Douglas Rushkoff (haven’t read his stuff since the 90s, but very high quality writing) interviews the great Magus Alan Moore about practicing ceremonial Magick, like Blake he created his own cosmology so as not to be “enslaved” by another person’s system.
I haven’t done much ceremonial magick in years, my former partner lost his mind, burned all his bridges with me, do some solo stuff now, mainly for hygiene. (Banish at least once daily, hail our Lord the Sun at dawn, noon, sunset and whenever I wake up closest to midnight, etc.)
Shared it with a younger friend, he was blown away. Ex-Mormon, I grew up in the Roman Catholic cult (an accident of my birth, very Oirish), thankfully my parental units were both well-educated and didn’t stick with it. My dad demanded we attend church when young to be brainwashed to obey, but himself got bored with it in time and dropped the pretense. I attended pre-Vatican when I was 4-7 years old, heard the Latin Mass, I believe this later helped me when I went to Mexico and Central America, Latinate languages like Spanish more beautiful than English, Portugues the most beautiful. Imho the most beautiful song in any tongue is Elis & Tom’s aguas de marzo, Spring streams, see here– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1tOV7y94DY&list=RDE1tOV7y94DY&start_radio=1
The author, Vincent Kelly, seems to favor a Democratic Party strategy of embracing a left populism and the interests of the working class. He’s a little vague on that point, his only specific complaint apart from allegedly misrepresenting his own biography is that Platner doesn’t reject Democratic left orthodoxy on trans issues.
I have given up holding my breath waiting for the Democratic Party establishment to do anything to defend or aid the working class. I am second to no one in my nostalgia for the New Deal and the Party of FDR, but reality is: gone baby gone.
The Vincent Kelly essay is useful mainly in pulling back the curtain on the creation of candidates and campaigns as exercises in the art of marketing. He makes a comparison to the music industry and the emergence of “manufactured music” and how that has led to the dominance of stars, who could self-finance their early development and, more important, slot into the ecosystem of managers and producers, who manage the brand and “manufacture” the music and shows.
Neither American political Party is dependent on voters or needs to make and keep policy promises to ordinary voters. The absence of working class interests from consideration by either Party’s leading figures or establishments is a symptom of this disease of democracy. American politics is not responsive to voter preferences.
The political system is responsive to the donors who finance the campaigns and brand management activities and to the tireless policy agents of the donors, the lobbyists.
The political operatives who are attracted to the show and whose art, skills and energy manifest in the brand management of political campaigns have influence over the selection of candidates. If the Platner candidacy succeeds, the reputation of the consultants who successfully promoted his profile nationally will be enhanced. (Just guessing that a national profile is not necessarily a huge plus in Maine itself so not an election strategy per se.)
I am guessing the operatives only flavor the soup of policy; the soup is poisoned by the meat and vegetables introduced on behalf of donors. When Platner was interviewed by the Pod Save America host and former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau (not to be confused with the guy Ironman sends to help Spiderman), Favreau expressed his dismay at the way Larry Summers prevailed on policy.
I am not convinced that brand management of candidates is anything new. Abraham Lincoln, arguably a corporate lawyer in real life drawing hefty fees representing railroads, was marketed as “the Railsplitter” even though he evidently hated manual labor. Tradition dictated that candidates for the nomination modestly stay away from the nominating convention. Lincoln worked very hard to bring the Republican Convention of 1860 to Chicago in his home state, where his people could pack the galleries. After the Convention voted in his favor, a pause in the proceedings was required while a committee of delegates, accompanied by a mob of journalists, journeyed by train to Springfield to officially notify Lincoln and learn if he would accept. Lincoln kept the committee waiting on his front porch, the mob of journalists crowding his yard, while he staged a very noisy fight with his wife, the famously pretentious Mary Todd Lincoln, over whether she, as hostess, would be allowed to offer the committee of delegates alcohol or only ice water. Lincoln, in his political life, was never drawn into making any direct statement for or against the powerful Temperance Movement, but in such subterfuges he managed to win votes from both drinkers and teetotalers. Lincoln secretly owned the German-language newspaper in Springfield and the large German immigrant community liked their beer. The Republican Party had absorbed the fiercely anti-immigrant American Party into its coalition but some German refugees from 1848 were prominent in the Party. (Karl Marx was European correspondent for a Republican newspaper.)
I suppose my point is that I doubt that brand management or social divisions blocking coalition-building are the critical obstacles to one of the political Parties taking up the banner of populism or the cause of the material interests of the working class. ymmv
I commented a few posts ago about turfing my mountain bike, getting scraped off the trail, and taken by ambulance to the hospital. My pain was so bad that to reduce my dislocated left arm anesthesia was necessary. (Usually a few nurses straighten the arm and push it back into the socket. Worked for me twice but I was quite a bit younger.)
The ball at the top of the humerus that fits in the shoulder was cracked. The advice given was that surgery would allow for far quicker healing. So, pain riddled me set do that. So eight days after my mishap a surgeon repaired the crack with a plate held on with two screws. That was eight days ago.
Before the surgery I was advised to alternate between acetaminophen (650 mg) and ibuprofen (400 mg) every 4 hours with a 10 mg oxycodone tablet every 6 hours if the pain was absolutely unbearable. The pain was unbearable.
Post surgery the pain mitigation advice is the same except the oxycodone tablets are 5 mg instead of 10. This is leaving me in a world of hurt! Every damn night I wake up because of pain.
I’m old, 73 and am a resident of NY state which seems to feel that properly medicating persons of an advanced age to be a malevolent act. Physicians have told me of the State sending ominous emails warning of overprescribing opioids and muscle relaxants with not too veiled threats of yanking licenses to practice.
