Today's links suggest a certain amount of frustration in the air, as another snowstorm threatens to end the February Thaw that, where I live, was only just barely distinguishable from the January Thaw. Some of it probably is the weather, dear friends. Spring will soon be here.
Chew Toy
A mature, rational, high-minded individual posted this meme...illustrating Catherine Fitts' point: Some people are just natural-born "chew toys." Things that go badly may be attributable to several other people in the office along with them, but if and when they've ever smiled they just looked so brickable...that they get thrown to the angry crowd. "Here. Blame this person. Don't blame us!"
I mean to say...did even Richard Nixon have such a perfect chew toy face?
Pursuant to which...the ghost of Grandma Bonnie Peters (which is to say, not the spirit of GBP who trusted in the gift of eternal life through Christ, but the memory of GBP inside my head) wants me to remind you of an important fact. Seventh-Day Adventists and some other Bible scholars believe that the terrible end of the world as we know it will be near when and if ever the ten ancient tribes of Europe stop fighting one another and unite. This has never happened in the history of the world so far, but if it does, tremble. This united Europe will resent the superior civilization we enjoy in North America and will attack us. There will be a terrible war. Few of us have actually seen a "modern" war at close range; there's never been one here. There will be, then. On the face of things this war will be sheer insanity on the part of Europe. We beat them in 1919, we beat them in 1945--the third time we will not be either willing or able to "rebuild their economies." We have pulled down the statues of General Lee, who stood for honorable warfare in which only combatants were attacked; we shall probably embrace the ethics of the bold visionary Lieutenant Calley. Whatever of agricultural, or historical, or scientific value Europeans have not already destroyed in their wars, we shall probably destroy. But the Evil Principle, which Seventh-Day Adventists believe is an individual spirit being, that moved Europe to attack North America will gain ground. We will be unable to claim a material victory on the grounds of still having money and weapons left, and will claim it on the grounds of conquest, probably colonizing Europe. Our moral defeat will be worse than the material defeat of Europe. We will become the tyranny our ancestors left Europe to escape--or at least our government will. We will absorb the monarchy, the greedhead banks, and, before it's over, even the papacy. When we in the United States crush the movement for global tyranny by absorbing it into ourselves, that will be when things get really bad.
This is only one of many possible interpretations of prophetic passages in the Bible. This web site takes no sides. What I'd like to emphasize is that this reading of the Bible identifies Europe as the location of evil but in no way suggests that Europeans are more evil than other humans. Some of them will gladly obey the Evil Principle, and some will resist, exactly as Americans will do. As human beings Europeans' special role in this scenario is to be in more immediate danger earlier than the rest of the world.
Court of Public Opinion
It's tempting to say: Take this disgrace to the name of Lopez back to that "scary part of town." (Portland has scary parts?) Chain him to a lamp post. Put a copy of this report on the post above his head. Ask no questions.
Better? Put him in a cage. Put the cage on the back of a truck. Drive it around to places where people have a lot of feelings about the murder of an apparently good cab driver. Dump out the cage in a public place. Let people donate to a memorial fund for the driver's family, paying per projectile, and throw projectiles at this disgrace to the name of Lopez.
My husband would have said: Shackles, choke collar, stun belt, and set him to hard labor. Doesn't matter that he would not earn enough to pay for a human life, because he's never going to be free in any case. All he could possibly earn would be a bed in a mental institution. Water for breakfast, plain rice for lunch, water for supper, and set him to work breaking rocks. In the desert.
What say you?
History
Vince Staten reminisces about the newspaper for which he used to write, which was also the first newspaper I read regularly. In grades five and six I didn't get much out of the reports of national and world events, but I loved the recipes and the elaborate, how-to-make-this-yourself type description of what everyone wore at a wedding. And the comics, of course! I remember appreciating a few of Art Buchwald's columns in grade six, slowly understanding more of Mike Royko's, James Kilpatrick's, and Mr. Staten's as I grew older. By comparison the Washington Post seemed like "The Morning Alarm & Despondency"--all those grim stories of wars and crimes and natural disasters, and never a detail of a wedding gown, never a picture of a child with a dragonfly perched on his hand...
