I have about three days' worth of hard transcribing left to finish before resuming regular blogging, and then, as noted, my priority is going to be downloading, printing, saving, rather than making any new commitments, unless and until the Internet stabilizes. I did make the time for a few quick links and rants.
First a longish rant:
I don't know why the Bad Neighbor even bothered spraying poison on the fruit of the Fabulous Feral Peach Tree. Maybe the odd jobs man offered him one of the peaches I let the odd jobs man take home, and the only way he can react to normal human good will, any more, is to do evil. Anyway the tree's been sprayed. Its fruit and most of its leaves were not even left to rot, but stripped. And the sun is finally shining, bringing out bright orange "jewels" on my jewelweed--what's left of it. The hummingbirds are not pollinating those flowers, because they have been poisoned. The goldenrod, galinsoga, and rudbeckias aren't likely to be pollinated either. There were Blue Swallowtail and Zebra Swallowtail caterpillars right in the not-a-lawn, this summer, where their host plants are; both left trails of holes in leaves but neither ever became a butterfly. The few wasps who've made it through this summer are not pollinator species.
There were no strawberries this spring. There were no raspberries, no cherries, and no blueberries. The weather did enough to make that the case but the weather had human help.
I think the Bad Neighbor has to know by now that he's not going to get the land. If I see any possibility of his outliving me, old and sick as he currently is, I'll think that protecting others from a sociopath like him is worth going to prison for--in that scenario I wouldn't have much time to lose in any case. This land is not ever going to belong to him.
Some people are, however, likely to outlive me, without committing murder, and if the Bad Neighbor's heirs want this land all that desperately, they can earn a place in the line of succession; they are cousins, though Virginia law does not require me to recognize them as such. (Virginia law requires people to recognize third cousins but allows us to treat our third cousins once removed like strangers, if we feel like it.) Having a chance to inherit my beleaguered, badly damaged, but still scenic and historic, home will involve, at a minimum, getting the Bad Neighbor out of Virginia for the rest of his miserable days--if he is in fact a veteran, put him in a VA facility, on a locked ward--and waiting to inherit the place until the year 2070. Some of these kids have the genetic potential to be active and healthy in 2070. If they agree to do those things and succeed in doing them, payment for a mentiion in the will may be open to negotiation. Payment will, of course, be considerable; they will not get a legacy merely for doing what common decency should have prompted them to do twenty years ago.
As all my neighbors should know by now, "negotiation" does not mean haggling. If, for instance, the Evil Principle suggests to anyone that a little more harassment might get you a better deal, be advised that it will end all negotiation. Negotiation will depend with a secured, permanent end to all harassment and property damage and will be facilitated by prompt, steady restoration of all damage done. If anything that might have happened naturally is repaired once, and needs repair again in the next five or ten years...I recommend that all would-be heirs work together to ensure that I don't have to repeat any repairs again in this lifetime. If a water pipe bursts under natural conditions, such as prolonged subzero temperatures, don't let the thermometer peek back over the freezing point before you're up here ready to mend it. Never give the memory of having to re-plumb the house myself a chance to cross my mind. Would-be heirs should give me no chance to remember what a leaking roof looked or sounded like, either, or a sticking door, a broken lock, a loosened wire, or any other of the Bad Neighbor's stupid pranks. It wouldn't be a bad idea for would-be heirs to camp outside the fence and make sure no other evildoers can do any further trespassing.
Just by way of an example...There used to be an open driveway that crossed the road, at an oblique angle, and connected with another driveway, making it easy for drivers to turn around. Someone whose vision and precision were starting to fade wanted the driveway widened a little to make turning around easier. It could have been done, at the time, with another neighbor's cooperation. Before my path crossed that neighbor's path, however, some drunken idiots drove up and roared around in trucks and got themselves stuck and damaged the water line. I generously offered them a chance to pay. They didn't pay. Everyone has seen the consequences. The wide open driveway has been replaced by a gate and a walkway that will just admit a small, temporary-use-type wheelchair. Other changes in landscaping and decorating have likewise been made to discourage trespassers.
