Personal – Page 3 – Politics Plus

Open Thread March 13 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 132025

Yesterday, the first thing I did was check to see whether my Social Security had arrived. It had. So it’s replacement computer time. I’m still working on getting everything I will need either onto a portable hard drive or changed on the Net, Bu I can slow down a little. Incidentally, if you have ever wanted to say SOB (in full) in a different language, I have a few for you:
German Hündinsohn
French Fils de chienne
Italian Cagnafiglio
Greek skýla gios
Ukrainian сучий син (transliterated suchyy syn)
I know enough French, German, and Italian to be pretty sure those work. But my Greek is classical. That’s a transliteration. And my Ukrainian is non-existent, so that’s pure Google Translate. But I thought it would be really handy. (BTW in Italian “gn” and “gl” are pronounced “ny” and “ly” respectively. So, “canyafeelyio.”)

PolitiZoom‘s article speaks for itself. My personal feeling is that anyone who has a personal relationship with the Clementine Caligula should be barred from having any weapons of any kind for life. But that’s probably just me.

Yes, I know Ash Wednesday was yesterday. But I am very proud of my co-religionists for coming up with this, and it’s not too late. It’s never too late to do the right thing.

Several sources of mine have referred to this article from the Atlantic (which I just got around to) in regard to Elon Musk (AKA Dork Vader). I only knew of it as the drug with which Elijah McClain was overdosed with by paramedics – and which killed him. It was the sub-head of the article which grabbed me: “can make anyone feel like they rule the world.” For anyone who doesn’t know, Virgil is a recovering alcoholic (now about 38 years sober) and when we were engaged and first married, I went to a lot of AlAnon meetings, but also to a lot of open AA meetings with him. The latter included a lot of sharing of personal stories. I think everyone who has ever had a drink or two believes they know exactly what it feels like to be “high” on alcohol, and outside of an AA meeting, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone else actually describe their feelings in that condition. But if we think we know something, we may not listen as carefully when it is discussed. I speak from experience. It took me a couple of years to actually hear and process those stories. And they had this in common: every recovering alcoholic said that when they were drinking they felt “in control.” It’s not a big jump from feeling “in control” to feeling “like they rule the world.” Do I even need to say I have never felt anything remotely like that with alcohol? Because I certainly haven’t. If I had ever found anything which did give me that feeling, it would be extremely difficult for me to stop using it. Not that I have ever been looking!

Open Thread March 12 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 122025

Yesterday, Katie Porter announced she is running for Governor of California. Here’s her announcement video (I had to unmute it, so if you can’t hear it, check that.) I was so heartbroken to lose her from Congress – I hope she wins. (It’s also in the back of my mind that many Governors have gotten into the Senate from the Governor’s Mansion.) Here, i have been trying to export my bookmarks and passwords – whether I format the one which has uncooperative operating system and processor, or break down and get a new one, I’ll need that. I easily exported the bookmarks, but the passwords in this version of the browser cannot follow the instructions. I can and did export from the 8.1, but those are not up to date, although it will help. Exporting takes the form of a CSV file, so maybe I can edit it some before importing. One piece of good news is that although Yahoo mail does not work at all on the Win8.1, the Yahoo notepad still works just fine. I’ve gotten enough addresses changed that the new inbox is looking more like a real inbox by the hour, but am still working.

Joyce Vance on something other than law/politics. She explains why the choice.

Just one word…… Stravinsky.

Open Thread March 10 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 102025

Yesterday, I visited Virgil and we played cribbage. It was not a day for high scores but we still had fun. Virgil’s back was hurting ans he had on uncomfortable shoes instead of the ones he usually wears. I was short of sleep – bu the fact is, even if I allow enough time for enough sleep, between the excitement of going to see him and the nervousness about something going wrong, I never get enough sleep the night before I go see him. And I need to stop expecting (or hoping) to. So today I’ve chosen two sources and I’m going to let them speak for me

This is a roundup from The Contrarian. Although they do send emails on individual posts, they also send at least one of these daily. Their style is quite straightforward – just the truth (which may or may not include background on the contributor so the reader can evaluate credentials. On regular contributors it may get skipped. This Roundup is put together by Norm Eisen, one of the two founders, along with Jen Rubin. Both have credentials.)

