Good News Front: Chick-Fillet

A lot of LGBT people tend to look at Chick-Fillet as an enemy. I don't really see it. I mean the founder hates homos and gave money to fight marriage equality, but that was a long time ago.  But we homos can hold a grudge. I have let it go. It helps that I don't really love chick-fillet and have no attachment to them.

Given I don't hate Chick-fillet, I think this story is the best.

In South Carolina, a drive vaccine program was hitting some massive logistical problems. Chick-fillet (like IN n Out on the west coast) does know haw to handle drive thrus, so the local called a Chick-fillet manager. And the manager showed up, identified the problem, got local Rotary Club members to handle the pre-check in and removed the logistical block and got ver 1,000 people vaccinated.

And that is great news.

This is the Part of Twitter I Could Not Live Without

 Thoughts of a Dog!

More Marjorie, More!

It was just yesterday that I posted about our new wack-a-doodle Marjorie Tyler Greene. Well, the internet is not the place to forget things.

They have gone through Marjorie's old posts and found she has some odd beliefs. I mean I thought the idea that the US Government crashed the places in 9/11 was weird. And that she called 2 school shootings false flags done by the left to get gun control passed. If we are doing that, we are horrible at it. There have been over 500 shootings during the Trump Era and not one gun law was passed (that was sarcasm).

Well her theory on the the wildfires that killed 100 people last year were published. Cause: Jewish Space Lasers.

That sounds to most of us, well crazy. But listen to Marjorie's thinking here. 

First, California is full of liberals, and they all want a bullet train but can't get permission from other liberals. But there is a lot of Jewish money in liberal California that is banking on building that bullet train. 

Second, So there is a solar satellite beaming down energy to California from the company Solaren (which is actually a company, score 1). This doesn't happen yet, but it is totally a cool idea.

Third, PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) gets power beamed down this way (Again, no they don't.) Also, she points out, Jerry Brown (who hasn't been Governor in years) seems (to her) to just love PG&E. This is just laziness since PG&E is a the only Public Utility in Northern California. Since it supplies power to over 10 million people, the Governor - whomever it is - pays attention. But back to the crazy trian.

Fourth, one of the Board members fo PG&E is Roger Kimmel who is tied up with the Rothschilds Jewish banking money. (One cannot confirm or deny that a Board member is also related to the Jewish Money conspiracy.)

Fifth, Mr. Kimmel arranged for these space lasers (they're not) to beam down and start fires (they can't) but only directed along the corridor where the bullet train will run (it wasn't burnt there) so it clears the way for the bullet train.

Sixth, This can be proven (it can't) by witnesses that said they saw blue lighting hit the ground.

You think I am kidding. You think she can't be that bat-shit crazy. Her post is below.

Makes That Mask Seem Easier Now, Doesn't It?

 Hummm

Or, as we used to say, taking your temperature the "baby way", only with a Covid test. I did read the article and this is only happening in certain serious areas. Because a nasal swab comes back negative while the lower intestines can still carry the virus.

I choose not to think about how the virus is spread that way. 

Okay, I did think about it. Farts?

She is a Greene Machine

For those of you outside the country and happily unaware of US politics right now, you're missing the goods.

Our latest wack-a-doodle Congress person is a woman from Florida*. Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene believe in the QAnon fantasy, going so far as to posting about watching a video of Hillary Clinton and Friend, killing a child, wearing the child's face as a mask and drinking the child's blood. Seriously. And that is NOT what people are mad about!

Ms. Greene is getting in trouble for posting last year that the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is guilty of treason and the punishment for that should be death. ADN for saying the problem of Nancy Pelosi could be solved by a bullet to the head.

She believes that the Parkland School Massacre was a "false flag" operation, staged by Democrats to take away guns. There is video footage of her following one of the survivors around and screaming that he is a plant, an actor and didn't really go through the school shooting.

She posted that she believes that 9/11 was done by the US Government (an "inside job") in order to - I don't know, from there her reasoning gets murky about Democrats the deep state and Donald Trump the Savior.

Now she is upset because, while all that is true, the press didn't report on the "good posts on social media" where she told people happy birthday and posted about the Bible.

