Republicans suck at every level of government. Whether a minority of U.S. citizens elect one as president, as happened in 2016, or whether a majority of the citizens of Florida’s 32nd most populous county elect Repubs as county commissioners, as happens in every local election where I live, GOP politicians at all levels spend their time in office ignoring real problems and grandstanding about fake ones.
Last week, I read that a member of our all-Repub county commission, Diana Finegan, was submitting a resolution to ask DeSantis to “call out the militia to suppress and repel the invasion of illegals entering Florida,” claiming that we are “under siege by invaders with the complicity of the current administration and the federal government, who have ordered all federal and military assets to stand down.”
This morning, I read a headline that said “Finegan pulls immigration issue off the agenda,” and for a moment I was relieved, thinking maybe she’d come to her senses and would go back to evaluating alligator mitigation plans or funding no-show county jobs for relatives instead of lying about U.S. border control. But no — the local paper explains that the commissioner “expressed her intention to rework the resolution and reintroduce it with more supportive language directed towards Gov. Ron DeSantis.”
Christ on a cracker. In this county, we’re always at least six months behind the trends in Florida, let alone the country, so this elected official doesn’t realize performance art to impress Ron DeSantis is no longer mandatory. The people who elected Finegan are performative dolts too, of course:
While the resolution was withdrawn from the agenda, some members of the public attended the meeting to express their opinions during the public comment period… Mary Seader urged the board to take action to “protect, guard, and shield” the county’s residents and shared reports of illegal immigrants breaking into homes in Michigan.
You can understand Seader’s concerns — our town is only about an 18 hour drive from Kalamazoo, so the thieves might be on their way right now with the intent to bust into her senior singles condo development and make off with her new air fryer and garden gnomes.
The truth is my county is “under siege.” Not by immigrant hordes but by scammy developers and rapacious insurance companies and corrupt GOP politicians. But as long as a majority keep barking their heads off every time some Repub fraud yells “SQUIRREL,” we’ll keep getting lied to and ripped off. It never ends.
Open thread.
PS: The newspaper articles on Finegan’s resolution cosplay note that she’s a member of the local Repub Executive Committee and that members of that organization asked her to bring forth the resolution. Our county DEC is more trauma support group than political organization, but I can imagine the response if word got out that an elected Dem (a species that went extinct here when Dixiecrats jumped ship) performed an official act at the behest of her executive committee. The screeching would rattle windows in Kalamazoo!
BeautifulPlumage
Good morning from rainy Seattle
BeautifulPlumage
I’m very appreciative of all you dems who live in red areas and keep us informed of the latest wackadoodle shit from the GOP. Keep up the good fight!
OzarkHillbilly
I know your tribulations from first hand experience. You have my sympathies, Betty.
cmorenc
Your local R-ish city council *could* be spending time concerned about beach-goers in thong-like bathing suits. As opposed to focusing merely on helping developers destroy the local environment which attracted people to the beach-front community in the first place. (Referring to red-ish coastal community in SE North Carolina).
Mike in NC
The Florida legislature gave Meatball Ron a private army of goons to crack down on non-existent election fraud. Might as well find other uses for it, right?
OzarkHillbilly
Caution: this tweet is only for those with a strong stomach and a resilient nature. Made me LMAO but could induce nightmares in others. And oh yeah, put down the coffee and swallow twice before opening.
Hell’s bells, even his profile comes with a warning:
Soprano2
My husband has his driving test today, the one that was triggered by the neuro/psych doctor reporting him to the state as a person who shouldn’t drive. If he fails it, as he probably will, he’s not going to be happy about it. He still thinks it’s total bullshit that he has to take the test. I sure hope he doesn’t pass it! I think he messed up the lock to the driver’s side of our Blazer last night; we went to the bar to get aluminum cans, and he went outside and tried to open the door with keys on his keychain (he doesn’t have a key to the Blazer, I removed it a couple of weeks ago after he went to the store even though I told him he can’t drive because the state of MO considers his driver’s license revoked). He doesn’t realize that the fact that he didn’t know he didn’t have the key to the vehicle is in itself a sign that he shouldn’t be driving. This dementia is a funny thing; in many ways, he’s still mostly normal, then he does stuff like that. We saw his brother and some of their family last week; my sister-in-law says her husband is still in denial about his brother. I guess I’m not surprised, if you spent a couple of hours with him you might not be able to tell he has any memory problems. From what she told me about her husband, I suspect he has some problems of his own.
cmorenc
@Mike in NC:
The NC legislature just created our own special police goon squad, but one controlled by the legislature rather than (as in Fla) the governor’s office, because NC has a D governor. But similarly, the new NC goon squad is empowered to operate in secret, and was given the enforcement power to order anyone questioned by the squad to keep the inquiry secret.
