December 20, 2023 is a Wednesday and carries the weight of spring. Confused by the signals the weather is giving, some flowers are blooming. We surfed a night of smooth rain, overnight lows in the mid 40s F. Our high today will bubble into the mid 50s. Casual clouds, thin and stretched, barely mask the blue sky. The cats are struggling to adjust, shedding fur after gaining their winter coats and now finding they don’t need them. Great clumps are left wherever they pause to sleep or wash.
Please, though, give us snow on the mountains. Please. It’s needed.
I surfed the news but left it after a short visit. Not depressing so much as it’s meh. We’re in a waiting stage for some many outcomes and perpetually checking and reviewing developments, breaking news, new revelations of old news and prognostications about what will happen has become tedious. I’m ravenous for some sense of an ending.
Musically, first I had “Too Marvelous for Words” whirling around the morning mental music stream (Trademark pummeled). It’s been performed by a long list of crooners but Mom often played Frank Sinatra’s cover while cleaning around the house. Released in 1956, the year of my birth, it’s drummed into my musical psyche. I have no idea why The Neurons voted it into my mind this morning.
But before it became too comfortable, a song inspired by the floofs was brought into the mmms. Released in 1972, “Children of the Revolution” by T. Rex had Elton John and Ringo Starr playing as part of the lineup. Although I enjoyed it, it went out of head until I heard the Violent Femmes version of it. A friend was colossal Femfan, and was playing the song in her car one day when we went to lunch together in Palo Alto. I asked if she knew the song’s origins, and then gleefully told the tale. I’d only heard it after my cousin, just returned from the UK where his father had been stationed with the USAF, played it.
How did the floofs play into this memory? I’d been teasing them, trying to trick them by pretending they weren’t being fed. They weren’t fooled, which triggered me singing, “You won’t fool the kitties of the revolution.”
Stay pos, be cool, remain strong, and leeeaaannn forward. Coffee has already touched my lips. Here’s the music. Cheers
Today is Tuesday, Dec 19, 2023. Just two days till December 21, when winter solstice in the north and summer solstice down below the equator, arrives. Up here we’re counting down to the ‘shortest day of the year’ as so many glibly phrase it. It means we’ll have the shortest period of sun exposure. But solstice is a few days later in Ashlandia; December 21 is an average. Our shortest day lands seven about a week later.
It’s been a really mild winter so far. Today it’s 55 F and rainy. Although indicators say this will continue, weather can change faster than a floof runs to get a treat. But no snow is bad news for the summer, as we depend on our melting mountain snow packs to keep filling our cisterns and reservoirs. So, fingers crossed, snow will come.
Been thinking about inflation. I’m a Paul Krugman fan. Been reading him for decades. But he’s insisting that inflation has gone down but mentions that people like me think it hasn’t because we’re paying more for things than we used to. Paul says the economy is actually good, and President Biden is getting a bad rap over it.
I won’t go into the variations of inflation that exist or how they track it. For me, it comes down to paying much more for car and house insurance than before, higher rates for my water, service fees, home gas and electricity, cat food, and much more for gas for my car. We buy organic and jeez have those prices jumped. Eating out gives me sticker shock almost every time, and beer, wine, and coffee also all cost more, definitely discretionary purchases but, hey, it’s all part of my life style.
Then, housing. Wow. I’ve been considering a move to another part of the nation. Housing is part of the equation to learn where we’ll drop. They’ve always talked about how expensive California housing is, and some parts of Oregon, but looking through New England prices has me reaching for sedatives to calm my nerves. Pennsylvania and Ohio prices are lower than Ashlandia, and more house can be acquired there, but not in New England. There’s also a huge rise in the number of condos and town homes being built. I don’t want to live in either of those because I’ve done it before and I dislike dealing with management over what I can or can’t do with my domicile. There are enough layers or law that I don’t need another layer, especially one that I pay for through things like HOAs. No thanks.
Had to get that off my chest.
Shifting gears to music, I had “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead” pinging around the morning mental music stream (Trademark unverified) for a while this morning. That’s ‘cuz we saw The Wizard of Oz on Sunday and my wife decided to walk around the house singing about the witch’s death this morning. With less than an eyeblink, The Neurons had it playing over and over and over in my head. I think that kind of thing can drive one insane.
But then I began reading the news and something, something, once again, said or done in the name of god and Jesus to justify being cruel or empty headed was read. I don’t know if it was about the hypocritical Zieglers in Florida, or Trump and the Evanges, or Ohio’s Attorney General, or the Pope, or the AG of Texas or some crap out of the Moms of Liberty. They all stay in the news with their twisted logic about God, religion, and our nation and laws.
