Sorry, world—we fucked up. Big time.
Sorry, Ukraine; from the depths of my heart.
LGBQT+, I have no words.
Immigrants, my deepest apologies.
Economies—well, I guess you’re on your own. Better buckle
up.
Billionaires and autocrats: you got what you wanted. I hope
you choke on it.
©2024 Bas Bleu
Today I am trying to have no thoughts. The American people are at a crossroad and they’re choosing which way this country will proceed. All the doomscrolling and fretting in the world will not affect that.
So I’m focusing on beautiful things.
Iacta alea est.
©2024 Bas Bleu
NGL, my anxiety level is looking at Mercury in the rearview mirror and I’m terrified of what happens to the world if the Kleptocrat wins the election tomorrow. It is not hyperbole to state that putting an insane autocrat, backed up by authoritarian White Christian Nationalists at the head of the most powerful nation on earth—the strongest economy, the most effective military—spells disaster not only for the United States, but for everyone else. (As Sancho Panza says, “Whether the rock hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the rock, it’s going to be bad for the pitcher.”)
Even if he loses, the prospect of all the crap we’ll have
to plough through for months just wears me out. I am so tired of his shit.
But today is Gratitude Monday, so I’m focusing on what’s
good.
We’ve had a good run—248 years of democracy. Even with the
blip from 1861 to 1865, that’s not nothing.
I note that we were founded on violence—colonization,
rebellion, expansion across the continent, human chattel slavery, racism,
systematic exploitation of labor—and yet we became a beacon to the world of
representative government, rule of law, and social and economic possibilities.
That’s not nothing.
We made education available for free (if you don’t count
taxes) to everyone and built some of the best universities in the world, where
astonishing advances in science were made. Our technologies have pioneered everything
from space exploration to crop yields, such that other nations devote whole
divisions to attempting to steal them. That’s not nothing.
We do stumble on a lot of the social and economic fronts. I
recognize that as a White, middle class woman I’ve mostly sat in the catbird seat.
But only in my own lifetime has the policy of “separate but equal” been
declared null, have women been given the right to open bank accounts without a
male relative approving and has a Black man been elected to the presidency. We
have a long way to go—especially with the legislative and judicial pushback of
the past eight years—but that’s still not nothing.
It shows we are conscious of our actions, and we can
improve. (Or go the other direction.)
The innate violence and societal worship of guns to the
contrary notwithstanding, we’ve mostly celebrated our holidays joyfully, with
homemade parades, homemade floats, barbecues and fireworks. And until 2021, we
enjoyed peaceful transfer of power from president to president. And that’s not
nothing.
So I’m grateful for how well we’ve done so far and the
willingness of most to keep moving forward. I’m grateful that I can cast my
vote as I chose, up and down the ballot—my mother was born before the
Nineteenth Amendment gave women that right. I’m grateful for everyone who’s
made this shining city upon a hill possible for nearly 250 years.
And I hope for another 250.
©2024 Bas Bleu
It's All Saints Day and we’re at the final Friday before the election. I confess that my anxiety level has been at Defcon4 for about the past month. There seems to be nothing—no act of indecency, no whackadoodle promise, no vulgarity—that will sway the Kleptocrat’s followers from the descent into insanity, so now it’s up to the non-cultists to set this train onto the track of reasonable, democratic government instead of the express to fascist autocracy that he’s openly declared he’ll install.
We the people have to get this done, despite our opponents
firebombing ballot dropboxes, culling voter rolls days before the election (we’ll
remember this, SCOTUS, as we do all the other rulings), engaging in voter intimidation
at the polling places and refusing to let DOJ monitors observe the process. If
they’re that terrified now, we have to give them the biggest scare ever: a
landslide victory for Democrats all up and down the ballot.
They'll still scream RIGGED and try to steal it, but it'll be much harder for them to succeed.
So my earworm today is “People Have the Power”, by Patti Smith. Crank up the volume.
©2024 Bas Bleu
This time of year, people around the world think about things like the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil, life over death.
Today—the holiday you know as Halloween—is also the Celtic
holiday Samhain. It marks the bringing in of the harvest and the envelopment of
the world in winter darkness. And tonight the wall between this world and the
next is more frangible, and it’s a time for lighting protective and cleansing
bonfires as the living and dead commune.
Today is also el Día de Muertos in the Mexican tradition,
when the living open their lives to the dead, who are celebrated with sugar
skulls, favorite foods and drink, both in the home and via picnics at
cemeteries. The celebration runs through tomorrow (All Saints Day, in the
Catholic Church) and Saturday, All Souls Day, which essentially carry on the
Celtic tradition.
One of my favorite holidays starts tonight. That would be
Diwali, when Hindus celebrate a number of events where princes of light and
good slapped down princes who would envelope the world in darkness and evil. I
find it interesting that this whole good/evil thing was not one-and-done;
evildoers are always trying it on, so we have to be alert, strong and brave.
This seems particularly apt, given the election surrounding
us in the United States—so clearly a fight between light and darkness, between
hope and hate, between building a future and lighting a fuse to nihilism.
One part of the Diwali tradition involves lights—candles,
fairy lights, fireworks, the whole spectrum—and I definitely can get behind
that.
This year, for the first time, I noticed that Costco is selling Diwali fireworks. Because of course. And also, because why not?
(Another one is the sharing of sweets, which I also
endorse.)
So, tonight—more than other nights—I’ll amass candles on my
dinner table and consider how we in these times can turn back the darkness. I'm
grateful for the reminder that, while the struggle goes on, we always have
another opportunity to vanquish evil.
©2024 Bas Bleu
We now come to the illuminated portion of Halloween in the People’s Republic. It’s not actually that impressive. Basically, two entries.
We got this
one:
And this effort
of Jack o’Lanterns lining a walkway.
What I find
interesting about this is that they used some kind of fairy lights that have lasted
for more than a week.
Also—I’m rather
amazed that the squirrels haven’t chewed away at the open pumpkins. I wonder if
they sprayed some kind of squirrel repellant on them?
If so—maybe they’ll
tell me what they used.
©2024 Bas Bleu
While the denizens of the People’s Republic don’t seem to get as excited about Halloween as those of The Valley They Call Silicon, they do represent, albeit in a smaller way.
My nextdoor
neighbor started last month.
(Look: they're quiet and they don't play the radio loud, so I'm fine with them.)
She rearranged
the pair, gave the spider some web and repurposed one of the snakes.
A couple of
weeks later, another neighbor joined the chat. Notice the dogs—they represent
all the members of the household.
The toad was
just something one of the residents couldn’t resist at Michael’s.
There are also
the usual graveyards and such.
I still don’t
know who’s buying the monsters I
saw last month at Lowe’s.
©2024 Bas Bleu
Last week I decided I could no longer put off getting my seasonal vaccinations—for flu and COVID. So I made an appointment for them both on Wednesday. I generally do not react badly to flu shots and the only COVID inoculation that bothered me was the third one in the first series, so I figured I’d be fine.
Well. It’s been
interesting.
(BACKGROUND: When
I moved back to the District They Call Columbia, I could not believe how
difficult it was to find a primary care practice. For a city that boasts three
medical schools, you’d have thought there’d be a surfeit of them, but it took
me months (and a couple of false starts) before I landed on OneMedical. A
quasi-concierge concept headquartered in San Francisco, the attraction for me
was that, for a $200 annual fee, I could be seen at any OneMed office by any
OneMed provider, get same-day appointments, spend 20 minutes with the doctor per
appointment (as opposed to the 15 minutes most insurance-driven practices) and
develop an actual relationship. The bonus was that there was an office two
blocks from my job at Metro Center. Eventually they opened offices closer to me
in the People’s Republic, so I was happy.)
I showed up for
my appointment to be told by the lab tech that “they” had put an order for the
regular flu dose. I need the high-dose vaccine and I’d specified that when I
made the appointment online.
In fact, their
portal prompted me for the high-dose version, which makes sense—I’ve been
getting this since I started with OneMedical. And it’s not rocket science—even pharmacies
twig that I get high-dose.
