April 13

 Partly cloudy today and, according to the forecast, for most of the rest of the week. But the temperatures should be warmer. I shut off the heat this morning because it came on when the temperature was still reasonably comfortable. I even opened one of the windows a crack. I go out and removed a couple of trellises and dead plants but it was still a bit cool to work without warmer clothes than I had on. I have to look at my arrangements also because the power company is changing the meters to allow quicker and more remote readings. They can't reach the meter with the table/potting bench in its current place.  I have an idea I hope will work well because it might also reduce the amount of seeds the birds can scatter in my containers. The local grocery store has its early plants out, pansies and such that can take everything short of a freeze. I might go over to the one of the garden centers and see what they have sometime next week. I might make a side trip to Michaels and Barnes & Nobel as well.

I spent a couple or three hours playing with crochet edgings for some pin loom pieces. They were early efforts and I can use them as everyday hot pads or placemats. I haven't yet found a way to connect the squares that I like but I am using the pin loom to use up ends of yarn left from finished projects so I will continue experimenting.

I found this post on BLOOD IN THE MACHINE yesterday and kept in on my feed to comment on later. Later has arrived. Therapists at Kaiser Permanente have been on strike for several months and spent a week on a hunger strike. They are protesting "efficiency" measures which limit the time they can spend with patients. I have read a lot about doctors and other medical practitioners who aren't happy with the "industrialization" of their professions. But industrialization means pushing through as many "products" as possible with as few "inputs" as possible. In this case products equal patients and inputs equal time spent by the workers on the patients. The process doesn't consider the complexity of the conditions or any other factor which would under other systems be relevant. Doctors are expected to diagnose a common cold vs a serious pneumonia (viral? or bacterial? who knows) within the same 15 minute appointment. Over the last couple of years we have had appointments for an eye exam and seen more technicians that optometrists. And Mom had an eye infection which was treated by a nurse practitioner without ever seeing a doctor. I had looked up Mom's symptoms and was pleased that the diagnosis confirmed my own lay opinion. I wonder how many are doing the same thing and skipping the medical professional.

Evidently I am not the only one who noticed a similarity between the Chinese system of social monitoring and how the U.S. is progressing on an intercepting course. Don Moynihan has a post which includes a few points I didn't think of. And take a look at this MIT article on the "social credit" the Chinese developed and how it is used. We should be afraid, very afraid. If you comfort yourself with the notion that wouldn't target U.S. citizens review some of the "off hand" comments officials have made recently. I just wonder to what hell they would send citizens. Can't be good.

April 8, 10

 Good morning on this partly sunny/partly cloudy day. Cool but not unseasonably so. We went to the local meat market to replenish our freezer and pick up Moms prescription refill. Her doctor's appointment went well and he didn't change her medication as well as setting the next appointment for six months from now. Everything is put away and I can sit down and catch my breath. Also I can deal with the e-mail I have largely ignored for the last little while.

Starting off here is a bit by Bill Astore which is absolutely right about our Grifter-In-Chief. I have said before that Trump wanted to PLAY at being President but didn't really want to do the work of BEING President. What we have seen so far is laziness combined with vengefulness, cruelty, and pettiness.

Pat Garofalo at BOONDOGGLE has an interesting piece on state and local efforts to hold the ultra rich and big corporations accountable able for tax fraud. Since the Federal government is gelding the IRS with personnel reductions, somebody else had to do it.

Oh how this piece from ATHEIST REVOLUTION resonates. I have commented often of late how tired I am of ads which either try to sell me on something or pathetically beg me for money for what ever good cause they are marketing. Don't get me wrong. The causes are good but I only have so much money and the demands (soft as they may be) are unrelenting. I am also tired of being treated as that two-dimensional creature: "the consumer."

Stray thought: a bit earlier I read a piece by (I think) Robert Reich which won't link to (because I didn't think to save the link) who speculated that the real aim of the Trump/Musk cabal is to basically bankrupt the country so they can swoop in  and buy everything up on the cheap. I had a similar thought looking at the stock market which looks positive for now, though not nearly as positive as the 1000+ points in the premarket futures. I saw it as the triumph of hope and greed. The hopes of those who want to see their retirement savings recover before they die and the greed of those how sold along the downward trajectory and now hope to buy as they buy back stocks so they can make a killing on the upswing. That is why I never played the market (besides never having a nest egg to risk). I am neither hopeful nor greedy.

