bob – Page 5 – A Jaunty Little Blog

October 3, 2020October 5, 2020

The 2020 Jaunty Election Guide – Can We Panic Now Edition

Friends,

Remember when our politics were normal? There was a time, wait for it, when we Americans wouldn’t punch each other in the face for supporting the other party. When we wouldn’t bring long guns to protests. There was a time when we wouldn’t have to worry about somebody coughing on us during a pandemic just to prove a political point.

There was a time before the president of the United States was being hospitalized for a deadly illness that he and his administration made much worse. (there was a time when you used to use an initial capital letter when spelling president. – ed Seems like a long time ago!) I remember when inaction by a president that resulted in the death of over 200,000 Americans would have been immediately disqualifying. Have a seat and let me tell you a story about how the nation would be scandalized by a president that used curse words. There was a Vice President who left office in disgrace for tax evasion. A President who left office for campaign violations and another who was impeached for lying to a grand jury. These things happened before the Republicans coalesced on a plan: lie, block, obstruct, and disenfranchise anybody who won’t keep them in power.

You have to give it to them that their project has been very successful. They’ve appealed to the worst impulses of the American electorate, ensuring GOP minority rule for years. Xenophobia, white nationalism, and a vague reinterpretation of public comity into their familiar bugbear they like to call “socialism” has kept their older, whiter electorate coming back for more. I have hope that it ends this year.

That’s why everyone here on The Best Political Team on this Blog™ has been working double-overtime to analyze your choices in this election and to provide you expert analysis so you can make an informed choice in this crucial election.

Candidates

We haven’t picked actual candidates in actual races for a while, but if you’re wavering on who to choose in this election, maybe this’ll help push you over the edge.

President of The United States – Joseph R. Biden, Vice President – Kamala D. Harris
In the primary, I voted for Elizabeth Warren because I wanted somebody to prosecute the case against the 45th president, but the wisdom of selecting Joe Biden as the nominee seems brilliant in retrospect. He’s (almost) everything the current president isn’t—informed, compassionate, gentle, steadfast, and devoted to service. Sounds weird writing that because we’ve been missing those qualities in our current craven, self-serving, grifter government. I’m ready to not have to worry about the next politically damaging tweet or dumb trade war. I’m ready for competence in government.
I’m going to miss Senator Harris’ representation of California, but she’s perfect for Vice President at this moment.
United States Representative, District 36 – Dr. Raul Ruiz
The good doctor is the incumbent and has been doing a remarkable job for the Coachella Valley. In addition to his stewardship of the Salton Sea restoration project, he’s taken on veterans’ health issues, and protections for the workers in the fields who put produce on our tables. There are two groups how don’t like him—GOPs who see a seat ripe for the picking and activists who don’t think he’s moving fast enough. The former need to become comfortable pounding sand for the foreseeable future and the latter need to just cool it.
United States Representative, District 50 – Ammar Campa-Najjar
We don’t know too much about Mr. Campa-Najjar except that he lost in the mid-terms here in California’s deeply red and disturbingly nuts 50th district to indicted, later convicted felon, Duncan Hunter Jr. Now he’s running against carpetbagger Darrell Issa who bailed out of his own coastal district when it was clear he was going to lose to Mike Levin in 2016. Fortunately, Mr. Issa has plenty of cash on hand for a comfortable retirement. It’s only right that we help him do that.
San Diego County Board of Supervisors, 3rd District – Terra Lawson-Remer
The County Registrar of Voters seems to be having a very tough time getting voter information out this year. Ms. Lawson-Remer’s opponent, a weird GOP acolyte, is having no trouble putting out campaign hit pieces and polluting the discourse. We’ve had it up to here with that nonsense and we’re endorsing Ms. Lawson-Remer, who seems to have had quite a history of mixing things up for the good of average Americans. Keep an eye on her.

