And just like that, spring has kissed us on the forehead, blessed us with her favor, coaxed the first green shoots out of the thawing earth.

All this by way of saying we saw a couple of squirrels fucking in the driveway the other day. The male was having a hard time getting his lady to hold still, and we lost track of them in the higher branches, so I don’t know if the deed got done. I imagine it doesn’t really matter; there’s never a shortage of squirrels in these parts. Wendy managed to catch one the other day; its pea-size brain told it to outrun her, which was very bad braining. It got away, but I suspect it was mortally wounded, so score one for Wendy.

If you’re sensing I don’t care for squirrels, you’re right, but hey — they’re part of the kingdom. I don’t poison or shoot them or anything. Live and let live.

What a glorious weekend, though. Got a lot done. Got a bike ride in. Got over my first vaccine’s side effects (a sore arm) and the first truly warm weather got me fantasizing about a summer of outdoor socialization without fear of death. What a concept.

Couple bits of bloggage today:

This is the local Covid-related dustup: Another recalcitrant Michigan restaurant owner collides with The Book, thrown by a judge who is just not havin’ it:

A 55-year-old Holland restaurant owner operating in defiance of a court-ordered closure and the state’s COVID-19 restrictions, including Michigan’s mask mandate, will remain in an Ingham County jail for up to 93 days.

The story is not paywalled, and reading it, you get a sense of the judge’s impatience. This paragraph, though? Chef’s kiss:

During Friday’s hearing, Aquilina also ordered a man attempting to represent Pavlos-Hackney as “assistance of counsel” to be arrested for contempt of court because he allegedly had represented himself as a lawyer when he was not licensed to practice. Richard Martin, who described himself as a constitutional lawyer and is the founder of the Constitutional Law Group, was ordered to serve 93 days in jail.

It’s worth a google to see the Constitutional Law Group website, especially the video, showing Martin in action.

Here’s video of him getting arrested, and sounding like a dolt:

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina had “constitutional attorney” Rick Martin arrested for contempt of court after he tried to represent Marlena Pavlos-Hackney. Martin is not licensed to practice law in Michigan. pic.twitter.com/zznrhUWSAj

— Malachi Barrett (@PolarBarrett) March 19, 2021

This is the judge who allowed the extraordinary Larry Nasser sentencing hearing, by the way. It took the better part of a week for every assaulted woman to make a statement.

Also, since we were talking about Josh Mandel here just last week, here’s his latest blurtage. What a dick.

But let’s not let that ruin this lovely day! Let’s get it under way — oh wait, it already is.

Two good things happened Tuesday.

First good thing: I got a vaccine appointment for Thursday, without having to lie, even a little bit, although I admit some confusion at the scheduling end may have worked in my favor. Word got around that the state had decided “media” were essential workers, and I saw my opening. My opening, I should add, was only three days ahead of another opening, i.e., the 55+ with no complications opening. But man, the days are lengthening and getting warmer, and I need to get this over with.

When I called, I was able to get an appointment in 48 hours. I don’t think I’m taking a spot from someone more deserving. But the guy who booked the appointment seemed confused about whether I was essential, and couldn’t find it in the most recent guidance.

“I’ll put you under….’other,'” he said. Good enough.

So that’s great. The other good thing is, Kate has a lead on a job — running the board at a local jazz club. Which is a gig, granted, but the first gig actually related to her field that she’s had since the pandemic started. So maybe, in small baby steps, we’re getting there.

What a concept: The AfterTimes, within reach. It’s been so long.

More Kate news: Last month, she and her band did a very fast trip to Los Angeles, not to perform but to be, get this, models. Long story short, when she was living there in late 2019, the other two came out to visit and on their perambulations around town met a woman there with a vintage clothing store. That woman was branching out into something a lot of vintage people seem to be doing these days — buying deadstock fabrics, i.e., odd lots no longer in production, and designing their own clothes using them.

