I Still Don't Know

 After all the reading I have been doing lately about COVID I still don't know how to fix it.  Of course I am not being paid to fix it, so it's not like I'm taking somebody's money under false pretenses.  In times like these we all want to pin the blame on somebody, not that it would solve the problem, but it might make us feel better.  It's beginning to occur to me that all the actors in this drama have been doing the best they can with what they've got to work with, including Trump who, let's face it, never did have much to work with.  

Speaking of Trump, I went back and read Uncle Ken's link about how the Republican Party is having a hard time letting go of his influence.  I'm still not convinced that Trump isn't a double agent who was sent by somebody to sabotage the conservative cause.  If that's true, his mission has certainly been accomplished so he should declare victory and go home, but it doesn't seem likely that will happen anytime soon.  Maybe, like that one guy said, people will be ready to swing to the right again after a couple years of Joe Biden.  I certainly hope that Trump has faded from the scene by then.

More on Trump:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-raised-dollar315-million-in-the-weeks-after-election-day-for-his-new-leadership-pac-filing-shows/ar-BB1dgYpa?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

Other COVID Stuff

 I find it hard to believe that Red China has beaten the virus already.  They lied about it in the beginning, so why should I believe them now?  Of course Americans are also capable of lying, or so I have been told.  

When I said that I didn't know how to stop the virus, I was not the mechanic, I was the guy taking his truck to the mechanic.  I wouldn't be there if I could fix it myself.  In real life, I recently took my chainsaw to the new Ace Hardware because I couldn't get it started.  He kept it about a month, and then called me to tell me that he couldn't fix it.  He didn't charge me a cent.  The politicians and scientists working on this COVID thing get paid every day, whether they ever solve the problem or not.  We might get better results from those guys if we put them on piecework. That said, one thing I did learn from the article is that developing a vaccine for a new virus like this is way more complicated than I thought.  I assumed all they had to do was culture some viruses, kill them, and pack them in bottles with some water to make them injectable.  

When I said I was in no hurry to get the vaccine, I didn't mean that I doubted its safety or effectiveness.  All I meant was that I don't want to stand in line for who knows how long just to secure a place in another line.  If they ever get it so I can just walk into Walgreen's and get vaccinated, I intend to do just that.  As it is now, our local health department has cancelled three out of the four vaccination events they had scheduled because they can't get enough vaccine.  All those appointments will have to be rescheduled if and when an adequate supply of vaccine arrives.  I am not interested in getting into a line that is moving backwards.  

Lockdowns

Nothing in the article caused me to change my opinion about the lockdowns.  The first one was supposed to be a temporary stop gap measure to buy some time while they worked on a permanent solution.  Like Uncle Ken said, the numbers generally declined while the lockdowns were in force, and shot back up again after they were lifted.  Is he then saying that the permanent solution is to keep the lockdowns on forever?  Like I said last summer, you can't shut the economy down forever.  If we didn't need an economy in the modern world in which we live, then they never would have invented one in the first place. 

Furthermore, Queen Gretchen locked down some things in Michigan that didn't need to be locked down, like golf courses, outdoor construction jobs, and motorboats.  She even decreed that people who owned second homes could not travel to them, including out of state owners over which she has no legitimate jurisdiction.  The predictable legal backlash caused her to back off these restrictions one by one.  While never acknowledging the lawsuits, she asserted that the reason she was backing off was that the numbers were coming down.  I was closely monitoring the numbers in those days, and they did not begin to decline until after Her Majesty started easing up.  

the first shot

 Got my first dose of vaccine yesterday.  I had made an appointment for 10:40, but being a little unsure of the bus to Hyde Park and wanting to make sure that I wasn't late I arrived there an hour early.  It was the coldest day of the year and I was worried that there might be a crowd and maybe there would have us all standing out on the sidewalk six feet from each other.

But there was no crowd.  I walked right in and told them my name and that I was an hour early and they were all no prob and they sat me down and had me take off my sweatshirt and roll up my t shirt and zip that was it.  Made an appointment for my second shot and sat down in a chair for twenty minutes in case I had some strange reaction, which I didn't. and I half an hour after I walked in I was walking down to Cottage Grove to catch the bus back.

I will be taking off the bandage in a little bit when I take my shower.  It's tender to the touch, but if I don't touch it I don't notice it at all.

It's not effective now, but it will slowly achieve about 50 percent by the time I get the second shot, and maybe a week after that one I will have 95 percent immunity.  I'm not sure about how accurate those numbers are, and I am sure they vary with individuals and circumstances but they will be going in the right direction, and I am feeling better already

The New Yorker is pretty liberal and I agree with Beagles that the article has a lefty slant.  But you can ignore the opinions.  There are a lot of facts in it:  people, places, numbers, which is what I mean by Objective Reality, unlike all those claims of the stolen election which rarely had any of those things and was more like this guy sez, and even when they had places and numbers they turned out to be lies.

Checking In One Last Time

 I finished the article tonight.  I found it to be a good summary of all the COVID stuff that happened last year, some of which I already knew about, and some of which I didn't.  It had a definite leftward lean to it, but I tried to work through that and give it a fair hearing.  It will take me a few days to craft a response, and I may do it in several installments.  

Checking In Again

 I read six chapters tonight leaving six more to go, so I should finish tomorrow.

The Republican spring goes to winter

 The Arab spring began eleven years ago with some guy setting himself on fire in Tunisia.  Well, we optimistic westerners thought, isn't it about time?  Haven't these guys had crappy governments long enough, don't they yearn to be free?

It was bracing to see the idealists taking to the streets, openly speaking truth to power, shedding the shackles of awful authoritarianism.  Out of the way you mean old dictators.  You can't stop men who yearn to be free.

Except you can.  Every single one of them ended up with a dictator just as bad, or worse, than the one they had before.  I hear that things are a little better in Tunisia now, but that is it.

In the wake of the sacking of the capitol it looked like we may have had a republican spring against the Trump rump.  Brave words were spoken.  At last we dems thought, haven't the reps broken over like shotguns for Trump long enough?  Don't they yearn to be free?

Apparently not.  At the risk of repetition I cannot say often enough how much I detest Liz Cheney, but I have to say I was inspired when she rose up in the house like Lady Liberty at the barricades in the streets of Paree, and called out Trump for the shit that he is.

And I equally detest Moscow Mitch, but there he was hinting broadly that he might vote to impeach Trump and hinting that he had enough followers for his cause to banish Trump from the White House forever.  Had he finally come to his senses, reached out to take the steering wheel away from the drunk?

And now tatters.  Only 9 out of 211 reps joined Ms Cheney in her suddenly very lonely cause, and now they are likely to be removing her from her position in the republican party.  Before the senate could even vote on conviction Rand Paul called for some spurious vote on whether or not it is constitutional to convict a prez who is out of office.  Most constitutional experts think it certainly is, but of course that is not the issue.  The issue is are you for or agin Trump, and only five out of fifty republican senators dared come out agin.  Not surprisingly Moscow took a gulp and voted for Trump.

