November 26

Well, it is Black Friday.  No we aren't going to do any shopping today. That isn't anything unusual because we have always avoided shopping from Thanksgiving through New Year's. Simply don't like the crowds. I once worked in a store in the largest local mall and had to work during that stretch of time. One day I was scheduled for an 11am start but the traffic was backed up for at least five miles and even though I left home in time to be half an hour early I wound up an hour and a half late. I only had one other retail job after that one--at a small party supply store in a strip mall. Even that store was slammed at times during the season. Nowadays I am very glad to be retired.

Thanksgiving was quiet and we stayed home. Mom fixed an almost traditional meal. The turkey was leftovers from a breast we fixed about a month ago. That provided two meals then and several packages of meat in the freezer. The sweet potatoes, dressing, and green bean casserole were all made from scratch. We will be eating on it today also--maybe even tomorrow.

The big family get togethers over Thanksgiving and Christmas went by the boards about five years ago. My sister and brother usually hosted those but each were getting to the point that their energy wasn't up to it. Sister turned 62 last year and my brother will be 71 this coming year. Besides the nieces and nephews were breaking off into their own family groups and usually showed up long enough to say "Hi," give us all a hug and leave.

I noticed all the people on the news/talk shows (including the Macy's parade coverage)--both the talking heads and the interviewees gushing about the "near normal" feeling of the holiday. Everyone is so desperate for something that seems normal even if only for this one day--or two if you throw in our post-gastronomic-orgy shopping orgy.

The one cloud coming late yesterday was the news that a new COVID variant has popped up in Southern Africa with more mutations of the spike protein than any previous variant have shown. They don't know yet how those mutations will affect the virus but several European countries have already announced travel restrictions on those coming from several countries in the area. (Update: they gave the variant its Greek letter this afternoon--Omicron.) Very early last year I wondered if masks would become part of our everyday dress and distancing an automatic behavior. As rapidly as COVID mutates that might still happen.

 November 5

The weather people say we will get a stretch that is dry and a bit warmer than normal. Sounds like a good time to get the plants I hope to keep through the winter mulched and protected.

We had to make a quick trip to Michaels to pick up some yarn I need to finish an afghan (or something else, I haven't decided for certain) done up in granny squares. It is a great way to use up leftovers. But the color is the one I am using to edge the squares and to edge the finished project. Didn't have near enough. Of course, I don't know how long ago I acquired that yarn (or any of the yarns) so there was no exact match but I did find something close. I got the last two large cakes and lucked into a buy-one-get-one-half-off sale. I also found a small quilting ruler (marked in quarter inch measures) in a set with a small rotating cutting mat. I am hand piecing my current project and need to cut some small (or smaller than usual) pieces in a small place (my lap desk).

I found this piece on Crooks&Liars concerning that most cited study on the efficacy of ivermectin. It has been pulled by the authors because the data is entirely bogus. They blame a research assistant for mistakenly incorporating a dummy used to train new assistants set of data into the experimental data. It reminds me of the oft cited study which supposedly showed a link between childhood vaccines and autism. It was also totally bogus.

My first thought on seeing the headlines on this story was a sarcastic "Oh, I guess he has been hanging out with Elvis somewhere in an alternate dimension." That JFK Jr. faked his death is absurd to begin with but to think he would come back to play second fiddle to be the vice-presidential candidate on a new run by  the Former Guy is even more absurd.

Just saw an interesting interview on Morning Joe which supports my gut feeling about the last election. The question concerned why last Tuesday's election results were so dismal for Dems. Susan Del Percio cited statistics which indicated that policy didn't drive the debate; personality did. Her statistics said that about 37% of the Former Guy's voters approved of his policies (I always wondered what policies they perceived in his verbal diarrhea) and another 6% (if I remember correctly) voted for him because he wasn't Biden while 27% of Biden voters voted for him for his policies and another 30% voted for him because he wasn't the Former Guy. First point: more than a third of voters chose based on their dislike of the candidates not because they liked the policies. Second point: the Former Guy wasn't running and was mostly absent from the campaign in Virginia, but the Democrat tried and failed miserably to paint his opponent as "Former Guy lite".

The Rittenhouse case might be with us for some time if this piece by Crooks&Liars is an accurate foretelling.

 November 3

Another cold but sunny day. We saw frost on roofs, cars and grass when the sun came up this morning. I won't do any more gardening today.

A blogger I read regularly posted just before Halloween that the pandemic and its various work-from-home schemes or lockdowns etc. pushed him to a pattern of comfort reading or comfort movie viewing. He decided to break that by choosing movies and books he had on his to-read (-view) list but hadn't yet read (or viewed). We have had a similar pattern but the pandemic isolation isn't the primary factor pushing the emphasis on comfort books or movies. We just haven't found very many items that interest us. I have been reading old favorites, many of which I hadn't read in a long time: The Lord of the Ring trilogy, Dune, The Emberverse series and others. I do have a number of non-fiction books I have been nibbling on including histories of Egypt, the Civil War, Roman Britain.

