Remember when . . .

This great picture was posted by Cara Wasilewski on FB page Indivisible Women of Nevada County

Well, here we are. Dying.

Because, first of all, because dt had disbanded the Obama-era task force on preparing the US for a potential pandemic virus. And got rid of the stockpiles of equipment. And removed the observers who were in China watching for such a thing. (Although that is not the only place to watch; swine flu started here.) And then his administration did nothing when warned in January about the virus.

And thanks to the stupidity, greed, and incompetence of dt and his many repub enablers, and his trump-cultist followers, many of whom are still with him. They have drunk the KoolAid.

If only they weren't taking so many of the rest of us with them into oblivion. (Over 150,000 Americans have died from Covid-19 by Aug 1, 2020)

And it is not just in the Midwest or the South, or Michigan, that there are armed trump-cultists trying to impose their stupidity on the rest of us. Without, let it be noted, any attempt at federal intervention against actual threats against the governor, by armed thugs, like in Michigan. No, the only 'federal' response is anonymous thugs in Portland OR, beating up, tear gassing, pepper-spraying, shooting, peaceful protestors who made dt look bad. And dt threatening to send them against other Democratic cities.

But locally here too, on Saturday, a large maskless protest in Sacramento, with local idiots as well as out of state agitators. Then they moved up here for a large maskless protest in downtown Grass Valley. What are they protesting? The withdrawal of operating permits for several restaurants who had refused, (despite long attempts to help them), to follow any re-opening guidelines for masking, distancing, cleaning.

I don't think those out of town agitators, and the local anti-vaccers/anti-maskers/exteme-right-wingers, would be able to keep those restaurants in business all by themselves anyway, since all the reality-based community is saying that they will never eat there again. As several said, if they are refusing to follow cleaning guidelines now, what do you suppose their kitchens are like normally?

The ones I saw in Safeway a few weeks ago without masks were old white guys, and the store was doing nothing about them. Luckily there are a few other groceries who are better. And it isn't only old white men who are so stupid/uncaring of others' safety. They are just some of the most arrogant.

Wearing a mask or not is an IQ test, not a political statement. And besides, the government's facial recognition surveillance can't tell who you are in a mask...

Definitely time to sew again...

Empire-style dress design drawn for a costume history class in 2016

But not with a patterned fabric used like this batik-style one, although I just made over 2 dozen versions of this design in colorful new incarnations.

I have been falling for wonderful linen fabrics, which come also in the soft greyed colors which are my favorites, as well as brighter colors. And some of my favorite fabric designs go with some of those linen colors.

So, the parts of this picture with the patterns will be solid colors of linen, with a pattern on the front of the bodice.


Maybe one of those 2-Sprig colorings I just made. This version of the design fits more closely together, and has some interesting layouts.

You can see that these textured designs look like embroidery.  So for me, they seem more appropriate for smaller areas like a bodice front.


Time to start making something...

When I was in school the first time, 50 years ago, I used to draw the costume I was going to make during vacation, and prop it up on my desk to look at while I studied for finals. I find this drawing has the same effect. I keep looking at it.
 

Irrationality? Floating rocks? Rockbergs! Feb 14, 2018

Floating ice and floating rocks, small pond on campus, March 7, 2016

Time to reread one of my favorite books, Irrationality, by Stuart Sutherland. An excuse for a few quotes. He's funny; you have to watch for it.

"What constitutes a rational decision depends upon one's knowledge. There is a rider to this. If one has reason to believe one's knowledge is insufficient, then it is rational, particularly in the case of important decisions, to seek out more evidence: unfortunately, as we will see, when people do so, they usually act in a wholly irrational way, since they only seek evidence that will support their existing beliefs." (p. 5)

"The effects of conformity on beliefs and attitudes are the more injurious because people tend to associate with others who have similar beliefs to themselves. ... the only way to substantiate a belief is to try to disprove it. But because like mixes with like, people are rarely exposed to counter-arguments to their more deeply held convictions, let alone to counter-evidence. Their beliefs conform to those of their associates: hence, there is little possibility of eliminating persistent errors. "(p. 41)

