Advance to the Rear

 That was the name of a movie I saw many years ago.  It was a comedy, set in the days of the old blue coat army.  I don't remember much about it, but the central theme was that a company of soldiers retreated when they should have advanced.  In the subsequent investigation, one of the soldiers was asked why he had retreated on that day.  He replied, "I didn't know we were retreating, I thought we were just advancing in a different direction."  I am also reminded of the old saying, "If you don't know where you're going, you're liable to wind up somewhere else."  My point is, before our nation can move forward, we must first agree on which way is forward.  What some people consider forward, others consider backward.  If we could all agree on where forward is, we'd likely already be there.

I saw a brief article about this "Forward" group on my news app last night.  I found it interesting, so I clicked on the link to their official website.  Now that I have read the Wiki article, I think I know all I need to know about these people.  I have been looking for a new home since the Trumpists took over the Republicans and the gays took over the Libertarians, but this ain't it.  Here's another article about this:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/andrew-yang-s-third-party-is-going-nowhere/ar-AA104QIJ?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

Michigan's primary is coming up in a few days, and I'm about as ready for it as I will ever be.  There are three contested races for the Republican nominations for Governor, state house, and state senate.  As near as I can tell, all the candidates are Trump fans, varying only in degree.  I tried to pick the least Trumpiest ones and was aided by a couple of attack ads that identified them as fake Trumpists. 

 

FORWARD!!!

 Oh yeah no names, the vaguest of platforms, a big button for you to donate.  You can bet I will be cutting them a fat check.

Oh wait, I went to the wiki   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_Party

And it turns out that this is Andrew Yang's party.  I liked him a little in the dem primary, but not enough to send money to a site he doesn't want to put his name on.

This is New, At Least to Me

 I don't know if I like it or not, but it's something to think about.  

https://www.forwardparty.com/merger_splash?splash=1

bugs

 

It shall always be known in our hearts and minds as The Murder Hornet.

And what about this fellow?  I thought that this portrait was the beauty in the bunch, but some people, who apparently had cabins in Wisconsin, loathed it because of the actual bug.  I wonder if his ilk inhabit the swamp.

This is the only one in the bunch that sold.  And the only one who was at one time a threat to the Schadt family garden and, when detected, met his fate as a green smear under the foot of my grandfather Janovsky.

Go figure.

Murder Hornet Gets New Name

 Remember the murder hornet?  Well, it's no longer politically correct to call it that.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-so-called-murder-hornet-has-a-new-name/ar-AAZXA1n?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

Batting sixth, and playing third...

 That's my tower to the east.  I am in the lowest ring, the lower east side of the lower east side of the lower east side of the east tower.  Come Columbus Day I will have lived here for thirty years, almost half my life.  Good years mostly.

I like the way the seedling stretches out to the stars.  I was thinking he ought to have a name, and then it occurred to me that he does: Red Mango.  Third base for the Pittsburgh Pirates, 1933-1939, good glove, occasional power, maybe a little too fond of the Miller High Life, but a good family man, Fred, Ned, and Zed, and of course Fredricka who played the screaming young woman in many of those fabulous monster movies of the 50's.

Ned though, I was thinking a couple days ago, what is it short for?  Well it turns out that it is short for Edward.  WTF.  So if you want to honor Ned Flanders by naming the kid after him, you have to name him Edward, and then bypass the obvious Ed, and call him Ned.  I suppose you could name him Nedward, no probably not.

Old Dog and I have names with the full panoply, Kenneth, Ken, Kenny; Donald, Donny, Don, which we can choose from depending on the occasion, but what of our friend out in the swamp?  

Carl?  I suppose you could go to Carlton, but Carlie does not sound right at all.  You could do the Karl thing which is a little sinister, but also exotic.

The particular section of internet health care that I sampled, didn't seem to worry too much about it.  Eat right young man, and get plenty of exercise and fresh air and you'll be just fine.  You might want to cut down on the beer though.  Yeah right.  That Mayo Clinic, bunch of worry warts if you ask me.  They'd have you packing your suitcase and taking the Amtrak to Minnesota at the drop of a hat.

