I feel like I spend half my time here apologizing, but OK then, that’s the way it is. I have an entry in my weekly planner that goes:
WORKOUTS:
MPS:
BLOGS:
As the week goes on, I add hashmarks. Workouts is self-explanatory; I aim for 5-6. MPs are morning pages, the daily stream-of-consciousness longhand thing I’ve been doing for a while, in hopes of waking up with a fully formed idea for a novel one of these days. As for BLOGS, I try for three. Often I only make it to two. This is the second of the week. I try, I fail, I’m human, and this is why I am resisting all calls to give this Substack thing a whirl.
But, as I usually say, I’ve been busy. I’m in training for a new part-time job this week, which I’ll reveal in due time. And the news has been so insanely…insane, I find myself just-can’t-evening a lot. Driving home yesterday, listening to a podcast on the arraignment the day before, and I heard Ron DeSantis pledging that if he is elected president, he will pardon Donald Trump, and calling upon all GOP candidates to do the same, and it kinda-sorta hit me: This could happen. Jesus Christ, just what I need: Another two years of doomscrolling and worrying and whatever-the-fucking.
I may need to really-really retire at some point. Just wait for Social Security to fill my bank account every month and relax. But not yet.
Meanwhile, however, this indictment is sucking all the goddamn oxygen out of my personal room. Every time I turn on the news, I’m reminded that we elected a criminal to lead the most powerful nation in the world, and could very well do it again. I’m just so…SICK OF THIS. When is this guy going to go away?
As I have, really, nothing today that you folks might say better, I’ll let this go. The weekend awaits. Let’s all enjoy it.
Brandon said on June 16, 2023 at 12:26 am
Along with the move of some eastern Oregon counties to join Idaho, there’s this:
A new proposal, put forth by a resident and supported by at least one former county leader, would have El Dorado County secede from California and become its own state.
The idea is being spearheaded by county resident Sharon Durst, who spoke alongside former county Supervisor Ray Nutting at a community meeting last month, the Mountain Democrat newspaper reported.
Durst also laid out the case for secession in a more than 7,000-word post published May 26 on newsletter platform Substack.
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del said on June 16, 2023 at 12:35 am
Pub crawl…
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Dexter Friend said on June 16, 2023 at 4:06 am
Andrew Weissmann and Neal Katyal have been educating me for weeks now on MSNBC. They point out the seriousness of Trump’s potential downfall, what could, should happen to the twice-impeached disgraced former President.
It’s starting to make me feel sick, nauseous sometimes, as we are all in limbo waiting. Cannon will likely not recuse and will grant long delays in Florida, bowing to Trump lawyers who angle for the only defense Trump has: delays until the election when he will somehow try to pardon himself. But really, Trump is a loser who can not beat Joe Biden. Would then Trump run in 2028 as an 82 year old candidate? Sure he would! He’ll only be stopped by The Grim Reaper.
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David C said on June 16, 2023 at 5:51 am
I wish they’d stop sticking a microphone in the face of every idiot who wants a new state carved out of an old state or to join another state more to their liking. It isn’t going to happen, ever. Why do they give that crap oxygen?
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nancy said on June 16, 2023 at 8:08 am
Agreed. Agreed, agreed, agreed.
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Jim said on June 16, 2023 at 6:10 am
Ronny has to do what Casey, his wife, tells him to do .
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ROGirl said on June 16, 2023 at 7:16 am
I’m pessimistic as to when he’ll go away — not without destroying democracy first.
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Jeff Gill said on June 16, 2023 at 7:40 am
It was a dark & stormy night…
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Suzanne said on June 16, 2023 at 8:47 am
Maybe it’s my stage in life, maybe it’s my bout with cancer, but I am more pessimistic than ever. Society seems to be suffering from mass psychosis. My daughter told me last week of a co-worker who has an Ivy League education but believes that the smoke that covered the east coast wasn’t really from wildfires but from the government trying to cover up I-can’t- remember-what. I have had conversations too often in the past few years with otherwise intelligent people who spout complete nonsense. I don’t see anyway out when half the population lives in a alternate universe.
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JodiP said on June 16, 2023 at 9:16 am
I am also very worried about our country and the impact of another Trump presidency on world affairs. Apologies to to a country like Guatemala, where their autocrat mostly just affects them (and adds to people coming to the US seeking asylum/a decent life) but having the US off the rails affects so many issues the global community *needs* to tackle. Not news to all ya’ll.