Here is the front page of The F* News. If Norm is too serious (and depressing) for you, I will guarantee that Jonathan is not too serious. Although he may not be able to avoid being depressing.

Open Thread March 8 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 082025

Yesterday, I started working on setting up my new email inbox with folders and changing the address on all my newsletter subscriptions. Most of them, there is no way without unsubscribing and resubscribing, so I did a fair amount of that (and I’m not done.) Fortunately, I did find a way to change my address for all my Substack subscriptions in one place. That would have been a day’s work in itself. And then migrating my contacts is going to be even worse. But I’m getting closer. In case I didn’t give y’all the new email, it is jvdix@tutamail.com. I’m probably the only one here who would like it, but for me it’s as close to perfect as it gets. Simple, good sized print, white space as needed and not more (he white space they added in Yahoo was more than twice the space of the print.) I did take a few minutes for sanity’s sake to look at Democratic Underground, where I discovered that a wide variety of Trump** voodoo dolls are now available.

And this from ProPublica contains a number of articles, all of which would be front page above the fold news if it weren’t for us currently having an administration which is a mob under the mob boss President and being supported by the mobsters in Congress, and even by non-mobsters who have no idea how to deal with a mob.

This is from People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch newsletter, so naturally it is outrageous. I don’t like to use the word “demonic” because they fling it so often at us, but on the other hand, we know how how they project, and it really does feel that strong to me.

Open Thread March 7 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 072025

Yesterday, as if I needed another problem, Yahoo Mail decided to change its format to onw which is completely unacceptable. So, if you have me in your contacts, please change my email address to jvdix@tutamail.com. I’ll have to have the yahoo account open for a while because for at least some things I subscribe to the only way the change the address is subscribe under the new address and unsubscribe under the old one – and there doesn’t seem to be any simple way to transfer contacts. Because I work ahead you can expect new posts for a few days at least – and if I need to take some days off, I recommend checking at one of the following – Talking Points Memo, The Contrarian, or ProPublica. The first two are good at looking at and picking up a wide spectrum of news. The last is strong on doing its own investigations and digging up the dirt. Y’all mostly also have your own sources and may not need to come here, and that’s fine. I’m subbing a Randy Rainbow for Belle today to give myself an extra day’s time – I have started it just after the advertising – but his sponsor, Ground News appears to be another good general source, so there’s that.

Steve Schmidt has a daughter who is a career skiier. After JD Vance went skiing, she sent this rant to her dad, who published it Wednesday. (When I saw the title, I thought of “jerry” as being the World War II term for Nazis among English speaking allied countries. But it is a skiing term and apparently unrelated to the WWII usage.) I find a righteous rant cathartic – if you don’t, feel free to skip this one.

I didn’t watch the State of the Union address Tuesday. I have enough trouble watching speeches by people who are competent. I also figured if I was encouraging my Dem Senators to boycott it (which they didn’t), I was more than justified in doing so myself. I did, after the fact, hear about Al Green, though not in as much detail as here in The F* News, including the details of the consequences and/or lack thereof for comparable acts historically. I think it’s important to give him credit for the courage which so many of our elected representatives in both Houses seem to lack. Of course they have voted to censure him. Barf.

And speaking of attention – certainly any honest outlet (which Axios more or less is) which came upon this information is doing the right thing to release it immediately. But I can’t help but wonder how much of it will disappear in the fallout from the SotU and other distractions.

Open Thread March 6 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:59 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 062025

Yesterday, a petition I signed for Care2 reminded me vividly of “The Kennel Murder Mystery,” a Philo Vance mystery by S.S. Van Dine. The Vance novels are not for everyone, not even for every mystery fan. The series ran in the 1920s and 1930a, and in the 1920s it was the fashion for young men of some means to be eccentric, and Vance was probably the most eccentric, to the point that this jingle became what we would today call viral: “Philo Vance/needs a kick in the pance.” (Off topic, but wouldn’t that work nicely with the substitution of J.D. for Philo?) The Kennel Murder Mystery is from the 30’s and one critic said it was the best of the later ones because it was a locked room mystery and because in it Vance was “less unbearably obnoxious than usual.” But I digress. From time to time a petition, particularly one involving dog abuse, will remind me of this novel, and the look in the eyes of the dog in this photo pushed that button. The content in question is in Chapter 19 (or XIX), and i see the link I copied should take you directly to that chapter – but it doesn’t. But putting “As we approached the western entrance to the park” take you right to the place to start. There are several points to stop at, but when Vance says he wants to talk to Liang, the episode is as over as it’s going to get. I went a bit farther and found this quote from Lao-Tzu: “he who abuses the weak is eventually destroyed by his own weakness.” It might make a decent protest poster.