Politics is mercurial and things can happen, but right now it appears that the G O P is signed, sealed, and delivered to Trump.

After posting this I went to one of my favorite political websites, Politico, and cane across this article which basically adds more details to what I was talking about.  I know Beagles is up to his elbows of my prior article so I don't want to put any further burden on him, but I just thought I would include it anyway,  

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/27/post-trump-gop-462864

Checking In

 The reason I didn't post yesterday is I have been reading the New Yorker article that Uncle Ken linked us to.  I read it some more tonight and I don't think I'm halfway through it yet.  I scrolled ahead and found out that there are 21 chapters and I have only read nine of them so far.  I don't think I'm going to comment on it until I've either read it all or burned out on it.  I'll check back in tomorrow so my esteemed colleagues won't worry about me.

poetry

 I just carried brown brink forward as a synonym for the future for kicks, I suppose.  Not much of a kick I suppose but in these troubled times any kick at all is welcome.

I can't remember coming across poetry except for maybe some Shakespeare at dear old Gage Park High, but when I got to dear old U of I it was part of a necessary humanities requirement.  English 121 through 123, English literature in three semesters and half of those courses was poetry.  Not a fan was I, but it was something I had to take, like two years of foreign language, if I wanted to get a degree and become a biochemist like my hero, Isaac Asimov.  

But I became a fan, not so much about the early stuff, but later on, maybe up to T S Eliot, he wrote a poem about a guy on ether on a table, how cool is that, was the word amid the ivied halls.  Pretty cool thought young Uncle Ken.  The good thing about college, which I thought was a bad thing at the time, was that I had to take a lot of courses on stuff I wasn't interested in, and it turns out that having your nose pushed into it, it smells pretty good.  

I can't say that I ever gained anything from those long two awful years of German, but that poetry, especially from that one teacher who made us memorize 500 lines of poetry, it has stayed with me.  I still have the books, almost sixty years old now and beaten and battered on my bookshelves.

I don't go for that modern stuff like the stuff that the New Yorker prints, after the second line.  None of it makes sense to me, and it really doesn't seem like the poet is trying to be anything else but inscrutable.

Thinking of trying my hand at the art I once paid good money for a book and read it all the way through.  See I thought poetry would be all about like arranging words like:

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-

    dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

    Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

But it turns out that it is more about expressing your deep inexpressible feelings than any fancy dancing with verbiage, or so the author of this particular book said, and I lost interest quick as a bunny.

But I am glad to see that Old Dog found the whole thing to be of sufficient interest that he went sailing on cyber waves and harpooned a bit of knowledge of Gerard Manly Hopkins.  May I recommend two poems for him?  The Windhover which contains the lines cited above and another called simply Margaret?

I am getting the Pfizer vaccine Thursday and the recommended time before I get the next one is three weeks.  The Moderna has a slightly longer time between doses.  Something may come up where I may have to wait a week or two more between doses, and this is not for the best, but it would probably work out okay.  I am unaware of any other invariance of times in pharma world.  

Weighing the risks of the vaccine against the risks of getting covid, I have no hesitation in getting it.  One nice thing about being an old timer is that you don't have to worry so much about long term effects.  Nobody has eradicated the virus, and doubtless the Chinese are being less than forthcoming,but if China was going through something like we are going through we would be able to tell.

There is a rhyme and a reason to the covid.  All things have a rhyme and a reason, but we don't know all the rhymes and reasons, but given enough time and facts they are all ultimately discoverable.  That is what science is all about.  There is no magic.  

There are a lot of factors.  You can mandate masks and distancing but that doesn't mean everybody will obey.  The denser the population the more extensive the spread. likewise the less healthy the population the more extensive, the average age of the population ditto.  Common sense is good for things that are simple, but not so much for complicated things.

Let is snow.

Shots in the dark

Good link to the electric cars, Mr. Beagles, and a lot has changed since GM killed their prototypes.  EVs (electric vehicles) are on the rise and show no sign of stopping, thanks in large part to the disruptive effects that Elon Musk and Tesla have had on the automotive industry.  It will be interesting to see how the unintended consequences unfold, there are bound to be some surprises.

-----

You've lost me with all of your references to the "brown brink," Uncle Ken.  I don't think those words were used in any other place other than the Jesuit's sonnet; Hopkins should have stayed an Anglican.

-----
 
I'm not in any hurry to get the Covid-19 vaccine.  Seems to me that they got the vaccines out the door pretty quickly and may not have tested them as rigorously as they should have.  I can't see how they can determine long term effects so quickly and manufacturers don't seem so sure when the second dose should be given.  Is it two weeks, two months, or what?  I think it's too soon to declare that China has defeated the pandemic, their veracity is problematic.

A bit of good news is that, according to the Washington Post, Covid-19 cases in the United States have declined 22 percent.  This is based on a seven day rolling average.  In fact, 47 of the 50 states have shown a decline, an odd bit of information considering the failure of many people to wear masks or practice safe distancing.  I think that Chicago is allowing restaurants to open on a limited basis.  Maybe we'll see another uptick in cases in the next week or so.  Or maybe not; there still doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason with this damn bug.  In the meantime I'll keep my masks handy.

 

 

beating a dead horse

All I said was that the measures that have been tried for almost a year now have not worked. 

 This is the comment about which I strongly disagree, and which I finally decided to stop arguing with Beagles about because reason was falling on stony and unfertile ground.

Lockdown certainly does work.  It does not wipe out the pandemic in one fell swoop but it greatly reduces the number of cases and of deaths.  Look at the rates in states that have locked down vs states that haven't.  Note how the rates go up in states when they stop their lockdown, and how they go down again once they put that lockdown back on.  It's as plain as the nose on your face.

The argument that the lockdown trashes the economy is a valid one.  It makes more sense than claiming that the lockdown has no effect, but it's awfully long on opinion and short on facts.  The pandemic crushed the economies whether you locked down or not.  Sweden which proudly, and it turns out foolishly, had no lockdown has finally had to put one on because too many people were dying.

China has pretty much defeated the pandemic.  Of course they were able to lock people in their own houses sealed with a swatch of tape, bringing food to their door, and woe betided anybody caught outside.

Had we been able to do that, maybe we would have stamped the virus out in May, and be living a regular life now, and likely a majority of the half million Americans who have died would still be alive.

But you can't get some Americans to even wear a damn mask let alone suffer a few weeks of house arrest.  The US has 4 percent of the world's population yet it accounts for 20 percent of the world's covid deaths.  If you are an American you are five times more likely to die of covid than if you lived elsewhere.

Just read an interesting article about the pandemic year.  It's pretty long but it is a long story no?    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/04/the-plague-year

Seems to me if I was bringing my truck into the garage and one mechanic, who had been to mechanic school, offered me an explanation that made sense, while his buddy just shrugged his shoulder and said, "I don't know," that I would chose the first guy to work on my truck.

They have already done extensive testing of the vaccinations, and it turns out that they are 95 percent effective.  They work.

Found It!

