Before this battle's won

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

DMV defiant

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.)

Washingtonians really don't give a toss. (Traveling Gun hasn't renewed since 2015.)

Pennsylvania and Texas don't seem to care about renewals? 

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

 

Scofflaws in the hood

Back in April, when I changed my walking route to encompass more city streets (as opposed to the W&OD Trail), I started to notice license plates of parked cars.

Specifically—I clocked so many that were expired. At first, it was a couple of months past renewal.

But then it went back years.

2023:

2021:

2020:

And it's not just the actual plates. Here's a temporary tag—the one the dealer gives you to hold you over until the DMV sends out the metal ones:

 This one I thought was giving an extra special thumb-nosing:

But then I realized they'd put the month/year on the front plate. (This is illegal in Virginia; these stickers have to go on both front and rear plates.)

This guy is really bolshie; but then...it's a Tesla.

This is just in about a one-mile stretch—and includes some real scofflaws in my own cluster.

I don’t know why the People’s Republic should be such a hotbed of vehicular outlawry, but here we are.

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

Masked mystery

Here’s something a bit unexpected, along the W&OD Trail.

I mean—possibly seasonal, but what’s the story behind its abandonment?

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: preparation

We’re creeping forward to longer nights and cooler weather. Leaves here in the People’s Republic are not putting on much of a show so far this year—at least in terms of colors. (Not like past years.) But I’ve got a two-foot layer of fallen leaves rimming my patio, waiting for the cluster landscapers to blow them into piles and haul them away.

Still, there's this:

Squirrels are scrambling about hither and thither, tennis ball-sized tree droppings (nuts? Seeds? I dunno) in their mouths, looking for places to bury them.

I’ve wrapped the pots holding my three dwarf citrus trees in bubble wrap to protect them against whatever chill we get. (Although, what with climate change, we haven’t had really cold weather for a couple of years.)

And I bought myself an electric mattress pad. You cannot believe how luscious it is to climb into an already-warm bed at the end of the day.

I’m grateful for all of it in this autumn season.

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

Don't close your eyes and hope for the best

 

With just two more Fridays between us and the election, this seems like a good piece to share with you. Stevie Nicks and friends, "The Lighthouse".

If you have not yet voted, make a plan and execute on it.

If you have voted, thank you.

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

Social annoyance

Every once in a while Twitter gets more bolshie about serving up ads. This week is one of those times; I do what I always do: block any account that serves up an ad in my feed.

But in Elno’s quest to drive his $8 subscriptions (evidently his plan to make up for the billions in ad revenues he lost by displaying ads next to Nazi, racist & porn content), he’s added one extra step to the process.

You block the ad, and then get this opportunity to do away with ads forever, by renting a blue check. The only way you can make it go away is to click on one of the two options.

In my case, “maybe later” means “on the 12^th day after Armageddon”.

Twat.

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

Ark-Woo

Time for another bunch of vanity plates, I think.

This Mini had both an interesting plate and an interesting sticker:

And these three are pretty self-evident.

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

Encountering the Nazgûl

Earlier this year, I shared with you some photos of street lamps in a neighboring cluster. That post included one kind of sad image of a shadow of the very Art Nouveau lights. This past weekend I got a better shot, so here it is.

You’ll forgive me if I say it reminds me of the Witch-king of Angmar.

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: the neighbors

On my Thursday morning walk I caught two foxes playing in a sand trap on the golf course. They were on hind legs, batting each other with their front paws. Sadly, they quit when they saw me, and I only got these pitiful shots of them.

Then, Saturday morning I met up with possibly one of them, in the green space* between my cluster and the ex-corporate HQ behind us. And then someone showed up later that day to snarfle up some bird seed.

I also listened to the resident hawk up in the trees—not yet driven out of its habitat by the massive “luxury” townhouse construction project on the ex-corporate HQ campus. And I realized how grateful I am to have these creatures for neighbors (along with the birds and the chipmunks), for their visits and serenades. That's big gratitude.

 

*I’m sure developers will buy that space, which is about 20 x 40 meters, to construct a high rise of “luxury” condos with a Starbucks on the ground floor, in about five years.

 

©2024 Bas Bleu