now we're talking

 I have been wondering for two weeks where Old Dog got the idea that I was born and spent my early years in St Louis, but in his reply he referenced other blogs. Other blogs?

Oh that's right I have started a couple of them.  There is Uncle Ken's Kitchen which I saw as a kind of humor piece centering around some of the strange foods that I eat, well not strange, but anyway, it wasn't that funny or even interesting so I dropped it after a couple of posts.  

And then there was the Champaign Expatriates blog.  There are several of us who used to hang together in Champaign-Urbana and were Cub fans and it began by just writing emails as we were watching the game and sometimes other subjects would crop up.  But then with the big event of The Corona (remember when we called it The Corona, like My Sharona?) on us I thought it might be a good idea to put our letters into a more formal form of discourse the way emails between Beagles and myself became The Institute. 

Didn't last though, it was hard enough to get most of them to write an email any longer than a few sentences let alone go through the formality of posting on a blog.  Most of them were LAS grads, English Major types, yet when faced with writing anything they were like my third grade kids who when faced with writing, well anything, would whine "I don't know what to write."  Well you're talking aren't you?  Just write that.  How can anybody not have anything to say?  Beats me.

I see now where Old Dog got the idea that I grew up in St Louis.  In one of the expatriate posts I am talking about visiting my friends in St Louis when their kids were very small and I abruptly switched to our family moving into the bungalow on Homan Avenue.  

I'm glad that I revisited that blog.  It reminds me of the way I felt when The Corona game upon us.  See, that's what I was trying to do with posting on The Institute about our Corona experiences.  I did not want to flog a dead horse I wanted to explore the way we felt then and the way we feel now, the things we thought then and the different ways we think now.

But that is awfully close to talking about our feelings and I know we guys hate that and I never got any responses.

Speaking of Old Dog's projects, how are the mangoes doing?

I'm with you on the gender and pronoun crapola.  If they want to go on among themselves with that language and it makes them feel good, fine.  But they are, as Old Dog observes, forcing it down our throats.  They have their own little argot which is changing all the time and if you don't keep up with the latest terms then you are labelled anti-LGBTQ (which it seems even as I typed became LGBTQIA is an abbreviation for "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning, intersex,, asexual/aromantic/agender." The “A" in LGBTQIA may also refer to “ally" or “allied," meaning someone who does not identify as LGBTQIA but supports those who do.)

I mean c'mon guys.  That is if it's still okay to use the terms guys which it probably isn't.

Nice having a little conversation guys.

Sunday evening

Apologies to Uncle Ken for questioning the validity of his Chicago Card.  I came to my conclusion based on a post from one of his other blogs in which he was relating a visit to friends in St. Louis, and crafty wordsmith that he is, I developed a mental picture that placed him there and not in Chicago.  Ah, the power of words!  And shame on me for not following his train of thought more closely but, truth be told, I think he can be difficult to follow sometimes, or so it seems to me.

-----

Fifteen days between posts must be a new record for Uncle Ken; I was surprised he made it that far.  My lack of posts almost make me feel like some kind of anti-social mope but it's not like that. I hope it's not but I can get get overly absorbed in goofball notions and projects, and reading up on whatever strikes my interest at the moment.  And that's much more interesting to me than politics, celebrity, social media, and all the other stuff that tries to define our collective reality.

I had plenty more to say about the many societal changes we are experiencing but guess what?  I deleted it and decided it's not something I want to get worked up about.  A while back I had one of the recent Covid booster shots and they asked a few questions, one of  which was "What race do you identify as?"  I had to pause and think before I answered "Human."  That got a few laughs from the other medical people but then I went along with the gag, looked closely at my hands and said it seems like I'm a white guy, so you should put down Caucasian.

I don't know about you guys but I don't spend a lot of time thinking about race, gender, or the pronoun I should be using but it's a big deal to a lot of folks.  And those folks seem to be insistent that everybody else should think the same way they do, up to point of shoving things down our throats whether we like it or not.  But I've gone on too far with this train of thought and time to get off.

-----

Mr. Beagles, are you still using your wildlife camera to track the critters of Beaglesonia?  I was wondering if anything interesting happened this past winter or if you have observed any trends over the years.  Has Nature maintained its balance?

Still Here

 Sorry, but I just haven't felt inspired to write anything lately.  I seem to remember that we ran the pandemic into the ground back in the day, and I can't get interested in flogging that dead horse yet.  Maybe, in a couple more years, it will qualify as nostalgia, but not yet.

I seem to be gradually recovering from falling on my head back in January, or maybe I'm just getting used to being this way.  I'm still nervous about driving any distance since that time. I fell asleep at the wheel.  I never had a problem driving around Cheboygan, I was coming back from Indian River at the time of the incident.  I did drive to Indian River the other day with my daughter riding shotgun, and I seemed to do alright.  Next week I have to go back there to take my wife for her dental appointment, so we'll see how that goes.  Then I have to go to Petoskey in mid-May to see those sleep clinic people, and that will be the real test.  

