The trip to Fort Wayne was great. We saw old friends, met new ones, marveled at the evolving city, and saw a soccer — er, football — game, in the new stadium:
Yes, it’s nearly empty. But the season is almost over, and the stadium’s only been open since May. Parts of it are still under construction. But the tickets are reasonable, the design is thoughtful (there are picnic areas, children’s play places, and more) and I’m sure it’ll be an asset, going forward. Seating capacity of 9,000, and they expect to have concerts there eventually, so that capacity will grow with field seating.
We met with the mayor, who talked up the new park and this and that. Everyone is bullish on the Fort.
Now to the swag bag:
The Indiana tote bag I’ll use at the farmer’s market, the chocolate bar will be eaten, the zippered pouch will come in handy for something, the lip balm will live in the bottom of a bag. Which leaves the FW flag pin and the soccer scarf. Any FWFC fans out there who can use it? Or the pin? Brand-new, happy to share, free shipping.
Now I’m trying to catch up with stuff. A long car ride in the passenger seat leaves you with lots of links to share. So let’s hop to it.
A remarkable essay by Erick Erickson, a garden-variety wingnut, on the far-right lunatics who frighten even him:
Charles Haywood made his fortune selling shampoo. He sold his Indianapolis hair care company in 2020, and he has spent the years since writing out, at length and under his own name, what he would like to do with your country. Rod Dreher, who is no man of the left, read Haywood’s online ramblings and described Haywood as pouring out vile from “deep in his Midwestern Führerbunker”.
In a document he calls the Foundationalist Manifesto, Haywood explained that his preferred government “will not be democratic.” The state “will have unlimited means,” because “properly viewed, the state is not constrained externally.” Women “will not be permitted to choose career over family.” Men “will not be permitted to choose not to have a family.” The state will seize the assets of “any citizen who views himself as a global citizen.”
Hoo-boy. Yes, a strong streak of leopards-eating-faces, etc., but worth a read.
The Indiana connection made me wonder whether Haywood was throwing a few shekels at the Indiana Policy Review, a one-man sinecure for a former colleague of mine, but no. I did find a typically stupid column by that colleague, praising the Amish, and contrasting them, in a single paragraph, with Muslims:
An Amish recently explained his community’s success to the Guardian newspaper: “I can see the big changes they have come to society, which my children will never see. There is more independence on the individual level, but people have become more selfish – everything is for themselves. We value the idea of working for the betterment of everyone. Our goal is to show people that it works if we are honest in our dealings, respect people and go the extra mile.”
In the simplest terms, the Amish ask the question: Just because a Ford GT can go 215 m.p.h., do you need to jump in and put the pedal to the floor? More exactly, they back up a bit and ask the question of whether you really need a Ford GT — or any car, for that matter. The thought occurs that this general approach might be useful in considering our own community’s questions about birth control, artificial intelligence, data centers and such. And education? Give me a minute to think of something I learned important in school after eighth grade . . .
…You don’t have to be an expert on either the Amish or the Muslims to make a comparison based on their actions and words. The Muslims are living a mistake of the 7th-century where they conflate religion and conquest, the outcome being predictable and disastrous. The Amish, God bless their hearts, have chosen not to make that mistake.
Huh? I wonder what it feels like to be a man in his 80s, living off the largesse of two wealthy families, with the sole task of producing garbage like this.
The speaker before Mr. Kennedy was Mark Gorton, the president of the MAHA Institute, who called the success of the polio vaccine a “fraud,” priming the audience for the remarks of their former leader, who railed against vaccines for two decades. The speaker after him was Andrew Wakefield, a discredited British doctor whose retracted paper linked the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine with autism. Decades of research have proved that finding to be wrong.
…He promised the crowd that he would “be in this fight” to the end, and said the work he was doing was methodical. He added that his team was launching studies after which, he said, “we will take appropriate action.”
He also generated applause when he announced that he would be looking at the health effects of electromagnetic radiation and so-called chemtrails, the trails left by airplanes that the Environmental Protection Agency has said are actually condensation, not chemicals.
Chemtrails. Andrew Wakefield. Trashing the polio vaccine. Every week, it’s worse.
But that’s it for me today. Happy weekend! I blogged three times this week! Now off to bike the bridge again.
David C said on September 18, 2026 at 10:48 am
How I wish the only way to spread their crackpottery was still a mimeograph machine. “I seen it on the internet” is ruining everything.
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Julie Robinson said on September 18, 2026 at 11:27 am
The chocolate is DeBrand’s but not good. Dennis used to carry that around for customers and gave me one. Ick.
