Oh, poop

People—what the almighty hell is wrong with you?

I see this all the time on the W&OD train; dog walkers think their civic responsibility is met if they bag their animal’s poop. No need to carry it to a trash bin.

But when you’re within 20 yards of a bin? Explain this to me. Now.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

H2 O my

So, this happened yesterday:

Only (and I know you're be amazed by this):

And these replies were pure gold:

God, but we are well and truly fucked.

Medical wonder

Yesterday I had occasion to have a CT abdominal scan. The prep for that required that I ingest 1.5 bottles of what is pleased to call itself a barium smoothie.

Let me just say that it’s not so much a “smoothie” as a “slimy”.

The scan itself lasted less that 15 minutes, from being called to the waiting room to exit. That was a breeze.

 

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

Gratitude Monday: mobility

Three things you need to know: I am from LA, a place where without access to a motor vehicle, you are completely dead in the water. Public transportation was a joke when I was growing up and you needed a car to accomplish the basics—get to work, buy groceries, get to swimming lessons at the Y. I walked to school, K-12; that was the only thing that was walkable in my youth.

The second thing: I drive a 2001 Saab. It only has 115K miles on it, so I rightfully expect to get another 136K before I need to think about replacing it. The battery is about two years old, but I don’t put a lot of miles per year on it.

Third: There was snow/wintery mix on the 17^th, and up until Saturday, we’ve had many days of temperatures that didn’t rise above 20F; they went down to single digits a couple of nights.

I had no reason to drive on the MLK weekend, but I was going to go out to breakfast with a friend on the holiday. She couldn’t get out of her cluster parking lot because it was an icy hill, and when I went out to start to car, the battery was completely dead.

Well, I ordered one of those portable battery chargers, because I knew once I got the car started, it would be okay. It arrived on Tuesday, but when I went out to connect it, I found that the snow on my car had turned to ice, and the hood was frozen to the frame. I couldn’t get it open.

For a couple of days, I chipped away at the ice, but with temps in the 20s, I was getting no help from nature. And I needed milk. Then I remembered—my neighbors were both in Seattle, and he’d left me the key to Das Auto. He’d already asked me the week before if I’d started the car, and was clearly disappointed when I said I hadn’t, so I thought he wouldn’t mind if I drove it to Trader Joe’s.

Das Auto started straight away. It took a while to scrape off the windshield and rear window (it’s an SUV), but while I was doing that, the driver’s seat was heating up. Let me tell you—the most amazing invention of the 20^th Century is not the polio vaccine or rocket engines, it’s heated car seats. Streets in the People’s Republic were clear and I made it to TJ and back without incident on Wednesday. And I drove it the next day to pick up something I needed for a medical appointment today. The Saab was still frozen shut.

Thursday afternoon, I was sitting at my desk and saw my neighbor waving at me through the front window. Back from Seattle. I handed over the key straight away; he told me to feel free any time to come down and sit in the heated seat. He also said we could try hot water on Friday to free the hood.

Well, Friday morning I went out and was ecstatic to feel the hood pop up when I pulled the latch. And that battery charger worked a treat. I got all the icy scraped from my windows and drove around town. Went to the library, bought bleach and tea—and felt the most wonderful relief and freedom. Selkie doesn’t have heated seats, but I wasn’t worried about some yahoo ploughing into me while driving someone else’s car.

If you are not a Southern Californian, you may not fully grasp what a difference this made to me. It was as though the sun had come out; hope returned to my life.

So my gratitude today is for having my car fully operational again, but also for being able to use my neighbor’s car in a pinch.

And, of course, for the heated seat.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Change the world

Graham Nash’s “Chicago” has been in my head recently. He wrote it in response to the trial of the Chicago 7 (originally 8), but it seems so apt for what I’m seeing now. The emboldening of White racists, abandoning any kind of accountability for law enforcement thuggery, obliteration of regulations and dismissal of any pretense of the rule of law. And we can look forward to a whole lot more of binding and gagging.

Man—good times, eh?

Here’s Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young singing it. Crank up the volume.

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Mad hatter

Quiz time: what are these memes from this week referencing?

Do you really need a hint? Okay:

Also:

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

White infrastructure

Oh, I forgot—in our first snow of 2025, a couple of weeks ago, we got enough for kids to make snowmen. And build a snow fort. Or whatever this is.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Weathering the day

It was a beautiful day yesterday in the People’s Republic. We got maybe one or two inches of snow on Sunday—not the big dump that was forecast. It was mixed with rain, and of course froze overnight, which made walking iffy. It was cold—no doubt about it, but not much wind here.

Also—my car battery wouldn’t start. But I have the key to Das Auto, which—as it happens—does have a new battery, so I was able to get around.