1960s–1990s: Revival of interest

GM's program came under particular scrutiny; in an unusual move, consumers were not allowed to purchase EV1s, but were instead asked to sign closed-end leases, meaning that the cars had to be returned to GM at the end of the lease period, with no option to purchase, despite leasee interest in continuing to own the cars.^[61] Chrysler, Toyota, and a group of GM dealers sued CARB in Federal court, leading to the eventual neutering of CARB's ZEV Mandate.^{[citation needed]}

After public protests by EV drivers' groups upset by the repossession of their cars, Toyota offered the last 328 RAV4-EVs for sale to the general public during six months, up until 22 November 2002. Almost all other production electric cars were withdrawn from the market and were in some cases seen to have been destroyed by their manufacturers.^[61] 

History of the electric vehicle - Wikipedia

By the way, I forgot to mention on Friday that I clicked on Uncle Ken's link about Liz Cheney, and found it to be the same article than I had found the day before when I first looked Liz up.  That was when I decided that she would be my next political hero.  She appears to be a solid conservative who is not a Trump toady.  The Republican Party will need to find more like her if they ever hope to climb out of the hole that Trump has dug for them.  

I Never Said That

 "Beagles' oft declared opinion (which he largely shared with Trump) that there is nothing to do about the pandemic except to sit around and wait to die,"

All I said was that the measures that have been tried for almost a year now have not worked.  More specifically, I said last summer that the first lockdown was a failure because it trashed the economy and did not stop the virus.  I seem to remember that this statement angered Uncle Ken to the extent that he refused to discuss the matter any further. Since then there have been numerous lockdowns and partial shutdowns all over the world, and yet the virus still rages on unchecked.  I believe it was Albert Einstein who said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time.", or words to that effect.  

"Okay smartass," you might say, "What do you think we should do to stop the virus?" That's a good question, and the answer is those three little words that men find it so hard to say: I Don't Know.  (Credit the old Red Green Show.)  The vaccine is probably a good idea if it works.  If it doesn't work, then it's back to the drawing board.  Don't keep sticking needles into people if it doesn't work.  

What about those wonder drugs that cured Trump of the COVID in a matter of days?  One of them was called "Regeneron" or something like that.  Call me paranoid, but that wouldn't be the first time they found something that works and subsequently withheld it from the public.  The electric car immediately comes to mind, not the high priced models they have today, but the prototypes that were jerked away from the people who had leased them and then wanted to buy them some years ago.  Those cars went straight to the crusher and, when the reporter asked about them, he was told they had never existed.  I saw this on TV a long time ago, but there must be something on the internet about it.  Maybe I'll look for it over the weekend.

happy Friday

 We all say we like people who stand up for what they believe in, but we don't like them so much if what they believe in is the opposite of what we believe in, so I detest Liz Cheney.  But still I have to admire her a little bit, what she is doing is what the reps should have been doing long ago if they had spines.  

Still I was wondering if she was just one more rat deserting the sinking ship and trying to pretend that they are heroes of conscience so I did a bit of cyber sleuthing and came across this https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/12/politics/liz-cheney-donald-trump-impeachment-vote/index.html  so I guess she has been showing a spine for some time now.  And as much as I detest her right-wing politics I would rather see her in the oval office than Trump. Too bad Beagles did not know about her when he cast his ballot in November.

Reading about his new hero in the article Beagles may be surprised to learn that she has a much more enlightened view on preventing the covid in contrast to Beagles' oft declared opinion (which he largely shared with Trump) that there is nothing to about the pandemic except to sit around and wait to die, which made a bit of sense but only if you live in a swamp far from the maddening crowd.  

Yar I guess not all Michiganders are not plotting to kidnap the gov, many of them are parading around the statehouse with their super guns.

Well I am kind of pissing and moaning here aren't I?  I should be looking on the brighter side of life.  On November 6 my side came from behind and won the presidency,  A couple months later we surprisingly plucked a couple of Georgia peaches to take the senate and now the once mighty Moscow Mitch is like that wizard at the end of Oz.  And now I am about to get a vaccine, and though the brown brink is yet far away, it is Friday.

A Voice Crying Out in the Wilderness

I found Uncle Ken's tutorial on rumps to be helpful.  The more I think about it, I remember reading about a "rump parliament" in England back in the 16th or 17th Century. I have always wondered why they called it that, and now I know.  The king, I believe it was Charles I, was pissed at Parliament so he dissolved it.  This rump parliament continued to meet in defiance of the king's order, and they eventually hung him for treason.  

The name Liz Cheney sounded vaguely familiar, but I didn't know anything about her, so I looked her up.  She is my new political hero, and I haven't had one of those since Ronald Reagan.  If she ever runs for president, she's got my vote.  Thanks to Uncle Ken for putting me on her trail.  And Wyoming, what a cool state is that!  Less than 6 people per square mile, and most of them are Republicans.  Too bad it has such a harsh climate, but maybe that's what it takes to keep the riff-raff out.  

Our COVID vaccination program is way different.  They recently expanded the pool of people who are eligible to get the shot ahead of the general public, but they don't seem to have the ability to handle that many.  You have to go online to get in line just to make an appointment.  The website has been crashing from overuse, and they're not even answering their telephones anymore.  If you do manage to get through to them, they don't give you an appointment, they put your name on a list and promise to contact you when it's your turn to make an appointment.  That's okay, I'm in no hurry to get vaccinated anyway.  Since none of their other measures have made a dent in the pandemic, it wouldn't surprise me if the vaccine didn't work either.

As I previously reported, our local Walmart has been experiencing the Empty Shelf Syndrome since at least a year before the COVID hit the fan, so it is indeed a local problem.  It's not as bad now as it was last spring, but it's still not good.  

To my knowledge, most of my fellow Michiganders are not plotting to kill our governor.  There's just that one small group of goofballs, and some of them aren't even Michiganders.  

the day after the inauguration

 I certainly didn't mean to imply that Beagles shouldn't piss and moan.  Without pissing and moaning The Institute would become a shadow of itself.  I am merely complaining, and complaining about pissing and moaning is another big component of The Institute's vital mission.  

And the Trump mess will certainly not disappear with a wave of the holy book under Biden's palm.  There is a long and winding road to hoe.  That inauguration spectacle was a long and winding road itself.  I was only watching it because there was almost nothing else to watch, listening with half an ear, the word 'president' came up often causing my mouth to curl into a sneer, but then into a smile as the sweet revelation came upon me.  I was watching it on CNN and I have to say they were laying it on pretty thick, so I switched to Fox for some spice and they were bitter as ever, pissing and moaning about the departure of their hero in spite of all his glorious achievements.  

I think we will do better with covid with somebody actually trying to do something about it, And there will be some progress made in police reform, though I don't know how much.  And there will be rioting of course, but as we liberals believe the problem is not rioting as much as it is what is the cause of the rioting.  I'm surprised to hear that the Cheboygan shelves are still empty.  That appears to be a local problem.  Maybe if you guys would spend less time plotting to kidnap your governor you could take care of problems like local shelves. 

 former Trumpists will repent of their errors and embrace the liberal agenda,

Probably not that.  That's what I meant by the Trump rump.  If you are not familiar with the rump designation here is a good explanation.  A rump state is the remnant of a once-larger government, left with limited powers or authority after a disaster, invasion, military occupation, secession or partial overthrowing of a government. In the last case, a government stops short of going in exile because it still controls part of its previous territory.

