haele
haele's JournalSan Diego here - people were packing the Food for Less at 0600 this morning...
We were dropping in to get drinks and ice for the road trip, and the manager was sweating trying to get more people in, heard him say he never saw so many people in so early.
Apparently California came up with money to put on SNAP cards, and folks are heading to the stores to check their cards.
What about the Colorado school shooting?
Until someone is definitively taken into custody with enough evidence to be charged - if that even ever happens, as there's a lot of wanna bees, big talkers, and shit stirring trolls on social media who will be claiming they know what the motive for the Utah shooter of a shit-stirrer is (or that they are the shooter), I don't really care.
Unless that motivation leads to other public figures being shot in public venues.
I do care what causes a 13 or 14 year old to bring a gun into a school and shoot other kids. Why a 13 or 14 year old believed that would be an acceptable option to handle disappointment or anger.
Maybe we shouldn't be holding shit stirrers in such high regard that their grifting valueless actions or life events become something to admire or emulate.
Anyway, the mighty Wurlitzer of talking heads and media darlings will play a chaotic calliope over anything useful or corrective that could come out of this
I think Goblin had a stroke...
She's a 9 year old generic house panther, other than a skin condition (she had a steroid shot in Feb to clear it up), she's relatively healthy with a few food sensitivities (turkey, shellfish, corn) Occasionally, she has had balance issues since she was around 5, but the vet couldn't find any issues (X-rays). Three months ago, we got guinea pigs, which she's pretty much stayed away from.
She's been bouncing around seemingly okay, looking healthy and using the litter box fine.
Three days ago, she seemed to go blind in one eye, not able to find the litter box or her food dish. She's rapidly getting increasingly disoriented, suddenly looking skinny (though I've watched her eat) stumbling, purring all the time, and just either wanting to stay in a low box I stuffed her favorite blanket in or looking for a place to hide.
When I brought her to the litter box, she started trying to eat the litter.
Ya, take her to the vet as soon as I can (of course, this happened on a rent payday, and I've been working overtime, and not one of the other three adults and two kids at the house who were supposed to be helping care of her and the guinea pigs over continuous 12 hour days thought fit to tell me when she started showing symptoms), but it very much appears she's had a stroke.
I'm upset because it's been three days at least.
Emergency vets around here are expensive and poorly run (we already lost one cat to poor catheter procedure at the ER vet that ended up paralyzing him), and Goblin's trusted vet can't see her until Friday.
And I'm not sure in the condition I've finally been able to observe with her, that there's much that can be done. I've had cats with diabetes, thyroid problems, stroke, and heart conditions before. This is bad.
I'm just looking for hugs and hope...that either it's quick for her, or she can hang on an it's something that can be fixed.
I'm too old to be doing this on my own again.
Only one major problem with living in a Dictatorship...
Only one person can be the Dictator, and everyone else, no matter how powerful they think they are, is a disposable drone.
And there's probably 1 in around a billion chances for any one individual to become a Dictator. (So start disposing of some of your competition, and you, too, might be able to be a dictator!)
A Dictatorship is a zero sum game for warlords or rich f'ers with private armies. It never ends well for anyone, not the powerful or the powerless.
Yesterday - Early Morning Small Jet Crash in Military Housing neighborhood....
Just before 4am; six on the jet died, an entire street block and dozens of parked cars on fire, one home destroyed, nine others damaged. And over 100 residents - military families - and their pets (excepting fish) within blocks of the impact evacuated to safety within around 15 minutes of the crash. Only eight people on the ground ended up being treated - on site - mainly for smoke inhalation.
Trained neighbors helping neighbors even before first responders arrived on scene. It would have been so much worse if this happened in any other neighborhood.
This should have been a "good news in a disaster" type of story, no?
Guys, Gals, and their older kids jumping into action, going through burning jet fuel to help their neighbors bring kids and pets out of the danger zone within minutes.
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/murphy-canyon-plane-crash-live-updates/3831321/
Disclaimer - we live 5 miles away; Laz and I were up while I was getting ready for work, sounded like a firework went off at one of the stadiums nearby.
Now for the actual reason for this post - the problem that Congress could have fixed a long time ago if they had the will to improve the FAA systems and problems with small commuter airports -
As a background: The jet was approaching one of our local smaller commuter airports (on top of a rather high mesa that has had the city grow up around it over the decades) in heavy fog. The Montgomery Field airport tower is only open between 0600 to 11pm on a daily basis; and more importantly, the automated control and landing systems were offline.
The nearest control towers that are actively manned or broadcasting is the Miramar Marine Corps Air Base (about 3 miles away at around 100ft. lower altitude) and San Diego Lindberg International Airport (about 4 miles away at sea level). Because of the geography of San Diego, the altitude information and weather conditions broadcast both towers were radically different than would have been at the field the pilot was trying to land at, and while he could triangulate to get his course, he had no beacon to give him to align his altitude to, so he was coming in low in heavy fog.
The FAA approved and maintained automated control systems at these small commuter systems are in serious obsolescence because the Government - both Congress and Administration - has basically delayed proper funding to seriously modernize the overall Air Control system to handle even current available technology, nor do they seem to be serious about a national initiative to incorporate proven upgrades to the thousands of small rural and commuter airports; leaving it up to states and local regions to come up with the funds to modernize.
