December 30

 Last Monday of 2024 and two days from the end of another year I am glad to see recede into the past. However, having read a lot of history I have come to realize that the past is never really past. Its tendrils weave into the events we experience in every present we live through. Listening to the news recounting the long life of Former President Jimmy Carter I am reminded of that.

Bill Astore on his substack blog today echoes that notion (that the past is in the present). There is also a Biblical idea that a "prophet is without honor in his own country" and in his own time. Dwight Eisenhower's reputation as President under went a serious reappraisal about 25 years after he left the White House. Early evaluations cast him as a somewhat slow witted (or senile) old man who didn't do much. Later historians thought he was greatly underestimated and was in fact a canny player on the world stage and set up the conditions for an American economic explosion. Carter was dismissed in much the same way.

Stray thought: Some years ago I read Vera Britain's memoir A TESTAMENT OF YOUTH which covered her life in pre-WWI England through her service in as a nurse during the war and her efforts to build a life after. Before the war she was studying English at Oxford and after she decided to go back to Study. The head of the women's college wasn't very enthusiastic because Britain had been considered barely qualified for the English program and not at all for History. When Britain said she wanted to study History to find out why the nations of Europe went to war in 1914 she was told that the program didn't cover recent events defined as anything within the last 50 years. They thought that a space of time was necessary to provide perspective. That might not be a bad notion.

Stray thought: during a couple of the cheating scandals that engulfed a couple of the military academies and the part of the service that mans the nuclear missile sites I was surprised--not by the scandals themselves but by the commentary on them. The commentators were shocked the behavior of people they somehow thought were more "honorable" than the population from which they came.

December 26, 27, 28

 Boxing Day today in Canada and the UK. Hope your Christmas (or first day of Hanukah) was pleasant. Ours was quiet here at home. We had turkey, mashed sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and Brussels sprouts for supper. I wove several squares on my zoom loom and picked apart several I had connected and thought better of what I had done. I have an idea I want to try after New Year's Day to connect those squares but I am not going to start that until then. We watched a whole star of our DVDs because nothing interested us on cable. Today I wove several more squares, got the kitchen cleaned up, made oatmeal for breakfast and got a cake in the oven. We will have pork chops with mashed potatoes for supper because I have the chops thawed and don't want to risk them going bad. I won't have to do more than heat up meals for the next week. We'll live on left-overs.

Reading list:

1) Bill Astore at Bracing Views casts considerable doubt on the notion of "trusting" the government. However, his article suggests that we shouldn't trust other aspects of our social/political system. He reminds us of how old Biden looked during the 2020 campaign with his physical stumbles, mental hiccups, and other signs of decline. Astore argues that, because of COVID, we simply didn't see enough of him to have notice the signs. Well, I did notice but I also saw the same signs with Trump and in a choice between the two I chose Biden. I don't trust most of what the government puts out or promises. I spend a good bit of time trying to figure out how to lessen my reliance on the government but some of what they do is so necessary and so embedded in our society that it is a challenge.

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Our iron grey skies finally decided to dump some rain on us. We expect another couple of days before the temperatures fall to more normal levels. Right now we have high 40s or low 50s. I saw something sprouting in the containers. I have no idea what it is but it won't last long with colder temps coming

I am in a "low power" mode and simply puttering around puttering around. As I mentioned, the embroidered pillow case was the last completion for this year. That makes two pairs of pillow cases, a table topper, two embroidered/cross-stitched table scarves, an eight piece set of placemats and napkins, four crocheted lap blankets. Not bad. I am already lining up the needlework for next year. I just started a new doily which will be a bit of a challenge along with the two to-be-embroidered/cross-stitched table clothes, a lap blanket in process, and a whole bunch of woven squares to put together for something undecided yet. I will also bring out a quilt that is started but has been in limbo for about two years. Time to make progress on that.

Well, it is finally official--the bald eagle is the official bird of the U.S. We both were surprise because we thought it had been since the founding of this country. Evidently not. The BBC has a nice article here.

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Quiet Saturday watching our own re-runs. We watched one of the local Chicago channels for news but switched to our DVDs. Most of the rest is news/commentary/speculation so limiting my exposure to it seems to be the way to mental health. There seems to be two camps: the hysterical Democrats and the sycophant Republicans. A few seem to be taking a wait-and-see attitude. I am in the middle camp. I have never had a good opinion of Trump. I never watched THE APPRENTICE because I never liked the "reality" type of TV show. (I never watched AMERICA'S GOT TALENT, SURVIVOR, THE VOICE etc., either.) For some time I have thought that some aspects of the Federal government (and perhaps State governments as well) needed a thorough reform but not a thorough demolition. We'll have to see what the Trump and his acolytes actually do.