Seriously!

It is like a Bank Robber complaining in court that no one talks about all the times he used an ATM and DIDN'T rob the bank.

My favorite Rep Greene moment (so far) is where she wore a mask that said "CENSORED" on it, and complained of being censored, as she spoke. in Congress on a National TV station. Satire is well and truly dead in this country.

And now for the back row

 

My Visit to the Saint Louis Arch

Our forced march precluded my scheduled posting of my story with Zela, but i do want to add an excerpt on our visit to the St. Louis Arch one fine morning.

We started this morning out of Lula Mae’s and headed to look at downtown St. Louis. In 1984, downtown St. Louis hovered somewhere between fading elegance and decaying blight. We parked and decided to visit the Gateway Arch. St. Louis is where my father was born to a newly married couple, so my grandmother has fond memories of that time, if not the city.

If you haven’t been in the Gateway Arch, yikes! It was built in 1967 and was state of the art then. By 1984, it was a bit rickety and ramshackle, hosting almost 4 million visitors a year since opening. We arrived at the tail end of the tourist season, so the Arch had seen a full season of visitors. That meant sea-sick adults, crying tots and too many burps and other gaseous discharges for the elevators to smell pleasant.

To get the top, one enters these bizarre pods of terror that are half elevator car and half airport trams. As they ascend the arch to the top, then have to readjust, but unlike a Ferris Wheel, where the cars swing with gravity these trams ratchet their way up, clicking like a roller coaster on the climb to the crest. And, every now and then, the car reorients itself a little. But it does this in jerks that are not regular (it is an arch, not a semicircle) and not uniform in how much the car drops back towards 90 degrees. With only one tiny window and room for 5 or 6 humans to be stuffed in it cheek to jowl, the ride creates both motion sickness and claustrophobia. 

While Zela and I were both startled by the pace and jerks, we were able to pretend to be okay with nervous laughter. Martha, on the other hand, did not enjoy it at all and wanted it to stop. Every time the car buckled to reorient itself, Martha would say, “Zela!” a little louder. This happens often and induced that hysterical laughter that often forces itself out despite your best attempts to keep it in.

You must experience it yourself if you haven’t. Once the shock of the jerks wears off, you try to anticipate when it might come again. But no. The changing length of the arc means the adjustments have some system, but not one you can figure out from the inside. Ad this is when the odor of the previous 10 million visitors hits you. Fear, sweat and hot dog juices are the predominate bouquets. Just when you think you can take no more (4 minutes for those counting) the doors open on the observation level.

Upon exiting the at the observation level, the first thing I observed was the height of the ceiling. I observed this by bumping my head. You exit to a small carpeted are with slits of windows with which to view the way west for the settlers and to the east the lands they come from. At St. Louis itself, both views are pretty much the same. But you don’t really notice because the grimy windows are covered in snot-nosed smears from children trying to see. And you must lean across the carpeted walls, where thousands, nay, millions have leaned before you. From the perspective of 2020, it is a Covid factory.

We exited the elevatror-tram, we looked, we oohed and aahed for 20 seconds and laughed when Martha loudly proclaimed. “Zela, let’s go!” and we pushed past others to head down ASAP. Then we headed south towards Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

The Interior here looks large, until you notice the people are school children, not adults!

Wither now, one asks?

I think most of America is ready to settle into a nice quiet period. It isn't a desire for a reflective moment, as mush as exhaustion. 

A younger me, a firebrand me, an outraged me would find it infuriating. The evil of the past administration must be avenged. And there are a number of young firebrands who fight for this all the time. A more bitter me would look at this sarcastically and be outwardly amused and inwardly horrified that insurrection goes unpunished. And a brace of those people are out there, trying to walk the fine line between laughter and hysteria. A bizarro world me, if I were a Trump cultist, would be raging - as they are in droves, off-stage.

But this me, I want it all to shut the hell up for a few months. I hate the pushers of lies, still pretending the election was fixed. I am annoyed by pushers of  retribution (which I would be in early times), intent less on going forward than on justice. But most of all I am turned off by the LEVEL 10 OUTRAGE OF IT ALL.

