Sunday, October 4, 2026

Web Log for 10.2.26

Animals 

I missed this...There's a sort of wild cat that's smaller than a house cat and shaped very much like one, but a person who tried to rescue one off the street found that it's a whole different species. This micro-leopard might never have been discovered by scientists if someone hadn't tried to re-domesticate it as a feral house kitten.


Butterflies in Malaysia.


Moths in England.


Bad News 

I hate to see it and I hate to say it, but Jonah Goldberg and friends have sold out. "The Dispatch" is now sponsored by Bayer. After all these years, JG? How desperate are you? Have a better life.

Yes, I might have posted this tidbit sooner if I'd been receiving "The Dispatch" in the e-mail.

Fiction 

I'm not about to pay anybody to read my fiction, even if the payments are being collected to make up cash prizes for the best stories...but a prompt for a short story contest did bring a short story to mind. I wrote it all in one sitting on Saturday night. 

The prompt suggested a story about a day when strange, ominous things happened. The story is about a family who encounter things that seem ominous and frightening, but they're all just such decent human beings that those things turn out well for them. At the end of what seems an unlucky day, the superstitious grandmother thinks it's been the luckiest day of the year. 

At about 2,000 words, the story is a misfit--too long for "flash" and too short for most of the short story slots in magazines. Unless a publisher wants to buy it first, the story will appear here on Thursday morning.

Flowers 

The Cat Sanctuary has a lovely selection of Iris germanica commemorating the people who've lived in it. If I ever I found this pretty thing on the Meow some time ago and thought it might be a nice addition to the existing rainbow...


But Lens says that's a computer-generated photo. Lens says the plagiarism-bot might have been working from images like these.


Variety "Black Blue Galaxy," sold online at 



Classic "Dark Blue," sold online at 


And if these mutant freaks are real, which I doubt, they're not real irides, but 


does claim to sell them, and it would be interesting to see what people who ordered them actually got...


Glyphosate Awareness 

This is not about glyphosate and it's not my protest, but many people from Glyphosate Awareness are also working to build awareness of atrazine, the "feminizing" pesticide that is probably behind making boys want to be girls...or want to be boys while they look like girls. If you do protest demonstrations on Saturdays, you might want to turn out for this one.


Music 

Should Christmas music start before Thanksgiving? You decide. I'll post links as I find them, because I'm too busy/lazy to schedule them for later, but I'll give fair warning for those who want to save links for December.

Trans Siberian Orchestra. (Each link features bells and some themes from "The Nutcracker Suite.")



Hohnen Ford. (So? Glen Campbell wasn't really a lineman either.)


Jethro Tull. (This one's called "Ring Out Solstice Bells," so if you listen to the words of songs, you do want to save this one for December. Then again, if you want to add a fresh tune to your caroling repertoire, start learning the words now.)


Celia Cruz.


The Altai Band. (It's called "Mongolian Jingle Bells." It sounds more exotic than Christmas-y to me.)


Wild mushroom wired so that its bioelectrical fluctuations play a tune on a simple synthesizer.


Cultivated fungus inside the lab, with a bigger synthesizer.


"Scots Guards." (Dubious authentiity; posted from China, but it is bagpipes played by men who look Scottish. More new-music-with-a-vague-flavor-of-Christmas. Personally, I feel that the bagpipes were inveented to echo across mountain glens and sound out of place,. and too loud, indoors.)



Ryuichi Sakamoto. "Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence."


Ludovico Einaudi.




Matthew Halsall.




Tony Anderson.


Elijah Bossenbroek.


Tom Petty. (I don't think a day's passed at the Meow without somebody posting something by Tom Petty.)



Ezio Bosso.


Beatles.



Loretta Lynn.


Cream.


Don Henley. (A fine example of how pop psychology encourages us to abuse the concept of forgiveness! Henley, the father of the unwanted fetus Stevie Nicks aborted, is here caught on tape badgering some other woman into pretending she can "forgive" all the men who've...what? Started babies and demanded that she abort them? Men like him want women to be the "babies" who have no knowledge or common sense about life.)


Chequerboard.


Neil Young.





Brandenburger Symphoniker.


Terry Reid.


Jack Bruce.


Creedence Clearwater Revival. 


Herbert Pixner Projekt.


Aretha Franklin.


Rolling Stones.


Joni Mitchell.


Crosby, Stills, and/or Nash, and/or Young.


The Doobie Brothers.


Manfred Mann. (Language can hardly be as bad as it sounds to me, but probably sounds bad to bosses, teachers, etc., too.)


Ozark Mountain Daredevils.


Al Stewart.


Arlo Guthrie.


Johannes Bornlof.


Politics (Global Statement) 

It's important to reaffirm that the inclusion of Russian and/or Ukrainian content at this site in no way implies that anyone here is taking sides. People in those countries look like adults from here;we want them to settle their disputes like adults. We celebrate creativity in any country regardless of whatever ill advised, anachronistic, testosterone-poisoned, greedy, or stupid decisions may be made by national leaders. We hate nobody.

Technology 

George Saunders calls on a fundamental human quality: Can we just say no to the system of plagiarism and spyware that is commonly, but incorrectly, called "artificial intelligence"? How many people are intelligent enough to recognize that this new wave of "apps" aren't offering us anything of value, even as they're being used as pretexts to double our electric bills and ruin our environment? 


