The madness Continues - Sign

~ More unqualified appointments, more lunatic proclamations, and still no release of the Epstein files. I hope he rots in Hell because of what is in them. Based on testimony in other trials, I would not be surprised to find that he savors the taste of sweet young flesh. Because men like him always think they can do what they want and get away with it. I hope I live long enough to see justice served in the matter of DJT. And that his spawn slink off in disgrace, never to be heard from again. ~ My next show is a week away. Brunswick has always been good for about a third of my yearly income. It's that popular a show, in a high-visibility location, with lots of promotion and a team of organizers who treat the artisans with respect. Free lunch, water a plenty, bathroom breaks, help with whatever. This year I will have Betty right next door to keep me sane and right now the weather looks good - 80 and partly sunny with moderate humidity. And I have everything made - just need to finish updating the inventory, refresh the scented trivets and organize everything. Then it's 9 weeks until my next show. ~ Have been slowly working on Freddy's quilt but keep getting stuck or sidetracked. I ran into a digesetive issue this week and resorted to chewable Pepto tablets which helped but led to a freak out when I suddenly was pooping black stuff (a noted side effect of Pepto apparently!). Wondered if there was something elso going on but apparently not as all is back to normal now. Whew! Did NOT need that a week before a show. ~ Finished a 6 week/12 session Tai Chi course this week. It's been about a decade since I did this and I was amazed at how much came back so easily. And, my balance improved so much over the 6 weeks! I'm ready to sign up for Part 2 starting in October and will practice Part 1 at home until then. Have heard that the Fall class will be more crowded - we had at most 6 in the Part 1 class - so might need to resort to a mask. ~ The garden raised bed is starting to produce - tomatos, lettuce, green beans and chard have been harvested with more to come. Not sure the beets and carrots will ever amount to anything - I suspect the soil is not quite right for them. The pumpkins (planted in the ground) are taking off and I noticed a wee small one starting to grow yesterday. Yay! If I get even just one it's a win as I love cooking my own for pie in the Fall. ~ The weather this week has been spectacular - 70s daytime, 50s nighttime and low humidity. Supposed to warm a bit over the weekend and then drop again the end of next week. Keep it up! Although it's been so much easier on the body and for sleeping with the heat pump this year. Best investment.

3/4 of a Century

~ It sounds much more respectable than 75 years, doesn't it? That is how old I turned this past Wednesday. There are days I feel and act every day of that and there are other days I'm still 25 in my mind. (Depends on what music I'm listening to or how much news I've consumed.) No great wisdom to impart at this milestone but here are some observations: 1) I'm happy I was born when I was - I got to experience the hopefulness of having several exceptional men elected as our president. Their leadership was transformational in a most positive way. I also got to experience the low of having one of them taken away far too soon. I still remember that afternoon in junior high, hearing the announcement that the President had been shot, only to learn later that he was gone. In the days following - days off from school - the chaos of having his assassin shot, the transfer of power to a man who would not run when the term he finished was up, the solemnity of the funeral. Aside from the political, I am so blessed to have experienced the music I did - the 60s, 70s and 80s - the folk music, rock and roll, protest music. All hopeful and positive, unlike the grunge, rap, and heavy metal that followed in the 90s and beyond. Some serious songwriting chops back then! And the singers! Ah, Dan Fogelberg, Steve Perry, and more. 2) In some ways I've become more conservative as I have matured and in other ways more radical. The chaos and grift and downright incompetence of the Trump eras have sent me out to the streets to protest, more than once. But I still cling to many of the values instilled in me by my parents - I'd never get a tattoo, likely will never dye my hair a color not found in nature and I don't see any need for recreational drugs. And I have pretty much given up alcohol on a regular basis. I don't see any need to waste my time on what passes for television entertainment these days. It's all low class humor or staged reality tv, designed to appeal to people who are so unhappy with their lives that they thrive on someone else's misfortune. 3) I'm more tolerant of some ideas and less of others. If you do not believe that all people are created equal and have the same rights and that no one is above the law, you are not my kind of person. If you think you are entitled to some special treatment because of who you are, what your name is, where you are from or how much money you have, you are also not my kind of person. If you bully and talk down to children, women, people who are "different" from you, you are not my kind of person. If you mistreat animals, you are not my kind of person. I will do my best to call you out on those behaviors because someone needs to do so. 4) I'm happy I was fortunate enough to finally find a career instead of a job. It was something it turned out I was good at and enjoyed (until the business mindset took hold of higher education!) And I was happy to have discovered what I wanted to do in my retirement. I feel as if I've been moderately successful in my little business. And I'm happy to have realized it is time to leave it behind.

