As was briefly touched on previously, the glory (and blame) for tiki culture can be set at the feet of two enterprising gentlemen: Donn Beach and Trader Vic (Victor Bergeron). Both started creating tropical themed bars and drinks by opening bars soon after the end of prohibition. Both of them claim to have created one of the quintessential tiki drinks, the Mai Tai. Most reports have them being amicable rivals.
So what is the tiki culture all about? The basics are bright colors, tropical (at the time rare) fruit, rum, bamboo decorations, stone heads sitting around, and specialty mugs. The basis to most tiki drinks is a matter of splitting the traditional ratios (which were discussed earlier) into smaller portions to add complexity. So for sweet, instead of just using simple syrup, you can use a mixture of orgeat, pineapple juice, and passionfruit puree. Same thing with your spirit, instead of just using rum, you can use a blend of dark rum, white rum, amber rum, and overproof rum. Playing with the fractions will adjust the flavor of the drink and allow you to dial in your flavor preferences.
Tiki is currently being derided as insensitive to the Pacific Island culture, as the very name Tiki is from the name of the first man in Maori mythology. The other complaint is that by having Americans be the one to popularize these elements here in the states, it continues the tradition of Americans as colonizers. While I’m sympathetic to the complaints about taking a religions iconography and using it as decoration, I have zero sympathy to the complaints about the states appropriating the culture. The people who started enjoying the tiki culture, and helped it become huge in the 40’s were generally US service people returning back to the states, and celebrating portions of the new culture they had experienced. I’m sure none of you really care about my thoughts on this (but I’ll try to be around to discuss in the comments if you are), and are just here for the drinks.
Let’s start with the one name checked above:
- 2 part clear rum
- 2 part dark rum
- 1 part orange curacao
- 1 part orgeat
- 2 part lime juice
- ½ part simple syrup (if needed)
- Garnish: lime wheel and a sprig of mint
To build this, put everything but the dark rum into a shaker. Shake and then strain over ice, top with the dark rum. If you want to tweak it, there’s all sorts of variants you can do. Add a splash of pineapple juice, substitute out the simple syrup for some grenadine for another splash of color, add in some bitters (Jamacan would be a treat here), or swap out some of the clear rum for a barrel aged/overproof rum. It’s your drink, twist it to what you enjoy.
Let’s move on to one that will give you an excuse to have some blue curacao in your bar:
- 3 part white rum
- 1 ½ part blue curacao
- 4 part pineapple juice
- 1 ½ part cream of coconut
- Garnish: Pineapple wedge and a maraschino cherry
Put all the ingredients into a shaker filled with ice, stir for a smoother drink, shake for a frothier one, then strain into a collins glass filled with ice. Yep, you’ll have a bluish-green drink that should work quite well as the weather starts getting warmer.
Finally, one that’s built up a reputation and a name for itself:
- 3 part dark rum
- 3 part gold rum
- 2 part demerara rum (picking up a theme yet?)
- 1 part lime juice
- 1 part absinthe
- 1 part falernum (or sub out some orgeat and some spiced simple syrup/bitters)
- ⅔ part grapefruit juice
- ⅓ part cinnamon simple syrup
- 1 teaspoon grenadine
- 1 dash bitters
Build this by putting it all into a shaker filled with crushed ice, shake and strain into a large mug over more ice. Keep in mind that there’s a lot of alcohol in this drink, and most bars will limit people to one or two of them per visit.
Next time we’ll be moving into making a decent frozen cocktail, so put the ice cream maker chambers into the deep freeze, and brush up on how to use your ice cream maker.
Booze at 8am?
I didn’t think we were that big a bunch a drunks
You’re not on the zooms.
They’re too crowded and stressfull
That’s what the drinking is for.
I just write ’em, I don’t control when they post.
Weird.
So no morning links?
No need, Sean posted some BP raisers in the previous post.
Come on man… there’s 8 links in this article! 🙂
IIRC, Old Man is off visiting one of the other Glibs (one of TPTB? I forget which.) I suspect odds of his regaining consciousness early enough to post links were slim to nil.
Spud, methinks.
Not the royal tater, the delicious one.
Counts are not royalty, they are nobility.
That depends on which count you’re talking about.
w/e
He has claimed to not ‘drink to excess’. Im sure he’s making some weird vegetarian shakshuka and whistling an obscure tune.
Then again, with this crowd, “not drink to excess” for us could send a normal person into the ER.
Mornin’ home-slice !
Mornin’, homey! Quite pleasant out here at Tranquility Base post-rain.
Now, if you’ll pardon me, I need to catch up on my e-mail.
I’m sure we’ll figure something out.
Still dark PST.
What is this ‘too early’ of which you speak?
You can’t drink all day unless you start drinking in the morning
Who’s to say I haven’t been at it all night and it’s still Friday to me?
Know your audience I guess?
Good morning!
I’m getting ready to get my battery in my bike and fire it up. Check the tires fill it with fresh gas and go for a ride before breakfast. I’ve been waiting all winter for a nice day like this.
Dreary and grey but no rai and mild temps. Prefect for a first ride.
Sounds more motorcycle then bicycle. My plans involve doing a little 10 mile ride out to a local place for a nice brunch, then deciding if I want to take the short way home, or go back the 10 miles.
Both of you should be wearing helmets and handguns*.
*(had to Libertarian up the safety message)
I do wear a helmet, in fact I just bought a new (lighter) one. I’d have to own a handgun first, and I’m not sure what the law on open carry is in the neighborhoods I’ll be riding through. Spandex is not conducive to concealed carry.
