Nov 112024
 

Yesterday, I didn’t accomplish much. Trinette came by and I nad no trash to take out – only recyclables, and not that much of those. But at least I has baked the gluten free oay flour cookies so I was able to share them with her. This Wednesday, I have a medical appointment which I am a bit on edge about, so I may not be as conscientious with typos etc, (and goodness i have enough pf those even when I am doing best conscientious.) After almost 30 years with the same PCP it’s tough to be looking for a new one. I think I’m prepared, but I not even all that crazy about nice surprises, and I certainly don’t want any which are not so nice.

HuffPost may be jumping the gun by a couple of months, but that short time is relatively zero in the scheme of things. Ugly as it is, we need to look at it.

This is from The F-ing News. I have not seen it elsewhere. Feel free to scream.

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Nov 102024
 

Yesterday, The radio opera was “LAN Huahua” (WFMT puts Chinese surnames in all caps to remind everyone that the surname comes first), an opera comissioned for the NCPA in 2011 (completed in 2017) based on a flok ballad about a beautiful young woman who makes the mistake of believing she can think for herself in feudal China (and even have bodily autonomy.) It doesn’t end well, at least not in my opinion.  It ends with all the villagers singing her ballad, so that she will never be forgotteen.  But that to me does not compensate for all the bullying and the eventual suicide.  Lovely music, though.  Interesting fusion of Chinese ans western musical traditions put together so smoothly it’s not really easy to find the joins.  At least some of that has got to be because the composer worked so hard to find analogies between aspectss of the two traditions.

I’m sorry that this article from the 19th is heartbreatking. I’m even sorrier that it is just one more heartbreaking thing in a world of heartbreak. And that we dare not close our eyes to it.

Apparently there are people who did not see this coming. I am not one of them. I can’t tell whether the Atlanta Black Star saw it coming or not, but I can say they do report on it fearlessly. And this article is aimed at all decent people. The evil empire has another plan just for people of color.

Screenshot

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Nov 092024
 

Yesterday, hoo boy, did I ever wake up from a strange dream. It startes with my preparing to teach some kids how to adapt and bake an adapted cookie recipe. Tere were actually several dozen kids, 5th-7th grade, in the class, but I was one of many teachers, so no one of us was dealing with more than 5 or 8. I prepared by actually baking different adaptaions, and making printouts of the one I considered the best. No one else had done this, so I ran horribly short of printouts, and all the kids had attitudes. Afterwards, the supervisor of all the teachers asked me to deliver an object for him and i agreed. It was to a place somethng like Chaco Canyon, though I have never actually been there. When I delivered it, the recipient asked me to deliver a different object to someone else. In fact, everywhere I went, everyone to whom I delivered somethng had something else for me to deliver to someone else. Some of these people were children and young adults, but some were much older. Some were lovers separated by circumstance. There were various ethnic and lingual groups represented, and multi talents. Most of the spaces were kind of wilderness, but one thing I was asked to deliver was to a college to which the asker had applied, and that was in a small city. Among the people I delvered to were a little girl who said she wanted to be President when she grew up, and a little boy who said he wanted to be President now. At the very end, the person I was delivering to was not there, and an elderly lady said she would deliver it, so I gave it to her and returned to the supervisor who has started the chain, who picked up a small rifle and shot the person standing behind me, who turned out to be the elderly lady from my last stop, who had been aiming at my back with a bow and arrow. That was when i realized that the stuff I had been delivering was not just stuff, but objects of great spiritual significance and power, and I was returning them to their rightful owners, and I was doing so on behalf of a resistance movement. If I could remember (or reinvent) all the details, it would make a great fantasy novel. I would love it if Margaret Atwood would do so – wry humor was prominent among the wide range of emotions in it. But if anyone wants to tackle it,I would not dream of claiming copyright for a dream (pun intended.) I actually have been working on a cookie recipe IRL – maybe I will have managed to bake something by today.

Talking Points Memo Wednesday morning listed a whole lot of catatrophoc stuff which we wll knew was comng – but there was just so much of it, it’ barely possible to hold it all in mins at one time. So, in case anyone forgot anything, here is it. Yea, I held it a couple of days. Including from myself. I can only take so much.

I realize I am in no danger of being raped by Nick Fuentes, for a large number of reasons (or at least not sexually – financially is another matter). But the mere thought of it is enough to make me start thinking anout mixing a potassium cyanide-grapefruit juice cocktail. I actually anticipate seeing the suicide rate among women of all ages skyrocket in the near future.

