August 31

We are supposed to have a cool and sunny day today. I hope so because I have five pots of mums to plant. We picked them up yesterday while we were out on our various errands.

Found this for the "gift that keeps giving" file. I think the key phrase in the story was "there was evidence Vatican and U.S. church leaders knew he slept with seminarians but turned a blind eye as McCarrick rose to the top of the U.S. church as an adept fundraiser who advised three popes."

Another for that same file this time in Chile. The overthrow of the democratically elected Marxist government of Salvador Allende occurred fifty years ago in the Nixon Administration. But the trauma continues and colors what happens now. Argentina's "Dirty War" of the 1970s and 1980s was still being making headlines as the survivors and the families of the "disappeared" and the children ripped from their families search for answers--and accountability. Both episodes resulted because one group, which included military officers, refused to accept the results of elections they disagreed with and decided to overthrow the government. People, individuals and groups, have long memories. Which is why I don't agree with those of what ever political tribe who want to just consign divisive events (Nixon's criminality and TFG's bleating about "rigged" elections) to the memory hole and move on. We never truly move on.

I found this story from the Shreveport Times after reading a story about wild fires in Louisiana which included the Tiger Island Fire, the largest in the state so far. This site, updated daily, recaps the fire season nationally. Dismal reading.

This tells the story:

Idalia might be the 19th billion dollar climate event this year. And Vivek Ramaswamy thinks that "a single data point doesn't make a trend" as he condescendingly cut off Andrea Mitchell in their interview. The tech-bro showed the limits of his education and intelligence. Idalia isn't a single data point; it's the 19th after 15 last year. 

August 30

 We have already taken care of two of our planned errands this morning--going to our local dairy and paying our rent. We have one more--taking the old cable box back to the cable company. We got the new one late Monday and installed it yesterday. They used to install such equipment for the customers but now installation is yet another bit of unpaid labor expected of the customer. Luckily it was very easy even for these two old ladies. And actually we are rather happy with the results: better reception, clearer picture and we can actually read the trailers.

Caitlin Johnstone has an interesting piece this morning: Even the Bald Eagle's Call Is Propaganda. 

Heather Cox Richardson writes on the part of the Inflation Reduction Act which allows Medicare and Medicaid to negotiate with the drug companies on the price of drugs often prescribed for those covered by the programs. Note: NOT ONE REPUBLICAN VOTED FOR IT. They all stood by the drug companies and their profits. This is why I am still conflicted over how to cast a vote this election cycle. Or rather why I won't vote for a Republican but am very tepid on the Democrats. I still think they are two sides of the same big business/finance/military coin. But the Democrats are more likely to buck the paymasters. Question: do they do it often enough?

August 29

Just a few chores planned today. Mom got e-mails yesterday promising delivery of the expected package this morning. Other wise just a few chores planned.

A few days a go I read a posting from a blogger I usually follow which linked to a story about a luxury retailer that had been a fixture in San Francisco but was leaving the city. The writer cited an interview with some official with the company in which he referred to a conversation with a long time customer who had been shopping with them for 50 years but wouldn't be going forward. She noted how the neighborhood had deteriorated becoming more rundown, dirty and dangerous. This story from CNN Business parallels that account and provides more details. I wonder how many big cities are suffering similar pains.

A very long time ago I watched a news/history segment which included a person on the street interview. I don't remember what the story was that included the segment but the question was "why Edward VIII couldn't marry the woman he loved and remain king." The woman answered that he could love whom he wanted it was just unfortunate that he couldn't find a more suitable woman. I often think of that every time the RepTHUGlican "leadership" bend over backwards to excuse The Former Guy of everything and anything. As Charlie Sykes notes here they are trying to use the must pass budget bill to cut the funds for Special Prosecutor Jack Smith's prosecutions. The assholes who once chanted "lock her up" when their lying god accused Hillary Clinton of whatever his lying tongue could spew now sweep any respect for law or morals or even decency. Edward VIII faced the problem that, as head of the Church of England, his proposed marriage to a double divorcee ran counter to Church teachings on divorce--like it was prohibited. Almost a century later his divorced grand-nephew married to a divorced woman was crowned as Charles III. I call that an improvement. I remember half a century ago the controversy over whether a Catholic should be elected President or (a little later) if a divorced actor could or should be elected. They were which I also call an improvement. However, we have now seen the election of a man who has no morals and no respect for law and Constitution. That is NOT an improvement

I am of two minds about the political situation. I really don't like either of the likely choices: 1) choosing between old and tired, or the wannabe Putin mini-me and 2) going with a third party or no vote at all. Bill Astore whose blot I usually read appears to have made up his mind.

August 28

 Nothing much planned for today. Perhaps water the gardens a bit. And if it stays dry, restructuring a couple of areas that I have already cleared of spent plants. We are still expecting the delivery of a package and we want to be here to bring it in.

I found this Salon article posted on MSN that is an interesting critique of Pence and his lovely story about his conversion to a rigid anti-abortion position. A long time ago I shed the notions that the Bible was as authoritative as Christians claim. I doubt Mike Pence knows  Latin, Ancient Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic--the languages the books of the Bible were written in or translated into (before English). He might surprise me. I also doubt he has any real command of the history of the cultures in which those languages developed. Again he might surprise me. His use of a mash-up of quotations from very different books of the Bible indicate he is using The Book as a weapon in his political argument. It is an example of another logical fallacy: appeal to authority. It doesn't persuade those who reject that authority.

You might think from the comments I made above that I don't follow much of religious developments. But that isn't quite true. This article on Patheos is interesting. I noticed several points. First, religious higher educational institutions are suffering from the same problems their secular counterparts are suffering: over expansion, unsustainable institutional debt, a bloated administrative structure, and ballooning costs which leaves graduates with debts they can't pay. Second, the social/political fragmentation of our population makes it very difficult for any educational institutions (religious or secular) to find a large enough market to survive.

Update: we are still waiting for the delivery but decided to do part of our shopping--the part that involved the supermarket closed by. But we noticed again that certain goods that we expected to see were not there. We were looking for chili beans and only found one brand and one size of that. That has been a frequent experience over the last few years--fewer choices and higher prices.

Several news commentators have asked recently why, given statistical data indicating a growing economy, ordinary people aren't feeling it. In fact, with the 2024 election campaigning season ramping up, voters are feeling positively sour on the economy no matter their politics. This article from Popular Information explains very clearly why people are grumpy.

August 26

Looks overcast this morning like yesterday. However, the rain promised yesterday never materialized. We also have fog.

What I am reading:

On the Financial Times a good few thoughts about virtue that seems to be lacking in today's world.

Rhyd Wildermuth: "Winds Blowing Us Back Home." A different perspective on what and who is really in crisis in our turbulent times.

August 25

The weather forecasts say it should be considerably cooler today with possible showers. I don't know if the overnight rain came it is still too dark to see anything. I am going to defer watering til tomorrow. We will be shopping today and the dairy might have their fall selection of mums. If they do I will pick up 5 or 6. I already have four empty containers after taking out the spent plants. We changed our minds because we are expecting a package and would like to be present to receive it.

The news has been focused on the "perp walk" that wasn't. No handcuffs, no honest information on the intake forms (really only 215 lbs, strawberry blond hair??) which was all provided by the accused. Lovely "mug shot" by the way. The coverage reminded me of the coverage of the "slow speed chase" of O.J. Simpson. A lot of time spent on less than nothing. A couple of the news readers noted how The Former Guy continues to command the news cycle (a.k.a., unpaid publicity). I really wish they would--just stop. The Former Guy has set so many records and broken so many norms it is difficult to list the all: first president to be impeached twice (barely escaped being the first convicted in the senate), the first indicted (four times for 91 charges), the first convicted in a civil sexual assault case which the judge said was really rape, the first whose company has been convicted of financial crimes. And that doesn't include the "firsts" from yesterday.

And the news is also fixated on the "debate" and the GOP "hopefuls" performances. As you can guess by the quotation marks, it was no real debate and the wannabes on the stage don't have much hope. The Former Guy still has a commanding leading in the polls. The polls say that the "winner" of the "debate" was Ron DeSantis followed by Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley. According to the analysts DeSantis performed up to his usual low standard--lackluster, no personality, few ideas.

Robert Reich has a long piece on his substack this morning. He traces the history of our current political morass from Nixon through to The Former Guy. It has, indeed, been an era of "anything it takes to win" thinking. However, there is something even more corrosive: a sense of entitlement. Too many now believe that they deserve to win elections (all elections), what ever they want is right and righteous, and if they appear to lose the other side has cheated. That constellation of attitudes makes the anything is permissible to rectify the loss, including violence. What is truly concerning is how many enablers TFG has gathered to support him.

August 24

I have already been out on the patio watering plants. They didn't need much. As warm as it has been the plants haven't needed much water because it is so humid. The thermometer on the fence is already reading almost 80F. I cut away some of the dead branches on the petunias in the tower. They are not doing as well as the plant in the shadier location. I think I will put something else in that three-level planter next year.

I didn't watch the GOP hopefuls "debate" last night. We figured the news would gives the high/low lights. Low light #1) the abortion question. I remember the euphoria of the RepTHUGlicans when the not-so-Supreme Court ruled and basically erased Roe v Wade. They thought returning the question to the states and the electorate. Not so much now. Tim Scott insisted that such a moral question couldn't be left in a way that allows blue states (like California or Illinois) to provide abortion "on demand" (they don't). My response: you want the freedom to shove your "morality" down my throat without any ability to exercise MY moral choice. Freedom for thee and thine adherents; not for me and any one like me. Screw you Tim Scott. Problematic High Light #1) Nikki Haley calling out her fellow RepTHUGlicans for the spending/deficit problem. That was nice but to simply follow up by saying they SIMPLY had to stop spending and borrowing. But, Nikki, what are you wanting to cut? What is on your chopping block? That is why I say "problematic" high light.

