Strange Times

First Leonard Peltier is out of prison and finally HOME!

To welcome Leonard Peltier back to his homelands after 49 years of wrongful incarceration, NDN Collective will host a celebratory event and community feed at the Sky Dancer Event Center in Belcourt, North Dakota on Wednesday, February 19, 2025 at 12pm CST. The event will also be live-streamed on NDN Collective’s Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn accounts. (source)

Betcha you can guess what I'll be doing today at noon.

Back to my regular kvetching though…

I’m really sick of the posts from fellow Americans saying that we should all escape—find another country to live in.

Right, like that’s oh so easy, affordable and morally brave.

A)  I’m disabled now. I have a rare neurologic disorder and the docs doing the big research on it are here in Boston. My meds (some experimental) are myriad and pricey. Most countries with great healthcare systems (e.g. Iceland) won’t take me because I would be a burden on their systems.

B)  Uprooting to a new country is NOT cheap. I can pare my belongings down to absolute essentials (clothes, meds, walker, wheelchair, Ten, Cake) but at some point, after settling in Iceland, I’m gonna need a bed and a chair…maybe even a table. OR I could ship all my belongings. Either way, it's gonna be costly.

C)  I’m deaf. Sure, I’d want to learn my new country’s language but that’s gonna take a lot of time and a special teacher. I’d need to learn, fer instance both Icelandic AND Icelandic Sign Language. Tech workarounds are great BUT not foolproof. Also, they tend to be reliant on WiFi.

I have friends who’ve gone ex-pat (pre trump/musk). Couple number one moved to rural France. They had money. The husband grew up here in the US but had dual US/French citizenship and was fluent in French. His wife has hearing as well as a talent for learning new languages. The second couple were both fluent in Italian. Plus, the husband, born and raised in Rome, was already an Italian citizen. They too had the financial wherewithal and reasonably good health to make the jump to Italia.

Jealous? Who me?

IF I had the bucks, health, and hearing would I decamp for Iceland or the Scottish Highlands, Ireland or Italy? Tempting, awfully tempting. I don’t know. Could I take Ten, Jen, Oni, his brother Kevin, and all the cats with me? That’s a supreme dealbreaker. Why would I leave if I can’t take my family with me?

Realistically, I don't have a choice. Also too, I want to stay here and fight. This is my home, my country. Yes, it has always been deeply flawed and we’re now in a mondo tailspin. I may not survive this. Still, this is home and it’s worth fighting for.

On the deeply flawed front, this morning on Bluesky I saw a post (with a LOT of comments) going off about how at least people in their 60s and older have memories of living here when life was good.

How astoundingly fucking privileged and insular can you be?! You’d have to be a complete douchebag fantasist to overlook the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, the Poor People’s Campaign, Reagan’s obscene non-response to the AIDS epidemic, women’s ongoing battle for equality, and on and on. Tell me WHEN has life ever been peaceful, sublime, and equitable, hmmmmm? Nostalgia is a toxic quicksand of ignored reality.

I suppose if you grew up in a financially and emotionally stable, healthy, well-positioned family, if you were white and male, yes, you’d have memories of a better America.

In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.
~ Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Is it spring yet?

It is impossible, to me at least, to be poetical in cold weather.
~ George Eliot

It's impossible to be pretty much anything on these frozen, blustery days.

To appreciate the beauty of a snowflake it is necessary to stand out in the cold.
~ Aristotle

Dude—totally NO thank you!

No animal, according to the rules of animal-etiquette, is ever expected to do anything strenuous, or heroic, or even moderately active during the off-season of winter.
~ Kenneth Grahame

This includes me. Okay, okay—I can do my PT exercises and ride my recumbent elliptical today but, other than that, I'm fucking hibernating.

No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.
~ Hal Borland

30 days until spring arrives. *sigh*

Winter is a season that often overstays its welcome. It's like a chunk of cheese that got shoved way into the back of the fridge and wasn't found until it had developed so many life forms that it was officially recognized by the United Nations as a new country.
~ Jerry Nelson

What's the point of complaining? We live in the north. Winter exists.
~ Viki Mather

WHERE are my goddamn crocuses?!

Mostly Star Trek

It seems we’re having a full on Jeri Ryan weekend here in Valhalla.