In better news: the supreme court upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act! This has huge implications not just for this specific area of tribal rights, but their overall sovreignty. I will plug the podcast This Land, season 2 if anyone wants a deep dive into the case. There are activists in MN trying to get similar legislation to address the same issue in Black communities, but it keeps getting bumped. The argument might be tougher because there is no recognition of the Black community as nations, but is raced based. Being Indian is considered a political classification. Of course Dahlia and Mark Joseph Stern break it all down on Amicus.
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Mark P said on June 16, 2023 at 9:18 am
In olden times, the idiots would be talking to themselves on street corners, and people would look away as they walked by. Now they get reinforcement from like-minded idiots on whatever social media they use. Did anyone think when Facebook appeared that social media would destroy society? So, being able to show your cousin in the next state a photo of yourself at the beach means the fall of civilization.
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Jeff Borden said on June 16, 2023 at 11:06 am
While we focus so much on tRump, we must be alert to the increasingly overt plans by the QOP to remake our federal bureaucracy. Ron DeathSantis has an entire policy group –made up of some of the craziest right-wing asshats in the nation– studying how he can gut the Department of Justice while also employing some little known article of law that would allow the mass firings of civil service bureaucrats, who would be replaced by “true believers.” DeathSantis says “his” DOJ will focus on prosecuting state’s attorneys in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago for being “pro-criminal” and, of course, we know they would target other blue states with horseshit proposals. DeathSantis says he also would halt efforts to control what he declares as “so-called misinformation,” which would surely be appreciated by the hacks at Fox and other right-wing sewage producers not to mention the legions of basement-dwelling QAnon loons.
Thus, NO QOPer can be elected president for the foreseeable future and certainly not that two-bit Mussolini in Floriduh, whose personality is the only thing uglier than his ideas. He’s Richard M. Nixon without the glamor, the sense of humor, the charisma. He’s a nasty little prick with a messianic complex.
I’m an atheist, but if I had any religion, I’d be praying we avoid any economic turmoil, Middle Eastern blow-ups or some other event that would work against an incumbent. The right-wingers will not stop with control of the red states. They want it all, baby, and fuck you if that’s a problem.
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Sherri said on June 16, 2023 at 12:07 pm
Of course, Thomas and Alito were in the minority on the ICWA decision. If you want a good look at how and when Clarence Thomas became radicalized, this season of Slow Burn is about him.
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Jeff Gill said on June 16, 2023 at 4:28 pm
I’ve been corresponding the last few months with a fellow who was doing caregiving for a 92 year old in his case, 94 here; his father and my father-in-law. Comparing notes, and getting some useful advice as this other man had worked as a hospice nurse; I was only a hospice chaplain, but you miss some of the technical details. More personally, how to deal with the odd mix of rationality and confusion that comes in these last stages, and what comes up and how you respond constructively under the circumstances.
His dad died today, and I salute both of them, Robert Ellsberg and his father Daniel. Just as I read that, my father-in-law out of his general doze roused up and said, “Are you going to get some pie for us?” So that’s what I’m going to do. Black coffee, cherry pie, but Buck is no Agent Cooper: lots of whipped cream, so I need a new can of that, too. He can’t button shirts or raise zippers anymore, but operating that nozzle is something he insists on doing himself, probably afraid I won’t give him enough. You can barely see the slice once he’s done, which is just fine. My wife is amazed when I tell her that; all his life he ate pie plain. Hospice is a chance to break out sometimes, so extra whipped cream it is.
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Mark P said on June 16, 2023 at 4:48 pm
My wife is in the earliest stages of dementia; she had a head start with a serious head injury 40 years ago. She’s far enough down that path that she insists she remembers things that didn’t happen. I have still not trained myself not to try to argue with her about it. It’s really hard to just let her say it and let it go. She also remembers things I said that she actually said. That’s another battle that shouldn’t be fought, but sometimes I still do.
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Mssr. Coffee said on June 16, 2023 at 4:58 pm
Distressed? Get yet another Booster. It’s bound to make you feel fine!
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Jeff Gill said on June 16, 2023 at 8:37 pm
Mssr. Coffee, please get stuffed. Sincerely, almost everyone here.
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Jeff Gill said on June 16, 2023 at 8:41 pm
Mark P., that’s gotta be even harder. Grace & peace with you both. Everyone keeps saying “never argue with them” but reality is funny; when Buck says “throw out all the pots” and his now permanent location 24/7 looks directly into the kitchen, there’s no getting around some arguments as I try to figure out a useful distraction (it usually just takes a good hour, sometimes a couple of days worth). But it sure sounds like an argument. I have taken things out into the garage, and spirited them back into the kitchen cabinets when he’s dozing.