I just finished reading John Michael Greer's latest post on Ecosophia. He always makes fascinating connections and conclusions. He is right that people of modern industrial societies dismiss the notion that history has anything to teach us. Pay particular attention to his last paragraph.

 November 2

Beautifully sunny bit a bit on the cold side. We just broke 40F and it is almost noon. We aren't likely to pass 50 at all today. But I did get out and cut down the three sunpatiens, the impatiens and the last dahlia. All looked pretty bad. Everything else will stay and provide some cover over winter. The roses are looking somewhat better though I will be cutting some of their growth before I bring out the straw bale and pack them. The red one survived last winter without any protection but we had quite a bit of snow piled up over them last year during the worst of the cold. I don't trust the weather. One of the pots had some spindly peppermint trying to grow. I will leave it alone and see if it comes back next year.

We are listening to Pandora today. I have really had enough of the coverage of the various off-off year elections. All I heard over the weekend was speculation over what the consequences of a Republican (or a Democratic) win would be in New Jersey or Virginia. One or the other will win and long term consequences won't be known for some time. I am at the "pox on both your houses" stage right now.

I have said for some time that the official statistics on inflation (or anything else) tell any kind of accurate tale about what people at my level of the economy experience. This piece on NPR explains part of why we have that disconnect. The statistics have been weighted with various adjustments to make inflation seem less than it really. However, all the adjustments fail when we are faced with tactics like "skimpflation" or shrinkflation as another author has termed it. For the last 50 years economists have been concerned with changes that they thought enhanced buying power like computers that are faster and can do more functions or cars that have more bells and whistles. I noticed that much of the shrinkage we experienced (4 lbs of sugar for what 5 used to cost or 14 oz cans of a product for what 16 oz cost before) never got into the equations. Now, however, too many goods and services are being skimped or shrunk.

 Welcome to November--

Hope you all had a good Halloween (or Samhain or what ever you call the day). We had no trick-or-treaters--at all. We haven't participated in the tradition for several years. After the last big scare over contaminated or sabotaged candies the numbers of children coming around dropped precipitously. Instead various civic associations and parents put together alternative parties--which I think was a good thing. Covid, of course, put a nail in that coffin last year. But also we don't like having left over candy--even candy we like. Our tastes have changed and most isn't as enjoyable as it once was.

I have remarked in political conversations here that we are entering a post Enlightenment era. That age has been dominated in our faith in reason and the ability of the human mind to understand anything. The United States Constitution was the epitome of that philosophy. It was the result of the application of reason the the problem of how people should be governed. That whole ethos is disintegrating. David Kaiser's latest post is primarily a summary of the latest Covid data but his last paragraph basically says what I said in slightly different words.

The early morning news/talk show we watch noted that the Oxford English Dictionary people have announced their word for 2021: Vax (or Vaxx). Given how the Covid vaccines roll out and controversy over them have dominated the news for this year, that is appropriate. About a month ago I mentioned that we might be as glad to see the end of this year as we were to see the end of last year. I just wish I felt next year would be better. It will be different but not necessarily better.

The Rittenhouse trial  starts today. The Judge decided that the victims can't be called victims or alleged victims but can be called rioters, looters, or arsonists (if the defense can produce proof). That last is a restriction without real teeth. I will make my summation here: that 17 year old crossed a state line with a gun he had no legal right to have in the state to which he traveled, proclaiming he was "protecting" people and businesses though he wasn't in any way authorized to do so (in other words he was a fucking vigilante, and when three people try to stop him (at a time when no looting, arson, or riot was taking place) he shoots them killing two and wounding one, and his lawyers are claiming "self defense." By the way the three victims had no weapons. I think the judge's ruling is a way to stack the deck so the little F-ing idiot gets a free pass.

We just finished a small shopping trip. We were out (or almost out) of several kinds of meat we use quite frequently and we needed lettuce for todays chef salad. We noticed that the meat prices were a bit higher that we have seen in the recent past. Not a surprise. This Financial Times article gives a good recap of trends we have been seeing in other media.

I haven't seen it in a long time but I remember an auto repair outfit whose ad finished with "You can pay me now or pay me later." That is the basic message of this ProPublica story "There Is No Cheap Way To Deal With The Climate Crisis." I heard a bit ago that we had already had 18 $1billion+ weather/climate events in this country as of early October. I tracked down this piece from NOAA to check my memory. Another article had a graph which indicated that this year has been the third most expensive year ever behind only 2005 and 2017. But the projections indicate worse to come and the price of doing nothing and merely repairing some of the damage (because not all of it will be repaired).