Madison Cawthorn is a Politician (and Doesn't Know It)

 

Madison Cawthorn does not like Ukraine on a train, he does not like it in the rain. he is not the meme master he'd like to be. Let's take this apart, shall we?

"I do not stand with Ukraine
"I do not stand with Russia"

Both-sideserism plays into the hands of the aggressor. Like it or not, Cawthorn, by saying his, you side with Russia.

"I do not stand with the UN or NATO."

Interesting. The US was one of the founding members of both the UN and NATO and still plays a leading role in both organizations. You're saying you don't stand with the US in its role as a global leader.

"I stand with the civilians in each country..."

This part starts out pretty well. Now, what are you going to do about it. How will you show your support for them. You're very good at getting camera time for yourself; this is your chance to show some leadership.

"... while politicians and their media play their war and propaganda games."

Attacking "politicians" and "the media" is just as lazy as both-sideserism. They're anonymous and nonspecific. Which politicians? Which members of the media?* The politician most responsible for the war is Vladimir Putin. Why won't you name him? The American media--news media--that enabled him are OAN and Fox News commentators, assisted by various right-wing bloggers, Tweeters, and pod-casters. Oh, and Cawthorn, you're a politician. When you run for and hold office, you're a politician.

"Not sure why thats [sic] so offensive to so many people."

Really? Even before you pressed "send" on this meme and anyone had a chance to express offense, you felt you had to add a whine about being persecuted for being a big brave truth-speaker. There is a war going on that has created almost three million refugees, over ten thousand dead (on both sides), twice that many wounded, tens of billions of dollars in property damage, and several times that in economic dislocation. But we should keep in mind that the real victim here is attention-seeking, Hitler-groupie Madison Cawthorn who might hear some criticism (after desperately seeking it out).

 *Heck. Which medium? Vinyl records?

Adulting Week Finale

I got up and got ready to go on time. It took me forty minutes and two calls to finally get a cab. When I got to the clinic, they told me I was too late and they had cancelled my appointment. However, they checked with the doctor, and she was able to slip me into the next spot.

The appointment was productive. We reviewed my medications. That was the whole point of the appointment. My various prescriptions were expiring and Medicaid wouldn't pay for them until I had a review. You may recall, from previous comments on my adulting efforts, that one of my problems these days is that my Medicaid expired last summer and I can't get it restarted. They're not planning on paying for anything, including this appointment, at the moment. The state aid offices are shut down to in-person visits for the duration, but the doctor told me that the office in the clinic is still open and might be able to help. After that, they gave me flu and shingles vaccines.

The nice lady in the aid office (who spoke softly and very rapidly) just had a few minutes before her next appointment, but in that time she had me sign all the forms to apply for Medicaid yet again. On Monday, she'll call me and get all the information to actually fill out the forms. She was able to show me how to find my Medicare number (and updated my payment info at the clinic with it). She also will take care of restarting my SNAP account and getting me Alaska senior benefits (which will cover about half of my Medicare monthly). If everything works out, I should finally be able to pay my medical bills by the end of next week.

After I got back downtown, I celebrated by getting a latte. Wordle took me four tries.

Freedom Convoy Foolishness Arrives in Anchorage

The usual gang of fools decided to hold a freedom convoy here in Anchorage. They went to the Cabela's parking lot where the city council member from Eagle River, Jamie Allard, welcomed them. She posted a video of herself saying there were hundreds and hundreds of them (it looked more like tens and tens to me) and added, "I don’t know how traffic is going to do with all of these guys, but we don’t really care." A couple of points.

Last year and the year before, conservatives were saying that blocking traffic was the worst crime ever and that protesters should be run over and killed. Around the country, Republicans proposed laws making vehicular assault legal under "stand your ground laws" as long as you remember to say the magic get-out-of-jail words "I was scared." Now, they are saying blocking traffic and shutting down cities is "legitimate political discourse" or something similar. To be fair, it's not entirely a flip-flop; they were all in favor of blocking traffic with various hysterically unsuccessful "million truck marches" against Obama and with their Trump Trains. I think the difference to them  is that drivers are patriots and pedestrians need to be summarily executed.

