My administration will always fight for equal pay – and while we still have more work to do, I’m glad equal pay is now a reality for the @USWNT. pic.twitter.com/FIOVqlo3mu
— President Biden (@POTUS) May 23, 2022
Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy are warning of burnout among the nation's health care staff, including the potential for severe worker shortages in the years ahead if the situation is not addressed. https://t.co/jnsUJe9TJJ
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 23, 2022
January 6 hearings schedule: prime time 8pm June 9 and 23. 10am June 13, 15, 16, and 21 https://t.co/4WrVEhvw9R
— Amanda Carpenter (@amandacarpenter) May 23, 2022
… According to a draft schedule reviewed by the Guardian, the select committee intends to hold six hearings, with the first and last in prime time, where its lawyers will run through how Trump’s schemes took shape before the election and culminated with the Capitol attack.
“We want to paint a picture as clear as possible as to what occurred,” the chairman of the select committee, Congressman Bennie Thompson, recently told reporters. “The public needs to know what to think. We just have to show clearly what happened on January 6.”
The select committee has already alleged that Trump violated multiple federal laws to overturn the 2020 election, including obstructing Congress and defrauding the United States. But the hearings are where the panel intends to show how they reached those conclusions…
The select committee appears to be planning for the hearings to be extensive affairs. The prime-time hearings are currently scheduled to last between 1.5 and 2 hours and the morning hearings between 2 and 2.5 hours.
A select committee member will lead each of the hearings, the sources said, but top investigative lawyers who are intimately familiar with the material will primarily conduct the questioning of witnesses to keep testimony tightly on track.
As the witnesses – most of whom are being subpoenaed to appear at the hearings – give evidence that the panel believes will show how Trump and some allies violated the law, committee attorneys will simultaneously flash texts, photos and videos to illustrate the testimony, the sources said…
The select committee additionally intends to address the question of intent, such as why Trump deliberately misled the crowd that he would march with them to the Capitol, and why he resisted entreaties to call off the rioters from obstructing the joint session on January 6.
“The president’s rhetoric persuaded thousands of Americans to travel to Washington for January 6, some of whom marched on the Capitol, breached security, and took other illegal actions,” the panel said in a March court filing. “Hearings will address those issues in detail.”
Capping off the six hearings under the current schedule, the sources said, will be a close examination of video footage of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys militia groups’ leaders meeting in a parking garage the day before the deadly riots, and their movements at the Capitol.
That final hearing is notable, the sources said, because the select committee is attempting to connect Trump’s political plan for January 6 and the militia groups’ violence at the Capitol in what could form evidence that Trump oversaw an unlawful conspiracy…
The way that the select committee packages and presents each of the hearings isn’t yet final. For example, the final session about the militia groups planning and executing the Capitol attack could be moved around to become the first of the six hearings, the sources said.
But the panel’s attorneys have been told which hearings they will lead. Sean Tonolli, who led the inquiry into the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, will be chief counsel for the militia hearings, supported by “gold” team counsel Alejandra Apecechea, and others.
The “purple” team has focused on the militia groups, while the “gold” team has examined Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. The “red” team has looked at Stop the Steal, the “green” team at the financing for January 6, and the “blue” team at the government response.
People in my TL flipping out at *only* six public hearings by the 1/6 committee in June need to chill out. The public is not going to watch weeks of hearings. We could barely get them to watch Mueller.
Two prime time hearings, four "fill in the details" hearings. I approve.
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) May 23, 2022
Blech.
WTF-K?
I’m looking forward to the hearings. I want to know what the committee has assembled and hear the connected narrative.
Do you all think it will make a difference? Or has everyone already made up their minds?
Dorothy A Winsor
yes
Gawd, I hope they don’t fuck this up. Keep it tight and on topic. The right always throws that “Hollywood liberal” tag – so I hope Dems actually *use* Hollywood expertise to create a visually compelling narrative based on facts.
I agree that 10-12 hours of hearings is about as much coverage as the American public is ready to follow.