"Everyone is irrational some of the time and in particular everyone is susceptible to the availability error. I give a final striking example ... In 1969, Jerzy Kosinsky's novel Steps won the American National Book Award for fiction. Eight years later some joker had it retyped and sent the manuscript with no title and under a false name to fourteen major publishers and thirteen literary agents in the US, including ... the firm that had originally published it. Of the twenty-seven people to whom it was submitted, not one recognised that it had already been published. Moreover, all twenty-seven rejected it. All it lacked was Jerzy Kosinsky's name to create the halo effect: without the name, it was seen as an indifferent book." (pp. 28-29)

"People have an amazing capacity to remember pictures. After being shown 10,000 photographs just once they can correctly recognize almost all of them a week later. This is in marked contrast to the very poor memory for isolated words."(p. 19)

"The term 'love' was defined in an authoritative dictionary of psychology as 'a form of mental illness not yet recognised in the standard diagnostic manuals'. (p. 115) [The authoritative dictionary was written by S. Sutherland...]

Now, about those floating rocks. I have seen that pond drained. It is about knee-deep, and there are no rocks sticking up in it. What happens is that when the pond freezes over, students throw rocks out onto the ice, trying to break it. At first this doesn't succeed, and in the freeze-thaw cycles, some of the rocks get frozen to the ice. When they finally break it [that's why there are those entirely unnatural sharp edges to the ice], some of those rocks are attached to large enough pieces of ice to support them, mostly invisible under the water, and the rocks go floating around the pond. Rockbergs.

Re-examine what you see. Go over the evidence. There are floating rocks, and underground jumping rocks. More things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies.

But real. With rational explanations.


He gives citations for almost everything, but not for the Jerzy Kosinsky story. I have to wonder who that 'joker' was who re-submitted the story...

Rexie has invented a new word in the language between people and cats 12/24/2016

Rexie on the balcony, July 12, 2015
(Written 12/24/2016. First published 2/3/2017.)

Rexie has invented a new word in *the* language between people and cat-people. Of course that language is a large part body-language, and only a little verbal. And it isn't a single language - it is a set of codes for each community of people and cats, just as individual and mutually intelligible as that between each mother and baby. (That is, not perfectly.)

Some is verbal. My cats come running when I call them, either to eat or to go out the window onto the balcony (different directions). (And sometimes to come in, if it's cold out there.) Rexie comes running to my tapping on the other window - he thinks that's his room, no sisters allowed.

But much of the communication between us is body language, stance, touch, movements. Reciprocal communication. When a cat is being petted, he/she may push against a hand, or move under a petting hand. She may tilt her head up or sideways under the hand. Or I may tug on the tip of her tail and she turns around very fast and comes back for more.

What Rexie has been doing, for about a year now, is tilting his/her head sideways, so far his forehead is vertical, sideways, one ear right above the other. It means he wants me to rub his forehead.

He does it when he's sitting so close to me, like on my chest,  that the angles I can reach him with are limited. I didn't know if he liked me to rub his forehead or not. So sometimes I did, sometimes not. And he invented a word to tell me when he wants his forehead rubbed.

Sometimes yes, sometimes not.

Oct 2017 Notice who is training who here... 
Dec 5 2017 Recently saw (online) that people can tell what their cats are saying in a recording — if-and-only-if it's their cat. Like I said, we all have our own unique set of codes. (Haven't tracked down a reference yet...)

My silence is over.

My silence is over.

I never even put up a yard sign, because I didn't want to offend anyone in this formerly(!!) very conservative rural county. We might need something from the supervisors someday. (My mother said that over 30 years ago — her college room-mate always told her not to be a doormat.)

But I will not be complicit, even by silence in the take-over of my country by right-wing haters.


My ⚐America includes everybody. It is fair to everybody.


Have you heard? VP-elect pence's temporary neighbors are putting up Rainbow Flags.

