Too many of you crying

I believe today’s earworm is appropriate for our times. Our times being two days after Jeff Bezos and his ex-Murdoch stooge publisher Bill Lewis completely eviscerated The Washington Post because reasons, but also because of the ongoing federal police riot in Minneapolis and other US cities. It’s Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?”.

Gaye wrote this with Renaldo “Obie” Benson and Al Cleveland in 1969/70, after Benson (a member of the Four Tops) witnessed police brutality at an anti-war protest in Berkeley’s People’s Park. Gaye released it in 1971.

I rather feel like judges all over the country have been asking Gaye’s question for the past 12 months. They’re getting testier and testier about the lack of response from the DOJ and DHS clowns. Viz: this ruling from District Judge Fred Biery, releasing the 5-year-old boy who was abducted by ICE agents, along with his father, in Minneapolis and shipped off to a Texas concentration camp. The whole thing is quite short and well worth a read, but the final page is a WTF broadside:

(The Bible citations are Matthew 19:14: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” And John 11:35: “Jesus wept.”)

Turn up the volume and listen to Marvin.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

Walking hazard

Okay, now we’re at the tricky stage of snowfall:

When the piled snow melts in the sun (and temps in the mid-30s, yay!) and then freezes. As a pedestrian, you don’t know whether that slick patch is water or ice.

For the record—this one is ice.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Unintended consequences

Since Fairfax County no longer accepts glass for recycling, you have to schlep jars and bottles and whatnots to designated dumpsters. Yesterday I took the accumulation of glass over to one of them and discovered that it’s apparently been a rough couple of weeks or so.

Pretty much filled to the brim.

Gonna be a tough winter.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Getting around

Eight days after the Big Dump o’ Snow and Sleet, our snow removal contractor finally got around to actually clearing the cluster parking lot.

At the South exit, they piled all that snow up at the street corner, so you have to creep out into the middle of the road to see whether anyone’s coming from the right.

Yay.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

 

Gratitude Monday: warm hands

We here in the environs of the District They Call Columbia have had sub-freezing temperatures for well over a week. We still have mountains of snow from last weekend’s storm, and—while I’m grateful this weekend’s bomb cyclone missed us—this stuff won’t go away for a while.

So on this Groundhog Day I’m grateful for these gloves that a friend knitted for me:

She chose the open-finger pattern so I can take photos with my mobile without having to remove my gloves. The material is wool, so it’s really warm. They are a great blessing on my morning walks, where temperatures have been in the low double digits for weeks.

Being from LA, I’ve never grown used to wearing gloves (or carrying umbrellas), so I have to remember to put them on when I go out. A couple of weeks ago, I stuck my head out the back door to toss seed to the birds and it seemed okay. So when I left through the front door a couple of minutes later I thought, “I probably don’t need the gloves.”

I didn’t get two houses away before I realized I needed the gloves, so I went back and put them on.

So grateful to have them.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu