Lady Ruby

I watched about three hours of the Jan 6th Insurrection Hearings today and they were emotionally devastating to me. Three of the people giving testimony today were Republican state election officials that were pressured by Trump and his team to essentially make his coup possible. They were heroes who put the nation ahead of their party and the lying obsession of one man enabled by his stooges. However, the most powerful testimony came from two black election workers that actually brought tears to my eyes. 

The two women were mother and daughter. The daughter worked as an election worker and her mother was a small business owner who was volunteering for the election. The mother went by the name Lady Ruby at her business. The daughter was Shaye Moss. Both were falsely accused of wrongdoing by then President Trump himself and he continued to make those false accusations long after his lies were proven false by Republican government officials. His relentless lies about them and his constant using social media in provoking his followers to harass these women and their families. The daughter described how she loved to help the older people in her Atlanta neighborhood to vote and how her grandmother and her generation of older black people did not have the right to vote in the South. Trump and his cronies were going after black voters and their blatant racism in their attacks on these women was painfully obvious. Perhaps the worse thing I heard today was the testimony that the grandmother's home was attacked by trump supporter trying to make a citizen's arrest of the mother and daughter for treason.

Another bit of shocking testimony was not only the online and phone harassment of local government officials and election workers was the trump supporters marching on people's homes and workplaces and acting like nazi brownshirts. 

I can't understand why trump is not watching these hearings from his prison cell.

Father's Day Weekend 2022

We had a wonderful Father's Day Weekend with Sean, Ashley and Andrew coming into town for a visit. They came in on Friday and stayed until Monday morning. It was great seeing my son and grandson on Father's Day.

We had Dave, Donna and Mary over for dinner on Sunday. 

On Sunday morning I started feeling lousy. I was getting sick again and needed to lay down for a nap before our guests came over for dinner. We all had a nice time although I was out of sorts and still not feeling well. Sick again but that's another story.

Frank Zappa and Mahavishnu Orchestra at the Spectrum

One of my favorite concerts of the 1970's was seeing John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra opening up for Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention at The Spectrum in Philadelphia in April of 1973. This was another show I saw with John while I was home on a weekend leave that year. It was a great show and the two bands were co-billed although Zappa closed the night. I had been a fan of John McLaughlin since about 1969 in his earlier bands and of course Frank Zappa since late 1966 when I got Freak Out when it was released.

This was the only time I saw the Mahavishnu Orchestra but I did see John McLaughlin with his band Shakti in November 1977 with Becky. I did see Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention two times earlier. At the Electric Factory rock club in downtown Philly in 1968 and the at the Atlantic City Pop Festival in 1969. 

I almost forgot we saw John Hammond at this show. I saw him several times perform over the years at The Main Point and Philly Folk Festival.

Mudbound

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan, 2008 

Read this in ten days in May. It was a brutal historical novel about the Jim Crow south in 1946. I had been reading several books lately about the black experience in the south and this powerful novel was another eye opening thought provoker about the struggling lives of sharecroppers and the their racists environment. It was a well written moving and tragic novel about life on a cotton farm in the Mississippi Delta following World War II.  The novel also provided a glimpse of life for two families, one white and one black, in the Jim Crow 30's and 40's too.   

It was amazing that this was a debut novel for this author. I found about this novel because it was made into a film in 2017 and recently saw that it was streaming online. I thought to read it first before seeing the movie. She has written a couple of other novels that I will be reading in the near future.

Glass of Beer - Nu Haze

Becky recently came home from the grocery store with a variety pack of beer from Southern Tier Brewing which is always a good thing. There was a beer in the pack that I'd never had from them before... Nu Haze. It's a New England style hazy IPA. It was very good and perfect for sitting outside on a warm summer evening.

Jan 6th Public Hearings

Last night I watched the first televised public session of the January 6th Committee hearings. I sat in the kitchen at the table and I had the live televised feed from CNN in one of the windows of my laptop. Becky was in the living room watching one of her shows on the TV. We really didn't need to watch the hearings but I was interested in the presentation.

I thought Liz Cheney was great. Now I don't ever agree with anything she has ever stood for previously but she has a very strong knack for knocking down trump and all of the republican traitors that have been supporting him and his lies.

The video presentation was highly entertaining and strikingly scary at the same time. It was damning and certainly went to the heart of the insurrection. I can see why Fox News did not want to show it. The hearings testimonies and videos were all very powerful.

The ratings for the first night of the public hearings were 20 million viewers. Fox News ran their regular programing and had their regular audience of 3 million. Nobody expected the Fox viewers to tune in and get their minds changed. That just isn't in their nature. They are there at Fox to get their biases reinforced. 

I turned on Fox today for a little bit and of course they were ranting about how biased all of the mainstream media was against them and trump. 

Urology

I had my annual doctor's visit with the urologist today. I had my blood work for prostate disease done last week and the results were outstanding. The doctor was very happy with the results. All of my blood work was good and the urine tests showed no problems. The prostate exam also indicated that everything was good with me. I was told I had no urology issues and they would see me again next year. 

They said I was doing very well for a 70 year old guy. The WNY Urology Center is always very crowded with patients and most of the people there are getting treatment for some very serious issues. It makes me feel very fortunate not to have any problems in those areas. Overall I am doing well for that 70 year old guy. Next month I have my annual visit with my cardiologist and once again I have no issues. And again I feel very fortunate. 

Feeling Better... Finally

This has probably been the longest lasting cold I've had in my adult life. Now, I've had many spring colds over the years but nothing like what I've gone through this spring of 2022. First I had about a three week cold in April following our visit to Philly and Glenville. Them a month later in mid-May I got sick again followed by Becky getting sick.

Finally now during the first week of June I've been feeling much better but still not completely well. I wrote about these spring illnesses in some earlier posts. First with Spring Cold in April, Sick Again a month later and the Sick Again Pt. 2 about a week ago. I've never really experienced this kind of ongoing being sick with a cold. It has been very frustrating. 

I really think a lot of this problem has been that our immune systems have been somewhat compromised by our not being our and about as much as usual because of covid and our not being exposed normally to the different cold viruses. Then we do something or visit with people and bingo we get a nasty cold that in other years would bother us for a few days instead of a few weeks. In previous years how many times were we in crowded bars and restaurants but during the past couple of years not so much. Actually not at all. The very few times we were in a restaurant dining room it was not crowded and also in between new virus strain exposures. 

Fortunately these colds have not been the coronavirus. We have had home testing done and we have also recently went out and had the PCR testing done. Always negative.

I really wish things would get back to normal.  We are going to Long Lake with the family in July and when we get back we will be hosting a Parkside Wine on Wednesday. I'm planning to stop by a WOW next week.

I had a dentist appointment scheduled for last week to get my teeth cleaned and had to cancel it because I wasn't sure if I would still be coughing. I didn't want to infect anyone. I was lucky that I was able to reschedule the appointment for two weeks later because someone had just cancelled. I will be able to go next week and get my teeth cleaned and checked.

I'm looking forward to being and staying healthy again.

Signing & Electronic Devices

Over the past several years we are seeing a lot more commercial transactions that require your signature directly into an electronic device without the use of any paper. We're also starting to see businesses that do not accept cash. I recently when our for a couple of beers with some friends in that new brewery in the park and the first thing I noticed was the no cash sign. All transactions were done with a little electronic device attached to the counter that displayed the cost of the purchase and an option for a tip. One had to sign in the device with your finger which makes for an awkward signature.

I first saw this universal new way of doing things when we were traveling in Europe in 2018 and 2019. In most places including restaurants we were handed a little portable electronic device to process our credit cards for services including tips. We hardly needed cash anyway which was great. At the time I wondered when this would all happen at home and it didn't take very long to catch up.

I hardly ever carry much cash anymore and I can't remember the last time I paid for anything using cash. I especially like the quick and easy card transaction when getting gas. Just touch the card to the panel to make the transaction. Very easy. It's getting to be like that everywhere including stores and getting a haircut. 

I don't really need to sign many things electronically now that I'm retired but people in the workplace sign electronically all the time. There are lots of program add-ons that enable that to happen quickly with a saved electronic signature that is used for all of one's electronic documents. One can create an electronic signature and have it readily available to use over and over again for all online or electronic documents. People are signing paper documents less and less anymore.

The thing I dislike most about signing something on one of these devices is when you need to do it with a finger. My signature with a finer never looks like my real signature done with a pen. It just doesn't.

Tom @ 8 Years

Of course Facebook reminded me today that my brother Tom passed away eight years ago today. I was thinking about him just yesterday because I saw a picture of my grandson Andrew pushing a toy lawnmower and something about his look, the turn of the head, the posture, that reminded me immediately of Tom. He really looked like him in the photo and it was enough that I sent a copy of it out on our sibling chat. I think everyone agreed. Cathy asked if I looked for a white spot in Andrew's hair like Tom had as a little kid.

That day eight years ago still remains vivid in my mind. I had just talked with him on the phone a few days before and we made plans to have dinner together at a restaurant downtown. I had made reservations for the day after we were to arrive in town. Becky and I spent this day driving down to Philly and arrived at Betsy's house in the late afternoon. Our dinner with Tom would be the next day but when we got out of the car Betsy had the sad and surprising news that Tom had passed away that morning. Dan had found him dead in his bed.

So instead of going out to dinner with him we had an Irish Wake and then a funeral home viewing a few days later. He certainly had a lot of people that came by for the viewing at the Chestnut Hill funeral home down the street from his bar. 

We would have another memorial service for him several months later.