… i have returned to Ulysses for all notes made on a daily basis… it is so much easier to make blog ready notes, quote articles, etc… i am always looking for the next great app or process… early adapter… but it leaves scattered records… i need to get over my commitment issues…
20220420.07
Kentuckians Left Without Abortion Access After Lawmakers Override Governor’s Veto
… wondering when women will revolt en-masse and refuse sexual relations altogether… that would correct the situation pretty quickly i suspect… i read somewhere that such denial was what ultimately “tamed” the wild west… i’d be with them…
The law—House Bill 3, passed in March—made abortion illegal after 15 weeks of pregnancy. It also instituted several new restrictions on abortion provision before this cutoff, including a ban on abortion pills being shipped in the mail or otherwise provided outside a physician’s office.
20220420.06
DeSantis Calls for End of Walt Disney World’s Self-Rule
Heaven help us if this man ever becomes POTUS…
Any contention that DeSantis is eliminating some sort of “special treatment” for Disney comes with it the perhaps mistaken assumption that the two counties suddenly in charge of all of this infrastructure will somehow make the park better and not worse. In reality, putting Disney parks at the mercy of two different counties with different laws will be a huge mess for everybody involved, and that’s the point. It’s not about what’s fair or what’s best for the citizens in the area. It’s about punishing political foes and centralizing government power (a very nonconservative approach) to do so.
… but of course, there is no heaven and the universe doesn’t care about what we humans get up to…
20220420.05
Alex Jones’s InfoWars Files for Bankruptcy Amid Sandy Hook Lawsuits
It seems to be a morning for bad actors being on the path to getting what they deserve…
After the 2012 mass shooting claimed the lives of 26 people, including 20 first graders, Jones falsely described the victims and their parents as “crisis actors” participating in a conspiracy to allow the government to seize guns. Due to Jones’ lies, the parents of the victims were inundated with harassment and death threats. According to the New York Times, the family of Sandy Hook victim Noah Pozner currently lives in hiding due to the persistent harassment they’ve experienced since the shooting.
… and…
In September 2021, Jones lost two defamation lawsuits in Texas after a judge ruled that he had engaged in “persistent discovery abuses” by failing to turn over important documents related to the case, noting that “an escalating series of judicial admonishments, monetary penalties, and non-dispositive sanctions have all been ineffective at deterring the abuse.” In November, Jones lost an additional lawsuit in Connecticut for failing to turn over documents.
20220420.04
This is fascinating…
Public Art Decreases Traffic Accidents by 17%, Report Finds
In addition to reporting the actual crash rate for these sites, the study also tracked the behavior of drivers and pedestrians, noting that both groups performed less risky behavior in areas with artworks — such as pedestrians crossing without the “walk” sign and drivers not yielding to pedestrians until the last moment. (Drivers were 27% more likely to yield to pedestrians when there was art on the road.)
20220420.03
This morning’s post by Heather Cox Richardson is encouraging… the noose is tightening around 45 and others…
The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol also has a great deal of information; it has now interviewed more than 800 people. On April 11, Salon columnist Chauncey DeVega published an interview with Hugo Lowell, who has been following the January 6 committee closely for The Guardian. Lowell’s observations support the idea of a conspiracy, although he noted evidence is still coming in. “The evidence so far points to the fact that Donald Trump knew and oversaw what happened on Jan. 6,” Lowell told DeVega. “Trump knew in advance about these different elements that came together to form both the political element of his plan, which was to have Pence throw the election, and the violence that took place on Jan. 6.”
… the J6 committee is openly calling it a coup attempt led by 45…
Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a member of the January 6 committee, suggested Lowell’s observation was correct yesterday when he told reporters: “This was a coup organized by the president against the vice president and against the Congress in order to overturn the 2020 presidential election.” Trump’s role in that coup will be the centerpiece of next month’s public committee hearings.
… Marjorie Taylor Green will have to testify about her involvement in the January 06 coup attempt… in a court of law… under oath…
In Georgia, voters are challenging the inclusion of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on the ballot this fall, arguing that she is an insurrectionist disqualified to hold office under the Fourteenth Amendment. Ratified after the Civil War, that amendment says any official who has taken an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and then engages “in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” cannot hold office. Greene took her oath of office on January 3, 2021, three days before the January 6 insurrection, and insisted the election had been stolen. “This is our 1776 moment,” she told Newsmax on January 5, 2021.
Greene promptly sued to get a judge to block the challenge. Yesterday, federal judge Amy Totenberg decided that the case can go forward. Greene will have to testify on Friday, under oath, before a state administrative law judge in Atlanta. She will be the first member of Congress to testify under oath about the events of January 6. After the judge handed down the decision, Greene complained to Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson that “I have to go to court on Friday and actually be questioned about something I’ve never been charged with and something I was completely against.”
… Friday will be an interesting day
20220420.02
A really interesting article on why it might be that socialism repels the people it most seeks to help… apparently, George Orwell, a socialist, understood something about that…
In the most provocative segment of the entire book, Orwell also cites “the horrible, the early disputing prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw toward them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.” And he notes the prospectus for a summer Socialist school in which attendees are asked if they prefer a vegetarian diet.
