Yesterday, Virgil and I played cribbage as usual. It took about half the visit for the cards to “warm up” and give either of us a hand over 10 points. I was pretty tired out when i hot home so this is very, very late. Sorry.
This from The Intercept does not have a paywall. It just has a popup which you can close. The article is short, but there is a list of related, or at least contemporary, articles below it (also short.) GEO has a point that they are nor as bad as CECOT – but that’s a remarkably low bar.
Joyce did publish a “The Week Ahead,” But I thought an overview of last week would be at least s helpful in grasping what is going on with the people who appear to be fighting harder than anyone else – courts and judges.
Yesterday, the radio opera was Puccini’s “Turandot” from Covent Garden. I won’t go into the details, having discussed it before (more than once). I’ll just mention that Sondra Radvanovsky (who is American) has a thought new to me about exactly when in the opera Turandot’s shell cracks, which in her opinion happens to coincide with the exact point in the opera at which Puccini died composing it – the rest of the opera was constructed from his notes by Franco Alfano, with mixed reviews. Personally, if I didn’t already know Puccini hadn’t finished it, I wouldn’t be able to tell any difference. Toscanini, who conducted the premier, did not agree. He felt so strongly that he stopped the premier at that point, turning to the audience and saying (probably in Italian) “At this point, the maestro laid down his pen.” Anyway, I’m off to see Virgil and will check in upon return
Not the most important news – but lovely to see Scotland doing Scotland and giving the Apricot Antichrist a ginormous middle finger.
Liza Donnelly is a good friend of Heather Cox Richardson. She is a professional cartoonist and gets published in The New Yorker. The experience she writes (and draws) about here has me green with envy. But, of course, to move in those circles one has to be in those circles – and I really don’t have the strength any more to do that.
I knew this, but I can’t tell you how happy I am to see it in print in a Colorado newspaper, even a small one. Because he will need name recognition to win the Democratic gubernatorial primary, let alone the general.
We don’t seem to hear as much about Make-A-Wish as we used to. But they are still around. And still doing good.
John D. Cundle is a Canadian (he may or may not be a US expat, but he is definitely a Canadian now) who is willing to help us keep our spirits up in any way he can. Like this.
Oddly, since I normally prefer reading to videos, I think I’d rather listen to Heather Cox Richardson than read her letters/ Even though she says “um” a lot. I think part of that is her enthusiasm. Even when she has warnings to give, it can feel like she’s giving a pep talk. I listened to all 41 ½ minutes of this one, digressions, and ums, and all, and there was little in it that I hadn’t heard or read elsewhere, but I still felt enlightened afterwards. You may feel differently, but here’s the link if you want to try. (If you don’t, ignore it.)
I am absolutely in agreement with Robert Reich here. Eternal vigilance is the price, not only of freedom, but of equity. If they distort it one way, the only way we can restore it is to distort it ourselves. We didn’t get that during reconstruction (any of the reconstructions) – but we need to learn it now.
This is from Wonkette, and not unexpected, I would guess. One old saying which is absolutely true is that “Figures don’t lie. But liars do figure.
Yesterday, my inbox was even crazier than usual. I don’t know why. Federal News appeared to me to be the usual BS. I suppose there might be people who are just now catching on – but yu’d have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to be running even the tiniest news outlet and just now be catching on after more than six months of pure hell. in any case, I decided to go with a couple of off the wall stories, neither of which features the Orange Oligarch directly, though both are related to his policies (if you can call them policies and not fantasies – I think the jury is still out on that), along with one terrifying legal analysis, which includes guesswork, but some things are not that hard to guess. Also yesterday, this link was forwarded to me. I guess it’s no weirder that Scalia/Ginsburg = except that I would not be interested in an opera about it.
From The Conversation. Many of my sources from time to time refer to history as a help in understanding the present. This article appears to me to be particularly pertinent. And it happened within the lifetime of many of us, including me. The First Amendment is easy to approve, but not easy to discuss, and figuring out where to draw lines can be very touchy indeed. But I do believe the Warren Court got it right.
