Goodbye to Irene.

Irene Katele, 1958-2016. From this blog, you know her as Irene (the commenter).

Here's her blog, Amber Reunion, which begins here, on September 16, 2011:

Atlantic Ocean, June 1949. This is where everything began. These happy folks are my parents, as immigrants, aboard the "General W.M. Black," the vessel that transported them to the United States. They were Displaced Persons from Lithuania, and they had lived since the end of World War II in the American-occupied zone of Germany.

The ship sailed from Bremerhaven. My Mom was shocked by how small it was. Men and women slept in separate quarters, and everyone ate oatmeal. Most of the passengers got sick during the trip. My parents had never felt better.

It's full of "family photos dating back to the 1860s": "Tambov, Russia, 1912. This is my paternal Grandmother, Tatjana. Tatjana was about sixteen when she posed for this photo. I love the shoes!"/"Soviet Union, 1940. The is my paternal Grandmother's mother, Nina. After the Russian Revolution and the execution of her husband, Pavel, Nina continued to live in the Soviet Union. Nina's expression, the way she holds the wildflowers, her hat, and her ill-fitting stockings speak to me."/"In the 1930s, my Mom's maternal aunt, Dora, adopted the glamorous look that came into fashion on the eve of World War II. Think Marlene Dietrich with auburn hair. The first stories I heard about Dora pivot on her forward-looking viewpoint. More provincially wired people found her views and behaviors scandalous. Others recognized that Dora simply was born about sixty years too early."

There are many stories and photographs of growing up in Chicago in the 1960s — like: "When I was growing up, I learned about holiday customs. Lithuanians, for example, celebrate Christmas on the night of Christmas Eve ("Kūčios")":

The Kūčios meal consists of twelve meatless dishes, one to represent each of the Apostles. All of the foods are cold dishes so that the hostess does not have to cook on such a solemn day. On Christmas Eve, we primarily eat vegetable salads, gefilte fish, and marinated herrings. Lots of herring: herring is served at least four ways.

Enforcement of these traditions is inflexible. During one memorable Christmas Eve, we had a guest who did not eat fish. Cold fish therefore was out of the question. My Mom roasted and served a duck. My Dad spit bullets about the breach of Kūčios protocol. Even now, over thirty years later, my Mom usually says on Kūčios, "Do you remember when I roasted a duck on Kūčios?!!" as if that were a really screwball, Lucille Ball-like, thing to do.

There's mindbogglingly intricate knitting. (Sometimes that knitting came to me and you saw it on this blog —  like here.)

And there were many vignettes involving poodles. (Sometimes those poodles made it onto my blog, like here and here.)

What a great life she lived! How lucky we were to have known her!

After not going to the movies all year, I finally got out and saw something.

On the theory that it might amuse you to guess what might have finally motivated me to commit to sitting through a movie in the theater, I won't say what it was just yet.

ADDED: Irene got it. 

"What possesses people to make them think they could be President?"

A surprising post from 6 years ago that I happened to trip over this morning:

Irene's comment took me a while to process. I had to reorient my mind. It's a reference to Obama.

Trump really was talking about running for President, and the first commenter, Scott M, answering my question, says: "Narcissism." Other comments include "Scott nailed it," "Scott's right." And then there's lyssalovelyredhead, who said:

Am I the only one who would seriously consider voting for the Donald? Sure, he's an attention whore and narcissist, but he is also a man who Knows How The World Works. Unlike most politicians (even conservatives, see, e.g., GWB), he doesn't have silly notions about being nice to people and having them be nice in return. He undestands incentives.

We need more of that.

Trump was talking about running in the 2012 election, and back in 2011, Sarah Palin was considered a front-runner. Trump's talk of taking her on, was not like his talk of taking on Princess Diana. (Speaking of "nailed.") He meant he'd run against her for President. He said: "She's very interesting. And don't underestimate her."

Trump was also saying: "I'm looking at this country ... and what's happened in terms of respect, and the respect for this country is just not there... I have many people from China that I do business with, they laugh at us. They feel we're fools. And almost being led by fools. And they can't believe what they're getting away with."

Oh, we are fools. Fools almost being led by fools. That's not going to stop. There's no possible way. Unless somebody is actually evil. But I don't believe in the devil. I believe in stupidity.

