I don’t know, maybe WP has reached a limit on tags for me. Maybe it’s my ‘puter. Could be a technology curse, I suppose.
When I go to add ‘new tags’, WordPress burps. My cursor is bounced out of the box, and the new tag vanishes. Perplexing. I don’t experience this on other web sites.
Then again, my system was just updated last night. You know how updates sometimes go sideways with small matters.
My work-around was to save the draft, swing over to the iPad mini, and edit the post to add the tags in Jetpack.
MPS brought this wonderful, glorious WTF rant to my attention. They deserve rich credit. This guy expresses all my incredulous rage and disbelief about voter thinking in the last election.
Voter thinking. This guy sharply elucidates the gap between ‘voter’ and ‘thinking’ that we witnessed. Pundits and analysts are out there squawking and bleating about what the Dems did wrong. But for me, it is all about the ‘voter thinking’. Like that 12% of Missouri voters. Exit polls said they were voting for abortion rights and Trump.
I have Trump-voting friends who despise him for his character. Educated and intellignt people, they can’t stomach his voice. How he treats others nauseate them. But as he’s promising to give them the one thing which they want, they will suck it in and vote for him.
For a small segment, their vote for him was over social matters. They are against the DEI agenda, which is touted by them as ‘anti-white’. And it’s any effort that recognizes genders or sexes than CIS male and female.
Yes, I don’t think much of those who stand against enlightening our children.
Another group is against abortion because their god or their religion. To them, that trumps all others’ rights and freedoms because their god is the on god, the true god, the only god. The rest are just wrong.
They know.
Perhaps most fucking maddening for me are those voting for Trump because they want lower taxes. They have excellent incomes but it’s a struggle to keep up with new car leases, a manse, and those luxury trips. Lower taxes ring their greedy bells.
These people don’t contemplate our society or government beyond their narrow focus. Police state to capture, imprison, and deport people? We hear versions of, “Well, that’s pretty horrible, but it’s not my problem.”
Public education system? Not their problem.
Equal rights and democracy? They wave those concerns away as overblown.
As a friend said after hearing these responses, “If Trump wins, it’ll go to shit and take these people and this country down. When it does, I’m going to get some popcorn and watch. We tried warning them. They wouldn’t listen.”
No, they listen. They just don’t think beyond a tiny, tiny slice of the spectrum of their existence.
Just a bag of trick or treat political offerings. C’mon, man, with December holiday props already up in places, I can be excused for being a few days early for Halloween, can’t I?
I know facts are not in vogue with the Grand Old Trump party. But Schwab sent me an email with links to historic data about political parties and various financial facts since 1961. People claim it’s the economy, so let’s take a look.
The proferred analysis shows that what party is in charge doesn’t affect the stock markets. They keep going up no matter who is charge.
GDP. If you’re worried about the GDP, go Democrat.
The annual average growth under Republicans is 2.5%.
Democratic presidents saw 3.3% average growth. President Johnson led everyone with 5.5%.
If it’s unemployment rates causing your political itches, go Democrat.
“Next, we can look at the unemployment rate, which on average started lower under Republican presidents than under Democrats. However, on average, the unemployment rate rose under Republicans and fell under Democrats.”
Turning attention to the S&P 500, should that be what gives you a rash, the Democratic Party is the one for you.
“As shown via the summary rows at the bottom, stocks have performed better in all four cycle years under Democratic presidents.“
As for the sectors, no rhyme and reason is found regarding the political party in charge. Check out the article for the fuller deets.
Annie shared Infidel753’s post about polls and the chance for a blue sweep. Infidel753 cautions that they might not be right, but they point out some trends, logic, and past results for why a blue wave might happen. Check it out.
The brilliant boy, Elon Musk, has the classic Trump grasp of governing. As do Trump supporters. Musk warns about some hardships trying to immediately slash the government’s burden. From what I’ve understood of the Federal budget process, Congress controls it.
“The Constitution makes clear that Congress holds the power of the purse, giving it authority “to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises” and specifying that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by law.” In short, federal taxing and spending requires legislation that is enacted into law.”
As usual, the Constitution and its strictures mean nothing to the GOT Party. They just want to do what they want to do.
Dad’s 92nd birthday is Wednesday. Mom’s birthday is tomorrow. I’ll be calling her tomorrow, so I called Dad today, as I’ll be pretty busy Wed. with planned surgery.
Dad and I had one of the best chats I recall having with him. We chatted about aging, financing, and Mom. Very satisfying.
Dad has always been a level guy, staying mellow, keeping things in the moment. He’s never gotten too worked up over any of life’s tumbles and twists. And he’s been through his share.
He’s in okay health. Had some stents put into his coronary arteries some years ago. Suffers some COPD. Went through some edema issues twice. Now he’s on a low sodium diet. A cane is employed to walk around. He sometimes needs a walker.
But we laughed a lot about these things which happen to us as we get older.
I was hoping for a sunny day outside my window. But it’s raining again. And there ain’t no sunshine.
It’s October’s final Monday. The month’s 28th day. Still 2024 for just over two more months.
Rain keeps a light, steady background staccato to the morning rituals. Clouds from mountain to mountain rule outside my window. Mountain tops wear gothic lighting as they fade behind sullen gray moisture-bearing behemoths. While it’s 42 F now, it feels like 48 F, which is the day’s hopeful high. This is this week’s weather prototype.
The cats send mixed signals about the season’s new weather setup. Papi the ginger blade goes out and endures on the covered patio in his carpeted condo. Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) goes out for a test and nixes an extended stay, arthritically humping back into house’s warm offerings. Eventually Papi will beat on the door and return inside and then head to a sleeping position to pass the day. That’s become his new pattern.
