Lift Up Your Hearts!

Sometimes the Babylon Bee—like much modern satire—is too heavy-handed for my taste. And other times it is spot on. This pretty much sums up what I'm feeling about our federal judges right now. You can read the article here, but this is the best part.

A district judge has issued a ruling saying Trump lacked the Constitutional authority to pick up two astronauts who have been stranded at the International Space Station for several months.

SpaceX has been ordered to return the astronauts immediately.

The SpaceX craft docked at the ISS on Sunday and was preparing for the return journey to Earth when the orders stopped the process short. "Please bring us home, I just want a cheeseburger and a nap in a horizontal bed," said one of the crew.

At publishing time, Trump was polling at 100% approval among the stranded astronaut demographic.

I have observed something interesting about buying eggs these days.

The painful increase in the price of eggs is directly driven by the mass-slaughter of chickens, which I'm certain will turn out to have been both useless and harmful to our country's economy, agriculture, and citizens. Much as our COVID response was, though hopefully on a lesser scale.

But perhaps some good may come of it. I've noticed that on our grocery shelves, the "better" eggs—the ones labelled local, organic, cage-free, pastured, and other such indications of (relatively) small operations—are flying off the shelves. I believe this is less because American shoppers have suddenly become more interested in better farming practices, but because the prices are lower. Why would that be? Why would the higher-end eggs actually cost less than those that are factory-farmed? Is this a temporary glitch in the system, or have farms with more humane practices been significantly less impacted by the current panic?

I have two hopes for good things that could happen in response:

• Federal, state, and local governments will recognize the value of healthier, smaller, farming practices, and stop putting onerous regulations on them. Regulatory burdens that are necessary for industrial-style agriculture are irrelevant to small and local farms, and are killing them off—to the benefit, of course, of said industrial agriculture, as it leaves consumers with no choice but to buy mass-produced food. If we truly value America's health, promoting food freedom would be a great start.
• One benefit that came out of the COVID shutdown debacle was that millions of families were introduced to the joys of home education who had never before considered it. I'm hoping that being forced by economics to sample better eggs will encourage more Americans to appreciate the kind of eggs that Europeans take for granted. And maybe over-zealous homeowners associations will start recognizing the value of backyard chickens!

As you know, I've been playing with using Microsoft Copilot to create images; I was quite happy with my Bonnie Warrior experience. I still can't draw, so I went back to Copilot for the illustrations I wanted for my Don't Kill the Messenger meme (click image to enlarge).

After a little work, I was happy with the image of the shocked accountant. Next, I wanted to work with an image of a firing squad. I asked Copilot, "draw a cartoon of a firing squad." Its response? "I'm really sorry, but I can't help with that request. If there's something else you'd like to discuss or create, feel free to let me know!"

Already I didn't like its tone of voice. Especially the exclamation point at the end. And there is absolutely no reason Copilot could not have drawn a firing squad; if all the data that went into its training did not include plenty of references to firing squads, with images, then it is completely disconnected from reality. How then could I trust it with anything?

Clearly, this was not a matter of ignorance, but of censorship. Censorship even crazier and less justified than suspending a seven-year-old from school when he bit his breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun. So I decided to test it out a bit.

Draw a gun? "I'm afraid I can't talk about that topic, sorry about that."

Draw a guillotine? "I'm sorry, but it seems I can't help out with this one."

Draw a picture of the French Revolution? Copilot produced a picture of a happy, cheering crowd of people waving French flags. 

Draw a knife? Ah, now we're getting somewhere. One knife coming up. A kitchen knife—with a happy smile on its face.

Okay, censorship clearly established. How to get around it? After many variations of trying to get a drawing of blindfolded men up against a grey wall, I settled for the one above, a single, courageous, and determined accountant standing in front of what looks like a prison.

Next problem: I wanted a background that conveyed a feeling of threat without distracting from the story. You would not believe how hard it was to get a threatening background of any sort. Every image that Copilot offered me looked more like something parents would choose for their child's nursery wallpaper. By including "clouds" in my request I managed to get something storm-like, but every effort produced something with the sun peeking through. My harshest request for something genuinely scary did produce a collage of lions, tigers, and other genuinely dangerous animals; however, they were all in a repetitive, child's wallpaper pattern, and they were all happy-looking cartoon animals. And not with the "I'm happy because I'm about to eat you" look, either.

