Open Thread March 7 2026

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Mar 072026
 

Yesterday, it snowed here. It was predicted – for about a fifth of an inch – it looks more like a half inch to me – but that’s just looking out the window. I didn’t measure it. The video today is long – about 48 minutes – but the subject is so huge, I don’t know how it could have been much shorter I won’t get upset if people choose to skip it. Just keep the title in the back of your mind.

This is a supplement to the daily “Chalet of the Two Spies” video update on the war in Iran. It’s no surprise to me. I don’t personally remember World War II (I was born before VJ Day, but only by days), but I remember Korea, and Vietnam, and Desert Storm, and I think it’s safe to say that all wars are subject to Hofstadter’s law (“Everything takes longer than you think it will, even after you have considered Hofstadter’s law.”) Doug and I went to the same high school – I graduated just before he moved to town when his father became a professor at Stanford. But I did meet him at the high school bridge club, which I kept attending because I was not good enough at it to play by tournament rules, which the university club required. (I never got terribly good.) I only have something like 3/8 of a master point.)

I can’t believe that there is anyone who reads here who has not noticed this happening. But Robert Reich says “All this has happened so suddenly that most Americans still haven’t noticed,” and he’s sadly probably correct, which means there are a lot of people who need to learn this. Please share it if you can.

Oh, good grief. WTF next? Will Ukraine ever catch a break? Certainly not from our country in the clutches of the Mango Monster. Ukrinform is on Substack, so I subscribed to it. One more new email every day, but we’ll never learn stuff like this from American media.

BREAKING: Sheldon Whitehouse Details Report On Alleged Ties Between Epstein, Trump, And Russia

Cat

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Open Thread January 4 2025

 Posted by at 12:28 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 042026
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Mason Bates. It’s (pretty obviously) based on the book, and there’s also a movie, a play, and a miniseries. So there’s virtually no end of resources to know what it’s about. I’ll just say that it’s aggressively anti-fascist. It was recorded last September when it opened the Met season. It’s not Nates’s first opera – that was based on the life of Steve Jobs and was included in the summer series several years ago. Not to disparage the first one, but this one is even more listenable – and also more tragic – which is to be expected from an oera which touches on the Holocaust. Also, just to clarify, the cartoon today is for Epiphany, which is January 6, which is not a Sunday. Today is the closest.

I’ve previously shared news about Mackenzie Scott’s philanthropy. But at the end of a very tough year, The Root found it appropriate to publish a reminder of how she keeps stepping up, and I agree. And the quotation from her at the end of the article – needs to be a meme.

This from the AP (referred by Daily Dose of Democracy) is absolutely flabbergasting. I have never heard before of an ectopic pregnancy coming to term. My mother almost died from one 8 years before I was born – hers was (like most) in a Fallopian tube, which burst, and she almost bled to death. This would have been around 1937, and blood transfusion was barely out of the dark ages, but her OBG found a way to transfuse the blood she was losing back into her and saved her life (and that too amazes me. Technically, I probably shouldn’t be here.) This snippet of my family history is a big part of the reasons I have so little patience with abortion opponents.

Referred by Daily Dose of Democracy, archived from The Guardian, this story reminds me that you cannot judge anyone by any factor as superficial as the country they are from. Individual people are individual people, and make individual choices, and good people from anywhere need to be valued.

Betty Bowers

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Open Thread December 5 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Dec 052025
 

Yesterday, another grand jury declined to indict Tish James. And in Colorado, a train derailed Wednesday night. All survived. Also – WRT thr cartoon – or whatever you want to call it – it is based on the phrase “Elf on the shelf” only different.

Heaven only knows how this will work out (and no one there will tell me). But I am glad the discussion is happening. (I have read recently that there is something in tattoo ink which gets into the bloodstream and does damage. Even if that includes brain damage – I haven’t gone beyond the headlines – that would be no excuse for Petey.)

This from Democratic Underground IMO demonstrates far more than just PTSD. There is deep resentment of betrayal here. The Russian Army is being run in ways we have never run our military, and Ukraine still doesn’t. I’m sure they think it makes soldiers “tougher.” In one way it probably does – but not in the way they think.

