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Thought a lot about not

CRANKY
OLD FART

#254

leftovers
& links

 
Saturday,
Dec. 24, 2022

The great winter storm of 2022 is over, at least here in Seattle. From a few people back east and midwestern, I've heard worse stories than any I could tell.

Our power never went out. Our hot water remained nice and hot. This dilapidated house is barely insulated, so my room got kinda cold. That's about all.

It was entertaining, though. After freezing rain overnight on Thursday, everything was covered with a thick sheet of ice on Friday morning. Only idiots were driving, and I loved watching them out the window.

There's a four-way stop at the corner, with both streets on a fairly steep incline and under ice, so it was an all-day skiderama. There were only two wrecks, though. Should've been more.

Before dawn on our fully frozen Friday morning, I went to the bathroom to pee. As I finished and flushed, my annoying flatmate Dean came out of his bedroom, fully dressed, zipping up his jacket. He was about to go out the door and down the street, to stand and wait for a bus to his job — a bus that wasn't coming. Bus service had been cancelled county-wide.

He stopped and talked to me like he always does, about what he'd be cooking at the hotel kitchen today, and what he'd cooked yesterday, but he was in a hurry. "No time to talk," he said after boring me for two minutes too long talking. "Gotta catch my bus," he said, walking toward the door, and my morning moral crisis was underway:

Should I tell Dean that bus service has been cancelled? Or let him stand in the cold for half an hour, maybe longer?

I told him, but in the course of about five seconds, I sure thought a lot about not. Angel and Devil on each shoulder, arguing through my head...

This morning, getting myself together to go to the family breakfast, I found my lost notebook I've been looking for all week. So maybe I'll have better stories than these to tell, as I flip through its pages tonight.

News you need,
whether you know it or not

After the Fukushima disaster, Japan swore to phase out nuclear power. But not anymore. 

Facebook is sued by Ethiopians and Kenyan rights group for fueling Tigray War 

The IRS is required to conduct audits of the president and vice president while they are in office—but Trump apparently got a pass. 

Iceland v Iceland Foods is decided in Iceland's favor 

Poor and diverse areas of Seattle and Portland offered slower and more expensive internet 

Groundwater in California’s Central Valley disappearing at alarming rate 

And it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, because climate change isn't 'coming', it's underway. It'll kill billions, and we're not doing squat about it.

California city residents pay $300,000 to veteran brutalized by officer who didn’t want to be filmed 

And it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, because all cops are bastards, or they know who the bastard cops are and do nothing about it, which is the same thing.

When Christian evangelist Franklin Graham and hate-group leader Tony Perkins are calling you a sinner, it’s probably because you made the mistake of being kind. 

And it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, because Republicans are the enemy of common sense, common decency, simple truth, and democracy.

Mystery links
Like life itself, there's
no knowing where you're going

click 

click 

click 

Clicks ahoy

Thousands of weed users are still in jail. Marijuana CEOs rake in millions. 

Fascism isn't looming. 

Traveling the Grand Canyon in a Metz 22 Speedster in 1914 

Whale fall 

Traumatic insemination 

What Is It Like to Be a Bat? 

♫♬  Mix tape of my mind  ♫

Caballo Negro (Black Horse) — Pérez Prado y Su Orquesta 

Chunga's Revenge — Frank Zappa 

The Logical Song — Supertramp 

Over at the Frankenstein Place — Rocky Horror 

White Trash Beautiful — Everlast 

Auld Lang Syne,
ya bastards

 • Joyce Bryant 

Herbert Deutsch 

Joseph Kittinger 

Don Lewis 

Lee Lorenz 

Dorothy Pitman Hughes

12/24/2022   

Cranky Old Fart 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 Linden Arden, ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, Captain Hampockets, CaptCreate's Log, John the Basket, LiarTownUSA, Meme City, National Zero, Ran Prieur, Voenix Rising, and anyone else whose work I've stolen without saying thanks.
 
Special thanks to Becky Jo, Name Withheld, Dave S, Wynn Bruce, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn't always shitty.

3 comments:

  1. Good morning and Merry Christmas.

    Somebody was commenting about the maryJane laws out here the other day. It occurred to me then that it was time to hear from John Mayall from the dim, dark past, but I was busy then. Now it's Christmas morning, and I don't drink coffee, so I'm leaving this under the tree for you.

    The Laws Must Change by John Mayall, from his album The Turning Point, @1969, this video was recorded in 1970. Many of us looked younger then, and weed was illegal everywhere. Mr. Mayall, even from that ancient vantage point, knew that the laws must change.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzmqxTBaNyI

    You know how to make this hot. I don't, but you do.

    Fleas on your dog,

    John

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A fine ballad for a fine cause, and yet more than fifty years later it's still illegal in 29 states and
      Puerto Rico. Not a great endorsement of freedom and democracy.

      I *hope* "Fleas on your dog" is a cliché that's unknown to me. Sounds like an unpleasant wish, the opposite of Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

      Were Google's software for this page well-written like most other software, it would recognize a web address and hotlink it automatically. Since it is not, it does not, but it's easy to do such basic coding manually:

      <A HREF=URL>WORDS</A>

      Which, replacing URL with the actual URL and WORDS with the title gives us The Laws Must Change, though in this rare case I prefer a cover by Carolyn Wonderland.

      Delete
    2. Thanks for the hot link, my brother. Fifty years or so ago, Jose Feliciano sang Feliz Navidad. Somehow, that became "fleas on your dog", at least in my day, and it's a way of wishing holiday cheers without mentioning the holiday. I guess it's not as commonly understood as I thought, because I wasn't trying to be obscure.

      John

      Delete

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