JoJo from Jerz – Politics Plus

Open Thread June 28 2026

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 282026

Yesterday, the radio opera (should I be saying “the on line opera” until December? Naah.) was Ariodante by Handel, composed in the early 1700s. It’s based on two (out of 46) cantos of the epic chivalric romance Orlando Furioso (Orlando is the Italian form of Roland – yes, that Roland), which dates to the early 1500s, and was itself based on the Chanson de Roland, which dates back to the 11th sentury, and was inspired by the (presumed historical) death of Roland, who was a knight of Charlemagne, who, IIRC, became Emperor in 800, so, the 9th century. Roland is not a character in the opera, which is set in Scotland(!), has minimal chorus, but does have a dance in each of its three acts, includes a mad scene for the prima donna, and is generally melodramatic. Anyone who has ever heard “Messiah” or any excerpts from it knows that the man could write music. Heck, he could paint pictures with the notes he wrote. But I’m off to see Virgil now – will check in when home. Meanwhile, let’s jump into the pool.

https://jojofromjerz.substack.com/p/the-sun-confesses
I have shared JoJo before purely for the excellence of her writing, and now I am again. Last time it was a rant. This time it is – I’m not quite sure – maybe an allegory. But if it doesn’t make you smile at least once – take a a deep breath, leave the computer and do something else that revitalizes you.

https://abcnews.com/video/134102842/
I hope this is visible and audible. It happened om Father’s Day.

https://joycevance.substack.com/p/five-questions-with-the-chickens
To be frank, this is not exactly good news. What it does have is a lot of cute photos illustrating good advice for staying sane. (Today’s not-a-cartoon is from it.)

Open Thread May 25 2026

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Holiday, Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 252026

Yesterday, I saw Virgil and we played cribbage. It was a brand new deck – no tears, no peeling, no sticking. Hands with a wide range of values (zero to 21.) It’s always cold in the visiting room – but it was extra cold today – and quite warm outside – too warm for comfort, actually – but at this time of year the sun is not in my eyes, for which I was grateful.

And on Saturday, I received a Memorial Day email from Major General Eaton (retired) of Vote Vets. He wrote about the wars in Iraq And Afghanistan, and included a statistic which was new to me. In those two wares combined we lost almost 7,000 military in combat – and more than 22,000 to suicide after they came home. More than three times as many to suicide as to combat.

Snarl at me if you like. Because I’m not postinng this from JoJo from Jerz for news value. I’m posting it because of the sheer beauty of the righteous rant. The pure vitriol of the analogies, metaphors, and needle-sharp points made. I’m in awe. I can come up with the occasional zinger, but I could never come up with a string of them like this.

We’re all familiar with the term “kleptocracy” – Maybe too familiar. The term “corruptonomics,” coined by Robert Reich, may help us look more closely at it. As he also says – “Please send to any candidates you care about.”

From Press Watch. The saying goes that a competent prosecutor could get a true bill from a grand jury on a ham sandwich. That’s an exaggeration for a competent prosecutor – but for a crooked prosecutor – maybe not so much.

Open Thread January 12 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 122026

Yesterday, I visited with Virgil, and we played cribbage. He fot the hand of the day – two double runs of three (16 points) over cards containing numbers adding to 15 (8 more points.) It was early in the day, but IIRC, it was in the crib, which is miraculous. The drive down wasn’t bad, considering the snow. It wasn’t snowing yesterday, not the day before, but on Friday we got what Weather Underground claimed was 7 inches of it. I would sear the on the front hood of my car alone there was still 12 inches, and I didn’t get it all off – just enough to see. When I came out from seeing Virgil. however, all of it was gone. I can’t prove this – I did park at an ange so the afternoon sun could do as much as possible – but I strongly suspect that one of the staff, going rounds in the parking lot as they do, knocked it all off. The staff there comprises the kind of people who would do that. In any case, the drive home was even easier than the drive down – the only rough part was getting into the driveway, and tha worst of that was walking of the remaining snow, now partly thawed and re-frozen twice, to get to my front door. But (obviously) I made it without injury or even slipping. If anyone was able to participate in a “No Kings” sponsored demonstration either Saturday or yesterday, I hope it went well. I received some photos in emails, but am too tired to work anything up tonight. I’ll get a post up this week.

This and the HCR video are connected. Both are related to the second World War. This is more about what we didn’t do this time but should have. The video is more about something we did right, but boy, was it ever touch and go. )And the video is quite short.)

“JoJo from Jerz” now has a Substack, If you have ever seen any of her memes posted on line, you know the is truthful and witty, and doesn’t mince words. I watched a video of her talking with Andy Kim, who is now one of her Senators – you may remember him as the Congressman (he was in the House then) who stayed behind after the Jan 5 insurrection to work on cleaning the Rotunda. I’m not linking to that video, since it’s longish, but to an essay she published on fascism and Orwell.

Archived from HuffPost. I don’t like it, but it’s factual, and I believe itls better for us all to be aware of the obstacles sooner than later, so we won’t hurt ourselves and ethical prosecutors complaining after the fact that it took too long or it isn’t good enough.

HCR Bulge

Bonus video – in between the political one and the animal one because it’s a political animal. It’s repetitive (after all, feline vocabulary is limited), but it’s also short, do watch it to the end. Oh, and it’s definitely NSFW.

Dog

PHP is a programming language used to build websites. We have it at all through our hosting partner, BlueHost. In order to update it, we have to go through Bluehost. During his life, TomCat was the only one who had access to our account there. I (JD) am now the only one. I have been to BlueHost and investigated updating our PHP to 8.3 or even to 8.1. I found instructions to do so - in fact, I found two conflicting sets of instructions. I went through one set of the steps and got the message that Our site could not handle 8.3, but that it had successfully updated to 8.1. I then went back here to see what it looked like. But I couldn't get in - either as an administrator or as a reader. It was just gone. I had to reach BlueHost by phone. It was determined that Politics Plus is in fact not compatible with any version of PHP newer than the one we have. BlueHost therefore uninstalled it for me, and the site came back to normal. Of course, like everyone else, I care about security. But I also am aware that TomCat elected to use different providers for several of the services that BlueHost provides, for instance backups. We are backed up daily - but not by BlueHost. However, out PHP is through Bluehost. I feel that if they are not worried about the older version, I am not going to worry about it. I believe that our security here is all or mostly through WordFence, whom I trust.