Random

Late summer here in Valhalla is lovely. Temps are in the 70s during the day and the 50s-60s at night. Am I getting outside to enjoy this splendid weather? Fuck no. My left foot, ankle and calf are still being uncooperative – swelling up if I elliptical too many days in a row. So I’m sitting. Attempting chair and bed level exercises and trying not to become ridiculously disheartened.

Also, I’m trying not to give in to my tendency to doomscroll. This would be easier to accomplish if I was more of a teevee watcher OR if buying the complete set of eps of Roger Ramjet and the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show weren’t so pricey.

There is some good news though.

Our governor, Maura Healey here in Massachusetts (along with JB Pritzker in Illinois, Newsom in California, and others) is fighting back against Trump and Bobby Brainworm’s determined efforts to kill us all off.

Governor Healey has taken several steps in recent months to ensure that vaccines remain available in Massachusetts. Earlier this month, she proposed giving the state Department of Public Health (DPH) authority to set independent standards for vaccine recommendations rather than rely on the federal government’s recommendations. Massachusetts is also leading a bipartisan coalition of states to coordinate on vaccine recommendations. (source) 

…Governor Maura Healey is planning to coordinate on the purchase and distribution of pediatric vaccines, should the federal government restrict access to them, according to a source familiar with ongoing discussions. This will likely include big states like New York and Pennsylvania. (source) 

Also, even the usually realistically bleak No More Mister Nice Blog kind of sees a ray of light.