My only complaint about Seven of Nine's USS Voyager entrée is the hemispherical bowling ball sized headlights she’s sporting. I mean, I had no idea that the Borg were that into extreme pushup bras, H. R. Giger, and Boris Vallejo.

What were the powers that be on the Voyager production team thinking when designing Seven’s costume? I know, they weren’t thinking—they were gleefully waxing their wee carrots like teen boys in mom's basement. None of the other characters—female or male—are dressed in skintight, boobily enhanced costumes.

We also took in a couple of Ryan’s appearances on Leverage. She plays an incredibly talented grifter who’s subbing for Sophie who’s gone off to find herself (the actor playing Sophie, Gina Bellman, was off on pregnancy leave). Gotta say, Jeri Ryan’s a great actor. She could play every single part in Hamlet, Animal House or Terminator and just kill.

In other long weekend news, Presidents Stinky and Leon are, perhaps, only now discovering Vice Prez Couchfuck. In ShitzenPantz and Space Karen’s kakistocratic frenzy they’d totally forgotten about him. I wish I could too. Was what’s-his-name’s performance in Germany enough to score him an invite to their next bullying and bullshit orgy or no?

Meanwhile, I see that Drunk Hogsbreath hasn’t stopped drinking (as promised) now that he’s won the Sec of Defense gig (for which he’s laughably, spectacularly unqualified). In fact he was caught balls out drinking on the job, at the podium as he’s giving a speech in Brussels. Was he sipping his whiskey to stave off the DTs or did he just forget that water exists? One of his aides claimed it was nonalcoholic whiskey. Sure Jan.

Someone on Threads said Hogsbutt looked hungover at the press conference—constantly taking sips of some liquid or another, all while proving himself incapable of giving coherent answers.

I guess being Defense Secretary requires a more evolved skill set than spewing lies from a comfy chair on a Fox teevee set.

By the by, the Nazi furniture assaulter and Wankstain von Boozehound perfectly illustrate the current state of the US government. We're SO fucked.

Back to important Star Trek stuff though. I’ve been so confused as to the order of all the shows—especially where the Borg are concerned.

The Original Series, set between 2151 and 2156, ran from 1966 to 1969—no Borg. 

The Next Generation, set 200 years later in 2364 to 2370, ran from 1987 to 1994. The Borg’s first appearance is in the ep Q Who.

Deep Space Nine, set in 2369 to 2375, aired from 1993 to 1999. The Borg appear in just one episode, Emissary. They’re a big deal in Commander Benjamin Sisko's  backstory though. His wife, Jennifer, was killed by the Borg during the Battle of Wolf 359.

Voyager takes place in the years 2371-2378 and was on teevee from 1995 to 2001. The Borg show up a lot in Voyager, including the eps Blood Fever, Unity, Scorpion (parts one and two), The Raven, and Collective.

Discovery (2017-2024) is a bit complicated. Seasons one and two are set between the Original Series and Next Generation—2256 and 2258. At the end of season two part of the crew jumps through a wormhole and time jumps, ending up in the 32nd century. There were Borg pre time jump but not post jump. 

Strange New Worlds takes place in the year 2259. The show is set in the 23rd century, a few years before the events of the Original Series so, no Borg yet. Strange New World’s third season is in production now and scheduled to come out later this year. Awesome!

Picard, this mixed bag of a show (on teevee from 2020-2023) focused on retired Starfleet Admiral Jean-Luc Picard and begins at the end of the 24th century, 20 years after his last appearance. The Borg are featured in the second and third seasons. They’re sort of neutralized when Dr. Agnes Jurati, Picard’s key cyberneticist, merges with the Borg Queen.  

Yes, I’m totally geeking out this weekend and I’m NOT sorry about this AT ALL.

Pic Day

Half-Wits R Us

Be careful. When a democracy is sick, fascism comes to its bedside, but it is not to inquire about its health.
~ Albert Camus

N.B., Elon, the rich, socially banjaxed, white supremicist moron who bought Trump and the presidency (two for the price of one!) doesn’t know what he’s doing. His little flying monkeys are similarly clueless.

