Lawful Disobedience

 It is not only permissible to disobey an unlawful order, it is your duty.  I believe that precedent was established at the Nurnberg War Crimes Trials, if not sooner.  The sticky part is, how do you know whether or not an order is unlawful?  The rule of thumb is, when in doubt, obey the order under protest and report it to a higher authority.  The exception is, if obeying the order would result in death or bodily harm to an obviously innocent person.  Then you can disobey the order outright but realize that you might have to prove your case in a court of law later.  

Okay, that's the theory, but it seldom works that way in real life.  What usually happens is both the person issuing the unlawful order and the person obeying it keep their mouths shut and try cover for each other if somebody makes a fuss about it later.  Personally, I prefer the theoretical approach, which is why I never achieved greatness in the military or corporate world.  That's okay, I never went to jail either.  Not everybody can say that.

I don't know what to think about gerrymandering.  Michigan changed their system to where a bi-partisan committee of carefully selected volunteers draws up the map instead of the legislature.  At least one lawsuit was filed by two previously Black districts who lost their dominance in the process.  I never heard how that came out.  Last I heard, the committee members were saying that they couldn't be sued because the committee no longer exists, having disbanded itself after its work was completed.  

As for Trump, we have already agreed that he is an asshole, so there's not much I can add on that subject.

burning issues

 University of Illinois is a land grant college and because of that all freshmen coming in had to take two years of ROTC.

I did not like it.  Shining shoes, polishing brass, marching.  Mostly I did not like saluting.  If you passed an officer and you were in uniform you had to salute them.  If you were looking off the other way and didn't see him they generally let it pass.  But one time some clown that I had been looking the other way on a few times called me out on it.  Chewed me out a bit.  Fucker.  I changed my route so that I never passed him again but still.  Fucker.

Anyway in the early days of the blog Beagles and I frequently debated the Vietnam war and I was going on about My Lai or something about being ordered to shoot people and Beagles said you didn't have to obey an unlawful order.

What?  I had never heard of that.  I admit that I was a little skeptical, like is Sarge going to let you get away with that, but Beagles said if he didn't like it you could appeal it all the way up.

Well I was still skeptical but just the fact that there was such a rule and that rank and file enlisted men were told about it impressed me quite a bit.

And now we have had a group of vets making a statement to our soldiers that they do not have to obey an unlawful order.

And the prez is saying that it's treason and reminding us that death is the penalty for treason, and his toadies are all lining up to back him up on his bold threat.

Fuckers.

So did you hear that the Texas gerrymander was given the thumbs down by the judiciary?  

Okay every state gerrymanders, some more, some less.  We have a census every ten years and then according to that data new districts are mapped out.  Of course most states cheat but that is the rules.

But at Trump's behest Texas did it at the halfway mark.  Dirty pool.  In response California has voted to join in the dirty pooling, you know, to make things nice and even like.

But now Texas' map has been thrown out.  So will California drop their remap.  Not bloody likely.  Well you know that would be complicated because a lot of changes will have to be made and that will cost money and maybe be unconstitutional and time is short and they may not be able to make the change before the election and because those Republican fuckers have been punching below the belt for a long time and it's time they got a taste of their own medicine.

But should California drop their map.  Absolutely.  One man, one vote is like basic Man.  Gerrymandering fucks with that, makes it so that the votes of the many are meaningless and discourages people from taking part in the democracy.

If it were up to me I am a little sorry to admit that I would let the California remap stay, because well I know if that if the shoe was on the other foot the Republican's would go all in for gerrymandering.

But that's me.  I admit I am pretty partisan.  But how do the American people feel about this?

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/21/poll-redistricting-partisan-gerrymandering-midterms-00663612

A majority of Americans support partisan map-drawing

Percentage of Americans who support redrawing congressional districts to neutralize the other party — and those who support doing so to gain a midterm advantage.

A stacked bar chart showing the percentage of Americans in both parties who support redrawing congressional districts to neutralize the other party — 68% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans — and the percent who support doing so to also gain an advantage in midterms — 54% of Democrats and 52% of Republicans.

