Loosely Speaking

By Ciel - About Me - E-mail this page - Add to My Favorites - Add to Blog List - See other blogs in Everything Else

Saturday, October 31, 2020

Court packing

The Republicans have themselves packed the courts--the whole federal court system, not just the Supreme Court. https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/the-art-of-court-packing-trump-has-appointed-almost-one-fourth-of-all-active-federal-judges-in-the-us/ There is, in fact, a legal and historic foundation to increasing the Supreme Court to 13. It was established with 9 when there were 9 circuits in the federal courts system, and one Supreme Court seat for each of them. Now there are 13 circuit courts, so... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, October 30, 2020

Suspense is not my friend.

I have never been very fond of suspense in movies or in life. The more important it is, the more the anxiety. Election Day qualifies as pretty important, and never more than this one. I've done what I can: made some donations, written out ideas and shared information, and voted. Now it's all waiting. What triggers your most intense anxieties? What do you do to deal with anxiety? Waiting, of course, is a thing in itself. Most of my life I have been waiting, something I have realized through much... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, October 29, 2020

"...doing a lot less bad..."

A phrase from a NYTimes article about the current virus going... well, viral again throughout the US, the world. Canada is doing a lot less bad, with its Atlantic seaboard provinces locking down their borders to outsiders: They have 0 cases, and mean to keep it that way. The US economy is doing a lot less bad than in previous months, though this current surge is knocking it down a few pegs. My own economics are doing a lot less bad than many others' in the country, and the supplies of staples in... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Wrong number

Just after waking up this morning, I heard the faint call of my phone from the living room... jumped out of bed, and got to it before it gave up. Hello? Is Artis there? Who? Is Artis there? No, you have the wrong number. Oh. Well maybe you can help me... The Police Benevolent Ass... No. You do this every time, you call a wrong number then try to rope me in anyway. Every time. Either call me, or call the guy you want. Then I hung up. Every time--at least once a year for several years now, they've... Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, October 12, 2020

"When you know better, do better." Maya Angelou

It's Indigenous Peoples Day, and I for one am glad to see old myths being pushed aside by truer memories, truer histories. People are coming around to a better understanding of humanity, of the whole Us/Them thing. The circle of Us expands to embrace cultures not our own, that we have lived with side-by-side for generations, managing never to understand that there is only one race of all humans, and the rest is culture, programming, habit. Traditional 'Heroes' are coming off their pedastals and... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, October 8, 2020

Aldous Huxley saw it coming.

I am convinced, and have been for many years, that when our current dominant 'civilization' eats its own foundations out from under itself, the First Peoples of the Americas will still be here. They who have cherished and remembered their cultures, who have fought to retain identity and values even as they have acquired knowledge and tools from Western cultures, will be the teachers and leaders. Their cultural values will move in over those imposed by European colonizers. There will be a... Sign in to see full entry.

Sunday, October 4, 2020

A bit of Pacific Northwest history...

The first white American settlement north of the Columbia was in Tumwater, WA. The wagon train which arrived at the DesChutes River in the 1840s was led by George Washington Bush, a free black man from Pennsylvania. George Bush settled his family on a stretch of land southeast of what became Olympia. It is still called Bush Prairie. But as a black man, when Washington became a US territory in 1853, he was not allowed to own his land. It took two more years, but the territorial government got... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, September 18, 2020

RBG, RIP

After the first shock and the sorrow for a lost champion, now I am thinking, what would she want of us now? She can't do any more for us, but she showed us what to do: Stand up to power when it's wrong, never give up on the ideals and values we honor, never quit fighting just because we've taken a hit. Cry, but don't moan. Speak out, but not just to complain. Stare injustice in its beady little eyes... And don't blink. Thanks, Ruth--You can rest now. We've got this. Sign in to see full entry.

Talk like you mean it.

"Socialism" and "Capitalism" are words thrown around carelessly as if they are whole, complete and meaningful notions, as if they are in that one word, enormous problems for one mindset or another. They are not. "Socialism" is a boxful of ideologically distinct notions, and when Conservatives use it as a curse, they are thinking of "authoritarian socialism." Progressives are talking about "democratic socialism,"of course, and the problem lies in the pretense that both sides are railing about the... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, September 17, 2020

Of Governments and Coups

I read a thing that said we are living in a fast-running fascist coup in the US, that has been going on since this current maladministration began. I disagree. The coup has been a slow-moving thing, a long game put in motion back in the Reagan years if not earlier. It is the corporate 'persons' and the oligarchs who hoard money like lonely old people hoard cats who have been running it. It is the money behind ALEC that points to the gamers of the coup.... Sign in to see full entry.

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