Elon Musk’s team at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has posted classified information about the size and staff of a U.S. intelligence agency on its new website, raising bigger concerns about where Musk’s programmers got this information and what they are doing with it. (source)

“Incompetence” isn’t a strong enough word for what Musk and his band of teenage mutant coders are doing. How many of our spies will die and how much fake intelligence will come in to trip us up now that Musk’s little programmers have posted this ultra sensitive info ONLINE?

Also:

Trump administration officials fired more than 300 staffers Thursday night at the National Nuclear Security Administration — the agency tasked with managing the nation’s nuclear stockpile — as part of broader Energy Department layoffs, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

Sources told CNN the officials did not seem to know this agency oversees America’s nuclear weapons. (source)

We are SO fucked.

They’re all massively hubristic, bone-brained, smug, asinine, half-wits. What else can we honestly expect from a grown man who’s Twitter handle is Harry Bōlz and a group of boys who think they shit gold (one has nicknamed himself Big Balls) though.

Leon believe his own absurd hype. He seems to be attempting to populate the world with his own Nazi youth. Currently he has 13 children by four different women. One major problem—the old, evil shitstain’s not talented at the whole parenting thing.

Wilson said that, for as long as she could remember, Musk hasn’t been a supportive father. She said he was rarely present in her life, leaving her and her siblings to be cared for by their mother or by nannies even though Musk had joint custody, and she said Musk berated her when he was present. 

“He was cold,” she said. “He’s very quick to anger. He is uncaring and narcissistic.”  (source) 

I hope his other kids rebel too. Especially his spoiled, nose picking, little meat shield.
I read that the VP Couchfucker came out of his burrow and made a spectacular ass of himself at the Munich conference yesterday. (I believe this means we're in for four more years of winter)

It had been expected that Vance would use his speech at the Munich Security Conference to address possible talks to end the war in Ukraine. 

Instead, he spent the majority accusing European governments…of retreating from their values, and ignoring voter concerns on migration and free speech.

The address was met by silence in the hall, and later denounced by several politicians at the conference. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said it was "not acceptable”. (source)

"Not acceptable”—UNDERSTATEMENT TIME!

Coming off as a nothing more than micro dicked, junior high bully he announced “there is a new sheriff in town under Donald Trump’s leadership.”

WHAT a ridiculous clown! Did he think he was in some John Wayne flick? Maybe a Dirty Harry feature? If he’s allowed out to threaten our former allies again will he hold a gun on them and ask if they feel lucky?

Roses are red
Trump is a cunt
Musk is a cunt
Vance is a cunt

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Are they dead yet?

Self Care, Bacchanals, and Monsters (oh my!)

Librocubicularist
     noun
someone who reads in bed

That would be me. Hi, my name is Donna and I am a proud, pro-league librocubicularist.
~~~
Is worn out baseball glove a Crayola crayon color? I mean, Co-Prez Shitzenpantz is really starting to resemble a clapped out old mitt. Also, can he not afford a proper makeup artist? For Bast’s sake, he makes Tammy Faye Bakker look like a pro cosmetologist and aesthetician.
~~~
Where is the in-name-only vice prez? You know, JD Vance or whatever name he’s going by this week. I saw the tourist pic of him in his worn to threads old blue jeans, carrying his very own MusKKK-style, handmaid-in-training cloaked meat shield while the wife-bot stayed a respectful 10 feet behind him. Couchfuck must be kind of bored what with Stephen Miller, Leon the Indiscriminate Destroyer, and all things Project 2025 running the show. He's superfluous.
~~~
Bacchanal
     noun
an occasion of wild and drunken revelry. 

1530s (n.), "riotous, drunken roistering;" 1540s (adj.) "pertaining to Bacchus," from Latin bacchanalis "having to do with Bacchus (q.v.).
   ~~~
Greek god of wine and revelry, a later name of Dionysus, late 15c. (source)

Did you know that Ariadne, daughter of King Minos and Theseus’s helper in offing the Minotaur, was immortal and the wife of the wine-god Dionysus (AKA Bacchus)?