So they did a quick photo shoot then, it went well, and this year she has a new line coming out, and hired them back. They spent three days striking poses around Oceanside, California, and now the pix are rolling out on the ‘gram:

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A post shared by MIRACLE EYE (@miracleeye)

I lived through the ’70s once, and none of this stuff is for me. But I guess the kids like it. Here’s Kerri, the drummer, and the one with the longest stems in the group, showin’ ’em off:

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They’re doing it for many reasons, but raising their profile on social media is a big one. I told her hey, Rihanna sells a lot more lipsticks and bras than records these days. More power to ya.

Time to get Wednesday under way. Have a good one.

By the next time we gather here, it’ll be Daylight Saving Time. What used to be a transition barely worthy of a Monday-morning — or Sunday-morning at church — comment now seems to yield a week of whining and, lately, policy re-examination.

After years of this, I’ve come to realize it’s all about where on the time-zone line you live. The three main states I’ve lived — Ohio, Indiana and Michigan — are all on the west-ish part of the Eastern zone, and so I don’t have that early-darkness extra winter sucker punch that…New Yorkers and Chicagoans have to endure. When we went to London for an insanely low package price in December one year, we got a clue that the insanely low price might have had something to do with darkness lowering around 3:30 in the afternoon.

But sorry, year-round DST is not the answer. Who wants to confront winter with a late-rising sun contributing to the misery? A girl in my high school got hit by a car walking to school in 1970-something, the year Congress decided the way to confront the energy crisis was to adopt DST in, like, January.

There are only so many hours in a day, and only so many of them are daylight. Trying to stretch the clock to fit over them is like pulling a too-small T-shirt over a pot belly; pull it down, you’re gonna show too much chest, pull it up then someone’s gonna see your gut. Winter is a prison term, and the only way through it is through it, so: Get through it. Enjoy DST when it arrives and brings those long summer evenings. If you’re going to whine about it, then never take a vacation that takes you across time zones again. Three days, maybe four, and you’ll be adjusted.

Why didn’t anyone tell me Geraldo Rivera had moved to Ohio? When did he do this? And now he’s talking about running for the Senate? (I don’t take that part seriously, but honestly — an Ohioan. I’m amazed.

Oh, here comes the weekend. Warm spell is over, but the next one won’t be forever arriving. Spring, soon. Finally.

Wednesday was the warmest day of the year so far. I think the temperature passed 50 degrees. I’d already arranged to peel off work for half the afternoon, to go to the Detroit Institute of Arts. To limit capacity, you have to make an appointment to visit, and the weekends are booked through the middle of March, so we did a weekday. There was a photography exhibit I wanted to see, and the usual — it’s a pretty great museum. But this being Detroit, of course there was a car thing.

Truth be told, it was just meh, a few concept cars from past auto shows with no unifying theme other than Detroit design. However, I did find the Buick interesting, because it appears to have a cloaca:

Look it up.

Afterward we had one beer in a tent outside a brewhouse before the sun went behind a cloud, the temperature dropped by five degrees and our brief hint of spring became less pleasant. Came home and ordered carryout.

But man, it was nice to get out of the house and go somewhere other than food shopping.

And now, at week’s end, I feel a bit tapped out. There are some good links to follow in the comments from yesterday, and I recommend them, but if you’re tapped out, too? Join the club. Have a good weekend, all.

Another late-arriving Monday blog. Sorry about that. Yesterday I did a hands-and-knees scrub of my kitchen floor, swung by a local demonstration to take a couple of pictures, swung by the lake to ditto, and then came home and made brown rice pancakes for dinner. (Recipe at the link if you’re so inclined. They sound like hippie crap on the page, but dab a little sour cream on, and they’re right tasty.)

Then I watched two episodes of “Freaks and Geeks,” and no, I did not watch “Farrow v. Allen,” sorry.

In my crone years, I have come to the conclusion that not everything happening on the earth requires me to have an opinion about it, and this includes “Farrow v. Allen.” I have read both sides. I have thought about it, probably more than it deserves. And I think both sides are telling at least a somewhat credible story, and one is telling the truth and one is lying, and maybe it’s a mix of both, and anyway: I can’t say who I believe and so I’m tapping out of this one, and spending the next three nights of this thing watching comedies, which is my preference these days. I’m working my way through “30 Rock,” which I only saw in bits and pieces the first time around, and I’m not sure why, but by the middle of season two I’m basically relying on Tina and Alec to be my friends, because I’m so distant from my own, these days.