Betty Cracker
@Soprano2: This must be an incredibly sad and difficult situation for everyone involved, especially you.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: Yes, on some days it is. When I start to get impatient with him for forgetting something, I have to remind myself that it’s not his fault, it’s the disease, but it’s hard. I have yelled at him a couple of times for doing things he normally wouldn’t have done. He keeps trying to put the dogs outside even when they’ve just come back in! I don’t know what to do about that.
Tony Jay
Nothing suspicious about creating bespoke secret police units that you’re not even allowed to talk about while they’re harassing you. Nope. Nothing at all.
Oh, hang on, I’m thinking of something else. All that stuff, totes super suspicious. The kind of thing that ‘freedom from intrusive Government’ advocates should be crazy mad about. Shouldn’t they?
Yeah. Funny that.
John S.
@Tony Jay:
Fixed and now working as expected.
Frankensteinbeck
I am vividly reminded of the 2014 election in Kentucky, when McConnell’s advertisements were all about how Alison Grimes would work closely with Obama, who was letting Mexicans flood into Kentucky. It worked beautifully. Even Republicans in Kentucky didn’t like McConnell, but they crawled over broken glass to answer that trumpet.
Betty Cracker
@John S.: If Florida ever elects another Democrat as governor, the statehouse will pull the plug on the secret police toot sweet.
tobie
The development in Florida is happening so rapidly and with zero attention to environmental factors. Where the hell is the water supposed to drain along the overbuilt coasts?
Betty
@Soprano2: Sending my sympathies. What a challenging situation. As my husband and I age, I can’t help but worry about facing similar problems. Hope he fails the test and accepts the results.
Andrew Abshier
You’re in Citrus County? My condolences. But things aren’t much better in Sarasota County.
John S.
@Betty Cracker:
Of course they will. In the hands of a Democrat, such powers would surely be abused!
JML
@Soprano2: Good luck. mom is dealing with this with her husband and it’s much more advanced now and getting very messy. She wants to keep him with her at home for as long as possible, but the strain of caregiving is starting to drag her down. (My sister is hoping they tell my mom that she can’t drive any longer because that will get them out of the house)
The loss of driving privileges is a hard one for people, and in a lot of places in the US really restricts an elderly person’s ability to function independently. Good luck.
Mustang Bobby
Betty, I fear the tide is edging south towards Miami-Dade County; the Cubans who fled one dictator are all turned on by Trump, another dictator. It has something to do with a cultural affinity to follow strongmen, but as far as I can tell, they’re just too dumb to play dead in a cowboy movie.
HinTN
@OzarkHillbilly: Her damn locals have far more flair than ours, who don’t engage in performative outrage (they’re too slow and haven’t yet discovered the thrill), they just get right to the grift.
eclare
@Soprano2:
My sympathies. It must be so difficult to deal with mental decline, both as the patient and the caregiver. I hope he fails, too, and I hope he comes to peace with it.
lowtechcyclist
@Frankensteinbeck:
They coulda had a taco truck on every corner.
HinTN
@cmorenc: You keep that shit down your way and don’t let it ooze up toward Holden, please.
lowtechcyclist
@Mustang Bobby:
They’re OK with strongmen, as long as they’re anti-communist strongmen. And of course, the GOP has deluged them with propaganda to get them to believe there’s no difference between Dems and commies. Therefore…
UncleEbeneezer
This is the rub though, isn’t it? The bigoted performance art is what the voters want. At least that’s what the MAGA base that they rely upon for political survival wants. And that base is convinced that Immigration!!1!, Crime in Cities and Transgender Athletes are the greatest threats to America and there is no unconvincing them no matter how much evidence we present. It’s a shitty, intractable problem and I’m so sorry for you and everyone in districts, states, where it is playing out.
Mustang Bobby
@Soprano2: I sympathize so much. It’s a tough road you’re both on. When my dad began to slip, he had his moments of clarity when he was aware of what was happening and he was inconsolable because he knew what he was doing to my mom and us kids. Then the fog would roll in and…
I hold you in the Light.
japa21
@OzarkHillbilly:
Hopefully, Omnes is not around. If he innocently clicked on that tweet he would probably have a heart attack.
Mustang Bobby
@lowtechcyclist: To them, “communist” and “socialist” is anyone who disagrees with them. In the 2022 congressional race in my Miami district, one candidate sternly warned, “America has never been a socialist country, and never will be as long as I have anything to say about it.” So, apparently she was against Social Security, Medicare, public schools and colleges (“Go FSU!”), and the sewer system. She won by a landslide.
Ruviana
@OzarkHillbilly: It seems to have been pulled though I might be doing it wrong.
