Today’s sea otter has been shared by katrina.elizabeth on flickr.
Please feel free to use this thread to natter about anything your heart desires. Is there anything great happening in your life? Anything you want to get off your chest? Reading a good book (or a bad one)? Anything in the news that you’d like to discuss? What have you created lately? Commiserations, felicitations, temptations, contemplations, speculations?
Categories: Life
Soggy here, innit? 
In memoriam: Diana Rigg 
Getting out the ‘yes’ 
100 books by women in 2016 
Hoyden About Town 
Andrew Bolt makes an arse of himself and the backpedaling thereafter is risible:
Suspect now in custody is a 6′ blond ethnic Norwegian and professing Christian.
Stereotypes: biting bigots in the arse since forever.
I used to work for a company that had an office in Oslo, and have visited the city three times. It’s heart breaking waking up to this. Such a beautiful downtown area, mixing old and new (much of the city was rebuilt after WW2). Oslo City Hall, where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, looks like a dreary block of brick from outside but inside every wall is covered with the most amazing murals telling the history of Norway.
You can literally walk up to the King’s Palace (just up the road from the PM’s office), around it, and touch it. Completely different relationship between the royals and the people to the walled off Windsor’s. It isn’t unknown to see the King taking the train up to the ski fields, paying for his ticket like anyone else. On their national day, May 17, they don’t have soldiers marching up the main street, but children.
Bolt is way out of line on this one – openness is intrinsic to Norweigan society. They won’t let this turn them into paranoids.
All Norwegians are in my thoughts today. My heart hurts for you.
Andrew Bolt makes an arse of himself
Works in pretty much any situation, not just this one.
Though I’ve heard that in person he’s actually a remarkably charming man.
“Though I’ve heard that in person he’s actually a remarkably charming man.”
Plenty of the worst arseholes (/abusers/douchebags/etc) have this act down to a T.
I’m looking after some kids overnight while their parents get away for the weekend… we are semi-rural here and it seems the water has decided to just stop. I know there is a pump somewhere which dies if there is a blackout, but I still have power – just no water.
I’m hoping if I ignore the problem it will fix it’s self.
Oh, great. The precious last of the water was the bath I ran for the kids (it died while it was running) – and one of them pooed in it.
People like Orcinus (http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/) Fight Dem Back (http://www.fightdemback.org/) and plenty of others have been warning us time and time again about the dangers of rightwing extremism, and it’s not as if there have never been reports in the press either; yet whenever something happens people still jump to the conclusion that it must be Muslims!!
In other news – I went to the Roller Derby tonight! (Victorian Roller Derby league Allstars v the Hotrod Honeys from Texas!)
It was fabulous! Highly recommended.
I read at Pandagon, and thought that it was a good resource for people having trouble with the concept of Nice Guys ™
Well that almost worked.
Closed that tag for you 🙂
Anyone else watch torchwood this weekend?
I appreciated that there weren’t as many gay jokes as the previous episode, and the one there was was more making fun of homophobics.
[Moderator note: snip
Thread Hygiene: I’ve moved the rest of this comment to the existing Torchwood thread as a quote in my latest comment there, just to keep the discussion all in one place ~tigtog]
You know what I love? I love when charity-fundraiser people ask to shake your hand and then don’t let go. I especially appreciate the inane compliments they give as they hold you captive. The way they try to lead you to their cardboard desk while refusing to let your hand go is also good! But my favourite bit is when I feel guilty afterward.
*shakes jar* Oh no, I’m out of sarcasm!
By the way, AT, how’s that naming issue going? It sounded pretty stressful. Any progress?
I’ve mostly avoided Mia Freedman’s work since the fatphobia/ableism episode a while back, but today I discovered that she has, once again, made sweepingly ignorant and judgemental statements that have got people upset: she was extremely dismissive on telly towards Cadel Evans and anybody who was excited by his Tour de France win, and then wrote afterwards on her blog about how very, very upset she was that people called her nasty names on Twitter etc for harshing their squee (at a time when people were pretty distressed by a bad news weekend and looking for something to feel good about, sheesh – and she’s supposed to be a professional communicator?)..
This open letter from Bridie O’Donnell makes some strong points.
I also found Cadel’s feat inspiring.
But as
an elite road cyclistsomeone who watched the TDF intermittently, I feel completely elated and inspired that a man Iknowwatched on TV and admire has reached the greatest pinnacle of this sport, after such a challenging road to get there.Judged solely as an athletic achievement, what Evans did was fantastic. That he has a hard luck backstory and a philanthropic bent makes it only more appealing as something to feel vicariously pleased by.
I don’t believe that people getting pleased, excited and inspired by such elite sporting achievements are necessarily getting their priorities wrong, considering that most people do in fact also admire people performing acts of selflessness and bravery, and still feel compassion and bewilderment about the loss of a talented and inspiring performer in a different arena and even more so regarding the horrifying callousness of the terrorist attacks in Norway. People are capable of feeling all those emotions all at once.
Amazing Kim – sorry, I didn’t see this until now.
Thanks for asking! It turns out he is really not willing to budge, and is extremely emotionally attached to the idea of passing his last name down (despite acknowledging that it’s illogical) – so basically we’ve decided that hypothetical kids get his last name, mine as a second middle, and I get to chose first names and first middle names. I’m not super happy about it, but he’s been willing to agree to pretty much every other parenting suggestion I’ve had, so I’m still a bit sulky about it, and I don’t love it, but it’s a compromise I’ve decided I’m willing to make. I did ask him how he would explain it to any kids without sounding like a hypocrite and he couldn’t – so he’ll have to work on that.
Given that it’s 3pm and he still hasn’t remembered my birthday he’d better be coming home with a pretty impressive birthday cake.
ETA: He rang at 3.30pm and said he’d seen my missed call. I said nothing was wrong but I expected him to go via a cake shop. A few seconds delay then ‘Oh sh*t!’. The person he was in the car with thought it was very funny, and no doubt he will be hassled about it for ages by work mates. Good.
@Mindy, oh dear…sounds like he might need to stop off somewhere that sells other stuff you like too?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Thanks TT. He called from the cake shop and we are going out for dinner as well. I am waiting for the next good sale to get something I want for my birthday. We are pretty flexible with birthday presents and timing.