Dare to do it, Gentle Readers: If you have a flatphone, send it back to the store. If you have a computer without a hard drive, trade it in. Do not download ChatGPT or Gemini or any similar rubbish. Just say no. And don't sign any contracts with corporations that demand the right to exploit your unpublished work, either, as Microsoft is demanding everyone do next weekend. Tell Microsoft to stick its contracts where the sun doesn't shine. Get Linux now.

Stepping aside from corporations' efforts to herd you into things you don't want to do is also a way to help fend off economic disaster...


If we want to enjoy the benefits of technology, we have to retain control of it. The minute anyone says "It's coming, it's inevitable," we have to say, "It's NOT going to happen." 

Can "it", whatever "it" refers to on any particular day, happen anyway? Maybe. But try saying no, anyway, and see how many other people you empower to say no.
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Book Review: A Divine Design

Title: A Divine Design

Author: Doug Batchelor et al.

Date: 2019
 
Publisher: Amazing Facts

Length: 48 pages

Quote: "What does the Bible uncover about this sanctuary?"

Seventh-Day Adventists don't try to build temples with sanctuaries as described in the book of Exodus, nor do they collectively observe the Jewish holidays, but they do find spiritual meaning in the discussion of the Temple (and its calendar) in the Bible. In this glossy, beautifully illustrated little book Batchelor explains that meaning from a Christian point of view. 

This book was part of a series that appeared at regular intervals. Though each short book was written mostly by one person about one topic, their regular appearance and glossy paper caused some to call them magazines. Both words seem to me to suggest something that looks different from A Divine Design. (Buy it and see which you'd call it.) It's a sort of hybrid between book and magazine. 

If you've always wondered what the descriptions of the tabernacle and temple, their furniture and decor, and the priests' vestments would have looked like or why it mattered, this book is for you.
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Friday, October 2, 2026

Bad Poetry (TM) Rerun: Get a Grip on That Grin

Maybe I shouldn't have read the Disqus replies before visiting the Poets & Storytellers United prompt for this week. (Why did I just hide the link? Because I can? It's a good link. Use the link! See the link!)


Verbally abusive tin-eared toad gets crushed at the P&SU link. Meanwhile, in my Disqus replies, a mostly nice guy who's older than I am, but not by enough to get the Free Grandpa Pass, replied to something I'd said with a comment straight out of 1945 that ought to have been buried there and then. Ooohhh, I feel a rant coming on. 

Meanwhile, here's a poem, more precisely a song that could be sung with a 1940s-style "big" band, about the good things about a neutral, non-grinny face. I want to be clear here. I do enjoy sharing real smiles and laughs with people who really are feeling cheerful; when I'm not feeling positively sick, my baseline mood reading, negative for strong feelings, is cheerful too. (Cheerful enough to annoy grumpy people, to elicit that "What are you so happy about? New boyfriend?" sort of growl.) I have, however, learned to recognize staring eyes, bared teeth, and manic attempts to force cheerfulness as the face of real hate. A quiet, resting, detached "affect" is much easier to take when people are, in fact, feeling tired, or even ill, and being polite enough to spare us the details.

This is a rerun. The original context blather is at 


But it's never been shared with the P&SU before. So the song is also here, now:

Folks were acting downright mean
To a grinny Joel Osteen;
When he's acting like he cares,
His teeth he no longer bares.
Here's the lesson we should heed:
When good will's what we want to feed,
We pull our teeth in, get a grip on that grin,
Let our eyes twinkle but don't drop that chin,
If you've ever told yourself to smile,
Tell your face to relax for a while,
Get a grip on that grin!

If someone's not your long-lost friend,
Why would you want to pretend?
You might seem less of a fool
If your greeting's smooth and cool.
A smile's no nicer than a pout
Till there's something to smile about.
So pull your teeth in, get a grip on that grin,
Let your eyes twinkle but hold up your chin,
You can't hide the unpleasant truth
Behind a little bubble of spit on a tooth!
Get a grip on that grin!

Oh, how can anyone forget
That a shark is no one's favorite pet?
Any animal's apt to bite
When its teeth are out in the light.
If you want to be a teacher
Don't look like some rabid creature,
When you find young children darling
Don't look like a possum snarling,
To impress a snobby waiter
Don't look like an alligator,
And if you want someone to feel amorous
Stay cool and glamorous, not clashing and clamorous!
Get a grip on that grin!

To succeed at song or dance
Or have a chance at sweet romance,
Joy and pleasure you should feel.
It can't be forced; it has to be real.
If you start to tell yourself to smile,
Better keep moving on for another mile!
Pull your teeth in, get a grip on that grin,
Let your eyes twinkle but hold in the chin,
Take other people's woes seriously,
And your own mood swings—mysteriously!
Get a grip on that grin!
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Web Log for 10.1.26

Censorship 

It's probably a system glitch (Live Journal has a goat mascot and says the goat must have been chewing on the wires), but this morning one of the coolest, most levelheaded, most genuinely liberal writers alive was just "suspended" from Dreamwidth "for a policy violation." What policy that might be, I cannot imagine. Readers, beware.

