December 31--AT LAST🎉

Like so many others I am really glad to see the end of 2020. I don't expect all that much to change, at least not immediately. The virus is still raging and will be for a while. The latest estimates from the expert indicate no real improvement until March or April. Yes we do have two vaccines but, according to the news, the promised 20 million vaccinations (vaccinations not vaccine doses) has resulted in only a little over 2 million vaccinations and some 17 million doses actually delivered. The news this morning said that the health department in Broward County Florida that was taking reservations for those who wanted to get their shots closed down after only one day because they had appointments through February. And we still haven't finished with the elections since Georgia still has two run-off elections for their senatorial positions. But the end of this interminable election season that began the same day #45 was inaugurated. I hope he simply trudges off stage and doesn't announce candidacy for 2024. I could go on but almost everything roiling this country remains but with a partial change in personnel in the government. We'll see what develops.

But this brought a smile this morning. I saw the snippet the news featured earlier but the long version is worth a view.

It has been a strange year--2020. If we hadn't had the news (cable and internet) we wouldn't have known much of what was happening. Our lives have gone along much as they have before and as we expect them to go in 2021. We haven't seen family as much as we normally would have. TheC OVID restrictions never bothered us because they didn't cause us to change much. I quickly made our own masks and am now making some new ones to incorporate the third layer now recommended. We don't much like crowds and the virus has simply made us more aware of people around us. That won't change even when the pandemic eventually wanes. I suggested to mom that we might consider continuing to wear masks during the cold/flu season. We got the flue shot this year but there are no vaccines for colds. And too many experts say that even when the pandemic is over the coronavirus won't go away.

 Merry Christmas

(or Happy Hanukkah or Kwanza, or what ever holiday you observe)

Not a nice way to start Christmas morning but perhaps on par for this miserable year.

Of course, #45 gave the country a nasty gift when he vetoed the defense bill and threatened to do the same to the Covid/appropriations bill threatening a government shut down, ending of unemployment for millions and the termination of programs a lot of people depend on right now. He tried to justify his actions by claiming he REALLY wanted more money for individuals and objected to "wasteful" spending included in the bill. That is just self-serving crap as he doesn't really care about the plight of the little people and had wanted those "wasteful" provisions in other funding bills. All yesterday news pundits and commentators tried to understand his motives. None of them mentioned a factor I have been thinking for the last week or so: he is a vindictive sack of shit and this gave him an opportunity to screw with most of the groups he feels particularly aggrieved by: Republican politicians who aren't sufficiently "loyal" or differential, Mitch McConnell and others who have already acknowledged Biden's win and who are telling some of their caucus not to try to interfere with the certification of the Electoral College results, and the 80+ millions of us who didn't vote for him. What is assured now is that, unless he decides to be decent and signs the last bill, the government will be shut down for at least one or maybe two days (because the funding runs out Sunday and the Senate  and House won't be back in session before Tuesday). For more on the impact of the situation see what The Washington Post had to say.

Most of the bloggers I have been reading have the same kind of blahs we do here. It just doesn't feel much like the season of "good cheer" this year. Normally we would be having dinner with my brother and his side of the family but that isn't wise this year. Brother said his son and one of his grandsons had a mild cases of the virus and one of his late wife's family had a more serious case. That is coming way too close. He said their own celebrations are much scaled back with church and a small family dinner.

 December 21--Winter Solstice

Shortest day/longest day--from on the days will start getting longer. Our winter wreath has been on the door for about a week. We don't really do much for Christmas and this year we will be staying home just as we did for Thanksgiving. Most of the rest of the family is doing the same.

The blah that is 2020 has infected some of my gardening thoughts for 2021. I have thought about what to plant but haven't really decided. Usually by this time I have my seed orders in and my transplant list made out. As of today--only vague ideas and none have sparked any enthusiasm. I am not starting any seeds inside this year. I have to simply recognize that I don't have the space to devote to it. I gave my nephew my grow lights.

December 22

Andrew Bacevich makes a number of good points in the essay on the "Madness of War, American Style."

December 23

Well, #45 threw the turds into the punchbowl. After weeks of being absent from any form of governing he suddenly takes an interest in the funding bills passed Sunday night. Once again he cut Moscow Mitch's legs out from under him. Pelosi immediately called his bluff and is setting up an amendment to meet #45's demand that the $600 direct payments to individuals be raised to $2000. He mentioned some unspecified expenditures he thought wasteful that he wanted eliminated. He hasn't yet vetoed the bills and one, the Defense authorization, was passed by margins which indicate the congress can over ride easily. The COVID relief measures are attached to the funding bill that would pay for government operations through at least the first couple of months of 2020. He might let the bills become law without his signature which can happen since the legislatures are not in recess. I don't know where it will end besides in the inauguration on January 20. [update: #45 has just vetoed the Defense Authorization bill]

Britain has discovered another variant of the Covid-19 virus that they think is much more transmissible though not necessarily more lethal. The BBC segment this morning indicated that the South Africans have found other more easily transmitted variants and are working on those. But the announcement has upset everything it seems. They have a massive back up at the ports where truckers are backed up with both sides demanding recent negative tests before allowing the "accompanied" cargoes to pass borders. And the British authorities have imposed severe lockdowns in the southeast including London.

 December 20

Well it has been one heck of a ten day stretch. Some of it has been much more fun to watch than to comment on--at least at the time. A week ago last Friday the FDA gave emergency use authorization to the Pfizer vaccine and all weekend the news was about the preparations to roll it out.  I think the reaction of the reporters, the Pfizer employees packing up the vaccine doses for shipment, the doctors and others interviewed for the story indicates exactly how much stress this pandemic has caused. Everyone was euphoric. I was glad to see it though my thoughts were tinged with both a sense of realism and skepticism. I am not in the first tiers of people to receive it as I am not in a congregate care facility and my only (known) conditions that would make me somewhat susceptible to a bad case are age and obesity. Mom is in the same situation with her age and her history of hypothyroidism. We wear our masks, avoid crowds and maintain our distances, and are washing our hands more often that we used to. We don't expect to be offered the vaccine before summer. In case anyone thinks I am complaining, I am not. The procedure outlined for the distribution of the vaccine made sense which is a surprise given how inept this administration has been. That led to my skepticism and that skepticism was rewarded when the first snafu arose in the distribution and the states found their allotments suddenly and without explanation radically reduced. Pfizer blamed the government and the government blamed the company. Now the Moderna vaccine has been given emergency approval and, though the euphoria is a bit less, it has also been greeted enthusiastically. Other vaccines are in the pipeline so we might have a number of effective possibilities but the time line is still for another year of social distancing and mask wearing.

On the political front, #45 still insists he won the election even though he clearly didn't and still insists that there was widespread fraud though no one has found any fraud that would change enough votes to allow him to actually win. He tried to get the elected officials in the swing states that gave Biden his victory to seat an alternate set of electors to vote for him (didn't work), hoped for "faithless electors" tp over-rule the voters (didn't happen), and is now pinning hopes on the January 9 joint session of congress that has to accept the electoral college vote to somehow negate the result. It is interesting how the benchmarks  changed throughout as each one came and went without changing the results. Now there is talk of martial law and the seizure of voting machines somehow infected with the ghost of Hugo Chavez so the military can supervise new elections.  In a often quoted bit from Benjamin Franklin when he was asked what sort of government the Constitutional Convention had given us: a republic, if you can keep it. The key part there is the "if you can keep it." And watching not just #45 but all of his minions trying to subvert the electorate I wonder if we will keep it much longer.

Then our internet and cable went out late Wednesday morning and we didn't get it back until early Friday afternoon. I am always amazed by how much those two services have become deeply embedded in our lives. I was able to read on my iPad and did quite a bit of stitching. Mom was able to find an unsecured network could piggyback on to continue to use the internet. I couldn't get on it. I don't use the cloud for my e-book library because if the internet is our I can't get access to those books that might be on the cloud. Then we had some difficulty after service was restored because I couldn't get back on. That had me in a screaming rage. We finally got everything back but I wonder if perhaps I shouldn't find a way to limit how much I depend on the internet.