We had inherited some land in Colorado, and for a few years we received the Baca County Plainsman-Herald, which was so small-town it even printed items from the school newspapers. I knew that if I ever went to Colorado, Suzie Jones, or whatever her real name was, would be fun to know while Sally Brown would be likely to get everyone into trouble. How was I ever supposed to find friends or take an interest in the newspaper in a city that didn't even list all of the weddings, much less the names of all the high school graduates, or what kind of sleeves and waist shapings the most photogenic brides chose for their wedding gowns!
That was a while ago. It would be interesting to know whether the Honorable Bobby Peters was related to the Virginia family by that name, or the Maryland one. His song, though unfortunate, demonstrates a better way to react to shock than e.g. Terry McAuliffe's ("Terribly McAwful") reaction to more recent violent crimes.
Money
Right...what does an Internet writer about money, beyond, hey, if you've got any to spare, I could use it. However. There's not a true underclass in these United States. Poverty, such as it is here, and wealth are conditions people pass through from year to year. While we're doing low-paid jobs we can fairly be called a low-income class, but that status is temporary. We have rich friends and relatives. What David Rogers Webb is saying sounds worth listening to, for me, because it's built on what mine were saying, I don't know, as far back as I was old enough to understand what they were talking about, Ford or Carter administration? The video is about an hour; there's a book, which is available free of charge, and a documentary video supporting his points. (Fair disclosure; I have the book.) If you have enough money to pay other people to handle it, these are things you need to think about. We are approaching a time when it may be crucial that we "owe no one anything but love."
Poetry
Dear Santa Claus, I have been a very good blogger. I read this post by the person who posted the annoying comment on my poem, last week. It is a poem about a dog. I heroically resisted the temptation to comment that I suspect she really had a goldfish and wanted a monkey. At least. not on her blog. But in order to show how good I have been I am saying that here. (LOL from the LOL who is LOL.)
Prettier:
Politics
Something to think about:
The key point even the "hoople-heads" can understand, in any election, is "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" Well, are they? The more people consider this question, the sooner our President can retire and his life insurance plan can get her pantsuits out of Washington. Improvements, however small...
Science
The position of this web site is that we should be able to do the science we want done. If you want to know what the chrysalids of a rare butterfly species look like, go to where the butterflies live, watch for one laying eggs, watch her young grow up, and photograph those chrysalids for the rest of us. It's when people allow science to become a monopoly for a small group that we get messes that spawn memes like this one, posted by "Cashmymemes" on x:
Real science is not something we trust blindly--that's religious faith. Real science is something we test, tweak, fine-tune, study and debate. If John Doe found that forty freshmen's test scores correlated with how well the freshmen reported having slept the night before the test, and you caught ten freshmen at your school and found that their test scores correlated inversely with how well your freshmen reported having slept the night before the test, something worthwhile might be learned from this.
Stupidity, the Choice
No link, just a comment...Reportedly this idjit ordered things from Amazon and then panicked, seeing a stranger (was it a young Black man? I didn't check) approaching the house, and shot at the person. Durrrrr... I wouldn't have thought anyone in cyberspace could possibly need this public service message, but yes, some people do. When you order something from Amazon or Uber Eats or any number of other online businesses, it may be delivered by someone who works for the online business, as distinct from working for the US Postal Service, Federal Express, or United Parcel Service. Person may have a private company truck and uniform, or may be driving per own vehicle and wearing per own clothes. If you can't deal with that, go to the dang store, or hire your own driver and send that person to the store.
Far below that stupendous level of stupidity, but clearly indicating effort in the same direction, is its having been reported by a whelp who headlined the story "Boomers Being Fools." Hello? Child? Bleep you think invented Amazon and Uber Eats? There are generation-typical ways of being stupid, like Boomers trying to believe in socialism, and there is what the ancient Greeks first called idiocy because it is peculiar to sn individual.
If a young Black man approaches your house carrying a parcel, and you have recently ordered something online, you are in immediate danger of being roasted on social media. Defend yourself with a nice tip.