I favor the old admonition:

    Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change

    The strength to change the things I can change

    And the wisdom to know the difference.

That is the trick--to tell which is which is which.

December 23

 Well the snow is still hanging on and we have a gray and cloudy day. There may be more precipitation but we aren't going out so we aren't concerned. I have already turned off the TV--the insanity of what goes on or, rather, the insanity of the news coverage irritated me so I turned off the news rather than throw something at the screen. Instead we are playing a Charlie Chan marathon. We have a nice collection of our own reruns. But I am still reading what has arrived in my e-mail. That I can ignore or scan or read carefully as I choose. It isn't nearly as irritating.

Here is some of what I am reading:

1) Alfred McCoy who wrote a recent book on the transitions from one world order to another over the last couple of thousand years ( TO GOVERN THE GLOBE) posted a piece on Tomdispatch: "The World's Four Legacy Empires Going Down."

December 22

 Good morning. Only three more days til Christmas. The weather forecast predicts above "normal" temperatures which should get rid of the snow we have now. We are supposed to have a couple of days of rain but nothing more. I put that word in quotes because the weather over the last couple of decades has been anything but normal. We aren't planning anything special.

I finished another embroidery piece--the second of a pair of pillow cases. I completed the other a month or so ago. That will probably be the last completion for the year. Next year will be devoted to finishing some projects that are a bit too far along to finish quickly. The whole purpose of doing hand work is to slow down. I wouldn't have said that a couple of decades ago when I was still in the rat race they call life in this country--doing everything as fast as possible and getting on with the next thing or trying to juggle four and five things at the same time.

Well, the clowns in congress finally got a continuing resolution to keep the government in operation for another quarter. The new shitshow same as the old shitshow. And the same as all the other quarterly or semiannual shitshows for I forget how long. It is getting a bit boring and very irritating. It isn't even a full budget. They (past and present members of the House especially) haven't been able to get an agreement on a real budget for the last four administrations--if not longer. This time we had the added spectacle of Elon Musk's self-serving interference which had a lot of commentators (inside and outside government) wondering who is the real President-in-waiting. Trump came in with his own two-cents only after Musk created his twitter storm and raised his ruckus.

Bill Astore has an acerbic post this morning on the mess in the Middle East. He takes exception to the New York Times editorial opining on finding a "nuanced" position on the "Hamas-Israel" war because he can't really see such a position. Frankly, I can't either. The response to the October 8th Hamas attack on Israel has been to destroy the Palestinians under the guise of destroying Hamas. In the back of my mind was something I had read about the aims of the ultra-conservative Jewish groups aims to create a Greater Israel that approximates the territories of the Jewish kingdom under Solomon and other kings. It totally incorporates the West Bank, Gaza, parts of Lebanon, Jordon, and Syria. As Astore points out the actions Israel has undertaken amounts to a one state "solution" which leaves the Palestinians without any state at all.

Another aspect of the shitshow in Washington is that to keep up our government's support for Israel they keep increasing the aid to Israel and cut things like support for research and treatment of childhood cancer. Death in one hand and death in the other and death all around.  

December 17

Sunny today and unseasonably warm. I am taking things easy. I am still tired and stiff from yesterday. I had to take the car in for new tires and a replacement for a burned out headlight but, as the saying goes, one damned thing after another kept me waiting there for five hours. And I am not complaining about the service--that was great. The mechanics found that the headlight assembly was shot because the insulation on the wires had disintegrated and the wiring corroded. They had to order the parts which took time. Then they found a similar problem with the wheel assembly and was dangerous enough that it really had to be fixed immediately. More parts had to be ordered and more time. So I wound up spending five hours there because I had no alternate transportation. If we had realized so much had to be done to simply get the original things fixed (new tires and headlights) I might have been able to arrange something so I could leave the car and pick it up next day. I took my NOOK reader with me so I could read a book but sitting there that long left me so stiff that I could hardly write the check. We did spend much more than anticipated but it wasn't anything we couldn't cover and the repairs probably mean the car will last past when neither one of us are driving any longer.