The real problem from a political perspective is that it’ll be over and done with in a week, so after that, our media can memory-hole it once again.
New font?
@raven
yes to the first question or test to the second question?
Looks like we’ve got a new font.
Even harder to read than the previous font.
@dorothywinsor I think most people have already made up their mind but I don’t think its even that. I am sure the GQP and their pals like Murdoch,Putin,Musk and Zuck probably have their distractions all ready to go. I hope our side is media savvy enough to overcome these people.
@Gin & Tonic
Seconded. Squint-a-rama. Both this new one and the previous one are not nearly dark enough, also too.
I suspect the only reachable group are the supposed Onama-to-TFG voters. Democrats will vote for the D-candidate. GQP for the GQP. Those who didn’t vote will watch reruns of SpongeBob.
WaterGirl 2
It might help drive turn out. Might, but don’t hold your breath.
I wish they were all in primetime. I wish many more of the President’s speeches were in primetime. People really like him when they actually hear him speak. It is what it is. I just hope they make the best, most coherent show of it as they can, and don’t do their usual “Look at MEEE” boring-ass performance.
On a personal, open thread note, I got the best possible news yesterday. A little over a year ago my 11 year old cat was diagnosed with aggressive small cell lymphoma. We were told that it was incurable, but chemotherapy could extend his life. Aggressive, very expensive chemo could extend it 10-12 months, less aggressive/expensive chemo, 6-8 months. After agonizing over the decision, we decided to go ahead with chemotherapy, the less aggressive version. I’ve mentioned a few times here that I thought his time was nearing, and worried about how to prepare his bonded buddy cat, but he continued to do well. Yesterday the oncologist said there was no evidence of the mass in his belly, no thickening in his intestinal wall, and his blood work is completely normal. And that this doesn’t happen. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So I just wanted to share that little bit of good, really great and wonderful, news.
@Gin and Tonic: I would like to hear your Ukraine update.
@KayinMD: Wow, so happy for you.
@KayInMD: Oh my goodness. How wonderful! I’m pumped up just reading your comment. You must be beyond tears
KayInMD we got 2 1/2 years fro Raven with surgery, radiation and chemo. We wouldn’t do it again but we started and we finished.
Dorothy A Windsor; I think there are a lot of people out there who don’t know much at all about what happened on 1-6-2021. We forget that most people don’t follow political stuff the way we jackals do. So yes, I do think the hearings, if done well, have the potential to change some minds. It won’t change any MAGA minds, but those aren’t the people we’re trying to reach anyway.
I like the new balloon juice graphic at the top, with text about 354 Data Centers as the subtitle. Very, very nice!
But sadly, I agree with a few commenters upthread, this new font is hard to read. I already have to strain to read the faint gray text, but the previous font was less busy.
I do apologize for complaining because I realize how hard this whole replacement blog is for everyone. We all appreciate how much work is happening behind the scenes to get this home away from home up and running so well.
But darker font would be really helpful.
@lowtechcyclist
Yes, i changed us to the font that’s on Balloon Juice.
@Gin & Tonic
it’s the same font we use on the actual Balloon juice site.
I’ve read some of the criticism of the hearings strategy on Twitter, and I’m not sure what to think about it. Rick Wilson says it’s political malpractice not to take a Benghazi-style approach, i.e., hold an endless series of hearings.
That strategy ultimately paid off for Republicans because that was how they discovered the email molehill that the media helped them blow up into a mountain. But the parties, their media ecosystems and their voters are so different. You can’t assume the same approach would get similar results, IMO.
KayinMD; First, that’s such great news for you, especially since you have a bonded pair. From what I’ve read, the vet is right that hardly ever happens. I’m so happy for you, that your gamble on chemo paid off.
Second, I’m not sure prime time matters nearly as much anymore. If people see the hearings, most of them will either watch them streaming or see clips online or on the news. I think the days of millions of people breathlessly tuning into hearings on prime time TV are over.
@Scout211
The new font is exactly the same font that we have been using on Balloon Juice for 2.5 years.