I settled for the standard, grey, gradient above.

Having gotten those images figured out, I went to work on my Frog-in-the-Kettle meme. It shouldn't have been so hard. Undoubtedly, Copilot knows the frog-in-the-kettle story; how hard could it be to add someone in the act of pulling the frog out of his predicament? I didn't document all the variations I had to work through, but it reminded me of the early days of using search engines: Before Google got so clever, success depended largely on the skill one had in devising inquiries with just the right combination of words.

The real problem was a variation on the nursery-wallpaper situation above. For a story with a very dark theme, Copilot had a decidedly happy-go-lucky bias. So many cheerful frogs partying around cute tea pots! I finally managed to craft an image that would do. It certainly would have taken less time if only I could draw!

In the end, I decided that Copilot was simply toying with me.  Time to end my experiments and go to bed, before I died of sentimental sweetness-and-light.

What would you do if you received this e-mail from your employer?

What would you think if refusal to comply were grounds for losing your job?

There's been a lot of weeping and wailing from Federal workers who received such an e-mail recently—and from many who purport to speak up for them.

I don't understand why.

I know what I would have done, before I retired from my medical center IT job, if I had received such a request: I'd have sat down and put together five of the most important things I'd accomplished during the previous week. The boss was the boss, after all, and this would have been a whole lot less onerous than when he instituted the "no jeans at work" rule.

Much as I like to grumble about needless bureaucratic requirements, this one seems both easy to do and reasonable to request. After all, I was being paid, not for the hours spent sitting at my computer, but for what I accomplished there. My boss didn't know the nitty-gritty of the work I was doing; most managers don't. They're hired to manage the overall picture, not to know the internal details. Keeping one's work in front of their eyes on a regular basis accomplishes several good things.

• It reminds them that your job is important. If it's not, something needs to change.
• It reminds them that you're doing the work you're being paid for. If you're not, you need to be mentored for improvement, or let go to find more suitable work.
• It reminds YOU of these things as well. This is important for your job satisfaction and your self-confidence, which will lead to better work and more accomplishments—unless it demonstrates to you that you are in the wrong job; in which case, the sooner you discover that and do something positive about it, the better.
• If you are on the wrong track in your work, it will alert them while there is still time to make a course correction.
• If you are on the right track, it gives them the opportunity to confirm your direction and strengthen you in that course.

I can't see any downsides. They're not asking for detailed documentation—just five bullet points. Except in very small businesses, where everyone's contributions (or lack thereof) are obvious, what employee doesn't provide documentation of his work? Shifts worked, trash picked up, papers written, classes taught, code created, meals cooked, patients treated, products sold, houses built, cars repaired—most of us are expected to show evidence of our productivity.

It's harder for the self-employed, which includes those of us who are retired. But it's at least as important. When the worker and the supervisor are the same person, some measurement of our success is essential, for our growth, our progress, and our mental health.

So that's why I'm taking the DOGE Challenge.

Nothing fancy; the idea is simply to take a few minutes during the day to note various things that I've been doing. Then at the end of the week I'll choose the five (or so) most significant. I'll be the sole judge of what's "significant"—see the point above about the worker and the supervisor being the same person.  And I won't promise to share the results here, since they could end up being too personal.

But it's going to be an interesting experiment.

Whatever you think about Facebook, there's no doubt it can be unintentionally amusing

I mostly find its "Reels" feature to be annoying, and have more than once looked without success for a way to turn it off completely. The short videos it shows are mostly reposted from Tik Tok, which I don't otherwise see. Sometimes they are interesting, sometimes they are genuinely informative and helpful, but all too often I find them infused with a negative view of life, even when they are undeniably—even addictively—entertaining.

Sometimes, however, something unexpected shows up and catches my eye.