Bill Astore linked to a George Carlin skit from 2005 which is well worth a listen, or read since Astore included a transcription. Sounds an awful lot like what I have been hearing from the coterie around the Once and Future President. 

December 15

 Cloudy, foggy, and a bit warm for mid December. We had rain overnight and may be getting a light mist in addition to the fog. We have a nice soccer day today with three back-to-back games. I changed out the Fall door wreath for a Winter wreath. I had intended to make some changes but I will wait until I take the wreath down for Spring.

Bill Astore has a good post on the American health wealth care system. Another blogger has called it the "sick care" system. Both get to the same point: the system is designed to make sure the medical insurance industry, corporate medical service industry, drug industry, and medical devices industry stay wealthy and get wealthier. They do that by 1) denying service whenever possible, 2) charging as much in fees (like co-pays) and creating service limitations (lifetime limits) and 3) pushing drugs or treatments which don't rally cure diseases and keeps patients on the hook for their lives (weight loss drugs which work but which you can't stop if you want to maintain the weight loss). 

I will make a couple of observations. First, the insurance industry AS A WHOLE has problems. With the number of weather related/environmental disasters property insurers are also having profitability problems which they deal with in the same way the health sector does: denying claims, paying claimants as little as they can if they can't deny payments all together, refusing to renew coverage (which may lead mortgage holders to call the loans), or jacking up the premiums into the financial stratosphere. And so much insurance is required: auto insurance by law, homeowner's insurance by mortgage holders, property insurance for business by lenders and law, etc. But insurance is becoming an unsustainable financial burden and major time tax for the insured. Second, That some parts of the social media ecosystem seem to consider Mangione something of a hero is hardly surprising. We can't really say how widespread the phenomenon is because social media is a very opaque system. You can't tell legitimate sentiment form rabble rousers or even how many posts are discrete individual and how many are repeaters of some kind. But the outlaw hero is an old theme going back at least as far as Robin Hood who robbed the rich to support the poor. The unpopularity of the railroad robber barons whose business screwed small farmers while giving wealthy industrialists sweetheart deals gave rise to Jesse James and similar bandits. And, long before Willie Sutton said he robbed banks because "that's where the money is" predatory practices by bankers made some bank robbers outlaw heroes. It is an old tradition in western culture.

I would have laughed at this CROOKS & LIARS article if it didn't say something so truly angering about the avarice of the medical industry. If you can make more money doing "surgery" then defining as much as possible as "surgery" is way to pad your bank account.

The ANCIENT MARINER complained about "water, water every where and ne'er a drop to drink. According to this Guardian article the island of Sicily there is too little water anywhere. The mariner was surrounded by sea water (not good to drink) while Sicily is in the midst of an unprecedented drought. The reservoir featured in the article saw the water level drop from 30m cubic feet to 290,000. When the government ordered the local towns to send water to towns in neighboring provinces the local people said "NO" and turned up to guard the distribution center.

December 12, 13, 14

Good Morning. We had snow flurries yesterday though little, if any, stuck. We had to take the car in because we got a "check tire pressure" warning light. We don't have the tire pump any more--another thing we don't do ourselves. While there we asked the service people to check all the tires for wear. The last time they were checked was about five or six years ago. As I told Mom, if we followed the milage recommendations for maintenance we would never have any maintenance done. We just don't drive much any more. Well, we an appointment next week to have all four tires changed. We will also have a burned out head light replaced.

I finished a large crochet doily yesterday. It will be the last crochet project for this year. Not a bad tally for this year: four doilies and four lap/baby blankets. I changed things a bit putting all the needlework in progress in the 5-drawer dresser we rescued from a neighbor's trash and put the crochet blankets which had been in the dresser in the ottoman where the needlework had been. In the process I found several pieces that were half finished. I should get the almost completed pillow case done before year's end. I finished the mate to it a couple or three months ago.

Another episode in the on going saga of American "crapification" comes from Robert Reich. 

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It looks like in and out sun today. I am a bit sluggish today. Didn't sleep well last night and decided to read a bit rather than toss and turn. I finally got to sleep somewhere between 12:30 and 1am. At least I finished reading THE VOYAGE HOME by Pat Barker. It continues her story of the Trojan War told from the perspective of the Trojan women which started with THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS and continued with THE WOMEN OF TROY. Historical novels are chancy for me--I either like them or hate them. These I like.