FINALLY - - - MAYBE???

~ The S__T really hit the fan this week when the Trump administration put out a memo that the files related to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation were not being released as there was nothing there..I.E. there was no “list” of his associates to be had. (This after making a huge show of declaring the list would be released as soon as Trump took office and handing out a preliminary summary in fancy binders that turned out to contain only previously released information.) The press went wild, one of Trump’s appointed FBI underlings charged AG Pam Bondi with all sorts of things, and (UNEXPECTEDLY!!!) the MAGA base went absolutely crazy and are turning against him. ~ Trump is currently telling everyone to let it go and move on because there are other more pressing things to talk about. (A move that sort of is a tell that he is likely implicated in this report!) And while I agree because of the disastrous floods in Texas and New Mexico, the president of the largest country in the world should be able to multitask well enough to deal with all this. While I suspect this will not be his undoing I did not see this coming.

One Big Befuddlement of a Bill!!

~ Today Trump's master plan bill passed the House after passing the Senate earlier in the week. This is an monster piece of legislation. It will rip social safety nets away from the most vulnerable in this country, shift wealth up the the 1% who do not need it, and generally make life more difficult for everyone. I'm sick about it. How can these people look in the mirror at themselves and not see the cruelty? The R's in the House actually cheered after the results were announced, amid chants of "USA". Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, spent over 8 hours, starting before 5 this morning, holding the floor and holding up the vote. He reviewed every ammendment the Dems put forth, all of which were voted down by the R's. This bill gives ICE a larger budget than the FBI, and other intelligence agancies combined. And just Tuesday, Trump was in Florida to inspect the latest abomination of a detention center which they dubbed Alligator Alcatraz. Trump's "advisor" Laura Loomer, posted a disgusting "Witicism" on X about how the alligators were going to be eating 65,000 immigrants. These are not serious people! They are all about public perception with no morals or intelligence to make the country better for anyone but themselves. Trump just said the bill will turn the country's economy into a rocket ship. I hope it's not one of Elon's exploding ones. ~ Speaking of Elon, he has surfaced and promised to start a 3rd political party if the bill passes. He certainly went from First Friend to First Foe in a nanosecond! ~ On Sunday, Brenda and I went to the Belfast Arts in the Park show. It was good to see and talk with some of my friends but I was happy not to be participating as they had crammed so many vendors in that everyone was cheek by jowl. I would not have been very happy, that's for certain. I never did spectaculrly well at that show - I suspect it was just the wrong time of the year for quilted things. I did observe that there were not many bags being carried around. I hope that is not a sign of things to come but suspect people may be pulling back on spending. We'll see.

WTAF???

~ After saying 2 days ago that he was giving Iran 2 weeks to come to the table to negotiate Trump goes and bombs their 3 nuclear enrichment sites last night. He truly is a despicable human being. I would sooner do business with a snake! And I'm certain at last night's performance in the White House with Vance, Rubio and Hegseth arrayed behind him they all thought the looked like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. More like the Four Stooges in my book. (And I guess JD didn't get the red tie memo.) These people want to drag us into another protacted war just to soothe their bruised egos and to make them appear strong. It's the same with their Gestapo-like ICE raids. I don't think the people will put up with much more of this. I HOPE they won't. ~ In other news, I have added a show to this year's schedule. Linda Cohen is curating a show in Wiscasset the first weekend in December. That will mean 3 weekends in a row but it will be a fine swan song. Still working on the Maine wall hanging but it's coming. I should have lots of creative time this week, given the weather forecast - 95+ on Tuesday. Yikes! So thankful for the heat pump! ~ Barely watched Ascot racing this week - too many other activities to attend to. I signed up for 8 weeks of Tai Chi - Monday and Wednesday mornings at the Alfond Center in Waterville. Different instructor than before but it's all good and gets me moving. ~ D. and I attended the No Kings rally in Augusta last weekend. 3000 strong. We did not march - I'd had enough of people by that time - but it felt good to be out there and part of something bigger than myself. I foresee more of this activity in the future, until a change is made.

Moving Closer to Declaring Martial Law???

