2/17/23

 Friday, February 17, 2023

In bed at 11:30, awake at 5:30, up at 5:41.  Driveways plowed, walk shoveled, 5 or 6 inches of new snow on the ground.  Let Lilly out into 13℉ cold with NNW wind at 13 mph and wind chill of 2 below zero.  Cold day ahead with a high of 24, winds 7 to 18 mph, gusts to 31 mp, and wind chills of minus 2 to 15℉.  Sunrise at 6:46, sunsetat5:25, 10+38

“...I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don't know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it again. . .  Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Cunk on Earth kept us up late last night.  Diane Morgan plays the profoundly ignorant and stupid Philomena Cunk, investigative reporter.  Very funny stuff: "Was Jesus the first celebrity who was canceled?" but Cunk can't fail to remind us of some real people who are profoundly ill-educated, profoundly ignorant of history, and profoundly stupid.  More often than not, they end up Republican.  (Whoops, sorry😂)

How Far We Have Fallen.  I read Heather Cox Richardson's newsletter from yesterday in which she refers to the 1975-1976 "Church Committee" chaired by Sen. Frank Church.  The committee investigated and exposed massive wrongdoing by our American government: "illegal wiretapping of U.S. citizens, CIA operations to assassinate foreign leaders, drug testing on government personnel, discrediting of civil rights and anti-war activists, and so on. "  What principally struck me was being reminded that in the 1970s, Idaho sent a Democratic senator to Washington.  It reminded me that storied liberals George McGovern and Tom Harkin were sent to the Senate voters in Nebraska and Iowa, respectively.  It reminded me that there was a time when the Red/Blue intense polarization did not exist.  That Indiana sent Birch Bayh to the Senate and Texas sent LBJ to the Senate and elected Ann Richards as governor.  Ancient history.  What happened?

Curious Insight. "I came to believe that to live in Hollywood--Los Angeles is, I believe, its proper name--is to engage in a particular form of astral projection. One's body, one's mind, one's home, one's automobile are all separate and divine from the corporeal entity formally known as Tennessee Williams. Your body is cared for, fed, buffed, improved, plucked so as to be as perfect as possible. One's mind is to be filled with nothing larger than an aphorism that will cleanse your heart and mind and keep you perky for close-ups at the studio or crudities with the ladies. One's automobile and one's home are attended to by staffs of servile and attractive men and women who do not make eye contact. Everything in place. Everything arrested. Everything temporary. It is the closest approximation one can find on earth to the preparation and presentation of the altar in the Catholic mass. Perfect placement, perfect presentation feverishly in search of meaning." Tennessee Williams on Hollywood/Interview with James Grissom/1982/

Biden and his Balloons.  Is it just me or do Joe Biden and his team look pretty foolish about their response to UWOs (unidentified wafting objects)?  They permitted the Chinese surveillance balloon traverse much of the continental United States, including over our ICBM sites, with 3 busloads worth of sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment before shooting it down off the South Carolina coast.  Then they launched F-22s with Sidewinder air-to-air missiles to intercept and shoot down ('Bingo . . . splash!') what appear to be harmless weather balloons.  Each F-22 costs $334,000,000; production of them was canceled by DOD because they cost so much.  Each hour of flight time costs approximately $70,000. Sidewinder missiles cost between $400,000 and $500,000.  They are heat-seeking missiles, designed to fly up the exhausts of attacking jet aircraft.  I spent years in the Marine Corps working with fighter pilots in F-4s and F-8s positioning them to come up behind enemy aircraft to launch their Sidewinders into those very hot exhaust pipes.  Balloons are not known to be particularly hot, especially at high altitudes, so it wasn't surprising that one of the Sidewinder attacks was a miss, i.e., the Sidewinder couldn't 'lock on' to its cold target.  In any event, isn't there something really ridiculous about sending these $334M aircraft with their half-million dollar bullets up against what are probably weather or research balloons?

To Do or Not to Do.  "Oue records indicate that you are due for a colonoscopy and an upper GI endoscopy with Dr. Chad Stepke.  Please call our office to schedule . . ."