Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
We need to keep looking forward
while still glancing back
as we shouldn’t forget the horror
of all those wars and attacks
something better must be ahead
because look back how it was
it’s a long arc and takes time
but peace and justice for all is our cause
Mood: variable
The Rogue Valley clocks a fading blue sky and 55 F today. Oh, it’s sunny but clouds hamper the sun’s spread and impact. We’re calling this new day Wednesday, March 20, 2024. 66 F is our anticipated high.
The cats haven’t noticed the weather change. Papi is out in the backyard on a grassy knoll, under some trees but in sunshine. From there, he can survey his domain and take action as needed.
Our other floof, Tucker, has found a sunny dining room spot. One of his favorite places, he can spy on us as we go about doing things from under the table and nap in sunshine through the southeastern windows. He’s doing well, gaining weight and energy, and acting more like his former self. His oral surgery is a week from today.
I experienced a bounty of dreams last night. How many is a bounty? Five that I remember. After the awakening, The Neurons popped The Stone Roses with “Love Spreads” into the morning mental music stream (Trademark countdown has begun). The 1994 song was an enigma to me. I enjoyed the music side, but the lyrics were another matter. While it was talking about a woman, I didn’t understand the full context.
Love spreads her arms
Waits there for the nails
I forgive you boy
I will prevail
Too much to take
Some cross to bear
I’m hiding in the trees with a picnic
She’s over there, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
She didn’t scream
She didn’t make a sound
I forgive you boy
But don’t leave town
Cold black skin
Naked in the rain
Hammer flash in the lightning
They’re hurting her again
Let me put you in the picture
Let me show you what I mean
The messiah is my sister
Ain’t no king, man, she’s my queen
h/t Songfacts.com
I later learned that the song is about the crucifixion of Jesus, part of the Christian teachings. Instead of a white man, a black woman was being nailed to the cross. John Squire, the Stone Roses guitarist said in an interview while discussing the song, “The idea of the song is, ‘Why couldn’t Jesus have been a black woman?’ It’s just an attack on the white guy with a beard sittin’ on a cross, cos that reinforces the patriarchal society.”
Stay strong, be positive, lean forward, and please vote. Coffee is at hand; we have liftoff. Here’s the music.
Cheers
I went to a local department store for a few DIY projects. Passing the seasonal aisle, I saw a display of toilet seats.
I never thought of toilet seats as seasonal.
Flooftidean Space (floofinition) – Fundamental area used by a floof. Origins: Flooftidean Elements, a thirteen-volume treatise on floof culture originally published in 300 BC.
In Use: “Apex hunters like cougars tend to have a large flooftidean space, and when humans encounter one, they need to remember not to panic and not to run.”
In Use: “Keri’s housecats had flexible flooftidean space but didn’t let it overlap with one another, although they were apt to steal the other’s favorite sleeping space.”
Warning: short rant ahead.
I don’t know if laws, customs, or behaviors are changing when it comes to driving in Ashland, Oregon. I don’t think it’s a change law. Although I sometimes zone out of what’s going on locally, I believe I would have heard about a law changing how turn signals are used.
Note: turn signals are also called blinkers. More formerly, they’re called direction indicator lights.
See, I’ve noticed a new development here. Drivers stop. As you stop behind them and wonder why they’re stopped, they start to turn and then put on their turn signal.
WTF? I thought the idea behind turn signals was to communicate with other drivers and notify them of their intention to turn. Doing so reduces the chances of accidents and injuries. Already enough of that potential when people are driving around in these powerful metal machines.
I see it in all situations, including changing lanes and at traffic lights. Red light. Stopped. Green light. They move up, begin the turn, and then put on the signal. Meanwhile, the driver they faced was starting to go. Now they hesitate because what the other drive is doing is different from what they’re communicated. The communication confusion spills down the line.
Was the driver who didn’t use their turn signal really just changing their mind? Could happen. Sure. But it’s happening so often now, I’m dubious. And they consistently begin moving into the turn first, and then put on the signal. That strikes me as premeditated.
It happened to me this morning. A large late model Ford pickup truck was stopped in the lane ahead of me. As I closed on him, I could see that no one was in front of them.
Were they broken down? Lost or confused?
Maybe. Because after the traffic coming toward them thinned, the began turning left and then put on their signal.
Yes, they put on their signal after they started turning, after they’d been stopped for about twenty seconds.
It didn’t make sense. For the record, the driver looked white, and a male — I say that because of the beard — in their late twenties to early thirties.
I’m not the only person complaining about the lack of signals. A 2019 NYTimes article explored the same sort of problem.
The NYT article asks, “So what’s the problem here? Why don’t many drivers take this simple safety precaution? When asked about their bad habits in a national study, their explanations seemed confounding.
“The study by Response Insurance of Meriden, Conn., found that 42 percent of drivers claimed they didn’t have enough time to signal before turning. Nearly a quarter of drivers blamed laziness, while 17 percent said they skipped signaling because they were apt to forget to cancel the blinkers. Worth noting: Men admitted that they were more likely, by 62 percent to 53 percent, to change lanes without signaling.”
Laziness. Really? Turning on that signal is that challenging to their strength, attention, and energy?
My situation is a little different. Drivers here ARE turning their signal on, but not until they actually start turning.