Betty Cracker
@Andrew Abshier: We’re used to it here because Citrus has always been a Confederate backwater. Seems like Sarasota used to have more sane-ish Repubs — country club fiscal conservative types, but from what I hear, it’s been overrun with Trumpy quasi-celebrities. That’s worse! ;-)
John S.
@Mustang Bobby:
Which is why “anti-woke” is the perfect platform for Republicans. They can’t really define it, and even when they try, no two definitions are the same. Because all it really means to them is “whatever I don’t like or disagree with”.
Mustang Bobby
@Betty Cracker: Michael Flynn and his rotund Nazis have set up camp in Sarasota. Last time I was there it was a nice place, but ass-deep to a tall Swede in WHAR’s — white heterosexual alcoholic Republicans, just ripe to be MAGA-sized.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Soprano2: I hope the test today goes as well as can be expected and that you get the support you need.
Steeplejack
@Ruviana:
I can’t see it either. “This page doesn’t exist.”
Glidwrith
@Frankensteinbeck: I don’t remember the year, but McConnell had an advertisement on allowing people to fish near a dam that had a huge number of drowning deaths. They burbled on how great he was in keeping those nasty regulations at bay that wouldn’t allow them to fish.
The hell of it was it was only a temporary hold on the regulations that lasted only until after the election. And, of course, people continuing to die.
UncleEbeneezer
@Mustang Bobby: This is nothing new. Communism = Liberalism = Socialism is a bullshit false equivalence narrative that was being pushed back in the 50’s during the rise of the modern GOP. And you could go back another century and swap in “Abolition” and that worked too. They are all just shorthand terms for: anything to the Left of Slavery.
Dangerman
“Scammy developers”
Redundant?
“Rapacious insurance companies”
Redundant?
”Corrupt GOP politicians”
Redun …. ah, screw it
sdhays
So, I guess she’s ripe for an interview as a regular private citizen by CNN or FTFNYT.
Frankensteinbeck
@John S.:
Yes, they can. Woke means being against bigotry. They define it all the time, in language where they sound like the victim, like ‘trying to make white people feel bad’.
Soprano2
@Betty: My only advice is to pay attention to your gut if you start noticing subtle changes in his behavior that can’t be explained by normal aging. Lots of people are in denial for years when they could have been preparing for the inevitable. No one wants to believe this is happening to their loved one. I had an incident fairly early on that couldn’t be explained away, which helped me face reality early.
matt
Ron’s Holocaust trains aren’t doing the job?
UncleEbeneezer
Greetings All, from the gorgeous Convict Lake, CA. We’ve had a lovely time so far enjoying the Fall Color/Weather with a nice hike around the lake yesterday followed by an amazing dinner at the restaurant here. Kelly had tamarind/pistachio crusted salmon that was incredible and I had one of the best filet mignons I have ever had. Today we leave cabin life and will try our hand at some tent-camping in Bishop Creek. We already drove through the area on Monday and the leaves are amazing right now. We’ve even scoped out some of the best aspen-ringed campsites at a couple of the FCFS campgrounds so hopefully we can snag a great site just as people are leaving today.
Mustang Bobby
@UncleEbeneezer: I remember when the Birchers got their tits in an uproar over school integration in my town in Ohio. They were sore afraid when the white kids were sent to black schools and tried to get the district to replace all the toilet seats because, y’know, “they” all had VD. The oldies never die.
Scout211
@Soprano2: Oh, Soprano2, I have so much empathy for you. It’s so hard when sometimes seems exactly like themselves and then boom! they behave in ways that show that they are obviously in cognitive decline.
I think I have it a little easier about the driving, though. Mr. Scout has had trouble driving for a couple of years due to his macular degeneration (wet ARMD in one eye) and has voluntarily given up driving. So by the time he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s he hadn’t driven in many months. If he tried to drive like your husband continues to do, I’m not even sure how I would handle that. I feel so bad for you.
It’s just so hard to get them to understand their cognitive decline and we spouses are navigating a very scary and confusing road. I am just now trying to understand all the new responsibilities I have for the finances and household decisions. I can’t imagine how hard it is for you when he is in denial and is unaware of his cognitive decline.
You have my sympathy and most definitely my empathy. We are both on a long road that is scary and uncertain.
I hope the driving appointment gives him some clarity. And I hope he understands it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ruviana: It still works for me. I have Firefox and a slow as molasses in winter computer which my wife is hopefully gonna fix this wkend.
eta: On the off chance you are unfamiliar with twitter, if you are getting the Warning, Do you really really want to see this?? Click the view button.
Sure Lurkalot
@JML:
@Soprano2:
This is so true and it’s also a blow to one’s ego and well being…the loss of the freedom to go wherever whenever is very difficult for many to accept.