I shovel my patio so the birds don’t have to dig around in the snow for seeds. It got a little coating after I cleared it on Sunday; here are the designs left by little bird feet.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: No lie can live forever

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr., day in the United States. The third Monday in January has been a federal holiday since 1986; I suppose that’s another line item on the grievance list of White supremacists. Boo hoo.

In March of 1965, King was one of the thousands who marched from Selma to Montgomery; when they reached the Alabama capital, he gave an address that resonates with me particularly strongly today. He began:

“Last Sunday, more than eight thousand of us started on a mighty walk from Selma, Alabama. We have walked through desolate valleys and across the trying hills. We have walked on meandering highways and rested our bodies on rocky byways. Some of our faces are burned from the outpourings of the sweltering sun. Some have literally slept in the mud. We have been drenched by the rains. Our bodies are tired and our feet are somewhat sore.

“But today as I stand before you and think back over that great march, I can say, as Sister Pollard said—a seventy-year-old Negro woman who lived in this community during the bus boycott—and one day, she was asked while walking if she didn’t want to ride. And when she answered, ‘No,’ the person said, ‘Well, aren’t you tired?’ And with her ungrammatical profundity, she said, ‘My feets is tired, but my soul is rested.’ And in a real sense this afternoon, we can say that our feet are tired, but our souls are rested.

“They told us we wouldn’t get here. And there were those who said that we would get here only over their dead bodies, but all the world today knows that we are here and we are standing before the forces of power in the state of Alabama saying, ‘We ain’t goin’ let nobody turn us around.’’

King enumerated continuing goals for marchers—segregated housing, segregated schools, poverty and ballot boxes. The latter are mentioned several times, because they are the keys that unlock all the rest. Then he served notice to all the White folks calling for the 1965 version of “unity” that the kind of unity they want—Black folks kept in their place—is not in the cards.

“The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy that recognizes the dignity and worth of all of God’s children. The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy that allows judgment to run down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy of brotherhood, the normalcy of true peace, the normalcy of justice.

“And so as we go away this afternoon, let us go away more than ever before committed to this struggle and committed to nonviolence. I must admit to you that there are still some difficult days ahead. We are still in for a season of suffering in many of the black belt counties of Alabama, many areas of Mississippi, many areas of Louisiana. I must admit to you that there are still jail cells waiting for us, and dark and difficult moments. But if we will go on with the faith that nonviolence and its power can transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows, we will be able to change all of these conditions.”

And here we get to the part that I take to heart:

“I know you are asking today, ‘How long will it take?’ Somebody’s asking, ‘How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?’ Somebody’s asking, ‘When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?’ Somebody’s asking, ‘When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?’

“I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because ‘truth crushed to earth will rise again.’

“How long? Not long, because ‘no lie can live forever.’

How long? Not long, because ‘you shall reap what you sow.’’

William McCormick/Huntsville Times Archives/Alabama Department Of Archives And History

And this is what I’m holding on to today:

“How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

I am the most impatient person you will ever know. And seeing the events of the past eight years culminating in the return of the convicted felon to the White House, surrounded by sycophants and toadies has sent me up the walls. I’m infuriated by 95-year-old Nazis claiming the infirmities of age as a defense against standing trial for war crimes. I have been flipping out at the outrageously unqualified nominees for Executive Branch appointments. I scream knowing that Jack Smith had enough on the Kleptocrat to convict him for election interference, but prosecution was obviated by the election. And don’t get me started on Aileen Cannon and Samuel Alito. Having King remind me that—even if I do not live to see it—no lie lives forever and the arc of the moral universe will bend toward justice brings peace to my soul.

My soul needs that peace, and I am grateful for it today, this week and the coming four years. We definitely have difficult days ahead of us and we have many miles to go. Let us all keep our eyes on truth and justice as we march.

 

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

Another perfect day

Seems to me that the only possibility for today’s earworm is Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.”. Released in 1983, this is the anthem to the city and culture of the protean community that’s been drawing in dreamers for two centuries. Newman—like myself—is a native and he knows how to celebrate and mock in the same breath.

One of the things he calls out is the Santa Ana winds, which are a major factor in the ferocity and uncontainable wildfires that have raged across the county for a week. If you’ve never experienced one of them, shut the fuck up about how if you were in charge, you’d have put out the flames in less than a day. (It amazes me not that Republicans are on the “we have to chastise Californians because their disaster is of their own making, while the disaster of two hurricanes in Florida and the Carolinas are completely different” wagon, but because Republicans from California are climbing on that wagon to score points with the Kleptocrat.) Santa Anas are dry and hot, and gust up to 100mph; not for nothing are they known as “devil winds”.

Here's Raymond Chandler on them, in the novella called “Red Wind”:

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”

Well, possibly fewer cocktail lounges these days. And some of the settings for Newman’s video have been incinerated. But the city will reinvent itself. Again.

 

 

©2025 Bas Bleu