California Propositions

There’s a big list this year, so let’s get to it…

Prop 14 – Authorizes Bonds Continuing Stem Cell Research – Initiative Statute: 2004’s Proposition 71 caused the anti-choice activists in this state (And there are a lot. Just drive 25 miles away from the coast and you’ll find them.) to writhe on the floor and choke on their tongues. The idea was that the state would support and protect a burgeoning, but legislatively at-risk biomedical industry with the trade-off that the state would share in the profits of any therapeutic discoveries developed with our money. Well, the money has run out and they’d like a new bond issued. We don’t normally support bond issues, but this one seems important. We knew progress wouldn’t be quick, now we’ll need to put up the cash.
Prop 15 – Increases Funding Sources For Public Schools, Community Colleges, and Local Government Services By Changing Tax Assessment Of Commercial And Industrial Property – Initiative Constitutional Amendment: It’s surprising that this proposition isn’t getting more ink, since it’s intended to start unravelling the infamous Proposition 13 from 1978 that essentially locked in property tax rates to a maximum of 1% of values, and annual increases of 2%, prohibiting reassessment unless property was sold. Great news for your grandparents who own their house outright. Bad news for school districts who rely on local property taxes for funding that haven’t kept up with inflation (or the cost of technology, training, removing asbestos, pandemics, etc.) The original proposition was intended to protect homeowners from gouging by evil county tax assessors, but it also included commercial property. The new proposition, firmly treading on the third rail of California politics, seeks to remove those protections from commercial properties worth over $3 million to provide somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 billion in new funding to schools. It’s a slippery slope and could be bad, but we feel it’s worth the risk to provide a quality education to kids in California. Hell, they may even reinstate civics classes. Remember, despots dig low-information voters. Just sayin’.
Prop 16 – Allows Diversity As A Factor In Public Employment, Education, And Contracting Decisions – Legislative Constitutional Amendment: Remember when institutional racism ended in 1996 and California voters approved Proposition 209, which banned consideration of race in hiring? In cart-putting before horse voting, Californians were convinced somehow that we didn’t need to protect minorities and underrepresented groups because something magically happened and there weren’t any racists anymore. This proposition fixes that.
Prop 17 – Restores Right To Vote After Completion Of Prison Term – Legislative Constitution Amendment: I’m all for restoring voting rights for people who have served their time, unless it’s Duncan Hunter, so it’s a toss-up. Not sure how I feel about this one.
Prop 18 – Amends California Constitution To Permit 17-Year-Olds To Vote In Primary And Special Elections If They Will Turn 18 By The Next General Election And Be Otherwise Eligible To Vote – Legislative Constitutional Amendment: Also known as the Expanding The Field And Democrat Protection Act, this one allows kids to vote (for Democrats) before they turn 18 if they’ll be 18 before the general election so they can vote (for Democrats). It’s so crass and blatant if you spend any time at all looking at polls, that you have to love it—or at least you should love it.

Lordy. We’re not even half-way through. Check back in tomorrow when we weigh in on the remaining seven propositions, provide some handy voter information from The Handy Voter Information Desk™, and throw in a couple surprises.

Only 30 days left. We can do this.

Your pal,

– bob

UPDATE: The second part is online now! Just head over there when you’re done here.

July 22, 2020July 22, 2020

Secret Federal Police Squads Making Trouble

Friends,

Remember back when rolling out a secret Federal police force in the United States was illegal? Get this, it still is! The super fun part is that the current president has done it anyway. But why?

The narrative on the pro-fascism media is that the protests against police brutality targeting Black and brown people aren’t largely peaceful, but “destroying our cities.” This leads to chaos, which leads to anarchy, which leads to the unraveling of the social fabric, etc, rinse, repeat.

They play the scenes of a police station and a Wendy’s burning down over and over again to prove to their viewers that society is crumbling and lo! the president steps in to rescue us from societal collapse! Aren’t we fortunate!