Perhaps other institutions and various governments should also think about that given the massive hack on major companies and government departments/agencies. Even though most intelligence agencies and experts attributed the hack to Russian spy agencies #45 simply can't accept that his good buddy Vlad would do such a dastardly thing. It must have been the Chinese, of course, and it wasn't that bad anyway. What really flummoxed me was the story of how they got in--by using a third party security firm whose password was simply the company name followed by 1234. No one knows how deep the Russians went, what they may have gotten, or what they may have left behind. For anyone who thinks they can't do much I suggest two books: Ted Koppel's Lights Out and Countdown to Zero Day by Kim Zetter.

 December 6

David Kaiser's analysis of our national problems.

Nimue Brown has a good comment on the controversy over statues.

December 7

Kaiser noted (see above) that both the dominant political parties have lost touch with the majority of Americans. Governments, both Republican and Democrat, have become increasingly estranged from those of us who don't live in the big urban bubbles and aren't part of the top of the economic food chain. And increasingly the needs of the lower 80% of the population aren't being met. This election has made me think that the best thing that might happen to us politically is a split of the Democrats between the "progressive" and the "establishment" wings and a comparative split of the Republicans between their traditional conservatives and the rabid theological fringe. We really need to find a way to negotiate between the various interests involved in each group.

Nimue Brown writes about the destruction of a statue of a city prominent in a city's (forgot which city) history. I remember the story when it hit the headlines. The man was also a slave trader and black residents took the statue down and pitched it in the river. Brown noted that the struggle is about what story is being told about the past, who from the past is honored and who is erased in the telling and honoring. Our own controversies over naming buildings, army bases and statues is much the same. And she also noted that many of the honors were given long after the people involved died and reflect not the times in which they lived but the tensions of the times in which the honors were given. I thought several times that both the honors and the criticism of them erased aspects of the history which would be best remembered. The demand that a building named for Woodrow Wilson at Princeton be renamed erased the fact that he was a President of the United States at a crucial time and was a President of Princeton. The honor tended to erase his view on race (as well as other flaws) and the criticism tended to erase his accomplishments successful or otherwise.

December 8

Just found this item at Naked Capitalism. The university system, at least in the U.S., has been on a decline for a good long time. I remember when Ohio reduced the programs in its public university system about 30 years ago. Costs were already out running revenues and the ability to generate new money. I remember arguing with a university president about robbing academic programs of resources to feed the athletics program which was, as the president noted generating money, but as my own research indicated still requiring twice as much more money than raised. I noted that but he simply said "I am sorry you feel that way." He basically gaslighted me. I have resented for some time the fact that university football programs are something of a "farm team" for the pros. Only a few years ago Alaska cut almost all higher education in the state because of budget shortfalls. The oil royalties aren't really keeping up. The only thing truly propping up colleges and universities in this country is the system of student debt in which the school gets paid whether the student is employable, the student foots the bill whether he/r can find work that will let him/her pay off the debt in their life time, and the lenders get paid no matter what because the borrower can't clear an unpayable debt through bankruptcy. It is a racket. Perhaps the whole system should crash.

December 9

Only three more weeks and this year from hell will be over. I don't expect 2021 will start out much better. We will still have the virus going around and I expect a Christmas surge to come on top of the surge we have from Thanksgiving and fall. That will carry us through most of January. Vaccinations will only be starting to come on line. Did you see the news about #45 declining Phizer's offer to earmark another 50 million doses? So now we will have to get in line behind all the countries that have already ordered their supply. His executive order doesn't really do anything to resolve that situation. It just made nice smoke and mirror optics.

Crooks & Liars pointed out that the pandemic is going to hit new social security recipients hard or rather those who are age 60 and looking to retire in the next couple of years. Because of the way the basic benefit is calculated the recipient's earnings in the next to last year before retirement are extremely important. This year has been abysmal for anyone's earnings who depends on wages for their support. This shouldn't be a surprise because the drop in employment has shortened the time before both Social Security and Medicare exhaust the "trust funds" payments depend on. Add that to the mess state and local finances are in thanks to the drop in taxes and fees in addition to the extra expenses involved with handling the virus.

What is old is new again--or something like that. I wonder if this will become a widespread accompaniment to what expected to be  a pandemic fueled surge in homelessness.

 Another sunny but cold day here. December 3

I have been reading some blogs I follow regularly from writers a bit east and south of us and they got slammed by the snow that barely brushed us. All of that is pretty well gone. I have been busy trying to straighten and reorganize the What-not Room. I still have way too much stuff to somehow put into it but I will find a way to get it in. I am doing well with my resolve to not buy any more needlework until I use up some of my stash. I might succeed in that resolution because I have the new Zoom Loom and Kayu loom I need to learn how to use. I bought them as a way to use up some of my stash--especially the tag ends of yarn from crochet projects. And as an alternative to crochet. I haven't done as well with my determination to refrain from buying more books until I have read more of the ones I already have. But I have slowed down my purchases.

Reading today"

    Andrea Mazzarino at Tomdispatch. The thought expressed in Engelhardt's into to her piece (Stop Thanking the Troops and Lend a Hand) reflects my thoughts to a T. I have resented the constant refrain of "Thank You For Your Service" whenever a military member or veteran was interviewed. And Mazzarino says what I have said here in my space so many rungs below the level that makes decisions in they country--start funding the care of soldiers and start examining carefully the expenditures the Pentagon makes. The sexy high tech weapons systems (many of which don't work as advertised) are attractive and pay the contractors big bucks but that money might be better spent on people, the people who have served and sacrificed and the families who love them.

 December 2

Nice and sunny but it won't be warm. Another day where the temperature will probably top out in the mid 30s. Thankfully the high winds are gone. A few green things are hanging on in the gardens: sage, oregano, roses. For almost everything else I am leaving the dead foliage in place to protect the soil from rain spatter. A few things I will look at in the spring to see if it comes back. Now is the time to plan what seeds to get. They will all have to be able to sprout and mature in situ because I won't be starting any inside.

Jeff Valdiva at Medium tries to answer a question that has bedeviled me: why so many voted for #45 in his winning election in 2016 and in his failed re-election bid this year. He might be right that it is a reaction to what has become a fraught society where everyone is viciously judged and found wanting, a reaction to a shaming culture. None of us like being told what to do or think and sometimes it feels as though someone somewhere is trying to micromanage us. And it pisses us off. I didn't vote for #45 because of his repugnant qualities but I do understand the reaction that would drive people to do so. Instead of voting for an asshole we simply ignore the demands that we tow this or that line on whatever.

I was listening to one of the interviews with an epidemiologist who has been featured who was answering a question on how fast the COVID vaccines had been developed compared to earlier vaccines. He said TEN YEARS. In other words, the last nine months of development came after a decade of study of coronaviruses. That makes sense. It has been about 10 years since the SARS MERS epidemics and they were also coronaviruses. The thrust of the interview was how much trust the public can have in a vaccine which has been rolled out so quickly especially with the tendency of the current administration to politicize and push the process.

 November 30

We have high, gusty winds today and the forecast says we won't get out of the mid 30s. The weather channel said possible rain and snow but the weather forecast on TV yesterday predicted just snow--possibly 2-5 inches. Oh, well, we didn't plan to go anywhere today. Tomorrow should be calmer and drier though no warmer. That is when we planned to go grocery shopping.

Welcome to December

Well, we got our shopping done. We had quite a bit since we only went out for milk last week.The snow largely melted and then froze on cars and pavement. We had to get the scrapers and de-icer out and spread salt on the walkways. Neither of us is interested in relearning how to ice skate. I am not really ready for winter weather but to get out of this miserable year we have to get through the dark and cold season.

Tom Engelhardt has a good post on our "Age of Opacity."

There is a lot of speculation about whether and how #45 and his grifting family might get pardoned for whatever unspecified crimes they may (or may not) have committed. I agree with most of what John Beckett said here. I don't agree that Ford was right to have pardoned Nixon. Any crimes Nixon committed should have been thoroughly investigated, litigated, and (if he was found guilty) punished. After all, Presidents are not above the law. Nixon did at least express some contrition for the whole sorry mess and basically retired from public life. If #45 agreed to retire and keep out of politics I wouldn't expect him to keep to the promise. He is, after all, the champion liar of all time. The only consolation I have if #45 and his sycophants get pardons is that such pardons only pertain to Federal charges. There are still state and City of New York charges possible. That is a "reality" show I would gleefully follow.