“I’m just happy to see you, officer.”
“Spandex is not conducive to concealed carry”
/considers gay gym joke
/reconsiders and continues making supper-breakfast
They do make holsters that hold the gun over your chest. I’ve seen these marketed to MTB riders who cycle in grizzly bear country. Open carry unfortunately attracts attention.
Last year someone was shot and killed on one of our local bike trails, so not bad advice.
Note to Neph, it was on the section of VCT that we rode, just past Rockett’s landing where the trail goes through that wooded section and turns inland.
I’ve had one ride (going from downtown to the east side of Cleveland) where I was a bit nervous of the neighborhood (one wrong turn, and a bunch of construction redirected me from my now preferred path). Thankfully it was early enough in the day that I was about the only one on the street. I’m more worried about bad drivers then gun owners.
Yes and yes.
A lush article with links just as I start my shift? I think this may be a sign from Gaia!
Rum drinks do make one think of lush tropical jungles. Oh, you meant…
You mean the 80s, when few of us had a/c, and the women hadnt discovered razors ?
[golf clap]
Yeah, that one was inspired!
Inspired by a bit by Ralphie May
very NSFW
Hah!
I miss Ralphie. I think he’s probably lucky to have passed when he did. Top of his game and before all this culture shit that probably would have been his undoing.
Yeah, the theme seems to be “me kneeling next to the toilet at 4am”.
I hate rum.
*raises fist in solidarity*
So… I should have included a music link?
Sometimes the night is worth praying to the porcelain thrown for forgiveness.
https://youtu.be/l7TWLxCIgwE
I haven’t had rum since college for that exact reason.
It makes you want to clean?
Just reading the recipes gave me the Diabeetus. I guess they would make for nice desserts though. I’d rather just have a simple rye Manhattan with a fancy cherry.
Is that a cherry with a stem?
Does it have to be?
Nope.Not at all.
Oh, coolness. Thanks.
FYI, the Mezzetta company, better known for jarred olives, sells a quite decent Maraschino cherry sweetened with cane sugar (instead of the HFCS used in ice cream sundae cherries) and containing no FD&C Red Number 5 dye.
Supermarket stocking of these is interesting, some stock in the ice cream toppings section, often on an endcap adjacent to the ice cream freezers. Other times you have to go to the baking section to find them stocked with cake toppings. As a last resort try the canned fruit section.
I’ll check them out, thanks.
I normally have the bartender leave the cherry out until I tried the Luxardos. The texture is a bit mushy, so be forewarned.
I’m going to try to find luxardos when I finish this jar of maraschinos. Thanks.
I’ll just stick to my local beer. I drink alcohol because it makes me drunk. By this point in my life it wouldn’t matter much what was set out before me, I wouldn’t much care. Got’s alcohol? Good to go! Can’t (won’t) drink spirited quaffs.
Anything as long as it’s fermented, not distilled?
Distilled makes me not me. I prefer to be mellow and gentle. I can drink 20 beers and be fine but a couple of shots of Jack on top of that and Hoo-Boy! Katie let the colors burst. Can’t even hard cider anymore.
I thought it was the alcohol that made me an asshoe when I drank. Quit drinking, turned out it wasn’t the booze.
I’m well aware of what I am and what I might become. This is how my drinking habit requires a few Iron Laws. I know my stuff.
I have a Tiki mug from the Tonga room on a shelf in the half bath. I thought it looked cool, I didn’t know that made me a colonizer. ?
A true colonial shit-lord it would seem.
Yep. Now that you’ve taken that culture from them, the Maori can never use it again.
Now when you start getting to the mugs from the early days of tiki, there are quite a few that would get you cancelled for having them in a background during a video call.
My Grandparents had an ashtray that depicted an African woman’s head. The actual snuffing out part was her elongated lower lip. There was a bone through the nose. Remember that black Panther that Archie and Edith had on top of their TV? They had one too. Funny how cultural mores were different when people were born in the very early 20th Century. Cancelled and forgotten now, even Grandma’s lemon meringue pies that she baked for me every “Sundy”…
Now I’m wondering about the history of that ashtray. Where was it made and by who?
Right? Why did they buy it? Grandpa was a curmudgeon but Grandma was the sweetest lady in the world and I will personally fuck anyone up that says otherwise.
Probably the same people that made these. My grandparents had a set of these in their bar.
Patriarchy FTW
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/SpsAAOSwxB5frCZH/s-l300.jpg
Thicc?
This is the one
https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0410/11/vintage-tiki-mug-tonga-room-fairmont_1_266256516d6996c490282e13fc8c6549.jpg
So bad, it’s forbidden?
I get a 403 Forbidden
Cancelled already. Sheesh.
Worked for me.
The two “fanciest” ones I’ve got are both from Frank’s in Vegas:
Bearded Clam (NSFW)
Tiki Bandit
Weird.
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/dwgdfw4hQ96Fgg-90DTktA.DR4pHQ25P_QG3ARMI7IfJk
Actual mug.
Extra appropriation points:
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/rEhGyR2YTvunKmvzOw25Hw.3kKlCEX2aGPF7WaoLwTXEI
Same room.
Ah, I see. The Lambada! The Forbidden Link!
I’ve been to the Tonga Room. No souvenirs, though. 🙁
My dopey friends thought it would be a hoot to snob it up for a couple hours. Several hops later, one of them wound up puking at the bus stop on the way home.
