Today is already weird, and I have only been up for about 45 minutes.
I went to the Media Library to choose today’s image for the sidebar, and with a little sleuthing I can always fairly easily figure out who took the photo. If it’s a Garden Chat photo, I get the name of the post it was in, and then I go see who was being featured that day. If it’s from On the Road, then the person’s name is in the title. Today’s image was tougher, since it wasn’t from an OTR post or a Garden Chat.
Eventually, I found the original post, and it turns out that that photo was mine. That was weird, and good for a chuckle.
During the course of my mini-investigation, I discovered that the photo was in a post I had started in 2021, but had apparently never posted. A happy and hopeful little post, filled with beautiful kittens (the cards are from Stephanie Luke, whose cats were the cover photos for the 2021 calendar).
This is just one more instance of 2021 showing up right in front of me this week, seemingly everywhere I look.
I have been watching a lot more TV and I catch up on shows as an escape from the signs all around us that are flashing DANGER! WARNING!
I have been catching up on Queen Sugar, and all the episodes this week have had the pandemic front and center, and details came flashing back. Wiping down groceries, letting packages sit for days before opening, people not getting to say goodbye to loved ones, the dangers of someone in your circle secretly not following the rules and putting other people in danger. Choosing to quarantine with someone changing the trajectory of your life.
We simply cannot let them gaslight us about the pandemic or about anything else from the Trump years and the Biden years. Every single day they are going to lie about the last 10 years. We have to hold on to our truth, and we have to tell it every time someone we know spouts the lies they have come to believe.

I have another post scheduled for later today that also harkens back to 2021.
It all makes me sad. I could never have imagined that in 2025 I would be looking back at 2021 with sadness because I had so much more hope then than have today. But I can’t live in despair, so action is my only choice.
lowtechcyclist
Where’s Quinn the Eskimo when we need him? ;-)
Spanky
@lowtechcyclist: Would you settle for Nanook of the North?
lowtechcyclist
Up until now, I’d been more or less immune to the ups and downs on account of the impending change of Administration, but today it’s hitting me that shit’s about to get real.
Doesn’t help that it’s a gray day outside my window, and instead of the expected snow, we’ve been having enough rain to make the snow that’s been on the ground for two weeks finally look patchy and ugly.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky: Does he have a good song about him?
ETA: If you’re looking for an occasional running buddy, I don’t run all that fast or far – right now I’m running a mile two or three times a week.
Depends on how far south in the county you are though, since I’m up here at the north end.
eclare
I love that photo of the tree.
Spanky
@lowtechcyclist: Yeah, well the whole country is going to start looking patchy and ugly with time. I hope we’re resilient enough that it doesn’t get too bad too fast.
Oh, and there we were all in one place,
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
Yeah, November 5th is feeling like The Day The Music Died.
Spanky
@lowtechcyclist: I’m sure you’re just playing straight man here so I can link to it.
H.E.Wolf
Indeed.
I’m sitting at the computer in weekend clothes, updating addresses in a campaign database in order to lay the groundwork for 2026.
And I’ve got a pair of socks to mend: one small, concrete action of repair.
My aunt was in a concentration camp on US soil as a teenager. She subsequently lived a long and generous life. If she could do that, I can do this.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
Nah, I’m not that big of a Zappa fan, I can’t say I remember that song if I’ve heard it.
ETA: Hi eclare, I’m glad someone’s in this thread besides just me and Spanky!
Spanky
@lowtechcyclist: Yeah, and now I gotta go sharpen knives for a day of cooking. Not me, I just do the sharpening and eating.
Miss Bianca
@lowtechcyclist: Aaand I just saw a headline saying that my Governor, Jared Polis, is ordering “flags raised!” for tomorrow.
You know, I am really learning to despise this dude. For a nominal Democrat, he has really been showing his actual techbro, anti-labor, pro-med-woo tendencies lately. This is the first time I’ve actually felt glad we have term limits in CO.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: I certainly had a good feeling about your blue governor until this fall. Yikes. Did he change? Or now he can be as lawless as he wants because he’s term-limited?