Intentionally blocking traffic is already illegal, regardless of your politics. Allard seems to be endorsing law breaking. How do her constituents in Eagle River feel about this? I'm being rhetorical. We all know how they feel. As long as it's inconveniencing the liberals downtown and not happening in their backyard, they approve of the lawbreaking and they approve of their lawmaker approving of the lawbreaking.

Cabela's is private property. Are they allowing the convoy to use their parking lot because they support them or is the convoy trespassing? If you're not familiar with Cabela's, they sell outdoor gear, including hunting and fishing gear. Guns and ammo make up almost a third of their business. A large part of their natural clientele is going to lean hard right, but it will also include outdoorsy tree-huggers as well. Someone in the press needs to get a statement from them. 

Boba Fett

 Now that six of the seven episodes of #BookofBobaFett have aired, I have thoughts.

Last summer, I signed up for Disney+ and binge watched The #Manalorian and was pleased to see that I only had a few months to wait before there would be a new related show to watch. In the mean time, Disney announced two more shows; Obi Wan Kenobi, which, of course is set between the first trilogy and his death in the second trilogy; and an Ahsoka Tano show set sometime after the second season of Madalorian. I'm looking forward to both of those because those characters are great and  this gives us opportunities to tie up loose ends of plot lines and characters from the animated series'. Almost thirty years pass from the end of the first trilogy to end of the second series of Madalorian.

This brings us back to the Book of Boba Fett. It begins at the same point Mandalorian S2 ended with he and Fenec Shand arriving at Jabba the Hutt's palace and taking over. 

Episode 1. It's been about eight years since Jabba died at the Sarlac pit and one of his lackeys has been running his turf, badly. Boba meets some of the locals in town and goes into an extended flashback that explains how he survived the Sarlac and lost his armor (regained in the Mandalorian). The episode ends with an homage to Ray Harryhausen that most viewers didn't seem to catch.

Episodes 2-4. Most of these episodes develop the flashbacks. The short sections of "present time" finally come together in episode four to reveal who the antagonist is going to be and that the overall plot arc is going to be The Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven.

Episodes 5-6. A sudden digression into the Mandalorian. Yes, he's going to be one of the seven, but most of  these two episodes have nothing to do with that, they are setting up the next season of his show. It's nice to see Ahsoka Tano, but her appearance was a gratuitous cameo with no hints about her own show.

<Episode 6 spoiler> There are many characters from the earlier movies and animated series whose fates were left unexplored. The new live-action shows seem to be picking up a lot of those characters. Cad Bane is one I was eager to see. I was excited to see him, but a little disappointed in the role he's going to play. My big hope is that the charming and always treacherous Hondo will show up in Obi Wan or Ashoka. [Fun fact: Cad Bane and young Boba Fett had a duel in a planned, but never produced, episode of Clone Wars. That's supposed to be the source of the dent in Boba's helmet.] 

+Coming up next, the Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven style finale.

Truckdrivin' perspective

The far right has been trying to claim truck drivers as their people for the last dozen years or so. Remember the million trucker ride to Washington to protest "Obama <mumble, mumble> we're not racists!"? Since then, there have been regular trucker protests in Australia, Canada, and the US and they have all been embarrassing failures. They are still failures.

Not long ago, someone noticed supply chain chaos, inflation, and shortages caused by Covid and started pushing the idea that they were all the fault of Biden's policies, although they couldn't say which policies and how they did that. Now, those same people are calling for trucker strikes, led by Canadian anti-vaxers, which will cause supply chain disruption, inflation, and product shortages because... freedom? 

Because all of the other trucker protests have been failures, they are pointing to some images of the current Canadian protest as signs of how great their movement is. I have to say, these trolls have learned how to manipulate the media. They are packing areas around the home offices of the Canadian broadcast media and national monuments to get the best photo ops. They have dim-witted, has-been comedians like Rob Schneider expressing amazement that their caravan stretches from Ontario all the way to Manitoba, a province it shares a border with (one truck can stretch that far). 

The most generous estimate of the number of drivers involved is on half of one percent of the licensed commercial truck drivers in Canada. It's a stunt, and a fraudulent one at that. Any news out let that treats this story as anything other than an expose of the sad lengths the right will go to to lie to us is nothing more than, in Lenin's famous phrase, useful idiots.