Heard Hugo Lowell on Daily Beans talking about the schedule. They’re very aware that people don’t want to listen to people talking for hours, so are planning on multi-media stuff. And apparently are scheduling around things like the NBA playoffs.
@Soprano2: Agree with you on everything.
Hey everyone! Sorry I’ve been so quiet; this whole situation aligned with some wacky personal stuff.
Anyway, here’s your Fuck Henry Kissinger for the day:
“Henry Kissinger said that Ukraine must concede territory to Russia to end the war, and warned the West that a humiliating defeat for Russia could result in wider destabilisation.”
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/kissinger-says-ukraine-must-land-102354463.html
This asshole thinks playing The Great Game, 21st Century Edition, is gonna save…hell, I don’t even think his ancient ass knows what it’ll save.
Dean Baker broke away from his vacation for a quick comment on inflation and the stock market:
https://cepr.net/two-quick-notes-inflation-and-the-stock-market-plunge/
That’s where I am as well – it’s not surprising that there was a spike in inflation after the pandemic and all of the rescue funding that the US sensibly spent. It’s not permanent, we’re adjusting to a different quasi-normal and inflation will drop.
The stock market of course is going to have dips and realignments as the rest of the economy adjusts (and as Elon burns down the (what?) $1T+ in Tesla’s stock value). Especially after 2 years of 20+% gains. But watch bond yields – there are people betting lots of money that inflation will be less soon.
My $0.02, and probably worth less than that.
Cheers,
Scott.
@WaterGirl – In Safari in an iPhone it is not the same, it is too gray and practically unreadable.
@MisterDancer: Kissinger is so full of it.
@zhena gogolia – Trust me, you do not want to read about the russian atrocities I am reading about.
@MisterDancer – A Ukrainian commentator said that elderly people often get confused.
It is definitely a different font for me on my phone! Both the front page font and comment font. The fp font is an antiquey super serifed thing, and a little faint.
@Gin & Tonic: Oh, yeah.
@ Dorothy A Winsor
I think it will make it much harder for TFG’s supporters to continue defending him. Let ’em all twist in the wind.
Lest you thought the world had enough tragedy, someone hacked into China’s systems and released a ton of information about Uyghur reeducation camps to the BBC.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/24/thousands-of-detained-uyghurs-pictured-in-leaked-xinjiang-police-files
I’m not sure I can take this world anymore.
@ Watergirl; On my computer the font is significantly smaller than what we see on Balloon Juice. To me that’s more of a problem than the color being gray. I’m just glad to have a blog to post on again, I was going crazy without this community.
I found a Chrome extension that lets one easily change the background color and font color of this Jackal Action site – https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/change-colors/ageghplgcapnfpdhapeemolbmfccclke
After setting it up, come here and hit Ctrl-Shift-P to toggle the settings on (or off).
It makes the URLs in the edit box the same color, but that changes to blue (new) or violet (visited) on posting.
I assume there’s something similar for other browsers.
HTH a little.
Cheers,
Scott.
More bizarre work by the NYTimes political team. They asked physicians to diagnose Fetterman from afar.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/health/fetterman-stroke-senate-campaign.html
This is their only substantive coverage of the Democratic candidate in PA. They’re polling physicians on how healthy the candidate is.
In today’s “how crazy can Republicans be” news, some Republicans in GA are campaigning against a new electric car plant that wants to come to Georgia because the company is too “woke”. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/georgia-electrical-vehicle-factory-becomes-kemp-perdue-campaign-battle-rcna29102 From the article:
‘Plans to build a massive electric vehicle factory in rural Georgia have divided Republicans ahead of their primary next week, with Donald Trump-backed David Perdue criticizing rival Gov. Brian Kemp for offering taxpayer incentives to attract a “George Soros-owned woke corporation whose stated purpose is to combat climate change.”
Rivian, the well-capitalized electric pickup truck company that had one of the biggest IPOs in history six months ago, wants to spend $5 billion on a new assembly plant on farmland outside Atlanta. The mammoth factory will create 7,500 jobs and produce up to 400,000 cars a year in what officials say is the largest economic development project in Georgia’s history.
