Vivian Swift's Blog, page 5

Forever Young.

This is how Spring is done on my street here on the north shore of Long Island:

April 13

 

late April

 

May 19

I live on a short street — there’s just six houses on my side of the avenue. This (above) is how it looks at the top of the street, and is where I begin each day when I go for my 6-mile run. But Long Island is a funny place. Sure, it looks like we’re in the middle of nature here and, in fact, it is very country-estate-like up in this area, and that’s why I love spending the best part of my day running around these back roads.  But this is the classy end of the street. That’s because this end of the street (above) is in what is actually called “The Estates“, while the other end of the street is in what we know as “The Heights“. The other end of the street is, well, what you’d call not classy:

That’s a small Persian restaurant on the left (with the blue awning) and that’s a paint store, on the right, where all the day laborers gather in the morning. My street intersects one of the main drags of Nassau County, Long Island. this intersection is busy and noisy and is infamous for its semi-annual car crashes. On the far corner, on the other side of this main drag,  is a car dealership. It sells Porches.

Our house — Too Many Cats Manor — is the third house down from the restaurant and is the last house in The Heights. Our next door neighbors, slightly uphill from us, officially live in The Estates. We in The Heights have to haul our trash cans out on the curb twice a week, which our neighbors in The Estates don’t have to do; the neighbor’s trash guys know where they store their rubbish and will fetch their trash bins personally, three times a week, which is classier. 

I’m explaining this to you so you’ll understand the context for my next story. I was on the phone, talking to a friend of my next door neighbor’s (the one who lives in The Estates) about a cat situation (she does rescue, like me). My next door neighbor’s friend was in her car, so the phone reception tended to blank out for a split second every once in a while. She was telling me about how she caught her latest cat, which she did while her husband was away — and the phone blanked out for a split second, and all I heard was something that sounded as if her husband had either “gone to London” or “gone hunting”.

I thought it over and, given what I know about this neck of the Long Island woods, it made much more sense to me that her husband had “gone to London”.

It turned out that, in fact, her husband had “gone hunting”. I was flabbergasted. I know far more people who have “gone to London” than who have ever “gone hunting”. Like, by a ratio of 20 to 1, and I think I’m lying about the “1” because I don’t want to sound like a Lady Bracknell, but I really can’t think of anyone I know who has “gone hunting”.

Is that just a Long Island thing? Or, am I too precious for this world, or what?

I know we have a diverse group of people who read this blog so I’m asking you: Do you know more people who have gone to London, or gone hunting? I will report my findings next week.

Meanwhile, about last week, about how I have a thing I was saving to tell you about this week, I can’t, because the thing that was supposed to happen at 9:30 AM on Monday got postponed (not by me) until 3:00 PM Friday, which hasn’t happened yet, so I am very sorry but I have to drag out the suspense one more week.

But speaking of London, a blogger-friend who lives in London AND YET probably still knows more people who have gone hunting, who you readers know as Steve in the Comments, reminded me last week that 1984 was 37 years ago.  37, in Alabama years, means 1984 is a Grandma with half her teeth missing and a dusty Precious Moments figurine collection. 1984 is olden days, done for, dark ages, old-fashioned…and I still remember 1984 as fun and with-it, wild and shocking.

Happily for me, I will never be a Grandma, having had the foresight to not have children, so Yours Truly will forever fun and with-it, wild and shocking. 

Let’s roll the tape:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People age so differently, right? See below.

 

 

I love that this Grandma doesn’t, apparently, waste time doing much housework, either.

 

 

 

 

 

The political story that I am obsessed with this week is the Democrats’ attempt to form a Congressional inquiry into the insurrection on Jan. 6, 20201, when Trump supporters were ordered by their president to march to the Capitol and take their country back, whose ensuing riot was facilitated by certain enabling Republicans.  The Republicans are fighting the formation of this inquiry because they say they want to “move on”, but really it’s because they don’t want to be forced to lie under oath about what they did on Jan. 6.

 

 

 

 

Remember this guy (below) from last week? Representative Andrew Clyde? Republican from Georgia? Who said that the rioters were, for the most part, well-behaved and like regular tourists?

The internet isn’t finished with Representative Andrew Clyde yet:

 

This is from live TV coverage of the riot from inside the House of Representatives:

 

 

 

The caption to this reads, We always come in this way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the best news yet — New York State Attorney General, Leticia James, is going after Trump and his spawn:

This is why I Love New York:

In other Bad News for Deplorables:

Remember this guy? The guy in the hat? Goes by the name QAnon Shaman?

He’s got a lawyer :

In case you can’t read the text, lawyer Albert Watkins says that “his client had Asperger’s syndrome and indicated that Chansley’s mental state — and the impact of Trump’s “propaganda” efforts — would play a role in his case. 

“A lot of these defendants — and I’m going to use the colloquial term, perhaps disrespectfully — but they’s all fuckig short-bus people,” Watkins told TPM (Talking Point Memo). “These people with brain damage, they’re fucking retarded, they’re on the goddam spectrum.”

“But they’re our brothers, our sisters, our neighbors, our coworkers — they’re part of our country. these aren’t bad people, they don’t have pro criminal history. Fuck, they were subject to four-plus years of goddam propaganda the likes of which the world has not seen since fucking Hitler.”

Hmmmmm. 

With a lawyer like this, who needs enemies?

Then there’s this guy:

After his arrest for allegedly storming the U.S. Capitol building and kicking a police officer on Jan. 6, Patrick Montgomery was released from custody and allowed to return to Colorado — with a few stipulations, including that he not possess any firearms.

So federal prosecutors said they were disturbed to learn that Montgomery recently shot and killed a 170-pound mountain lion and then proudly posed for photos with the corpse. Colorado officials say he also broke state laws because he was banned from owning firearms due to an old felony robbery conviction.

Federal prosecutors have files a motion to revoke his release and asked a judge to place the 48-year old on house arrest with a GPS monitor. He could also face new state charges.

YES PLEASE, throw this son of a bitch in jail. Or, give the mountain lions of Colorado their own rifles and declare Open Season on Patrick Montgomery.

And then there’s Traci Sunstrom:

Sunstrum faces the following charges according to a criminal complaint: entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. No charges pending for having shitty taste in clothes.

 

Meanwhile, the Republicans are still re-conting the votes in Maricopa County, Arizona, looking for thousands of votes that were changed from Trump to Joe Biden, causing the Orange Shit Stain to lose the state’s 11 electoral votes. This is such a farce that even some Republicans have had enough:

Here’s the story from the AP:

The Republican who now leads the Arizona county elections department targeted by a GOP audit of the 2020 election results is slamming former President Donald Trump and others in his party for their continued falsehoods about how the election was run.

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer on Saturday called a Trump statement accusing the county of deleting an elections database “unhinged” and called on other Republicans to stop the unfounded accusations.

“We can’t indulge these insane lies any longer. As a party. As a state. As a country,” Richer tweeted. Richer became recorder in January, after defeating the Democratic incumbent.

The former president’s statement came as Republican Senate President Karen Fann has demanded the Republican-dominated Maricopa County Board of Supervisors come to the Senate to answer questions raised by the private auditors she has hired. The Senate took possession of 2.1 million ballots and election equipment last month for what was supposed to be a three-week hand recount of the presidential race won by Democratic President Joe Biden. The re-count was supposed to have ended on May 14.

Instead, the auditors have moved as a snail’s pace and had to shut down Thursday after counting about 500,000 ballots. They plan to resume counting in a week, after high school graduation ceremonies planned for the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, which they rented for the recount.

Republican State Senate President Fann hired Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based cybersecurity firm, to oversee an unprecedented, partisan review of the 2020 election in Arizona’s largest county. They are conducting a hand recount of all 2.1 million ballots and looking into baseless conspiracy theories suggesting there were problems with the election, which have grown popular with supporters of Trump.

“Enough with the defamation. Enough with the unfounded allegations,” Richer tweeted Thursday. “I came to this office to competently, fairly, and lawfully administer the duties of the office. Not to be accused by own party of shredding ballots and deleting files for an election I didn’t run. Enough.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said Thursday that the voting machines Republicans turned over to private companies as part of their audit (now called “fraudit”) of the 2020 elections are no longer safe for use in future elections.

In a letter sent to Maricopa County officials and shared with NBC News, Hobbs, a Democrat, cited security concerns about losing the chain of custody over the equipment when it was handed over to the auditors and urged the county to get new machines. If it does not, her office would consider decertifying the equipment involved in the audit, she wrote. That would remove the machines from service.

State Senate Republicans subpoenaed nearly 400 of Maricopa County’s election machines, along with ballots cast by voters in November’s election, to facilitate an unusual audit of the election results. The GOP hired private firms, led by the Florida-based cybersecurity company Cyber Ninjas, to do the work.