My FIL did not suffer memory loss issues but he had other health issues that made him unfit for driving after he was 80ish. Many fender benders taught him nothing and didn’t dissuade him from long multi day road trips. My spouse was unable to convince him to stop driving even after he was sued for a rear end collision. The parties to the suit went on to sue his estate after his death until they and his insurance company settled.
My profound sympathies to all facing this issue. It’s not easy to take away the keys…it’s actually a bit heartbreaking.
Matt McIrvin
@Tony Jay: In my experience, the people who are the quickest to yell about jackbooted government thugs and their freedoms are usually the same people who are quickest to call for them against anyone who annoys them. There’s definitely a projection element to all this, or maybe just that the Gestapo is what’s constantly on their minds. I have to watch for it in my own mind.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ruviana:
@Steeplejack:
Yeah, as I said before it still shows for me. Let’s try a naked link:
twitter.com/Scott2519733801/status/1711697651555512511
Hopefully that will do it for you.
MomSense
@Soprano2:
I’m sorry you are going through this. Are you getting the support you need? It’s a challenge in the best of times to find time for ourselves, but carving out time for you as carer for a loved one with dementia is challenging but necessary.
If you don’t have a good support system, set up please please please start that process.
And of course we are here for you if you want to vent, engage in some dark humor or ignore the situation and just point and mock at politics.
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
Nope. Alas.
NotMax
Found on Freevee via Amazon Prime, originally aired on BBC America, police TV series Copper set in 1860s New York City. Gritty as all get out without (so far, only 3 episodes in) slipping into gratuitousness.
Alison Rose
I Googled this woman because I was curious if she looked how I thought she looked, and she does. Kind of a “white supremacist Barbie” vibe. But I also got a few laughs:
Says the woman who wants to live like it’s 1855.
Unless those “others” are from another country, in which case, fuck ’em.
Diana, you appear to be falling down on this lofty ideal.
Maybe that’s when the problems there began.
Um. So what? Ugh, it makes me feel icky when parents try to take credit for their kid’s accomplishments.
We enjoy every possible human body motion done in water.
She also has a BS in education with a concentration in psychology. And yet, she can’t seem to suss out why she’s nuttier than the Planters factory.
Mustang Bobby
@Sure Lurkalot: In 1988, my dad found a 1988 Pontiac 6000 Safari wagon for me at a dealer in Michigan. I was in Colorado at the time, but I flew up to Traverse City and bought the car. Fast forward to 2013 after my parents had moved to a retirement community in Cincinnati and Dad stopped driving. I came for Christmas and I was taking him to the store in a rental. At a stoplight, he turned to me and asked, “Do you still have that Pontiac I got for you?” I nodded and replied, “Yes, Dad, I do.” (I still have it to this day.) He smiled and said, “Good.” I was unable to speak for the rest of the trip.
Matt McIrvin
@Sure Lurkalot: Car culture and car based development mean that people who can’t drive are prisoners in most of the country. And this kills seniors. It killed my paternal grandmother. She shouldn’t have been driving but in western Nebraska, it was her only key to independence.
OzarkHillbilly
@SiubhanDuinne: Huh. I give up. It still works for me even though I despise Musk. Maybe Darkwing doesn’t think you guys are dark enough?
Old School
@SiubhanDuinne: Here’s a Reddit version of the same picture Ozark is linking to. Maybe this one will work.
(Spoiler: It’s Trump as The Joker.)
Ken
@OzarkHillbilly: Not found for me, but I changed it to nitter.net.
NotMax
@Mustang Bobby
IIRC, a Vista Cruiser?
You might find this long watch (80 minutes) of some interest: The Life and Death of Pontiac.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mustang Bobby: It hurts more when we are confronted with what we are losing.
Chief Oshkosh
@Soprano2: I’m so sorry to hear of it. Dementia is weird and difficult. Understatement of the year.