Stray thought: evidently Trump has walked back a couple of campaign promises in a couple of interviews recently. He told his interviewers that lowering grocery prices and negotiating an end to the Ukraine-Russia war were "complicated" and would not be done on his first day. I wonder who gave him a dose of reality.

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Well, here we are--half past December. It started out sunny and cold but the clouds have moved in. I spent the morning starting another scrap lap/crib afghan. It will probably be finished sometime in the new year. Like a lot of fiber crafters I keep several projects going at the same time using several different techniques. The new scrap project is in Tunisian treble and Tunisian single stitches. I learned the basics of the stitch when I was 14 or 15 and a very nice lady working the sewing/notions counter in an old Ben Franklin 5 & 10. Most of that chain are gone now.

Stray thought: evidently one of the people vetting possible employees of for the Department of Health and Human Services if RFK, Jr., is confirmed is a lawyer who is noted for doing the legal work for anti-vax groups and has filed a petition to make the FDA rescind its approval of the POLIO vaccine. He claims that the process was flawed because there were no null groups in the trials. The idiot was born long after the vaccine was approved and long after the last big polio outbreak in the U.S. in the early 1950s. I doubt he knows any person who has had polio--unless he knows Mitch McConnell. I am 75 and in my life time I have known only one person who had contracted polio. The girl was in my 8th grade class and had just emigrated from one of the Eastern European countries which tried to throw off Soviet control and been suppressed by the Red Army. Usually she was in a wheel chair and her clothing was a couple of sizes larger than she would normally wear so it covered her body brace. She also had heavy leg braces and used crutches to stand. The 1952-55 outbreak infected a bit less than 60K and killed a bit more than 3000 with many of the survivors paralyzed. The vaccines (Salk and Sabin versions) were introduced in 1956 and incidents of polio have almost disappeared in this country. I call that effective.

Second stray thought: RFK, Jr., and his ilk seem to have an absolutist definition of "effective" which ignores the fact that no medical technique or medication is absolutely 100% effective. It is always a matter of percentages: what percent of people exposed to a disease get it if they have no vaccine vs. what percent of vaccinated people get the disease if exposed and what percentage of vaccinated people have side effects of what severity. 

December 10

 Good morning. Temperature is still above normal at about 40F and it is likely to hit over 50 before the day is over. The forecasters say another round of very cold weather is coming later in the week. We haven't had much precipitation. Most of the plants on the patio are done but I am not cleaning them out because they can keep the soil from blowing or splattering out.

Most of the news is repetitious noise. Trump's nominations for various positions dominate with the reporters/commentators trying to handicap their chances for confirmation. Things are going to change and the only question is whether the changes will be bad or worse. I really don't expect them to be good for ordinary people. The congress has about a week to get a new continuing budget resolution in place before the government shuts down. Speaker Johnson will need Democrats to help him get it through and the Dems are insisting on a "robust" funding for disaster relief across the country in exchange. We'll see what happens.

The situation in the Middle East just got far more complex with the sudden collapse of the Assad regime. As Hemingway said of how he went bankrupt "slowly, then all at once." That seems to be how dictatorships fall as well. Everyone is waiting on what the HST will do and hoping it aligns with their promises of moderation and inclusiveness. I hope that our own government takes a largely hands-off approach and lets the people there take care of their own business.

Reading today:

    1) Ed West has an interesting post detailing the history of immigration in Europe and its consequences--intended and unintended. A couple of thoughts popped up while reading it. First, the old saying that "assume makes an ASS of U and Me." The history of immigration is riddled with assumptions and many were very mistaken. Second, though West concentrates on Europe, much of what he says has parallels on our side of the Atlantic.

    2) Richard Haas at AT HOME AND AWAY assesses the Syria situation. Considering how many different ethnic/religious groups occupy various regions creating a unified "Syria" might be a pipe dream. The complexity goes beyond just Kurds, Shi'ia, Sunni divisions. Both of the Islamic groups have splinter groups. And there are Christians and Druse populations as well. And the Alawite Shi'ites aren't very popular being the group who most supported Assad and benefited most from his rule. Then you have the other countries: Israel (who are currently bombing what remains of the Syrian military facilities and occupying the Syrian Golan Heights, Türkiye who took over two Kurdish villages in the north of Syria and are totally opposed to any Kurdish power in that area, Iran (who supplied much of Syria's armaments but suffered from Israel's operations against their military), Russia who supported Assad militarily and economically but who are a bit stretched by its war in Ukraine. I could go on but Haas does a good job.

