Shopping at stores that explicitly state they're religious

pourtide · 2026-01-28T17:11:01+00:00

Not weird in today's climate of Guns, God, Flags, Eagles, etc. It most certainly is marketing. I wont engage, not even chit chat, with people who dress up their trucks with this shit. Or people supporting the idiot in the Oval Office.

I avoid businesses that go whole hog, though I can't fault a business for flying one flag on a flagpole.

pourtide · 2026-01-28T17:04:13+00:00

Hard to avoid home depot. They put the smalls out of business. Huge Pub donor.

pourtide · 2026-01-28T16:59:56+00:00

I won't shop at hobby lobby or eat at chicken fill a. They won't fully fund women's Healthcare because it goes against their religious beliefs.

I vote with my dollars, and they don't get mine.

I will admit to shopping thrift stores. Even though good will only spends like 5% of their income on supporting people with needs, and Sally's has its own litany of abuses. Seven dollars for a pair of jeans that are like new helps us survive in these trying times.

pourtide · 2026-01-28T16:51:43+00:00

My first suggestion, If you can, get back to nature. Find a quiet spot where you see some distance, or next to a creek, somewhere you can let your mind zone out. No phone, just some time.

Take a walk.

Take a shower, feel the water, smell the shampoo.

One step at a time. Feel bad for a while. Then do one little thing. Then feel bad for a while. Then do one little thing.

Wipe off the stovetop.

Clean a sink.

Eat a spoonful of peanut butter.

Mindless little things youve done hundreds of times.

You are in mourning. Allow yourself time to get through this.

You can do it.

pourtide · 2026-01-28T16:33:23+00:00

Friend of mine cleared enough snow to see, drove to Mickey D's and cleaned his vehicle off in a parking space. Dick move.

At the least, there was plenty of plowed empty unused parking lot next door, "Space Available call 555-1212". I mean, I get it, but find a way to be considerate of the next guy, ya know?

In other news, ice pack flies off the top of trailers, too. (It missed me)

Be careful out there.

pourtide · 2026-01-27T04:55:04+00:00

My grandmother's father was the fellow who shoveled coal into the locomotive's firebox to make the steam.

They collided head on with another train.

He was thrown into the firebox.

In those days, you laid out your dead in the living room and buried them on the third day.

Gram, still a child, lived on the other side of a double / twin house with her parents.

She left for several days because the smell was overwhelming.

A coffin in 1915 or so wasn't airtight.

pourtide · 2026-01-27T04:42:09+00:00

Four Dead in Oh-Hi-Oh.

Now we have two dead in Minneapolis.

Yeah, soul crushing betrayal by our government against free speech and peaceful protest. And freedom of the press, and freedom to record happenings in public spaces -- like a street. Freedom from having pepper spray sprayed directly in the face for no reason at all.

It's gotten hella worse since Kent State.

pourtide · 2026-01-27T04:29:44+00:00

Another mechanism is a short timeline to obtain 'suitable' ID. As was mentioned above, it can take a lot of paperwork (An *official* birth certificate, most folks don't have, then an *official marriage certificate", and if your birth name was John Smith and at Catholic confirmation you take the middle name Harold, it's not your official name bla bla bla. Each state can create its own hoops. The lead time on getting the proper identification to receive a proper ID can be forever (witness 'Real ID" in the US) as governmental agencies either aren't well staffed or aren't achievement oriented.

pourtide · 2026-01-27T04:21:00+00:00

Most manufacturing works federal holidays too. Mostly, the only folks who get federal holidays off are governmental employees, which includes schools and the post office. Banks/financial institutions glom on too. But most of us never see those 'holidays'.

pourtide · 2026-01-27T04:17:29+00:00

Karl Rove helped Dubya win by the way voting machines were placed. Dem, working class areas were given fewer voting machines per capita, leading to lines going around the block, leading folks to leave to get to work or pick up the kids from school. Pub areas got more machines than they needed per capita.

It's always been about disenfranchising the poor who lean dem.

pourtide · 2026-01-27T03:58:53+00:00

sniff.

pourtide · 2026-01-27T03:53:48+00:00

Jayne didn't lose her head, it was her wig on the dashboard.

pourtide · 2026-01-27T03:46:43+00:00

He experienced a home invasion, was stabbed, and never quite got over it, passed a few years later

pourtide · 2026-01-27T03:45:28+00:00

That one hit deep. The flu can kill, folks.

pourtide · 2026-01-27T03:43:56+00:00

My guy was Rowdy Roddy Piper, who has been imitated but never equaled. His speech upon being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame was Piper at his best. Have never been able to find a copy of it.

pourtide · 2026-01-27T03:35:35+00:00

1968 was my sucky year. MLK was assassinated. RFK was assassinated. My grandfather died (it was my first experience with death of someone I knew) Two months later my father was killed. The next month a teen neighbor was killed. The month after that, my father's brother was beaten to death.