The justification that the acting administrators (Ken Cuccinelli and Chad Wolf, who are political hacks who haven’t been confirmed by the Senate because even Mitch McConnell has *some* standards) have offered seem to change by the hour. The latest, and arguably more egregious than “proactive arrests” is to “teach them a lesson.” That said, this will make your skin crawl…

Acting DHS secretary says federal agents are "proactively" arresting people in Portland. pic.twitter.com/cU1zw0IChz

— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) July 22, 2020

So here we are. A failed game show host in hock up to his eyeballs to foreign interests has gone full rogue and made a play for the elderly white people already afraid to step outside because of the pandemic: Society would be in ruins if it weren’t for his tiny iron fist.

It’d be a pathetic and transparent play if consumers of the state media outlets took a moment to come up for air, which I don’t see happening until 2021.

Your best pal,

– bob

P.S. Is it just me, or did the name “Department of Homeland Security” creep you out from the day it was introduced? Didn’t it seem like a nod to 1930s Germany? Just me? Okay.

June 25, 2020June 25, 2020

Creaky Old Weirdos

Friends,

An update on Le Musée des Ordinateurs Anciens:

The Toshiba that caught fire after I soldered on the battery jumper backwards—in my defense, the battery terminals were mislabeled—is still on hold. Once burned, twice shy, I suppose.
The Toshiba Satellite I started work on has a bad and expensive to fix display, so that’s on hold for a bit as well.
But look here! The old Amiga 1200 is working! Sorta!

I cleaned up the Amiga after it spent some unfortunate time in the garage and it started right up. Its whopping 170 megabyte hard drive made a lot of clicking and clacking noises, but didn’t boot the machine. Time for a new hard drive.

Luckily, there’s a seller in the UK that sells brand new CompactFlash cards with the Amiga Workbench installed, and the hardware needed to hook it all up. I ordered it up and it arrived a month later. Can’t wait to see how the old gal runs after all this time.

BTW, got a spare a 72-pin 128 MB SIMM laying around? I’ll trade you a box of double density floppy disks.

Stay safe. Wear a mask, please.

Your pal,

– bob

May 21, 2020

Nature Is Healing

Friends,

I’ve been sheltering at home for the last couple months and didn’t realize that some things were happening out in the world without me. Businesses from Souplantation to Pier 1 Imports aren’t just closed for the duration of the business closure order, but are closing for good.

These have been popular franchises, but they just couldn’t make it. One, because they can’t see how their business model can coexist with public health guidelines. The other seems to simply be out of money. Those aren’t the only businesses that will fail due to this pandemic crisis. They don’t represent the only jobs lost forever.

The people who are doing fine? The people who make and sell toilet paper. We panicked at the beginning of this thing and ordered toilet paper from wherever we could find it. I went the “natural” route and hit up all the weirdo websites offering recycled, up cycled, green cycled personal hygiene products. My sweet bride attacked the problem with a hammer and ordered Chinese toilet paper from Amazon. My method failed with oleaginous apology emails. Her package finally arrived. I have concerns.

Your pal,

– bob

May 14, 2020May 14, 2020

Getting A Little Stabby

Friends,

At least 90,000 of our fellow Americans have died as a result of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as of today. It’s likely that many more will perish before this crisis is at a point that we can call “over.” That makes the president’s comments today, complaining that the numbers are so high because we’re doing so much testing, not because of the administration’s failed response, that much worse.

A small number of nitwits claim that the public safety response by local governments to have them stay at home represents abridging their fundamental freedoms. Freedom to get a haircut, freedom to get a new tattoo, freedom to get a bucket of wings, and ultimately the freedom to get infected. These are the “covidiots” you’ve been hearing so much about — mostly because they’re so loud, not because there’s so many of them. It only takes one mask-free demonstration to spread a virus, of course. We’ve already seen new outbreaks among the impatient science/math/statistics denier set, and their parents, grandparents, and children. Dopes.

Because most people are indoors and over 20% are unemployed, spending has gone down, which means tax revenue has gone down in the state. This leads, as the Governor noted in his May budget revision speech today, to a $60 billion budget shortfall. As it stands right now, it looks like we state employees are going to take about a 10% haircut (speaking of haircut, what’s going on with your ridiculous mane, wayne gretzky? – ed I wish! I’m merely cultivating an homage to The Great One.). I kinda don’t mind a temporary pay cut as long as it comes with fewer hours. I guess it depends on what the union has to say about it. Complicated!