When my mom says to me or my sister “buy me a car, I just drove last year” and she doesn’t have the money for it, has no central field of vision, and last drove a decade ago, there’s gonna be an argument. So my sister and wife and I often cheerfully think about how to nicely say “please get stuffed” when someone catches us in a vent moment and says “the best course is never to argue with them.” Ahhhhh….
We DO find ourselves getting spookily good at lying. “So you took my mother’s dining room set home to Ohio?” Yes, Mom, yes we did. Et cetera.
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Mssr. Coffee said on June 16, 2023 at 9:49 pm
Sounds like somebody didn’t get his booster.
Okay, I’ll give you all another few months’ break. Sheesh, it’s not like I’m in here all the time. Relax a little. It’s better for your health.
Carry on …
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alex said on June 16, 2023 at 10:34 pm
Mrs. Coffee is at least good for something. Her mere presence reminded me I forgot to pick up a bag of Peet’s on the way home but I still have time to run out for some tonight if I want to caffeinate in the A.M. before I douche.
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Dexter Friend said on June 17, 2023 at 4:52 am
I wasn’t back from my forced service in Viet Nam very long when “The Pentagon Papers” hit the newsstands. I recall it was available in cheap paperback editions almost immediately, and I rushed to Fort Wayne to get a copy. I studied it carefully. It was just sad to read about all that deception and all those lies. Decades later, Errol Morris interviewed an old Robert McNamara in the film “The Fog of War”. He admitted wrongs of monumental outcomes, he clarified “The Gulf of Tonkin Incident’ which gave LBJ unrestricted war powers sans Congressional approval was a hoax.
Daniel Ellsberg never had to apologize to Kissinger or anybody else. He never regretted anything. He did the nation a great service. Gone at 92, a life well-lived.
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Jeff Gill said on June 17, 2023 at 7:09 am
Daniel Ellsberg went out strong; I don’t think Kissinger’s soon-to-come obituaries will be quite so kind. His son got this great last photo of him a few weeks ago:
https://twitter.com/RobertEllsberg/status/1669776046751899648
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Deborah said on June 17, 2023 at 7:38 am
The Minneapolis police got their comeuppance yesterday from the DOJ, what’s the scuttlebutt locally, Jodi P?
Observing Uncle J’s deterioration with Alzheimer’s was a lesson for sure. He lived for 10 years with it, the last 6 months went tragically downhill, once he lost the ability to speak. He was only immobile the last few weeks. He never lost his sense of humor though which was a blessing. It’s easy to remember the good times. Hang in there Jeff G, and Mark P.
Alex, lol.
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David C said on June 17, 2023 at 8:11 am
My grandfather didn’t have dementia, he was just a stubborn old coot. When he wanted a car again, probably because my dad or uncle wouldn’t take him to the many banks where he had CDs to roll them over when they could do it automatically but anyway, they told him they would look for something appropriate. Of course, there was nothing appropriate for a 90 year old man who could barely get out of a chair or read a newspaper let alone drive. Grandpa kept asking and they kept answering that they hadn’t found the right car yet. He eventually dropped it. I don’t know if it would work on everyone but massaging the lie until it was technically the truth seemed to work in this case.
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alex said on June 17, 2023 at 9:32 am
We have a friend who’s in a nursing facility who went through a rather rapid Alzheimer’s decline in the past year and is no longer safe to live alone. He keeps talking about when he’s going home and no one has the heart to tell him he’s not. Another friend found him last November on the floor with hypothermia and apparently he’d had a stroke. Only 70.
Last summer he wanted to buy a car and friends would humor him by taking him to the license bureau and he failed to pass the test four times. He’d been without a car for three years because he’d totaled his last one and had alcohol in his system and had a prior DUI, so they took his license and he wasn’t eligible to regain it until last August. He was getting pretty doddery even three years ago. His previous DUI occurred on his 60th birthday and he had a bunch of ganj in his trunk wrapped up in various birthday gifts. They didn’t charge him for that; the cops just confiscated his stash for themselves.
My father, in his 90s, is going through the same thing we observed about our friend in his 60s. He was very repetitive with his stories and memories and wasn’t living in the present anymore. I used to get frustrated with our friend and I’m feeling the same thing at times with my dad and it’s a struggle to be patient and compassionate.
