Friday, November 17, 2017

I'm pretty sure this won't have any effect, but I'm just so frustrated that our Congress is more concerned with bailouts for billionaires than protecting our country from a dangerous madman who is milking the government for his own gain. Anyway, maybe you'll have your own reasons.
Click-Through Catharsis

Sunday, October 22, 2017

It looks like this DOES work.

Patricia Walton Looking good.
Jody Hart Sackmann Joe wants to know "who is this man?" He said that you are so cool, and that he wouldn't have the nerve to do this!
Pamela Painter Jones O M Goodness!
David Hart I stood for the National Anthem because I’m representing, "Truth, Justice, and the American Way,” and I like to commit to my character. But I did wonder, why do they even play the anthem? Do other countries do this? Also, apparently, only two other adults in the crowd knew it was costume night, so, a little awkward for the several hundred others that showed up. Sad.
Ambre Johnson McCormick Yeah so maybe all those other people weren't told until they were about to walk out the door...you know...like you did to me...Apparently Superman doesn't like competition!😉
Rita Vukasin 😂
Margarita Melendez Nice :) Why you never wear that to work?
Shawn Prufer Awesome Dave! You have given me hope for America and Roller Derby!
Cheri Ungerecht Mattes Did you skate? David Hart That’s mean for two reasons. 1) You know how coordinated I am since you had to tie my shoes practically until I got married and 2) it’s a women’s league.

Thursday, October 19, 2017

I told Karen today that I’d (finally) come up with a reason why I needed a new iPhone. I explained that the new phone's portrait mode was the best ever for taking pictures of people and that since we were going to be welcoming a new person, we should have the best camera possible. She said she thought my existing phone would be, "Good enough.”
That may be true, but it had just never occurred to me that, “Good enough,” was a standard we’d be adopting for our granddaughter. Our kids, sure, but our granddaughter? You think you know a person.

Thursday, October 12, 2017

Humming an old song and realized that, "Time is on my side," is more and more becoming a cruel joke.

Saturday, June 24, 2017

I only wish I was this articulate

Alone among developed nations, the United States’ approach to health care is a hodge-podge.  There is Medicare for our elderly and Medicaid for the very young, the poor and the disabled.  The Veteran’s Administration serves our nation’s finest and the Indian Health Service does the same for our native American brothers and sisters.  For the vast majority of workers, the model we settled on after World War II relied upon employer-provided health insurance.

By the turn of the 21st century, changes in society were straining that model to its breaking point, especially for workers in the private sector.  Lifetime employment with one company was no longer realistic, yet changing jobs and insurance could expose families to devastating losses of coverage.  Medical bills became the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the US as the number of Americans without coverage rose.  Emergency room visits by the uninsured increased and those costs were being shifted, in a manner both costly and inefficient, back to those who still had policies. Two classes of Americans were developing: those insured and those not.

In 2006 then-Gov. Mitt Romney, with his Bain Capital market-driven instincts, teamed up with the Heritage Foundation (often called Ronald Reagan’s think tank) and the Massachusetts Legislature to enact a law designed to cover all of that state’s population with health insurance.  Soon afterwards, policy makers in other states including Alaska began to craft versions of that bill to fit the needs of their citizens.

The central idea of what was then called RomneyCare was rooted in a classically conservative principle: each person should be financially responsible for his or her own health care.  The role of government was to try to level the health insurance playing field through reforms, and to make private health insurance available to those without it at a reasonable cost.  I’m not saying the idea was perfect; but it solved several problems at once and delivered measurable improvements.

The elections of 2008 led to the introduction of a RomneyCare-type bill in the U.S. Congress.  That bill’s passage in March 2010 as the Affordable Care Act, a/k/a ObamaCare, led us to where we are today.  You can debate ObamaCare all you want, but its conservative nature is a matter of history.  Knowing this open secret of the pedigree of our current health care law helps make clearer the dilemma faced by Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell in 2017.  They couldn’t accept ObamaCare because of the last seven years of nasty politics, but there is no further room to move as you go further to the right on the health care spectrum and not be simply throwing people to the wolves.

Which is exactly what the bill before the Senate does.   Put simply, the question before our highest elected leaders is whether to tell millions of Americans to fend for themselves in the health care wilderness.

That’s wrong.  It does not have to be this way.  Health care may not be a right, in the same way as free speech or the right to bear arms, but most people would agree that health care is inextricably woven into our human existence.  Not as important, perhaps, as air, water and food, but still very very important.  And just as we work to make clean air and clean water available to all, the nature of health care seems to call out for a similar approach: collective action to protect a collective good.

The bill before our US Senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, does not advance the public interest in health care.  It takes fifty years of slow incremental progress for millions of people and trades it for a big tax cut for a small group of wealthy Americans.  I can’t sit by and let that happen without raising an alarm.

This is the week for action on this issue.  Write Senators Murkowski and Sullivan.  Call them, email them, or speak to them in civil tones if you see them out in public.  Plead for them to say ‘no’ to this latest idea.  No. No. No.  Tell them to go back to the drawing board and start again.

Hollis French
Anchorage, Alaska
Okay, I've been all sunshine and light today basking in the afterglow of the East Anchorage High School Class of 1972 reunion last night, but I haven't forgotten how we live now:
From the Atlantic http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/what-happens-when-a-presidency-loses-its-legitimacy/531447/

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

I put on my bib bike shorts today. They're the ones that look like something Russian weightlifters might wear, if Russian weightlifters routinely wear diapers.
The shorts have logged many miles over the last few years, hanging as they have on my bathroom door. Of course, they're spandex, but even so they seemed a little tight since I last wore them in 2010. I was in them for an hour or so, and the cushioning effect was really noticeable, but I think a big part of that was because I was sitting on the couch waiting for the team to get ready. By the time they did, the moment had passed for me and I put on pajamas instead.
Still, equipment familiarization is important and now I know how to crawl into the shorts and also how disgusting using a restroom is going to be since access to that area of the, equipment, as it were, is going to involve taking off everything except my socks and simultaneously keeping straps up off the floor. To be honest, I'm surprised that weightlifting doesn't involve more spontaneous outbursts, if you will, although that could be what all that padding is there for.

Life in a Northern town; It's the solstice and it didn't actually snow.

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Tuesday, June 20, 2017

In the Sixth Grade, our teacher, Mr. Martin, made us study the Constitution, probably because it was so new back then.
We had to memorize the Preamble and be able to answer questions about Articles, Sections, Paragraphs, and Parts of Government. Also Amendments, although, at the time, there were fewer of those.
But it has been like (literally) fifty years since those halcyon days and I've forgotten a lot, so maybe someone can explain by what authority the US has jets flying in the airspace of the sovereign state of Syria and shooting down a Syrian jet. Because Congress hasn't declared war and the Assad government hasn't attacked us, so what gives?

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

The ACA repeal bill passed by the House was breathtaking in its cynicism and mean-spiritedness as it tried to disguise a massive tax cut for the wealthy as health care reform. And now the Senate is ashamed to let us even SEE their version.
I hope our Alaska Senators will stand up for openness and a reform that improves access to health care.

Monday, June 12, 2017

One year ago today. Apparently I say this a lot.
Terrorism only works if we are terrorized. Fifty murders are a tragedy, but barely moves the dial on gun violence in this country.
ISIS is losing physical territory in the world, they are resorting to lone wolf attacks because that's what they can do. They do not pose the kind of existential threat that Soviet missles did, nor Nazi tanks. Invading another country, carpet bombing villages won't make us safer. Want to defeat terrorism? Don't be terrorized.

Saturday, June 10, 2017

Because I just posted about Waukon, where Karen's family lives, I thought I'd share this link to the Cresco scouting report where she also has a fun branch of the family (Editor's* note: such a struggle between, "a fun branch," or, "the fun branch." Ultimately, I decided that everyone is fun in their own way; Misty and Ben, especially so.) I don't think I've ever been to Cresco, but I'm encouraged to read that they have a Mabe's which is ranked as one of the country's best pizza parlors, possibly because their cheese is probably made practically on-site. *As if. http://ift.tt/2spLNT8

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Because I don't know exactly what I'm doing, I may be sharing this article from Chris more than once. Sorry. Or, not sorry, if I'm only sharing it once. Anyway, this is where we're staying the last night during RAGBRAI, and then maybe some more nights because it's where a lot of Karen's family lives. I haven't been to all the places they mention in this article, but I have been to several, and they are all as good as advertised. So, good news, today I finally squeezed into a pair of riding shorts. Bad news; I'm afraid Iowa cheese curds may squeeze me back out. Especially the deep fried ones at Mulligan's which are, probably literally, to die for. http://ift.tt/2rYbSpM

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These are the men and women that our president calls, "the enemies of the people." He's not fit to lick their boots. Although, now that I think of it, that would be a good place for him to start making up for the things he's said. http://ift.tt/2rTDzQR

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Wednesday, May 31, 2017

A market broke out in the parking lot at Fire Island bakery in our neighborhood. There was birch ice cream made with local birch syrup, foraged and grown mushrooms (and a mushroom powder that we bought) live music with a backup dancing dog, and of course, Fire Island Bakery. It closes in 4 minutes, but it will be there every Wednesday from 3-7. See you there?
It finally got above 60 and simultaneously I finally fit into the shorts I bought this spring. We walked to the market and I was slightly overheated by the time we got home. I suppose the takeaway here is that we're going to Iowa in July to melt like a cake someone left out in the MacArthur Park steam bath.
And then there were some photos over on Facebook.

Too obsequious?

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I know there are reasonable and principled individual legislators like Les Gara, but it's crazy to think that a group that can't pass a budget could muster the courage and collegiality to do this, but maybe citizens could? How do we bring ranked choice voting to Alaska?
 Standard disclaimer; I'm too shy and disorganized to do this, or to start a Represent.us chapter in Alaska which this state desperately needs. That's why I'm asking YOU, Facebook friend, to take charge of this.
http://www.fairvote.org

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

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I just wrote my Senators again: I just deleted a list of GOP policies that have galled, embarrassed, infuriated or just seemed wrong to me. It was a long list, too long to make you read, but the thing is, none of them really affected me that much personally. But now, the Trump budget proposes changing the way COLA is calculated for FERS and CSRS retirees after we’ve already retired. Senator, this breaks a promise that was made to us that we planned our lives around. The National Active and Retired Federal Employees group had this to say, “The average FERS annuitant would lose: • $23,430 over 10 years • $99,471 over 20 years • $246,185 over 30 years • $487,829 over 40 years The average CSRS annuitant would lose: • $12,598 over 10 years • $60,576 over 20 years • $169,874 over 30 years • $381,418 over 40 years This clearly shows that the Trump budget will cost federal retirees, cumulatively, hundreds of thousands of dollars over their years of retirement, and is nothing less than the theft of promised and hard-earned pensions from our nation’s dedicated public servants." Will you work for federal employees as we’ve worked for the federal government? Thanks, david Here's the list I deleted:gutting environmental protections, breaking the health insurance market without a plan to replace it, ramping up military engagements around the world without any pretense of Congressional oversight or declarations of war, ending net neutrality, allowing ISP’s to invade and profit from their customers’ private information, refusing to even hold a vote on a Supreme Court justice, repealing regulations that protect seniors’ retirement funds, repealing regulations to allow banks to scam their customers, religious bigotry disguised as public safety, deporting beneficiaries of DACA, confirming nominees to Cabinet positions who have spent their careers in opposition to the very departments they now head, restarting the failed war on drugs, pretending that “Supply Side” economics isn’t just a transfer of wealth to the wealthy, facilitating the mentally ill’s access to guns, getting rid of the Consumer Finance Protection which protects citizens from the depredations of financiers.

Monday, May 22, 2017

I began this by looking up George Santayana's quote about history, but it didn't fit the post as I'd planned it, so I'm going to just paraphrase it later on. This post is supposed to offer you relief from my unremitting negativity about Trump and politics, but George Santayana did say this, which seems to sum up the pathology at the root of the Trump regime, "The highest form of vanity is love of fame." Anyway, that's enough about our narcissist-in-chief, now let's make this great post of mine go viral, ok? They say that if you fail to learn the lessons of history, you'll just repeat them, which is so different from grammar, ain't it? So, my father was a charter member of the Greatest Generation. Well, he was drafted into World War II, he didn't enlist, so maybe he's not a Platinum member, but certainly at least Bronze, but, just to finally end this sentence, I'm going to say Silver. My dad was a Silver member of the Greatest Generation. And as such, he went up the beach into France although not on D-Day and he had a typewriter strapped to his leg. Still, he fought his way across Europe and had many adventures in a summer that was below average in temperature. But he had TRAINED in the searing deserts of California to fight his way across the broiling deserts of North Africa. So, the point of all this is that just like the heroes that liberated Europe, we've been training in the exact opposite weather that we will encounter in Iowa when we ride across IT. True, Iowa is not a desert (because deserts are a dry heat), nor a foreign country exactly. Still, we don't fit in very well and our cell phones don't work there. But, heroes overcome, and while they're doing that, I'm going to be looking for deep fried cheese curds.

I'm at the gym flipping back and forth between CNN and Fox coverage of Trump. Fox is explaining why Trump doing everything he criticized others for is good, but the real takeaway from watching them is that our president has a face only a proctologist could love. I know that's a juvenile joke that I probably would have made when I was 12, if only I'd known what a proctologist was.

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Thursday, May 18, 2017

What we may never know: http://ift.tt/2qXGk5E

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During the night, Sarah and I were exchanging insomnia updates. I told her when I wake up, I like to check if Trump is still president. She said that worked pretty well for Osama bin Laden. I don't think it will turn out the same way, though. If Seal Team Six burst into his compound, I don't think any of Trump's wives would jump in front to save him like bin Laden's did and if Trump yelled, "Don't shoot," they couldn't because he's their commander in chief. They'd just have to smile sheepishly and leave. It would be embarrassing. Nope, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, Robert Mueller. Next post, why that won't work, either.

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While the nation is transfixed by the rat king in the Oval Office, the work of transferring wealth and power to the wealthy and powerful continues in the darkened lairs, warrens, and bunkers of government. Incidentally, I was looking for a pejorative term for the denizens of the west wing and stumbled across rat king, a term I'd forgotten, or more likely, suppressed after reading a fascinating book called Rats by Robert Sullivan. Anyway, it is a particularly apt term for Trump organization. You can look it up. http://ift.tt/2rw4BwJ

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Monday, May 15, 2017

http://ift.tt/2rjvLWV

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Good news. Don Young replied to me about his vote on the health care reform bill, "Please know that I will keep your thoughts in mind moving forward"
Is it as embarrassing for Gen X'ers to watch NKOTB  prancing around on the Today Show as it is for Boomers to watch a septuagenarian Mick Jagger in tight jeans doing pelvic thrusts?

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Here Are The Pictures From The Last Post. Who Knows Why They Don't Post Automatically






It was a beautiful day for a protest. Here are the signs we made and then deployed in front of Senator Murkowski's office. My signs are a lot like my posts: just a few more words than anyone has time for. As far as I could tell, nobody was willing to circle the block to finish reading them, so I'm posting them here. April was there with Jesper. He's a natural born leader as the crowd took up his chant of, "Dump Trump." A good time was had by all as we held a wake for democracy. MoveOn.org #comeygate

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Back then, Charles Mathias declared that “it is not right for any institution to investigate or prosecute itself.” Will today's GOP stand for the rule of law? Hard to say. Right now it looks like they don't "stand by anything." From the Atlantic http://ift.tt/2pA9rYH

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This Is From Last Year, But I Don't Think I Posted It Here

On Saturday, shopping local, I rented a chain saw to cut down invasive Mayday trees. It didn't work, nor  did the replacement. They wouldn't front me a chainsaw for the next day, even though I said, "I've spent all day driving back forth, I'm not going to start this project at three o'clock."
Today, I went to the gym, ran some errands and then went to Home Depot where I rented a chainsaw and realized, it was THREE O'CLOCK. It turns out, though, things go much faster when the chainsaw actually works. As the trees came down, my testosterone went up. I felt so manly.
Such a nice feeling (if the manly even have feelings).
A shame, then, that it didn't last very long. This next is a bit of a Public Service Announcement.
Leah reported a noise that might have been running water, if any water was running, which it wasn't. It really was more of a rustling noise coming from behind the dryer. We were worried it might be a mouse since we'd had them this winter before running a trap line throughout the house. We really don't have the staff to deal with mice right now because May is the beginning of our annual ant infestation and that has to be our focus. We shifted the dryer and cautiously looked behind it. No mice, although it's amazing how much stuff accumulates back there. I wonder if the FBI ever looked behind the Hoffa's dryer. Nothing, and then another rustling noise, maybe from the dryer vent hose? Ambre is taller than I am so, she undid the clamp and I took the hose and looked down it. Nothing. So, then feeling a little more confident that nothing was going to burst out at me, I undid the bottom clamp and looked in the hose from the other end, and nothing there either. As an aside, I think I'm as brave as the next person, especially if the next person is a hysterical eight year old girl standing on a chair screaming . And it isn't that I find mice terrifying, it's the jack in the box nature of looking for them that builds so much tension. Cheerfully, now that I was sure that the rustling was just a natural phenomenon probably the settling of the hose, I suggested turning on the dryer with the hose off of it. Which is when a cloud of lint, a dime and the mouse blew out the back and crashed into the wall. We were both stunned, but I quickly recovered and the mouse quickly  died of his injuries. So the lesson, and the PSA, is, if you have a dryer vent, make sure there is a flap on the outside to keep stray animals from wandering in.

A lot of jobs have a first in, last out policy. Apparently, it doesn't work that way for amendments. If Trump had been president back then, Sam Donaldson wouldn't have had a cubicle, he would have had a cell. http://ift.tt/2qTQt30

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Monday, May 08, 2017

Evangelical Christianity began with a justifiable skepticism about government, but it also has a tradition of following charismatic individuals rather than synods and presbyteries.  Also, not mentioned in the article, they found Scriptural ways to justify owning and raping other humans. Supporting a thrice -married, pussy-grabbing, serial sexual assaulter mustn't seem like such a stretch.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/05/a-match-made-in-heaven/521409/

Tuesday, May 02, 2017

So, have there ever been NORMAL call volumes? I just spent 10 minutes on hold due to higher than normal call volumes. Too bad, #BankofAmerica, I was trying to give you back $4.00.

So, practically the last reason to live in Alaska has slithered away. http://ift.tt/2p2Zphu

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Monday, May 01, 2017

I just logged into the RAGBRAI site and I have a wristband number. I told Karen that it appeared that we'd won a place in the ride. This wasn't the lottery she'd been hoping to win and was concerned that we'd used up all of our luck on the wrong drawing. I told her this is just the beginning of great things and then I reminded her what my dad used to tell my mom, "Stick with me baby and I'll give you jellybeans as big as diamonds."

Saturday, April 29, 2017

We bought new pillows yesterday at Costco. They're the heavily and falsely advertised* pillows that claim to give you the best night's sleep you've ever had. Even though it was my idea to buy them, I told Karen that I expected to hate them. They COMPLETELY exceeded my expectations. I not only hate the lumpy unsupportive pillows, I hate myself for buying them in the first place. I just finished (because I wasn't sleeping, what with lumps of pillow jabbing my neck) A Gentleman in Moscow, it was funny as horrible things happened mostly somewhere else and sad things happened everywhere. So, even though written by an American, to me, (full disclosure: I'm also an American) it seemed quintessentially* Russian. Now I'm reading When Breath Becomes Air. So far, it's not funny at all. But, it does score high on the sadness scale. Here's an example, it was published posthumously.
 * https://www.truthinadvertising.org/…/MyPillowWarningLetter.… **5 times regular essential #bl

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

This video from three years ago inspired so many people to comment that it crashed the FCC's website and caused it to reverse course and save Net Neutrality. Maybe because he lost the popular vote, Trump doesn't feel like he needs to respect the expressed will of the people. For whatever reason, like a monster starring in Plan 9 From Outer Space, the plan to kill Net Neutrality has shambled forth again from the Trump "administration." Watch the video then contact the FCC and your representatives, please. I will too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU

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Okay, so obviously I reacted badly to the election and now I can't talk to Trump supporters since I unfriended them, but if you still have friends here that supported him, maybe you can share this with them. http://ift.tt/2oxsTsE

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Apparently, the plan may not be implemented , because it would be illegal, but if it is, here’s what you need to know.

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Mr. Laffer’s plan has destroyed the Kansas economy, and didn’t work for Reagan or Bush but maybe it will work better this time. “It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning—“ but more likely we’re screwed. https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/us/politics/white-house-economic-policy-arthur-laffer.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0&referer=http://m.facebook.com
Once again, there's possibly some valid economic argument explaining this, but Occam's Razor suggests that GOP senators are monsters. And the fact that I unfriended so many people in a spasm of rage back on November 9th means that only people that probably already know about the GOP and Occam are reading this post. So, to sum up, GRRR. Also, blogger.com is making it virtually impossible to add links. C'mon Google, support this platform or drop it like you did all the other ones I was using like Google Reader and Igoogle. So, I'll just paste it here and you can see for yourself if it works: http://www.salon.com/2017/04/26/congress-forced-its-members-to-use-obamacare-republicans-arent-doing-the-same-for-trumpcare/

Monday, April 24, 2017

I just posted on Senator Murkowski's Facebook page and sent a message to Senator Sullivan. Maybe you should too, or call or fax, or send a message carved on a grain of rice, something to let them know your opinion. The leader of the GOP is threatening to hold access to health care hostage for the most vulnerable Americans in order to fund an absurd wall. It's positions like this that caused me to leave the Republican Party. Please, Senator, let us know that you will not be a part of funding the wall at the expense of Americans. Especially since candidate Trump promised us that Mexico would pay for the ill-advised wall. Oh, as long as I'm pretending I have your attention, please make part of any tax reform that you vote for compel Trump to release his tax returns so that we can see how he'll be affected by the plan he's championing.

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Patricia, you asked the other day how we were doing. Answering that question requires a degree of introspection that I'm uncomfortable sharing, but I can tell you a little of WHAT we're doing. We are training in a desultory manner while we await the results next week of the lottery to participate in RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa). If we are picked, we will have to accelerate our training regimen to compensate for the lifetime of not training at all. Besides not currently being in shape to even ride across Iowa on an airliner, we are concerned with the fact that the ride takes place outside in Iowa. In Anchorage, the last time it was as hot as the AVERAGE July temperature in Iowa, Alaska was still part of Pangaea floating around the equator. That's just the average Iowa weather, but like a sociopath that can seem normal for short stretches, the weather in Iowa is always capable of killing you without warning or remorse. But it's stopping in Karen's and your childhood home, so how could we pretend to be cyclists and not participate? So, if we're picked, will you come down to the farm to see us? Is corn ripe by the end of July? Because last time we were there, Chris showed us a life-hack to prepare fresh-picked corn that made us feel like we'd been eating sand up to that point. Anyway, we'll find out next week, so updates as available.

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I listened to President Obama for a few minutes this morning. It's hard to believe that we replaced a man with a petulant child.

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Saturday, April 22, 2017

Ha, ha, I was posting about politics today when this video came on. Ouch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDydKwmrHFo
According to KTUU, there were about 1500 of us on the parkstrip this morning to ask our government not to substitute ideology for science. I wore my two signs, but it wasn't until I stood next to Clyde Vicary that synergy occurred and people came up to take our picture to show that patriotism and the flag don't only (or even) belong to the Tea Party. Possibly there were only 1494 people there to ask that of our government since there were about 6 there to aver that their faith in their understanding of the Bible was more plausible than results obtained by observation and experiment.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

The short version is that the REINS Act is truly awful. The article explains why. I wrote my Senators to ask them to vote against it (it’s already passed the House). Senator Sullivan wrote back right away to say, “I am proud to be an original cosponsor of the REINS Act…” What did you say, Nita, about your Senator only writing to brag about doing things that you've begged him not to? It might be better now in Oregon. http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/suspending-the-rules-how-congress-plans-to-undermine-public-safety

Saturday, April 15, 2017

We got to the sign-waving about 20 minutes late. But it was still going strong, as strong as 15 people without a leader can go, anyway. Leah took charge of the little rag-tag group and moved us from the middle of Town Square where we were invisible, to 6th Avenue where we were ignored. Still, we had a good time and we felt better about ourselves; we were MAKING A DIFFERENCE. A man said that someone should have alerted the press. He also said that my signs from Kinko's looked too professional and might give people the wrong idea that we were professional agitators (as if!). He meant it as a criticism, but I took it as a compliment. Since my handwriting was the despair of Mrs. Guinn, my first-grade teacher, and really achieved peak legibility in maybe the fifth grade, I told him that if I hand wrote my signs they wouldn't give anybody any idea at all except maybe that I had had a seizure while making it.
When we got home, I put a sign in the yard to commemorate the difference we had made.

I "shared" the post about today's tax march. Facebook offered the option of sending it as a message, so I sent it as a blast to a lot of people in Anchorage that I thought would be interested. Rather than hurt my feelings by telling me that I wasn't authorized to send the attachment from the original post, Facebook sent it, then wouldn't let the recipients open it. So, instead of being embarrassed by myself about not being authorized I can be embarrassed with 20 other people at once. This is how Facebook builds community.

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Tuesday, April 11, 2017

For Some Reason IFTTT, Doesn't Include Pictures

My forever home arrived in the mail the other day.

Is this true? We don't have a march planned in Anchorage to demand Trump to release his tax returns? Who's in charge of this kind of thing?

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Is this true? We don't have a march planned in Anchorage to demand Trump to release his tax returns? Who's in charge of this kind of thing?

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Is this true? We don't have a march planned in Anchorage to demand Trump to release his tax returns? Who's in charge of this kind of thing?

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Is this true? We don't have a march planned in Anchorage to demand Trump to release his tax returns? Who's in charge of this kind of thing?

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Is this true? We don't have a march planned in Anchorage to demand Trump to release his tax returns? Who's in charge of this kind of thing?

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Is this true? We don't have a march planned in Anchorage to demand Trump to release his tax returns? Who's in charge of this kind of thing?

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I just heard that Sean Spicer said Assad is worse than Hitler, because as bad as Hitler was, he never used poison gas on his own people.
Is he saying that the Jews weren't Germans, or that they weren't people? Either way, he's wrong and he should be ashamed, if anyone in the Trump administration could even feel shame.

Thursday, April 06, 2017

Well, we've attacked an ally of Iran and Russia in a country that has soldiers from both countries in it. We're now fighting on the same side as the strongest faction against Assad which is ISIS. How could this not end well?

Thinking about the last couple of months, it seems like America has been pretty good to trump so why does he hate us so much?

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Gayle Young jetted in and out of Anchorage for a day and we were lucky enough to spend it with her. Insightful as always, she gave me a title for my autobiography, "Complaining About Nothing."

Tuesday, April 04, 2017

It must be letter-writing day in Congress. I got this from Don Young. It's embarrassing how often I've agreed with him lately. I did not support this legislation because I believe that we will still not achieve total border security by erecting a fence or wall. The estimated cost of the fence is $12-$15 billion with some reports putting it closer to $20 billion. This is money that could be better spent on technology such as systematic surveillance and physical infrastructure enhancements to prevent unlawful entry of illegal aliens for a fraction of what the fence will cost. Building a fence of this magnitude takes away funds that can also be used to improve schools, seniors and veterans' healthcare, and aid to the less fortunate to name a few.

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I just sent another ineffectual email to Senator Murkowski: If a president in the last year of his term can't have a vote on his nominee, then I don't think a president under investigation for high crimes and misdemeanors should be allowed a nominee either. Please do not vote to confirm corporatist Gorsuch and please vote against the nuclear option. Thank you, David

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I suppose I have to give credit to Sen. Sullivan for this response to my email, "In Alaska, public radio is essential, especially in rural areas. Many times, it is the only way to inform residents of impending natural disasters, and their only source of information. I will work with President Trump’s administration to stress the importance of public broadcasting in Alaska and nationwide." I'd be happier with him if He hadn't finally responded with an email yesterday explaining why Elizabeth Warren had to be silenced back I February. Way to stir things up, Senator.

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Just another IFTTT test.

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