Nov 222023
Nov 202023
11/20 Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance. It is also World Children’s Day. I find that appropriate, and also ironic. I cannot begin to imagine what transgender children have to go through (heck, I can’t even imagine what some left-handed children still have to go through, and I can simulate that.)
I have a contractor coming today, so this will be all today.
Nov 192023
Dearest Rosalynn, rest in peace eternal. Few deserve that rest as much as you do. You will be deely mourned and greatly missed. And that mourning will not be for your fate, but for our own loss. Don’t begrudge it to us.
I am not up to a real tribute yet, although I am slowly but steadily improving. But I suspect by the time everyone has seen this, the comments will be filled wwith tributes, including some to Jimmy, whi is now, at least for a while, alone.
Personal:
I woke up this morning without my usual back pain – oddly, the same thing happened when I was in the hospital – after I moved to rehab, I continued to wake up pin free untill the final 3 or 4 days I was there. It appears my body craves a change of bed every couple of weeks or so. Well, sorry, body, that’s not going to happen. But thanks for the respite.
From now, I’ll try to keep posting at least every other day, though it’s likely to be short It isn’t just me – I need to get things done around the house to make it safer, some of which I should have already done, and that takes time. So the house has to heal was well as me. I do have one contractor coming tomorrow. But Rome, as they say, wasn’t built in a day, and neither will this be. Stay tuned for updates.
Nov 172023
So, first full day home amd I am grumpy as a grinch. No one’s fault (unless there are some kind of gremllins that are in charge of these things.) And it’s a story going back to 1976, when , newly out of the Marine Corps, I sprained my ankle. Of course I used “RICE” and eventually it stopped hurting – until the late 1990s, when it started to notify me that I had osteoarthritis there. That was when I started using a cane. I would not call that a flare-up – just a more or less constant annoyance which gradually eased off. I didn’t forget about the sprain, because it had affected the angle of the left foot a little, as well as the configuration of the arch area (which is a story in itself, but not for now), which were always reminders, but I had forgotten about the pain – until today, when I woke up with a full-blown flare-up – along with my usual back pain, which is on the right side. Suddenly, when neither leg is weightbearing, using a walker wasn’t so easy any more. Normally I ise the TENS in the den (at the opposite end of the house from the bedroom) but I wasn’t going to get there without something giving. Fortunately I remembered I had taken a spare TENS to the bedroom ages ago – the pads were smaller than I use on my back (they were intended for my shoulder) and the TENS had gottn unplugged from the charger somehow (fortunately there was enough charge to get me vertical) so I made it to the den, getting ice for the ankle along the way, so I’m much more comfortable now. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean the flareup won’t be back tomorrow morning, and the next morning, and the morning after that, for up to four weeks. I did get a new wheelchair ordered, the samre make and model I have been using to visit Virgil, but one size smaller because doors (and just enough weight loss to fit comfortably),but that was about it. I did note that, one day after SCOTUS adopted a “Code of Ethics, ” pundits are saying it is about as efficacious as a paper parasol in a hurricane – which was what I had guessed, and y’all had probably also guessed.
I shall now leave the “den” (and therefore the good computer) for the living room for a while, and attempt to find some things that I know I packed to come home with me – so they must be somewhere – but I haven’t figured out where yet. Wish me luck!
Nov 162023
The call went swimmingly … it did end up requiring help from one of the hospital staff who was most gracious also. We could hear eaxh other clearly (lix\ke most of our convwersations, it was fairly monotonous – a lot of “I love you,” “I love you too,” :I miss you,” I miss you too”s But it lifted both our spirits
If I can find a way to express my gratitude to Governor Polis without getting intercepted by some Karen just waiting to jump on someone for being compassionate, I shall. But Karens can be sneaky.
I am packing up the lapto now, to save time later, and to force me to watch and read the instructions for discharge So probably no more till tomorrow. – even responding to comments.
Nov 152023
I wish this meant that I’m fully recovered. It doesn’t. It does mean that I am recovered enough to manage my own recovery from here. And that means work. And that means less time and energy for PP during the process.
It does, of course, also mean a good shot at a better future. But that will require patience… and we all know cats and patience.
On the bright side, I just got a call from Virgil’s facility and they will arrange a call from him today between my therapies. Woo hoo!
Nov 132023
This article is from John Pavlovitz, the Evangelical Christian pastor who was kicked out by his congregation for preaching Christianity (he’s not the only one but may be the best known.)
I’m going to be leaning on random articles for a while, and not every day at that. This one is kind of a companion to Freya’s newest Sound Off!, but looking forward. (It had also occurred to me that we might build on these election successes, so dependent on turnout all) with variations on “See now? That wasn’t so bad/difficult/painful to vote/ We can keep doing it,” but I digress.) John’s points too are important.