Kay
I thought this was interesting on how to handle Trump
Link
Force the Presidency on him. Make him responsible for everything bad that happens during his term. Treat him seriously. Don’t scoff at the promise to lower grocery prices. Recite the promise he made and ask when he’s delivering. Over and over, on every issue.
bluefoot
I started off this year with my first-ever bout of COVID. I’m only just now recovering. It’s brought 2020 and 2021 back to me with a vengeance. The uncertainty, the isolation, the loss of people I loved. 2025 has echoes of that, but I definitely have less hope now than I had then. Back then, it seemed like there was more awareness that we were all in this together, that we could work toward making things better. Since November, I’ve learned that more than half of adult Americans either actively want to, or are happy to sit by while others: spread cruelty, ignore the rule of law, and treat large groups of people as if they’re not fully human.
I’ve been fighting despair and trying to hold onto the conviction that even if I don’t survive the next four years, I will at least go down swinging trying to make things better. I’ve been the victim of racist violence multiple times before, so I have low expectations of how things will go for me personally.
Kay
Media thought conquering Greenland was a great idea. Their big manly deal maker could get it done.
How’s it going? Denmark didn’t respond well to thuggish US threats and bullying. Now what? Are the bragging US big mouths gonna invade a NATO country?
He said he would broker peace with Russia on day one. Is it done yet?
bluefoot
@Kay: That’s interesting. It’s true that TCFG has been allowed to get away with a lot because of the “that’s just Trump” attitude and subsequent not holding him accountable.
Starfish (she/her)
@Miss Bianca: Yes! Polis is awful. If he runs for anything ever again, we will vote for whoever runs against him and his pro-charter anti-vaccine nonsense. He wants to go sit with the big tech-bros at the Trump inauguration, and it shows.
Starfish (she/her)
@WaterGirl: No, he has always been a libertarian, and that has served him well in Colorado. But there may have been a shift in our anti-vaccine ethos when we survived a global pandemic.
There were people whining that the laws to end smoking in public buildings were anti-libertarian; but as the medical data came in, we learned that a lot of people were being impacted by second hand smoke.
Nelle
Here is a song written for Covid times, but unfortunately appropriate for now, too. The line, “It’s like a wave coming in, I can’t stop or change and the shape of things I knew, will never be the same,” feels applicable to today and tomorrow. “The Wolf at the Door” –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-9oAncqprY
She has another one from Covid times that I return to when I need encouragement. “You Can Do This Hard Thing.” Because we have no choice. We have to do this hard thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRGnftH_g4I
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: I think he’s just bending the fucking knee just like all the other tech gazillionaires. Showing where his true allegiances lie, I guess.
Starfish (she/her)
@bluefoot: You did such a good job avoiding COVID for so long. That is amazing.
WaterGirl
@Kay: I love that!
TBone
Noah the Love Cat has been admitted to inpatient care. He’s lost a full pound in only 3 days. The weekend vet today was whip smart, articulate, attentive, and reassuring. Noah will be on an IV drip and get hydration, vitamins, pain meds, stool softener, and more anti-nausea meds (NOT Cerenia this time) as well as periodic blood sugar tests because his sugar was so high (that could also be a result of his not eating for 3 days). Plus other stuff, I can’t remember all of it. He’s in GREAT hands right now with this woman diagnostician. I said “wow, you’re like House!” and she said “I hope I’m not that mean” and I said “Your intelligence!” and we both had a good laugh. A great sense of humor was displayed several times and I know a whip smart female when I see one. Thank goodness! Hope has returned to Casa TBone. Noah is allowed visitors too! I’ll be popping in a few times each day.
Feeling VERY grateful for everything and everyone!
Noah started today stretched out in his litter box, then his other litter box, scream yowling in pain.
MagdaInBlack
@Kay: @WaterGirl: Seems like an obvious approach to you and me, but then, we are not highly paid political consultants, so what would we know….
Kay
Media are going to give him that his promises were obviously lies so they won’t hold him accountable on them. But we can. Take him at his word. His voters believed him. Democrats should too.