(I do think Mia Farrow is a bit tetched, however. I’ve known women like that, who have (or adopt) baby after baby, eventually filling their houses with chaos and bowls of half-eaten Cheerios and unflushed toilets. I know for them it’s all about love, but I think it’s possible to be all about love and not be a kid-hoarder. And yes, this has a bearing on my inability to reach a conclusion in the case at hand. Beyond that, I will say no more.)

So, then. The weekend came, the weekend went and now it’s Monday and a thaw is in progress. Big improvement over last Monday, but it means potholes will be opening all over the area. Good thing I have no need to go anywhere but the grocery store! Because that is my life now: I get up, I exercise in my basement, I prepare, serve and clean up after meals, I work, I watch “30 Rock.” If you sense a thin layer of hysteria to that, you’re not correct; it’s more like depression. A walking-around, non-crying, subclinical depression to be sure, but definitely the mid-to-late-winter doldrums.

I picked up a book this weekend that seems to fit the mood. I was returning books to the library (located next to the grocery store, how about that) and stopped to peruse the giveaway rack. Selected “Stoner” by John Williams, which rang a distant bell in my stressed-out brain, like I read about it somewhere, but couldn’t remember where. Turns out I did, but god knows where — apparently it was republished recently, became a huge hit in Europe and has been bouncing around in cult-favorite and movie-option world ever since. It’s not an uplifting story, and is in fact sad and depressing, but it’s so honest and unsparing that I’ve been devouring it.

I’m glad one of you posted this Slate piece in the comments last week, about Limbaugh, and even gladder that you singled out the passage that most hit home with me, in the final graf:

It’s not that everything bad about American politics today can be traced back to Limbaugh. It’s that the sneering, self-pitying, bad-faith style of argument that he perfected is practiced not just by right-wing media, but by many right-wing politicians, too. Every senator who jumps on television at a moment’s notice to whine about cancel culture even as hundreds of thousands of Americans have died of a virus that many on the right had been loath to admit even existed; every representative who exalts baseless conspiracies while railing against stimulus payments for the unemployed; every governor who cares more about owning the libs than about administering his or her state; every local official who seems not just to misunderstand the role of government but to actively resent it: They are all Limbaugh’s children. The mean, self-pitying illogic he mainstreamed is endemic now. The chief ghoul is gone, but the ghoulishness is here to stay.

A-men. OK, conference call in 20 minutes. Let’s let this week unfold, shall we?

Late again, sorry ’bout that. I could tell you I was waiting to drop a link to my story on Mellissa Carone, but in truth, we were watching “Judas and the Black Messiah” on the telly, and also, I am weighted with pandemic February shut-in syndrome, the symptoms of which are extreme inertia and an ability to stay all the way indoors for…two days now.

Also, we are having a snowstorm and I should blow away the two new inches before six more arrive overnight.

Also, I am making tacos tonight. And that’s about all the news from Lake Wobegone.

But please, start by reading about Mellissa. She could use some media skills as she starts her journey toward the Michigan House. I learned that when she is challenged — I believe I asked why she found it so hard to believe that later-counted absentee ballots from a heavily Democratic city simply outnumbered earlier results from the state’s rural areas — she is the sort of person who says, “You’re lying” and calls you fake news and shuts down further contact.

Lordy. But then, with the news from this weekend, well, what else can you say.

I gotta go out and blow dat snow. Thanks for stopping by.

Virtual Vince Lombardi was pretty stupid, no? It reminded me, however, of J.C. Burns’ occasional comments about the computing power necessary to display the virtual line of scrimmage. We could use these powers for good! (The virtual line of scrimmage.) And instead, we use them to dig up a dead coach and make him walk and talk.

Happy Super Bowling, all. It’s now halftime, and all I have to say is this: The Weeknd is no Prince. Or even Katy Perry. And certainly not Lady Gaga. At least it was a break from non-stop holding penalties and uplifting commercials. And the underpants-on-their-head dancers were…different.