CVS: You’ll
want the high-dose shot.
Me: Yes.
CVS: Yeah—we don’t
have any.
Well, it got
worse. The lab tech couldn’t put in an order herself to change the dosage; the
two people associated with my care (neither of whom I’ve seen, as the person I
was seeing left the practice six months ago) were out of office—one until 8
November, the other till 1 November. The tech messaged others on the medical
team, but got no response. So she gave me the COVID booster and said she’d
contact me when they got the flu thing sorted.
It was clearly
some kind of system thing—to do with the protocols set up for dispensing
vaccines. Amazon bought OneMedical about a year ago and it occurred to me that
they might have had some of their geniuses messing with the software. But this
is just speculation.
Still, it was
annoying. Thursday morning I was just sitting down to write a nastygram asking why
it is that I could see anyone in the practice on a couple of hours’ notice, but
they couldn’t find someone to authorize the correct dose—especially since I’d
specified that when I made the appointment using their own systems—when I
saw an email in my queue saying they’d got it sorted and I could drop in at any
time to get the shot.
So I got it on
Thursday. And Friday when they sent me the “how did we do” survey email, they did
not get a good Net Promoter Score. (They also emailed to invite me to leave a
Google review. I replied, “You seriously do not want me leaving a public
review.”)
The other
interesting thing is how I reacted to the COVID vaccine. (This one was Moderna;
all the others I’ve got have been Pfizer. Dunno if this is salient.)
This was
Thursday morning. You can see how inflamed the area around the injection is.
That was tender, the shoulder joint was sore and I was achy. It was hard to
raise my arm and I couldn’t clasp hands behind my back. Also—I got completely
exhausted. Both Thursday and Friday I had to lie down in the afternoon to rest.
And it’s not like I was running marathons or anything.
The injection
area was still inflamed on Sunday, and it also itched like crazy. (The flu site is tender, but not inflamed.)
However—in the
global scheme of things, this is small potatoes. Despite the corporate
glitching and the physiological hiccups, I am now set for flu and COVID season,
and I am grateful for that. Even ifall it took two trips to get it done.
©2024 Bas Bleu
The past week we’ve seen a lot more information come out about the Kleptocrat’s love of fascism. One of the primary sources is a piece in The Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg that lays out TFG’s fascination with all things Hitler—particularly his generals. (The guy who dodged military service refused to believe that eventually—when they started losing that war—those generals tried three times to kill the tyrant. In his Weltanshauung there were all these Prussians in really spiffy uniforms carrying out whatever crackbrained idea Hitler came up with. Go figure.)
Republicans up
and down the line are scrambling to show solidarity as they edge away from the
revelations. But, honestly—this is not really news. Even if the Kleptocrat’s
former Chief of Staff, former Secretary of Defense (both Marine Corps generals) and
former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Army general) are finally talking
about it, if you didn’t already know this, you should not be operating heavy
equipment.
Anyway, I
thought we should have something appropriate for the anti-fascism fight that we
have on our hands as we round the corner to 5 November. So here’s Woody
Guthrie, singing “All You Fascists (Gonna Lose). Guthrie famously put stickers
on his guitars proclaiming “This machine kills fascists.”
It’s not great music, but it gets the job done. Which is what we have to do now.
©2024 Bas Bleu
Actually—the reason I started paying attention to the renewal date stickers on license plates is that a friend of mine noticed that some of the vanity plates I post about were expired. That was explainable because I stockpile photos I take of plates and just post in batches. I still have some shots of cars from when I lived in California—that was nine years ago.
However, JQ’s
comment kind of sparked something in my attention span, so that’s how I headed
down the expired plate rabbit trail.
And lest you think it’s only Virginia owners who thumb their noses at renewing their registration, here are some of the out of state plates.
(Allow me to say that whenever some driver pulls a boneheaded move, when I look at the license plates, they're usually Maryland.)
This North Carolina driver joined the expired temporary plate crowd. (I shot the photo in May.)
And I'm not sure where this one's from, but it's expired.
It’s like the People’s
Republic is the vortex of vehicular scofflaws.
©2024 Bas Bleu
