Apr 042022
 

Yesterday, I actually managed to place a grocery order in themorning and schedule it for this evening.  And it actually came a little after six (I asked fror a window from 6-8) and by 8 I hadeverything that neded to be put away, put awat.  And no substitutes.  A couple of things missing or shorted, and the dishwashing liquid leaked over a bunch of things, but didn’t actually destroy anything, just made them icky to put away.

Cartoon 04 MLK loaded

Short Takes –

Crooks & Liars – Fortenberry, Convicted Liar And Thin-skinned Bully, Resigns
Quote – Nebraska Republican Congressman Jeff Fortenberry is a convicted liar who has now resigned. Good. But he has never been held accountable for abusing the power of his office to hunt down and threaten the jobs of people who criticized him with a joke. You might remember his Chief of Staff made national news for threatening a state university professor for LIKING a Facebook post of a sign calling him Fartenberry.
Click through for more. While he heeds to be held accountable (and probably won’t) for his bullying, this is still good news. One down, 193 (or thereabouts) to go.

Letters from an American – March 31, 2022
Quote – Today, Judge Mark E. Walker of the Federal District Court in Tallahassee, Florida, struck down much of the new elections law passed by the Florida legislature after the 2020 election. This is the first time a federal court has sought to overrule the recent attempts of Republican-dominated state legislatures to rig the vote, and Walker made thorough work of it…. “This case is about our sacred right to vote,” Walker wrote, “won at great cost in blood and treasure. Courts have long recognized that, because “the right to exercise the franchise in a free and unimpaired manner is preservative of other basic civil and political rights, any alleged infringement of the right of citizens to vote must be carefully and meticulously scrutinized.”
Click through for story and sources. While we can’t depend on this not being appeales, not on keeping the ground gained if it’s appealed, it is still hopeful. Heather, BTW, has been on a roll. I’ll be sharing more of her in the next few days.

CPR – CU Boulder to host UN human rights summit on climate change
Quote – The University of Colorado Boulder will host a global climate summit in partnership with UN Human Rights. Thought leaders attending the gathering will examine climate change as a human rights crisis. CU Chancellor Phil DiStefano talked about the “Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit” in front of alumni and students in Washington, D.C. earlier this week. The idea for the summit came out of the UN climate change conference that took place in Glasgow last year.
Click through for story. This kind of thing is why Colorado MAGAts refer to the city of Boulder as “the People’s Republic of Boulder,” which certainly says at least as much about them as it does about Bloulder.

Food For Thought:

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Mar 192022
 

Yesterday, I had not slept terribly well, and kept nodding off. I did accomplish a little knitting, but not much, and not much else either.

Cartoon 

Short Takes –

Rolling Stone – Manchin’s Coal Corruption Is So Much Worse Than You Knew
Quote – At this point in human evolution, burning coal for power is one of the stupidest things humans do. Coal plants are engines of destruction, not progress. Thanks to the rapid evolution of clean energy, there are many better, cheaper, cleaner ways to power our lives. The only reason anyone still burns coal today is because of the enormous political power and inertia that the industry has acquired since the 19th century. In America, that power and inertia is embodied in the cruel and cartoonish character of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who, paradoxically, may have more control over the trajectory of the climate crisis than any other person on the planet right now
Click through for details – lots of details and links to more. But right now we really don’t have a choice. This is why it is SO important to gain a REAL majority in the Senate as soon as possible.

The New Yorker (Jill Lepore) – Why the School Wars Still Rage
Quote – A century later, the battle over public education that afflicted the nineteen-twenties has started up again, this time over the teaching of American history. Since 2020, with the murder of George Floyd and the advance of the Black Lives Matter movement, seventeen states have made efforts to expand the teaching of one sort of history, sometimes called anti-racist history, while thirty-six states have made efforts to restrict that very same kind of instruction…. While all this has been happening, I’ve been working on a U.S.-history textbook, so it’s been weird to watch lawmakers try their hands at writing American history, and horrible to see what the ferment is doing to public-school teachers.
Click through for story. Besides the “new” stuff, evolution is still a bone of contention. Teachers in the line of fire are very visible – but my biggest worry is what will happen to America whenit becomes a nation whose citizens know noththing of real history.

Women’s History – Wikipedia – Christine de Pizan
Quote – Venetian by birth, Christine served as a court writer in medieval France after the death of her husband. Christine’s patrons included dukes Louis I of Orleans, Philip the Bold of Burgundy, and his son John the Fearless. Considered to be some of the earliest feminist writings, her work includes novels, poetry, and biography, and she also penned literary, historical, philosophical, political, and religious reviews and analysis. Her best known works include The Book of the City of Ladies and The Treasure of the City of Ladies, both written when she worked for John the Fearless of Burgundy.
Click through for bio. Not only did she write and get published in her own name … but she made a living doing it. That was a first for a woman, as far as we know.

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Mar 152022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Before Putin’s Illegal War Against Ukraine, There Were Trump’s Crimes Against President Zelensky

Thom Hartmann – Crazy Alert: Did the GOP Really Endorse Killer

No Dem Left Behind – Protect our kids from Religious Right extremists and the GQP!