Your pal,

– bob

May 8, 2020May 8, 2020

Greetings From The Nation-State!

Friends,

Good news from Sacramento today. Vote by mail ballots will be sent to every registered voter for the election in November 2020. Here’s the nut from Cactus Hugs…

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday announced the California will send every voter a mail-in ballot for the November election. Newsom said sending postage-paid ballots will be the best solution to the anxiety voters may feel if they had to go to the polls. Republicans criticized the move, with Donald Trump’s campaign saying that it could “undermine election security.” At least 67 people got coronavirus after going to or working the polls during Wisconsin’s election on April 7.

It is important to note here that the president can keep his cries of election security to himself. Also, Republicans are answering this important question with their criticism.

Your pal,

– bob

May 7, 2020

Remember That Time When We Crashed Into Jupiter?

Friends,

Today has been a big day for authoritarianism. Guilty friends of the president got their charges dropped. A beloved institution gets a new boss who is likely to try and destroy it to punish an enemy of the president and disenfranchise voters who are reluctant to expose themselves to the public health risk. States are relaxing stay at home orders prematurely under pressure from the administration to throw workers into the maw of this teensy, devastating beast that has killed over 80,000 Americans.

Experts on these things, who track the rise of authoritarian governments throughout history, note that budding potentates need to get the population used to death. They need for citizens to stop being alarmed and simply shrug off a D-Day’s worth of dead Americans every day for a month.

Maintaining outrage is hard and draining and really annoying to people around you. It’s not healthy, but I think that it’s important to be very angry right now. We need a lot of people to be brave, put on a mask and gloves, and vote these ghouls out in November.

Your pal,

– bob

May 6, 2020May 6, 2020

What Are You Doing? Worldwide Quarantine Edition

Friends,

Like everyone else on the planet, we’ve been holed up in the house for the last month (Could be a few weeks, or two months. Hard to tell.) and I find that the years spent sequestered in my Secret Alpine Laboratory served me well. What started out as temper tantrum to withdraw from big cities/life/commitment turned into a meditation. “What do you do when you’re by yourself for a couple years?” First, particularly when it’s snowing outside, you get depressed. “What happens when you’re alone and it’s snowing and you have no real income?” That’s much worse

What that means now, that it’s pretty important not to go out and mingle, but to have the benefit of a job that can easily be done remotely and the benefit of a sweet and loving partner, is that staying in is easy. The state’s Stay At Home order isn’t going to last long enough to forestall another huge wave of infection because politicians will cave to the loud minority agitating to get a haircut and line up at Golden Corral. That’s bad news for people like me who, by my latest count, are vulnerable times three. Too old, too asthmatic, and too diabetic.

Here’s the fun part: Will my employer be indemnified from providing unemployment insurance to people who are vulnerable to infection who demur from a return to work order? What choice will that leave me, a person terrified of being broke and sequestered once again?

I’d just begun a program of going out and mingling now that I’ve identified some folks at work who I’d like to mingle with. I’m certainly not going out to mingle any time soon.

As I write this, more than 75,000 Americans have died from complications from a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Some people online have wondered why, as a country, we’re not mourning. Why no big obituary pages? Why no profiles on teevee with sad violins in the background? I think the answer is simple: The slow-motion tragedy isn’t over yet. The car is still crashing. The towers are taking months to collapse.

The Federal Government is doing not much at all to help. Political donors were made whole, but the response was late and not enough. Scientists who dare speak out are removed. Doctors who complain are dismissed. A vaccine is months away and I’m not going to play this game of Hot Lava Where Everything Is Lava Everywhere until there’s a safe vaccine that works, and I’m able to get one.

So, anyway, it’s been a while. How are you doing?