But the price tag for the deal was $1.5 billion in taxpayer incentives. And Perdue, a former U.S. senator, and other Republicans say Kemp cut a bad deal with a bad company.
“It’s a woke California company whose mission is to turn the world green,” Perdue said this month while stumping with local activists trying to stop the plant. “They aren’t interested in this part of the country. They just want to make money off of us.’
Test
@ WG: It’s lighter, it’s smaller. Sans serif isn’t as pretty, but it’s far more legible. I don’t know when you changed it, but it’s definitely harder to read.
Looks like some Republican candidates for governor in MI are in trouble because their signature gatherers forged thousands and thousands of signatures. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/michigan-governor-fraudlent-signatures From the article:
A signature forgery scandal has turned the race for the GOP nomination to be Michigan’s next governor on its head: Two leading Republican candidates did not collect enough signatures to qualify for the primary ballot after invalid signatures were excluded, according to a report from the state’s Bureau of Elections.
The Bureau of Elections reports will now go to the Board of State Canvassers, which will vote Thursday on which candidates qualify to appear on the ballot for the state’s Aug. 2 primaries.
Thirty-six petition circulators — campaign workers hired to collect signatures — “submitted fraudulent petition sheets consisting entirely of invalid signatures,” according to the Bureau. In all, according to the Bureau’s report Monday, these circulators submitted at least 68,000 invalid signatures across nominating petitions for 10 candidates.
Both leading Republican candidates submitted well above the 15,000 signatures necessary, but were subsequently hit with complaints that that counts contained fraudulent signatures.
“They aren’t interested in this part of the country. They just want to make money off of us.’
Guffaw. The conservative snowflakes are mad that the car company wants to make money.
“They’re not INTERESTED in us!”
Jesus Christ.
@Kay – Well, “Doctor” Oz is distracted at the moment, deciding if Pennsylvania’s election system has been fixed since 2020 (so he won) or if it’s still corrupt (since he lost), so they can’t ask him. Who else could they ask???
I like this font a lot more than the other, thank you WG. Would help if it was darker.
sdhays May 24, 2022 at 9:35 AM
They should just cover Donald Trump. The 10% they devote to people other than Donald Trump sucks anyway.
They can be the Trump Specialists. If you want minute by minute coverage of Donald Trump buy that newspaper.
@Kay: WATBs.
WaterGirl May 24, 2022 at 9:00 AM
Okay. I guess remembering back to almost two weeks ago was too hard for this old.
Sorry for the complaint. Carry on. 🙂
@Kay: They’re building pickups, the idea they’re “not interested” in customers in Georgia is insane. But after the anti-Disney crusade in Florida, corporate thoughtcrime is all that matters.
It’d be nice if this ended “the only value of something is if it makes money” in the right, but since they have no actual principles of consistency, it won’t.
So, Musk has a want add for a lawyer for “Hard Core Litgation”. My prediction that Musk’s fall will because he recorded forcing himself on a woman during an on line Share Holder’s Meeting is slowly coming true.
I have no idea whether the hearings will matter to most people but I am definitely looking forward to them. Of course, I’m one of those people who watched the full impeachment hearings, both times.
@Gin & Tonic
It’s the same font. It is not the same color. The text is much lighter, and I agree that it’s too light.
@debbie
It IS the same font. It is not the same size and the text is not as dark, but it is the same font.
I have not found a way to adjust size and text color yet in this theme.
I know we’re all on edge because Balloon Juice is down, but if you guys could muster up a bit more patience about the details on this site it would be much appreciated.
@ Kay; Isn’t it considered unethical for a doctor to try to diagnose people without actually examining them? I guess the purpose of that story is to make it seem that Fetterman is a bad candidate to take a chance on. It’s dumb, lots of people have strokes like that one and go on to live for decades afterwards!
@WaterGirl: I’m still waiting for my magic pony.
