Monday, August 14, 2017 @ 8:43AM
Don’t feel like laundry ☹.
Plus, to make things worse MORE than not being able to regular blog, we also are without Dakota this morning. We HATE it when we must groom him on a Monday – WAY too much going on after a typical weekend, then to be without out one’s happy puppy.
I had to do a few other things, so we’re just settling down and the chime is saying it’s 9AM. Ok, Back now … again. Took a few moments to get something to drink and to wash my glasses. PLUS, I thought I might as well start the load that was in the washing machine from LAST weekend. Maybe writing to you this morning, Dr. Marvin, already has me feeling a little better. I saw my eyes though, and they look like they’ve been hit with a bus. We must have gone to bed around 9PM last night, and we slept from 3-4:30PM – directly after we got back from WI and before Rich got home from MI.
We also got up at 4:30AM this morning, and then laid down again, and got up about 6:30AM, and then we talked to Rich, until said puppy time came, and we had to bring him to the groomer.
We got to the groomer five minutes early, and a three-legged poodle went in, so we waited for her to get settled, but then a nervous boxer came in and we had to let him settle, and neither time did Dakota seem his normal excited self. Then we got out of the car and he pulled to smell the bushes. Pretty sure, even with the sign – to keep moving, he was being excited by dog scents. Robin the groomer was waiting for us at the desk, and as we greeted her, we looked down and could feel Dakota pulling from her back toward the door corner.
This broke my heart. AND, we don’t want to think negative thoughts on Robin, because she’s been grooming him starting his third year with us this week. I apologized for the dog, and not thinking about it at the time, when she asked for which kind of cut, we said, we just don’t want to see black spots. I’d called her last time questioning them. I DIDN’T like to see his hair that short, so I could see skin – AND YES, at that BIG DOTTED spots!
Good-good … stuff is starting to come back to me … The first load of wash is done, but we’ll wait until Rich is out of his shower before we go into the closet for those other dirty clothes. HEY! I bet we could get out the ones from both our weekends. Those are still in the kitchen in suitcases. There done! Had to help Rich a minute too. AND, we put the second load of clothes in AND swept the space under the kitty litter box, since Rich will bring it back to its rightful spot after his shower. AND, we emptied out the laundry lint … but where did all those tiny white matted balls come from last time? I can’t remember what we dried. Maybe it will come to me later. There was a stash of them!
Tuesday, August 15, 2017 @ 10AM
We’re back again. This is the next day after we started. We didn’t get very far yesterday, just a couple of pages. I should go change the laundry now, didn’t get very far on that yesterday either. Basically, we slept most of the afternoon, went to bed early, and have been fooling around this morning with not much. But, after the laundry, hopefully, we’ll be able to continue until our session, maybe then we’ll send you the copy Dr. Marvin, and you can skim through it. Just couldn’t put thoughts to paper yesterday.
Ok, we’re back … it’s about 15 minutes later. We sent you a note saying, we’d like to talk over the phone. We did realize about the time we were making this decision, that we won’t be seeing you for a couple of sessions, and that the one for next week, will be over the phone on Friday, because we also have an appointment with Dr. Austin that morning. Pretty sure we’ll be home on time. I think the drive is about 45-50 minutes. I’m not sure if Rich will be able to drive us, or if we’ll have to do it ourselves. Usually, that makes me discombobulated. We’ll see … it’s next week … OH! And, on that day is Austin’s birthday too! Must remember that – thinking the standby is an Amazon gift card.
There, we just made a note to BE THERE! On Tuesday August 29th.
@ 11:18AM I’m soooo writing frustrated. I’m getting nowhere! We have had the electrical people here ALL morning – since about 7-7:30AM. They have just left. They were in control of the power source, so it became impossible to continue, until they were completely gone, which is now. Rich was having them do work with the electrical circuits in the garage, lawn light and half of the sunroom. I’m not going to pretend to understand. It has something to do with something old and something new. Pswhoo! That’s about it $500 later.
