Thursday Open Thread | Billy Joel Week

Posted on November 17, 2016 by rikyrah

More Billy Joel

We Didn’t Start the FIRE

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61 Responses to Thursday Open Thread | Billy Joel Week

  5. rikyrah says:
    November 17, 2016 at 8:05 pm

    found this at BJ:

    I think I’m gonna treat myself to some of this guy’s spices:

    ………………………………

    Laura on Kaua’i says:
    November 17, 2016 at 6:11 pm
    I have written about Penzey’s Spices before, and what a terrific company they are besides selling high quality spices (which are also usually more affordable than what you can find in supermarkets):

    Here is part of the email I just received from the head of the company:

    Racism Update: At Penzeys we believe it’s not the use of tools that set us on a different path from the rest of the animal world; what has set humanity in motion is cooking. In our nearly a million years gathered together around the fire, cooking shaped our bodies and transformed our minds. Cooking unlocked our potential and gave birth to reason, to religion, and to politics and government. The kindness of tens of thousands of generations of cooks created our humanity, but racism, sexism, and homophobia can all very quickly unravel all the goodness cooking puts out into the world. As the voice of cooks, we will never sit idly by while that happens.

    You may have read Tuesday Night’s email. In it I said: “The open embrace of racism by the Republican Party in this election is now unleashing a wave of ugliness unseen in this country for decades. The American people are taking notice. Let’s commit to giving the people a better choice. Our kindness really is our strength.”
    Since I ask you to read my emails, I feel it’s only right that I read each of your replies. In sifting through those replies it was clear that, though not intended, a good number of people seemed to sincerely believe that in my statement I was calling all Republicans racists. In the emails of those Republicans who voted for someone other than the party’s nominee, I sensed genuine pain at having the strength of character to not go along with what was happening, but nonetheless be grouped in with those who were. I apologize for writing something that caused you pain; that is not the person I want to be. You are your party’s future, and you deserve my admiration and respect, and your country’s as well.

    For the rest of you, you just voted for an openly racist candidate for the presidency of the United States of America. In your defense, most of you did so without thinking of the consequences of your candidate’s racism, because for most of you the heartbreaking destruction racism causes has never been anything you or your loved ones have had to experience. But the thing is elections have their consequences. This is no longer sixty years ago. Whether any of us like it or not, for the next four years the 80% of this country who did not just vote for an openly racist candidate are going to treat you like you are the kind of person who would vote for an openly racist candidate.
    You can get angry at everyone else for treating you like you just did the thing you just did, or you can take responsibility for your actions and begin to make amends. If you are lucky and younger family members are still coming over for Thanksgiving, before it’s too late, take a moment and honestly think about how your actions must look through their eyes. Simply saying “I never thought he’d win” might be enough. But if you have the means, leaving a receipt from a sizable donation to the ACLU or the SPLC accidentally laying around where you carve the turkey, might go over even better.
    Or, just do what you do best and volunteer. Through our customers’ support, we’ve given away a lot of our Penzeys Pepper, the Pepper with heart. More often than not, those we meet cooking and serving food to feed those in need are Republicans. You really are a good bunch, but you just committed the biggest act of racism in American history since Wallace stood in the schoolhouse doorway 53 years ago. Make this right. Take ownership for what you have done and begin the pathway forward.
    Thanks for reading,

    Bill
    bill@penzeys.com

    Here is the link to the website

    Reply
  6. rikyrah says:
    November 17, 2016 at 8:01 pm

    Gregg Popovich’s Second Condemnation Of Trump Is Just As Powerful As His First
    “It’s still a disorienting situation.”

    – – -San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich drew national attention over the weekend after he took a reporter’s question about his thoughts on the election and delivered a passionate condemnation of
    President-elect Donald Trump.

    On Tuesday, when asked about it again, his answer was less fiery, but just as eloquent. Popovich said that he had hoped Trump would come out with a message to try and assuage the fears of the minority groups he pointed to as the sources of America’s problems during his election
    campaign. Trump has done little to nothing in that regard, however, as
    Popovich noted.

    “It’s still a disorienting situation, when you thought you lived in a certain kind of country with certain values that were held in esteem and find out those values aren’t very important to half the country,” Popovich said.

    Rather than break up the quotes, we’re just going to let Popovich speak in his own words. Below is a transcript, via the Washington Post’s Tim Bontemps:–

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gregg-popovich-donald-trump_us_582db6cae4b058ce7aa94c9f?

    Reply
  7. rikyrah says:
    November 17, 2016 at 7:58 pm

    SG2,

    if you could retweet this and say how what she says is not only Keeping it 100, but is so on point and powerful. This twitter thread is ALL THAT.

    https://twitter.com/Rrrrnessa/status/799242938488385536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

    Reply
  12. Ametia says:
    November 17, 2016 at 4:54 pm
    Reply
  14. Ametia says:
    November 17, 2016 at 4:41 pm

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0NtNW50cSM

    Yes; because Jon Stewart speaks with so much authority on Trump supporters.

    Reply
  19. SouthernGirl2 says:
    November 17, 2016 at 3:00 pm

    I made red beans with ground beef, sausage and ham hocks and a pan of delicious cornbread. Mmmmmm….

