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Too many jackets

My wife's favorite jacket was a purple puffy winter coat, so after her death I hung it on a coat-rack in the living room. Also on the rack: Her second-favorite jacket, and some of her blouses. It was all part of a Shrine to her memory, filling several shelves stretching the length of that wall.

Three more of her long-ago jackets were hanging in the front closet, not as part of the Shrine but because she'd hung them there when she'd moved on to other jackets. A couple of my old jackets are hanging there, too. Old stuff is what we used that closet for.

#112

Saturday,
March 5, 2022


But wait, there's more.

I'm emptying this apartment bit-by-bit, and in the second bedroom, in a corner you couldn't reach because a desk and some unused speakers effectively cut off access, was a box still sealed from our 2004 move to Wisconsin from Missouri. And inside the box, you guessed it — two of my late wife's jackets, and two of mine. All seem sturdy and warm and not devoured by bugs.

And another jacket was in that box, but I'm sure I'd never seen it before. It's big and fluffy and fits me, so maybe Steph bought it as a gift for me, years ago, and never gave it?

I'm not gonna wear the mystery jacket. It's a heavy, fake-fur-lined coat for winter weather, but 2021-22 hasn't been much of a Wisconsin winter. It only got below zero a few times, and only by a few degrees, so I've been wearing the same flannel hoodie I wear in the summer, but with a sweatshirt underneath for a little more warmth. That's my jacket, now.

There's something outrageous about all this, ain't there? I'm not rich, but in this apartment, where one man has lived alone for the past four years, there are 13 jackets. Five of them are heavy, winter jackets. Eight are light, not much more than windbreakers. What's with all those jackets nobody wears, though, while poor folks have undoubtedly gone cold in Wisconsin?

A dozen jackets are going to Goodwill, and I'll drive to Seattle wearing the hoodie, which is jacket enough for any man.

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News and amusements, from my internet history for yesterday… 

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It's 1994, there was decreased demand for faded porn star Jamie Gillis's thespian talents, so he put on an all-day seminar for aspiring adult filmmakers. And you are there.

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How Sitting Bull’s fight for indigenous land rights shaped the creation of Yellowstone National Park 

An interesting history, unknown to me until today.

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Dr. Seuss's estate is asking writers and artists from "diverse racial backgrounds" to write books inspired by Seuss's unpublished artwork. 

It's dicey to try to predict what will infuriate America's fragile and always-offended right-wing, but this seems likely.

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Reading Rainbow is coming back, without LeVar Burton.

I won't be watching.

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Russian attack on Ukrainian nuclear plant triggers worldwide alarm 

This one didn't melt down, but — hello? It's a bad idea, and a war crime, to target nuclear facilities.

We should seize the yachts of Russian Oligarchs. And Western ones too. 

"Rich people have wealth in different assets: art, shares, real estate, yachts, bank accounts — there's all sorts of different assets. But at the moment, we have very little transparency into what they own," Faccio told Motherboard. "The political willingness to tackle some of these [offshore] structures is blocked because a number of politicians and rich people in the West use these structures themselves—in the past there has never really been a stigma around using tax havens."

I was hoping that article would be an angry near-mainstream media (Vice) statement of the headline's obvious truth. Instead, it's almost dull in building its case, reciting the facts. Still worth reading, and it leads to a conclusion I agree with, but it needs to be shouted much louder: The mega-rich are effectively arch-villains, same in America as in Russia, and they need to be brought down.

• It's quick and easy to donate to the Red Cross effort in Ukraine. 

• Best news of the day!
RT ceases American operations, lays off most of staff 

Funded by the Russian government, originally called Russia Today, then RT, to cloud its propaganda nature, the channel was better crafted and less-obvious bullshit than, say, Fox News. As propaganda, of course, less obvious can be more effective, so Putin's decision to close their American offices is a good thing.

Americans paid to work there included Dennis Miller, Mike Papantonio, Rick Sanchez, Ben Swann, and Jesse Ventura. 

Russia's social media propaganda campaign is backfiring, so it’s banning Facebook in Russia 

Wikimedia says it "will not back down" after Russia threatens Wikipedia block 

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There are some big words here and scientific concepts requiring a 7th-grade education, so Republicans won't be interested, but I was intrigued by the mystery of why Tonga's Hunga volcanic eruption in January somehow severed underwater cables.

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Supreme Court won't compel testimony from top US war criminals 

Two psychologists who devised the CIA’s post-9/11 system of US "enhanced interrogation," which has been widely denounced as torture, cannot be called to testify in a case in Poland brought by a terrorism suspect subjected to the abuses, the Supreme Court has ruled.

Under John Roberts, US Supreme Court now considers hypotheticals 

The plaintiffs have theorized that they might, at some point in the unspecified future, have a real complaint and ask the court to deal with that hypothetical possibility in a not-so-hypothetical way. 

That's never been the way the Supreme Court works.

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• The secret police:
Cops built a shadowy surveillance machine in Minnesota after George Floyd’s murder 

Law enforcement agencies in Minnesota have been carrying out a secretive, long-running surveillance program targeting civil rights activists and journalists in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. Run under a consortium known as Operation Safety Net, the program was set up a year ago, ostensibly to maintain public order as Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin went on trial for Floyd’s murder. But an investigation by MIT Technology Review reveals that the initiative expanded far beyond its publicly announced scope to include expansive use of tools to scour social media, track cell phones, and amass detailed images of people’s faces.

California cop gets 6 years for shooting mentally ill man 

Atienza said it pained the family that it took nearly three years to bring charges against Hall, during which time he fatally shot another man, Tyrell Wilson, who was homeless and mentally ill.

cops
cops
cops
cops 

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FBI gains access to Sci-Hub founder’s Google account data 

Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan says that following a legal process, the Federal Bureau of Investigations has gained access to data in her Google account. Google itself informed her of the data release this week noting that due to a court order, the company wasn't allowed to inform her sooner.

As the world's leading free distributor of millions of oftentimes 'paywalled' research papers, Sci-Hub is often described as "The Pirate Bay of Science".

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Jack Kerouac at 100 

Steve Allen was a radio and TV show host – sort of like an intellectual Ed Sullivan, and he had Kerouac on, interviewed him and Kerouac read from On the Road, and at one point Steve Allen asked him, 'So what does Beat mean?' and Kerouac answered in one word: "Sympathetic."

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Exercise equipment of the past 

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Bizarre alien embryo found on sidewalk after rainstorm 

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One-word newscast, because it's the same news every time...
climate
climate
climate
QAnonsense
QAnonsense
Putin
Trump 

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Mystery links  — Like life itself, there’s no knowing where you’re going:

—①—
     —②—
          —③—


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♫♬  Sing along with Doug  ♫
"The Avengers" — Laurie Johnson 

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The End
Barry Bauman
Larry Herman
Joni James
John Q. Trojanowski

3/5/2022 
 
Cranky Old Man is annoyed and complains and very occasionally offers a kindness, along with anything off the internet that's made me smile or snarl. All opinions fresh from my ass. Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.
 
Tip 'o the hat to All Hat No Cattle, Linden Arden, ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, Captain Hampockets, CaptCreate's Log, John the Basket, LiarTownUSA, National Zero, Ran Prieur, Voenix Rising, and anyone else whose work I've stolen without saying thanks.
 
Extra special thanks to Becky Jo, Name Withheld, Dave S., and always Stephanie...

2 comments:

  1. Captain HampocketsMarch 5, 2022 at 5:51 AM

    Today I learned that LeVar Burton's full name is Levardis Robert Martyn Burton Jr.

    ReplyDelete

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