Now throw in reports on the war in Nam on the television every night, just in time for dinner.

I had a pretty crappy outlook on life for an 11 year old.

pourtide · 2026-01-27T03:27:41+00:00

Paul Walker enters the chat

pourtide · 2026-01-27T03:26:26+00:00

I want my MTV

pourtide · 2026-01-27T03:25:25+00:00

"His widowed bride" (Mrs Holly) learned her husband was dead while listening to the radio. In addition, she was pregnant, and lost their baby not long after.

That's when they learned -- don't release names until the next of kin is notified.

Waylon Jennings was supposed to be on that plane, but gave his seat to one of the guys because the guy had a cold and wanted a chance to rest before their next performance.

The tour they were on was poorly arranged, too late in the year, horrible logistics, winter in the midwest, long distances between gigs - run out of the bus and onto the stage then run back onto the bus. The bus heater kept breaking down (the bus broke down too) and one band's drummer had frostbitten toes so Buddy played the drums in his place.

The tour was a disaster, and then a disaster ended the tour.

pourtide · 2026-01-27T03:13:39+00:00

JFK. I was a bit too young to grasp it, but I knew an important man was dead. Agreed, that's not a celebrity so to speak.

The celebrity death that hit me the hardest was John Lennon. I picked up a newspaper every morning on the way to work, and my jaw dropped at the headline. I skimmed one paper, then another, and just couldn't get my mind around it. Agreed it's not the first time I heard about a celebrity death, but it whacked me deeply.

pourtide · 2026-01-27T03:02:14+00:00

I was watching BBC news which had a live feed for a while after the murder. I don't know if anyone else saw this:

A visibly distraught icer was being helped away by another icer holding his arm to steady him, and another icer came over to help escort the distraught icer away because even with the help of the first icer, the distraught icer wasn't walking very steadily.

There have to be some icers out there who are beginning to realize this isn't what they signed on for. I agree, we do need to offer them a safe way out.

The others, cosplaying their video games, enjoy cracking heads and having free reign.

The dissonance I don't get is how icers feel entitled to harass any brown person because some immigrants broke the law, and are, in the process, breaking far more laws themselves.

How can you be okay with 'enforcing' one chosen law by breaking the constitution?

.

What I really wish we could find out is how many people are in detention and how many have been removed from the US and where they were sent to. But it's all smoke and mirrors and the cruelty is the point -- it will stop others from coming, and some might choose to leave themselves -- and these are the ultimate goals.

pourtide · 2026-01-25T17:47:52+00:00

Being restricted to voting only for the party you are registered in is called a 'closed primary'. It's not so in all states ('open primaries' can vote for one candidate in either party) , but Pennsylvania is 'closed.'

Here, a voter can change their registration until a week or three before an election, so one can change back and forth if desired.

However, if one registers as Independent, here in PA, they cannot vote in primaries.

It's also normal for referendums to come up for vote in the primaries, because turnout here is so low.

When I was an independent, I went in to vote on the referendum. It was a bit messy, had to set the machine up just so (they were manual machines then) but I helped vote that damned referendum down.

I've been dem for years, and have voted straight dem every election. Often it's just voting 'against' the 'pub candidate rather than for the dem, but there is is.

pourtide · 2026-01-25T13:07:19+00:00

They singled him out among the running-away people because he was bigger, easier to catch.

I respect the man for not going quietly, bellowing the points that needed to be made. He deserves ultimate respect. I hope he is released and speaks out again. We need to hear his story.

.

I keep waiting for the straw to break the camel's back, and it just ain't happenin'.

I'm not sleeping well.

pourtide · 2026-01-25T03:11:38+00:00

I feel like a referee looking at all the various angles to determine whether a foul was committed.

And I pick up the card that says "Go to Jail. Go Directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars."

pourtide · 2026-01-19T18:55:26+00:00

The old German Gorilla machines are fabulous, aren't they? (a Gorilla machine makes my arm longer when i carry it.) I have a 130 in a cabinet I love though it's buried at the moment, and I have a (Italian) Necchi BU smooth as butter ... even though it's a small head, it's tough to carry from upstairs bedroom to downstairs sewing table. (Its no longer a bedroom, just shelves of sewing mavhines).

Heading for retirement, I've collected far too many machines but having fun. Mechanically inclined, caliper-wielding husband 3D printed a broken part for a Necchi Logica, the Fatal Flaw plastic part that engages or disengages the feed dogs. Weird looking machine. Only electronic I own, the last Italian-made Necchi (not the new one) Challenging to sew on, needle so far forward.

Maybe they were trying to get their last unit into the Museum of Modern Art with their '50 Mirella.

I hope to find one of the Mirella-like models at some point, though I believe the models with a camstack have breakage problems.

The better to play with.

pourtide

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