“That kind of thing is by itself sufficient to alienate plenty of decent people. And their instinct is perfectly sound, for the food-crank is by definition a person willing to cut himself off from human society in hopes of adding five years onto the life of his carcass; a person out of touch with common humanity.”
… and this…
The questions raised by Orwell go beyond the frustrating failure of Democrats to insulate themselves from charges of being “soft on crime.” They reach down to one of the more striking shifts within the Democratic Party: the loss of effective political figures that speak to working- and middle-class voters.
… and this…
Former Democratic Montana Gov. Steve Bullock has described the image of his party this way: “coastal, overly educated, elitist, judgmental, socialist — a bundle of identity groups and interests lacking any shared principles. The problem isn’t the candidates we nominate. It’s the perception of the party we belong to.”
… and this…
But the danger to the left that Orwell described remains, as Democratic polling warns, “alarmingly potent.” An electorate where many find the party “preachy” and “judgmental” will falter on this side of the Atlantic now, just as it did thousands of miles away and decades ago.
This seems an interesting take on the digital age…
The Digital Age is Destroying Us lithub.com/the-digit…
Handmaid’s Tale anyone…
April 15, 2022 - by Heather Cox Richardson
Encouraged by the Supreme Court’s “originalist” majority, which denies the ability of the federal government to protect civil rights in the states, Florida, Mississippi, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Texas have all overridden the constitutional right to abortion, and Republican lawmakers have indicated they are gunning for birth control and interracial marriage as well.
… Well, my Lightroom catalog struggles are ended. I am not entirely sure how. My best theory is my Bitdefender file protection was the culprit. I turned it off prior to issue resolving but there were other things I did. Will go back and test the BD file protection since that is easy to do… @maique
We have an Austrailian member or two I think. A favorite group is the Waifs. Gillian and Bridal Train are two of my favorite songs… anyone else know them?
That moment when you are finished installing the latest operating system update and an update to Lightroom Classic and you go to open up Lightroom Classic and it tells you it cannot access the catalog file because the folder doesn’t give permission to save new files and you need to change the permissions of the folder or open up a new file. You spend several hours researching, changing permissions etc etc etc and still you are not able to access the catalog file that contains edits for over 100K files made over the last 20 years… I am not at full panic yet but soon may be…
Sadly, there is no reason to have faith in the Supreme Court of the United States at present… an ominous sign to join the gathering clouds in the coming elections in November and 2024.
April 13, 2022 (Wednesday) - by Heather Cox Richardson
On April 6, five Supreme Court justices agreed to reinstate a Trump-era rule that limits the ability of states to block projects that pollute their rivers and streams. The court did so under the so-called “shadow docket,” a form of decision previously used to address emergencies, in which the court makes a decision without arguments or written explanations. Last week, Chief Justice John Roberts indicated just how far off the rails the current Supreme Court has slid when he joined the dissent against the majority’s decision out of concern for the use of this shadow docket as a way to hand down unbriefed and unexplained decisions.
For those of you who need a task master and financial penalty incentive to get it done!
Tokyo’s Manuscript Writing Cafe won’t let you leave until you finish your novel. ‹ Literary Hub
The Tokyo café was designed to help writers trying to hit deadlines—so much so that you aren’t allowed in unless you have one, and you can’t leave unless you meet it. A sign in the café explains: “The Manuscript Writing Cafe only allows in people who have a writing deadline to face! It’s in order to maintain a level of focus and tense atmosphere at the cafe!”
Advertising banners on a fence leading up to the front door of an elementary school which I believe is public. Something doesn’t seem right about this.
… strange experience checking in to the hotel… no check in staff… just a kiosk with a man on the screen… who knows where he actually was… COVID protocol?…
This sounds like an astonishing experience and book about it!
The Paris Review - Re-Covered: I Leap Over the Wall by Monica Baldwin - The Paris Review
A twenty-eight-year absence from the world at any point in history would undoubtedly be destabilizing, but Baldwin’s coincided with a period of particularly astonishing social, political, and cultural transformation, especially in the UK. World War I occasioned significant turmoil in all areas of life; in its aftermath, the rigid class system that had previously defined British society disintegrated, women won the right to vote, huge scientific and medical advances were made, and even the borders of the wider European map were redrawn. Whole empires had crumbled. When, on Baldwin’s first night of freedom, someone switches on the radio after dinner at an aunt and uncle’s London home, it’s all she can do to not “fly from the room, shrieking ‘Witchcraft!’ ” She’s as discombobulated as the somnolent protagonist of H. G. Wells’s speculative novel When the Sleeper Awakes (1899), who finally stirs from his 203-year nap to find that he’s been transported from the nineteenth to the twenty-second century. Baldwin herself makes a different analogy, drawing from her childhood: she repeatedly likens herself to Rip Van Winkle.