Trump might die before his term is over. That would be a good thing on balance, but I don't think it would solve all or even most of America's problems. We'll still have a Republican Party totally committed to the decades-long project of overturning the Great Society, the New Deal, and the Progressive Era. 
~~~ 
The key thing J.D. Vance will do if he becomes president after Trump's death is wrap himself in Trump's mantle and act as the great preserver of Trump's legacy. He'll keep all the tacky gold decorations in the Oval Office. He'll continue planning the ballroom, which he'll call the Trump Ballroom. In fact, he'll preside over a massive campaign to name practically every inanimate object in America after Trump -- airports, roads, schools, military bases, maybe even the White House. (source) 

Mostly that bright spot is that Stinky dies. I’ll take it.

So, I need to take yet another day off from the elliptical (stupid swollen ankle) but maybe I can manage a short (minuscule) walk to the seawall and some standing-endurance type exercises.

On being old and infirm – the first is an achievement. I’m happy to have made it. It’s, more or less, good to be here. The latter? Yeah, this frail shit blows blue whale chunks. I do NOT recommend.

So here, have some cats.

The Void (AKA Cake)

Void feet

Skitter

The human brain is a mess

Broadly speaking, the human brain is a collection of software hacks compiled into a single somehow functional unit. Each “feature” was added as a random mutation that solved some specific problem to increase our odds of survival.

In short, the human brain is a mess.
~ Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary 

I’m currently in the middle of this hard science sci-fi novel (soon to be a major motion picture!). It’s by the same guy who wrote The Martian. 

side note: for those of you who aren’t science fiction freaks, hard science fiction is a kind of sci-fi writing that goes for scientific accuracy and technical detail. It doesn’t gloss over the science bits so much. (The Three-Body Problem, Foundation, Children of Time) This is in contrast to soft sci-fi with its focus more on sociological/anthropological themes. (Fahrenheit 451, The Left Hand of Darkness, Snow Crash) More or less. The line can be fuzzy.

Back to Project Hail Mary though…

Ryland Grace, academia-genius-turned-middle-school-science-teacher, wakes up on a space ship with little to no memories of who he is, where he is, and why he is there. To make matters worse, his other two crew members have died during the medically-induced coma part of their trip. 

Grace has a very special set of skills that will save all of humanity. He just can’t remember them yet. And yes, he understands the gravity of the situation. (Was I ever NOT going to use a space pun? No.) (source) 

An organism is absorbing the sun’s energy. It’s dimming the sun and is predicted to steal as much as 10% within some relatively short period of years. This will throw Earth into another ice age. Yes, Ryland's racing against time to save humanity.

While life, including humans, survived the last ice age, would modern humans do as well? Doubt it.

Frankly, humans today are pretty lame. I mean, look at me! If Stop & Shop goes out of existence, where would I go to hunt frosted blueberry Pop-Tarts? Do brussel sprouts and mushrooms grow in permafrost? Also, I honestly don’t know how to cultivate jalapeño poppers. Do we need special lights for that? Will we have electricity in an ice age?

Humans could survive BUT it’s gonna be the ones who already know what and how to plant in the cold and then how to preserve that food (drying, canning, fermenting, salting, etc.) who will be in the best shape. When the big commercial farms of Iowa, Nebraska, Texas, and California fail, and they will, who's going to supply the wheat for your bread? The corn for your Corn Chex? Barley for your beer? The sugar for your coffee?

Speaking of coffee – how the fuck will we even have coffee in an ice age? Beans are grown in tropical and subtropical climates. Those may be the last parts of the planet to go all icebox but still – how are we gonna transport the beans from far off Guatemala to Boston when all the landing strips, roads, and bridges have been ridiculously damaged by frost heaves? Is infrastructure gonna be a big priority for our greedy government? //snort//

Will people survive all the increased cold-related health issues? In cold weather our hearts need to work harder to pump blood and maintain body temperature. Heart attacks are a bigger risk as are hypothermia (DUH!) and breathing problems.

We're not a hardy or particularly forward thinking bunch. I mean, look at the state of the US right now. I'll be amazed and thrilled if we survive the damage that not-dead-yet Prez Stinky and his band of douchbagian radish brains wreak. 

Back in Hail Mary World (sort of) I keep wondering how I, as a deaf person, would manage first contact and learning how to communicate with an alien (as Ryland does). The alien (who Ryland has named Rocky) speaks in music – like chords or whale sounds. Rocky has super hearing but no eyes, no traditional vision. Would he hear the air move as I signed at him? Would we speak via drumming – vibrations and concussion carrying meaning? 

I wonder. 

Life and death are things you just do when you're bored

I dreamed paintings last night. 
First it was bananas in an Andy Warhol kind of a way. Then came the color field-esque canvases. They were reminiscent of Frankenthaler with a minimalist touch of Miró thrown in just for fun and sparkles. 

The dreams are giving me doable ideas. Nice.

I also had a little nightmare of sorts  featuring John Wayne. What. The. Fuck. I think Phil Stern’s pic of Wayne in short shorts appearing in my Threads feed before I went to Beddy Bye Land might be the culprit.

In any case, Katherine Hepburn was also in this vignette and she was tearing him three new assholes for some reason.

Probably because he was a draft dodging, big-(faux) dick-swinging, opportunistic white supremacist. He would fit in snuggly with Fuckface von WHY-Isn’t-He-Dead-Yet and crew. If he were alive today, he’d be suing Elon Musk's KGB connected Edward Coristine for using Wayne's rightful nickname – Bog Balls (oh... oh, sorry. I meant to type Big Balls). 

Of Natives Wayne’s said:

“I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. It was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.”

Of Black people Wayne’s said:

“I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don’t believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people.”

Whatever dream-Hepburn’s reasons were, Wayne totally had it coming. He was nothing but a tiny brained cardboard puppet. 
~~~
Actor Graham Greene has died. He was only 73 – too damn young.

He was one of the first Native actors to break the bullshit stereotypical way Native’s are presented/portrayed.

“When I first started out in the business, it was a very strange thing where they’d hand you the script where you had to speak the way they thought native people spoke. And in order to get my foot in the door a little further, I did it. I went along with it for a while … You gotta look stoic. Don’t smile … you gotta grunt a lot.

“I don’t know anybody who behaves like that. Native people have an incredible sense of humour.

“And that’s what I said to Kevin [Costner]. I said, you know, the people in this film [Dances with Wolves], in this village, they have an incredible family, incredible relationship and fun has always been part of that. Fun is 50% of how they live and enjoy things. Family is family, no matter what.” (source) 

Christ almighty. I have a big sad. Now I wanna watch Reservation Dogs and rewatch Thunderheart.
~~~
I smell a ripped from the headlines best selling murder mystery in the works:

A murder investigation has been launched at the Burning Man festival in the US state of Nevada after a man was found "lying in a pool of blood" on Saturday night, police say.
   ~~~
The body was discovered as the Man - a towering structure which lends the festival its name - was beginning to burn. The victim's identity is not known. (source) 

Another publication colorfully stated that the dead man’s body was found “while the festival’s large wooden effigy of a man at the centre of the festival was engulfed in flames.” Clearly the column’s author is already crafting a first draft on that best seller.