This me, I don't believe much will change.  I don't think Congress can accomplish much with theater of backlash, always a day late and a dollar short. I don't think our nation will get satisfaction that way, and yet I am sure that is the way we are going, and the backlash wave will come after will go the same way after it is swept into power.

This me just wants his friends to be happy and the world to go the fuck away for a few weeks.

PS - I feel like the mother of an unruly child who wants to scream , "Can I just get 5 fucking minutes! Just five. Can you shut up for just five minutes." But who, instead, smiles and tries to tune the world out to the best of her ability. Sometimes my ability isn't so "best".

I find birds beautiful

I find birds beautiful. It's hard to get close, but they are beautiful.

Someone took a picture of this Cooper's Hawk in the city.

Frustration

Argh. Life is frustrating right now. In sooo many ways. I see some people I know that seem to be doing well on social media and I wonder, maybe it's me.

I'm going to share, because that helps me. You don't have to read.

Jeopardy: Justin Beiber, Harry Styles, Scott and Ed's Relationship.

 Buzz!!!

What are things that are 26 years old.

So, What Have We Learned?

The Emoluments Clause, that is, the Constitutional Ban on receiving gifts, favors, titles or other emoluments (definition below) is bullshit. The Supreme Court has decided the Constitution does not count.

Fuck

Score one for the cheaters.

Not only did the Supreme Court reuse to take it up, they vacated all lower court decisions that went against the President.

Affecting Me? Me? Maybe.. a little

Yesterday, while watching TV, I realized I might have cabin-fever and might, MIGHT, have over reacted a little. I was watching TV and a commercial for granola bars came on.

I won't bore you with the actual commercial, but it started how "right outside your door" was nature and Yosemite National Park, in the sun, could be embodied by a Nature Valley Granola bar.

I called Ed in the room to replay the commercial, stopping at the "right outside your door" section and said, emphatically - Ed might say manically, "Outside what fucking window? Look at this window. You don't see Yosemite do you? DO YOU? You don't even see the fucking sun. " I then hit play and it rolled on to the lovely Yosemite National Park, which I have visited often, in the sunshine. Pause again. "Yeah, Yeah! Because EVERYONE lives next door to a National Park! What the fuck, we can't even GO outside. Between the Covid and the cold, we are living in a nightmare, and they show happy fuckers playing in Yosemite in the Summer!"

For some unknown reason, Eddie backed away and said maybe I was in a bad mood.

Really? REALLY! I haven't been in the warmth enjoying outside in 18 months! I don't need to see maskless white young sundressed and tanktopped thangs telling me that a cruddy oatmeal bar is all I need is to enjoy life.

This is Weird AF

So this is very weird. Microsoft just patented a process that would allow them to create a "chat bot", that is an automated system of responding to questions, suggestions etc, with a dead person's details. If that person had a large enough online presence, they will use their images, ideas and "voice" to continue to respond, even after death.

One of many of his books

What is weird as hell is NOT that idea. What is weird is that an author I read, Jack McDevitt, uses this system all the time. He writes science fiction, and has one series where the lead is an archeologist / detective looking for antiques in the far far future. He will often quiz dead people's avatars (which is just like what Microsoft patented) but with a Hologram involved. 

In Jack's future worlds, people load these avatar's with the latest information about a person. So the Avatar's can't create new memories, just what they knew at the time of recording (or death).

Now in Jack's future worlds, these are not (usually) created as memorials, but are made while the person is still alive. They are a bit like automated answer machines / personal assistants. But, they continue after death.

Weird!

link for more at The Independet

So it wasn't a gift.

 With my new phone I got a year of Apple TV. And we started watching "The Morning Show". now Jennifer Aniston won the Golden Globe for TV and i thought it was a gift because we all loved Friends.

But let me tell you. Jennifer Aniston is amazing in this show. She lets herself be old and really look her age. She acts, believably, mean and angry. I love her acting.

Reese is great too, but we haven't gotten to her juicy episodes. Jenn steals everything right now.

And Now: The Beautiful

This 19 year old Angeleno is Amanda Gorman, the US' Young Poet Laurette. She delivers a short poem of hope and the future on this new day. If you did not hear her, listen. If you heard her, listen again and hear the message of love and hope for this country.

