{"id":58690,"date":"2026-02-01T11:41:47","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T19:41:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=58690"},"modified":"2026-02-01T11:41:47","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T19:41:47","slug":"open-thread-february-1-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2026\/02\/01\/open-thread-february-1-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread February 1 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, it didn&#8217;t snow (it hasn&#8217;t since Monday) and the snow we did have is virtually gone. The radio opera was Arabella by Richard Strauss, which the last summer season also included, so it&#8217;s way to soon to say anything else about it. Mostly, I just cleaned out my inbox and committed knitting. I have three projects going, which is rare for me &#8211; usually I just work on one till it&#8217;s finished.<\/p>\n<p>This doesn&#8217;t sound like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theroot.com\/black-new-york-woman-makes-a-home-at-late-husband-s-gra-2000086529\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">good news<\/a> rom the headline. You need to read the story. Then it&#8217;s good news.<\/p>\n<p>Veterans. And kids. If you get newsletters from &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wtvr.com\/news\/local-news\/chesterfield-eagle-scouts-welcome-home-kits-veterans-jan-24-2026\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the Smile<\/a>&#8221; and saw this, you might have guessed I would share it.<\/p>\n<p>I am not in the least worried about the birth rate &#8211; well, maybe that it&#8217;s too high &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/westmoreland-county-snowstorm-baby-born\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">but this is just sweet<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8saU0WeocP0?si=z4VxflioHokYx4PF\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MjvXBoMGDcM?si=4M-PCrpenw3pQ8w3\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-58692\" src=\"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/sofa.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1043\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/sofa.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/sofa-230x300.jpg 230w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/sofa-785x1024.jpg 785w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/sofa-115x150.jpg 115w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/sofa-768x1001.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, it didn&#8217;t snow (it hasn&#8217;t since Monday) and the snow we did have is virtually gone. The radio opera was Arabella by Richard Strauss, which the last summer season also included, so it&#8217;s way to soon to say anything else about it. Mostly, I just cleaned out my inbox and committed knitting. I have <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2026\/02\/01\/open-thread-february-1-2026\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":58319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4355,7094,4531,7096,3868,3709,5134,3718,3731,3811,7095,4048],"class_list":["post-58690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-animals","tag-babies","tag-dogs","tag-eagle-scouts","tag-homelessness","tag-humor","tag-kindness","tag-music","tag-parody","tag-personal","tag-snowstorms","tag-veterans","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}