I meant the republican congressmen who are trying to oust Liz Cheney for her defiance of Trump.  And the thing is she is no murky moderate like Murkowski and Romney she is a fire-breathing right winger (I detest her), but still they want to oust her.  They are the Trump rump.

Mitch McConnell (who I also detest) is singing kumbaya now that he can no longer do any grim reaping, and it is likely just a pose, but the fact that he is doing it at all is something.  Savvier, more sane reps would be glad to shed the shroud of Trump but they will be beaten over the heads by the Trump rump all the way, and I look on that as a good thing.

I assume my colleagues being of advanced age and spending way more time in doctors' offices than they would like to are familiar with MyChart this terrible portal thing which is clunky and time consuming and not helpful at all, but which you have to go through, pissing and moaning about its inherent difficulty, whenever you want to ask your doctor anything or renew a prescription or whatever.

That is what the invitation came from.  They are not charging anything and it is not a scam.  And just last night I got an offer from another hospital.  It seems to me that it would be a better bet pandemic wise to vaccinate a teacher or even the nice young people who make my burrito at Chipolte rather than a sheltered old fart like myself, but if I don't take it I reckon it will just go to some other old fart, so that is what I will be doing next week.

I'm Entitled

 I believe that I'm entitled to a little pissing and moaning after putting up with all the pissing and moaning of my esteemed colleagues about Trump for the last four years.  That's okay, now that the Evil One is gone all our troubles will soon be over.  COVID will suddenly and inexplicably disappear, urban cops will stop shooting Black people, Black people will stop rioting and looting, former Trumpists will repent of their errors and embrace the liberal agenda, the shelves in the Cheboygan Walmart will become fully stocked, and it will be springtime in Chicago for ever and ever.  And that's only in the first hundred days!

All kidding aside, that email about the COVID vaccination sounds like a scam to me.  Our local news media has been warning us that there is a lot of that going on these days.  I hope Uncle Ken didn't send them any money or provide them with his personal information.  The tip off is that they contacted him out of the blue to inform him that he had won a lottery that he didn't even know he had entered.  Just because they claim to be working for the university doesn't mean that they actually are.  The way to check that is to look up the  university's number in the phone book, and call that number instead of the one provided in the email.  

As for all that about the "Trump Rump" and Liz Cheney, I have no idea what Uncle Ken is talking about.   

the brown brink even nearer

 Morning at the brown brink eastward will not be springing for a couple more hours now, four hours from then Biden's hand will be on the bible.  Sometime before that the golden gopher will be scurrying south.  And last night out of the blue I got an email from U Chicago Hospital telling me that I had been the winner in some kind of lottery and I was eligible for a vaccination.  

The website was kind of confusing, there were all these times offered and the first few I clicked on turned out to be already taken and that took me all the way back to the beginning of the process.  Finally one worked but then the screen gave way to another that didn't have the day and time on it which I didn't remember after all that pecking.  Well there will be a confirmation email I assumed, but there wasn't, and by then it was after five and they weren't taking calls, so I will have to call later.

But how about that trifecta? Trump gone, vaccine within reach and spring at brown brink eastward springing.  Well not exactly springing, but if you look real close into the icy eyes of Old Man Winter you can see a tinge of homesickness for polar bears.  

There is still a Trump rump in the house, judging by how many voted hold the bogus vote on the returns and continued to do so even after the sacking of the capitol, and are now voting to strip Liz Cheney (whose dad gave us the Iraqi invasion, so I am not a big fan, but still it is so rare to see a spine among the repubs) of her position in the party.  But now Big Business is refusing to fund the Trump rump.

I am not a fan of big business.  Very roughly the battle between the parties could be called a battle between big business and the liberal agenda. But even big business can see that there is no future to a ship heading for an iceberg.  Anyway five hours to the inauguration.

at the brink of the brown brink

 Oh I imagine with only two more days, maybe a day and a half, we can allow Beagles to piss and moan from his swamp.  I am happy enough that we will no longer be tearing kids out of their parents' arms and tossing them in cages and tossing kids who have grown up here and known no other country in their lives across the border.  

Of course I did not mean November, the month is stuck in my mind.  December flew by with its feeble holidays and now we are in January which offered the improbable peach of two senators.  The plague continues to reign, but in less than two days we will at least have a president with the ability and drive to get our shit together about it, and those vaccines are finally coming, at a drip drop at first but that should improve with a competent leader.  And...

And for all this, nature is never spent;

    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

We are just past the middle of January which is Old Man Winter's sweet spot.  The shortest month of the year is just two weeks away, Groundhog Day, Valentines Day, and then the brown brink of March.  Things are looking up.

If I had been a better man, I might have been a better bartender.  But I have to admit that I was of he surly sort.  You got problems, so do I, keep them to yourself.

I don't see how a rowing machine would be any less boring than a treadmill.  In any case they didn't have any in our small exercise room, and it was kind of hot in there, and no breeze, and you could hardly blame people for sticking their noses out of their masks, but I did not want to breathe their possibly covid breath so I have returned to my exercise from before the gym: the stairs.  It's just as boring, but since people dispose of large objects by leaving them in the stairwells there is an exciting element of treasure hunt in the venture.

That Sounds About Right

 More than half of all Americans say the greatest danger to America's way of life comes from their fellow citizens, according to a CBS News poll released Sunday. 

When I first came to that conclusion myself, over 50 years ago, everybody said that I was paranoid.  Well, who's paranoid now?

The really bad news is that, if Biden has his way, there will soon be even more of our fellow citizens to threaten us.  I read on my news app the other day, and again tonight, that one of his top priorities is to grant amnesty to the 11 million illegals that are already in the country and provide them with a path to citizenship.  Of course that will only encourage more of them to sneak in.  I know that Uncle Ken thinks that would be a good thing, but I don't.  If there is one thing this country doesn't need, it's more people.  They will swarm across the land like locusts, eating all the food and trampling the crops in the fields.  Remember, you heard it first from Talks With Beagles.  

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-eyes-8-year-path-to-citizenship-for-undocumented-migrants-no-new-border-security-plans/ar-BB1cSgYO?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

Middling Monday

 ...but I am hoping it will fade beginning November 20.

I hope that's a Freudian slip, Uncle Ken, and you were basking in the warm memories of the presidential election.  Otherwise, I'm stumped.

The past week has almost been pleasant due mainly to the removal of Trump's social media outlets; it should have happened much sooner but legal justification would have been dicey.  After the Capitol's incursion, not so much.