Thanks for all you’re doing for us, WG.
Just FYI, please don’t take this as carping or a demand. 🙂
The Wayback Machine has captures of the original site. It shows a san-serif font for most of the text, a serif font for the post headlines. What I’m seeing here is something like TNRoman for the comments and the post headlines.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220301020701/https://www.balloon-juice.com/
You should set up a https://ko-fi.com/ account so that we can buy you a treat.
Thanks again.
Cheers,
Scott.
@WG – I know you’re working hard. I appreciate that, and am not trying to be argumentative (at the moment) but the font is different. I’ve never had the fancy curlicued ampersand in my nym before. It may be called the same, but something in the chain is rendering it differently.
Some good news this morning in Florida. The free speech for me and not for thee law has been ruled unconstitutional by the Appeals Court.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2022/05/23/appeals-court-florida-law-on-social-media-unconstitutional/
“ ST. PETERSBURG — A Florida law intended to punish social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter is an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, dealing a major victory to companies who had been accused by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis of discriminating against conservative thought.
A three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously concluded that it was overreach for DeSantis and the Republican-led Florida Legislature to tell the social media companies how to conduct their work under the Constitution’s free speech guarantee.
Put simply, with minor exceptions, the government can’t tell a private person or entity what to say or how to say it,” said Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, in the opinion. “We hold that it is substantially likely that social media companies — even the biggest ones — are private actors whose rights the First Amendment protects.”
The ruling upholds a similar decision by a Florida federal district judge on the law, which was signed by DeSantis in 2021. It was part of an overall conservative effort to portray social media companies as generally liberal in outlook and hostile to ideas outside of that viewpoint, especially from the political right.“
A reminder that “Control and +” exists for those for whom the font is too small.
The original font was making my eyes water.
This is yet another font – that happens to be bigger and possibly darker than the one from yesterday.
For now, while I pursue options for changing font size and text color, which don’t appear to be available in this theme, I think we’ll go with this font.
Everyone’s eyes are different. Browsers are different. Mobile devices are different.
Does this seem generally better than the font from yesterday and the one from earlier this morning?
oops, i may take that back. hold on.
@WaterGirl: Much better. Thank you. 😊
Okay, i went back to my notes for the site rebuild. Playfair was the font for the “Balloon Juice” header and rotating tags. Open Sans was the font for comments.
I just changed us to Open Sans, which is what we have on Balloon Juice.
For me, this is easier to read than the font from yesterday.
What say the rest of you?
Size matters. 😉 A lot.
@WG, on a refresh I noted the change. I like to think I’m not an Old, but I prefer the sans serif font, thanks!
RE GEORGIA ELECTIONS – Do they still have a jungle primary system for today? Eg Is Stacey Abrams going up against other Dems, or having to place Top 2 in a field with Kemp and Purdue? Thanks!
@Kay:
“Guffaw. The conservative snowflakes are mad that the car company wants to make money.
“They’re not INTERESTED in us!”
Jesus Christ.”
Same reaction here. “Corporations don’t care about us, they just want to make money!” No shit, Sherlock! What alternate universe did this guy just step out of??
For those who said it is better, was that BEFORE or AFTER my comment saying I had changed it again?
@WaterGirl:
After changing it again, it seems lighter. I liked the first change a bit better. It seemed a tad bit darker and easier to read, at least on my devices.
Betty Cracker’s post seems wonky now but Anne Laurie’s posts are fine.
@WG: I just now came here, and this is much better than what was there earlier this morning, although in general I’m a pro-serif gal. Thank you so much for keeping this going. It is so important for all of us.
WG your changes as of your 10:28 comment looks good to me. Thanks!
Cheers,
Scott.
@ Watergirl – on my computer this font is much better, thanks!