"Deadliest Days In American History" Amended

 Around December 7, 2020, a meme began to float around the internet comparing the daily death tolls from Covid to to a few other high casualty days in American history. Because of the day it appeared, I assume the point was to draw a contrast to Pearl Harbor, a day that shocked the country into action and our current fickle leadership. The motive behind the meme seemed good. What I disliked about it was the vagueness. The Covid dates were given as "last Thursday" and "last Monday." Knowing how things on the internet live forever, I wanted to put a date on the meme.

Here is a sample of the meme that I copied off of Facebook.

A few hours ago, I decided to get off my butt and really do that. I hunted for a set of day-by-day death reporting that I could match to days of the week. I didn't find one that exactly matched the numbers in the meme, but I found a good set of numbers that are close to the same magnitude.

At the same time, it occurred to me that the San Francisco earthquake should be on this list. This led me to think I should look up other hurricanes, besides the Galveston Monster, and I found some that should be included on the list. Hurricanes are tricky candidates. Many go on for days. Subsequent flooding and crop damage can keep killing for weeks or months. I only used numbers that seemed to limited to the passage of the storm and nothing else.

Finally, as I was finishing this list, I realized I have no daily statistics for the 1918-19 Spanish Flu. The death numbers for that pandemic in the US were about twice what they are now. In October 1918 alone, 195,000 Americans died of the flu. If I had those daily numbers, they would dominate this chart.

Here is my amended chart, sans Spanish Flu.

1. Galveston Monster (Hurricane), September 8, 1900, 8000+
2. Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg, September 17, 1862, 3675
3. Covid, December 10, 2020, 3067
4. Covid, December 9, 2020, 3054
5. San Francisco Earthquake, April 18, 1906, 3000 *
6. Hurricane Maria, September 20, 2017, 2982
7. 9/11, September 11, 2001, 2977
8. Covid, May 7, 2020, 2769 **
9. Covid, December 2, 2020, 2733
10. Covid, December 3, 2020, 2706
11. Covid, April 29, 2020, 2661
12. Covid, December 8, 2020, 2622
13. Covid, December 4, 2020, 2563
14. Covid, April 15, 2020, 2546
15. Okeechobee Hurricane, September 17, 1928, 2,511 ***
16. D-Day, June 6, 1944, 2500
17. Covid, May 5, 2020, 2494
18. Covid, April 21, 2020, 2481
19. Covid, December 1, 2020, 2473
20. Covid, December 5, 2020, 2461
21. Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, 2403

* This is the official number and is at the high end of estimates.

** Daily Covid deaths are according to https://covidtracking.com/data/charts/us-daily-deaths.

*** Four days earlier it caused over 300 deaths in Puerto Rico.

I'm not dead yet

I've started researching my next book. It's going to be about permafrost and, yes, there will be mammoths.

A holiday warning

This is a rerun of a post I wrote around this time a few years ago. I think it's still relevant.

*********

The men in black (MIB) entered UFO lore in 1956 in a book entitled They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. The author was one Gray Barker who had been a member of one of the first American UFO groups, the rather ambitiously named International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB). Though Barker's book dealt with a number of paranormal topics, the largest part of it dealt with his former boss, IFSB founder Albert Bender.

In 1953 the IFSB was about two years old with a few hundred dues paying members (called "investigators") who all received the Bureau's newsletter Space Review. The group was doing well enough when, in October 1953, Bender suddenly stopped publication of Space Review, and dissolved the IFSB. The last issue of the news letter gave only this explanation.

STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE: The mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any information about this is being withheld by order from a higher source. We would like to print the full story in Space Review, but because of the nature of the information we are very sorry that we have been advised in the negative.

According to Barker, the reason Bender had so abruptly ended the group was that three mysterious men in black had visited Bender and warned him off. But before they did, the MIBs were good enough to explain at least part of the true secret of the flying saucers. UFOs, they said, actually come from Antarctica. They have bases in both polar regions and regularly fly between them. Bender told a different story in his own book in 1963.