Now, we are like at 1 ½ hours until Dr. Marvin. I should get a grip on it. I believe we’ve already complained about not getting anything down on paper yesterday, and it’s the same today. PLUS, none of the OTHER work is getting done on Multiplework.com. Maybe if we tried to tighten-up our thoughts. What is the most important thing to get down before talking to Dr. Marvin? I think we can all agree that the biggest problem occurred over the weekend, but then there have been some other problems that we were aware of from last week – most likely Friday, before Maury and Isa were here. Ok, then too a little thing?
Austin called today and sounded disappointed. I didn’t like that. I know I could have pushed Rich more, but it would have been a push, and I don’t want it to be that way for the three of us. It’s just that Rich is having a business problem and it’s taking a lot of energy. We also wanted to ask Austin, if he were still interested in being here that Labor Day weekend, if it would be ok if Jon, Rich’s oldest son stopped over on Saturday, between 1-3PM. He said sure. I don’t think his heart was in it, but I’d just disappointed him by not going to Green Bay. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to schedule it again. One of the best parts, was that he was interested in being in Rich’s boat fishing. We should get another opportunity like that – BEFORE OR after BOO getting cold.
We’ll have to see … need to prioritize Rich in this one. This was nice as to it being a three-day weekend. I’ll also have to call Scott and it will be a disappointment to him. I think. Not looking forward to that. He’s at work now, I’m guessing … though he works 24-7, so I don’t know a good time to contact him.
Thursday, August 17, 2017 @ 8:38AM
OK, NOBODY meant for this to be only ONE blog entry that lasted a week, but we feel it unfair to start another blog entry with this one not being very complete. We’re only up to page three. That just isn’t right.
We had another groggy morning. We don’t seem to be able to snap ourselves out of this funk. We’ve been also working on laundry for four days, and I’m not sure if we’re half-way through, so we are not working very hard. Dr. Marvin is on vacation now and he’ll be gone until the 25th. That is eight long days away. He said that we could write and send to his email box, and he’d pick-up with things after he got back. That’s always our old faithful “go-to” assistance whenever he is gone. We just asked if he’d be in or out of state, and he said out. We didn’t ask anything past that, because we know of his personal boundaries. Pretty sure he’s on vacation – he might have said that, but especially because he is gone for so long, it wouldn’t be a typical business trip. I like to imagine that he’s somewhere exotic, and we’re sure to look for tan lines hehe.
Ok, that made us feel a little better. The 25th will be a call though due to time problems of having another doctor appointment on that same date, so it will really be the 29th before we can see him again. That is like TWELVE days away. Steady girls … we can do this, right? Just got to work on it a day at a time.
Hmm, just saw several Trump Tweets … something about shame to take down the Civil war statues of Lee, etc. Ok, we won’t get wound up in politics here, but it has been a lot going on since the problems started in Charlottesville with the Nazi march/protest. There is a lot of different opinions, and you can imagine which side we’re supporting. The news being reported is vehement. Oh … one more thing while we’re thinking of politics. We joined another news group we considered – had heard about before, but considered yesterday called “The Young Turks.”
“Cenk was born in Istanbul, Turkey. He is in fact a young Turk. While some might argue that he isn’t so young anymore, by his own admission, his decision to name TYT had nothing to do with the term’s historical context. He says the term was defined in the dictionary as, “young progressives looking to overthrow an established system”. So that definition coupled with his own ethnicity drove his decision” (Kyle, 2016)
The article continues by saying, ““But back in the early 1900s, The Young Turks was the name of the group that perpetrated the Armenian Genocide – slaughtering approximately 1.5 million Armenians and forcing deportations throughout the Ottoman Empire and its successor state, the Republic of Turkey. The forced deportation of the survivors of that holocaust lasted from 1915-1923. The Young Turks of a century ago decimated a population that still, today, has not fully healed” (Kyle, 2016).
Finally, Kyle writes in her conclusion that “Should Cenk change the name of TYT? I don’t know that I can answer that question. But I will say that it’s important that we keep the conversation going. That we keep reminding each other and never allow callousness to settle in on issues as critical as this” (Kyle, 2016).
