Oh hey, people’s minimum wage just went up. It’s still needlessly complex in Seattle. Washington’s is not as much as I’d like it. Still and all, the sky hasn’t fallen yet.
Also, everywhere in Washington has sick leave/safe leave now. So use that if you need it. I don’t know how strong the enforcement will be (it has been pretty weak in Seattle).
Start out 2017 by feeding your inner political animal. Please join us tonight for a New Year edition of the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.
We meet every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern beginning about 8pm.
Can’t make it to Seattle? Check out one of the other 196 chapters of Living Liberally, including ninteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find, or go out and start, a chapter near you.
Revelation 1:9
We suffer because Jesus is our king.
Discuss.
Pap: Racist Republicans target minorities in Georgia.
Jeff’s earth.
Adam Ruins everything: Electric cars aren’t as green as you think:
White House: West Wing Week.
2016 Was Fucking Insane!
Young Turks: Oops! Professional asshole Carl Paladino didn’t mean to PUBLICLY post racist comments.
Chris Hayes: Mega racist and Drumpf campaigner Carl Paladino fired from School Board for being a fucking racist.
Epic Rap Battles of History: Theodore Roosevelt vs Winston Churchill:
Ari Melber: FAUX News reports FAKE NEWS about Food Stamp fraud.
Minute Physics: The No Cloning Theorem.
The Sexual Assaulting, Putin Loving, Walking, Talking Conflict of Interest:
Sam Seder: Lawrence Lessig on why the Electoral College has got to go!
PsychoSuperMom: Eight is better than one.
White House: Rare look inside where Obama lives at the White House.
Newzoids: Putin’s Top Gun:
Alex Lawson with Nancy Altman: The GOP’s plot to kill Medicare starts Jan. 3rd!
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
Good riddance 2016.
The precinct maps of ST3 are both illuminating and about what you expect. The cities, especially Seattle, and the close in suburbs are for it and the rest of the area isn’t as much or are against it. I hope as rail gets further and further out, that more people between the cities and further out can enjoy it as much as some of us in the city.
Please join us tonight for a year-end edition of Drinking Liberally with the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.
We meet every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern beginning about 8pm.
Can’t make it to Seattle? Check out one of the other 196 chapters of Living Liberally, including ninteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find, or go out and start, a chapter near you.
Daily Show holiday gift guide.
“Skeptic on a Stick” holiday toy commercial
Adam Ruins Everything: The drunken, pagan history of Christmas:
Conan: The Toilet Santa.
You’re Wrong with Mike Lawrence: The best and worst of Christmas
Seth Meyers: Walking in a Winter Punderland
Liam Neeson Auditions For Mall Santa Claus:
Drumpf in Twitter war with Santa
PsychoSuperMom: Don’t they know (not everyone does Christmas)?
Obama’s Holiday message
Young Turks: How to trigger a war on Christmas.
Woke Christmas Carols
Late night Crew Poetry: My Christmas wish, New Year’s groove
Jeremiah 10:2-5
Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
Discuss.
Every Joo
Down in Joo-ville
Liked Chanukah as such…
But the Kvetch,
Who lived just north of Joo-ville,
… not so much.
The Kvetch hated Chanukah, the whole Chanukah season.
Now don’t ask me why. What? Should I know the reason?
It could be he wasn’t a mensch, that is all.
Or his petzel, perhaps, was two sizes too small.
Such meshug’as comes from one thing or another,
But like most Joo-ish boys, we should just blame his mother!
But,
The reason, whatever,
His mom or his putz,
The Kvetch hated Chanukah. Oy, what a yutz!
For he knew every Joo down in Joo-ville tonight
Was busy preparing menorahs to light.
“And they’re giving out gelt!” he sighed as he said
“I need waxy chocolate like holes in my head!”
Then he nervously whined as his fingers tapped horas,
“I MUST stop the Joos from igniting menorahs!”
For,
The Kvetch knew that soon…
… All the Joo girls and boys
Would say the baruch’ha, then unwrap their toys!
And then! Oh, the oys! Oh, the Oys! Oys! Oys! Oys!
If it’s not what they wanted, the OYS! OYS! OYS! OYS!
Then the Joos, young and old, would sit down for a nosh.