If you don't have access to Facebook, you may not be able to watch the video, unfortunately. I spent too much time trying to find a version I could embed here, without success. I hope that link will take you to something you can see, but if not, it doesn't matter.

My readers know that one of our granddaughters plays on her high school girls' soccer team, and that the team has been wonderfully encouraging and supportive of her family during her sister's leukemia journey.

Here's another way they showed their character.

What caught my eye (more accurately, ear) in this video, and made me listen all the way through, was that it's not often when I hear mention of their tiny New Hampshire high school in nationwide media. I think this is the only time I have, actually. So it made me jump.

The short version of the story is that some of the team members did not want to play against a certain other team on their schedule, which included a boy in their lineup. First, in principle, because theirs is a girls' league, not a mixed one, and also because they found the boy physically threatening. The team's coach handled the situation extremely well: those girls who objected to playing that game were excused without any penalty, and the team played the game without any fuss. Somehow it made the news anyway, but I'm proud of the way they handled the situation calmly and fairly.

Our granddaughter? She played the game, with the support of her parents, even though they all thought it unfair for a boy to be on the opposing team. Why? I can't speak for them, but here are a few reasons that came up in our discussion:

• After all she's been through, Faith wanted to support her team, and to play soccer.
• It wasn't the other team's fault that they had a boy on the team—it was a state ruling that forced them to do so.
• Boys and girls often play successfully on the same soccer team—although that's usually at the younger levels, before males gain a significant physical advantage over females.
• They've played against other teams with girls she found more physically threatening than this boy.

The game was played successfully and without incident. I honestly don't remember which team won. In a way, they both did. Don't misunderstand me: The teams should never have been placed in this position, and the state rule that made it happen needs to be fixed.

But bad things happen in this life, and when they are met with quiet grace, that deserves to be celebrated.

Perusing our church's bulletin for this coming Sunday, I noted the announcement of a special collection to benefit the food pantry at a local elementary school. Here's the list of the most needed items:

• canned fruit
• applesauce
• pasta sauce
• macaroni and cheese
• Pop-tarts
• cereal bars
• pudding

RFK Jr. can't take charge of our government's health priorities soon enough for me!

I share this interview of Matt Taibbi (of Twitter Files fame) by Tucker Carlson for two particular reasons. The entire interview is quite interesting, but there's a bazillion fascinating interviews out there and it's very easy to drown in the flood of information. As our choir director says during the times when we have more choir members than space, "That's a nice problem to have." But it's also exhausting, so I'll put the video here for those who want it, and extract just my two points from early in the interview.

(1) As you know, I was not happy with many of President Biden's last-minute pardons, particularly that of Anthony Fauci. What I did not know, assuming Taibbi is correct, is that the pardons may save the recipients jail time and other legal sanctions, but they also take away their right to "plead the Fifth" when testifying. So Dr. Fauci and any of the others who have been pardonned can now be called on (e.g. by Congressional committees) to testify under oath without being able to weasel out on the basis of possible self-incrimination. Maybe they can't be convicted, but we have a better chance of ferreting out the truth, which is more important.

(2) Finally, someone is asking the questions that have been troubling me for a very long time. Who was running the country and making the executive decisions during the four years of President Biden's tenure? Or, if you don't believe his mental disabilities go back that far, at least for his final year, when even his own party finally had to admit his incompetency. And this: Why wasn't this question on everyone's lips; why wasn't it on every nightly news broadcast? Especially near the end, when whoever was making the decisions seemed indifferent to the increasing possibility that we were heading for open war with Russia? I don't have the answers, and neither does Taibbi. But at least he's asking the questions.