Another weekend — a real weekend, with its third E, not this clown howling instantly forgettable music on my TV at the moment — come and gone. It was OK. The cold kept us indoors for much of it, but the errands still have to be run, and they were. It wasn’t so bad — high teens, bright sun, I’ll take it.

Sunday we went to MOCAD, Detroit’s contemporary-art museum, to see a small show of photos by Leni Sinclair, John Sinclair’s ex-wife. She is not a particularly talented photographer, but she had great timing and luck in her relationships and the right-place-right-time thing. The photos are of the counterculture/underground scene in Detroit and Ann Arbor in the ’60s/’70s. It didn’t take long to get through it, so we took a long drive home, including a lap of Belle Isle to look at the ice and watch the kids playing pond hockey.

Like I said, a pretty quiet one.

Anything to recommend you read?

Here’s Margaret Sullivan, the WashPost ombudsman, pointing out the obvious: Jeff Zucker bears a lot of responsibility for Donald Trump.

The Zillow sketch from this week’s SNL. Very funny.

When I get my vaccine, I hope it will be at Ford Field, because that would be a big win for lots of people, which is more than the Lions provide, most weeks.

Weak tea today, but the week ahead yawns. And so am I, at this stupid lopsided game.

Every so often, perhaps when I’m waiting for a phone call, or I want to pick a scab but I have none on my body, I read comment sections. And sometimes, when I am filled with self-loathing in addition to a scab-picking urge, I also read Facebook comment sections. Consequently, I have developed some thoughts about memes.

Before anyone had ever heard of the world wide web, I first heard meme described as “a viral idea.” That is, those things that pop up overnight, that suddenly everyone is repeating, usually with a “you know, they say…” but you can’t really trace where they came from. When did we all stop sneezing into our hands and start sneezing into our elbows? When did we stop calling the seventh planet from the sun YER-inus when we all grew up calling it Yer-ANUS? Why is every newscaster suddenly pronouncing “negotiate” like a Brit, when we don’t say it that way in American English?

(I had an editor who liked to inventory cartoon memes, visual shorthand that we all understand, somehow: A character wearing a mirror strapped to a headband is a doctor. A body lying on a bench with crosses for eyes is dead. And ask yourself: When have you ever slipped on a banana peel?)

Then “meme” was overtaken by the internet, and now it means “a picture with words on it.” Preferably a picture of a cat. But not always! Some are very funny. I will never get tired of the woman screaming at the cat, and even the distracted boyfriend still dislodges a good gag from time to time. But others…aren’t. Anyway, I see a lot of memes dropped into Facebook comments, many so crude and stupid that I’ve come to the conclusion that memes are like a primitive form of language for some, generally people too stupid to write a simple sentence or think of a halfway creative insult or joke themselves. If I’m looking over a page I have admin privileges on, I will sometimes just delete them willy-nilly, if only to encourage people to have an original thought from time to time.

I should add this doesn’t work.

Change of subject: The news of Marjory Taylor Greene’s formal punishment broke a while ago. It made me think we need to talk about CrossFit. Greene, of course, owned a CrossFit gym — or “box,” as those people call them — in Georgia before she made it to Congress.

Some years ago, the owner of my gym subleased a corner of it to a CrossFit trainer for a while. His clientele all wore short-shorts and tube socks, and made a lot of noise — big roars when they lifted, that sort of thing. I asked a trainer on the regular gym staff what the hell was it with those people. He nearly sprained his eyeballs rolling them and said, “It’s a cult. And they’re assholes.”

The trainer eventually found his own “box” and took his tube-sock people with him. But I started noticing CrossFit stories in the media. One in the Wall Street Journal detailed how CrossFitters often had trouble finding pants that fit, because their quads were so big. Another was about how some CrossFitters get rhabdomyolysis, a potentially serious condition that can damage the kidneys, because they work out so hard. (They had a jokey name for it: Uncle Rhabdo.) And then there were stories about how the founders of the business had launched “the CrossFit Games,” an event people actually paid to watch in arenas and on pay-per-view, in which the contestants…exercise. Wow, how fun.

Now, I should add I’ve known some perfectly lovely people who do CrossFit and swear by it, but I’ve known more who were assholes. What is it about a workout that attracts assholes? Yoga has its constituency, combat sports have theirs, swimming has its own, Zumba/Pilates/powerlifting, etc. What is it about working out in a box that attracts — or produces — Marjory Taylor Greenes? We need to talk about this.

But the weekend is nigh. So let’s enjoy that at the same time. We’re having a snowstorm right now — fat fluffy flakes all night long.

You guys’ comment discussion about steak dinners that turn into sales pitches reminded me of the time my friend Jeff and I went to a speed-reading seminar. The Evelyn Wood method — remember her? The pitch was, you got one free lesson and then they leaned on you to sign up for the whole course.

As I recall, one of Jimmy Carter’s first actions after winning the election was to take a speed-reading course, which says so much about him — such an earnest schoolboy thing to do. But speed reading, as I recall, was total bullshit. The teacher showed us her technique, which involved sliding your fingers down the page, reading a page in about two or three seconds. And I don’t care how many classes you take, that isn’t reading, speed or otherwise.

I forget what we did after that first class, but I remember going outside and laughing uproariously.

What ever happened to Evelyn Wood speed reading? Let’s ask Professor Google:

Put another way, the problem with speed-reading claims is that speed-reading is really just another way of saying “skimming.” You can flash as many words as you like in front of your eyes, and though you may be able to understand each word on its own, they won’t mean much as a collective whole. Language processing just doesn’t work that way.

Yep. I read fast enough, although I never measured it, because who gives a shit? As a writer, I like to savor sentences, hold them on the tongue a moment or two to consider their flavors. No crime in that.

Boy, you can tell it’s bleak January, can’t you? Been indoors all day, except for a brief dog walk. Got the bathrooms cleaned, got a workout in, and now I’m too lazy to even take a shower. I did start the day reading this hair-raising account of a Canadian man — and many others — targeted by a mentally unstable “super spreader” of online slander. The perpetrator, a homeless woman, has targeted him and his entire family, as well as others who have crossed her in some way, for years, and guess what? Stop me if you’ve heard this before: The sites where she has proclaimed these people to be pedophiles, scammers, cheaters and worse? Say they can’t do anything about it.

This, more than anything, makes me insane. Lots of people make fun of newspaper editors for our once-quaint, and now-abandoned, belief that we were gatekeepers of information, but at its heart, it’s about taking responsibility for your use of a very powerful tool. That belief is absent in tech. Forgive the longer-than-usual cut/paste, but here’s the gist:

Many of the slanderous posts appeared on a website called Ripoff Report, which describes itself as a forum for exposing “complaints, reviews, scams, lawsuits, frauds.” (Its tagline: “consumers educating consumers.”)

He started clicking around and eventually found a part of the site where Ripoff Report offered “arbitration services,” which cost up to $2,000, to get rid of “substantially false” information. That sounded like extortion; Mr. Babcock wasn’t about to pay to have lies removed.

Ripoff Report is one of hundreds of “complaint sites” — others include She’s a Homewrecker, Cheaterbot and Deadbeats Exposed — that let people anonymously expose an unreliable handyman, a cheating ex, a sexual predator.

But there is no fact-checking. The sites often charge money to take down posts, even defamatory ones. And there is limited accountability. Ripoff Report, like the others, notes on its site that, thanks to Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, it isn’t responsible for what its users post:

If someone posts false information about you on the Ripoff Report, the CDA prohibits you from holding us liable for the statements which others have written. You can always sue the author if you want, but you can’t sue Ripoff Report just because we provide a forum for speech.

With that impunity, Ripoff Report and its ilk are willing to host pure, uncensored vengeance.

When these greedheads lose their protection, this will be why.

Just as an aside, has anyone considered what’s going to come of the insane overuse of the charge of pedophilia? It’s one of the worst things you can label a person, and yet, it’s more abused than ever, which means sooner or later it will lose its power; I mean, when Hillary Clinton is called a pedophile, what does the term even mean?

Which reminds me: You fans of “Lolita” might enjoy “Lolita Podcast,” which I’m working my way through now, on the recommendation of my daughter. It suffers from some podcast bloat, but in general it’s well-done, thoughtful and thorough. The episode I listened to while cleaning the bathroom was about Lolita in psychology, as well as the treatment of both survivors and perpetrators of child sexual abuse. The latter, it seems, is lacking, and a pre-abuse recognition of so-called minor-attracted persons, i.e. pedophiles, who haven’t committed any crimes yet.

A few years ago, when a little girl was raped, murdered and dismembered in a Fort Wayne trailer park, we had a comment discussion about the result of restrictions on where sex offenders can live, post-release. Because they can’t be near schools and so forth, and because their names are public, etc., many find themselves with few options, and end up in scuzzy apartment buildings and trailer parks, etc. Who else ends up in this borderline housing where no one else wants to be? Poor people, especially single mothers with young children. Bad policy, maybe.

Man, this has meandered, hasn’t it? That’s what happens when you skip your shower to clean the shower. Anyway, soon it’ll be Monday. Enjoy yours.

Sorry I didn’t show up Wednesday. I discovered something Tuesday night: Alan’s purchase of my new Apple Watch gives us a year of Apple TV free, so of course I had to sign up and start binging “Ted Lasso,” which I keep hearing will restore my faith in humanity.

So far, it’s just a pretty good show, enjoyable in a very sitcom-y-but-not way, and probably what I need to get through the rest of January, which is…almost over.

And now, a few weeks behind schedule, winter has settled in. Temperatures in the 20s during the day, teens at night, snow on the ground, more expected. But with the arrival of February on Monday also means that we’re only days away from The Changing of the Light, which is to say, the moment in winter when you can see the first glimmers of spring. Weeks of terrible weather are still ahead, but the light is coming from a slightly different angle, the days are noticeably longer, and you know eventually winter will be driven from its fortifications.

Also, Groundhog Day.

Back to “Ted Lasso.” It’s nice seeing Hannah Waddingham in it, who looked so deeply, deeply familiar but it took a few minutes to figure out why: She was the meanest nun in that one season of “Game of Thrones.” Nice to see her looking all statuesque and beautiful and her age, but a really great version of her age. Strange to see an actress whose face is expressive and lined from all the expressions she’s made in her life.

Let’s see, what else? Oh, right: Late in the last post, LAMary said:

I also had a bug appear in my kitchen once that was so big and ugly my huntress cat wouldn’t go near it. Jerusalem Cricket is what it was. Hideous looking thing. I’ve seen quite a few since then (I was a newbie to LA then) and I’ve also explained to quite a few newcomers what the hell that hideous thing is.

When Kate was interning in L.A. last fall — or the fall before last, I guess — she came across one of those while cleaning someone’s garage. She screamed, and then took a video for us. It was horrible.

Finally, one link for all: We live in a golden age of cringe. What is cringe?

Cringe is best understood as a cousin of camp, though cringe differs from camp in that camp can still be enjoyable on its own terms. When you encounter cringe, you know it because you feel it physically: your eyes squint to avoid the grandeur of the discomfort a work induces.

Cringe made its national debut shortly after election night in 2016. You didn’t have to be a Trump fan in 2016 — Lord knows I wasn’t — to watch with horror as Kate McKinnon, one of the funnier performers on “Saturday Night Live” over the last decade, debased herself and the program by putting on her Hillary Clinton pantsuit and performing mournful, earnest rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” It was a shocking moment, an abdication of comedic responsibility in favor of a decision to paint Clinton not as a politician but as a kind of conduit for grief the show assumed was universal, rather than partisan.

Trump fans embraced their own cringe artifacts; the cringiest was the work of painter Jon McNaughton. Consider “National Emergency,” in which Trump, hands clasped in prayer, asks for guidance while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-N.Y.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) lift the Mexican flag while trampling on America’s. Or “Teach a Man to Fish,” in which Trump, not exactly known as an angler, shows a young man carrying a book entitled “Socialism” how to improve his lot in life. The suggestion that Trump is a religious and self-made man clashes with everything we know about him, but it does speak to the ideals to which Trump’s supporters nominally hew.

An amusing read.

Now to wait for the snow. Have a good weekend, all.