I'll add to that as I see something I think is worth writing about. Brian Rosenwald sums up the whole mess in his post: The GOP Debate That Didn't Matter.

David Dayen has some good remarks on the course industrial "development" in the U.S. over the last 40+ years. He writes about FoxConn in Wisconsin but we saw similar debacles in Indiana and Illinois. The cities, counties, and states absorbed the losses while the companies waltzed away with a lot of money. I wonder if Nikki Haley would cut out such "corporate welfare."

I saw something about this yesterday but didn't seen the details. Ramaswamy thinks resetting the voting age to 25 with 18 year olds would be able to vote if they were in the military (after 6 months), were first responders or passed the same citizenship test immigrants must pass. He thinks a "national service" requirement for those between 18 and 25 would rekindle a sense of civic duty. Nice idea but it ignores history. Such civic virtue was imposed on the lower classes but the upper classes had myriad ways to circumvent the service demanded. During the Civil War those with money could hire a replacement to serve in their place or in place of their sons. During our misadventures in Viet Nam the children of the upper crust  could get married and father a child (Dick Cheney), hire a doctor to give some kind of diagnosis that would exempt their patient (The Former Guy), or stay in college for as long as they and their parents could afford. If you want to revive civic virtue, start at the top.

But reviving civic virtue isn't the main reason to cancel voting rights for young adults. The RepTHUGlicans have had a hard time attracting those voters so eliminating a portion from the electorate sounds good. Just as you gerrymander large parts of the black, brown, and poor (also big parts the Democrat base) into impotence. If you can't get them to join you, erase them.

August 23

Good morning. It should be another hot day so I won't do anything outside today. So I will spend the day with my needlework and reading. I will have to stop long enough to cook supper and maybe get a bit more reorganizing of the kitchen cabinets done. Maybe on that last.

Hecate Demeter posted a link to a song by Billy Bragg that is an answer to Oliver Anthony's RICH MEN NORTH OF RICHMOND. I found some comments on American Songwriter which are very on point. Where Anthony's song was a primal scream which but not a call to action Billy Bragg's song, RICH MEN EARNING NORTH OF A MILLION, is a call to action. 

The lyrics for “Rich Men North of Richmond” read, I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day/ Overtime hours for bullshit pay/ So I can sit out here and waste my life away/ Drag back home and drown my troubles away. 

Bragg’s new single offers a new take on the idea, with the song’s lyrics reading If you’re selling your soul, working all day/ Overtime hours for bullshit pay/ Nothing’s gonna change if all you do/ Is wish you could wake up and it not be true/ Join a union, fight for better pay / Join a union, brother, organize today.

 Bragg also takes on the culture wars as the distraction they are. Check out the lyrics for Bragg's song here and Anthony's here. The contrast is illuminating.

August 22

 Sunny for the moment. According to the weather report it will stay that way. I got out to water the plants and pull a poor pathetic Thai sweet basil that was past its prime. The space will be given to a mum in the next couple of weeks.

Yesterday I read a blog that has been fermenting in my mind. Sorry I can't remember which blog. It resonated because it was one of the very few which took issue with the notion of "fighting climate change" not because climate change is not real or a hoax or ephemeral and will pass. Rather the blogger took issue with the notion of fighting a concept, a "noun." We have done a lot of that in the past century or so. In that time we have fought communism, socialism, terrorism, "the woke," and climate change. We haven't really won any of those fights. This morning Joyce Vance notes that our current political morass is actually far more destructive than we might think because it is diverting our attention from crucial threats, like climate change. Though she does talk about fighting climate change it isn't as abstract as it sounds. We can't "fight" climate change but we can adapt. But to do that on a societal scale we need to focus on what is happening not on the antics of bunch of narcissistic politicians worshiping at the alter of The Former Guy or on a bunch of equally narcissistic very wealthy whose wealth may buy the the right to die last.

I like this post a lot. Indeed, dreams shouldn't wait. Deferring dreams is much like not using your "good" dishes, or "good" linens for every day but saving them for "special" occasions. They never get used because that occasion never comes.

August 20, 21

I went out early to water the plants on the patio. The few days of moderate temperatures the weather forecasters promised have disappeared. They now predict a week of 90+ temps. I also got some support in for the diplodenia that were spreading into the lavender and alyssum. I plan to put them in again next year but now I know how they grow. I find I have to actually see how plants grow over a season before I can plan on where they should go and with how much support they need. I have already pulled the bean plants but next year I plan to find a flowering vine to put there.