Decor 

I had to laugh at the sight of this lovely front porch with a view of another Victorian house cater-cornered across the road...


Lens failed to locate a source for the photo. What amuses me so is that I can tell, on close inspection, that the plants and the paint colors are different, but the shape of the porch, the things arranged on it, and the view from it looks just as a friend's front porch did when the town council demanded she "clean" it. Busybodies should sink in a pit!

The front porch photograph is being used to market another Book Funnel promotion. Beware...


Fashion 


Why I've never bothered with tattoos...my visible scars have stories that are at least funnier than "I had nothing better to do with my money than pay someone to mutilate my skin." 

The one on my face is a chickenpox scar. Mother had hovered over me hissing "Don't scratch it!" for a few days, it had stopped itching, the crust was about to fall off all by itself, and hours before that final healing occurred, I dived across the couch to thump my brother with a cushion and bumped the back of the couch. Neither of us had any real discomfort with chickenpox. Both of us felt very unfortunate, having it in summer, when it was wasted, rather than during a school term when it would have been good for weeks of "vacation."

The one on my hand preserves the memory of the night we got stoned on secondhand smoke on a bus rolling down into Florida. For no obvious reason my brother, who had been dozing off, grabbed my hand hard enough that two fingernails dug into the skin and left scars. You can still just barely see where one of those scars was. 

The one on my arm came from a laid-off police dog whose humans had gone away to school. He was playing; you can tell because I have a scarred arm rather than a stub. He was not a vicious dog but he was living with a vicious horrorcow. I am not generally afraid of dogs but I did tell the police I was afraid of dogs owned by that person. 

Tattoos are considered cool because they show that you've endured pain, but it seems a bit like "stolen valor." Any kind of active physical work, even sports, is likely to cause pain and leave scars.

If you want a decoration to cover up actual scars or blemishes, or distract attention from those, laundry markers are great. They last about as long as it takes for you to get bored with the image and find it embarrassing. They don't morph into grotesquery as you grow older. 

Music 

Tom Petty.



Einar Englund.


Matthew Halsall.


Germaine Tailleferre.


Neil Young. ("Mad mix" is what I'm going for, but there is no obligation to listen to everything linked here, in or out of the order presented.)


Anna Bon di Venezia. 


Henry Mancini.


Msria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini. 


Traffic.


Fanny Mendelssohn.


The Kingsmen.


Tschaikovsky.


The Sonics.



Johann Sebastian Bach.


Johannes Bornlof.


Frederic Chopin.


Les Tres.


David Nevue.


Aaron Gold.


Dropkick Murphys.


Avi Kaplan.


Sturgill Simpson.


Tchip-Tchip.


Jolly Rogers.


Avishai Cohen.


Rowdy Bunch.


Gramatik.


Judy Garland.


Aukai.


George Harrison.


Boogie Belgique.



Disney. 


Emancipator.


Nathan Evans.


Steve Miller Band.


Home Free.


"Dungeons & Dragons folk song." 

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Book Review: Witch's Block

Title: Witch's Block

Author: Amy Boyles

Quote: "Paige's never seen a ghost in her entire life."

So says her vindictive ex-husband, who's not intelligent enough to realize that sabotaging the sales of Paige's ghost books will reduce the amount of her income he can claim as alimony. (He's disabled as a result of falling out of a tree he had climbed in order to peek into the neighbors' window.) At the time what he says is true. It's due to change, shortly before he's murdered in Paige's new house, and Paige has to prove she didn't do it.

The ghost will become her new best friend as she works to solve the mystery. After discovering that she's a witch, Paige will become friendly with some of the other witches in her magical town, and with a male hunter of magical creatures that attack witches. There will be a series. There will be a slow-burn romance.

All who find this sort of thing amusing can expect to be amused.
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Thursday, October 1, 2026

Caddie Woodlawn (Last Friday's Bad Poetry)

Last Friday's prompt at Poets & Storytellers United was to write something using the following words: 

"fol-de-lol, frippery, tender, delight, singing, sweet, new" 

What came to mind was a book I enjoyed as a child. Meanwhile, the dVerse prompt asked for unusual takes on couplets. The most unusual take on couplets that came to mind would be the Nashery. So:

When the Woodlawns moved to their Wisconsin area
Some of them were ill, possibly with malaria.
Sister Clara stayed indoors and baby-sat the others,
While Caroline, or Caddie, played outdoors with her brothers.
Exercise helped Caddie recover faster
And learn things, while the settlement lacked a schoolmaster.
Pale, sickly Clara, so delicate and slender,
Made everyone, even Caddie and the boys, feel protective and tender,
But Caddie naturally didn't want to share Clara's plight.
Running and playing and even farm chores were her delight.
At heart both sisters were pretty and sweet,
Though Clara frowned righteously when Caddie didn't look neat.
Their settlement in Wisconsin was rough and new.
Menominee people still lived there, at least a few.
The place was still "Western" and wild and woolly.
When school was open, the big bully
Left Caddie and her brothers alone,
Picked a fight with the teacher, and so was shown
The error of his ways. Being tough, but no fool,
He fought a fire, later, and saved the school.
Caddie and the boys,
Having few toys,
Did their part in bringing
Pleasure with their singing;
They put on a sort of sideshow
Singing "Fol-de-rol-lol, de-rol-li-do."
When their pampered city cousin made a long trip
To visit them, they wanted to ship
Her right back to Boston. On her fancy frippery
They broke a raw egg, horrid, squishy, and slippery.
"Unladylike" was the word that came to Caddie's mother's mind,
But, thinking it over, Caddie realized it was unkind.