This image is available now on t-shirts, posters, a luggage tag for my back pack, at Cafepress, but also soon as a Creative Commons licensed image for all to use.

The Point Is Nov. 12-30, 2016

 

Wikimedia Commons images with attributions:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-10460,_Adolf_Hitler,_Rednerposen.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mr_Donald_Trump_New_Hampshire_Town_Hall_on_August_19th,_2015_at_Pinkerton
_Academy,_Derry,_NH_by_Michael_Vadon_02.jpg

The point is not that a dangerously out-of-control narcissist & racist & woman-hater pro-Russian has been elected to be our new president. In an election influenced by Russian hacking. One of the new generation of Robber Barons.

Besides praying that he somehow finds a connection to reality that isn't a mirror (and for someone who has lived all his life without it, that's unlikely), we can hope that the constraints of an actual political position will restrain him.* He would find that frustrating. Of course, his behind-the-scene white supremacist friends will be busy, whatever he does. (bannon, his chief of staff pick, from breitbart.) [*It won't restrain the repugs in congress though.]

The point is that his election was enabled by voter suppression since the gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the supreme court, and fueled by a protest vote from millions for whom the system has not been working for a long time, and with gasoline thrown on the flame by hundreds of very profitable Fake News sites and stories, which the Right passes around like poisoned KoolAid, since they are the not-connected-to-reality side of the population, without any critical thinking skills, and cannot tell the difference between Fake and real news… [Several reports during the last week, including more than one FakeNews purveyor who said that they tried to sell FakeNews to the Left, but they wouldn't buy it. "It's debunked by the second comment, and they don't share it." (On the Media interview approx 11/20)]

The point is that his election has brought his other supporters out of the woodwork like bugs. Emboldened and empowered. All the old-time-haters, liberated. KKK.* Neo-nazis.** White supremacists. Racists, woman-haters, sexual assaulters. Immigrant-bashers, Islamophobes.*** Rabid racist anti-government gun-nuts. And their children.****
[* david duke's joy at election - I won't link since I don't want to give him traffic.
** spencer at a white supremacist meeting, shouting "hail trump", and being answered with nazi salutes. (leaked video)
*** High school girl whose classmate came up behind her and tried to pull off her hijab, shouting racial epithets.(This American Life 11/11/2016)
**** School boy who grabbed a young girl's crotch and shouted "if the president can do it i can too".(TAL 11/11/2016)]

The Southern Poverty Law Center said that by a week after the election, there had been over 700 hate crimes and hate incidents, almost all by trump supporters. They hadn't seen anything like it since the day after President Obama's election. And, of course, it's the same people, encouraged now to do more, to keep on doing it. Even though dt said to stop it. That's their notion of celebration - commit hate crimes.

And all those voters, who say they are of course not racists, but are ok with racism, woman-hating, and everything else, demonstrably, because they could vote for a man who talks and acts like that.

I'd like to think there is some hope sooner than outliving all those evil old racist white men. But apparently they have taught many of their kids to be just as bad. Half of the hate crimes and hate incidents have happened in schools. 

And sooner than outliving the rich who believe in the new Social Darwinism*, the survival of only the richest.[* Funny because, not being connected to reality, denying science, they don't believe in evolution.]

And, the problem is, when they remove health care from millions of us, they will be increasing our death rate, not their own. Fewer of us will outlive them.
[Try to convince me that that is not part of their plan – hooray, fewer voters on the Left.]

But my country will not be taken over by white supremacists and robber barons without a fight. To the death.

And there are a lot of us who already believe this, as shown by the continuing protests around the country. We will not be convinced to accept politics-as-usual, make nice, come together and support the president, get over it, sit down and shut up for 4 more years and forever.


Because autocracies do not allow free speech.

My America includes everybody. It is fair to everybody.

My ⚐America includes everybody. It is fair to everybody.

I was not caught by surprise as much as many Hillary supporters were, who were hoping to see the first woman president elected, and have their view that we had outlived the old hates validated.

I've lived long enough to see a lot of lost elections (and one stolen), so my default mode is pessimism. And any excitement I might have felt about the prospect of the first woman president was killed by Madeline Albright "a special place in Hell for women who don't vote for Hillary" and Gloria Steinem, who lost all her street cred with "the young women are just there in the Bernie campaign because the boys are there". No.

And then, towards the end of the primaries, when it had become completely obvious that the democratic party had cheated to kill Bernie Sander's chances,  (as well as the media's totally ignoring him, while they provided DT with free wall-to-wall 24-hour celebrity coverage), and the establishment started saying "It's time for him to concede now, and get behind Hillary", I said to a guy on the bus "No. If she has any chance to get the support of Bernie voters, to get us behind her, he has to go through the whole process, as he promised us. He has to have, and be seen to have, influence on the platform. He has to have major influence on her positions."

So, we were not excited about her. As Michael Moore says, we voted for her. Get over blaming us already. But we were depressed, not excited, to vote for her.

(And to be clear, I like her. She is a smart, caring woman, who has always had an unfair deal from the right and the woman-haters. But she is a hawk. And she was a politics-&-business-as-usual (together) candidate in a year when we ALL wanted change. Yes - progressives, women's rights, and freedom for the billionaire-corporate-fascist-takeover agenda and the closet racists and haters of all stripes. All of America wanted change. And we got - The New Robber-Baron-Era supported by racist gangs who feel free to come out of their closets now, and use their new freedom to teach their children to be bullies and haters too, out in the open.)

The Southern Poverty Law Center had counted over 230 hate crimes and hate incidents in the first few days after the election, many in schools, against children. By children. By a week later, there were over 700*. Nothing like that many seen since the day after President Obama was elected. (Why did I not know about that? Media at fault again, not reporting it?)


*And, full disclosure, a few of them were by my folks, not the right-wingnut haters. But many fewer.

The Morning After the World Turned Upside-Down Nov. 9, 2016

Reflection, Morn Nov 9 2016

The morning after the world turned over. Well, the sun came up.
As President Obama said.

On the local radio early this morn, they were playing a song called "In the blink of an eye" ... "the stars fell from the sky".

I had heard Michael Moore talk about his recent surprise movie, Michael Moore in Trumpland. How the DT campaign had edited it to make it seem as if he was supporting DT. How Michael Moore went on Fox to say "Don't spend your money buying this movie" (to the deluded DT supporters who were making it a bestseller). "It doesn't say what they told you it did."

And that what he actually said was "You want to vote to send a message, to say you're angry. And for a moment it will feel really good. Or for a day, a week... Then like for the Brexit voters, reality will set in. But there are no do-overs. You have just elected the last president of the United States."

The other students in one of my classes were upset to very upset. One of them is from Canada, it turns out. (We talked about how the Canadian immigration information site had crashed last night.) Canada will need a wall; the US can pay for it...

Some of them know DT voters, or have family members. One wanted suggestions for talking with a family member about this. One decent idea was to ask her how she thinks the other side is feeling, how she understands where they are coming from.

But one student, who comes from a background of redneck racist haters (his words) says he has had to just learn to walk away, that he lives a long way from them now. And the teacher says that we're lucky to live on the Left Coast. And that he won't deal with angry bigots like DT voters anymore, life is too short to waste time with people like that.*

After class, I walked by the pond again, and then went online. First I looked up some favorite comics for comfort. (Mutts is always comforting, even if not relevant.)

And then, starting with the NYTimes article the teacher had recommended, and following references, I found a few things. Followed by Michael Moore and Van Jones.

Among the collected wisdom I found, and then heard on Democracy Now in the evening, and Thursday morning on the radio:

First Michael Moore - the best wisdom and advice, and the only one who lets me understand that maybe they are not all racist-misogynist KKK-and-nazi immigrant-bashing-Islamophobe haters, the DT supporters. They say they're not. But as one classmate said (approx), "They're all OK with that, since they were willing to vote for someone who could say those things." Yes.