Upgrading the FAA on a national scale can easily be a "Moon Shot" initiative.
But because they're looking at returns vs. risks - the "onsie/twosie" crash and fatality events - it's no big deal to either the funding side or the political side.
Not until major celebrities and politicians start going down regularly in small planes.
What we're seeing is live, updated tech bro version of Atlas Shrugged.
With Donald Trump as the helpless but "beautifully noble" Dagny Taggart and Elon Musk as the enigmatic pseudo engineer/master of disguises John Galt. I guess Vladimir Putin is the foreign Valentine what's his name.
The few wise and wealthy "self-made" elites who tear down the corrupt regulatory society and it's safety nets with the help of their loyal "enlightened" helpers, the Christan Evangelicals, and they all live happily ever after once the remaining "takers" and strong backed slackers (who have been culled through social eugenics) learn their proper places in society, out of sight and sound of the proper folk.
So they believe.
On edit - the primary fault I find with the Atlas Shrugged version of insanity (other than the entire insanity of the premise) is that all these supposedly great industrialists came up with the ideas for their great single invention or technology on their own, (or like Valentine what's his name, bullied a lot of people off their land and exploited locals to mine copper)springing from their minds like Athena from Zeus, instead of how inventions actually came about, which was from careful study of previous scientists and inventors, outright patent theft, and/or the hard work and inspiration of nameless engineers, scientists, technicians, and laborers looking for time and stress savers, or fiddling around on their own time to come up with something that the industrialist snags up and calls his own.
Gack, even re-reading the synopsis of that garbage was painful.
Not just the US, incumbent leadership world-wide have been losing since 2022
It appears to be a shock reaction to the social and economic crisis COVID caused. Especially economic - people have a hazy memory of the "before times", and the lingering global disaster hits of high additional mortality, lingering long COVID, global inflation, climate migration, and the wealthy and radicals taking advantage through plain old Disaster Capitalism have left the average person, educated or not, vulnerable to grievance propaganda and twisted nostalgia. Not to mention the sheer mental exhaustion dealing with a still new reality while trying to sort through what is true, what is lies, and what is coming through troll farms during elections.
https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/383208/donald-trump-victory-kamala-harris-global-trend-incumbents
Cold comfort, but it makes sense to me that a post-plague crisis can cause people long-term mental exhaustion that can be exhibited in an inability to follow through when stressed, over-reaction to the slightest threat (including existential threats), pessimism, and depression. They're more likely to just be emotionally pushed to just dump all the people they associate with lingering problems and let someone else take responsibility for a change, even if they know in their hearts it could get worse.
I know I've been having problems like depression and rage coping with solvable problems and minor conflicts post COVID. It's like a shifting fog surrounding me since 2020; harder for me to be aware of my environment; to assess and anticipate situations. I'm getting unpleasantly surprised much too easily and often. I suspect that's happened to a lot more people than would admit it.
I've been a relatively positive, energetic, pragmatic "find the solution" type of personality since I can remember. That's what got me through the overwhelming misogyny in my field to respected Upper-Mid level leadership. But post COVID (and Laz and I both caught it in January 2020) I've half the mental strength and resiliency I used to have. Too many times I'm tempted to "just leave" and let things sort themselves out without me instead of sticking to the process of fixing or completing issues that come up. I'm just easily exhausted. If that's happened to me, what could have happened to hundreds of millions of others?
Haele
LA county wildlife officials are looking for a mamma deer with a femur stuck in her mouth.
How did a deer get a femur bone far enough in her mouth to get stuck? And why?
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/wildlife-crews-search-injured-deer-with-bone-lodged-in-mouth-hollywood-hills/
I hope they find her, but still - that's a scary thought that deer might be evolving to be omnivorous.
Haele
Our newest favorite YouTube - Sandwiches of History....
If you need two to three minutes of Zen...
Haele
Prescription Drugs shortages -profiting on pain for patients
Laz needs ritalin in a specific timed dosage to remain functioning all day. Along with some other controlled prescriptions - Long Covid related.
His ritilan went "on back order" late last month. And is still on backorder. He was given an alternative dosage that requires three generic Ritalin pills a day, but the pharmacy can't give him any more of any particular strength than 30 a month, and he's run out of those.
Last year, my hypertension prescription and methotrexate went through a three month "shortage", supposedly because a plant needed to be remediated because the FDA found problems, and a fire in another plant, and a hurricane...
Anyway, I don't remember hearing about such widespread shortages even 5 years ago.
And the drug companies are making record profits. So what's going on?
They pissed that Medicare can now negotiate some prices? That California is thinking about setting up manufacturing for common Medicare genetics?
Or are they just pouring the majority of their profits to advertising, shareholders and into stock buybacks instead of looking at factory investments and improvements?
Anyway, we just called our Congressman. Will be calling out Senators later. Second year in a row there's been noticable drug shortages in August/September time frame.
Anyone else having any problems (or info as to why this is happening)?
Haele
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Gender: Do not displayHometown: San Diego, CA
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