The Rise of the Red Mango

My apartment points straight east, come the equinox I will see the sun rise over the little slot of lake that I can see between the IBM building and the London House.

Aha!  I think I have it, courtesy of the good folks at Google Earth.  It looks like you have a clear view of the lake, through the locks, all year round.  I'm still trying to get a good sunrise shot with the buildings along the lake; there is a good view from the little patio we have on the 6th floor and nobody is around at sunrise.  Early morning planes are flying almost directly overhead on the way to O'hare, like clockwork, at intervals of around one minute.  Watching the sun rise is a nice way to start the day but it is a little early, I think.

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That business with the Supreme Court and Clarence Thomas acting goofy doesn't bother me much because I think I know how it will eventually pan out.  Now that it's  up to the individual states, their legislators will decide that abortion is too bothersome of an issue and will vote to leave it up to the counties to decide.  Then the counties, not willing to get entangled in the pros and cons, will decide that the local municipalities are best suited to rule on the issue.  Of course, the local governing bodies will realize that their constituents are a diverse bunch of folks and, not willing to offend anyone, they will vote to let the individual decide what is the best course of action for themselves.  Problem solved?

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I mentioned that I'm fooling around with germinating seeds from fruit that I've gotten from the supermarket, and Behold!  The Rise of the Red Mango!

These images are from last Saturday, taken about two hours apart.  It appears to be growing slightly less than an inch per day.  It's too bad that the local climate is too cold for Mr. Mango and it will have to be house-bound.  Mango trees can grow more than 100 feet tall and can bear fruit for hundreds of years, quite a legacy for future generations.

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Don't treat that chest pain incident lightly, Uncle Ken.  Yes, you're a big boy but gentlemen of a certain age should err on the side of caution, I think.  The folks at the Mayo Clinic seem to think that the combination of gassiness and chest pain warrants immediate medical attention.  So be careful out there.

white winged warriors

 Chickens.  If you have an inquiring mind, as I have, you must have wondered what modern day bird is the closest to the dinosaurs, but perhaps you have never done the internet search.  I have because I always thought it was pigeons because, well I don't know, the way they look at you, but I wanted to make sure so I consulted the internet, which told me that although pigeons are pretty close, but if you want to get all technical about it, it is chickens.

But you know, not the same kind of chicken that you find in the Colonel Sanders box.  Surely there is some kind of wild chicken which we have domesticated, and the term red jungle fowl came up, but I did not follow up on that stub, because I came across the subject of feral chickens.

Yes there is such a thing, and it turns out there is a big problem with them, especially in Florida.  Well Florida, you would think DeSantis was bad enough.

I almost died the night before this one.  Chest pain, and more to the left, and sometimes occupying my left arm.  Isn't that the classic symptoms of a heart attack?  Not so much google informed me, could be a lot of things, probably heartburn which made sense as I had been particularly gassy, and when that passed well I felt perfectly fine, as I do right now, but now I know that after that googling I can expect to get a lot of ads on fb about heartburn.

Which leads us to the subject of women's underwear.  Let me say here and now that sometimes I get a lot of ads for something I have never googled and that has nothing to do with me.  Sometimes I think they just get people confused and send the ads to a wrong person as I am sure is the case with Beagles and his women's underwear situation.  Women's underwear.  Women's underwear.  Women's underwear.  This is a test.  Google searches are low hanging fruit for ad researchers but does their reach go all the way down to obscure blogs?  We shall see Gentlemen, we shall see.

Well sure there are ways to undo the undoing of Roe vs Wade, but the ones Beagles suggests are a pretty hard slog and my solution would be to pack the supreme court.  There are four or five mad dog MAGA guys running for the senate, and if they all lose, why Coal Joe will just be some lone dickhead who can be safely ignored and we can end the filibuster and then we can pack the court.

Hopefully soon because, well the world is burning up, and both Coal Joe and the supremes hate environmental regulation.

There is no Last Word

  "And if the supremes think a certain way, it matters not what Beagles, myself, and most Americans think, because there is no appeal to a supreme court decision."