Juju
@Soprano2: You and I are in a similar boat. My mother has a dementia much like your husband’s, although hers is a circulatory and possibly genetic dementia rather than a stroke issue. Her sister, my aunt has a nearly identical dementia, but they both have had similar health issues which could cause their dementia. You are right about how hard it is not to get mad about some of the behavior and forgetting things, because sometimes they seem like they are very much the same and a few minutes later can’t remember how the tv remote works. Family members will realize when your husband starts repeating the same question over and over or tells the same story again and again without realizing he’s doing that, that he does have dementia. The first official diagnosis of dementia was with my mother’s last cognitive function test about five years ago. She was losing a word with the recall three random words part with every annual test. She got to a point where she didn’t even recall that there had been any words given to her. She sees her doctor every six months and during her last visit he gave her the part of the exam where you’re supposed to draw the three dimensional square. She couldn’t do that. I cried during that visit because my mother was the person who taught me how to draw that when I was a child. I thought it was the neatest thing ever, and now she can’t draw that and doesn’t remember teaching me how to draw it. I haven’t asked, but I doubt she could draw a clock. My mother realized she shouldn’t drive when she was on her way to a doctors appointment and by the time she reached the top of the street she couldn’t remember where she was going and came home. I was at work and didn’t know about it until I heard from the doctor’s office that she never showed up for her appointment. We figured stuff out from there and she decided she didn’t want to drive any longer. My mother does the same thing with the dogs. She has lost the ability to read their behavior, so when in doubt she lets them out. My mother is 90 and at first I thought she was showing signs of dementia around the age of 85-86, but looking back and knowing what I know now, she was likely showing signs around the age of 80. I now realize how much I compensated for her odd mistakes. Taking care of my mother is one of the most difficult things I have ever done, and I always feel like I’m doing something wrong, but fortunately my mother doesn’t remember when I screw up and lose my temper. So, an odd bonus. Just remember you’re doing the best you can and when you make mistakes it is not intentional. Try not to be too hard on yourself as I tend to be.
Frankensteinbeck
@Matt McIrvin:
They’re the ‘morality is me getting what I want’ people. Any kind of law enforcement against them is a Gestapo, any kind of repression and forcing others to do what they want is the right thing to do. By definition it cannot be too much, and in fact the more extreme, the more it’s heroism.
Geminid
I ran into a couple General Assembly election stories in the Virginia Mercury news site. One was about the “closely watched” House District 21 race in Northern Virginia. Republican candidate John Stirrup is emphasizing “public safety” in his messaging, while Democrat Josh Thomas is warning voters about Stirrup’s position on abortion rights.
The Mercury’s news roundup was headlined, “Youngkin spends big on abortion ad campaign.”
The story is from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and reported that “Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s PAC is putting $1.2 million behind a state-wide ad campaign meant to counteract a barrage of Democratic messaging accusing Republicans of being extreme on abortion.”
This is good news, I think. Youngkin and the Republicans would rather voters who care about abortion rights didn’t even think about the issue, and now he’s spending a million+ dollars to get them to think twice about it. Democrats want to put Republicans on the defensive on this issue and it looks like they are.
chrome agnomen
@OzarkHillbilly: still a nope for me
JML
@Matt McIrvin: losing the independence is a massive blow. it will be very hard for my mom if she has to stop driving; she loves to go to treasure hunting at garage sales, and once a week blows a few bucks on the slots at the casino. she doesn’t want to have her groceries delivered, she wants to shop and look for deals in the store. And she’ll hate needing to get a ride to church on sundays. Neither my sister or I live in town, either.
aging is harsh.
Mustang Bobby
@NotMax: No, it was — and still is — a 6000, one of the 80’s-90’s A-body class like the Chevy Celebrity, the Olds Cutlass Ciera, and the Buick Century. At the time it was considered a mid-size; now it’s a full-size.
I’ve seen that video. GM really screwed the pooch by killing Pontiac.
Steeplejack
@OzarkHillbilly:
No, I still get the explicit “This page doesn’t exist” message. I even went to the guy’s profile page and couldn’t find any likely posts from there. Didn’t know what to look for, of course. (Clowns?)
Samsung browser on Android phone.
Tony Jay
@John S.:
This is truth.
Where ‘government intrusion’ = Making things better for everyone = What? Even ‘those’ people? = Yes, everyone = Absolutely unacceptable, where’s my gun and where can I get more without background checks or documentation?
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s likely both, plus massive doses of self-righteous juice. If they want to impose punishment on people they don’t like it’s perfectly normal and part of what America and being American is all about (other national descriptors are available), but for anyone to impose anything on them is an outrage every bit as bad as the Gestapo’s reign of terror.
Which is why, when I take over everything there will be no secret police. It’ll all be out in the open and wearing bright primary coloured trenchcoats.
Alison Rose
@Soprano2: It’s such a difficult thing to cope with, both for the person themselves and their loved ones. I’m really sorry you’re going through this and I hope for the best for you <3
UncleEbeneezer
@Mustang Bobby: Yup. I’ve read several books about that time period and they really used every racist justification imaginable to oppose Integration, turn Brown into the Real Slavery™ etc. Black students would: 1.) drag everyone else down, 2.) corrupt the white students into lifestyles of violence, drugs and sexual promiscuity and 3.) prey on white kids, especially girls. There were several others but they all amounted to variations of the presumption that White Schools would always be better keeping Black Kids out.
Steeplejack
@Old School:
Okay, I can see that.
Salty Sam .
I’m feeling your pain Soprano2- my sis-in-law has spent less than 2 weeks in court ordered protective custody in a mental hospital, but the doctors are ready to release her because she presents well. They don’t have the context of 45 years of experience with her to realize the answers she is giving them are completely whack!
