Made the trip from PA to MA yesterday, which has always been a sort of cutesy use of abbreviations. We’ve come to MA and sometimes ME from PA, for the last 30-plus years, to visit Mom and Dad, among others.

Anyway, we’ve made the trip many times over the years, and the complaint is usually the same—once we hit CT, all bets are off regarding how long it will take to go from the NY border to the MA border.

Yesterday was momentous, if only because it was closer to the realization of one’s worst nightmare when trying to go from Point A to Point B. Between heavy merging, congestion, and construction, there were only rare stretches where highway speeds were reached between the border with New York and the other side of Waterbury. Most of the time it was standing still or creeping along at 20 MPH. At least the MPG number was trending in the right direction. Made up a little bit for the slowness after getting through Hartford.

Every time I drive the route, I tell myself to avoid getting caught up in going with the flow, which sometimes means going 80 or higher. I start with good intentions of honoring the speed limit, but most times end up being grateful that I’m off the treadmill and have made it in one piece.

*Or some other more current Formula 1 racer…  

Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump?

How about IBS or congestive heart failure; liver and onions or that abomination that passed for fish chowder in elementary school?

DeSantis or Trump. Maybe they should run on the same ticket. Ya, that’s it! Then there would be a tear in the time/space continuum that returns us to the Middle Ages, to feudal times when ignorance and superstition reigned supreme, people died from splinters and plagues, and you were lucky to live beyond your thirties.

That sounds something like where we’d be heading if either one of these clowns were to prevail.

Not sure why Joe Biden wants to run again– maybe to polish a legacy?

It’s mostly about his age for me. It already seems like he’s not all there, evidenced by his seeming physical fragility and periodic public gaffs. Isn’t there anyone else in the Democratic party who can step forward and handle the job?

I assume this is the plan at the moment because strategists see Joe as still being electable, a sane, middle-of-the-road alternative to the collection of wasted breath and brain drain on the Republican side. I guess this makes me an ageist, or whatever, but Biden in 2024 sounds rather unappealing. He was, somehow, the person for the job in 2020, mostly because he wasn’t Donald Trump. But not this time around.

Seems like the Dems could do better. Or maybe they can’t?

They just don’t get it. Well-intentioned? I’m sure they think so. Or maybe it’s just more of the heavy-handedness that has become a trademark of religious conservatism.

The Ten Commandments will be displayed in all classrooms in Texas public schools, if a new law passes. I guess it could be worse, but that’s not the point. The separation of church and state has been part of the fabric of this country from the beginning, because the founders desired that people have the right to choose for themselves, and they were likely to have known a bit about what had happened in Europe when the church got involved in politics and governance: it often didn’t go well.

The church does its best work when it is a voice on the periphery, and not at the center of attention in the town square. This doesn’t mean its members can’t be faithful and follow Jesus and try to be like him. It does mean that the church– or any religious body– can’t be calling the shots in state legislatures across the land.

And let’s make sure we know which “church” is being talked about. It’s the God-fearing, mostly white men and women of conservative Christian churches across the land who carry on as if the New Testament doesn’t exist, and who think everyone must believe as they do.

No, thanks.

It’s something I’ve often wondered if we’d ever see—California lifting its water bans and declaring that reservoirs are nearing capacity for the first time in a long time. Drought for years on end seemed to be the new normal in California, adding to the long list of natural disasters to befall the state from season to season. But, finally, amazingly, not this season.

Oroville is approaching full, Lake Shasta is at 94% capacity and rising, the San Joaquin Valley and other agricultural and municipal segments will receive 100% allocations for the first time since 2006.

And the snow pack is just starting to melt. May this windfall be managed well.

It might make a difference to hospital staff if they know a bit about the people they’re taking care of.

My mother is still in the hospital for treatment following a stroke that happened over a week ago. My wife wrote a one-page bio, an introduction to Mom, and my sister added a nice border with hearts and flowing lines that make it look kind of like a frame, and they taped it to the wall next to the O2 outlet.

People are reading it, and while it wouldn’t surprise me if some staff really don’t want to get to know their patients even on a superficial level, I’m wondering if it hasn’t made a positive difference in Mom’s care. In little ways, perhaps, but at least she has become more than a difficult patient who can’t always cooperate or converse, except in nonsensical phrases, because she had a stroke last week.

I’m pretty sure this effort to humanize Mom has made a difference in the way her caregivers are seeing her.

The wrong house, the wrong driveway, the wrong car, and the price paid is being shot, maybe killed over this costly mistake.

No such thing as an innocent mistake. Just insanely costly ones.

My teams are both in their respective playoffs—Celtics and Bruins. They’ve had pretty decent seasons, especially the Bruins. Guess we’ll see how far they can go. It’s hard to believe they’ll still be playing hockey in June, though not that hard.

Oh, the wonders of modern refrigeration. What’ll they think of next?

The Dominion v Fox suit is on tap for today, though it sounds like maybe a settlement is in the works. So it really is about the money, as always. It’s not about company pride or libel or whatever—it’s just making sure the settlement is big enough to make people happy, and small enough to avoid bankruptcy.

What I wonder is if a settlement is expected to make the whole thing go away. Like it never happened? Like Fox News can just get on with its paranoid, alternate universe approach to news?

The powers that be at Fox were so worried about market share they just made stuff up and tried to drag a reputable company through the mud in the process.

So that’s journalism? Find another word.

The Boston Marathon happened yesterday, on a cool, cloudy, foggy, and rainy Monday morning along the route from Hopkinton to Boston. I watched the start of the wheelchair racers and just missed the start of the elite groups going off for both men and women.

These athletes are truly in a class by themselves. The eventual wheelchair winners were so far in front that they had multiple-minute leads only a few minutes into the race. They were racing against the clock because there were no other racers in sight who could give them any kind of competition. The elite men were running 4:37 miles consistently for the first few miles, which, for the lack of a better word, is sick in an impressive way.

Marathon athletes are just a special breed.