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Yeah, I’m pretty much back to normal this morning. I’m not planning on testing myself again until tomorrow, but it’s really looking like I’ve weathered my own personal COVID storm pretty well. I’m one of the lucky ones for whom it was “just a cold”. Since the worst of my cold passed on Monday, I’ve basically been enjoying what is turning out to be a lovely August week–albeit, a week when I can’t interact with anyone except my immediate family. It’s like house arrest, but without the ankle monitor. Oh well! Writing is also starting to go passingly well again,Down the rabbit hole….

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I, like many others, am disturbed and horrified by the attack on author Salman Rushdie that took place at the Chautauqua Institution, a place I’ve been to a few times, which is just an hour’s drive away on the lovely shores of Lake Chautauqua. Hatred and religious extremism no know boundaries and can flourish anywhere, though this wasn’t a local hatred; from what I can tell, some guy checked where Rushdie was going to be, went there, and attacked. I haven’t read any of Rushdie’s novels, but I’ve read a few of his essays and other pieces over the years.Down the rabbit hole….

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  Sam Seaborn: There are a lot of hungry people in the world, Mal, and none of them are hungry ‘cause we went to the moon. None of them are colder and certainly none of them are dumber ‘cause we went to the moon. Mallory O’Brian: And we went to the moon. Do we really have to go to Mars? Sam Seaborn: Yes. Mallory O’Brian: Why? Sam Seaborn: ‘Cause it’s next. ‘Cause we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill and we saw fire; and we crossed the ocean and we pioneered the west, and weDown the rabbit hole….

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Setting aside all the various issues with its interpretation–and honestly, I’ve pretty much conclusively come to the conclusion that it should simply be repealed entirely–I realized anew that other day just how weird the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is. It’s just a strange piece of writing, even for its time. I came to this when I read news of an unfortunate encounter with a police officer that took place in Rochester. (I know, a bad police story, big shocker there.) Summing it up: a cop parked his cop car in a space outside a hospital’s Emergency entrance that is markedDown the rabbit hole….

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“Do you remember America?” the curious person will ask one night, in a darkened tavern as they nurse their second or third drink. “The country tried to codify freedom and democracy? I mean, sure, at first it was only for a few of their citizens, but it was a start, right? They got better at it. And sure, getting better took a whole lot of spilled blood over a couple hundred years, and even when they said ‘Sure, fine, you’re free now,’ they came up with ways to keep you from really being free…but really, do you remember America? ThatDown the rabbit hole….

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I wrote this in February 2022, but I’m re-upping it now as I see a news item this morning about how parents in Wisconsin challenged a book about the interment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II, on the basis that “the government’s perspective wasn’t shared” or some such thing. Of course that’s a bullshit excuse; these people simply think that nothing negative in our history should be taught, ever. No subject is more eternally disappointing to see discussed in America than race, because a great many of us simply don’t have any inclination to engage in anything remotely resemblingDown the rabbit hole….

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“When the fall is all there is, it matters.” (from THE LION IN WINTER) I am disgusted by the Supreme Court’s ruling. I, like everyone else, knew it was coming, but the awful thing is no less awful for all the foreknowledge in the world. I support reproductive rights for all persons, period. I reject the notion utterly that protecting a fetus is the most important thing in the world. (In fact, I’m not terribly convinced that protecting a fetus is all that important at all.) I don’t know where we go from here, but I know it’s to aDown the rabbit hole….

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Sheila and Roger have Judy Garland posts up, and I could hardly fail to do the same. Garland was born 100 years ago today, and how much poorer our world would be without that voice, that marvelous alto of hers–full-throated, just this side of operatic, so marvelously resonant, her way of hitting a pitch just under and then sliding into it like a resolution all her own, and of course that perfect shimmering vibrato she used to equally perfect effect in song after song after song throughout her too-brief life. Judy Garland was one of the greatest things about beingDown the rabbit hole….

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UPDATED below. I saw these two tweets the other day, in reaction to Elon Musk’s widely publicized dictum that his employees have to put in their 40 hours a week at the office, no ifs ands or buts, no refunds returns or exchanges, that’s just the way it is, because something something gazpacho: https://twitter.com/LouisatheLast/status/1532791845322883073 https://twitter.com/LouisatheLast/status/1532792510015320067 I like it when someone comes along and succinctly says something that I’ve been struggling to crystalize in my own mind. Elon Musk is largely feted because he’s apparently a vanguard of our wonderful future…or, at least, that’s the pleasant veneer that has been appliedDown the rabbit hole….

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Here is my annual reposting of some things that pertain to Memorial Day. This particular year’s iteration of this day gives me pause to consider my sense that many of the things for which the men and women we honor today fought and died may be slowly, or quickly, passing into memory. I hope not….   First, a remembrance of a soldier I never knew. Fifteen years ago I wrote the following on Memorial Day, and I wanted to revisit it. It’s about the Vietnam Veteran whose name I remember, despite the fact that I had no relation to himDown the rabbit hole….