That’s all I got today because a jackhammer is 10 feet away and I’m fleeing the premises. Seems like a good day to grocery shop and get haircuts.
Edited to say I feel great after my Covid vaccination yesterday. Arm barely sore.
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Little Bird said on September 18, 2026 at 11:51 am
I thought I would share that I have secured a doctors note stating that I am not able to work because of my degenerative disorder. So hopefully this will suffice to keep me from having to try to find employment for 80 hours a month. It was a Nurse Practitioner that I met with, showed her the letter, and some other documents. She was fantastic! I will continue to advocate for myself as best I can, I’m not going down without a fight.
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Mark P said on September 18, 2026 at 11:59 am
The fucking New York Times. Wakefield is not discredited, his license to practice medicine was revoked because of his misconduct, which, by the way, shares major blame for the anti-vax movement. His paper was retracted after his fraud and his conflicts of interest were revealed. What’s wrong with those people? Didn’t they have some reputable health experts to trash so they could both-sides the issues?
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Deborah said on September 18, 2026 at 12:41 pm
Oh my god, the crazy! Those guys act like they’re trying to lose the midterms. What do they have in store to stanch the bleeding? Are they going to try to stop the election in some way? Johnson is so fond of stopping voting in Congress by sending everyone home whenever they have to face something they don’t want to have to deal with, like impeaching Hegseth. Maybe that’s their new ploy, just to stop the election from happening, then they think they won’t lose power. Is that even a possibility? Or maybe they just refuse to seat the new congress people after the democrats win? They must have something up their sleeve, considering how they’re all acting so crazy now. Or are they just so damn incompetent?
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Suzanne said on September 18, 2026 at 1:45 pm
I am so tired of the Amish being held up as these unblemished holy communities. For years, I lived adjacent to the Amish. Their communities are rife with genetic anomalies, spousal and child abuse, & alcoholism. Get behind an Amish family at the grocery store and you will see a cart full of cases of soda, Cheetos, box mixes, Little Debbie’s, potato chips, and other convenience foods. In the heat of summer, there will likely be a distinct odor as well. Their sense of community is admirable but they have problems like every one else. If I am not mistaken, the Amish community was the epicenter of the measles breakout in PA that caused a few deaths.
I am simply tired of these kooks and nuts in positions of power.
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susan said on September 18, 2026 at 4:47 pm
Little Bird, here’s an option for you!
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Jeff Gill said on September 18, 2026 at 5:00 pm
Did a presentation on a famous 1860 archaeological hoax last night with a friend & colleague at the Newark Earthworks; the Q&A was dominated by a lady who kept asking us about crop circles. The post public discussion in the back of the room included a young man who was very intent on getting information from us about “hidden geology” and for how ley lines define the geometry of the earthworks.
Lots of work to do out there. Walking tour of earthworks remnants tomorrow morning from 9 am to noon, about 3.5 miles covered. And the third anniversary of our achieving World Heritage List status for our sites, so there’s that (except I just got buttonholed by a guy who thinks UNESCO wants to take over Licking County, which I assured him they do not).
So much work.
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Julie Robinson said on September 18, 2026 at 5:23 pm
Couldn’t agree more about the Amish, especially after a labor and delivery nurse told me tales of holding off husbands just a few hours after their wives gave birth. And anyone who doesn’t believe in education has a permanent black mark in my book.
But, squee! Under the ugly, cracked tile: terrazzo! He’s pretty sure he can bring it back, too.
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Sherri said on September 18, 2026 at 5:49 pm
It’s been a while since I used COBRA to extend health insurance coverage, but I don’t remember it being this difficult.
My husband retired Sept 4. You can’t even apply for COBRA until after you’ve left the company, but you have 60 days to apply and coverage is retroactive. We applied and paid for COBRA. Everything should just work the way it used to, right?
Well, as it happens, the company handling COBRA only updates the insurance companies once a week. In the meantime, because the employer provided health care terminated when he left the company, our insurance company says, nope, not covered. We applied just after the weekly update, so they say, it will all work out, but you won’t show as having coverage until Tuesday of next week.
Which means that the pharmacy filling my prescriptions says, you don’t have coverage, pay us $1280.99 for that refill. We can pay out of pocket and get reimbursed, or wait until after Tuesday and then pick up.
Which isn’t a problem for me, but we’re trying to get cancer treatment going for my husband, and suddenly in the middle of that, we don’t appear to have coverage and we’d really rather not wait a week to then have to deal with pre authorization and all that rigamarole. And then on October 1, my husband’s Medigap and Part D will take effect, and we get to change everything for him again.