Anyhow, it's been a pleasure to watch the hot air balloon slowly deflate.  None of the recent events would have occurred if Trump had a shred of decency, honesty, or humility but that's not his style. A person could almost feel sorry for the guy and his shameful legacy.  Almost.  And as a non-drinker he can't even avail himself of the wise counsel of a sympathetic bartender.  I bet Uncle Ken has heard some sad stories but I think there is a bartender/customer confidentiality agreement in play.  I sure hope so.

-----

Forty minutes on a treadmill?  I'm impressed unless it's a walking pace.  If boredom is a problem and a good cardio workout is your goal I suggest spending some time on a rowing machine.  More muscle groups will be involved and you'll be gasping and dripping with sweat in no time; no way you'll do forty minutes in the beginning.  I saw a recent news clip that showed an old guy, in his 80s, who was deadlifting nearly 300 pounds.  Stay hungry, Uncle Ken!

Pogo sez

 

More than half of all Americans say the greatest danger to America's way of life comes from their fellow citizens, according to a CBS News poll released Sunday. 

A total of 54 percent of those surveyed said that "other people in America, and domestic enemies" posed the "biggest threat" to American society at this point in time ahead of "economic forces" at 20 percent, "the natural world" at 17 percent and "foreign countries" at 8 percent. The category of "natural world" was a catch-all that included hazardous weather and other natural disasters, as well as lethal viruses, a nod to the coronavirus pandemic.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/17/poll-we-have-met-the-enemy-and-it-is-us-459948

This poll was taken just after the sacking of the capitol so it likely reflects the mood of the moment.  Watching cable news I have been inundated with images of the incoherent mob on their ungodly mission.  

But this reflects not only my side but the other side too.  Well we have always been accused of being godless commies, but I think in earlier times most folks just laughed it off, anymore, not so much.  Ladies and Gentlemen of the other side, I beseech you, if 8 years of Bill Clinton and Obama couldn't hoist the red star what makes you think Biden, the most moderate of all the candidates in the primaries, with razor thin majorities in both houses and Joe Manchin in the Senate is going to do it?   As for my side, I am still alarmed at the mob and the talk, but am hoping it is just some, well I don't know what, but I am hoping it will fade beginning November 20.

You can't fool Objective Reality

 The worst thing about exercising in the gym is the boredom.  If you are like running through the countryside you are seeing scenery and perhaps waving to neighbors, possibly picking up chicks with your finely sculpted body.  On the treadmill there is nothing but boredom.  Forty minutes on the treadmill and you are in the same place you started from.  Boring,

So they put in a tv and they set it on CNN.  CNN was pretty boring, bland even, but news of the world was a welcome distraction from aching muscles.  Then along came Trump.

Right at the beginning he told his first presidential fib about the size of the crowd at his inaugural.  No big deal, what difference does it make?  But the thing was, it was such an obvious lie.  One had only to look at photos of Obama's inaugural to see the difference.

CNN was a news organization.  They had to tell the news. On the one hand the news was that Trump had said that he had a bigger crowd than Obama, but it was also the news that this wasn't true.  CNN had to point that out.  Normally a politician, caught in an obvious, verifiable, lie, would hem and haw, distract, do a little dog and pony show, but would admit in the end that he had fibbed a bit, but it was all in the cause of the greater good of the country.  Something like that.  

Trump's response was to call CNN a bunch of liars with various other insults thrown in.  They were hardened newspeople and they could take the insults, but they just had to point out the lies, and as a result:

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

And now at last it is like the last scene of a most excellent movie,  Aquirre, The Wrath God where the proud, gold-seeking, conquistador is all by himself on a raft on some lost river with nothing but monkeys to accompany him and in his delusion he is ordering them around like they are his mighty army.

Last I heard Trump has turned on Rudy, "The Gnome" Giuliani.  Well it's not like CNN brought down Trump.  Seems like they had a hand, but probably not a very big one.

What I wanted to speak of was not the fall of Trump, the change in CNN, from a bland news source to a pretty damn partisan one, you can hear the chortle in their voices as they comment on the cinder that Trump is at the time.  

And it wasn't really CNN I wanted to talk about as it was Objective Reality.  Either I have a tree in my backyard or not.  You can argue whether it is a handsome tree, or if it is healthy, and even if it is moral, but you cannot deny it is there.  You can argue whether it was an enthusiastic crowd or a good looking crowd, but you cannot lie about the size of the crowd without in the end ending up on that raft with the monkeys.  There.  That is what I wanted to say.

Still Sorting

 I'm not ready to grind any axes just yet, I'm still trying to sort this thing out.  I see that the House has already passed their article of impeachment, and it appears that the Senate will not do anything until after the inauguration.  This guy says you can't impeach a president after he has left office, and I tend to agree with him, at least for now.  It has occurred to me that it might be better to wait until Trump has left office and then try him in the regular courts.  The reason I think that would be legal is Richard Nixon was never formally charged with anything, and yet Gerald Ford found it necessary to pardon him for any and all charges that might arise out of Watergate.  If a former president cannot be charged as a private citizen for things he did while he was still president, why would Ford have thought it necessary to pardon him? 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/cotton-senate-lacks-authority-to-hold-impeachment-trial-once-trump-leaves-office/ar-BB1cJDu4?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?

 Beagles is correct that that poll where most republicans think that Biden is responsible for the riot, insurrection, hullabaloo, turkey fuck, whatever you want to call it. is not that meaningful because it was taken right after the event, but by the same token so is talk on the intent of the perps, whether or not they had a plan, is kind of early too.  Just now there has been talk of some of the capitol cops being in league with the mob, so we are far from being able to wrap this thing up in a bow and slipping it into the correct folder in the file system.  Note the mixed metaphor.

There may have been some of the mob standing around gawking at the grandeur, but there were also plenty of them smashing things, stealing things and beating the hell out of cops.  Still, like Old Dog I am surprised that it didn't turn out much worse.  You can't pack heat on an airplane, but many of them drove in and I am sure they are all big second amendment fans so I am surprised that there doesn't seem to have been any shooting.

The claims that they were embedded antifa is now blowing in the wind like the gossamer tissue of which it is made, and it appears that the roundup will be taking in a lot of perps, Trumpers to a man.

Well here I am speculating before the all the facts are in just as I warned against.  

I don't see the 25th Amendment or impeachment doing much as far as removing Trump.  Pence had his brief moment of glory doing the right thing but the siren song of old blue eyes has won him back over and of this morning they are cuddling again so that's it for the 25th amendment.  Impeachment has its proponents among those who feel that bad deeds should be punished, and it probably will give the dems some fodder, so what the hell, it's not like there's that much they can actually do in the next eight days anyway.  And now I have read that they will not have their new Georgia peaches for maybe a week after that.

And what to make of the lion in his winter in his dusky dirty den?  Well he is headed down Mexico way today to visit some small stretch of the wall.  Maybe he will have something to say.