Half a dozen newer editions have been worn out since my town library acquired a dozen brand-new copies with the cover as shown. Some of the illustrators don't even remember that Caddie had red hair. 

A good Nashery should probably be snarkier and funnier than this one. Apologies.
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Web Log for 9.30.26

Microsoft is trying to get people to rent more of Windows 10 by the year. I recommend holding out for a revised service contract that includes things like "Computer must be secured by making it UNABLE to receive third-party input from ANY source while it's in use, thus reducing the need for security updates, so NO changes may be made in the functions or even the looks of programs the computer uses," and "Microsoft must provide, free of charge, 'lifetime' word processing, data processing, camera, sound recording, and audiovisual playback software that are altogether independent of the Internet and do not expose Computer Owners' content to Microsoft employees' view," and "Microsoft may PAY not less than $1000 per month to any person whose movements and activities Microsoft wants to track through a peripheral device that is permanently connected to any electronic network"....

Cyberspace


From Messy Mimi. Drawn by Mark Parisi.

Music 

Most, not all, of these links came from the Monday Music Moves Me link-up. I set out to see whether I could listen and seated-exercise-move to all of their songs in one day. I couldn't; there'll be more tomorrow. Maybe if I'd started earlier...

Mannheim Steamroller, my favorite "1980s" group. (I had other favorites in the 1980s but they were older people playing older-style music.) Synthesizers, back-beat, high energy...best of the decade.



Meg Christian.


Disney. This web site did not observe Talk Like a Pirate Day, but some people did. Warning: some links are to cartoon videos. With silly voices. Lots of songs about pirates and sailing were on my to-listen-to list today. More mainstream ones further down.






Great Master.


Alestorm.


Dropkick Murphys.


Sandy Riccardi.


Gilbert & Sullivan.



Tim Curry.


Jimmy Buffett.


Ray Stevens.


Ally the Piper.


Weezer. 


Men at Work.


Bridge City Sinners.


Alan Jackson.


Elvis Presley. (Elvis Gibson did this song differently, and on listening I actually prefer homeboy's version, but this is history.)


The Pentangle.


Jeff Healey Band.


Bananarama.


Nick Lowe.


Zac Brown Band.


Kenny Chesney.


Home Free.


Three Dog Night.


Harry Chapin.


Cat Stevens.


Vince Gill. 


Mary Chapin Carpenter.


Yellowcard.


Adrian von Ziegler.

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Book Review: Hex in the City

Title: Hex in the City

Author: Kelly Garcia

Date: 2025

ISBN: 979-8-9914518-5-0

Quote: "Something about losing his job the year he turned forty had transformed my once decent husband into a snake."

When Bella married a classmate from law school, she knew he was not bound by anything like a healthy human conscience. She just never expected him to turn on her in the way he does. At the beginning of this novel her long bound "magical" psychic powers are warning her of a threat to her or her daughter in his office. Sure enough, she's  been locked out of his bank account. And it won't be long before her own private bank account's been drained, and she's been locked out of her home with a restraining order; Bella doesn't drink or gamble much, but her husband's been hitting the casino with a black-haired beauty (Bella is blonde), and he's set up the most vicious divorce case he can imagine. 

If it's true that today's young men hesitate to get married because they're afraid their wives will cheat on them, the fear undoubtedly has something to do with the fact that most young women know somebody who's been through a messy divorce, had her money embezzled and her character defamed, just because her husband craved the novelty of having sex with a different body. A man's carnal pleasure depends almost entirely on his own physical condition and self-control, but most men seem to need to pick up diseases by sleeping around before they can admit this. 

With some help from friends, one of whom is described as a demon in the shape of a  Chicago businessman, Bella reclaims her powers. She still has to do everything an ordinary wronged wife has to do in a spiteful divorce process, but her magic seems to boost her confidence to the point where she can do that. 

This is a relatively wholesome and helpful teaching story about what wives can do if they find that they have "made a mistake and kissed a snake," though the descriptions of Bella finding her courage in the woods at midnight in a circle of salt, her old school friend being a demon, her dream house being haunted by the ghost of a long-gone lawyer, and so on, might arouse satanic panic if found by someone with the appropriate belief system.
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Why Married Women Are More Depressed Than Single Women

Fact: Studies have found that more married women complain of serious depression than single women do. (Studies have also found that married people, including men in the statistics, complain less of serious depression, and that single women who have serious depression or major mental illness are much more likely to remain single...nevertheless.)


Whether or not a person has a disease with serious depression as a symptom, some things are just emotionally depressing to see.