21*********************************************************************

Not much planned today. Hope to get a bit done on the patio before the heat builds. It is mainly maintenance at this time of the year. I cooked up a potato and smoked sausage casserole yesterday which will last through tomorrow. I have always found that cooking for one or two more trouble than it is worth. I cook as I always have and we eat it until it is gone. A casserole will go two or three days. A pork or beef roast will provide two meals or as many as six depending on the size of the roast and how I plan to use the left overs.

Some of the interview snippets involving prominent Republicans leave me shaking my head. The most common "argument" against The Former Guy is "If he runs we will lose." No one questions his "policies" perhaps because he never had any program. Others pursued their objectives and TFG simply supported them (or not).

I hadn't read anything about this law suit which will deeply affect the whole AI debate. Copyright is an essential feature of all of the arts industries and so is the question of who can hold the copyright on an artistic work which is entirely generated by AI--in other words who can profit from controlling the work. That is really at the bottom of the current writers' and actors' strike in Hollywood. The next question will be how much AI can be involved before the work is not covered by copyright.

Robert Reich has another post on Oliver Anthony's primal scream, Rich Men North of Richmond. I didn't find the protest over the anguish of white, Christian, men so surprising. It has cropped up frequently since Arlie Hochschield wrote Strangers In Their Own Land in 2016. Reich is right on the money when he notes that the focus on the culture war issues deflects the real reason why working class of all types are "selling my soul working overtime for bullshit pay." Even if all brown people, black people, uppity women, welfare recipients disappeared tomorrow working class white men would not be any better off. I wish the Democrats would junk thee culture wars theme and talk about class warfare. As Reich writes"

“I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day / Overtime hours for bullshit pay,” Anthony sings. 

Yes you have — but the reason is not because cultural elites have replaced white Christian nationalist men with people of other races, genders, nationalities, and creeds. 

It’s because America’s wealthy have turned their growing wealth into increasing political power to change the rules of the game in ways that further enlarge their wealth and power, while shafting the bottom half.

Found this interesting bit on Euronews. Before 1300ce England produced its own wine. After, as the "little ice age" set in, the English vineyards disappeared and the upper crust imported their wines. I have read reports of the reappearance of vineyards and wine production in England over the last few years. Considering how long it takes for vines to mature and produce the shift has been going on for a while now.

August 19

I hope to get some garden work done today and perhaps tomorrow. The weather forecasts predict a couple of days of moderate temperatures before they go up into the 90s next week. I want to pull the bean plants and get a couple of other things done. I got everything except putting up the ham broth so that is also on the agenda today.

Good Morning, America had a brief story about the drought in the Panama Canal Zone this morning. I decided to do a brief Google search and the story has been sporadically in various news outlets for the last 3 months. Shipping and world supply chains are totally screwed. Again.

Crooks & Liars posted this story that should make everyone's blood boil. If those tenants weren't poor the management company wouldn't make such bullying demands that they cover the amounts the former manager stole. I love the part of the letter which acknowledges that the tenants weren't in any way at fault but that the Corporation and their lawyers want to handle it by shafting the tenants. I hope there is a lawyer who will take the tenants' case without charge.

August 18

Sunny for the moment but we had unexpected rain storms yesterday. We don't have any errands today--at least not now. I boiled down a ham bone yesterday so I will get the meat and broth in jars and in the freezer. When I finished the meat off the bone prior to boiling I packaged three boxes of pieces for freezing. We'll see what else I get done today.

Something I saw Tuesday while shopping (besides the gas at $4.39/gal) was a renovation at one of the major stores we shop at. They are reconfiguring their check-out lines to convert a large part of the area into self-checkouts. We won't be going there because when we go there we are seriously shopping and will easily exceed the limits for those lanes. But they have also removed the bagging carousels. Before the pandemic we used our canvas bags even though it did slow the line somewhat. During the pandemic the plastic bag manufacturers touted their single-use bags  as a "sanitary" measure. The store insisted the customers not use their own bags because the cashier had to handle them to get them set up on the carousel. My first comment to the person who bagged our groceries that I was glad I could now bring my own bags and, if a bagger wasn't there, bag my own. All without slowing down the line. She said that the changes were the result of customers' comments. I am glad I can go back to using my own bags.

August 17

We have another errand today but otherwise it should be an easy day. I have been looking at the gardens and thinking about what plants should be removed to make room for the fall flowers. A couple need watering.

The Maui aftermath continues to horrify. The latest death toll is 110 and growing. I heard that thee tally of the missing is still about 1000. The estimate of the costs to rebuild also are increasing and are staggeringly large. I have heard estimates of between $2billion and $6billion. By the way I did a Google search for the number of billion dollar plus weather events. So far this year the tally stands at 15 without the Maui fire. We had 18 all of last year.

