Microposts
Saturday, August 9
(5) Child says ‘Wow!’ after Mozart’s Masonic Funeral Music - Symphony Hall, Boston. - YouTube
Exclusive: US Air Force denies early retirement for group of transgender service members | Reuters
“i am sorry, i did not open the doors when i said i had. that was my mistake. the doors are now open”
Friday, August 8
“I asked Grok!” “I asked ChatGPT!” “Well, I asked Franziska von Karma and she says a fool who doesn’t think is more foolish than a fool who foolishly thinks!”
care shield law](https://www.advocate.com/politics/massachusetts-trans-abortion-shield-law)
Astronaut James Lovell, Apollo 13 commander, dies at 97 | AP News
Ex-Superman actor Dean Cain says he’s becoming ICE agent
Trump fires IRS Chief after Senate orders audit of Epstein’s finances
US Air Force to deny retirement pay to transgender service members
Tech CEOs have lavished gifts and praise on Trump, gaining access
Wednesday, August 6
Who needs a quick wholesome story break? So I grew up in the middle of nowhere, Ohio. My house was in the center of a bunch of neighboring cornfields.
We didn’t get Girl Scouts, encyclopedia salesfolks, knife sharpening, or proselytizers. I read about some of the door-to-door stuff in books, but I had never seen an ice cream truck.
One day, I heard music, and my mom looked out the window and did something strange and rare (we didn’t have a lot growing up). She handed us money from her purse and said, “RUN, I will give them directions after you get your ice cream; they must be SO lost.”
So, my sister and I ran. I don’t even remember what I got. I remember it was sweet and cold. I remember my bare feet pounding on the grass in the front yard. I remember panting in the sun. But I have never, ever forgotten the magic of that day.
Well, now I live in a big town! In a neighborhood! And I have heard ice cream trucks go by in recent years. But none this year.
So I called an ice cream truck that I googled, asking if they ever came by. “We’re not out at a lot of places, gas prices being what they are, but we are doing events.” “Events like… birthdays?” I asked. “Yeah!” “Y’all free for an hour on June 27?”
Today, we had a small and careful outdoor party. And I asked them to tally up the ice cream at the end, and I’d cover it. It was great fun, and my inner child was greatly pleased.
I had a snocone and a TMNT Raphael with bubblegum eyes and a blue raspberry Icee pop, but my favorite part of the day—my favorite part of the MONTH—was the neighbor kids coming by. Running. Bicycling. Money tucked tightly in their fists.
And I’m not like a wealthy person. I’m a musician. But I have never felt richer than when I gestured to the kids who followed the music and said, “The ice cream is free.”
Nobody abused my hospitality, and it’d honestly probably be okay if they had. But I got to give some kids a tiny bit of the magic that that one terribly lost ice cream truck gave me on a summer day when I was a kid.
Rylee Marcotte, a technical sergeant with the Air Force who has served for about 13 years, was hoping to be able to wear her uniform to her final outprocessing appointment before being involuntarily separated. […] She was told she had to report in uniform – not civilian clothes – but a male uniform. […] “So now I am outprocessing the Air Force at Fairchild Air Force Base virtually, when four minutes south of me is the military personnel flight – I can walk there – but I’m not being allowed to walk out in uniform,” she said.
Troops are also frustrated about their service suddenly being categorized as somehow less than honorable, because it goes against many of the things they’ve been told over their many years of service, often citing years of stellar evaluations and fitness reports, awards and professional accomplishments.
“For every $1 a grandmother in Iowa donates believing she’s saving democracy, $0.98 goes to consultants and operational costs. Just pennies reach actual campaigns.(https://data4democracy.substack.com/p/the-mothership-vortex-an-investigation)"
DOJ says trans people don’t exist in military ban case](https://www.advocate.com/news/doj-trans-people-dont-exist)
“It explicitly rejects their genders, stating, ‘Defendants deny that Plaintiff [Second Lieutenant Nicolas] Talbott is a man. Plaintiff Talbott is a female who identifies as a male.’”
The cruelty’s the point.
Researchers’ hold a ‘science fair’ for projects cut by the Trump administration : NPR
Tuesday, August 5
TheMaineWonk: $66/hr. That’s what the minimum wage would need to be today to match the home-buying power Boomers had in the 1970s. Trickle down economics doesn’t work, has never worked and will never work in an oligarchical society.
Mildred Kapleck with her Pet Opossum
Howard Chalkyin - Star Wars
Saturday, August 2
Every time someone saves a puppy, John Wick puts a pencil back in his pocket.