Gas prices, grocery prices, mortgage rates, credit card rates, world peace, no more climate change fueled disasters, ten thousand dollars in federal funds to homeschoolers, no payroll taxes on overtime, low cost prescription drugs, all additives in food outlawed. These are his promises. Hold him to them.
WaterGirl
@bluefoot: That’s awful. Wondering where you live, generally speaking.
TBone
@Kay: Just what that ball gargling thunder twat requires! Hahahahaha!
Starfish (she/her)
@Miss Bianca: But there is no reason for Polis to do it because he doesn’t have a tech company that is going to be impacted by proper regulation in the tech space.
A lot of the tech folks who like to brand themselves as more Democratic look up to Reid Hoffman who cofounded LinkedIn.
MagdaInBlack
@Kay:
“You said you would do these things. 75 million people believed you. You say you have a mandate. Only you can fix things. Ok, pal, lets see you make good on your promises. We’re waiting.”
Kay
@MagdaInBlack:
I think its sophisticated and “smart” to say “oh, but that’s ridiculous! Of course he can’t order credit card rates to 10%!”
But his voters believed every word of it. Democrats should too. Bland, conversational good faith belief in his words. “Donald Trump and Republicans promised peace in Ukraine on Day One. Broken promise? Can we get an eta on that?”
Take the liar at his word and hold him to every one of them. Serious.
Another Scott
@TBone: 🤞for Noah, you, and everyone at Casa TBone.
Best wishes,
Scott.
MagdaInBlack
@Kay: (i’m not very good at bland)
trollhattan
Rethinking life choices…maybe don’t be this guy.
“I always wanted a Bobcat” is a kind of aspiration.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Miss Bianca:
You know, I am really learning to despise this dude. For a nominal Democrat, he has really been showing his actual techbro, anti-labor, pro-med-woo tendencies lately. This is the first time I’ve actually felt glad we have term limits in CO.
Old-school Dems in Denver hate him. He’s just another glibertarian, tech-bro who, probably because he’s gay, couldn’t overlook the GOP’s actual feelings on that issue to the extent he could politically identify with the party. He also realized that putting an (R) after his name when he got his start in politics wouldn’t have gained him much, particularly being gay, in the shifting political and demographic landscape that is parts of CO.
But boy do the entitled, white, fauxgressives (think Yglesias without the trust fund) who’ve moved here from some lily-white, (R) burb elsewhere over the last 10 years love him. They’re another reason why longtime residents, particularly POC, look askance at what (D) “values” really mean at the local level.
TBone
WaterGirl I dedicate this to you, it’s about truth telling no matter what! Chinchilla is a badass just like you.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k-bpuCbU6MY
Lyrics:
https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Chinchilla/CAPS-LOCK
Keep using your megaphone Girl!
Dorothy A. Winsor
I just clicked on tiktok out of habit and it came up. What’s going on
ETA: TikTok is coming back online after Trump pledged to restore it | CNN Business
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Starfish (she/her):
Heh heh, I usta think that I held my nose the hardest when voting for good ole Feckless Claire McCaskill for Senate back in Misery.
When we moved back to the Front Range I thought those days were over…I was an idiot.
I’ve pinched my nose far, far harder when voting for Polis last time around, our corrupt former Denver mayor (Hancock) for this 3rd term and our Great White Dope of a new mayor (Johnston) this time around. All “Democrats” and all are awful in their own personal ways.
Of course the time to nail them would have been in the primaries and when that doesn’t happen, well, it’s tough.
trollhattan
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Jaysuz, that’s lame as a lame thing.
Gov Gav has fancy hair and likes fancy restaurants and somehow manages to remain an actual, functioning Democrat. This guy sounds like a stalking horse for…ahem…somebody else.
TBone
@bluefoot: here’s my hope for you
“I will
at least go downalways come up swinging!”comrade scotts agenda of rage
@trollhattan:
If you’re referencing Newsom, from many policy perspectives, he’s worse than Polis. Hell, people here always say Polis looks to CA/Newsom as the template for how to do things and they don’t say it kindly.
The main difference is that Newsom, particularly since this summer when he stood by Biden, does have some sense of what it means to be a *Democrat* in the *Democratic Party*, I’ll gladly give that to him. Polis doesn’t even have that.