@lowtechcyclist; This is what conservatives have suddenly forgotten, that companies mostly care about making money. If they’re more “woke” it isn’t because they’re liberal, it’s because they’ve decided doing whatever is considered “woke” will help them make money. Some of the distress is connected to being older, too. I had a friend who’s a few years older than me comment that it’s so strange to her that so many commercials now have lots of black people in them. She’s not racist by any means as far as I know. She doesn’t realize those companies are doing that to appeal to the younger audiences, not us. As I often tell my husband “We aren’t the target audience for that”.
@ Watergirl; I noticed the change before I saw you said you’d changed it, and thought it was better as soon as I saw it.
lowtechcyclist May 24, 2022 at 10:28 AM
All culture war, all the time. Making EVs in the south is now an affront to their culture.
It’s a mess too. Is the company promoting a “green agenda” or making money? They object to both, apparently.
This is a real losing battle on the Right. We have a huge solar company in Ohio. Miles of wind turbines. My 70% Trump county has a solar field for municipal power. The local Wal Mart has 3 different models of electric mowers. This is not esoteric Lefty stuff. It’s 100% mainstream, which they stubbornly ignore.
Okay, so is the consensus (sort of) that what we have right now at 10:48 (don’t forget to reload) is:
1. better than yesterday
Yes?
I have a meeting in 10 minutes that will last about an hour. I will check back in for results of this pop quiz after my meeting.
@WaterGirl: We’re all grateful to you and Other Adam and Cole we even have a site to jackalate on at all after a week of nothing. Fit and finish can take a little longer. Control-+ to embiggen the font in the meantime.
@Kay: “All culture war, all the time. Making EVs in the south is now an affront to their culture.”
Next they’ll say they should have the right to collect unemployment if the only alternative is to work for a ‘woke’ employer. Wouldn’t be surprised if someone like DeSantis tried to offer that in FL.
Even though that’s total bullshit, because as @Soprano2 was saying, corporations are going to be exactly as ‘woke’ as it takes to maximize their bottom line. (Let them tell us how many employers are ‘woke’ enough to encourage their workers to unionize. Ha!)
January 6 hearings schedule: prime time 8pm June 9 and 23. 10am June 13, 15, 16, and 21
Drag the fuck out if these traitorous bastards!
It worked!
Control+
enlarges the whole thing.
@Kay — And here I’ve been wondering what amount of crazy or repressive policies would finally push business with a choice in location to locate in some other state — it didn’t occur to me that a state would actually reject a business because it is too “woke.”
Seriously, I am not a fan of local communities giving tax preferences to the Rivians of the world, but this seems more than a little nuts.
And the idea that Georgians would not be interested in a Rivian truck — maybe they should go look up the experience of Ford, which already has an electric pick-up in production mode. Its pre-production orders sold out in a matter of weeks. People really want electric trucks. They are so determined to live in the past that they don’t even understand the present let alone the future.
@Soprano2 Perhaps I misunderstand. I confess I don’t get that “they aren’t selling to me” approach. Black folx were expected to buy everything, for decades, sold only by white folx in ads.
Why would the reverse be a challenge? I mean, saying it this way feels a bit like that study that found that men felt like groups with more than 10%-20% women were “equal”, when in fact it’s more like RBG’s quote that an all-woman SCOTUS is equality, based on the all-male courts we’ve had for centuries.
Again, I may not be getting the nuance of the approach, here.
Yes, I am finding this easier to read than yesterday.
Let me add my thanks for all the work you’re putting in — I was definitely missing the BJ site, even though I rarely comment.
The Rivian-in-Georgia situation is basically replaying Jim Crow economics. There’s a study I can dig up that shows how implementing Jim Crow hurt wages in the South, and I’d bet there’s a bunch on overall economic impact of Segregation, just as I’d bet similar around Sexism.
These are NOT rational acts, acts you can debate logically. I urge everyone here to stop trying to do so, ’cause you miss the fact that this is literally running on lizard brain xenophobia crap that cannot be easily dismantled via “but more money!”
Generations of poor people in GA, among many states, spent nearly a century impoverishing themselves to keep Black folx down. And that comes from the century+ before, of poor whites being used and abused in the system propped up by chattel slavery.