Kyle, S. (2017, July 6), The young Turks: What’s in a name. As retrieved on August 17, 2016 from https://www.laprogressive.com/young-turks/
Ok, that’s enough of that for our little expose. Well, not sure if that’s the right word, but it is good background as to what’s happening with that apparently awkward name. It stands for some purpose, and to be fair, it is most important to Cenk Uygur, the founder of “The Young Turks.” I don’t know enough between Turkey and Armenia to be fair to either … just know that I was introduced to the show yesterday, and a few other shows from that network, and I could appreciate the writing. However, you would have to be on the left, to say so.
I am willing to believe there was a genocide happening and if anything, that perhaps by using the title, Uygur is claiming some responsibility. Not that he personally killed Armenians, but that young Turkish people like he used to be were involved. Hopefully, on the part of Turkey that helped to stop the murders of innocent people.
OK, OK … we’re in too deep for first thing in the morning, just that it is important to us in this instant moment. Last year alone, over a billion people had watched some of Uygur’s videos – In general, I believe he cohosts a two-hour live show each weekday evening. I’d have to prove that out, but, OK … just lingering thoughts.
What I liked about this show was that there were very serious and relevant conversations being had about up-to-the-date reporting by the people involved. Cenk Uygur’s cohost is Ana Kasparian who happens to be Armenian-American. I think that fact alone is a good sign in that between them they represent both sides of the previously mentioned conflict. The team worked very well and the conversations seemed very real and intelligent. Maybe this will be another background for us, especially when we’re writing. The biggest reason to listen is that we thought the show represented well the millennials and that it talked about issues AND was different than CNN – just for a change and to broaden our thoughts. As well, sometimes, we get tired of CNN’s constant replay of the same story all day, until a new fact comes in, and then that gets replayed until the news cycle turns over. But, basically … I just want to reassure ourselves we’re getting a full perspective.
We’ve been listening to others out there – though in comedy, so we’re thinking our background at least for the left is pretty good. We’ve been listening to Steven Colbert, Samantha Bee and Noah Trevor. As to the right side … we have been listening to people INCLUDING the President, but views from the right on CNN. A couple things happening though in that Jeffrey Lord and Kayleigh McEnany – both representatives of the right appearing a LOT on CNN are now both gone. Kayleigh is doing some broadcasting for Trump directly and Jeff got fired a week or two ago because he stated a German piece of slang in a Tweet to someone – Can’t remember who, but he was gone within two-hours of posting.
Yeeks … there is a right-side ongoing news channel now on Youtube, but when there isn’t hot-breaking news, they have old Trump election speeches playing. I WOULDN’T be able to listen to all that again … for me it seems just like a bunch of lies … I think Trump has some grand plans, but he doesn’t know how to do the work … basically, he hires out, like in business, he thought he could hire out Senators and Representatives to do his work, and when they couldn’t get the job done – then he criticized his own “workers.” I don’t think he understands the job, but that of course is just my/our opinion.
Hmm, could I watch Rush Limbaugh – just to understand that kind of following? Shoot, my Internet is being whacky again … stating “the site can’t be reached.” I know it’s not just the subject matter, it’s just part of our computer system falling apart.
Ahh, I guess that is good news and maybe something to get us out of the political hole we’re finding ourselves in. Just thinking for the record though that we DO have access to both sides through our news Twitter (TweetDeck) feed. I forgot we did set that up. Just want to be fair in listening for good arguments. AHH, AND our Internet is working again. Yeeks … he has a 24hour show? Newstalk 1290, I think is always on, but Rush plays 11AM to 3PM every weekday. Seems to have them all including Dave Ramsey Robert Pratt, Mark Levin and Sean Hannity. I’ve heard all these voices.
The Listen live thing is loading. I don’t know if I can do it on this machine. Ohh … we got the talk show up, but right now Dave Ramsey is playing. I DON’T want to hear him, right now. We know most of his general program, and I think he has a lot to stay, but we’re not into finances, and we REALLY want to move on with our entry. Ramsey is at the top of his hour and is going to talk about term-life insurance. Too late for all that. We found out that being a life-long person with suicidal ideations … well, it turns out we’re not a good insurance risk. Go figure.
Anyway, we opened the TweetDeck to see what’s happening there. I couldn’t tell you why we’re doing this now. Ahh, something new there … Facebook had taken the event down when they found people gathering for a “hate event” at Charlottesville, VA. They are saying since Saturday – At least eight groups have come down and they are trying to do more to police it. Others stopping processes for the haters are GoDaddy, Google, PayPal and GoFundMe. Facebook also took down an article against the victim of Saturday’s violence, which had by that time 65,000 views.
On the other side of the aisle, people are talking about free speech vs. being a hate group. They are saying out of 200 hate groups told them, they only took down 57, because to qualify for their disruption, the group must threaten violence, declare it has a violent mission, or actually take part in acts of violence. Otherwise, they are saying that debate is part of a healthy society. I could see that point. They do scan for hate and they state they delete about 66,000 posts a week. Oh man – that’s a lot of hate!
That was an article put out by CNN …
Kelly, H. (2017, August 17), Hate groups on Facebook: Why some get to stay. Retrieved on August 17, 2017 from http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/17/technology/culture/facebook-hate-groups/index.html?sr=twCNN081717culture1054AMStory
Maybe this is something to note … that in the last week a good portion of our interest has been on the news. Just so much happening. Like this – Trump administration cutting prevention of teen pregnancy. Well, that’s just a few seconds ago, but there’s a nation worth of people protesting Trumps ideology of making protesters against the Nazi’s march, as much blame as the Neo-Nazis and White supremacist and talking about “good people” in the latter group.
Oh man … Jake Tapper just posted a link to this entry from Robert E. Lee’s family. It stated:
Lee Family Digital Archive
Lexington Va: 5 Aug 1869
Dear Sir:
Absence from Lexington has prevented my receiving until today your letter of the 26th Ulto: enclosing an invitation from the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association, to attend a meeting of the officers engaged in that battle at Gettysburg, for the purpose of marking upon the ground by enduring memorials of granite the position & movements of the Armies on the field.
My engagements will not permit me to be present, & I believe if there I could not add anything material to the information existing on the subject. I think it wiser moreover not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife & to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered.
Very respy your obt Sevt
R E Lee
Lee, R. E. (1869). Lee Family Digital Archive. Retrieved on August, 8, 2017 from http://leefamilyarchive.org/9-family-papers/861-robert-e-lee-to-david-mcconaughy-1869-august-5
That’s tremendously powerful! Straight from Lee, we’re reading that he was against statues to remind people of the “strife” between the nation, and that he wanted the nation to heal.
We’ve heard other arguments to in resolving the difficulties with the civil war’s statues by saying that you should put statues like slaves being victimized next to the statues of confederate leaders. It’s really a thorny issue for people of this generation, and it has a long way to play out. On the right, they are saying it is part of our history and that you can’t ignore history. On the left, they are saying that the south’s history made more reminiscent by the statues of confederate leaders is meant to further strengthen the confederate position of spreading fear over people who are black and others who lost their lives – after the fact. Meaning after the war when people were resisting the northern values. I’m really for telling both sides of the story. I think like with the Holocaust, we as a nation, cannot forget the lessons learned. We think it better to state both positions.
I also believe that it is time for action, and for however, people in general, at whatever level they’re life is strung, we should be acting out and speaking up for what is happening, and contribute toward the well-being of the future for all.
I think that’s part of the position we’re taking this morning, on stating a few of our views. My medium in the world is our blog. I’m a writer, so this is how we’re contributing back. Any view that means one group is hating or trying to kill, maim, or traumatize the other – just isn’t working in our book. I’ve felt that my entire live with the abuses against us. We had a right NOT to be made into our abuser’s victims. That’s why we must think through our position, and in saying, we don’t hate people with different ideas, but we CAN hate ideas and that we can hate that people try to kill, negate, or annihilate others, especially, JUST because they are different. We don’t understand intolerance in not accepting people are people no matter what.