*****

Much like the Arizona re-count, the pandemic keeps dragging on. But we’re definitely at the beginning of the end, right? So here’s some final, last words about Covid:

 

Segue to the Feel Good portion of this blog:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sign says, Bad Day? Take a Pinwheel.

Have a great weekend, everyone. I hope Spring is lightning your heart, or Fall is mellowing your soul, depending on the hemisphere, either way they both go down well with pinwheels and Fridays and a nice cold glass of pinot grigio and this:

 

XXOO

The United States of Stupid.

Actually, this is genius:

I got up last Sunday and puttered down to the kitchen to make tea and toast, as I usually do. I turned on the radio. NPR was strangely sentimental, telling story after story about moms and motherhood. Then the host of the morning show says, Happy Mother’s Day, everyone.

Well, crap. I thought Mother’s Day was THIS week, not last. I had some great Mother’s Day content lined up for you.

So, it’s a week late, but here’s your Mother’s Day wishes from me:

 

 

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My headline (above),  The United States of Stupid, can apply almost any week of the year here in the USA, but this week brings us news of Americans going-the-extra-mile to be stupid.

As you might know, the Colonial Pipeline (a private, non-government, capitalist company) was held for ransom by Russian hackers who crippled the firm’s computers. This pipeline is 5,5000 miles long and it pumps 3 million gallons of gas a day and jet fuel from Texas to New York. This hacker attack shut down the pipeline on Saturday, May 8.

Bring on the panic buying.

The first states to get hit by a sudden drought of gas were the southern states. As of 4 pm ET Wednesday, May 12, 68% of all gas stations in North Carolina, 45% in Georgia, 49% in Virginia and 45% in South Carolina were without gasoline, according to Gas Buddy, an app that tracks fuel demand, prices and outages.

“This situation is now being exacerbated by panic buying and hoarding,” Frank Macchiarola, an executive at the American Petroleum Institute, said during a press briefing.

No shit, Sherlock.

Things are normal here on the north shore of Long Island, but in those southern states where gas is becoming scarce, it’s the Hunger Games out there, played by the god damn dumbest people on earth:

These are screen shots from a video of a woman filling up a plastic bag with gasoline. On the left, that’s her, lifting the bag and noticing that gasoline, in a plastic bag, is heavier than she thought. So she puts the gas-bag down, goes to her car, fetches another plastic bag, and that’s her, on the right, double-bagging her plastic bag of gas because, you know, safety first.

 

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Don’t be this person either:

 

 

 

 

 

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This photo (above) was taken in Florida, where the governor had to declare a state of emergency because people were panic-buying gas and hoarding it, causing shortages in south Florida but here’s the thing: Florida does not get its gas from the Colonial Pipeline.

 

Now that Joe Biden is president, I don’t spend a lot of time wishing for the good old days of 2008 – 2016, but something happened last week that made me miss the Obamas again. I miss their their natural elegance, their thoughtfulness, and their humanity. 

 

 

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Looking back, I realize that the Obamas were too good for us. Here’s your reality check:

 

In case you can’t read this, this is what is in the press release Trump sent out because he’s still banned from Twitter and Facebook:

The major Michigan Election Fraud case has just filed a bombshell pleading claiming votes were intentionally switched from President Trump to Joe Biden. The number of votes is MASSIVE and determinative. This will prove true in numerous other States. All Republicans must UNIFY and not let this happen. If a thief robs a jewelry store of all its diamonds (the 2020 Presidential Election), the diamonds must be returned. The Fake News media refuses to cover the greatest Election Fraud in the history of our Country. They have lost all credibility, but ultimately, they will have no choice!

 

 

And then there’s Arizona:

By subpoena, the state Senate took possession of 2.1 million ballots and nearly 400 election machines and turned them over to be audited by private companies, one of which has a CEO who promoted debunked election fraud theories after the election and was in the Ca[itol on Jan. 6.

One of the things they are looking for in the paper ballots are bamboo fibers, which will be proof that some of the ballots came from China and were part of the plot to rig the election in Joe Biden’s favor.

 

Meanwhile, in the US House of Representatives, the Republicans took a secret voice vote to throw Wyoming representative Liz Cheney from her leadership job — a secret voice vote so no Republican had to go on the record but, sure, Kevin. . . 

Liz Cheney’s crime was speaking the truth about the Big Lie that Trump won the election last November but the Democrats stole it:

 

 

 

 

 

So now there are Republicans who want to break away and form a separate party for the 2022 elections, who will work as hard as Liz Cheney will so that Trump never runs for president in 2024 and I just checked: I have enough popcorn to sit back and watch the blood bath. 

 

Let’s not forget that this happened this week:

We’re talking about Georgia Representative Andrew Clyde, who is of course a Republican (and gun shop owner) who was only elected to Congress in NOv. 2020. He made these remarks during a House Oversight Committee investigating the insurrection of Jan 6, 2021.He said:

“There was an undisciplined mob. There were some rioters, and some who committed acts of vandalism. But let me be clear, there was no insurrection and to call it an insurrection in my opinion, is a bold faced lie. Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol, and walk through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes taking videos and pictures, you know.”

“If you didn’t know that TV footage was a video from January the sixth, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”

 

Other Republicans backed Clyde:

“It was Trump supporters who lost their lives that day, not Trump supporters who were taking the lives of others,” said Rep. Jody Hice, Republican from Georgia.

Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., claimed that law enforcement officials were “harassing peaceful patriots.”

In case anyone needs to be reminded of what happened on Jan. 6:

Speaking of those peaceful patriots:

 

And this guy:

And this just in:

 

Jesus Christ, will you look at the time — we have to start wrapping this up:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Did you know this about the big McDonald’s strike?

McDonald’s workers in 15 US cities plan to strike for higher wages on May 19, the day before the company’s annual shareholders meeting.

Employees will go on strike to demand all McDonald’s workers make at least $15 per hour. So far, the strikes are planned for Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Chicago, Detroit, Flint, Kansas City, St Louis, Raleigh-Durham, Charleston, Houston, and Milwaukee. 

A McDonald’s spokesperson said: “It’s the responsibility of federal and local government to set minimum wage, and we’re open to dialogue so that any changes meet the needs of thousands of hardworking restaurant employees and the 2,000 McDonald’s independent owner/operators who run small businesses.”

In other words, “The government has tied our hands because they set the minimum wage.”

Hey, McDonald’s: Just because there’s an unreasonable low minimum wage on the books in every state doesn’t mean that you have to pay your workers minimum wage. It’s not like the government is forcing you to only pay minimum wage. 

And while we’re at it:

 

 

Re: COVID. This was interesting — I wondered why the second shot of vaccine is so much worse than the first.

And about COVID. . . 

This reminds me that I’ve been saving some non-Covid Words of Wisdom from the internet for you all, and now seems like a good time to share it:

 

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That’s enough self-improvement for now. Let’s look at cute animals and some wise-ass memes:

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More working cats:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s it for this week, Dear Readers. There’s some exciting things happening here in Casa Too Many Cats on the north shore of Long Island that I will tell you all about next week, so, stay tuned and meet me here next Friday.

Have a great weekend, everyone. I hope all your walks are on the beach at midnight, all your cocktails are ice cold just the way you like, and that all your gasoline is not in a plastic bag.

 

Dos Days After Cinco de Mayo.

I got to my Zoom Korean class a little early last Wednesday, along with one other classmate, so while we were waiting for the others to show up I took advantage of the situation and I asked my classmate something I’d wanted to know for a while. She’s obviously not a youngster, and her reason for taking Korean language class is for the mental challenge of it. Meaning, she doesn’t know much about K-pop but she’s pretty good at grammar. So I asked her, “Irina, are you in your 60s yet?”

She answered that yes, she is; she’s 69 years old.

Crap. That means that I am not the oldest person ever to learn Korean. 

There go my bragging rights. Now it all hardly seems worth it.

 

Before we dive in to this week’s hilarity. . . 

 

 

 

 

. . . I have heard from some of you Dear Readers who can’t see the Comments to this blog. While  I have yet to call up the people who I pay to host this thing about this issue because I’m never in the mood to do technical admin stuff like that, I do have a suggestion that might work. Try using a different browser. If you use Firefox, for instance, try punching vivianswiftblog.com into Google, of instance, and see what happens. 

Let me know if this helps.

And now to all the delightfulness that is America in the week of April 30 – May 7:

To follow up on last week’s story about the cops in Loveland, Colorado, who arrested an elderly woman with dementia and broke her arm in the process:

Three down, about half a million to go.

More good news:

Former President  Donald Trump told Facebook’s oversight board that his supporters were “law-abiding” during the Capitol riot, arguing that nothing he said on Jan. 6 could “reasonably be interpreted as a threat to public safety,” according to portions of his comments made public on Wednesday, May 5.

The remarks were submitted to Facebook’s oversight board on Trump’s behalf by the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative Christian group. The American Center of Law and Justice also claimed that it was “stunningly clear that in his speech there was no call to insurrection, no incitement to violence, and no threat to public safety in any manner, and described a “total absence of any serious linkage between Trump’s speech and the Capitol building incursion.”

However, federal investigators have identified substantial evidence that some of the rioters on Capitol Hill were directly inspired by Trump’s call to action earlier in the day. More than 400 Trump supporters have been arrested for their actions on Jan. 6, many of whom have said that they were acting on behalf of Trump and were inspired by his calls to march down to congress.

Trump’s actual words on Jan. 6: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women,” Trump told his supporters shortly before the Capitol assault. “We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”

Thousands of Trump supporters, waving Trump or Confederate flags and wearing MAGA gear, descended upon the Capitol. They overwhelmed law enforcement, pushed past police barricades, and temporarily stopped Congress from counting electoral votes.

The Facebook oversight board decided to keep Trump off the platform because of his incessant rhetoric that incited violence. Twitter has banned Trump permanently, and this week also got rid of Trump’s “dummy” Twitter accounts.

 

 

 

 

Without his social media platforms, Trump has to rely on old fashioned Press Releases to get his crazy talk out to the public:

 

 

 

Breaking news:

Remember that reality show about the Dugger family from Bug Fuck, Arkansas?  19 Kids and Counting (formerly 17 Kids and Counting and 18 Kids and Counting)  aired on the cable channel TLC for seven years and featured the Duggar family: parents JimBob and Michelle Duggar and their 19 children – nine daughters and ten sons – all of whose names begin with the letter “J”. 

The show focused on the life of the Duggar family, who are devout Baptists, and and their frequent discussions on their deeply held values of purity, modesty and faith in God. It was cancelled in 2015 when it was discovered that the parents, Jim Bob and Michelle, had covered up the sexual depravity of their oldest son, Josh Duggar, who as a teenager had got in trouble or molesting 5 under-age girls (two of whom were his sisters).

Well, Josh Duggar’s been at it again:

Josh Duggar is charged with receiving and possessing material depicting the sexual abuse of children (200 images were retrieved from his computer), which have him facing up to 40 years in prison. 

I love this shit. I love it when religious people show us what their religion really is.

One of Josh Duggar’s sisters, Jinger, had recently written a book called — wait for it — The Hope We Hold: Finding Peace in the Promises of God. In it she briefly discussed her brother Josh, the sex pest. She writes, “One of my siblings had made some sinful choices, but it had been years ago. It had been awful, but we dealt with it as a family,” explaining that they “sought the Lord” and “took the necessary steps to move towards healing.”

She doesn’t mention that one month after her family’s show was cancelled, her brother Josh was involved in another scandal when a  news site discovered that Josh had active accounts on Ashley Madison, a website created to facilitate cheating on your spouse. 

Josh, then 33, confessed to having a pornography addiction and to cheating on his wife. The wife didn’t divorce him, nope. She made 6 babies with him, and as he was arrested for the child porn thing, she was pregnant with their 7th kid.

P. S. Jinger Duggar doesn’t feel so charitable about her brother Josh now that he’s been charged with being in the possession of child porn:

I wonder how these guys feel about their old buddy Josh:

 

 

 

Let’s take a look at what Mike Huckabee was doing back in 2015, when Josh Duggar’s molestation scandal broke:

Right. Mike Huckabee said it was terrible, absolutely terrible, that the Obamas let their teenage daughters listen to the “mental poison” of  Beyonce.

And here’s what Mike Huckabee, who is an evangelical and ordained Southern Baptist minister and who used to be the governor of Bug Fucking Arkansas, said about Josh Duggar molesting 5 under-age girls, including two of his own sisters:

“Josh’s actions when he was an underage teen are as he described them himself, ‘inexcusable,’ but that doesn’t mean ‘unforgivable.’ He and his family dealt with it and were honest and open about it with the victims and the authorities,” Huckabee wrote in a post on Facebook. “No purpose whatsoever is served by those who are now trying to discredit Josh or his family by sensationalizing the story. Good people make mistakes and do regrettable and even disgusting things.”

Really? Do “good people” molest their own sisters? Is molesting five under-age girls just a “mistake”? 

And here’s the latest:

 

In other Republican news:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Checking in with the other traitors:

This headline is wrong: It wasn’t the Florida National Guard — this asshole lives in Nevada.

Charlottesville, Virginia is where a bunch of white supremacists marched in a Unite the Right rally in August 2017, to protest the local government’s debate about pulling down several Confederate monuments. If you want to see the face of American nazisim, look no further than this photo of Peter Cytanovic (above).

So Cytanovic wanted to play soldier with the Nevada National Guard in November 2019, and his enlistment lasted a little over a year before the guard found out about his nazi past and ejected him. “Initial criminal and fingerprint checks found no record that would deny enlistment,”  said  spokesman for the Nevada National Guard. 

While Cytanovic has subsequently renounced white nationalism and has denied that he ever understood what the term meant when he described himself as such, his past actions and that iconic photo of him at Charlottesville done him in.

“The Nevada National Guard does not tolerate racist, extremist ideology,” the spokesman went on. “The Nevada National Guard took action immediately after discovering Mr. Cytanovic’s affiliations.”

So, Yay for that.

 

But holy shit, what is happening down in New Orleans, my favorite American city??

Did she just say “real facts”? And did she name drop Jesus Christ? Hang in there, Dear Readers, I’ll have more to say about Jesus H. Christ at the end of this post.

What do you call this?

Y’All Qaeda.

 

 

 

 

 

That’s enough for cats — this week I’m turning the end bits over to the dogs:

 

Photos of UPS drivers with the dogs they meet on their routes:

 

This driver keeps treats in his truck and these doggies know it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t know why this makes me laugh.Did this ever happen on airplanes? Where did they store that huge salad bowl? Can you imagine this happening today??

 

That’s the whole enchilada this week, Dear Readers. Have a great weekend everyone, and now I’m thinking about enchiladas and how I need to have three of the Monterey Jack variety in my life asap but my favorite Mexican restaurant doesn’t open until noon and that’s three hours and 12 minutes from now, so now I guess I know what I’ll be doing for the next three hours and 12 minutes.

See you next Friday!

That’s Not My Cat.

That’s not my cat but then again, that’s not my mat, either. Our next-door neighbors, the ones who put a cat-sized hole  in their fence so our cats could move freely between properties, sent me this photo. That’s their back patio, and that’s Odie, who lives across the street. Odie visits us both. He flirts with the neighbor’s cats and he comes to our backyard to rile up Taffy with his “Quien Es Mas Macho” attitude. As you can see, he’s really handsome and you can’t help but like him, but he’s also a bit of a jerk.

This (below) is a photo of my dining room table when I am doing my Korean language homework. I will be finishing my 60th Korean class next Friday, giving me a grand total of 60 weeks/90 hours of instruction, equivalent to four college semesters. I have never, ever had to think this hard about anything, ever, in my life.

I am so proud of myself. This is what I wrote (using Korean’s 14 consonants and 22 vowels) for homework for Lesson #59  this week:

잔 녁 에 제 가 읽 은 책이 오 늘 친 구 가 저 한 테 준 책 보 다 재 미 있 었 어 요.

I’m going to explain why Korean is rated as the most difficult foreign language to learn. If you’re not into philology, you can skip to the memes about the English language (slightly below) and we’ll meet you there in a sec.

This sentence (above), is the most sophisticated sentence I’ve ever written in Korean. It means, “The book that I read last year is more interesting than the book that my friend gave me today.”

I’m color-coding the parts of speech so I can explain how they work in Korean.

“The book that I read last year” and “The book that my friend gave me today” are both relative clauses, which in Korean are written before the noun, so that it’s more like: “Last year read book” and “friend to me given book“.

The main verb — the only “real” verb —  in this sentence is not “is“, it is “interesting” (which in the English version of this sentence is an adjective) because in Korean, there is a verb that means To Be Interesting. As the only verb in the sentence, “interesting” is the only verb that is conjugated, and like all Korean verbs, it goes at the end of the sentence. So the whole sentence goes something like this:

Last year read book compared to  friend to me given book is more interesting.

The  compared to in this sentence is not actually written, it’s only indicated by a little particle that signals “comparison” that has no equivalent in English. But, because of the particle that has no English equivalent, the reader of this sentence knows which book is more interesting (the one I read last year).

But that’s not all.

You’ll notice that each of these relative clauses contains a verb: to read, and to give. In Korean, these verbs are indeed conjugated, but not like regular verbs because only one verb per sentence can be conjugated like a regular verb. Verbs in relative clauses have special conjugations that are only for relative clause verbs, unrelated to the regular verb conjugations, and they have different forms for present, past, and future that make them behave a lot like adjectives (which are also conjugated in Korean, but differently). 