August 16

 We have errands today which I hope won't take very long. We still have intermittent interruptions in our internet service. The company doesn't seem all that interested in really dealing with the problem which really angers me. I don't understand what is going on, why the service goes in and out and why they can tell us it is fixed only to have it go out shortly after. I have started looking at other services so I don't know what is available in our area.

I am always amazed by the ability of politicians to toss a meaningless word salad. Ron DeSantis gave an interview that the morning "news" showed an excerpt of while discussing the new The Former Guy's indictment in Georgia where he moans about using the RICO statutes against TFG. He complained that it wasn't appropriate to use a law passed to attack organized crime. I asked what he didn't understand about the words "crime" and "organized." From what I read of the indictment it was certainly organized to achieve a specific goal and involved criminal activities as defined by statutes. Now all the DA has to do is convince a jury to vote unanimously that her reading of the case is right.

Update: errands done. But we have had two internet interruptions in the last 20 minutes in addition to the one that started just before we left on our rounds. I am so totally pissed.

Bill Astore has an interesting assessment of the political situation. While TFG is bad (I would say that a bit stronger), Biden/Harris are incompetent. I would change that somewhat. Biden isn't really incompetent he is simply operating on an old set of assumptions and behaviors. He claimed when he ran in 2020 that he could work across the aisle to get his programs through. He assumed that there were enough middle-of-the-road, reasonable politicians in both parties to work with. Twenty five years ago he would have been right but not today. In fact not of the last 15 years. That is why I expect a government shut down at the end of September. And if they do pass a budget (a big if) Kevin McCarthy will be ejected from the speakership unless he can convince Democrats to support him.

Unpleasant surprise was the sign at the gas station we usually go to: $4.39/gal. That is an increase of $0.40. Ouch!

August 15

Oh, my--half past August already. We are back on line--sort of. The service goes off and on, mostly on. The technician never showed up yesterday and we are betting they did some kind of magic on their end (where ever that is) and decided that would do it. We'll see. However, I see it as another example of what Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism calls "crapification." Note: service is out again for the second time this morning.

Bill Astore put up a good piece this morning: The Rich Have No Sympathy or Use for the Poor. He includes a link to Oliver Anthony singing his song: Rich Men North Of Richmond. During our frequent discussions on our political situation I have often said that people elected The Former Guy out of a very deep well of discontent. Listening to Anthony's song I have to amend that: people voted for TFG out of a deep and bitter anger. The talking heads have been perplexed by the discrepancy between the economic statistics and the persistent pessimism over the economy. And our "two" parties are really the wings of a big business/finance party. Springsteen's songs were a genteel critique of our culture/economy. Anthony's is a pained and angry scream.

August 13, 14

 We were almost totally off line yesterday. I don't know how it will go today. We'll see. The company is sending out a technician tomorrow to, hopefully, find out what has been causing the intermittent interruptions. I am trying to catch up on all of the e-mail and news we missed yesterday.

Starting off with this piece by Bill Astore on the war in Ukraine. We live by the stories we tell as much as by the bread we eat.

14**********************************************************************

Well, we are waiting for the technicians to come and try to figure out what is going on with our internet connection. It is on at the moment but it took about two and a half hours for the modem/router to actually make its connection--just like yesterday. It was almost funny yesterday because we got a call from the company about 8am noting that the on-line techs thought they had fixed the problem and asking if we still wanted the at home visit. We decided to keep that appointment--and two hours later the connection failed. We had no further internet at all yesterday. I really hope they get it straightened out.

August 10, 11

We have had internet interruptions almost daily for a while now. So I have posted whenever have had a connection. We'll see what happens today.

Gizmodo posted this story today. Get ready for higher beef, milk and cheese prices. Gizmodo also posted this and this. World wide we have had one nasty year for weather.

11**********************************************************************

Still having intermittent internet interruptions. 

The Maui fire is hellish--but it reminds me that it is one of several that have occurred over the last few years. One of the weather reporters noted that the conditions on Maui were very dry. That reminded me of the Drought Monitor maps I have seen and the islands have been abnormally dry to drought for some time. We think of the island and think lush tropical vegetation but that ecosystem is tuned to a certain level of rainfall. When that fails the vegetation dries out and is ripe for fire.

I have been ignoring the news for the most part unless it has nothing to do with either the 2024 election or The Former Guy's legal problems. That means I am ignoring the news on our media. There is BBC though it drifts into the same stories.

Robert Reich posted this article on his substack this morning. I'll let you read it. I will say that he doesn't go far enough to trace the American adulation for rampant individualism. Those strains were present from the very beginning of the English colonies and became stronger as Americans drove across the continent. When Huck Finn felt too constrained by "civilization" he "lit out for the frontier." Shane confronted and defeated the violent criminals who threatened the farmers and their community, and then rode off with the small boy begging him to "come back." That is a theme that goes very far back in Western literature--back to Greek myth. After Frederick Jackson Turner declared the end of the frontier we have been searching for a new mythology and the supreme individual taming the wilderness so communities could move in mutated into simply the supreme individual out for himself. That is really the at the core of the "trickle down" theory of economics: the wealth accumulated by the Uber-rich will (eventually) trickle down. But what trickles down is never enough to support a vibrant community and community simply drops out of the equation. The Former Guy represents the epitome of Ayn Rand's philosophy.