Technically correct, but misleading.  While there is no formal appeal process for a Supreme Court decision, it is certainly possible for a Supreme Court ruling to be overturned.  Indeed, that's what recently happened with Roe v Wade.  In this case the court kind of overturned itself, but not exactly because the people currently on the Supreme Court are not the same people who were on it when Roe was originally decided.  Nevertheless, the Supreme Court is still the Supreme Court no matter who is currently serving on it.  

Another way a Supreme Court decision may be overturned is if Congress passes a whole new law that is slightly different, but substantially the same as the overturned law.  The court can also overturn that one if the case ever comes before it, which could start the process all over again.  This is what Biden means when he says he wants to "codify" abortion rights at the federal level.  Well not exactly, because there never was a federal law either allowing or prohibiting abortion.  What Roe did was prohibit the states from prohibiting abortion. Now the states can either allow or prohibit it, which is what they were doing before Roe.  Any one of these state laws, and any federal one that might be passed, could conceivably be overturned by the court in the future, but until it is, it would remain in effect.

I get all kinds of stuff on my news app, everything from Fox News to ads for women's underwear.  I seldom read Fox, and I can't access the underwear ads because of some kind of blockage in the system.  I wouldn't know that except I clicked on one of them by mistake and got a blank page that said, "Not Allowed".  Purely in the interest of scientific curiosity, I clicked on several more of them and got the same results.  Not that I care, but why do they even allow the ads on the app at all if they're going to deny access to them?  

  

  

I agree with Beagles

 I don't recall that we have ever discussed if state legislators had the power to set aside election results, and I don't recall us ever settling any issue.  Facing an issue, our general behavior is to toss it around, have some sort of discussion, which may turn into some heated words, and then discard it like a dog's wet chewy toy on the lawn and move on to the next discussion.  

But this one may be already settled in that I totally agree with Beagles, and I reckon most Americans, on this issue.  But you know who doesn't agree?  Clarence Thomas and his three new amigos on the newly rowdy supreme court.  And if the supremes think a certain way, it matters not what Beagles, myself, and most Americans think, because there is no appeal to a supreme court decision.  

And it really doesn't matter what the constitution says because it is a little like the bible in that you use it to come out with whatever answer you want.  

You know it's like principles for the reps who are saying that overturning Roe vs Wade is great because that means every state can decide for itself, and isn't that great, which is what they are saying while they work on a law to ban abortions nationwide.

I expressed surprise that an article from The Daily Beast found its way into your news feed in that it is sort of a fringy lefty publication, but I never said that you shouldn't read it.  This is America, you can read whatever you want.

Something Else to Chew On

I seem to remember that we discussed this at the time, but I don't remember that we ever settled the issue.  Don't feel bad, it appears that nobody else has settled it either.  This author agrees with my position that state legislatures can't change the method of choosing presidential electors after the election.

"In an otherwise persuasive criticism in The New York Times, Jamelle Bouie wrote that “this radical interpretation…” would mean “state legislatures could allocate Electoral College votes in any way they see fit, at any point in the process.” In fact, state legislatures can already allocate votes as they see fit, but they can not do so at any point in the process. In particular, they can not do so after Election Day."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/liberal-panic-could-help-trump-steal-the-next-election/ar-AAZJ7G7?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

There is some other stuff in there that I found interesting as well.  I seem to remember that Uncle Ken once expressed surprise that I would read something from the Daily Beast.  I don't remember why I'm not supposed to read it, I just remember that I'm not supposed to.  Of course, that's never stopped me before.

easy indeed on the banks of the Chicago

 My apartment points straight east, come the equinox I will see the sun rise over the little slot of lake that I can see between the IBM building and the London House.  The balcony above me will cut off the noontime sun.  I do catch a couple hours more on the south side of the balcony.  I plant the bulk of my tomatoes there and it seems sufficient for their needs, but I think they would prefer to be on terra firma where they could get the sun all day long.  I get a lot of those delightful yellow flowers but many of them drop off the vine before forming that luscious firetruck red fruit.  I never get as many tomatoes as I would like but at the time that they ripen tomatoes will be dirt cheap, and I love their deep green foliage and the way my hands smell after reaching into it.

The ambient light is not so much, though when the angle is right I sometimes get a reflection almost as bright as the sun.

I wonder if Old Dog could get some of those marijuana grow lights to perk up his trees or, being the mad scientist that he claims he isn't, if he could rig up some substitute.

