27 February

Well, it looks like we have a new religion--the cult of the Golden Golem. That is evident from what has been covered of the CPAC convention in Florida. They even have an image of their god--a gilded statue of #45 decked out in a U.S. flag outfit and a scepter. My first thought on seeing it was the biblical injunction against graven images. My second thought was of the biblical story of the Hebrews building and worshiping the Golden Calf. My third thought was of a cartoon I saw sometime last year during the campaign. It had two panels with the first showing the scene of the Hebrews worshiping the idol they crafted. The second showed an eerie picture of a gold plated #45 captioned with "Today some people have decided to worship a Golden Ass." The news also took note of a number of (faux)Republicans lawmakers who turned in proxies claiming COVID concerns before taking off for a packed convention in Florida.

Jan In SanFran has a new post on "Pandemic Blues". Pretty much describes the chaos of our pandemic dominated lives. Most of us are stressing out under demands we never expected to have to meet. Parenting plus working at home. Working remotely sometimes having to split time between the teleconferences using media we only recently learned and carrying on in person. Some of us had already had to care for parents and children at the same time trying to earn a living to support a modestly comfortable life. Some of us have moved from working to death to barely scrape by to working to death to not even be able to afford the basics. Most of us desperately want the pandemic to end so we can get back to normal lives but I have mused before on whether that will be possible. I seriously doubt it.

28 February

Here we are at the end of the second month of 2021. How time flies whether you are having fun or not. We are still in the middle of winter though the temperatures seem to hint at spring slyly coming in. I got the gate closed yesterday after we blocked it open at the beginning of the month so we wouldn't find ourselves locked in by a frozen latch. Besides, it is far easier to push snow out of the patio that fling it onto piles that were already shoulder high inside. Those piles are already much diminished but it will be a long while before they are gone because the patio gets no direct sun this time of the year. It doesn't even get strong reflected light until mid-April.

The Wild Hunt posted this overnight. There is an old saying that "once is happenstance, twice is coincidence but a third time is a trend." We are well beyond a third time with the Republican Party tilting toward white nationalism, Neo-nazism, delusional dreams of domination. Mary Pezzulo at Patheos has a more Christian take on the golden statue of #45. 

 25 February

Sunny again today. Yesterday was beautiful with temps in the mid 40s. I traded in my winter coat for my big sweater. I don't like that coat much and only wear it when the temps dip into the low 20s. Otherwise, the sweater does well with my layered turtle necks and flannel shirts or sweat shirts.

I am still not quite over whatever hit me Monday. I get tired with any exercise at all. But it is getting better. I got off my butt to clean out the herb shelf and get some of our storage jars sorted out. I don't know what herbs, if any, I will put in next spring. That is still in flux for a lot of it. I don't know what will come back, if anything. I do know I want to shift some of my large containers to the front where they will get full sun along with a window box type planter and a couple of my smaller pots.  All our landlords attend to is the grass and that patch looks pretty bad.

One of the bloggers I read posted this morning about the death a couple of days ago of Lawrence Ferlinghetti one of the last of the beat poets. I found this in The NY Times. I remember him mostly because I found a book of his poems when I was in mid teens. My mother and I had a bit of a disagreement because I was thrilled while she was appalled by them. She didn't even remember him and I can't remember more than his name. It was a long time ago.

26 February

Another bright sunny day but a bit colder than yesterday at this time. It should warm up a bit. I hope so because I have a couple of things to do outside.

Several times over the last couple of weeks several TV commentators have asked when things will return to normal. My responses are 1) define "normal", 2) we should remember that a sizable number of people think the pre-COVID "normal" sucked and 3) why should we think the old "normal" will ever come back? I just read this morning that New York City has found its own variant to go along with the one California found. That is in addition to the Brazilian, South African and U.K. variants that have had doctors concerned. I wondered very early in this pandemic if face masks would become a near universal fashion statement. Perhaps considering that the new variants are coming fast and furious and that the vaccines' efficacy is determined by whether they prevent mild and serious disease not that they prevent any at all. I won't knock that because the conditions COVID can cause are frightening but I would rather not have any symptoms and wearing a mask all the time from now on may be the best strategy for preventing an infection.

 23 February

Feeling much better today though not yet 100%. We did get out grocery shopping today. We had quite a bit to get because we hadn't bought anything for two weeks from yesterday which was the first heavy day of snow and bitter cold. The snow is now melting though we have some mountains of snow that probably will still be around in mid-April. The temperatures are supposed to be in the mid 30s and 40s for the next two weeks.