Bill Astore in the article linked above suggested we follow his link to Tom Englehardt's latest post on Tomdispatch. It is a good one.

10*********************************************

I had intended to post the above but evidently closed down before actually doing so. I got out of the TV early today. It hasn't really got anything interesting. The news shows are all about Trump "pausing" the tariffs for possible "negotiations." I put in the first set of quotation marks because the so called pause didn't take things back very far--the 10% across the board tariffs announced first are still in place and the 125% tariff on Chinese imports is still there. As a couple of commentators said the tariffs on China more than made up for the cuts in the other tariffs. And I don't think what Trump calls negotiations really fit the dictionary definition of the word. I noticed that (as of now) the markets have lost about half of what they had gained back yesterday. What we really have is another 90 days of uncertainty.

Given what has been going on with the politics and economy I am glad we filled up the car the last time we went out to the supermarket and that we restocked our freezer. The price of gas has gone up since and we found the price of the meat more reasonable than we expected. I am cleaning and reorganizing our pantry to check on our stocks and decide what needs bulking up. I will be watching the store shelves more closely than I already have been. I have noticed both price increases and empty shelves in passing. But I think it is time to pay closer attention to what is going on. It almost feels like the COVID days have come again.

April 3, 6

 Sunny and warm today after a stormy night, again. But a lot more of the green is showing up as the grass is fully back and several of the early trees and shrubs are budding and blooming. I picked up several small twigs and branches that the wind had blown onto my patio. And I pulled several dead plants out of the planters. One of the sage plants MAY come back and the two stands of chives are doing really well but I haven's seen any new growth on anything else. We took advantage of the nice conditions to run up to the little dairy and the local grocery. We fill our water jugs at the grocery--at half the price of the lowest commercial water. It is the city water but treated to remove most of the calcium/magnesium salts which makes cleaning my coffee pot MUCH easier. And having the gallon jugs on hand releases our mind in case of another water outage. I was surprised at how many gaps the dairy had in its supplies. They were out of cream and yogurt and were limiting eggs (2 dozen) and Jersey milk, cream and other products. I saw some big gaps at the local Meijer when we shopped there on Monday.  We were also surprised by the hike in gas prices at even the low cost outlets. We filled up at Meijer Monday paying $2.99/gal and the signs announced prices $0.30 higher (the internet said the same for Meijer.)

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

The sun is trying to shed some light and warmth but so far this morning the effort is only sorta successful. I am having a VERY lazy day. I slept until almost time to turn on the soccer games. We are avoiding the broadcast news for the weekend and I skimmed the e-mail entries for the last two days. It is either stressful, irritating/angering, or boring. And sometimes, amazingly, all at once.

Bill Astore has a short read that comments on the current political state of the U.S. through an old favorite patriotic song: You're a Grand Old Flag. I guess there is a reason it isn't played much any more. We seem to have a taste for bragging, arrogance, brittle claims of strength and militarism.

Stray thought: the list of Trump's tariffs  shows the same slipshod laziness shown in his pardons of J6 criminals. According to reports Trump started considering the cases individually, as he promised he would do, and said "F##k it. Pardon them all." It looks like he told his people to put a minimum of 10% on every identifiable spot on the globe and then went to work on his favorite punching bags.

Another stray thought: China retaliated and put 34% tariffs on U.S. goods and sent the stock market down for a second day with one of the largest losses in history. China's reaction should not have been a surprise. They know how to deal with bullies being accomplished bullies themselves. You smash them in the mouth and knee then in the nuts. China did that though and Trump is seemingly oblivious.

April 2

 Really chilly today and wet. We have some weak sunshine at the moment but the morning began with thunderstorms before light with hard rain. I woke with a headache which I needed a couple of aspirin. That is unusual but it is the second time within a few days. The last really vicious storm that came through the weekend did the same. When we went out on Monday we saw several large trees blown down and splintered. I don't think the storms this morning had winds that strong.

Stray thought: isn't it wonderful Elon Musk spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $23million on a losing effort to buy an election for a MAGA candidate in Wisconsin? He made the election about himself and, secondarily, Trump's MAGA agenda. Unfortunately, though Musk was singed, Trump was unscathed if the interviews I saw with voters is any indication.

Second stray thought: although Republican candidates for the House of Representatives did win the two special elections in Florida, the news wasn't entirely good for them. Matt Gaetz, who nominated to be Attorney General but withdrew when he couldn't get the required votes,  and Mike Waltz, Trump's current National Security Advisor of Signal-gate fame, won those districts by 30+ points. The two winning candidates in this election won by only around 15 points. The seats aren't as "safe" as the Party big wigs thought.

Yet another stray thought: Cory Booker was amazing yesterday and provided an example of the kind of passion Democrats need. Heather Cox Richardson gives the highlights here.

And, again, a stray thought: I thought the whole episode of the Eric Adams predicament was BS. He may be guilty of the kind of corruption alleged but the motion by the Federal prosecutors to have the charges dismissed "without prejudice" (meaning they could be refiled at any time) so a trial wouldn't "interfere" with his ability to "cooperate" with Federal forces officials on the implementation of its immigration policies, was nothing less than a form of extortion. An honest move by the Federal prosecutors would have either moved on to trial (if they considered their case strong enough to proceed or to simply dismiss the case if they were in doubt. They wanted to put Adams on a leash and there was nothing honest about that. The judge, evidently, sees things the same way and ordered the case dismissed "with prejudice" preventing the government from refiling the charges. Good!

April 1

 Happy April Fool's Day. I guess that is why The Stable Genius decided to wait until tomorrow to announce the details of his new tariff list. I have been ignoring most of the news because it is mainly very repetitive speculation. Right now we have a Premier League game on Wolverhampton vs Westham United. Right now Wolverhampton leads 1-0.

Sunny today but storms should move in overnight. No plans so we can stay home. I hope things clear up next Monday because we have a medical appointment.

Found this post by Anne Applebaum. I could only read the first half because the rest is behind a pay wall but I think I got most of her argument that Hungary now is where the U.S. will be in not too many years. She was on Morning Joe yesterday and outlined the details: replace civil servants with loyalists, us economic pressure to destroy a free press and independent universities, reward friends and family with government funds, change the laws and the legal system to retain power and squelch dissent. Seems like the MAGA crowd is rapidly following Hungary's path.

Stray thought: the pundits are going on and on about the Stable Genius teasing about running for a third term. Most point out that the 22nd Amendment prohibits anyone from being elected to the Presidency more than twice. That amendment codified the tradition established by Washington when he left office at the end of his second term which held until Franklin D. Roosevelt successfully ran for four terms and died barely three months into his last term. Some one posited the notion that J.D. Vance could run for president with Trump in the second slot and (assuming he won) could resign immediately letting Trump succeed to the office. I see two problems with that. First, Vance is no Medvedev, Putin's loyal acolyte who traded the top offices in Russia with him to circumvent the law which, at the time, prevented the President from succeeding himself. I doubt Vance would be so accommodating. Second, the last sentence of the 12th Amendment, which formalized the workings of the Electoral College, prohibits the members from voting for any vice-presidential candidate who is ineligible for election as President. We would have to be much further down the Hungarian path to circumvent the Constitutional roadblocks.

The news readers have recited stories for some time about the tattoos which DHS have decided are indicators of gang membership and have used to justify detaining for deportation those sporting those tattoos. I just found this piece on POPULAR INFORMATION showing some of the tattoos in question. What a pile of crap. (I am TRYING to be more polite.) Most members of my family have tattoos. My sister has the most extensive array. I think Mom and I are the only unmarked members of the family. I don't think any could easily identify Venezuela on a map. Most haven't been to Mexico. None, as far as I know, have any fluency in Spanish. But I am not sure, given the thugs in DHS, that would protect anyone. About 20 years ago I found a copy of a DHS pamphlet which listed "questionable activities" which might mark a person as a "sovereign citizen" or some similar "subversive" person. Those traits included: buying supplies in bulk, using cash, buying camo gear, stocking up on guns and ammo. I have known a number of people who did all of that but were in no way anti-government or anti-American. During the pandemic Mom and I kept a full pantry and stockpiled necessary goods so we didn't have to go out very often. We have cut back since then but still keep a full pantry. We also pay cash for most purchases because the charge cards became a pain in the butt to manage on line. A couple of shops we frequent refuse to accept charge cards--cash or check only. We don't have guns and are satisfied with jeans and flannel or sweats. The kakistocracy is alive and we are not well.

Alley Valkyrie makes some interesting observations about American culture and French culture. Makes you realize just how we have come on the "enshitification" path we have gone and the attitudes which have propelled us on that path.