Miss Bianca
@Starfish (she/her): Yeah, but tech *is* how he made his money, isn’t it? (I should look it up. I’m too lazy. Screw it, it’s Sunday.)
I think he’s just another one in a depressing line of white dude politicians who have decided it’s better to get on board with the Trump Administration train than take a stand on the tracks.
TBone
@Nelle: thank you for enlarging my musical horizon today! Love!
I really needed The Hard Thing song today.
Harrison Wesley
@trollhattan: Wow. That could have been a highway chase to rival O.J.’s slo-mo.
WaterGirl
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Seriously? Please show your work. :-)
Sure Lurkalot
Regarding TikTok, the shuttering of which some bemoan, others say “good start, these algorithmic platforms are no good for civil society” and still others say “meh”, here are some takes from BS:
Blame Biden or fear that users’ anger will stick it to Dems for years…but we live in transactional world where anything bad can be good (and the reverse, see Afghanistan withdrawal) for the right price or political points.
TBone
@Another Scott: thank you SO much, the waiting is the hardest part 🎶
trollhattan
@Harrison Wesley:
Right? Getting big Cohen Brothers chase scene vibes from this.
Beginning with I can basically outwalk a Bobcat.
TBone
@trollhattan: “That’s not a great getaway vehicle hahaha!” – The Wheelman
Ruckus
@Nelle:
You always have to live the life in front of you, not the one you wish you had.
I long ago stopped wishing that everything would be GREAT and wished that I get through
theanother day. So far it’s been working.The concept that life will be great if we desire it to be is a falsehood. It’s like being a kid and hearing skip and be happy! The world doesn’t work that way. This does not mean you can’t be happy it means there is an entire world out there and you or I control about 1 billionth of a percent of it. Which is a just bit of our own life. The trick is to be happy about having that life.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Ruckus:
“Inner Peace Through Lowered Expectations”
MagdaInBlack
@trollhattan: Having been one of those girls who preferred Tonka toys to Barbie, I happen to think a Bobcat would be a fun thing to have. They have lots of cool attachments and you can dig all kinds of holes =-)
bluefoot
@WaterGirl: I’m in the Boston area. Though it has improved somewhat in the nearly 20 years I’ve been here, racism and accompanying physical violence is still a thing here. I’m a middle-aged WOC, so maybe an easy target for that sort of thing? including from law enforcement….I have many stories.
Kay
@MagdaInBlack:
We have the perfect template. Treat every one of Trump’s promises like media treated Biden’s promise not to pardon Hunter. We have two years until the midterms. They focused exclusively on Biden’s one broken promise for at least two weeks. I count forty outlandish promises by Trump that voters believed. We can schedule weeks or days on each one.
This also has the benefit of turning our attention from Trump voters who believed it to the powerful person who made the promise and benefitted from lying to them. It’s a better political position. We’re punching up, not down.
Media took Biden’s Hunter promise seriously because Biden is a grown up powerful person who didn’t spout a bunch of complete bullshit. We can make Trump responsible for what he says too. I live among his most loyal voters. They believed all of it.
We can start with this:
Media thought the threats to Denmark were delightful! Daddy was going to steal a whole country for them! They were eager to, as they said when they sold us the Iraq invasion, “throw a smaller country up against a wall”. But actions have consequences. Danes are real people and so are Greenlanders. This isn’t going so well.
TBone
@Sure Lurkalot: YASS was my Villain of the Week before I found out about NARA’s “librarian” Colleen Shogan who lied her way through confirmation hearing and is a MAGA censor/emotional support printer.
YASS is doing his nefarious billionaire cave dragon covert ops from my neck of the woods, so it’s personal!
Miss Bianca
Meanwhile, in news that should shock nobody, a writer moves from San Francisco to upstate New York, thinking she’s going to be able to make it on her own with no car just like she did in the Bay Area, and discovers that rural life is basically impossible without a car. And notes that about 60 percent of Americans can’t afford even a good used car, much less an electric vehicle (which she says she’s now shopping for.)
