Open Thread August 20 2025

 Posted by at 5:59 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 202025
 

Yesterday, I slept really late – like almost 4:00 pm. I was actually awakened by the refrigerator guy at the doorbell (I didn’t even know it could ring that loud.) But I needed it. I needed to use the TENs on my back at that spot I’ve been needing it off and on since TC was still with us – but my knees were so much better – not perfect, but I’m back in business. Also, we (Democrats) have a candidate opposing Susan Collins – but she is also getting primaried (or however that works in Maine – don’t they have ranked choice?) by a Republican – an oyster farmer (It’s silly, but somehow it nags on me that that should be an “oyster rancher.”) And one more news item – this one from Texas.

I apologize for the disgusting nature of this article from The 19th. Unfortunately, to get at the whole truth, it’s sometime necessary to face disgusting facts. And neither misogyny nor cryptocurrency is a fringe issue. Both are capable of being used (and are being used) to silence us and keep us down.

Mail-in ballots. Certainly, without them, my vote would not get counted. But I wouldn’t expect anything but disinformation from a person who lies like the rest of us breathe.

“Political Primate” is a new YouTube channel (started 7/22/25) depicting an ape (I’m no primatologist, but I think maybe an orangutan) speaking political commentary in a beautiful bass voice. Whatever he is, he is clearly highly educated, and far more intelligent than our current regime.

I’m using a Robert Reich video today instead of Belle, essentially because he asked me to. There’s a lot in it that I can’t do – but I am doing what I can. (I got a smile out of noticing that Reich watches Farron.)

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Open Thread August 19 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 192025
 

Yesterday, I learned that Mallory McMorrow (D-MI), the state senator who got national attention for being fierce, is running to represent Michigan in the US Senate. She joins Roy Cooper (D-NC) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), all candidates who accept no BS and are proven winners. This is exactly what we need (and could use a little more of.) Also yesterday, I woke up in more pain than usual (and the “usual” has been gradually worse for a while now.) I’m accustomed to my left knee flaring up and know how to deal with it. But when the right knee flares up too at the same time, that’s something I’m not used to dealing with. I iced the right knee and at the same time used the TENS on the right back and the left knee, and took an 80 mg aspirin (the largest I’m now allowed). The TENS helped. The ice, not so much, which didn’t totally surprise me, since the pain in the right knee feels different from he pain I get in the left one. I’m not even going to try to explain how. But anyway, I then put the TENS on the sides of the right knee. That didn’t help so I tried putting the pads n the front and back of the right knee. That helped some, but not enough to dispense with the walker. I think I’ll take one more aspirin.

I could wish that Ursula was wrong about this, but sadly, I think she has nailed it. Heck, I can even add an example – there was never even the slightest hint from the media during his presidency that JFK had Addison’s Disease.

John is actually 56 in calendar years. This makes me wonder just how tired I look at 80. No wonder I’m sleeping late so much. Please, everyone, get as much rest as you need.

I managed to squeeze a very brief note about this into yesterday’s OT, but of course I didn’t have the full story, which had not yet happened. Wonkette also covered it, but I think The F* News contains a bit more.

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Open Thread August 18 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 182025
 

Yesterday, Trinette was by. She took my old printer out of its site, put my new one there instead, and also took out an old (50 years) stereo/tape/AM/FM player which was state-of-the-art in its day. Also, I saw this at DU and found it to be a great relief. I hope you will also.

Yeah. There’s no way I could cover all of this in separate articles – assuming I could find them – and separately, it’s harder to discern a trend. But this from The Root does all that I can’t.

OK, I admit that I picked this article from The F* News because of the title. But it’s also current and important.

r
Here’s another multi=purpose article. Some of the full articles it references I have previously shared but most I haven’t. If you only want to look at one of the individual articles, may I suggest “Moving the Window”? The Overton Window is real, and people trying to move it to suit themselves can really be dangerous.

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Open Thread August 17 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 172025
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was Wagner’s “Die Walküre”. Since the German article “Die” can be either feminine singular or all-gender plural, it may be confusing whether he meant just one or all nine, but I have it on good authority he meant just one, and that one is Brünnhilde. She is the kind of fighter we want all our elected Democrats to be – which just occurred to me. Wotan is only concerned with getting back the Ring, and even his own children (which she, Siegmund, and Sieglinde all are) are just pawns to him in getting that done. Brünnhilde, ordered to make sure Siegmund loses his duel with Hunding, is instead so impressed by his devotion to Sieglinde that she changes her mind and instead attempts to make sure he wins. She fails at that, but then determines to save Sieglinde and with her Siegmund’s just-conceived child, and at that she succeeds. Of course she is punished by Wotan, who turns her from a goddess into a mortal woman, but she has no regrets for doing what she believed to be the right thing. The morality, or lack of it, all through the Ring cycle is, to say the least, weird. But at least in Wagner’s mythical world, NO ONE – not even the gods – is above the LAW. In his pursuit of the Ring Wotan tries to take a step that is outside the law, Fricka reads him the riot act, and he MUST back down. I searched for synopses just to check my memory, and found that some are highly inaccurate – not so much in the action but in the motivations and back story (The one at The Met website is accurate). It certainly is thought provoking. Also yesterday, The Conversation’s newsletter included the quip “AI is CliffsNotes on crack.” I couldn’t agree more.

I would not normally call this good news, but I do think it’s a good (maybe great) response to ignorant racists and it did make me smile and even chuckle.

This is good news. There’s not a paywall if you allow ads. As an alumna, I was wondering when Stanford would get in on this. It does sound like “The Stanford Daily”‘s long reputation for sass is still deserved.

I have mixed feelings about this – as much pleasure as I have gotten from Zoos in my life, I also really think wild animals should be allowed to be wild. On the other hand, I don’t want any species to go extinct, and zoos, if they are well run, can help to prevent extinction. And then there’s the additional fact that babies are adorable.

In case anyone doesn’t recognize, or doesn’t remember “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” …

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Open Thread August 16 2025

 Posted by at 5:55 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 162025
 

Yesterday, it was brought home to me just how crazy our beloved country is now – it’s been over a month now and I only just learned the Grand Canyon is on fire.

From HuffPost. Shared without comment. I don’t have the vocabulary to do it justice

I could wish I hadn’t seen this in The Root. If you haven’t heard of Prager, it would be because I try to keep all religious stuff – Christian (real and fake), Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, Shinto, indigenous faiths, everything out of politics, as it should be. Clearly Prager does not agree.

I just couldn’t leave it at those two travesties when Joyce Vance had this to say. Incidentally, the staffer who writes the Trump**(*) parodies is named Camille Zapata who leads a team of three. They really have him nailed.

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Open Thread August 15 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 152025
 

Yesterday, I tripped over this on Democratic Underground and found it fascinating.
Joyce Vance tackles a subject which requires a whole lot more analysis than I could ever hope to give it in this blog. World history is already full of non-factual “facts,” and don’t get me started on the interpretations of both real and fake facts – if I live to be a hundred, I would still not have enough time to do justice there. And explaining why it matters – to be very brief, if every human being has the right to be judged on the basis of actual fact, I believe that applies to the dead as well as to the living. But there’s more to it, including the harm done to living people sucj=ked it to admiring the evil and disdaining the good.

After that highly abstract article and analysis from Joyce Vance, Steve Schmidt gets very concrete and specific. How this government is making even us who did not vote for it complicit in murder.

Yes, a third article, this one from Wonkette, because we needed something on the lighter side, even though it’s not yet Sunday. (The content is serious but the tone is hilarious.)

Belle CA v TX

Lion

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Open Thread August 14 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 142025
 

Yesterday, my email lightened up a little (though i still deleted more than I didn’t.) One that I didn’t (actually I received more than one – this link is to the info from the first one I read) was regarding another National Day of Action for this Saturday. I’m not going to cite a group, because all of these efforts are being sponsored and organized by too many groups to list. True grassroots. I look forward to seeing photos of the signs.

This from The Root – I am not even going to quibble that a whole lot of sane white folks have been sounding the same warning. If white MAGA idiots are willing to give the Black Community credit for anything, I’m all for it.

Colorado Public Radio reports a drastic gubernatorial executive order by Jared Polis. It’s very bad that it is necessary – but apparently is it, and if so, it’s very good to see it happen.

This Robert Reich video is probably nothing new to those of us who have read the Constitution. But it’s also short (3 1/3 minutes) and very clear. It’s made for sharing with vulnerable people so they can be prepared for the infringements (a word which is throwing roses at it. You may prefer “abuses.”)

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Open Thread August 13 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 132025
 

Yesterday, I overslept the way I usually do on Mondays. Most Mondays are not as stressful as this Monday was, though. Also yesterday, an email from Just Foreign Policy (which links only to a donation request dressed as a petition) that “Israel just killed 5 journalists in a single strike…. Their names join a devastating list: nearly 270 journalists have now been killed over the course of this war – the deadliest conflict for reporters ever recorded.” I hope no one tells the Mango Monster, or he’ll try to break the record. And one other thing – if you have been worried about me in connection with Colorado’s wildfires and smoke particles, all of them are on the opposite side of the peaks of the Rockies from me. Yes, all of Colorado is at a pretty good altitude, and the prevailing winds go towards me from the fires, but there’s still roughly a 7000 foot (2134 m) barrier between them and me. I have not noticed anything, and I think they are going over my head.

https://thefuckingnews.substack.com/p/senate-hopeful-calls-national-prayer
And Jordan Good, as reported by The F* News, is 100% correct. He is running to unseat Susan Collins, and we (and by we I mean all the sane people in the US) desperately need him and more like him. So I hope his honesty does not hurt him at the ballot box.

joycevance.substack.com/p/when-the-president-becomes-the-police
Joyce Vance runs through the cold, hard realities of he law regarding the Golden Godzilla’s latest power grab in DC. It’s a pity we didn’t listen to voices recommending statehood for DC and Puerto Rico before he .took office. If we ever get even the slimmest trifecta again, that is something that needs doing.

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-trial-run?
Robert Reich, on the other hand, runs through what to look for and how to interpret how bad it is and why, depending on the responses to the attempted takeover. The two together appear pretty comprehensive to me.

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