tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-299086942024-03-06T22:17:50.392-08:00Ravings of a Feral GeniusVerbal extremism in defense of civil liberties is no viceJennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.comBlogger870125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-83602394505445238012021-10-16T16:10:00.005-07:002021-10-16T16:37:16.445-07:00A Leisurely Stroll Down Dollar Street<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">If you can spare a toothbrush and a bedsheet or two, you're richer than at least a billion people right now.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This website is – not merely a time
sink, but a time vortex: <a href="https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street" target="_blank">Dollar Street</a>, a long-running ongoing
photography project by the Gapminder organization. The idea is,
imagine everyone on Earth lives on a single long street according to
income: poorest at one end and richest at the other. As you stroll
down Dollar Street, residents are asked about their everyday
material existence: how do you clean your teeth? Where do you go to
the bathroom? Where does your drinking water come from? What dishware
and cookware do you have, and how and where do you wash it? How do
you wash and dry your clothes? What soaps or cleaning products do you
have? Where do you sleep, what furniture do you have, what toys do
your children play with, and so on.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I first learned about this a couple
years ago from a <a href="https://ideas.ted.com/what-our-toothbrushes-tell-us-about-inequality/" target="_blank">TED talk</a> “What toothbrushes tell us about
inequality,” discussing the varied ways residents of Dollar Street
clean their teeth:</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote> A woman in Malawi answers the question, “what
do you use to brush your teeth,” by extending her index finger
toward the camera. It’s a common response among the 1.2 billion
people who live on less than a $1 a day. For toothpaste, she points
to the mud walls of her hut. The mud contains abrasive sediments,
which she also uses to scrub dishes and clothing as well. “She
scrapes some mud off the building, she mixes it with water in her
hand, and then she brushes using grains of sand," [photographer
Anna] Rosling-Rönnlund says.</blockquote><p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Other examples: a Burkina Faso family
has a tree branch whose end is carved in such a way as to make a
useful toothpick. A slightly less poor family in Liberia has one
plastic toothbrush, shared by the whole household. A Nepalese family
can afford separate toothbrushes for everybody, but to store those
toothbrushes they put them, handle-first, in gaps in the fairly
primitive/crude brick wall of their home.<br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I just inventoried my own toothbrush
supply, for a two-person household: two in-use brushes by a bathroom
sink (stored in a bone china toothbrush holder with 24kt gold
accents, which sounds fancy, and I suppose it is, but that toothbrush
holder only cost me 99 cents at a thrift store). Two more used
toothbrushes in the little toiletries-suitcase Jeff and I take with
us when we travel. One in the backpack Jeff carries to work. And 16
unused, still-wrapped toothbrushes in the “toothbrushes/toothpaste”
drawer on one of the bathroom shelves, for a grand total of 21
plastic toothbrushes. We also have literally hundreds of yards' worth
of disposable dental floss, multiple tubes of minty fluoride
toothpaste, and myriad accessories like “little plastic snap-on
cases to cover the brushy end of a toothbrush between uses.”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I'm not saying this from any attempt to
brag, or make my online friends envious of my dazzling riches,
because my friends and I all live in rich industrialized nations
where owning a plastic toothbrush, or even a dozen, is not considered
a sign of “wealth” or “status” by any measure. Some of my
unused toothbrushes and related accessories were acquired for free –
advertising tchotchkes which dental offices would hand out at county
fairs, or even send through the mail, in hopes of drumming up new
business.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One question asked of families in the
Dollar Street series regards their hopes and dreams. The
richer-nation families gave answers similar to what American
“middle-class or better” families might say: I dream of owning
rather than renting a house, or retiring early, or taking a year-long
'round-the-world vacation to all sorts of fascinating places … and
then there's the <a href="https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street">Njoka family</a> in Malawi, monthly income approximately
$31 in US money, whose dream is to one day buy bed sheets.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There's fix or six sets in my
linen closet right now, in addition to the set on my bed [which
entails not merely a mattress, but a box spring and dedicated
bedframe, too]. And where their $31 monthly income is concerned, I
once spent more than that on a single visit to the dollar store …
not even to buy “stuff,” but to buy a variety of plastic bins,
boxes and baskets to store and organize “stuff” I already owned
in such abundance, it made my living space look messy. By American
standards, my plastic Dollar Tree organizing bins are cheap and
low-quality (you can find sturdier and much nicer-looking options at
standard department or home-improvement stores, if you're willing to
spend four to ten times as much money), yet they still represent an
unattainable, well-nigh unimaginable, level of wealth for the
poorest couple of billion human beings living today.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Anyway, check out Dollar Street if you
have time to spare. You can search by country, continent, or income
level to see how people live throughout the world.</p>
Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-27015932513780871072021-05-18T13:27:00.006-07:002021-05-18T13:27:50.668-07:00Summer in the City<p> <span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql lr9zc1uh a8c37x1j keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"></span></p><div class="kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">With summertime fast approaching in the northern hemisphere, here's your annual reminder that if you live in a humid climate where moisture/dampness exacerbates any unpleasant temperatures (too-warm OR too-cool), cotton is the absolute WORST of all natural fibers you could wear, despite its common use in T-shirts, jeans and other summer garments.</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> The problem with cotton is that it holds moisture right next to your skin. Last winter, when Texas lost electricity during an extreme cold snap, you might have seen the phrase "cotton kills" in news articles or social media posts advising how to wear layered clothes to protect against subfreezing temperatures: in such situations, the layer against your skin must NOT be made of cotton, because if you perspire at all, every bit of that wetness will be held against your skin and actually increase your risk of hypothermia.</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">The two best "natural" fabrics to wear in hot and humid conditions are linen and rayon, which is also sold as "viscose" or "bamboo." Linen wicks moisture away from your body rather than hold it close the way cotton does; rayon not only wicks away moisture, but many forms of it do not hold any body heat at all -- where heat-retention is concerned, wearing rayon clothing thick enough to block the sun is the same as being naked in the shade.</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Both fabrics have downsides compared to cotton: linen wrinkles very easily and (at least on me) always looks a little ill-fitting even when a garment is cut to your exact size and shape. Furthermore, linen tends to be far more expensive than most other fabrics today. Rayon does not have those problems; however, it is far more prone to stretching out over time, and rayon's refusal to hoard heat makes "100% rayon" garments unsuitable to wear anyplace it would be too chilly to go nude. I've found linen/rayon blend clothes to be the best, since the two fabrics' downsides largely cancel each other out. (Though in super-high heat, 90s or above with matching relative humidity levels, I do stick with 100% rayon anytime I go outside.)</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Silk is another "dry" fabric with the trait of wicking moisture away from your skin. However, it also is very efficient at hoarding body heat, so it's best avoided in high temperatures (though ideal for cooler temps where the humidity remains uncomfortably high).</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">That said: it is especially important that you do NOT use anti-static dryer sheets, or any other laundry treatments, on your silk, linen and rayon garments. Dryer sheets work by coating the fibers of your clothes with various substances which negate any moisture-wicking ability the textile might have, and ruins the clothes in other ways too. So ideally you shouldn't use dryer sheets at all, but you especially shouldn't use them on clothes with moisture-wicking qualities you wish to maintain. I wash and dry my rayon clothes separately from the rest of my laundry, "delicate" cycle for the washer and dryer, and store-brand Woolite detergent in the washer.</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Banish all cotton from your summertime wardrobe if you live in a humid climate! This means socks and undergarments as well. Before I moved to the Deep South, when almost all my summer clothes were some form of cotton or other, I figured it was an unavoidable fact of life that "When you personally are sweaty and gross, so too are whatever clothes you are wearing, and getting undressed after a long sweaty day will always feel like peeling off a wet bathing suit" -- that's true if you wear cotton, but with linen or rayon your clothes actually stay dry even in the most miserably humid heat, and you feel drier and cooler as a result.