Fun Fact: In Korean, every verb has a regular form and an honorific form, and some have two honorific forms depending on whether the action is going to a person higher than you, or to a person lower than you, because of Confucianism. Since this sentence is about a friend, who is my equal, I am using the non-honorific forms of the verbs.

Each of these relative clauses also has a subject: in the first clause it’s “book“, and in the second clause it’s “friend“. In Korean, you have to put a subject particle after each subject noun to let the reader know what’s what, such as, in the case of the second clause, “The book that my friend gave me today”, the subject is “friend” and not “book” (which is the object).

 More Fun: The subject particle changes depending on whether the last letter in the subject noun is a vowel or a consonant and, in this sentence, one of the subject nouns ends in a vowel and the other subject noun ends in a consonant, so I have to use two different subject particles.

Also, Subject particles are different from topic particles and while a sentence can have both a subject and a topic which require particles, this sentence does not. So, whew.

One more thing: there is a time particle that has to go after “Last year”. 

P.S. There are also object particles, which are used when it is necessary to clarify which noun in a sentence is the subject and which one is the object, but in this sentence there is no such confusion because of the comparison particle, and by the way there is another set of comparison particles different from the one I’m using in this sentence for when comparisons are not explicit, but only implied. 

So, in conclusion:

잔 녁 에 제 가 읽 은 책이 오 늘 친 구 가 저 한 테 준 책 보 다 재 미 있 었 어 요.

Last year (time particle) read  (relative clause verb conjugation) book (subject particle)  friend (different subject particle) to me given (relative clause verb conjugation) book (comparison particle) is more interesting (regular verb conjugation).

P.S. For some reason, WordPress is screwing up my color-code in the published version. Sorry about that.

Any way, that’s why it takes 90 hours of Korean lessons to learn how to write this sentence.

I know what you’re wondering and No, before Korean Lesson #59, I had no idea what a relative clause was. And to answer your other question, Probably Not.

(Would you have started learning Korean if you had known that every fucking thing is conjugated and there were all those fucking particles?)

Is anyone else here acquiring a new skill? How’s it going? Anyone got any tips for teaching an old brain new tricks? Please?

My Korean teacher assures me that her learning English was harder than my learning Korean. (Wait. Did I get that right? Does anyone know other it’s “my” learning Korean or “me” learning Korean?)

 

 

 

 

 

But you don’t come here for Korean lessons. You come here for cold hard news of the week so let’s go!

“Budgie” is Brit-speak for “parakeet”. This little fellow was found on the deck of a UK Fisheries Protection vessel in the Cletic Sea, 25 miles from the Cornish (southwest English) coast by the chief engineer on board. The chief engineer simply put out his hand and the parakeet hopped on. He says the bird was clearly exhausted and seemed relieved to go inside.

“It’s very comfortable around people,” the chief says, and the budgie has been climbing on his shoulder and head. The crew has been feeding the little guy various things, with peanuts being the budgie’s clear favorite.

The crew are going to be on patrol for a while but another Fisheries officer, Madeleine Bradshaw, is scheduled to rendezvous with the ship. That officer will take the budgie back to shore and look after it until the owner is found. Failing that, the bird will have a new home with Bradshaw. 

It is rare for domesticated budgies to fly away  from their homes because the outdoors make them anxious. Because of this, they usually do not know how to get back home because they get overwhelmed with nerves.

Now, the Arctic Tern, a 4-ounce bird slightly larger than the American Robin, migrates every year from the North Pole to the South Pole, a round trip of 18,681 miles (30,000km), and no one gets excited but one budgie flies 25 miles from home and it’s international news. Go figure.

In other hard-breaking news, the police are still acting like pigs. Except that pigs are nice animals that we shouldn’t eat, whereas I’d have no trouble making cat food out of a few of these cops, except that I would treat my cats to better grub:

The “pop” being the sound of her arm breaking when the cop threw her against the patrol car.

In June of 2020, inLoveland, Colorado, 73-year old Karen Garner, who has dementia sensory aphasia, which impairs her ability to understand and communicate, was confronted by a Walmart employee for trying to walk out of the store with $13.88 of merchandise in her bag. She offered to pay for the items, but the employee confiscated her bag and called the cops, even though the store had not suffered any loss — Karen didn’t steal a damn thing.

The police found Karen walking down the road two blocks from her home, picking wild flowers. They pushed her to the ground and handcuffed her. After picking her up and slamming her against the squad car, he officer’s body cam shows Karen appearing to be confused and fearful as she pleads, “I am going home.”

The arrest fractured Karen’s arm, sprained her wrist, and dislocated her shoulder.

The police then took Karen to the police station, where they put her in a cell while they gathered around to watch the body cam video. They were filmed by cameras inside the station, which showed them laughing about the arrest.

“I love it,” one officer says, with a laugh. “This is great.”

Another officer asks the arresting officer if he had read Ms. Garner her Miranda rights. The officer says he had not.

“I can’t believe I threw a 73-year-old on the ground,” the officer says.

“Hear the pop?” one officer says.

“What did you pop?” asks another.

“I think it was her shoulder,” the first officer responds.

Fuck the cops, and Fuck the Walmart employee, too. Lawsuits are pending and I wish the Police Union would be liable for damages instead of taxpayers.

Let’s go now to the shit bags who tried to overthrow the government on January 6, 2021:

The FBI has video of Mark Middleton (the shit stain in the red MAGA hat) grabbing a Capitol officer and pulling him towards the mob. Beside him, wearing a Trump beanie, is his wife, Jalise Middleton, who also grabbed the officer with her hands. Then another officer stepped in, and Jalise Middleton assaulted him, too. 

The Middletons continued to strike officers and jab flagpoles at their faces  until one officer sprayed them with a chemical agent, which forced them to retreat.

It’s on tape. I hope they get years behind bars.

This MAGA asshole, Richard “Bigo” Barnett, is the dip shit who put his feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk on January 6, 2021 :

He’s been arrested  in Arkansas for trying to overthrow the government and for leaving a threatening message for Speaker Pelosi:

In a recent court filing, Barnett’s lawyer defends Barnett from the charges that he threatened Speaker Pelosi, saying he didn’t call Speaker Pelosi a “bitch” in the note that he left at her desk. 

The lawyer explains:

“Instead of writing the accusatory “You bitch” as the government falsely states, it only says “biatd” and without the word “you”. On information and belief, the “d” was meant to be two letters, “c” and “h” with the “c” connected to the “h” to spell “biatch”, which is  a slang and less offensive word for “bitch”.”

But wait, that’s not the only stupid thing a MAGA defense lawyer has written this week.

Remember MAGAt Rachel Powell?

Her lawyer made a groveling apology to the Court, citing the Lana Del Rey defense, arguing that Powell was copying the face mask used by pop singer Lana Del Rey, who had a mesh face covering with a clear plastic lining so her fans could see her at a small get-together:

Her apology was accepted by judge Royce Lambert, who let her off the hook but warned that she would have to wear a cloth face mask from now on. Judge Lambert, who presides in Washington DC, is from Texas and is a Republican appointed by Ronald Reagan so I suspect’s a crypto-MAGA sympathizer because Rachel Powell’s ass should be in jail. But wait, there’s good news to come!

The best news of the week is that Trumps’ lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, had his Manhattan home and office raided by the Feds of the Southern District of New York:

We are getting more details on this story today, Friday April 30, that I don’t have time to delve into but I hope by next week we have some hot juicy charges for federal crimes that have mandatory sentences!

This is also breaking this morning, about Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, the guy whose head is firmly up Trump’s ass, and his best buddy, a guy named Joel Greenberg, who seems to have turned on Gaetz and given the feds some incriminating info:

I, for one, am hugely looking forward to the news this coming week.

This past week, on his 100th day in office, President Joe Biden made his first speech to a joint session of Congress, and it was pretty hot stuff:

It does my heart good to see Vice President and President of the Senate Kamal Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi presiding over the joint session of Congress.

And now, for the usual shit:

 

 

 

 

I need this sign:

And this sign:

Remember that I called this week’s post That’s Not My Cat? We’ll end on that note, but first, let’s start with That’s My Cat, But That’s Not My House:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not My Cat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s it for today, Dear Ones. 

Have a great weekend, everyone. If you happen to have a bad day or feel a bit blue, just remember that the Feds are thiiiiiiiis slice to getting Giuliani, thiiiiiiis close to getter Gaetz, which means that they are thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis close to getting Trump. Maybe America isn’t totally in the shitter after all.

And if that doesn’t cheer you up, remember that there is always wine, and cats, and wine and cats.