Smells familiar.
Obligatory.
One tiny positive of the panicdemic: the end of office-politically-obligatory “happy hours,” Worth it? I leave it to your judgment.
Weekly or monthly? quarterly?
I can rather dig the rules on the main page.
Hell yeah. I sure don’t miss those.
Depends who is paying. Free beer is always good.
Our “Happy Hours” used to consist of a bunch of us hitting the peeler bar on pay day as a warm-up to hitting the clubs. It was fun while it lasted but you cant be 23 forever. Just seems sorta skeezy, now.
Are peelers those paper versions of slot machines where you peel/rip the paper tabs to reveal the 3 lines of 3 characters to see what you won/lost?
No, the they’re the dancing girls that peel off the pole long enough to offer a lap dance.
Nice to see you again, 61, it’s been awhile.
It’s been awhile but good to be back.
There’s no legal gambling here, but we have pull-tabs/rippies like these: http://www.americangames.net/site/information/pull-tabs
They come in massive block of 500 or 1000 with preset odds in the block with the largest pay out being $500 per pull tab. The odds are set by law and each vendor has to give the bulk of the money to a non-profit. I don’t get a kick out of gambling, but I’ll sit at the bar and watch people drop hundreds of dollars in a go. To each their own.
*strong eye-roll*
If that eases their Puritan hearts, so be it.
It’s the same thing with organized bingo, too. I’m not sure on what percent the house can take since there’s bingo halls that only offer bingo, so how they pay for their employees and rent. I spoke to a bartender on a slow day who said they don’t get any cut and the only reason they offer pull tabs is to lure customers who hopefully leave a fat tip for the bartender or buy a round when someone gets a big winner.
The bar I go to gives their money to a residential school for kids who are escaping a bad home, which is a good use of money in my book. I’ll throw a dollar in the jar for them and skip the whole. I know non-profits get a bad rap, and not undeservedly, but there’s good ones out there and nobody is forcing people to contribute.
Based on his Twitter, David Burge could probably write a book about Tiki bars.
Music link
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cL03TJE_MR4
“An inspiration to us all: Prince Philip could sail a yacht, fly a jet, drive a carriage, paint a picture, shoot a stag and play polo… yet he was also a philosopher, innovator and champion of the young”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9455177/An-inspiration-Prince-Philip-sail-yacht-fly-jet-drive-carriage.html
Apparently, he was also Robert Palmer.
Not sure if this one was posted yesterday.
“At Australian customs, the Duke was told he’d be asked the same questions as anyone else. Asked if he had a criminal record, he replied, “I had no idea it was still a requirement.””
I laughed.
??
I have always been disparaging of the notion of royals (born in London, mom’s still an English Subject).
But reading and hearing the stories about Prince Philip, he sounds like a helluva man. Smart, funny, married up with super dignity.
He really lived.
War hero too.
“Descendants of black family who owned thriving resort on LA’s Manhattan Beach will have the land RETURNED to them after they were forced out by ‘racist policies’ a century ago – and it’s now worth at least $72 million”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9455263/Plan-return-beachfront-taken-Black-family-20s.html
Playa Manhattan gets a new neighbors?
More cities should do that, and not just because their eminent domain was racist.
(to be clear, “do that” means returning seized lands to their previous, private owners)
Saw that and thought of PM, and wondered about the mode of distribution. Patronymic or what? is that fair?
The article mentions 150 descendants and that’s just the ones who showed up at a family reunion.
I smell a shit-show in the near future.
They’ll take the greatest ideas from government graft and make it a BIA trust and give all the descendents a worthless slice then run the land for the benefit of the trust management.
I never knew the history behind the “scary face” cups my parents had gotten from The Kahiki in Columbus. I just remember being fascinated by drinking out of the cups and hearing my dad tell a story about what the restaurant was like. I remember trying to go in the early 2000s and seeing that it was closed/demolished.
There’s one house that I bike past frequently that has stone heads in their front yard. I’ve thought about randomly walking up and introducing myself to them.
“Breaking: Transportation Secretary Buttigieg wants cruising to resume by mid-summer”
https://twitter.com/thepointsguy/status/1380573251588530181
Phrasing?
?
I guess in keeping with the morning liquor theme, has anyone had Whistlepig? My local store has a bottle I thought of grabbing, although its a bit pricy unless it’s really that good.
Yes, I like it quite well. Makes a great Manhattan. See upthread. ^
Scroll down, left side. It’s where I was introduced to Whistle Pig.
That sounds pretty good.
I had a couple bottles of it. It’s really expensive. It’s good, but not really worth the price. The one I had was Old World something something…
Thanks. I entered a lottery for the chance to buy rip van winkle. It looks like about the same price but I’ve heard it’s the best… if you can find it.
I saw a couple bottles in a stores I was in years ago. It was about $250 a bottle. No thanks, nothing you can drink is worth that.
Hate speech experts
The Anti-Defamation League has called for Fox News to fire prime-time opinion host Tucker Carlson because he defended a white-supremacist theory that says whites are being “replaced” by people of color.
In a letter to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott on Friday, the head of the ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt, said Carlson’s “rhetoric was not just a dog whistle to racists — it was a bullhorn.”
The civil rights group listed numerous instances Carlson has used anti-immigrant language. Those include saying immigration makes the U.S. “poorer and dirtier” and questioning whether white supremacy is real. Greenblatt said that “given his long record of race-baiting, we believe it is time for Carlson to go.”
The white-nationalist “great replacement theory,” otherwise known as “white genocide,” says people of color are replacing white people through immigration in the Western world, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Some white supremacists also say that Jews and progressive politicians are furthering this change, the civil rights group says.
The “theory” is a “classic white supremacist trope,” the letter said, noting that it has been linked to mass shootings in the U.S. and New Zealand and was referenced during a deadly far-right protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
It’s the first time the ADL has asked for Fox to fire Carlson, said the group’s spokesman Todd Gutnick, but it has contacted the network before about things Carlson has said.
Carlson is Fox News Channel’s most popular personality.
It’s a two-fer. Not only do they want to punish Carlson, they want to punish all the horrible racists who like him.
the ADL can go fuck an armadillo.
The hard left’s habit of smashing statues and replacing them with their own iconography adds more fuel to great replacement theory than anything Tucker Carlson has ever said.
I don’t think that would be kosher.
I’ve heard a lot of people on the left talk with glee about “the browning of America”. I guess it’s only acceptable when the right sorts of people talk about it.
It’s OK if you’re celebrating it as a good thing (kind of like how it’s a crazy conspiracy to say that government, media, corporations, and social media companies colluded to make sure Biden won in 2020, but you can say exactly the same thing if you describe it as a beneficent “fortifying” of the election).
What worries me is that this celebration of “the Brown Wave” is that a lot of people could respond by thinking, “Well if that’s the result of having minorities here, then fuck having minorities here!” Dave Smith hit the nail on the head on a recent episode where he said, “If someone doesn’t want one-party rule by the Democrats, why are they supposed to regard this as a good thing?”
WYPIPO invented Western Culture. Including that democracy thing they’re always going on about. WYPIPO can also be sort of stubborn and keep clinging to those guns and Bibles, and other icky stuff like the idea of individualism. They need more compliant sheep.
It’s not actually an attack on WYPIPO we’re seeing. It’s an attack on Western Culture. Did you know that Plato and Aristotle are now racists?
The left want to tear down Western Culture and replace it with a Maoist/Leninist model.
The high-point of race relations in U.S.? DMX getting 200,000 whites kids to yell “My Nigga” and nobody getting offended.
https://youtu.be/L1-owFGBdoY
Hate police
A California police officer associated with the far-right extremist group Proud Boys has been fired, officials announced Friday.
Rick Fitzgerald, then an officer with the Fresno Police Department, allegedly participated in a Proud Boys counter-demonstration on March 14 outside a theater being sold to a church that protesters said was hostile to the LGBTQ community and marriage equality.
Fitzgerald was placed on leave the following day, and his firing was made public Friday by Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer and police Chief Paco Balderrama, following an investigation.
“It is clear to me there were egregious violations of department policy,” Dyer said in a statement. “I am pleased that Officer Fitzgerald will no longer be serving as a police officer with the City of Fresno.”
Balderrama, citing the Southern Poverty Law Center, called the Proud Boys a “hate group” and said in a statement, “I stand by and reassert my prior comments in strongly disapproving of any police officer affiliating with hate groups.”
SPLC, making the world a better, more loving place one denunciation at a time.
ahem – “Love Squad”
Diversity & tolerance for all.
Utopia.
Note to self: Never, ever work for the government.
At least 19 associates of the Proud Boys, which was founded in 2016 by Vice publication co-founder Gavin McInnes as a group for “western chauvinists,” have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Conclusive proof of something or other.
Well? Do you believe them or do you believe your lying eyes, Comrade?
Worth reading the whole thing:
“So why is so much of the writing about tech so confusing? One of the reasons it confuses, I think, is that the loudest “progressive” and “conservative” arguments are the opposite of what you’d imagine.
Progressives are supposed to be against corporate power. And yet on this subject, they are the ones pushing for more of it. They are enraged that these companies don’t crack down harder on “disinformation,” arguing that the Zuckerbergs and Dorseys of the world put profit above principle when they allow groups like QAnon to run wild on their platforms. Sure, President Trump was banned, but only after he lost the election. Why didn’t it happen earlier? Private companies are not hamstrung by the First Amendment, so why do they hesitate to ban dangerous people whose online words lead to real-world violence?
Conservatives are supposed to be for small government and allergic to sweeping intervention. And yet some of the country’s most prominent Republicans find themselves arguing against free enterprise. The crux of their argument, pushed most passionately by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, goes like this: The law is handing Big Tech companies a ridiculous and unfair advantage. Section 230 grants companies like Twitter protection from the kind of legal liability that makes a traditional publisher, like a newspaper, vulnerable. Why should tech companies have that privilege, given that they obviously make editorial decisions? Fairness would begin with a repeal of Section 230.”
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/what-should-be-done-to-curb-big-tech
“The Internet made me do it.”
Piss off.
“Progressives are supposed to be against corporate power.”
Well, starting out with that statement… The hippies of the 60s are long gone. The ones still around did lots of drugs and are now in their 70s and can’t remember anything about those days. The new ‘liberals’ are statist authoritarians who want a CCP style technocratic tyranny. Of course, they seem to actually believe that since they are the right thinkers that this will never go wrong for them. Useful idiots are useful.
If anyone wishes to stick with ‘authentic’ mai tai ingredients, feel free to skip Bounty brand Fijian rum. It’s absolutely revolting and a guaranteed hangover. It’s sub-Popov in quality.
WRT Tiki lounges….
Hey GT ? Remember The Tropics on Main St. ?
Yes! I think a friend and I double-dated there before Homecoming my junior year at Meadowdale – the only high school dance I ever attended with a date. 🙁
It just occurred to me that both of the guys involved are now dead – one of liver cancer, IIRC, and the other possibly Englewood’s only murder within recent memory.
Dominic’s and the house garlic italian dressing.
Yup. When my office was just north of downtown, I could always tell when a co-worker had been there for lunch.
or 3 days later
And don’t forget the Kon-Tiki on Salem – Dayton’s coolest movie theater. It even had tropical-themed restrooms!
I always thought someone should have turned it into a church just to preserve it from demolition.
The clam-shell sink basins in the bathrooms
There was a Kon Tiki in CLE too (before my time). We have had a new tiki bar open. It’s on my list when they reopen.
From the “White people. Right?” files –
Oil workers in the mist
Fuck’s sake. The same ones always write these articles about the same damn thing. Camp life sucks, boys will be boys, get over it. Cowboy life is seen as something that most men would try to emulate but the reality of any of these jobs is privation, loneliness, sweat, blood and tears. Living in a work camp is an unpleasant experience at the best of times. Some are actual camps wherein you need to dig a hole in the ground for your daily fortification. Fuck this asshoe and the partridge he rode in on.
???
Yep, it’s a template for all of the ‘this redneck town’ stories.
Wow, who would have thought that unattached men who bust their ass in dangerous jobs for good pay like to hit the bars for drinks and whatever else may be sold in the bathroom or parking lot? When I lived in a commercial fishing town I made it a rule to leave the bar by 7pm as I didn’t need to stick around later into the night and get sucked into a fight. That New Yorker cartoon of the View From Fifth Avenue is accurate and depressingly so.
“New York City reaps the benefits of labor done thousands of miles away on the desolate plains of North Dakota,” he writes. “They get it from me and a group of the toughest, meanest motherf–kers I have met in my life. Men they wouldn’t like, men they look down on, invisible men they will never see in a state they dismiss as flyover. They owe it all to the hands. All of it.”
Need more of that published nationally.
We’re from the government, and we’re here to help
The Small Business Administration yesterday launched with great fanfare a long awaited portal that would allow arts venues closed down by pandemic to apply for grant money to cover rent, utilities, insurance and other accumulated expenses. The site went live at noon, but was wracked with so many technical issues that the SBA decided to shut the portal down indefinitely.
“After working with our vendors to address them as quickly as possible, the SBA temporarily suspended the portal and will re-open it as soon as possible to ensure all applicants have fair and equal access,” the agency said in a statement. “This decision was not made lightly as we understand the need to ensure critical assistance gets to you as swiftly as possible.”
——-
Audrey Fix Schaefer is the communications director for the National Independent Venue Association, which has been lobbying for support for small venues. She says that the program is a lifeline. “We all want the SBA to be successful in providing desperately needed emergency relief ASAP.”
The SVOG is a $16 billion grant program that was set up to help qualifying live music venues, independent theaters, museums and other live-event spaces hit hard by pandemic-prompted shutdowns. It was passed with a bipartisan effort as a part of the coronavirus relief package signed into law by President Trump in December. But it’s taken a long time to arrive: the agency has said that it’s a first-of-a-kind program for them, and they had to build it from the ground up.
What might be even more helpful is if you would just fuck off and stop destroying people’s lives and livelihoods.
Nah, it’s more lucrative to administer these programs than skim off tax dollars of open venues.
What is with the left’s fixation on “artists”. I don’t get it.
Here in NYC they have entire rehabbed loft buildings subsidized for “artists” who pay a pittance to rent a space I couldn’t dream of affording. It’s sickening.
When funded and ass-kissed, they’re reliable propagandists.
Spot on. I’d also go with there’s a lot of social circle cross over and the donor and gov’t class views artists as the ‘deserving poor’ and who else better to receive tax dollars?
The elites love the pretense of understanding postmodern art when in reality it’s usually a joke that’s being perpetrated on them.
The way that self-described radicals became statists in the 20th century was a huge development in human thought. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that earlier radical artists saw the state as the great oppressor and despised people who took its money (e.g. Byron and Robert Southey).
Now the people who think they’re edgy iconoclasts happily guzzle taxpayers’ money and there’s barely any thought about how it might warp their views.
Identify as an artist?
You’re saying the Cool Cities program didn’t turn Detroit from a dump into the shining jewel of a “world class city” it is today?
“‘Help Me Hate White People’: Entry in Bestselling Prayer Book Stokes Controversy
A book containing a prayer by a Black female author calling on God to “help me hate white people” is causing a lot of controversy.
The book, A Rhythm of Prayer: A Collection of Meditations for Renewal, was edited by Sarah Bessey and published in February and is available at major sellers such as Target, Barnes & Noble and Amazon. The passage in the book by Chanequa Walker-Barnes, “Prayer of a Weary Black Woman,” seeks spiritual guidance to stop “caring” about white people who inevitably perpetuate racism.
“Dear God, Please help me to hate white people,” Walker-Barnes writes. “Or at least to want to hate them. At least, I want to stop caring about them, individually and collectively. I want to stop caring about their misguided, racist souls, to stop believing that they can be better, that they can stop being racist.”
She goes on in the prayer to say she wants help to hate moderate, “nice” white people who disguise their racism by acting pleasantly toward Black people but who do not take an action to combat white supremacy…”
https://www.newsweek.com/help-me-hate-white-people-entry-bestselling-prayer-book-stokes-controversy-1582043
This cultural path will only end in misery.
Such Christian. Much love.
“The president is right: the continuing epidemic of gun violence in America is an international embarrassment, and it’s within our power to end it.”
https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1380536217519947776
There is no epidemic of gun violence in America, and IDGAF what the other countries think.
End what? Didn’t people get shot up in Norway, France, and Australia fairly recently?
Damn, the shipping costs from Indiana must be murder.
It’s that white supremacy what does it! Not like the peace-loving saints in South America, Africa, and Asia.
Maybe Hillary is an expert on gun violence???
You can fudge the numbers to prove America does or doesn’t have a “gun violence epidemic”, but it doesn’t matter. Even if America has a GVE that’s just the price ones pays for living in a free society, freedom is scary and dangerous and every once in a while some nut job is going to take advantage of those freedoms and kill a lot of people. Sure it sucks if you or one of your loved ones is a victim but it’s still better than the alternatives.
“Your pretended fear lest error should step in, is like the man that would keep all the wine out of the country lest men should be drunk. It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy, to deny a man the liberty he hath by nature upon a supposition that he may abuse it.” Libertarian icon Oliver Cromwell
I would argue that if we were a truly free country things like this would happen a lot less often. It’s the nanny’s constant need to control and screw with people, their rights and lives that cause a lot of this violence.
If we were free you would see a hell of a lot less violence. Isn’t “gang” violence like 40% of firearm murders or something ridiculous like that? Get rid of welfare and the war on drugs and boom… gone.
Good morning, peeps!
Bottom’s Up!
Good morning!
Where you been, boyo?
Good to have you back!
General disgust at politics and society plus getting in some skiing on the weekend with the longer days and sunny weather.
That has better be Van Hale…oh, good. It is.
Prime choice.
Good morning, Tundy!
I’m tapping. Good day to you all and I hope everything bodes well for you on this fine Saturday morn, Special thoughts sent to Hayek and Hubby.
Sleep song
Take care, Festus!
*salutes*
I’m getting frustrated. Last night I put a lot of effort into some experimental bases and I’m trying to get a good picture of them so I can ask for opinions on how they can be improved… but I can’t get the bases in focus. The autofocus wants to fixate on the closest part of the mini, which will never be the base. And manual focus is frustrating at best since the little viewfinder doesn’t help me tell when the spot I care about Juuust out of focus enough to be unusable.
And the battery in the camera got low so it’s recharging while I’m kvetching.
“52% of people who won’t get vaccinated say it’s safe to hang out with friends right now. just 21% of the vaccinated say the same. 13% of *vaccinated* people say it won’t be safe until *next year*”
https://twitter.com/allahpundit/status/1380638843146276866
Something about the duality of man.
If you’re not in one of the high risk groups, it’s always been safe to hang out with friends. If you are in the high risk group, the decision of how to manage that risk should be left to you and you only.
I’ve been going to bars as long as they’ve been open since this bullshit kicked off. I’m an adult and weigh the risk factors accordingly and I trust others who are doing the same have gone through the same process. Also, it’s a goddamn bar, I’m not there to improve my health. I’m there to have a few drinks on the way home from the office before coming back to an empty house.
Everyone I share office space with has been vaccinated for almost two months. They refuse to come back in and I think it’s mostly fear and not liking their WFH option. Hell, when they pop in they act like it’s an act of bravery. Utterly insane.
I refuse to work in an office that is going to require me to suffocate myself with a nasty wet mask all day. If work thinks that’s means “I’m afraid”, well I don’t give a shit.
This is all hypothetical for now. There are no plans to make people return to the office yet.
FWIW, nobody else in the office is wearing a mask. and i’d flat out refuse to come to work if i had to wear a mask. Everyone has an office with a door so it’s not that. And with this group of people, I think the appearance of ‘following the rules like good little boy/girl’ like a paragon of virtue far outweighs any disdain at wearing some gross mask all day. Fortunately, my boss doesn’t care what I do in my office and that includes concealed carry or a belt of scotch at day’s end.
I was in a packed restaurant on Friday night, not a mask in site. These people are either scared shitless or just need to keep the game going a bit longer to work from home.
I’m gonna continue to talk shit about the vaccines.
In the interest of full disclosure, both of my parents have taken both doses with no adverse reactions. They are both fairly old, and dad is at higher risk. Neither one was suspected to have had Covid previously.
The Establishment has worked very hard to box you into either A) enthusiastically taking the vaccine and thinking it’s great, or B) being a kooky anti-vaxxer who thinks that Bill Gates put a tracking microchip in there (I’m convinced that the media gives these conspiracy theories 100 times the attention they would otherwise get, just because they want to highlight the stupidest bullshit they can find so that their own narrative seems sane by comparison).
My main lines of argument against ME getting the vaccines are:
– I’m not in a high risk group at all, and all the elderly people I encounter have already gotten vaccinated (and if they haven’t, it’s their right to accept or decline the risk of being around unvaccinated people).
– There’s zero knowledge about what the long-term effects might be. The government has been basically running an ad campaign for everyone to get the shot, and the pharma companies have been racing to get it out on the shelves ASAP before natural herd immunity kicks in and destroys the demand. They’ve also been given indemnity by the government. From the point of view of a Big Pharma executive, they have to make hay while the sun shines. I just don’t trust that they wouldn’t cut massive corners based on all those factors.
Pretty much all vaccine manufacture has government indemnity now. It’s not unique to covid and has been around for 35 years.
True. I’m just saying it adds to the rushed nature of the vaccine development.
Nothing to worry about!
*rereads dengue fever vaccine issues*
The vaccines are a good idea for some and a great deal of risk with no upside for others. I strongly encouraged my parents to get the vaccines. They are high risk of Covid and that risk outweighs the known and unknown risks of the vaccines. My family has zero risk from Covid (plus I’m 99% positive we’ve all already had it) and potentially unlimited risk from the vaccines, especially the young children. We’ll never get it.
The left seems incapable of understanding the position that some people can believe the vaccines are a good idea for some but not for others. Of course, none of the past year is really about Covid… the zealous vaccine stance is just a trojan horse for implementing a vaccine passport with government control into every facet of interaction outside the home.
The whole thing seems to be an exercise in showing off social standings. The amount of navel gazing articles about how it’s so hard to not go out and what a sacrifice the Laptop Class (didn’t coin that phrase but will gladly use it) has made is astounding. Well, damn, look at you. How impressive it must be to say home and get food and groceries delivered. I think some really old book touched on people loudly declaring their faith in public. Naturally, the Laptop Class has no concern for the guys keeping the power plants running or teenager stocking shelves at Target who don’t have their op-eds published in all the right publications.
This whole thing rubs me the wrong way at a cellular level.
That’s pretty much the case with most vaccines, but few people (other than crazy anti vaxxers and religious nuts) stop from loading themselves or their kids with the full schedule
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/articlepdf/209448/joc70121_2155_2163.pdf
The historical numbers are quite interesting.
Both of my parents have gotten at least the first dose with no reactions. My dad did get a positive test a couple months back. My sister and niece have both gotten vaccinated with no reaction (one nurse, one millennial).
I have no plans to get the shot.
13% of *vaccinated* people say it won’t be safe until *next year*”
As always, I’m left wondering… what happens next year?
It’s just like the early days of restrictions. People said “Let’s just lock down for four weeks.” OK, and then what? The virus gets bored and leaves?
See: this year.
One of the most delightful things about humankind is the tendency to borrow and imitate other cultures and in turn create a new cultural element. I particularly love instances of other countries adopting aspects of American culture (sometimes with comical inaccuracy) and making it their own.
There was a phase in Belgium in the ’50s and ’60s where American cowboy imagery was all the rage. The biggest music star of this period was a guy named Bobbejaan Schoepen. His music is this pleasantly bizarre mixture of American country music, European pop, jazz, and who knows what else. I had it on in the car one time and my friend asked me what genre this is, and I had no idea how to answer it.
I love reading about stuff like that. I guess that’s why it sticks in my craw so much when under-cultured and over-credentialed people whine about cultural appropriation. A world without cultural appropriation would be unbelievably dull.
That’s one of the things I love about the rockabilly and ska cultures. They’re almost entirely built on cultural appropriation.
I always got a kick out of Japanese greasers.
I fucking love those guys. They’re insane.
There’s a large contingent of British, German, and Danish greasers as well.
“There should be an immediate investigation into what led the Capitol Police to dispatch armed officers to the home of a citizen to interrogate him about tweets he posted critical of AOC. If they come to your house without a warrant, tell them to fuck off.”
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1380654420510306308
I told office prog in January that we would be fighting in Syria and Iran by the end of 2021.
I may be proven correct by August.
It would be funny if so many innocent people weren’t going to die. The same fucking propaganda and the same shitheads gobbling it up. I liked this lovely comment:
Fucking monsters.
Trump wouldn’t start any wars, so he had to go.
???
That was his cardinal sin.
NO COLOREDS
A key element of Biden’s $213 billion proposal is offering cities federal dollars to encourage them to ease zoning rules that drive up housing costs, impede the construction of affordable homes and often prevent people of color from moving in. But housing advocates and economists say Biden’s decision to rely solely on financial incentives without including more punitive actions to force changes could dampen the plan’s effect on one of the major drivers of the affordable housing crisis in the U.S., particularly in the largest metro areas.
“All these places are reluctant to touch zoning, or it would have been done already,” said Jim Parrott, a former housing adviser to the Obama White House and the co-author of a paper on the U.S. housing shortage released recently. Success “depends totally on how big the carrot is and whether they deploy sticks.”
The zoning incentives are just one piece of a sweeping proposal deploying billions of dollars in federal spending and tax credits to spur the creation of new affordable homes.
Yet the plan is also triggering complaints from both the left and the right over $40 billion in proposed spending for public housing. Left-leaning lawmakers — including the 95-member Congressional Progressive Caucus — don’t think the blueprint includes enough money, arguing that New York City alone needs that much aid. Republicans think the proposal contains too much.
——-
Much of the cost of building new housing is determined at the local level: Zoning rules, land-use restrictions and permitting and development fees make it prohibitively expensive — and in some cities outright impossible — to build affordable units. State and local regulations account for nearly 20 percent of the cost of building a single-family home.
Biden would try to tackle the problem with a new competitive grant program to induce state and local governments to scale back costly zoning and land-use policies. The administration is shying away from more aggressive measures that would pressure officials to change their rules. To do so would risk a fight with mayors who have drawn a red line against linking zoning changes to federal funding.
But affordable housing advocates say the plan would be more effective if the federal government applied more pressure to cut red tape.