It's why so many of us, especially young people, but me too soon, are out in the streets. "Not our president!" We are not willing to be complicit, even by silence, let alone cooperating, in a racist, sexist, xenophobic, woman-hating, immigrant-bashing, white supremacist, nazi, KKK regime.


* Feb 2018  -   In the other class, a couple of weeks after the election, a couple of girls (used purposefully) were high-fiving each other over the election results. [ 2 weeks later because they are the kind of students who don't come to class, and then blame the prof when they don't do well on the tests.] I regret having censored my comment. What I said was that I didn't think any young people voted for dt. What I was thinking, and should have said, was that I didn't think any young folk were stupid enough to vote for dt.


My ⚐America includes everybody. It is fair to everybody.

Mousie approx. 2008 - July 2016

Mousie in 2011 with one of the kittens (Grey Mouse?) - looking stripey

 

In December 2010, most of the kittens got calici virus. If Mom's cats had had their shots, it probably couldn't have happened.

They got it after they were weaned. Rexie was very sick, had to be hand-fed again, and 2 others had it too. Then their father Sugar Mouse died in early 2011, of a different horrible disease. I thought Mousie was maybe the carrier.

So I separated the kittens from their mother Patches, and Mousie. And Mousie didn't get to cuddle like this anymore. When she and Patches were frightened, they squeezed into 2 tiny drawers on either side of the sink to hide.

She was living here with Patches when the horrible guest of a renter kicked out the screen in the kitchen door, and then chased Patches out to die. Months later, he tried to do the same to Mousie, but she outsmarted him, and hid where he (and I) couldn't find her. After that, I moved her upstairs. (Buddy was gone by then, so there was a safe place for her.)

She was never friendly or pettable, but she co-existed with me, and liked to sleep in her padded nest-box. She told me when she was out of water or food. There were sunny windows, and a heater in the winter.

But it wasn't such a safe place after all. First, on a really hot day in July, she got very overheated. I re-arranged things so the fan could blow on her, and she seemed to be feeling better. But in the morning, she had knocked over the stuff in the nearby corner, and was across the room trying to hide behind the refrigerator. And among that stuff was a small black widow spider.

So whether it was the heat alone, or mostly the spider bite, she is gone.

The last of Mom's cats. Goodby Mousie. 

Happy Kitten Day Sept 7 2016

Just found this original kitten photo, Nov 2010

 One of the kittens has a ball. The other grey kitten has a toy mouse. But Spot and Rex are watching the ball, ready to run out and play Kitten Soccer.

Some of my kittens from long ago, when I lived in the basement, used to play kitten soccer, in one of the rooms Grandpa had poured cement into when he was 80. He shored up the foundations, and poured concrete in most of the areas that had had just dirt floors originally. (He had been a mining engineer.) That floor had a wave and a half in it, so the ball would turn and go off in unexpected directions. Very exciting kitten soccer.

Kitten Soccer Nov. 2010

 My darling kittens were so cute when they were little. Now they are beautiful, except for one funny-looking one (Lassie). Rex/Rexie fell off the balcony this summer, the night a coyote howled in the orchard. He was gone by 3:00am, the coyote was howling at 3:30.

 I think he was on the roof in the midday, while I was looking all around for him, and calling. I could hear him, or someone, calling, and it was louder near the fireplace. But by the time I went up onto the roof, he wasn't there. (I waited for someone else to come home before I went up there.)

But after a night and a day and a night, he found his way into the open main floor. I was out on the balcony at 5:15 in the morning, not calling just listening, trying to decide where to look for him. And at 5:30am he started calling me loudly from the living room window under my feet.

Light and reflection Nov 2010

Meanwhile, almost unnoticed in the corner, is one of these fantastic reflections of light off a plant pot. The reflection has to fall against a relatively dark patch of floor or wall to be visible. Just like car bumper or hubcap reflections, which also make interesting patterns.

Enjoy the kittens, but notice the light. 