</div></div><p></p><div><div class="" dir="auto"><div class="ecm0bbzt hv4rvrfc e5nlhep0 dati1w0a" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" id="jsc_c_5i"><div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t ew0dbk1b irj2b8pg"><div class="qzhwtbm6 knvmm38d"><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql lr9zc1uh a8c37x1j keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"></span></div></div></div></div></div>Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-56090153695130255852021-03-31T20:57:00.000-07:002021-03-31T20:57:43.680-07:00Welcome to the Race<p>Over these past many years I've grown so accustomed to living in Fuckup Nation, it took me far longer than it should've to realize: by world-vaccination-rate standards, we're actually doing something right for a change!</p><p>I currently live in Georgia, one of the less-impressive U.S. states where vaccination rates are concerned, but a couple weeks ago they dropped the minimum-age-eligibility requirement from 55 down to 16, so I got my first dose of the Moderna vaccine today, plus an appointment for my second shot in four weeks. For comparison, I have a friend in British Columbia (a male friend, which means I literally, genuinely have a boy friend who is completely real but you've never met him, because he lives in Canada) who does not yet qualify for a shot in his province even though he's 70 -- at his age, if he lived in my neighborhood he'd already have had both of his shots by now.</p><p>I've been extra-lucky: not only did I get an appointment relatively soon after qualifying, but mine was scheduled at a Walmart only a couple of miles from my house (I know of people who had to drive up to 200 miles to get a shot). When I got there I only had to wait a minute or two for the pharmacist to return from a brief break and then he saw to me immediately; when he determined I was there for dose #1 he greeted me with the words "Welcome to the race!" (presumably the race to reach herd immunity before the virus inevitably evolves into even-nastier strains). <br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-62562394581898574402021-03-30T14:45:00.000-07:002021-03-30T14:45:03.101-07:00Important Cultural Issue: What Do Middle-Aged White People Think of Lil Nas X?<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Between my age and my “whiter than
mayo on Wonderbread” status, it's a safe bet I'd never have heard
of, let alone watched, Lil Nas X's latest video if not for the
conservative freakout over it. If you haven't <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/celebrity/lil-nas-x-responds-to-backlash-over-twerking-on-a-cgi-satan-in-montero-music-video/ar-BB1f3Eax#image=3" target="_blank">seen it</a>, here's what happens: it starts with Nas
in the Garden of Eden, innocently playing a [very catchy] song when suddenly,
Satan/the Serpent shows up, leading directly to the first time in
human history that a gay man had gay sex. Nas climbs on a stripper
pole and does some genuinely impressive routines while riding the
pole all the way down to hell.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I don't fully understand why
conservatives are so opposed to such a perfect encapsulation of what
they call “wholesome family values” – gays are of the devil,
they are all damned, and the highway to hell is lined with stripper
poles – but honesty compels me to admit: Nas worked that pole far
better than I could at his age, and I'm only slightly mollified by
the thought “Yeah, well, when I was his age I didn't have a
six-figure choreography budget and another six figures' worth of CGI
enhancement, either.”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-80396473325635090032021-03-12T16:19:00.002-08:002021-03-12T17:14:54.836-08:00Anniversary<p>This is the one-year anniversary of the day Covid Changed Everything, where Jeff and I were personally concerned. Or, to put it another way: exactly one year ago was the last time Jeff and I left home for what we thought would be a typical forgettable afternoon running pre-covid errands -- though before we'd finished we knew otherwise. Our plan was: first, go to Target (the nearest one is a bit of a haul, from our place); next, visit a couple of thrift stores in Target's general neighborhood; lastly, go to Kroger for the week's grocery run. </p><p>The visit to Target was exactly normal, except we both noticed and exclaimed over how the paper-products aisle was completely empty. (Luckily, we didn't need anything from that aisle anyway.) Then we stopped at a Goodwill and both walked away empty-handed -- but as we exited the store, Jeff checked something on his phone, then told me "DeKalb [our county] just closed the schools for two weeks."</p><p>Because of that announcement, I wasn't too surprised when we got to Kroger (which is also the "anchor store" of a fairly large strip mall) and saw that almost every spot in the strip-mall parking lot was taken -- before that, I'd never seen the lot more than half-full even on the eve of Thanksgiving and other "mega-grocery-shopping" days. </p><p>Now, after a year of living in corona-world, if we saw such a parking lot we would immediately turn around and go home. But on March 12, 2020, what we did instead was find a vacant spot in the Siberia part of the lot and go inside the store, which was so crowded, the checkout lines stretched from the cashier's stands all the way to the back of the store, before doubling up upon themselves. (I know this because Jeff and I entered that densely crowded building and personally inspected the size of the crowd and those lines -- another thing we would never do now even with masks on, let alone bare-faced as we were one year ago tonight.)</p><p><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql rrkovp55 a8c37x1j keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"></span></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql rrkovp55 a8c37x1j keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto">When did everything change for you, and what was your personal first indication that "From here on through the indefinite future, things are going to be VERY different?"</span></div></div><p></p>Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-20242707854885516402021-03-10T17:10:00.000-08:002021-03-10T17:10:05.401-08:00Pandemic Diary Day 363: Vaccine Envy<p> </p><div class="" dir="auto"><div class="ecm0bbzt hv4rvrfc ihqw7lf3 dati1w0a" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" id="jsc_c_67"><div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t ew0dbk1b irj2b8pg"><div class="qzhwtbm6 knvmm38d"><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql rrkovp55 a8c37x1j keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"><div class="kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Hmmph. Harrumph. More and more of my friends are getting their coronavirus vaccine shots, or at least have firm appointments to do so, while I don't have so much as an EMA (estimated month of arrival). </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Fortunately, I found<a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2021-02-26/vaccine-envy-there-s-german-word?fbclid=IwAR0BCJkfEFj3YOgfIfkhCR1Oq1L5WSDQfiA4uVvOg4-n6j7koN6hOFAaJ4M" target="_blank"> an article mentioning</a> lots of useful new German vocabulary words to describe my situation:</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">I am currently feeling** a bit of impfneid, especially since I'm still facing a long wait as a resident of Georgia with no conditions and no plans to become an impfdrängler. But I am definitely coronamüde, especially since I am currently only two days away from my one-year anniversary of living in an anderthalbmetergesellschaft.</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">(Translation: I am currently feeling** a bit of vaccine envy, especially since I'm still facing a long wait as a resident of Georgia with no conditions and no plans to play the system and jump ahead of my government-designated spot in line. But I am definitely tired of dealing with coronavirus-related stuff, especially since I am currently only two days away from my one-year anniversary of living in a 'one and a half meter' society where everybody who goes out in public makes a point of avoiding each other by a social-distancing measure of at least six feet.)</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">** I would like to have worded that first sentence "Despite my feeling happy for my friends who have gotten their shots, I am currently feeling a bit of...." But I didn't because, if German does have a new compound word to succinctly describe "the feeling of being happy for someone specifically because they got their coronavirus shot, even while you wish you could get one too" none of the articles I've read on the theme "Interesting new German words from the past year" have mentioned it.</div></div></span></div></div></div></div>Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-26354305015564295802021-03-08T14:18:00.011-08:002021-03-08T14:24:54.938-08:00If I could run the Seuss estate, I'd do it well! I'd be real great!<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The controversy du jour is about the
Dr. Seuss estate's decision to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/02/us/dr-seuss-books-cease-publication-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">pull six books</a> from print because of
certain racist caricatures found in some of the illustrations. Despite what certain conservative
critics claim, this is not a “First Amendment violation” because
it's not the government doing it; the Seuss estate has every legal
right to decide what, if anything, it will do with works whose
copyright they own.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">That said: if I ran the Seuss estate
then, instead of pulling those six books from circulation, I'd
publish them all together in a single volume, alongside commentary
from historians and other experts putting the books into historical
context. If that weren't enough, I'd also share the profits of
that omnibus edition with reputable anti-racism charities.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">How can future generations learn the
lessons of our history if we whitewash away all the bad parts of it?
People of the future need to know: American racism wasn't just
something hidden away in the darker corners of the national psyche --
it was considered wholesome enough for children's books and Disney
cartoons (such as "Song of the South," another classic I
think should remain in print, alongside modern context-giving
commentary).
