Hal Brown's Easter blog

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These greeting are from me and my Westies and a friendly snail. Easter Sunday was a perfect time for a picnic at Willamette Park in West Linn. The prime table from the last picnic on March 25th was available...

Unfortunately some vandals had defaced it by spray painting profane graffiti.

Then a ride into the hills of West Linn not only provided beautiful vistas but showed why the city can afford a park with three baseball fields with artificial turf diamonds.

Mt. Hood

If you have a spare $40 million or so you might be interested in a house like this:

See more about this mega-mansion here.

If you can't swing $40 million or just don't "need" 50,000 square feet, for a mere $15 million you can get a home like this:

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Here's a greeting from an unhinged certifiable maniac engaging in projection by calling sane people he considers his enemies maniacs:

My reply to Lacky Liz Harrington's tweet of Trump's Easter statement.

Yet another example of Trrump's psychological projection. He's the certifiable maniac, revenge obsessed malignant narcissist becoming ever more delusional. He's unhinged and has the judgement of a cliff leaping lemming.

Click to enlarge

Here's some trivia for TV viewers who, like me, are fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I am binge-watching it now.

Who is the character whose personalty (not powers) most resembles Donald Trump?

The answer diehard fans know is Glory, the near invulnerable god from Hell, who is trying to locate the mysterious powerful "key" which if she has her will enable her to destroy mankind. To protect it an order of ancient Byzantine monks transformed into human form as Buffy's sister Dawn who didn't even exist prior to Season Five. When she came on the scene she had memories of being there for as long as she could remember as did all the other characters.

This is Glory who has a cadre of troll-like sycophants to do her evil bidding who incessantly praise her. She is known as "Glorificus" or sometimes "Glorifius." She was also known as "the Glorious One" (among many other amusing, groveling titles such as "Her Splendiferousness," "Her Sparkling Luminescence" and "Oh Sweaty-Naughty-Feelings-Causing One").

Here are more from a fan website:

JINX I am in thunderous agreement, oh glittering, glistening Glorificus. 

MURK: Uh, begging your pardon, and begging in general, but ... were you talking to me? 
GLORY: Eww. Yeah, right. Like any of you have ever bathed, anyway. 
MURK: Oh, but we do, Your Scrumptiousness. We bathe in Your Splendiforous Radiance, Your Aromatic-

GLORY: (annoyed) He's getting stronger. I'm losing him, I'm losing control of him. 
JINX: You're speaking of Ben, Most Glamorous yet Tasteful One? 

MURK: We can do that, O ... thou. 

DREG:Forgive me, Shiny Special One. I beg of you to rip out my inadequate tongue.


DREG: No! No, no, Your Terrifically Smooth One, it is the epitome of ankles. 
To touch such an ankle would be - but I'm not touching. I'm backing away.

DREG: Yes. Dreg. Your Creamy Coolness has honored me by speaking my name. Your voice is like a thousand sweet songbirds that-
and I could go on and on but I will stop there..

I find the ways the minions bend over backwards to find new and more outlandishly over-the-top ways to praise her amusing and am reminded about reading reports like this of how people seeking Trump's endorsement and approval are told to make sure they go out of their way to stroke his massive ego.

Okay, enough politics...

At 6:15 AM I went outside and walked down the path across from my house and took these photos of the full Pink Moon.

"April's full moon will illuminate the sky this entire weekend, and while it's called the pink moon, it's not actually that color. The pink moon will appear full from early Friday to Monday morning, according to NASA. It will be at its peak fullness on Saturday, April 16, at 2:55 p.m. ET."  Read about it here.

On the bottom of this photo you can see the freight train which has stopped.

 On Language: Something to think about 

Whether to put the f-word spelled out in a headline is an editorial decision. After all, everyone will know what the word is no matter how many asterisks are between the first and the last letter. There's more how editors and writers deal with obscene and profane words as well as insults in articles.  Here's an article from Agente Presse France about how profanities and insults are translated so people who speak other languages can fully grasp the intended meaning.

Introduction: 

 

“Son of a bitch”, “emmerder”, “grab 'em by the pussy”...  How exactly do you translate a swear word uttered by the French president or any other political figure, so that an American, Spanish or Argentinian reader really gets the gist? Similarly, how to translate a profanity said by an American president for the benefit of francophone readers? Every time a head of state uses an expletive, the result is instant head-scratching and intense debate in the newsroom, explains Sebastien Blanc, head of AFP's French editing desk in Washington, with the input from his English-, Spanish-, and Arabic-speaking colleagues.

The article concluded:

Has anyone forgotten the infamous video unearthed in 2016 where Donald Trump boasted he could grope women with impunity, including “grab 'em by the pussy”?