And then Charles Hugh Smith has this article which encapsulates our society so well. He explains why so much of our society is so damned boring.

August 9

 We had rain starting with a short but heavy downpour yesterday evening and going through the night. I think the weather forecast said rain would continue intermittently through today. No errands on tap for today and I have a couple of areas I want to get straightened up today. And probably tomorrow.

I found this Doomberg article I could only read half of. But the rest of the article is for paid subscribers and I have to ruthlessly suppress my urge to pay for subscriptions because I could easily clear my meager bank account subscribing to all of the sites that, every now and then, have interesting articles. I loved the first half of the piece for free subscribers which recounted how Chaos Theory developed. I don't think I will buy the book they cited because I don't want to do that deep a dive into math history. And then the author noted the relevance of Chaos Theory to weather, the economy and so much else in our lives. We can't predict the weather more than a few days out and longer range predictions may diverge from expectations. There are groups of people who think they can control the economy if only we could change this or that input. They can't.

Oh, on that notion of what would happen if something derailed the current reliance on the system of warehouses to supply customers with goods. I am about half way through an interesting book:THE END OF THE WORLD IS HERE. The author spent that first half looking at transportation and the global supply chains which depend on a large American military presence. As I read that I remembered another book: Alfred McCoy's TO GOVERN THE GLOBE. It described the European competition to control the trade choke points which finally culminated in the world order that has held over the last 70 years which ensured secure ocean transport through those choke points. That security is being dismantled now and that will be rippling through the warehouse system.

August 8

 Errands yesterday. We had to straighten a mess with mom's prescription. The doctor's office said it was sent to the pharmacy and the pharmacy said they had not received it. Well, the nurse sent the order--to the wrong pharmacy. She resent it to the right one so we should get a call soon. Another irritation in an increasingly internet connected. It was much easier when the doctor gave you a paper prescription you took to the pharmacy.

I pulled up this story because I saw the short title: Portugal battles wildfires amid third heatwave. It cut off the last three words: OF THE YEAR. This continues to be a weird weather year.

Ah, the idiocy continues. Now we have heat "truthers" (my phrase). Or rather, Britain does, though I wouldn't doubt that we have similar idiots here.

Yesterday I noticed that the news media didn't feature what has been a standard annual feature for years: the remembrance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. The only place I have seen any has been on the Japanese news site NHK.

William Hodgeland posted on Bad History FORMER PRESIDENTS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT. Early in the essay he make a very good point on the use of the term "criminalization." It is one thing to contend a former president has been indicted by a weaponized justice department on "criminalized" activity. It is very different to say that "The former president has been indicted for alleged crimes and the case is going to trial." The Former Guy has been indicted for actual crimes according to the U.S. legal codes not conduct suddenly made criminal to fulfill a political vendetta. Those are crimes who ever commits them unless you subscribe to Richard Nixon's hypothesis that "if the president does it it's not illegal." That is precisely the theory one of TFG's lawyers spouted over the weekend claiming TFG has "total immunity." If you agree then we have a class of people who are above the law. Otherwise, TFG is indicted for actual crimes he may or may not have committed and is about to go through the prescribed procedures outlined for all CITIZENS with the presumption of innocence until such time as a jury finds him guilty or not guilty.

Joe Perticone has a piece describing what has happened to the railway safety legislation that was being negotiated in the wake of the East Palestine crash. Norfolk Southern has spread a whole bunch of money on donations to legislators of both parties as well as on donation to both parties pacs and committees to derail it. I have said that both parties are basically different sides of the same coin which is the Wall Street/Finance/Big business and Industry coin. Those interests dominate while the welfare of ordinary people is out of sight and out of mind.

We use cash. We have switched to mostly cash transactions after Mom almost fell victim to one of those nasty scams that try to drain your bank account. They pretended to be a company she deals with and claimed her computer security plan fee was due. Mom was maybe four key strokes away from transferring most of her account to them when something confused her and she figure things out for her. I got suspicious and ended the call after which we called the company directly and discovered the fee wasn't due for several months. But it totally discombobulated her digital banking system. As a result she doesn't use it any more. She also had serious mix ups with two credit cards that thankfully didn't involve any monetary loss but were frustrating enough to make her stop using them. I sincerely hope the "cashless" society never comes to pass. Though it is progressing in some areas as noted here. 