Nothing

Friday nothing
Saturday once more nothing
Sunday nothing

Monday, nothing

Tuesday, nothing

Wednesday and Thursday nothing

Friday, for a change
A little more nothing
Saturday once more nothing
Sunday nothing

Monday, nothing

Tuesday, nothing

Wednesday and Thursday nothing

Friday, for a change
A little more nothing7

That of course is the famous Nothing song from the famous Fugs.  One of the records we played over and over again in the summer of 1966, along with a Buffy St Marie and all the Bob Dylan albums up to and including Highway 61 Revisited.  A fine summer of my youth which I could go into in fine detail, but I don't think anybody is interested.  Actually I don't think anybody is listening.  You know that feeling you get when you are talking to a couple people and you turn your head to watch the house finch strut along the rail of the balcony but you continue talking, but when you turn your head back they are gone and you realize you haven't been talking to anybody, kind of a joke, but then there isn't even anybody to share the joke with.  

So I don't know.  Just chucking a rock into a still pond to see what happens.

the shutdown

 My candidate, the teacher's union guy won the election, so I guess that's good.  The other guy was entirely too close to Catanzara, the prez of the Fraternal Office of Police, and one of those guys who believe when there is some questionable shooting that the police are always innocent.  

We almost always end up hating our mayors by the end of their rule and I was looking up former mayors on wiki and came across a list of vice mayors.  Vice mayors?  I don't remember hearing anything about that.  Well you learn things researching your blog posts.  All the more reason to post often.

The indictment was, well disappointing.  I didn't quite understand it when Bragg read it and then CNN put on one of Trump's lawyers and he trashed it, but Trump lawyer, so what?  But then they put on one of their pundits and he sort of trashed it too. Since then I have been reading pundits of various ilks and the responses are disturbingly various, so I don't know.  Even if it's all in good legal order, if it's so complicated how are you going to explain it to a jury?  And now nothing much happens until December so it's like no big deal.  It has set Trump to squawking and that never helps his case, so there is that.

I did want to get into the shutdown though.  I looked up that Michigan barber, Karl Manke though, and he is still kicking.  Sweden had that no shut down thing, and that didn't work well for them, even though Swedes are very responsible people.  I liked the Chinese model at the time which was lock 'em up.  Not very nice I know, but it seemed effective covid-wise.

At the time I favored something on the Chinese model but not so extreme.  My reasoning was that if we could isolate everybody for a week or two, the virus could not spread anywhere and that would be the end of it, and the expense and hassle of the lockdown would pay off by ending the plague which would go on for a couple years.

I would still be for it if I thought it would work, but in retrospect there is no way we could have isolated everybody and some virus would escape and have an open playground once the big shutdown was over. 

big Tuesday

 In describing the dem agenda as enslaving everybody regardless of race, color, or creed, I think a more accurate description would be creating the worker's paradise, but of course reasonable, like ourselves can sometimes disagree on a minor point.

How about this one?  What if GG unilaterally extended her state of emergency to  block a process that would take away Old Betsy? Would you be mad about her for that?  Well of course none of us dems want to take away Old Betsy, but say it was some gun control measure you didn't like.  Well, not likely that GG would be against a reasonable gun measure.  Let's say there was some Republican that you like (if there are any anymore) who extended unilaterally to block a gun control measure, would you be as angry at him for doing that as you were at GG?

Big election in the Chicago Mayoral election Tuesday, the police union vs the teacher's union, polls say it neck and neck.  Of course I am voting for the teacher's union, but I fear that if either man wins the city will end up even more divided than it was before.

Anyway I will cast my vote moments after the polls open downstairs and then I will do some painting, maybe a nap, maybe lunch, kinda depends on when The Indictment takes place and of course I will be watching it like a hawk.  Not that I expect any unexpected events, I will just love the ritual.

Of course we don't yet know what the charges are.  I assume that will be revealed at the indictment.  I think the main one will be that his payment to Stormy was a payment for his campaign that he did not report as he should have.

I don't think it is as strong as the classified records or Jan 6 cases, but, I think Michael Cohen said it this way, once you are in the clutches of the law things are beyond your control, and who knows what will happen?

One thing I fear is that a sleeper Trumper will end up on the jury and then no matter how strong or weak the case is he will skate.  Well a chance that has to be taken, there are other indictments reaching out for him with the long and strong arm of the wall.

What Agenda Indeed

 "But what agenda did you think that the conservatives were forwarding rather than beating down the pandemic?"

A long time ago the Republicans had an agenda of lower taxes, less regulation, and more personal freedom, well at least for male White people, which I like better than the Democrats' goal to enslave everybody regardless of race, color, or creed.  Nowadays the only agenda they seem to have is Trump.  Since Trump denied the seriousness of the pandemic, his minions felt compelled to do likewise.

"So were you mad at Gretch because of what she was doing or how she was doing it?"

A little of both, I suppose.  Some of her edicts made sense, and some did not, like shutting down golf courses and motorboats.  Then, when she tried to unilaterally extend her state of emergency beyond its statutory limit, it was the icing on the cake.

Speaking of Trump, of all the bad things he has allegedly done, why are they finally charging him with the least of them?  I don't think it's even illegal to bribe your ex-girlfriend to keep her mouth shut, so they are charging him with keeping false business records or something like that.  Of course, all the other stuff is being investigated, and will continue to be investigated indefinitely.  Job security for the investigators, I guess.