I knew that EVs were basically only for the well-to-do, since the tax credits so generously offered by the government only work if…you’re actually paying the requisite amount in taxes that would allow you to take the credit. You *really* want rural poors to drive an EV? Just offer flat-out fucking cash rebates, not tax credits they won’t qualify for.
TBone
@Ruckus: the one weird trick that actually works!
WaterGirl
@Sure Lurkalot:
BS?
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: you FUNNY!!! I’ll never tell where you’ve buried anything!
WaterGirl
@bluefoot: I’m sorry to hear that. It’s so wrong.
Starfish (she/her)
@Miss Bianca: Yes. He made his money with the first dot com boom. The family had the Blue Mountain greeting card company, and he made it so people could send online greeting cards to each other.
— Denver Post
I think Tim Gill is a much better person when it comes to tech people who did stuff with their money.
Starfish (she/her)
@bluefoot: Boston is extremely racist, but they are the “But we are Democrats, we can’t possibly racist” type of racist.
Ruckus
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Exactly.
The world is what it is.
Make your bit of it as good as you can and look forward not backasswards. This is one OLD fart to the rest of us. It’s not bad all the time but you don’t control more than a bit of it. But your attitude makes up the vast majority of how your life goes. Even as an old fart you still have to look forward, because you can’t change what is past – good/bad/indifferent – you can’t change it. Lie about it sure, but change reality? Nope, doesn’t happen. It’s like being in an earthquake or where that tornado passes, you have zero control over that. You have your bit/sliver of it. Enjoy it, experience it, look forward to another day.
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: BlueSky, I think.
:-)
Best wishes,
Scott.
TBone
This song is about how to deal with attempted gaslighting. Liars. Vatniks. Go ahead, try me!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wf_u-xT8Zeo
https://www.musixmatch.com/es/letras/Chinchilla/Trigger
pluky
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Do you use a VPN? If so, your IP might come up as being in say Finland.
ETA: seems like the shutdown was quickly reversed.
https://www.joemygod.com/2025/01/tiktok-to-restore-us-service-credits-glorious-leader/
bluefoot
@Starfish (she/her): yeah, that combination of self-regard and entitlement plus racism and the old-school nature of New England that makes it so pernicious. And pervasive.
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
People like shitforbrains think they control the world because of their money or what they think is their overwhelming intelligence.
Most of their money is just a waste of, well every thing and their overwhelming intelligence is overwhelming to mostly just them. They are one very slim part of life, and their’s ends at some time just like their desire to be overwhelming really doesn’t exist. What’s that premise of this country? We are all equal. And that isn’t and never has been about our bank accounts.
trollhattan
@Miss Bianca:
Charging infrastructure seems to be the biggest impediment to growing the EV market. As to cost, since modest-income folks buy used, EVs don’t hold value and can be had for prices on par with any traditional car. Then, as the miles rack up their maintenance costs compared to a high mileage ICE car make them an attractive alternative.
NB in VERY cold climates EV range drops considerably, especially in winter and that can be a consideration. Here, anything below 40 is a newsworthy cold snap so what do we know?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Miss Bianca:
The author is another entitled, white urbanist of the Yglesias School of “liberalism” getting a rude shock at her cluelessness of the larger world around her.
And yet, the “Gentrification of EVs” has been a real thing, I’ve commented on this before. Interestingly, both Kia and Hyundai, once the $7500 Federal Tax Credit was passed and none of their cars qualified, basically knocked that amount off the price of their EVs last year, thus, essentially did what you just proposed.
But “tax credits” is just another neoliberal approach baked into the system whose ultimate, real world aim, is to help middle-to-upper-middle-class voters get discounts on shit, otherwise, won’t vote for them if they’re too widely available (curtain rods, sparrows, etc., and that ‘tude cuts a wide swathe across party lines)
On the more practical side, used EVs, particularly Bolts (I have a new 2023 Bolt EV), take a big depreciation hit and in some ways are cheaper to buy than the equivalent ICE vehicle. Many qualify for the $4K Federal Tax Credit (oops).
The main issue is charging and I don’t mean for road trips. The same people that might benefit from a heavily discounted, used Bolt (for example) don’t have any way to charge from their residence, thus, are dependent on public fast charging that (now) have per/kWh rates that are exorbinant.