Out of that morass of misinformation and misogyny, The Neurons came up with Joan Osborne’s hit song of 1992, “One of Us”. This is a song about god being a slob like one of us, living a life like average humans, riding the bus, going home.
An enticing, intriguing idea. What if the crazy dude talking to himself in the corner is god? Or that women behind the counter with all the piercings is god? What if all these people that go around, trying and struggling, or at home, baking for a holiday, or drinking alone in a house at night while watching some rerun are god? No magic or power, no all-knowing, no one any more or less special than a person walking by you? Strong medicine for the mind to contemplate.
Stay pos, be strong, lean forward, and press on. Coffee is being consumed by the cup here. Here’s the music. Cheers
Monday cometh, cloaked as December 18, 2023. I’m starting to plan some holiday purchases.
Winter painted the morning sky lazy grays and thickly mottled white. Will it rain, even snow, was being mentioned around town everywhere. At 52 F, snow didn’t seem likely but as some of winter’s sky work darkened, rain possibilities seemed to be inching up.
Meanwhile, heavy winds are playing with us. I watched a large fir tree across the street madly swirling, waving its branches like an angry MAGA at a rally. No other trees were moving, so I was thinking, “WTF? Why is that tree moving while no others do anything?” Must be a haunted tree, I decided. Then it went still. I watched for a demon or sumpin’ to emerge. Instead, all the other friggin’ trees started waving at the same time. Like watching a home crowd cheering a touchdown. Then it stopped again. I decided I needed to have coffee before watching more. Coffee helps me make sanity out of the insane, or pretend that I don’t care.
Wind is still going but the sky has disrobed the clouds. Sunshine spreads itself over the pavement and buildings. The temperature is up to 53 F.
In the ‘I don’t care’ side of things, I had to tell myself that I don’t care that GOP darling Ron DeSantis, Lord Destructor of Floriduh, says dumb shit. I almost gagged on the latest dumb shit as he declared that liberals allow abortions after birth, aka ‘post-birth abortions’.
WTF does that mean, the interviewer didn’t ask Ron. Can you tell me where this happens, Ron, the interviewer also didn’t ask. Wouldn’t that be murder, Governor, also wasn’t asked. Talking about it with my wife, she informed me that this is a standard GOP talking point. I looked it up and Politifact confirmed, yes, this is something Republicans regularly mention, and no, there’s not truth to it. Would’ve been nice to have the interviewer pursue the truth while they had DeInsanis in front of them, but no, that sort of journalism is rarely practiced in ‘Merica. Don’t want any snowflakes meltin’ on TV, no sir.
No wonder the United States is going to shit when GOP ‘leaders’ say such ignorant and foul ideas and don’t get challenged by the media. No wonder so many voters are ignorant and blind. The media deserves a huge fucking chunk of blame.
Musically, my wife mentioned a song to me the other day, to wit, Miley Cyrus singing her version of “Santa Baby” with some feminist lyrics about not needing Santa to bring her things. The Neurons took it up in the morning mental music stream (Trademark given away), and now I can’t get it out of my head, so here it is for your listening and viewing entertainment. Ho, ho, ho.
Stay pos, be strong, lean forward into the wind, and press on with pride. Coffee has been poured into me and I’m now firing on six out of eight cylinders. Hopefully, more hot caffeine juice will push the other two cylinders to start firing, and then all eight of them will get into rhythm, right? Yes, hopefully.
Oh, look, the sun is gone, the clouds have returned, and it’s raining. Here’s the video. Cheers
FAC: Floof Action Committee (floofinition) –1. A consortium of animals joining together to achieve change or direct policy.
In Use: “The household pets knew where the treats were stored and egged on by the dog, formed a FAC to get to them. The cat was most instrumental, jumping onto the kitchen counter and then to the refrigerator’s top to knock the packets to the floor, but the dogs were the ones who tore them open for all to enjoy.”
Recent Use: “On a cold winter night, a dog found a small niche of shelter where she could stay warm. Soon another dog, and then a cat joined him, sharing their warmth and shelter, and creating a de facto survival FAC.”
2. A group of humans dedicated to helping and, or, saving animals, and ensuring their health and welfare are attended to.
In Use: “Many communities have volunteers which form a FAC to reduce the feral populations with spay-neuter-release programs, and have parallel programs to find the young and have them fostered, domesticated, and adopted.
Recent Use: “With wars and military actions reducing places to terrifying scenes of burned-out rubble, global FACs have formed to find and save the innocent animals, giving them food and medical treatment, and shipping them out to safe places as needed and able.”
