book sucked. and the wsj is owned by murdoch so it could very well be a wingnut welfare media thing for her

I appreciate the vote, certainly and I’ve never been one to be demure or to bite my tongue but the outrage fatigue is definitely something I can relate to. But as forthright as I am, I’ve never been very comfortable being ideologically inflexible. It seems to me an awful lot like we are becoming as rigid as the tea party, where things are painted in stark terms but I am as nuanced as ever, maybe even more so as I get older. I feel like I’m excluding myself more and more just to avoid unpleasantness.

Seriously, she must complete the stupidest duet on Earth…! What’s not to love about PB…? *sheesh*

there have been a lotta purity types around lately….

betcha she is related to doug stupidest fuck in the world feith… has to be – that kinda stupid burns….

The apple certainly doesn’t fall far from the tree…!

You do nuance better than a lot of us; that’s true. It bothers me when some know-nothing snaps at you. I don’t know what can be done about that. I remember back in the day getting slammed by certain former writers about things like general discussions about undocumented immigration. I backed off, despite living in an area of immigrants whom I care about. I’ve always appreciated that you just speak truth and don’t either back down or get into silly back and forths with fools. I hope you will keep on your path. You speak to and for me quite often!

Her Twitter handle is @GenaKatzFeith. Many of her tweets are about underwear (not that underwear isn’t important). And she has some some serious issues with basic English usage. I’m assuming, as Suzanne suggests, that she got her gig owing to wingnut media welfare.

Do I sound like a cranky author who got a hostile review?

eyeyup

edit — in reply to tut at 38

sorry — my last was in reply to this and the reply didn’t work.. i didn’t let the page completely reload.. my bad

We need nuance and independent thinking! Sometimes I just find myself dialing up key words and catchphrases on issues of importance to me. It’s important to have people to keep us honest, if only so we can remain empirically based, rather than devolving into ditoheads.

Rational thought and the willingness to accept differing opinions seem to be in short supply these daze, Peg…! 8-(

nope.. you are pointing out the anomoly — she was the only one who gave you a bad review out of everyone else…. and you had some big else’s dood

Yeah…and the thing is, for the most part I see their points of view and share most of their concerns. But I’m never going to see things in good or bad, black or white terms. Sometimes people do the right things for the wrong reasons but that doesn’t make them praiseworthy. Similarly, sometimes people do the wrong things but for the right reason but they shouldn’t be automatically condemned. Does any of this make any sense? I mean, Adolph Hitler made a damn fine automobile but that doesn’t make him a hero, right? Salvadore Dali was a brilliant artist but he was also a fascist. But his fascism didn’t make him a shitty artist.

Well, if she works for the Wall Street Journal, it wouldn’t surprise me if she was of that Feith family.

…Do I sound like a cranky author who got a hostile review?

Maybe a tad, bw, but, not ill-founded…! ;-)

only seeing things as black or while leaves out a whole lot… i’m one who sees all those shades of grey they don’t…. i want the truth. i want facts. can’t have them without seeing the entire picture -not just the parts ya like

And, truth is that not everyone is as intelligent as you seem to be. Some folks can really only think in kinda limited ways. I sometimes wish they wouldn’t spout off so much, but, well, they don’t seem to have what I’d call good boundaries. :)

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something. — Henry David Thoreau

evening, Suzzzz

hey robert — how’s southern PA tonight?

hey ppd — you still getting hammered by that storm?

Exactly. People seem to only want to see either what they like or what they don’t like. In other words, whatever supports their ideology du jour. If A + B doesn’t = C, that doesn’t mean that A + B always = D. And if I point out that A + B doesn’t = C, that doesn’t mean that I believe that A + B = D. Maybe I’m just pointing out that it doesn’t = C.

COLD!

hi Suz, how goes?

sorry I missed everybody downstairs.

exactly! they refuse to see anything that they don’t want to see…. or hear…

how cold robert?

pun! how ya doing tonight?

Anyway, thanks for listening and for the support. I need to figure out what to do, if anything. Maybe I need a lobotomy. Night all. ;)

g’nite margaret and merry christmas if i don’t see your fonts before then

24 degrees, blowing snow. The Sweety insists I smoke out on the porch. I do so only because I fear her more than a winter blast….