Happy Not-Yet-Fall-But-It-Feels-Like-It-Cause-Kids-Are-Back-In-School-And-It’s-Dark-When-I-Wake-Up-Now-And-Shit!

Song for today: Fear Is A Man's Best Friend – John Cale 

Schrödinger’s President

Trump is now Schrödinger’s President. Until we see him in his badly fitting, baggy dark navy suit and red tie, until he addresses the country with his word salad inanities, he is simultaneously both alive and dead.

 

Did the grease filled fuck have a wee stroke? Is he currently teetering on the precipice of doom (won’t someone PLEASE just give him a good, final push)? Are his handlers, his herders desperately trying to hide his damaged state from us? 

Stinky has been physically rotting and mentally disintegrating before our eyes and ears for years now but, when you're a fascist prez, there's a considerable distance between mostly dead and all out dead. If we’re really, finally at the end, why try to cover up what everyone's reasonably expecting? No one seriously believes this barely mobile, glitching splodge of painted, gelatinous hate is gonna make it through another year. How long will they Weekend At Donnie's him? C'mon!

Maybe we should start referring to him as the corpse in chief? Corpse Of The United States – COTUS. I mean, even he knows his time’s short. 

He keeps talking about Heaven. In a fundraising email, COTUS said  “I want to try and get to Heaven.” Good fucking luck with that you delusional dolt. 

How was he planning on pulling off that feat?

By getting his red-hatted, radish brained worshippers to send him money, of course.

In a Fox interview on August 19, talking about the Russian war on Ukraine, Stinky said:

“You know, if I can save 7,000 people a week from being killed, I think that’s a pretty — I wanna try and get to heaven if possible. I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I hear I’m really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons.”

On August 21, talking to right-wing radio host Todd Starnes, he spoke of his worries about his post-life digs:

“People of faith, there’s a feeling, they wanna be good, y’know? They get punished if they’re not good, right?…There has to be some kind of a report card up there someplace, y’know, like: ‘Let’s go to heaven, let’s get into heaven.’ It’s sort of a beautiful thing.”

He went on to ask:

“If you’re not a believer, and you believe you go nowhere, what’s the reason to be good, really?”

Let’s see now, assuming COTUS actually believes there’s a god and an actual Heaven and Hell really exist, what was the justification for his countless crimes – past, present and planned?

I’m not necessarily a believer. What’s been my reason to NOT be a complete shit of a human being? I have ethics, empathy, logic, and a bunch of other qualities of which thinking, reflective humans are capable. Obvs, Prez Dimbulb Questionably-Sentient lacks those.

I’m curious…will Mexico will pay for his funeral? Kinda doubt it. I mean, they didn’t pay for his wall, why would they pay for his casket?

Will he be buried on one of his cheesy golf courses like his first wife? Will any of his kids visit his grave or remember to have it weeded or mowed?

In my not so humble opinion, the biggest tell that Stinky’s just about done will be Vladimir Futon canceling his next vacation. That right there will be a sure sign that the Grim Reaper is ringing his doorbell.

How 'bout now?

 

All the Young Trolls

Forest Troll (1890), Theodor Kittelsen 

As you may know, I review comments before posting. Why? To weed out the spammers, scammers, phishers, shills, cut-rate marketeers – people looking to direct traffic to a commercial website. Also trolls – they're not welcome to my party either. 

One dimwit got caught in the moderation filter earlier this past week. He’s apparently new to the game and didn’t understand that his comments wouldn’t automatically show up. (trolls are usually, but not always, of the penis owning variety of human) He kept commenting the same angry drivel to a few of my posts. This angry anonymous commenter (gotta be anonymous – god forbid you stand behind your proud bigotry and infantile rage) was a tiresome combo of a debate-me-bro and a sealioner.

You know the debate-me-bros. They’re the folks who are always looking for a fight. “Debate” (their idea of one – "bloodsport argument" might be a better descriptive) is a game to be won, not an honest exchange of ideas. They’re coming into the “conversation” (and I use that word here ultra loosely) like a gladiator entering the coliseum. For them, this is a dominance play.

My brain’s bigger than yours! My facts stay hard longer than yours! 

I don’t have the time or interest in these insecure kid’s dick measuring games. Go play with your mother.

SLIGHTLY more sophisticated but every bit as a childishly pestiferous are the sealioners.

Sealioning is a form of trolling where a person, pretending sincerity, relentlessly asks for proof or clarification (which they never accept) in order to grind their opponent/victim into goldfish granules.

