Fall foliage may be peaking, but it's not at much of a peak yet. We did not have enough frost to bring out red colors as expected. Trees are now either green or bare, except ash--some yellow leaves there. Lots of yellow leaves are turning brown and crumbling on the ground by now.
Animals
It's never too late to Make a Dog's Day. It's been about a month since, while tweeting in aid of fostering dogs, I e-met someone who promised to pay the fees if I fostered a dog. I've not forgotten; a dog could be a great help in being my own nightwatchman. I haven't found my way to Kingsport yet. It will happen. I remember how to get there--just don't go as often, now that the instant-slum streets are so nasty that I don't enjoy walking around what used to be the best part of town. Meanwhile, enjoy this adorable photo essay about a former shelter dog.
Cartoons
Beth Ann Chiles shared the perfect cartoon for those days when neutral emotion, stonefaced correctness, IS the way we project love for humankind. (Because even flashing an eyebrow in a cheerful way would be a lie.) God thinks we're a delight. It is up to other people to manage their own moods.
Lens says it's for sale at Redbubble.com.
Election
I've seen a commendable absence of election ads this year. Are we having an election? We are, and if you've not already heard, both of our incumbents are being challenged. From our Left we have a fluffy "Bring it home with Joy!" campaign to vote for somebody from Bedford called Joy Powers. If we want to talk to our Congressman or his or her staff, would we rather drive to Abingdon or to Bedford? Unless you're a term limits fanatic, you're not interested in Miss Joy. She does have a nice wholesome farmwife look, but the top of her resume mentions managing county fairs. Seriously?
Then on our Right we have a Hawaii native with an impressive service record, Bert Mizusawa, challenging Mark Warner. Don't write him off as a carpetbagger because he was born out west of the West; he was brought to Virginia as an early age, went to school in Hampton...read his Wikipedia biography, and then decide what that record says to you. He is not a carpetbagger. He is a Virginia veteran.
I like Senator Warner; he has broken away from the idiots in his party and done the right thing on some occasions, but...one campaign promise Trump's kept has been to stay out of the tribal war in Europe. Cut off the money, let them get tired of fighting and negotiate their own real estate deal for themselves like the adults they appear to be. And part of the Ds' anti-Trump rhetoric has been "Let's rush in and actually fight alongside our fellow Socialists in Ukraine!"
It's getting down to really primal, primary-colored terms.
Ds map as Blue = WAR
Rs map as Red = PEACE
If you voted D for the sake of peace, sixty years ago...believe it, we have to vote R for the sake of peace now. You think Trump's support for war with Iran's bad, but it's not the Third World War. Involvement with Europe would be the Third World War. Vote D if you want to see firsthand what a nuclear bomb will do to your town. If Senator Warner makes a public commitment to oppose any form of support for any foreign war, I'll help reelect him. Otherwise, well, he has been through the wringer lately and might benefit from some time off.
Also on the ballot we have some referenda, and some counties have their own local issues of which I will stay out. About the referenda, the position of this web site is: Vote your conscience on abortion and (keeping our traditional toothless opposition to) same-sex marriage, but I think we should keep, for its deterrent value if nothing else, the ban on letting convicted felons vote. What politician wants their vote?
Music
Vince Guaraldi Trio.
Someone shared a link to Exhumed's "Unsafe at Any Speed." It's a terrifically horrific punk skit/song about the hazards of distracted driving. The lyrics are graphic and gruesome and are performed in a loud, hoarse, antiphonal shouting mode that has caused me to remember them for forty-some years as "Oo gah sock ah, Oo gah, Oo gah." You don't actually hear the words. You have to read them separately, which you can do on any ad-driven song lyrics site. What you see on the video is a skit where an old man yells at characters called Mummy, Boozy, Romeo, and Juliet to watch a speeded-up, blurry, black-and-white movie about what traffic accidents look like. Boozy is sick; Romeo and Juliet keep drooling on each other.
I cannot imagine what Youtube thought watching this video was likely to incite me to do. I can see parents thinking it's a horror show that's likely to give children nightmares. I'm an old lady who's seen more gruesome fake blood than the Mummy character's, which reminds me of my all-time cheapest Halloween costume actually. I've been online, under other names, longer than YT has; Priscilla King, the brand, has been online for twenty years now. Youtube stalled, demanding that I log in to "verify" my age. Hello? I was already logged in. Did it seem to anyone at Youtube that I wrote like a one-year-old in 2006? I'm well over 21 years old. I'm older than this song.
Anyway, Youtube really does not want you to watch "Unsafe at Any Speed." But if you're ever tempted to drive fast, it is a good song, and video, to have stored in your head. It might help.
Roberto Cacciapaglia.
Thom Yorke.
Elijah Bossenbroek.
Einar Selvik.
Deuter.
"Maggie the Afterlove Voice." Open a phone directory, stick in a pen: any name would have to be better than that. "Dime, mujer, cuando el amor se olvida, ?sabes tu adonde va?" I don't know, but it doesn't leave one wanting to hear the voice no longer loved...I actually think her singing voice is pretty good.
Tom Petty.
Joni Mitchell.