There are other sources for this story on the arrest of the alleged pipe bomber. I looked for the story at Law & Crime, even searched there, but they don’t yet have it (do not look there if you are prone to nausea). I just picked Joyce Vance for legal information, particularly in view of “this Justice Department.” I got that, and also some speculation on the length of time it took and the spin put on it. I am willing to believe that there may have been one or a group of agents in the FBI who deliberately sat on it, against the wishes of the rest of the bureau and of the administration. I am not willing to believe that the administration sat on it.

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Open Thread September 8 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 082025
 

Yesterday, I saw Virgil and we played cribbage. We had a wide variety of hands. If you have seen the riddle that Nameless posted Saturday, and read the comments, you may note that one hand I had was quite pertinent to it. Virgil was quite forgetful, but in a good mood (he pretty much always is when I visit.)  The drive was uneventful both ways – the weather and the traffic both cooperated. Also yesterday – here’s a little backstory – some months ago, one of the announcers at my local public radio station started a new program – his first themed continuing program) featuring Broadway musicals. Sometimes he’ll feature just one show, but more often it will be four or six shows which have something in common. I have missed having a regular Broadway feature – and it’s been so long since one has been available, I have gotten totally out of touch with the genre, so I listen to it pretty faithfully. Yesterday his show featured just one show – “Come From Away.” I had never heard of it nor of its writers or stars. Well, I have really missed out on something very powerful. It ran for well over 600 performances and won a bunch of awards, so it isn’t that it didn’t have publicity that I missed it – it was just me being out of the loop. I realize many people do not care for, or about, musical theater of any kind. But if you do, and if you aren’t familiar with this one, I don’t think you’ll regret looking it up.

This from The F* News suggests to me that irony may not be dead after all.

Dan Froomkin at Press Watch has the New York Times’s number. I can’t remember having heard or seen the term, “weasel word,” for a long time – possibly because the GOP hasn’t been using any, because they’ve been outright lying and misrepresenting everything. The word “great” really can’t be construed as a weasel word for “dictatorship.” And there are so many ways to spread lies.

Of course it’s not really possible to predict what someone is going to do, and it’s even harder when that someone is demented. But it is possible t recognize a playbook = especially one as well documented as that used by would-be dictators. And the Brennan Center does its homework.

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Open Thread August 26 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 262025
 

Yesterday, I got my usual weekly email from RBG’s son Jim, the record producer, about the week’s featured release. Among other things, it includes a new or newish piece which contains a musical reflection on what “home” means. This reminded me of Robert Frost’s famous quote “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in,” which seems timely in the context of the regime’s lust for deportation. It has always bothered me because it seems so cold. And it is cold. But I don’t think it was what Frost believed. He was using it in a character study of a very cold person (possibly a MAGAt long before his time.) Although today’s MAGAts are even colder – they won’t take you in, home or not. It comes from “The Death of the Hired Man.” I think Frost’s belief was closer to what the character’s wife answers – “I should have called it Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.” Also yesterday, the House Ethics Committee has had it with Republican crap and has instead sued the Epstein Estate (Axios).

You can, and maybe have, found this information elsewhere (Among others, Wonkette cites Mother Jones). But personally I find that their style makes one feel it as real, rather than just another news story. You may disagree.

Allow me to introduce this from the Contrarian, and why I’m posting it. When I had more free time than I do these days, I used to watch history videos from reliable sources from time to time. It’s “been a minute,” so I can’t now remember whether I got this information from two different videos or the same one, but here’s some information I learned about Russia and Ukraine. Back in the day when the Vikings pretty much owned the waterways, one of the places they raided was Russia. You probably have a mental image from British history and maybe other areas of people living in the invaded territory being killed off or at least fighting the invaders for their lives. Whatever territories that may have happened in, Russia apparently was not one of them – or at least not for long. The Russian people decided that the Vikings were highly organized and maybe even smart, so they invited the Vikings to stay and become their government. And enough did that for a goodly time (I can’t say how long since I didn’t follow it up – at the time I didn’t know how relevant it would be) the ruling class in Russia was composed of Vikings. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians were Cossacks (that’s still in their national anthem.) Cossacks were mercenary soldiers who worked for anyone who could and would pay them. But their agreements with these monarchs always included a clause that they were guaranteed self government. And I assume that means they never took an oath of fealty to any of them. And no, I don’t actually think that’s genetic – certainly not 100% or people like RFK Jr and Stephen Miller and Paul Gosar, whose families strongly reject their ideas, would all have to be adopted or illegitimate, and there’s no evidence for that at all. But if there is such a thing as national character, both nations have one which is eerily consistent with their centuries-old history.