The person posing the questions appears, at least at first, to be genuine – like they’re really interested in your point of view and the knowledge you can share. They’re polite and civil...adult even. It’s a cheap ass fake. Don’t buy it.

The "sealioner" will keep asking the same questions, slightly rephrased, even after you’ve fully responded. They’re moving the goalposts, shifting the playing field. 

They’re playing a mashup of Calvinball (without the exuberant, surreal, chaotic fun) and Battleship but you think, in the beginning anyway, you’re having a conversation and exchange of ideas.

How do you recognize and avoid this particular brand of disingenuous debater? You know, someone who comes on with the nicey-nice, white bread sincerity of a door to door mormon or jehovah’s witnesses god salesman but is actually an imbecilic, time wasting, rabid wolf (NOT to diss imbecilic, time wasting rabid wolves, mind you).

Does it seem like they’re not listening to your responses? Do they seem to deliberately misconstrue your answers? It’s because they've a script in their heads they're following. What you're saying is irrelevant. You could be a quacking duck. They’re just waiting for you to become terminally annoyed and give up. They can then claim victory. It’s all a game, an ego boost for them.

The term sealioning originated with a Wondermark comic by David Malki. Dr. Jonathan N. Stea, a clinical psychologist describes this sealioning as death by a million bad-faith questions. Dr. Stea does an in depth dissection of this shit at a post on Medium – def worth the read.  

So then, I review comments before I set them free into the magical interwebz. I will NOT be engaging in anyone’s masturbatory right-wing warrior fantasies. Also, go do your laundry and stop eating so much junk food – it’ll make your puny pizzle even tinier, and dude, it’s verging on microscopic now.

All the Young Dudes, Bowie 

Yet?

Matt Groening, Simpsons creator and resident oracle recently said: “When you-know-who dies, The Simpsons predicts that there will be dancing in the streets. Except President (J.D.) Vance will ban dancing.”
I’ve no doubt about that.

Vacay Vance, who’s having a hell of a time concealing his eagerness over becoming president by default soon, made a rare diplomatic-for-him statement:

“Yes, terrible tragedies happen,” Vance said. “But I feel very confident the president of the United States is in good shape, is going to serve out the remainder of his term and do great things for the American people.

“And if, God forbid, there's a terrible tragedy, I can't think of better on-the-job training than what I've gotten over the last 200 days,” he added. (source) 

The USA Today article STARTS OUT with how Many Names is definitely NOT measuring the windows for new new drapes all while he’s commenting to the interviewer that the current ones make the Oval Office so “dark and gloomy.”

I have a couple little thoughts on this.

“God forbid, there's a terrible tragedy…” I can hear him rubbing his hands together in orgiastic, gleeful anticipation as he says this and, don’t forget, I’m deaf!

The "on-the-job training" he got in the first 200 days? More like the daily slamming of his wee schwanz in the door with every stupendously rude, clueless, braindead thing he's said to world leaders and the press. And that's on the days when he wasn't vacationing. Yale should totally rescind his law degree.

That Vacay Veep commented on the Oval Office drapes at all says that YES he’s already redecorating, at least in his head. Frankly, I don’t have a problem with this. IF he bothers to change the meth addled Liberace by way of Vegas level Baroque stylings, what’s the worst he can do? The man is a style/design/fashion wasteland. He’s not just off-the-rack, he’s mass-market beige. We’ll be going from gilded grotesque to Wayfair and Pottery Barn Live, Laugh, Love type decorations. The former is in-my-face hurl inducing. The latter is just this side of ignorable. That’ll do until we get a president and crew in there with even the slimmest amount of reasonable taste.

I mean, I’m not expecting Basquiat, Kehinde Wiley, John Nieto, Emmi Whitehorse or Latifa Echakhch everywhere but, ya know, it couldn’t hurt.

Elsewhere, on Threads, someone asked if it was too soon to write a science fiction story (or teevee show) where Sirhan Sirhan is a time traveler trying to save Palestine, but kills the wrong Bobby Kennedy? Nope, not too soon. Someone should totally write this story. Can we bring Phillip Dick (for his utterly weird, creative philosophical bend) back from the dead to author it along with John Scalzi (for same plus his brilliant wit)?

I want to make it abundantly clear that I am completely on the side of time travel Sirhan Sirhan offing the RIGHT Bobby and that was MOST DEF NOT RFK Senior! 