Actually celibacy is good for women's health. You've not heard about this; you've heard about studies that show that marriage is good for men's health and, for women who were married when they had a heart attack, staying married to the same man may be healthier than being divorced. However, all statistics for women's health agree that women avoid a lot of diseases just by eliminating the possibilities of pregnancy and domestic violence. Marriage boosts men's health at women's expense. (Though either wanton promiscuity, or the messes people describe as "committed monogamous relationships" today, are admittedly even riskier than marriage; obviously those options expose women to a lower grade of men.)

Anyway, one of those old nostalgic songs I heard over the weekend did a good job of illustrating why, even in the absence of problem pregnancies and domestic violence, many women seem to find married life depressing. Nobody could possibly feel good about living with someone who says this kind of things, but after marriage, if a man turns into someone who says this kind of things, neither divorce nor murder promises much in the way of emotional improvement. 

(The song also does a great job of illustrating why editors pre-screen out novels by male authors who aren't already rich and famous. Seriously, one reason why I like John Scalzi and Piers Anthony is that either one will happily promote novels by men that are funny, speculative, and not either pornographic or elaborate attempts to self-excuse for failure in personal relationships. I also like Raconteur Press's efforts to expand the scope to include adventure stories that aren't necessarily funny or speculative...but still, we've all heard more than enough from men who tell third parties anything about sex.)

Women need to take responsibility for our own well-being so, for unhappily married women, I offer this guide to decoding what men mean when they say things like...

* "I know I had a drink or two..."

Translates to: "I'm either a genetic alcoholic or a disgusting drunk. Either way, I'm not fit to be the father of anyone's children. I stink, and I'm about to get emotional and possibly violent, and I may also become incontinent, and I disgust you. It's all right to be disgusted with me. However, it's not your fault that you're stuck with me--it's my fault that I've become disgusting."

* "It's high time you knew the truth about the way you make me feel..."

Translates to: "I am emotional, not rational, about my emotional problems, which probably go back long before I met you. Specifically, they go back to my overinflated, brittle self-esteem. I can't deal with any tiny hint of awareness of how disgusting and repulsive I am. The world will be a better place when I'm gone, and I'm too much of a wimp to improve myself, but I feel very, very bad about my negative value to humankind."

* "You lie, you curse, and you provoke, and then you treat it as a joke..."

Translates to: "You've really learned to match the kind of verbal abuse that you've been getting from me. You're a good learner. Maybe I should be paying for you to finish an advanced degree so you can qualify for a job that will replace whatever financial contribution I may have been making. Lying, cursing, and provoking are a classic male behavior pattern but look at me, projecting them onto you as if you learned them anywhere but from me!"

* "You go too far...How could we hope to make amends?"

Translates to: "We can't. If there are children, let's try to be celibate roommates until they're grown and on their own. If not, I should sign over my share of our property to you and get out of your life. It's too late to offer anyone else a real marriage but we can at least stop talking to each other before blood is shed."

* "You look a sight...your stocking seams not even straight."

Translates to: "I'm staring at you because I already know I look a sight. I don't look into the mirror because the sight of me might break it!"

* "I gaze at you in sheer despair and see your mother standing there."

Translates to: "Most people's mothers are not professional world-class Beauties. Even so, you could do worse than look like your mother. I'm trying to say you look 'old,' which, if true, reflects on the effect continual exposure to my company would have on anybody. In any case, it would do me good if, when I said that, you immediately replied, 'Really? That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all year!'"


I'm not sure I even believe this one, but it's on Google. But even if that's your mother...when she relaxes that ugly-photo-contest-winner face and washes the Halloween dye out of her hair, she looks better than a male verbal abuser ever will.

* "You don't mind putting me to shame."

Translates to: "I'm ashamed of myself so it's dead easy to put me to shame. Even when you say good things to or about me, I hear them as reminders of how many other things I'll never hear anyone say about me. Probably we're not even talking about turning 'He was elected president of the High School Band Boosters Club' into '...but he'll never be elected president of the United States,' either. Probably we're talking about my turning 'Thank you for taking out the garbage' into '...while I do all the other chores including scrubbing the stains you leave off the bathroom floor'."

* "You contradict each word I say."

Translates to: "My irrational emotions are distorting my awareness that I'm wrong about a lot of the things I say. I could just go and look things up, or accept correction, when I start saying things like 'It happened six years ago...no, wait, I remember that (whatever) was on the news that day just before it happened, so it would have been in 2024, which was only...', but I'd rather blame you for contradicting me even if all you did was smile. I do not really want to be married to someone who'd believe that a story about the allied soldiers, Sammy, Tommy, and Ivan, is a true anecdote that happened to me. I only feel that way when my burgeoning cardiovascular disease predisposes me to angry emotional moods."

* "You're cruel beyond control."

Translates to: "I really am a jerk. I know it. I can't even make the minimal effort to stop all these insults spewing out of a yap-hole I ought to put duct tape over...and I feel really emotional and really bad about being so ineffectual and incompetent. I'm in so much emotional pain about the great yawning abyss of difference between what I am and what I know I ought to be, that it feels to me as if anyone who spends any time with me, whatever they do or say or don't do and say, is causing me this pain. But if I made the effort to tell the real truth about what I feel, it would be that allowing myself to be such a jerk is a way I hurt myself. I am cruel beyond control. To myself, even before everyone else."

