Yesterday, I worked more on my email accounts – cleaning out the old, forwarding to the new to remind me to make the changes – and also took in a grocery order – and not a minute too soon. (But soon enough.) I am making progress, not that it feel like I am.
It’s no surprise to anyone, and certainly not to Harry Litman, that Judge Beryl Howell will not stand for malarkey* in her court. (*malarkey – a word I’m using in honor of St. Patrick’s Day which is coming right up.) (Incidentally, did you ever expect to be familiar with the names of so many Federal Judges not on the Supreme Court as you are right now?)
Yesterday, I spent most of my time going through the folders in my Yahoo! email account, forwarding the very few emails which needed to be kept to the tutamail address and deleting the rest. Yahoo only allows me to delete a hundred at a time – they claim I can select more, but when I follow the instructions, they don’t work. So far the folder with the most emails in it had around 7500. Yes, I know, but I never intended to leave Yahoo, and they give you a terabyte of storage, and all my folders together were only using 0.37% of it, and I just never took the trouble. Shame on me. I also placed a grocery order for delivery today, and that’s pretty much it. I did change a few usernames, but only a few.
This is a few days old, but it’s also Robert Reich. His take one this was vaguely floating around in my subconscious – but iy would have taken months, even years, before I could have articulated it even clumsily.
This is not news, it’s been floating around for a while, but the 19th, which was started to emphasize news affecting women and other minorities, cover all the details, and some are less obvious. I am fortunate in having my original marriage certificate. I don’t have a birth certificate that qualifies – I have several copies of what California was giving out in 1945, because my Mom was wise enough to get a bunch, but it doesn’t qualify. getting a certified one is not free, but it’s not that difficult. The only passport I ever had was in my teens and no one wants to see that. Forty years ago, when I got married, I was not politically opposed to keeping my maiden name – bit it was “Stangenberger,” and I thought changing it would make life easier. I can actually put together quite a little package of evidence that I am who I am – but most of it would be considered irrelevant under this bill.
Yesterday, as if I needed another problem, Yahoo Mail decided to change its format to onw which is completely unacceptable. So, if you have me in your contacts, please change my email address to jvdix@tutamail.com. I’ll have to have the yahoo account open for a while because for at least some things I subscribe to the only way the change the address is subscribe under the new address and unsubscribe under the old one – and there doesn’t seem to be any simple way to transfer contacts. Because I work ahead you can expect new posts for a few days at least – and if I need to take some days off, I recommend checking at one of the following – Talking Points Memo, The Contrarian, or ProPublica. The first two are good at looking at and picking up a wide spectrum of news. The last is strong on doing its own investigations and digging up the dirt. Y’all mostly also have your own sources and may not need to come here, and that’s fine. I’m subbing a Randy Rainbow for Belle today to give myself an extra day’s time – I have started it just after the advertising – but his sponsor, Ground News appears to be another good general source, so there’s that.
Steve Schmidt has a daughter who is a career skiier. After JD Vance went skiing, she sent this rant to her dad, who published it Wednesday. (When I saw the title, I thought of “jerry” as being the World War II term for Nazis among English speaking allied countries. But it is a skiing term and apparently unrelated to the WWII usage.) I find a righteous rant cathartic – if you don’t, feel free to skip this one.
I didn’t watch the State of the Union address Tuesday. I have enough trouble watching speeches by people who are competent. I also figured if I was encouraging my Dem Senators to boycott it (which they didn’t), I was more than justified in doing so myself. I did, after the fact, hear about Al Green, though not in as much detail as here in The F* News, including the details of the consequences and/or lack thereof for comparable acts historically. I think it’s important to give him credit for the courage which so many of our elected representatives in both Houses seem to lack. Of course they have voted to censure him. Barf.
And speaking of attention – certainly any honest outlet (which Axios more or less is) which came upon this information is doing the right thing to release it immediately. But I can’t help but wonder how much of it will disappear in the fallout from the SotU and other distractions.
Yesterday, a petition I signed for Care2 reminded me vividly of “The Kennel Murder Mystery,” a Philo Vance mystery by S.S. Van Dine. The Vance novels are not for everyone, not even for every mystery fan. The series ran in the 1920s and 1930a, and in the 1920s it was the fashion for young men of some means to be eccentric, and Vance was probably the most eccentric, to the point that this jingle became what we would today call viral: “Philo Vance/needs a kick in the pance.” (Off topic, but wouldn’t that work nicely with the substitution of J.D. for Philo?) The Kennel Murder Mystery is from the 30’s and one critic said it was the best of the later ones because it was a locked room mystery and because in it Vance was “less unbearably obnoxious than usual.” But I digress. From time to time a petition, particularly one involving dog abuse, will remind me of this novel, and the look in the eyes of the dog in this photo pushed that button. The content in question is in Chapter 19 (or XIX), and i see the link I copied should take you directly to that chapter – but it doesn’t. But putting “As we approached the western entrance to the park” take you right to the place to start. There are several points to stop at, but when Vance says he wants to talk to Liang, the episode is as over as it’s going to get. I went a bit farther and found this quote from Lao-Tzu: “he who abuses the weak is eventually destroyed by his own weakness.” It might make a decent protest poster.
On Monday, I received a “Damn-giver Dispatch” from John Pavlovitz, and decided I needed more. So I signed up for a free subscription to his Substack (“The Beautiful Mess”) When I got there and started looking, I discovered that one of his posts there has been picked up by MoveOn and turned into a petition – not that it’s asking for anything, but to provide a vehicle to get it to the person to whom it is addressed, and to express the number of people who are in agreement. He certainly speaks for me, so of course I signed it. The link here is to the column – the petition link is at the bottom (before the comments). speaking of Substack, I seem to remember when I started linking to Substack articles and the “please subscribe” request looked like a paywall, saying something like “Please get adjusted because this thing is growing so fast that just about everyone who has something helpful to say will be on it.” Well, I also got an email from Theater of War – and checked the email address – and yup TOW is now on Substack. [The Pavlovitz and the ProPublics article below were intended for Tuesday.]
ProPublica’s weekly “The Big Story” newsletter from Saturday was just packed with news, most of which others are not covering. Fortunately, they provide a “view in browser” link – which as you know not everyone does.
I don’t suppose anyone here doesn’t know this now. Although you may not know just how far back it goes. Evan Hurst with Wonkette also has his own Substack, titled “The Moral High Ground.” Having that mind set, he sees things which other sometimes miss.
Yesterday, I signed a couple of petitions for LeftClick, which is now using Care2 as a platform, at least sometimes, and at least these two. Both were addressed to the people of Ukraine. Both were offering apologies to them and expressing support. One was for the Mango Monster being an idiot. The other was for the Hillbilly Huckster being a jerk. Both expressed something like “We know you don’t need this, especially when you are fighting for your existence.” Seldom have I been in so much and so passionate agreement with a petition – and I’ve been passionate about a lot that I have signed. Also, is anyone here interested in getting stickers of Trump** saying “I did that!” to put on products ot product labels showing highly inflated prices, or closed federal buildings, or any other indicator of a catastrophe which this administration is responsible for? Progressive Change Campaign Committee is offering them for as little as a $5 donation. Check out the offer at ActBlue. Oh, and the night before the volcano went off in the White House, Mary Trump and Alex Vindman did a live streamed convo on Substack which is now available to all, here (it’s about an hour, but there’s a transcript).
Well, this from HuffPost is not exactly encouraging – but it certainly is honest. And honesty, integrity, truth are the first steps to ending authoritarian regimes. And at the site of the article was a link to this story, which graphically shows what it looks like.
Yes I realize this news from The F* News is news from last week. I’ll always try to get critical breaking news up when I can (probably mostly in comments since I do work ahead as much as possible), but when I can’t get it to you that fast I go for analysis, clarity, and attitude.
