Back in Socal with plenty of time to read this morning as I woke up on eastern time. Article after article, it’s all about politicians fighting divisive culture wars, fighting each other and wallowing in corruption. It’s become clear that the political class is completely lost – they no longer care about representing us, the electorate. They care about getting re-elected and gaining personal wealth and power. With very few exceptions, they represent corporations, not private citizens.

So here’s an idea. Rather than deal with the miles-wide political divide of red versus blue, let’s start an organization dedicated to refocusing all politicians, red and blue, on what really matters. Governance. Budgets. Health and safety of citizens. Education. Infrastructure projects to improve living conditions everywhere. The stuff that can make US citizen’s lives better.

We could borrow Woody Harrelson’s SNL term and call it the Purple Party (don’t love it, but I’ll have to think for a while to come up with something better). The party’s platform would be:

• Term limits for all political offices, elected or appointed
• Repeal of SCOTUS’s Citizen’s United decision – corporations are NOT people, and shouldn’t have the same rights
• Legislation blocking Congress from stock trading while in office
• Legislation to restructure or get rid of political action committees (PACs), the endless piggy bank of career politicians

Those four actions would go a long way towards reversing the course we’re on. The Purple Party will stay away from cultural trigger issues like abortion and gun control. It will focus on the single goal of making our “representatives” accountable and replaceable. Today they are neither.

Adios Louisville, for a few weeks. I was expecting bitter cold and maybe snow this trip – it’s February, after all – but what I got was a warmish, very early Spring.

The daffodils are up, redbud is blooming in town, magnolia trees are flowered. I think that’s all good, but…who knows. It’s not the February I remember.

Now back to the weirdly rainy Left Coast.

Yesterday was a very fine day. Time with the boys in the morning, then took a trip to Simpsonville to reconcile with some relatives I haven’t seen in a while. There was a falling out over social media (not involving me) 3-4 years ago, and we didn’t see each other for a few months. Then a year. Then…a few years. It adds up. But I gave warning and then showed up with gift treats from Blue Dog. We had a great day, a nice no-fault reconciliation, and I pitched in and helped build a new horse corral. Just proves again how toxic social media can be. And the power of forgiving.

After the corral work, we watched an amazing UK game versus Auburn. Kentucky won by 30, and could have won by 50 if they had kept the starters in. This team is a mystery – often they are hapless, and occasionally they look like national champs. Yesterday was one of those “looked like champs” days. I should stop analyzing them and just enjoy the wins.

Right after the UK game we saw a replay of the incredible AZ-AZ St game finish, in which an AZ St player hit a 60 foot shot with no time left to win the game. One of the best shots I’ve ever seen – it was pure.

For the icing on the cake, I woke up yesterday with a good idea for a novel. The basic theme is “consciousness”, that hard to define thing that gives us volition and agency, but it will go a lot of places from there. I’m excited enough about it to start outlining it immediately.

So all in all, a very fine day.

Have to say, I’m not loving the way things are shaping up in global geopolitics and war.

After Biden’s visit, the US and NATO are all in supporting Ukraine against Russia. Now China has decided to back Russia with weapons, drones, and who knows what else. So instead of the US fighting Russia by proxy, we’re now fighting both Russia and China by proxy.

That sounds a bit like WW3.

I don’t understand why China would support Russia, but then I’m not a geopolitics expert. If China would just stay neutral, or even better join the US and NATO in this conflict (unlikely), Russia could be taken off the table as a world power and China would have free run over western Asia. But they apparently don’t see it like that.

So while the US Republican party is busy fighting culture wars against diversity, public education, science, woke-ism and gender pronouns, WW3 is beginning. May be beginning. This is something I would prefer not to see in my lifetime, or even my grandkids’ lifetime. Unleashing the destructive military power of US and China on each other would be a disaster. And if the war were brought to our respective shores…tough times. Tough times that the US population isn’t ready for.

It’s a colored animal day. Breakfast quiche at Blue Dog this morning. Then a great bowl of burgoo at Red Hog for lunch.

The temperature dropped 40 degrees overnight. All the Louisville flowering trees that have bloomed early – some redbud, magnolia trees, flowering crab apples – are in for a shock. Not to mention the people. Shorts yesterday, heavy coats today.

Another day and another happy case of UK winning a must-win game, this time in Florida. The Cats were schizoid, playing great for stretches and then collapsing – three or four cycles of this. Fortunately we ended the game on an up cycle and came away with a W. Saw something I’d never seen before – a Florida fan grabbed a UK player on the sidelines and briefly kept him from returning to the court. The fan and two henchmen were removed from the arena, but still…damn. People have no shame these days.

***

For a lot of the morning each day this week I’ve had my TV tuned to the Friends of the Big Bear Valley eagle-cam, watching two bald eagles patiently hatching an egg in some of the worst conditions you can imagine. High winds and snow, 120 feet up in a Jeffrey Pine. The same storm that’s dropping rain on our Fallbrook home is piling snow on at Big Bear, elevation 6752 feet. It’s calming and fascinating. The eggs are due to hatch any day now. We camped at Big Bear Lake a couple of years ago, and it’s a magnificent setting, once you get out of the ski area downtown clutter. The eagles picked a good spot to live.

***

Getting ready for college classes in West Virginia:

• Laptop computer, check
• Notepad and pens, check
• Phone, credit card, keys, check
• Nine mm H&K handgun, check

Wait, what? Looks like that’s the new reality in good ole WV. Nothing says “higher education” like concealed handguns. Evil idiots in charge.

My childhood church cult is staying true to form – keeping women in their place. How can an institution like this thrive in 2023? The answer – it’s really hard to get past the childhood indoctrination. Things you’re taught as a completely impressionable 5-12 year old stick with you. My parents had good intentions, but did me no favors with brainwashing sessions three days a week.

I’ll say this. This kind of patriarchal, tribal, ten-commandments-touting organization is good for some folks. It’s better than the life of drugs and violence they might lead on their own, without guidance and guardrails. And for those who truly *believe*, well, good for them. But let’s try and bring those beliefs into the 21st century. Any religion treating women as second class citizens isn’t much (any?) different than Islam, which treats women as property – something to own and control, with no real agency. As a man with a daughter, I find that despicable.

Speaking of conservative patriarchal authoritarians, how about The Speaker of the House giving thousands of hours of sensitive videos to Tucker Carlson and Faux News? Unethical, check. Treasonous, check. Dangerously stupid, check. Having anything to do with governing – nope.

That’s enough aggravation for one day.

I had some time to kill so I decided to go out for a nice lunch. I could have gone anywhere in Louisville, and I chose Cask Southern Kitchen. I had read recently about it being one of the gems of Louisville cuisine, and I’ve had some decent meals there in the past. So I decided to see if they had upped their game.

In a word, nope. I was really disappointed in them. I chose their buttermilk fried chicken sandwich with fries based on the server’s recommendation. I *do* like chicken sandwiches. I also got a starter of their grit fritters.

The service wasn’t bad. But the food was really poor. The grit fritters tasted OK, but they were cool and mushy. Supposedly deep fried. The chicken sandwich was just OK – well cooked, good bun, but no seasoning and on the small side. I could’ve gotten a much better sandwich at Joella’s.

The deal breaker was the french fries. They were cold (OK, maybe cool) and stale, as if they were leftover from yesterday. I let the server know. But for me that’s a cardinal sin – fries should be the best part of the meal, and these were…just bad.

All in, a disappointing lunch. I won’t be back to Cask for a while.

It’s been a nice long weekend in KY – good weather, time with family and plenty of time with the grandsons. Time zone fatigue (CA, then Mexico, then CA, then KY in 2-3 weeks) and my clean living lifestyle have led to (very) poor sleeping, but what the hell. The old saying, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” may apply.

