Friday afternoon, I was sure I had my diary topic for tonight. Funny how I was only partially right. Follow me below the orange flame after a word from our sponsor...
Here at Top Comments we strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailbox by 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find!
So, Friday. I decided it finally was time to swap out the long-sleeved shirts and polarfleece for shorts and tank tops. As my bed filled with Keep, Donate, Pack and Oh Cool I Thought I'd Lost That piles, I looked for more horizontal space to shuffle things around and came up with... the top of the bookshelves repurposed to be where I keep my folded clothes. Being short, I kind of shoved the clothes up and kept sorting things.
Little bit later, I smell something funny, and go downstairs to see if I left the stove on after cooking lunch. Nope. I go back upstairs, where I smell something burning, and wonder if the extension cord is overloaded, so I start hunting around for something burning. Finding nothing, but now seeing smoke, I look up... and see one of my sweaters just moving from "smoldering" to "fiery" and not in that sultry sexy way many of us would like our clothing to look.
Well fuck, I'd totally forgotten the light on top of my shelf, and pushed a stack of clothes on top of it. And now I'm busy setting said clothes on fire. I grabbed the stack and ran it to the bathroom sink, dousing the embers. Rushed back into the bedroom to look for embers that might have fallen, and look up to see this on the wall:
At this point I wondered if I'd really gotten everything in time, even though the smoke detectors had stopped. So I called the Fire Department, making sure to say there was no fire present, I was just being careful. Respecting that statement, two trucks with sirens blazing arrived and five firemen in full dress, with axes and scuba gear, trooped into the bedroom. Now, I realize that for many of us you, this is a deeply held fantasy. I can state categorically that it was far less satisfying in reality; however, they did do their firemanly duty. After checking things out with a thermal camera while reassuring me I did exactly the right thing, they departed and I put the room back into order, and trashed The Sweater:
So yeah, I nearly set fire to my house because I was careless. In my original diary plan, I gave a heartfelt shoutout to the Fire Department and said this was the most foolish I'd ever felt, and the most scared. It still ranks pretty high on both counts, but then today happened, and I read and heard and saw things that my Muse requires I add to the foolish and scary columns:
Two Oregon high school students are dead by gunfire, one at the hands of the other. While thankfully this classifies as a "minor" school shooting given recent happenings, what the FUCK does it mean that school shootings happen often enough to feel "minor"?
HOW many gun fatalities have we had in the past year? Two years? This was the 74th school shooting since Sandy Hook in December 2012. What the hell is wrong with people that gun control can't be discussed when this many tragedies happen?
I know we're supposed to wait a respectful amount of time after a gun tragedy before we engage in gun control discussion, but how the FUCK do we get to that reasonable time when shootings happen so damned frequently?
What the hell does it say about our culture that instead of being able to have a discussion on gun control, instead we've got companies pitching the Bodyguard Blanket which resembles nothing so much as the Duck and Cover crap I wrote about recently.
Yes, I'm fired up. But no longer because I was careless. Rather, because so many people could care less. I'm looking at you, NRA and your bought-n-paid for Congresscritters. I'm staring at you, Second Amendment prosthetic penis fetishists, so attached to the metal dick-substitute in your hands you'd let people die, yet in general too fucking cowardly to actually serve your country in an actual militia.
You're not a Good Guy With A Gun, none of you. You cherrypick the Constitution to highlight one grammatically challenged Amendment. Let me remind you of the Preamble... you know, the part that was in the Constitution FIRST:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
I am not feeling particularly Tranquil domestically. You shouldn't be either.
Thanks to BeninSC, I am feeling a LOT more tranquil than when I started, because he formatted the Tops. Shower him with mojo because he deserves it.
Brillig's ObDisclaimer: The decision to publish each nomination lies with the evening's Diarist and/or Comment Formatter. My evenings at the helm, I try reeeeallllyy hard to publish everything without regard to content. I really do, even when I disagree personally with any given nomination. "TopCommentness" lies in the eyes of the nominator and of you, the reader - I leave the decision to you. I do not publish self-nominations (ie your own comments) and if I ruled the world, we'd all build community, supporting and uplifting instead of tearing our fellow Kossacks down.
From enhydra lutris:
In bobswern's fantastic diary, both corvo and Eric Stetson had wonderful comments. (corvo's comment here, and Eric Stetson's comment here).
From Samer:
I am nominating this comment by buckshot face.
(To quote someone who replied to the above post, Black Max:
This might be the most viciously perfect piece of dark snark I've ever seen.)
From BeninSC:
In last night's Top Comments, this comment by sfbob typified the kind of comment I most like to read in a diary I posted, and the comment threads of that diary were all terrific! It is thoughtful, constructive, it makes a real contribution!
From gchaucer2:
We are all giddy about Cantor's defeat but gabjoh has my favorite reaction!
Please let me have done this correctly and easy for you folks.
Thanks TC volunteers. You are the best!!!!!!!
(Ed. note: No no no! Our intrepid comment submitters are the best!!!!!!!! ::wink:: )
From Yours Truly, brillig:
Vita Brevis' diary White Iowa teacher tells black student to address him by saying, ‘Yes, sir, master’ had many excellent comments. This one by bkamr gets my nod for both experience and insight.
annieli started a very wily thread in Laura Clawson's California discovers hidden price tag of outsourcing Bay Bridge to China.
Some comment flags for tonight:
Flagged by kj in missouri, this comment by SilverWillow is golden (silver?!)!
Flagged by ozsea1, this comment (second tonight!) from Eric Stetson is out of recommendability, but it skewers the idea of 'trickle-down economics!'
Flagged by jan4insight, this comment by diomedes77 is a fine example of thoughtful ideas on gun safety.
Top Mojo for yesterday, June 9th, first comments and tip jars excluded. Thank you
mik for the mojo magic! For those of you interested in How Top Mojo Works, please see his diary
FAQing Top Mojo.
1) Excellent post, but even deaths of by TomP — 175
2) Kind of my point. by Crashing Vor — 131
3) For me, it's not about... by atdnext — 120
4) Halle-fucking-lujah! It is about time! by quiet in NC — 113
5) I swear, if I see some folks pushing a shopping by collardgreens — 108
6) They say crime has been going down for decades by some other george — 105
7) the 3rd person killed by Short Bus — 99
8) Good by Dallasdoc — 98
9) If I wrote what I really thought about this guy by Diogenes2008 — 91
10) Have Sean Hannity's Chickens Come Home To Roost? by snapples — 84
11) Remember the DHS report about RW militia? by Dirk McQuigley — 83
12) Dude, because they were WHITE by Vyan — 83
13) If the Prayer Caucus in Congress gets its way... by Shockwave — 82
14) There was a 2008 candidate who said the by RFK Lives — 78
15) What other country in the world would put up with by Bob Johnson — 78
16) These two let the customers leave... by Bob Johnson — 75
17) Not for being too right-wing by phenry — 74
18) Because probably many agree by sethtriggs — 73
19) asdf by OLinda — 72
20) Even fully trained police hit bystanders. by diomedes77 — 70
21) That video NEVER gets old =) by BadKitties — 70
22) There's been trouble between militia factions by Mopshell — 68
23) For a guy who "didn't want" to kill federal agents by Hunter — 68
24) The New Meaning by stevemb — 67
25) And yet, I've seen comments by the gun by jan4insight — 66
26) While I agree it is sort of "skit like" and by left my heart — 65
27) The administration could easily have asked by David Harris Gershon — 65
28) What the hell is it with Obama and whistleblowers? by Shockwave — 65
29) Beautiful. Vets should be the most disgusted wi... by TheRealTylerM — 64
30) When kids have to hide in the bathtub by Crashing Vor — 63
31) Here's the thing by oruacat2 — 63
2014-06-09 Top Comments with Pictures, courtesy of
jotter!