* "You know, you'd lose a little weight if you would watch all that you ate."

Translates to: "We all know that you'd lose weight even faster, and in the right places, if you took more exercise. And if you did stick to a diet and exercise routine that worked for you, you could be sure I'd be doing all that I could to sabotage it, because I like to distract myself from realizing how old and ugly I've become by fat-shaming you. Even if the amount of fat we are talking about is that you've gone from 95 to 97 pounds."

* "A little style, a little grace..."

Translates to: "When you've been dead three days you'll have more of those qualities than I have. Even if you are a lifelong klutz (which is actually a mild form of cerebral palsy, and in no way your fault) and have a kind of face, figure, and hair that was admired in a different time and place but doesn't fit into current fashion, I am a jerk, which is much much worse."

* "And try to show a smiling face..."

Translates to: "I should try to give you a reason to smile again. I should put all my worldly goods in your name and die. Pass me another cheeseburger! I'm working on that! Remember, every time I get drunk and emotional like this, I'm a little closer to that goal! There won't be many more weekends of cheeseburgers and beer on the couch!"

* "Try, try and be the girl I knew!"

Translates to: "If only time could be turned back to the years when you were at least physically attracted to the way I looked, or even at least socio-emotionally attracted to the car and the pocket money my parents gave me, or if it was even the way you convinced me that you were more appealing than that junior horrorcow who had kicked your dog and never paid back the money she owed you...oh the days, oh the days, oh the golden days of youth when nobody knew how I was going to turn out! Can you possibly remember when anyone thought I might grow up to be a Real Man?"

* "Come close to me--let yourself go!"

Translates to: "You've heard all these insults, one after another, spewed at you in a male voice, and you're ever going to feel any attraction to a man again? Well, that'll be the day! If that day ever comes, I certainly can't hope to be the lucky man!"

You only ever get one chance to be a virgin bride but, if you've made a mistake and kissed a snake, at least you can learn how to interpret what he says, ignore him, and make something out of the other aspects of your life.

There is a slightly more encouraging possibility. If you were married for a few years before this nastiness started, and he was a delight to live with for those years, there is a chance that it really is just a symptom of cardiovascular disease. For some men angry emotions become a real physical addiction. They may try to direct their rage toward targets  outside the family, at first. If you keep a diary and notice that he's yelling at phone sales pests, slamming doors, shouting "Call the manager!" at clueless cashiers, threatening violence on the street, and saying ugly things to you, at predictable intervals every few weeks, he has an anger addiction. As with other addictions, he'll crave more of the drug--in this case, adrenalin--over time and will show more damage from more indulgence. Some men can learn to control this and other symptoms of cardiovascular disease. If he's willing to recognize his anger as a disease before he starts hitting people, he may be worth keeping. 

Meanwhile, if you're single...if a man with whom you're on speaking terms ever says things like this to you, or any woman, dump him now, before it's too late!
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Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Web Log for 9.29.26

More of the same. More time spent recovering from forced crashes even than copying stuff to files.

Music 

Jefferson Airplane.


Carl Orff.






 
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A Thing I Couldn't Live Without

This week's Long & Short Reviews prompt was "a thing I couldn't live without." We've had that one before. I almost didn't do it, but then I thought I might as well...

Water.

You can't live without water.

I can't live without water.

Huge corporations can't build those "data centers" to store, and abuse, all the information foolish people put into "the cloud" without very large amounts of water. And electricity. And air conditioning.

Likely, to keep their computers going, they'll use up enough water and electricity that there won't be enough for the rest of us to go on living our lives. And so on.

Why even speculate about the bad consequences? Let's just accept that "data centers" are intended to provide jobs and an economic boost for one year, two at most, and then decrease the number of job openings and depress the economy after that. I know of no American neighborhood that needs that effect. We need to stop racing with China toward an economic cliff, and instead, step aside and plan to help China recover from its fall.

How do we do that?

Very simple. We don't need to listen to the partisan political bickering about how this allegedly necessary evil is to be regulated, in which way will do us, personally, more damage. We need to make the evil unnecessary.

Don't put any more information into "the cloud."

Use a simple phone that doesn't try to be a computer, or none. Don't use flatphones. Try to avoid touching them--they can be used to gank images of your fingerprints for nefarious purposes. 

Use a computer with physical data storage, or none. Don't put data in "the cloud."

Demand printed bills, and pay bills with cash. Don't give people with whom you do business an excuse to put data, especially not your financial data, in "the cloud."

I believe (I could be wrong) that if a critical mass of Americans are religious about these three things, we may be able to save the Internet and our personal, Net-free home computers that are still running Windows 95. 

Tablets, flatphones, Windows 11, QR codes as a pretext for discriminatory pricing, Handmaid's Tale nightmares of mass confiscation of funds and deletion of accounts for individuals or groups--out they all go. Simplify your electronics. If it was rolled out after 2016, it's probably "cloud-based." Tell the company to stick it up their nose. 

Don't buy new electronics unless and until the manufacturers get back to cloud-free equipment that's built to last. Nobody really wants to store data on tape for pity's sake, or even on floppy disks, but if it doesn't have a hard drive and a port for stick drives, leave it in the store.