This piece from Crooks&Liars is interesting. CNN has decided that they don't need to air the daily White House briefings after airing almost every bit of nonsense uttered by Former #45 and his inept spokespeople. Perhaps that the "different rules" aren't as bad as portrayed. I remembered when MSNBC stopped airing every one of Former #45's daily (pseudo)COVID briefings because they had deteriorated to campaign-rallies-by-another-name or whine tests. On the few occasions when something newsworthy came up they cut in. I have thoroughly enjoyed the current administration's briefings because they are informative without being inflammatory or sensational. The lack of drama is refreshing.

 19 February

Nice bright sun today but we won't get above mid-20s until Sunday. According to the weather channel we won't get any sizable snow for at least the next ten days. My fingers are crossed. Next week temperatures should stay in the thirties with a couple of 40s in the mix. Really hope so.

Watching the scenes from Texas. I am absolutely stunned by the ineptitude of the political class from Governor Abbot trying to blame "the Green New Deal" (which hasn't been implemented) for the failure of the Texas grid to a mayor telling his people that he is tired of "lazy" people who seem to want everything done for them to Sen. Ted Cruz who thought it a good time for a family trip to Cancun because everyone knows senators can't do anything.

However, other thoughts came up as various "systems" failed in succession: water, food, fuel, heat. We are so totally dependent on fragile systems that provide our basic needs. Most of us have no Plan B, C or D. No alternatives if something we depend on becomes undependable. We are so locked into Plan A we can't think beyond it. I noticed how often the various reports stressed the unprecedented nature of the storm in Texas but lost in the accounts except as a throwaway line is that was the fact that experts had been warning of such a situation for years. Unprecedented yes, unthinkable not at all.

February 21

It is early yet here and still dark so I can't see much outside. The weather predictions indicate snow for today though only up to 3 inches. But the temperatures should be going up to the point where some of our mountains of snow piled up all around might melt.

David Kaiser provides an interesting brief history of the primary process for nominating political contestants. I think we are in a bleak season of discontent as far as our political system is concerned. Democracy is a nice idea but then we have to decide who votes when and where. The news media and political pundits have said that a lot of measures have been introduced in multiple states designed to roll back measures like mail-in votes (aka absentee voting), early voting and such that made casting a ballot easier for ethnic/racial minorities, the poor, and the less mobile among us. Most of the measures are proposed in Republican states and are efforts to limit access to the groups that are least likely to vote Republican. They, it seems, would rather limit the numbers of their opposition with access  than broaden their appeal to attract those voters.

February 22

I don't know how far I will get with this today. The last couple I got distracted by other things and didn't get back to finish the post. Today I am a bit under the weather and plan on doing very little besides sleeping. Nice thing about retirement is I can afford to do that.

Most of the coverage of the latest long bout of nasty winter weather has focused on Texas which is understandable because of the geographical and population impact but this NY Times article (which I was able to read in its entirety even though their stories are usually behind a paywall) notes that the problems go well beyond the FUBAR situation in Texas which is monumental on so many levels. We have been reading about infrastructure failures that have come more frequently over the last decade or so. But the problem at bottom is that our "leaders" have kicked a lot of cans down increasingly potholed roads for a very long time. I don't think we can repair that damage easily or cheaply and we may have neither the political will nor the financial wherewithal.

Well, this AP story notes what the news yesterday said: we have passed the 500,000 mark in COVID deaths in this country which is more than any other country including Brazil which is the next leading country for COVID deaths. I remember when Dr. Deborah Birx said that "if we did everything right" we could keep that tally down to 50-100K. I think we proved Churchill's point when he said "Americans do the right thing--after they have tried everything else." We certainly didn't do much right under #45 who only "played" a president before a national audience. Unfortunately, we couldn't ignore the "show" like we did for The Apprentice and its offshoot. "The figure compiled by Johns Hopkins University surpasses the number of people who died in 2019 of chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke, Alzheimer’s, flu and pneumonia combined."

By the way, the graphic at the top of the AXIOS introduction indicated that it took 4 month for the death toll to go from 100K last May to 200K in September, 3 months to go to 300K in December, 1 month to go to 400K in January and another month to go to today at 500K. That is a scary progression.

Engelhardt this morning is reposting a piece by Chalmers Johnson from the past. It is well worth reading and in doing so I was struck by the following sentence: Where exactly are we, as we continue to garrison much of the globe even as our country finds itself incapable of paying for basic services? That is especially timely as the toll from the latest weather disaster and the debate in the Biden Administration over whether we should go along with the previous (faux)-administration plans to get out of Afghanistan. We should never have gotten into that quagmire but since we did we now have no good options going forward. We are a part of a NATO force and have obligations to allies. And we have a fragile situation in the country which is likely to go bad no matter which way we go. Damned if we do and damned if we don't.