Meanwhile, out in the world things are flying apart. More natural disasters (Turkey), an unnatural disaster (Ohio), more mass shootings (US), and now Russia is ready to strike back after Biden visited Ukraine and gave Russia the finger. In response Russia just announced they’re exiting the nuclear arms treaty with the US – a symbolic measure, but definitely a message being sent. “Remember, we have nukes and are just crazy enough to use them”, or something to that effect. Combine that with our commitment to keep sending weapons to Ukraine as long as it takes, and it becomes clear that we’re in an escalating proxy war with Russia. Sixty years after my gradeschool classmates and I were scared shitless by having to hunker under our tiny desks just in case Russia dropped a nuke on us, it’s finally happened. This time I’ll need a bigger desk.

All this wonderful news plus insomnia have created a feeling of general malaise, an ever-present thought that “things aren’t right”. It doesn’t help that there’s absolutely nothing one can do about most of this. It’s probably time to hunker down and stop worrying about the world at large, and just focus on being healthy and happy(er). Easier said than done.

Welcome to Florida, where the schools have kids but no books. What a disaster. Ron Desantis is an authoritarian thug.

First day back in Louisville was a hit! Lots of fun time with the grandsons, then got to watch a *huge* UK win against TN this afternoon with M&D. After that a nice meal with the whole gang down in Butchertown. What a day.

Travel day, no time to write. Here’s a blast from the past – K’s labyrinth back in 2009. It’ll look this way again in about a month.

This is a truly sad story with an unsurprising villain. Quoted from Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters From an American today, we can trace much of the blame for the environmental disaster now happening in Ohio to deregulation moves made by Trump. In return for millions of donations from railroad lobbies.

This is my #1 political hot button – the EPA. Allowing corporations to pollute the environment as they wish is simply stupid. Idiocracy! It hurts everyone, but still we fight regulations because it reduces profits. Makes me crazy. We’ve only got one Earth, so why do we keep ruining it?

But the derailment of fifty Norfolk Southern train cars, eleven of which carried hazardous chemicals, near East Palestine, Ohio, near the northeastern border of the state on February 3 has powerfully illustrated the downsides of deregulation. The accident released highly toxic chemicals into the air, water, and ground, causing a massive fire and forcing about 5,000 nearby residents in Ohio and Pennsylvania to evacuate. On February 6, when it appeared some of the rail cars would explode, officials allowed the company to release and burn the toxic vinyl chloride stored in it. The controlled burn sent highly toxic phosgene, used as a weapon in World War I, into the air.

Republican Ohio governor Mike DeWine has refused federal assistance from President Biden, who, he said, called to offer “anything you need.” DeWine said he had not called back to take him up on the offer. “We will not hesitate to do that if we’re seeing a problem or anything, but I’m not seeing it,” he said. 

Just over the border, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said that Norfolk Southern had botched its response to the accident. “Norfolk Southern has repeatedly assured us of the safety of their rail cars—in fact, leading Norfolk Southern personnel described them to me as ‘the Cadillac of rail cars’—yet despite these assertions, these were the same cars that Norfolk Southern personnel rushed to vent and burn without gathering input from state and local leaders. Norfolk Southern’s well known opposition to modern regulations [requires] further scrutiny and investigation to limit the devastating effects of future accidents on people’s lives, property, businesses, and the environment.” 

Shapiro was likely referring to the fact that in 2017, after donors from the railroad industry poured more than $6 million into Republican political campaigns, the Trump administration got rid of a rule imposed by the Obama administration that required better braking systems on rail cars that carried hazardous flammable materials. 

According to David Sirota, Julia Rock, Rebecca Burns, and Matthew Cunningham-Cook, writing in the investigative journal The Lever, Norfolk Southern supported the repeal, telling regulators new electronically controlled pneumatic brakes on high-hazard flammable trains (HHFT) would “impose tremendous costs without providing offsetting safety benefits.” Railroads also lobbied to limit the definition of HFFT to cover primarily trains that carry oil, not industrial chemicals. The train that derailed in Ohio was not classified as an HHFT.

