Boredom and Politics

Greetings Earthlings!  I have not fallen on the face of the planet, there has just not been that much of interest to report.  I will say, we're beginning to hate the Seattle metro area.  Yes, it's pretty in the summer with the trees and all, but we're bored spitless.  One of the (many) questions we can't answer is why are we so bored.  Is it because we are waiting for Jim's recovery to be complete, or is it because we lived here for a long time, and we've been spending summers here since 2010.   Many of the summers have involved someone recovering from something.  First it was me (heart, ear, feet) then it was Jim (back).  Perhaps we're not being fair to the region, it's not its fault that it's always something.  Recovering in an RV is a pain, it's small, there's no where to be.  However, early on this summer before we knew there was to be another back surgery, we were bored.  The trail is boring, Carnation Valley is boring.  We've done all of it too many times.

Additionally, Jim is tired of driving the RV.   We consider selling the RV.  Then what would we do?  Summers in Tucson are really hot.  Unlike cold weather, when you can put on more clothes and go do things, one can not really adapt outdoor activities to 105 degrees.  However, if we don't sell the RV, we'll keep coming up here because it's easy and familiar.  Plus it does have the best summer climate, except for the last two years when it was really hot and we were suffocating from the fires.  I don't know.  We need a life coach.

This is a terrible picture of a cool fish we saw in a doctor's office.  He would move his lips like he was making a kissing motion.

The weather turned bad this week.  There was a lot of this.

Tuesday there was this.  We were under the red part of the radar.  It was enough to take the satellite out for an hour.

Today was gloomy, but no rain was in the forecast.  We decided to go downtown and look at the new pedestrian bridge for the ferry dock that replaced the old one when the viaduct came down.  That was a really bad idea.  Today was the planet wide protests against inaction about climate change.  We forgot!  Traffic in Seattle was at a standstill due to all the people in the streets.  We were able to bail out of the exit lane to downtown, which was not moving, go north on the freeway and take the other floating bridge back to the east side.  So once again, there was walking in Bellevue.

Here we have Lake Washington as seen from the 520 floating bridge.

There was an article in the Guardian this morning, written by a foreign reporter.  She happened to see the president talking about a new section of the wall.  He was incoherent.

 I joined as the president was explaining at length how powerful the concrete was. Very powerful, it turns out. It was unlike any wall ever built, incorporating the most advanced “concrete technology”. It was so exceptional that would-be wall-builders from three unnamed countries had visited to learn from it.

There were inner tubes in the wall that were also filled with concrete, poured in via funnels, and also “rebars” so the wall would withstand anyone attempting to cut through it with a blowtorch.

 In closing, she said:

I’d understood the dilemma of normalising Trump’s ideas and policies – the racism, misogyny and demonisation of the free press. But watching just one press conference from Otay Mesa helped me understand how the process of reporting about this president can mask and normalise his full and alarming incoherence.

She makes an interesting point.  He does tend to ramble, stringing non sequiturs together.  How do you quote this speech pattern?  The press has taken to paraphrasing, it might be better if they didn't.

In other news of the administration, the event the whistle blower wanted to bring before Congress has been identified, according to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.  In a telephone conversation with the leader of Ukraine, the president pressured him to investigate Joe Biden's son; hoping it would give him ammunition in the coming election campaign.  This is an illegal act.  Worse, AG Bill Barr directed the acting Director of National Intelligence to deny Congress the whistle blower complaint.  There are laws that spell out how these things are to be dealt with.  Barr and the DNI have broken these laws.  Apparently this is just fine with the Republican party.  It's another sad day for the democracy.

That's it - that's enough.