While watching the news from Texas I made the remark that Texas hadn't had a Democrat governor since Ann Richards. That means that the situation in the state has to be laid at the feet of George W. Bush, Rick Perry, and Tony Abbot. That is the point of this Crooks&Liars post.

The several stories about astronomical utility bills for Texas residents triggered a memory from several years ago. We had repeated visits from people who tried to sign us up for an alternative electric supplier promising huge savings. We had difficulty finding out exactly who they represented and the promises were too good to be true as we checked them out and several stories about charges of fraud concerning similar companies in Illinois led us to refuse to change. What happened to utility customers in Texas makes us very glad we did because the promise of "whole sale pricing" was exactly what our visitors were promising.

No need to comment except to say "its about time!"

This bit from Can It Happen Here is interesting. I thought I saw a large number of older rioters on January 6 but didn't think much of it since I also saw a lot of younger people. Evidently the number of older individuals (over 40) made that riot very different from the insurrections in Hong Kong, or Egypt or other such movements even our own Revolution. I wonder if part of that is the fact that we have an older population. The author suggests loss of cultural hegemony.

I have been retired for so long I forgot that unemployment benefits are taxed. The one time in my life when I received those benefits for such a short time, I got so little it didn't trigger a tax payment. Unfortunately, many people who received the expanded benefits over the last year are getting very unpleasant surprises--huge tax bills even thought they are still unemployed. Here is the HuffPost story on that. I actually had to look up the official word on the IRS site.

 Well, Half Past February--Damn!!

We have had more than 20 inches of snow over the last about 3 days. A lot of shoveling. I take it a bit at a time even though I don't have a very long stretch to do--theoretically. However, the landscapers aren't coming around as quickly as the old landscapers did and they don't do as good a job. Luckily we don't absolutely have to go out before next Tuesday. I can take time to dig out the car and after Sunday we will get some help from Mother Nature with temperatures predicted to stay in the 30s. And the train of big snow storms seems to have broken. I certainly hope so.

Found this to put a smile on my face today. I have to admit that when it comes to #45 I wish him all the troubles fate can deliver.

At least we still have electricity. All too many in Texas woke up  a frigid house without heat or light for the second day.  And we haven't had tornadoes like Florida and N. Carolina. I hope that doesn't indicate what we can expect in tornado alley.

18 February

We spent a couple of hours yesterday digging our car out of the snow. We finally succeeded thanks to the help of a neighbor who then used his truck to pack down the piles. He also noted that the snow removal service our landlord uses has not done a good job. One of our neighbors had to parallel park behind her room mate's car and blocking our in car  because the plows had piled snow in her spot. Somebody finally came in with a front loader and moved the snow out. We still have mountains of snow at the corner and along the east side of our building.

I found this Zero Hour post that is an interesting account of one person's attempt to get his COVID vaccination. I wonder whether the Maryland situation has been replicated elsewhere. We have become reliant on private corporate entities to carry out public policy. The powers that be call the process "public-private partnerships" that usually provide the private partners the opportunity to milk the public partners for meager results.

For some time now, a decade or a bit more, I have been depressed by the inability of the U.S. to deal effectively with almost anything. Evidently David Nather and Scott Rosenbberg at Axios have also noticed that trend. Their article is the lead today.

A CBS news article gives the actuarial consequences of COVID (so far): we have lost a full year on life expectancy on average. Blacks lost 3 years and Hispanics lost 2 years. I am not at all surprised. Elderly populations, especially those in care facilities, comprised the largest group of early deaths. If you cut off the oldest part of the population you will bring down the average life expectancy. But I remember reading articles from before the pandemic which indicated a slow lessening of life expectancy associated with other trends in society: the opioid "epidemic" and the growing numbers of people who can't afford timely health care.

To go along with the paragraph above on the Axios article have a look at the latest from Tom Engelhardt: The U.S.S. Enterprise has become the U.S.S. Roach. Who would have thought it when the USSR imploded in 1991?