And they’d nosh! And they’d nosh!
And they’d NOSH! NOSH! NOSH! NOSH!
They would nosh on Joo-latkes, and Gefilte-Joo-Fish,
Which was surely the Kvetch’s least favorite dish!
And THEN
They’d do something
Which made the Kvetch plotz!
Every Joo down in Joo-ville, Bar Mitzvahed or not,
Would sit down together, their proud ponim’s grinning.
Then dreidels in hand, all the Joos would start spinning!
They’d spin! And they’d spin!
AND they’d SPIN! SPIN! SPIN! SPIN!
And the more the Kvetch thought of this Joo-Dreidel-Spin,
The more the Kvetch thought, “I can’t let this begin!
“Oy, for fifty-three years I’ve put up with it now!
“Chanukah, Schmanukah! Stop it!
… But HOW?”
Then he got an idea!
And the moment he had,
He said
“I’m no Einstein, but this… not half bad!”
“I know just what to do!” Then he donned an old sheet,
And dug up some sandals to wear on his feet.
“I’m the Prophet Elijiah! They’ve set me a plate!”
(For the Kvetch couldn’t keep Joo-ish holidays straight.)
“The Joos ‘ll oblige ol’ Elijiah, no doubt!
“I will simply walk in. Then I’ll clean the place out!”
“All I need is a camel…”
He looked far and near,
But this wasn’t the desert, and camels are dear.
Did that stop the old Kvetch…?
That pischer? No, never:
“If I can’t find a camel,” the Kvetch said, “…whatever.”
So he called his dog, Max. Then he took an old sack
And he tied a hump onto the front of his back.
THEN
He climbed on this
dog-dromedaryish mammal.
You never have seen
Such a schmuck on a camel.
Then the Kvetch cried “Oy vey!”
As old Max started down
Toward the homes, while the Joos
Where still schmoozing in town.
All their driveways were empty. Just SUV tracks.
All the Joos were out last-minute-shopping at Saks,
As he rode to a not-so-small house on old Max.
“It’s a good thing I brought” the old Prophet Kvetch thought,
“All these bags with to stuff all the stuff the Joos bought.”
Then he looked at the chimney. It seemed quite a stretch
That a fat goy like Santa could fit, thought the Kvetch,
“Still, the goyim believe stranger things, that’s for sure.”
Then the Kvetch shrugged his shoulders, and walked through the door
Where the little Joo dreidels were all strewn about.
“These dreidels,” he grinned, “are the first to go out!”
And he schvitzed, as he shlepped, with an odor unpleasant,
Around the whole house, as he took every present!
Barbie dolls! Mountain bikes! Brios! And blocks!
Pokemon! GameBoys! And all of that shlock!
And he stuffed them in bags. Then his arms spread akimbo,
He shlepped all the bags, one by one, out the wimbo!
Then he shlepped to the kitchen. He took every dish.
He took the Joo-latkes. The Gefilte-Joo-Fish.
He cleaned out the Sub-Zero so nimbly and neat,
Careful to separate dairy from meat.
Then he shlepped the Joo-nosh right out the front door-a.
“And NOW!” kvelled the Kvetch, “I will shlep the menorah!”
And he grabbed the menorah, and started to shlep on,
When he heard a whine, like a cat being stepped on.
He spun ‘round with shpilkes, and coming his way,
It was Ruth Levy-Joo, who was two, if a day.
The Kvetch had been caught by this small shaina maidel,
Who’d been watching TV on her big RCA’dle.
“The Prophet Elijiah?” she quizzed the old fool,
“You visit on Pesach, they taught us in shul.”
And although the old Kvetch was surprised and confused,
It’s not hard to lie to a girl in her twos.
“Bubbeleh… sweatheart…” he started his tale,
“Your dad paid full price, when this all was on sale!
“And like any good merchant, I just want to please ya.
“I’ll ring it up right, then I’ll refund your VISA.”
Then he patted her tush. Put a Barney tape in.
And she spaced-out as fast as the spindle could spin.
And as Ruth Levy-Joo watched her mauve dinosaura,
HE went to the door and shlepped out the menorah!
Then the match for the shamas
Was last to be filched!
Then he shlepped himself out to continue his pillage.