Fun fact: on this day in 1886, the Statue of Liberty was unveiled. Yeah, I didn’t know; just saw it in my feed.
He also lamented poor Abe Lincoln’s loss of Ted during Lincoln’s presidency. Ted: the forgotten Lincoln boy. His supporters of course, insisted that we give him a break, because he was close enough to knowing that it was Willie who died while Lincoln was in the White House.
That’s his supporters’ style: give him a break for being ‘close enough’ to things. Meanwhile, they demand perfection of Kamala Harris. Hypocrisy’s stench covers the GOP.
The Neurons are feeding me Pink Floyd as the gray light floods and stills over the day. They have “Brain Damage/Eclipse” looping the morning mental music stream (Trademark cut). I’ve always had a fondness for these songs, the first about the lunatic, the second about everything under the sun.
They do go hand in hand with thoughts of Trump these days. He’s always talking up hating, enemies, and destroying, along with everyone he meets, while we speak of all that he begs, borrows, and steals. He’s the con of the deal, the madman on the stage, offering trinkets to support him, riffing on fake history, making vainglorious claims. Really, though, the enemy within is the enemy in his head.
The cats are in and my coffee is snuggling into my body’s systems. Be strong, remain positive, and vote blue. My wife dropped off our votes at the ballot box this morning. Here’s the music.
Spent part of yesterday & today answering friends’ call for help.
Short story: someone was on the net and was duped into some ‘click here’ bait. A warning sprang up with an number and a directive: call here for help. Social engineering took over after that.
Sometime in the course of being fleeced, the user awoke to something nefarious happening and shut it down. The resulting question was: how bad was it?
He called his daughter and SIL in LA for help. They enlisted my assistance as hands and eyes on the infected machine. I picked it up, did some top level examination of what’d been downloaded, installed, and accessed. Worse culprit was the Supremo app. That’s an app that let’s others remotely access and control the machine. Downloaded but never installed, I trashed that thing.
Then I set it up so that the SIL had remote access by installing an IT app that he requested I install. He sorted through files to confirm nothing had been seriously compromised. Some banking log in information had been compromised. Fortunately, the new location wasn’t recognized and the log in was challenged and denied. That two-factor authentication paid off.
Bottom line: fresh and clever scams are out there. While others have tricked people with banking issues or special offers, this friend was tricked into clicking on an offer to see what new childhood classmates had been found. On my end, I was tricked through a offer for flowrs for Mom’s birthday.
With so many scams hitting us, remember to be careful out there.
Papi the ginger blade was demanding entry back into the house.
I let him in and returned to bed. The time was 4 AM. I told myself to go back to sleep. My brain wouldn’t cooperate. Instead, I thought about going into surgery on Wednesday. I felt I was close to finishing the novel in progress. It could be done before the surgery if I have three good writing days. I wanted that. Then I ended up staying awake, writing the story in my head.
When I sat down at the coffee shop, I put those words down into the document and realized, the end.
I was inspired by the book, “Gravity’s Rainbow”. I’d read the book in the past and was just browsing, and came across some reference to it. Then I had an idea, and “Gravity’s Emotions” was begun.
Word can tell you some things about a doc. Tells me that this one was started July 19, 2024. 432 pages, 117,480 words. 9218 minutes of editing. Anyone who knows that a day has 1440 minutes knows that’s not a huge amount of time. Just 6.4 days if you do the math. 6.4 days if I’d worked 24/7.
As always, it feels a little weird to be finished. Bit sad. “Like a death in the family” a writer of fame once said.
I worry about it. Don’t know if the plot makes sense or if people will buy into the character. I fret over the ending is too pat.
I told myself when I began writing this thing, just get out of your own way and stay out of the way.
Now, with it ‘done’, at least in this phase of novel writing, I need to remind myself again: just get out of your own way.
Fall is bracketing our valley. Clouds sprawl across the sky at different altitudes. Several cloud styles are in evidence, and they wear fifty shades of gray and blue. Sunlight finds cracks and rushes down in bold pools of bright light but the air is chilly. 62 with a sullen wind, we expect 72 to define today’s high temperature.
Empty Bowls to raise money for our local food banks is tonight. My wife is busy setting creating the centerpieces for the tables. I used to be involved with it, but she gently moved me aside and replaced me with Barb. Barb just celebrated her 96 birthday, but she loves making centerpieces. It all works out.
I have daughters in my mind today. First my current novel in progress deals with mothers and daughters. And sisters. Those are important and complex aspects of the story told. Second, I have four sisters, and several of them deal with Mom as my proxy. Mom can be challenging and often frustrates my sisters. Frustrates me, too, but my sisters reach out to me to vent.
Third, I have another friend who was talking about her daughter. Her daughter irritates and annoys her; they clash in multiple arenas of thoughts. It surprises me. I know both women. They’re intelligent and good-humored individuals. Yet, they exasperate each other. I struggle to understand how and why that happens. But I’ve witnessed their interactions. Just an oil and water thing.
Thinking of daughters prompted Der Neurons to fire up Pearl Jam’s 1993 song, “Daughter”, in the morning mental music stream (Trademark streaming). It’s a song about a misunderstood child. It’s ending refrain is “The shades go down”, which reinforces the idea that something is going on that is hidden from the rest of us. The song always hooks my thoughts about the things which happen to children.
On that cheery high, I’ll press on to find my way through another day. Coffee has come onboard my effort and will help guide my energies. Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue. Here’s the music video.
Michael Seidel, writer 