All of the coverage past, present, and future is with the same company, which you might think would simplify things, but no evidence of that yet.
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Deborah said on September 18, 2026 at 7:13 pm
Seriously Sherry? That is awful, for someone to have to go through when you’re already looking at some daunting news, setting up treatments, getting info and everything else you’re facing. How inhumane. Honestly, our healthcare system is the pits
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Deborah said on September 18, 2026 at 7:21 pm
LB and I came up with a sort of script where she listed all of the health issues that she deals with every day of her life. We managed to scrunch it down to an 8 1/2 x 11″ page with 10 pt type and 11 pt leading, almost edge to edge. It’s quite the document. She took it to the Drs office yesterday, she had an appointment already lined up ages ago for something else, she showed it to the Dr, they scanned it and now it’s in her permanent file there . We know this is only the beginning of long slog but it did make an impact and we both felt pretty good about it last night.
edit: Sherri, sorry I spelled your name wrong above.
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alex said on September 19, 2026 at 10:27 am
I’m starting Medigap and Part D on October 1 and hoping it goes off without a hitch. I also had my own COBRA disaster three years ago when I retired at 62, thanks to the incompetent HR person at my last place of employment.
I had enrolled for COBRA and gotten accepted, but then I got mysteriously kicked off of it. I spent days on the phone getting bounced around to people who barely spoke English who were of no help. In desperation, I went ahead and enrolled in Obamacare, which is probably what I should have done in the first place.
Many months later it came to my attention that the HR person had kept me enrolled in the employer’s group plan, which is why I got kicked off of COBRA, and the HR guy wanted to know why I hadn’t sent him my premium payments. It’s because I sent them to COBRA, stupid, and they were being refused because you didn’t terminate my coverage like you were supposed to, and now you’re jeopardizing my Obamacare eligibility.
This year I didn’t get any tax refund due to a huge payback to Obamacare that was never clearly explained to me, but I suspect that it may have been triggered by my having double insurance coverage for almost a year after I retired.
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Julie Robinson said on September 19, 2026 at 12:08 pm
We were planning on COBRAing, but it turned out companies cannot offer it if they’re under a certain size. That came as a surprise, not just to us, but to the boss and HR person too. We ended up with ACA, moved in the middle of it, and I couldn’t get an appointment to refill my meds. Eventually they said I could have a telehealth appointment and they would refill them once as a courtesy. I started Medicare before the next refill and you can bet I didn’t go with that company for my supplement.
And I hesitate to tempt fate, but we’ve had really good luck with our plan this year. Specialists and meds are more expensive, and will become even more next year, but our Covid vaxxes were processed and paid within 24 hours. The status of last year’s shots is still up in the air. They were denied as being out of network and eventually turned over to collections, but I sent letters off and no one has bothered us again.
They also denied D’s first heart procedure after approving it in lieu of the one he needed and eventually got. This letter came a month ago, some 15 months after the fact. His login doesn’t even work anymore, and we haven’t gotten any bills so I’m ignoring that one too.
So no, nothing works the way it used to. Very few things work period. Having the same company name also means nothing, I guarantee the different parts don’t communicate with each and may even use different software systems.
But it sucks, especially when it’s a condition like cancer or heart disease. I mourn my previously energetic husband, who now sits around watching TV a lot.
Courage, all.
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Mark P said on September 19, 2026 at 12:17 pm
This is off topic, but I couldn’t resist. I just got a campaign mailer from Rick Jackson, the billionaire MAGAt candidate for governor in Georgia. He’s going to make schools gooder. This is from his first point on “the young reader:”
“Require students can read on grade level by third grade.”
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tajalli said on September 19, 2026 at 12:45 pm
On a lighter note, today, Sept 19, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day me hardies, so preface or salt all future comments with “those scurvy rogues”, batten down the hatches” or heartfelt “arrrh”s or more likely “argh”s.
It took the scurvy dog of the AI assistant now scheduling callbacks with the CA DMV 9-10 verbal or keypad inputs of my phone number to actually get it right, all the while cooing about how it “understood” how “frustrating” it was for me — pretending it was not programmed to make a f***ed up mess to discourage requests for a live agent. The actual human was able to perform an exception to the process and provide me with an updated car registration document for my new apt manager so my car will not be towed when they clear out unauthorized vehicles from the open lot. Homeless folks are using the lot to camp out, a nuisance but they also have few legitimate options for parking overnight, or at least spots where the police will overlook them if they aren’t disorderly.
Arrrgghhhh!!!
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