Any serious effort to tackle exclusionary zoning would ideally tie federal transportation dollars — a much bigger pot of money than the housing funds the federal government sends to states — to the elimination of regulatory barriers, according to David Dworkin, president and CEO of the National Housing Conference, an affordable housing advocacy group.
Exactly whom do they plan to beat with these sticks, and what will do they expect to achieve?
Something tells me the limousine liberal neighborhood busybody brigades who drag out the torches and pitchforks any time their “neighborhood character” is threatened, who also just happen to be a prime Democratic voter demographic, are not going to take kindly to being brushed aside.
“When I said those people need a place to live, I did not mean next door to me.”
Doesn’t matter, there’s a growing radical left that controls the politics and yells racist at those who object.
Repealing zoning and land use (not really, just changing the rules and adding more) is about breaking SFHs and forcing densification. Creating renters and making car ownership untenable.
They aren’t kidding. Because the leftists took the billions of dollars that was supposed to be spent on repairing the shitty public housing over the last six or seven decades and spent in on… who the fuck knows. Vacations, most likely.
The “affordable housing” lobby is a classic example of regulatory capture. They’ve become experts at fleecing the programs for maximum return.
My city might be fucked.
Chauvin trial update.
Shit heads.
Not an excuse, pussies. I would not want to be on that jury either, but if I don’t state that up front during selection process, then that’s on me. Weigh the evidence presented.
I don’t know what’s going to happen, but watching Chauvin’s lawyer do a full Nelson on the state’s witnesses is impressive. Occam’s razor says that the state is incompetent and has no case, but the cynic in me thinks they have to be blowing it on purpose. Nelson has either shredded them or led them into backing Chauvin’s defense.
Also,
My
citycountry might be fucked.Better?
I’m not leaving the house for week once the rioting starts. That shit is going to spread everywhere.
We’ll see. The crackdowns will be fierce, now that you-know-who is no longer an issue.
“A Black Lives Matter protester made it clear early this week that “all hell will break loose” if Chauvin is not convicted of murder.”
Heh. Does anyone seriously believe that will happen? Of course it won’t. They already know that and their plans to riot and loot will go ahead regardless.
Does any sane person think Chauvin was intending to murder Floyd? Indifference or neglect, I can see but I doubt he thought to himself, “I’m just going to kill this black mofo.”
Sure he was, and so would you. Because systemic racism. You might not even think you’re racist, which actually proves you’re racist. And so, if you were in Chauvin’s shoes at the time, you would have just automagically been thinking ‘I’m a kill this black mofo!’.
Uncivil- If I understood your camera problem correctly, can you move the camera back with it set it on highest resolution and then crop it, to see if that fixes your depth of field issue?
Why can’t a consensus be forged to return Iran to near stone age conditions? Reduce water by destroying reservoirs and hydro, Take out the high tension grid. Sever their Internet. Destroy refineries.
Then make sure they stay in that condition. until they get rid of their current leaders.
Party of hate and fear.
My fave Tiki bar:
The Big Bamboo Lounge, in Kissimmee, Florida. I heard it burned down.
Is it your favorite because it burned down?
Homebuilders — who would be key to helping fight the housing shortage — are also wary of how Biden’s plan would be executed.
“Building or retrofitting 2 million homes is a very, very tall order,” said Jerry Howard, CEO of the National Association of Home Builders. “Really there’s not a lot of meat on the bone yet” in Biden’s plan.
“What I’m concerned about is what will Congress do with these ideas,” he said.
One area of concern for builders is the White House proposal to use union workers to upgrade homes. Howard said it was an “interesting concept” that had “never been practical in the market.” Remodelers in particular tend to not be unionized, he said.
If Comrade Biden wants union workers, you had best find some.
The remodel and retrofit industry is rather notorious for scamming government programs.
So perfect for unions?
They won’t see it as an impediment.
+1 shitty vinyl window installs and weatherization
Binders full?
One of the most delightful things about humankind is the tendency to borrow and imitate other cultures and in turn create a new cultural element. I particularly love instances of other countries adopting aspects of American culture (sometimes with comical inaccuracy) and making it their own.
Brazilians have just about taken over the Professional Bull Riders circuit.
Is it your favorite because it burned down?
Not at all. It was awesome, and from the outside it looked like the sort of place no sane person would ever set foot in. I took some people there one time, and they initially refused to get out of the car.
They loved it.
That’s the best kind of bar. As long as you have the good sense to keep to yourself until the regular on a barstool with his ass groves permanently worn into it talks to you.
Naturally, the Laptop Class has no concern for the guys keeping the power plants running or teenager stocking shelves at Target who don’t have their op-eds published in all the right publications.
This whole thing rubs me the wrong way at a cellular level.
This. Why concern yourself with the troubles of the Morlocks?
Proven effective
With a statewide mask mandate set to expire Saturday, nine more deaths in Utah were attributed to the coronavirus. So far, the state has lost 2,157 lives to COVID-19, though it is in a period of improving data and increasing vaccinations that are vastly outpacing new infections.
Deaths have been called a lagging statistic many times by many political and state leaders and Utah investigated deaths for COVID-19 as it does other deaths in the state.
——-
Though the statewide mask mandate ends Saturday, leaders are urging residents to continue to wear masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Masks protect others from the wearer much more effectively than they protect those who wear masks. People can be infected with the coronavirus but not have symptoms or know they are sick, thereby spreading the virus that has proven deadly for thousands in Utah.
Fucking correlation- how does it work?
Good. I’m headed to the Beehive State next month and dont want to deal any bullshit.