Have to laugh! Years and years ago when I was an undergraduate I took Logic as my math requirement. I adored the class….. 150 of us started… after the mid-term, 75 dropped out. Some folks just have a hard time with that stuff.

light rain over the Monterey Bay today; rained really hard to the north, though. We had a great day with our family.

I often wonder how more mundane people view the world. I’ve been working class almost my entire life and I hafta say, they sure seem to be a blissfully happy bunch in most cases. I’m not saying they are stupid by any means, just more….uncomplicated.

that’s c-c-c-cold dood

yay for a great time with family! what are your plans for christmas?

I’m doing the cat post tomorrow and I’ve been roped into doing over easy on xmas day so I’m sure we’ll run into each other. Oya!

yay and oya!

good thanks; you, too, I hope.

on the glide path into the holiday. kids home for welcome visits.

how come I never heard this song before today?

I had the thrilling (tho not at the time!) experience of learning something very important. I’d done wonderfully at all the ‘intellectual’ courses. I took Art for an easy A … knew I’d work hard and all that. I ended up with a C. I was average at Art. I recognized that people have different talents. Helped me get over thinking I was ‘better’ just because I could make good grades in other things. I’m still smiling about that.

tis a good one and i’ve not heard it before either…

i talked to steph tonight –she will be 24 tomorrow and is in kansas for christmas… am going to jen’s christmas eve to see her and my grandbaby and do gifts etc.

how long has it been since you’ve had both kids home?

That sounds like an Ed McMahon question: “How cold was it, Johnny?” I tried to find a clip on YouTube, but they didn’t have one.

No, no! Not the “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” solution!

i was playing straight man ed for sure :)

Bosses Can Fire Hot Workers For Being ‘Irresistible’: All-Male Court

“These judges sent a message to Iowa women that they don’t think men can be held responsible for their sexual desires and that Iowa women are the ones who have to monitor and control their bosses’ sexual desires,” said attorney Paige Fiedler. “If they get out of hand, then the women can be legally fired for it.”

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/21/bosses-irresistible-workers_n_2348381.html

how forking horrible….

I saw that earlier today. What the hell is this country turning into when an Iowa dentist can arbitrarily fire his assistant and get off with the “Scrumptious” defense?

i don’t recognize us anymore….

OT: I wouldn’t step foot in WalMart, but I love CostCo. Daughter and I bought lots of wonderful crab, lobster tail, shrimp, scallops for our Feast of the Seven Fishes. I also bought my daughter a Christmas gift: a big prime cut of tenderloin since she’s working on perfecting Beef Wellington. And she’s going to get my annotated copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking…. 44 year old copy that was my first (ex-husband forgive me that I didn’t know how to cook!… of course, you didn’t either!) and only cookbook when I got married back in the day. Life is such an adventure!

So many friends my age are saying the same thing….. what have we become? How did this happen? Who are we?

My understanding is that, unlike Walmart, Costco actually treats its employees well. So you can shop there with a clear conscience.

i wanna be at that feast! i saw a gordon ramsey show on the bbc where he did an updated beef wellington…. it looked yummy

Me too. We used to be, like, a Constitutional democracy with a broad-based middle class. With all our faults and problems, the world looked up to us. And now? Holy s**t, what a difference.

That’s my thinking. And I love that CostCo is doing well.

i’m hearing it more and more…. maybe our eyes are being opened and we are seeing what we really are vs what we want to think we are… maybe its been that way all along but we are only now seeing behind the wizard’s curtain…

Drat, computer acting up – ate a comment I was writing aimed at Peggy.

And, you know, of course, it was so thoughful and full of wisdom…will never be able to re-write it so well!

Just came by to wish everyone a possibly last-chance Merry Christmas, Happy Festivus, etc., (Solstice and Hannukah being over now).

Great news, guys! It appears that ex-South Carolina Mark (“Appalachian Trail”) Sanford is going to be re-entering politics, running for a seat in the House of Representatives! I don’t know why, but that does my heart good…

Best wishes for the season and new year to you as well…

hey tejan — how ya doing tonight?