Forty-one holiday bowl games are coming up in the next several weeks.
I live in Oregon. I’ve quasi-adopted the two major colleges’ sports team. More like surrendered than adopted, as the colleges and their sports teams are frequent news and conversation topics. Both college football teams are ‘ranked’ this year and will play in bowl games.
The names of these bowl games are psyche shredding. The Oregon State Beavers face Notre Dame in the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl. Seriously.
Oregon University’s Ducks will play Liberty in the VRBO Fiesta Bowl.
You should check out the names of these corporate sponsored NCAA college football bowl games. Remember, this is about amateur sports. Among them is the Cricket Celebration Bowl in the Mercedes Benz Stadium. Avocados from Mexico Cure Bowl. Famous Toastery Bowl. Roofclaim.com Boca Raton Bowl.
I wonder how many years it’ll be before the teams have corporate sponsors. I’m sure many will watch the Nike Oregon University Ducks vs the Eli Lilly Fighting Irish of Notre Dame in the VRBO Fiesta Bowl or maybe, instead, the Columbia Sportswear Company Oregon State Beavers (sometimes just called the Columbia Beavers) against Freddie Mac Liberty University in the the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl.
Rudy Giuliani was found guilty of defaming Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shae Moss, two voluteers at a Georgia voting station. As punishment, a jury decided he should pay the two volunteers $148,000,000.
Good. I have no sympathy for Rudy and will lose no sleep over this verdict. I hope it’ll teach him a lesson and shut him up, but that would be logical, and Rudy’s behavior has gone over the logic cliff.
Chilly 34 F this morning, but sunshine and blue sky rule the space above the trees and mountains around Ashlandia, where the service is above average and the menus are varied. Peak temperature will be 56 F. Unlike yesterday, spring isn’t hovering in the air; it is a hazy shade of winter.
Today is Friday and this is December 15, 2023. We’re halfway through December once we pass midday. But sixteen days remain for 2023. 2024 is coming. So is winter for us in the northern hemisphere. I’m really surprised by how little snow has visited us here. That doesn’t bode well for next year’s water supply.
I don’t think I mentioned that we made our crock pot candy the other night. Pounds of nuts, bark, peanut butter chips, and milk and semi-sweet chocolate melted and stirred together and then plopped out on wax paper. Well, from many pounds of ingredients comes many pounds of candy. We bagged them up in a seasonal look and shared with others. Fourteen of my beer drinkin’ friends were gifted the treats. My wife calls them addictive. Several recipients emailed me to agree, and some even called them divine. Just tastes like the old Goo-Goo Clusters to me, minus the middle maple or vanilla.
Musically, The Neurons have surprised me with a gift song in my morning mental music stream (Trademark digitized) from an album by The Who, Quadrophenia, which was released in 1973, yeah, fifty years ago. Today’s song is “The Real Me”, a classic Who rocker — loud guitars, screaming vocals, and lots of drumming, but this one features the bassist, Entwhistles, basically doing lead guitar guitar on his bass. So cool to a teenager about to breach adulthood, and I still enjoy it. I also included a cut from the movie which resulted from the album.
The song choice by my head makes sense though in the context of our times. We always want to know who are celebrities are and what they’re really like. Beyond pop culture, we’re hunting the truth in our political leaders, too. Many will claim to be one thing, claiming they’re compassionate and religious and go to church regularly, regaling us with tales of principles and bravery, but their actions betray their claims. Meanwhile, others are maligned, being called liars and criminals despite lack of evidence. And then we meet people, or have relationships with others in which it seems like something shady is going on. Can I see the real you? I don’t know; many have become clever chameleons.
Be brave and strong and true and positive. Lean forward as others have done in our past to bring about better terms and conditions for living the best way possible. Keep advancing.
Here’s the music. There’s my coffee. Hey, ho, let’s go. Blitzkrieg Friday. Cheers
The mid-week has crashed in once again. It’s like it’s on a schedule.
Yeah, Wednesday, December 13, 2023, is here in Ashlandia, where the gravity is average. Blustery winds dominate, sending my floofs back into the house complaining about it. They are not fans of wind. It’s 50 F now but we have the potential to achieve a high of 53 F before the weary sun sends us over to the night.
After reading some news, The Neurons are treating me to “Cry Me A River” as covered by Joe Cocker. He turned the soft song into a blues tinged hard rocker. This video showed a classic savagely energetic Cocker performance.
One of the things which pushed Cocker & “Cry Me A River” into the morning mental music stream (Trademark dumped) was Donald Trump’s text screaming about one of the cases against him (there are four). Which one? Um, let’s see: yes, charges over whether former President Donald Trump can be prosecuted on charges he plotted to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump claimed he has immunity because he was POTUS. A federal judge ruled the case could go forward. Trump said he would ask the federal appeals court in Washington to reverse that outcome.
What special prosecutor Jack Smith decided is to bypass the appeals court, the usual next step in the process, and have the Supreme Court take it up. From Newsweek: ‘Smith asked if “a former President is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office or is constitutionally protected from federal prosecution when he has been impeached but not convicted before the criminal proceedings begin.”‘ Sure, get it done, stop wasting time and money, and answer the question about Trump’s immunity claim in the federal election interference case.
But if you know Trump (and how can you not by now?), his number three favorite tactic in court is delaying. (Numbers one and two is lying and verbally attacking and insulting people.)
From Newsweek:
“Crooked Joe Biden’s henchman, Deranged Jack Smith is so obsessed with interfering in the 2024 Presidential Election with the goal of preventing President Trump from retaking the Oval Office, as the President is poised to do, that Smith is willing to try for a Hail Mary by racing to the Supreme Court and attempting to bypass the appellate process,” a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign said in a statement Monday afternoon.
“There is absolutely no reason to rush this Witch Hunt to trial, except to injure President Trump and his 150 million, at least, supporters.”
Trump doesn’t have 150 million supporters. By his actions, he’s come to be at this point. So, yeah, so cry me a river.
Stay positive, be stable and strong, and lean forward toward a better world. I’ve had coffee and am trying to do all these things as well. Here’s some music to take your mind off things. Hope you enjoy it. Cheer
First, it’s a longer post than usual for me. Politics drive it. Let’s get into it.
34 F greeted me in Ashlandia, where the sunshine is bright, and winters are above average. Blue skies, wind, and sunshine followed us into this Tuesday, December 12, 2023. Already 53 F, a high of 55 F is being suggested.
I’m disgusted, again, with political news. My focus now is on Texas. My major concern focuses on the anti-abortion farce in red states, and the bullshit about the issue which they spread. Texas under the GOP often competes with Florida is spreading the most disgusting bullshit. They succeeded this time with the case of Kate Cox. Pregnant, a mother of two and resident of Texas, her physician informed her that her fetus had trisomy 18. She was told her fetus had malformations of the spine, heart, brain and limbs.
What mother wants to hear that? A devastating diagnosis, most trisomy 18 pregnancies end in stillbirths. Infants born alive with this diagnosis endure anguished lives, which are often short and painful.
But those paragons of virtue we know as the Texas GOP knows better than doctors, unintentionally ironic. Remember how Republicans always insisted that ACA, or Obamacare, would have death panels if it was instituted. Yeah, look who insists on death panels now. That’d be you, Republicans. This is their interpretation of ‘right to life’; so long as your right belongs to them, they’ll decide who lives and dies.
Observers outside of the magic conspiracy cone where Republicans often now live expected this. We all know from experience that the right wing loves to project what it does on others. Just read almost anything that Donald Trump, a documented liar now in court for fraud and other crimes, says about lying and fraud. Remember when he said anyone being investigated by the FBI is unworthy of being POTUS. *chuckle*. Now that it’s him, it’s a witch-hunt being conducted by the deep state. The deep state is the GOP’s favorite boogeyman, their reason for anything happening against them.
Kate Cox was also told that if she continued her pregnancy, it posed threats to her health and was at risk of losing her future fertility.
Nonsense, those learned doctors on the Texas Supreme Court said, denying Kate Cox an abortion. She’d, fortunately, felt how the wind was blowing and vacated Texas to get the modern health care needed in a more advanced state than Texas, which would be every blue state.
What pisses me off as much as the stance taken by these cruel Texan frauds is that back when all these harsh anti-abortion bills were passed, those outside of the GOP conspiracy bubble had foreseen the shit that went down in Texas. We were revolted when Texas pretended to care about the mother’s health and exigent circumstances because we knew Texas Republicans were not the flexible, thoughtful, compassionate, and intelligent people their exemption bill needed them to be. And they proved so at the first opportunity.
Soon after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, horror stories started emerging of women denied medically urgent abortions for pregnancies gone dangerously awry. In response, the anti-abortion movement developed a sort of conspiracy theory to rationalize away the results of their policies.