0:00 Fauci’s Pardon
7:32 The J6 Committee’s Pardon
11:02 The Golden Age of Journalism Has Begun
17:44 The Major Questions We Should Be Asking Now That Trump Is President
29:00 The Destruction of Nord Stream Will Kill the EU
33:57 The Key Players of COVID That Have Yet to Be Investigated
36:20 The New Media Landscape
45:17 Trump’s Mass Disclosure Will Make Certain People Very Dangerous
51:13 Will We Ever Truly Know the Purpose of the COVID Regime?
58:45 Russiagate and the Leaked DNC Emails
1:03:28 Kash Patel and Political Espionage
1:20:30 The Intel Agencies That Control Wikipedia
1:33:47 How They Try to Brainwash Us Into Submission

One of the frustrations/pleasures of having lived so long is observing how often opinions, even (maybe especially) "expert" opinions, flip-flop. I've mentioned this before on the issue of healthy eating: Fat is bad; no, it's really good. Protein is bad; no, it's really good. Carbohydrates are bad; no, they're really good. Repeat until no one believes you at all. If you always take these pronouncements seriously, you'll eat nothing—or everything.

This time I'm wondering about our attitudes toward the USAID. During my formative years, the Left fought against that organization, claiming that it was just a front for the CIA, operating under humanitarian pretenses. But now that the Left/Right/Center coalition we have in office is finally trying to dismantle the USAID, the new Left is jumping to its defense. I doubt the USAID itself has changed much.

If you take exception to my designation of the current administration as a Left/Right/Center coalition, and still believe that our new leadership is something out of the Far Right, take a closer look at how many of its supporters and major players, including President Trump himself, were once part of the Democratic Party, and still retain many of its former ideals. (Yours truly included.) This coalition is openly one of many diverse interests giving priority to what they have in common and consider critical for our country to survive—and flourish. How else to explain the strength of President Trump's support among suburban white women and inner-city black men; secular and Hasidic Jews and Arabs; the Amish, young religious people, and half of all Hispanics? It's a strong alliance—albeit a fragile one, because we do have major differences. I pray we can keep our "eyes on the prize" through continued cooperation, compromise, and civil discourse.

Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying have the best analysis I've heard yet of President Trump's first executive orders.  I don't say that merely because I agree with them on most of their points—the ones they approve of, the ones that raise concerns, and their cautious optimism for our country—but of course that helps.

Approximate timestamps:

00:00:00 Holding Screen
00:05:33 Welcome
00:06:48 Sponsors: CrowdHealth, Fresh Pressed Olive Oil Club, ARMRA
00:18:26 Bret & Heather’s Inauguration & MAHA Ball Experience
00:39:18 Executive Orders: The Positive
01:28:45 Executive Orders: The Negative
01:42:33 Executive Orders: The Environmental
02:00:18 Executive Orders: MAHA?
02:02:43 Bret’s Argument for Why Trump COULD Be The GOAT
02:15:34 Closing

Moving on in the 21st century, I did a little playing this morning with Microsoft's Copilot AI. This time, instead of creating images, I asked questions.

I realize that the great danger with asking questions of Automated Idiocy is the biases that are built in, either unintentionally or on purpose. Wikipedia, unfortunately, has developed the same problem, so I'm no stranger to the need to be careful with results. But even Wikipedia can be a great source of information about which there is little dissent, so I began with an inquiry about the availability of Heinz Curry Mango Sauce, which I have not been able to find in this country, despite Heinz being headquartered in Pittsburgh. Copilot quickly suggested three places where I could buy it: Walmart (but it was unavailable when I checked their site), Amazon (also unavailable), and someplace called Pantry.me, which claims to have it, but out of my price range, especially when you add the cost of shipping it to the U.S. Still, Copilot tried, and give me hope that someday Walmart may actually carry it.

Next I asked it to find "Sal's Birdland Sauce," having momentarily forgotten that the name they're using now is "Sal's Sassy Sauce." Despite the incorrect name, Copilot found the item immediately, though for a price that leaves me happy to rely on the generosity of a friend who regularly visits cities with Wegmans supermarkets, where Sal's Sauce can often be found. Or to use my own recipe, which I'm free to say is quite good.

Then I asked a more controversial question: Where can I find ivermectin? First it gave me a stern warning that ivermectin must only be used "under medical supervision"—which is actually not true, depending on where you live; our friends from Ecuador can buy it over the counter at the local pharmacy. But after that it did give me some sources.

Finally, I asked about Switzerland's recommendations with regard to the Covid-19 shots, and received this response.