*heh* I’d learned early on that superior Analytical skills were lost amongst the Artsy groupies…! ;-)

i’ve heard rumors the former mrs gov sanford is also eyeing that seat

I never thought the 1950s were all that… if you know what I mean. Women were chattel. I was an active feminist in the 1970s and thought we were making real progress. My twin brother and I were very verbal in our disagreement in the 1990s about pay for CEOs during the run up to destruction….. he was sure that they had to be paid in order to get the best… which I thought was utter stupidity. But I think it was the ‘installation’ of Dubya that really took us into la-la-land. Nothing makes sense anymore. But, hey, that’s just me.

hey, blue (may I call you blue?) – was out during your Book Salon but I read it over this evening. The chat was interesting and made the book sound far more interesting than (I confess) I might otherwise have thought.
Was wishing I could chime in a couple of places….like fave ways to eat pb. Quite a bit of info I never knew about peanuts or peanut butte r. And the number of comments! Wow!
Of course, you are one of our own. :)

its sad to think the 70′s were our heyday… what with disco and watergate… but we still had our optimism back then… that we could and would change things for the better

*heh* Quite the conundrum, eh…? ;-)

Now THAT would be a hell of a race.

Naah, it is definitely NOT just you.

Say, I saved this NYT article for you on the Feast of Seven Fishes – funny how once you hear of something for the first time, you start seeing it everywhere?

I notice the “Italian mother” quoted says her family was too poor for the seven fishes, and wonder if that’s why I never heard about it from any of the Italian-Americans I knew in Boston or Philly. Lord news, we talked about food and food customs all the time, you’d think it would’ve come up. But maybe they came from families too poor to participate in the Feast, too.

we would need a LOT more popcorn for sure

congrats on snagging the happy lucky 99 tejan!!!

Let’s delete that and try again.

we saw them both late last summer: good times in Montreal, Brooklyn

so good to see them again i bet…. how long are they gonna be home?

Thanks, tejana, for the article. Yes, it does help when a bit of money is available to provide a feast. I told my own kids that I don’t want any more ‘stuff’ — if I can’t eat it, I don’t want it! We spent money on the fishes rather than on ‘stuff’…..

Of course you can call me ‘blue’ — everyone else does. Maybe even ‘Mr. Blue.’

It would have been good to have you at the salon, although I was typing for three hours straight — it was, as I told Suzanne, a contact high, but man, it was work.

indeed! although with Sype it’s easy to stay in touch.

(2 wks for punaisette and 1 for punaise jr.)

Especially after Bev fixed your handle, eh…? ;-)

:)

how are your wrists and fingers doing?

i facetimed with steph tonight… its not the same but its better than just hearing her voice. i got an iphone when i upgraded my phone and it was my first time doing facetime. just like skype

How is punaisette doing at McGill…? ;-)

Yes, I’m blue again :)

Ringing bells for Salvation Army Monday, not much planned for Christmas Day

gonna get in some bike time too?

A little tingly, to be honest with you. I’ll try to make tomorrow one of my occasional computer- and internet-free days, although that takes a lot of discipline.

i shudda warned you about how much you would be typing….

Lord knows I’m feeling old lately – because my views and experiences seem so different from those of younger folk. And I’m wondering if we Boomers did actually ruin the country…was it is who put making money, at whatever cost in morals and ethics, above everything else? And how the heck did that happen?
But heading down that path means getting into topics that we usually leave out of LLN, right?

Some of what I’m feeling is purely personal and age-related anyway; that is, recognizing that I have lived the majority of my lifespan and I’m just not going to get to do all the things I had hoped to do, therefore trying to figure out what to abandon and what might still be realistic to plan on.

Still, I’d say the surrounding mood of the country is kinda low, and that affects us all, if we’re paying attention, and anybody who’s a regular at a place like this is by definition paying attention.

I just think we all need to take the break offered by the holiday and clear our brains a bit. Stay off the computer, even. Watch the Muppets and Ralphieand Elizabeth Lane, and, of course, George Bailey.

Ya did an admirable job in keeping up with us, BW…! We were keeping ya hopping…! *g*

we talk about whatever we wanna talk about at lln tejan – that’s it. we’ve had some very serious discussions at lln

Only if the weather clears and it warms up, Suzzz. Biking in the rain is no fun.