What Old Dog Said

Even before I read Old Dog's take on it, I had decided to call this thing a riot rather than an insurrection.  An insurrection implies organized planning, and I don't think that happened here.  Trump seemed to have wanted his people to raise an uproar around the Capitol, but I don't think he told them to storm the building, at least not in so many words.  Also, as Old Dog pointed out, they didn't seem to know what to do next once they were inside.  I read somewhere that several stashes of weapons were later found in the vicinity, but it doesn't appear that any of them were actually used, so it seems likely that the guys who stormed the Capitol were unaware of their presence.  Like I've said before, a big protest event like this draws all kinds of people out of the woodwork, which is why such things are dangerous.  Obviously Trump is guilty of something, but it might be easier to convict him of inciting a riot than treason.

I don't see either the impeachment thing or the Article 25 thing going anywhere, there just isn't enough time left before Trump is out of office.  I heard on the TV news yesterday that Fancy Nancy isn't even planning on submitting the articles of impeachment to the Senate because she doesn't want a long drawn out controversy detracting from all the wonderful things that Biden is going to do in his first hundred days.  The only advantage of impeaching Trump after he's gone is that a conviction would prevent him from ever running for office again, but I think the voters will take care of that.  One weakness in the poll that Uncle Ken mentioned is that it was taken the same day, perhaps even while the event was still in progress.  As people have time to digest this news, I'm pretty sure that most of them will conclude that Trump has gone too far this time.  

That was the week that was

This new year has hit the ground running, starting with a new kind of weirdness.  I don't know what to call that event at the Capitol last week; it seemed too placid for a riot, and insurrection implies an organization and leadership that the big group of mopes lacked.  Trump may have been an instigator but he has yet to show any leadership.

Considering the size of the crowd there was very little damage done, I even saw a group of people in one room staying within the velvet ropes as they moved through the building.  There were some seriously bad actors who showed up in military drag ready to cause physical harm but they didn't get very far.  Most of the crowd seemed to be hanging around outside, for whatever reason, maybe just to see what's going on.  But their collective stupidity is astounding and I'm glad so many were smiling for the cameras.  The Feds are going to have a lot of fun going through cell phone records and social media archives, plenty of evidence for law enforcement agencies to share.  And it's not over yet, even more activities are planned for the inauguration so we'd better hang on tight.  If this crap continues we will be further on our way to a draconian police state.  Got to stop the terrorism, right?  And it must be a coincidence that there were no black or brown faces at the Capitol; otherwise there would have been a bloodbath.  Crazy middle-aged white folks have become a force to be reckoned with.

-----

I enjoyed the new rabbit hole I fell into about tempura, er, tempera paints; many childhood memories were reawakened.  There was a powdered paint that had to be mixed with water, quite messy and the consistency was never right. Then there was the bottled stuff, in little jars in a pack of six, I think.  It may have been called poster paint but I'm not sure.  But you guys have it wrong with egg tempera; it's the yolk that is used, not the egg white.  Plenty of fine tutorials on YouTube on it's use and it seems like a very calm and peaceful painting technique.  I may give it a try but you can't use paper, rigid panels are required.  Making my own rabbit skin gesso may be a step too far, though.   A new fun fact is that egg tempera is more archival than oil paint, lasting many hundreds of years.

-----

I'm not going to make any predictions about Trump's last days in office but I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up in his bathrobe,  spouting his usual gibberish in the Rose Garden.

 

 

the sacking of the capitol

 I noticed a variation on that perception management back when I used to work in an office.  If you wanted to get ahead you could channel all your energies into doing good work.  But that was for squares Man.  If you truly wanted to climb the office ladder you didn't put all that effort into doing a good job, you put it into looking like you were doing a good job.

I think it will still be awhile before the blame for the poor security at the capitol is sorted out, but I am pretty sure we will find the barbarian's short-fingered hand in there somewhere.  

Speaking of whom if we are going to be charging treason on his helpers I would like to include almost all of the republican sens and reps who have cheerfully aided and abetted him for these four very long years.  That's a lot to hope for, but how about for the fucks (this means you Ted Cruz) who after the sacking of the capitol continued on raging the lies of the election being stolen in that strange little theater of reading the electoral college votes.

I saw one of Trump's rats who had jumped ship, Mulvaney, on the Sunday shows talking about how this sacking of the capitol offended his tender sensibilities, but when the reporter asked him what about all the time that he had been sucking up to Trump, and he was like, oh everything had been perfectly fine up to that point, Trump had been doing the work of the lord up until that point, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, who on Earth could have predicted that this would happen, happened.  I expect we will be hearing a lot more of this as the rats slink off the sinking ship pretending (this means you Lindsey Graham) that they are making a moral choice when all they are doing is getting off before they are drowned.  If the ship was still floating they would still be happily kissing the big orange rump.

And here is an eye-popping poll 

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/01/06/US-capitol-trump-poll

Biden is the biggest culprit in the eyes of Republicans, at 52%, compared to 28% for Donald Trump and 26% for the Congressional Republicans who opposed certification of the election results.   

One wonders why Hunter Biden doesn't get the blame, or what about Hilary, or that all around villain whose name is featured in so many conspiracy theories, George Soros.  

So now we are engaged in yet another impeachment.  I am not a big fan for strategic rather than moral considerations, but maybe it will be worth it by forcing the republican senators to vote between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Perception Management

 I picked up that term from a book that I read a long time ago.  It means managing the perception of a problem rather than the problem itself.  In other words, we don't care how bad it is as long as it looks good.  Common sense should tell you that, if you take care of the original problem, the perception of the problem will take care of itself, but that's not how a lot of people look at it.  They seem to believe that, if they can control appearances, the reality will take care of itself.  I think that's what happened in DC the other day.  Also, there didn't seem to be a linear chain of command, more like people from several agencies scratching their heads trying to decide which agency had primary responsibility.  

The DC thing, unlike the COVID thing, was a true emergency.  COVID might have been classified as an emergency for the first month or two but, after that, it became an ongoing problem that required long term solutions.  For frame of reference, the attack on Pearl Harbor was an emergency, but the entirety of World War II was not an emergency.  

Speaking of war, by some definitions, the attack on the Capitol might be considered an act of war.  Some people have been calling it an insurrection, which is basically an act of war perpetrated by a nation state's own citizens instead of by another nation state.  That sounds about right.  In that case, Trump and all his little helpers should be charged with treason.  

The White Shadow stands up

 It is early yet and there will be plenty of time for pointing fingers,  I get the Washington Post so I have seen and read that article.  If Beagles had any particular point he wanted to make about it, I would like to hear it.

As you know I peek in on the foxies from time to time and I happened to be there when one of the little foxies was interviewing a security expert and her eyes glistened and her tongue slid along her lips as she said wasn't that the fault of the mayor of DC (who was of course a democrat)?  The security guy shook his head and pointed out that the DC police had nothing to do with it, the capital is protected by the Capitol police who are a federal agency.  Her face fell like a brick and she had clearly lost all interest in the subject and she was probably wondering when she could steer the conversation to Hunter Biden.

Here's another article about the debacle:  https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/06/politics/pence-national-guard/index.html  My point being that a lot of the fault for this debacle could easily be laid at Trump's feet.