~ This weekend there were very visible and vocal demonstrations in Los Angeles when ICE moved in to arrest and nab and deport people who were in this country legally - the tactics used were to raid workplaces and to stake out courthouses where immigration hearings are conducted. The protesters were repectful and peaceful but that seemed to not matter to the administration in DC. Trump ordered the call up of 2000 National Guard to "quell the riots" as they are terming the demonstrations. Since the Guardsmen arrived Sunday there have been much more violent demonstrations, seemingly led by professional agitators who make it their business to stir the pot wherever they go. (I would not be surprised to find out these are some of the January 6th rioters who were pardoned. Nor would I be surprised to find out they were hired by some shadow part of the administration to further their agenda of declaring martial law so they can suspend the elcetion process in 2026.) The administration has already launched a disinformation campaign, posting pictures from a 2022 riot and claiming they were taken last night. They don't understand that the resistance includes some very dedicated people who are trained to suss out such bogus posts. (It's usually as simple as a reversed engineeered search on Google.) And what was the dear leader doing while all this was going on? Attending a pro wrestling match in NJ. How fitting. ~ And the long-awaited, highly anticipated break up between Trump and Elon Musk has happened. Musk started the ball rolling with a post slamming the BBB Trump has staked his popularity on, likely because it cut subsidies for EVs. There was a lot of back and forth and hollow threats, culminating with Musk threatening to expose Trump's connections to Jeffrey Epstein and someone in Trump's administration threatening Musk with deportation. Things went silent after that with a proposed make up phone call never materializing. ~ After that, it was exposed how much damage the Doge bros had done to the building housing the U.S. Institute of Peace. Food was left to rot in fridges and staffers desks, resulting in cockroach and rat infestations when the bros abandoned the building. There was also evidence of water damage and graffiti damage. There is still a stand off at the Library of Congress and likely other government departments as lawsuits work their way through the courts. ~ Yestereday it was announced that ABC News had suspending Terry Moran for a post he made on his personal social media account, expressing the view that both Trump and his deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller were both "haters" - (from CNN report: "In the missive, which was posted shortly after midnight, Moran said both Trump and Miller are “world-class haters.” For Trump, he said, hatred is “only a means to an end, and that end is his own glorification. That’s his spiritual nourishment.” For Miller, on the other hand, “hatreds are his spiritual nourishment,” Moran charged. “He eats his hate.”' Miller is a ghoul, willing to voice the extremist views that Trump believes but is too chicken to say. He is certainly a hater and it's hard to believe he actually convinced someone to marry him, although she works for Musk, so she can't be very pricipled. ~ I've always felt that we are somewhat isolated from the nonsense here in Maine but it's coming closer every day. A restaurant in Waterville, the Silver Street Tavern, has for years flown a Pride flag outside in June. This year, a post on Facebook picturing said flag drew a plethora of hate speech, with the usual promised of boycotts etc. We seem to have lost our ability to live and let live in this country. Don't want to be gay? Then don't but you don't have the right to tell someone else not to live that life. Don't want an abortion? Don't hae one but don't take away someon else's ability to have one if needed. Live and let live. Ypur religion is your religion and it does not give you the right to tell me mine is wrong.

A Depressing Day, Start to Finish

~ Before most of the US had their coffee this morning, the House of Representatives passed the orange man's "Big Beautiful Bill" by a margin of one vote. Two Republicans voted with all Dems, one voted "Present" and two did not vote. I suspect the "Present" vote was a pre-planned deal. It now goes to the Senate and who knows what they will do to it. It has so many depressing things I cannot even begin to understand the effects. While the didn't touch Medicare directly, it will likely be cut to afford the bloated spending increases in defense and homeland security. Speaking of HS, in a congressional hearing this week, Secretart Noem was asked to define Habeus Corpus and bombed big time, then tried to talk over the member who explained what the concept really was, not what the administration believes it to be with regard to immigration. ~ Just this afternoon the administration notified Harvard University that it was no longer allowed to accept foreign students and that current foreign students would need to transfer to another institution. The reason given was that Harvard had not protected Jewish students during last year's demonstrations against the war in Gaza. Social media posts today revealed another possible reason - apparently Harvard rejected Baron Trump. I haven't verified this but offer yet another idea - it's more of this administration's attack on higher education they think will result in a less-informed citizenry so they can continue their dirty work of corruption, grift and authoritarianism. Per Thomas Jefferson - “A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.” ~ Yesterday the Defense Dept. accepted the Qatari gift of the golden 747 palace in the sky, which will fit right in with the Golden Dome defense system Trump has proposed. So no wonder the defense budget is so bloated given these two line items. I suspect this plane will never be ready for him to use while still in office and the thought that it will eventually be a gift to him, not the US, is beyond belief. I'm just waiting for karma to finally rear its ugly head and smack him so hard... ~ And Joe Biden announced over the weekend that he has been diagnosed with serious protate cancer. The was a very respectful social post from the current president (that I;m certain he did nor compose himself!!!) and a disrespectful one from his idiot son. And lots of people saying cancer got it wrong.