Nov 202024
 

Yesterday, I received three of my four prescriptions, which included two I was flat out of. I took those two immediatele, and also added them to the three bottles remaining for theis two-week period. The fourth comes from a different pharmacy, and I was on the phone with them the day before, and that one is on its way also. I hate having tp phone for these things, but having done so, I’m glad I did. The last full prescription I had from them, after over 20 years, they sent me only half the pills, and duplicated that error with the stopgap prescription, and I had to call then, twice, to get more. I had hoped a new prescription would fix that, but no. But at lest I caught it this time before they were sent. And I am hoping the call straightened it out. Well, if not, I have 45 days to get it straight. Two of my scrips affect mood, one directly and one indirectly, so hopefully I’ll be in a better mood soon than I have been for a while. Also, I received a grocery order, cleaned up and put away some usb drives (flashm thumb, jump, whatever they are called now) and started putting downloaded classical tunes onto another (2G) for use in the car.

I can’t always find a good ending to a story in the Atlanta Black Star – and when I do, it’s often too little, too late, and at best very long in coming. So this should be no surprise really. At least it’s something.

Heather Cox Richardson posted a letter with a number of “short takes,” and that’s a good thing. It can be a mnemonic for all the stuff that’s going on, must of whuch is so crazy there’s not pont i analyzing it in depth, because it has no depth. I grant it’s tough to read.

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Nov 152024
 

Yesterday, I learned that we have one at least one of the so far uncalled House races, and it is the one Katie Porter held but had to resign when she ran for Senate. Her re[lscement is named David Min, and she says he will “be a fierce champion for our interests in Congress.” I also learned that Manchin has signalled openness to helping Biden push judges through. Oh, and “On Monday, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore honored one of his state’s most beloved military veterans, Harriet Tubman, by promoting Tubman posthumously to the rank of brigadier general in the state National Guard.” And why. Finally, at a bankruptcy auction, “infowars” was purchased by “The Onion.” We have to take what joy we can get.

From the Atlanta Black Star – this didn’t even happen in the US but in England. What is the MATTER with “white” people?

From Wonkette. Yes, this is happening. It’s nothing really new – sciopaths have been doing this forever – the difference is that now it’s mainstream. Oh, and claiming to be Christian. (If they would claim to be Christian Nationalists, and if people dogging on them would call them Christian Nationalists, I wouldn’t have a problem with the. The difference is huge and pretty well understood.) My advice to womwn married to Trump** voters it to get a no fault divorce, quickly, while you still can, because they are going to take that away too. A related article on PolitiZoom reported that the Ambassador from the Phillipines is advising any Filipinos here illegally keave NOW because if one is deported, one can never come back to the United States. That is not in the COnstitution, and I’m pretty sure that once cooler heads prevail, either that Federal Law could be over turned, or Amnesty for families of citizens could be established, but who knows how long it will be before cooler heads prevail?

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Nov 132024
 

Yesterday, I didn’t do a whole lot – took in three packages, worked more on the phone issue (turns out for some reason the tech had not set up the modem that is to be ised with thte new carrier, but at least setting it up wasn’t difficult), dug a couple of findings out of all the jewelry-making stuff I had put awar (and managd to get everything back in the box, which was the hard part.  I do have a doctor’s appointment today so I may be late respodong to comments (again.)

Normally, Andy Borowitz wrutes funny. Also normally, his Sunday wrtie is closed to all but paid subcribers. Last Sunday was different on both counts. Without further ado, here it is.

This from Wonkette. We need something positive.

I guess it’s time that we need to look at what Steve Schmidt has to say about what happened and what do we do next. I don’t always entirely agree with him, and this is a case in point. But only paying attention to people one agrees with is no way to run a railroad. A no-paywall link to the print article of the video he posts is here

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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 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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Nov 052024
 

Yesterday, I learned that Kamala Harris had appeared on Saturday Night Live’s cold open along with Maya Rudolph. (Yeah, even with the extra hour, I didn’t get through Sunday’s emails on Sunday.) Mitch, sweetie that he is, had sent me a link to the NYTimes article on it, which I did archive, but frankly I don’t much care what the NYTimes has to say about anything any more. So here’s a link to the Cold Open on YouTube. Also yesterday I learned that Quincy Jones died Sunday – and I might not have learned that without subscribibg to The Root’s free enail newsletter, so much has the election sucked the life out of all other news (although in the evening I did hear about it on CPR Classical.)

Heather Cox Richarddson has just returned fro a thirteen month book tour, and is admittedly exhausted. But, while o tour, everywhere she went she was asked the same question – to wit, how she managed to maihtain hope in the face of – well, everything. this is her answer. I’m not adding a tissue alert – I needed one, but I think that’s at least in large part because I’m low on antidepressant just now – and I don’t see this history being taught in red states any time soon. But the history itself is filled with hope.

Joyce Vance’s “The Week Ahead” (also from Sunday evening) may not be as radiantly hopeful as Cox Rixhardson, but it is full if information which should not be missed. What we don’t know about, we cannot defend against. And it’s not all bad. There’s some good news also. (And did you know that chickens can purr? The previous day’s column even had a short video with sound which proves it. I am speechless.)

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