Too bad if this disappoints Donald Trump, but he's from the generation that's never really understood or appreciated computers anyway, and his decision to cling to notions about "the cloud" performing the economic miracle our system of checks and balances won't let him use tariffs to perform...well, it came from desperation and from ignorance. Empathy is appropriate. Empathy, but not indulgence. 
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Petfinder Post: Glen of Imaal, Bassets, and Manx

Last week I asked whether it was Petfinder or Microsoft that was interfering with this web site's bringing you photos of adoptable Dogues de Bordeaux, or crossbreeds. On the Tuesday morning, it was Microsoft. By the Friday night...I'm seeing clear evidence that Petfinder is under attack by the control freaks who want to censor domestic dogs into extinction.


Like this little crossbreed. More about him below.

Speaking personally and frankly as a pet owner, my recommendation would be that people looking for a good pet expose themselves to animals of the species that appeals to them--friends' pets' puppies, kittens, etc., shelter pets, Petfinder features--and see for themselves that, even if they have preferences about size, color, and coat type, it's easiest to bond with a mixed breed. Given their choice, animals will breed out funny-looking dysfunctional mutations and produce healthy offspring. Not only will natural selection do this; animals who aren't forced or desperate will usually choose healthy mates who don't share any defective genes they may carry. Thus our Serena consistently rejected tomcats who showed the Manx gene until one winter when the only breeding male in the neighborhood showed that gene, and gave birth to a kitten who died from the effects of the Manx gene rather than, as usual, the Seralini gene.

(Having kittens is Serena's best chance, as a Seralini cat, to survive all the drive-by spraying to which we've been subjected. She has not been feeling well this summer. If she didn't have the Seralini gene I'd think she might be more comfortable being spayed; since she does have that gene I know she might not live a year after being spayed. Silver's still alive, but she's not the beautiful healthy cat she used to be. We've all been poisoned. With overtly, admittedly, murderous intentions. Why I think so little of the men who are currently alive may have something to do with the fact that one of them is trying to kill me, under the terms of a loophole that shouldn't be in the law, over a small patch of land that's not even arable, and I've yet to see any of the others doing one thing about it. Well...the one who might be expected to do something is over eighty years old and has been poisoned too. I expect online readers are at least leaning hard on all of your elected officials to close the loophole, making it illegal to use or sell "pesticide" sprays outdoors. They have been and are used to injure and kill human beings. I have some names. And if the busybodies gave a dahm about animals, they'd stop whining about dog breeds and focus on those poison sprays.)

Anyway, mixed breeds tend to be healthy and lovable and, if you're not obsessed with a specific breed's look, appealing to the eye. But that's only one side of the coin, here. As Americans we need to be concerned about censorship. We must never allow censorship to work in the way the people who demand it want it to work.

There are some breeds of animals whose look depends on genes that I'd agree should be bred out of the pool. Bulldogs? Absolutely. Manx cats? Totally. Sometimes the lethal gene can be bred out while the valuable traits that go with it, other than a freaky look, are passed down separately through a line of normal-looking animals. Serena's grandfather had a defective tail, but although the Manx gene is dominant, Serena is only a carrier; she has a normal tail. If the fathers of her kittens also have normal tails, and the Seralini Effect doesn't turn fetuses into mere self-cleaning mechanisms for the mother's body, the kittens will be healthy. Meanwhile Serena is an American Short Hair, if on the wide-framed side, known to have a Manx grandfather and a Siamese great-great-grandfather, and she has all the best features of all three breeds. It's worth getting to know crossbreed dogs, too.

But that's before the busybodies stomped onto the scene, screaming for suppression of any mention of the breeds they hate--even beagles (maybe they got some funding from Anthony Fauci?). Right. Until the busybodies have stepped forward to confess, repent, and atone, it would be a good thing for human society if people intentionally adopted dogs of those breeds. If the look is in fact dysfunctional, then adopting those dogs from shelters where they've all been sterilized anyway is a good option. 

Failing that, one can also adopt them from responsible breeders who sterilize the puppies who show the worst problem genes--the bulldogs who not only can't swim and have trouble breathing in hot weather, but also inherit heart or eye disease, e.g. 

Either way, the individual dogs may not live as long as dogs of different breeds born in the same year, but so long as they're not in pain, they can be valuable to society by making a statement about censorship. We can burn up the Internet with pictures and stories of what wonderful pets our beagles and corgis and spaniels are. We can show the would-be censors that interest in dog breeds rises when idiots squeal that they want newspapers to stop printing pictures of certain types of dogs. The censored newspaper have, I believe, already learned how much censorship is costing them. We all need to work to remove any possible pay-off from any kind of censorship.

In the case of dogs whose breeds are defined by defects, like the next breed on our list, the ideal thing would be to rescue the dogs from shelters. Free shelter space for other animals in need, and choose a dog who won't be adding any more problem genes to the pool to parade past a bossyboots' house every evening. 

Petfinder is trying, with this next breed...but people are sabotaging efforts to get these dogs neutered and adopted.

The first breed I looked up today was the Glen of Imaal Terrier. This is a small, somewhat defective dog that was first bred in a remote rural corner of Ireland. I had never heard of it before the name turned up on the list of breeds the would-be dictators want to render extinct. There are some obvious problems with the breed; few Americans are interested in it. I was surprised that Petfinder even had a page for it, but they have one.

Shelters and organizations associated with Petfinder have created a total of three pages for Glen of Imaal Terriers in search of homes in Washington and eleven in New York. And all fourteen pages are in aid of exactly two dogs. Both are crossbreeds. I was able to get a photo and web page address for the gray dog, shown above; his web page at 


...is likely not to work by tomorrow morning. Enemies of the US Constitution right here in the United States have tampered with most of the web pages set up to help these two lovable little crossbreeds find homes. Other pages for these two dogs didn't work. Some opened messages saying the pages did not exist. Some redirected back to the main page with all the mixed breeds, which I thought could probably be guaranteed an effective way to steer someone looking for a specific type of dog straight away from rescue organizations, running to a breeder. People yapping for censorship in the name of animals do not, in fact, give a dahm about the animals. They are all about control.

The Glen of Imaal Terrier has a look defined by a gene for a type of dwarfism. It's a full-sized dog on miniature legs. Short legs both reduce the efficiency with which terriers can dig and reduce the size of the tunnels they need to excavate to dig out rats and other nuisance species, so their overall effect on survival may be neutral. Nevertheless, to most people a purebred, truly typy GIT looks ridiculous.

A show quality GIT is a little over a foot high at the shoulder, weighs 30 to 40 pounds, and is likely to live ten or fifteen years. Most owners give these dogs full marks for affectionate bonds with the family, high marks for behaving well with children, and average ratings for relationships with other pets--terriers have been known to eat other pets who were smaller than the terriers. Tendencies to joint, eye, and neuromuscular diseases run in some bloodlines; responsible breeders will sterilize the dogs who inherit these genes and at least tell you what you're adopting. The coat needs brushing and the ears need cleaning once a week. (The American Kennel Club recommends buying a "grooming table" for a GIT; they don't recommend this expense with every breed.) Grooming is necessary to keep the coat from forming mats that harbor fleas; GITs don't shed much. They need frequent exercise but will flop down when tired, before those stubby little legs can carry them very far. For the first year puppies should be protected from jumping off furniture or going down stairs. They're intelligent enough to be easy to train, can be stubborn about training that goes against their instincts, and are not known for bonding with other dogs. All terriers are built to run and hunt differently than other types of dogs; few could run very far with a pack of hounds and collies, but the Glen of Imaal Terrier is sometimes said to be more independent than other terriers. I have seen homeless terrier and spaniel type dogs running in their own little packs. But some, not all, GITs attack other small dogs. 

Problem? GITs like to be with their humans. When they're left outside in a fenced yard, see something they want to chase, and burrow out under the fence, then there may be a problem for neighbors' pets and potentially for your GIT. If your dog stays near you or indoors where it can't get out, there should be no problem.

There aren't a lot of GITs in North America and there probably don't need to be more. There aren't a lot of the next breed on the list, either. Petfinder doesn't even have a listing for Grand Bassets, but it has plenty of Basset Hounds. We looked at them last spring. There are enough Bassets in shelters that we can look at them again. 

Bassets are also good-sized dogs on short stubby legs. And they have long floppy ears, which busybodies don't like. They are also prone to the delusion that they can sing, which your neighbors may not like. 

Since I found three cute Persian cat photos last week, this week I'll go with Manx.

Zipcode 10101: Tigress from Corpus Christi by way of Ridgefield, New Jersey 


Part Basset and part Labrador Retriever, Tigress is unlikely to be mistaken for any other dog. When that photo was taken she was not quite 6 months old and weighed 32 pounds. She's probably bigger than that by now and likely to keep growing. She is described as a sweet, gentle, affectionate pet. Neither Bassets nor Labs are known for cleverness, but she can probably learn basic dog etiquette if people are patient and gentle with her.

Cressida from Mississippi by way of Oakland 


Typical gray tabby Manx, Cressida likes to make up her mind about when or whether to snuggle, but when she lets her inner snugglebunny out to play she makes people feel loved. 

20202: Beau from Jarrettsville, Maryland


Have you seen a more classic Basset? This young hound is described as a sweet pet who needs some work--basic training, ideally with a better trained senior dog companion. He's prone to stray and needs lots of walks, with a double leash, to burn off his adolescent energy and a strong deep fence to keep him from being a nuisance. He does well with cats. He does not do so well with men or children. So he's not for everybody, but he'd be a great pet for some people.

Sasha from Herndon 


Sasha is available as a foster pet! She likes to take her time getting to know people. While she's getting to know you, you can get to know her, free of charge. If you can bear to part with her, you can help her find a purrmanent home. 

30303: Gelato from Carrollton 


This Basset-terrier crossbreed is just five months old--a friendly, bouncy, yappy puppy who likes going for walks and running up to the fence to greet other dogs. He needs someone who can discipline his enthusiasm without breaking his happy spirit. 

Jinx from Winder 


This cute, quiet, slightly shy kitten has no tail at all. If you love her, which you probably will, you'll have her spayed. She takes her time about deciding whom to snuggle up beside. If she chooses you, you will know you've been chosen. 
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