PicoBlog

I really love the historical origins of All Saints Day/Halloween. I love the idea of the veil between worlds getting thinner. I’ve never been a big Halloween celebrator though, probably because in Australia, she’s I grew up and lived most of my life until recently, it’s spring time. Everything is topsy-turvey. As an Australian, I’ve grown up longing for the lovely summer December days and the end of October, also close to my son’s birthday on the 27th, is an ‘almost summer’ time of year where the days are getting longer, the weather can jump 20 degrees Celsius up or down from one day to the next, and the wind could blow off your sunnies!

1) No, they are still using projections based on previous years it appears, and that's consistent with how Human Mortality Database continues to project expected deaths. There are fair arguments to both viewpoints, but at some point we will have to incorporate the last 3 years into our projections for fidelity. Unfortunately, the CDC stopped publishing dozens of weekly reports on Covid, but the most recent snapshot of mortality (published 9/27, but due to lag I would only trust ~week 32/Aug 12) showed 55,306 deaths (all cause), which is 3,557 more deaths than the same week pre-pandemic of 2019.

During this pandemic I fully gave in to my fiancé and tried karaoke at home. And now it’s a weekly thing we do! She sings like an Angel, and I don’t. I broke one of our microphones doing a full on Iggy Pop routine while singing “Search and Destroy”. That was fun! I’ve also become quite “good” at singing songs by the Replacements, Superchunk, Husker Du, Descendents, Squeeze, etc. Oh and I learned a Bright Eyes song that makes her tear up every time.

The Roberts Court continues to play its part in the Republican Party’s crucible to overthrow the constitution, and attain a new level of ignominy and infamy for the court far out passing The Taney (Dred Scott) and Fuller (Plessy) Courts. Roberts began his constitutional assassination by eviscerating the Voting rights in Shelby County, emasculating Article 4 §4, with Citizens United, and declaring Article V, the amendment article, as invalid. Article V states, “ The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress;(emphasis added) Congressman John Bingham from Ohio, Sen Thaddeus Stevens from Pennsylvania and Senator Charles Sumner of Mass.

I have a fabulous chocolate mug cake recipe I’ll definitely share at some point soon. (I have tons of mug recipes, they’re kind of an obsession.) My brownie in a mug recipe is already on Substack though! It makes a fudgy brownie with melted chocolate in the middle. :) Expand full comment ncG1vNJzZminoJq7b7%2FUm6qtmZOge6S7zGinrppfqMKvutisoJ2dopqwqrzErGapZ6Sdsm6uxKyrZq6Ro7atuMBmpK6fXZiurLGMspysZaKarq242HisraWPqLy2vsKedKmno6lzpLvMppynrKNywbPBxF%2BsraWPorKltdSmdLCdkg%3D%3D

Hey man! Thanks for your perspective. I think it’s possible you may be missing the big picture that I was trying to address in this rather short post. The main point is that if you walk into an average church that plays top CCLI worship songs you’ll find that they all follow the same general formula that was started around Y2K and we haven’t progressed much. Creativity in the church doesn’t need to be an overnight, dramatic event, and I also wasn’t saying the United record was that.

Hi Shahid, Thank you for your response. So yes, the dilemma seems to remain: that of countering the interests that determine the policies of state action to the detriment of the greater populations of the world. I think that it is not just a matter of economic power or the power of states. The situation that we now have seems somehow not clearly one or the other, but lies somewhere in the relationship between myriad interests, economic, corporate, and state.

My partner has a full back tattoo -- jaguar spots -- and when they got it, their family said no one would want to marry them because of it. But that's how we met, on Usenet in the mid-90s, in rec.arts.bodyart -- a community of people brought together by their love of the art of the tattoo, piercing, branding, and other "beautifications" of the body. A tattoo is an immensely personal thing and may or may not have great meaning for the wearer -- so no one should ever judge someone else for how they adorn their body.

Interesting you would say that, William. When I first met Lois, I had the strangest experience where I felt this deep cognitive dissonance between my knowledge of the reality of Lois’ sex, and the recognition that Lois was a gay male, but once I was in the same room, it felt WRONG (emphasis on wrong rather than impolite) for me to use anything but she/her as we were speaking in a group and I was referencing her.