Better security against trespassers even straying off the paved highway into the neighborhood is the first step toward any possible restoration of former conditions. For hundreds of years the only people here were members of a close-knit family who all knew and trusted one another like family. Fences existed only to manage cattle; when our elders went out they not only left doors unlocked, but left notes on doors telling everyone where they'd gone, when they'd be back, and what visitors were welcome to do while waiting for the hosts to come home. People started leaving when that system started to feel as if it wasn't working. Eliminating the Bad Neighbor could bring back our friends-and-family system, but that would take full cooperation from all concerned. Not only should we all be sleeping safely at night, not only should adult cats be safe outdoors at night; we should all be able to let chickens roam around safely in the daytime. Bantam chickens.
The use of the land will be a condition of the legacy, too. Without a miracle, I will not live to see my land restored to the condition in which my parents left it to me--but its heirs will ensure that it gets into that condition, if they want to keep it. It will be 100% chemical-spray-free, covered in native and fruit-bearing plants and trees. It will have chinquapins again. It will have rock lettuce. It will have morels, wild strawberries, ginseng, goldenseal, and bloodroot. It will have boxwood, privet, and flybush--but only in hedges where native shrubs might grow too tall. If they have to be the Chinese or English varieties, it will have chestnuts. It will be maintained bear-free and coyote-free, but it will be the home of deer and possums and skunks and other creatures that coexist with cats. Or other heirs will have a right to take it over. If unable to get every one of the plants I've loved to grow again, what a pity, go back to the city.
If the Bad Neighbor's heirs don't actually want the land and are embarrassed by his doing so much evil "to get it for them," they may so signify by simply institutionalizing what their unfortunate side of the family has for a patriarch, signing over his land as partial compensation for the damage he's done, and getting themselves out of Virginia. (Keeping him in an institution a good long way from here is of course presupposed. I think he should be in New Orleans, where he can think about the water people drink down there and why it's such a horrible thing to pollute a mountain spring, every time he lowers his face and smells it; but I'll consider places further west as being likely to feel more like punishment.)
The existence of old fools like this wretched third cousin of mine is the reason why we can't revive even the ideal of a patriarchal society. Most men don't live long enough to be patriarchs. Most wives become widows. And even when men do live long enough to have learned something, what they've learned may be pure evil. People who want to preserve families and look up to elders would do better to think of the default definition of "elders" as being female.
Cybersecurity
Microsoft's boybosses imagine that, if they let a computer work for six hours at a time, somebody's going to be able to steal the codes and re-create Microsoft's software programs. Wake up and smell the coffee, Microsoft. This week's statistics: 28,000 visitors using Chrome; 4000 using Firefox; 3, yes, one two three visitors using Edge. The pushy "updates" and clumsy efforts to shove everyone through the "Microsoft Store" page make Microsoft's current products about as wix as wix can be. People use Windows as an "operating system" because it came with the computer but at the shop people are enthusiastically replacing Windws with Linux. I doubt very much that anybody's interested in the code for Microsoft Edge.
They're interested in the money people feel cheated out of. You protect that by (1) not doing financial transactions online, and (2) bringing Microsoft products up to the standards of Windows ME--y'know, nothing but the browser can connect to the Internet, so you never notice any "updates" and the computer just processes words and data as fast as its operator can type for year after year after year, interrupted only when its operator turns it off I have seen computers built before 2015 flash "wait" graphics when I was typing over 150 words per minute, which is not altogether unreasonable, but the awkward shape of laptop computers pulls even my speed down to something like 50 words per minute and even then Windows 10 flashes a "wait, somebody wants to 'update' something" message before I can finish a sentence or arrow-key up to the top of the page. Nobody would EVER want to reproduce Windows 10, Microsoft. Nobody liked Windows 8 and nobody likes Windows 10 and nobody who is paying attention would touch Windows 11 with a bargepole. Set your minds at rest.
And, of course, you help the whole world save energy and reduce real, serious local warming by blowing away "the cloud," equipping all computers with hard drives and printers, and reminding everyone that personal transactions such as banking and paying bills, as well as any records or documents anyone wants to keep, still need to be kept on paper--the more secure, private way. Anyone might be able to hack into Microsoft but sensible customers' information won't be compromised by that since we never "tell" a computer anything we wouldn't want to see in the newspaper.