So misogynistic and crude was the sentence that AFP in French initially decided not to use it and merely described Trump as uttering “un mot très cru pour le sexe féminin” (a very crude word used to describe female genitalia).

But in an update on the story, the expression was translated literally into French. And it didn't end there, far from it. “Crooked Hillary”, “Crazy Bernie”, “Sleazebag”, “Slimeball”, “Horseface”... There was much head-scratching over the years.

Website recommendations for news and information

I rely on several websites to stay informed about news, information and opinion. I subscribe to The New York Times and The Washington Post. I also check out RawStory several times a day because they are the best website to follow breaking news reported elsewhere including on subscription websites, with summaries and links.

(RawStory is an American progressive news website and online tabloid. It was founded in 2004 by John K. Byrne and is owned by Byrne and Michael Rogers. Wikipedia)

They also have some excellent original articles, particularly by Tom Boggoini, Travis Getty, and David Caye Johnson.

Another website which I've been aware of since RawStory often republishes their articles in Agence France-Presse. For example the story

Endangered North Atlantic right whales make a stand in Cape Cod piqued my interest because I used to live near The Cape and spent a lot of time there and am concerned about the plight of whales.

Wikipedia tells us: Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French private international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency.

AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C., and news bureaus in 151 countries in 201 locations. AFP transmits stories, videos, photos and graphics in French, English, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, and German.

You can read stories from the website here:

The best part of this Saturday Night Live open is the end with the actor playing Trump.

Elon "Modest Me" Musk wants to buy Twitter. What could go wrong? By Hal Brown

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Yesterday's blog

 File this under I really don't give a damn about this story. Well, I gave enough of a damn to see if I can get a tweet of mine to trend. That's why I posted this on Twitter (click to enlarge):

I superimposed the DonkeyHotey caricature of Musk over a depiction of the Telsa he fired into space Wirth his Space-X rocket.

You can follow replies or retweets, if there are any, here.

The color wheel is a metaphor for U.S. becoming all white in near future, by Hal Brown

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"The color wheel is a metaphor for U.S. becoming all white, as with sunlight, in near future" by Hal Brown

This story is dedicated to the memory Jackie Robinson. Today we celebrate the date in 1947 he played his first Major League baseball game. See article about he originally was a Republican and became a dedicated Democrat.

Just for the hell of it I decided to add red, blue, and green lights for my bathroom to add a little festiveness. I thought replacing three white lights with them might make the room darker but they didn't.

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With the white lights unscrewed the room still looks white albeit a little darker..

Observing this led me to do some research about the colors that constitute visible white light. Here is what I found on this website:

What are the 3 primary colors that make up white light?

Light is perceived as white by humans when all three cone cell types are simultaneously stimulated by equal amounts of red, green, and blue light. Because the addition of these three colors yields white light, the colors red, green, and blue are termed the primary additive colors.

How many colors make a white light?

The spectrum of white light consists of six basic colours arranged in a specific order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. Although Newton understood that a beam of light of a particular colour is always deviated by the same amount, he did not appear to understand why this is so.

How many different colours make up white light?

White light is made up of the following colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

It occurred to me that this is a metaphor for what the United States will be when the group commonly referred to among the MAGA bigots “us white people”, and with liberals “angry white people” are no longer  in the majority.

One could just say that if the primary colors of red, green, and blue represent people with black, brown, and white skin, add them all together you get white. I don’t mean white in the sense of the color of white skin which is even in an albino is never really white, or a sheet of white parer, but white like the sunlight streaming through my skylight:

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Here’s another metaphor: sunlight is known to be a disinfectant. There’s nothing this diseased country needs more than a good disinfecting and I don’t mean the swallowing of bleach as a cure for Covid.

Expanding the color metaphor to all the colors of the spectrum, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet made me think of both the original Pride flag with its six colors...

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... to the new version:

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Photo by HalBrown

 
Whether it is gender identity or ethnic background the United States in moving inextricably towards being a country where people who place a great deal of stock in having white skin and being heterosexual, and you might as well add in being Evangelical Christians and believing in conspiracy theories (see previous blog entry), no longer can swing elections their way.

In their death throes they are more likely to express their rage in antisocial ways in order to shape our society and culture to their liking. This could see the end of Roe vs. Wade protections of a woman's right to choose and in Republican  controlled states the end of fair elections.

But time is still on the side of shifting demography, and time will usher in true white sunlight. Anything that was changed for the worse can be changed back for the better.

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Hal Brown, Conspiracy theories

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I received this in an email from Tom Dwyer Auto Repair in Selwood, Oregon (Website). This repair service is an excellent car repair service which promotes progressive books by having a collection of just about every anti-Trump book ever published in their waiting room for customers to read.