So, what can I try?
mago replied to my earlier comment and wrote about toughing it out. He mentioned that he is not a ‘tough’ guy. I tried cutting back to two oxycodone tablets daily, but it made for two very unpleasant days where it was impossible to read anything demanding much less write.
So, what can I try?
I’ve seen others who comment frequently on this wonderful blog mention pot and CBD. For me, CBD does not seem to have any beneficial effect unless it is seeded by a puff of pot. And for me, pot is a problem. I wasted my early twenties getting continuously stoned. Getting into competitive triathlon saved my life as I quit smoking period. When pot possession was legalized in NYS a few years back I tried some with a friend. Wow! Today’s weed is way, way stronger that what I was inhaling 50 years ago. And again, I had to quit as it is really not the high that captivates me about pot, it’s the rush on the way to the high. So I am far more scared of weed than oxycodone and NYS has make damn sure now old men will become addicts by prescription pad.
So, what can I try?
In your place I’d be taking edibles. You can control the amount very precisely that way. Try it till you get it to an amount that controls the pain and no more.
I would suggest to at least consider using it before going to bed so you can sleep, but unless pot is your kryptonite, careful use for pain only usually doesn’t lead to addiction.
They have become terrible about proper pain relief. The docs are scared of the Feds and many of them have bought into the BS.
I’m sorry to hear you’re in so much pain and doctors are refusing relief. I’ve been there and it sucks.
In terms of faster healing, if your’re willing to inject yourself, look into TBC and BPC 157 (if only one, BPC.) In my experience they do work, and there are no serious side effects. (Don’t take BPC if you have cancer, it increases blood flow and that can increase spread.)
Keep us updated, and if you need to bitch you can always email me or just use this thread.
bruce wilder, very insightful analysis of the marketing of the shiny, not pretty faces of our political Elites, handmaidens to the real MOTUs, “Masters of the Universe.” Yes, Lincoln a deeply sophisticated politician, unlike Bill Clinton’s endless triangulation his was always to sideline his rivals and attain to power. Years ago, an older friend gave me a Xmas gift of Doris Kearns Goodwins’ Hagiophraphy of Lincoln, Team of Rivals. I didn’t read it until I had the time, sheltering during Covid, I saw thru her endless gaslighting. When he had the biggest mass-execution of Native people, he assiduously vetted the list and removed many presumed “not violent,” well, that’s pretty good but not entirely so. I remember a Dr. Who episode when it was still good, an evil Alien is about to destroy Central London (coz it’s the coolest place in the World), early on She’s interacting with a pregnant woman and devises some means to compel the woman to leave the area so she and her baby aren’t wiped out. The Dr. tells her at the end, that’s your little hors d’ouvre to imagine your not Pure Evil. I feel like Kearns-Goodwin’s feint was on that level.
K-G later got caught up in a Plagiarism scandal; when I was at the University of New Orleans in the 80s, there was a dude who got famous for a pretty stupid book, its thesis was that Russia is so evil because it’s Commie, they are actually worse than the 3rd Reich. I went to the event where food was being served, at least got a free meal out of listening to that bullshit. That dude later got into a major Plagiarism scandal as well.
Yes!! That was the History Professor Stephen Ambrose. Chrome wouldn’t help me at all, I switched to Firefox and opened DuckDuckGo, got the answer, he was listed with K-G in the “10 worst.” Oh, and a sop to LAS, Putin on both sites listed for plagiarism in his Economics degree. And let’s not forget he and the runt Zelensky were listed at the same time in the Panama Papers, hiding their riches so as not to pay taxes!!
This returns us to George Carlin’s “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it!” Well, actually it’s a pretty small club, bruce’s point that we voters (well, I sometimes vote, but know it’s futile) are the actual Big Club, but Advertising and Culture Wars neuter the voter sap’s from making any change. In my indictment of KT Chong, praising War Vigilant, I should have added that detail. KTC wastes his time bawling about Transgender women, dirty queers, he knows China’s a better country than USA for its people, as is Russia, but he’s doing nada to improve things here. He writes in fluent English so I am guessing he is ‘Murican or Canadian, in either case the point stands. Yeah, learn to “hate your neighbor and don’t forget to say grace” as The Eve of Destruction lyrics put it.
David Lamy I am 66, haven’t ridden a bike in years, much less mountain bikes!! Once when I lived in N’Awlins, was biking cross town to Jazz Fest, my front wheel slipped into a 14 inch (or nearly) giant pothole and I was thrown chin-1st over the handlebars, landed on my chin. Some road-rash and blood on my chin, luckily I did not lose any teeth or suffer greater damages. Sometimes strategic cowardice is a great prophylactic. Ian’s solution is one I’d agree with.
@david lamy, what Ian said.
Perhaps I was unclear in my earlier post about the THC/CBD combo. I meant edibles. The WannaQuick strawberry daiquiri is my recommendation. It’s 1:1 with 5 milligrams of each. Cut it in half so it’s 2.5 to 2.5.
Hope this makes sense and hope you find some relief.
Um, you might want to explore microdosing shrooms with lion’s manes mushrooms, but I’ll say no more about that, at least not now not here.
Research herbal anti inflammatories. There are lots out there.
And just to leave on a less than cheerful universal note: what a drag it is getting old . . .
To Ian and mago and Mark Level,
Thanks for the advice and commiserating!
I will try finding something to swallow and if necessary, inject.
Again, Ian and the regular cohort of commentators make this an invaluable place to lurk!
Wishing you all the best david lamy and all the visitors and commentators on this site some of whose views I take issue with, but ultimately who I appreciate and send good wishes for realization of their mundane happiness and success however that may be defined.