Along with all the other things we (liberals, progressives, whatever you want to call us) want/need to change in this country, mental health services and access to them have GOT to be improved and expanded.
Those things seem pretty far down on the list though…
RSA
@Soprano2: Best wishes.
If you’re on Facebook, you might find two groups worthwhile, if only for moral support: Alzheimer’s Spouse Haven and Alzheimer’s Spouse Journal and Support Group. There’s some overlap in membership. There’s a focus on spousal caregiving, and the members in aggregate have been through every experience imaginable. Neither group is very active, but they usually have good advice for specific situations.
raven
@Soprano2: I’m so sorry to hear this.
Frankensteinbeck
@Steeplejack:
This sounds like what you get when you fire most of your maintenance staff. Some people have errors and others don’t, and you’re always way behind fixing them. Computers are finicky.
Steeplejack
@Ken:
I got “Tweet not found” on Nitter.net, something similar on Nitter.cz.
But I have finally seen the picture via Reddit and can rest easy.
Origuy
My neighbor has early-onset dementia; he’s only in his forties. So he’s still a strong man. He gets angry about his limitations and hits things and sometimes his wife. His teenage son got into a fight with him in the parking lot and I’m sure it’s happened inside before. The police have come several times; he wanders the neighborhood and once stole a bottle of water because he was thirsty. He also has kidney failure and has to go in for dialysis. He was driving himself before he got too far along to drive. Once he got lost and ended up in a bad part of San Francisco. I don’t know what’s going to happen.
Juju
@Scout211: My mother goes from appreciating that I take care of the finances, to believing I’m swindling her, to believing I don’t know how to write a check because I’ve never had a checking account. I’m 62. I’ve had a checking account since I was 18. The sudden mood swings are difficult.
Geminid
@Geminid: The Virginia Mercury “newspaper” is a good source for news on Virginia politics. It is more objective than the Blue Virginia news site (which is unabashedly pro-Democratic). The Mercury’s format also makes it easier to read, at least for me.
Surly Duff
Don’t you live in Alachua County? When I lived there 15 years ago, it was known as the only blue spot in a sea of North Florida red….
Kelly
@Soprano2: We’re waiting to see if my Mom’s dementia, triggered by a C diff infection , is permanent. My siblings and I had been tiptoeing up to convincing her to stop driving before the infection. She’s 87. We live at the end of a gravel road in the woods where two rivers meet.
The C Diff is under control after two rounds of treatment. First infection was diagnosed the last week of August. The second round treatment started Sept 15 with a 5 day hospital stay. Two more days of vancomycin. Her mind has recovered enough that she’s reading her National Geographics the last few days. She dropped from about 120 to 99 lbs. Very weak. She needs 24/7 help. I’ve kept her at her home of 30+ years convinced she’ll recover better in familiar surroundings. I’ve been sleeping on her couch.
SiubhanDuinne
@Old School:
Oh dear. Yes, it worked. I wish I could muster enough insincerity to say thank you 🥹
NotMax
@Mustang Bobby
Former husband of an acquaintance inherited a ’59 Cadillac station wagon. Not aftermarket conversion, factory made. One of like around 50 built.
Marmot
@BeautifulPlumage: What a nice thing to say! Thanks.
And more broadly, I’ve noticed a general decrease in “fuck all the people in red areas” attitudes here. I like to think everyone is finally realizing right-wing nationalism is a problem across the whole country.
Mustang Bobby
@NotMax: Yes, they built a few wagons… the size of an aircraft carrier IIRC. The rest were all black with curtains in the back windows and no luggage rack…
hueyplong
@Mustang Bobby: If I’m following, JFK took a ride in one of those in my earliest childhood memory.
OzarkHillbilly
2023 wildlife photographer of the year winners – in pictures
For my money, the hands down winner: Last breath of autumn by Agorastos Papatsanis, Greece.
Winner, plants and fungi
NotMax
@Mustang Bobby
Which prompts me to link to one of my favorite historical automotive YouTubers, The History of the Hearse.
Mustang Bobby
@hueyplong: The ride from Andrews AFB to Walter Reed on the evening of November 22, 1963, was in a Pontiac. I remember that very well.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ken: @chrome agnomen: @Steeplejack:
Thanx to the kindness of @Old School: the same pic can be found at the reddit link they give.
gvg
@Surly Duff: I live in Alachua county. Betty lives south of here down around Tampa somewhere.
Alachua is Blue although there are republican loudmouths around trying to bother us and take over schoolboards especially.
hueyplong
@Mustang Bobby: How about that. Decent chance my 5-year old self didn’t know the difference. I had no idea Pontiac ever made those.
Karen S.