 November 29

I have been busy rearranging the What-not room for the last few days. Earlier in the week one of the cats decided to try to jump onto a small space on one of the high shelves, missed and pulled over two sets of drawers on the shelf below. Those were both about 3 feet tall and full of various materials we don't often use but don't want to discard. Given how heavy those are we were grateful the little monster didn't get seriously hurt. And thankfully nothing was really damaged. However, I decide that it was time to rearrange things into a more useable space. That large amount of yearn and my sister-in-law's stamped embroidery pieces needed to find a way into the mass of stuff in a way I could find the things I wanted. I am almost finished with the putting things where they should go and ready to take the vacuum to the rug which it badly needs. I once used that room quite a lot but since we got a wireless set up a few years ago it has become a catch all--hence the name What-not Room.

Ugo Bardi put up an interesting post on Cassandra's Legacy today. I have thought for some time that, by the time,  humans, individually and collectively, recognize a problem it already too late to really fix the problem. I remember looking up the historical levels of CO2 when I started reading about 350.org. That number, 350, is supposed to be the safe level of CO2 which was actually passed in...1985. For the last five or six years I have been reading articles of fishing seasons for various fish species cancelled or curtailed because the populations had fallen too low or, in a couple of cases, toxic algae tainted the fish making them unsafe for consumption. I suspect that we will try to carry on as usual no matter what. We can see that in the almost desperation to have some sort of season for our major "spectator" sports which are limping along after removing or severely limiting the spectators. Also witness the desperation of merchants to have a massive "Black Friday" and of shoppers desperately wanting to go out and shop. I have seen "Black Friday" and Christmas ads for more than a month. But I asked almost two decades ago what happens to a consumer society when the consumer can't consume any more. We began finding out back in the Great Recession and had only just gotten back to levels of consumption pre-recession.

I didn't read all of this long article but it confirms some of what I have been reading on prepper and homesteading blogs--there was a shortage of canning jars and lids this year.

 November 28--Last weekend of this next to last month of 2020

Saw an interesting and sad pair of stats  first thing this morning: COVID hospitalizations topped 90K for the first time and some 10million people may be evicted from their homes in the new year. It is interesting because of what it says about the our society that COVID is so out of control and sad because of what it says about our politics because it didn't have to happen if we had the political will to address the issues.

John Michael Greer at Ecosophia has a commentary on the "great reset." Interesting how our failed dreams seem to resurface but referencing an even older version. I couldn't get far into Ida Auken's piece he linked. But my mind made an fascinating connection: the several ads for meal delivery services. People in the ads are so overjoyed to not have to cook again. Supposedly they will be liberated from the drudgery and can do something creative with the time they have reclaimed. 

 Happy

Thanksgiving

😷😻😋

 Thanksgiving Eve

The plans are made. We are staying in. My brother invited us over for dinner but we declined. He is one who doesn't think COVID is all that serious. He just came back from a hunting trip in Wisconsin (he got a nice buck and one of the grandsons got his deer as well) and discovered a different world. The restaurant he went into had every booth and table filled with people none of whom wore masks. I have read that the governor has had trouble both enforcing a mask mandate and getting any emergency measures going thanks to a Repthuglican legislature. My sister and her partner are also staying in and not having anybody in for dinner. Both have medical conditions that make that very sensible.

While the pundits are busy conducting autopsies on the recent election I have a few observations of my own:

 First the turn out was phenomenal. I can't remember an election where such a large number of people voted. Reports I have seen claim almost 67% of the eligible voters actually turned out--highest percentage for the last 100 years.

 Second, I think this year and 2016 actually show that we are a society searching for a path into the future and completely split on what that path should be. Biden was right to describe himself as a "caretaker." I heard this morning that a shift of only 60K votes over 4 or 5 states would have won the day for #45--a mirror image for what happened in 2016 when he did win. Many of those who supported #45 in 2016 still support him. Many of those who support Biden this time are tepid in their support. They want to see something from the administration which addresses their concerns. Given what I have seen on each side I can see the possibility that both parties might split into 2 or more factions over the next four years. The "Progressive" wing may not be very happy with Biden and there is a part of the Republicans who aren't pleased with #45, the Q-Anon cadre, or the remnants of the Tea Party. The election of 2024 might be another Donnybrook. 

 Third, for the first year of Biden's term the coronavirus will still dominate. Three vaccines are likely to be approved over the next month and the companies have already been producing large numbers of doses of the likely candidates even before the end of stage 3 trials. Those doses will be ready to ship as soon as approval is given. But as some of the experts have said we have two problems: the logistical difficulties of distributing two that require refrigeration (one at -100F or thereabout) and whether people will accept the vaccine. I have already heard reports of anti-vexers saying they won't because they don't trust vaccines generally. I have also heard the members of minority communities aren't entirely sold on the idea because of the history of medical abuses in those communities. The Tuskegee experiments are most often mentioned. And then there are those like myself, Mom and my brother. We are not necessarily against it but we will wait for a bit to see how it works in wide spread use. We aren't seriously inconvenienced by masking and social distancing and we were avoiding crowds before the virus came along.

Fourth, the economy isn't going to come roaring back like #45 claimed. Too many people are out of work. If new legislative measures aren't coming before the end of the year quite a lot of people (10M+) face eviction as of Dec. 31. The jobs many depended on aren't coming back soon, if ever, because the small businesses they worked for are gone and the big firms are cutting payroll also. The latest unemployment measures announced this morning said 770M+ filed for first time unemployment last week.  Shadow Stats lists the official unemployment at about 7% but their own calculations based one how the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculated that metric before 1994 (when they decided to erase several categories of people without jobs) stand at better than 25%. 

Fifth, the states and local governments have been hit hard between the massive unemployment claims, the huge hit on taxes that aren't coming in, the additional funding due to the virus. And, so far, the Republican Senate has been unwilling to provide much relief and what they say they would provide come with a lot of strings which limit how the states can use it. Most of the states were in financial trouble before the pandemic and their position has only been worsened since.

 Three days to Thanksgiving

Well, now two days to Thanksgiving

Number 45 might have given us a reason to be grateful by allowing his administration, including the GSA, to begin the transition to a Biden administration. Of course, he won't say out loud that he lost. I guess that he thinks that if he doesn't say the words the reality won't exist.

And his rabid followers won't accept the election results. They figure their savior couldn't possibly lose unless the nearly 80 million votes cast against hime were fraudulent and illegal. I was totally disgusted when Giuliani argued in a Pennsylvania court that the remedy for unproven fraud was to throw out all of the mail in ballots. The judge disposed of that brutally. I felt the same about the similar arguments in Michigan that the authorities should just not count the Wayne County (a.k.a., Detroit) votes. I have a niece who lives in Detroit who is white and I am sure she voted by mail (health problems that make voting in person problematic) and who I am sure did not vote for #45. But because she lives in an area that is 75%+ black Giuliani thought her vote shouldn't count. Again the judge dismissed that quickly. The only thing that stops me from telling all those who consider the results of the election a disfranchisement of the 73 million who voted for #45. The argument basically says that all of the almost 80 million who voted for the other guy is so much waste paper or wasted bits in the election computers. As you can probably guess I am one of those 80 million and I resent their attitude. Hell, that crew wouldn't have been happy if #45 had won the election which he said was rife with fraud.

Andrew Bacevich at Tomdispatch tries to make sense of #45's firing of Defense Secretary Esper and stocking various positions with a new set of appointees. Number 45 did promise during his first campaign to get us out of our endless wars. That is something I was and am all for, and I might have voted for him if not for too many other negatives that more than balanced that positive item. However, the Pentagon has been more than a little adroit at deflecting far more determined Presidents. And #45 has the attention span of a gnat. Even though he has said he wants all troops out of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia by Christmas and has a man in place to give the orders, the best they might accomplish is a 50% reduction. We never had any clear, reasonably attainable objectives and no sense of an end point and no idea of how to extricate ourselves. But as much as I think we should have never gone in there, I don't think a willy-nilly withdrawal which leaves our allies in a lurch is the way out either.