 

 

Memories, All Alone in the Moonlight…

It is 8:36 AM on Friday morning as I type this, and I took this picture out of our den’s picture window (sorry for the reflection)  about four minutes ago. That’s Taffy cat, on the left, and his shadow Bibs cat on the right, both of them curled up in the far back corner of our backyard. This is my way of telling you to rest assured, this blog post will start and end with Cats this week, so hang in there.

I don’t know what got into us last night, because it was just an ordinary Thursday, but Top Cat started making martinis around 7 o’clock and one thing led to another and we blasted Imagine Dragons and danced in the kitchen and made a batch of nachos and a late-night bubble bath was involved and this morning I’m feeling a little woozy. Good thing I start prepping this weekly visit of ours on Monday so I have some content already in the can for you and, if I remember to tie things up correctly (sorry about last week’s tardiness…I forgot to hit the Publish button until late in the day), you shouldn’t notice anything is amiss…but hoo-boy…Top Cat’s vanilla martinis go down way too easily.

Let’s start with the biggest story of the week:

I’m sure we all lost that knot in our stomach last Tuesday when the Derek Chauvin’s jury came back with Guilty verdicts for all three counts of murder and manslaughter for the killing of George Floyd last May. The fact that we were all tense before Judge Peter Cahill read the decision shows how little faith we have in our system of justice in America. 

I’m glad it’s over but, it’s not over.

There are still so, so many bad cops out there. I mean really, really bad cops.

A hack on the website that raised $2  million for this piece of shit’s defense  revealed  the  names  of donors and Norfolk  Police  Lt.  William  Kelly,  who  was  second  in  command  in  the  Norfolk  Police  Dept.’s  internal  affairs  division,  was revealed  to  have  written :

“God  bless.  Thank  You  for  your  courage.  Every  rank  and  file  police  officer  supports  you.  Don’t  be  discouraged  by  actions  of  the  political  class  of  law  enforcement  leadership. “

City  manager Chip  Filer, who  fired Kelly,  said: “Kelly’s  egregious  comments  erode  the  trust  between  the  Norfolk  Police  Department  and  those  they  are  sworn  to serve.”

No word yet from Kelly’s union on whether or not they will sue to re-instate him.

And then there’s this shit stain in Los Angeles:

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s some updates on the MAGAts who rioted at the nation’s capital on January 6 this year:

The prosecutor who wants to keep Egtvedt in jail wrote this:

“Defendant was not a protestor swept up in the swagger of a violent mob — he was a violent instigator. He is unmoored, with little to connect him to the community, and little regard for the authority of the federal government. It is clear that the defendant is both a danger to the community and a risk of flight. Considering all of the factors set forth above [in the body of their motion], there is no combination of conditions that will reasonable assure his appearance in the Dstrict of Columbia and/or the safety of the community. The defendant should therefore be detained pending trial.”

This is the level of stupidity we are dealing with when it comes to Trump supporters.

Federal prosecutors told a judge that Dan Egtvedt can’t be trusted to follow conditions of his release from prison, in part because he physically tried to stop his mother from getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

Egtvedt, who is accused of assaulting Capitol Police officers, was arrested on February 13 after officers were called to his brother’s house in Maryland because of an altercation. Egtvedt, according to prosecutors, was incensed about the impending inoculation, in part, because he believed it would alter his mother’s DNA.

By the way, Egtvedt was turned in to the FBI by a “decade-old friend”. Egtvest, who you might have noticed is white, was, in the end, released by Judge Christopher Cooper and invited  to come back to DC on June 3 for trial. We’ll see.

Stupid people lack the mental acuity and self-awareness (or modesty) to understand just how stupid they are, so they think they are smarter than the average federal judge. Here’s the MAGAt known as “Pink Hat Lady” and “Bullhorn Lady”:

 

 

As of today, Friday April 23, there is no word if Judge Beryl Howell was wiped that smirk off Bullhorn Lady’s face and thrown her in jail. But I’ll keep checking for updates and I’ll let you know.

And lastly, on Thursday April 22 (yesterday), karma caught up with this guy:

Let’s all remember that one year ago today, on April 23, 2020, the Head Moron in Charge of MAGAts said this:

 

Let’s check in on one of Trump’s biggest fan in Congress, who is still trying to get headlines by stalking Alexandria Ocassio Cortez:

Marjorie Greene has been criticizing the Green New Deal for months and she hasn’t even read it.

Wait. Are we sure that she actually knows how to read?

For those who don’t know, the Cracker Barrel Country Store is a chain of Southern-themed restaurants out of Tennessee that is popular with rednecks and white trash and is known for its rowdy customers. If you apply for a job at the Cracker Barrel, there’s a question on the application: “Are you good with your fists?”

Short digression: Am I crazy, or is this headline from Newsweek online sound as if it had been written (if she can write) by Mrajorie Taylor Greene herself?

And, I don’t even have to tell you, it’s a lie that AOC has agreed to debate Greene. 

In other Republican news:

Former House Speaker Republican John Boehner has been trying to rehab his reputation by writing a memoir that whitewashes his career in Washington (the capitol) (Lawyers in Love reference):

 

 

 

For sure there’s a Republican pharmacist in Chicago:

 

For fun, let’s check in and see how the right-wing media is covering President Joe Biden’s commitment to make policy based on science and sanity:

They forgot to mention that Joe also wants to outlaw Cracker Barrel restaurants and make it illegal to name your kid “Chad” .

 

Twitter can be a fun place too. Last week, a TV station in Boise, Idaho tweeted a photo of one of its talking heads with a one-line caption:

For some reason, it blew up and people made so many comments on this tweet that mark orson was trending for the first time in his life:

 

 

 

 

 

 

In other “Mark” news . . .

We’re almost done — I have one more block of memes to show before we get down to serious cat business — but here’s an appetizer, a photo tweeted under the caption “I think I have cat issues”:

Also a tweet, from a guy who was trying to get some reading done:

Today, I want to introduce you to a Twitter account called Italians Mad At Food.

People send in photos of Italian food that was not made in Italy, and Italians respond. Since it’s a Twitter account from Europe, and Europe has strict privacy laws, that last names of the Italian responders have been blocked out, but otherwise these are the  uncensored thoughts of Italians who wonder why the rest of the world loves Italian food when what passes as “Italian” in the rest of the world isn’t the least bit “Italian”.

Let’s go:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, lastly no words, because the photo speaks for itself:

 

You Made It!

You’re Almost Done!

Here Are The Cats!

From a Twitter account called Bodega Cats (“bodega” is a Spanish word for that little shop on the corner ), here is a section of working cats from around the world (but mostly America):

P.S. This (below) explains why most bodegas have cats:

 

This guy looks like he catches honey badgers for a living.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have a great weekend, everyone. Remember, if you must drink, drink responsibly. Or not. It’s up to you. You’re an adult, you get to make the rules. Stay healthy, get vaccinated FOR REAL, and be nice to cats and other living things.

Not On My Watch.

I don’t go looking for trouble, I really don’t. I don’t seek opportunities to yell at people, but what can I do, when opportunity strikes?

I was on my daily run when I spotted a white male, on the other side of the street, approaching me. He had with him a small, fluffy white dog on a leash. Then I saw the male pull up on the leash until the dog was walking on its back legs with its head in, effectively, a noose. The little dog staggered like that for a few seconds, and then the the male let the dog down, back onto its four paws. After a few steps the male did it again: he yanked on the leash, the dog was walking tippy-toe on his back legs, and the male seemed to be enjoying himself. The dog looked distressed.

By now I was almost even with the male and I could see that he was young, in his middle/late teens. I pulled out my earbuds and I YELLED. “Hey!” I said. I have a loud voice and some little practice at making a scene.

The kid stopped in his tracks and stared at me. I was furious and the adrenaline kicked in, and I began to scream at him.”YOU DON’T DO THAT TO A DOG! THAT’S ANIMAL ABUSE! YOU GOT THAT? YOU DON’T DO THAT TO A DOG!!”

The kid was still rooted in place, looking dazed, when I put my earbuds back in and went on my way. After a moment I turned around to watch him, and he was slinking away, walking the dog like a normal human being.

I got to the end of the street, where there was a woman in a Cadillac SUV parked at the curb. She waved me over, so I pulled my earbuds out again, and she said that she’d been watching that kid as he passed her car, and he was making the poor dog walk on his hind legs over and over and she really wanted to say something, but she didn’t, and she was glad that I did.

I told her that she should have yelled at the kid, because often the simple hock value of being berated by a stranger is enough to shame people into better behavior. But yeah, we both agreed, that kid was a creep.

He’s also a symptom.

I still use that street on my daily run, and I keep an eye out for that kid and his dog. I’m sorry that I didn’t confiscate the poor pooch. I really wish I’d grabbed that dog and saved him. I hope he’s being treated well. 