@Soprano2: I’m sorry you’re going through this. Like others have said, I hope he fails the test, too, and can accept the result.
I’m lucky that my dad decided on his own to quit driving in 2019 before his dementia took hold. But what we’re dealing with now is that he’s in a sort of Groundhog Day loop where he wakes up, believing that my mother, who died over a year ago, died the night before and that he must arrange the funeral for her. Sometimes we humor him, but mostly it’s hard to go along with it. When I tell him the truth, though, a wave of grief washes over him again like it did last year when she died. I also think in that moment he understands what’s happening to him and he grieves over that, too.
Bill Arnold
Re “Christ on a cracker”, how did that originate?
This person on Quora has an amusing speculation:
The Catholic Church taught transubstantiation, which means the bread/wine become the Body/Blood. Calvin taught consubstantiation, which means that do not actually change, but Jesus somehow “goes along” with them. I have heard it described as, “Jesus is handcuffed to the bread/wine,” but I suppose “Christ on a Cracker” might be a perfectly accurate (and snarky) analogy for consubstantiation.
SFBayAreaGal
@Mustang Bobby: My third car was the 1980 Pontiac Sunbird. Loved that car.
Alison Rose
@OzarkHillbilly: Ooh that is cool. They all are! I like this one a lot even though it made me shiver a bit :P
wjca
In short, it’s as if their views were the official state religion. Giving them a duty to save those with other views from damnation for their heresy. A reformation will be nasty. But that’s probably what it will take.
Peale
@tobie: Into poor areas.
Paul in KY
@Mustang Bobby: Good ole dad!
eclare
@Karen S.:
That sounds so difficult, my sympathy to your family.
Paul in KY
@Origuy: Very sorry for his family and him. Hopefully he’ll pass on in the not too distant future, peacefully. Kidney failure is supposed to be an OK way to go (no pain).
Paul in KY
@SFBayAreaGal: 68 Bonneville’s are so cool. Also about 20 feet long.
raven
@Soprano2: My mom was addicted to opioids in the 1990’s. She and my faintly all live(d) in LA and there wasn’t much I could do but she had a couple of wrecks and we were sure the court was going to take away her license, but they didn’t.
raven
@Paul in KY: A highs school buddy had a 68 Bonny wagon and it was fast as hell!
Soprano2
@Scout211: He’s still in the relatively early stages, I think that’s one reason he’s in denial. I’ve read that some people never become aware that they have a problem, so I have to prepare myself for that possibility. I’m lucky that he already doesn’t drive that much, and he’s used to me driving us places since I’ve always had the nicer vehicle that gets better gas mileage. We always kept our bills separate, so that hasn’t been that hard for me. I feel relatively lucky compared to many people whose spouse has been taking care of all that stuff for their whole life and suddenly have to try to figure it all out.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
The loss starts out small. I worked for my dad, then as older set in I took over the company and ran it longer than he did. One day he walked up to me and asked a question that perfectly illustrated the early stage of dementia, a question base upon a memory he had from long before I was born. It was a stark difference to his normal behavior. It wasn’t a big deal, but years later it struck me as how when the brain stops working as a normal cohesive structure, the past, the now and the future get mixed up. I’ve seen this in other people as they age, as bits and pieces fall away – the brain can no longer access them – we get these types of questions. Not everyone goes through this to the same degree or speed though, where I live there is a 97 yr old woman that still can discuss long ago local history like it was yesterday. Her brain is still functional, her body is less so. There is a degree of this in all of us if we live long enough.
raven
@Soprano2: The interview with him that I watched was as honest as any I’ve seen with an officer.
Soprano2
@MomSense: So far so good as far as support, but it’s early days yet. I’m seeing a therapist who is helping me figure out how to cross these different bridges in the best way possible, and to also remind me to take care of myself. Once I get the deal regarding the bar done, where we’re going to sell a majority share to a couple who are now my managers (how much will depend on the business valuation), that will help a lot. I think my next bridge is figuring out when to activate the power of attorney. In a way it’s already that way because I make most of our decisions now and he doesn’t push back much. That’s why we’re finally getting a gas furnace – I told him that since he didn’t build fires during the day last winter, and instead just sat on the couch under a blanket so that when I came home from work it was 50 degrees in the house, he had broken our agreement about the wood furnace and thus I was justified in doing this. Even two years ago he would have fought me on it, now he just said “ok”.
Paul in KY
@raven: Whoa! A Bonny wagon! Must have weighed 7000 lbs!