"A lot of people refer to it as 'moonshine on steroids.' A lot of people call it 'Dewshine.'"

People are drinking Mountain Dew mixed with racing fuel... and some of them, it seems, are dying.

"I think they were trying to substitute the methanol that's in racing fuel for alcohol... Methanol is metabolized to very, very strong acid. The pH of the blood goes so low, it's incompatible with life."

While the immediate effect of drinking methanol is similar to getting drunk from alcohol, ingesting it "causes the cellular machinery to break down".... "One of the unique things is it's metabolized in the eyes, so you get blindness"....

 ADDED: Irene sends a link to her blog post, "A Tragedy at the Žirgynas":

A group of Displaced Persons—single men from the Seligenstadt Žirgynas—were working for the U.S. Army at either a defunct air base or munitions plant. They found a barrel. It was marked, "alcohol." Woot! The men decided to have a party....

Everyone whooped it up and drank the alcohol. Over the next few days, groups of men from the Žirgynas reported to the Seligenstadt infirmary. The men complained of double vision and dizziness. They also began to exhibit other neurological abnormalities.

The alcohol turned out to be nonpotable methyl alcohol—the kind used to clean airplane engines and the like. My Mom was working at the time as a nurse in the infirmary. She remembers that the doctor on duty shrugged and said there was nothing to do but wait for the men to pass away....

Terribly sad.

"Oh, God save us. What have they done?!!!"/"Crazy b******s!!! This is the end."

Tweets from Tyumen in south central Russia, where a big cloud looked like a nuclear explosion. 

ADDED: Irene photographed a very similar cloud in Verona, Wisconsin back in 2011.

Stalin World.

Here's a documentary about the Lithuanian theme park Grutas Park — AKA "Stalin World" — which we were talking about this morning in connection with the ISIS destruction of ancient sculptures. Here we see Soviet era sculptures preserved in a tourist-attraction garden setting that many Lithuanians find quite offensive.



Thanks to Irene for pointing me there. And no thanks to the NYT for picturing 2 of the Grutas Park sculptures in a slide show about how aging Americans can absorb Euro-culture through the wonders of Airbnb.

Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State has been forgotten, or let's pretend it has.

A colloquy on "Meet the Press" this morning:

DAVID GREGORY: Before I get to my final question on Israel, with a big meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister coming to meet with President Obama. Marco Rubio is on this program in just a few minutes in saying it's time for the administration to publicly acknowledge that the reset with Russia is dead. Do you acknowledge that?

SECRETARY JOHN KERRY: Well, I don't know what you mean by the reset.

Thanks to Irene in (the comments to the previous post) for calling attention to that (as an illustration of my observation: "I take that to mean Kerry is weak and he knows it.")

And here's Hugh Hewitt, writing yesterday about the upcoming 5th anniversary of Hillary's reset button.

It is astonishing that so failed a figure would presume to seek the presidency but she is measuring herself against Joe Biden so that is a partial explanation. I have asked a number of pundits, reporters or elected officials to tell me what she accomplished in her long tenure at State....

"Racism of Sports Logos Put Into Context By American Indian Group."

"The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) published a powerful poster..."

... featuring two baseball hats that each have a stereotypical racist image of a Jewish man and Chinese man to show it has the same connotation as the Cleveland Indians.

The hats were titled “New York Jews” and “San Francisco Chinamen.”

It's an effective poster, you have to admit. It says: You'd never accept those other stereotypes, so why do you accept this?

"Of all the photos we have, this one is in the poorest condition."

"That's because Grandmother carried the snapshot slipped between the pages of a Russian Orthodox prayer book that jiggled in her pocket as she escaped Russia during the 1917 Revolution."

ADDED: A post about the prayer book:

Why did Tatjana already have a Roman Catholic prayer book when she fled Russia? There's an explanation....

iPaw.

(From Irene.)

ADDED: I've added the "poodle" tag. Having blogged about breed-specific dog food today, I'm interested in my breed-specific tag. But only for poodles.

Papillon.

But can they paddleboard?

I told you this 3 weeks ago, but Drudge flashes it today: Rachel Jeantel says she warned Trayvon Martin that Zimmerman could be a gay rapist.