And when you do, remember this young black girl has more hope and faith than most of us will ever muster. I could not be a young black person and have watched these last 4 years and deliver this uplifting, loving ode to our country.

But I can celebrate it.

Back to Good Old Texas Nincompoopery

 Perfect. The Day of the Inauguration, the Texas AG promises bat-shit craziness. This, by the fucking way, is the man that sued Pennsylvania because Texas didn't like the way Pennsylvania conducted their election! The Supreme Court told him to pound sand. But to me he is just another Charles Durning wanna-be.

I read that and think this..

And Now For a Little Nincompoopery

 Back to our regularly scheduled fun after that 4 year time-out.

Lillith Has Left The Building

 For those of us who watched Fraizer, one of the funny recurring bits was the headache everyone got when Lilith visited. And the wonderful feeling of release when her plane finally took off.

Today was that feeling for me.

Saner Heads: Anne Applebaum

 I was listening to a podcast today (the new abnormal from the daily beast) and one guest was Anne Applebaum. They had her on as an expert in civil societies and how to heal. In particular, she discussed how to heal the divisions on the nation. And she had some great comments.

Her first one, that is painfully obvious to those of us that are awake right now, is that you can't cure disagreements by arguing. For an example, let's just pretend that Covid denying, election interfering Maga Heads are terrible people.

Now, there is no way to change their minds about Trump - if we talk about Trump. The way to heal the nation is to define a set of projects that we can agree upon. And then build on that trust to rebuild our country's community. 

For example, we can all agree our bridges and infrastructure need to be fixed. Let's deal with that first. Our Covid response has to be better, let's deal with that first.

The idea is these shared priorities can help us rebuild our commonality as Americans. And, over time, this will spread to other areas.

She used the example (that worked) of Colombia after decades of FARQ insurrection.  Now a functioning place. Or a place like Egypt, where the insurrection never ended in shared goals and is now a dictatorship.

The other hopeful thing she stated is that it seems that President-elect Biden seems to instinctively understand this. He isn't about attacking Trumps followers, but is trying to build a shared set of goals.

Finally, a slight parting in the clouds of anger, denial and frustration.

Ed says this last week of Trump my mood has swung a lot?

Sometimes I don't know if I should take Ed literally or seriously (that was a Trump joke there). He said my mood has been a bit like the chart below. But instead of days, think hours.

I would love to say that isn't true at all. But, of course it's true!

In the last few days (which have moved at glacial speed), we have had armed insurrectionists storm our Capital and chant to kill our legislators. We have a President who cheered them on and refused to release the national guard, military or police*. We have Trump leaving in disgrace, but throwing a childish fit in between moments of whining.

Over 150 different Representatives and Senators claim on the floor of Congress that the election was rife with cheating, even though their party leaders, Attorney General and 61 courts - many with Trump appointees - say it was fair. The giant Orange fur-ball is the first President since the Civil War to boycott his successor's inauguration. And he still hasn't conceded the election. He concedes Biden will be inaugurated, but not that Biden won the election. 

AND 61% of Republicans think storming the Capital to overturn a fair election was (and still is) the right thing to do.

Trump wants a BIG ASS good-bye party at the Presidential Helicopter BEFORE Biden is sworn in (leaving the question about how he will hand off the nuclear football in doubt). It's all very President Nixon sneaking out, but he has threatened any of his aids that mention Nixon will be horse-whipped. Trump wanted a red white and blue "red carpet" and a full military band with a 21 gun salute for his departure and sent tickets to various pardoned crooks and sycophants and their plus ones (and lawyers). The military is trying to talk him down off that one.

On the positive side, Biden is building a welcoming coalition and a Cabinet of competent appointees that will focus on getting the country vaccinated, back to work, and restoring normalcy. The question is, can we go back to normal?

Can I - forget about everyone else for a moment, can I go back to feeling safe in this country where 71 million of my fellow country-men hate Democracy and me. And not just me, because I'm gay. That is small time hate next to their hate for my being from a blue state (TWO blue states now!), for my going to a liberal University (all Universities are liberal distortion factories according to them) and for my watching any news that doesn't parrot the hateful rhetoric of Trump 24/7. 

This new country where 71 Million Americans believe that 400,000 dead in their own country was a reasonable cost not wearing a fucking mask outside. This country where a pillow salesman is welcomed into the Oval Office with the President in order to plot an overthrow and martial law. Of course my mood is wack. To quote Halt and Catch Fire, my mood is so wack, it's first name should be knick-knack-patty.

*Although there were quite a few off-duty police, sheriffs and retired veterans doing the storming. They don't count.

Who Says, "Well, she doesn't want to date me, but maybe if I send her a picture of my dick..."

 The Mets (an American baseball team) just fired their General Manager because he sent a woman and "unsolicited" picture of his penis.

His excuse is that it wasn't HIS penis. He sent it only after she (a female reporter!) refused to go out with him after he sent 16 other pictures of himself. And he thought, "Well, this is a scrumptious penis. Maybe this will convince her."

Gentlemen, no woman every changed her mind after unsolicited penis pictures. No. Even if you use photoshop to draw a little smiling face on it saying "pleeease". 

Misguided Lies Caused Problems Before. Thank God We've Learned Our Lesson. Ha ha ha haaaa

 Oy. I kind of assumed this, but I hate reading I was right. Here the truth about the vaccines are, in full...

Preparing the Pfizer vaccine in Phoenix.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times

‘We’re underselling the vaccine’

Early in the pandemic, many health experts — in the U.S. and around the world — decided that the public could not be trusted to hear the truth about masks. Instead, the experts spread a misleading message, discouraging the use of masks.

Their motivation was mostly good. It sprung from a concern that people would rush to buy high-grade medical masks, leaving too few for doctors and nurses. The experts were also unsure how much ordinary masks would help.

But the message was still a mistake.

It confused people. (If masks weren’t effective, why did doctors and nurses need them?) It delayed the widespread use of masks (even though there was good reason to believe they could help). And it damaged the credibility of public health experts.

“When people feel as though they may not be getting the full truth from the authorities, snake-oil sellers and price gougers have an easier time,” the sociologist Zeynep Tufekci wrote early last year.

Now a version of the mask story is repeating itself — this time involving the vaccines. Once again, the experts don’t seem to trust the public to hear the full truth.

This issue is important and complex enough that I’m going to make today’s newsletter a bit longer than usual. If you still have questions, don’t hesitate to email me at themorning@nytimes.com.

‘Ridiculously encouraging’

Right now, public discussion of the vaccines is full of warnings about their limitations: They’re not 100 percent effective. Even vaccinated people may be able to spread the virus. And people shouldn’t change their behavior once they get their shots.

These warnings have a basis in truth, just as it’s true that masks are imperfect. But the sum total of the warnings is misleading, as I heard from multiple doctors and epidemiologists last week.

“It’s driving me a little bit crazy,” Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown School of Public Health, told me.

“We’re underselling the vaccine,” Dr. Aaron Richterman, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Pennsylvania, said.

“It’s going to save your life — that’s where the emphasis has to be right now,” Dr. Peter Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine said.

The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are “essentially 100 percent effective against serious disease,” Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said. “It’s ridiculously encouraging.”

The details

Here’s my best attempt at summarizing what we know:

The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines — the only two approved in the U.S. — are among the best vaccines ever created, with effectiveness rates of about 95 percent after two doses. That’s on par with the vaccines for chickenpox and measles. And a vaccine doesn’t even need to be so effective to reduce cases sharply and crush a pandemic. If anything, the 95 percent number understates the effectiveness, because it counts anyone who came down with a mild case of Covid-19 as a failure. But turning Covid into a typical flu — as the vaccines evidently did for most of the remaining 5 percent — is actually a success. Of the 32,000 people who received the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine in a research trial, do you want to guess how many contracted a severe Covid case? One. Although no rigorous study has yet analyzed whether vaccinated people can spread the virus, it would be surprising if they did. “If there is an example of a vaccine in widespread clinical use that has this selective effect — prevents disease but not infection — I can’t think of one!” Dr. Paul Sax of Harvard has written in The New England Journal of Medicine. (And, no, exclamation points are not common in medical journals.) On Twitter, Dr. Monica Gandhi of the University of California, San Francisco, argued: “Please be assured that YOU ARE SAFE after vaccine from what matters — disease and spreading.” The risks for vaccinated people are still not zero, because almost nothing in the real world is zero risk. A tiny percentage of people may have allergic reactions. And I’ll be eager to see what the studies on post-vaccination spread eventually show. But the evidence so far suggests that the vaccines are akin to a cure.