Saying that … I think we should further state, that we think people that kill one another … what … should be killed? Should be put in prison for life? Perhaps, that more likely depends on the timing. For example, if someone is actively trying to kill you, your family, and the only way to save yourself is to kill the other, then those people could be killed. But, if you can capture safely these same people, then that is the first option, if it can be done safely. I’m not happy about jails getting bigger either.
I do believe, as well, thinking about war crimes like in Hitler, Germany – Hitler had to die – don’t know if anyone ever found what happened to him. But, if caught, he should have died, because his ideology that killed more than 6 million people was too dangerous to survive. I think most people agree, he was the most, or one of the most, fucked-up people in history.
But, everyone in that jail has a right to change their position over a course of life within prison. Not all do, but even if they’ve taken the life of another … I don’t believe a life for a life. I would like to think, we as people, are more civilized than that.
I DON’T think that because a person is put in prison, others have a right to torture him or her. I think due to their life’s decisions, they have their own mind to torture themselves. And, I’d prefer again a redeeming of souls rather than a burning of souls. If they are destructively hurtful to others in jail – they should be isolated. That could be considered torture, but it’s more a position of being placed where they could not be hurting others directly. That’s all. I understand it takes more money to “care” for prisoners, but we’d probably be better off saying, “we need to still care for people.” It is our responsibility in a just society.
Anyway, that’s our opinion.
We can move on … I know there are a lot more positions out there … so we’ll let go so that anyone reading this can make a conversation of their own opinions.
As to being more “active” in “taking care of positive change in this world,” other than our normal writing position would allow? I’m not sure … I believe the bottom line is that people taking leadership positions now, are asking for action to be taken. I was taken with the leadership of our joint military, all took the opportunity yesterday to convey their messages to people in the world including, but also adding to the voices outside the military – that they condemn racism in all its forms. Others have stated that this kind of rebuke, especially to the President, could be considered a military coup. I think in another country, they would have thought communicative action to be treasonous. But, I read it as an extreme time when leadership had to be shown in the country, and our military holds the safety of the country first.
Also, this article …
“This did not begin with Charlottesville. In July, when Trump tweeted that he was banning transgender people from serving in the military, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote a memo to the services stating that there would be “no modifications to the current policy until the President’s direction has been received by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary has issued implementation guidelines.” Meanwhile, Dunford went on, “we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect.”” (Kaplan, 2017),
Kaplan, F. (2017, August 16). Chain of confusion: Military commanders’ rebuke of Trump after Charlottesville points to a crisis for civilian control of the military. Retrieved on August 17 from http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2017/08/trump_s_generals_rebuke_him_after_charlottesville.html
Ok, this entry is turning more political than we thought. Just as we stated previously, there is a lot going on. Who know what republican leadership is doing. We haven’t seen any senator or representative accept CNN’s invitation to appear. What we have heard is people like Ryan committing also to the disdain from racism, but they haven’t yet publicly stepped-up “enforce” against Trump. We’ll probably learn more in that Ryan has committed to a townhall meeting live through CNN on Monday.
I would think they are also working into a done too late, too little position. They are NOT showing leadership – IN our humble opinion. For that matter though, I don’t see a lot of democrats showing tremendous leadership skills with this either. I see it more at a state Governor/Mayor level, if at that.
For example, Chicago stood up to Trump on being a sanctuary city. Rahm Emanuel is standing-up against being punished financially, as other cities who didn’t believe, that they should directly turn over illegal immigrants to the federal task forces. Chicago’s point is that we want people – all people to report crimes, and if they had to worry about losing their safety as to staying in the country, they would stop reporting crimes. Plus, there is no costly implantation of the plan … Trump wants to just add the burden of “collecting” immigrants at a city/state level with no extra financial coverage or direct-action steps of that plan. Just like his thought it be ok to tweet a new law to the military that they should not allow transgender in the military, without a real plan or thought process based in fact.
I don’t think anyone is thinking much about Russian collusion, at the moment, but we trust Robert Mueller is ongoing the case there. I would really appreciate this all work itself through and that somehow, we could get a solid leader out who also isn’t threatening North Korea and China – while going under with the Russians WHILE making enemies out of our allies, and startling unrest at a national level due to race wars. I don’t now … can’t be said enough … there is a lot going on out there.
OK YOU! Move on, k?
Forgot about Rush … I’m listening now, and he is stating violence is often started by the left, and that 99% of the protesting being done is all left? I wonder if this is because the right is in control of so much, particularly dominant at a federal level where choices of action are being made. He says that the left starts and practices most of the protesting. I don’t know about that, never thought of it, but, Oh Lord, don’t like that scary voice Rush is making as he conveys fury with the left!
He says that the left protests “for show” and its PR, rather than [unstated] any other reason like they are upset with the status quo. He says the left is running a smear campaign which is supported by the fake news. Basically, then it is the right who are the victims. YEEKS! He says that media, Democrats and THEIR hate groups are against the rest of us on the right (including Nazis et al). Trump is pushing back on the left, and that there are Republican’ politicians kissing-up to the media. Trump et al are trying to save the Republican party.
Yeeks … 11:25 PM – just had first 10 minutes of Rush … he’s reframed EVERYTHING! It’s harsh to just hear it. I don’t know if we have that kind of strength to listen, but it seems to be the way to better understand the conversations – though better to pace ourselves. Just not sure if we’re the right person. Looking at the clock and thinking of all the self-regulation time we’re losing. BUT, we ARE writing our thoughts in the blog and that’s the other part of “our work, right?” We’re opening ourselves to new thoughts we had previously ignored.
Maybe that is the part of being an “active” person is all about …
Rush continues stating that Left groups are hate groups and are amplifying [my words] “bad right” [his words] “wacko-lunatics” … trying to drive a wedge between Trump voters and Trump by aligning them to bad right, which is a tiny fraction of fringe. He states that the numbers for the three hate groups specified, are saying are probably as big as the transgender population – not as much as the gays.
Rush continues … It is a smear job – effort to libeling Trump supporters. If they can get Trump out because he’s unfit – this is a big part of it. Uniting the wacko-lunatics with the right will be one of the foundations to get Trump out of office, even though their numbers are an *asterisk number. Then he went into his thoughts on the left needing to hire people to riot and protest, such as they did for Charlottesville. He called groups such as Black Lives Matter as “agents of violence.”
Rush pushed-on stating this was all identity politics – it seeks to convey people on the left are victims of this country and victims of the founders of this country – all minority groups proclaim themselves as victims, and once that happens, they believe they have legitimate grievances, which then empowers them to act – even if they morally break laws. Then Rush asks sarcastically, Obvious conclusion? Who is mistreating them? One group of people … white people.
Which group do they blame? Not the left white’s … liberal whites will find themselves a part of one of these victim groups. Or, they are sympathetic to one of the victim groups.
If you are a 30 years old white guy, and you find yourself alienated, in a basement with video games … you are being blamed for the outrages. The left is insisting you are the ones raping etc. the victims. The left claims you are the ones to blame – it’s their reason – and you don’t have the power to stop them, so what would you do? I mean someone must be doing all this victimization. No one wants to claim it’s their fault.
Imagine as you watch … you are being blamed (white males). Commercial. I’m only going to listen until the next commercial. Too much for me right now. Feel like we need to clear our head.
Now back to the show … showing a poll … he says to the radio? Any of you heard of this? Obviously, it’s “against” the right … so 67% … I couldn’t catch his numbers or claims, but basically, Rush didn’t like the poll. He’s literally heard to be crumpling the polls. Something again about left media bias. ACK! Now they give a promotional, followed by a commercial stating obviously Dems are jerks and their polls are worthless. Ok, we’re off. Too many commercials. It’s all very confusing.
Think we’ll listen to Wolf – he’s coming on now. THEN we’ll be back to the blog. AND we’ll try to be more positive.
Not much has been getting done, but we are writing and that’s good, right? We are at about 13 pages (5400 words).