I think John Beckett may be expressing what many of us are feeling. My own feelings of thankfulness are also a bit tepid. I think it is the culmination of the last four years of #45 which was a constant irritation relieved only when the returns came in for Biden and he decided to disappear for the most part. He is no longer a 24/7/365 presence for which I am grateful. It seems that he has given up even the pretense of governing. The pandemic, of course, permeates everything. Back in December when we got the first reports (at our level of the socio-economic food chain) I told Mom that it just might be on its way here and by early January we had our first cases. When #45 said that the virus would, "like magic", go away when the weather got warm I laughed and thought it would go south where people would go indoors with the air-conditioning. I agreed with Fauci when he said it would be worse in the fall no matter what #45 said. We have a third wave hitting with unprecedented numbers and I think this wave will continue until February. I don't think people who aren't willing to forego Thanksgiving celebrations will be willing to forego Christmas, or New Years and each will give us another surge within this wave. The experts are saying that we can expect another 250k deaths by February and they have been right so far. Remember when Dr. Birx said that if we did everything right we could keep the death toll to 60-100k? Well a large number of us haven't done anything right. I don't expect that to change. I am glad I am alive, still curious, am as healthy as ever, and that we have enough money coming in to keep us housed, clothed and fed. I hope next year things will have changed and I can feel more deeply grateful.

I am a life long cat person. For those of you who might also be of that persuasion here is a little tidbit I just found.

 November 19

The wind is howling though the weather reports said we should have a nice day today. But I haven't trusted weather reports for sometime. The weather has been too unpredictable. I am awake much too early partly because I haven't yet adjusted to the time change almost three weeks ago and the furry alarm clocks most definitely haven't.

In my last post I mentioned the number of overflowing carts at the grocery store. Well, evidently my perceptions were not wrong as this piece on the CBS site shows. We plan to go out later to get a few things for our Thanksgiving dinner and will see what is happening at a different grocery store. We didn't get the items last time because we hadn't decided what we were going to fix yet. Thanksgiving will definitely be different even for us. Usually we would have planned on having dinner with my brother and sister-in-law. But COVID and SIL's death (not from COVID) a couple of months ago scotched any such thoughts. On the other side of the family my sister made it plain she wasn't hosting any dinner this year. It has become too taxing and both she and her partner have medical conditions that make such gatherings especially dangerous. Things do change whether we like it or not.

Found this on Al Jazeera. I rather suspected the COVID depressed economy would affect Social Security and Medicare but I hadn't expected it would do it so soon.

An interesting Tomdispatch post this morning. I have seen a few comments in articles and blogs indicating an unhappiness with Biden's economics team which largely recycles old faces and, probably, old ideas. Not really much of a surprise since the more "progressive" voices were shunted off the stage during the primaries. But the Tomdispatch article indicates the same for the foreign policy and military teams--the old familiar faces and the old familiar ideas. What is especially interesting is the amount of foreign money and influence involved.

 Well, Half-Past November plus a couple of days

We went out on our grocery run this morning. We were surprised to see as many people at the little dairy but every now and then more people than we expect show up as early as we do. We got our usual--milk, eggs, butter, and yogurt plus a package of hamburger patties and a couple packages of pirogies. But one guy was filling up a box and their meat freezer was about 2/3 empty. At our other supermarket we saw a few more cars than usual but the real surprised was at the checkout. We haven't seen so many people with such loaded carts since March. One couple had two loaded carts. The toilet paper aisle was almost bare and the signs limiting customers to two items were back. We remarked on the situation to the checker who said it was because our county had been assigned to the red level of restrictions. Our governor had replaced the numerical levels with color codes. I knew that but when I checked a couple of days ago we were still in the orange. That might have spooked some but it doesn't mean much to us. None of the COVID restrictions have affected us much. We don't travel, we didn't consider shopping a sport or entertainment, and we didn't gather with large crowds nor with small crowds often. My sister-in-law's funeral was that last large person gathering we attended. What we saw was an echo of last spring but this one is a clearer reminder of the early pandemic. I am amazed by how many Republican governors have suddenly come to the point of adopting some restriction to combat the virus.

Random Observations for November 18

Ceremonies, customs and traditions are part of the glue that hold us together and so many are under pressure from the pandemic. By custom and by law we send kids out of the house to schools from age 5 or 6 which allows both parents to work in the economy. By tradition we have elections in which one party loses and concedes, publicly, while congratulating the winner. We look forward to the holidays when we can get together with often far-flung family. But all of our expectations are being stretched and mangled to the point that we hardly recognize them.

Pfizer has come out with an amendment to its announcement of last week: its vaccine shows a 95%+ level of effectiveness. They will go ahead with a petition for emergency use directive from the FDA. But that doesn't mean either their vaccine or the Moderna vaccine which also showed a preliminary effectiveness of 90%+, will be available to ALL Americans before mid to late 2021--in other words not soon. We will have to mask up and social distance for some months yet. Unfortunately, so many are resisting such measures.

I keep hearing pleas from medical and other experts pushing for a "national response". They all cite the problems that comes with 50+ separate state responses. Unfortunately, they all are pushing against an entrenched historical tradition under which the states have their own sovereignty. The United States was established as a union of sovereign with separate spheres of authority for the Federal and state governments. Expecting a national response is as logical as expecting the measures mandated to be enforced in France or Germany. A coordinated national response requires leadership which as been lacking in our current Federal administration.

Canada celebrated its Thanksgiving a month ago and has had a big surge in COVID. Ours comes up next week and I expect we will have a similar surge on top of the spike we now have. And just think of Christmas coming up. We are very attached to our celebrations as I said above.

Most of this year, after March, we have seen news stories about lines. Unbelievable lines to vote, staggering lines for COVID tests, and astounding lines for food at food banks. I remarked to Mom that I remember bread/soup lines but only from pictures of the Great Depression in history books. I am too young (at 71). I asked if I missed some along the way and she didn't think so. There were some now that I think about it during the Great Recession but not so many and not so long.

 Hope you all had a good Veterans' Day

Sunny but cold today. It may get warm enough for me to go out and clean up some more leaves. Trees that still had their fall foliage a week ago are now winter bare. We had several days with high winds and a few with rain. That pretty well stripped the trees. The temperatures for the next week are more typically November--chilly.

I wasn't going to link to this. The COVID situation is as depressing as our political situation and there is nothing I can do about either other than limit my excursions out of the house while wearing a mask and voting. And I do both. I have heard the notion of a "lockdown" bandied about both at local levels and at the Federal level. One major point to start with--the Italian government can do (and did) impose a lockdown in the spring. The U.S. Federal government can suggest a lockdown but can't impose one. Major difference. But it is debatable how effective the lockdowns in Europe were. Sweden did not lockdown but their cases are surging now, they have the highest mortality rate in Europe and the economy has taken a serious hit just like the rest of Europe. Here in the U.S. cases are exploding with more than 120K per day for the last week. I think we set three records in three days with the worst yesterday at almost 149K. Hospitals are overwhelmed and N. Dakota's governor is relaxing rules to allow asymptomatic but positive personnel to work because they simply don't have more trained medical workers. Arguments over what policy to follow have usually been couched in terms of people's lives vs the economy. Unfortunately, I think we are at the point of losing both. But the author of the post I linked to draws attention to a problem we have over here but we have been able to whitewash it almost to oblivion: those hurt by what ever we do are at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale and have the fewest resources to sustain them through it. They are also the so-called "essential workers" who seem to be all too disposable.

November 13

Well, another record for COVID cases--159K. And another 1000+ death toll for the day. Chicago's mayor is issuing a stay-at-home advisory. She decided against a new stay-at-home order because too many people either won't or can't follow such an order. Those who are able are working from home and most everyone else has to go out to work. Indiana and Illinois have both been setting new records for hospitalizations and for deaths.

November 14

We have had frosts for the last three mornings including this morning and it was fairly heavy. Temperature on the patio was 30*F. Right now the sky is cloudy. 

So Jerome Powell (Federal Reserve Chairman) is saying out loud what I said back in late April: whatever economy we have on the other side of this pandemic will not be the economy we had. That might not be a bad thing because it didn't work well for a much too large a proportion of the population. It is nice he acknowledges the lower paid workers who will need support but given the current climate in Washington I am not holding my breath.We had a consumer economy but large numbers of consumers can't consume much beyond basics--if they can afford that.