Along those lines, here’s the feel-good story of the week

In her “defense”, anti-masker Debra Hunter, who coughed on a Heather Sprague, who was recovering from brain cancer surgery and wearing a face mask, said she felt remorse and guilt from “one very poor decision” that had cost her three children nearly all of their friends and had made her feel like a pariah in her community. She said her children had been greatly affected by the hundreds of text messages, emails, phone calls, social media threats and even hand-delivered letters she had received after the video of her coughing on Ms. Sprague gained widespread attention.

“The reality is that my family has been permanently scarred,” Ms. Hunter told the judge. “And although that scar might fade over time, it will never completely disappear. My kids should not have to pay the price for my mistake.”

But the judge wasn’t having it.

Judge Ruth took issue with Ms. Hunter’s testimony, saying she had expressed more concern for her family than for Ms. Sprague.

“She talked about how it changed her world and, you know, she’s getting the nastygrams on Facebook and things of that nature, and they can’t go to the country club or wherever, and can’t play soccer,” he said. “I get that. But I’ve yet to see any expression — or a significant expression — on her regret about the impact it had on the victim in this case.”

The judge gave Hunter 30 days in jail, followed by six months probation. She also has to take a parenting skills class and attend anger management classes and pay a $500 fine, and the has to re-imburse Ms. Sprague for the cost of the Covid test she scrambled to get after being coughed on.

And here’s the kicker: Hunter was in the store on that fateful day trying to return an item that she didn’t have in her possession. Hunter became irate when the staff at the store wouldn’t give her credit for the invisible item, and was berating them when Sprague said she felt she had to get her phone to video her in case anything physical happened. That’s when Hunter threatened her, and coughed on her. 

“It was an episode that was rooted in privilege and entitlement,” Sprague, the victim, said. “Seeing my mask, the defendant was calculated to attack me at my weakest point both physically and psychologically. I was stunned and fearful in the aftermath.”

In my opinion, I think Hunter should have gotten an additional 60 days for being such an asshole to the Pier 1 staff., but I wasn’t consulted in this case. However, I’ll settle for the public humiliation. I mean, this story went international — UK newspapers covered it. A lot of people really hate Debra Hunter, so, Karma: Job Well Done. And the next time I see someone abusing an animal, I will remember to get my phone out and start recording before I become the crazy lady who yells at kids.

The moral is: Don’t be a Dick. People will have video of you.

Speaking of video…let’s start our weekly news round-up with Derek chain, on trial for killing George Floyd.

 

 

 

 

 

And then, 7 miles down the road from the Chauvin trial, this happened: 

 

 

 

 

There was unrest in the streets of Brooklyn Center, and the governor fueled the bitterness by calling in the National Guard.

 

 

 

And for no reason at all, a uniformed Army medic who happened to be black while driving, was pulled over and assaulted (and his dog, in the car, was also pepper sprayed).

 

Greg Kelly, the moron who theorized that the uniformed Army medic was a bad apple, is the son of the former police commissioner of NYC. This Kelly used to be a host on one of the local morning news programs on TV, and seemed to be a likable guy, until he went all-Trump and now he works for the racists at NewsMax. Here’s Kelly:

 

Kelly and his  fellow MAGAts gather together on-line at Parler, where they swap conspiracy theory:

 

 

 

The Republican CongressMAGAt from Georgia who was stripped of all her committee assignments because of her nut-case support for QAnon theories that led to the insurrection at the capitol on January 6 (meaning that she has no “work” to do during the 40 hours a week, or so, that she is on her “job”) is seeking to stay relevant by coat-tailing on the popularity of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocassio Cortez (AOC), the popular progressive climate-change activist from New York:

AOC has not responded to her invitation, so Marjorie Taylor Greene sweetened her offer:

Classy. the Pay Per View thing is very classy. 

AOC is right to ignore the bait. As Mark Twain said, “Don’t wrestle with a pig. You’ll both get dirty, and the pig likes it.”

 

 

I don’t have breaking news that Matt Gaetz, the Republican CongressMAGAt from the panhandle of Florida, has been arrested for raping underage girls for pay, but here’s an excerpt from his latest book in which he brags about his access to the top MAGAt and traitor, Donald Trump:

 

When can we get rid of the Senate?

 

When can we get rid of Republicans?

 

 

 

I fact checked this. This is real. This is the photo John Bennett used when he ran for the Oklahoma State House, bragging that he was the only candidate endorsed by the NRA (National Rifle Association). WTF, right?

 

OK. That’s it. That’s all the news I can take. Now, since I started today’s blog with a story about a dog, let’s cleanse our souls and get in the mood for a funFriday with, you guessed it…DOGS:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In New York City, every corner store has a shop cat. Here’s a photo of a shop cat on the job: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have a great weekend, everyone. Be kind to dogs, be kind to others who are kind to dogs, and mostly be kind to yourself. 

See you next Friday.

XXOO

I’ve Got Such a Long Way to Go ‘Til I’m at the Border of Mexico.

So Easter Sunday came and went and I did not rush to Walgreen’s on Monday to buy all the left-over half-price chocolate bunnies so, Yay Me and my healthy lifestyle. Also, I still have a ton of candy in my freezer from my Day After Valentine’s Day shopping spree. 

I don’t observe Easter because I’m an atheist (not to brag) but I see that the religious are still at it:

The idol of the far right religious fuckwads, Der FuhrerFuckFace, wanted to wish his moron followers a Happy Easter but it came with an insane pre-amble:

 

This week the New York Times broke the story that Donald Trump’s  “Stop the Steal” campaign to overturn the election results last year, based on the big lie that Joe Biden’s victory was the result of wide-spread voter fraud, raised its money by de-frauding donors. Anyone who made a one-time gift of money to the campaign was auto-magically enrolled as a perpetual donor:

In my opinion, anyone who is dumb enough to give money to Trump deserves to suffer, I don’t care how broke and sick and crazy they are. However, more than a few of Donald’s donors got wind of the scheme and filed for refunds from their credit card companies:

 

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) uses a slightly different tactic to squeeze money from its idiot base:

In case you’re wondering, yeah, Republicans really are that stupid to fall for it:

This made me want to give Donald a call at his office at Mar-A-Lago to tell him that he’s still the biggest horse turd on the planet so I dialed 561 832 2600 but I’m still blocked from my first attempt to speak to “the piece of shit who incited the insurrection of January 6.” 

In the good news portion of todays blog, I have to tell you that not everyone spent Easter Sunday being a prick.  On April 4 a person on Twitter, @tayloralrick, was walking across the Longfellow Bridge in Boston and wrote: omg went for a walk and saw this man taking a picture of all his dogs and i almost cried.

Here’s the scene:

 

 

At this stage of the pandemic, who among us hasn’t experienced a sudden burst of emotion at some beautifully mundane moment that reminded you of the world before? 

Here would be a great place for me to drop such a story, of an encounter with normality that left me in tears for what we’ve all lost during this Covid Time, but I can’t think of one just now. I wish my life had more of a narrative arc but it’s still pretty random and desultory, which is why I’m not writing any more memoirs lately. 

However, I did get smacked with nostalgia for 1980 in the grocery store last week. I was in the rice aisle of my local ethnic food emporium, looking for that jasmine rice from Thailand that Top Cat likes so much, when I realized that my mind was suddenly flooded with images of riding in a mint-green Jaguar on a road trip to Montreal with an old boyfriend who I hadn’t thought of in ages.

It was because of the song playing on the muzak track, Christopher Cross’s Ride Like the Wind.

For those of you who don’t remember, Ride Like the Wind was the first single from Christopher Cross’s Grammy-winning self-titled debut album. It was released in February 1980 and  reached number 2 on the US charts for four consecutive weeks. That song was all over the radio that whole Spring.

In early June of 1980 I was 24 and I left America to spend two years in the Peace Corps in West Africa, so I gave that boyfriend, who was English and about 20 years older than I, Christopher Cross’s album as my going-away gift. I wonder if he’s still alive. The boyfriend, not Christopher Cross. Christopher Cross is still alive, at age 69, hanging out with Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band. He won 5 Grammies for that debut album, good for him. I didn’t have a TV in Africa so I had no way of knowing.

What a jumble it is, life in your 20s.

I’m cautious to identify as a Boomer because I know how much we are hated, for good reason, by Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. Because of how much we have fucked up,  the kids who came after us haven’t had as much room for missteps and false starts, like we Boomers did. There isn’t as much room for second or third chances, like we (me) had. I had plenty of time to grow up in the 1980s and 1990s, when all my mistakes were kept private and off-line, and jobs were relatively easy to come by, and life was squalid and we didn’t mind.

That was my train of thought, there in the rice aisle in the Mexican supermarket on Post Road on the north shore of Long Island last week.

I’m not usually a big fan of nostalgia but I went home and made a Ride Like the Wind playlist for my daily 5-mile run. I haven’t listened to it yet. I’m not 100% sure that I want to go back down that rabbit hole, only to resurface with the knowledge that what’s in front of me is a whole lot more finite than what is left behind.

