Destruction and Mayhem and Irreparable Harm?

We're witnessing the destruction of a world order. Bound to happen sooner or later ,but I'd rather not have lived to see the US leading it.  Russia leading it? Sure. No brainer there. But the US? Heartbreaking,  wrenching, vomit-inducing. 

Not at the behest of the people of the world, that's for sure. At most, the US is less than 5% of the global population. And less than 30% of the total US electorate voted for the idiot that's leading the charge. I've called him all kinds of names - my faves being Felon47, Tangerine Twit and lately Donzilla, DimDon and Don the Destroyer. That 49% of the voters could vote for this will always enrage me. 

Just read a bit on Axios that describes DimDon the Destroyer of Worlds as a "realist" who sees "hard power" exercised by strong men. Turns my stomach. Headline on BBC was Idiot-in-Chief threatening Zelensky. Way to go, FoolFelon. Don't just kick an ally when it's being invaded and tortured, make it give you everything so you don't join in and steal what they have. That's what physical and moral cowards do, right? Side with the bully and... I can't go on. It's so damned ugly and cruel and vicious. And far too many other cowards and bullies are rooting him on. 

I hate it. I hate that what used to strive to be the House on the Hill, a beacon of liberty and justice (never attained but at least sometimes striven for), a voice for reason and peace... has become this. Stingy, bullying, vicious, malicious, conniving, petty, destructive, intentionally cruel, greedy - January 19, 2025 was our last day as even trying to be humane and caring. With F47, we seem to be embracing barbarism's worst instincts and gleefully oblivious to the misery we're causing around the world. He and his minders are literally taking food away from the hungry, inflicting horrific agony on millions needing food, medicine, care, and depriving thousands of their lawful and productive employment in order to further enrich the hyper-wealthy. 

And the venial Justices do nothing. They slow walk anything that might interfere with the wishes of their masters - Looking right at you Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh and Roberts. You're enabling this destruction, accepting bribes and blithely ignoring the Constitution. Paying back some of those favors for a more luxurious life, even as the rest of us are gasping for air and justice. Even rule of law would be nice. But no, you owe your buddies over at the Heritage Foundation too much. They are worth more than the rule of law, your honor or your souls. They likely own you, so you bow to their wishes and slimy dreams of power. May your god meet you and be sickened. And of course, may you rot in hell.

Over the past 40 years, I've watched and worked and voted for my country to evolve into a just society, where work and merit and justice were hallmarks of a good, caring and generous society. I've cheered when good people helped others devastated by natural or man-made disasters. I've winced when so-called leaders sent thoughts and prayers to victims of violence, injustice, hatred, longing for real leaders to be recognized and offer service to the rest of us. People like Kamala and Joe and Barack and Michelle. I've cringed as our society embraced "reality" entertainment that was openly and cravenly unrealistic.  I've called out the Bread and Circuses, tried to illuminate the workings and mechanics of the oligarchs to render us ignorant. I've cheered when real heroes tried, failed, got up and tried again and again. When real leaders took the hard road because it was the correct and humane one. 

And now I weep as American society stands by and cheers evil, as their sordid heroes cheat and bully and pardon the evils that tear at the social fabric that creates society itself. We've done this to ourselves - we've chosen to cheapen our own lives in the name of ease and entertainment.

May the good out there in our country and elsewhere keep working to fight this evil. May we who value justice, charity, compassion and kindness find the strength to prevail. Slava Ukraine! Free Tibet! Free the United States, and may we deliver ourselves from the greedy grasping fools!

Oh, The Horror! The Horror!