Save the only Earth we have, Gentle Readers. Stop using anything "cloud-based" now. Every phone call, every terribly cute plagiarism-generated picture of kittens playing musical instruments (yes, I laughed), is a pretext to put a huge, loud, heat-generating "data center" in your town. If you think this summer's been hot enough already, there is something you can do about it. Send your flatphone or tablet or other "cloud-based" electronics back to the manufacturer, demand a refund, and don't use anything similar until we get a federal law against putting any "data centers" within a mile of any land where anyone's ever lived, any wildlife have ever lived, or any crop's ever grown. (That might put limits on the amount of "cloud" anyone could use...which would be another very good thing.) Shop, pay bills, do business, and socialize in the real world. Store data on paper or on data storage devices that you keep in your office, NOT "in the cloud."
Logic, Lack of
Two out of three of the people who've been using Yougov.com are incapable of simple logical thought:
Some vaccines have been tested long enough, and found to prevent deadly enough diseases, that they can be considered safe and effective and used by people who don't claim to be absolute total vegans or absolutely kosher. However, if people believe a vaccine to be effective, vaccinating themselves, and perhaps their own children, is all they can logically ask. If the vaccine does prevent a disease that may disable or kill you, then it's enough for me to have it to protect myself; it makes no difference to me (even if I know you personally, and miss you) if you choose not to have it because you want to earn a martyr's crown. I think no vaccine should be given, required, or asked about in schools. If I believe my health and safety depend on your vaccination, then I believe the vaccine doesn't work as advertised, and I want you to have it for reasons that do not include your well-being; I am your enemy, and you should be working to ban me from your children's school. We can't have it both ways. Logical thinkers may think schools should teach lessons about the history of vaccines and which ones have been safe and effective, but they cannot think vaccines should be required.
(Some will say "But what about severely immune-compromised people who are unlikely to survive having any more vaccines than they've already survived?" I say that at some point people have to take some responsibility for their own health. We can't demand that everyone on Earth have experimental vaccines that may or may not even slow down the spread of a disease just so that people who should be self-isolating can go on indulging in high-risk behavior. If people who are HIV-positive want to mingle in society, they've made a decision to take a risk. Everyone is sorry, but nobody else is to blame when some sort of pathogen, including the pathogens that some claim are "shed" into the air by vaccinated patients, gets into an AIDS patient's lungs and kills him. I agree, not all AIDS is transmitted by voluntary behavior and diseases are horribly unfair. We do not live in a fair world. If you're poz and you want to live, quarantine yourself. Avoid going out where you might pick up a flea, a norovirus, a mosquito...)
Music
Kentucky Headhunters. At the time when this song came out one of my sisters was regarded as a stabilizing influence, if not a baby-sitter, for some other children the same age. She guided them to think through the consequences of some childish bad ideas but one day, while in Bristol, she lost her head and spent money foolishly. As a result there exists a parody of this song beginning, "Oh let's all go down to Bristol..."
(Sniffle. The child who composed that song died more than twenty years ago; the cause of his death was never clear but our Professional Bad Neighbor was up to his bad tricks...it might easily have been a chemical reaction. Many things doctors can't explain are chemical reactions, because the corporations don't want doctors studying the effects chemical reactions can have.)
Names
There are aptonyms, names that fit people so perfectly it's hard to believe they were given to the people as infants, as when a man whose family name was Doctor was also given "Doctor" as a first name and grew up to become a physician. Then there are inaptonyms..Gene Weingarten proposed this biography of a bold and talented spy whose family name was Coward.
Politics
Found on the Mirror, and yes, one does wonder how long a political party can survive not having a positive platform of its own. Some people may enjoy the mudslinging and name-calling of an election, but even if they do, that's only a game. Serious people want to focus on serious ideas...not emotional reactions to
persons, but ideas that start with individuals, or at most with local government, and often barely involve the federal government at all.