Drudge has the transcript of last night's Piers Morgan interview on CNN:

MORGAN: You felt that there was no doubt in your mind from what Trayvon was telling you on the phone about the creepy ass cracka and so on, that he absolutely believed that George Zimmerman, this man, you didn't know who he was at the time, but this man, was pursuing him?

JEANTEL: Yes.

MORGAN: And he was freaked out by it?

JEANTEL: Yes. Definitely after I say may be a rapist, for every boy, for every man, every -- who's not that kind of way, seeing a grown man following them, would they be creep out?... And people need to understand, he didn't want that creepy ass cracker going to his father or girlfriend's house to go get -- mind you, his little brother was there. You know -- now, mind you, I told you -- I told Trayvon it might have been a rapist." 

Here's my post from June 27th, with embedded video from Jeantel's testimony. I said (boldface added):

You assume that there's no way he'd say "cracker" if he didn't see him as white? But he didn't say "cracker." He said "creepy ass cracker." I understand the use of "ass" as an intensifier connected to the adjective "creepy." Creepy-ass cracker, as in very creepy cracker.

But "ass" could go with "cracker" — "ass-cracker." The conversation continued, according to Jeantel: "So... he told me the man was looking at him, so I had to think it might have been a rapist."
Why rapist? A man raping a man? How common is that as a fear? But it was the first thing Jeantel thought to say after he said creepy-ass cracker/creepy ass-cracker. The term "ass cracker" could easily mean a man who rapes a man, especially one who goes after a teenaged boy....

The word "creepy" makes special sense if you reinterpret the "ass" to go with "cracker." Martin said a man was following him, looking at him. He might have thought Zimmerman was a man out looking for sex and was watching him for that reason. What conversations had Martin had in the past with Jeantel about worries of this kind. She "had to think it might have been a rapist."...

Why didn't Martin take Jeantel's advice and run home? The rapist/ass-cracker theory makes sense of Martin's decision to go after Zimmerman. If he saw Zimmerman as a sexual predator, he might think confrontation was a good idea or even an important step: These creeps in the neighborhood need to know that I'm not their prey. It's not enough to run inside daddy's house. My manhood must be established here and now or I can't walk free around here anymore.

Call out the gay rights activists. In this interpretation, it was a gay-bashing!

ADDED: Thanks to Irene for nudging me to post this. It was right there in the testimony, and the defense lawyers — who were pretty astute about hearing cues and following up — missed this.

"What would Madonna say?"

Asked Irene at the Hydrangea Café last night.

Yes, why, exactly, did Madonna say she absolutely loathes hydrangeas?

“Hydrangeas are very romantic, feminine and maybe a little demur[e],” suggested Eddie Zaratsian of tick-tock Couture Flowers based in Los Angeles, Calif., who has worked with corporate clients like Chanel, as well as an undisclosed list of celebrities. “Madonna is known for her strength and confidence and so it’s only natural she would gravitate towards a bolder flower.” The elephant in the room: hydrangeas are working-class flowers, aren’t they? Somehow partially responsible for current economic crisis? Make your pee smell bad?...

To Zaratsian, who believes every flower to be a “gift from God”... it is the overall experience of receiving flowers that helps one formulate a memory, and thus create an opinion or preference to hold over time. “What [do] they take from that connotation of that flower? What is that memory of that flower for them?” he explained. Perhaps the larger question is: what did these innocent flowers ever do to you, Madonna? 

Have you ever been wronged by a flower?  What flower is on your shit pee list?

ADDED: If you're wondering about the pee, I'd elided the part about tea. Don't you know about hydrangea tea?

"My Mom thought the cowl looked like a micro-mini skirt!"

It totally fits like that too. Perfect with leggings as an item of clothing I call an asswarmer.

The pre-blizzard.

The blizzard is scheduled to arrive later this morning. This was the pre-blizzard.



I love the way the snow plow deposited a special huge snow boulder right at the end of our driveway. We — meaning Meade — need to get that out of the way before the real storm comes. The storm has a name: Draco. When did winter storms start getting names? And why Draco?

What do you think of when you read the name, "Draco?" Do you picture a dragon because you studied Latin? Or do you jump to Greece because you are an historian? Or do you turn to law because Draco was the first "lawgiver?" Or do you combine all three reasons and pop right to "Draconian?"