This from The F* News is kind of connected to my introductory rant about what home means. You have probably seen the news, and I don’t suppose it takes much of either imagination or decent human feelings to see what is going on here. I believe Senator Van Hollen met in person again with Abrego Garcia over the weekend. The Uganda thing was not announced until Monday morning. Ketanji Brown Jackson brought up Calvinball in connection with the Court recently – but the regime is definitely playing it too.

Cat

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Open Thread August 19 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 192025
 

Yesterday, I learned that Mallory McMorrow (D-MI), the state senator who got national attention for being fierce, is running to represent Michigan in the US Senate. She joins Roy Cooper (D-NC) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), all candidates who accept no BS and are proven winners. This is exactly what we need (and could use a little more of.) Also yesterday, I woke up in more pain than usual (and the “usual” has been gradually worse for a while now.) I’m accustomed to my left knee flaring up and know how to deal with it. But when the right knee flares up too at the same time, that’s something I’m not used to dealing with. I iced the right knee and at the same time used the TENS on the right back and the left knee, and took an 80 mg aspirin (the largest I’m now allowed). The TENS helped. The ice, not so much, which didn’t totally surprise me, since the pain in the right knee feels different from he pain I get in the left one. I’m not even going to try to explain how. But anyway, I then put the TENS on the sides of the right knee. That didn’t help so I tried putting the pads n the front and back of the right knee. That helped some, but not enough to dispense with the walker. I think I’ll take one more aspirin.

I could wish that Ursula was wrong about this, but sadly, I think she has nailed it. Heck, I can even add an example – there was never even the slightest hint from the media during his presidency that JFK had Addison’s Disease.

John is actually 56 in calendar years. This makes me wonder just how tired I look at 80. No wonder I’m sleeping late so much. Please, everyone, get as much rest as you need.

I managed to squeeze a very brief note about this into yesterday’s OT, but of course I didn’t have the full story, which had not yet happened. Wonkette also covered it, but I think The F* News contains a bit more.

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Open Thread August 18 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 182025
 

Yesterday, Trinette was by. She took my old printer out of its site, put my new one there instead, and also took out an old (50 years) stereo/tape/AM/FM player which was state-of-the-art in its day. Also, I saw this at DU and found it to be a great relief. I hope you will also.

Yeah. There’s no way I could cover all of this in separate articles – assuming I could find them – and separately, it’s harder to discern a trend. But this from The Root does all that I can’t.

OK, I admit that I picked this article from The F* News because of the title. But it’s also current and important.

r
Here’s another multi=purpose article. Some of the full articles it references I have previously shared but most I haven’t. If you only want to look at one of the individual articles, may I suggest “Moving the Window”? The Overton Window is real, and people trying to move it to suit themselves can really be dangerous.

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Open Thread August 16 2025

 Posted by at 5:55 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 162025
 

Yesterday, it was brought home to me just how crazy our beloved country is now – it’s been over a month now and I only just learned the Grand Canyon is on fire.

From HuffPost. Shared without comment. I don’t have the vocabulary to do it justice

I could wish I hadn’t seen this in The Root. If you haven’t heard of Prager, it would be because I try to keep all religious stuff – Christian (real and fake), Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, Shinto, indigenous faiths, everything out of politics, as it should be. Clearly Prager does not agree.

I just couldn’t leave it at those two travesties when Joyce Vance had this to say. Incidentally, the staffer who writes the Trump**(*) parodies is named Camille Zapata who leads a team of three. They really have him nailed.

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