Abortion rights activists, they argued, were deliberately misconstruing abortion laws, leading doctors to refuse to treat women who obviously qualified for exceptions. “Abortion advocates are spreading the dangerous lie that lifesaving care is not or may not be permitted in these states, leading to provider confusion and poor outcomes for women,” said a report by the anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute. The Catholic conservative Richard Doerflinger accused “pro-abortion groups” of spreading “false and exaggerated claims in order to ‘paralyze’ physicians and discredit the laws.”
Whether this argument stemmed from genuine denial or a cynical desire to mislead the public, a shattering case in Texas shows how absurd it is. Late last month, Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two, learned that her latest, much-wanted pregnancy was doomed because of a severe genetic disorder. If the pregnancy continued, she was likely to have a stillbirth, and if she didn’t, the baby had virtually no chance of surviving long outside the womb.
She’d made several trips to the emergency room for severe cramping and what seemed to be leaking amniotic fluid. Her doctor told her that carrying the pregnancy to term could jeopardize her future fertility, and Cox very much wants more children. So she, her husband and her doctor sued the state, seeking a court order to allow her to terminate her pregnancy in Texas. If the Texas abortion ban had workable medical exceptions, it’s hard to see how they wouldn’t apply to Cox. But it doesn’t, and the state attorney general, Ken Paxton, fought the Cox family and their doctor every step of the way.
Goldberg elaborates on what Kate Cox did chasing the exemption and pursuing the best outcome for her and her fetus, and concludes —
An irony here is that if the State Supreme Court had allowed Cox to end her pregnancy in Texas, it might have benefited hard-line abortion opponents. Were the state to codify clear exemptions for people in extreme medical distress, offering a sliver of mercy to women like Zurawski and Cox, its callous abortion ban might seem slightly more politically palatable. That, after all, is why abortion opponents falsely insist that such clarity already exists.
But right-wing politicians and those who support them would rather inflict unimaginable suffering on women than relax the tiniest bit of control over their medical decisions. I asked Duane if any anti-abortion groups had filed amicus briefs on Cox’s behalf. I wasn’t surprised that the answer was no.
Exactly.
In a tangent, I remember being horrified by what Donald J Trump declared when running for POTUS in 2016. There were some who suggested that he’d be different if he won because the office changed the person in it.
They were fucking wrong. All of us with eyes could clearly see what he would be. We were right, and we’re right now: his chuckling, aw-shucks comments about only be a dictator on the first day in office is total bullshit. That’s exactly what he wants.
By the way, in other Texas political news, Republicans have been battling to limit what moderators can do on Reddit. They passed HB20 in 2022. From CNN/Business:
Texas officials passed HB 20 last year amid allegations that tech platforms unfairly censor conservative speech. Social media companies have widely denied the claims, but the Texas law imposes sweeping obligations on platforms, prohibiting them from moving to “block, ban, remove, deplatform, demonetize, de-boost, restrict, deny equal access or visibility to, or otherwise discriminate against expression.”
Mainstream legal experts have said if HB 20 survives legal challenge, tech companies would be forced to host spam, hate speech, pornography and other legal-but-problematic material on their platforms in order to comply with the text of the law. It could also serve as a blueprint for other states. More broadly, they have said, letting the government force private parties to host speech would reverse decades of First Amendment precedent, which has held that the government may not compel private speech.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton celebrated the court ruling in a tweet, saying: “I just secured a MASSIVE VICTORY for the Constitution & Free Speech in fed court: #BigTech CANNOT censor the political voices of ANY Texan!”
Let’s pause to savor Paxton’s celebration for the Constitution and Free Speech for a few moments.
More evident of GOP hypocrisy and double standards, to me.
I’ve had three songs taking turns in the morning mental music stream (Trademark stolen by the deep state). First up was, “I’ll Do Anything” from the musical Oliver! No audit trail showed up to inform me why that song was in the stream.
The next came up in parallel to feeding the cats and was less of a surprise, as it was “My Floof” based on the song, “My Girl”, written by Smoky Robinson and Ronald White, and originally performed by The Temptations back in 1965. “My Floof” was performed by me and the Flooftations in my sunlit kitchen. Sorry, no videos exist.
Finally, though, Jackson Browne was singing “Doctor, My Eyes” from 1972, when I was in high school. The Neurons explained, the reason for this song’s presence in the morning mental music stream is simple and drawn right from the lyrics:
Doctor, my eyes have seen the years And the slow parade of fears without crying Now I want to understand I have done all that I could To see the evil and the good without hiding You must help me if you can
Alright, I’ve vented enough. Stay positive, be strong, and lean forward. Coffee is being served, and I shall partake. Have the best day you can muster. Here’s the music. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 