September14. 15

Bright and sunny today, The rain cleared out late yesterday. The  forecast says the temperature should be in the mid-80s. And we might get a stray shower. Mom asked yesterday if I had an embroidery piece she could work on. I have been busily reducing the number of to-be-started items in my stash. I found one which looked like a simple project--just six colors, no complicated color changes and only cross-stitch and outline stitch needed. I put it all together she decided it wouldn't really do. The cross-stitching is hard to follow and too small. I put it in my pile and started on it earlier. Now I have three crochet pieces on the hook, a small blanket I am finishing made up of woven squares, and four embroidery pieces on hoops.

I don't have any other pieces she would find enjoyable so I decided to look at iron-on patterns that can be applied to some of the plain fabric I have in my stash. I found and ordered four packs of Aunt Martha's patterns which should arrive early next week. I had thought about using the iron-on patterns before because I was finding so little I really wanted from my usual sources. Mom had a kit from Michaels but it just didn't work out for her. The background is so flimsy it has already torn where she had to remove stitches she didn't like. I will throw it away soon and keep only the left over thread and hoop.

15***********************************************

Half-past September already and it is still sunny and cool. I like this time of the year because I can open the windows and patio door for some fresh air--at least as fresh as our air can be in this age of massive and continuing fires. One of the gardening bloggers calls this the messy time of the garden year. It isn't so messy this year because I got so little planted. Mom's month and a half in hospitals followed by another six weeks of physical therapy came at a most inconvenient time-- just when I should have been putting out plants. I hope next year will be better.

Bill Astore at BRACING VIEWS has some good thoughts about AI and the study of history. He calls AI generated history the "dirty purple" a reference I hadn't seen before to the old mimeographed summaries with their messy purple inks that got on everyone's fingers. The key word there is "summaries." No deep dive. Computers from the beginning have encouraged a superficial, uncurious scholarship. I remember card catalogs fondly. Yes they were slow, and sometimes confusing. But I found tangents in the search of the cards which I never would have found in any computerized catalog. It took a while to ask "what else it there" and not take the computer info as holy writ.

Astore makes a good point when he writes that the superficial view appears to be the preferred one among segments of our political, social, and cultural leadership. Think about how Trump responded to the 1619 PROJECT. He seemed to feel personally insulted that the authors started American history with the arrival of the first African slaves in Virginia. He preferred to start our history with 1776. I have a contrary preference: keep 1619 because the introduction of slavery was important but remember that that year also saw Virginia inaugurate the House of Burgesses, the first democrat legislative assembly. You can debate all you like, as you should how democratic and by what definition of democracy it was but the members were chosen by a vote. Both events were pivotal.

I knew the soccer World Cup is scheduled for next year with the U.S., Mexico, and Canada jointly hosting the games. But Pat Garofalo at BOONDOGGLE describes the plant for "dynamic pricing" for the tickets. I enjoy watching soccer when our media decides to carry it. However, I have no plans to see any of the games and, if I had seen this article, I would have changed my plans. Tickets should be sold at a definite price for a specific seat at a given event. We have long had varying prices based on time of events (matinee vs. evening shows, for example) or location of seats (sidelines vs "nose bleed areas). But unless you were so desperate that you paid extra to get sold out tickets from a scalper you knew what you had to pay for a particular seat at a particular time. The price didn't change just because a lot of people wanted them. I have been very skeptical of "surge pricing" and other attempts to bleed the public. The more I hear of Mamdani the more I like him.