August 6

The rain did come in yesterday--a nice and pretty steady rain. The wind did kick up but nothing affected in the gardens. We still have clouds and intermittent rain today. I look forward to a lazy Sunday since everything for supper simply has to be heated--no complex cooking.

David Kaiser has an interesting post on his History Unfolding blog. The surviving author of The Fourth Turning is out with a new book: The Fourth Turing Is Now. I read the first book and think I will give the second a pass. The one thing I like best about The Fourth Turning was its cyclic nature. We have, as a society, been taught that history is lineal with the path leading from a degraded past ascending through the present to some even more advanced place in the future. For most historians regressions are only temporary interruptions in a triumphal march into a golden future. Kaiser gives a bit of a hypothetical vision into very different possibilities and makes a good case that the future won't be like the past.

 

August 5

 Good morning. It is sunny for the moment but the weather report says rain showers should move in during the morning becoming steady rain by afternoon. I am going to take a risk and not water the gardens today. I have already cut back some of my "jungle" and will continue it tomorrow. Over the last fifteen years gardening has become a  constantly changing endeavor. It isn't simply a case of me getting older (all too true) but the changing conditions on our patio. The temperatures have gotten hotter for longer and the rains have become more uncertain. If I can't get outside early, sometimes very early, I can't get out there at all. I have put in more plants that are more tolerant of heat and a bit of dryness. Several are also very tolerant of freezing. I have already started to think about next year and I already am looking at more plants of that type.

A lot of people freaking out over AI. I'm not one of them. About forty years ago I was enrolled in a course which introduced students to the very early internet. People were already using it for research in the humanities and the problem of inaccurate, false, or fabricated information was already apparent. The one thing I recall clearly from that class was that I had to examine the sources closely: who was the source, in some cases what was their political/social/philosophical biases, and what were their sources. This NY Times article makes that case and even goes further: people have a RESPONSIBILITY to do that. Fox News is beginning to discover the penalties of posting, publishing, furthering lies that cause harm.

This article, originally posted in Swedish thankfully translated by Google, brings back another memory from my long sojourn in academia. I had to check the literature concerning my research and my advisor told me to ignore foreign language sources because "everything important is published in English." A few years later, when I was pursuing another degree at another university, my department offered two paths for filling a skill requirement. A friend and I signed up for a course in computer research. She made the cut but I didn't. Instead, I took a class in Spanish For Translation where the final exam required students to translate an article in their area and the professor would, if the translation was proficient, attest to our proficiency to understand written Spanish. I passed. Then to get some proficiency in a second language, I worked with a French tutor for two semesters and gained enough proficiency to translate a passage selected by one of my committee members. The point is that my friend was able to bypass any foreign languages. I don't know that I would agree with the title of the article linked above that English has become a threat to democracy but being monolingual definitely narrows a person's experience.

Ronald Reagan once said the most frightening words in the English language were "We're from the Government and we are here to help." This story underscores that. The question no one ever asks is "Help who, help how, and who is hurt." Obviously not young boy out playing with his dog or a county worker simply doing his job.

And for a bit of comic relief--welcome to Slowjamistan.

Yves Smith has another episode in her "Collapse of Operational Capabilities in the West" series. Long but a good read.

This sounds way to deja vu for my tastes. I seem to remember the same situation about  a decade ago.

August 3, 4

 I have had my fill of the dueling commentators on The Former Guy's latest legal woes. His side is bleating constantly about "freedom of speech" while the other side points out that his freedom of speech isn't the issue. It doesn't matter whether he believed he won an election stolen from him or whether he peddled a bushel of lies knowing they were lies. He is free to spew what ever venom he wants. However, the freedom of speech isn't absolute. As the old saying goes: you can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater. Nor can you defame someone as the E. Gene Carroll case showed. Just as our constitution mandates a free press but not a fair or truthful press, so it also mandates freedom of speech but not lies designed to harm someone else or steal from someone, or speech in pursuit of a crime. We'll see what the prosecution can prove.

04*********************************************************************

I got involved in other matters and didn't get much else done--as you can see from the scant post yesterday.

Bill Astore has a good piece today on the seductiveness of war. I remember a MASH episode. For those who are too young the TV series was set in a field hospital during the Korean War which was a bloody slog for damned little and ended where it all began after three years of carnage. An Air Force bomber pilot winds up at the hospital recovering from minor injuries crowing about how good the war is for him. He flies out of Japan to drop his bombs and flies back in time for dinner with his family. He might as well have been Stateside. The doctors give him a graphic tour where he sees the doctors/nurses operating on horrific wounds suffered by both American and Korean soldiers and Korean civilians. War isn't so nice and tidy after all.

Found this article on the Financial Times which says something very on target about "western populism." "Eastern populism" does have a program whether it is Russian (Putin), Indian (Modi), or Turkish (Erdogan). The leaders might actually lose part of their support if they don't deliver or espouse something their supporters don't like. But our Western "populists" can, in The Former Guy's words, shoot somebody (perhaps even multitudes of somebodies) and it would cost him a single supporter. They have no real principles, no programs, and only nebulous promises the can mean anything to anyone.