You know I have long suspected that Pence was just too stiffly upright, too unwaverlingly loyal to be true, that surely he was holding a dagger beneath that snow white toga.  Well here at last is the break between the two men, but without the dagger.  

Trump was never too fond of Pence.  He picked him up from the political scrap heap because he wanted to strengthen his position with the religious right, something he probably didn't need to bother with because you know, Jesus walked on water, Trump bragged about grabbing women by their pussies, potato potahtoh.  Actually Pence gained a little allure just by standing next to Trump, because well anybody standing next to Trump looks better in comparison.

Probably he would have stuck with Trump if Trump hadn't made him walk the plank.  I hear he has finally had it.  https://www.newsweek.com/gop-senator-jim-inhofe-admits-mike-pence-angry-trump-1559748

Sweet justice it would be to see Pence putting his signature on the 25th amendment papers.

Where Was the Guard?

 I seemed to remember that several states had National Guard troops on standby in case this "peaceful protest" got out of hand.  They knew it was coming, but they didn't know how violent it would get.  I didn't see any mention of the Guard being involved in the early reports I read last night, but tonight I found this article after scrolling past numerous other items.  It sounds to me like what we used to call a SNAFU back in my army days.  Hopefully they will get their act together before Inauguration Day.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pentagon-placed-limits-on-dc-guard-ahead-of-pro-trump-protests-due-to-narrow-mission/ar-BB1cz7OS?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

who are these people?

 I generally go to sleep with the radio on and at about 2am yesterday I woke to hear that Warnock had won and that Osoff  had it in the bag.  At first I was just glad that we had taken the senate, but thinking a little further down the line I realized that it also meant the end of Moscow Mitch's domination.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah.  Sent out some emails, made a post on fb, commented on others.  Zippy a dee doo dah what a wonderful day.  

After lunch I settled into my LaZboy for my nap, listening to the circus of the Trumpists pissing and moaning about allegations of a stolen election, dropping off as Ted 'Satan' Cruz was beginning his spiel.  But then there was a shift, a change in tone from the bleeting Trumpists and the slightly sarcastic newscasters, something serious was going on.  Rubbing the sand from my eyes I saw that the capital was under siege.  

Who were these guys?  They had an inordinate love of flags, Trump flags, confederate flags, flags with Trump dressed like Rambo blasting off some super gun, all togged up like those nutty ladies that show up at conventions decked out in flags and buttons and whatnot from the crazy store.  One thing that struck me as odd was there were a lot of fat old guys most of them accompanied by their fat old wives who were just as outraged as their hubbies.  And there were guys like the guy with the horned hat dressed seemingly like some character of folk lore, but more likely the latest Marvel superhero or villain,

Every now and then they would pause in their insurrection and when they tired of calling the reporters traitors, would explain opaquely that they didn't like the way things were going, or they felt that they weren't getting enough attention, or that they were afraid of antifa, grumpy nursing home talk.  

What did that have to do with storming the capitol?  What did they think they were accomplishing?  Well it really didn't matter,  I guess we showed them, they told the reporters.  

Trump was called on to say something to sooth the savage beasts, but he called them beautiful people and ranted about the stolen election.

The capitol police turned out to be a bunch of mall cops, and finally the real police arrived to drive them off.

This morning I read that Trump has announced that he will leave peacefully.  I don't think anybody believes that. Thirteen more days.

The Bobcats of Beaglesonia

I forgot to answer Old Dog's questions about bobcats yesterday.  Truth be known, I looked them up just the other day because I didn't know a lot about them myself.  I knew there were a few around here, but I was surprised that they came so close to the house at night.  I only saw one bobcat on the property in all my 34 years of hunting and 20 years of living here, and that one was way back in the swamp.  Anyway, here's the link:

Bobcat - Wikipedia

Thanks to Uncle Ken for the clarification about those tempera paints.  Although I remember them from school, I didn't know all that stuff about the eggs.  I had heard that egg whites can be use as a type of glue, and that they were used in the construction of the Charles Bridge in Czechoslovakia.  Legend has it that an egg tax was levied on all the villages to support this effort, and the residents of one town, I believe it was Lidice, were worried that their contribution would get broken in transit, so they hard boiled their eggs before they shipped them, which made them useless to the bridge builders.  Even unto this day, when a Czech says or does something stupid, one of his fellow Czechs may chide him by saying, "Are you from Lidice, where they boil the eggs?"

The Wonder, tempera paint, and being off the clock at the end of the day

 I do remember the family doctor making house calls.  Soltis was his name. Mumps was the disease, a disease that was part of the regimen that all of us kids was expected to go through, and then it was completely forgotten, and now it appears to be making a small comeback thanks to the idiot anti vaxxers,  I remember something called pink salve that was put on our necks and smelled terrible and we didn't like it all.  Nor did we like the doctor.  I remember being made presentable for the doc and complaining "I don't see why I have to clean up for a dirty old doctor," and everybody laughed, and I saw where I might have a chance to make it in show biz, but somewhere along the line that talent got channeled into being a wise ass.

I have vague memories of sitting on the floor of the living room and listening to this huge radio play the Baby Snooks show.  Then came The Wonder.  At first it was just something the kids would talk about coming back to school from lunch.  Uncle Johnny Coons, The Little Rascals, cartoons.  What manner of device was this?  Then the neighbors got one and we kids would sneak onto their front porch and watch it through their window.

Finally one arrived in our house,  I don't remember how the furniture was arranged in our front room before, but now all chairs were turned to the tv and that's how we spent all our nights.  

But sometimes it would go on the blink and the family would have to wait while he removed that back and did whatever.  Old Dog said it was relatively easy, but we never knew that because we never dared because of that sudden death thing.   

Tempura is a Japanese dish.  The paints we used in grade school were called tempera paints which I think is kind of a generic name for different kinds of paint.  Before oils people used to paint with egg tempera which was a sort of water soluble paint mixed with egg white.  There are two kinds of watercolors, transparent where if you put yellow on top of blue you get green, and something called gouache where if you put yellow on top of blue you get yellow.  I believe what we used in grade school was more the gouache type but of a very cheap variety.

I don't know what became of those paint spattered kids because as a sub once the bell rang and I had the kids ushered out the door my day was over.  Many drawbacks of being a sub but walking out the door shortly after the bell was one of the upsides.

I think it was a sixth grade at Washington Irving school, there was a kid I didn't like.  He was loudmouth asshole, but what I didn't like was he was picking on this girl, and sometimes physically.  Not cool.  Coming  back from something he tripped her and she fell flat on her face.  I was so shocked that "Damn," slipped out of my mouth, something that happened maybe three of four times in my seven years of subbing.  But it was quickly forgotten as I hustled him off to the office to whatever tender mercies he would be shown there.

At the end of the day I was punching out and somebody in the office told me I had a telephone call.  I took it and it was the irate mother of the bully.  I tried to explain briefly the nature of her kids's crime, but she was not interested, instead she was launching into a diatribe about me swearing a blue streak.  I looked up at the clock and told the woman that I was off the clock and hung up on her.

Do You Know What HDMI Stands For?