Recent bits of absurdity: the impeachment, Sen. Ron Johnson, and the local Pennsylvania Republican official who opined on Sen. Toomey's vote to convict #45. The impeachment was never going to get the 17 Republicans in the Senate to convict the #45. The final vote which included seven Republican votes did set a historical record since the only other time members of the president under impeachment got any votes at all from his own party was #45's last impeachment--all 1 of them. Then there was Sen. Johnson's remarks that he didn't think the insurrection was really all that dangerous because the idiots weren't really "armed." He wondered where the guns were if the rioters were "armed." How could you have an "armed" riot if there weren't any firearms. Well, the police busted plenty of people with various firearms as well as a crossbow, knives (one person was stabbed), hockey sticks, flag poles, and bear spray. Guns aren't the only kinds of "arms" out there.  And then the county Republican official who insisted that they were planning to censure Toomey because they didn't send him to Washington to "do the right thing" or vote his conscience. I guess they think elected representatives should be rubber stamps for whatever group controls the local party.

11 February

We have bright sun now after a morning with snow showers. We spent a bit of time clearing the usual patio path, the car and the loose snow around the car. It is still cold though not the single digit cold we had earlier. The intermittent snow and sub-freezing temps should continue through next week. Thankfully, we are well above the ice and freezing rain the news is showing through the Ohio valley and Texas.

A news item I saw last night said that top national Republicans are talking about splitting off from the GOP. Given that the party has gone off the crazy and amoral cliff that might be a good idea. I had that thought two months ago. I was so disgusted this last election cycle I refused to vote for any Republican. Under normal conditions, which we haven't had since 2015 when #45 came down his escalator to announce his candidacy, I like to split my ballot. I don't expect to do that for a while.

That story and another said the split was being furthered by fund raising problems. So many of the big money donors are running away from the #45 branch of the party especially those who tried to invalidate the electors from Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Arizona. That is coupled with the movement of that group of Republicans to focus more what was the "working" class for both support and money. I put that word in quotes because so much of that class is no longer working because of pandemic layoffs and other trends in the labor market.

Another thought came up with that notion that the Republicans might be going after a class they have heretofore ignored. Look at the results of the last two elections geographically. The biggest divide is coastal vs. interior. That has been growing for some time. Another feature involves several states which had been democratic strongholds but voted for #45 last time and either switched back narrowly or narrowly voted for him again. Those areas are the poster children of those left behind by global capitalism. But many of the other interior areas are dominated by agriculture and that has also been hit hard by globalism and global capitalism. I don't know how the current political parties or the possible splinters will address the issues that are front and center for those "left behind" groups and areas.

12 February

The clouds cleared off and we have sun for now. However, we expect to get, perhaps, three to five inches more snow later today and tonight. It is turning out to be a heavy snow year after a sparse January.

Johnathon Last at the Bulwark has a piece this morning that has echoes thoughts that have been surfacing in my mind for the last almost decade. Actually more the last thirty years--ever since I saw people on the losing side in a state election refuse to accept the result leading to repeated elections over the next several years as the contending sides fought out the issue. The controversy was finally settled when the side that won the first election also won the last by a landslide. There is a large and growing part of our electorate which will accept an election only when the results are the ones they want and the other side is seen as somehow illegitimate.

 9 February

We are in the middle of a two week sub-freezing cold snap. The weather people have said that it is possibly a record for February and highly unusual. We have also had a lot of snow over the last five days--not a record but still a lot. The snow lies 2ft deep on level ground on the north side of our house and 4ft where I have piled the snow I shoveled to make a path to the gate. Luckily we aren't going anywhere this week--not even shopping. We don't have much on our list and nothing that is absolutely necessary.

I haven't had any motivation for the last week. I barely touched any needlework and haven't wanted to read anything. So--I did almost nothing which I can do because I am retired. Over the last couple of days I have gained a bit more motivation and started again the crochet table cloth I had to pull out because of a serious mistake that I couldn't finesse. It took me a couple of weeks to get up the energy to took at the pattern again. I also found an interesting slouchy hat pattern.

10 February

We started watching the opening "arguments" of the impeachment yesterday. Or, rather, we watched the House managers' arguments and only about an hour of the #45 defense team. At that point we put on some of our classic sci-fi discs because we couldn't believe how pitifully horrible the so called defense was. If I had prepared for one of my grad school seminars that badly I would have flunked out. Lawrence Tribe on Chris Hayes' show last night gave said they "sucked." I haven't often agreed with Tribe over the years but in that assessment I totally agree. I still don't expect many of the senators dedicated to #45 to actually convict him. He was absolutely right in 2015 when he said he could shoot someone on 5th Ave and those people would still support him.

One of the reporters/commentators this morning made an interesting suggestion: if you are perplexed by the attitudes and behavior of the Republicans in Congress, take a close look closer to home. The clip that went with the commentary was of a Michigan official who expressed all of the tropes of the MAGA crowd; the election was stolen, there was widespread fraud, and the votes can't be trusted. The polls seem to indicate that about 30% of those who identify as Republican are fervent #45 supporters. He may be out of office but he isn't gone and even if he were convicted and disqualified from future office his influence would live on. No one has a handle on how to deal with that fact.

