Yesterday, there was a nationwide “ground stop” imposed by the FAA in the US. It laasted for over four hours – ans was finally lifted about 6:30 pm (that’s Mountain time, because I’m getting it from the time the breaking news email from Axios was delivered – and email clients use the time that is local where the recipient lives.) The planes which couldn’t take off before it ended are certainly an annoyance – but it’s the ones which couldn’t land which concern me most. How much jet fuel can be wasted by how many planes circling for how long? At a time when we are at war with one of the world’s greatest oil producers and the prices of oil based products are already ridiculously high? The whole thing was pretty scary to those involved – passengers, pilots, crews. Since I didn’t find out about it until it was ending, I was spared the fear.
If you think that words and phrases – and the choices we make of them – are not importn=ant, I invite you to look through PEN America‘s list of words and phrases whose offiicial use has been banned by the current Federal Regime directly or through one or more of its agencies. There are over 900 of them altogether – though some are sort of duplicates with only slight disserences (for example, “Black: is banned by one agency, “black intellectualism” by another, “black men” by a third, and “blackness” by a fourth. PEN America, BTW, is a nonprofit which “stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide.” They do not sell pens. If you’re looking for an unusual pen and Monblanc is above your paygrade = if you are an animlal lover, you can look at Chewy. Otherwise, you’ll need to use a search. I used to be on the email mailing list of a company which sold bery affordable and absolutely gotgeous pens – ball point and gel- but somehow I dropped off it, or they went out of business. Sigh.
I don’t like to post appeals – but this is Margaret Atwood – and who (except a few people who have pouliphobia, if there is such a thing) doesn’t love birds?
Robert Reich‘s (IMO excellent) advice to progressives in Congress.
This is a bonus. If you feel like you need a good cry, but can’t seem to get it started, watch this, with Mary Trump and a Ukranian born young singer/songwriter. If you don’t feel like that now, save the link until you do. It’s a bit under 40 minutes.
RReich This video can’t make up its mind whether it is a regular video or a “short.” I hope the embed works for you. It does for me, but it’s on loop.
Dog