Certainly I knew that J. B. Pritzker was a Democratic governor who was working with other Democratic governors to protect citizens and residents from the Marigold Maelstrom. But that was all. this situation in Texas is getting coverage for more of his personality and Wonkette is there for it.
Well, this is scary. It’s not as if we weren’t anticipating it, of course, but I for one hoped it would take a little (or a lot) longer to get to it. But no – it’s here.
Yesterday, my exterminator came by. There’s slow progress – but it is progress.
I don’t suppose anyone here doesn’t know this is happening. (‘m glad Howard from Aurora was there – a reminder people can live in war zones and still be decent people.
Action Network is declaring the week of August 21-27 ” People vs Billionaires Week of Action”, and has plans, and is making more plans. And also looking for more ideas. At least I can provide more notice time for this one.
Talking Feds Harry Litman is well aware about how dangerous and serious all the crap from this administration is. But this seems to me more of a sounding the alarm than his usual style. You won’t be able to see the whole thing, but there’s plenty in what we can see
Yesterday, The Conversation featured this article. I think Aristotle was on to something. Among other things, it would explain why MAGA (and all “conservatives”) are such whiny bags. Also, Care2, AKA the Petition Site, has a petition up to the Mango Moron which includes straight up telling him he sucks. If you haven’t seen it, I thought you might enjoy it.
/
In case you missed it – putting Bove onto a Court of Appeals puts him into a category from which be Supreme Court justices are selected, without needing to acquire the experience which is normally expected of a justice. Sure, the Mango Monster has been stacking the lower courts too – but this is something new.
The Brennan Center is a trustworthy watchdog – yet not a paranoid one. So this needs to be taken seriously (but you know that.) The link is to the home page, and in case another article has taken the to place, the title of the article is “The Trump Administration’s Campaign to Undermine the Next Election.”
Yesterday, Trinette and I went to the VA and got me registered as eligible for whatever services they can provide to those of us who didn’t stay long enough to retire and have no service-connected disability. Yeah, I have some, but all mine are age related or something else related which has nothing to do with my service. The booklet I will need to read to find out what is available is not as long as Reich’s book, but is also probably a lot more boring. It’ll be about ten days before I get my ID card, so I don’t need to know until then, and if I can finish it in ten days I’ll be pleased with myself. Anyway, afterwards, Trinette ans I went to a Mexican restaurant we used to love but had not been to since before the pandemic. The prices were up, but the food was as good as ever. They had even expanded the menu quite a bit. All in all, we accomplished a lot and had fun doing it.
Robert Reich reads from his new book, whose official publication date is today. I am just about 11 months older than he, so I lived through the same period. And I knew about some of what he writes about – but not all, not when it was happening. But then, he lived in New York, so much of what he recounts which turns out to have been relevant nationally all along, was merely local news at the time. He’s going to be on Colbert this week to talk about it.
Common Dreams has the story. It’s very sad that it has come to this. But kudos to those who recognize that it has, and have the guts to act on it.
This weekend, looking for music, after finding the Rocky Mountain Mike one you saw yesterday, I came across a “Horrible History” song from the BBC. It’s very silly, and IMO not useful as a mnemonic either. But it did remind me of Charles I and his billionaires cavaliers and how he vexed the people so much, including levying taxes without the consent of Congress Parliament, that there was a Civil War – which the people won, and locked him up (they didn’t all agree on all that much, but they did agree that he needed to be locked up), then they tried him for “treason against England by using his power to pursue his personal interest rather than the good of the country,” convicted him, and beheaded him. I might note that the verdict included accountability for the deaths, mostly in the Civil War, of 300,000 people, which was a lot then, but nowhere near the numbers that dictators today can kill. Charles’s defense, incidentally, was that the trial and verdict were illegal (sound familiar?) Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
I’m sure it’s no surprise that my email inbox is getting less and less manageable by the day. I don’t subscribe to Jacobin (though I love the name), but I do subscribe to Dose of Democracy who sent me the link, and I thought it was well said.
