Yesterday, Steve Schmidt posted a column which is near perfect for today. I can disagree with him on a couple of minor points, but that’s really just nitpicking. I cannot disagree with his conclusion, even though I don’t clearly see how it is to be done. Also, I read yesterday that the Mango Monster’s cryptocurrency scan is called $TRUMP. Does that make him a $TRUMPet? And to top off the day, the word “Villainaire[s]” has been coined.
Crooks & Liars is really speaking to elected Democrats here. But one of the things we do best is to nag our elected officials to do the right thing. So we need to think about how we can best do that under this administration.
This was in a Contrarian newsletter from Friday. I’m sorry to have to say that all the information is in a video, it doesn’t appear to have CC, and you need to jump on the button to unmute the sound. I missed about a minute but I think what I mostly missed was courtesies. Joyce Vance is known here as a Substack author, but from now on she will also be working (not alone) on a project for the Contrarian called the “Democracy Tracker. The idea is to have something which will catch us up to as much as a week’s important news into minutes. I want to say “Good luck with that,” but this time I really mean it. I hope they do pull it off. Everyone working with The Contrarian is an expert in their own right, so I think they do have a good chance. We shall see.
Yesterday, I awoke to find that we have a continuing resolution. I can’t be certain that the F News coverage is the pest on the details, but it’s pretty darned good (should I have said pretty effing good?) so here’s the link. This doesn’t mean I won’t have articles or videos on the potential shutdown for the next couple of days – because there were a few which I thought had continuing value. Meanwhile, the radio opera was Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” in an abridged form and in English (in the spring they’ll broadcast the full one in German and will call it “Die Zauberflöte“). It’s a lot of fun – for adults also – especially in this Julie Taymor production with wretchedly excessive costumes and puppets. It’s designed to appeal to kids, but adults can enjoy is just as well – maybe even better. This opera is famos outside the opera world for the Queen of the Night’s aria (in German, “Die holle Rache,” and known by pro musicians as “The holy racket,” which is not unfitting.) But there are many wonderful tunes in it besides that one. Here’s a whole page of pictures which may give you an idea of the spectacle.
Andy Borowitz has what he calls a “starter kit” to boycott. I’m way ahead of him on all four, and I don’t feel even a smidgen deprived.
This from Wonkette qualifies, I believe, as good news. I will note that the author, “Doktor Zoom,” recently leased an EV and he loves it and, in his own words, “won’t stop talking about it.” So he’s admittedly not unbiased. But pretty much everyone at Wonkette is biased in one way or another, but they all appear to retain the ability to distinguish fact from fiction, even from theory.
Yesterday, I was stressed out by the feeling that everything I did or wanted to do was fighting with me. So I’ll likely be brief in my comments on the articles I post. Honestly, I just feel exhausted.
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trumps-first-buddy-is-in-deep-shit
Robert Reich reports Elno is calling himself’ Trump**’s “first buddy.” Without comment on intellectual intelligence which Elno may or may not possess, it’s been clear for some time that his EQ (Emotional intelligence quotient) is a single digit.
https://joycevance.substack.com/p/the-democracy-index
Joyce Vance lays out how she plans to chronicle this Trump** administration (differently from the wayshe did so last time) in hope of minimizing distractions. I’m not sure she realizes that it’s not just the media, or MAGA, or Putin, who are actively working to distract us. When I dug out the Windows 10 laptop earlier ths year, and again when I dug out the Windows 10 desktop, I literally spent over a week on each one just uninstalling distractions. And I have not yet finished on either – I just got to a point where I could cope. But now both are getting worse. Please note too that uninstalling some of this is in no way obvious -but the amount of links providing instructions on how to do so (not all of which even work, which is part of the issue) suggests that I am far from alone in not wanting to be distracted by crap I will never use.
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.
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.
Yesterday, I went to my doctor’s office to get the form filled out that the DMV gave me Mondey (of course after calling to see whether they could fit me in. Frankly I think they went out of their way for me. I do try not to be a Karen.) I took the form to the DMV and it worked like a charm. In fact, they offered, because my driver’s license was supposed to renew within 6 months anyway, to renew it for another five years. Of course I was thrilled. (I do try not to be a Karen.) Now all I have to do is make an appontment to visit Virgil – the earliest Sunday he is available is April 10th (and, frankly, I feel safest driving on Sunday) I know that because the visitation staff has gone out of their way to let me know what days he (his “pod”) is scheduled for. (I do try not to be a Karen.) So back to what passes for normal starting today. Yay!
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Short Takes –
Politico – CAWTHORN’S ORGY CLAIM FALLOUT
Quote – The first-term conservative said he received invitations along the lines of: “‘Well, hey, we’re going to have kind of a sexual get-together at one of our homes, you should come’.” The 26-year-old described his response on the podcast “Warrior Poet Society”: “I’m like, ‘What did you just ask me to come to?’ And then you realize they are asking you to come to an orgy.” Cawthorn also claimed to have seen other people who are “leading” efforts to eradicate drug addiction using cocaine in front of him. Click through for story. I wouldn’t doubt the orgies, but I definitely doubt that anyone would invite Maddy. Unless they wanted to make him the goat (no, not the GOAT, just the goat, as in scape.)
PolitiZoom – REVEALED: Trump’s Last Official Call Jan 6 Was To Pence, Then A 7 Hour, 37 Minute Blackout On WH Logs. What’s Being Covered Up?
Quote – That immediately begs the question, what happened between the hours of 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m. on January 6 and how was Trump communicating with people? He has already stated through a spokesman Monday night, “I have no idea what a burner phone is, to the best of my knowledge I have never even heard the term.” Right. What’s being covered up? Seven hours is one whole lot of a longer time than the infamous 18-minutes of Watergate. Click through for details. I thought “Shades of Nixon” – but at 7:37 Trump makes Nixon’s 0:18 and a half look like Amateur Hour.
The National WWII Museum – Sophie Scholl and the White Rose
Quote – Within the United States, Sophie Magdalena Scholl is not the best-known resistance fighter, but her story is a powerful one. She was a key member of the Weiße Rose (White Rose)—a resistance group run by students at the University of Munich who distributed leaflets and used graffiti to decry Nazi crimes and the political system, while calling for resistance to the Nazi state and the war. On February 22, 1943, she was beheaded for treason at just 21 years old. Click through for full details. If you hear someone allude to the “White Rose” (or the “White Rose Society”), this is what they are talking about. Beau does occasionally (he also has a Tshirt with a white rose, so he can allude to it without saying it.)
Food For Thought:
The video this quote is from will be on the Video Thread tomorrow. But this is so succinct I just wanted to meme it.
It’s a busy day, here in the CatBox,WWWendy visited me, I Republicated earlier. I,m very tired to the point of exhaustion. The Morphine is working well. Please pray that it continues.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:39 (average 4:33). To do it click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
Short Take:
From You Tube {A blast from the past): The Beau Brummels – Laugh Laugh (Shindig)
Today way was a sleepy day, here at the CatBox. I slept most f the day. I woke up in time for morphine and went back to sleep. I Republicated quite painfully before getting on on the computer where I still am. Please pray that that Republication does not exacerbate my pain!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 5:09. (average 4:49). To do it click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
Short Takes:
From YouTube (a blast from the past): Jefferson Airplane – Crown Of Creation