Miss Bianca
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I would consider getting an EV, or a hybrid vehicle, when my current rig finally gets beyond the point where I can afford to patch it up (engine crapped out during COVID, and that’s when I discovered it was actually going to be *cheaper for me* to buy a rebuilt engine, have it shipped to me from NJ, and pay my mechanic neighbor to help me and Pal D with the work of swapping it out than it would be for me to buy another used car!).
In the Before Times when I was working for something resembling an actual salary, I bought a 2005 Honda Civic hybrid that I absolutely loved, and would still be driving if I hadn’t had the misfortune of cracking it up on black ice between Gunnison and Crested Butte. And after it was all paid off, too…
ETA: We are slowly, slowly, adding more EV chargers to our little county’s infrastructure, but in order to be able to charge an EV affordably at home, I would likely have to install some solar panels…
Cowgirl in the Sandi
OT but I love the pictures you are showing each morning Watergirl. They are lovely and a nice way to start the day. Thanks!
WaterGirl
@Cowgirl in the Sandi: Thanks for saying something. I have been wondering whether anyone is glad they are there.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Miss Bianca:
You don’t need solar panels to do that at home affordably. Assuming your daily charge rates aren’t massive, you can time the charge for the lowest rate times, typically an 8-12 hour block overnight. That’s what I do here when evil Xcel’s rate is lowest.
For example, assume the off-peak rate is 0.12c/kWh. Further assume you are charging to 80% most of the time (long-term battery health) and on a given day run it down to 40%. That means you need 26kWh to “recharge”, thus it’s costing you an “extra” $3.12/day.
How would that compare to gas for a car? One other thing people overlook is the amazing cost savings on maintenance for an EV when compared to an ICE.
Heh heh, plus, my Bolt is a blast to drive. Come down to Denver sometime and you can test drive it. ;)
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I’ve really enjoyed those pictures. I was so appreciative I posted a brilliant idea for gaining readership capture for your pet calender posts in Coles’s Saturday Night Open Thread, comment #160.
Sure Lurkalot
@Miss Bianca: I wrote Polis off for good in 2021 with his prioritizing “the economy” over public health. Shortly after he “reopened” the state, the Delta variant took off and we all found out the vaccine we hoped would grant immunity was more of a temporary shield.
Surprisingly not surprised that he’s dumping on Jimmy Carter’s legacy of good works to kiss Trump’s ass. Hope Polis scuttles back to his billions when his term is over.
trollhattan
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Have smart meters made it to the boonies? This is a hole in my utility knowledge.
We got them maybe ten years ago and it changes the calculus of gaming electricity use. Was once “stay below the high-rate threshold as long as possible” during a given month, now it’s jousting against two tiers fall to spring, three spring to fall. That summer top tier is nosebleed territory 2X the nighttime rate. (Which is when one charges their EV if they have one.)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@trollhattan:
Smart meters in the boonies, like you I don’t know.
I do know that an old and good friend of mine in NM has been fighting the feckless public utility company down there IRT smart meters.
The utilities market them as “grid modernization” when they’re nothing of the kind, they’re “revenue enhancers” and as you’ve described in detail, they’re very good at doing that while obfuscating the real cost to consumers.
Denver residents essentially had no choice but to get them because our feckless PUC exists, like all feckless PUCs, to provide nonstop, massive profits to our monopoly “public” utility companies.
JFC, my inner, violent Marxist/Lenninist side really comes out when talking about PUCs and utility companies.
Layer8Problem
@WaterGirl: Yes, yes we are.
Geminid
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: My peaceful inner Socialist side is gratified by membership in the Rappahannock Electrical Cooperative. It sure beats the hell out of being a Dominion Power customer. Same with my community bank compared to the piranhas I used to to bank with.
sab
@Geminid: I went back to read # 16 and then I saw #152. That is amazing: Stonehenge altar stone came all the way from Orkney (islands northeast of the Scottish mainland).
WaterGirl
@Geminid: Made me look!
Pet calendar season is over. It used to be that abortion was the third rail in conversations. Now we have so many more choices!!!