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Julie Robinson said on June 17, 2023 at 10:03 am
My heart goes out to everyone dealing with dementia in their loved ones. Alzheimer’s is the stalking horse of D’s family, ravaging everyone who lives without succumbing to disease or accident.
My mother is now having short term memory issues and full time grouch issues. The cousin who was just here says his mom, her sister, is also having memory issues. Her husband, the hateful uncle from Iowa, had a severe stroke, and after a year can sort of get around with a walker, but cannot speak. He expresses his frustration by yelling at everyone. They are, of course, still in their McMansion, putting a huge burden on the entire family of caregivers.
Ugh, I have walked myself down a depressing path.
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LAMary said on June 17, 2023 at 11:12 am
Worth reading:
https://tinyurl.com/5x2mms4c
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FDChief said on June 17, 2023 at 11:18 am
My father developed a very slow and subtle dementia in his 80s; we now think he was well along several years before he died (his executor found years worth of written-but-unmailed checks for bills that had been set up as automatic deductions) that only came out as occasional bursts of unreasonable anger.
The horrific part is that we think he knew what was happening. He was a ChemE, always the sharpest guy in the room, and to know the his mind was failing must have terrified him…but, of course, he couldn’t say anything to any of us.
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FDChief said on June 17, 2023 at 11:26 am
Brandon (Re: “greater Idaho”) This nonsense is a long-time shitkicker fetish object. The Oregon Ungovernable Tribal Regions went Full MAGA before there was MAGA, so the disgust they bred in the normies made them a disregarded rump faction in Oregon politics and since, like all MAGAs, they haaaaate government if they can’t RUN the government, they think they can rule in Idahell rather than serve in Heaven.
The inconvenient fact which these idiot journos never bother to cite is that without the blue tax base these scenic-but-impoverished nowheres would be Kyrgyzstan six months after the split. Any Idaho pol with half a brain must be terrified seeing these chumps amble in…
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Julie Robinson said on June 17, 2023 at 12:53 pm
FD, in my own personal experience everyone has known it was happening. My mom was her high school valedictorian and usually the smartest person in the room. She talks about her memory loss every day and I think it’s contributing to the grouch factor.
I’ve seen mild-mannered men become physically abusive, I’ve seen extreme passivity/dreaminess, and everything in between.
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Sherri said on June 17, 2023 at 1:12 pm
FDChief, the situation in the Oregon Ungovernable Tribal Regions is certainly not helped by their legislators going walkabout to Idahell regularly to stop the legislature from having a quorum.
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Suzanne said on June 17, 2023 at 1:20 pm
LAMary, that NYTimes piece is good. Joan Didion saw so much with such a sharp eye and could tell the story in ways no one else could.
Thank you for sharing.
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Icarus said on June 17, 2023 at 3:01 pm
Hey everyone, back from a week in Pigeon Forge. Nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there. Complete opposite of Huntsville, Al which we saw over Memorial Day weekend.
Noticed this in Today in nn.c History:
http://nancynall.com/2020/06/17/a-few-words-about-columbus/
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Deborah said on June 17, 2023 at 5:35 pm
Joan Didion is a favorite. She was so cool, I’ll read/watch/listen to anything about her.
I picked up my husband at ABQ this morning, then we went to our favorite restaurant, tons of doting parents taking nonstop photos of their offspring. The babies learn how to pose at an early age, do they ever get tired of it? Yeah they’re adorable (mostly) but not everything they do is.
My husband is going out to the cabin tomorrow to get it set up for the season. I let him do that in case it involves critters.
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Dorothy said on June 17, 2023 at 8:39 pm
We had lunch with neighbors today, a couple we chat with when we bump into each other while dog walking, etc. The wife said she sees her brother about once a week at the assisted living place he moved into a couple of years ago. He’s 72. His wife divorced him two years ago when he started getting extremely grouchy and cantankerous. They’d been married more than 45 years. It’s very sobering to hear about cases like that – and the stories you all have shared here in this space. I’m not wild about thinking about the possibilities that await my husband and me. I am grateful that we’re just a short half mile walk from our son’s house, and if we needed to have someone with us for in-home care, our daughter could come stay for awhile and work from home.