    Reply
  23. Ametia says:
    November 17, 2016 at 1:53 pm

    FLOTUS, Slayer of all that is BEAUTIFUL…

    cxat1suxgaalvng

    Reply
  31. SouthernGirl2 says:
    November 17, 2016 at 10:12 am

    Y’all pray for John Conyers son, Carl Conyers, he’s missing in Houston. He hasn’t been seen since Tuesday, not answering phone. God help!

    Reply
  41. SouthernGirl2 says:
    November 17, 2016 at 9:02 am

    BLACK WOMAN DEFINES WHITE SUPREMACY IN THE MOST EPIC FACEBOOK RANT EVER [WARNING, YOUR JAW WILL HIT THE FLOOR]

    I’m going to preface this post by stating that I know for sure we have a LOT of white allies in this struggle, but in light of Donald Trump appointing a known white supremacist, Steve Bannon, as his chief advisor, many of us have had it up to here with some of the blatant ignorance shown on behalf of some of our allies.

    The facebook user below took NO prisoners when she decided to define white supremacy in no uncertain terms

    Be warned. This following excerpts contain profanity and WILL snatch the hell out of your edges if you aren’t ready. Hold onto your weave caps/hats/bonnets, ladies!!

    Here it goes:

    http://lisaalamode.com/2016/11/15/black-woman-defines-white-supremecy-epic-facebook-rant-ever-warning-jaw-will-hit-floor/

    Reply
    • SouthernGirl2 says:
      November 17, 2016 at 9:16 am

      [Y’all stay wanting something from us, our fucking bodies, our labor, our asses, our pussies, our dicks, our hips, our slang, our music, our art, our fucking blood, our knowledge, our food, our lips, our melanin, our gotdamnit magic…..]

      Faint gif

      Reply
  43. rikyrah says:
    November 17, 2016 at 8:56 am

    FROM BJ:

    Calling Congress

    by Richard Mayhew
    at7:07 am on November 17, 2016

    A couple of updates.

    Several readers sent me an excellent link to a Google Sheet containing contact information and suggested scripts for people to talk to their Congresscritters. This is very useful. I am not 100% thrilled with the script as it is more advocacy instead of information gathering but it is a good starting point

    Reply
  46. rikyrah says:
    November 17, 2016 at 8:53 am

    The Democrats Are Screwing Up the Resistance to Donald Trump

    How Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren misread the election.
    By Jamelle Bouie

    …………………

    At first glance, this seems well and good: a firm commitment to winning victories where they are available, tied to an absolute line against policies targeting immigrants, Muslims, or any other group. But there’s a problem here, and it’s found in the cast given to Trump’s campaign and Trump’s voters. Both Warren and Sanders describe Trump’s effort as a populist campaign with an almost incidental use of racial prejudice. In this version, most Trump voters simply wanted a stronger, fairer economy. The attacks on immigrants, Muslims, and black Americans were regrettable, but not a part of the appeal.

    Warren and Sanders are wrong, and in a way that signals a significant misreading of the landscape on the part of the most influential Democrats. The simple truth is that Trump’s use of explicit racism—his deliberate attempt to incite Americans against different groups of nonwhites—was integral to his campaign. It was part and parcel of his “populism” and told a larger story: that either at home or abroad, foreigners and their “globalist” allies were cheating the American worker, defined as a white working-class man with a factory job. To claw back the dominion he once enjoyed—to “make America great again”—Trump promised protectionism and “law and order.” He promised to deport immigrants, register Muslims, and build new infrastructure. This wasn’t “populism”; it was white populism. Writes historian Nell Irvin Painter for the New York Times: “This time the white men in charge will not simply happen to be white; they will be governing as white, as taking America back, back to before multiculturalism.”

    It seems reasonable for Warren and Sanders to make a distinction between Trump as blue-collar populist and Trump as racist demagogue. But that distinction doesn’t exist. Supporting a Trump-branded infrastructure initiative as a discrete piece of policy where two sides can find common ground only bolsters a white-nationalist politics, even if you oppose the rest of Trump’s agenda. It legitimizes and gives fuel to white tribalism as a political strategy. It shows that there are tangible gains for embracing Trump-style demagoguery. Likewise, it seems reasonable to want to recast support for Trump as an expression of populism. But Trump’s is a racial populism—backed almost entirely by white Americans, across class lines—that revolves around demands to reinforce existing racial and status hierarchies. That’s what it means to “make America great again.” It has nothing to offer to working-class blacks who need safety from unfair police violence just as much as they need higher wages, or working-class Latinos who need to protect their families from draconian immigration laws as much as they need a chance to unionize.

    To gesture at individual voters and say they aren’t racists—the usual rejoinder to this argument—is to miss the point. White voters backed Trump as a bloc. They ignored his bigotry and elevated his call for a new nationalism, centered on white Americans. Whatever their actual intentions—whether they were partisan Republicans, hardcore Trumpists, or simply disgusted with Hillary Clinton—they voted for white nationalism, full stop.

    Reply
  48. SouthernGirl2 says:
    November 17, 2016 at 8:51 am

    Breaking News: National Intelligence Director Resigns

    Reply
  49. rikyrah says:
    November 17, 2016 at 6:19 am

    Morning, Everyone 😒😒😒

    Reply

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