December 4, 5, 6

 Good morning on another cold but sunny day. No snow yet. It is still going north or south of us. I'm not complaining. I am not a kid hoping for a snow day and I am not a worker whose boss expects me to go through hell and high water to come in for my assigned shift. I can choose to stay home and keep comfortably warm.

Reading today:

Dave Karpf writes several things I can whole heartedly agree with. I also don't really care much about Hunter Biden. I agree he should have been treated as most other criminals charged with similar crimes AND he wasn't because of who his father is. I also agree that the umbrage expressed by both Republicans and Democrats is CONTRIVED. As Karpf says the media and politicos care more about the APPEARANCE of order and propriety than whether there is really order and propriety. I will add that the issue of OPTICS and PRECEDENCE is an illusion. The Harris campaign hammered home how much more moral, more upright, more honorable they were than the opposition--and it fell flat. And the pardon doesn't provide a precedence for Trump to do anything he wouldn't have done any way. To argue that Biden should have swallowed the injustice done Hunter by malicious prosecution (persecution) so the Democrats would look good and could shame the Republicans. Point--Trump and his people don't have a "shame gene." I saw a nature program once that showed the excavation of a small herd of mammoths that appeared to have starved to death without moving away. Further study of the geological history showed that an earthquake had occurred at the same time the mammoths died. Earthquakes can cause the soil to liquify. That appears to be what happened to the mammoths who became trapped in the suddenly liquid morass. We have been in the middle of a political/social/economic quake for a long time and the ground we thought was solid is now quicksand in which we are trapped.

Stray thought: the argument that what Biden wrote justifying the pardon will dent the public trust in our institutions, especially the Justice Department is ridiculous. Public trust in most institutions a is almost so low it can hardly go lower thanks as much to the actions of Trump during his last trip to the Oval Office and his pet Supreme Court.

05***************************************************************************

Cloudy again today. Yesterday we actually had brief periods of sun. Right now I see some very, very light snow. Most of the news/commentary this morning concerns 1) will Hegseth survive (betting is on NOT) and who Trump replace him with, 2) the no confidence vote in France which led to the resignation of the Bernier government and who Macron will nominate next, 3) the failure of the South Korean president's plans for martial law and the move in the legislature to impeach him, 4) the Syrian rebels' rapid move into major cities. Right now I don't see much worth commenting on but I have just started looking at my on-line reading.

Robert Reich makes a very good point that most commentators don't: the difference between "loyalty" and "subservience." Most stress that Trump wants "loyal" subordinates when the evidence seems to show that he really wants "subservient" underlings.

06*****************************************************************************

Bright and sunny today. Still cold but we do have to go to go out for a few items we are short of or out of. We will go to the closest grocery because they have all of the items. I finished the last woven square for the next strip and put the 12 pieces together but when I tried to put the two strips together I found they didn't match in the way I had planned. I put it aside for the moment to think it out. I could take one strip apart to reposition some of the blocks but that will create a whole lot of small lengths of yarn I don't have a use for. I HATE that. I am thinking that I might just play with another strip with another pattern but the same colors and just make the piece a bit scrappy. I am using the 4" loom and thinking of taking out the 2" loom and see how many of the scraps I can use. I need to locate the needle for that loom.

I found this article that seems to belong in the "what goes ground comes around" folder. I love the idea that Russia is getting back some of the drones/missiles they have sent into Ukraine.

The murder of the Brian Thompson, CEO of United Health Care, and the discovery of shell casings with "deny," "defend," and "depose," written on them has focused attention on the health insurance industry. Heather Cox Richardson notes that there is little sympathy for either the victim or the industry as major companies are removing the pictures of their executives from their internet pages. We have had our own difficulties with health insurance companies and are not fans of the system.

Stray thought: the DOGE committee (mainly Elon Musk and Vivek Ramiswamy) is supposed to identify waste and make government more efficient. I haven't heard any clear definition of "waste" or what constitutes "efficient." From the their pronouncements it seems like waste is anything that benefits the poor and efficiency is anything that lines their pockets.

Second stray thought: anyone else tired of obscenely rich men promising their proposals will be painful but we will see a wonderful prosperous future. I am sure it will be painful BUT NOT FOR THEM. And prosperous times are already here FOR THEM.

Another stray thought: it seems that changing your mind, if you are a politician, is the same as lying. Really?? I think you can guess that this thought is about the criticism of Biden for deciding to pardon Hunter after saying he wouldn't during the campaign. There are a lot of reasons why Biden would change his mind starting with Trump's election. Like a number of people whose blogs I read I think that he wouldn't have issued the pardon if Harris had won. He could be sure, if she had won, that she wouldn't have set "her" justice department on Hunter. There have been too many examples of "Trump's" justice targeting people who pissed him off. And his nomination for head of FBI, Kash Patel, has promised just such targeting of perceived enemies.

December 3

 Sunny at the moment. We have been fortunate so far--most of the lake effect snow went east of us. It must be very cold because the frost on the roofs hasn't disappeared yet and we have had sun for about 4 hours. We don't have any errands until Friday at the earliest--probably next Monday. During cold (or hot) weather we don't go outside much. I managed to get some more squares woven over the last couple of days (for a new scrap buster lap/baby blanket) and a couple of rows of crochet on a doily. I had to remove some stitching because of mistakes. The last was earlier today because the pattern just didn't look right. That took me a bit to realize that I was misreading the pattern. Crochet patterns can be as eccentric as their designers especially working with patterns written more than 50 years ago. Luckily I don't have to translate from British notation to American though I do have a few patterns following the British scheme.

I follow various stories on NAKED CAPITALISM especially their coverage of the efforts of governments and central banks in various countries to abolish cash. Those have been most successful in parts of Europe especially the Nordic countries. This article indicates that a more aggressive Russia is forcing the powers that be to rethink the utility of cash. We still keep cash on hand here because 1) we patronize a couple of small businesses that take cash or checks but not credit/debit cards, 2) we might have an electrical or internet outage just when we have to purchase something, 3) most of the credit card companies we have had recent experience with are more trouble than they are worth. If the communications are out and our debit card won't work our cash will. The author noted that the worst electronic payments outage wasn't due to Russian cyber attack but because of system "botched internal processes" at banks and other financial institutions.

File this one under "if you didn't have bad luck you wouldn't have any luck at all." In the midst of an mpox epidemic the Democratic Republic of Congo has discovered an unknown disease that has killed 67 in two weeks.

The early news this morning noted that Rep. Jamie Raskin (age 61) is running to replace the long time ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Jerry Nadler (age 77). This Punchbowl article indicates that not only are a number of younger Democrats seeking to replace much older Democrats on various committees but there is also a move to replace older Democrats with long seniority on committees.

 Good December 1 to anyone out there. I was a good morning for me until we got four calls within half an hour about "new" "benefits" from Medicare and all the agent has to do is "confirm" that we have Social Security, and Medicare A and B. Bullshit!! They don't have to "confirm" anything and what ever "benefits" they are offering we have already been informed about and few "new" (if they are really new) "benefits" are things we find useful. I am so utterly sick of these calls. What really burns me up is there is NO WAY TO TELL THE BASTARDS NOT TO CALL US. Yeah, I am shouting. I am tired of being abused by this damned system. I tried being polite when this all started but I found that, if there was an actual person on the other end, they simply didn't understand the concept of NO. They usually tried to talk over me. Lately I have had the feeling that it isn't an actual person but some damned computer programed to mimic a person. Damn, Damn, Double Damn!! I have begun simply hanging up but simply closing the flip phone isn't nearly as satisfying as slamming the handset down on the base was when we had rotary phones.

Ah, GIZMODO has a perfect article for my mood today. "Enshitification" has become the big word of the year for the national dictionary of Australia. That term refers to the frustration we all feel dealing with the technology that seems to run our lives. Or ruin them. But I think Ives Smith at NAKED CAPITALISM had a broader term: crapification. And that perfectly encapsulates my feelings about more than just the tech itself. Has anyone noticed that the commercials on TV have become really weird? One commercial starts and suddenly, only a second or two into the spiel, it gets cut off for an entirely different one. Or, have you seen the commercial breaks in which the same commercial appears two or even three times in the same sequence? Or how badly the program gets cut up by the commercials? Or how producers change their products without much notice? A while back I read a blogger who complained that a batch of pickles didn't work out and found that the vinegar she customarily bought was no longer 5% acetic acid which is required for pickling. I thought I would check it out at our supermarket and sure enough the vinegar was 4%. Though the store did have the usual 5% as well, I was struck by the fact that the prices weren't very different. Crapification/enshitification basically describes things very well.