Let the feces flinging begin!!

Republicans are busily hanging their presumed Speaker but that didn’t prevent them from removing the metal detectors at the entrance of the House. How much you wanna bet that the House floor will become open carry with House Freedom Caucus members wandering around with their semi automatics slung over their backs. You never know when you’ll have to “reclaim your time” from a particularly mouthy witness.

Imagine petite, glasses wearing Lauren Boebert packing heat in her 5” CFM shoes. Sounds like there’s a pornhub category for that. There sure are some weird dark archetypes running with scissors in the Republican Party these days.

Anyway, Kevin McCarthy can’t get 19, make that 20, House Republicans to comprehend how House politics work or the meaning of seniority and compromise. I did read that the House Freedom Caucus members tried to cut deals for themselves for plum committee assignments but Marjorie Taylor Greene was left out of these conversations:

“I’m the only Republican that has zero committees. So you would think I would be the one in there asking for something. But I haven’t done that. But I find out that it’s my Freedom Caucus colleagues and my supposed friends that went and did that, and they asked nothing for me. Nothing. That’s what I found out in there. I’m furious,” she said.

My feeling is that if McCarthy can’t get the House Freedom Caucus under control then he doesn’t deserve to be speaker.

And then there’s the theory that McCarthy is the author of his own demise, as described in this thread:

(1 of 5) Kevin McCarthy sealed his fate two years ago when he legitimized the former president by very publicly visiting him in Mar-a-Lago weeks after the attack on the Capitol

— Geoff Duncan (@GeoffDuncanGA) January 3, 2023

As any parent knows, when they hit their teens, it’s too late to enforce discipline.

In the meantime, we don’t have a Congress. The old one’s term expired and the new one hasn’t been sworn in. If I were a conspiracy theorist I might guess that the Republicans are using this period of time without a Congress to do something destructive that will most upset Americans. But for this bunch, I don’t think they’re capable of thinking more than 15 minutes ahead. Or less.

Whoo-Hoo! I got a new Senator

Make us proud, Senator Fetterman:

Jawn takes the oath in a suit!

A New Year

As we all know, it is a new year. The year is calculated as the the period it takes for the earth to go around the sun one time. This country and most of the world follows the Gregorian calendar, which took over prominence in the Middle Ages from the Julian calendar, which was established under Julius Caesar. There are other calendars, notably the Hebrew calendar, which counts the months differently, but comes out about the same. That is why Hanukah occurs on a different day of the Gregorian calendar: one recent year, right after Thanksgiving; while another year, it might be close to Christmas.

So we on earth count the years, which have literal and symbolic meaning. We say “It is a new year,” and it connotes things, like a new start, a blank slate, a chance to carry out New Year’s Resolutions. And we celebrate New Year’s Eve, and then New Year’s Day.

Of course, after a few days, the newness of the year dissipates, and things go along. I will miss writing the year 2022, and June 22 is my birthday, so 22 means something to me, and it was nice to write 2022. There was 2/2/22, which will not occur for another hundred years. That is sad. The same with 6/22/22. 2023 seems to feel much less comfortable to me, as if in another era.

I was going to write about things that might happen this year, but I am a little discomfited by the news of the Pittsburgh Steelers football player Damar Hamlin collapsing on the field in tonight’s game, and needing to be taken to the hospital, where he is now in critical condition.

RD provided a helpful comment by a Dr. Sutterer, who said that it was an extremely rare occurrence, which only happens if the chest receives a hard blow at the very second of a moment in a cardiac cycle. The heart has to be started again. This seems to indicate that with the quick response from medical professionals on the field, Hamlin may be all right. But of course we cannot be certain. The game was stopped, and then it was decided to postpone it to some unknown time.

RD mentioned that this event had nothing to do with a reaction to vaccines, and the doctor immediately said that in his review. I guess this is because there already are people who, for wrong and and evil reasons, want to convince people that vaccines are dangerous, and point to this as some kind of validation of their ignorance. Are we now entering a new Dark Ages, where scientific events are blamed on witches, or other superstitions? I am serious, that seems to be where we are going. Those people who delight in telling people not to be vaccinated, are of course risking millions of lives.

Everything that happens is used by the various cults: anti-vax; anti-science, anti-Jewish people; anti-liberals; anti-logic, to try to convince others that the uncertainty and risk in the world will be gone, if they only listen to the cultists. Do you know that in the Middle Ages, Jewish communities suffered less of the horrors of the Bubonic Plague, which the Christians attributed to them being in league with dark forces? It actually was due to the codes of cleanliness. Just like it is not “Jewish space lasers,” which a horrible person who might well be put in one of the top House positions, said was the cause of the terrible forest fires which raged in California. Ignorant and hateful people will believe anything, and try to convince their cultists of it.

Wordle continues. I think that the word on New Year’s Day or just before was “manly.” I thought,, some are not going to like that! Well, Monday’s word was “skirt,” as if they were trying to balance that. Or maybe it was just coincidence. More words will be forthcoming, let’s get some harder ones in there!

The new year always brings awards shows. I wish that I liked more of the movies and shows and songs which are nominated. I will root for “The Fabelmans,” but it will not win. It would have won twenty years ago. I will root for Michelle Williams to win Best Female Actor, she was great in it as the mother. Someone who might also deserve a nomination, is Margot Robbie, for her role in ?Babylon,” which I saw the other day. I am not recommending the movie, though it had some good parts, along with too many over-the-top and even unpleasant moments. But Robbie was excellent. She won’t win, either. I don’t see many movies, so that is all I have to root for, for the Oscars. Maybe the score by Justin Hurwitz in “Babylon,” it was the best part of the movie.

Maybe this year I will see more movies, but the serious “prestige movies” are disappearing. A few I will want to see, are Cbristopher Nolan’s”Oppenheimer,” “Read Every Word,” about the working relationship of the biographer Robert Caro and his editor Robert Gottlieb,” and Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

Musically, I hope that the Popguns, from ‘England, come out with a new album; they were working on one until the pandemic occurred. Camera Obscura, from Scotland, is supposed to be coming out with a new album Altered Images, with Clare Grogan, also from Scotland, released their first new album in 38 years! It is not my favorite style of theirs, it is like their last album, with more of an ’80’s dance-club type beat, but there is one great song on it, “Glitter Ball,” which I would bet will be better than most of the Grammy “Best Song” nominees; it sounds somewhat like the song from “Flashdance,” but it is in no way a copy.

Soon, we will be hearing about the new Republican-controlled Congress, but we can wait, and ignore most of it, as it has no point to it, other than Republicans trying to set themselves up to win the next elections. We can root for and help Ukraine. and we can focus on combating climate change; along with trying to enjoy the nicer aspects of things, which has to be important to do.

Oh, I forgot to mention; I watched the Rose Parade, with Gabby Giffords being Grand Marshal.what a nice honor! She rode in a float with her husband, Senator Mark Kelly. There were ocelots on a float, not real ones! One of my very favorite animals! So then the Rose Bowl game is about to start, and Senator Kelly is to oversee the coin toss, but the referee introduces him as “Senator Mark Lewis”! I didn’t think he said Kelly, but I didn’t know what he said/ Later, I read that he said Lewis. There is a Mark Lewis who ran for the Virginia State Senate last year as a Libertarian candidate. Was the referee thinking of him? I hope not, but how hard is it to remember the name of a U.S/ Senator and former astronaut? Fortunately, he didn’t say “Senator Lake.”