I feel shitty, but I'm trying to to feel the day not as a celebration of our country but as a call to action. The Declaration of Insependence is more relevant than ever.
1: that typo may inspire me to finally write out my Declaration of Insipidness.
Columbus, Ohio also has their fireworks on the eve of July 4th. I seem to remember some bragging about our Red White and Boom celebration being the first. It seems
3: sorry, my phone is telling me to stop.
6: Thanks for sharing! A very interesting family! I checked and his mom is still alive.
Working on this terrible joke -- on this 4th of July I am thankful for one point of bipartisan comity-- we all agree it's Big.
It's pouring rain. Day 1 of a big 2 day concert. I'm planning to go see Lake Street Drive and Jason Isball tonight. My daughter and her fiancé are going to catch Hozier. Tomorrow, I'm probably only going for Kacey Musgraves, but the kids will see Modest Mouse and Mt. Joly.
I've periodically thought of putting my flag out. It's a Bennington flag, not the actual one. I don't know, it's after 3, so maybe not.
I am seeing fireworks at the base of Mt Washington which seems like it should be significant somehow but the fireworks back in the city are sure to be better.
13: But that sounds better than lat year's fireworks in my suburban town. It was a good show, but I'd prefer either the city or a small town like Richmond, Maine where they launch the, from an island in the middle of the river. In the city you can take public transit. In the small towns, there's space last years, My town was crowded enough that they had shuttles from various satellite parking lots, but finding parking was hard and the shuttles weren't super reliable and we had to traipse through the woods to get there.
Heebie, hope you're unharmed by the TX flooding.
15: Ditto. All those kids who went missing from the camp. How terrifying .
Apparently Heebieville has gotten a lot of rain, but the rivers with the disastrous flooding run through the town about 20 minutes south of us, so locally we're fine. (I mean, Geebies are currently in Florida, but still.)
I do know that some friends-of-friends have missing kids at camp though. Serious nightmare territory.
And I know that region well - our kids went to camp there for years, there's 5-10 camps in a row along the river in Hunt, Texas.
Another Heebieville acquaintance posted that sirens just went off for a weather alert. Sorry.
Yesterday they took away the people who run one of the big taco stands in my neighborhood. It's a huge and beloved operation; in the evenings there are usually people lined up down the block to buy tacos and aguas frescas. I guess because it was early on the the 4th there weren't a lot of people there, and ICE rolled up and arrested them.
In a normal year my neighborhood is nuts on the 4th and the days leading up to it; people buy truckloads of fireworks and set them off in their backyards. This year it's been eerily quiet. In a way I'm sure that's a good thing, since there were probably fewer house fires and people blowing their fingers off, but my god it's so sad. It feels like a curtain is dropping over the world.
That's so grim. I'm sorry to hear that.
20: have we verified whether or not we have a mutual friend?
We have not. Turns out I have two [invisible internet but non-Unfogged] friends in Heebieville but both are entomologists of some stripe so that should narrow down the possibilities.
I only know entomologists with dots.
In my experience, entomologists are constantly trying to get other people to eat bugs. You throw a party and they show up with candied crickets or some shit.
Imagine if every field was like that, botanists bringing weird plants to eat, zoologists bringing exotic animals. Just don't invite the anthropologists.
By mistake I googled Texas State Etymology Department, and AI helpfully explained that there is no department dedicated to studying the etymology of the word "Texas" specifically.
Attn. esp. Doug:
https://inmoscowsshadows.buzzsprout.com/1026985/episodes/17452028-in-moscow-s-shadows-207-what-is-going-on-between-baku-and-moscow
Thanks, Mossy!
I haven't listened yet and hadn't heard anything recent about arrested high-level Russian officials gangsters, but Putin vs Aliyev is definitely a root for injuries to the principals situation. I imagine things have been extra frosty since the Russians accidentally shot down an Azerbaijani passenger plane last December. Amazingly, the plane made it across the Caspian and almost landed safely in Kazakhstan. Also amazingly, about half the people on board survived.
24: chill, are you yourself an entomologist, or merely an entomologist-knower? My wife is an entomologist. I've never heard her try to get anybody to eat bugs, but maybe she has a secret side hustle.
34. "Waiter, what's this fly doing in my soup?"
"Looks like breast stroke, sir."
Am I two degrees from entomologists in BOTH my cities?? This is going to come in so handy during the plagues.
33: I just know them. It's kind of a hobby for me. Also, as long as we're discussing bug knowers near Heebie, Tony Gall_ucci should be, like, Governor of the Hill Country, or ideally all of Texas. Probably that name doesn't mean anything to anybody on here, just throwing it out kind of to see if the Texans on here know him. Just doing a ton of good work up in Kerrville area communicating and coordinating and helping people every way he can. A mensch.
Oh, and I left out, a mensch who has eaten Calopterygid damselflies, which he shared when I was speculating that they would probably be noxious (they're not, says Tony). What sort of entomolgy does Mrs. Mustache do?