You could try THC/CBD topicals –creams and lotions on the shoulder region. This wont get you high like edibles will though it’s tough to say if it will help as much.
There are studies that vitamin C reduces the risk of addiction, and harmful effects of drugs such as opioids, painkillers and THC and helps with pain. Getting vitamins through food will always be healthier than pills. Foods high in vitamin C include hot and mild peppers, fruits, berries, veggies in the broccoli family, and leafy green veggies.
Pain is your body trying to tell you something important. When you’re waking up with pain it may help if you tried a different sleeping position (on a recliner, or your back etc). It may take a while to get used to sleeping in a different position but medium to long term it could be effective.
People often use turmeric for pain and inflammation.
Before bed you could try teas chamomile, rose hips, and or hibiscus. They have some muscle, relaxing, anti-inflammatory properties.
Do regular physical activity that doesn’t cause pain. Avoiding physical activity because of pain is a trap that often occurs. A sedentary lifestyle causes pain, hinders recovery and worsens health. Find any physical activity that you can do and do it. Preferable something that is outdoors in nature and in the sun.
Acetaminophen is a strange thing to prescribe in your particular circumstance. Naproxen would make more medical sense. (Not medical advice, but maybe question the choice.)
Zelensky was implicated in the Pandora Papers, not the Panama Papers.
Putin was not named in either, but various Russians were, (particularly in the Pandora Papers as I recall) and it was argued that some of those Russians were “close” associates or part of Putin’s “inner circle”.
In the end, I can only guess at the effect of personal corruption on leadership bias. I wish someone would bribe me, so I could experience the sensation.
I greatly respect Oakchair’s take on health issues. The guy does lots of research, knows whereof he speaks!!
Oh, another ort/scrap here. For whatever reason YouTube put up this hilarious clip of Ben Shapiro losing his shit when a Right Wing British podcaster calls out his racism and ignorance, from about 15 years ago. It is Comedy Gold. And it is fun because Ben was a Never-Trumper at the time, he also shares leaving Breitbart (a Fascist site, perfect for him) because Cory Lewandowski grabbed a woman staffer’s arm, was being thuggish. I’d bet Cory and Ben reconciled by Daddy’s 2nd term.
A thank you to Oakchair and bruce wilder for chiming in with advice for this elderly man in pain!
bruce, acetaminophen and oxycodone are usually combined as percocet. Seems my surgeon wanted to stagger the constituents. I have heard from oral surgeons that naproxen is more effective for bone pain than other NSAIDs. I have started a course of naproxen.
Oakchair, thanks for the extensive post! I do eat a lot of the foods that satisfy your metrics presently. So, I could be worse! (Ouch!)
Part of my woes are definitely psychological. Four different bike rides in my life have ended in a ambulance due to being struck an automobile. Twice head-on (I make a habit of riding on the correct side of the road), once rear-ended and lastly, t-boned. These all happened at high speed. I ride fast.
This last boo-boo is on me. I turfed it but have no idea how. Since the onset of the COVID pandemic I came to realize that the risk of getting struck again by an addled driver was too great. So I switched to mountain biking for aerobic work with plans to ride my time trial bike on a local rail trail occasionally to keep the skill. I was peaking for an individual time trial coming in a few weeks. So much for that.
But for anyone still reading, Oakchair’s encouragement for me to exercise is exactly what I would dispense. But this time, for the first time in my life, I am not going to rush my cycling comeback. I’m gonna heal.
I originally intended to channel Mark Level, spud and others who can cover many topics by adding terrifice informative paragraphs. However, I have my limitations. So bye for tonight — I going to start reading Tony Wikrent’s weekly link fest.
Happy solstice to all
Longest day in the Northern Hemisphere
Shortest in the Southern
Everything is crazy and upside down everywhere you go
Don’t let the bastards get you down
Sail on . . .
One last tidbit about my injuries — I also have two broken ribs. A deep sigh taken while writing my last missive reminded me.
Again, my thanks to all commenting!
I have to go to work in a few minutes now, so here is a video I have just barely begun watching, but it seems promising so I will describe it briefestly and give the link.
“They Thought the Boycott Was a Joke Until the Shutdown Hit”
It begins with a news report called ” Dirty Dining” and it is about an inspection finding a huge number of safety violations at a Chinese restaurant. It then cuts to the Foundational Black American primary presenter of this video saying she knows that a number of FBAmericans are not yet supporting the boycott against Asian-owned businesses. But after watching this she suspects more will join and she sincerely hopes that those who still won’t join the boycott get very very sick. The unhappy campers are very unhappy indeed.
It would appear like that Good Old Chinese Exceptionalism is maybe not All That exceptionally Exceptional. I wonder what K T Chong thinks about all this.
I have watched just a little deeper into the above-offered video, and it goes deeper. It starts discussing Black Power, not the noisy kind which talks about itself, but the silent kind which acts and builds, and build upon the action and acts further upon the building.
Certain commenters on here have sneered about ” American passivity” and “acceptance” of the Triple Nazi Revolution rollout in this country. I think this country is too big for them to understand and that opposition will move and build in channels they are not trained to recognize and see. It could succeed, it could fail.
But if it succeeds, and if the Foreigner decides to ” Fuck America Back” in any case, then a self-rescued America may well decide to ” Fuck FucBack Back ” the ” Fuck America Back” back-fuckers.
One much underestimated strain in American culture is the deeply suppressed Germanic strain which is still here despite the antigermanitic culture-racist antigermanism unleahsed by America’s most evil President, the fanatical anglophile Woodrow Wilson. And a part of that strain is a slow thirst for revenge, the kind of cold bitterness which believes that revenge is a dish best served over and over and over again.