In happier subjects, my husband is beekeeping again! Not on our property but very close by, right across the road from our subdivision at a property owned by a non profit land cooperative something or other. And we’re harvesting honey this weekend. He’s got four hives set up and they’re going gangbusters. A year after he asked permission to have hives there, he’s still pinching himself that he lucked into a location so close to our new house where he can pick up this hobby again.
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Julie Robinson said on June 17, 2023 at 8:59 pm
Happy buzzing, Mike.
Continuing on this theme, we just watched Still, the documentary about Michael J Fox. Whew. It’s not easy to watch but a tremendous public service in education.
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Sherri said on June 17, 2023 at 9:51 pm
Redmond is, by any measure, a safe city. We have very little violent crime. There is no “bad part of town.” So it is an utter mystery to me why anyone would feel the need to open carry a firearm in Redmond.
But some guy did, and walked into a restaurant I frequent last night, and his gun accidentally went off. The bullet ricocheted off the floor and struck someone in the elbow, and someone else was hit by shrapnel. This law-abiding gun owner fled the scene, but later turned himself in.
Tell you what, Mr. Second Amendment man, I’ll recognize your right to personally bear arms for personal defense and carry them everywhere, an absolute ahistorical reading of the original intent, as long as your limited to colonial era muskets.
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Dexter Friend said on June 18, 2023 at 4:34 am
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were recognized at Dodger Stadium, infuriating star Clayton Kershaw, who is a super-Christian fundy, something I did not know.
https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/33/26/73/23949049/3/1200×0.jpg
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alex said on June 18, 2023 at 11:27 am
When paranoiacs who are afraid of their own shadows are carrying guns around, there are bound to be accidental discharges. In the Fort Wayne news the other day, there was a headline about someone shooting himself while walking down the street, but the story didn’t delve into the salacious details. It just hinted strongly that the dude got it where it counts.
It’s been said that motorcycle helmets only protect people with brains. Guns clearly aren’t doing anything to protect nuts.
Dex, it’s heartening to know that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are still going strong and fulfilling their sacred mission to piss off the humorless.
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FDChief said on June 18, 2023 at 11:48 am
There’s a very good reason why the Army – which makes a living with firearms – does not let people walk around with both weapons and ammunition on post. Your bang-stick stays locked up until you draw it to train, and you don’t get the ammunition until past the hot line at the range.
And that’s with GIs who have to pass weeks of training.
Why anyone would want some random goober wandering around with a round under the hammer I cannot imagine.
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Dorothy said on June 18, 2023 at 11:53 am
Well whaddya know? My younger brother texted me this morning to tell us that he got to meet the President and First Lady yesterday! A friend of his got him a gig to drive the press van for their visit to Philadelphia yesterday. Jim told Mrs. Biden how nice it was to meet a fellow educator (he teaches high school Spanish), and the President recognized the name of the place where Jim teaches. He mentioned that he went to Archmere Academy in Wilmington DE. He got a picture taken with them but it won’t be sent to him for several weeks at the least. I am so thrilled to hear this!
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basset said on June 18, 2023 at 12:07 pm
Wasn’t aware of that Michael J. Fox program, gonna have to watch it. As a “parky” myself, it’s encouraging to know that he’s lived over thirty years post-diagnosis.
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Deborah said on June 18, 2023 at 1:34 pm
Dorothy, that is fantastic.
If I got injured in a situation like that in a public place I’d sue the daylights out of the irresponsible idiot with the gun. There’s a gun shop at a mall near us that has goobers walking in and out with their guns. I go the other way as fast as I can when I see them. They scare me.
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LAMary said on June 18, 2023 at 2:25 pm
In the forty odd years I’ve lived in LA the only open carry guy I’ve seen was the owner of a taco shop. This was before my part of northeast LA got gentrified and the local gang liked to shake down small business owners. The guy in the taco place had an impressively large pistol on his hip. One of the other businesses in the strip mall was the dry cleaner I used to go to. One time while I was there a gang member came in to collect his protection money right there in front of me and another customer. The Korean woman whose family owned the place handed over a fat envelope.
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Julie Robinson said on June 18, 2023 at 4:09 pm
basset, we found it streaming on Apple+, or whatever the heck it’s called. Possibly available elsewhere too.
Happy Father’s Day to you, or if that was a problematic relationship, may the day go gently, as Connie Schultz says. We grilled some steaks and veggies, served up some potato salad and a Costco cheesecake. It was an easy-peasy, let’s just enjoy the company meal. Now they are off to the latest cartoon movie. The Flash? I forget. Explosions, fist fights, car chases; yawn.
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