Open Thread April 1 2026

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Holiday, Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 012026
 

Yesterday, April Fool came early for me. My email client was experiencing problems – by 2 pm I had only received four emails, and that is deflinitely not normal. When something like that happens, the first thing I do is try a different browser. I tried a total of four – no joy. I kept refreshing my main browser. Meanwhile, I went through Substack to get to some of my main sources. I have not been looking forward to today.

On Monday, Malcolm pointed out that everything he has pointed out might be possible in the war has subsequently showed up in the national news (NYT, WSJ, WP, etc.) not soon enough for them to have gotten the stories from him directly, but rather, in a time frame for someone to have suggested to Kegsbreath and him to – at least verbally – run with it. And Netanyahu is now poisoning Iran’s and other Gulf states’ water (a war crime, in case anyone didn’t know. (We did it to Kishem Island a couple of weeks ago – Just one of our war crimes.) I am beginning to understand, not just with my brain, but with my heart, why many Jewish people, Israeli and diaspora alike, think it is antisemitism to criticize Israel. When people anywhere in the world, including within the US, criticize the US, even though my brain knows it is the Saffron Sauron and his orcs and nazgul they are criticizing and not me personally, I can’t help feeling sad and a little hurt.

I know we are all worried about the Supreme Court, and we all know something is needed to change it. But we don’t all agree on what needs doing – and I don’t think we really have so much as a concept of a plan as to how the necessary changes can be accomplished. So you may be as encouraged as I am by this conversation between former US Attorney Joyce Vance and Brennan Center Senior Fellow Jesse Wegman (who was essentially hired by Brennan to address the Supreme Curt, but also has a book out about the Electoral College.) It’s 28 minutes, and if that’s too long, there’s a transcript.

I did mention this, but there is much more information here. May Day is the day.

Yeah. Well, that’s the headline. But I’m not seeing them voting that way, or even saying much about it. Certainly not in the numbers needed to make it happen.

It’s been a minute since we had an episode of this series, and this sounds like the final one. My father (who served in WWII, but as a telegrapher) was not in this one, having been medically discharged prior to November 1944. (If he had been there, I almost certainly would not be here.) I could wish that more people remembered – if not from life, at least from education – how important this war was for all of us.

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Open Thread March 29 2026

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Holiday, Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Mar 292026
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was one of my top two or three favorites – “La Traviata” by Verdi. I always tear up – not at the end, but in the middle when she says goodbye to Alfredo. That is the saddest event in it. I can get through the end when she dies without tears (or at least with a lot fewer tears), because she dies happy – for two reasons – because Alfredo has come back to her, and because of spes phthisica – a kind of euphoria experienced by pulmonary tuberculosis patients. I expect it’s a romantic fantasy that it happens only at the moment of death, but it is a real phenomenon. So the only sad people on stage when she dies are Alfredo and his father – and I don’t actually have much sympathy for either of them. It’s Violetta who is the victim. The music is exquisite throughout, and all the main characters get some to sing.

When I was in college at Stanford, and my mother worked for the University as supervisor of the Gift Processing Team (which is a story in itself), I would often go to her office building after my classes were through. A friend and colleague of hers in a totally different department but working in the same building was an art lover, and he would from time to time collaborate with the art college to mount shows in his (and Mom’s) building and maybe even sell some of the art. One grad student named Edith Bergstrom had one of these shows, and it pretty well sold out. Everyone loved her work, oils and watercolor alike, and she was only asking $30 each painting. I bought a couple and so did Mom, and I still have mine and now have hers, and still love them. After she completed her advanced degree, she didn’t exactly change her style, but she changed her subject matter, deciding to paint only palms – trees, branches, leaves and some combinations. And she was successful – Since today is Palm Sunday, I thought I would find one of her paintings on the internet and use it here. I’ve selected the focal point of a much larger piece, but it may give you an idea.

Everyone who participated in any No Kings is special – but this one is – let’s say offbeat.

This happens from time to time and it’s always good to hear. Good people exist.

This is kind of cool. We ever had anything like this when I was in school – I would have loved to participate.

This is not a big project with people going out of their way to help others, but it is definitely amusing.

This video features excerpts from CPAC. But not what you’d expect. Please don’t skip it.