Conspiracy Theories... When Reality just isn't twisted enough. We live in a world that is, unfortunately, dominated by conspiracy theories.  There are the funny ones like the Jewish Space Lasers or the Flat Earthers, and less entertaining ones like the Satanist pedophile ring in the pizza restaurant or the 'false flags' of school shootings.  It may be tempting to laugh, but one need look no farther than the January 6 Insurrection, fueled by the paranoid ravings of election fraud, to see how deadly serious these self-reinforcing lies can be.  As we were strolling along the InterTubes recently, one link led to another and they all prompted us to share this short article on Conspiracy Theories with you.  There's an amazing chart with current conspiracies, reasons people believe, and ways to fight back, but keep reading for your own way to participate in spreading the lies that someone, somewhere will believe...    Conspiracies in the world today ***MUST LOOK***  The Conspiracy Chart 2021 - A chart of conspiracies arranged from those that actually, provably happened to those that are even too insane for Alex Jones.  And it’s interactive, so if you see a conspiracy you haven’t heard of before (like “Biden is a robot”) all you have to do is click for more ‘information’.    The Craziest Conspiracy Theories That People Actually Believe-  30 Real Doozies, Charlotte Chilton in Popular Mechanics, Oct 2021   The 13 biggest conspiracy theories,  Benjamin Radford and Stephanie Pappas in LiveScience, Dec 2021   Why do people believe this horsepuckey? Belief in conspiracy theories is the product of normal human psychology, but can be extremely dangerous, Graham Lawton in New Scientist  Conspiracy Theories: Why Do We Believe Them? Calvin J. Emerson on Engage.youth.gov, Aug 2021   Speaking of Psychology: Why people believe in conspiracy theories, Karen Douglas PhD in American Psychological Association ‘Speaking of Psychology’, Jan 2021   Maybe a free thinker but not a critical one: High conspiracy belief is associated with low critical thinking ability, Lantian, Bagneux, Delouvee, and Gauvrit in Applied Cognitive Psychology, Jan 2021  The Roots Of Conspiracy Theory, Helen Lee Bouygues in Forbes, Mar 2021 Fighting back IS possible… sometimes Conspiracy Theories: What Can I Do to Stop Them? Calvin J. Emerson on Engage.youth.gov, Aug 2021   Expert: The best way to fight a conspiracy theory isn’t with facts, Keith Brannon in Tulane News, Oct 2020   It's only fake-believe: how to deal with a conspiracy theorist, David Robson in The Guardian, Nov 2020   Zen and the Art of Talking to Conspiracy Theorists, Jonathan Jarry in McGill Office for Science and Society, Feb 2021 My contribution to the articles above is this from AlterNet: Thomas Zimmer, a visiting professor at Georgetown, wrote:  "There is a calculating quality to Greene’s polemics," Zimmer wrote. "Last fall, for instance, she recorded a campaign video in which she used a military-grade sniper rifle to blow up a car that had the word 'socialism' written on it, promising to do the same to the 'Democrats’ socialist agenda.'" However, he also highlighted what he believes to be the reason behind her antics. "It was over-exaggerated campaign nonsense," Zimmer noted. "But Greene knew the unsubtle insinuation of using violence against a political opponent would demand attention." My view: There is no doubt that she expresses extreme views and probably does so in a calculated way In order to get media attention and incite her base. However she also promotes ludicrous conspiracy theories. It is not possible to ascertain whether she she believes them. If she does the expert analyses of why people are unable or unwilling to evaluate these theories using logical thinking applies to her.   It appears that some people who understand how gullible believers in conspiracy theories are use this knowledge to exploit them in order to make money. Consider: QAnon influencers luring followers into multi-level marketing schemes: report Travis Gettys, Raw Story April 15, 2022   Yesterday

Scrambled eggs and potato chips, by Hal Brown

 Scrambled eggs with cheddar potato chips  

Yesterday I wrote about politics here, today I have returned to food as a blogging subject. Here's the background of this story. I decided to go to Fred Meyer's first thing this morning because there are few customers in the super-store at 7:00 AM. 

In fact, there were many more people stocking the shelves than people shopping. At least a dozen staff said hello or good morning to me.

As I was finishing up shopping I got to feeling queasy and realized I'd neglected to have breakfast. I grabbed a small bag of cheddar potato chips to eat on the 10 minute drive home.

There was only one check-out lane open but I was the only one using it. 

I ate a few chips to stave off hunger on the short ride home and then decided to crumble up the remaining chips, most of the bag, and scrambled them with eggs.

There is precedent for combining eggs with both cheese and potatoes. For example, eggs with hash brown potatoes is a diner breakfast staple. I've fried up left-over potatoes of various kinds with cheese and eggs before with a tasty result. 