 November 10

We have had an unusually warm stretch of days lately--mid-70s to low 80s in November. Very unusual. Right now we have a brisk wind with clouds forming that might give us rain. I finally got out on the patio to detach the hose, drain it, and get it in the shed for the winter. I also swept up a large amount of leaves though now you wouldn't think I had done any of that. This is the time of the year when my gardening zeal flags. The spearmint is still green as is the sage, the mums, the roses (which are still trying to bloom), the lavender, and a couple of other plants. But the woad, madder, and valerian are looking a bit sad. The indigo is long gone along with most of the other plants I had. As I say my enthusiasm and energy have dissipated and I am engaging in indoor pursuits.

I am working on the last motif on the table cloth and have two other projects on the embroidery hoops. I have been playing with my zoom loom and started another pineapple pattern crochet doily. The pineapples are my favorite patterns. I finished another doily I haven't yet blocked and stretched.

Something else that has a dwindling share of my attention is what #45 says or does. Thankfully, I am not and and am not signed up on twitter. Things post election are progressing in much the way I expected. Biden is attending to the business of moving into the Presidency while #45 is waging a legal and PR battle that backfires almost 100%. But the euphoria of having voted the idiot out has given way to anger and frustration that he hasn't shown the dignity and class to actually accept the fact. Well, dignity and class were qualities he never had and so can't show any more than he can show empathy which he also never had. One of the pundits on the morning news/talk shows wondered how much #45 planned to burn down on his way out--how far he would pursue a scorched earth policy. That seems to be on Tom Engelhardt's  mind as well. I expressed the thought that a part of his base were so pissed off with the status quo they simply wanted to burn the place down and voted for the arsonist.

Engelhardt also writes that "when Joe Biden, the definition of an old white man, finally limps into the Oval Office, he’ll represent a return to normalcy in Washington, the retrieval of an America that was. The only problem: the America that was -- if you’ll excuse the repetition of a verb -- was an America in decline, even if its leaders didn’t know it." That is also something I have felt. And it isn't just the last four years with the Arsonist-In-Chief in charge and this year from hell. The best we can hop for, according to Engelhardt, is a gentler slope downward whereas another four years of #45 would have accelerated things. That is a sentiment I have read from other bloggers including one who intended to vote for #45. He felt the decline was inevitable so why postpone it.

 November 8--Oh, What A Relief It Is!!!

I was surprised by how much better I felt when the election was called for Biden. It was as if something was constantly grating on my nerves for the last four years with acute flare-ups whenever that Great Dolt said or did something just a bit more grating. From the reactions on the news I guess a lot of others felt the same way.

But lurking behind the relief is the realization that, as one of the commentators reminded his listeners, every other person you see voted for #45. That is what it means when the popular vote was 74+million for Biden and 70+million for #45. Many pundits keep referring to Trumpism (damn how painful it is to type anything containing his name!) and they need to stop because the man was not the disease but the symptom of a deeper malady infecting society. Calling it by his name puts the focus in the wrong place and prevents asking exactly why so many people approve of him and what he does. David Kaiser has an interesting preliminary analysis of the results

November 9

Continuing the thoughts from yesterday, sort of:

I can't remember celebrations like we have seen for the defeat of any other sitting president. Not for Lyndon Johnson who declined to run for second term because of Viet Nam. Not for the resignation of Richard Nixon. Not for the defeat of Jimmy Carter or George H.W. Bush. I have never seen the street-dancing joy of the last couple of days.

On the other hand, I haven't seen the absolute refusal to accept the results of an election that has been run as openly and transparently as this one has; often under the scrutiny of both the public and the press. One of the "man on the street" interviewees insisted that fraud permeated the whole process. Another insisted that ballots had been shipped in from China. A blogger whose posts I frequently read presented the most rational argument for not accepting the results: the results haven't been certified by the states yet and the news media can say what they want. While technically correct and can be taken a step further since the results aren't final until the votes of the electors is counted by the congress. But while we have seen a few "Dewey Defeats Truman" moments for the news media.

In the mean time--the COVID numbers in this country have reached unimaginable highs. Some 10million Americans have tested positive. The number of cases per day has reached 100K several days over the last week while the number of deaths exceeded 1000 per day and the total deaths to date are almost 240K. One snippet this morning noted that, to date, 1 person for every 441 Americans have contracted the virus with more to come. Biden is naming a COVID advisory panel but I wonder what he and his administration can do. But then perhaps just setting a new tone will go a long way. Much that should be done has to be done at the local level. We can just wait and see. A "bully pulpit" can do a lot if used to send a coherent message.

On a sad note, the news reported that Alex Trebek of Jeopardy died yesterday. Jeopardy has been a staple of our afternoon TV watching and we will miss Trebek. Wonder who will replace him.

 Election Day +3

Who would have thunk it? The election still isn't settled. Some people were warning that the count would be protracted and they were right. Part of that is simply the fact that counting physical ballots take more physical handling and more time. It is wonderful that they tout their machines counting multiple 10s of thousands of ballots per hour. But when you have multiple millions of ballots that means many hours of counting.

Election Day + 4

Still no final decision on the presidential race. The percentages of votes already counted in the crucial states are in the 90% plus but the differences between the candidates are so slender that the remaining ballots may change the balance. I emphasized the 'may' because the chance that the split of the votes between #45 and Biden will change drastically in favor of #45 is about the same that any porker on a farm anywhere might suddenly sprout wings and fly.

Update: Well, all of the news outlets have called the election for Biden. About time. It has been a long four years and it isn't quite over since we still have #45 in office until January 20. Gods only know what damage he can do in that time. And we still have the hangover from the cruelty, rapacity, obscenity of #45 and his entire administration not to mention his Senatorial enablers most of whom are still in the senate.

 Election + 3 days--

I have let the results (partial as they are) ferment a bit. I had hoped for a Repthuglican bloodbath but didn't really expect it. We are much too fractured population to realistically expect sun an outcome. I had hoped some of the more irritating Repthuglicans would have been defeated but most survived. At this point, with several states not yet settled and several races still up in the air, I have some observations.

First, American society is far to complex for pollsters to adequately pigeon hole groups or predict what those groups will do. We have heard about "suburban women" ("housewives" if you are as cluelessly stuck in the 1950s as #45) as though they were a stand-in for all white women or even a majority of all white women. We have heard about the "Latino" or, if you recognize that Spanish speaking societies are discussing de-gendering language, "Latinx" as if they are a monolithic group. We have heard about the "black vote" as though all Americans of African genetic heritage think the same way. News reports have begun picking those generalizations apart and showing how the assumptions have made asses of quite a few politicians and pollsters. We all (from the politicians down to ordinary people) need to question closely exactly all aspects of polls: who the targets of the polls are, how are the questions are posed and who is actually conducting the polls.

Next--an absolutely unbelievable and obscene amount of money has been spent on the various races and I am not at all sure it has produced much besides a slightly altered mix in the House and Senate, and (maybe) a new man in the White House. And more spending will be forthcoming since at least one of the Georgia Senate races will go to a run-off and possibly both. Lindsay Graham survived an avalanche of money trying to unseat him. Surely there are better ways to spend a lot of money.

Also, absolutely none of the basic problems in this society have been tackled in any meaningful way. The pandemic is still raging with new cases hitting 100k and a new spike of deaths likely before Thanksgiving. We have some better ways of treating serious cases but the hospitals are again overwhelmed and thought the mortality rate has gone down a small percentage of a large number is also a large number. The only part of the economy that has done sorta well has been the stock market but how many of us own stocks? The unemployment rate looks good only compared to the peak a couple of months ago and we still aren't counting the discouraged workers or the underemployed or the gig workers out of work.

As I mentioned above our society is a crazy quilt of groups and interests but the biggest division are the pro-#45 and the anti-#45 and those are pretty evenly divided. Just look at the popular vote totals if you think otherwise. Those at the moment stand at 72M+ (Biden) to 69M+ (#45). Right now each candidate is in striking distance of a win. But whoever wins the divisions will remain and half of the population will insist that insist that they were robbed if the other guy wins. By the way that division is also reflected in the election maps: blue cities vs. red countryside. This division won't go away after January 29.

As a diversion from the above consider Charles Hugh Smith's post on Of Two Minds.

November 2

Well, only a little more than 24 hours before the polls open on the last day to vote. For us the only thing left is waiting til enough of the results come in to see the shape of things to come. We voted almost a month ago on the first day of our state's in-person early voting. The news reports say that more than 90 million votes have already been cast.

Tom Englehardt has a blast from the past type of post tracing the strands leading to today's situation. More and more often nowadays I find myself connecting what is happening to what has happened. As the saying attributed by some to Mark Twain holds history doesn't repeat; it rhymes. I am always annoyed by politicians who loudly insist that we have to let the past go and move forward. It is hard to know where you might be going if you don't know where you have been.

Peter Turchin also has an interesting post examining the election and possible scenarios for afterward. Strangely, we have thought of many of the scenarios Turchin has. We certainly do live in interesting times.

 Welcome to November--only two more days

...And I am so tired of this s&%tshow. Hell, I was tired of it when #45 filed for reelection almost as soon as he took his oath (with fingers crossed) of office. Worse, I feel, deep in my bones, that Tuesday won't be the end but simply the end of a beginning and no one knows where what begins on Tuesday will lead. Although the question of who will occupy the Whitehouse may be settled on Election Day (or not as the case may be) damned little else will be. Most of the problems we see today have been brewing for years if not for decades.

And of course, we have the pandemic on top of all the other problems. This little piece makes some good points on how we have come to this point where infections are rising, hospitalizations are rising, and the death toll is rising.

Sometimes, you do, indeed, wonder.

 Only six more days however it turns out

--October 28

Five more days--damn where did yesterday go? October 29

I don't know about anyone else but I have a hard time reading or listening to anything related to #45 and the election or its possible aftermath. The only thing that strikes me as a sure bet is that the orange idiot isn't going away, He likes the limelight and adulation way too much to give that up. And to anyone who says that at least he won't be president again I suggest you read up on Grover Cleveland. Even if he is defeated things won't be back to what we once considered normal. Karen Greenberg on Tomdispatch outlines the many ways the country will not be normal again. If #45 is re-elected we are all toast.

We had a good frost a couple of days ago. Woke to frost on the cars and on the sage plants in the gardens. It didn't get cold enough for a good freeze. I should go out an get a couple of the container covered and mulched before a freeze does come but haven't got my ambition up to do it. 

I ordered four new items from Herrschners to embroider or rather seven since three were table topper/table scarf sets. I don't often see anything in their catalogs that aren't kits which I don't want because I have a whole lot of thread I want to use and the kits come with the needed thread. I am determined, however, that I will not order any more until I have completed 6 of what I already have--even if it is a half-price sale. I am trying to do the same thing with books--no more until I have finished 6 books in my unread stack. We'll see how it works out. The Herrschners order came two days ago and the last item from the Woolery, my new larger pin loom, is scheduled to arrive on Saturday.

 Seven more days before the next phase of #45's story starts

--And ours as well. We haven't watched election returns on the night but this time we plan to watch. We are hoping for, but not expecting a Repthuglican blood bath. Not much worth commenting on. I am getting so tired of all the speculation that I am not reading much of it.

 Eight more days--October 26

Well, an Administration official finally admitted what many of us suspected: they aren't really trying to control the coronavirus. That is what Mark Meadows, chief of staff to our (Faux)President, said to a reporter yesterday. Like so much else these political hacks say it is--to a minor extent--right. The virus will do what a virus does and it will continue doing what is does (infecting hosts to multiply itself) until a good preventative is developed, i.e., a vaccine. But, 1)vaccines are not 100% effective, the seasonal flue vaccines for example are only 40-80% effective, 2) the fastest development of a vaccine (for the mumps) was 4 years, 3) several other coronaviruses (SARS, MERS come to mine) still have no vaccine and nor does HIV, 4) even with an all out push to produce an approved vaccine it will take even longer and cost more to get it widely distributed especially if multiple doses over a month or more are required. By the way, the stock market was down big time this morning mainly on the news that trials of a COVID treatment had been halted. So without a vaccine or proven effective treatments what do we do? No coherent answer from the politicos. Instead we get arguments which amount to a false dichotomy: the economy or our health and it seems they want us all, us little people who don't have access to a team of military doctors at the premier military hospital complex prescribing experimental treatments at fantastic cost to tax payers, to fall on our swords and "go to work."

Part of our conversation this morning after listening to the news this morning with the story that Pence is continuing with is campaign schedule after five of his close staff tested positive: 

 Me: I would like both #45 and Pence to come down with full blown COVID the day after losing the election and be in an ICU intubated for the next 3 months. Am I vindictive?

Mom: NO.

Everyone is looking for some return to what was once normal life. I have been skeptical from the beginning of the pandemic that that would be impossible. Too many of the old "certainties" are gone and won't be coming back. Schools as we knew them? Not as long as the virus is unchecked and no coherent plan is in place to deal with it. Supply chains all our stores depend on for their inventory? Blown all to hell. Our entertainments? Who wants to go to movies, or concerts, or plays now?  Even the events staged in the outdoors (marathons, Lalapaloosa in Chicago, etc.) have been postponed or cancelled. Even Macy's has cancelled this year's parade. What about sports? There is a court fight now about fall/winter high  school sports in Illinois. Basket ball is played in "bubbles." Football schedules, truncated though they are, are tentative depending on the results of COVID tests. Same for baseball. What comes out of this won't be what we had before. Which is what Rajan Menon says in his post for Tomdispatch today.

 

 Nine More Days of our Election Hell--October 25

I wasn't planning to post anything today. Actually I never plan on posting. I just find something that tickles my mind. This morning I found this:. Boris Johnson is learning that in politics can never follow the science. Although the story is from the Guardian and involves the situation in the U.K., it also describes our own situation on this side of the Pond. The author cites Max Weber whom I haven't read (along with a lot of other writers). But the notion that don't mix rings true. So often these days I look at the same scientific reports as someone else and come to entirely different conclusions. Sometimes the problem is a matter of how the terms are used. Like "weather" vs. "climate". So often people use the terms interchangeably. Sometimes the connections are harder to see and, as authors I read who write on science remind their readers, "correlation isn't causation." Just because one phenomenon changes in a demonstrable relationship with another doesn't mean the one causes the other. But another problem is people want certainty which science rarely provides.

 October 22--12 days before this interminable election season ends

Actually it has ended for me because I voted on the first day of early in-person voting in this state. Now all that is left is waiting till the numbers come in.  We are thinking about watching at least the first few minutes of the debate tonight. The debate committee says the microphones for the candidates will be switched off during the two minutes each candidate is to speak uninterrupted. That should be interesting. A reporter covering a #45 rally noted that the 8 seconds the mic failed were the most peaceful he had experienced at #45's super spreader events.

We have had a strange and busy week. Monday as we finished our grocery shopping and filling our gas tank we heard a strange thumping sound from the engine area of the car. Mom decided we would go straight over to our favorite auto repair shop and find out what was going on. Four hours and $350 later we had a new air recycling switch and motor. That pretty much shot the day. Thankfully we didn't have much in the way of groceries that needed immediate refrigeration or freezing. Although she got the call Monday afternoon that her new glasses were in we decided to wait until mine came in to pick them up. My call came Tuesday so that was another trip.

October 23--11 days and no more debates😂

We did suffer through 45 minutes of that "debate." Frankly, neither candidate covered themselves with glory. How much noise can one make and not say anything of real substance? Evidently quite a bit. It was devolving when we bailed and went to bed. They should have cut off the mics more frequently and eliminated the cross-talk entirely. #45 was somewhat better behaved but only if you discounted the persistent lying. The best rejoinder of the night went to Biden when #45 said we just "have to live" with COVID and Biden replied that many of us are dying with it. Although the ersatz president may be right about learning to live with the virus I suspect it will be like living with the seasonal flu: we have vaccines and therapeutics that are somewhat effective. But with effective leadership we certainly wouldn't have the body count we have and are going to have.

It has been a year of firsts. Here is another: the arctic sea ice hasn't begun forming yet for the first time since records have been kept.

 October 13--half past October already!!

Saw two comments from a Repthuglican Senator to which I take exception. First that #45's "default position" is individual responsibility and outcomes, and that such a position was a sign of respect. That is a ton of BS. Number 45's default position is to take no responsibility and then snipe when things go wrong. He pushed everything off on governors and then criticized (usually) Democrat governors for less than optimum response. Oh, and let us not forget that FEMA and other Federal agencies stole PPE and other supplies from states whose governors tried to acquire it on their own to redistribute in ways that would, they hoped, support #45. His behavior throughout is a clear sign of his lack of respect. Second, that a mask mandate wouldn't have worked because he (the senator) knows several people who told him they wouldn't have cooperated. Perhaps--but then, perhaps not. We don't know. What we do know is that #45 refused to wear masks unless he could garner some political credit for doing so, refused to back common sense rules, insisted on state economies reopening before the infection rates went down. He has done everything he can to undermine the scientists and doctors. We are left to wonder what would have happened if we had a real President (instead of a showboat playing one for his version of reality TV) with some sense of responsibility, respect for science and data, and a modicum of empathy.

October 14

For some time now I have been trying to remember where a quotation that has been rattling around in my head with the various pundits laying out scenarios on how the election and the aftermath (and I am sure there will be a confused time until inauguration day). To paraphrase the quote: our country has been a democracy, an oligarchy, a republic, a dictatorship and (according to the speaker) a de facto anarchy without changing its basic constitution. I finally found it in Robert Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil and the speaker was Jake Solomon (one of many older curmudgeonly and cynical male characters Heinlein created). The so-hearing for Amy Coney Barrett brought the quote back especially her responses to the question about #45's urging his supporters to be "poll watchers" and his threat to not accept the election results. A commenter over the last few days made an interesting point: our system relies on losers accepting their loss. Number 45 isn't likely to do that. He hasn't been a graceful winner so why expect him to be a graceful loser. More than that the so-called conservatives and the religious right have not been graceful losers for the last three decades at least. No matter is ever settled if the vote doesn't go their way. I saw that when riverboat gambling came up on the ballot in Missouri. The first year the vote approved the boats but the religious interests brought it back and marshaled their forces to defeat the proposition. The battle went back and forth for about two more years before the boats were finally approved and allowed to operate.

October 15

OH, CRAP (euphemism for what I really said). I lived in Ft. Collins for almost 15 years and remember the area fondly. It has been a hellish fire season and #45's suggestion that we "rake the forest" is asinine.

October 16

I commented last week that I hadn't seen many yard signs for the presidential candidates so far. Today was only slightly different. Three houses had signs for #45 and his shadow. Four were clearly Biden/Harris. Two houses really wanted you to know their preference because they put about a dozen signs all along the road parallel to their houses. I mentioned a sign I caught a glimpse of but thought it might not be a positive for #45. Well we got a better look and it said "Tuck Frump". I think that goes into the 'hell NO!!' category.

I caught this by way of Axios this morning. Phoenix set a record with its 144th day over 100* with another such day forecast for today. Glad I don't live out that way.

October 18--Election Day only 16 days away!

And I am so ready to bid our 4-year election season goodbye. Don't forget that #45 filed his candidacy for 2020 just after taking (with crossed fingers and tongue in cheek I am sure) his oath of office in 2016. The news last night had a sound bite from him saying he just might leave the country if he loses. I can only hope. Anyone up for a Go Fund Me page to pay for his ticket? Hmmm! He is supposed to be a billionaire so he should be able to fund his own relocation hopefully taking his whole grifting family with him. I have speculated for the last year that he might relocate to Moscow or Riyadh. Given his declared love for Kim Jung Un might North Korea be on the list of possibilities?

David Kaiser has an interesting piece on politics and the Supreme Court. He points out a fact I have mentioned several times in our discussion here at home: both sides of the political spectrum have used the courts, including the Supreme Court, to get policies they couldn't get a political majority for. Some of Kaiser's comments reflect a conclusion I have articulated both on this blog and here at home: the U.S. is at a cross-roads. Since our founding two trends have been fighting: one is for a more coherent and....homogenized, might be a good word, country dominated by the Federal Government while the other is for a more decentralized union with the individual states dominating much of our economic and social life. The decentralized ideal was good when most people didn't travel frequently, when travel times were longer and when communications took an extended time. We aren't that country any more. I can get in my car any day of the week and spend the day in a different state. We are an hour away from Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, and about three hours away from Iowa, Ohio, Missouri and Kentucky. If I had a business I could easily operate in all of those states. The internet, cell phones, cable and broadcast TV all put us into a web of communications that transcends our local town, or state, or even our country. I routinely check blogs and news sources from other countries. We are no longer the country our founders created. Which is why I think the so-called strict constructionist and textualist stance of so many conservative judges and justices is utterly rediculous. 

 October 9

Poor, poor #45. He won't get a Nobel Peace Prize. It was awarded to the World Food Program. Of course, he is in good (or bad) company since his best bud, Vladimir, was also left out in the cold.

We didn't watch the vice-presidential debates. From the commentary since it followed the usual pattern for such debates. Didn't really spread much light on either party's intentions. Harris, again from the commentary, managed to effectively gut the RepTHUGlican non-program without offering more than general promises. Pence was a slightly more mannerly boor and didn't talk over Harris all the time. Just enough that she reminded him she was speaking. That evoked reminiscences for a lot of the women in the audience who also had the problem of men talking over them. The most memorable part of the debate: the fly that landed on Pence's hair. My first thought: well you know what flies are most attracted to--s#$t. I said that to the clerk at the dairy this morning and she laughed that she didn't think of that since the cows and goats produce a lot of that.

October 10

The Chicago news last night had a segment on the high turnout for early in-person voting in this area. Parts of Chicago started early voting a couple of weeks ago and all of Indiana started this last week. I noted on the October 6 post that we voted on opening day and there was quite a long line though nothing like what the news showed for a couple of other states. Evidently the crowds keep showing up, masked and generally distancing.

While we went out to the dairy Thursday I was struck by the fact that I have seen only one political sign concerning the presidential campaign. I still wonder if it was pro- or anti-#45 because it was odd and we passed too quickly for me to really read it. One woman who was next to us in the voting line commented that she had two of her pro-Biden signs vandalized. Her daughter sent her one which pictured #45's comb-over and simply said NOPE. I have seen a lot of signs for our local races.

Fall colors are developing rapidly though, perhaps, a week or 10 days away from full color. I have cut away a lot of the plant growth and dug out one of the basil roots so I could put the last mum in its place. I am debating whether I should get some mulch or just find other ways to protect the soil from any rain we might get. I also need to get the roses and a couple of other plants that might make it through the winter.

 October 6--First day of early-in-person voting.

We just got back from voting. The polls opened at 8:30am and we got there about 8:40. We finally got out about 10am--just in time to avoid a parking ticket for exceeding the time limit on the space. It wasn't as bad as that might seem and we are tired with aching backs, knees, and feet. We are old ladies after all. It was a bit chilly and we had a brisk breeze. Most of us were a bit under dressed but almost everyone stayed. At one point the line was a block and a half long but they opened up another couple of machines to move things along.

Frida Berrigan on TomDispatch this morning. I suspected early on that the pandemic, before it was recognized as a pandemic, that the virus wouldn't be going away anytime soon. I didn't expect how much of an impact it would have on our normal life: the level of unemployment, the number of deaths, the number of "long-haulers" among the survivors, or the level of incompetence among our government leaders. I had an interesting thought at the point where Berrigan writes that we thought "They'll figure it out." In a book I like a lot (Michael Greer's Retrotopia) one of the characters noted, concerning a major collapse of a vital technology, that the situation didn't need to happen. There had been plenty of warning. But everyone at all levels ignored the warnings claiming that "They'll figure something out." Who ever "they" were they never did figure out the problem.

Another thought bouncing off Berrigan's post: When George W. first proposed his notion of an "ownership society" I translated it into "a you're on your ownership" society. Berrigan puts it very well when she says she suddenly realized that we are all on our own with what ever local resources we can cobble together. George W.'s dream has become our nightmare.

While on our drive to the polling place we noticed several houses already decked out for Halloween. Mom thinks those living there are trying to recapture something that feels "normal."