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Nov 082024
 

We voted. We stumped for Kamala Harris. We encouraged everybody we knew to vote. Some of us drove people to the polls. Some of us text or phone banked, some of us knocked on doors, some of us wrote and mailed postcards and/or letters. We hoped, and some of us prayed. But, sadly, the 2024 U.S. Presidential election was a triumph of evil over good. Millions of US voters who think of themselves as patriots betrayed this country by voting for an incompetent jerk who is a convicted felon. Do these people wipe their bottoms with copies of the Constitution?

Rump’s re-election is the worst disaster in US history. Hurricane Katrina, the 9/11 attacks, the 2011 tornado super-outbreak – those were scraps in a Kindergarten sand box compared to what awaits us beginning in January. He will not be our 47th President, he will be our first dictator; and in his foul wake comes Christian [sic] Nationalism. The Tangerine Troglodyte probably doesn’t have a Christian bone in his body, but millions of so-called Christians adore him and will gladly destroy everything the United States of America is supposed to represent and pervert this country into a religious dictatorship.

A lot of us, upon hearing the appalling news, thought “Oh noes, the USA is f—-ed!” However, hope is not lost. Plan A didn’t work, so it’s time for Plan B: Resist. Contrary to what the Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation say, resistance is not futile. Nor does it have to be violent. Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. both demonstrated that passive, non-violent resistance works.

Many are already making plans to flee to Canada, or elsewhere. However, emigration is not nearly as easy as you think. A couple years ago I wrote and published a Sound Off! about how simply leaving this country can be a tall order, as well as expensive. Yes, there are certain segments of the population that will be in dire peril; however, it may be better if we stay and fight back in any way we can.

The Orange Ogre’s return to the oval office will alienate the USA from much of the world. We may face sanctions and embargoes that will cripple our economy. Also, the tariffs he promised will cause a lot of prices to increase sharply, perhaps even skyrocket, which will tick off consumers. People vote their pocketbooks as a rule, and a President who aids and abets inflation will encourage a political bloodbath in the midterms.

The tRump chumps can howl and cackle in their evil delight all they like. They have won a major battle, but not the war. We can make sure their victory is Pyrrhic in the extreme by causing what the late Representative John Lewis called “good trouble.” Besides, let’s see how wide their smirks are when Project 2025 bites them in their bottoms.

Now is the time to support organizations that defend freedom and protect human rights. Now is the time to start vetting candidates for the 2025 and especially the 2026 elections. Don’t give up hope – we may still be able to have elections. And we will, if we put our agony and grief aside and prepare how to counterpunch.

We have a lot of work to do, so get out your marching shoes. We can take this country back and return it to the path of progress. With any luck, we can do so without shedding a drop of blood. Our opponents will react violently, and there will be punched noses and smashed-in heads, so the temptation to bash back will be strong. However, we can still win in the end if we keep our cool. Let us hope that we can still win using peaceful means, just as the Suffragettes and freedom marchers did.

Meanwhile, my X-Wing is on order.

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 Comments Off on SOUND OFF! 11/8/24 – Now What?
Nov 082024
 

Yesterday, The 19th (though its editor) ask the question, “What will it take for America tohave a woman President?” You’re probably familiar with the concept of necessary and sufficient conditions. Well, IMO, a necessary condition would be for Democrats to sontrol the standards for primary and secondary education nationall, in all states and territories, wit enforcement, for 40 years (one generation.) But i can’t claim that would be sufficient. The 19th is a Creative Commons source, so I posted it to Democratic Underground. and put my pwn opinion in a comment. By yhe time I posted the comment there was already ne comment other than mine, and by the time I got there to read it there were two more. I must have touched a nerve.

Yes, this leads to a video – from “Legal AF” which is affiliated with Meidas Touch, although if I understand him correctly, it’s now being opened as a seperate channel. Being part of a Resistance is hard, but in the long run not being in a resistance may be harder. I have to add to what Popok says: he speaks about watching blue states go purple, and purple states go red, and by larhe margins, but he doesn’t really address why. The reason is MISOGYNY. As in 2016, misogynists managed to hide in plain sight for months, even years – and then cpme out of hiding in droves. How long are we going to ignore this? Until it kills us, like the cancer it is? I’m providing the link to the new channel, not the main link, but the one to the “Videos” page because that is the page which has all the videos in chronological order (newest first) which makes it possible to follow a complete timeline. I am not going to be posting one daily, though I shall certainly try to be following the channel daily.)