"Golden Waves." Short.
Guitar chords to go with a drone view of lovely autumn foliage.
Crosby,Stills, Nash, and/or Young.
Bobby Bare.
Aukai.
The Beatles, together and separately.
Ray Stevens. This one may provoke misbehavior if overheard by the very young. My brother and I didn't "streak" outside, but we did discover that in summer "streaking" through the house was a pleasant way to dry off after a shower. (It should be remembered that the idea of "streaking" was to move too fast for much skin actually to be seen--to disappear before any person in authority could be quite sure it had been you.)
Johnny Winter.
Hermanos Gutierrez.
Wolfmother.
R.E.M.
Aaron Copland.
Creedence Clearwater Survival.
Mamas & the Papas.
Terry Reid.
Johnny Rivers.
Olexandr Ignatov.
Rascals.
Avishai Cohen.
Royal Guardsmen.
Animals.
New Vaudeville Band.
Electric Light Orchestra.
Bob Hope.
Mastodon.
Sarah Brightman.
David Lee Murphy.
Noel Coward.
Gregory Brothers.
James Galway.
Blaine Larsen. "Viewer discretion is advised." Ooohhh, it's about suicide! If youall hear suicide mentioned you'll all rush right out and do it won't you? Regular readers? Bah. Others? I hope not. Censors and nannies? Just keep driving north and tell the people you meet that you want to be taken care of so that you will never think about (hushed tremolo) hurting yourselves, ever again. Suicide is legal, even encouraged, in at least one of the countries where this web site is most read. We can say it without fear. Suicide suicide suicide. In the US you have to do it the long hard way with cigarettes and cars and such, but in Canada you can get help to do it all at once, allegedly with very little pain. If that tempts you, start driving now. If it makes you wonder what kind of lifeforms are running Canada these days, the song won't bother you, although some people might want to skip it just because they find a slow back-beat tedious.
Benny Goodman.
Point of Grace.
Poem
Well, free verse...You've heard the expression "more truth than poetry"? This one is about 99% truth to 1% poetry, but worth thinking about.
War
This web site has no foreign policy. This web site never really supports any war, though it will not work against our own troops. Some wars may be justified but we just generally like peace.
Then I read this excellent piece in support of the war in Ukraine, and the idea that the United States should rush in to start a Third World War in aid thereof.
A long rant came to mind. I decided it was too long to post on Lillian's blog. So it's here:
"
Well, talking of widows...I am one. My husband and I lived frugally but well and I always said I didn't want anything but the house where we lived together--both of us owned better houses outside the metropolis. The house was stolen from me. I came home with lots of good memories and nice things, few job prospects, and hardly a penny...but at least I love my home. So, dang if I didn't find that I have a third cousin with the soul of a rattlesnake, who had been doing all sorts of nasty things to other relatives in the hopes of "running us off" our ancestral property. A neighborhood that had been like an intentional Christian community had become more like a lunatic asylum as everyone was trying to find out what happened. No one suspected this man because grown men don't do the kind of stupid pranks he did...stupid pranks that mostly just cost people endless petty cash and aggravation, but then they hurt some people badly and killed at least two. "Unlucky place. Better sell out and move into town!" He has apparently made some money doing this kind of thing in another State, and cashed in on the loss of all his close relatives and neighbors in his own neighborhood, before starting on this neighborhood.
He has a sociopathic kind of intelligence, perceptivity, and when he started this campaign he had strength and health. I inherited the same assets from the same source and, being younger, still have strength and health. I said, "If he doesn't kill me outright, I'll outlive him, and if he does, he'll lose everything. I am handicapped by being smaller, being bound by ethics, and not having money, but I can and will win this game."
So, how many people do you think are sending me money to help put this sociopathic relative in a suitable place with bars on the windows, or to help get a ban on spray poisons so that he can't use those with the intention of offsetting my age advantage, and how many are saying "Oh dear, you poor thing, you CAN'T go on dealing with this, you MUST sell out and move into town!"? They don't want to put any energy, much less money, into what they imagine will be a losing fight. I'm willing to commute to and from Washington every week again if called to work there again, which I might be, but I'm not willing to change my address again in this lifetime.
Well, THAT is how people feel about Ukraine now. I don't feel that way about myself, and I have a right to make that decision for myself; I do understand why people would feel that way about Ukraine. Their war seems unwinnable and, to those who've read the history of how much our Southern States lost by trying to defend the Lost Cause to the last man etc. etc., it must seem that Ukraine needs to end the war now. They have made their statement. They deserve to win on spirit, but they are going to lose on numbers. If we care about the people, some say, the thing to do is stop encouraging their war.
"
There are ways private people can encourage Ukrainians, either to keep fighting, if that's what we believe they ought to do, or just to get through this winter. This web site does salute anyone who can scrape up any money to contribute to helping private Ukrainian people get through the winter. (I think the IFCJ's television ad campaign has made that organization seem unbearably wix; you may not.) However, this web site urges all readers in all countries to vote for political leaders who want not to fight a Third World War. Russian readers especially--don't youall have any form of term limits?--but US, UK, and Canadian readers also.