The weatherfolk probably had fun naming the first, named blizzard. Why did they skip the alphabetical process used for hurricanes?

"The situation on Bascom Hill already is disruptive" in preparation for Obama's rally tomorrow.

Says Irene in the comments to the last post.

This morning, a worker who admonished me for "standing" behind heavy equipment when I paused to take a photograph.

When I stated that I found the situation disruptive, one of his coworkers chirped, "Obviously, a Republican."

Wow!

Madonna and Yoko Ono appeal to Vladimir Putin to free Pussy Riot.

Pussy Riot is on trial for a performance in the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in which they "danced and sang a song which parodies a Christian prayer, imploring the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Mr Putin." They are charged with "hooliganism" (or whatever word or words in Article 213 of the Russian penal code have been translated into "hooliganism") and "are accused of inciting religious hatred." The chose the site for their performance, "in front of the altar of Moscow's main cathedral" because "the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, publicly back[ed] Mr Putin in elections."

IN THE COMMENTS: Irene points out that the English word "hooligan" began around 1898 and quickly made its way into Russian, where it is "khuligan."

By 1900-01 khuligan was widely used to describe the gangs of young toughs who were frightening respectable citizens all over Russia, and it has never fallen out of favor since.

Madison's Mayor Soglin talks about letting nonprofit property owners make voluntary payments instead of taxes.

Voluntary payments? We were just talking about that in the previous post! Who makes charitable contributions to the government? What is Paul Soglin talking about?

Such a program, which would likely exempt smaller nonprofits, could produce several million dollars in annual revenue as service costs rise, state financial support remains unpredictable, and political pressures and changes in state law limit the city's capacity to increase taxes.

This is about bringing in new money, not switching current taxpayers into an optional approach.

The city has roughly 73,800 parcels valued at $21.5 billion, said Dave Gawenda, city treasurer. That includes 1,201 exempt parcels — excluding city, Dane County and Madison schools property — valued at $5.7 billion. If state and university property is excluded, the city exempts nearly $1.5 billion in nonprofit property, which would produce about $15 million in revenue for the city if fully taxed.

Currently, 17 tax-exempt entities have negotiated arrangements with the city — usually after a change to the property — to make payments in lieu of taxes that will total $877,000 for 2012.

No one envisions the city will seek to get the full tax payment from all nonprofits.

In Boston, under its new program, nonprofits that own property valued at more than $15 million are asked to increase payments over five years until they reach 25 percent of what they'd pay if they didn't have nonprofit tax status, the city's website says. The system also gives nonprofits credits for providing benefits to the community.

Can someone explain to me why they pay voluntarily? It's not truly voluntary, is it? There's some lurking coercion, some extortion, isn't there?

IN THE COMMENTS: Irene said:

"Mandatory volunteerism" is the progressive's way of treating everyone like children. It's one of my favorite oxymorons.

Schools first introduce this approach by requiring children to participate in mandatory duties shaded vaguely as "voluntary" activities that benefit the community. Example: "Earth Day cleanup" for the grade schoolers or "orientations" for first-year law students that require arboretum clean-up or Habitat-for Humanity work.

If tax payment is shrouded in "voluntary" language, it makes the maliable feel like they are participating in the general good. Part of the progressive community. Part of the group think.

So was I right all along or did the Santorum campaign read my blog...

... and see how to spin the "other emotions" remark about women in combat?

After Rick Santorum said that women should not serve in combat, citing “emotions,” critics were furious, saying he had insulted women by suggesting that they were too emotional to be depended upon in life-and-death situations.

But Mr. Santorum said Friday that he was actually referring to the emotions of men, not women, saying that men might be distracted from their mission by their “natural instinct” to protect women.

Yesterday, you may remember, WaPo's Jennifer Rubin said he'd get in trouble, and I said:

I'm guessing that Rubin is worried that he's stuck on some stereotype about women — they're too "emotional" — but I think he's referring to an argument about the way men feel — that is, an urge to protect women that would skew decisionmaking and performance.

ADDED: As Irene points out in the comments, Santorum made it apparent that he was talking about men's emotions on Friday's "Today" show, which was before my post.

At the Knitwear Café...

... you can cover everything.

(Seventeen Evergreen - Polarity Song, via Amber Reunion.)