Sum of Us – BlueTriton is the worst company you’ve never heard of.

Really American – Republicans Dine In Moscow: Party Of Treason

Suibhne – The Animated History of Ukraine (17 Minutes)

Beau – [Two videos about the domino effects of war]

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Mar 072022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Trial of Insurrectionist Guy Reffitt Went from Bad to Worse: Bad for Reffitt but Good for Justice

Lincoln Project – Biden’s Responce to Tyranny

MSNBC – How To Shield Against Russia’s Cyberattacks

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse – Sen. Whitehouse Delivers Floor Speech on Ending Kleptocracy’s March

Ukrainian Armed Forces “Each of Us” (hanky alert)

Republican Accountability Project – Trump thinks Putin is “smart”. What does that make Trump?

The Late Show – This is only 2 minutes, and ends with an impression of Gollum as Putin which really nails it.

Beau -Let’s talk about the most expensive energy auction in US history….

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Feb 222022
 

Today is Twos-day: whether you write it 2/22/2022 or 22/2/2022 or 2022/2/22, it’s more twos than we can expect to see for 200 years (and I for one do not expect to be around.) And, to top it off, it’s also Tuesday. And, yesterday, it was a slow news day. So I just posted two short takes (and two videos on that thread) and took the rest of the day off. If Ukraine explodes, it will have to wait until Wednesday. (Not that you won’t hear about it elsewhere.)

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

The Nib – Breathless
Quote – When I moved to Calcutta for college, the second largest and one of the most poluted cities in India, I could not see the stars any more. And I could not breathe. One night I stayed up coughing till the sun rose. The following week I was diagnosed with asthma.
Click through for graphic article. I have been somewhat vaguely aware of how much fighting climate change as an individual depends on having money and health and other privilege. But this brings it home in ways no other medium has done for me.

Black History Month – The New Yorker – Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Quote – Perhaps his most important and lasting role has been as a teacher and an institution builder. Gates arrived at Harvard in 1991, and he swiftly recruited an extraordinary concentration of Black scholarship—William Julius Wilson, Cornel West, Lawrence D. Bobo, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Suzanne Blier, and others—all while reinvigorating the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute, which is now part of the Hutchins Center. Gates proved a dynamo of both intellectual energy and fund-raising finesse.
Click through for full interview. Skip is sometimes called “the Black Ken Burns,” and certainly no one has any better right to tht title. But he is also so much more.

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Jan 312022
 

Yesterday, I didn’t manage to do much of anything. Somehow I filled that day, though.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Mother Jones – We Uncovered How Many Georgians Were Disenfranchised by GOP Voting Restrictions. It’s Staggering.
Quote – During municipal elections in November, Georgia voters were 45 times more likely to have their mail ballot applications rejected—and ultimately not vote as a result—than in 2020. If that same rejection rate were extrapolated to the 2020 race, more than 38,000 votes would not have been cast in a presidential contest decided by just over 11,000 votes.
Click through for story.I realize this is not news to Freya ot Spy … or maybe anyone anywhere who has been paying attention.

Huff Post – Pittsburgh Bridge Collapses Hours Before Biden Is Set To Talk Infrastructure There
Quote – No one was killed, authorities said, but several people were injured and three were transported to the hospital with injuries that didn’t appear life-threatening. The cause of the collapse was not immediately clear…. “What I didn’t realize, there are literally more bridges in Pittsburgh than any other city in the world,” Biden said, adding, “More than Venice. We’re going to fix them all,” he said.
Clickthrough for details. Wonkette also covered this story in its inimitable snary way, and I alsmost used it, but then I thought if a troll came by they might think the headline was serious, so I stuck with HuffPost.

Department of “You can’t make this stuff up”
QAnon Virginia Candidate Brawls At Texas Butterfly Center And This Headline Is Wildly Insufficient
Quote – Nonetheless, we’ll admit to being a bit surprised when we saw that the National Butterfly Center, a private nature preserve along the Rio Grande, announced it would be closing this weekend due to “credible threats” against the center and its staff. You see, what with it being on the river that forms the US-Mexico border, the Butterfly Center has been previously targeted by the crazies who wanted to build a private WALL, because darned if the nature preserve wanted the butterfly habitat disturbed. That prompted Brian Kolfage, the now-indicted head of We Build The Wall, to accuse the Butterfly Center and a nearby historic church of “promoting trafficking of children,” and specifically accusing the preserve of running a “rampant sex trade.”
Click through. Only in [Trump**’s] America

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Jan 252022
 

Glenn Kirschner – NY Subpoenas, GA Special Grand Jury Subpoenas, Congressional Subpoenas: All Subpoenas Are Not Equal

The Guardian – Tonga: new footage shows aftermath of volcano eruption and tsunami

Meidas Touch – A Coup in Plain Sight

The Lincoln Project – What Are They For?

The Ring of Fire – January 6th Committee Targets Social Media Companies With Subpoenas

MSNBC’s Tiffany Cross explains Mitch McConnell –

Beau – Let’s talk about executive orders, doubt, and machinery….

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