Dog

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Open Thread March 14 2026

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Mar 142026
 

Today being Pi Day, and the rest of the news being so grim, a mathematical puzzle might be in order.

Yesterday, I discovered something – I knew Jim Acosta was on Substack, and I knew that S teve Schmidt was sometimes a guest of his, but I had no idea that Steve was going to be a regular guest every Friday, nor that they were calling this “Oh, Schmidt, It’s Friday.”  (Gotta laugh so you don’t cry, right?) Apparently the US death toll is up to 11 now. Or was yesterday.

From The Root. I figure that what Black people need to know, we all need to know.

It appears the shooting I mentioned yesterday, and another shooting, and a hacking, were not home-grown but Iranian retaliation. Robert Hubbell expands on this with multiple citations. He then goes into other ramifications of the war, also with citations.

From the Contrarian – a history and definition of Concentration Camps – so that if anyone tries to tell you they aren’t, you can prove that they are.

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Open Thread February 16 2026

 Posted by at 5:50 am  Holiday, Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 162026
 

May I say something about the partial government shutdown which i don’t think is getting enough attention? Congress voted to provide zero funding for DHS in this fiscal year. But it did not vote to rescind any funds already allocated in the big brutal bill, and that bill includes a huge slush fund for ICE (and I think but am not certain also for CBP) – enough to fund them through September 2029, I have heard. So they are not shut down – but the rest of DHS is. The rest of DHS includes FEMA, the Coast Guard, and more – good stuff. I’m not trying to say the shutdown didn’t need to be done – it did, and it may need to continue – it’s a serious bargaining chip. But it isn’t an instant solution to anything. Y’all are smart and may well know all of this. But I guarantee there are a lot of people out there who need to know it and don’t.,

No one needs me to tell them that this is outrageous. It is and/or will be clear to every one who hears about it. Unfortunately, these days, if there’s an outrage, it must be a day that ends in “y”.

This is a story which was featured at the Philadelphia Independence National Historic Park near Independence Hall. Naturally, it was dismantled by our fascist regime. It doesn’t mean that Washington was a jerk who deserves no honor – that would be false. It does mean that Washington was a human being and therefore not perfect, and that he was a child of the era into which he was born. But, to fascists, that’s blasphemy, I guess.

Dog

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Open Thread January 16 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 162026
 

Yesterday, the snow in my back yard didn’t all disappear, though it did disappear on the northern half. The southern half showed patches of the growth underneath the snow, but they amounted to less than half of the area, Joyce Vance did a Substack video with Mark Elias, and she highly recommended his Substack “Democracy Docket,” so I’m giving it a try. He is involved in a lot of anti-regime litigation and therefore someone we should know exists, which does not necessarily mean we should read everything he writes. I’ll follow this up. Also, I learned that Malcolm Nance is going to Greenland to work with NATO training exercises with military from NATO countries. And Robert Reich informed me that the Saffron Sauron threatens to invoke the insurrection act in Minneapolis. And the frosting on the cake is that Maria Machado gave her Nobel Prize to the Apricot Antichrist (I assume  just the medal, not the money.) And then there’s this. Theater of War productions are known for using well known actors to perform – at least they are well known if you watch cable – which I don’t. But I know these people – who are not professional actors, but are lot more interesting than actors IMO. Take a look. It doesn’t say whether it will be Zoomed or otherwise digitally broadcast. Generally their events are Zoomed live (which would be at 5:00 here, 6:00 Central) and one also needs to register in advance ,with Zoom. I’ll follow up and share what I find, if anything.

I’m not sure I’d call what Common Dreams calls “mockery,” mockery. I’m more inclined to call it pure evil.

The saddest thing about this is that Robert Reich believes (rightly) that there are people who need to be told it because they can’t figure it out themselves. Perhaps our species needs renaming – “sapiens” just doesn’t seem to fit any more (if indeed it ever did). Having checked Google translate, may I suggest “homo stolidus”?

Once again, I am reminded by this article from The Root of Igor Stravinsky in Germany witnessing the brutal beating of a Jew by Gestapo going to a court to report it, only to be told by the Judge “In Germany today, such things happen every minute.”

Granted, I’m late with this video. But at least it’s still January – and we may need reminding now more than we did on the first or second.