Sorry about your wrists…can sympathize with that. ‘Tis hard to stay off the intertoobz when you’re addicted to the keyboard like some of us. ; )

I don’t think the Kochs are boomers. I could be wrong. I know Reagan wasn’t. I don’t think the boomers screwed the pooch, as it were, but I know we are getting blamed anyway.

we are forecast to be dry christmas eve. i hope you get a ride in during the holidays ppd

I hear that! Have you already done the shopping, then? Methinks you will all be stuffed!

I shoulda figured it out myself. But there’s no way around it.

Thank you so much. I was starting to feel like Charlie Chaplin in “Modern Times.”

you did really well keeping up and answered so many questions. it was fast and furious and there were so many conversations going on….

“Let It Ride” by Bachman Turner Overdrive.

No, you are right about the Kochs, and yes, Reagan certainly seems to have been the beginning. Gave permission to the up and coming of the boomer generation.
But you’re also right that we are being blamed; some blogs and comments I’ve seen, the young folk seem to think that “Baby Boomer” and “over 60″ are synonymous, as if the people just three or four years older than the boomers weren’t completely different, culturally and politically. There’s an amazing amount of “I hate Boomers” out there. Which I fear, is partly why it’s easy for some to say, sure, fine, cut Social Security: I won’t get it myself and I hate the olds who are getting it now.

I tried to give substantive answers without embarking on dissertations. Otherwise, I’d still be there…

taking care of business

Yeah, blue, I’d have to say that your being an fdl’er yourself showed; you didn’t get confused about using “reply”, you managed to actually reply to just about everybody, even though it showed up way down the page – not your fault at all—and the rapid pace didn’t flummox you as some authors have been flummoxed, just by not being used to the interface.

that would be nice – hope you and your family have a great Christmas together.

thanks ppd

ding!

the boomers are just beginning to qualify for Medicare and Social Security. It fascinates me, in that ‘look it’s a snakepit’ kind of way, that truth is so twisted that boomers are being blamed for something they never did. The .01% are something that I could never have anticipated. I think it’s going to have to get really ugly in order to rein them in. I keep my pitchfork sharpened.

Including a lot of BW’s prepatory work…! Which made it extra-special today…! ;-)

That’s an astute observation. My publicist — yes, I actually hired a publicist for this book — was reading over the transcript and found it a bit confusing. Not me, though — my main challenge was just trying to keep up.

Most people who have done Book Salons do a good job of answering all comers — the only exception in my experience was Van Jones who, in my opinion, was ducking a lot of questions. I wasn’t going to do that.

yup… we have followed his book from back in teh days when he was writing it…

Laughing

Good grief, look at the time! It’s gonna be hell having to get up at 8-ish (and Eastern Time!!) with my mother starting Tuesday. I’ve been unable to get myself to bed earlier, despite feeble attempts. Got up early-ish yesterday only ’cause I’d signed up for a webinar in the a.m. Today, it was back to after 10 before I struggled out of my warm (electric blanket) nest into the cold air (in the 40′s!)

I am hoping for perhaps a light dusting of snow in Baltimore while I’m there; it’s happened the last couple of winter visits I made, but Christmas would be early for them to get snow, so I’m not counting on it.

I’d better go try to sleep, since there’s still plenty to do tomorrow before leaving town. Here’s hoping everyone travels safely and gets to enjoy their holidays with or without family, whichever way makes you happy, and we all return to regular life in January refreshed. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

* Whets own pitchfork and waits for others to do so *

hey, CT!

hardest semester yet, but she made it through well.

and with that, bonne nuit…

Good night, TR!

Buenas noches…

Easy travels, tejana!

And, thanks, Suzanne, for hosting us this evening. Merriness to all. And happy and colorful dreams, too!

no sugar tonight

g’nite and merry christmas tejan

bonne nuit pun

g’nite dearie

token’s giving me the look — i had better joing the exodus and take him out.

thanks for lettine me hang out with ya this week — am looking forward to seeing what tut has up his sleeve this weekend.

g’nite all

Goodnight, Suzanne and anyone else who remains.

Sweet dreams, y’all…! The Better Half just got home, so I shall bow out…! Hope to see y’all on the flip-side…! *g*

credit where credit is due: that one is attributed to Dr. Dick…