Leftovers & Links #57

There’s been much, much more coverage of shoplifters at Walgreens, than of Walgreens stealing millions of dollars from its employees’ paychecks. Ain’t that peculiar?

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Once a month or so, I tie up the accumulated bag of the cat's poop and pee, and because it’s so heavy, I put it on a hand-truck to roll it out to the dumpster. I never scrub the toilet, so dumping the cat's shit is the most disgusting task I do on a regular basis, and I finished moments ago, then washed my hands, and thought about it.

I’m only one old dude taking out his cat’s poop and pee, but this morning there might be billions of people all over the world carrying their cat’s poop and pee to wherever they dump it, dropping sacks of catshit and whatever else onto mini-mountains of plastic and tin foil, curlers and junk mail and rotten cucumbers and last week’s takeout by the ton. Most of it's headed for landfill.

We are killing this place. It’s disgusting, dispiriting, depressing to think about, it’s been going on since before I was born, and I don’t even know what to do about it. All I know for sure is two things — ① whatever ought to be done about it isn’t being done, and ② all that neverending garbage isn’t even the biggest problem we’re ignoring.

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1955 was not so long ago, but it’s a reality I never knew and can’t even approximate to comprehend.

This happened, though. People came together to hear poetry, and it was heard, and worth hearing. It made people pause and think and even laugh, because some of it’s fucking funny. People paid attention. It got through to people, and it mattered, and it was remembered, and it’s astounding to me that it happened.

Howl.

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Following the news for a whole lotta years, I’ve heard thousands of politicians being interviewed, and perhaps a dozen times said to myself, “That person is not full of shit” — not lying, not stupid, not ‘triangulating’, not saying one thing to one group and the opposite to someone else, not calculating what’s the answer that will bring in donations, but sincerely giving a damn and trying to make things better.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one. Bernie Sanders is another. And definitely, Stacy Abrams. She’s running again for Governor of Georgia, against a system rigged against her because she’s black, because she's smart, and especially because she’s sincerely giving a damn and trying to make things better.

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And on the other side of the universe, TV quack “Dr Oz” is running for US Senate from Pennsylvania. He’d be awful, of course, but he’s already awful. “Senator Oz” might even be a net improvement — in DC instead of on TV, he wouldn’t even be in the top 40 of awful.

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Industrial collapse in slow-motion: Like anything involving big-time capitalism, the clog-up of shipping in California is beyond my understanding. Lots of foodstuffs are rotting, needed supplies going nowhere, because of ‘congestion’ — there's more cargo and ships than docks and dockworkers. The panicked news coverage has slowed, but the backlog apparently continues.

Is it all only wages, wages again? People unwilling to do the work while underpaid, and corporations unwilling to pay reasonable wages?

That’s what I suspect is happening off the coast of Cali, but I can't say for sure from this distance. I do know and it's an absolute certainty, companies paying chickenshit wages is the explanation behind every other “staff shortage” everywhere.

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I was a Star Trek fan as a kid, attended sci-fi conventions and yeah, wore Vulcan ears and thought I knew how to pronounce George Takei’s name. I even corrected people when they pronounced Takei some other way, for fifty years until yesterday. Then I heard Takei on a podcast, and he pronounced his own name wrong!

It’s Gene Roddenberry’s fault. I’d seen Roddenberry speak at a con, he'd worked with Takei for years, so you’d think he'd know how to pronounce Takei’s name. And that’s how I’ve pronounced it, ever since — the way Roddenberry pronounced it.

Beam me down, I was lied to by the Great Bird of the Galaxy. Takei does not rhyme with ‘the pie’, it rhymes with ‘decay’.

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A TV-movie revival of Nash Bridges now exists, and it seems so gaudy surreal ridiculous and thus true to the original, I’ll have to watch it.

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Way down in this too-wordy article, there’s a nugget that made me smile: Stan Lee didn’t like superhero movies. Good to know, and I agree. There’ve been a few fun ones, but most superhero movies are crap.

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When I was a young whippersnapper, ‘grumpy old man’ was a stereotype, and when I saw a grumpy old man I might’ve laughed. Now I am that grumpy old man and it ain’t at all funny, except when it is.

The whole world is drowning in stupidity and incompetence, and I’m getting old and crotchety and impatient with it all. I’ll do you the small courtesy of not detailing today’s outrages and indignities, but take my word for it — it was outrageous and I was indignant. Harrumph.

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Here’s an amusing look backward at some rich wingnut who argued loudly against getting the polio vaccine. Unlike today’s wingnuts, he didn’t have a huge slice of America on his side, millions and millions of people refusing a vaccine, and because he didn’t you can probably walk.

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The oldest house in Aveyron, France; built some time in the 14th century.

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CNN has finally ‘suspended’ Chris Cuomo, probably with pay. I barely give a rip about Cuomo, but I care about journalism, so I found this line revealing but not surprising:

"When Chris admitted to us that he had offered advice to his brother's staff, he broke our rules and we acknowledged that publicly," the spokesperson continued. "But we also appreciated the unique position he was in and understood his need to put family first and job second."

Got it. Chris Cuomo’s family is more important than CNN’s integrity, and CNN 'appreciates' that. Thanks for clearing that up.

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I check this site’s stats once in a while, which is always blues-inducing, but fuck it all. I would much, much rather really reach five people, than have 5,000 surfers pop in for a giggle and go.

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Mystery links — Like life itself, there’s no knowing where you’re going:

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Sing along with Doug:
"Sam Stone," by John Prine
Sincere tip 'o the hat:
BoingBoing • Captain Hampockets
Follow Me Here • Hyperallergic
John the Basket • LiarTownUSA
Messy Nessy Chick • National Zero
Ran Prieur • Vintage Everyday
Voenix Rising
Extra special thanks:
Clayton Barnes • Becky Jo
Name Withheld • Dave S.
Leftovers & Links