 I don't even know where to begin! When I first heard of the Tangerine Twit's imperialist aspirations, I laughed. Panama? Seriously? Because he thinks they are overcharging US ships? Greenland? Canada?? Ah, I thought, just another razzle-dazzle to distract his cult members. DOGE? Be real. You want to cut costs, eveybody in the country has suggestions on where to start. The problem is - and this is the crux - that everybody also has a personal Thing to exempt from various cuts. Muzi (Musk = Nazi-ish = Muzi) as some kind of genius outsider who can get in anywhere and cut willy-nilly! How clever (not). Muzi's first targets were those agencies with whom he was in trouble. Agency X has some questions? Cut it, kill it, fire everybody. Agency Q dares to question Muzi's motives? Cut, Kill, fire. Muzi doesn't like that research? Cut, kill, fire. In a way, it's kind of a typical Twit-ish move. Fire anybody that questions your authority, and then - right out of Project 2025 - about which DimDon knows nothing, remember? - build it with loyalists who put DimDon before even themselves, much less the country. 

Now there are quite of few of us that regard DimDon as... worse than dim. Obviously, he's still in Putin's pocket - that was obvious in his first term almost immediately. Now, while Russia's circumstances have changed, Putin can still pull the strings and TangerineTwit dances. My hunch is that Putin and Muzi had a meeting of the minds, and decided Felon47 was the right front man. Do you remember when the papers talked of Muzi's frequent calls with Vlad the Bad? When Muzi cut off Starlink because it would help the Russians in their imperialist projects? Can you imagine that Muzi and Vlad aren't having cozy chats now? Vlad's pretty transparent in his goals: he wants to stay in power, and he wants Ukraine back under his control. He's lost 800,000 men at this point (all are estimates, because Vlad doesn't want anyone to know how many killed or wounded as that would expose his lies). Now that Muzi is in the White House and directing traffic as well as destroying any semblance of a stable state, Putin has to be delighted. I imagine it won't be long before he instructs DimDon to withdraw from and kill NATO. That would be a huge coup for Vlad. Muzi would be delighted because then he can buy more candidates who will then dance to the Moscow-Muzi music.

Can NATO survive without the US? Probably. A united Europe would be in a vulnerable position, surely, with two hostile neighbors. If one believes that the US will survive this second Trumpian term (I have serious doubts), then one might hope for a return to stability and relative sanity. A future administration might be able to cobble together a new relationship with democratic Europe. If Muzi , the Heritage Foundation and Vlad have their way, the US as a global power will end altogether, and we'll all end up under authoritarian nationalist governments. All too plausible - my only real hope is that all these guys die. Soon. Tonight would be good. 

The Tangerine Twit is 78 and failing but has a coterie of fawning followers that prop him up. JD is a wannabe, but will be discarded for someone who doesn't have a terminal case of foot-in-mouth. He's just too pathetic to rally even cult members, much less get Muzi's ear. Vlad would swat him like a gnat. Vlad is 72, and while he's not as strong politically as he used to be, he's still too scary for his circle to mess with. They might end up falling out of windows, you know. Muzi, unfortunately, is only 53.  We might get lucky and he'd be stuck in a Tesla truck when it self-destructs. But he's got loads of money (378+ billion) and that buys a lot of political attention. He got The Twit for only a quarter of billion! And now he's basically in charge of what was a very powerful country! One source puts Vlad's wealth at a mere 70-200 billion! Twit? Well, let's see. Right off the bat, he's got a nearly 500 million debt that he has to wiggle out of... but guesstimates put him at a measly 7 billion. That will increase as right now Muzi's setting up a massive grift for Donnie, and Muzi will want a cut of that, as will Vlad. As we all know, the money for Putin and Muzi is secondary - but Donnie is dollar driven. So as long as the other two keep him going, Donnie will do nothing to stop or slow their group global grift project.

Muzi        53        378+ billion        unchallenged power over US government, independent

Vlad         72        70-200 billion    unchallenged power over Russian government, political

Twit          78        7 billion            controlled by external factors, dependent on those

Now, as DimDon is too dim and too sociopathic to realize he's been played and there are more than 77 million cultists are as well (apparently, but probably not all sociopaths), Muzi and Vlad seem to have an excellent hand. Of course, more people voted against the Tangerine Turd than for (out of 156, 302, 318, he got 77,284,118; 48%. 51% voted for somebody else and far too many didn't even bother to vote. (1) Don is dim, but the other two are conniving and canny, so I cannot imagine they are dumb enough to allow a real vote in 2028 - probably not even in 2026. 

