For about twelve hours between 11.20.24 and 11.21.24 the computer was only technically running, working at about one-tenth of normal operating speed and crashing five or six times, due to NASTY MICROSOFT RUNNING UNWANTED UPDATES TO DISGUSTING EDGE, WHICH I NEVER USE. I think we need a law. If people are paying for computers, for Internet connections, for electricity, for office space, then they should be the sole decision makers about what their computers do. If Microsoft employees want to play with computers, they should get their own.
I do think the Internet has grown to a point of needing regulation, and, off the top of my head, here are fifteen regulations I think it needs:
(1) any device that connects to the Internet should be considered a computer,
(2) all computers must be sold with keyboards,
(3) all computers must be sold with printers to which they are connected by simple cables without depending on phone or Internet connections,
(4) no matter how much people enjoy listening to music when they are alone with their computers, the default setting for all computers must be completely silent,
(5) although computer owners have a right to change the programs they use, all programs (software, apps) that are sold to the public must come with printed operating instructions that are not subject to change,
(6) interruption of Internet connection time for which someone other than the source of the interruption is paying IS THEFT AND THE INTERRUPTER MUST BE MADE TO PAY THE VICTIM OR GO TO PRISON,
(7) all computers must be functional in completely Internet-free mode,
(8) attempts to hybridize computers with old-style telephones have been rejected because they were dysfunctional and so the default assumption for all businesses and government offices shall be that people no longer use phones,
(9) people cannot be required to use e-mail, either, which means that you can't "reach" a person to interrupt what the person is doing at your leisure, so deal with it,
(10) unless online money-handling services agree to process payments promptly, anonymously, without trying to monitor who is paying whom for what in any way unless a warrant for a criminal investigation has been served, the default assumption for all participants in paid transaction shall be that payments must be made by US postal money orders,
(11) all computers must be programmed to obey input from their keyboards first, from participants in interactions initiated from their keyboards second, and from third parties only (a) with a warrant for a criminal investigation or (b) for strictly regulated, statistical, anonymous, data gathering purposes WHEN THE COMPUTER IS NOT IN USE BY ITS OWNER,
(12) devices sold for uses other than computing may be sold with computers built into them if sold with keyboards and printers, but must be fully operational with those computers disabled or removed,
(13) any transaction that requires positive identification of any individual must take place offline,
(14) computers that connect to the Internet must not be allowed to store government identification numbers or phone numbers or any sequence of digits that could be either of those, and
(15) however much some people may enjoy moving pictures, no image on a computer screen may be allowed to move until it is activated by a command from the keyboard.
Anyway, I don't do the Petfinder posts in advance, so here it is Friday and (at the time of writing) I don't have one done yet. On that job now...
Cartoon
After that post about the righteousness of being baby-free, let's mention that mothers of small children are superheroines. Fan art from Joe Jackson:
...whose Calvin & Hobbes fan art I love, but whose Archie Comics fan art isn't even funny, just a matter of imagining the teenybopper characters acting out the fantasies most real teenyboppers are too shy to act out. We all know that Archie and Betty and Veronica may have dreams like JJ's cartoons at night, but in the daytime they think about each other, like, "Of course the good-night kiss lasts three seconds, max! What kind of girl/fellow do I want Archie/Betty to think I am?!"
And thus be it ever. Part of being a teenager is thinking you want to rush ahead and be an adult, but being a teenager is fun in its own way. Free money to go with a friend you will kiss good night for three seconds, max, to the ball game. Free admission to cultural events that cost adults a hundred dollars per person. Teenagers really ought to enjoy it while they can; adulthood lasts long enough.
Cute Things
I was going around the house pulling down storm windows. The house now has modern screen-and-storm windows, built in one piece; you can push up the screen or the storm window, or pull both down. Halfway inside the screen, in one window, was Johnny Wren, clearly preparing to snuggle down for the night in a dummy nest he made a few summers ago, using oak catkins and moss. It was thick, soft, airy dried plant material and would probably have added some insulating value to his feathers, which have not been receiving natural prompts to grow any extra down.
And here came this great horrid human and tilted his lovely cozy nest out of place! Johnny Wren was very indignant. He has one audible "word" to express dissatisfaction. If I spell it "rasp" you'll probably know the sound I mean. He said "rasp" over and over, with different phrasings and emphases, for a good three minutes.
"Dee dee dee," said a chickadee who had joined a mixed flock with Johnny for the winter. It sounded as if he were agreeing and commiserating. Johnny Wren appeared to think he was.
This was about 5:30 p.m. Normally the flock would be asleep by now. But still, as the clock ticks closer to 8 p.m.:
"Rasp rasp rasp rasp RASP rasp." Johnny Wren still has more pieces of his mind to give me.