Nonetheless, Ohio’s new far-right Republican senator J. D. Vance went on the Fox News Channel show of personality Tucker Carlson to blame the Biden administration for the accident. He said there was no excuse for failing infrastructure after the passage last year of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, and said that the administration is too focused on “environmental racism and other ridiculous things.” We are, he said, “ruled by unserious people.” 

He also issued a statement saying that “my office will continue to work with FEMA” over the issue, although FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has not been mobilized because Ohio governor DeWine has not requested a federal disaster declaration.

This is the part that kills me: “Shapiro was likely referring to the fact that in 2017, after donors from the railroad industry poured more than $6 million into Republican political campaigns, the Trump administration got rid of a rule imposed by the Obama administration that required better braking systems on rail cars that carried hazardous flammable materials.”

There seems to be no end to the damage that Trump did to our nation. This is just one more example.

I saw two inspiring things yesterday.

First was Malcolm Nance, appearing on Bill Maher’s show. Nance is a decorated US veteran who signed up to fight in Ukraine as part of a multi-national force…at age 60! He spent 10 months on the front lines in the Ukraine-Russia war, in the field, not behind a desk, and is now home to talk about it. He’s a cybersecurity and terrorism expert – all in all, an amazing life and person.

The second inspiring thing was UK winning a close game on the road at Mississippi State. We had to win to salvage the season, and we did. It was the first time in a while that I watched a UK game and came away exhausted and happy. A great win…now we just have to do it again against Kansas on Saturday!

Here are a couple more from the evening dancers at the resort. I can’t decide if I like them…there’s a lot going on.

Here’s a sequence. Fish in boat (my nice dorado), then fish on plate.

I made the mistake of responding to a troll’s political post on Nextdoor today. I probably need to remove myself from that platform – all social media ends up the same, a place for trolls to lie about things and stir up trouble. I’ve done really well avoiding all that the last few years, but it’s easy to get sucked back in. Mea culpa.

Seems like the world has gone a little crazier lately. A mass shooting every day, politicians committing crimes and/or lying right out in the open, deepening divisions among city folks and country folks, ecological damage everywhere, wars and a lingering pandemic in the background. Maybe it’s always been like this, but instant communication now shows us the whole picture. It’s hard to be an optimist with that whole picture in view.

Marjorie Taylor Greene (alias Empty G), person in the lead for Worst Person in the World, says that Mitch McConnell is a Democrat. Wow, that’s big news. If Mitch is a Democrat, then I suppose I *am* a rabid ultra-leftist socialist after all. Everything’s relative.

One comment on the article was so good I have to quote it here:

As for Mitch, I’m not sure he’ll mind. The tortoise of oligarchy came into existence in an age before republicans and democrats, indeed before the age of man; and can only be briefly stirred from his dreams of the long aeons when it was just him and the idea of power sharing the increate void by offering him a tasty mouthful of US Treasury lettuce.

Boing Boing commenter

Empty G is a destroyer, pure and simple. She wants to tear down democratic government and replace it with white nationalist fascism. I wonder what happened to her to make her so…empty.

It’s a travel day, so not much time to write. Here’s a great election resource I had forgotten about – Ballotpedia. The link I’ve included jumps to an interesting analysis of the ranked increase in net worth by every member of Congress, since elected. It definitely pays to be in politics. Ballotpedia has much more information than the personal gain index – I’ll use it in the next elections.

We’ll miss at least half of the Super Bowl while traveling, but that’s no big deal. Not a pro football fan these days, and I can see any fun commercials on Youtube. My Dad would have loved the day, though.

Last thought before packing up, the last couple of UFO takedowns over Alaska and Canada are…weird. While I’d like to believe that a cylindrical object flying at 40K feet is/was extraterrestrial, the explanation is probably much more mundane. Maybe a drone. Though if it *was* ET, we just proved that we’re a dangerous, unfriendly species. There’s a scifi book or movie in there.

Watching the Cats from Mexico – had to install a VPN to get Sling/ESPN. The tech works fine, but the Cats aren’t cooperating. Game’s not over, but it’s been ugly so far.