Enough UFO stories end with the craft departing due north or south that Barker's version of Bender's visitors has been adopted by conspiracy theorists who believe in a decidedly terrestrial origin for saucers. My personal favorite version is that saucers and MIBs are Atlanteans from within the hollow earth, but the theory that they are Nazi refugees from super-scientific bases beneath the ice cap has its devotees, too.

The MIBs are the key to the mystery. The most mundane explanation that has been offered is that they work for the American government and that they are trying to hide the truth about the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs. But that could itself be disinformation. No government has the ability to do what the MIBs do. Think for a moment about the men in black. They have appeared all over the world. They have a special interest in unidentified flying objects and in protecting the polar regions. They seem to actually know what is in the minds of the people they visit. Who has the ability to manage an intelligence network like that? Ask yourself: Who has the ability to travel everywhere, at any time, and even seemingly to appear in two places at once? Who has a special interest in protecting the polar regions? Who knows when you are sleeping? Who knows when you are awake? Who knows if you've been good or bad?

I think you know the answer.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and be good for goodness sake.

Yay! Royalties!

I was at the local Barnes & Noble the other day picking up a birthday present for my sister and, while there, decided mosey over to the science section to see if they had any copies of my book. What to my wondering should appear, but a paperback edition of Discovering the Mammoth. It looks very nice. I bought a copy to show people and took it to dinner at my corner brewpub. While I was showing it to some of the regulars, two young women from Seattle asked about it. I ended up selling it to them and autographing it with a cartoon of a mammoth in the snow.

The hardback was paid for by an upfront advance that was gone by this time last year.* For this edition, I'll be paid with royalties that will come twice a year. I don't expect more than a few hundred dollars per check, but it will be a nice little bonus when each arrives.

* That's why I was begging all year, hunting for work, and too depressed to write. Last month, I started receiving Social Security which, while not enough to make me completely independent again, has taken a lot of weight off my shoulders. I've already begun writing again and will have some things for the blogs very soon.

Yet another plea, but with a slight explanation

Over the years, I've written many lengthy posts for social media and my blogs discussing my mental health issues, but I've never managed to hit the submit button on any of them. This post won't be any different. Just trust me, it's real. Real enough that the State of Alaska officially qualifies me as handicapped.

I've been working with caseworkers from the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation for a few years now. They make sure I keep sending out resumes and doing job hunting things. My current caseworker is big on mental health things. I need to get out of my room and socialize and I admit that make sense. For a long time she suggested I volunteer at the senior center. At my age, why would I go to the senior center other than to meet chicks?

"Hey. Do you want to go out for a drink? And by 'a drink' I literally mean one, because that's all I can afford."

That certainly builds my self esteem.

Still, I decided I need to do whatever she suggests to see if it will get me out of the hole I'm in. Fortunately, she suggested a government job this time. Like almost every state, Alaska is facing a budget crisis, hiring freeze, and cuts. I did a full formal interview with the group she sent me to and they snapped me up that day. Of course, that's not how state things really work, but it did feel good.

The deparment is made up of two people, a senior and junior officer. The junior position is an entry level position. For over a year, the only way they have been able to keep up with things has been to have unpaid volunteers like me. Well, three weeks ago the senior person moved up to a new job. Good for her. In the short time I knew her, I became quite fond of her and I'm happy for her for her success. But what does that mean for our little group?

Actually, it's a fucking mess. I won't go into details, but our group helps real people. It is part of the social safety net. They needed me because they were already several months backlogged in processing payments. And now they're sliding further back. Why?

As I said, the boss moved up to a better job. But, despite knowing she was moving over up a month ago, the state still hasn't posted her job. Obviously, junior guy should move up to top guy. He's been doing the same job for four years.

Blah, blah, blah. This is where I return to the story. Junior guy has already said he will hire me as the next junior guy, if the state gets around to hiring anybody. But, as we have seen the state will take forever. If the state finally fills the top job with the junior guy, then there will be another pause while they post the junior job and do interviews. I'm honestly looking at one to two months before this turns into a job.

I have some ideas to bring in a small income in the interim. I'll tell you about them later in the week. Meanwhile, of course, the bills are late and the end of the month is near. By the end of the week I need to pay the big storage unit bill and my very overdue phone bill. Any help is appreciated.