As I wrote above I am ignoring as much of the coverage of the latest indictment of TFG but, given the ubiquity of said coverage, I can't ignore it all. Every now and then a good analysis comes up like this one by Harold Meyerson on The American Prospect.

Just after I saw House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on the news bleating that every time new stories come out about Hunter Biden's alleged crimes I found an interesting cartoon showing a couple watching Fox News which repeated "Hunter Biden," "Hunter Biden," "Hunter Biden," ad nauseam. The woman asks her husband why it is, every time TFG gets bad news on the legal front, Fox News start beating the Hunter Biden drum. Good question.

Ah, I have so missed these irreverent old ladies since they moved to Twitter. I don't really use Twitter so didn't follow them there. 

August 2

Looks like it might be sunny at least for now. The weather report says it will stay that way with temps in the mid 80s. I have to water the pole beans.  However nothing else absolutely needs doing out there.

Well, the Special Prosecutor got his licks in before Georgia's Fani Willis who is expected to file indictment against TFG sometime in the next two weeks. A couple of commentators brought out the old observation that "a grand jury can indict a ham sandwich." Yeah, however, trial juries have already convicted the Trump Corporation and its CFO, and TFG himself for defamation and sexual assault. He still has the criminal trial in New York for his alleged financial crimes. And who knows how many more.

We had to go to our local drug store, a national chain I won't name, for the first time in about three months. When we get our vitamins we get enough for 60-90 days. It was a bit of a shock. They had completely rearranged things and totally changed the products they carried. They cut the number of brands and items within the categories. We normally get a probiotic but found almost none and those were the high cost brands. We decided we probably don't really need it. We started that after Mom had that bout of viral bronchitis and had received antibiotics to prevent an opportunistic infection. We started the probiotic to correct for the loss of gut bacteria because of the antibiotic. We normally get a vitamin supplement that, hopefully, enhances eye health. Seems like a good idea since we are both well up in age. There were fewer shelves and a lot of the high priced brands on locked shelves. Locked shelves were scattered through out the store. I wonder if that is the future: fewer choices, higher costs and locked shelves.

And Ukraine is sending more drones into Russia--especially Moscow. Of course Putin is squealing like a stuck pig. But anyone who is surprised is naive. Why in the hell would anyone expect that Russia could tromp and bomb all over Ukraine without, eventually, Ukraine stomping back. I also saw a speculative piece about the presence of remnants of the Wagner Group in Belarus on Poland's border. The authors wondered if they might be preparing for a cross border incursion, with "plausible" deniability for Putin and Lukashenko, to cut the Baltic States off from the rest of NATO because the Polish-Lithuanian border is the only connection.

Interesting but not surprising. Over the last 20 years we have seen this kind of thing frequently. There aren't any free standing Physicians's offices. They have all been bought out by various hospitals or hospital groups. Medical professionals have been reduced to highly credentialed sweatshop workers. And they wonder why doctors and nurses are leaving the field and few new prospects are coming in.

Ah, yes, the paradise that is Florida: Don't Say Gay, no medical treatment for transitioning or transitioned people (not just children anymore), trim history to reflect the right wing vision of America, and---LEPROSY.

Robert Reich has a post that is for paying subscribers only but it has an interesting title:will holding Trump accountable for trying to overturn the 2020 election lead to civil unrest or begin to lance the boil. I was thinking that this morning when one of the commentators expressed the notion that the Nixon pardon laid the ground for TFG. Nixon got away with his crimes leading to the question of whether we can ever hold a president accountable for anything. I understood the argument for the pardon: let the country heal and move on. But ignoring such a festering wound doesn't allow healing or moving anywhere. A boil has to be lanced and drained and bandaged before healing can even begin. The political boil was never lanced and the fever still burns.

August 1

Welcome to August. Our temperatures are predicted to be a bit more normal. I checked the gardens and I don't think I will have to water anything today. I'll save that for tomorrow. I picked a nice bunch of pole beans and should get them into the freezer today.

It has been quiet especially since I try to get away from the news. I fondly remember when the news was half an hour in the morning and evening split between local and national news. Now it is three hours with a lot of commercials and frequent repeats that add nothing to the stories. Worse they rely on speculation on what is going to happen (they think).

The news this morning reported that Musk has been ordered to remove that huge X on top of his company's building. It was erected without any permits and the neighbors were complaining it was interfering with their sleep. I saw some video of it in operation and thought it was so totally annoying. I would have hated living anywhere near it. But I wasn't surprised. It was another prank from an entitled narcissist with far, far more money than either brains or empathy.

We have had repeated interruptions in our internet for the last couple of weeks. Often several a day.