Good evening, Kibitzers! Summer is almost over! The autumnal equinox will occur this Saturday the 22nd, at 9:54 pm ET, followed by the full Harvest Moon on Monday the 24th at 10:54 pm ET. As you may know, I hate hot weather, so I won’t really be sorry to see the back of it. Yeah, I know, sleet and all that, but in between — that’s my season.
Before I go any further I need to let you know, especially those on the west coast who may not have dined yet, that today is National Cheeseburger Day. I have no idea why, but apparently there are deals to be had, so if you are so inclined, check ‘em out.
This is a rather hastily-assembled diary. States well south of me have suffered disastrous flooding from endless pouring rain (while here, it’s rained lightly and intermittently), so my electricity apparently went out in sympathy, or perhaps it went down to power things in the Carolinas, which is at least a worthwhile use of its time. Anyway, it’s back now, but people who imagine they’ll write their diary at lunchtime are… subject to correction, is all.
So! This is the 167th birthday of the Failing New York Times, founded on this date in 1851 as the Failing New-York Daily Times. You can see right away that Donald Trump is far superior at failing, having been at it only since 1946 and obviously much, much further along. Be best.
It’s June Foray’s birthday; she passed away only last year at age 99. She was a skilled voice actress from the time she was 12. If you’ve ever seen anything animated, you’ve probably heard her work.
In 1971, “Cup O’ Noodles” instant ramen in a styrofoam cup went on sale in the US for the first time, making it possible to be a student without dying of starvation. Momofuku Ando had invented instant noodles in 1958 and sold them in Japan, where they were originally a pricey luxury item. The innovation in the US product was the foam cup to insulate the user from the boiling water. The name of this product was changed to “Cup Noodles” without the O in 1993, to reflect what they were called in more or less the rest of the world.
When I was a kid and there were only the broadcast TV channels, September was the beginning of the new television season. Among the shows premiering on this date: The Addams Family (1964), I Dream of Jeannie (1965), and Get Smart (1965).
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by and tell us about your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper. Newcomers may notice that many who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but we welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
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🌟 GOTV 🌟
🌟 POSTCARDING: If you are looking for a way to help and can’t do things like canvassing or phoning, consider hand-writing postcards asking people to vote. It’s easy because you’re given specific talking points from the campaign you’re working with, so you don’t have to think up what to say, and no one will be coming back at you with questions. And if you like to color, you can get creative decorating the cards. Note that you are responsible for buying postcards (and stamps if you don’t use pre-stamped ones.) Postcard stamps are 35 cents each; pre-stamped postcards from USPS are 39 cents each; two different pretty designs. If you can spend a little more, jan4insight makes some nice ones, the two postcard sites sell their designs, or searching the phrase “postcards to voters” on Amazon will show you many designs.
To get started:
🌟 CONFIRM YOU ARE REGISTERED, REPEAT REGULARLY, AND GET YOUR FAMILY AND OTHERS TO DO THE SAME!!!
- Many kossacks have been surprised to find that their or a family member’s registration has mysteriously disappeared, even though it had been active. Don’t wait until too late to catch and correct this bullshit.
- HEADCOUNT.ORG will direct you to your state’s Department of State/Division of Elections (or similar) webpage, which is the horse’s mouth, as it were. My state page shows me as registered at my current address, for example.
- VOTE.ORG looks you up in its own database, which they admit is older than states’ databases. They do not show me as registered at my current address.
- Or, google something like “am I registered to vote” plus your state, and go to your state government’s page directly.
🌟 FOLLOW Yosef 52: Several times every day, the dauntless Yosef 52 posts GIANT resource diaries, containing links for virtually every Democrat who is running this November for just about anything north of dogcatcher. At the end, there are links to online tools for taking a wide variety of action. Please rec and share these diaries as you can, to get more eyes on these resources, and also, don’t forget to make use of them if you’re looking for a candidate to help or a way to help them!
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It is now Day 110 of the new hurricane season.
This is considered the peak of the season. This Thursday, Sept. 20, will be A YEAR since Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico, and we see nothing but denial from the Orange House.
PLEASE FOLLOW Denise Oliver Velez and the SOS Puerto Rico group for the latest news about developments in Puerto Rico and the USVI. Denise’s most recent Puerto Rico diary is here (and another here). She generally collects resonant tweets at the top of her comment threads, as well, and in the APR’s thread most mornings, to make it easy to retweet. If you tweet or FB, please share something about Puerto Rico and USVI regularly.
PUERTO RICO and USVI DISASTER RELIEF DONATION LINKS
The Daily Kos community has its own project: Puerto Rico resident Bobby Neary (newpioneer) leads a small team dedicated to helping a specific rural elder who was left by the storms without power, water, a roof, or any belongings but a moldy mattress. If you like to see concrete results, this is the project for you. See newpioneer’s diaries for ways to help. See this one in particular, and this comment with photos. See also his lovely and heartbreaking poem.
(🌅 = most recently recommended by Denise)
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