Was their casa filled with serious 24/7 bacchanalia action and monster murdering?
~~~
How can I explain to people that they should understand and care about injustice even if it never effects them?

No really—how can we convince Joe and Jane MAGAt that folks who don’t look like them are in fact humans deserving the same rights and courtesies? Is there any point in trying? Are the Trump cultists beyond redemption?
~~~
This weekend we’re having a little Valhalla Star Trek Fest. Specifically, we’ll be exploring Seven of Nine’s origin story on Voyager’s ep, The Raven. Possibly we’ll also need to watch Scorpion: Part 1, Scorpion: Part 2, Prey, and In the Flesh.

The Borg encountered Species 8472 in 2373, after finding their way into fluidic space to search for more species worthy of assimilation. However, Species 8472 proved immune to assimilation and the invasion of their realm provoked a war; according to Seven of Nine, Species 8472 was the first species to offer "true resistance to the Borg" in their long history. With their superior biological technology, Species 8472 drove the Borg back and launched a counter-invasion of the galaxy, annihilating large numbers of Borg drones, ships and even planets. (source)

Inspiring, no?

Hey, you do self-care your way and I’ll do mine. K?

Cookies, Star Trek, Dylan, etc.

WHAT is the meaning of life, the universe and everything else?

Douglas Adams, in his fabola book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, would have you believe that the answer to this eternally burning question is “42.” C’mon now, really? I lean heavily toward the concept of personal meanings of life, etc. Fer instance, this morning I’m pretty certain that the answer is actually “cookies.”

Jen’s sister-in-law, Lucy, makes outrageously good cookies. This morning’s was a cranberry/oatmeal sort of concoction. It was perfect.
~~~
You’re familiar with Seven of Nine? Her full Borg designation was Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One. Kind of a mouthful, no? No wonder she truncated that shit and it’s no surprise that her crewmates further shorted it to Seven. Why didn’t she go back to her birth name, Annika Hansen? //shrugs// I’m just guessing here, but maybe it’s because she had been Borg—Seven of Nine—for so long that she was no longer Annika. You live through, survive, so much trauma and you change. Am I the same person now as I was at four years of age—pre-carnival days, before a zillion and a half neurosurgeries, prior to heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to? Yes and no.

If changing my name was easy, not a fucktangle of endless bureaucracy, I’d def consider it. I’m partial to Sopravvissuta—the Italian word for survivor—but you can call me Sopravvis.

You know what’d be awesome? A Star Trek universe show staring Michelle Yeoh as Philippa Georgiou (from Star Trek: Discovery NOT Section 31) and Jeri Ryan as Seven (from Next Generation or Picard). They would kick serious ass.
~~~
I was freaking out about my taxes yesterday. As I may (or may NOT) have mentioned already, I never finished my tax prep last year. Apparently I was mega overwhelmed by my latest brain op (in May of ’24 plus the preceding dental surgery) and the unexpectedly arduous, ongoing recovery. So much so that I misplaced all my paperwork and related scans. Luckily, the tax preparer folks are wonderfully on the ball and kind.

They’re helping me recover the missing paperwork. Yes, I’ll need to redo all my ’23 tax prep crap but at least it’ll be done and out of my head. Then I get to start on ’24’s returns. FUN!

The suck-ass part of all this? With our federal government as fucked up as it is now (with the idiot warmongering rapist and his billionaire destruction sidekick at the helm), I don’t want to pay taxes. I don’t want my tax buckos going toward Trump Towers (of shit) in Gaza or Musk’s exploding cars and rockets. I don’t want my money fueling their migrant concentration camps.

While the Trump administration has highlighted transfers of dangerous criminals and suspected gang members to Guantanamo Bay, it is also sending nonviolent, "low-risk" migrant detainees who lack serious criminal records or any at all, according to two U.S. officials and internal government documents. (source)

