February 11, 2020

Donald Trump. Jr. greeted with chants of OF 'forty-six' at New Hampshire campaign rally

Source: Newsweek

President Donald Trump's fans chanted "forty-six" when his eldest son took the stage at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Monday, showing their support for a potential Donald Trump Jr. presidential campaign.

Trump Jr. appeared beside his father at the packed event in Manchester, New Hampshire last night as the 45th U.S. president boasted about his Senate impeachment trial acquittal in front of supporters holding up signs that read "Promises Kept."

The commander-in-chief also used the New Hampshire rally as an opportunity to mock the Democratic Party and its leadership, telling supporters that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was "mumbling" behind him as he delivered his State of the Union address last week.

Speaking about candidates in the Democratic primary field, President Trump said: "I hear a lot of Republicans tomorrow will vote for the weakest candidate possible of the Democrats, does that make sense?

Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-jr-greeted-chants-forty-six-new-hampshire-campaign-rally-1486728

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I never realized that there were this many crazy and uneducated people in this country until Trump started having his rallies. I guess a lot of people truly do not realize what a "republic" is supposed to be...they want a dynasty, no matter how unqualified the successor is. In this case (DJT Jr.), he would be a total slimeball.

I didn't think it could get even more nutso. These people don't even want a democracy, they want a trashy aristocracy. Ergo, they have very few functioning brain cells.

November 22, 2019

Any experience with "emotional support animals"?

I suffer from pretty severe anxiety disorder as well as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I see a psychiatrist regularly, have a number of prescribed medicines, and also have a regular therapist.

I used to have a dog - a lab mix I got from the pound - who would sit next to me on the couch or in bed when I was feeling anxiety. He made sure his body made contact with mine. He was so calm when you touched him - there was no muscle tension in his body at all, which was different from other dogs I have had. I also suffer terrible nightmares and he would wake me up if I was having a bad one. I slept so much better at night with him by my side.

He passed away, and I was hospitalized for a time. When I got out, I had to relocate to an apartment building that doesn't allow dogs. I understand that my state has a law that requires a landlord to allow a dog if you can get a note from a doctor or therapist that says you benefit from having an emotional support animal.

I'm not sure where to begin with this: how can I get a dog declared an "emotional support animal" when I haven't even adopted one yet? And if I adopt one, where do I keep him / her until I can get the official documentation?

One idea I thought of is to foster a dog, have my sister take care of him until I can get the documentation and clear it with my landlord. Then I can move the dog into the apartment.

Is this a workable solution, or should I save up the big bucks to get an honest-to-god PTSD service dog?

Thanks for anyone who has experience with emotional support animals or service dogs.

July 25, 2019

I cut the cord! (cable / dish)

Well, lately I've been finding the hundreds of channels and the constant Trump talk on 24-hour news depressing. Most of my favorite TV shows are no longer around, and if they are, I can get them on Netflix or Amazon.

I finally worked up the nerve to call DirecTV and cancel my service.

I'm looking forward to the silence. I'm going to use the saved money to buy a second laptop - a 2-in-1 that I can use to hook up to my TV or draw on (I like to design things using graphics programs).

Have you stopped using cable or dish? Did you replace it with something such as Sling (I have no plans to do so - I have an HDTV antenna so that I can watch local news)?

Looking forward to this new zen chapter in my life. I spend much more time listening to music lately as I'm working, and the TV has just become a depressing distraction.

May 11, 2019

Seventies glammy LA rock magazine for girls, archived

http://www.star1973.com

Of course, there CAN'T be a music magazine for girls, so they only had five issues. But it's a great historic document.

If you follow the links on the page, you can find other things the host has offered, like archives of Rock Scene magazine.

[link:|

March 13, 2019

Are any of you on Spotify?

I would love to have more Spotify friends and listen to others' playlists, but my own long-time friends are music shy....so I don't have a lot of friends on there.

I am open to many, many genres - from contemporary pop and r&b to classic rock, soul and funk and I like lots of darkwave and alternative. Rather than post my name here, I'll link to a playlist I made that shows you what I like to listen to : soulful grooves, dance music, soundtracks and a bit of hip-hop.

https://open.spotify.com/user/kerrylkatriviera/playlist/4vsWm3mlrHFX4rkGx8xn0q?si=ZIwayO2CSiylq4a-AMBcBA

If you're interested, feel free to add me and I'll add you back!

March 1, 2019

Reparations and that Chicago story Cohen told about Trump

I spent years covering the struggling Chicago neighborhoods like the one Cohen described. I also know a lot of success stories that have come from public-private partnerships between low-income residents and enlightened downtown executives who know a simple truth of urban life: Inside every ghetto there’s a neighborhood struggling to make a comeback.

I think neighborhood development could be a form of reparation, but it will have a much broader consensus of support if we don’t limit it to African-Americans.