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I have similar qualms about the
suggestion to digitally remove Donald Trump from that Home Alone
movie he was in -- no, don't do it. Future generations need to know:
Trump didn't just come out of nowhere -- one day the U.S. Republican
Party was perfectly competent and sane, when suddenly a
spray-tanned orange asteroid crashed down from out of nowhere and
left a smoking crater where once stood a principled political party
-- Trump became president after the media spent literal decades
building him up as some business-genius folk hero (and the Republicans spent decades pandering to bigots, but that's for another day). We need to
preserve these parts of our history, so future generations will know
what to avoid.</p>
Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-24505316714314450262021-01-19T17:49:00.001-08:002021-01-19T18:24:24.775-08:00Could a Guaranteed basic Income Save America?<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Long, long ago (at least, it feels like
a long time), in the ancient days of April 2016 when Donald Trump was
merely one of several possible Republican presidential candidates and
<i>surely</i> not the one Republicans would be dumb enough to pick,
amirite? I wrote <a href="https://feralgenius.blogspot.com/2016/04/could-guaranteed-basic-income-save.html" target="_blank">a post asking</a> “Could a guaranteed basic income
save America's free market economy?” </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, as our sick and battered country
limps through the final hours of Trump's disastrous administration,
I'll ask a shorter version of the question: could a guaranteed basic
income save America?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Back in that last April of Obama's
tenure I still thought much of Trump's popularity was because he
appealed to the economically anxious. The Capitol riot on January 6
gave the lie to that – people who can afford to travel across the
country during a pandemic obviously aren't having too many money
problems – but even so, the economic issues I mentioned almost five
years ago have only been exacerbated by the pandemic and the mass
unemployment and financial losses stemming from it.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I suggested (and still support)
abolishing the current patchwork social safety net of food stamps and
housing vouchers and ever-shifting bureaucratic hoops to jump
through, and replacing it all with a modest basic income of around
$250 per week for all adult citizens regardless of income or net
worth (though there would surely have to be some residency
requirements), plus another 10 percent for each child under 18. This
won't make you rich or even comfortably middle-class anywhere in
contemporary America, but it will cover the barest necessities, and
can make for a decent living when combined with whatever wages people
earn in a free and functional economy (which we can't have until
everyone's vaccinated against covid-19, anyway).</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I know many who oppose this on the
grounds that if people were guaranteed the bare basics of life
without having to work for them, so many would be content to settle
for that and nothing else, the economy would completely collapse. “I
got all the basics plus my Xbox and my Netflix; why work for anything
more?”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">True; there probably will be a
[relatively] few people like that. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised
to see an uptick in young adults who try an updated 21st-century
version of the old 1960s-hippie “tune in, turn on, drop out”
mentality.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">On the other hand, most of those
hippies eventually got sick of the dirty-hippie aesthetic, so they
got haircuts and jobs and eventually went on to vote for President
Reagan. And if you mentioned a basic income guarantee back then,
you'd hear many who oppose this on the grounds that if people were
guaranteed the bare basics of life without having to work for them,
too many will be content to settle for that and nothing else, with
the result that the economy would collapse. “I got all the basics
plus my Atari and my Betamax player; why work for anything more?”
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And yeah, there were people back in
1983 who would have been perfectly content with the bare necessities
plus their Atari, Betamax and a selection of tapes and game
cartridges. They'd have been perfectly content to do nothing but get
buzzed all day, play their Atari games or watch their magnetic-tape
videos ... for a couple years, anyway, until newer and better options
made those game and video-watching systems obsolete. The
Atari/Betamax slackers might never be motivated to work for
self-improvement or the betterment of humanity or other noble "Star
Trek when Roddenberry still ran the show" ideals ... but there
would come a time when they're motivated to work at least enough to
upgrade to a Nintendo plus a VHS player and games and videos for
both, and later still to a PlayStation or XBox plus a DVD player ...
and of course, I haven't even mentioned all the upgrades this guy has
made to his home music player and collection, compared to the vinyl
records and stereo system to play them he had back in 1983, and the
time he finally decided to join the growing number of American cell
phone owners, which lasted until he decided to upgrade to a
smartphone....
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ad infinitum. My point is, even if you
oppose a minimal base income because you view humanity as inherently
a bunch of lazy lotus-eaters who require the threat of hunger and
homelessness to give them incentive to work – even if we posit
that's true, we do not live in a world where “avoiding hunger and
homelessness” are the only two possible rewards for holding a job.
But we live in a world of amazing luxuries and wonderful things, with
new ones being introduced – maybe not every day, but certainly
every year or so, to the point where whatever material things made
someone content back in 1983, it's a near-certainty that someone
today has bought all kinds of cool new things which didn't even exist
back then.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And if we did have a basic income
ensuring everyone could at least afford the minimum requirements of
life, then maybe the incoming Biden administration wouldn't be facing
such Democratic criticism over the difference between a $1,400 and
$2,000 <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/bidens-covid-19-stimulus-checks-plan-dollar600-plus-dollar1400-equals-dollar2000/ar-BB1cLcQQ" target="_blank">pandemic relief</a> check.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p>
Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-71505361890445469092021-01-09T16:31:00.006-08:002021-01-09T16:31:59.219-08:00Get Off My Lawn ... no, wait, I don't have one<p>Like many anti-Trump Americans (I suspect), I watched the attempted insurrection at the capital unfold online with an odd combination of "I can't believe this" and "I kind of expected this all along." When I saw the first videos highlighting the less-serious aspects of the event, with people wandering around admiring the sights the way my classmates and I did during our eighth-grade field trip to DC, and for a moment I was tempted to criticize them the way my adult self would criticize actual eighth-graders engaged in something cataclysmically stupid ... until I realized not only was everyone a full-fledged adult, but many were even older than me.</p><p>You almost have to admire such firm commitment to principle, though:
imagine being so committed to the whole anti-mask-wearing "covid 19 is a
hoax" narrative, you refuse to cover your face even when you're
engaging in felonious acts on federal property and know you're being
recorded.</p><p>
</p><p>I would never try storming the capitol or similar things, of course, but
if I did I would try to do so in a non-idiotic way where I have at
least a <i>hypothetical </i>chance of getting away with it. For starters: wear a damned mask (and be glad this is the first time in literally my
entire life where wearing a face-obscuring mask is legal and not even
considered weird). Leave my phone, GPS and all other tracking devices at home (or at least in
my DC hotel room; if the FBI talked to me later, I'd admit I went to the city
but claim I missed the rally because I had another flare-up in my medically
documented, "I got scrips for this" chronic-pain condition). Wear mirror sunglasses big enough to cover all of my face not hidden
under the mask. Pin up all of my unusual-looking hair and hide every
last strand of it under a sung-fitting hat. I'd even buy new-to-me
clothes and shoes in styles and colors I usually never wear (including
the hat, mask and big mirror sunglasses), and throw them all away as
soon as I was done. And likely a couple more things I can't think of
right now, but would if I actually took the time to plan a public outing
where I'm doing something super-illegal. But I definitely would not run
around taking selfies and giving video-recorded interviews to people.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, a lot of them probably thought their actions were okay,
since the President of the United States supported them. And a lot more clearly didn't think