Offit told me we should be greeting them with the same enthusiasm that greeted the polio vaccine: “It should be this rallying cry.”

A medical worker receiving the Moderna vaccine in Jersey City, N.J.Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

The costs of negativity

Why are many experts conveying a more negative message?

Again, their motivations are mostly good. As academic researchers, they are instinctively cautious, prone to emphasizing any uncertainty. Many may also be nervous that vaccinated people will stop wearing masks and social distancing, which in turn could cause unvaccinated people to stop as well. If that happens, deaths would soar even higher.

But the best way to persuade people to behave safely usually involves telling them the truth. “Not being completely open because you want to achieve some sort of behavioral public health goal — people will see through that eventually,” Richterman said. The current approach also feeds anti-vaccine skepticism and conspiracy theories.

After asking Richterman and others what a better public message might sound like, I was left thinking about something like this:

We should immediately be more aggressive about mask-wearing and social distancing because of the new virus variants. We should vaccinate people as rapidly as possible — which will require approving other Covid vaccines when the data justifies it.

People who have received both of their vaccine shots, and have waited until they take effect, will be able to do things that unvaccinated people cannot — like having meals together and hugging their grandchildren. But until the pandemic is defeated, all Americans should wear masks in public, help unvaccinated people stay safe and contribute to a shared national project of saving every possible life.

Purr-fection

 hat tip to Kenneth in the 212 here

The Headless Horseman House

Many of you that have visited us in New york, I've taken up to Sleepy hollow, where the tale of the Headless Horsemen is set. What I learned up when we were up in Hudson earlier this winter, is that the author, Washington Irving wrote it while up there in Ghent.

This is the house he stayed with for a while when writing his tale. Furthermore, the young woman in the tale, whom the the teacher was in love with, was based on the young woman that lived here at the time, Katrina Van Tassel.

The area is full of older homes and history. Martin Van Buren's childhood home is less than a mile from the site above (Van Buren was a President in the 1800s). Many old homes have been beautifully restored and just as many look pretty decrepit. 

Not restored.

To the left, the pump house has been restored to a home. To the right (out of view) is an ancient abandoned factory.  (PS - why is "ancient" not e before i since it is after c?)

"Just following orders..."

I was "just following orders" is not fit for an excuse in law. So I think "I was just following suggestions" might not fly.

But you never know, Trump might pardon him before Rudy G.

When the thumb is brown, change the plants

 I have a black thumb. Everything I try to grow does not do well. Now, I am trying to grow things in pots inside a house with massive windows and so it's tricky. It also didn't help that we were gone for 6 weeks with no watering. Some plants bounced back and some didn't.

I can't have cacti, but I decided to try succulents. I figured the low water and high sun would work well. And they are so cute. I bought a bunch via the net, and planted them in bunches and they look great.

Oddly the picture above contains a "Jade Plant" which people love to grow back east but is a weed in Los Angeles. A sticky, stinking weed!  But, I haven't killed it yet so that's good.

Happy Wednesday

While the government impeaches President Trump for sedition, and while he threatens the country with more violence IF he is impeached, we shall turn to brighter things.

The picture above is from a walk we took with Rusty last week-end. This is a state park in Connecticut. All over the smaller state and region parks in Connecticut you see the remains of old farms. In this picture you see the rock walls between fields. I think the trees have grown mainly since this was abandoned.

How do they expect us to eat outside in winter. Like this. In a pod. Eddie and I haven't done it because it is so freakin' cold.

 Just a shot of the artwork frieze at 30 Rock.I know the right one is the growth of family. I am not sure what the left one is. I mean, assume that John D. wasn't espousing an orgy, so your guess is as good as mine.