katheliz

 Chicago gets a bad rap, but this is heartwarming. My cousin's little girl is adding her message.

Oh, Dessa - what a terrible situation. Perhaps you can play this loudly and often. It becomes irritating pretty fast. (Sorry if the ad is obtrusive - at least it's short.)

Lead up: My next-door neighbor, after letting the common fence deteriorate, is finally replacing a 50-foot length, some of which has collapsed because of a tree he let grow next to it. The thing has roots like pythons reaching into my yard.   So last night I baked a banana nut loaf for him and his wife. I eyeballed increases to the recipe based on using three bananas instead of two, so it's a sizable hunk of bread. I wish I were eating it instead, but I want to encourage him to keep on until the job is finished - he's such a procrastinator.

@sarabyrd has a friend whose husband works with the guy. Friend swears the story is true.

I'll bet somebody else came along and took all the remaining beans, in spite of your restraint!      

But that was over before Trump was born. How could he be expected to learn facts like that? Like many self-styled geniuses, he knew history and science and things like that would never be useful in his future life. Even in nursery school he scorned the lessons in basic politeness.  

@Felix Gebert - go here:  https://pixresizer.en.softonic.com/download It works like a charm. 

And full of venom for people who 'don't like him, by which he means people who call out his lies. Or people, especially women, and more especially, women of color, who stand up to him.  Well, hell, just plain people who expect him to know how to do his job and to do it impartially. That's a lot to expect from a five-year-old (five on a good day) - no wonder he loses it.

The author of the Quayle piece is Cal Thomas, a conservative writer. Thomas gives an example of Quayle's thinking: '[He] had a thought about China and its near monopoly on the production of drugs: “We used to have a section in the (U.S.) Code that gave a tax preference to pharmaceutical companies that manufactured their products in Puerto Rico.” He’s right, but Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed a law phasing out those tax breaks and by 2006, as the New York Post reported, “the industry began a major pullout from the island. “They left Puerto Rico and went to China,” Quayle recalls. “I ask you today: would you rather have medications produced in Puerto Rico, or in China?” Is that the same Puerto Rico Trump has left to dangle in the wind after the catastrophic hurricane two years ago? On the other hand, perhaps if medications had still been manufactured in PR, there'd have been more haste to help the country recover. [brief pause for mature reflection] No, we'd have given the contracts to China, because they'd do it cheaper, rather than help US citizens - Puerto Ricans are, indeed, citizens of the United States. Anyhow, the article is full of such gems. And here are other verified Quayle quotes: “Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child.” “Welcome to President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts.” “Mars is essentially in the same orbit ... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.” “What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.” “The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation’s history. I mean in this century’s history. But we all lived in this century. I didn’t live in this century.” “I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy – but that could change.” “One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president, and that one word is ‘to be prepared.'” “Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.” Let's hope he does better in his current job, where it's hoped he's merely a figurehead.

The little dear. Mailed at taxpayer expense, a flyer is arriving in everyone's mailbox here in the US, with guidelines for getting through the pandemic. It's title is, The President's Coronavirus Guidelines for America. He's attempting to take the credit from the scientists, negating them. This is the first CDC publication ever to have such a title. This is the same President who a month ago was denying (sequentially) the existence of, the seriousness of, the wide-reaching effects of, the effect on the economy of, etc., COVID-19. Trump claimed recently that this will all be over by Easter, April 12 in Western churches, but he's since then stepped back from that pronouncement.

From  @sarabyrd 'Today's fine (checks ingredients) vegan food: Marinated pan-fried asparagus with fried potatoes and zucchini topped with pan-fried cherry tomatoes and pan-fried Pugliese bread - all done with olive oil. It may sound greasy, but you drain the asparagus after frying and parboil and drain the vegetables before frying them in a mix of a small amount of olive oil and margarine.'

Rather long and perhaps of interest only to those who remember the stunning intellect of Dan Quayle, former Republican VP of the US (1989-1993).

Dan Patrick (R), Governor of Texas, has said that the elderly will gladly give up their ventilators, that younger patients may be saved. And for aged Christians, comfort in martyrdom. 

It's clear to me that he's relying on his ever-reliable gut feelings that if he bulls his way through and doesn't back down, his GOP succubi will just lie there and enjoy it.