Aug 022025
 

Yesterday, I spent some time getting organized for Trinette to come over Sunday. I have trash and I have recyclables, and they need to be in bags so they’re easy to carry out. Also, since Trinette has now nagged me enough, we are going to he VA Monday to see what they can do for me. I haven’t been there since 1976, and I hear they will now assist with MedicAlerts – if the Persimmon Palpatine hasn’t destroyed that already. And I want to have all my paperwork together. Otherwise, it was just a day. I gat a card in the mail from an old Marine Corps friend,, and one of my second cousins in California called to wish me a happy day. i also got emails from Trinette and Carrie B (“NannyCarrie” from Care2).

Thursday, Andy Borowitz, who generally keeps his videos for paid subscribers only, posted a (roughly 31 minute) video with W.Kamau Bell open to everyone. Like every other Substack video I have watched, it needs to be unmuted, but otherwise it was very smooth. But if you just want to skip close to the end and learn what charity Bell donated his Jeopardy winnings to, I think you may be surprised.

This from ProPublica I fear needs a trigger warning – or at least a tissue alert. But one of the men in it says that getting home and realizing that he hadn’t been forgotten was the best gift he could have received. Let’s not forget them.

A couple of other outlets had this story, so I may be sorry I chose it, but it’s definitely personal to me. I live on Social Security. My life depends on it.

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Jul 302025
 

Yesterday, this showed up on Democratic Underground. I usually prefer to go to the original source, but this is such a coherent summary, the USL provided is already cut so doesn’t need cleaning up, that I thought I’d just use it. Also yesterday, Roy Cooper announced for the US Senate👍. And, sadly, Tom Lehrer has died. He was 97. Finally, here’s a link to a Meidas post – no video, no article, just photos of Scottish protest signs which met our Führer when he disembarked there.

OK, this from Robert Reich is from last week. But it’s still accurate, and it doesn’t look like it will get any better any time soon. Really, the readers here are so informed that there’s not much point to me covering the top stories unless I have a spin on them that’s not getting attention. Instead, covering the stories that will otherwise be missed is our mission. That’s not to say I will always guess correctly what is big – or get hooked into a big story for some reason – after all, I’m only human. But that’s my goal.

Heather Cox Richardson only comments on this story by setting it next to a story from 1955 (a story which y’all are probably aware of). And that is all that is needed. As a nation – we haven’t come very far.

From Wonkette. No way to tell at this point whether this had any effect at all on those who are addicted to lies, but it is still refreshing.


This is not a cartoon, nor is it new – it was painted by John Gast in 1872. It is named “American Progress,” and the blonde giantess represents “Columbia” (still a synonym for “The United States” almost a hundred years after the Revolution.) If yo see it credited to Thomas Kinkade, that is false, although DHS, which posted this at their website, also posted a picture by Kinkade, without permission from his heirs, who have protested. The Kinkade is fairly innocuous, but this image, propaganda for the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, is chilling when you think about how many totally innocent people were killed for it.

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Jul 272025
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was the third of the three based on “Manon Lescaut” – loosely. This one is by Puccini. I’d translate parts of a couple of the arias, but if i did I’d be flippant, so I’ll pass. There’s enough unintentional humor in the fourth act. When Manon Lescaut the novel was written, the Louisiana Purchase was not even a twinkle in Jefferson’s eye, and it included a great deal of land not in Louisiana today. For instance, it reached as far west as both panhandles (Texas and Oklahoma) and even a corner of New Mexico. So she actually could have been deported to “the deserts of Louisiana,” and die there. But you’d be hard put to find even a square inch of desert in Louisiana today, so it sounds pretty funny.  Off yo see Virgil – will check in on return.

This was released Wednesday, and the full article covers more of this Senate race than just Roy Cooper. So if Roy does announce this week, that will be even more  good news.

I had to squeeze this in. The cat goddesses are united and in good form, as always.

I’ve never had cable, so I’ve never watched South Park, but I couldn’t have avoided knowing a little about it even if I had wanted to. And I enjoyed every second of this video (which is not the actual episode, but a commentary on it with multiple clips)., even the rehashes of stuff we know from straight political news. I think you will also. (It is so good that, just in case it got taken down before you could see it, I downloaded software so I could download it and upload it to our library if I needed to. It is so good that there’s a petition to thank South Park for it.)

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Jul 252025
 

Yesterday, I got the email from Families First (via Americans for Tax Fairness) that there will be another national protest event tomorrow. Cleaning up tie URL did not remove or change the locations it was showing me, so you may need to select “Filters” and scroll down a bit and enter your location. I realize this is short notice – but you can also filter by date and find future events, and also filter by other criteria. Also, yesterday, I got multiple emails with “Trump’s name is in the Epstein files” in the subject line. But – you know – it might not be – or at least, if there is a “client list”, it might not be in that. They were such close friends that Epstein might not have charged him. Today, had my mother lived, she would have been 119, so it is a blessing that the didn’t. For someone who lived through Roosevelt’s terms – all of them – this would be devastating.