It's all rather sad, really. Three crazed egomaniacs trying to dominate the world. Muzi's in the best position, of course, but it's easier when you have a puppet and a partner. All of them are counting on the rest of us feeling vulnerable, powerless and helpless. Not sure any of them have factored in the crazies here in the US, armed and eager to shoot people. There've been 2 attempts on Don and I have no doubt there will be attempts on Muzi, especially as he continues to slash and burn D.C. Were I he, I'd have a bunch of really big bodyguards around me. Like the Secret Service - ready to defend me with their lives. Not sure he doesn't have them anyway. Do senior advisors get Secret Service protection? Ask for that Muzi; Don will likely be happy to pick up that tab too. Guaranteed if you slip him a tip.

Ducking the Horrors of Trump 2.0

Oddly, while his recent actions horrify me, I'm not totally freaking out. Rather, I have a desire to shout to the heavens "I told you so!!"

I won't of course. But he's actually going slower than I expected. I really did expect him to formally and officially terminate the Constitution by Day 2. And he hasn't. Granted, he's given extraordinary power to Elon, and is doing everything by fiat, but he hasn't formally trashed the Constitution. Given Citizens United, the degradation of the electoral process since Nixon, the end of the Fairness Doctrine in the 1990s, none of this is a big surprise. At least to those who haven't been imbibing in the Republican kool-aid since the 60s. Maybe doing acid and heroin was actually better than the Republican kool-aid in the long term. 

I've been a big fan of Heather Cox Richardson since I found her (only in 2023, far too late). Her analyses are spot on, and so helpful right now. And since I agree with her and she's more articulate and has a far better foundation in US history than I do, I happily defer to her. There's a reason I didn't want to even look at American history past 1947: I simply didn't have the needed objectivity. She does. I knew it infuriated me to discover the malfeasance and misdeeds of this country that I loved, and that I wouldn't be able to be calm and scholarly about it. So I am very grateful to find a scholar of such distinction right now. 

I was a full blown adult in the 1980s, and doing both undergrad and MA work, and thus developing and honing my professional skills. And I was utterly thunderstruck that people actually listened to Reagan and bought his kool-aid. His elections were hard lessons in the gullibility of the American electorate. His campaigns were, to me, so patently & obviously manipulative that I simply gaped that so many chose him.  His second term, with his ever-so-obvious cognitive decline, was another painful lesson and I started to wonder how people could so eagerly overlook the evidence of his... craziness. 

Ultimately, I recognized that the responses to cognitive dissonance are far more powerful than we'd like to think (if that isn't a tautology...).  Lord knows how many studies have looked at this - including my own dissertation and much of my professional research since. Americans are taught from the cradle to embrace magical thinking, to regard evidence as unnecessary and likely false. We're not alone in that, but what continues to bemuse me is our insistence that any evidence we don't like on nearly everything is false and being presented maliciously. We might say we did x, y or z based on solid evidence, but we certainly don't act that way. Woe to those who might question anything that challenges our magical thinking fantasies. 

So I'm oddly calm as my country is destroyed around me. I'm not reading everything I can get my hands on about the travesties of Trump 2.0. Rather, I'm idly wondering who's going to archive the evidence away from the bastards who will 'clean' up our history and disappear the evidence of atrocities we've committed in our history (and present). That they intend to rewrite history is a given - they've said it again and again, and it's been going on forever. So whoever is around 200 years from now will look back at this period, this geographical spot and hopefully find an archive of scholarly work that doesn't argue the ends justify the means. Maybe they'll recognize the kool-aid histories as travesties and wonder how we let that happen. 

Maybe they'll have air to breathe. Trees to sit under. Oceans full of life. I hope so. But if the current path humanity is on continues, I'm sure the USA won't be around. Not as a democracy - more likely another historical example of hubris, arrogance and what happens to a culture raised on bread & circuses.

Raging Against OWM

 OWM: Old White Men. Also Only White Men

What is it that makes white people think - believe - that the color of their skin makes them somehow special? Immediately more able than any other person in the mix? That any NON-OWM in a position of X is there because of anything other than ability? Frankly, I don't know many OWM who I would trust with my used cat litter, much less as a leader of anything other than stepping into a pile of shit.