One of the bad things about the sparseness of posts is that by the time somebody comments on your previous post you no longer remember what you were talking about, and I am disinclined to look for it so I will just say this (is) America and you can do whatever you want, is something I have been saying all my life.  I imagine I picked it up in my early years at Tonti School when WW II and the devastation was still on people's minds, and so it was great to be in America by contrast.  I guess sometimes I am being patriotic and sometimes I am being ironic.

In two months I will have lived in Marina City for thirty years so I have been here for the fortieth and fiftieth birthday of Marina City and I don't recall much hoopla for those years and don't expect any for the sixtieth.

But this is Chicago and your building can be as old as it wants to be.

The living is easy

Speaking only for myself, I am starting to enjoy the leisurely pace of the Institute's recent postings with none of the "gotta post something every day" nonsense.  It gives me time to ponder, reflect, and make better choices in what I decide to yammer about.

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Great links, Mr. Beagles!  They reinforce my crackpot notions about human beings and a possible genetic predisposition to stupidity.  But it got me wondering, how exactly do you mail feces in a letter?  I think a package would be more appropriate but this is not a problem I've ever encountered.  If the guy (or gal) who sent the poop used their own, uh, product they made a big mistake.  Perhaps they never considered the likelihood of DNA testing by the authorities; sooner or later they will get a knock on the door.

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Saw a new word the other day, perfect for use in these times: IGNORANUS.  This is someone who is both stupid and an asshole.

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Lovely greenery on your balcony, Uncle Ken.  I don't know how much direct sunlight you receive but it may not matter.  All of the indirect light bouncing off the many windows of the adjacent buildings could make it likely that anything will grow well.

My little seedling project is moving along nicely but some seeds are really taking their time in germinating.  So far there are only two successful seedlings, the date palm and a lemon tree (very pretty).  The date palm is growing at the rate of about an eighth inch a day and the lemon tree is still too small to bother measuring.

If all goes well I will end up with an amusing garden.  I've known from the outset that there is little chance that the plants will be viable and produce fruit but delusions are just more things that I've been cultivating.  I like to pretend and it's more than likely that I will trade something valuable for some magic beans, if you have any.

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Suit yourself, this America and you can do whatever you want.

Uh, can you cite an authority for that statement, Uncle Ken?

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In trying to figure out which condo is the realm of Uncle Ken I've read that Marina City was built in 1962, which means there should be a 60th Birthday Celebration this year, a significant event, I think.  Anything in the offing?

 

 

The Peaceable Kingdom

 The morning glories are blooming.  Fifteen, maybe twenty years ago I remember noticing a peculiar weed among my tomatoes and peppers.  It was a peppy little plant, seizing on a railing and twining around and around and around and scaling the top and rolling over and spreading all over and then one day, about this time of year it sprouted its first flower, a purple blue morning glory.

I didn't have my regular complement of finches and pigeons that I now have, but there was the occasional feathered stranger who appeared on my balcony looking lost and I'm guessing the primal seed dropped from one of them.

And Uncle Ken looked upon it and called it good.  It spat out blooms like an AR-15, each one lasting but a day and then became a seed so that by autumn my balcony was littered with them, and it was fine with me when the next year a thousand flowers bloomed.  And every year in The Peaceable Kingdom they came back.

And then one summer, maybe five, ten years ago, I was taking a short cut through an alley and there was a cyclone fence ablaze with pink morning glories.  I returned there in the fall and gathered a handful of seeds and the next year I had pinks as well as purples, and so it has gone, about half purples and half pinks with neither side gaining the upper hand.

It is the pinks that are blooming now.  The purples will come later and last longer into the fall.  

And this year I have also sunflowers, and eggplants, and catnip for the kitty, and tomatillos, who it turns out are garden warriors like the tomatoes and morning glories with fat yellow flowers.  I spotted them on a shelf at Gethsemane Gardens and what the hell.  They are supposed to be good for making sauces, but I don't know, I am not a scientist chef like Old Dog, and I am wondering if I can eat them just as they are, with maybe a little salt.  Well I expect we shall find out down the road.