This is from Press Watch – which means there is at least one journalist who can/will do what he is asking others to do. But I’m afraid there’s little we can do to straighten out the ones who won’t. Either they are themselves i the cult, or their publications are owned by wealth people who, whether or not they are actually in the cult, want the country to be so. There’s your answer, Dan.

This article from Wonkette – I can’t describe it any better then the title, “creepy-ass” – shows the extent to which soe men will go to have (or believe they have) total control over a woman’s body. Some men. Not all men. I might point out that Plutarch, who lived mostly in the first century CE (and into the second) tells the story of Timoclea of Thebes in two of his books, one a history of Alexander the Great, the other titles “Virtutes mulierum” [The virtues of women], which suggests that he approved not only of her but of Alexander for respecting her. The little attorney of the creepy-ass plaintiff is no better. Perhaps there are wells (dry ones would do) near where they live which could be put to good use.

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Jul 232025
 

Yesterday, Virgil did call, and I broke the news to him about Joe’s death. He took it well. As I said, it was not unexpected. Today is his birthday, so I also told him Happy Birthday early. I also have a card on the way to him – it has attitude, but it is perfect for him since he so often tells me I am the best thing that ever happened to him. It says “Happy Birthday from the best decision you ever made.” I’m sure it will give him a smile.

Robert Reich puts the use of non-government individuals to influence power into the context which now exists, and addresses how that is different from the lobbying system we had all become so accustomed to, and how much more it is like the reign of the “Sun King.”

This article is from Malcolm Nance’s Substack “Special Intelligence.” If you aren’t familiar with Malcolm Nance, it’s time you were, so I am also linking to the Wikipedia article on him. The dude knows what he speaks and/or writes about. And even though what he writes about here is next to impossible to take seriously, it’s still important. MAGA and/or QAnon people have taken action in the past about propositions which were too ridiculous to take seriously, and people have been endangered and hurt, even killed, by those actions.

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Jul 212025
 

Yesterday, an email from the Dekleptocracy Alliance (AKA anticorruptionaction.org) pointed out that Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, has a $200 million contract with the Pentagon and is “is now being embedded inside our most sensitive military infrastructure.” It is an email only, so I cannot link to the full letter, but it does go on, and it doesn’t get better. It’s just an email, not a post, and there is no link to the full text; if there were, I would have posted it. Also, Trinette came by, to take care of some stuff that I can’t. And Virgil’s aunt called to say his stepfather had passed away. This was not unexpected, as he was 100 last December. I can’t call Virgil, but when he calls me I shall tell him. He’s been expecting it and I’ve been telling him that when it happened his aunt Donna would let me know.

If this reminds you of the opening of LesMiz – you are not alone. That was the first thing I thought of. “Look down, look down, sweet Jesus doesn’t care.” Rümesa Oztürk is Muslim, but the principle is the same.

I know there are hundreds and thousands of stories much like this. But one person’s story can speak louder than the numbers. You can be confident ProPublica is looking into as many as they are aware of.

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Jul 202025
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was the second opera about Manon Lescaut. This one is called simply “Manon” and is by Jules Massenet. This is the version in which after des Grieux, her lover, has been kidnapped by his father and enters the seminary to become a priest (leaving Manon pretty much no choice except to hook up with the rich dude), she visits him in his church and you can guess what happens. The other two don’t spell that out. Also, in this version, she doesn’t even make it to Louisiana but dies en route to the ship which was to take her there. As I said last week, the stories are similar but not the same. About the music video  today – John D. Cundle is a Canadian who has produced and posted quite a little library of upbeat videos, many aimed at us in a friendly way. This is just one. It’s not satirical, although he also does satire. I also watched one about corruption, in which he appeared as “Judge Clarence.” I don’t know how much more pointed one can get than that.

This is about the Superman movie I discussed recently.  MAGA was all up in arms to boycott is as “woke,” and they may be doing so,  considering their attitude toward non-humans, including people they consider to be non-human.  I don’t see them responding in the way this article describes.

(Not paywalled, but you need to close a popup) This from the 19th is on Instagram. It is good news about a workaround.

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Jul 182025
 

Yesterday, I hope everyone who is willing and able found a protest to join, and did so safely (and had a great sign. And got home safely.) The Senate passed the bill to kill public radio and television, and sent the bill back to the House.

This story, newly released by The 19th, took a lot of time, multiple lawyers, even more proofreaders, and an unknown (but definitely non-zero) number of fact checkers to put together. I don’t know how alone I am in this, but I have a tendency these days to look at , for example, the UK, Germany, New Zealand and others and think they are ahead of us when it comes to eliminating misogyny. This story makes me seriously question whether anyone at all is at all ahead of us. That’s ugly, but we need to know the truth.

Other than the remark about Joe Biden’s intentions, which no one but Joe really knows, but I seriously doubt Hubbell’s guess, this is a real problem and good advice. I’m not sure exactly how an unimaginative person can be expected to acquire imagination (though I’d guess it isn’t something that can be done quickly, least of all instantly.) But we can learn to listen to people who have it without shooting them down as fantasizers.

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