***

Update post-game. We lost with a weak finish in each half. Got outcoached and outplayed. This season ends with the first game of the SEC tournament unless a miracle happens.

2020 – no season

2021 – a 9-16 record, the worst UK season ever

2022 – a decent season and then an inexplicable loss in the first round of the NCAA tourney, to a team that had no business beating us

2023 – we have The Underachievers, or The Little Engine That Couldn’t

It’s been a looong time since UK’s last NCAA tourney win. 4+ years, and increasing. This is why you don’t sign a 60-year old coach to a lifetime $80+ million dollar contract.

It’s hard to know what’s been wrong these last few years, but we should skip the analysis and do what every other team does in this situation – fire the coach and start fresh. It’s time.

Friday in Cabo. Nothing but reading, whale watching, and room service. Relaxing to the extreme.

Lacking any better theme or subject, here’s a nice picture of Los Arcos. To get an idea of the scale, look at the tiny boats close to the rocks.

Last night’s dinner at The Wine Bar was superb. Their squid ink risotto, a special treatment of gnocchi, and some fritto misto, all done perfectly. Paired with two stellar Casa Madero wines, their 2018 3V Gran Riserva and 2017 Malbec Gran Riserva. The Wine Bar at the base of The Pedregal never disappoints.

Darwin’s Law is hard at work, 24×7. Take your guns off before entering a hospital MRI. No one should really have to tell you that, but…natural selection is a bitch.

Another day of whale watching from the porch here in Cabo. It’s one of those Oprah days, whales everywhere. You get a whale, you get a whale, and yes, you get a whale too. I read for a while, then watch the whale show for a while. Very relaxing. The whales swimming off Cabo seem happy, and why wouldn’t they? We see lots of behaviors, from full jumps/breaches to tail whacking to flipper waving and the occasional head out of water to eyeball the humans and boats. They put on a great show, and we thank them.

Quintessa just sent me a nice customer service message about the release of their 2020 vintage, allegedly one of the best ever. Great news. Then they go on to tell me how much they appreciate my being a wine club member. Then they get around to telling me that I can’t get any of the 2020 vintage because club members at a higher level have already taken them all. Well, shit. And I was feeling so special.

I read a great little crime novel yesterday by Robert Dugoni called Damage Control. Set in Seattle, well-written, a little predictable but entertaining. I’ll read some more Dugoni.

Today I’m re-reading Linda Nagata’s first novel, the amazing The Bohr Maker. I like Nagata’s writing, and The Bohr Maker is full of crazy good ideas about advanced biotech and nanotechnology. It’s an updated version of Pandora’s Box.

Finally today, in spite of Elon being, well, Elon, SpaceX successfully tested the Starship’s full complement of engines. That’s a big deal – maybe we’ll get to see the behemoth launch this year. It’s a science fiction geek’s dream come true.

Last night’s UK v Arkansas game was bad, real bad. Our team got pushed around and manhandled by Arkansas, in our own arena. It’s time to face it, we’re not very good.

To a true blue UK fan, this is a tragedy. End of the line. Even so, the sun came up this morning in Cabo, beautiful as usual.

All photos in this post taken with the Fuji XF 70-300 zoom. Not sure I like it yet, though this is an odd, low-light situation better suited or something with more aperture. Pictures look a little grainy when you zoom in further. Still not sure if these are any better than a simple iPhone. They sure as hell are more expensive.

Mariachi band.

And then traditional (at least that’s how they were billed) dancers.

Back from fishing and a post-fishing nap. Great day on the water with a good boat captain (thanks Omar!), rough morning waters and limited success. We caught only one keeper, a 10-12 pound dorado (known in Hawaii as mahi-mahi). It was on the small side for a dorado, but good eating, which is the plan for dinner. Sushi feast on the horizon.

We caught two other fish, some nice sized roosterfish, but released them. Roosterfish are edible but just barely – we discovered that the hard way a few years ago. Pictures later.