Your pal,

– bob

January 19, 2020

What Are You Doing? Playoff Weekend Edition

Friends,

It’s a lovely January weekend here in Northern San Diego County. Even though the anticipated rain storm never really materialized, we still did inside stuff, like making ravioli. We’re going to wait a bit to try the ravioli (and tortellini made from the same ingredients), but the filling is going to top a pizza in about twenty minutes, so we’ll see how it tastes after the pie is baked.

Speaking of food, we both suffered from brunch at the in-laws’ in-house dining facility. Imagine getting punched in the gut for a few hours and you’ve got something of an idea. Note to self: Next time, skip the omelette bar. No, really.

That wasn’t really the point, though. Being the family tech support, I got to fix music streaming problems (get rid of the web browser and stream from iTunes to Airplay receiver instead), and palm rejection on the laptop (it doesn’t work, hit fn+F3 to turn off the trackpad on the Dell laptop thing).

We also spent some time watching football. So. Boring.

That’s mostly it. Maybe we’ll have a chat about the Hiroshima Carp baseball club and why you should care.

Of course you should care.

Your pal,

– bob

January 8, 2020January 9, 2020

A Most Wonderful Time

Friends,

The holidays took a busy turn this year. As in previous years, our trip started in the mountains, dropping our elderly pups at the Damp Dog Lodge so they don’t get under foot and drop our elderly parents at their home in the desert.

With the puppy dogs safely napping in front of the fireplace, we headed down the hill for the day.

We had snacks and ate too much…

…then settled into dinner and ate far too much.

Gifts were exchanged in our gift exchange wherein I arbitrarily raised the spending limit this year, which elicited an audible gasp from my Mom.

When we returned, the snow wasn’t terribly deep. When we left on Boxing Day, the berm created by the snow plows was an obstacle that the definitely-not-designed-for-the-snow Michelin tires could not handle.

I’d say that we had a delightful time over the three days. It was nice to see the family, the hill was resplendent in its winter garb, and except for nearly crashing the Jeep, it was pretty relaxing.

The next week was a little less relaxing. More on that in a bit…

Your pal,

– bob

August 12, 2019August 14, 2019

What Are You Doing? Irwin Allen Edition

Friends,

It’s been a while since I checked in, and the universe has dealt one punch in the face after another after another. Rather than work in chronological order, it might be better to work in order of impact and import.

We went on something of a summer holiday to Southern Oregon towards the beginning of July. At first, when the trip was planned, we were going to go see the in-laws and stay at a little fly fishing resort on the Umpqua River to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. This sounded great and presented a wonderful opportunity to try out the new camera. The updated plan had us spend a couple days at the in-laws’ house first, divvying up their possessions to prepare for their move to a retirement community near our house. More on the retirement community in a bit, but this haggling led to a talons-extended wariness that would filter into the time spent in the forest.

So we ate the meals and slept in the cabin and hiked around a bit, but it felt like the last half of the third sequel. Going through motions. That was until we started hiking out of the trail leading to the largest falls we would visit. I spun my ankle on a trail-colored rock, and spent the next week hopping around and complaining to whoever would listen.

Did my complaining matter? Not one wit.

Once we arrived back home, where complaining continued to not matter, I noticed that the leak under the Wrangler hadn’t got any worse in our absence. I put in a new serpentine belt to replace the one that was starting to go before we left, and headed off to bed. My first day back to work would be in Temecula, so I wanted to make sure I was good to go.

The drive was uneventful the next day. The arrival in the parking lot was not. I knew that thrip-thwap-thwip noise was another belt flying apart. Time to consult experts…

Well, it should have been time to consult experts, but I consulted gifted psychics instead. How do psychics become gifted? They cheat, of course. In this case, the mechanics at the nearby service center had seen this before and knew what to look for. Excessive runout of the thrust bearing causing the crankshaft to move in and out too much. The pulleys go out of alignment and cut the new belt to pieces. Plus, the crankshaft seal is damaged in the process, thus the oil leak I couldn’t identify. The motor was cooked save for the seizing, the smoke and the fires. I still had time to find this old dog a new home and the local Jeep dealer gave me a reasonable price. An auction price, but that’s okay. I’d rather not see it driving around town.