Anyway, that is what is going on in The Peaceable Kingdom in the summertime.  Peace out.

Another Crappy Day

 Here are a couple of articles for the "Every Time You Think You've Seen It All You Find Out That You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" file:

https://news.yahoo.com/25-republican-state-senators-ohio-234648352.html

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/can-thor-s-naked-butt-unite-a-divided-america-yes-yes-it-can/ar-AAZlDfN?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

Maybe this means that the world is coming to an end.

Dog Days Adventures

I too have been following the slow but apparently sure healing of the walking man.  Not many details, but we don't really want to be prying our noses into the business of the guy who we love because he never bothered nobody.

No crazy hot days?  The weekend I put on my show, strolling down to the Walgreens to get some gum was like a death march.  My Champaign buddy was down for that and of course I had to show her around, and I'll tell you from the rooftop of my aerie the city is a wonderland, but trudging down State Street at high noon with the noise and the smells and the sweaty bustle, not so much a wonderland.

But speaking of my show and the Ten Cat.  When I was down there last weekend to take down my show Connie told me that they have a prospective buyer who basically wants to keep it the way that it is.  Of course the guy may be lying, but still, good news.

Is Old Dog planning on growing fruits and vegetables inside, with just that one window I saw in the photo?  Seems to me that food crops generally need a lot more sun than that, but as a man of the soil myself, I am interested in reports and photos.

I too have been staying away from that abortion thing to keep the peace.  But what that clown from the notoriously Trumpy American Examiner was really saying was that it is a bad thing for the other side to get something from the supreme court, but it is fine and dandy when his side, through strategical delays and hurry-ups, and incredulously foolish folk like Coal Joe, and Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski, who are shocked, shocked, shocked, that nominees pushed by the Liar in Chief, would tell them a lie, stack the court with narrow-eyed partisans, why it is perfectly fine and dandy.  

The reason the rest of the world is so interested in Uncle Sam is because he is the amiable but drunk guy bestriding the planet with his locked and loaded AR-15 and asking, "Are you looking at me?"

The reason you don't see much foreign news is that Americans are notoriously uninterested in news from the rest of the world, and your local tv station and newspaper know that and are unlikely to serve it up to you.  If you listen to BBC or read The Economist you will discover all kinds of things happening in all kinds of places that you never heard of.  I subscribed briefly but could never finish one for before the next one was hitting the mailbox.  They were a little righty for my tastes, but it seems to me that they presented the straight news in a straight manner.

And my adventure in election judging came a cropper.  There was some excitement among the reps about their gubernatorial candidates, but nothing really was going on on the dems side and Marina City is true blue so there were few people coming through, the door, three in the first hour,  so that was realllly boring.  And then somebody from headquarters was supposed to swear me in, only they didn't want to and I slunk away, and I was pretty happy about that. 

 My friend who got me the job strongly suggested that I wear long pants that weren't jeans and I dug through my pile of clothes from fifteen years ago when I was a wage slave, and found a pair of Dockers, or something like them, that fit me, and topped them off with one of those suave Mexican shirts, and they weren't that uncomfortable, but you know, it reminded me of the clothes I wore walking to Elsdon Methodist Church and knowing that I had to keep to the straight and narrow sidewalk and not participate in any adventures.

So I was glad to tear them off and get into my usual duds and walk out along the river on a sunny but not hot summer day.  Then my phone rang and something had happened and somebody war ready to sign me in, but I had to tell them that School was out for Summer.

No Blueberries in Beaglesonia

 I don't know of anybody who has tried to grow blueberries around here.  There was a type of wild blueberry that grew around where we used to live in Indian River back in the 70s.  The locals called them "huckleberries".  They were plentiful and tasty, but much smaller than the blueberries that you buy in the store.  I think you actually burned more calories picking them than you got from eating them.  You could eat everyone you picked and keep getting hungrier and hungrier until you finally had to give up and go get some real food.  They grew in dry sandy soil that wouldn't support much else except jack pines. 

Growing trees from pits might be a fun hobby, but I doubt that you will ever get anything that produces fruit as good as the stuff from which the pits were obtained.  That's because most fruit trees are hybrids that are grafted onto roots of hardier stock.  It seems unlikely to me that the seeds would breed true, but I could be wrong about that.  