Neutralize other party

answer

Support or strongly support

Oppose or strongly oppose

No position

Democrats

68%

6%

27%

Republicans

57%

10%

33%

Gain advantage in midterms

answer

Support or strongly support

Oppose or strongly oppose

No position

Democrats

54%

10%

36%

Republicans

52%

12%

                       35%

So what do you think about that?

Weather or not

Shitty summer, indeed; I don't envy you guys.  I'm a pretty regular guy most of the time but I seem to be more sensitive to certain foods, just got to keep an eye on things.  Had a visit from a nurse practitioner recently, courtesy of the health insurance provider, and things were fine.  I think it's more to check up on us geezers to make sure we still have our marbles, don't have any mobility issues, and to answer any questions we may have.  So far so good, but I sometimes get bamboozled by all the health information available these days, some of which is useful, but not much.  Consider the source, I say.  Everybody is selling something, it seems, and thank Zeus for ad blockers.

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There's a lot to be said about our current socio-political reality but I ain't gonna say it.  I'm not saying that I don't trust the bots, AIs, or algorithms but I don't want to be flagged because of certain words taken out of context.  It's like that old joke about a guy seeing an old friend on an airplane and he yells, "Hi, Jack!"  Maybe more on this, later.

Winter is icumen in.

 First off, in response to Beagles' summer report, I would like to say, without going into details that I am sure nobody wants to hear, I had a problem like the one Beagles had this summer too.

And the solution was Metamucil, one rounded teaspoon once a day at approximately the same time.  Anymore I am as regular as Big Ben.

I never did get around to telling the story of  my hundred buck visit to see the fabulous Gilliann Welch at the fabulous Auditorium, the product of the fabulous architect Louis Sullivan late this September.

It was fabulous.  I have listened to Gilliann often while I am painting in the morning, and of course she is always fabulous.  But because I am painting I am only listening with half an ear, and also I only hear the version that is on the CD, I am missing the whole experience.  

I have to say the Gilliann Welch band includes her partner David Rawlings.  I think he plays and sings melody so that he makes her sound better but it's hard to hear his individual voice and picking.  Well I don't understand the mechanics of music, perhaps Beagles could explain it.

But what I wanted to say was you don't hear that much of him on her CDs but in person he was a lot more prominent, and I wanted to say that he was, wait for it, fabulous.

And of course they played the tunes differently than they did on the  CD, and I had a nice seat in the front of the balcony, and it was just the two of them in a small rectangle of light in the middle of the huge stage.

I really should get out more often.

Big week ahead of me.  A visit to the Arboretum to see the fall colors and the general browning of flora as the clump, clump, clump, of Old Man Winter's icy boots echoes from the north.

Then the Twelfth Annual Punkin Palooza here in the towers which I always fret about attendance at, but which generally draws a large and happy crowd.

And then my improv group has an hour long show at the Cultural Center, which never draws much of a crowd, but hey, the show must go on.

And then November colder but, so far with a nice empty calendar and thus plenty of those beloved days where I wake up and there is nothing I have to do except eat and nap.

Happy Winter to the two of you.

How Was Your Summer?

 Mine was shitty.  No really!  I had chronic diarrhea from mid-July till mid-October.  Actually, I had it before that, but it went away by itself after a month.  This time it was two months and no end in sight.  I told my primary care nurse about it, and she referred me to a specialist.  After waiting another month for an appointment, he finally got to the bottom of the problem.  He did that by performing a colonoscopy, which means in English that he shoved a camera up my ass.  It wasn't as bad as it sounds.  I understand it was a really small camera, but you couldn't prove it by me because they rendered me unconscious for the procedure.  The day before was pretty rough though.  I couldn't eat for 24 hours, and I had to take three different laxatives that flushed out everything that I had eaten for the previous 24 days.  I thought it strange that he would prescribe laxatives for diarrhea, but it was necessary so that he could see what was going on in my colon, which in English means guts. 

