Sep 182023
 

Yesterday, I caught up on some sleep, but upon arising, my body seemed determined to annoy me. I took care of the hip and the shoulder with the TENS unit, but my pretibial myxedema wasn’t so simple. Myxedema is a skin codition where fluid – I’m pretty sure lymphatic fluid – builds up under, not all the layers of skin, but under about the top two, which over time begin to look and feel like rice papre (but don’t hide what looks like bruising underneath.) It’s not painful and it doesn’t even itch -but if those two top skin layers breach, it starts leaking like crazy, If you don’t cover it with something, it can soak that whole part of a bed one’s legs are in. And a 3″x4″ “bandaid” doesn’t do the job, the fluid just leaks out under it (Although it can reduce the amount that gets all the way out.) Instead it requires something like a cotton leg warmer or a knee-high sock, cotton being best, but polyester works if it’s brushed and fluffy enough. So I had to deal with that – for about the fourth straight day – and I have no idea when the leaking will stop. It could be another week or two. At least no pain – just annoyance. Also, I have been knitting, and also trying to get more stuff ready for pickup. As a result I have not had time (and don’t see time coming) to read this article closely, and therefore I have no opinion on it. I do have an opinion that the deaths of JFK, MLK, and RFK were way to convienient for – I guess at that time it was mostly millionaires, but all too soon it will be trillionaires if we don’t do something. But I have no firm opinion on the details of how that worked out. I’ll just provide the link and let y’all look at it.

Also, in a comment on Nameless’s RoshHashanah post, I mentioned the radio special with Itzhak Perlman. KCME dot org will repeat it at 8 pm Thursday the 21st and 8 am Sunday the 24th. KCME is all over the world, but they also use their own player and it’s a little different. I’m thinking WFMT, WQXR, and WGBH are also likely to air it and quite possibly KVOD (CPR,org) on their own time schedules. The full name of the program is “Music for the High Holidays with Itzhak Perlman”. (There will be inforaition about food. Perlman likes to say that the definition of a Jewish holiday is “They tried to kill us. They did not succeed. Let’s eat.”)

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

HuffPost – Here’s The Political Conversation We Overlooked This Week
Quote – We’ve spent a lot of time this week talking about Hunter Biden and impeachment, which is fair enough. I just wish we’d found more time to discuss another story[.]… I’m talking about the annual U.S. Census Bureau report on income and health insurance, which came out Tuesday and which my colleague Jonathan Nicholson summarized for HuffPost. The report found that the country’s poverty rate jumped from 7.8% in 2021 to 12.4% last year ― and that the poverty rate among children, specifically, rose even more dramatically, from 5.2% to 12.4%. To put it another way, last year more than 1 in 8 American kids were living in a household struggling to pay for food, shelter, transportation and other essentials. Just a year before, fewer than half as many kids were in that position.
Click through for reasons, background, who’s on which side, and what can be done.

Orlando (FL) Sentinel – Florida leaders silent after senator confronts staffer at women’s shelter
Quote – Senate leaders have been silent about an angry confrontation between Republican Sen. Tom Wright and a female staffer at a Daytona Beach shelter for battered and abused women and their children over the Labor Day weekend. According to police reports, Wright yelled, lunged at, and placed his hand on the shoulder of a staff member who stopped Wright from getting on a bus full of the shelter’s residents out of concern for protecting their identities. Video footage provided by the Daytona Beach Police Department shows Wright’s tense encounter with a much shorter female staffer, who ran up to him to get him off the bus. Another employee stepped between them, and Wright, 71, turned to walk away, only to confront the worker a couple of more times before leaving. “For a political leader to come there and aggress on an employee in front of a busload of women and children who are making the courageous decision to protect themselves from violence is one of the most disgusting behaviors I have ever seen,” said Angie Pye, the former CEO of the Beacon Center, where the incident occurred.
Click through for details – which are very different and even more sinister than the details of Lauren Boebert’s little spree – but the trashiness is much the same.

Food For Thought

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May 092022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Giuliani now in contempt of Congress, literally & figuratively. Will Congress use inherent contempt?

Meidas Touch on Twitter – Someone you love

MSNBC – Rep. Raskin: Esper Revelations Show Trump’s ‘Fascination With Violence’

RepresentUs – Why this church-going grandma is getting death threats

Robert Reich channel – Why Child Poverty is a Policy Choice feat. (Solana Rice)

VOA News – Russian-Born Composer Gives Concerts to Raise Money for Ukraine’s Children

Beau – Let’s talk about voting harder….

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Feb 192022
 

Yesterday, I watched Ari Melber  Claire McKaskill, and a third person discuss a judge calling Trump’s lawyers arguments Humpty-Dumpty-esque for over 14 minutes – and NOT ONE of them mentioned what the judge must have meant by that. It’s clearly a reference (and they did mention Alice in Wonderland) to Through the Looking Glas where Humpty Dumpty said, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.” As Alice pointed out, it doesn’t work that way (though he was not convinced and babblrd on about how he was paying them to do his bidding.) It’s quite a conversation – and it is exactly like Trump** and Trump** lawyers. But they all seemed to think the judge was alluding to Humpty Dumpty’s fall. I think not. Anyway, I also got my groceries in and mostly put away. The frozen and refrigerated stuff immediately, of course, but the rest could wait longer (for me to be rested between trips.) I didn’t receive everything – but at least there were no substitutions.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Mother Jones – My Family Lost Our Farm During Japanese Incarceration. I Went Searching for What Remains.
Quote – The anti-Japanese sentiment that allowed for such a drastic action to take place did not spring up suddenly after Pearl Harbor, but had been simmering for decades, stoked by white labor and business groups resentful of Japanese workers and farmers. Japanese Americans who were forced off their land lost property worth an estimated $3.7 billion in today’s dollars, and $7.7 billion worth of income.
Click through.  Today is the day. The eightieth anniversary of that executive order. And, yes, it was racism, but specifically the fear aspect of racism. Who benefits from keeping people in fear? Certainly not the people who are terrified.

HuffPost – Child Poverty Spiked After Tax Credit Expired, Early Research Suggests
Quote – Democrats failed to extend a credit late last year, due to the opposition of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). The last monthly check was paid out to parents on Dec. 15. After this tax season, the credit will return to its previous $2,000 level and parents with no income will no longer be eligible. Manchin told colleagues and constituents he thought parents wasted the money on drugs. Though he avoided taking a clear public position on the policy, he suggested it should have a “work requirement.”
Click through for details/ I would file this under “No shit, Sherlock.” And it really frosts me when people, especially in the media, say “Congress” when what they should be saying is “Republicans” (and, in this case, a DINO.)

CBS News – Ryan Speedo Green: From juvenile delinquency to opera stardom
Quote – As a 12-year-old in Virginia, Ryan Speedo Green was the author of an impressive rap sheet. He was so violent he was banished to a class for delinquents. And when he couldn’t be contained there, he was sent to a juvenile lockup. Those who knew the boy with the unusual name, could see that the child was writing a tragedy. Now, as a man, tragedy has become the dominant theme in his life, but in a way that no one could have imagined.
Click through for bio. Or, if you’re in a hurry, click here for this video from September 28, 2016, the night before he opened the season at the Met (hanky alert). I just didn’t want to ley the month go by without sharing this remarkable story.

Food For Thought:

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