A few. I know a few who ARE competent, intelligent and able to use their brain vs their ego (and dick) when they have to make a decision. I know far more of the other types - who will rationalize their decisions after the fact. My father would only own red Fords - didn't matter what a POS it was, it was a red Ford so he liked it. He'd tell people it was because they were great vehicles, but every one he owned turned into a mess because he didn't take care of it and wouldn't get it out of second gear and standard gear cars were the only ones real men drove. He told my mom that women couldn't drive stick shifts - she'd been driving them for her entire life. Women, he said, weren't smart enough. Such BS. 

What brought this on? Trump 2.0. It's all of Day 3 and that fool is already implementing OWM policies. He's ordered an immediate suspension of all federally employed DEI personnel. And fired a few in various military branches. And his toadies are jumping with joy and accusing these career service members - without any knowledge of those members or their performance - as "unqualified." Trump himself is unqualified, FGS.  So is Vance. And I can say with high confidence that any supporter of Trump as a leader or successful businessman is unqualified to judge anyone else. If they can't open your damned eyes and see what a con man Don is, they are certainly not qualified to judge anyone else.

They might be qualified to take a bag of used cat litter to the garbage can. I will have to check your work, because my confidence in that is pretty low.

February 2024. Already.

 RBOPC (Random Bullets of Political Crap)

• As I write this, the Supreme Court is deciding on Colorado's ban on Trump on their ballot. Honestly, I just want Trump gone from the American political scene. I think they'll rule against Colorado, for various reasons. Roberts has already intimated that he's not comfortable with any single state "deciding" an election, which sounds rather hypocritical to me, considering the conservative's long history of "state's rights." And I can't see them Trump-appointed justices voting against him, as well as Alito and Thomas. Clarence should have recused himself on any of these cases, anything on the Jan 6 cases as well as anything that concerns Ginny's actions to overturn the 2020 election. This decision is going to damage the court any way it decides; I'd rather see it damaged by acknowledging that Trump instigated the insurrection and hold him accountable there. The damage of overturning the Colorado decision will be far longer lasting, as it will again clearly demonstrate just how corrupt this court is. And how arrogant and hypocritical the GOP has become.
• In British Columbia, the local media scene got a major blow when Bell decided to shut down too many local radio stations and newscasts. I love what the Premier called their business practices: the encrapification of news journalism. Such a perfect term. Encrapification really does describe what too much of the media - broadcast and cable/streaming - has become & done. With the consolidation of the media over the past decades, independent news is rare while the search for ever greater profit has turned the media landscapes into wastelands. Things change, all the time - I'm good with that. But the media, in search of content that will draw eyeballs & ears (and thus $$), has encrapified nearly everything it has touched. In my little corner of this reality, it seems to have begun when TLC/Discovery turned from teaching, learning and discovery into Rape & Pillage voyeurism. That's when I first noticed it anyway. Discovery went from exploring science and the natural world to watching Guys (usually unkempt and hairy) kill stuff: forests, fish stocks, the earth itself. And do it all for profit, without regard for anything but their own thrills and bucks. And every time I think that maybe people are getting tired of Rape & Pillage, another "reality" show pops up. Which depicts somebody's fantasy, I guess, but it's really all just bread & circuses. Anything to distract people from thinking, a constant diet of junk food for the brain.  Americans aren't just suffering from obesity in ever growing numbers: we've developed into flabby-brained chits incapable of critical thinking. And angry at anybody & everybody who notices it.
• We hit the tipping point of 1.5 degrees centigrade in 2023 - and much sooner and faster than the climate scientists expected. And the US is still arguing about that reality. Day after day we get reports of climate disasters around the world, and still we deny climate change. We really don't deserve to survive this: we're what? 4.23% of the global population, and the second largest contributor of greenhouse gases (China's #1, with 17.72% of global population). 
• Here's one for you: 30% of the world's children suffer from hunger. "There are around 690 million people experiencing food insecurity globally, and 60% of those individuals are female."  Hunger and the Gender Gap | Move For HungerMove For Hungerhttps://moveforhunger.org › the-links-between-hunger-a...