In fact, a half-eaten giant baked loaded restaurant potato with green beans can be doctored up to make a delicious and nutritious treat like this:

Why then wouldn't it make sense to use cheddar potato chips and eggs to make another yummy breakfast meal?

How did it taste? I rate the concoction as somewhere between disgusting and barely edible. Next time munch the chips separately and make the eggs with anything but chips.

Yesterday's blog

Hal Brown Blog April 12, 2022 Right wing displays

  

At present the blog is evolving to be more eclectic. For those new to looking at it I suggest going beyond the opening page look at the blog archive on the right, and randomly clicking on some of the other entries for the past year with photo essays of my travels around Portland, Oregon. At the least take a look at what I posted here in March.

Updated: April 13, 2022

April 12, 2022

Right-wingers are much more in your face than liberals, at least this is how I see it.

No bothsidesism here if my observations traveling around the Portland, Oregon area is any indication, those with far right sentiments are much more likely to "advertise" their viewpoints in more public ways, and often in a more obnoxious manner than liberals.

From what I see right-wingers are more likely to use the backs of their cars as billboards and their houses to rub their beliefs in the faces of those who are on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Are they psychologically  different than liberals? What personality characteristics do these people have in common? 

The Massachusetts photo was taken by Grace Welch

This photo is of a vehicle in front of the house shown below with the Trump flags.

This was at a Costco store.

My opinion is that these are people who feel marginalized and often ostracized by what they perceive as the mainstream whether in popular culture or the media.

They take their lead from the grievance politics of Trump and his most outspoken cadre of newsmakers.

Some of them may tick of all or most of the psychiatric diagnostic criteria for being paranoid or delusional, and others may just be gullible. Some may recognize that time is not on their side as the demographics of the country shift so that in the foreseeable future white people will be in the minority.

Update: This article sums up how Trump exploits the fears of many white people:

Excerpt (note the reference to malignant narcissism, a subject I have written about many times):

The relationship between the leader and follower in a political cult such as today's Republican Party is deep and powerful. Diane Roberts of the Florida Phoenix summarizes this unhealthy psychodynamic:

Republicans are angry.

So very, very angry.

Deranged White Man Syndrome has not yet been listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but it's just a matter of time.

Seriously, these dudes (and they are mostly male-gendered persons) are on a rampage of rage and loathing which cannot be healthy….

Living in a constant tantrum must be exhausting for Republicans. I suspect that somewhere in the deep recesses of their brains, they know that while they may hold power at the moment, the world is changing.

And they can't stand it.

Let's hope they get serious therapy: This is a sick, sick, sick bunch of people.

To the uninitiated — and also to those who have just become numb to it all — Trump's North Carolina speech was an uninspired recitation of his personal grievances, malignant narcissism ("I've got to be the cleanest, I think I'm the most honest human being, perhaps, that God has ever created") and victim fantasies, mixed with now-standard talking points about the Big Lie, the 2020 election and Jan. 6, "parents' rights", "invaders" at the U.S.-Mexico border, supposed crime and barbarism in "Democrat-run" major cities and an assortment of lies both small and large about Joe Biden and the Democrats.

These people generally suffer from confirmation bias because those who follow the media by and large consume far right "news" sources. In the right-wing media people like Tucker Carlson exacerbate their fears and basically tell them how to think, or to put it more accurately, how not to think.

When I see liberals expressing their views via signs and such I have yet to see over-the-top displays. For example these two houses are across the street from each other in the small Oregon town of Aurora.

This is the home of the man who has the vehicle with all the Marine stickers on its back.

This car is in his yard along with the maroon one  (below) with the Marine stickers.

My hunch is that this man bought an old police car and thinks that the emblem he  put  on the door will lead some people to mistake his car for a real police car.

Here he is. His house is an eyesore, made worse because it is on a street with historic homes including the one across the street from his, which are kept in excellent shape.

I generally find liberals expressing themselves in a more restrained way. Here are some examples:

I don't have any political stickers on my car. I have two Westie stickers on the bumper, one covers a hole and the other a dent. The window sticker is for Massachusetts retirees. 

One of the reasons I don't have so much as a small Biden/Harris sticker on the car is that I don't want to provoke an incident when I am exploring our rural areas and looking for new places to eat. Some of them have signs like this:

I sometimes end up in towns which are decidedly pro-Trump and where my car stands out enough as it is among the pickup trucks. For example in Molalla:

The man in the red plaid shirt is talking to two men at another table.

I could easily overhear the conversation of the men at two of the tables, one shown above, who were obviously regulars and townies, and all they were talking about was the comparative merits of different kinds of guns.

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