Most serious proposals, by the way, ask not for a big lump-sum payout to black folks, as many imagine, but programs and policies to reduce inequality and promote education and skills training.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/page/ct-perspec-page-reparations-harris-warren-cohen-trump-sanders-brown-0303-20190301-story.html

January 2, 2019

This video reminded me of how awful Reagan was...

I do graphic design work, and while I'm working I often play history documentaries in the background. Lately my pet topic has been assassinations and the Secret Service. I especially enjoy listening to videos of old news coverage. So I get to Reagan's assassination attempt, and I click on this video to get a sense of that period (I was a teenager back then and felt completely powerless), and before they get to the assassination coverage, you have to sit through a Reagan speech.

I know that many people will disagree with me, but this man was the absolute worst. I'm sorry someone tried to shoot him, but I found this speech more unbearable than any of Trump's. With Trump, it's a given that everything is a lie. And they are easily proven lies. But this speech brought me back to that sick feeling I had through eight years of Reagan. The self-righteousness, the anger, the extreme self-confidence of the religious right that they had "won". Nearly forty years on, it's clear that they haven't won shit. A lot of Trump's mob aren't even good Christians. They're a different crowd - ignorant trash. And yes, it's disturbing that they got their man in the White House. But ignorant trash is much more easily discredited. They can make all kinds of mistakes that are easily exposed. I do think that over the years the opposition (us) has won a lot of victories and has gotten much stronger. For example, they really went overboard when they got hysterical over the Clintons. They let the militia / patriot nutcases into their fold. I think we won our argument a long time ago, but I found the Reagan administration much more intimidating. Sit through a Reagan speech, listen to how cold and self-righteous the man is, and all of this pious rhetoric he uses, and tell me who the bigger asshole is. I think that in his "heart", Trump knows what a buffoon he is.

Notice how, if you can sit through the speech, Reagan ends his speech with "make America great again." When I watch Trump, it's clear to me he's trying to imitate Reagan. I do blame Reagan for all of this we deal with today. No Reagan, no Trump.

As tragic as the Trump presidency is for our country, I don't feel as bad about the future of our democracy as I did then. Trump is no Teflon president. He's a blatant crook and liar. So was Nixon, and I remember (as a very young child) thinking Nixon was shit and heard it from my parents all of the time. My father met Nixon when he was a waiter at a fancy hotel restaurant in downtown Chicago. He said that Nixon was the biggest asshole of all of the presidents he ever met. But I don't remember feeling despair when he was President, because it seemed that he had a healthy opposition who had won a lot of political battles. There was hope back then, and there is hope now. Reagan, however, did so much of the damage that made Trump possible.

I mean, just listen to his self-righteous crap about government spending and deregulation. Reagan started all of this shit. Fuck him.

October 10, 2018

Mike Pence Neglected This Poisoned Indiana City: Now, Residents Fight For Each Other

When Maritza Lopez was about 18, her teeth began to fall out. They cracked apart, leaving shards in her gums that she extracted with tweezers. By her early 30s, most of her teeth were gone, and she was fitted for dentures.

Lopez is, in her words, a “rotten coconut”—a mess on the inside but good-looking on the outside. In an interview at her home in April 2017, her skeletal, 108-pound frame seated in a recliner, Lopez gestured toward a cascade of orange prescription bottles. “That’s me, and I’m only 53,” she said.

She produced a creased copy of her medical history, which listed 23 medications and some 40 conditions, including cancer, irregular heart rate, severe spinal problems, rheumatoid arthritis, seizures, headaches, and brittle bones.

The list doesn’t include the family members she has lost to illness.

https://rewire.news/article/2018/08/31/mike-pence-neglected-this-poisoned-indiana-city-now-residents-fight-for-each-other/

October 8, 2018

Taylor Swift Breaks Political Silence, Encourages Followers to Vote

Source: Variety

Taylor Swift has broken her long-held public political silence in an Instagram post encouraging her followers to vote in the November midterm elections and slamming incumbent Republican Tennessee representative Marsha Blackburn.

“In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now,” Swift began the post, which was accompanied by a moody, black-and-white photo of the superstar.

“I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country,” she wrote. “I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent.”

Read more: https://variety.com/2018/music/news/taylor-swift-encourages-followers-to-vote-slams-tennessee-representative-1202971782/

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A very welcome and timely statement. Much needed at this particular time and well and sensitively written.

September 30, 2018

Another drinking buddy of Kavanaugh's comes forward

He wants to talk to the FBI about Kavanaugh's drinking at Yale.

His name is Chad Ludington. The NYT article is behind a paywall, so I'm linking to this tweet, which has an excerpt.

https://twitter.com/davidenrich/status/1046513030924828672

I think I'll stop by the library tomorrow morning to read the full article.

All these people coming forward to say he lied. So much for all of his character witnesses. By the end of the week, the GOP will look incredibly foolish at this pace.