On Monday, I received a “Damn-giver Dispatch” from John Pavlovitz, and decided I needed more. So I signed up for a free subscription to his Substack (“The Beautiful Mess”) When I got there and started looking, I discovered that one of his posts there has been picked up by MoveOn and turned into a petition – not that it’s asking for anything, but to provide a vehicle to get it to the person to whom it is addressed, and to express the number of people who are in agreement. He certainly speaks for me, so of course I signed it. The link here is to the column – the petition link is at the bottom (before the comments). speaking of Substack, I seem to remember when I started linking to Substack articles and the “please subscribe” request looked like a paywall, saying something like “Please get adjusted because this thing is growing so fast that just about everyone who has something helpful to say will be on it.” Well, I also got an email from Theater of War – and checked the email address – and yup TOW is now on Substack. [The Pavlovitz and the ProPublics article below were intended for Tuesday.]

ProPublica’s weekly “The Big Story” newsletter from Saturday was just packed with news, most of which others are not covering. Fortunately, they provide a “view in browser” link – which as you know not everyone does.

I don’t suppose anyone here doesn’t know this now. Although you may not know just how far back it goes. Evan Hurst with Wonkette also has his own Substack, titled “The Moral High Ground.” Having that mind set, he sees things which other sometimes miss.

Open Thread March 5 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:07 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 052025

Yesterday, The computer I keep the most up to date things on still wasn’t booting. I did some looking up on the other computer, did a little playing around in the system settings, and surprisingly (at least to me) got it to boot. Checking what I did against what I had planned, I hadn’t done too badly. I’m including a few items today which were lost from yesterday, and the rest tomorrow. Thanks for bearing with me. One thing I did fail to mention is that Trinette has been unwell for a bit over a week now – she is getting better, but it’s slow. I’m sure she would appreciate prayers, healing vibes, or however you communicate with the universe (and I would also appreciate on her behalf.)

Heather Cox Richardson from (late) Saturday and including a previously aired interview even older. But some things take time to reveal themselves, and I think this may be one.

Wonkette got the title wrong – it’s clear from the article the correct figure is $2,400 a year. Which makes it even more disgusting that it was blocked. Wealthy people already get a free ride. But they still want even more.

Wonkette is singing my song. Someone should respond to some of these gripes with something like “Tell me you are both ignorant and insecure without telling me you are both ignorant and insecure.” Also, I have noticed (and I never use the phone for anything which can be done by email) that companies are NOT using “Press 1 for English” or anything similar in their menus – haven’t for years. They do have “Press 5 [or whatever] for Spanish,” but it’s clear English is assumed to be the default. If these snowflakes didn’t know that, they can’t be using phones for personal business much, if at all. Also, with regard to the poster from World War II, I might point out that, in a war, if no one on our side can “speak the enemy’s language,” it is impossible to get any kind of intelligence, which almost certainly will cost lives. That is why the Diné code talkers were such game changers. (It’s pretty easy to tell when something pushes my buttons, isn’t it.

Open Thread March 4 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:55 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 042025

Yesterday, for maybe a second and a half, my power went out. I only had to set one clock (so far), and I don’t think I lost any unsaved data, but I couldn’t get in to find out because of the “no operating system” error. I’ve had that before, and, given enough time, it goes away. But in case it doesn’t do so fast enough, I thought I’d better prepare this backup. If it comes back in time, I’ll post my original plan and you’ll never see this.

The 19th gives us a twofer here – as the end of Black History Month meets the beginning of Women’s History Month.

This Morning Memo from Talking Points Memo was a part of my original plan, and I remember saying I wouldn’t comment because there’s too much in it and it would take both me and y’all all day to cope with it if I tried. And that’s still true.

The Week Ahead by Joyce Vance is from Sunday night, but she skips Monday and starts on Tuesday, and I remember including it for today. Opiion seems to be divided over sites I visit as to whether all DEmocrats should stay away or whether all should attend and boo in chorus when appropriate.

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