What I found interesting about the link I posted last night was that the British are so obsessed with American politics.  I think Canadians are like that too.  There were a few Canadians on a site I used to frequent, and they seemed to be more interested in American politics than their own.  I have often wondered why we see so little Canadian, or British news for that matter, in our own media.  Is it that nothing interesting happens in those countries, or that nobody cares about it?   Be that as it may, I think the article got this part right:

What the United States in fact “teaches us” is that judicial activism is a foolish and flimsy way to change policy. As Ruth Bader Ginsburg accurately predicted, “A court too sure of itself on these matters may, in its zeal, take a giant stride, only to find itself perilously positioned on an unstable doctrinal limb.”    

Another Country Heard From

 I came across this on my news app tonight.  I know there's no point arguing about abortion with my esteemed colleagues, but I thought that they might find this British perspective interesting, as did I.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/roe-s-downfall-is-irrelevant-in-britain-yet-it-s-all-anyone-wants-to-talk-about/ar-AAZbpKp?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

I'll take the Fifth (of July)

Rolling into July at a pretty good clip and I hope all the 4th of July celebrations went off without a hitch and all fingers intact.  This was my first 4th at the new digs; although I signed the lease in June I didn't spend my first night here until later in July.  The fireworks I saw were a treat, a couple of hours of colorful orbs across the horizon with a continuous popping sound.  It looked like the fireworks were coming from any place that had a parking lot or park, and most were probably not official or legally approved.  Just a bunch of local yokels having fun and making noise, no doubt spending a fortune on real fireworks and not cheesy bottle rockets and M80s.  There is speculation that these shows were courtesy of off duty police and firemen, burning up contraband that has been confiscated over the past year.  Who knows?  It makes a good story.

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With all the weirdness going on lately it's nice to relay a little good news.  Joseph Kromelis, AKA The Walking Dude, has been upgraded to fair condition.  You'll recall that he was set afire more than a month ago but he's hanging in there with slow improvements.  I don't care how much walking I do but I'll never be as tough as that old bird.

Not much news on the guy who did the deed but at least they caught him.  No motive was ever given but I thought of something that may be possible.  Newspaper photos of the guy showed what looked to me like a facial tattoo, not your usual fashion statement and more like a gang thing.  I'm wondering if setting a guy on fire was part of a gang initiation rite, or maybe just go out and kill a random stranger.  I've heard that gangbangers do stuff like that, or maybe it's just some nonsense that I've read somewhere.

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So far it's looking like a delightful summer, no crazy-hot days, yet.  I was at the local garden center lately picking up a little potting soil and I saw some beautiful blueberry plants, many with nearly ripe berries ready to pick.  I immediately thought of the acidic soil of Beaglesonia and how well blueberries would thrive.  Has Mr. Beagles ever considered such a thing?  I wouldn't plant them for human consumption, just to see what kind of critters would show up.  Which means far away from any housing but close enough to see any critters, or maybe in among the trees with that dandy trail camera.  This is just a goofy thought, I know I have more time on my hands than the steward of Beaglesonia.

Which is why I needed the potting soil.  Last summer I bought some houseplants, and they're all still alive so I must be doing something right.  This past winter I added a little coffee plant that I bought at Trader Joe's, the color of the deep green leaves was something I couldn't pass up.  These plants are all a little fussy but I don't mind caring for them, making sure they're healthy and happy.

But I could use more, I think.  As I was munching on some dates (a good snack and they keep you regular) I was was wondering if I could get the pit to sprout and give me a date palm tree.  A fine project, I'm thinking, and it will only take about ten years or so to yield any fruit.  With the guidance of YouTube I got a couple of pits to germinate and sprout and hence the need for the potting soil.  Two green sprouts, less than 2 inches tall now but you just wait!  Someday I'll be picking fresh dates off of my trees.

Now I'm thinking, why stop at date palms when all kinds of seeds are available, for free from the supermarket?  The plan is to enjoy a healthy diet with fresh fruit and see what I can grow from the seeds and pits.  I have no idea where this will end up but it is a pleasant diversion and I think a small potted palm tree would make a fine gift, don't you think?