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Polls don’t vote. People Do. |
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By John Pavlovitz |
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Friends, Last week was a reminder that elections aren’t won by the media, they’re won by voters. You’d think we’d have figured this out by now, watching an antiquated process that has proven over and over again in recent years to be less and less reliable in measuring the actual intentions of the electorate. In both terrible and wonderful ways, we’ve all watched the results of contests roll in and defy the prevailing narrative that ushered them in. And it isn’t simply the faulty nature of the assessment tools that’s a problem, it’s the emotional impact of them on ordinary people; of the toll of these tools on the voting population—in the hands of mainstream media outlets that in an ever-crowded landscape, strain to command the attention of the nation the way they once did. Simply put: sound, rational leadership, the kind offered by President Biden and the Democrats, is boring. Competence is boring. Emotional maturity is boring. Thoughtful discussion of complex ideas is boring. Consensus and compromise are boring. And boring is bad for business. These things don’t move the needle of mass attention, they don’t garner hits and clicks and trend. They can’t be leveraged to drive engagement and lure eyeballs and sustain urgency. For that, the media requires chaos. For that, they need the sideshow. For that, they need the sh*show. For that, they want Donald Trump and his cadre of content creators. The Republican Party is a giant human car crash: a headline-generating monstrosity that daily traffics in manufactured emergencies, culture war histrionics, unhinged rants, and abhorrent behavior. It is a regular creator of the laughably horrible that is honestly tragic for our nation’s government but riveting as performance art. What this all means, is that because we now exist in perpetually-flooded inboxes and timelines, the mainstream media will never lead with a story that is based on reasoned responses, on measured conversations, on sound policies. In these days, the steady, mature leadership of President Biden and the Democrats isn’t profitable. And ultimately what this means for us is that we need to ignore all the polls other than the ones we marshal people to, the ones we enter on those pivotal Tuesdays, the ones we collectively flip the script in. If we continue to work toward those polls, we will prevail. We will create a nation that is slowly weaned from needing its politics to entertain and become a place where terrifying crises and unnecessary drama are relegated to fiction. Last week, We the People need to remember that although we face legislative threats and Conservative assaults, for now, our voices and our choices determine our fate. And if good people organize and work and show up, we can still be the difference in the day. It can be boring but beautiful. Be encouraged.
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GBS (George Bernard Shaw) and GKC (Gilbert Keith Chesterton) were British intellectuals of the early (roughly first quarter of the) 20th century. Shaw was an atheist, Chesterton a convert too Roman Catholicism. There’s a story that once they encountered eaxh other and Chesterton said, “Shaw, anyone who saw you might think there was a famine in England,” and Shaw replied, “And anyone looking at you might think he had found the cause of it. Shaw was a lifelong bachelor, Cwesterton a devoted husband. Clearly they had little in common. But there was one thing (at least) on which they agreed.
Nov 122023
There is hope for the United States of America.
Over the last few years, things didn’t look good. SCOTUS overturned Roe v Wade. TFG gained popularity while President Biden sank in the polls. The environment continued to degrade. Disasters and wars dominated the news. Nut jobs tried to pull off a putsch to prevent the results of a legitimate election from being made official. And just recently Hamas launched a brutal attack on Israel, which retaliated by bombing innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip and frustrating efforts to get humanitarian aid through to them.
Now the news is sounding a lot better. Voters in Ohio ensconced reproductive rights in their state’s constitution, while those in Kentucky re-elected a Democrat as governor. Virginia voters prevented a Republican trifecta, foiling Governor Youngkin’s efforts to outlaw abortion in that state. Candidates who campaigned on protecting abortion rights clobbered their Republican opponents. The Blue Wave in Virginia guarantees that their legislature will protect reproductive rights, at least in the foreseeable future. The anti-choice “victory” in overturning Roe v Wade is looking more and more Pyrrhic.
On top of that, efforts by the infamous pro-censorship group Moms for Liberty to take over school boards across the country were stymied. Evidently, enough voters saw through the parental-rights sheep’s clothing and beheld the hatemongering wolf underneath.
And why did these come about? Because millions of people refused to give up. Because millions of people in those three states got their butts to the polls and voted. This election cycle may indicate that We The People are not just slowing this country’s tumble into fascism, but reversing it and starting to restore genuine democracy.
This is no time for complacency, though – this is time for momentum. Our recent victories should inspire us to work harder in the next election cycle. 2024 is an important election since US voters will be selecting not just our Representatives and a third of our Senators, but who will occupy the Oval Office for the next four years. Biden may run for re-election, and though he has not been an outstanding leader he definitely has been better than his predecessor. We need to make sure the Tangerine Troglodyte is disqualified from running – democracy in the USA will not survive if he gains a second term. And if you think he can’t carry out his insane plans, guess again. Have you forgotten the coup on the 6th of January? He has a large enough base of fanatical followers that he could become a dictator.
While writing this essay, I learned that Rep. Brandon Prichard of North Dakota wants authorities in Ohio to overturn the recent election results. He claims that “[d]irect democracy should not exist.” This cannot be an isolated case. You can be certain that GQP candidates and office holders will want elections that give results they don’t like ignored.
Once again we need to Vote Blue No Matter Who. I hope that, by 2026, we can be more choosy and elect Democrats who truly believe in and support what that party is supposed to represent.