much at all. <br /></p><p><br /></p>Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-25094622375432937422020-12-31T12:50:00.003-08:002020-12-31T12:50:34.435-08:00Official Unconcern for the New Year<p> </p><div><div class="" dir="auto"><div class="ecm0bbzt hv4rvrfc e5nlhep0 dati1w0a" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" id="jsc_c_8r"><div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t ew0dbk1b irj2b8pg"><div class="qzhwtbm6 knvmm38d"><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql rrkovp55 a8c37x1j keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"><div class="kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Exactly one year ago, New Year's Eve 2019, I wished all my friends a happy New Year, and we all saw how THAT turned out. So this time, I officially have No Opinion regarding how this next year will pan out for humanity in general, or you and your loved ones in particular. Don't know, don't want to know, and don't care. Because if I wish you well then that'll either turn out to be ironic foreshadowing, or worse, you'll get what you wish for but with some horrible monkey's-paw twist (like when I hoped to escape from that jury duty notice I got for the end of last March, and sho'nuff I did).</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">So this year I ain't sayin' nothin'. Nope. [Shrug]</div></div></span></div></div></div></div></div>Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-55544873784140428082020-11-23T01:10:00.000-08:002020-11-23T01:10:06.825-08:00The Trump Show: How Will It End?<p>The no-talent hack who wrote the year-2020 screenplay is clearly getting bored with the whole thing, and inventing evermore-implausible twists like "Have the insane lawyer's spray-on hair dye melt down his face during a press conference." But I can't help wondering: how is the dysfunctional Trump show finally going to end?</p><p><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql rrkovp55 a8c37x1j keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"></span></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">1. He becomes the first ex-president in US history who refuses to leave of his own volition, and has to be carried bodily out of the White House</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">2. First ex-POTUS in American history to flee to a foreign country with no US extradition treaties</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">3. Tries to pardon himself on the way out, and has another meltdown upon being told that presidential pardons only apply to federal crimes, not state-level</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">4. Insists to the end that Democrats and/or "antifa" stole the election via "voter fraud," and repeats his earlier call for his followers to apply a, quote, "second amendment solution" to the problem</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">5. Behaves like a dignified adult and gives a concession speech paying lip service to presumptive American ideals like "democracy" and "the will of the people" ***</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">*** I know, that last one was thoroughly ludicrous. I blame it on the fact that I'm currently taking THREE scary-potent meds for various painful spine/nervous system problems I've developed, causing me to have weird hallucinatory thoughts like "Green ideas sleep furiously upon the rainy plains of Spain" and "Trump might actually do the right thing and put the common good ahead of his own narcissistic self-interest, at some point in his life."</div></div><p></p><p><br /></p>Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-6248316445106186902020-10-06T16:50:00.001-07:002020-10-06T16:50:34.116-07:00Covita Trump and Chekhov's Gunshow<p>In the immediate aftermath of the Rose Garden ceremony introducing SCOTUS nominee Amy Coney Barrett to an unmasked, shoulder-to-shoulder multitude of Republican movers and shakers, when news first broke that <span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql rrkovp55 a8c37x1j keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto">Hope Hicks AND Donald and Melania Trump AND Utah Senator
Mike Lee AND many others who attended Amy Barrett's White House social
on Tuesday all tested positive for covid-19, several of my literary-minded social-media
acquaintances made comments about Chekhov's gun. But this went waaay
beyond Chekhov's gun; this was Chekhov's illegal illicit unlicensed
underground gun show, held in an abandoned and condemned building, which
just caught on fire, and now all the ammunition's starting to go off.</span> <br /></p><div><div class="" dir="auto"><div class="ecm0bbzt hv4rvrfc e5nlhep0 dati1w0a" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" id="jsc_c_85"><div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t ew0dbk1b irj2b8pg"><div class="qzhwtbm6 knvmm38d"><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql rrkovp55 a8c37x1j keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"><div class="kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">That said: if I knew absolutely nothing of the context, I would have felt deep pity for Trump when I watched his "<a href="https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1313262497709912067" target="_blank">Mussolini on the balcony</a>" stunt from the other day -- that was obviously a very sick man having great difficulty breathing, to the point where he needed to use almost all of his upper-body musculature to do so. And he put additional strain on his lungs and body, solely for a photo op, because his fear of "looking weak" is so intense that he can't or won't admit "Sometimes, even the strongest people have a genuine medical need to stay in bed and avoid exertion for awhile."</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">A truly strong man is not afraid of looking weak, but a weak man is obsessed with always looking strong. </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">If covid works through Trump's body at the same timeline as it did with Herman Cain, Trump will die only a day or two before the election. Nothing remotely like this has happened in our country's history, and I worry what the results will be. (By this point, sadly, I'm taking for granted that the GOP is not going to act in good faith. It's not the party of Reagan anymore, and hasn't been for a long while.)</div></div></span></div></div></div></div></div>Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-5952111069245438592020-07-11T19:14:00.002-07:002020-07-11T19:14:42.275-07:00CovidiocySo how are the "open" states doing in regarding to covid-19? Let's see: the <a href="https://www.nola.com/news/coronavirus/article_e29aa69c-c227-11ea-9ccc-efd3d2b8e0e6.html?fbclid=IwAR0OslCg9TFjWqx5F6mBgN-WFXKoN1j_XrrTORZOogFzx6dIxpEkpEnwVYM" target="_blank">top five hospitals</a> in Mississippi have run out of ICU beds. The twelve busiest hospitals in the Houston area are outright <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/all-the-hospitals-are-full-in-houston-overwhelmed-icus-leave-patients-waiting-in-er/ar-BB16AFOW?fbclid=IwAR1WtrAbXANGRa5TpNXWMJLmK8G2ciZfvovyKWNEzWURzLrdq5hzNIhVkA4" target="_blank">telling ambulances</a> "Don't bother bringing people here." Florida <a href="https://www.chron.com/news/article/Florida-sets-record-week-for-coronavirus-deaths-15401589.php?fbclid=IwAR1AjCzJNfje46jYAH27Dj-a-sTWLXo__Zy6H8BnoH6l_1w_da2ATyWOOrY" target="_blank">continues breaking</a> its own in-state covid death records (meanwhile, Walt Disney World re-opened today. New recommended ad slogan: "The most magical place on earth, and a good time that is to DIE for!")<br />
<br />
<div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q">
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">
The only way we can safely even TRY to get most of the economy back on track is for everyone to practice certain safety measures – namely masks, distancing and sanitizers – but of course, a lot of people who oppose the lockdowns are ALSO opposed to the simple measures we can take to safely operate without them. </div>
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</div>
</div>
<div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q">
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">
Here in north Georgia where I currently have the misfortune to be, after the first lockdown ended, my husband and I tried, very cautiously, to do some “non-essential, just-for-fun" money-spending things -- those of you who know me may recall what a hardcore thrift shop/flea market/overstock outlet addict I am -- ordering carryout from certain restaurants, doing our bit to help the economy …. and then we went back into quarantine after the local cases kept rising, our own county keeps breaking its own previous records, and FAR too many of our fellow shoppers refuse to wear a mask OR stay the hell away from us. </div>
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</div>
</div>
<div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q">
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">
Oh, and remember when I said “we bought carryout from restaurants?” One of our favorites had to shut down for a couple weeks after one of its employees tested positive. How the hell can we have a functional economy when businesses have to keep closing on the grounds “Oh shit, our place of business is currently crawling with pathogens and we have to sanitize EVERYTHING before we re-open?” And the One Simple Trick that would enable us to have at least a semblance of a normal economy until medical science figures out a way to get a handle on this virus -- wear a mask in public, while practicing certain social-distancing guidelines -- is also the one thing which the Hardcore Heterodoxy tribe refuses to do.</div>
</div>
Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-58109908861650390872020-06-26T13:17:00.001-07:002020-06-26T13:20:22.323-07:00Masks and Parachutes<div>
<div class="" dir="auto">
<div class="ecm0bbzt hv4rvrfc e5nlhep0 dati1w0a" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" id="jsc_c_8m">
<div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t ew0dbk1b irj2b8pg">
<div class="qzhwtbm6 knvmm38d">
<span class="oi732d6d ik7dh3pa d2edcug0 qv66sw1b c1et5uql a8c37x1j muag1w35 ew0dbk1b jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"></span><br />
<div class="kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q">
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">
<span class="oi732d6d ik7dh3pa d2edcug0 qv66sw1b c1et5uql a8c37x1j muag1w35 ew0dbk1b jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto">So the latest anti-mask argument making the rounds is: there's no point in wearing them because any suggestion that wearing masks reduces the transmission of certain airborne contagions is "not validated by any study." Which, so far as I know, is true (at least, I haven't looked for any). And here is something else not validated by any study: there has never, not once, been a scientifically rigorous double-blind study testing whether parachutes are effective at reducing fatalities among people who jump out of airplanes. There exists nary a single peer-reviewed study any pro-parachutists could link to, showing people with parachutes do any better than a parachute-free control group. </span></div>
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<span class="oi732d6d ik7dh3pa d2edcug0 qv66sw1b c1et5uql a8c37x1j muag1w35 ew0dbk1b jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto">
<div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q">
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">
Clearly, then, the only logical, rational conclusion is that parachutes are worthless -- or, at most, are only useful for identifying the cowardly sheeple amongst the skydiving set, eh?</div>
</div>
</span></div>
</div>
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Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-8233804370612933062020-06-19T13:48:00.002-07:002020-06-19T13:48:23.816-07:00Florida's Running Out of ICU Beds
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Here's a <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/multiple-florida-hospitals-run-out-icu-beds-coronavirus-cases-spike-1511934" target="_blank">Newsweek article</a> published
yesterday, June 18, headlined “Multiple Florida Hospitals Run out
of ICU Beds as Coronavirus Cases Spike.”