Random Bullets of a Monday

Just back from a lunch with some... friends. The relationship is in an odd place where you kind of want to meet them 'for old times sake' but the 'old times' really weren't that great. And then the old gang kind of fell apart and new relationships creep into a stranger place. So I found myself getting back to my car and thinking 'thank god that's over.' That's just sad. And very true. It's a once a year lunch, so not onerous, just... this was uncomfortable for me.

War between Israel and Hamas, with a couple of million Palestinians taking the brunt of the retribution. I think a lot of people are torn, knowing that the Gaza situation is horrific, accepting that Hamas' actions are horrible, that Israel's restrictions on Gaza and the West Back are terrible - getting things/people in/out of Gaza were made ever more difficult, I can see both sides. Netanyahu is an ass; terrorism is a last resort kind of response. No good guys, lots of bad guys, lots of civilians on both sides becoming ever more hostage to the extremists.

The Ukraine war worries me, as the US seems to be at best luke-warm on the project. The Project being, let me make clear, supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression. I hate that support for Ukraine is a political football between factions here in the US. I hate that the Republicans are increasingly promoting an isolationist policy that plays Putin's game. All for show, because they want power and that's apparently all they care about, and are willing to do anything to get/keep it.

Part of this, I hope, is my body's reaction to my four vaccines yesterday. I'm achy and head achy, grumpy and lack interest/focus in just about everything. I felt good this morning, working in the garage and getting stuff resorted and rearranged. Now, with a good lunch (fish tacos) in me, all I want to do is curl up with a book and some dogs and hide from everybody and everything. Again, sad. I think I shall follow my body signals, and get warm, comfy and settled in. With the hope that after a few hours of that, interest in something will kick my ass up and doing.

Well, That was Interesting...

 Yes, indeedy. McCarthy losing a vote of confidence. Led by the All-Time-Loser, Matt Gaetz. Wow. Just goes to show what Lenin said was right: a small number can have an outsized effect. McCarthy gave them power, and he caved to them all along. Until he did the right thing, passed a continuing resolution with the support of Democrats - and against the mini-mob. The rest of the GOP has also shown their colors - they might have supported him as Speaker, but they too are so afraid of their extreme wing that they do nothing else. American politics are so f-d up.

The gag order on Trump is lovely, but of course he doubles down. And runs away from his lawyers in NY to go pout and spout from Mar-a-Lago. The question now is: when (not if) he spouts his vile lies from there, will a NY judge slap him down? And how? Personally, were I that judge, I'd give him a meaningful fine (say $5 million) the first time. Double it the second, and nail him to the wall for contempt on the third.  If Trump really has the cash to pay $15 million in fines for the first two, and continues?  Make it very clear that the next one will be heavily fined and incur even more limits on his bile. Like $50 million plus jail time. I hesitate with the jail thing, because Don would relish that as campaign fodder. 

Don's request for further delay in the rest of the cases should be denied out of hand, by all judges. Or conditional: only if he retires from campaigning (for anyone) and agrees to leave politics altogether. He's just too nuts to continue to be a player of any type. The DOJ did it with Agnew; do it with the far more toxic Trump!

Would that stop the extremists? O no, I doubt it. They are loving their tastes of power; only being turned out of office by their constituents would defang them; they'll then go on the speaking tours and rile up others. How do we get the slime of the troll cohort to crawl back under their slime and stay there?

I'm very worried that US support for Ukraine will be cut off; Putin's treasury may be big, but his military and political classes are not ignorant of what is going on in the war. Can he expand that further? He'll try, no doubt, and he loves waving his nuclear toys about. In a way, I see that as fair: Truman did that when we had the atomic weapons, to get Stalin to participate in the war against the Japanese. I can only hope that somewhere in the Putin sphere there are military commanders with the foresight and courage to stop him. Given Vlad's record dealing with opposition, they are going to have to be quite brave and put their lives on the line. 

I'm really hoping that Zelensky will have the will and courage to call elections, and that he can win. And that Putin and Trump can stay the hell out of Ukrainian politics!

Political Weirdness

 First, McCarthy's apparent incapacity to do his job, which is to act as LEADER of the House Majority. He's letting the extremists hold the entire government hostage - instead of opening the vote to Democrats. The Guardian says he'd open himself to a challenge to his "leadership," by which they mean his title vs his actions. If he could demonstrate some leadership, we could acknowledge that he is Leader. He isn't demonstrating any kind of leadership and openly acknowledges that the extremists are "willing to burn the place down" - yet he could, singlehandedly get spending bills passed, bills he already agreed to pass. This isn't leadership, this is reckless endangerment. Six people are holding the country hostage, and their so-called leader is more concerned with holding onto his own title than getting on with the business of government. 

Second: The Supreme Court. I used to have the highest regard for that institution and now... well now, I simply cringe as we learn of the blatant corruption so evident in the actions of Justices who consider themselves above the law. Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito, I'm pointing at YOU. Both should have recused themselves on issues before the court that they had direct personal ties/links to: recusal is the very least they should have done. If they had any morals they should never have taken the original steps that led to the calls for them to recuse. Above and beyond any personal animosity that I have toward these men, if they cannot recognize a bribe on their own, they have no place on the highest court. Their ideas of what is right and just are skewed by their sense of entitlement that any hope for a disinterested analysis of the facts and law must be abandoned. They have disgraced themselves and brought the institution of the very Court itself into disrepute. That the Chief Justice refuses to rebuke or challenge them is just another horrific weakness revealed. Alito argues that Congress cannot impose an ethical standard on justices, citing both judicial independence and separation of powers. If we buy that argument, then there is  no way to impeach a Justice, so the rest of the country is stuck with a deeply compromised Supreme Court that cannot be challenged. This would make the nomination and confirmation process even more important than ever. That process must be de-politicized completely, although the methods and challenges to that are enormously complex and fraught. It only takes one, such as Trump and/or McConnell, to dismiss long standing traditions to screw it up (as they did with Kavanaugh). We're all stuck with Brett the Brat for a very long time to come.

Third: Menendez. Oh dear lord. How dare anybody suggest that accepting cash and gold in return for skewing legislation/access is not the work of a legislator?! Seriously? That's his defense? I'm pretty sure he took the Oath of Office... but then again, so have others in the various branches of government who accept what any one else would call a bribe. This systemic corruption isn't new, but what seems now both commonplace and completely out of hand has to be stopped. And stopped hard when it is unearthed. We can research and analyze the actions and attitudes that changed our understanding of the responsibilities and obligations of political and business actors - in my lifetime, I see a major turn with the Citizens United case of 2010. But the loss of the Equal Time provision and implementation (it's still on the books but you'd never know it, because... Citizens United) put money above all else. We saw the consequences of all of this money throughout the 20th century. And now well into the 21st. It used to be tobacco and the energy companies, handing out cash like crazy - then Big Pharma jumped into the mud puddle. They weren't just spending lavishly on candidates, but actively purchasing, in cash, access and 'incentives' to legislators - latest example, Menendez. We kind of hoped they weren't doing that with judges... obviously, they were are are continuing to do so, and apparently it's a completely open market. Sure, buy me a car and I'll talk to some people. Open some doors. That's a bribe folks, pure and simple. If you can't resist, don't run for office. You are there to represent the people of your district or state, not Pharma or Russia or Big Oil. Or, in Menendez's case, Egypt.

I'm always struck by the hypocrisy of the Extreme Right, citing the Bible and defying its most basic teachings at the same time. Touting their Christianity while inciting hatred. As some wit noted: let's get the Christ back in Christianity. Let's get past the Old Testament 'shall not' lists, and instead hold up the Beatitudes. Boy, wouldn't that take the steam out of the "Freedom Caucus"!

Sunday Morning Comin' Down...

 O, it's a lovely morning here in my tiny corner of the PNW. Too many fires in the Olympics though: yesterday I woke from a lovely nap to yellow light - smoke filled the western sky and turned everything kind of ominous. Once I tracked down what it was, and where it originated (there's a website that gives you updates on fires around the US!) I felt less Damocles-ish. But the smoke lingered; the fire had been burning since 28 August, but this was the first time the winds had driven the smoke & ask our direction. Once again, the effect of the Olympic Rainshadow clearly demonstrated! (I feel this absurd desire to create links to all these things, when I know there are zero people out there reading and even fewer (ha!) interested in such things. And besides, I don't want any more people up here!

Does that make me a ladder-puller? I read that term the other day - referencing Clarence Thomas I think. I hate to think that I'd have anything in common with that... thing. But the term does seem to fit that all too common phenom of pulling the ladder up after you to keep others from attaining your spot. And that's definitely how I feel about my corner of the planet. There are already too many people moving here.

So yesterday was a weird one: I slept until very late (11 AM) and then spent the entire day flumping around with very little energy and less interest. Even took aforementioned nap! Spent some lounging time on the patio in the sun, which was lovely (despite the group of men outside my fence installing a new community bulletin board). They were putting the finishing touches on their erection; two working on installing an overhang and a couple supervising and commenting. The day before, the 'placement committee' had spent a couple of hours deciding precisely where to  put the thing; much talking and debating, a couple of women giggling and even outright laughing, then the women disappeared and the men began digging the holes. I'm sure they are all rather pleased with their efforts; I'm just astonished at how long it took them to put it up. And then afterwards, the president of the HOA came by to tweak it. 

Why do I care? Well, the thing is in the best place for such a bulletin board: next to the mailboxes. Which is maybe 20 steps from my back gate. People reasonably take their dogs when they come to check their mail, and stop to visit and exchange pleasantries with anybody doing the same. They commonly move away from the mailboxes to allow other space, and all that? Well, the dogs + people + friendly chatter = trigger my dogs' barking. For which I'm already in trouble. I understand the dynamic, but my neighbor - who is unaware of the situation, only hears my dogs and she's the one that complains. Sigh. First World Problems of privilege.

From the Moroccan earthquake to the Libyan floods, to the Chinese floods, the fires and floods in Greece and Turkey... the world is a mess. I sincerely hope the GOP disintegrates into chaos, and especially the Freedom Caucus and their extremist ideology. Ms Bobert can join MTG and Carrie Lake in the lowest circle of hell, along with McConnell, the Freedom Caucus, McCarthy and their adored tyrant Trump. And Putin, yeah he and Kim can join that party. Orban welcome there too. There are so many on the guest list; I just wish the party would start there and they'd all disappear from here ASAP.

We got to paint this past week, and I'm very excited for those to dry. I'm ready to paint some more! I played with the Amsterdam pearl paints, following the videos of Molly's Artistry and Mark Ratcliffe:

The Wet Version 

It's a dark blue base (I think, either that or dark purple), with the pearl paints that only really show up when dry: there's blue, purple, red and green, and the gold is DecorArt's 24K Gold. Once they start moving, the blue and purple begin to show up, but the other two only show when dry. I know there's some green in one or two areas, but the red may have melded into the purple. It doesn't show here but there's a really cool depth to the painting, and when you angle your view or the canvas, there's a gold sheen that seems to float over the colors. I did another with similar colors but a different technique, very different look to it with lots more negative space. then a spring-colored one, with no negative space. That one may be  put into the re-use pile of canvases. Actually I did 4, all of which I thought were keepers. But I can't even remember the 4th...

I also helped Chicago finish her chicken habitat, and was rewarded with this:  Matilda & Me

We worried that one of the other hens was actually a rooster, as s/he'd started crowing and picking on the others. She's been really broody for a while, then the aggression and crowing - we were worried. Chicago told the hen/rooster that if s/he continued to behave like that, s/he couldn't stay. Friend noted that she'd read that some hens could actually turn into roosters... but today? Well, that hen produced her first egg. So I totally get her grumpiness the other day! As she is one of the two youngest (by two weeks), the others may quickly follow in the laying of eggs. The time and money spent on these $2 chickens makes that single egg worth about $5,000 so far. Minimum. But then you consider the joy and laughter they've given? I figure we still owe them; it's so much fun to sit with them and just be.

