The Anti-Trump Hotel.

Oh, this place sounds fabulous! From what I’ve read, I might want to live there. :D

The first thing you’ll see when you walk into Eaton Workshop, a hotel opening in late spring 2018 in Washington, is a custom-commissioned video art installation by AJ Schnack, shown on a series of vintage-style television screens. All day long, it’ll broadcast a montage of footage from the presidential elections of 2012 and 2016 that’s built around one pointed question: How did our country get where it is today?

It’s not a subtle statement, and it’s not meant to be.

In Trump’s Washington, Eaton is planting a clear flag as a haven for Democrats. It’s the world’s first politically motivated hotel, the flagship for a global brand that’s built around social activism and community engagement. And it comes with a pedigree: As the daughter of Ka Shui Lo, the creator and executive chairman of Hong Kong-based Langham Hospitality Group Ltd., founder Katherine Lo knows a thing or two about luxury hotels and world-class service.

Lo firmly believes that hotels ought to be catalysts for good. In a world where we can be conscious consumers—of everything from clothing to food to baby products—she argues there’s a place for conscious hotels, too. This isn’t a revolutionary idea: Already, 1 Hotels has built a small collection of luxury properties entirely around the idea of sustainability, and Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts has made a significant, brand-wide commitment to bolster community programming for disadvantaged children in all of its destinations. It’s one of many five-star brands that have a conscious ethos but choose not to flaunt it.

Eaton Workshop is different. With a premise that’s built around liberal activism and civic engagement, the brand will weave a liberal philosophy into every aspect of the guest experience, some more obvious than others.

[…]

Among the Washington location’s programming signatures will be a sort of TED talk series driven by the liberal agenda, consisting of fireside chats and rooftop lectures that Lo hopes will be free, open to the public, and streamable as Eaton-branded podcasts. Then comes the art program, which—aside from the political statement piece at check-in—will include commissions from at least a half-dozen up-and-coming local artists and a street-facing exhibition window curated in partnership with local museums and institutions. A co-working space will prioritize memberships for progressive startups, activists, and artists, while a wellness program will offer “inner-health-focused treatments” such as Reiki and sound baths, rather than facials and massages. (Some of these features will roll out a few months after the hotel opens.)

Just as important, partners and staff will be brought on board, both for their skills in the food and beverage worlds and their activist track records. For instance, Lo saw the cocktail director of the famed Columbia Room, Derek Brown, as a perfect fit to be the hotel’s beverage director—not just because he’s won such awards as Imbibe magazine’s Bartender of the Year but because he “cares deeply about social justice.” To wit, Brown actively champions policies that fight sexual harassment in the bartending industry and acts as chief spirit advisor for the National Archives.

Similarly, Lo says that the “amazing life story” of house chef Tim Ma “perfectly expresses our brand ethos.” The Chinese-American culinary up-and-comer was an engineer at the National Security Agency for years before discovering his true passion in food. At Eaton’s to-be-named restaurant, Ma is planning a menu with a heavy focus on vegetables from an on-site garden.

A guest who does nothing other than check in, sleep atop Eaton’s organic mattresses, and check out will still have a sense of the hotel’s mission, says Lo. “We plan to have new ideas in the minibar—an activist toolkit, for example, that includes sheets with information to help you call your congresspeople. And if we’d been open during this year’s Women’s March, I could have seen us putting poster boards and markers in the rooms!”

Political statements such as these will be tailored to each property. In Hong Kong, for instance, Lo says she’d like to replace Bibles in the nightstand drawers with copies of the United Nations Declaration for Human Rights.

Raw Story and Bloomberg have this story.  Eaton Workshop.

Contagious America: The Anti-Equality Tour.

Kim Davis, the county clerk from Kentucky who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the U.S. Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision, spent nine days in October on a tour of Romania to boost religious conservatives’ push for a referendum to put a ban on same-sex couples marrying into the country’s constitution. Davis traveled with Liberty Counsel Vice President Harry Mihet, who was born in Romania. Mihet discussed the trip last week with Liberty Counsel president Mat Staver on Faith and Freedom, the group’s weekly radio show.

Staver said that Mihet and Davis met with “four out of the six top archbishops of the Orthodox Church” as well as evangelical leaders and heads of “pro-family” organizations. Mihet said they spoke to “several hundred people” in six of the country’s largest cities, with “thousands” more watching online.

Staver said that Davis made the trip to tell her story as a warning about “the implications” of a country going “the wrong way on marriage.” Mihet said Davis gave a “powerful” message about the need to define marriage in the constitution to prevent the kind of “devastating” impact on people of faith experienced in the United States because of “judicial activism and judicial overreach.”

The monstrous contagion that is America. People everywhere, don’t let your countries grow up to be Amerikka. Please. Be better than us, it’s not like it’s a high bar. RWW has the full story.

“They fall down if you’re dumb.”

Trump l’oeil: the atrium of Trump Towers.

I’m quite surprised Jim Bakker can breathe, he’s so busy screeching out dire warnings. This one is quite standard, democrats in power = all hell’s gonna break loose, you bet.

Bakker and his guest, Sharon Gilbert, agreed that President Trump is being protected by God and that Trump is much smarter than people think.

“You cannot build the most beautiful skyscrapers in the world if you’re dumb,” Bakker said. “They fall down if you’re dumb.”

It’s not nice to make someone snort tea in laughter. Most beautiful? Cheapshit gilt all over everything? Corners cut all over the place? Beauty is subjective, and I don’t find any Trump establishment to meet that standard. They might make The Gaudiest, Most God-Awful structures anywhere. As for them not falling down, were you under the impression that Trump actually got out there and did the construction? Set it up? Supervised it? No. He hired people, all of them smarter than him, to do the actual work. Trump wouldn’t know work if it smacked him in the face.

Bakker went on to warn that while Trump is committed to defending Christianity, Democrats are intent on destroying it.

“The left has become anti-Christ,” Bakker continued. “I’m convinced, if we would have elected the other candidate, we would be, right now, probably packing boxes to move out of our buildings and Christian television would begin to be a part of the end of era of the freedom of Christian television. They don’t want us, we’re one voice that speaks biblically and they don’t like the fact that God’s word differs with what they teach. If we change positions in this country and the other team takes over, you better get ready because all hell is going to break loose and America will not be a religious nation any longer.”

Oh fuck off. We were all doing quite well the past eight years, with a highly peaceful and scandal free white house, one in which actual work got done. No one cares about your tiny shows or your youtube channels. I thought Pres. Obama was supposed to be the anti-christ, and you all never stopped screeching for the whole time. No one came and got you in the middle of the night and quietly disappeared you. No one came to get you in daylight, either. You’re still here, spraying toxic stupid shit into the air by the tonne.

Oh, so you’re all one voice which speaks biblically? Two words: Roy Moore. You all don’t seem to be one voice there. One thing you can count on christians never being: a united front. You’re all so splintered and fractious, you’ll fight one another forever over the most piddling of things. That’s why I have little respect for moderate christians, because they are the foundation you religious reich asses rest on, and they won’t stand up to you.

So, America will  not be a religious nation any longer. That would be a good thing, because this is supposed to be a secular nation, not a christian one. Of course, as everyone remotely rational knows, the democrats don’t have the spine to say boo to christians. Nothing on that front will change. Never does.

Your ugly, psychopathic god preaches every evil. I would hope that good people would differ greatly in what they teach. I’m all for inclusion and acceptance. You want hate, rabid fear, exclusion, divisiveness, and the power to hurt others. No fucking thanks.

I did get a laugh looking at the opening screen on the video – there are wrapped boxes everywhere (most likely empty), a happily pagan winter solstice tree, garlands, and garish decorations. How very commercial of you, O righteous dude! Tsk.

Via RWW, there’s video.