</div>
<br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
As Florida health officials report
another record single-day increase in cases of the novel coronavirus,
new data shows hospitals across the state have filled most or all
available beds in their respective intensive care units.<br /><br />Numerous
Florida medical facilities reported dwindling ICU bed availability on
Thursday, with several reporting no availability at all, according to
the latest report published by Florida's Agency for Health Care
Administration (AHCA). Palm Beach County was among those statewide
regions where the availability of beds was most scarce. An
accompanying report from AHCA shows about 75 percent of available
hospital beds statewide are currently occupied.<br /><br />The AHCA's
data showed two of Palm Beach County's 17 hospitals have already
filled all ICU beds, while several other medical centers reported
limited availability. One hospital in Miami-Dade County has also
reached its ICU bed capacity as of Thursday, and the majority of
hospitals have filled more than half of beds in intensive care units.
Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties have reported two of Florida's
most severe local virus outbreaks....
</div>
</blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
What's particularly frustrating is that
when the quarantines and lockdowns (such as they were) began last
March, they were never a case of “We'll do this for a little
while, and the problem'll go away”; they were supposed to buy us time
to arrange for testing, contact tracing and similar things to allow
us to (cautiously) re-open in a safe manner, until such time as a
vaccine is developed. But almost none of that has been done, and the
OneSimpleTrick (TM) that could enable most people to resume most
activities (with certain precautions) -- wearing a mask in public --
is being decried by Trumpster-types as America's greatest
human-rights violation since those evil damnyankees forced the noble
Confederates to give up their slaves.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Where the coronavirus is concerned, the
only thing that's changed since March is a much higher number of
people it's killed (currently at 121,269 dead in the US alone,
according to <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/" target="_blank">Worldometers</a>). Our immune systems remain the same,
the virus remains the same, and there's still no vaccine for it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-85060843426854262622020-06-03T18:04:00.003-07:002020-06-03T18:04:38.448-07:00IPMS (Insufficient Pessimistic-Misanthropy Syndrome)
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
All this time I considered myself a
reasonably healthy individual, when it turns out I've had a severe
and apparently permanent case of IPMS (Insufficient
Pessimistic-Misanthropy Syndrome).
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
For all my dismay over how thoroughly
partisanship and the “sports bar/go-team-go” mentality has
corrupted American political discourse (going all the way back to the
end of Bush/beginning of Obama years, when various breeds of Democrat
and Republican flipped positions on civil-liberty and
government-authority matters alongside the POTUS' changing party
membership), and for all the ways I feared "Even by post-2001
standards, Trump's presidency is going to be very very bad for
America; Zod forbid we have anything like a 9/11-level catastrophe on
his watch," in both cases I was insufficiently pessimistic, and
weighed down by too much faith in humanity (or at least the subset of
humanity comprising my fellow Americans).</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I never thought to add “worst
pandemic in a century” to the list of “potential American
disasters, 2017-2021, exacerbated by a President Trump.” Even if I
had, I don't recall ever considering "partisan sports-barism
will get so bad that even amidst the worst pandemic in a century, the
simple act of wearing a face mask or not becomes an actual
socio-political symbol." Nor did I expect an appallingly high
number of self-described liberty advocates to commence sneering at
mask-wearers on the apparent grounds that “Basic self-care, let
alone basic concern for others, are both anti-liberty
principles”--best exemplified by Jeffrey Tucker's <a href="https://twitter.com/jeffreyatucker/status/1256664581092651008" target="_blank">infamous tweet</a> “Adding to my post-lockdown
predictions: the face mask will be rightly regarded as a symbol of
obsequious obedience and grotesque compliance with arbitrary and
ignorant authority.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Yet even if I had been sufficiently
misanthropic and pessimistic to foresee and prepare for all this, I
still did not expect “Amidst the worst pandemic in a century,
rampaging American cops will still disregard social-distancing
procedures if that's what it takes to murder harmless people.”
(Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin certainly didn't bother
wearing a face mask while he used George Floyd's neck as a kneeling
bench. At least I don't think he did; I could not bear to watch
Floyd's murder all the way through. If Chauvin did mask up anytime
during those nine or ten minutes, )</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
And all across America, people
peacefully protesting Floyd's death (and police brutality in general)
have been met by police officers perversely determined to <a href="https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266752393556918273" target="_blank">illustrate exactly why</a> people are protesting.This is how American police behave when
they know their actions are being recorded and broadcast to the
world. Imagine what they do when they think nobody's watching.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Chauvin's callous killing of George
Floyd wasn't the first time, nor even the dozenth time, America has
seen undeniable video proof of a cop abusing if not outright
murdering someone. (And that's just killings caught on video;
consider the far greater numbers of people who died in police custody
under deeply suspicious circumstances, but their actual deaths
weren't recorded.)
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Even worse, in many cases police
officers who do these things aren't even charged with crimes, they
keep their jobs and their pensions . Many times they even get to keep
their jobs and pensions. Police unions overwhelmingly cover for
abusive cops – the union's criticism of Chauvin was notable
precisely because he was one of the rare times when cop unions did
NOT overwhelmingly converge into a blue wall of silence.<br /><br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
My IPMS is flaring up again, because
despite the surreal horror of these past three months, I find myself
feeling … “optimistic” is far too strong a word, but perhaps
“hopeful” works instead. Since the dawn of the smartphone era –
more precisely, the dawn of the “practically everybody has a camera
and video-recording ability nowadays, plus the ability to post this
on the internet” era – “video shows American cop killing in
cold blood” has practically become its own genre of reality show.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
But maybe this time will be different.
It's been over a week now since Minneapolis police officer Derek
Chauvin suffocated George Floyd to death, and the protests are still
ongoing. More importantly, get-out-the-vote efforts are developing in
response. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court might <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/05/29/police-misconduct-supreme-court-reconsider-qualified-immunity/5275816002/" target="_blank">possibly reconsider</a> the
vile doctrine of “qualified immunity,” which basically grants on-the-clock
police officers the legal right to abuse people, with no means of
legal recourse for their victims.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
My country's heading for hell so fast
it's leaving the proverbial handbasket in the dust. IPMS kept me from
ever seeing it coming … and my IPMS keeps me hoping maybe, somehow,
this is the start of something which will change America for the
better, even more profoundly than did the civil rights movement of
the mid-twentieth century.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-78330886680833294982020-05-20T19:43:00.001-07:002020-05-20T19:43:08.488-07:00Snagged By Rule 34Today I learned I need to make a slight
alteration to my vocabulary: specifically, quit using a certain phrase
in reference to a recent unpleasant sartorial period in my personal
life, and find a more appropriate alternative.<br />
<br />
I'm a clothes horse who's been shopping at thrift stores for pretty much
my entire adult life. So, between the facts "I like 'nice' clothes" and
"I know where to find nice clothes (pre-pandemic) dirt cheap," for the
majority of my adult existence, if you were to ask "How many nice,
comfortable, flattering garments does Jennifer have for her local
environment, compared to the typical American woman in her socioeconomic
bracket," the answer would be "Considerably more than average."<br />
<br />
Until recently. Four years ago, at the height of a brutally hot summer, I
moved to the Deep South after a lifetime in milder, more northerly
climes, and immediately discovered "The summer clothing I have now won't
<i> remotely </i>cut it down here." Among other things: in Connecticut I could
often get away with wearing a short-sleeved shirt in summer, without even
needing sunblock unless I planned to be outdoors a significant amount of
time -- but in Georgia, the first time I ever tried exposing my bare
skin to the sun (wearing a sleeveless sundress on a 90-degree June day
Jeff and I planned to spend looking at various rental-home options), my
arm literally stung IMMEDIATELY when the late-morning sunlight hit it. And up north
almost all of my summer clothes were made of thin cotton material, but
cotton's moisture-hoarding tendencies make it intensify the already
virulent humidity down here. I had a few silk summer garments, and silk
is much better at repelling humidity, but it is also extremely efficient
at heat retention, so all but the thinnest and loosest silk is best
avoided in hot weather. Etc.<br />
<br />
Through trial and error, I eventually learned how to dress properly down
here in summer. Short version: wear lots of rayon and rayon/linen
blends. For my own personal clothing/style tastes -- garments I'd choose
if climate and temperature conditions were no object, and I only need
concern myself with 'style/appearance' plus overall comfort -- there are
scads of attractive clothes-I-like available in rayon, and until I had
to quit thrift shopping a couple months ago, I was well on my way to
re-establishing the status quo "The number of garments I have for local
conditions, Georgia summertime version, is higher than average for a typical
American woman." (Right now, thanks to rayon, I think I actually have
more pairs of nice black summer pants <i>and </i>nice black summer
jackets/blazers than I had at the height of my Goth days.)<br />
<br />
But when I first started looking for Deep South clothes four years ago, I
did not yet know this about rayon. In fact, I erroneously believed
rayon was bad for hot and humid conditions, because I thought "Rayon is a
manmade fiber. Polyester and nylon are also manmade fibers, and they
are <i>hideous </i>for hot or humid conditions. Ergo, rayon probably is too."