Speaking of looking back, I wonder if the MAGA rioters will one day look back at January 6, 2021 and realize that that’s the day they fucked up their lives? Boy, I sure hope so.

Well, this one won’t look back to anything being as she’s dead and all, but maybe all the other 300+ arrestees might have a good long time in prison to ponder the life choices.

 

This blonde one is from Texas so, what do you expect? (Answer: 10 to 20.)

 

 

 

 

 

Oh no! I left Easter Sunday ramblings behind, and I forgot all about Mike Huckabee’s amusing tweet of the day:

 

 

 

Republican Congressman Matt Goetz, from the Florida panhandle, is still in deep trouble over his sleazy sex life:

 

 

 

 

In other Republican Pervert news:

 

 

While former Speaker of the House John Boehner craps on the MAGA-wing of his party, remember that he was one of the people who created the modern Republican party starting in the 1990s:

 

This was part of Boehner’s agenda back then:

 

 

 

 

That’s all the news that I have the patience for this week. 

One last tidbit before we get to the cats. Christopher Cross wrote Ride Like the Wind while he was high on acid. I miss those days, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have a great weekend, everyone. If you need something to celebrate, remember that we have made it through the Australian Summer with the quietest fire season in a decade! Although the flooding situation was the worst in 50 years due to La Nina bringing in lots of cool and wet weather, the good news is that a billion animal lives were saved in 2021 and if that doesn’t make you happy, well, here’s a picture of a wombat in a wheelbarrow:

 

Happy now?

XXOO and see you next week.

 

 

I Can’t Help It, People Just Seem to Like Me.

I was called a Troll this week — twice. In internet lingo, a Troll is a person who intentionally upsets people by posting or tweeting “flame bait”, that is, an accusation or option that is so far out that people can’t help but want to scream at you through the ether and punch you.

While my words were indeed intentional, I didn’t want to start anything — I was just trying to give people helpful hints on how not to be stupid.

First case: Holly McCormack is a Democrat from Georgia who has announced that she is running against Trump-loving Marjorie Taylor Greene in 2022 and that’s well and fine, but this is her Twitter bio: Band mom, small business owner, and *actually* from northeast Georgia.

All I wrote was, in reply, “I’m all against MTG, but who cares that you’re a band mom??”

I didn’t even use the F-word, and I was really irritated by that fucking “band mom” credential, for obvious fucking reasons.

So I got a reply from another Twitter user that just said, “Troll”. It was the first time that I’d earned that distinction.

Second case: Some anonymous Twitter guy mused that he or she wanted to start a petition that called for “more voting rights and less millionaires.”

Well, you all know that I had to help. I responded: FEWER. Fewer millionaires, not less. It’s basis English, dude. Good luck with the petition.

Someone got offended that I would bother “a person of color” with an English lesson, and they even called me “dude” to use my words against me. To be honest, there was no indication that the original tweet was from a POC, and it actually made me laugh to think that it mattered, so I suspect that I was being trolled for being a “Troll”.

This here, below, is the kind of high-class trolling I aspire to, in this case in reply to the dip shit Republican representative of Ohio’s 2nd Congressional District:

I mostly stay out of trouble on Twitter. It’s my mouth that gets me in hot water and this week I was back on the phone trolling in the name of truth, justice, and to any others.

Maybe you’ve seen the footage of the sickening attack on a 65-year old Asian-American woman by a guy in broad daylight in mid-town Manhattan in front of a luxury apartment building while in the lobby of that building two doormen looked on and did nothing. 

Somebody tweeted out the phone number the management company of that luxury apartment building so I got on the phone and left a blistering message (but no F-bombs, I was keeping it classy) on the Brodsky Organization’s voice mail (they were smart to not put a person on the line), about the despicability of an organization that would hire such racists who would not help a person being beaten RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM.

Within hours, the Brodsky Organization released this:

Can you imagine being the union rep who has to defend these bums? 

The other phone call I made was to Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Logo office. You can talk to a real person there and tell them you want to speak to “That piece of shit who incited an insurrec—” but you won’t get much further because you’ll be hung up on.  However, you can feel good that you made working for Donald Trump really depressing for however long you were on the line.

Here’s the phone number:  561 832 2600.

It may seem to you that I spend a lot of time being sociable (see above) but lately I’ve discovered another interest: Footwear Design.

I’ve been buying my own shoes for, oh, 50 years now, and I still fuck it up. I bought a new pair of running shoes on the internet that I wore once. So I went to a store in person and bought another pair of running shoes…and once I had them on my feet for an hour they, they were also unwearable for exactly the same reason as the first pair: they were too high-cut around the ankles. It seems that I am incapable of snap judgements regarding the suitability of zapatos.

So here’s what I did:

Who knew that all you need, to customize your sneaks, is a pair of scissors and duct tape? I’m actually very proud of my resourcefulness. I’ve never seen the insides of a sneaker before, but now I know it’s mostly foam.

And now I have a stylish and super-comfy pair of one-of-a-kind running shoes. Yay me. Top Cat says he won’t be seen with me if I’m wearing these but he never comes running with me anyway.

This past week got off to a sad start with the freeing of that ship that had been stuck in the Suez Canal. Didn’t we all have great fun with Boaty McStuck Boatface? One guy even made a website so you could track the non-movement of it, at istheboatstillstuck.com:

Let’s return to that more innocent time, a week ago, when the whole world had something to laugh about:

 

All the red dots in the graphic below represent a man yelling unwanted advice on how to un-stuck the boat:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then, one day, it was all over:

 

So much for the light side of the news. Let’s take a look at the fun and games of American politics, shall we? 

 

 

 

 

Remember Deborah Birx, the lady with the scarf, who stood behind Trump while he was telling Americans to inject disinfectant, or light, into themselves to cure COVID? She’s been on the television trying to convince us that she did the best she could to reign in the lies that the Trump administration told about the pandemic:

 

On March 26, Georgia’s Republican Governor Kemp signed into law a 98-page restriction on voters’ access to mail in ballots and drop boxes, instituted new ID requirements, gave the legislature more control over the returns, empowered the Republicans, and made it a criminal offense to give food or water to voters waiting in line.

 

 

 

Gov. Kemp singed the legislation behind closed doors in his office. State Representative Park Cannon knocked lightly on the door and was hauled of to jail by state police:

 

 

 

 

In case you’re wondering how it’s done, here’s how it’s done:

 

 

Things in Minnesota just got bad, but for a different reason:

This case was about a woman in Duluth who took one prescription pill and downed five shots of vodka at her home before going out o a bar. Seeing that she was drunk, the bouncer refused to let her in, so a 20-year old guy “picked her up” and took her back to his apartment, where she passed out. Then he raped, her, but, as you can see, the judge says it’s her fault for being drunk in the first place.

Here’s the judge, Paul Thissen:

Surprisingly, he is not a Republican; he’s a Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party leader. But he smirks like a shit-eating Republican.

So, to extrapolate, now that the MN Supreme Court ruled that if a woman chooses to drink, she can’t be raped because she “consented” to being blind drunk, then, if you rob or beat a drunk man, he has consented as well, right? Right?

Thissen runs for re-election in 2027. Should be an interesting campaign.

 

In more legal news:

The case (above) involved a Brooklynn judge and a plaintiff with a hair-line fracture on her leg, and it was the first day of jury selection when the 68-year old lawyer insisted that he couldn’t breathe with a face mask on. “Ok,” the judge said finally. “It hurts me to do it, but case dismissed.” 

And here’s the latest update re: America’s least favorite lawyer, the representative from Florida’s 1st Congressional District, Matt “He Looks Like a Cartoon of Butthead” Gaetz:

 

 

 

kIf you remember, Matt Gaetz is the dickhead who went to Wyoming to campaign against its lone representative, Liz Cheney, after Cheney voted to impeach Donald Trump. 

 

 

Matt Gaetz’s 1st Congressional District in Florida covers the state’s western panhandle:

 

But let’s face it, it’s not just the panhandle. All of Florida is a problem:

In case you thought that we’d finished with Georgia, YOU ARE WRONG! Marjorie Taylor Greene’s  4th Congressional District is known as “Georgia’s Florida”:

 

 

FunFact: Marjorie Taylor Greene ran unopposed in 2020, and got 74.7% of the vote.

Other Despicable Republican Women:

 

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And that’s it for this week, Dear Readers. You Are Now Informed.

Anyone in the mood to look at some big goofy dogs?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have a great weekend, everyone. I want you all to get out there and make your world a better place, or at least annoy the shit out of someone who deserves it. 

Or take a nice nap. That’s good, too.

XXOO

 

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Cats Will Keep You Sane.

So, yeah, America is at it again.