Nope.
~~~
I totally want to see the Bob Dylan bio flick A Complete Unknown. Will it bum me out (because I can’t hear the songs)? Yeah, probably. I still want to see it.

Dylan was Daddy’s favorite. He considered Dylan a god. Yup. Gotta say though, I’m more turned on by the covers of Dylan’s creations.

Hendrix, All Along the Watchtower
Richie Havens, Just Like a Woman
Indigo Girls, Tangled Up in Blue
Rage Against the Machine, Maggie’s Farm
Guns & Roses, Knocking on Heaven’s Door
Jeff Buckley, If You See Her, Say Hello
The Byrds, My Back Pages
Rod Stewart, Tomorrow is a Long Time
Nina Simone, Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
Peter, Paul and Mary, Blowin’ in the Wind
Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, It Ain’t Me Babe
The Byrds, Mr. Tambourine Man
The Band, I Shall Be Released
Eddie Vedder , Masters of War
Tom Petty, Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
Rolling Stones, Like A Rolling Stone
Robert Plant, One More Cup of Coffee

GODDAMN, I miss music.

The Druggie Administration

As I’m sure you’ve heard, President Putin along with his faithful stooges, the Twitter Twat and the Adderall Asshole, are in the process of dismantling the country and making the world less safe for everyone.

What are Ketamine Karen and his band of teenage mutant coders poking their unqualified, drug addled, unelected, nazi noses into now?

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) which is responsible for daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings (like hurricanes), and climate monitoring to fisheries management, coastal restoration, and supporting marine commerce.

Kind of an important joint wouldn’t ya say? I mean, imagine a hurricane hitting Florida or Louisiana or South Carolina with absolutely no fucking warning, all because little Leon didn’t think the department was worth the money? Granny down in Surfside may get blown out to sea but, hey, MusKKK saved some bucks that can go towards millionaire tax breaks. Cool, cool right?

USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development). They’re responsible for humanitarian efforts around the globe—health, disaster relief, socioeconomic stuff, environmental protection, education and such.

The Trump administration's move to gut USAID has crippled the agency's ability to conduct any proper oversight of unspent aid worth $8.2 billion, an independent government watchdog said on Monday. (source)

How much you wanna bet that $8.2 billion disappears without a trace?

FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) the folks responsible for, basically, keeping us safe in the air by:

• Regulating civil aviation to promote safety
• Encouraging and developing civil aeronautics, including new aviation technology
• Developing and operating a system of air traffic control and navigation for both civil and military aircraft
• Researching and developing the National Airspace System and civil aeronautics
• Developing and carrying out programs to control aircraft noise and other environmental effects of civil aviation
• Regulating U.S. commercial space transportation (source)
  

Since the bloated orange felon and his billionaire bestie moved in there have been three crashes (leaving 84 people dead), a fire and a big fat parking whoopsie. Then there are the security issues—stowaways, doors opened inflight and such. But heck, co-genius, the Boy Blunder, just had to make some "rapid safety upgrades.”

Then there’s the Treasury Department which I touched on last week. I only mention it BUT if the Muskrat was really looking for fraud, why did he bring in a team of racist baby coders instead of forensic accountants? Rat Boy has now brought in Tom Krause, the CEO hatchet man of the Cloud Software Group to carve up what’s left. This totally doesn't stink of three day dead trout left in the July sun. Nope, not at all. (insert major eye roll here)

Trump has vowed to kill the Department of Education—of course he has. The man is not only functionally illiterate, he’s wholly incurious about the world (except where he can make a buck). Plus, he and the rest of the Nazi Party (formerly known as the Republican Party) prefer to have uneducated, ill-informed, easily manipulated citizens. Want the correct change back on your coffee and bear claw purchase? Yeah, good fucking luck.

DOGE staffers have access to agency data that includes a dataset containing “personal information for millions of students enrolled in the federal student aid program.” (source)

Not good, not good at all. Big Brother anyone?

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has been effectively shut down.

When Congress created the CFPB as part of the Dodd Frank Act, it mandated the agency to carry out certain functions, including protecting military service members from predatory financial players.
     ~~~
Since the CFPB opened its doors in 2012, with a budget well under $1 billion a year, it’s returned more than $21 billion to Americans, protecting them from big banks’ abuses, fintech (financial tech) scams and multitudes of junk fees. In short, the CFPB has proven time and time again the government can be effective on behalf of the welfare of the people. No wonder oligarchs hate it. (source)

How long before it’s safer to stow your life savings in the old mattress? I’m in Massachusetts and my savings are in a credit union. Am I safe? MAYBE but I’m not betting on it.

What’s next on Putin’s puppets’ hit list? The Food and Drug Administration? The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture)? The Centers for Disease Control? I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Not that I ever stopped but I'll be masking up for at least the next  four years (if I make that long).