This is my first garden report of the current season. This is everything I have done from Spring Thaw till now.
I deep-dug-and-mixed the soil in a 5ft X 15ft half of my 5ft X 30ft main raised bed. I tried to go down about 3 feet. Some of the stiff clay subsoil I set aside chunks of in a pile for a use I may put them to later. Others I broke up and mixed in as best as possible.
I found that most of the potatoes I dug up last fall had lasted till earliest June with either minimal sprouting or almost no sprouting at all. So I have planted a bunch of them to have another generation to work with. Also I planted some of the “less sprouty” purple potatoes that I bought at Plum Market. I focused on buying the knobby ones with big welts all over them with an eye in the “tip” of each welt. That looked a little closer to their original Andean ancestry though it may not actually be so.
Also, I saw something which until now I had only heard of. Some potatoes I missed in last Fall’s dig-up clearly survived over winter in the ground and began sprouting in late Spring. Volunteer potatoes. So I dug those up and replanted them in a better-prepared part of the bed. I want to see if they will produce potatoes and if so, are those potatoes a little more programmed to last over winter in the ground. If they do, there are more things I can try in the next couple of years. If they don’t, its all data either way.
Most of my garlic from last Fall finally dried up or dry-rotted and died in amateur closet storage. I bought a bunch of bulbs of the second hottest garlic I have ever had at Plum Market and planted them out in Spring in hopes they will grow and multiply enough to replant. Also I planted the few garlic which lasted in storage from last Fall to this Late Spring.
That part of bed I dug up and deep mixed I then scatter broadcast-planted with a mixture of seed . . . clover, buckwheat, “sprouting broccoli”, and a several-species mix of ” Mixed protein sprouts” seeds . . . one of which is alfalfa. I got a green veggie-lawn starting to grow over that bed.
Two days ago I dug 26 6-inch-wide 6-inch-deep holes into that bed through the low carpet of green seedlings. At the bottom of each I planted a bunch of corn seeds. Since I am bored for the moment with Hickory Cane corn, I planted kornels stripped off some of the ornamental Indian corn-ears i have bought over time because of interesting appearance. Some mice found them in amateur storage and ate many kernels off SOME of the ears. So I have planted other kernels off those same ears. If I end up getting any actual corn from this, I will call it ” Mouse’s Choice”. I am guessing the mice excercised some culinary judgement as to which they liked and which they disdained to even try. And this first planting is of Big or Biggish kernel corn-ears.
Chipmunks were watching. Before I had even finished finalizing the last planted hole . . . with more soil over the planted watered corn and fine cut grass clippings on top of all that, a chipmunk had jumped down into one of the holes to dig up the kernels.
I scared it away, went inside and came back out with some buckwheat to put down for the chipmunk(s), to make it/them happy and keep it/them busy, and it appears to work so far. I will lightly water the surface of the corn holes to keep moisture up right around the kernels so that have a steady input of moisture to uptake water fastest and sprout and grow soonest.
Ornamentals are growing. Of 6 kale plants I bought and planted, something ate them all mostly off. i assumed groundhog. But then something ate off the tender tips of some of my goldenrod plants and I think it has to be deer. A groundhog would have smashed them down to get at the tips, and that didn’t happen The tips were neatly eaten off, clearly from above.
And here, from the justgalsbeingchicks subreddit, a talk about systematic misogynism taught to med-students and new doctors in training throughout the national American medical industrial complex. Is it still true?
Header: Volunteer Potatoes specifically: facts and speculation.
I got curious about “volunteer potatoes” so I looked up about it. Apparently it is heard of, known, and considered a problem in farming systems where potatoes and other things are being grown. It is considered enough of a problem that methods have been/are being worked on to control it.
Despite the title, the article just above suggests that you “can” let the volunteers grow as a simple little experiment.
Reading this has already put me a little bit ahead of where I thought I might be with the re-transplanted volunteer potatoes that I am growing this year. I can already think about replanting the most/best potatoes I get from best performing replanted volunteers to see what they do when managed as normally planted potatoes. I could then soon after experiment with planting some of them in fall on purpose to see how many survive the winter to grow the next year, and save and replant and re-replant and re-re-replant the best fall-planted next-spring-emerging for a population which can do this reliably.
If I get such a population, then I could think about what i could do with potatoes who have this particular reliable talent.
Yesterday I fork-dug and mixed the soil in my last major bed, and dug up yet another one of those volunteer potatoes. I cast it aside without replanting because I have already planted enough of them. But I noted that the little potato plant was emerging from a still hard still unblemished redskin potato almost 1.5 inches in diameter. If that potato itself is still firm when I get back home, I will bury it just to see what it can do.
My planted corn seeds have still not come up and I am losing patience.
Mark Level
Douglas Rushkoff (haven’t read his stuff since the 90s, but very high quality writing) interviews the great Magus Alan Moore about practicing ceremonial Magick, like Blake he created his own cosmology so as not to be “enslaved” by another person’s system.
I haven’t done much ceremonial magick in years, my former partner lost his mind, burned all his bridges with me, do some solo stuff now, mainly for hygiene. (Banish at least once daily, hail our Lord the Sun at dawn, noon, sunset and whenever I wake up closest to midnight, etc.)
