Hotober

       As I was walking my dog this morning the temperature was around 60 degrees.   For anyone familiar with the weather at latitude 44 in the US,  that should give you pause.  The fact the long range forecast is for no frost at least through the 20th is even more remarkable.   In this area we usually get an untimely freeze somewhere between the last week of September and the first week of October.  An "indigenous peoples" summer usually follows, but this year there was no freeze.  Even old timers have reacted with incredulity to the lack of a real autumn.   The leaves on most trees have turned and are falling, but some are resisting the call to change.   Nothing to see here...

chickening out

        As most commentators opined, Mitch McConnell chickened out, blinked, etc. and put off the debate over the "debt ceiling" for another couple of months.   Expect your Christmas to be ruined by tRump and the GOP as they try to score political points over a made up crisis.

       While McConnell was excoriated by the likes of Ted Cruz and the former guy, most people realized  the majority leaders patrons were really calling the shots.   The 1% don't want to see the American economy crash and burn under the supervision of the ideologues.   They have created a monster in the Republican party, and without the majority leader holding his caucus together and providing the votes to at least kick the can down the road for another couple of months, we would be staring down the barrel of the gun of debt default.  It remains to be seen if the oligarchs can continue to hold the leash of the GOP and the crazy person in charge of it.

Anti Vax idiots

       As Duncan Black at the blog Eschaton put it, while most doctors are not like the idiot in California who addressed a crowd of anti-vaxxers before being escorted from the campus of the UCLA medical center, there are enough of them to stain the whole profession.   I respect the medical profession in general, but there are far too many arrogant men and women whose specialized knowledge is grossly over rated and which leads them to believe they are infallible in many areas about which they know very little.  The doctor in question is an anesthesiologist.   What has that got to do with immunology?   So far, i have not heard of an immunologist suggesting the Covid vaccines are unsafe.   So, Dr. Lake, please STFU and let the experts opine on the subject.

Another season of futility

      The Yankees' 2021 season ended with a whimper on the field at Fenway park in Boston.  Let the post mortem begin!   Having personally watched dozens of games since the All Star break, it seems obvious to me the team sleep walks through too many contests and the back half of the lineup is sub par.   As currently constituted the Yankees will continue to win more than they lose, but will not challenge for another World Series title.   Maybe it's time to give the minor league prospects a chance to surround Judge and Stanton with the talent and enthusiasm which players like Gary Sanchez and Gleber Torres seem to lack.   Aaron Boone's excuses for poor play and lack of hustle are getting tired.

     I know in the grand scheme of things my fixation on a poorly managed baseball team seems petty.   The perfidy of the GOP, climate change and our unequal society and the continuing dysfunction of the Democratic party demand our attention and the work needed to correct the problems.   However, problems, even existential threats have always been with us.  Rooting for a sports team is a way to deal with the tensions of everyday life.  I may not be able to fix the Yankees' problems any more than I can fix the climate, but sometimes we all need a break from reality.

The problem with Facebook

      Facebook went down yesterday.    For many people, this represents an existential crisis.  For others the news sparks a "so what" response.   While I am in the latter camp, an attempt to post something on my page did make me mildly upset.   Facebook has become the background noise of our lives.  Many of us only notice when, like yesterday, the noise ceases.

     Does Mark Zuckerberg and company need regulation?   Is Facebook the equivalent of a public utility?   These are legitimate questions which demand answers.  I hope Congress addresses the future of facebook in the wake of a whistleblower testifying before lawmakers today.  However, I doubt much will come of it considering the firehose of money the company can direct in defense of the status quo.

     In the meantime, I will continue to share photos of my puppy and the grandkids and weigh in on the important issues of the day, secure in the knowledge that most of the people who eyeball my posts are either friends or frenemies who wish me no harm.   Facebook, with almost 3 billion followers can be the source of great good or equally great evil.   We need to deal with those possibilities.

This and that

      It was a wild news weekend for sports fans and policy wonks.   The Yankees made the playoffs in the bottom of the ninth as Aaron Judge singled home the only run of the game.   This sets up a wild card game with the Red Sox in Boston on Tuesday.  Meanwhile, the football Giants and Jets tempted their long suffering fans with flashes of real talent as they both won in overtime against better teams.  All I can say is don't hold your breath waiting for a championship run.

    In the world of politics, it was the Manchin-Sinema show as the two senators holding the Biden administration's legacy in their hands showed no signs of movement toward the Dems multi-trillion dollar reconciliation bill.   Sinema in particular seems laser focused on derailing the whole deal in service to her corporate paymasters.   It's going to be a long month in Washington.

     It is October 4th and it looks like local growers and gardeners will have ample time to harvest everything before the first frost of the season except in some mountain locations.   The long range forecast for the month shows above normal temperatures for most of the country.   Then again, what do we expect in a time of human induced climate change.

Republicans' selfishness

      There are so many examples of Republican selfishness occurring right now that it is hard to focus on which are the most egregious, but vaccine refusal and failure to support raising the debt ceiling are on my mind today.

       Vaccine mandates are finally moving the needle as far as overall immunization is concerned, although the minority of holdouts are getting outsize media attention.  I'm sorry, but I have zero sympathy for registered nurses who have taken innumerable mandatory vaccinations who now say they want to control what goes into their bodies.   Two of my daughters are R.N.s and have both received their shots.

      Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are providing no help to Democrats as they struggle to raise the debt ceiling to pay for the former guy's tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.   The hypocrisy involved is mind boggling, but in today's GOP, it's just another day at the office.