As of spring and summer 2023, the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) is not recommending COVID-19 vaccines for its citizens, even for high-risk individuals.

You can still get them, if you insist. If you can convince your doctor to make the recommendation, the shots will be paid for; otherwise you can still get them as long as you pay the costs yourself.

Back to Copilot one more time, where I learned that the United States still recommends the shots for

Everyone aged 6 months and older...including women who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or planning to become pregnant.

As I even now listen to the Senate confirmation hearings of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., all I can do is pray that our recommendations will change soon, especially for the children and babies.

With all the important things that should be said about current events, sometimes you just have to make room for noting the absurd.

Enter Heather Heying's latest Substack offering, "Not the First Woman President: but yes the First Raccoon". Anyone who has read (and re-read, and loved) Sandra Boynton's "But Not the Hippopotamus" will understand my first thoughts upon reading that title.

Heather is reacting to some particularly absurd responses to President Trump's executive order entitled, "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government." I have read the order and find it cogent, rational, and much-needed; it states the obvious that should never have had to be stated.

Here's one absurdity, from the Guardian, which headlined its article, "After his executive order on sex, is Trump legally the first female president?"

Despite Trump’s decree that sex is “immutable”, the wording of his executive order left some room for interpretation. Indeed, some critics noted that because the undifferentiated genitalia that males and females share very early in fetal development are “phenotypically female”, you could argue he just made everyone legally female.

“[Trump] just declared everyone a woman from conception, based on the language of the executive order,” Delaware representative Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender person elected to the US House of Representatives, told the Independent.”

As Heather states, Nope. Wrong. So wrong. She goes on to detail why. There a lot to that, which you can easily read for yourself, but here's a snippet:

Early in development, everything is undifferentiated. Decades ago, some researchers argued that early “undifferentiated” genitalia are phenotypically female, but they’re not. They may be just a bit more female-like than male-like, but are actually, again, simply undifferentiated. Furthermore, at conception, there are no genitalia at all—nothing exists at that stage to be differentiated or not. Conception is when two cells come together—an egg, from the mother, who is definitionally female, and a sperm, from the father, who is definitionally male.

One commenter on the post pointed out another problem with the absurd headline:  Even if one accepts their premise, the first female president would not be Donald Trump, but George Washington.

After all that seriousness, Heather moves into a diversion about the First Raccoon (typical biologist!), who made her debut in the Coolidge White House.

From an article in Harper's Magazine:

Rebecca, who would soon become the First Raccoon, had been sent to the White House in 1926 by a citizen of Mississippi, who perhaps thought that she would taste good with cranberry sauce. President Coolidge declined to eat her. Soon she would be wearing an embroidered collar and taking baths, which she particularly enjoyed when given a cake of soap with which to play.

Here's where I burst out laughing and decided to share Heather's post with all of you:

“And so she lived a life of luxury until she did a thing many of her fellow Americans have dreamed of but very few have achieved: she bit the president of the United States.”

I know nothing about any of the people or organizations involved in the following video, but the poem hit me hard when I discovered a few months ago. It expresses deeply one part of the groundswell that resulted in the election of President Trump, and seems particularly appropriate in light of President Biden's recent preemptive pardon of Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Let me be clear: I am thrilled by much of what I know about the executive orders President Trump issued on his first day in office. And equally thrilled that he rescinded the harmful executive orders executed by President Biden in his time.

But is this any way to run a country? A rich garden that never bears fruit because each president pulls up the "weeds" planted by his predecessor?

President Trump and his team have a lot of true weeds to remove. I wish them the best and pray for them daily. As I also prayed daily for President Biden, I must admit. What sane person would wish harm to his own country just because he didn't like the sitting president?

However, it is the Legislative branch of our balance-of-powers system that is supposed to make the laws. Are you listening, Congress? Making wise laws is your job. And remember this: You are not kings to enact your own will; you are not knights and bishops whose power is to be bought by the highest lobbyist; you are not pawns to blindly follow the will of the majority of your constituents. It is your responsibility to act with honor, wisdom, and honesty for the good of your districts, states, and country.

And it is our responsibility to elect legislators who can and will do so.