For those interested, link here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LkbtIzlR7k
Shared it with a younger friend, he was blown away. Ex-Mormon, I grew up in the Roman Catholic cult (an accident of my birth, very Oirish), thankfully my parental units were both well-educated and didn’t stick with it. My dad demanded we attend church when young to be brainwashed to obey, but himself got bored with it in time and dropped the pretense. I attended pre-Vatican when I was 4-7 years old, heard the Latin Mass, I believe this later helped me when I went to Mexico and Central America, Latinate languages like Spanish more beautiful than English, Portugues the most beautiful. Imho the most beautiful song in any tongue is Elis & Tom’s aguas de marzo, Spring streams, see here–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1tOV7y94DY&list=RDE1tOV7y94DY&start_radio=1
Mark Level
And I must add, Happy Sunday Summer Solstice!!
bruce wilder
Some socio-economic class analysis of Graham Platner’s candidacy in Maine:
https://open.substack.com/pub/vincentkelley/p/the-populism-industrial-complex?
The author, Vincent Kelly, seems to favor a Democratic Party strategy of embracing a left populism and the interests of the working class. He’s a little vague on that point, his only specific complaint apart from allegedly misrepresenting his own biography is that Platner doesn’t reject Democratic left orthodoxy on trans issues.
I have given up holding my breath waiting for the Democratic Party establishment to do anything to defend or aid the working class. I am second to no one in my nostalgia for the New Deal and the Party of FDR, but reality is: gone baby gone.
The Vincent Kelly essay is useful mainly in pulling back the curtain on the creation of candidates and campaigns as exercises in the art of marketing. He makes a comparison to the music industry and the emergence of “manufactured music” and how that has led to the dominance of stars, who could self-finance their early development and, more important, slot into the ecosystem of managers and producers, who manage the brand and “manufacture” the music and shows.
Neither American political Party is dependent on voters or needs to make and keep policy promises to ordinary voters. The absence of working class interests from consideration by either Party’s leading figures or establishments is a symptom of this disease of democracy. American politics is not responsive to voter preferences.
The political system is responsive to the donors who finance the campaigns and brand management activities and to the tireless policy agents of the donors, the lobbyists.
The political operatives who are attracted to the show and whose art, skills and energy manifest in the brand management of political campaigns have influence over the selection of candidates. If the Platner candidacy succeeds, the reputation of the consultants who successfully promoted his profile nationally will be enhanced. (Just guessing that a national profile is not necessarily a huge plus in Maine itself so not an election strategy per se.)
I am guessing the operatives only flavor the soup of policy; the soup is poisoned by the meat and vegetables introduced on behalf of donors. When Platner was interviewed by the Pod Save America host and former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau (not to be confused with the guy Ironman sends to help Spiderman), Favreau expressed his dismay at the way Larry Summers prevailed on policy.
I am not convinced that brand management of candidates is anything new. Abraham Lincoln, arguably a corporate lawyer in real life drawing hefty fees representing railroads, was marketed as “the Railsplitter” even though he evidently hated manual labor. Tradition dictated that candidates for the nomination modestly stay away from the nominating convention. Lincoln worked very hard to bring the Republican Convention of 1860 to Chicago in his home state, where his people could pack the galleries. After the Convention voted in his favor, a pause in the proceedings was required while a committee of delegates, accompanied by a mob of journalists, journeyed by train to Springfield to officially notify Lincoln and learn if he would accept. Lincoln kept the committee waiting on his front porch, the mob of journalists crowding his yard, while he staged a very noisy fight with his wife, the famously pretentious Mary Todd Lincoln, over whether she, as hostess, would be allowed to offer the committee of delegates alcohol or only ice water. Lincoln, in his political life, was never drawn into making any direct statement for or against the powerful Temperance Movement, but in such subterfuges he managed to win votes from both drinkers and teetotalers. Lincoln secretly owned the German-language newspaper in Springfield and the large German immigrant community liked their beer. The Republican Party had absorbed the fiercely anti-immigrant American Party into its coalition but some German refugees from 1848 were prominent in the Party. (Karl Marx was European correspondent for a Republican newspaper.)
I suppose my point is that I doubt that brand management or social divisions blocking coalition-building are the critical obstacles to one of the political Parties taking up the banner of populism or the cause of the material interests of the working class. ymmv
david lamy
I commented a few posts ago about turfing my mountain bike, getting scraped off the trail, and taken by ambulance to the hospital. My pain was so bad that to reduce my dislocated left arm anesthesia was necessary. (Usually a few nurses straighten the arm and push it back into the socket. Worked for me twice but I was quite a bit younger.)
The ball at the top of the humerus that fits in the shoulder was cracked. The advice given was that surgery would allow for far quicker healing. So, pain riddled me set do that. So eight days after my mishap a surgeon repaired the crack with a plate held on with two screws. That was eight days ago.
Before the surgery I was advised to alternate between acetaminophen (650 mg) and ibuprofen (400 mg) every 4 hours with a 10 mg oxycodone tablet every 6 hours if the pain was absolutely unbearable. The pain was unbearable.
Post surgery the pain mitigation advice is the same except the oxycodone tablets are 5 mg instead of 10. This is leaving me in a world of hurt! Every damn night I wake up because of pain.
I’m old, 73 and am a resident of NY state which seems to feel that properly medicating persons of an advanced age to be a malevolent act. Physicians have told me of the State sending ominous emails warning of overprescribing opioids and muscle relaxants with not too veiled threats of yanking licenses to practice.
So, what can I try?
mago replied to my earlier comment and wrote about toughing it out. He mentioned that he is not a ‘tough’ guy. I tried cutting back to two oxycodone tablets daily, but it made for two very unpleasant days where it was impossible to read anything demanding much less write.
So, what can I try?