It’s not a shock that the lawmakers who made these situations, also shot down as many laws to make lives better. Nor that these ideological descendants, do the same today.
As someone who tries to honor the tradition of debate, I say this in sorrow: They aren’t gonna listen to reason. Not at this stage. Nothing said about this will make any sense outside of the barrage of lies and history of xenophobia, racism, and other ills that still irradiate this land, and many others.
@MisterDancer — assuredly, they want your dollars and my dollars and they always have, but modern advertising has really evolved to be much more targeted at people whose market preferences are less likely, maybe much less likely, to have solidified. Those people are younger, and thus demographically more diverse, basically in every way. I do notice the more racially diverse “consumers” portrayed in advertising of multiple kinds of services, such as the healthy food delivery services and non-bank banking choices. It’s telling when someone notices race but not the age and professes bewilderment, because they are all quite young, certainly quite a bit younger than I am, but then, I am not going to abandon my bank where I have had an account for 30 years and put all my money in Chime or SoFi.
I think the sense of being passed by is especially galling for baby boomers — what, you mean we don’t get to define what’s hip and cool any longer?
@MisterDancer — Well, I agree that they aren’t rational actors, but the point is that states like Alabama (Mercedes Benz), South Carolina (BMW) and Kentucky (Toyota) have been chasing factories like this forever. This is the first I can recall where their political orientation has raised issues. Many local people have opposed tax breaks and the expenditure of public funds.
Wife watches MSNBC and CNN news, more CNN in the afternoon and MSNBC in the evenings. The ads include many with a wide variety of folks, varying races and nationalities, sex/gender presentations, etc.
When we saw a commercial with two black guys kissing as the finale and others with women driving Caddys — I told wife the culture wars were over, we won.
@Watergirl Thank you so much for creating this home-away-from home for us. I mostly lurk, but this community keeps me sane. I appreciate the NEW new sans serif font: it’s small and light, but more legible (to me) than the previous. (And I can futz with things to make it appear bigger.)
You (and John, of course) are heroes to all jackals for keeping us together through this!
I didn’t know about control +. I tried it. It works! Amazing difference.
@Another Scott
I tried that Chrome extension and while it is not a color scheme I would normally use, it is MUCH easier to read.
Thanks for the tip.
@Old School & Pat – This old man’s been using Ctrl-Plus (in Waterfox) a couple of times, get text enlarged to point where BJ’s margins go from quarter-page to one-inch. But text still in light blue-grey on white background.
Anyway, my gripe this week is with FedEx, which has taken a package shipped to me from Budd Lake, (about 30 miles west of my abode) on Friday, sent it to Upper Macungie, Pa (western suburbs of Allentown), and sez they’ll deliver it on Thursday (could have walked there and back in six days…)
Let’s see if they complete before 365DataCtrs ….
(Thanks for putting up with old man venting…)
+1 to Ctrl++. Or in my case, that finger-spreading gesture on the trackpad that I always do accidentally while trying to scroll. Here a couple days ago, I did that gesture deliberately for the very first time. 🙂
@ MisterDancer – what I meant is that I’m 61 and hubby is 75, so when I see ads with 20somethings in them with hip hop songs and stuff like that, I figure I’m not the person that ad is supposed to appeal to.
Oooh, we have an edit button, thanks so much! If you’re talking about what my friend said, I think it’s that for people like us most of the commercials we’ve seen over our lives had almost exclusively white people in them, so when a significant amount of the commercials have mostly non-white people in them, we notice it more. It’s different than what we grew up with. So much of this is just that things change, and aren’t as comfortable for older people anymore. I’ve learned to adjust, but a lot of people won’t.
@kmax – you can change the fonts and colors and so forth using that Chrome extension. In the Extension Options you will see some fields that can be edited. I think you can get there via this:
chrome-extension://ageghplgcapnfpdhapeemolbmfccclke/options.html
HTH a little.
Cheers,
Scott.
@Soprano2 – I wonder if some people are upset by the implication that black & brown folks have disposable income, too.