For a long time -- IIRC close to two years or so, until a friend set me
straight about rayon's ideal anti-humidity qualities -- the ONLY "deep
summer" clothes I bought were made of linen. And linen is relatively
rare by thrift-store standards -- if I had to guesstimate, I'd say a
typical thrift-store clothing rack will have 50 to 100 cotton garments
for every one made of linen. Plus, linen as a textile doesn't really
work well for my preferred style/manner of dress anyway -- it won't hold
much of a form, but somehow always manages to look a little baggy and
ill-fitting even when a garment is cut perfectly for my size and shape.
Especially pants -- I have a couple of actually-attractive linen shirts,
but I have YET to find the pair of linen pants that look good
on me.<br />
<br />
But in my early Atlanta days, when I was genuinely desperate for <i>any </i>clothes I could wear outside without sunburn or overheating, and falsely
believed "Linen is the only fabric that will work in such brutal
conditions," I bought myself quite a few linen garments I never, ever
would've bought otherwise, not even at the < $1-$2 prices most of them
cost me: shirts in awful colors and hideous styles [e.g. "ruffled frills"],
some so oversized they were even too big for Jeff -- and equally
terrible linen pants with ugly earth-tone colors and elastic or
drawstring waists, and the first few pairs I bought were so large I had
to take in their waistbands with a safety pin or they wouldn't stay up.
(I did not, however, buy any pants requiring safety pins to take up the
hems.)<br />
<br />
I called these my "desperation clothes," because I bought them during
that early Georgian period when I was genuinely desperate for anything I
could safely wear outside in daylight. Eventually I reached the
point where I quit buying desperation clothes, because I had
enough that I could at least afford to establish such minimum standards as "I
won't buy clothes unless they actually fit me, without safety pins"
(though within those parameters, I still couldn't be choosy
about color or style--and my definition of "these clothes fit" still
allowed for a lot more baggy shapelessness than my usual norm). <br />
<br />
And then, <em class="text-italics">finally</em>, I reached the point
where I could also afford to say "No more clothes unless they fit AND they are in colors and styles I actually like." This got much easier
once I discovered I could (and should) buy rayon for summer wear too. <br />
<br />
At long last, I think at some point only in the past six months or so, I
had enough deep-Georgia-summer clothing that I could do a culling:
namely, I went through my linen desperation clothes and decided which
ones I'd keep as pajamas/housework clothes, and which I'd re-donate to
the thrift store. Pants requiring safety pins in their waistbands all
went back to the thrifts, as did the frilly shirts because the frills
made them uncomfortable to sleep in ... but I can't remember how many
other shirts and pants I may have got rid of, and why. And of course,
when I did that clothes-culling, I assumed I'd still be making regular
thrift-store visits and acquiring at LEAST three or four new-to-me
garments in a typical month -- I certainly did not foresee or expect
anything like covid-19's changes to my normal daily existence. <br />
<br />
Now that I'm stuck at home all day, and will not be making any
thrift-store visits or new-clothes acquisitions for the foreseeable
future, I'm kind of wishing I'd saved some of those desperation clothes
-- better to wear out an oversized pair of pants I don't even like and
nobody will ever see, than wear out good (or even
minimum-tolerable) clothes under such conditions. <br />
<br />
I checked the archives at a chat forum I frequent -- I know I'd talked about "desperation
clothes" there before, and a couple of clothes-cullings, but don't recall if I
mentioned that specific cull a few months back, or whenever the hell it
was. So I typed "desperation clothes" into the search engine of the
forum.<br />
<br />
At least, I intended to. But I'd absent-mindedly typed the phrase into
my browser search bar instead, so rather than search for the phrase in the archives of an obscure chat forum, I ended up doing an unfiltered DuckDuckGo search of the entire internet.<br />
<br />
(<i>urk</i>)<br />
<br />
(you might want to leave rather than read the rest of this)<br />
<br />
Apparently -- this information is derived from the approximately 0.83 seconds I spent pondering the search results, before going back to the forum -- there exists a subcategory of porn involving women who
piss themselves, presumably because they're denied access to a bathroom
and eventually reach the point where they can no longer hold it in. And
this particular porn subgenre comes up if you do a regular
unfiltered online search for "desperation clothes."Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-65011298325409443972020-04-22T15:30:00.003-07:002020-04-22T15:33:50.778-07:00More Bad News About Covid-19The more I hear about this virus, the worse it gets. A friend of mine
is in the medical field, working the front lines, and mentioned
problems certain survivors (especially those requiring ventilators)
face: the permanent lung scarring is already fairly well-known, but
apparently another problem is kidney damage; something about the virus
replacing the iron in hemoglobin, which does something-or-other with the
end result that many of these poor people will either need a new k<span class="text_exposed_show">idney, or have to be on dialysis for the rest of their lives. </span><br />
<br />
<div class="text_exposed_show">
When I first did the voluntary self-quarantine (voluntary meaning, I
stayed out of the thrift stores and other favorite haunts even when they
were still open), my basic attitude was "I'm not too worried about what
would happen to Jeff or me if we caught it, as I'm sure we'd be fine
and make full recoveries; I'm concerned about passing it to someone who
CAN'T handle it due to immune-system problems or other high-risk
factors." But at some point in the past couple of weeks, that changed to
"Also I am worried about me and mine."<br />
<br />
Another concern: the
<a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/" target="_blank">Worldometers</a> site lists the number of people who have recovered from the
virus in various states and countries -- but I have not yet found any
data breaking down those who recovered: how many made full recoveries
and are now just as healthy as before they got sick, how many recovered
but have permanent lung damage, how many recovered but their kidneys are
shot ....<br />
<br />
Tl;dr: Don't go out if you don't have to, people. And
if you DO have to, then for Zod's sake wear a mask and gloves, wash your
hands, and follow the other anti-contamination protocols. Russian
roulette is a stupid game to play even if there's only two or three
bullets in a hundred-chamber gun.</div>
Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-61844027217340091122020-04-20T16:54:00.000-07:002020-04-20T16:54:12.411-07:00In Georgia, It's NEVER the Right Week to Stop Sniffing Glue
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The good news (relatively speaking):
social distancing apparently has had some efficacy in “flattening
the curve” of new covid-19 cases here in Georgia.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The bad news (no relativity needed):
this news presumably inspired our thoroughly wise* and completely
non-corrupt* governor Brian Kemp to announce plans to re-open the
state starting this Friday, which I fear will cause those flattened
curves to fill out faster than Dolly Parton after she hit puberty. As
Kemp posted on Twitter barely <a href="https://twitter.com/GovKemp/status/1252339586291949568" target="_blank">two</a> hours <a href="https://twitter.com/GovKemp/status/1252339588162637826" target="_blank">ago</a> (blockquote contains two
separate tweets):</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Due to favorable data & more
testing, gyms, fitness centers, bowling alleys, body art studios,
barbers, cosmetologists, hair designers, nail care artists,
estheticians, their respective schools & massage therapists can
reopen Friday, April 24 with Minimum Basic Operations. … Subject to
specific social distancing & sanitation mandates, theaters,
private social clubs & restaurant dine-in services will be
allowed to reopen on Monday, April 27. We'll release more information
in the next few days.</div>
</blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
If the governor has explained how the
hell people such as barbers/hair stylists, tattoo artists,
manicurists and the like are supposed to provide their services while
staying at least six feet away from their clients, I must have missed
that.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Having said this: I must admit Georgia
is not the only state, nor Republicans the only major American
political party, to have many wise* people offering well-thought-out*
ideas. Take for example Senator Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), who
<a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1252266141193580545" target="_blank">said today</a> that “It's been weeks and health care
workers on the front lines still don't have the PPE or medical
supplies they need. We need to federalize the medical supply chain –
now.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In other words, he apparently believes
the way to solve this problem is to give Trump and his administration
even more power than they already have. Trump <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/3/25/21193803/trump-to-governors-coronavirus-help-ventilators-cuomo" target="_blank">said earlier</a> that
Democratic governors have to be nice to him if they want federal aid
in this crisis; I will assume Senator Murphy (whose state has a Democratic governor) missed
that news report, because he was too busy formulating
well-thought-out* plans to solve this unprecedented national crisis.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
*I'm trying out a new “if you can't
say something nice, don't say anything at all” rule. Do you think
it's working? Thank Zod for the sarcasm loophole.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-66700616747952267902020-04-01T14:12:00.001-07:002020-04-01T14:12:33.043-07:00A Super-Easy Quarantine Self-Improvement TipThis sounds like an April Fool's joke, but I'm completely serious:
for those of you stuck at home for the foreseeable future anyway, now
would be a great time to kick your shampoo habit. I haven't used shampoo
<a href="https://feralgenius.blogspot.com/2009/09/stickin-it-to-shampoo-industrial.html" target="_blank">since 2009</a> -- I still wash my hair frequently, of course, but
using only hot water and the pressure of my own fingertips to remove oil
and dirt, followed by a very light conditioner (plus wide-tooth comb)
to serve as a detangler. Compared to my shampoo days, my hair is far
nicer and healthier than ever before -- less frizzy, far fewer split
ends (I literally cannot remember the last time I found one, despite my
hair being around 2.5 feet long), easier to care for, etc.<br />
<br />
Shampoo is literally an "addictive" substance, in the sense that most
people don't need it (modern detergent-based shampoo wasn't invented
until the 20th century, yet clean, shiny hair existed well before that),
but if you start using it, get used to it, and then stop, for awhile
you'll go through "withdrawal" and be worse off than if you never
started using in the first place.<br />
<br />
Basically, healthy hair should
have a certain amount of oil, or "sebum." Shampooing strips sebum from
your hair, thus making your scalp's oil glands go into overdrive to make
up the difference, and ... long story short, if you're a regular
shampoo user, most of the time your hair is either much drier or
(paradoxically) far more oily than if you'd never used shampoo in the
first place. When I kicked the habit, I experienced about two to three
weeks of consistently Bad Hair Days (fortunately during a New England
winter, so I could hide the worst of it under a cloche hat), then my
hair suddenly got better all at once: woke up one morning after an
Atrociously Bad Hair Day, took another conditioner-only shower, braced
myself for another ABHD, but this time when my hair dried it looked
awesome -- better than ever.<br />
<br />
At the time, I wrote a magazine
article about my newly shampoo-free life (archived link <a href="https://jenniferabel.com/the-great-unwashed-venturing-into-the-shampoo-free-life/?fbclid=IwAR3xosZFsznTaKFnkVpA8VAAmnLyB6q_yM9PO5ap6sl--sutxs5zkffhmqM" target="_blank">here</a>). A year
or so later, an online friend of mine told me he'd shown his wife (also
afflicted with long, fine, frizzy red hair) my article and a couple
other things I'd said on the matter, and she decided to give it a try.
Quoth he, "It took about 2 weeks for it to stop frizzing. It took
another 2 weeks before she could, for the first time in her life, run
her fingers through her hair. It's been 4 months and her hair looks the
best it ever has. That is all I just wanted to thank Jennifer on behalf
of my very grateful spouse."<br />
<br />
<i>{Preens}</i><br />
<br />
Of course, none of
this is to say "I never get frizzy hair anymore" -- I live in Georgia,
after all -- but it's the frizz of "clean healthy hair that happens to
be in a ridiculously humid environment," as opposed to the frizz of dry
or damaged hair.<br />
<br />
Seriously, people: ditch the shampoo and make
do with a very light conditioner (nothing advertised as "moisturizing"
or "for dry hair" -- those products are for regular shampoo users with unnaturally low sebum levels). If you give up shampoo now, your hair
will indeed look icky for a couple weeks, but it will return to normal
and look better than ever well before this quarantine is likely to end. (And you'll
save a small fortune on shampoo costs, too.)Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-80203543059746896852020-03-27T14:46:00.002-07:002020-03-27T14:50:07.553-07:00Pandemic Hurricane Prep: Get Started Now<div class="_5pbx userContent _3ds9 _3576" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-testid="post_message" id="js_h">
Serious
advice for anyone living in places where hurricanes and similar natural
disasters are a possible threat during certain parts of the year: start
washing and saving the plastic bottles (caps included) containing soda,
juice, iced tea, Kool-aid and similar non-dairy beverages, even if
you're usually wont to throw these bottles out with the garbage or
recycling. I say this based on concern that, if supply chains and
business overall remains wonky when hurricane season starts in June,
buying the recommended 14-day supply of bottled water will be a HELL of a
lot harder than it already is under those conditions.<br />
<br />
Do not,
however, save and re-use plastic milk jugs or any other
containers that once held dairy drinks (which includes a lot of coffee
beverages); no matter how many times you wash and sterilize it, you can
never be entirely certain you got rid of ALL traces of milk proteins,
which make microbes grow like crazy.<br />
<br />
I already have a large
collection of one-liter and one-gallon bottles (which originally held
Jeff's preferred brands of club soda and unsweetened iced tea). If I had
a big house and basement with lots of storage capacity, I'd just buy
pallets of bottled water and be done with it; however, I live in an
apartment which simply does not have the storage space (or strong-enough
shelving) to hold 48 gallons of water at approximately one cubic foot
and eight 1/3 pounds per gallon. So instead, I keep only a 4-day supply
of pre-bottled water on hand, plus enough clean plastic bottles to hold
another 11 or 12 day's worth. Here's a list of tricks I've learned over
the years:<br />
<br />
1. If you don't have enough shelf or floor storage
space to easily hold all those bulky (though lightweight) bottles, you
can put them in large unused garbage or lawn bags and hang them from the
ceiling of a storage closet or some other out-of-the-way space. Weight
is not an issue with all those empty plastic bottles; only actual volume
of space is an issue.<br />
<br />
2. Easiest way to wash and sterilize
bottles (assuming clear transparent plastic): rinse out each bottle,
then give it a squirt of liquid dish soap, add hot tap water full blast
until the top of the soap suds start coming out the mouth of the bottle.