Interestingly, there’s a second gunman theory (of course there is) and Bobby Jr. is ALL about this (because OF COURSE he is).

“I believe Cesar killed my father,” Kennedy Jr. wrote in a 2021 San Francisco Chronicle op-ed of security guard Thane Eugene Cesar, who died in 2019 and was never charged. “Sirhan,” Kennedy Jr. wrote, “is not my father’s killer.” (source) 

One thing about Brainworm Bobby – he’s consistent. Consistently centered on himself, his needs, his enjoyment, his conspiracies, his place in this theater of planet Earth.

His father, was amazing. Yes, I was only nine years old when he was assassinated but, fer fuck’s sake, I was a child, not an imbecile. 

After being shot: 

As Kennedy lay mortally wounded, Romero (a busboy for the hotel restaurant) cradled his head and placed a rosary in his hand. Kennedy asked Romero, "Is everybody OK?", and Romero responded, "Yes, everybody's OK." Kennedy then turned away from Romero and said, "Everything's going to be OK.” (source) 

Ethel should’ve swallowed.

And the Aardvark You Road In On

Brainworm Bobby has had absolutely zilcho medical training or real world health education. Vibes and gut feelings from a roadkill eating, empathy devoid, tanning bed obsessed, 14 year heroin addict mean nothing to me. 

This moldy turnip makes moronic statements like:

“I’m looking at kids as I walk through the airports today, as I walk down the street, and I see these kids that are overburdened with mitochondrial challenges, with inflammation, you can tell from their faces, from their body movements and from their lack of social connection.” (source) 

*AHEM *

 What are mitochondria?

Mitochondria are membrane-bound cell organelles (mitochondrion, singular) that generate most of the chemical energy needed to power the cell's biochemical reactions. Chemical energy produced by the mitochondria is stored in a small molecule called adenosine triphosphate (ATP). (source) 

I WISH a reporter would have asked him at least one of these follow up questions:

• “could you define mitochondrial for our readers?” 

• “how long have you been able to detect cellular activity outside an electron microscope equipped lab setting” 

• “when and where did you get your medical degree and when/where did you then complete your necessary neurology residency in order to diagnose mitochondrial disorders?”

The current chaos at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) wouldn't have been possible without Republican Senators who are also medical doctors. These four traitors to their Hippocratic Oath voted to confirm a proven wackaloon antivaxxer whose promotion of antivax lies led to the 2019 deaths of 83 children on Samoa.

The doctor/senators who put their party and their phony baloney jobs over the health of you and your family are: 

*  Bill Cassidy, from Louisiana, a gastroenterologist.
*  John Barrasso, from Wyoming, an orthopedic surgeon.
*  Roger Marshall, from Kansas, he completed a residency in obstetrics and gynecology but it’s unclear whether he ever actually hung out a shingle.
*  Rand Paul, from Kentucky, was an ophthalmologist (granted, he lost his American Board of Ophthalmology certification and has twice been sued for malpractice – cleared in one case, settled in another).

All medical doctors. All provided the crucial votes to confirm a dangerous clown and complete charlatan as HHS Secretary. 

We should make sure these scumbags never forget what they did and how many deaths they've co-signed.

That chaos? Brainworm Boy was pressuring CDC Director Susan Monarez to support the mass firing of high-level staff AND his torching of the COVID vaccine policy. She said, not in these exact words, fuck you and the aardvark you road in on. The man who dumps dead bears in Central Park then announced that Monarez was "no longer director.” Lots of those afore mentioned high-level staffers followed that shit up by revolting and quitting the joint.

How soon will the CDC be nothing but antivax conspiracy theorists shilling bleach inhalers, saltwater gargling, ivermectin cure-alls, camel urine tonics, UV lights to shine up your butt, colloidal silver, creams, and magic crystals. All will be available at Trump’s West Wing Grift Shop. If you act now, Brainworm Boy will throw in a free Make America Healthy Again ball cap. Supplies limited. Be the first one on your block to be buried in one of these stylish commemorative caps.  

RIP public heaIth.

Too bad Ethel didn’t swallow.

Okay, one fun thing before I sign off – I just saw the greatest video. It’s of a horse who, apparently, got all psyched when the 1997 Critérium International, a three-stage bike race in France, went by. He jumped the fence of his meadow (field? Home base?) and joined in the race! How fun is that!?