Soprano2
@Juju: I think it was easier for me to recognize what was happening because we live together; when you only see someone every few days they can seem completely normal to you, then the next time something is off, then the next time normal again. The first time he took the cognitive test the doc said “just mild memory problems like what happens with age”, and I wanted to scream because I knew different from my experiences but he believed in the test. It took him failing that test for stuff to start happening. I can’t let him work on the things he used to know how to fix because I’m not sure how much he remembers and I’m afraid he’ll hurt himself without meaning to. Another motivator for us getting a gas furnace is that I don’t want him going down the basement stairs several times a day.
I’m so sorry you’re going through that with your mother, it’s hard to lose our parents like that. I do know that one benefit is that when I get mad he probably doesn’t remember it the next day. I’ve had to develop a system to make sure the dogs get fed! I’ve had to do a lot of stuff like that. With the dogs I think they’re playing with him sometimes but he doesn’t realize it.
Soprano2
@RSA: Thanks, I’ll look those up later.
Soprano2
@Kelly: I hope for you that it’s temporary.
Soprano2
@Karen S.: Oh my that’s so tough, I am so sorry. I have no idea how I would handle that. We went to the cemetery a couple of weeks ago to pick out the niche for his son’s ashes. I wanted to do it while he could still make the decision where to inter him. I think his son’s death definitely contributed to his decline.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
Live with it, support him, recognize when and if it gets dangerous. Talk to his doctor about it, they often have good advice. It can be difficult to watch and to participate in. Never forget what is actually going on with him. All of this can happen to any of us, it’s aging. We didn’t used to see as much of this because there was less communications about it, like we are doing now. It doesn’t go the same for everyone, mom was still working long after dad passed away at 84 years old. Each of us can go in a different way, most all of us fall into a groove but it can be a rather different groove than others we know. I am the oldest in my extended family, quite a few didn’t live as old as I am now. Some lived to be a lot older than that. There really is no one story, there are so many issues to all of this aging stuff that it’s take it as it comes and be prepared as best you can.
Soprano2
@raven: Thanks for that. He’s pretty honest about his experiences there, although I think he hasn’t told me everything he did. He had a lot of respect for the Vietnamese people he worked with. He helped the local madam with her brothel for a few months, letting the girls come to camp for medical treatment because his men kept getting infections. Then some higher-ups found out and shut it down!
Soprano2
Thanks to everyone who responded to me, it helps a lot that I can come here to talk about this. I sure can’t talk about it on Facebook!
trnc
Fight them there so you don’t have fight them here.
sab
@Soprano2: My dad once got lost coming back from his facorite restaurant two blocks from home. He went right instead of left and then had bo idea where he was although he’d been living in the neighbor hood for fifty years, Fortunately Mom was with him to navigate. He gave up his keys after that.
Mom, who was mentally intact but phtsicallt failing, ran into a slow moving train. She has okay because two guys in the truck behind her saw what was happening and ran up and pulled her out of the car. She wanted to keep driving but the cops and DMV said no.
Mom always loved driving. Dad always hated driving.
I am having issues now with my own husband. He has lost his peripheral vision from glaucoma, so I am having to nag him about using his turn signals to warn any car that he might not see that he intends to turn into their lane.
Juju
@Soprano2: I have lived with my mother since my father was killed in an accident right in front of my mother. She had a hard time coping and I started to take care of things after the accident. I was aware of memory issues after 80, but was willing to take the doctors’ word that it was age related. I probably accepted the getting older thing because in the back of my mind I wanted that to be the case. Before the forgetting where she was driving incident, my mother drove to the drugstore to get some flu meds for me. She was driving a new car and she managed to get to the drug store, but couldn’t remember how to put the car in drive by the time she was done with her errands. I had to go to the drugstore and show her how it worked. Doctors said that sort of thing happens as people age. Again, I took their word for it. She continued to do odd things from time to time. She was given the cognitive tests every checkup, and her performance waned with every test. If your husband comes out of denial, it will be before he gets deeper into dementia. When he gets to advanced dementia, this is what my mother’s dementia is labeled as, he will think he is just fine and you are just picking on him, being picky and difficult, or just making things up. My advice about the power of attorney is to do that as soon as you can. My mother had some legal issues taken care of in while she was aware of her declining mental faculties but before the decline was too far along. When the attorney took care of the legal issues he also set up the power of attorney for me, and health power of attorney for my brother, who is a physician. I did know about the legal issues that were taken care of, but I didn’t know about the POA until I got a letter from the attorney telling me about the POA and when I thought it was time to enact the POA I could call and have everything set up. I did that a couple of years ago. I’m glad she had the foresight to do that. My mother was a nurse and probably more aware of things than she let on. I miss my mother.
raven
@Soprano2: His description of troops like me, young and stupid and didn’t want to be there, was spot on.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@UncleEbeneezer: Enjoy, I was up at Bishop Creek last week and it was a bit before peak. I almost went up yesterday, but I have work today and was thinking about Big Pine, but thought it a bit too early there. So I stayed home.