I cast around for a replacement while driving around a rental from Avis and was reminded that a) Avis sells their cars after a while at pretty decent prices, and b) I still have a Grand Cherokee that isn’t running, and c) I miss the interior room and utility of a midsize SUV like the Grand Cherokee. So I bought one that’s a year and a couple months old from them in the weirdest sales transaction I’ve ever conducted (and I once bought a Volkswagen Beetle in the dark).

So much for not having a car payment, eh?

All this time, something’s been wrong with the dogs since we brought them home from the kennel/spa/cages. Food’s not staying down, or not getting consumed at all. Lots of pacing. Lots of trips outside overnight. The puppy pad bill is going to break the bank and after coming home after work to a couple mortifying shitstorms, it was time for the little one to go to the vet.

She hadn’t eaten in a few days, even though we tried to coax her with the most expensive ground up things in tins we could find. The veterinarian drew some blood and took an exceedingly lengthy time to call us with the results. Extraordinary because her health continued to deteriorate over the long weekend. Finally, we took her in to maybe get a feeding tube or something, but the prognosis was grim and final: pancreatic cancer. Looking back, I should’ve kept her head in my hand as the drugs were administered that would end her life. As she stopped controlling her neck, her head flopped over, giving Teresa a start, “Oh god! That’s horrible,” she gasped through the tears.

Mocha was the littlest one, the bravest one, the one who had been through the most. She was a one-doggy puppy mill and had been put through the ringer. She had the scars from being tied up all day and the nervous demeanor of a dog who’d never been socialized. I had an affinity for her that I can’t really describe. She’d been through a lot and deserved to have a nice safe life. I’d like to think that she enjoyed her last three years with us. And just like that, she was gone.

So, how’ve you been?

Your pal,

– bob

UPDATE: Here’s a better picture of the little dog. She’s pictured here on her preferred tower, where a girl can get away from it all, like another dog seven times her size who’s constantly menacing her.

Mocha and her tower of throw pillows

June 4, 2019

Filling In The Blanks – Dark Mode Edition

Friends,

I know I’ve been awfully quiet lately and I’d like to be able to tell you there’s a good reason for the silence. I almost dropped the cliché “life got in the way” nonsense, but really it’s been a result of me changing up the editorial stance here. (not so fast, buster. there’s only one editor here. -ed That’s not what I meant.) When you find out that the boss is reading, one might think it’s time to tone it down a bit. I’ll leave it to you to decide if I’ve actually toned down much of anything.

A brief, but very important note: My nephew just got his first car. It’s one of those Toyota Camry wagon things and he’s pretty excited about it. Despite its official name, it has little or nothing to do with Scotland, and nothing at all to do with this. Also it’s should be mentioned at this juncture that this development makes me feel very old.

If you look in the right middle 2/5ths of this shot, I’ve since cut a bunch of that down. You see, the Idyllwild Fire Protection District folks stopped by and observed that the weeds were too high and the branches were too low and all that had to go. I filled up four 5’x9′ trailer’s worth of leaves and pine needles and branches to haul to the dump. It took all weekend and I was left feeling like a human-sized cramp. Or a bruise. Or maybe an enormous scrape.

We headed to the desert a couple weeks ago for my uncle’s 80th birthday. If you had told me he would’ve hit his 70th, I would’ve been surprised. The party was fine, but everybody’s looking pretty frail nowadays.

More later, like trip planning, cheese graters, tiny cars, and maybe a little something about organ music!

Now how excited are you?

Very. Right?

Your pal,

– bob

May 7, 2019May 7, 2019

Filling In The Blanks – Signs Of Affection Edition

Friends,

It’s been a little over a year since I got married again. We survived the Wedding Industrial Complex which surprised me, and we came out the other side a happy couple, which surprised exactly no one.

We’re doing other things too, like writing wills and redoing life insurance riders and mingling finances. We’ve even revisited the year-old frozen cake topper with no ill effects. After half a century on this rock spinning around an enormous fireball, I guess it’s about damn time to grow up.

Your pal,

– bob