Defending Rights and Dissent sent me an email outlining their plans for the next four years. (Of course it’s requesting donations.) They didn’t provide a direct link to the content, but I’m pretty sure I found the same article. Since we are now the Resistance, you might want to read it and at least know there are places to turn (ACLU is not alone). You know, Audrey Hepburn, when she was a teenager, worked with the Resistance in the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation. She had health issues for the rest of her life – not I think because of the work, but because everyone was starving. They ate tu;lip bulbs just to survive, for instance.

This link is to the home page of New Mexico Political Report. Which means it almost certainly will not look the same to you reading this as it did to me posting it. But here re the headlines I am seeing (sorry about the all caps. I cut and pasted.):
HEINRICH WINS THIRD TERM IN SENATE
VASQUEZ WINS REELECTION TO CONGRESS IN CLOSELY FOUGHT RACE
DEMOCRATS DEFEND LARGE MAJORITIES IN STATE HOUSE, SENATE
DEMOCRATS WIN 1ST, 3RD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS
SECRETARY OF STATE: 2024 ELECTIONS A SUCCESS
They are probably all still findable.
Colorado also could have done a lot worse. We still have one House seat that’s too close to call, but we did well with initiatives. The only big one we lost was trying to outlaw sport hunting of big cats.  So, if you are considering to a different state, here we are. I can’t say what our job markets are like, but our prices are certainly lower than California’s.

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Nov 072024
 

Yesterday, it appeared that Nameless and I were caught together in the shrinking gap between winter storm Anya and Hurricane Rafael. And, yes, I did receive some snow – about an inch and a half, which by afternoon had melted on the asphalt but was still clinking to the unpaved ground. They’r predicting 4″ more today and just under that tomorrow, with mostly sun on Saturday and sun all day Sunday. It’s a good thng for Trinette that she works from home, though. Many people, including people who have been born here, have not grasped that Colorado Springs does not have a climate, but a bundle of microclimates. I could tell you stories. Once I went from needing chains to dry road in the space of one interstate exit. And a coworker of mime when I worked on north Academy who then lived roughly where I live now (but at the time I lived a little north f downtown) setout for work, and at the time it was also dry on North Academy. But across the middle of town therer was asnow so thick and fast it was literally impassible. Anyway, I expect to be fine, and they don’t seem to expect Rafael to go as far west as Nameless. But I surely wish people would pay more attention. This video from Parody Project is much more fun than the Weather Unferground video. And it looks as though we’ll need some fun just in order to stay off of hard drugs

This from what used to be Twitter via Democratic Undergound could help

I recently read, I think it was at Democratic Underground, that it is easier to get to sleep if you go to bed thinking about three good things that happened during the day. They don’t need to be huge good things. Just something which is positive. I won’t go so far as to say it works, but I have tried it, and it does help. Accordingly, here are this, this, and this.

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Nov 062024
 

In the 1972 movie version of Cabaret there was a chilling, frightening scene where a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Hitler Youth stands up and starts singing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me”.

Yesterday that scene immediately came to mind:

And I’m the old man shaking my head … 

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Nov 062024
 

Yesterday, I deleted 93 incoming emails before 3:00 pm. I moved another couple of dozen to my folders without reading them – I’ll go back and at least look at most of them, but not until we have cerrtifiable election results. I don’t need that roller coaster. I do have the dial tone n my phone back, and about 7 or 8 emails about that – I haven’t read them all as I type, but apparently my old carrier transferred the internet but not the phone, and the new one is now powerless until the old one gets it – stuff – together and gives the new one a solid date. I didn’t need that either. If anyone does feel the need for the roller coaster, there will have been plenty of watch parties both on and off line. Rober Reich promised a handholdimg one at his Substack site, for instance. At least one thing is sure -by the time you read this it will be all over but the counting.

Robert Reich posted this Monday evening, but I think Wednesday morning will be soon enough to read it. We will know more than then we do now, but between crazy MAGAts, red states which will not even begin counting early votes untill the polls close, and irresponsible media, I am not convinced we will know enough to be certain what the next four years will look like. I think there will still be a vacuum into which Reich’s analysis will be a welcome introduction.

The Atlanta Black Star does manage to cover more than black news – the reason that’s so often what I choosef rom them is that no one else will touch it. I wonder how many other news outlets will touch this story?

Belle alphabet

(Not sure this is for real – but it is sweet, even if it’s AI)

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