September 20

 We have rain. Or rather intermittent rain. And that is what the weather forecasts predict for the next several days. Any days I don't have to water anything on the patio. I spent a nice time watching (or mostly listening to) the Premier League days. We have four today but only one tomorrow. At the same time I continued the simple cross stitch piece Mom felt required smaller stitches than she wanted to try. We have been trying to find something she would like to do and have come up with nothing at all. She quit doing crochet about fifteen years ago just after she finished the lace on three sets of sheets and pillow cases she gave to my siblings and their partners. She complained that it hurt her hands too much. We tried punch needle work but neither of us likes them. She mentioned embroidery several times but I don't think that will go any where. I showed her the needles I use and mentioned that I split the 6-strand thread into 2-strands for most of my pieces she decided, for the moment, to give it a pass.

Rachel Bitecofer posted an interesting piece this morning, or maybe yesterday since I didn't really go through my e-mail. I don't know how her suggestions concerning reigning in social media. She describes how the Nazis used the new media of radio to spread their propaganda. There have been other game changing technology that destabilized the society of the time. Gutenberg's printing press opened up literature to the masses and, especially, allowed people outside the Catholic priesthood to to read and interpret the Bible. Quickly others translated the Bible from the Vulgate Latin and printed a lot of copies across Europe. The Church was no longer the sole arbiter of what the sacred text meant. In the mid 1800s printing was sped up by new presses and a whole lot of printed matter rolled out including the "dime novels" which the intellectual elites found especially harmful to young people. We heard about the Comstock Acts with regard to abortion materials (including printed information) which were labeled "pornography." But the same label was applied to the cheap and entertaining books. In the 1950s the relatively new "comic books" were also seen as a threat to the moral development of children and the Comics Code was instituted which basically infantilized the medium for thirty years. Similarly TV and movies were constrained by various FCC measures to protect the sensibilities of the populace. Most of the measures enacted to control new media were effective but only for a time. Social changes made most toothless after a time. Various authoritarian governments are busily censoring not just the internet sites but also books, newspapers, and magazines. Those will last only as long as the regimes last.

Joyce Vance suggests that we take a page from E. Jean Carroll  who thought emulating Norwegian teachers and students who signaled their resistance to Nazi occupation by wearing a paper clip on their clothes.

I saw that Trump's lawsuit against the New York Times has been thrown out. Heather Cox Richardson lays out the Judge's ruling which was scathing. I heard a number of commentators denounce the spurious nature of many of Trump's legal actions which simply waste time and resources. They notice, as Richardson does, that his lawyers take up 80+ pages to (not) argue two complaints. They don't spell out the complaints until the last five or so pages. I wonder why the judges put up with the frivolous nonsense. Some 30 years ago (+/_) when I lived in Colorado the state judiciary got real tired of a so-called "sovereign citizen" who harassed state officials with spurious leans on their property and frivolous lawsuits which he filed on his own. A state judge eventually banned him from filing on his own and required him to hire a lawyer for any legal action. Surely the Federal Judiciary has a similar remedy. Any lawyer out there know? The judge did limit Trump's team to a 40 page limit for any amended new filing.