The other notable part of the day was the whale watching while at sea. We saw more whales this trip than in any previous year. Captain Omar said it was because the water is unusually cold for this time of year, and the whales love the cold water. We saw CA gray whales in shallow water right next to shore, and we saw lots of humpback whales in deeper water. A few of the whales surfaced within 30-40 yards of us…that was cool.

Spent the whole day yesterday watching whales (what else?) from the patio, plus some boat watching. Got some nice sunset pictures, and what should be some good pictures of the dancers at the resort’s Mexican fiesta night (again, pictures later). The highlight of the day was when I noticed a nice-looking fishing boat with the name “In Debt” on its side, and right behind it was “Bill Collector”. What are the odds of that? The boats parade past our patio constantly, and seeing their details is easy now with my new mongo-binoculars. Bought the Celestron 25×70 Skymaster binocs and really like them. No image stabilization, but my hands don’t shake much so it’s fine.

For the rest of the week, more whale watching, attempts to watch the KY game tonight, a dinner at The Wine Bar tomorrow (great bar attached to a nice Italian place close to us) that has a stellar wine selection, including my all-time favorite Mexican wines from Casa Madero, the oldest winery in The New World. At the end of the week maybe a stop by Flora Farms for a lunch. FF is an amazing farm-to-table place, an oasis just a couple of miles away from the seamy side of San Jose del Cabo. At Flora you feel that you’re in paradise. Drive a few miles toward the town and you’re definitely in hell. Mexico is a place of stark contrasts.

Gone fishing. Back later, wish us luck.

Heather Cox Richardson brings some much-needed sanity to the media meltdown over the Chinese surveillance balloon:

Republicans have used the balloon fiasco to score political points, flooding media with statements about Chinese spying on the U.S. and complaints that no one would have tried such a thing under former president Trump. On Thursday, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said, “Biden should shoot down the Chinese spy balloon immediately…. President Trump would have never tolerated this. President Trump would have never tolerated many things happening to America.” (In fact, Trump tolerated at least three similar events, and as a member of the Homeland Security Committee, Greene should know this.) Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) complained that “[t]he administration failed to protect our border and now has failed to protect our skies.”

It’s Saturday night, so I will be a bit snarky: they need to get a grip. A key aspect of any country’s national security is spying, and of course China and the U.S. are spying on each other. Shooting the balloon down as soon as it was spotted would have endangered Americans and made learning anything from it more difficult. 

Congress is like a pack of dogs – they’ll bark at anything. Though a pack of dogs would be smarter and more likable.

Off to Cabo tomorrow, home of some of the most dramatic sunrises and sunsets ever. Here’s a sunset from 2021. I never get tired of Cabo skies.

Headlines like this are head scratchers.

You’d think this was great news, right? I suppose the logic is (a) there are more jobs than employable people, so (b) wages will go up, costing companies more to produce goods and services, then (c) higher costs mean lower profits, therefore the stock market says “no thanks”.

But intuitively, I think this is a good thing: “The unemployment rate fell to 3.4% from 3.5%, hitting a level not seen since before Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon.” Low unemployment…yay, we’ve all got jobs.

Wall Street seems to like a 4% unemployment rate. The government’s measurement of that rate is famously messy, even unreliable. I wonder how they classify me? In my 60s, not employed full time but still making money doing work for companies on a 1099 basis. Still paying lots of taxes. Am I even in the calculation?

Ruh roh. Republicans have just received a gift for the 2024 Presidential election – a very electable, qualified female candidate. Nikki Haley will run, and she’s very capable of getting votes from folks who voted for Biden or just didn’t vote because they couldn’t stand Trump. Conservative, telegenic, smart, not MAGA-crazed, not already smeared in a national campaign…she could be a formidable candidate.

So who is her equivalent on the Democratic side? Sadly, I can’t think of anyone who is a shoe-in. Gavin Newsome? Hakeem Jeffries?

This may be the election in which America finally decides to elect a woman. If Haley can appeal to the conservative rural women across the Midwest…watch out. That’ll be a power base. And if Democrats decide to run a man against her, Haley may just peel off a lot of votes from moderate Democrat women.