Woke up at 4am, right around the time the AP called it. My feeds rapidly filled with celebration.

Sun's not up here yet, but I have an 8am zoom call with some of the women in the Pantsuit Politics community. Hm. I wonder if I can get an American-themed background up before then. I'm sure I have the fabrics. And it would distract me suitably from this story which I haven't been writing for a week.

Anyway:

CONGRATULATIONS AMERICA

I have lots more things to say, but you've had a rough week (haven't we all) - go celebrate, rejoice, weep, and be comforted. You're not dead yet.

Stay safe and stay strong tomorrow, my US friends.

I'm praying for the results we hope for: indisputable, solid, and real. But if not, then we'll all Wait For It.

And even if that outcome isn't what we hoped for, then I'll be grieving alongside you, and praying for you to remain strong - as we all will have to be.

*hugs*

US Politics: A Chart With The Nitty Gritty of Voting

Conflicted Allegiance
A US Christian reflecting on the Pledge of Allegiance, and on Christianity and politics. It's aimed at a US audience, but I feel this works for Australia, too.

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Christian and related:

Early Church Understandings Of Jesus as the Female Divine
Haven't actually read this yet.

A COVID vaccine acceptable to Catholics

Why are some Christians so worried about a COVID vaccine?

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Qanon:

6 Reasons Many Spiritual People Are Being Fooled By Qanon
Qanon in Australia

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General

Where Can You Be Safe In This World? Maybe We're Asking The Wrong Question.

Wow. On one hand, I'm glad that Bernie has enthusiastically endorsed Biden. On the other hand...

( I guess I have feelings about this )

Yes, I most definitely have feelings.

On the other hand, for the first time in the last six months, I feel like the US might actually be able to be rid of Trump.

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I'm writing a series on 'Real Chooken Keeping' for all the people who went out and panic-bought chickens to provide them with eggs after eggs got cleaned out off the shelves. (Dumbest hoarding ever, if you ask me.)

( draft 1: not going to be published )

That's not complete, there are some sections which I haven't filled in. But I decided not to go so hardcore in the end. The actual version is a bit nicer, but I don't pull punches.

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After a weekend or two not coming over, B2 is still coming over during the week. She really doesn't do isolation. *sigh*

Specifically, a peach-mint whiskey cocktail.



For reasons utterly inexplicable, the whiskey in this cocktail absolutely shines.

Recipe roughly cribbed from Smitten Kitchen's Bourbon Peach Smash. Peaches from my front tree.

He had a knife, not a gun. It makes a difference. A woman died and another is in hospital. (And don't think that the gender is irrelevant, either. It almost definitely is.)

If the kind of weapon doesn't matter because a crime is still committed, then Americans must be piss-ass weaklings, because we Aussies disarm our armed nutjobs with a crate and a couple of cafe chairs, while Americans lie down and bleed out so their President can have grinning photo ops with the survivors.

#makeaustraliacrateagain

Is it inappropriate to joke about this? Absofuckinglutely not. Not if it saves lives in the future.

But you're not interested in lives, are you? You're only interested in your dick replacement 'therapy' and your inferiority complex that means you're only big so long as you 'have the abilty to fight back' like that somehow makes you better, instead of just more fortunate.

You can keep your guns, America. We'll keep our people alive.

Now, to stomp Pauline Hanson's One Nation and their NRA-sponsored shitstirring into the dust beneath the feet of the tourists no longer climbing Uluru...

Yes, I know, #notallamericans and I'm preaching to the choir here. But I've said this on IG and others have said it on FB, and sometimes you just need to go off.

The cancer eating the heart of Australian democracy
Hint: it begins with R, and ends with ‘upert Murdoch’.

In Texas Senate Vote, Cruz Barely leads O’Rourke
They say that Texas may no longer be as red as red can be. Wouldn’t it be nice?

America soured on my multiracial family
The abuse started off with well-meaning leftists, and over time, switched to racial purity right-wingers.

The end of citrus season
A chinotto recipe.

observations from a tipless restaurant (part 1)

A certain small number of very vocal men (and it was always men who were vocal about it) resented that we were not letting them try to exercise additional control over our team members. This was true even though compelling research has shown that servers do not adjust quality of service as a result of tips; instead the idea that the restaurant was not offering our servers up as objects of control, was heresy. For these people, the primary service they wanted from the restaurant was the opportunity to pay for favors from the server — much like the patron at a strip club pays the club for the opportunity to dangle bills in front a dancer for individual attention. The idea that a restaurant could legitimately want to be in a different business than a strip club, was not an idea these guests could countenance.

You should read through all the parts and the postscript, because it's really an insight into the American psyche as well as an exploration of the illogicity of tipping.

Now I want a study about tipping in Australia vs. tipping in America, what it means and how it operates in comparison to the things that he looked at in his article...

Putin and his American Instrument: Putin and his Trumpet.

Silencing The Hillary Clinton Supporter: we've heard everything about the Trump supporters - to the point where mainstream media has been trying to 'humanise' right wing white supremacists, but nothing about the people who mostly supported Hillary - their hopes, their dreams, and what they lost when Trump was elected.

Brandon Hatmaker on Colin Kaepernick: Brandon Hatmaker is the husband (presumably) of Jen Hatmaker, an American Christian who spoke out in favour of LGBT in the church and had her books dropped from sale by one of the biggest Evangelical publishers in the US (and probably the world).

That Which Google Has Named Evil...: By co-opting a word with moral meaning to describe the functional impediment of technology without any specific morality attached, Google has effectively reframed the context of 'good' and 'evil' so that Google is God - the arbiter of what is right and wrong.

A Woman, Explaining Things: Yeah, you've probably seen this, but it's still good.

First They Came For...: New York Times, which means you might not be able to read it. (I saved it in Instapaper, which takes the page data and strips it down to the text and key images.)

This has come as a great shock and demoralizer to many Americans, not necessarily because they didn’t think Trump was capable of such depravity, but because they simply were unprepared for the daily reality of living a nightmare.

There is an enduring expectation, particularly among American liberals, that progress in this society should move inexorably toward more openness, honesty and equality. But even the historical record doesn’t support that expectation.

Some things get better, many things get worse.

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Australia has had an interesting week of governmental resignations (which everyone else would have missed while That Orange Guy was tweeting away).

Two Greens Senators and a Liberal (conservative party) Senator have had to resign because it turns out they have dual citizenship, which isn't allowed for serving members of Parliament. Another Liberal Senator no longer has a dual citizenship, but was only notified that he'd been de-citizened from the other country five months after the election that raised him to his position.

And, of course, he was one of the loudest voices criticising the Greens senators for getting it wrong.

What do I say? What can I say when the policies won't affect me directly (but the attitudes of entitlement will)?

I wrote this this morning, I don't think it quite says what I wanted it to say, but it's peeling back the layers of how I'm going to live out my faith right now in the current situation and the clusterfuck that American Evangelicals have been a party to. (They're not the only problem, but they're the one I think I understand the most because there but for the grace of God is me.

Quenched: identity in Christ - a personal faith perspective. Don't feel you need to read it. It's pretty rambly, and more a reminder for me and a way to hold myself accountable in future.

In the meantime...

Can I help? Is there something that you need that I can provide? Distraction? Stories? Cat pictures? Anything?

(I was hoping to make this post 6 hours ago, when it might have been useful. Sorry. Life got away from me. As it does.)