"Dee dee dee." Maybe the chickadee is still agreeing. Maybe he's trying to tell Johnny Wren to be quiet so he can sleep.
"Peep, cheep." Another small bird is heard from. Maybe they're discussing the weather, and whether they should fly further south.
Photo from the American Bird Conservancy. Actually their wren is probably singing, with his beak open; they don't have to open the beak to rasp. But it looks to humans as if it might be complaining..
Gift Ideas
Election-related e-mail tends to be icky, but post-election begging? From a rich person to non-rich people? The claim being made is that Candidate Kennedy was very unfairly forced to pay his own guards during the election. Say what? He wouldn't have been paying them already? But selling merch as a fundraiser is an option I respect. Here is where to buy hats, T-shirts, and tote bags. I am most likely to wear black, red, or teal.
Health
For those who would rather sit through a lo-o-o-o-ong video, more than two hours, than read books like Back to Eden, McDougall's Medicine, Maximum Metabolism and others recommended here? Here's a very California-style, Cliff's Notes version where Tucker Carlson talks to two of the rising generation of health food pundits.
Is healthy eating complicated? Oh no, the little darlings answer earnestly. The AMA and the FDA have made it sound complicated so that people won't cure their own health problems...
Wait'll you've worked in a health care job for a few years, dears. Or developed a complicated health problem, yourselves. Granted, the more real natural food in proportion to overprocessed chemical junk, generally, the better. But every rule has its exception. Some things have to be highly processed to become foods, like the acorns that were a big part of indigenous Californians' diet. Soda pop often seems like the quintessence of junkfood, but not many years ago, when almost all foods were contaminated with glyphosate, soda pop was an important source of calories in my mostly chickweed diet. Because soda pop has had all the fibre and nutrients processed out of any fruit flavoring it may contain, it was one thing that didn't make me sick.
It can be easy for those of us who've found healing in a special diet to become preachy, which is the worst thing we can do for our cause. Food nannying is more toxic than junkfood is. Tell me what's helped you by all means, but understand that what's helped you might not help me.
The Bright Young Things think they understand PCOS. I'm not so sure. I will say this, though. When I learned that a friend and I had it, allopathic drugs weren't being offered for it. Birth control pills were. I thought they might unbalance my hormones even more. Anyway my symptoms weren't painful and I didn't want to give birth. But if I could go back, and try a few weeks of a high-fat diet, always assuming that that sort of meals would stay down, and become pregnant and give birth...I wouldn't do it. There are enough babies on this planet; enough of them look like me. I've always been glad Nature spared me from being tempted to do something I would probably have regretted. I seriously believe that the first thing we need to do about our "epidemic of sterility" is recognize that, while sterility can be an effect of disease conditions people want to change, sterility in otherwise healthy people is a blessing, really, by far the mildest of nature's correctives. We have a serious overpopulation problem, /We need to recognize that, when the human population is exploding into "billions," the biggest problem with simple infertility is people's seeing it as a problem.
Psychology
Resentment of those perceived as better off can take strange forms. Chris Queen is receiving wails that mentioning the seasons in the US and UK "excludes" people in Australia and New Zealand. That reminds me of a Canadian reader's comment on an Associated Content post that referred readers to "your State" web site, "I am Canadian as you know." Yes, I did know. Associated Content was enough of a community that people could reasonably expect the writers they followed to remember where their hundred or two hundred most loyal readers lived. And I would have thought that, just as US readers would naturally compare their State's web site to the one I was citing for Tennessee, that particular Canadian reader ought to have been able to translate "State" to "province" and think, if the reader's province did not have an analogous page, that might be an opportunity to get paid for setting one up.
It is fascinating that seasons work differently in different places, that in some places there's never snow for Christmas and, if snow falls at all, it's more likely to fall on the fourth of July. (Which, in those places, is probably not a holiday.) Previous generations of writers from the Southern Hemisphere were able to educate readers about this with style, verve, and charm, with stories that feature summertime Christmas parties and the oppressive heat of downtown Melbourne in February. Whining resentment is the new fashion...I prefer the older fashion, thanks.
There happen to be more writers in the US. That won't change. We can try to remember to mention metric measurements, use different names for things if known, and at least explain if we insist on using some of the more alarming phrases in US slang. ("We killed the other school" means "We won the game, 65-0.") Beyond that, we expect international audiences to speak for themselves, tell us which side of the road they drive on and when and where they take vacations. US writers and readers tend to think the other English-speaking countries are charming and interesting, when their residents don't represent themselves to us as tiresome people.
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