I’ve seen others who comment frequently on this wonderful blog mention pot and CBD. For me, CBD does not seem to have any beneficial effect unless it is seeded by a puff of pot. And for me, pot is a problem. I wasted my early twenties getting continuously stoned. Getting into competitive triathlon saved my life as I quit smoking period. When pot possession was legalized in NYS a few years back I tried some with a friend. Wow! Today’s weed is way, way stronger that what I was inhaling 50 years ago. And again, I had to quit as it is really not the high that captivates me about pot, it’s the rush on the way to the high. So I am far more scared of weed than oxycodone and NYS has make damn sure now old men will become addicts by prescription pad.
So, what can I try?
david lamy
typo: … and NYS has made damn sure no[w] old men …
Ian Welsh
David,
In your place I’d be taking edibles. You can control the amount very precisely that way. Try it till you get it to an amount that controls the pain and no more.
I would suggest to at least consider using it before going to bed so you can sleep, but unless pot is your kryptonite, careful use for pain only usually doesn’t lead to addiction.
They have become terrible about proper pain relief. The docs are scared of the Feds and many of them have bought into the BS.
I’m sorry to hear you’re in so much pain and doctors are refusing relief. I’ve been there and it sucks.
In terms of faster healing, if your’re willing to inject yourself, look into TBC and BPC 157 (if only one, BPC.) In my experience they do work, and there are no serious side effects. (Don’t take BPC if you have cancer, it increases blood flow and that can increase spread.)
Keep us updated, and if you need to bitch you can always email me or just use this thread.
Mark Level
bruce wilder, very insightful analysis of the marketing of the shiny, not pretty faces of our political Elites, handmaidens to the real MOTUs, “Masters of the Universe.” Yes, Lincoln a deeply sophisticated politician, unlike Bill Clinton’s endless triangulation his was always to sideline his rivals and attain to power. Years ago, an older friend gave me a Xmas gift of Doris Kearns Goodwins’ Hagiophraphy of Lincoln, Team of Rivals. I didn’t read it until I had the time, sheltering during Covid, I saw thru her endless gaslighting. When he had the biggest mass-execution of Native people, he assiduously vetted the list and removed many presumed “not violent,” well, that’s pretty good but not entirely so. I remember a Dr. Who episode when it was still good, an evil Alien is about to destroy Central London (coz it’s the coolest place in the World), early on She’s interacting with a pregnant woman and devises some means to compel the woman to leave the area so she and her baby aren’t wiped out. The Dr. tells her at the end, that’s your little hors d’ouvre to imagine your not Pure Evil. I feel like Kearns-Goodwin’s feint was on that level.
K-G later got caught up in a Plagiarism scandal; when I was at the University of New Orleans in the 80s, there was a dude who got famous for a pretty stupid book, its thesis was that Russia is so evil because it’s Commie, they are actually worse than the 3rd Reich. I went to the event where food was being served, at least got a free meal out of listening to that bullshit. That dude later got into a major Plagiarism scandal as well.
Yes!! That was the History Professor Stephen Ambrose. Chrome wouldn’t help me at all, I switched to Firefox and opened DuckDuckGo, got the answer, he was listed with K-G in the “10 worst.” Oh, and a sop to LAS, Putin on both sites listed for plagiarism in his Economics degree. And let’s not forget he and the runt Zelensky were listed at the same time in the Panama Papers, hiding their riches so as not to pay taxes!!
This returns us to George Carlin’s “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it!” Well, actually it’s a pretty small club, bruce’s point that we voters (well, I sometimes vote, but know it’s futile) are the actual Big Club, but Advertising and Culture Wars neuter the voter sap’s from making any change. In my indictment of KT Chong, praising War Vigilant, I should have added that detail. KTC wastes his time bawling about Transgender women, dirty queers, he knows China’s a better country than USA for its people, as is Russia, but he’s doing nada to improve things here. He writes in fluent English so I am guessing he is ‘Murican or Canadian, in either case the point stands. Yeah, learn to “hate your neighbor and don’t forget to say grace” as The Eve of Destruction lyrics put it.
David Lamy I am 66, haven’t ridden a bike in years, much less mountain bikes!! Once when I lived in N’Awlins, was biking cross town to Jazz Fest, my front wheel slipped into a 14 inch (or nearly) giant pothole and I was thrown chin-1st over the handlebars, landed on my chin. Some road-rash and blood on my chin, luckily I did not lose any teeth or suffer greater damages. Sometimes strategic cowardice is a great prophylactic. Ian’s solution is one I’d agree with.
mago
@david lamy, what Ian said.
Perhaps I was unclear in my earlier post about the THC/CBD combo. I meant edibles. The WannaQuick strawberry daiquiri is my recommendation. It’s 1:1 with 5 milligrams of each. Cut it in half so it’s 2.5 to 2.5.
Hope this makes sense and hope you find some relief.
Um, you might want to explore microdosing shrooms with lion’s manes mushrooms, but I’ll say no more about that, at least not now not here.
Research herbal anti inflammatories. There are lots out there.
And just to leave on a less than cheerful universal note: what a drag it is getting old . . .
david lamy
To Ian and mago and Mark Level,
Thanks for the advice and commiserating!
I will try finding something to swallow and if necessary, inject.
Again, Ian and the regular cohort of commentators make this an invaluable place to lurk!
mago
Wishing you all the best david lamy and all the visitors and commentators on this site some of whose views I take issue with, but ultimately who I appreciate and send good wishes for realization of their mundane happiness and success however that may be defined.
Oakchair
@david lamy
You could try THC/CBD topicals –creams and lotions on the shoulder region. This wont get you high like edibles will though it’s tough to say if it will help as much.
There are studies that vitamin C reduces the risk of addiction, and harmful effects of drugs such as opioids, painkillers and THC and helps with pain. Getting vitamins through food will always be healthier than pills. Foods high in vitamin C include hot and mild peppers, fruits, berries, veggies in the broccoli family, and leafy green veggies.