May your days be filled with such simple pleasures and hours of joy & laughter.

Once upon a time...

 I used to have a blog, Scattered & Random, which was short for Scattered Thoughts and Random Ideas (STARI). When I lost that blog, and it went inactive, it died and took with it all I'd written. Occasionally, I find stuff in the Way Back Machine, but never what I really want. As is the way of the internet, right?

But the idea of having a place to explore thoughts and ideas sticks. I've missed blogging regularly, and still check blogs from my 'previous life' (academia and people whose blogs I read then), and some I've found more recently. I need to find more - I long for those casual but meaningful conversations on wide ranging issues. Out of academia and into a far less stressful life now, what I find I miss most are the conversations about ideas, concepts and questions.

Such as: I stumbled onto a FB post a couple of days ago about a woman who'd left the Christian church because her experience was so negative and she saw violence and hatred justified 'in the name of the faith.' I was heartened to read that, even more to see that so many agreed with her. On Pinterest I saw a thing: Forget putting Christ back in Christmas; let's get Christ back into Christianity! I agreed with that too. So I'm glad to encounter others who share my own experience and outlook: I left the church I grew up in when I was about 12. My family got a bill from that church, and on the bottom of the note was: We accept Visa and MasterCard. I was stunned and angry: God sends bills? God takes plastic??!! My poor mother tried to explain and talk me down, but I was just horrified. That experience ended my life-long (all 12 years) of participation in church activities. 

Decades later, I came across a quote: "Spirituality is about a connection with a divine; religion is about crowd control." Don't have any idea who said it, or how it's been modified, but it rings so true to my own experience and my professional training. Religion is used for control and manipulation so frequently, that we really can't say it's 'mis-used' - not when people around the world, from all kinds of religious communities, justify cruelty and violence and even indifference in the name of their god(s). If that was a rare occurrence, we might say it's a misuse of religion; but it's far too common for that. 

So I consider myself a pagan, an animist who works to recognize the value and dignity of every manifestation of being: the trees, the rocks, the rivers and the oceans - all are interconnected and a part of a greater whole and deserve honor, respect and protection. 

The 'whole' isn't just an eco-system, or even a planet - in my lifetime we've moved from a view of the universe as a relatively small Huge thing to our solar system as a tiny part of an enormous system - just take a hard look at JWST images, and our galaxy is so tiny! We can only 'see' 13.5 billion years - 10 years ago, that wasn't really possible, never mind the galactic paradigms of the 1950s! I clearly remember when somebody first found another planet in a different solar system, and how astonishing that was. I remember clearly when Jacques Cousteau first filmed the deep sea life forms, and revealed that photosynthesis was only ONE of the processes that converted energy into organic compounds. I remember my astonishment and wonder at the very idea of chemosynthesis and was transfixed. Hubble images were equally mesmerizing, and JWST? Well, that just blew me away. Still does. A friend once explained to me that we don't know how to see non-carbon based life forms - that there could be silicone life forms out there that we simply don't know how to look for. That seemed so logical to  me, and I wonder if scientists have figured that out yet. I just read that chickens can see UV - and I wonder if that ability is in other animals - having lived with both cats and dogs, I know that both can sense things I can't. It makes sense to me that we don't all share the same capabilities, the same rods and cones... so if chickens can see UV, what else can? The world/universe/multiverse is so big, so wondrous, so amazing... how can we not be aware of how much we don't know? How can we not be fascinated by the unknown? Why are so many people so terrified by the unknown? 

Paganism, for me, encourages an exploration of the closest and grandest 'wholes' around us. Crowd control offers some one else's answers for my (many) questions, and it offers security to so many. I can't help but question that taught need for security. And I resent like hell those who think that those of us outside their religion need to be controlled. Limited. Restricted. They are far more dangerous to everyone than I will ever be. They have every right to their beliefs: they do not have the right to impose their religion on others. Period.