Don't ask me

We lost one of the icons of my youth earlier this week. Country Joe McDonald died from complications of Parkinson’s Disease in his hometown of Berkeley, Calif. He was 84.

McDonald—with and without his band, The Fish—was anti-war all his life. His big Woodstock moment started with him shouting, “Gimme an F,” and exhorting the audience to fill the somewhat weedy air with “FUCK!” Then he segued into the “I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag”.

This song is particularly apt this week, as it turns out. You could substitute “Tehran” for “Vietnam”, while the “be the first one on the block to have your boy come home in a box” line is as true as it was in 1969.

This makes me very tired, that nearly 60 years after Joe asked for that F, we’ve still got leaders who think that a “short, victorious war” is what will settle domestic unrest. Only this time it's so much more unhinged.

Crank up the volume.

 

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Civic duty

Yesterday I cast my early vote in the April special election here in the Old Dominion. The only thing on the ballot is a measure to redraw the state’s congressional districts. The new lines leave Republicans with only one “safe” seat, a strip along the south-western border of the state.

This is largely in response to Texas redrawing its districts last year to dilute Democratic votes to send more RWNJs to the House.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Rs are real het up about this—they went to court to cancel the election but a judge ruled it can go ahead. (They did the same when California redrew its districts so that Republican safe zones lie largely in the eastern desert and east-of-the-Sierras, along with lizards and wood rot.)

Here’s a sample:

Opposing voices:

But I say they can piss up a rope. They fucked around; every time they do that they forget about the second part of that expression. 

Here’s the find out.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Weather whiplash

 March is such a schizophrenic, ADHD month. I mean—the saying is that it comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, and it’s known for its windiness. But this year it just seems unable to make up its mind.

Technically, I suppose we’re in the “lion” phase, and we certainly started out with snow flurries and snowcrete on the ground from February that wouldn’t melt because we were still facing sub-freezing temperatures. But, starting Sunday, we here in the environs of The District They Call Columbia have had daytime temps in the 70s; yesterday Google told me it hit 83F. Aaand…on Tuesday they expect the highs in the 30s.

Meanwhile, I’m reverting to my summertime diet of dinner salads—Greek, Niçoise, primavera, etc.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Seraph

Here’s a motorist who has opinions.

I’m guessing that there have been incidents with other drivers regarding using turn signals and adherence to traffic lights.

I dunno about the horse thing.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: No longer dancing damply with death

A week ago I was doing my laundry on Saturday when I realized that the load seemed to be taking…hours. When I looked at the minutes-remaining readout, I realized it actually was taking hours. Every time it got down to the point where the final spin should kick it, it looped back to the beginning of the wash cycle.

Consulting Google, I did what I could—the appliance version of the three fingered salute (unplugging, waiting five minutes, plugging in, restarting), but same thing.

Even when I set it to Spin Only, it jumped back to wash and started adding water.

Disconsolately I wrung out the clothes, hung them on the drying rack until they were in a state that I could toss them in the dryer. On Monday I called the appliance repair guy and he came out on Tuesday.

Understand that this machine—bought three years ago when my old, mechanical-only washer finally expired—is packed with electronics. As it is, I had to look really hard to find one that isn’t “smart”, but it’s still computerized and I was envisioning having to replace something expensive.

Well, Alan posited that the machine—like a lot of modern, agitator-free top-loaders—is very sensitive to load imbalance, and was probably trying to reset the load. I couldn’t think that what I had in that particular collection of clothes was markedly different from the hundreds of others I have run since it arrived. A few times, when I was washing mattress pads, the machine would go ballistic and I’d have to turn it off, adjust the placement and then start again. (These modern jobbers don’t have knobs you can pull out to continue where you left off.) He then had me run through a load on speed wash, just to see how it went.

Well, we chatted around the machine for about 20 minutes, and sure enough, it worked just fine. He charged me a call-out fee, and as he was leaving, he noticed a bird’s nest in my dryer vent, next to the front door. He checked for eggs—none—and then brought out a kind of mini-chimney sweep device, with long poles connecting to a drill, and cleaned out what must have been 20 years of lint from that dryer conduit.

It’s a miracle that I haven’t had a fire in the nine years I’ve been here.

Well, Saturday, I filled the washer with my colored clothes and turned the machine on. Let me tell you: then I saw it click over into the spin cycle I was filled with such gratitude. You cannot believe how wonderful it is to have a washing machine that works.

And then, when I dumped the clothes in the dryer, it was wonderful again, knowing I wasn’t risking conflagration.

Life is good.

 

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Not a man at all

In the early days of this century, the Brits used to refer to Prime Minister Tony Blair as “Bush’s Poodle”, because he heeled perfectly in step with the American president’s war(s) in the Middle East.

These days, the occupant of the Oval Office can accurately be termed “Bibi’s Bitch”, since the Israeli PM so easily induced him to pour a coat of legitimacy on his attacks on Iran. In fact, one of the many, many “reasons” the White House has given for the war, uh, “special military operation”, is that Israel was going to attack, so we had to get in their with them.

Sigh.

So, I’ve been hearing that old Everly Brothers standard, “Cathy’s Clown” all week. Seems appropriate.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Icing

Okay—a couple more shots from Monday’s snow. I just like the way it collected on the leaves..

 

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Sugar dusting

We got a dusting of snow from the latest passing storm on Monday night. Not enough to stick to the pavement, but enough to create beautiful sights.

And we need beautiful sights in the first week of the latest war started by the guy who's still tossing his toys out the pram for not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Tree decorations

On one of my walks last week, I noticed a lot of branches and limbs down. We hadn’t had high winds, but maybe the snow and snowcrete have affected the trees.

Anyway, this particular one interested me.

With the price of mushrooms being what it is, I considered harvesting them, but I contented myself with just photographing them.

 

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

 

Gratitude Monday: Resilient beauty

After three weeks of a four-inch crust of snowcrete on my back yard, the thing that gave me the most joy was seeing my winter aconite peeping up from the last blanket of white.

These sturdy little stalwarts never fail to raise my spirits. They only make an appearance for a few weeks, then subside back into the clay. But, oh, what a gift they are.

 

Forget the groundhog, Spring is on its way.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu