Reading for MLK Day

“It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken: the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin, we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” Beyond Vietnam

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil100/17.%20MLK%20Beyond%20Vietnam.pdf

“The crowning achievement in hypocrisy must go to those staunch Republicans and Democrats of the Midwest and West who were given land by our government when they came here as immigrants from Europe. They were given education through the land grant colleges. They were provided with agricultural agents to keep them abreast of forming trends, they were granted low interest loans to aid in the mechanization of their farms and now that they have succeeded in becoming successful, they are paid not to farm and these are the same people that now say to black people, whose ancestors were brought to this country in chains and who were emancipated in 1863 without being given land to cultivate or bread to eat; that they must pull themselves up by their own  bootstraps. What they truly advocate is Socialism for the rich and Capitalism for the poor.

So let us stand in this convention knowing that on some positions; cowardice asks the questions, is it safe; expediency asks the question, is it politic; vanity asks the question, is it popular, but conscious asks the question, is it right. And on some positions, it is necessary for the moral individual to take a stand that is neither safe, nor politic nor popular; but he must do it because it is right. And we say to our nation tonight, we say to our Government, we even say to our FBI, we will not be harassed, we will not make a butchery of our conscience, we will not be intimidated and we will be heard.”

The Three Evils of Society

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/02/martin-luther-king-hungry-club-forum/552533/

Swing States and Election Law Changes

Biden won by a hair in Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania.

Georgia and Arizona have passed restrictive voting laws since the 2020 election. Nevada has expanded access.

Fake Trump electors in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin submitted phony certificates to the Office of the Federal Register following the 2020 election.

Up With Lizzie, She Still Trumps

I was up at 1:45 and 2:30 am with Lizzie this morning. Even so, she trumped in the kitchen while I was sitting here.

Made food for her yesterday with vegetables, rice and one of the gizzard packages brought home from the Hyannis Stop & Shop earlier this week.

Have been cleaning up odds and ends on the MRS site.

Laptop is much peppier after the RAM upgrade.

I loaded a pile of branches collected after the big October storm onto the truck yesterday and brought it to the transfer station today. Did a couple of shops, including beer, and picked up a book on hold at the library.

Errands

Upgraded the memory in this pc. Ron was a prick.

Checkup at doc’s. Picked up Ron’s meds at Walmart and gave them my new insurance info.

Stopped at Job Lot and Panera.

Renewed Lizzy’s license. Double-checked price of Lizzie’s meds at Caring Hearts.

Did Anyway

Walked Lizzie yesterday morning. Loaded the truck and did the transfer station run and a shop.

Stripped the bed, changed sheets.

Solar panels are clear, snow is almost gone this morning.

Lizzie woke up around 3 am, ravenous.

I Don’t Want To

It’s getting harder to force myself to do anything involving other people, like going to the transfer station or Lord knows, shopping.

I did have lunch with Robert yesterday, which is always nice. We talked about not having enough money to live here, but live here anyway with little downside. Entertainment could be expensive but it’s so mediocre that it’s not worth it.

I’ve also run out of motivation to cook, partly because cleaning up is such a chore and I don’t think it right to leave that to Ron almost all the time.

Snow

Ron was diligent, got out the snow blower and cleared the driveway. We took care of the rest with Elvis the shovel.

Light cooking day: made pancakes and for supper, grilled cheese with Panera tomato soup.

MRS is done.

We received reimbursement from Cal. My share, Part B, went up to $170.10. Couldn’t access the website but was able to reach a very helpful, refined person by phone.

Not Well

It started with a slight headache and muscle pain and developed into chills and fever yesterday.

I inadvertently made the MRS site “live” and fortunately was able to clean up link errors spotted by Nicole. I went back to bed after lunch. Ron picked up crackers and chicken soup.

Christmas Plus

We are watching “1883” with great pleasure on Paramount Plus.

I’ve been working steadily on the new MRS.

We made a chocolate cake for Christmas. I figure it cost about $2.80 and better than most store cakes at 3 or 4 times the price.

I also made a quiche and Ron did a nice salad. We had ravioli on Christmas day.

I picked up beef hearts on sale for Liz and made a stew with it today. Hope it lasts at least two days.

We did the transfer station run yesterday and were able to personally deliver our Christmas gifts to our three guys.

The box of oranges from Florida arrived today at Doc vonHaam’s office.

We had lunch and exchanged gifts on Friday, Christmas Eve, with Cindy and Cathy. Also got to give Robert and Peter the gifts for the grands.

Finally, we mailed a tip to our paper delivery person. Hope she received it.

Last Thursday, the person from Geek Squad connected the new modem. I brought the old one back to Comcast. He reconfigured the phones, Ron’s computers and the Roku, but I forgot Sonos and the thermostat. Got those connected myself.

Need Coffee Right Now

Ron bought me a nice pair of slippers yesterday. They are exactly what I wanted.

Today I did four errands in one trip: Washashore (closing at the end of the month/year) for cookies, beer run, bank for gifts and Roche for cooking oil.

Paid for Ron’s car repair yesterday but he was less than enthused, so I complained and he’ll pay me back.

It occurred to me that it takes ego to expect people to be grateful for your good deeds. If you aren’t that sort of person, the gift is bare in the eyes of the recipient.

Tried to transfer funds to First Citizens, but it got held up by Rockland. Squared it away this morning, hope the funds will be there tomorrow.

Have been working non-stop on MRS. New code for DotDigital and Admin.

Ron is working on laundry.

I made food for Lizzie and pea soup for us yesterday. Made another pumpkin pie earlier this week. Need to find a store that sells chicken gizzards. Maybe Shaw’s.