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Open Thread January 2 2025

 Posted by at 12:31 am  Blog News, Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 022026
 

Yesterday was, of course, New Year’s Day. I hope yours was both happy and as productive as you wanted it to be. And if that was not at all, that’s great. On New Years Eve, I had it on my calendar to repost “featured images” used by other authors at the end of December so they could be found more easily, and I missed the moment of midnight. As I was cussing myself, it occurred to me that if I temporarily changed the blog time zone from Pacific to whatever they call Alaska and Hawaii, I might be able to put them in in fake December, and them turn the time zone back again and they might stay in December. By golly, it worked. I haven’t tried to use the scheduling feature again to see whether it is working again, but I will again tonight since on Saturdays I get up for the opera – at 9:00 Pacific – so if it’s late it won’t be horribly late.

Joyce Vance explains “Inherent Contempt” and why the House is contemplating using it on Pam Bondi.

Good news for workers in a few blue and purple states – including Colorado, Ohio, and Missouri. Not so good for workers in states who still are stuck with the federal minimums. The article mentions a couple of the amounts by which the minimum changes, but none of the full new amounts. I looked up Colorado, and our new minimum is $15.16, and by law, it increases every year as the CPI increases.

Whether or not this affects you (it doesn’t affect me directly on account of a long series of lucky decisions which turned out to be consequential), it will almost certainly affect someone you care about. Effing Republicans.

Cat

h

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Open Thread December 31 2025

 Posted by at 12:42 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Dec 312025
 

Yesterday, I had set my alarm for earlier than I got up on Monday. I plan to set it earlier each day to try to ease into the weekend so that I can at least expect to arise in daylight – which is now moving the right direction for me, if only by a few seconds every day. I did that last week, though I didn’t start as soon, and it seemed to help.

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/if-the-market-were-working-well-we
My local radio station has added a Sunday night show to its lineup – it’s been on for a while now, maybe even more than a year – called “Broadway Rhythm.” Some episodes will run through a full musical, others will follow the career of a composer. Some will focus on the careers of divas (or divos.) A theme might be a particular time period, or musicals which made cultural change – limited only by the host’s creativity. Last Sunday the theme was songs from musicals which became standards. Included was “If I Were A Rich Man” from Fiddler On The Roof. One line in particular caught my ear: “And it won’t make one bit of difference if I answer right or wrong. When you’re rich they think you really know.” Isn’t that the truth – and how the heck do we (and by we I mean the entire human race) get our collective heads out of that septic tank?!?? The only think you can be positive a rich person “really knows” is how to cheat without consequences.

Heather Cox Richardson on the SCROTUS decision which was favorable to us for a change. I may be seeing things. but it has me wondering whether the fascist justices have an organized system of taking turns being the one who gets the be the one who writes a sane opinion, so that when we get the chance, we won’t know whom to impeach. I hope I’m wrong.

This is from All Rise News, which is run by Adam Klasfeld. I only recently heard of him – this is only the second time I have seen him – but both Harry Litman and also Joyce Vance swear by him. Both Harry and Joyce look at any kind of court case which catches their attention, but Adam concentrates on high profile (or should -be-high-profile) DOJ cases. This one concerns Kilmar Abrego Garcia and how it appears that the gang that couldn’t shoot straight has shot themselves in the foot again.

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Open Thread December 25 2025

 Posted by at 1:01 am  Holiday, Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Dec 252025
 

Yesterday, I watched (but mostly listened to) a conversation with Mary Trump and Ruth Ben-Ghiat (as I’m sure you know, an expert – maybe the expert – on “strong men” governments). It was about 23 minutes – shorter than I expected – but highly informative. (just in case anyone wonders, my substitutes for yoga and getting out into nature are knotting and computer solitaire.)

Well, this is welcome news. Ohio has a Democratic Congresswoman who has a spine. That probably isn’t news to SpyKat. But it’s always nice to see a Congrescritter from one’s own state getting national attention for a righteous reason. I know I was stoked when Jason Crow was on the Jan6 Committee, and again when he was one of the six in what most people probably think of as “Mark Kelly’s video.”

I’m sneaking in a second video by treating this as an article – which, if I hadn’t tripped over a video, I would have had to do as an article. Judge Boasberg appears to be a national treasure. It’s 15 minutes, and worth it.

And here’s another judge who may well be a national treasure. Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. of Nashville.

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