I don’t understand what’s going on in their head. It’s such a simple thing. As the NYT article notes, “Is it that some drivers just don’t care about the other guy? If that’s the case, consider this: There is evidence that the act of signaling provides a cognitive benefit to the driver.
“When you turn on the turn signal, you’re turning on your brain,” said Chris Kaufmann, a driving school instructor who specializes in teaching people who drive V.I.P.s.”
My impression is that drivers not using signals until they’re in the turn unaware of the law or they’re not mentally involved in their driving. Maybe they’re on the phone, listening to the radio, or chatting to another in the car.
Driving a car is part of a system. When some drivers don’t follow the system’s rules, it starts breaking down. Maybe it’s anal of me, but that’s how I see it.
Probably just me.
Mood: Marchmad
March madness continues, but less than two weeks remain before April shows up with its ideas.
Hi goobers. Today is Tuesday, March 19, 2021. We’re returning to a more traditional spring later this week. Right now, it’s 60 F with a high of 76 F in our sights. The sky couldn’t be any bluer if you asked an elementary school class to paint it.
Naturally, the weather affected the floofies. They’re shedding like fur is anathema to their look. Especially Papi. I went around picking up little ginger and cream fur clusters. Then he galloped around, fur flying in the sunshine through the windows, leaving fur like it was breadcrumbs to find his way back.
With that thought, Les Neurons posted “Find Your Way Back” by Jefferson Starship in the morning mental music stream (Trademark promised). Came out in 1981. I’ve had it as the day’s theme music before, in fact, just two years ago. Works for me for today.
Stay positive, lean forward, vote, and be strong. I’m refreshed and invigorated by sun and coffee. Hope you weather and drink is doing you right wherever you be. Here’s the music. Cheers
Mood: Montastic
Spring has set up here in the Rogue Valley, home to Ashlandia, where professionals from California come to rest. Mountain snow remains on the mountains in places but blossoms, blue skies, and sunshine seem to have settled in. 69 F and sunny now, we’re climbing fast toward today’s 76-degree F high.
Now this warm weather does bring worry, worry that winter didn’t gift us enough, worry that March is too warm too fast, worry that summer will be stratospheric hot. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, it’ll be a moderate summer and give us a respite for recovery from the last several years.
The cats are happy as cats in sunshine, although Papi has become ridiculously restless. Out to in, in to out he goes, what he’s searching for, nobody knows. Methinks he’s hunting for some fun.
I realized from a photo that he’s been with us at least eight years now. Scheckter, one of my original Orange Boyz, passed away in 2013 (cancer) at too young an age after being with us only twelve years. Papi remarkably resembles Scheckter. Seeing Papi on the fence before he joined our household always surprised me because he was such a mini-me Scheckter.
That’s only in markings. Papi is about eight pounds less than Scheckter. Scheckter and his mate, Pogo, were large, muscular cats. Scheckter came in at 19-21 pounds while Pogo bested him with two more pounds.
News reports in the US are cycling around DJ Trump and his latest inflammatory rhetoric. Does he mean it when he declares ‘some people aren’t human. What does he mean people ask when he talks about bloodbaths if he loses.
The headline for David Smith’s article in The Guardian posits that Trump’s 2024 political campaign is about vengeance. ‘A campaign for vengeance’: critics warn of a radical second Trump term.
Smith writes, ‘Detention camps, mass deportations, capital punishment for drug smugglers, tariffs on imported goods, a purge of the justice department and potential withdrawal from Nato – the Trump policy agenda is radical by any standard including his own, pushing the boundaries set during his first presidential run eight years ago.’
For some reason, this is what former POTUS Trump thinks is what will fix the United States. He believes this is what Americans want and what the world needs. I believe he’s wrong. The majority of economists believe his various tariffs had negative effects on the US economy or did nothing. Few believe the tariffs did any good.
As for detention camps, mass deportations, and capital punishment for drug smugglers, such draconian measures belong to a less civilized era, one in which violence and brute force were employed to achieve national objectives. Although we’re waaayyy too armed as a nation, mostly because of the Military-Industrial complex President Dwight D. Eisenhower — a Republican — warned us about in 1961.
It’s depressing that some will follow Trump and pursue these warn out ancient ideas as modern solutions. I don’t believe the majority do. I just hope the majority votes and ensures these ideas don’t become our new national policies.
Shifting from politics to music, The Neurons have “In Bloom” by Nirvana in the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). “In Bloom” came out in 1992. It’s come to mind for me today because of that chorus, “He’s the one who likes all the pretty songs, and he likes to sing along, but he knows not what it means.”
I think it applies today because of DJ Trump. He says many things. But he really doesn’t understand what they mean or how incongruous they seem. He tries to spin other meanings, making shit up. And that becomes the new truth for the followers in his cult. They, and Trump’s compliant Republican supporters and right-wing press, spin and insist, “That’s not what he means.”
Outside of the cult, outside of the right-wing media bubble, and outside of the empty GOP, the rest of us understand what he means. We understand the implicit violence of his promises and declarations. We see through his garbage and recognize that he doesn’t give a shit about the United States or the U.S. Constitution and its ideals. This is all about him and his vengeance quest.
Okay, back off my box. Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote, please. I’m indulging in another serving of coffee. Here’s the music. Cheers