Yesterday, I discovered that the reason my Win10 desktop will not run or even load any games is that, though it has a 64bit processor, it only has a 32bit OS. Yes, it took me long enough to figure that out. And upgrading the OS is going to be a time consuming and tedious process spanning multiple (not necessarily consecutive) days. At least my 8.1 will still run them, so I can take my time. Rushing something like this is a great way to lose data. (At least, if I scream a lot, y’all won’t have to hear me. 🙂 Also, here’s a link to a petition which, in my not so humble opinion, should have way more signers than it has, or even than the sponsor is asking for. See what you think.
It’s all too easy, with so much chaos here, to forget that there’s a world out there – and that we are being watched and judged by it. But it’s the case. Heather Cox Richardson looks at it – and at the contrast in the way we were seen in the previous administration, as opposed to how we are seen now. Embarrassing as it is, I think this change is a good thing. If the rest of the world, particularly Europe, were to sound approving of us right now, I’d be far more worried than I am.
Well, it’s here. The 19th reports the first death of a child caused by measles from an outbreak in like 30 years (There was an isolated on in 2018 which may have involved international travel in some way, but there was not an outbreak. Now there is – about 129 kids in west Texas are measles patients.) I think the details are such that your reaction, like mine, will be “Well, we tried to warn you.” I still have all my extra masks from CoViD and intend to use them if necessary.
Yes, a third article, this one from Wonkette. I feel like a broken record saying “We tried to warn you.” But here we are.
Yesterday, Virgil and I played cribbage – and did some reminiscing about Fred, which was bittersweet. His legacy – the station announced his passing on Thursday and started then playing comments from other announcers, former announcers, the manager, former managers, and listeners about their memories. They continued all day Friday – except for a two-hour special featuring more comments and his favorite music. Than they continued interspersing comments all day Saturday (except for the opera – it runs live so there’s no way for an individual station to carve out any time, and besides, Fred would have hated that – he loved opera at least as much as I do – probably more.) Then yesterday it continued. It may continue today. I’m certainly not tired of it.
There is a lot of good-to-know information in this The F* News article. The Governor of Maine is just the hors d’oeuvres, if you will. What convinced me to post it was its explanation, complete with links to evidence, of why having a Medicare Advantage plan is literally paying for the privilege of having your claims denied.
I don’t watch network TV, or any TV really – if you do, you’ve likely heard that Joy Reid (Th Reid Out) has been fired from MSN. I expect some of you have already given up on MSN – numerous people at site I read which allow comments certainly have. I still feel that Lawrence and Nicolle are valuable, and also Rachel is back daily, I believe for the first hundred days of the present administration only, but it’s something. I also note – at the link – that Meidas Touch offered her a position before the ink was dry on the pink slip (metaphor – I know no one uses ink on paper any more.) I personally find Meidas Touch difficult to listen to, but I know that’s just me, and I am extremely grateful for the work they are doing.
Yesterday was pretty quiet. I put in a couple of medical claims for Thyroid, which has to come from a pharmacy which for some reason cannot accept HSA cards. (But the claims a paid promptly.) And that’s really all .
Like y’all, I was disappointed in Alvin Bragg when he first took office. But, oh boy, has he ever found some (courage, guts, balls, spine – pick your metaphor.) Now I am wondering whether this is newfound, or whether we underestimated him all along. Not that it really matters when an entire nation can best survive by simply taking one day at a time. Joyce Vance elaborates.
Yes, I am late with this Heather Cox Richardson essay. But I am always going to be late with hers and Vance’s, and Reich’s, and Hubbell’s, because they all send late enough that I generally don’t see them until the following day. At best, I ever see them untl after I have posted. But I fon’t consider that a reason not to share them when they are profound. This one is about the history of December 10 being international Human Rights Day. And all that that history implies.