Then cap the bottle and give it a good shake several times, enough for
the soapsuds to get a chance to go against all interior surfaces.<br />
<br />
3. The difficult/annoying part of washing bottles is actually the
rinsing, and making sure not a TRACE of soap remains in any of them. The
least-annoying method, I've discovered, is: dump all the hot soapy
water out, then fill it with cold tap water slowly enough that the
traces of remaining soap are NOT agitated into suds. Do this until the
water overflows the bottle, then dump everything out. Depending on the
shape of the bottle, you might need to repeat this process anywhere from
two to four times to make sure every last bit of soap is gone.<br />
<br />
4. Of course, drying out the inside of the bottles is the part that
takes the longest, because YOU can't actually dry them; you can only
wait for the water to evaporate out of those narrow bottlenecks. Weather
permitting, I've found the best way to do this is to arrange the
bottles on a drying rack by a window, with direct sunlight shining in/on
the bottles. Otherwise, I set up the drying rack in an out-of-the-way
part of the house.<br />
<br />
5. If you are going to partly fill bottles of
water to freeze, DO NOT use bottles or jugs with irregular shapes; stick
with symmetrical bottles, ideally cylinders rather than squared-off
bottles or anything with angles. I learned this the hard way when I
prepared for a hurricane last year (which, luckily, did NOT hit me after
all): took a hollow-handled jug which originally held a gallon of iced
tea; filled it about 80 percent with water (leaving room for the ice to
expand, of course); and due to the irregular shape of the bottle, the
ice ended up expanding in ways that completely split the bottle. Since I
did not lose power, I only had to discard a giant irregularly-shaped
ice cube plus a bunch of plastic shards; had that ice melted it would've
been a LOT messier.<br />
<br />
6. I reserve the right to add to this list later if I remember anything else.</div>
Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-12791846566955935542020-03-26T13:14:00.000-07:002020-03-26T14:02:48.403-07:00Covid-19: Euphemisms for the DurationSociology poll (preceded by an explanatory personal anecdote):<br />
<br />
When I was a young kid -- single-digit age -- like all members of
Generation X I lived a life of extreme cartoon deprivation, compared to
kids today: other than Saturday morning cartoons, the only ones I could
watch on a regular basis were old (1930s through 50s/earliest 60s)
shorts which originally aired in movie theaters, but by the time I came
around you'd find them on local indie TV stations that mostly aired<span class="text_exposed_show">
whatever syndicated content could be had cheap. Since a lot of those
cartoons (Woody Woodpecker, Tom and Jerry, Max Fleischer's and Tex Avery's oeuvres) came out
in the early 40s, I actually got a "feel" for certain aspects of daily
life in World War Two before I had any inkling of their contemporary
equivalents -- for example, I had a vague understanding of how "ration
points" had to be considered whenever you'd buy food at the grocery
store, loooong before I knew anything about the importance of checking
the unit price of an item in order to get the best deal (e.g. "Paying
$1.50 for the 20-ounce bottle is a better bargain than paying $1.00 for 10
ounces").</span><br />
<br />
<div class="text_exposed_show">
Thanks in large
part to those cartoons, I also knew that during the war, many Americans
referred to it as "the duration" -- certain businesses would sport signs
saying "closed for the duration," people (or anthropomorphic animals)
would talk about doing things only "for the duration," etc. Obviously,
this was used as shorthand for "the duration of this war." And now,
almost immediately after covid-19 brought about radical changes to my
ordinary everyday life, I started referring to "the duration" -- I just
checked the archives of a chat forum where I hang out, and in just the
past three days I've mentioned such sentences as "Texas has also banned
abortions for the duration" and "Jeff's workplace has [instituted
various changes] for the duration," among others -- and of course, I
have no idea if I came up with this phrase "on my own," so to speak, or
if I am merely defaulting to a usage I learned as a very young child watching cartoons older than my parents.<br />
<br />
So, here's a question for all of you: what phrases, abbreviations or
euphemisms, if any, have YOU been using when discussing the quarantine
and other covid-19 issues?</div>
Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-82495501817399408522020-03-23T09:38:00.002-07:002020-03-23T09:38:33.980-07:00Coronavirus: the Bad Part Hasn't Even Started YetWhen <a href="https://feralgenius.blogspot.com/2020/03/jury-duty-in-time-of-coronavirus.html" target="_blank">I said</a> I hoped I'd get out of jury duty, I didn't mean it like this, dammit.<br />
<br />
<div class="_5pbx userContent _3ds9 _3576" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-testid="post_message">
The Georgia county where I live nowadays is trending on Twitter (at least for me) because today the CEO
declared a state of emergency closing various types of businesses, and
there were many heartbreaking replies along the lines of "I'm a
restaurant server, my rent is due at the end of the month, how am I
supposed to pay my bills if I can't work?"<br />
<br />
I was just thinking
the other day how relatively fortunate I am in pandemic terms, at least
in the sense of being married to a spouse whose job is deemed
"essential"; even if we had total Italy-style shutdowns he would still
be working and earning money. And what money I make these days is all
remote/work-at-home anyway. But if something like this had happened when
I was in my teens and most of my 20s (rather, if my personal
work/home/financial situation were what it was then), I'd be utterly
screwed -- single and living alone, thus paying all bills myself rather
than splitting them with someone; can't work to earn money because the
dance clubs have shut down; and the amount of money I had in savings
back then would NOT have been sufficient to see me through any extended
dry spell.<br />
<br />
And a hell of a lot of people these days are even
worse off than I was then -- for example, 20-something me would still
need to scrape together the April rent payment in eight days, but at
least she wouldn't have a car insurance payment as well, because she/I
always paid premiums six months at a time. But even THAT put me ahead of
the game, compared to most of the paycheck-to-paycheck people I knew and worked with then. A
lot of Americans are going to be seriously hurting without serious help,
and soon.</div>
<br />
<br />Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-88232356381587026562020-03-13T17:35:00.003-07:002020-03-13T17:35:54.991-07:00Jury Duty in the Time of Coronavirus
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I haven't figured out the precise
variable responsible, but: this entire millennium I've gone around
with a bureaucratic bull's-eye pinned to my back, compared to my
spouse or certain other adults I could mention: in Connecticut,
Virginia and now Georgia, I got a jury duty notice while Jeff remains
blissfully unencumbered, even though he and I have each registered a
car in our name, registered to vote and other activities which,
according to legend, make one more likely to get called for jury
duty.</div>
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<br />
</div>
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I got the notice last Saturday, and
after the expected obscene grumblings went online to register as
required. Then the COVID-19 coronavirus came to Georgia, and
suddenly I'm a minor background character in a poorly written sci-fi
pandemic movie.</div>
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<br />
</div>
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Did you know that Georgia has a state
park called Hard Labor Creek? I <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/breaking-news/georgia-preparing-park-for-isolating-patients-exposed-coronavirus/qtEDELBUm8Xo0TqlCRhPgI/" target="_blank">didn't </a>until this week, when I initially misread a certain news
announcement as saying the state was sentencing coronavirus patients
to quarantine at hard labor. Then Fulton County (one county over from
where I live, and home to much of Atlanta) closed its public schools
due to the coronavirus.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
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Jeff and I were out running our regular
weekly shopping errands yesterday when word came down that our own
county of Dekalb had also closed its public schools due to
coronavirus concerns.</div>
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<br />
</div>
We stopped at a Target and the toilet paper aisle was completely
empty, though we had no difficulty buying other things on our list.
We went to our favorite (nice-neighborhood) Kroger an hour or so
later -- the school-closure notice come out sometime after we left
Target but before Kroger -- equally gutted TP aisle, and the rest of
the store was packed with panic buyers. The checkout lines were so
long they stretched all the way to the back of the store. I have only
ever seen that once before in my life, in news photos of Houston
supermarkets just before Hurricane Harvey drowned the city. So we
left the grocery store without buying anything, since we didn't want
to wait in those insanely long lines. (Fortunately, we could afford
to do that since we weren't remotely close to running out of "food"
at home; at worst we were running low on certain perishable foods we
particularly LIKE.)<br />
<br />
On the other hand, this morning before I woke up, Jeff went out to
our local (low-income-neighborhood) Kroger and was able to buy some
TP (though not our regular brand), a loaf of sandwich bread (ditto),
and most of our regular everyday grocery-list items too.<br />
<br />
I'm not too terribly worried about the virus itself, but I am
concerned over how our country will respond, especially regarding the
Trump administration's with the usual “deny, deflect and kick
scapegoats” method of governance. And I find myself dreading jury
duty even more than I usually do.<br />
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<br />
</div>
Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29908694.post-77248118974858632022019-12-09T08:43:00.001-08:002019-12-09T08:43:13.118-08:00Pornography? Marriage? Same Thing (by Matt Walsh's Reasoning)For all the problems facing America, conservative pundit Matt Walsh has decided "pornography" is the one we (read: the government) absolutely need to Do Something about. In a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-5-reasons-why-porn-should-be-banned-matt-walsh" target="_blank">semicoherent Daily Wire piece</a> Walsh listed "5 Reasons Why Porn Should Be Banned," including this one:<br />
<br />
Porn makes you less free <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
There is nothing freeing about porn. A “free
society” is not one that must, or should, feature easily accessed
pornography. Porn kills freedom because it enslaves the viewer to his
passions. I understand that very silly people, who are not in the habit
of thinking, will snicker at the previous sentence. But they only
snicker because they are slaves themselves. They are so consumed by
pornography, so beholden to it, that they are not capable of
intellectually engaging with any criticism of it. They are obsessed with
porn, and they will viciously defend it, yet they derive no joy from it
and they hate themselves while they watch it. They are slaves. And
slaves cannot be free.</blockquote>
People in prison for publishing or looking at sexy pictures cannot be free either, but never mind that (Walsh clearly doesn't); thing is, you could use this argument to rail against many things Walsh presumably approves of, including monogamous marriage, which kills freedom because it enslaves
the spouse to ONE AND ONLY ONE person out of billions available. I
understand that very silly people, who are not in the habit of thinking,
will snicker at the previous sentence. But they only snicker because
they are slaves themselves. They are so consumed by marriage, so
beholden to it, that they are not capable of intellectually engaging
with any criticism of it. They are obsessed with marriage, and they will
viciously defend it, yet they derive no joy from it and they hate
themselves while they live it. They are slaves. And slaves cannot be
free.<br />
<br />
<br />Jennifer Abelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393331128272481897noreply@blogger.com0