Five days before a man walked into a Boulder, Colorado supermarket with an AR15-style pistol (technically, it was a Ruger AR-556) and shot 10 people to death, the National Rifle Association, the lobbying group for gun nuts in America, bragged about their great legal victory in … wait for it … Colorado:

I had something other than mass murder on my mind for this week’s blog and I was hoping that we could get through one week in America where I could blog about something trivial and mildly annoying in VivianWorld but nooooooo, we have to let this latest atrocity sink in:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s check in with one of the biggest assholes in America, the representative of Colorado’s 3rd congressional District:

 

If you’ve been wondering how such an shit stain as Bobert got elected, I can answer that. She won her election in 2020 by 22,566 votes out of a total of 273,268 votes cast in a district is heavily Republican. This is who the Democrats put up to run against her:

Democratic candidate for U.S. House of Represenatives Colorado 3rd Congressional District Diane Mitsch Bush speaks to supporter during a rally in Montrose Colo., Saturday Oct. 27, 2018.

Diane Mitsch Bush is a retired sociology professor who served in the state house of representatives and she’s 71 years old. Why her? The Democrats couldn’t find a jalopy to run? I’m amazed she got 121,416 votes with those bangs. Happily, there are three very strong Democrats who have filed their intentions to challenge Bobert in 2022,  and there might be evidence that Bobert collaborated with the rioters at the Capitol on Jan.6 so her ass might be in jail for aiding and abetting sedition by then.  

In other world news, it’s weird out there:

Meanwhile, in Canada:

 

Sidney Powell is back in the news:

 

Her pointless law suits failed to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 Presidential election, so the Republicans have been busy making sure that they can retain their minority rule in the future by voter suppression:

 

 

 

The senator from Mississippi, Cindy Hyde Smith, quoted the bible (Exodus 20:18, about keeping the Sabbath holy) as a reason for never, ever, EVER allowing for Sunday voting.

I fact checked this. She was indeed sworn into office on Sunday, January 3, 2021, by bible-clutcher Mike Pence, who was presiding as president of the 117th Congress. God I am so tired of these people.

 

But some times, SOMETIMES, Republicans make me laugh:

 

 

Kissing? Roll the film, Jimmy:

 

 

 

 

In other, much less important but far more entertaining news, there’s a woman in California who made an apartment for her cat:

OK, not a whole apartment…more of a sub-let in a corner of the living room:

That cat’s crib is nicer than mine (you’ve seen what my den couches look like).

P.S. I looked it up. Kids are still saying “crib” so I’m still, like, relevant.

And while we’re on the subject of cats, I’m going to end our visit this week with more cats, cat thoughts, cats, cat manners, cats, and cats.

OK?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The photo on the right was taken after Patio Cat came inside to his forever home.

 

 

Have a great weekend, everyone. And no matter how bad the news will be when we meet again next Friday, I WILL write about the important things on my mind, which is deep thoughts about duct tape and people my age and the shortness of life.

 

 

XXOO

Anniversaries, Atrocities, and Activism.

It was late afternoon on Saturday March 14, 2020 and I was in my Korean language class at the Korean Culture Center in Koreatown in midtown Manhattan. Only 4 people had shown up, so the teacher had the rest of the class on her laptop on something called “Zoom”. 

By then, the New York governor had already declared a “state of emergency” and had cancelled the Saint Patrick’s Day parade in Manhattan for the first time since 1762. On March 12, he had shut down all the theaters on Broadway, and had “contained” an outbreak in New Rochelle in Westchester County by quarantining the town and sending in national Guard troops to direct traffic away from the hot zone.

I thought the actions were drastic but necessary, as precautions against the spread of this new virus but, since I’m not a fan of the St. Pat’s Day parade and I rarely bother to go see anything on Broadway,  and I lived 35 miles away from ew Rochelle, I felt that my life would be largely unaffected, except that I’d be washing my hands a lot more often and for a lot longer.

The Korean class ended, and I walked to Penn Station to get my train home to the north shore of Long Island.

That was the last time I had a normal day.

The next day, the mayor of New York City closed all the schools, including my Korean school, and on March 17 he issued a “shelter in place” order for all five boroughs. 

By order of the governor, all of New York state went into lockdown at 8PM on Sunday, March 22, 2020.

The face masks, the isolation, the one-way aisles in the grocery store, the plexiglass partitions everywhere…that’s normal now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All in all, I’ve stayed pretty normal during this past year. As you know, a new kitten came into our lives last Summer, and she’s a delight, but she’s taken a tool on our den couches. these couches were already the cat’s favorite scratching posts and they looked really crappy, but Kimmy likes to get INSIDE and tear out the stuffing. So, in order to prevent her from eating the insides of our couches, I’ve had to take drastic measures:

Here the culprit, posing with her “work:”

Since last March 14, I have taken 45 Korean classes. It’s really thanks to Korean that I have had something to keep my brain engaged while in isolation.  It also means that, for this class alone, I’ve spent 67. 5 hours, on Zoom.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Reader Jeanie was right: if BTS had won the Grammy for Best Pop Performance by Group or Duo last Sunday, you wold have heard me scream all the way to Michigan. But, alas, the award went to Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande and in response, the people at TOPPS candy came out with a commemorative Garbage Pail Kids collectible card:

The Garbage Pail Kids are for, uh, kids, and they are supposed to be satirical and a little gross, but the image of the members of BTS being hammered like Whack-A-Moles was Not Right. I found out about it on Twitter, actually from a BTS fan in Israel, that BTS fans around the world were already organizing a protest. I did my bit, and emailed a short message to TOPPS that the image was offensive and requesting that it be removed. I got this reply:

Later the same day, my Twitter tl informed me:

Five hours after I had sent my email to TOPPS, the company replied to me:

I give TOPPS credit for taking responsibility, for removing the image, and for contacting me.

You might be wondering why would I and a few million others would bother about a Garbage Pail Kids card gam:

You know…it’s always this fucking guy, ALWAYS. Some fucking guy has a problem, and it’s the fault of women, and the solution is to go kill the people who are responsible for this fucking guy’s failings. ALWAYS. Women always pay for men’s sexual frustrations. If you ask me, that’s the whole reason behind religion and the Republican party but let’s not digress. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a big deal that Korean musicians had been nominated for an aMerican music award, and it was a big deal that a Korean-American movie had been nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture , along with a nomination for Best Director for its Korean-American director Lee Isaac Chung and two Korean-American actors from the movie for Best Actor, Steven Yeung, and Best Supporting Actress, Yuh-jung Youn. It had been a good week for Korean-Americans, and by extension, to all AAPI (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders). And then this happened.

It’s also wrong and racist to keep referring to the spas as “massage parlors”, and for the narrative to be around “sex addiction”. 

 

We all know that this violence agains Asian women didn’t come out of nowhere. There have been over 3,400 hate crimes against Asian Americans since Trump started talking about the China virus. And, of course, it’s usually men who take out their anger over COVID’s affect on all of our lives in cowardly attacks on elderly Asians:

 

 

Are white men the problem? Here’s your answer:

And, while we’re dismantling white supremacy and general human stupidity, for god’s sake, let’s get this done:

 

 

 

Over 300 people have been arrested for their “alleged” participation in the riot during the insurrection in Washington DC on January 2, and then there’s this fucking guy:

Right. The Republican senator from Wisconsin says that Black Lives Matter protestors are scary, but the Trump rioters were “patriots” who ‘loved America”.

Well, Senator Shit For Brains, I’m a black Lives Matter protestor. I’m a 65-year old white lady from the suburbs. Do I look scary?

(Insert photo of me taken on my 65th birthday, and the correct answer is yes, Vivian, you do look scary.)

This is where my internet and/or WordPress crapped out, so I’m going to bring it to a finish with little further commentary and a bit less content than I had planned.

Let’s get back to the good news that over 300 of those insurrectionist fucks have been united down and arrested by the FBI:

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the face of Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold:

This is Merrick Garland, our new Attorney General, who nomination to the Supreme Court by Barack Obama was held up forever by Mitch McDonnell. I know I say it too much, but Fuck You, Mitch.

 

How’s the rest of the Republican party doing?

 

 

 

Kevin McCarthy, leader the Republicanism the House of Representatives:

Liar and sex pest Madison Crawley Republican from North Carolina gets lesson in constitutional law from Ted Lieu, Democratic house member from southern California:

 

That’s the week that was, Dear Readers. I’m sorry I’m late today — my internet froze for an hour and I got up late.

Enjoy some cats and dogs and some interesting trivia about earthworms, for Dear Reader Steve, whose husband makes a mean earthworm chili and which apparently is not a icky as it sounds:

 

The caption for this snapshot: Only one of them knows they are going to see the vet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have a great weekend, everyone. That you for reading, and for being here each week during the pandemic. Let’s keep each other sane.