I do now, but only because I looked it up.  It's "High Definition Multimedia Interface".   The kid that sold me the TV and DVD player said that I would need one of those because nothing made in the 21st Century uses those old fashioned A/V cables with the three color coded jacks.  Turned out that the DVD player comes with one of those, which means I could have plugged it into my old fashioned 20th Century TV after all, but we had been considering buying a flat screen for awhile anyway.  The DVD player also has an HDMI port, but the HDMI cable was not included, so the kid was right when he said I was going to need one of those, although I wouldn't have if I hadn't bought the new TV.  The new TV, on the other hand, does not have any ports for the old fashioned A/V cables, so the HDMI was the only viable option.  Actually, the volume is adequate with most DVDs, but when the dialog is delivered with a British accent, it would be nice to be able to turn it up a bit.  My instruction sheet says that I can put an amplifier between the DVD player and he TV if I had another HDMI cable, which is something to consider.

Are they still using those Tempura paints in the schools?  We used to call them "temper paints", probably because they were difficult to work with.  They were water soluble, which was a good thing because we usually had a mess to clean up afterwards.  We were required to buy them and show the teacher that we had them on the first day of school, but I only remember using them one time, and the clean up took longer than the painting. 

Happy 2021

Maybe it's my imagination but it sure looks like there are a couple of very well fed bobcats lurking in Beaglesonia.  I bet the small rodent population is quite small this time of year but I don't know what else would make up the bobcat diet.  I've never tracked any game but after a snowfall it must be interesting to follow the animal tracks, just to see where they lead.  There's not much around here that I've noticed except for rabbits.

-----

Remember tv repairmen?

Jeez, that's going way back, Uncle Ken, almost as far back as the family doctor who made house calls.  Wouldn't that be great if they still did that, with none of the paperwork, co-payments, and waiting in a place where you can catch anything?  My memory of the doctor's visits is a little fuzzy but I'll never forget that little black bag they carried, just like Doc Adams in Gunsmoke.

But getting back to the TV repairman, they weren't kidding about getting electrocuted, or at least getting a very serious shock even if the set was unplugged.  The capacitors and transformers can hold a lot of juice and it can take a long time for the energy to slowly weaken.  But that was part of the beauty of those old TVs; you could actually repair them.  It looked like voodoo to a child but it was actually quite simple.  Once you removed the back panel you'd find a complete schematic diagram and since everything was out in the open it was pretty easy to troubleshoot any problem and replace bad parts.

Not so simple these days, the parts are a lot smaller and manufacturers don't want us simple folk to be able to fix our own stuff.  The technical diagrams and spare parts can be very difficult to acquire; we don't own stuff anymore, we are leasing it but that's another rabbit hole.

I can't think of a solution to the weak audio signal of Mr. Beagles' new DVD player except to suggest that there's another audio input on the TV he should be using.  Most DVD players have very limited outputs but the new TVs can have a ton of inputs.  Is there a stereo system handy that you can use to boost the line levels?  That's what I use from the days of the 20th century when I got carried away with stereo equipment.  Got to have a sub-woofer, right?  You can find them at Best Buy hidden behind the buggy whips.

 

 

a couple sub stories

 2020 is now four days away.  It appears that far from fading Trump has gone nova.  There will be the speech in Georgia tonight.  Will he try to boost the candidates, or will he air grievances and foul the republican waters?  Most likely.  Then there is the circus on January 6.  Will the dirty dozen, no make that twenty, senators carry on with their caterwauling after Trump's recent phone call?  And then there will still be two weeks after that until the Trump scraps are hauled out of the white house.  

But until then we will continue to die of the Covid.  Remember Trump's very fine program for distributing the vaccine that no details of ever surfaced so the suspicion was high that there was no such plan, and of course it turned out there wasn't.  How many more will die because of this?  A lot.  

Well I just had to get that out.  I don't have much in the tank otherwise.  Here are a couple sub stories I recently emailed to a friend.

When I was subbing there was a school for the profoundly disabled.  Some could not walk and some could not talk and some could not do either.  Some came in on these elaborate wheel chairs and just stared at the ceiling all class long.  A couple of these had elaborately coifed hair and were dressed in the latest, sharpest, kid fashion clean and unwrinkled because how could it ever get to be otherwise.

I was kind of devastated, oh those poor kids, those poor parents.  But then I thought maybe it just seemed that way to me because I had just walked in on them.  To their parents it was just another day.  This was how their kid was every day and if they felt good knowing their kid was looking good, well that was something, and maybe somewhere in the process of getting them dressed up a smile had crossed their face, maybe they had mumbled something that sounded like Mama or Daddy.  And for the more advanced kids, well if this school could teach them how to eat from a bowl using a spoon, why that would make their parents' lives considerably easier.  So maybe it wasn't so bad.

And then we had a fire.  They were having some kind of diversity pageant, something Latin I think.  They had dressed some of the kids up as figures from Latin American history and they were pulling them along on wagons or carts in front of other kids who were just sitting and staring.  I am thinking to myself this is really strange.

And then the alarm rang.  Alarms rang all the time while I was subbing, some of them were preplanned and the rest of them were false alarms.  But in the confusion after the alarms I passed by the kitchen door and there were actual flames.  Shit.  Somebody gave me a kid in a wheelchair to push and the hand of a kid who could walk but not talk and I was headed out the door.

I have to say that in my mind I felt like I cut quite the heroic figure, flames roaring (hardly) as the bold sub leads two helpless kids to safety.  I rather wished that the Channel Seven News Truck would pull up and train their camera on me and lead the 5:00 show with the heroic sub story. but it turned out that it was not much of a fire at all and soon we were all going back to the school.

When you sub you teach whatever the missing teacher taught.  If they taught math, you teach math, first grade you teach first grade, ESL for Ukrainians you teach that (they all looked like Nazi youth, but they were the sweetest, most obedient kids I ever taught).  Then one particular day I was the art teacher.

Art teacher, how swell, was I not an artist myself?  Look at all this equipment, oh I can't wait.  But all I had that day were special ed kids of the more severe sorts.  They would just sit and stare as the teachers' aides used the crayons and the scissors in front of them.  Well this was no fun at all, and then at the end of the day I got a class of (forgive me) normal first graders.  I looked into their wide and wild laughing eyes and asked "Who wants to paint?"

I never had kids myself, and I never had been around people who had them very much and I didn't know what their various capabilities were.  Maybe five minutes into the class I realized that you don't just hand out paint and brushes to a bunch of first graders, but it was too late then, the barndoors were wide open.

I had noticed briefly when their teacher had brought them in that they were especially well dressed, likely it had been a photo day, but at the end of the class they were smiling (they did have a good time) and spattered.  Their teacher looked aghast, "This will all wash out won't it?  It seems likely that grade schools would be supplied with paint that washes out, but of course I had no idea.  Oh yes, I assured her, this will all wash out completely.

The Last of the Best

 Here are five more trailcam photos from the deer scrap pile.  I don't think I'll post any more from this batch because y'all have seen the best of them.