On the walls he left nothing at all. Bubkes. Zilch.
And the one speck of food
That he left in the house
Was a matzoh ball even too dense for a mouse.
Then
He did the same schtick
In the other Joo’s houses.
Leaving knaidlach
Too dense
For the other Joo’s mouses!
It was quarter to dusk…
All the Joos, still at Saks,
All the Joos, still a-shmooze
When he packed up old Max,
Packed him up with their presents! The gelt and the dreidels!
The chotchkes and latkes! The knish and the knaidels!
He hauled it all up to his condo in haste!
(A Grinch might have dumped it, but why go to waste?)
“Shtup you!” to the Joos, the Kvetch loudly cheered,
“They’re finding out Chanukah’s cancelled this year!
“They’re just coming home! I know just what they’ll say!
“They’ll ask their homeowners insurance to pay,
“Then the Joos down in Joo-ville will all cry OY VEY!”
“All those Oys,” kvelled the Kvetch,
“Now THIS I must hear!”
So he paused. And the Kvetch put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising up from the shtetl.
It started to grow. Then the Kvetch grew unsettled…
Why the sound wasn’t sad,
It was more like the noise
Of a UPS trucker
Delivering toys!
He stared down at Joo-ville!
And then the Kvetch shook,
As truck after truck
Replaced all that he took!
Every Joo down in Joo-ville, the Golds and the Steins,
Re-ordered their presents by going online!
Chanukah HADN’T been cancelled!
IT CAME!
…On UPS trucks… but it came just the same!
Then the Kvetch, staring down at the gifts where they sat,
Stood kvitching and kvetching: “For this, I did that?
“It came without traffic! It came without tax!
“It came without shopping at Bloomie’s or Saks!”
And he kvetched on and on, til he started to shvitz,
Then the Kvetch thought of something which might make him rich!
“Maybe stores,” thought the Kvetch, “don’t need mortar and bricks.
“Maybe toys can be bought with a few well-placed clicks!”
And what happened then…?
Well… in Joo-ville they say
That the Kvetch raised
Ten million in venture that day!
And the minute his web site was ready to go,
He raised ten billion more on his new IPO!
He sold back the toys to the homes they came from!
And he…
… he the Kvetch…!
Founded YA-JOO.COM!
©2000 by David Goldstein
All rights reserved
[An HA holiday tradition (and with perfect timing what with the first night of Chanukah and Christmas Eve lining up this year), with apologies to the late, great Dr. Seuss—but not to those greedy, litigious bastards at Dr. Seuss Enterprises, LLC. So there. Happy Christmukah.]
Trevor and Barack: Navigating America’s racial divide.
David Pakman: Most Americans realize that things are pretty good under Obama.
How one man found his inner Obama.
Putin Puppet, Pussy Pawing, Presnit Erect Трамп:
Michael Brooks: Alex Jones is back to Birferism!
Mental Floss: 27 things you might not know about Star Wars.
Left behind in the rush for lithium.
The Hostile Transfer of Power:
Samantha Bee: Strange bedfellows.
Young Turks: Michelle Obama responds to “angry black woman” criticism.
2016 Pretty Much Sucked:
Demographics of the 115th Congress.
Jonathan Mann: Abolish the Electoral College:
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
If you’re celebrating the Feast of Sol Invictus, Newtonmass, Festivus, or perhaps some obscure one, have happy holidays.
Good on the protesters of the new youth jail. I’m not as opposed to the jail as they are. But, I’m glad they’re keeping the pressure on it.
Some Mondays really suck. And, holy crap do we all need a drink today! Fortunately, we have the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally. Come on in, order a pint, and let’s talk resistance.
We meet every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern beginning about 8pm.
Can’t make it to Seattle? Check out one of the other 196 chapters of Living Liberally, including ninteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find, or go out and start, a chapter near you.
Y’all can guess I don’t like Cathy McMorris Rodgers, and her being Sec. of the Interior would have been bad. But holy shit, her being passed over for Donald Trump, Jr.’s hunting buddy is pretty awful. Trump can pick whatever unqualified asshole he wants. On the other, there should probably be a better process. I mean Trump Jr. is supposed to be running the business. Still, there has to be a better selection process.
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!