 4 February

Grrrr!! We just dug ourselves out (barely--still a pile of snow near the car since we cleared enough to get into the car and drive out) and we have more coming today and expect more from Sunday through Tuesday next week. For some reason the snow removal services our landlord uses didn't clear around the cars and did a pretty poor job on the sidewalks. Nor did they clear a path from the front sidewalk to the mailboxes. I hope we don't have to do that again soon.

For several years I have seen laudatory articles and programs on "carbon capture and sequestration" technology. It has been touted as the solution to all our problems generated by fossil fuel use. I might have been enthusiastic thirty years ago but in my old age I have seen too many technological marvels that over promised and under delivered. Now I greet new technology with a good deal of skepticism. I know a few authors who have a similar viewpoint but their views have been drowned out by the flood of boosterism. I found this article first off this morning. Molly Taft describes the closing of the last CCS plant in the country and the reasons for it. She echoes what the contrarians of CCS technology have said almost from the beginning: it is a complicated technology with multiple points of failure, it is incredibly expensive, and it isn't really scaleable. Notice the point that it required so much energy the company had to build a natural gas plant just to fuel the scrubbers.

Evidently, according to Gizmodo,  the Australian fire season is off to a miserable start. That is after last year's disastrous fire season and at the same time the city of Perth was supposed to go into a strict lockdown because of COVID. We are dealing with the aftermath of our own disastrous season last year. California has had mudslides and lost a part of the Coast Highway thanks to heavy rainfall washing down soil and debris.

 Last day of January

We have snow--a lot of snow. They say that we should have between 6 and 10 inches by the time the system moves out later, much later, today. I haven't seen any snow removal going on and don't intend to do any myself today.

David Kaiser has a good History Unfolding post this morning. Much of what he describes I saw through a long association with academia studying history. 

February 1--Ground Hog Day Eve

I spent most of the weekend getting a shopping bag of cloth strips into some kind of order and winding the strips onto some cores I saved from crochet thread I finished over the last few months. I cut them from old sheets a good long time ago and simply hadn't gotten around to using them. And reading of course. I have become so thoroughly disgusted with the politics and some of the crackpots on the Republican side I have cut back drastically on my news watching. What was that Shakespeare quote--Oh, yeah, "sound and fury signifying nothing." The politics of this nation has become increasingly unmoored from the reality I see in my worm's eye level and increasingly antagonistic and unproductive.

Today I will have to spend some time shoveling a path on the patio from the door to the fence gate. We got about 6-8 inches with drifts going to 2 feet. The wind did part of our clearing by blowing the snow off the car.

Right now I am reading what usually comes in on my e-mail including the latest Tomdispatch.com. Engelhardt is five years older than I am but much of what he describes is lived experience for me also and I have also noted both the trajectory and the tall pile of ironies. But I have another take on the history of the last century: human events have momentum and once the direction is set they will continue until something of equal magnitude causes a change in direction. The imperial presidency has been gaining momentum since the Great Depression when the Federal Government took on tasks that had been reserved for the states which couldn't meet the needs of the people. There is another concept that might be employed here also: diminished returns on investments. As the Federal government has grown in size and demands more of our economic output the returns people receive for that investment decline. And the situation is made worse because the wealthy and well connected people and corporations skim off most of the economic gains and the governmental outlays.

Happy Ground Hog Day--

After I cleared that path to the gate I didn't really feel much like doing much else--so I didn't do much else. We have light snow right now. Blast!!! We weren't supposed to get any more. We hope our landlords will get our parking areas cleared today. If so we can go shopping tomorrow. Actually the only stop we need to make is the dairy; everything else is in good shape for another couple of days. Usually we grumble about these heavy snowfalls but I realized that there is one upside to it. Most of my containers are under 3-4 feet of snow so they are well insulated. That should help the dianthus, roses, woad and madder.  And perhaps a couple of other plants that might be able to come back in the spring.

For some time now I have read posts trying to outline how we might end these "forever wars" that don't accomplish anything and costs a hell of a lot of money that could be better spent on things here at home. William Astore at Tomdispatch.com gives it another try this morning. I haven't seen any ability on the part of enough of the people in position to actually do something to think out of the box we have been in since the Soviet Union imploded. (Some might say since the Cold War began.) The same problem seems endemic in the Washington politicians generally--the inability to get beyond the group think that have dominated our political philosophies and programs is as pervasive as ever.