Pain is your body trying to tell you something important. When you’re waking up with pain it may help if you tried a different sleeping position (on a recliner, or your back etc). It may take a while to get used to sleeping in a different position but medium to long term it could be effective.
People often use turmeric for pain and inflammation.
Before bed you could try teas chamomile, rose hips, and or hibiscus. They have some muscle, relaxing, anti-inflammatory properties.
Do regular physical activity that doesn’t cause pain. Avoiding physical activity because of pain is a trap that often occurs. A sedentary lifestyle causes pain, hinders recovery and worsens health. Find any physical activity that you can do and do it. Preferable something that is outdoors in nature and in the sun.
bruce wilder
Sorry to hear about your suffering, david lamy.
Acetaminophen is a strange thing to prescribe in your particular circumstance. Naproxen would make more medical sense. (Not medical advice, but maybe question the choice.)
bruce wilder
Zelensky was implicated in the Pandora Papers, not the Panama Papers.
Putin was not named in either, but various Russians were, (particularly in the Pandora Papers as I recall) and it was argued that some of those Russians were “close” associates or part of Putin’s “inner circle”.
In the end, I can only guess at the effect of personal corruption on leadership bias. I wish someone would bribe me, so I could experience the sensation.
Mark Level
I greatly respect Oakchair’s take on health issues. The guy does lots of research, knows whereof he speaks!!
Oh, another ort/scrap here. For whatever reason YouTube put up this hilarious clip of Ben Shapiro losing his shit when a Right Wing British podcaster calls out his racism and ignorance, from about 15 years ago. It is Comedy Gold. And it is fun because Ben was a Never-Trumper at the time, he also shares leaving Breitbart (a Fascist site, perfect for him) because Cory Lewandowski grabbed a woman staffer’s arm, was being thuggish. I’d bet Cory and Ben reconciled by Daddy’s 2nd term.
Link here– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbF2M_p2xoM
david lamy
A thank you to Oakchair and bruce wilder for chiming in with advice for this elderly man in pain!
bruce, acetaminophen and oxycodone are usually combined as percocet. Seems my surgeon wanted to stagger the constituents. I have heard from oral surgeons that naproxen is more effective for bone pain than other NSAIDs. I have started a course of naproxen.
Oakchair, thanks for the extensive post! I do eat a lot of the foods that satisfy your metrics presently. So, I could be worse! (Ouch!)
Part of my woes are definitely psychological. Four different bike rides in my life have ended in a ambulance due to being struck an automobile. Twice head-on (I make a habit of riding on the correct side of the road), once rear-ended and lastly, t-boned. These all happened at high speed. I ride fast.
This last boo-boo is on me. I turfed it but have no idea how. Since the onset of the COVID pandemic I came to realize that the risk of getting struck again by an addled driver was too great. So I switched to mountain biking for aerobic work with plans to ride my time trial bike on a local rail trail occasionally to keep the skill. I was peaking for an individual time trial coming in a few weeks. So much for that.
But for anyone still reading, Oakchair’s encouragement for me to exercise is exactly what I would dispense. But this time, for the first time in my life, I am not going to rush my cycling comeback. I’m gonna heal.
I originally intended to channel Mark Level, spud and others who can cover many topics by adding terrifice informative paragraphs. However, I have my limitations. So bye for tonight — I going to start reading Tony Wikrent’s weekly link fest.
mago
Happy solstice to all
Longest day in the Northern Hemisphere
Shortest in the Southern
Everything is crazy and upside down everywhere you go
Don’t let the bastards get you down
Sail on . . .
david lamy
One last tidbit about my injuries — I also have two broken ribs. A deep sigh taken while writing my last missive reminded me.
Again, my thanks to all commenting!
different clue
I have to go to work in a few minutes now, so here is a video I have just barely begun watching, but it seems promising so I will describe it briefestly and give the link.
“They Thought the Boycott Was a Joke Until the Shutdown Hit”
It begins with a news report called ” Dirty Dining” and it is about an inspection finding a huge number of safety violations at a Chinese restaurant. It then cuts to the Foundational Black American primary presenter of this video saying she knows that a number of FBAmericans are not yet supporting the boycott against Asian-owned businesses. But after watching this she suspects more will join and she sincerely hopes that those who still won’t join the boycott get very very sick. The unhappy campers are very unhappy indeed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbF0gigEJ84
It would appear like that Good Old Chinese Exceptionalism is maybe not All That exceptionally Exceptional. I wonder what K T Chong thinks about all this.
different clue
I have watched just a little deeper into the above-offered video, and it goes deeper. It starts discussing Black Power, not the noisy kind which talks about itself, but the silent kind which acts and builds, and build upon the action and acts further upon the building.
Certain commenters on here have sneered about ” American passivity” and “acceptance” of the Triple Nazi Revolution rollout in this country. I think this country is too big for them to understand and that opposition will move and build in channels they are not trained to recognize and see. It could succeed, it could fail.
But if it succeeds, and if the Foreigner decides to ” Fuck America Back” in any case, then a self-rescued America may well decide to ” Fuck FucBack Back ” the ” Fuck America Back” back-fuckers.
One much underestimated strain in American culture is the deeply suppressed Germanic strain which is still here despite the antigermanitic culture-racist antigermanism unleahsed by America’s most evil President, the fanatical anglophile Woodrow Wilson. And a part of that strain is a slow thirst for revenge, the kind of cold bitterness which believes that revenge is a dish best served over and over and over again.
different clue
Header: Garden Report.
This is my first garden report of the current season. This is everything I have done from Spring Thaw till now.