 October 4

Really wet today so no gardening. Things should dry out over this next week and we have only one outside errand so I should have plenty of time to get some of my chores done.

David Kaiser has an interesting post today contrasting the front pages of the New York Times just after President Dwight Eisenhower had a serious stroke and a couple of days ago just after it was revealed #45 had Covid-19 and had been admitted to Walter Reed.

I haven't spent much time (any time really) thinking about poor #45 except to note that his behavior pretty much ensured he would contract the virus "que sera sera" as the song said or as #45 said "it is what it is." We have spent much more time thinking and talking about how we deal with the situation we have been handed. I feel somewhat like Hecate Demeter on her blog but we watched the early reports we found on Wuhan and said, between ourselves, "this is coming and it isn't going to be pretty." We always listened to the medical experts and I made our masks well before extensive masking recommendations came on line. I remember (and I think I have recounted this occurrence before on this blog) encountering a store clerk shortly after the state mandated masks and distancing in the stores that were deemed "necessary". She thought (and fervently hoped) given what she had been hearing that everything would be back to "normal" real soon. I asked her if she knew how long the 1918 flu pandemic lasted. She didn't and I told her: two years. She wasn't at all happy with that thought. I just read a piece on three epidemics that changed history and all of those were pre-1900: the Antonine Plague of 165 to 179 ce, the Justinian plague in the 540s ce, and, of course, the Black Death of the 14th century. One part of it surprised me: the Antonine Plague (possibly measles or smallpox) killed about a third of the population in repeated waves over 15 years. So much for "heard immunity."

October 5

Sunny today so I may get some of my fall jungle cut today. I don't take plants out any more because the remains act as a ground cover and letting the stubble and roots decay in the pots puts at least some of the nutrients back into the containers. I will take one completely out because I have one more mum I want to put in hoping it and the other will survive the winter.

Concerning #45's COVID John Beckett has this post and it says about all that needs to be said.

 SeptOctober 3

We have had a very busy week here and the change in the month went by almost unnoticed. We had eye exams (Monday for Mom and Tuesday for me) and veterinary appointments (Thursday for one cat and Friday for the other) as well as our usual shopping. So we were out of the house a lot this week. Other than that life has been pretty much as normal here at Chez Grumpy Old Broads. We are hope that the election will give us reason to be less Grumpy and we are going to vote on our state's first day of early-in-person voting. We hope there won't be a long line but given some of the stories I have seen from areas in the Chicago area we might.

Found this item way too early. Can that grifting family find any more ways to claim where credit is NOT due? Rhetorical question--of course they can.

With Repthuglicans this kind of chutzpah is common. 

 September 29

We have some rain and I am glad because it is much needed. I was thinking of watering the gardens but won't have to for a bit. It is also getting cooler again. I am also glad of that. Hot weather and I simply don't go well together any more. It had been so dry I almost lost the mums I put out front for some autumnal color. I thought when I checked them they were fine but next morning they were wilting badly. I watered them well and yesterday transplanted one to an empty container after pulling the marigolds and pepper that were pretty well spent. I hope it will survive the winter and come back next spring.

My brother came by Saturday with a large bag of crochet thread and a larger bag of yarn. Yesterday I quickly pulled out the full skeins and filled one of my storage boxes with them. Then I started winding the partials into balls. I am about half done and have a large bag filled with those and another bag, a little smaller, yet to go. I think someone had gathered that yarn however they could and packed it in that bag. I had to work to untangle and unknot several. But I have quite a nice bit of yarn to work with now of all weights except the bulky. Brother likes to visit estate sales and anytime he can come up with that kind of windfall I will gladly take care of it. He got it all for $10.

I saw a lot about the possibility outlined in a New Yorker magazine article last week that the Republicans might try to persuade those swing state legislators where the legislature to invalidate the vote if #45 loses and give him the electoral votes anyway. David Kaiser has an analysis of the laws in question and has come up with an interesting conclusion.

Ah--the story of the day...again! A post on Facebook this morning read: Story of the Day--ABC, his taxes; NBC, his taxes; CNN, his taxes; FOX, Hearty Soup Recipes; Hearty Soup Recipe Channel, his taxes. 

 September 23

Almost the first thing I saw this morning was a link to this LA Times article "Why Paul Simon's 'American  Tune is the anthem for our troubled nation." I honestly didn't remember the song and looked it up. Oh, yes! It is the perfect song for our times. And a reminder that we have had similar times before.

September 25

I got to reading yesterday and completely forgot to come back here. Just as well because I didn't have any thoughts to post on anything. In case you are wondering I read The Case of the Lazy Lover, a Perry Mason mystery by Earl Stanley Gardner.

I managed to solve a mystery that has been nagging at me all summer. I had two plants I thought were Japanese indigo but they didn't match any of the descriptions or pictures I found. One was in the middle of a stand of indigo that matched perfectly and were exactly where I planted the seeds. But what the hell was the other. Well, I finally figured out how to take a picture of it on the laptop. Here it is:

I found a free plant id site and it gave me a list of possibles but none matched what I had planted. Well, none I had planted this year. It happens to be Malabar spinach which I planted last year but failed to germinate. Since it is a warm climate plant I think I must have some how gotten a couple of seeds from last year mixed in with the indigo. I will try it again next year now that I know it will grow as an annual here. It is supposed to be a good salad green and a good substitute for real spinach.

I have been looking for heat tolerant plants for the last few years. Our patio, with its white fence all around, becomes an oven that concentrates heat. The official temperature might be 85F but the temperature on the patio in the sun reads 95F or more. My cool season doesn't last long and most of the traditional greens will bolt before we get to enjoy them. I am also considering some shade loving plants for the autumn because after the autumnal equinox the entire patio is in shade.

I love the Lincoln Project ads. (Note: I got to this one by way of Crooks & Liars.) I will admit part of it is I despise #45; but I am getting very tired of the "business as usual" stance of both sides. Biden wasn't my first (or second, or ... tenth) choice but given the (insert your favorite epithet here) I will vote for him.

 September 21

As several other blogs have posted over the weekend: RIP (power or peace) RBG

My first reaction: Can 2020 get any more F*$#ed up? Well, it can. The shameless, power hungry Repthuglicans might ram through a reactionary activist judge forgetting all their pledges that if an opening on the Supreme Court came up in the last year of #45's first term they would not confirm a replacement until after the next inauguration. The "Party of Lincoln" is dead. Or, even worse, #45 might be re-elected.

I was outraged and angry when the Orange Idiot was elected in 2016. Now, I am incredibly sad and, somewhat, philosophical. Things are changing and have been for a while now. It isn't a though such drastic changes haven't happened before. The adoption of the Constitution in 1789 changed our government dramatically. The westward movement changed attitudes toward slavery and the strains on our government resulted in the Civil War and more changes. I could go on but it isn't necessary. One of Heinlein's curmudgeonly characters in a future time (I forget which one) said that the United States had gone from a representative republic (with, I would add, a very narrow representation), to a broad democracy, to an oligarchy to a dictatorship and back and forth in the list without ever changing its Constitutional framework. But I would also caution all those gleeful Repthuglicans to be careful what they wish for--they might get way more than they bargain for.

Reading today:

    Tom Englehardt at TomDispatch: A Vote For the Apocalypse.

September 20

Welcome to Fall🍂

It has been getting more and more autumnal for the last couple of weeks--since the heat broke and nights started dropping into the low 50s and 40s. I think the trees were just waiting for that because they have been turning colors--nothing close to full glory which is about two to three weeks away. The shadow of the house is almost at the top of the fence which it does around each solstice. It has me thinking about looking at shade loving plants for a fall garden next year. At the summer equinox there is almost no shade at all in the gardens except for a small strip near the house itself so all those plants have to be sun loving and very heat tolerant. I will have to think about that and do some research.

Reading today:

    Andrea Mazzarino on TomDispatch: War Zone America? When a military couple worry about a possible new civil war here, maybe we should all be worried.

    Ben Hunt at Epsilon Theory: The Welding Shut of the American Mind. Some interesting points here and has me thinking I should re-read The Closing of the American Mind which I didn't like much when I first read it a couple of decades ago.