Turns out I had three things wrong in there, colitis, diverticulosis, and a polyp that could have been cancerous but turned out not to be.  He cut the polyp out with some kind of tool that was operated by the same wire as the camera and sent it off to the lab, which is how he found out that it wasn't cancerous.  He said the diverticulosis shouldn't cause me any trouble if I consumed plenty of fiber, which should keep it cleaned out.  I can get the fiber by eating bad tasting cereal in the mornings, or by taking one of several over-the-counter supplements.  I opted for one of the supplements.  Then he sent me back to my primary nurse who prescribed an anti-inflammatory steroid to take care of the colitis.   I think it already has, but I'm supposed to take the whole four-week regime of pills.  I'm about halfway through that now, and everything seems to be coming out in the end.

Occupied Chicago.

 One of the great things about living in downtown is taking a Sunday stroll along the magnificent lakefront of THE GREATEST CIY INNA WORLD!!!

It's not so hot though when it is hot, because summertime is full of events like Taste and the big marathon and Lolla and the stoopid race, which means they have to put up porta potties and tents and worse of all fences.  Can't go here, can't go there and if you attempt to take a shortcut there is some fucking adenoidal high school drop out kid yelling at you.  I hate that.

Like last Sunday.  I was walking along the lake and thought I would take a turn west to see Buckingham Fountain because that is always open.  And it was open last Sunday.  I could see the spray clear from the lakefront.  But as I approached it my path was blocked by a fence.  The Queen's Landing was blocked by a fence!

Well I thought I would just walk south along the fence and surely there would be a break.  I got three blocks and no opening so I asked a cop how far do I have to go, and he reckoned Roosevelt.  Roosevelt!  Fer Chrissake, so I started heading back north.

And then I noticed a couple cops standing in a kind of dent in the fence.  As I approached them I noticed that one of the cops was wearing a face mask.  Fuck, cops don't wear face masks.  And as I got closer the face mask guy kind of backed away behind the other cop like he was hiding.  I could still see him though and as I passed I leaned in to get a better look at him, but then I remembered all those videos on tv and fb with brawny thugs slamming people to the ground and even if they had ID's they could be locked up for a couple days.  I walked on looking straight ahead.

After I got past them I was still thinking why is a cop wearing a mask and then I thought maybe he wasn't a cop.  How can you tell anymore?  Remember when cops wore uniforms?  Now half the time they are wearing combat gear, like ICE, like the border patrol, like the national guard.  We now live in a city where some crumbum in a mask can choose to slam you into the ground and that is just your tough luck. 

Same but different

I don't think Old Dog and I are getting the same internet.

Oh, it's the same internet; we just happen to wander through different parts of it.  I'm a sucker for odd bits of information and learning something new but I can't claim to be well informed.  My rule of thumb is that everything I see on a screen (including TV) is suspect and requires careful scrutiny.  Can't trust nobody these days and the arrival of AI makes thing worse; advertising and marketing have gotten a good jolt of steroids and we are lucky to retain any kind of sanity.

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I use YouTube to learn how to tell if an egg is hard boiled or not. or to play a song...

YouTube is a wonderful jukebox, isn't it?  I found a real oldie from my childhood when I was around 6; all I could remember was part of the tune and the words "our love is like a boomerang, boom boom boom, boomerang."  And a very deep voiced guy said the booms, I think.  The group was The DeCastro Sisters, and the guy was Thurl Ravenscroft.  You know, the original voice of Tony the Tiger.  Still up on YouTube, too.

But if I see some whippersnapper like that Jesse singing all I see is a snot nosed kid.

That kid is in his early 30s, been playing a long time.  Go back a few years and he (and his band) look like weirdo long-haired rockers, which they were.  Seems to me that he switched gears, got a stylist and found a new niche which may be more commercially viable.  More power to him: he's been selling out his shows.

Speaking of shows, how was that show at The Auditorium?  That's quite a place, saw The Grateful Dead there and even in the cheapest seats, way up in the back, the sight lines and sound were amazing.  Not sure where all that smoke was coming from (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

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Is Mr. Beagles still with us or is The Institute finally petering out?