I deep-dug-and-mixed the soil in a 5ft X 15ft half of my 5ft X 30ft main raised bed. I tried to go down about 3 feet. Some of the stiff clay subsoil I set aside chunks of in a pile for a use I may put them to later. Others I broke up and mixed in as best as possible.
I found that most of the potatoes I dug up last fall had lasted till earliest June with either minimal sprouting or almost no sprouting at all. So I have planted a bunch of them to have another generation to work with. Also I planted some of the “less sprouty” purple potatoes that I bought at Plum Market. I focused on buying the knobby ones with big welts all over them with an eye in the “tip” of each welt. That looked a little closer to their original Andean ancestry though it may not actually be so.
Also, I saw something which until now I had only heard of. Some potatoes I missed in last Fall’s dig-up clearly survived over winter in the ground and began sprouting in late Spring. Volunteer potatoes. So I dug those up and replanted them in a better-prepared part of the bed. I want to see if they will produce potatoes and if so, are those potatoes a little more programmed to last over winter in the ground. If they do, there are more things I can try in the next couple of years. If they don’t, its all data either way.
Most of my garlic from last Fall finally dried up or dry-rotted and died in amateur closet storage. I bought a bunch of bulbs of the second hottest garlic I have ever had at Plum Market and planted them out in Spring in hopes they will grow and multiply enough to replant. Also I planted the few garlic which lasted in storage from last Fall to this Late Spring.
That part of bed I dug up and deep mixed I then scatter broadcast-planted with a mixture of seed . . . clover, buckwheat, “sprouting broccoli”, and a several-species mix of ” Mixed protein sprouts” seeds . . . one of which is alfalfa. I got a green veggie-lawn starting to grow over that bed.
Two days ago I dug 26 6-inch-wide 6-inch-deep holes into that bed through the low carpet of green seedlings. At the bottom of each I planted a bunch of corn seeds. Since I am bored for the moment with Hickory Cane corn, I planted kornels stripped off some of the ornamental Indian corn-ears i have bought over time because of interesting appearance. Some mice found them in amateur storage and ate many kernels off SOME of the ears. So I have planted other kernels off those same ears. If I end up getting any actual corn from this, I will call it ” Mouse’s Choice”. I am guessing the mice excercised some culinary judgement as to which they liked and which they disdained to even try. And this first planting is of Big or Biggish kernel corn-ears.
Chipmunks were watching. Before I had even finished finalizing the last planted hole . . . with more soil over the planted watered corn and fine cut grass clippings on top of all that, a chipmunk had jumped down into one of the holes to dig up the kernels.
I scared it away, went inside and came back out with some buckwheat to put down for the chipmunk(s), to make it/them happy and keep it/them busy, and it appears to work so far. I will lightly water the surface of the corn holes to keep moisture up right around the kernels so that have a steady input of moisture to uptake water fastest and sprout and grow soonest.
Ornamentals are growing. Of 6 kale plants I bought and planted, something ate them all mostly off. i assumed groundhog. But then something ate off the tender tips of some of my goldenrod plants and I think it has to be deer. A groundhog would have smashed them down to get at the tips, and that didn’t happen The tips were neatly eaten off, clearly from above.
different clue
Funny video.
From the AnimalsBeingDerps subreddit . . . ” When Both of You Agree Exercise Is Overrated”
https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimalsBeingDerps/comments/1udhrg6/when_both_of_you_agree_exercise_is_overrated/
different clue
And here, from the justgalsbeingchicks subreddit, a talk about systematic misogynism taught to med-students and new doctors in training throughout the national American medical industrial complex. Is it still true?
“CRNA Amy Rieschick on institutionalized medical misogyny”
https://www.reddit.com/r/justgalsbeingchicks/comments/1uducip/crna_amy_rieschick_on_institutionalized_medical/
different clue
Header: Volunteer Potatoes specifically: facts and speculation.
I got curious about “volunteer potatoes” so I looked up about it. Apparently it is heard of, known, and considered a problem in farming systems where potatoes and other things are being grown. It is considered enough of a problem that methods have been/are being worked on to control it.
“Volunteer potato risk in Michigan
Abigail Cohen, Hannah Johnson, Erin Burns, Jaime Willbur and Zsofia Szendrei, Michigan State University Extension – November 21, 2024”
https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/volunteer-potato-risk-in-michigan
And here is an article about volunteer potatoes targeted specifically at gardeners.
“Do Potatoes Grow Back Every Year? Yes, but Don’t Let Them
By Ciara Kornhaus ”
https://www.tinygardenhabit.com/do-potatoes-grow-back-every-year-yes-but-dont-let-them/
Despite the title, the article just above suggests that you “can” let the volunteers grow as a simple little experiment.
Reading this has already put me a little bit ahead of where I thought I might be with the re-transplanted volunteer potatoes that I am growing this year. I can already think about replanting the most/best potatoes I get from best performing replanted volunteers to see what they do when managed as normally planted potatoes. I could then soon after experiment with planting some of them in fall on purpose to see how many survive the winter to grow the next year, and save and replant and re-replant and re-re-replant the best fall-planted next-spring-emerging for a population which can do this reliably.
If I get such a population, then I could think about what i could do with potatoes who have this particular reliable talent.
different clue
Yesterday I fork-dug and mixed the soil in my last major bed, and dug up yet another one of those volunteer potatoes. I cast it aside without replanting because I have already planted enough of them. But I noted that the little potato plant was emerging from a still hard still unblemished redskin potato almost 1.5 inches in diameter. If that potato itself is still firm when I get back home, I will bury it just to see what it can do.
My planted corn seeds have still not come up and I am losing patience.