Friday, July 8, 2016

Now covering knitting and yarn crafts



     So the year is half over, and like me, you're wondering how the knitting vogues that were ballyhooed at the start of 2016 are faring. You remember when Skeinoblog laid out its "Knitting Trends 2016: What's Hot This Year"? Just how popular were these new "super-bulky yarns" anyway?
      "Hand-knitting follows the fashion industry," said Cindy Cooper, owner of Elemental Yarns in Plainfield. "Yeah, we have some super-bulkies. But a lot of the influence comes from television shows, like 'Game of Thrones.'"
     Then there's the issue of sustainability, which...
     Okay, so I can't really devote my entire column to knitting. Believe me, I was tempted. At least I had the thought: I could be the knitting reporter, covering the yarn arts beat. As the presidential campaign veers deeper into farce, a bone deep revulsion sets in at the prospect of reaching my hands into the mess and trying to arrange its gloppy, putrid contents into some kind of order. Knitting seems so pleasant by comparison.
     On Saturday, Donald Trump retweeted a white supremacist graphic that shows Hillary Clinton against a sea of money and a Jewish Star. He does that a lot—tweets neo-Nazi tropes to his 9.5 million followers. That's why they love him. Well that, and his slurs against racial and religious groups.


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6 comments:

  1. Loved Hilary's "Do you want to build a strawman?" response.

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  2. I'll try in vain to be an apologist for Trump. WGN channel 9 made a similar gaff last year when they used a Nazi era Star of David image, an image meant to be demeaning by having "Jude" in a faux Hebrew font, which Jewish people where forced to wear under penalty of death. This was part of a Yom Kippur news segment. When it was brought to their attention they were profusely apologetic. Not so Trump, end of his defense, in that he can't even conceive how such an image can be offensive to not only Jewish People, but anyone who deplores racism.
    Now to Hillary and her basement homebrew email server. No carelessness here, Bryan Pagliano the tech who installed the server pled the fifth on numerous occasions when testifying about his work, he knew it was illegal. But, meh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ who cares about details of legality. The reason Hillary put this in place was so she could permanently delete any email that might put her in an unfavorable light. What this demonstrates is a deeply rooted paranoia. She has a fear of a mythological vast right wing conspiracy, akin to the extreme right wingers who believe in a vast left wing conspiracy.

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    1. Trump has tweeted or retreated white supremacists over 75 times. It's not a mistake. He's doing it deliberately. If he didn't want to be outed at sharing white supremacist tweets, he'd insist his "best people" vet--or better yet originate--tweets.

      As for Hillary...the federal government is antiquated. The real take away from the investigation should have been to require modernization and continued upkeep. That's what would have happened if it weren't just a partisan witch hunt. Do you remember when Obama was elected? They took away his cell phone. In 2009. His first fight was to get access to a Blackberry.

      It's not paranoia. It's trying to function in a timely manner. If she hadn't used a personal server, she would have been called incompetent for not being responsive.

      You know who else uses a private server? Trey Gowdy. Jason Chaffetz uses Gmail instead of his .gov account. Are they paranoid? Shouldn't they face the same treatment Clinton has?

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    2. Trump has tweeted or retreated white supremacists over 75 times. It's not a mistake. He's doing it deliberately. If he didn't want to be outed at sharing white supremacist tweets, he'd insist his "best people" vet--or better yet originate--tweets.

      As for Hillary...the federal government is antiquated. The real take away from the investigation should have been to require modernization and continued upkeep. That's what would have happened if it weren't just a partisan witch hunt. Do you remember when Obama was elected? They took away his cell phone. In 2009. His first fight was to get access to a Blackberry.

      It's not paranoia. It's trying to function in a timely manner. If she hadn't used a personal server, she would have been called incompetent for not being responsive.

      You know who else uses a private server? Trey Gowdy. Jason Chaffetz uses Gmail instead of his .gov account. Are they paranoid? Shouldn't they face the same treatment Clinton has?

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    3. Whoa Caren, you may have missed the point I was making about Trump. More plainly, The Donald is at a level of racist belief where a Star of David superimposed on a pile of cash is a normal representation for the state of the world.
      Also for anyone who is interested, Google can and does save copies of Gmail and Google Apps messages after they have been deleted. Whatever Trey Gowdy and Jason Chaffetz had in mind, if it was concealing there bad deeds they were going about it the wrong way. I've corresponded with Federal employees who used .gov accounts over the years, with no problems with a timely response, or handling attachments. Another poor excuse Hillary made was wanting to use one email account to make things easier? There are numerous programs and apps that simplify using multiple email accounts at once. I'll reiterate, the most common reason to have a private email server is to keep a tight control on availability of emails to others.

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  3. I am excited about your knitting! If you're looking for something entertaining to do in early August, and you're going to be in Schaumburg, look up Stitches Midwest 2016. It's a knitting and crochet festival with classes, a huge yarn market, and tons of people wearing all the cool stuff they made themselves.

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