Vending machines eggs. Just one more reason to love British Columbia. Check Dougie out on CTV’s Farming for Love.
“I wanna show her how we do things on our dairy.” Yikes.
“Farming for Love” looks like must watch t.v. Wait til’ the end for the best line, “If you have more than 5,000 acres, please slide into my DMs.”
From “Why North Korea’s Princess Will Never Wear The Crown”.
“A dozen female defectors who had been architects and doctors told me that while they could only sell scrap metal or work at public bathhouses in Seoul, they were happier and treated more fairly.”
72% of the people who have fled to South Korea are women.
Allegedly, Succession was inspired by the Murdoch family. It was the rare show that got better and better for four consecutive years and then pulled the plug at its heights.
The main characters’ greatest flaws all reached a crescendo in the final episodes. Tom admitted he loves money and thinks about it all the time. Tom and Shiv detailed what they most hated about one another. And Kendall intimated he might die if not put in charge of the family empire after the patriarch’s death.
Three of the patriarch’s children desperately tried, but failed miserably, to emulate his business success. Psychologically, the fourth, an eccentric who separated himself and dabbled in politics, fared better.
Viewers liked the depictions of extreme wealth. I found the second generation’s psychological maladies more interesting. How do you overcome largely absent, uninterested, uncaring parents? Childhood trauma. In Kendall’s, Rome’s, and Shiv’s case, you don’t.
Yesterday, I mowed the lawn with someone who is in the process of overcoming not just absent, uninterested, and uncaring parents, but abusive ones. Stephanie Foo, author of What My Bones Know.
Foo’s book in short.
“By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD–a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years.Both of Foo’s parents abandoned her when she was a teenager, after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she’d moved on, but her new diagnosis illuminated the way her past continued to threaten her health, relationships, and career. She found limited resources to help her, so Foo set out to heal herself, and to map her experiences onto the scarce literature about C-PTSD.”
Foo has severed all ties with her birth family and is fashioning a new one of choice consisting of close friends who love her, her partner, and her soon to be child.
The Roy’s probably would’ve been better off following Foo’s footsteps. But they couldn’t resist the lure of their family’s wealth, status, and power. And had they gone full Foo, it wouldn’t have been nearly as good television.
From the New York Times:
“Many Americans say they do not want President Biden to run for re-election, and his age is a big reason. In an NBC News poll released last weekend, 70 percent of adults said Mr. Biden, who is 80, should not run again. Asked if age was a factor, 69 percent of them said yes. Other recent surveys detect a similar lack of enthusiasm, with many voters — including around half of Democrats — calling him too old to seek the White House again.”
Historians will look very favorably on Biden’s first term. I appreciate every single way he’s the complete opposite of the previous President.
But count me among the aforementioned 70%, 69%, and the “around half” group of voters. For one reason. Diane Feinstein.
I can’t criticize California’s voters for electing an octogenarian and then do the same thing. Especially in one’s 80s, as Feinstein demonstrates, mental and physical health can go south very, very quickly. Why take that risk when we don’t have to?
Given the cultural differences between Onalaska, WA and Cambridge, MA, three thousand miles may as well be thirty thousand.
Maybe someday Harvard-bound Brooklyn Sandrindge will make a film about her Onalaska to Cambridge journey. I cycled all around Onalaska, WA last Saturday. There may be more cows in Lewis County than people. It’s as small, rural, and politically conservative as it gets.
I spent the summer between my sophomore and junior college years doing internships in Boston, often taking the “T” to Cambridge on Friday nights to listen to street music, eat pizza by the slice, and browse used book stores.
Cambridge is a wee bit bigger, more urban, and progressive than Onalaska. Sandrindge’s transition will not be easy, but I’m guessing she’ll rise to the occasion.
In 2018, nearly six million Californian voters gave 84 year-old U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein a relatively easy victory over her rival.
Fast forward five years.
From the NYT:
“The grim tableau of her re-emergence on Capitol Hill laid bare a bleak reality known to virtually everyone who has come into contact with her in recent days: She was far from ready to return to work when she did, and she is now struggling to function in a job that demands long days, near-constant engagement on an array of crucial policy issues and high-stakes decision-making.”
Just how unfit is she?
“. . . Ms. Feinstein appeared confused about the warm greeting when a small group of reporters asked about it days later.
“’I haven’t been gone,’ she said. When pressed on whether she meant that she had been working from home, she pushed back in a manner that suggested she might not have been aware of her long and politically charged absence. ‘I’ve been here,’ she said, appearing to grow agitated. ‘I’ve been voting. Please, either know or don’t know.'”
Lots of people are growing agitated at her family and staff for not forcing the issue of her resignation, in part to preserve what’s left of her considerable legacy. But few are digging deep enough to lay the blame with the six million voters who elected her in 2018.
Many, like Parkinson’s researcher Tim Greenmayre, wear lab coats.
Greenmayre says there’s no good time to be diagnosed with Parkinson’s, but this is the best time in history to be diagnosed with it because things are on the horizon that may change the course of the disease and slow it down or even stop it.
This Science piece is Greenmayre’s story and an overview of his lab’s cutting edge research.
24 year-old Australian, Minjee Lee, is the 6th ranked women’s golfer in the world. At this week’s LPGA event, she starts the final round with a three stroke lead on the field. Great player, even better product endorser. In fact, I challenge you to find a better one.
What I wanted.
What I got.
Alternative title—Y Not.
Postscript. Forty-five years ago I drove, rescued, cleaned, and parked electric car(t)s at Los Alamitos Country Club in Los Alamitos, CA. For $2.65/hour. Initial impressions of this one after the drive home from Seattle as compared to the ones I herded in the late 70’s. Steeper learning curve, but a wee bit nicer.
That was the message on the “TRUMP 2024” sign on Old Military Rd in Tenino, WA yesterday as I cycled by. Which got me thinking.
Who took America? When did they take it? Where did they take it? The Good Wife said the answer to the first question is “obviously liberals”. But I’m a liberal and I haven’t taken it anywhere. So some subset of liberals? Even then, there’s the other questions.
If you happen to find it, please report its whereabouts.
Pressing Pause 