Sleeping Beauty's House? No, but Grandpa's blackberries. Summer 2016

Grandpa's blackberries have blockaded the house

When he was in his eighties, one evening on the beach at the cabin in Idaho, Grandpa told me the story of his life. This was a spontaneous event, I didn't have a tape recorder. And I wasn't smart enough to think of going inside afterwards and writing down everything I could remember.

But I was listening very carefully, and I remember some of it.

One of the stories he told, as a joke upon himself, was that he had planted some blackberries when he was a young man. Way down at the edge of the property, near the road. (Sold long ago). I haven't told this story locally, because I didn't want the neighbors to blame him.

These blackberries are called Himalayan. Definitely not native; they have taken over large areas of the West coast. (If they were native, there would be a natural control on them.) When I came here in 1981, they had at least 3 of the remaining 7 acres. And now they've surrounded his house. I and a friend have finally started cutting and digging them, a couple of hours a week.

So in his story, everybody told him not to plant the blackberries. And he told them he was young and strong, and he could "grub them out".

And now I'm not young and strong anymore, but I get to try to get them under control...

Workaround again - for Minoan Textiles

Real Minoan fabric design, 1500 BCE approx, as shown by Elizabeth Wayland Barber, from Egyptian frescos.

I need to add a powerpoint presentation to the discussion board for a class I'm taking. This was the workaround for doing images that I used before, but now I know how to do that. Only that way only works for image or video files. Most of the other students have used a link.

So, we'll try. This is the topic I have been totally absorbed by lately. (Well, roses too...)

Minoans, specifically their clothing.

(where did that come from? Well, I have always been interested in costume history. And an Art History class last semester.)

This textile design is derived from one that Elizabeth Wayland Barber shows in her wonderful books, as being a favorite exported by the Minoans to Egypt. (1500 BCE or so?)
No, this won't work to share a powerpoint for my class, but I can share this fabric design. Soon it and other Minoan designs may be up at Spoonflower.

It is up on Spoonflower, and there are other Minoan-inspired fabrics there too now. Not available yet for sale, except a blue-grey one.

smaller Minoan-inspired design from the Snake Goddess' bodice

Of course I did make a colorful one too. 

To see what these designs are inspired by, check my Pinterest board.   https://www.pinterest.com/minawagner/minoan-clothing-fabrics-approx-2500-1200bce/

The green in the first design is definitely not Minoan. I have just been rereading the chapter from Elizabeth Wayland Barber's book Prehistoric Textiles, reprinted in Woven Threads, a book about evidence about Aegean textiles. And in the ancient Egyptian depictions of Minoan textiles, they are just red, white, and blue. But these are a couple of their favorite patterns.
 

Take Photos

Photograph Light and Water 
Photographing is seeing with new eyes.
When you are always looking, you see amazing things,
instead of walking blindly past them.

Learn to see all over again.

Cats Are Looking

Cats are the least domesticated of our
familiar friendly animals.
If I watch them, I can see the wild.
Sleeping on my bed. Watching.

I chose these photos for the interesting images.

But the cats are all looking.

Take Time to Read - (but pay attention to the cat)

Take Time to Read - (but don't forget the cat). Terry and I took digital photography together; I got rides home with her. This was the best picture I caught of her. We have nice expressions when we're looking at animals...

Reading is very important to me. This spot in my living room near the window is a good place to read without losing all day.

Because the chair is comfortable  only for a while...

Lupine & Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly at Bridgeport

We had some warm weather, and things were blooming early, but not this early. Pictures from several years ago.

Now it's cool and raining again. We need it.

Rexie thinking about being a wildcat...

Bob In Tall Grass/ Rexie on painted chair

For a class assignment, I was putting together some presentation slides, and found some fun things looking through my images and photos. These  two cats were similar ages, still visibly young, although not kittens anymore, when these photos were originally taken.
Bob, being wild out in the grass, has been Photoshopped, using a filter.

Pure serendipity that I found them and saw how to put them together.

Doesn't Rexie look like he is dreaming about being wild?