Random Notes from a Crank

I started watching the Disney+ animated series Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, and it's pretty good. It's an alternate take on the Peter Parker/Spider-Man story from what I can tell so far. 

I'm sure there are some anti-woke/DEI morons on Twitter and FoxNews who are complaining that the Norman Osborn character is a black man. 

And the series features the diversity that makes up New York City. 

The Republicans in Congress are a bunch of cowards for not strongly rebuking Moscow Don's misinformation LIES about the Ukraine War, siding with Putin and Russia, and calling Zelenskyy a "dictator." 

What a bunch of craven charlatans.

Siding with Russia does not make America great. Doing so does not even make the U.S. good. 

As reported by the New York Times, a recent Gallup survey shows the 1 in 10 Americans identify as queer, with the bulk of the respondents being of the younger generation.  

The actual percentage is 9.3% with 5.2% of that percentage being bisexual. 

These percentages fly in the face of current administration's rolling back of L.G.B.T.Q initiatives. 

I hope queer folks vote in the midterms and the next Presidential election. 

Random Notes from a Crank

Thomas Friedman has a great opinion piece in the New York Times: "Why Trump's Bullying Is Going to Backfire." 

The basic premise is that all this talk about using tariffs is a bunch of hokum and/or patented nonsense because most products rely on several countries. Friedman uses the examples of the car industry and the iPhone, which apparently uses 50 different countries to be produced. 

If one needs any more proof that Moscow Don is a traitor, consider that he wants to give away territory in Ukraine to Putin and has stated that Ukraine started the war. 

I'm glad Zelensky has called out President Adolf's lies. 

It's clear to our allies in Europe that the U.S. cannot be trusted as detailed in "Musk and Trump Are Causing the Dumbest Imperial Collapse in History" from The American Prospect. 

Random Notes from a Crank

If I were a betting man, I'd bet that Congressional Republicans are going to reduce funding to or simply eliminate Medicaid to help try to offset their tax breaks for the rich. 

A repost on Bluesky the other day shared a great article shared by Charles Gaba shows by congressional district how many and what numbers and percentages of people are enrolled in such government programs. 

In my district, House District 15 of Illinois, 25.6% of the population depends on them. I would venture to guess that a number of those folks voted for President Adolf. 

If you're interested, it's "How Many People Have Medicaid/CHIP Coverage in YOUR Congressional District?"

I'm not much a gaming kind of guy. I had an Atari back in the day, and Mrs. Nasty and I got a Playstation as one of our wedding gifts, but other than that, there's only two games I've really played in the past five years. The first was Stars Wars Commander, which was a lot of fun and went defunct years ago. 

The past month I've gone back to the 80s. I'm playing Tetris. 

I find the game kind of calming for whatever reason. 

It seems pretty clear to me that President Adolf and his dumb-ass Secretary of Defense are going to "negotiate" in favor of Putin acquiring Ukrainian territories unless NATO gets involved, which they should. 

Read about it in the New York Times: "Warming Trend in U.S.-Russia Relations Leaves Ukraine in a Tough Spot." 

Random Notes from a Crank

Jennifer Berskhire has a great article in The Nation that anyone who cares about public education should read. It's titled "Why Teachers Are Dropping Out." 

Because of a confluence of low pay, exploitation, shitty benefits, attacks against teacher unions, and stupid cultural battles about what's being taught in classrooms that is aided and abetted by Fox Faux News and other right-wing media outlets, I worry about the teachers we're losing in public education. 

Then again, having witnessed the sorry state of social studies education my daughter has gotten in her high school, some of those folks' teaching practices (or lack thereof) need to be examined. They wouldn't know squat about critical race theory and would only hazily understand it. Unfortunately, as the stereotype goes, the social studies faculty all too often are an intellectual backwater of coaches. 

The crap going on in Iowa in regard to K-12 education, for example, is ridiculous. And other nonsense like that is happening in other states. 

Meanwhile as Russia's invasion of Ukraine goes on, the ratings leader of Faux News, Tucker Carlson, is a darling of Russia's state-run propaganda machine: "How Russia Is Using Tucker Carlson In Its Propaganda." 

Musing of the Moment: Opening Word Gambits for Wordle

With the ruble in free-fall because of the economic sanctions against Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine, I wonder if "ruble" will come as the word of the day on Wordle. 

Hell, they used "rupee" the other day, so why not ruble? 

When I do Wordle, my opening word gambits are typically the following:

• stern
• juicy
• moist

I do the latter two just for the "Ewww..." factor I get from using them. I pine for the day when I start with "juicy" and I get it on the first try. 

A person I know usually starts with "adieu" because that word narrows down the vowel choices quickly. That's smart. 

Musing of the Moment: Russian Aggression & Memories

When I was a kid, I worried about a lot of things. In particular, I followed politics closely. During high school, for example, I subscribed to The New Republic, and that interest in national and global politics carried on into college and thereafter. 

So as Putin directs Russian troops to take over Ukraine (that's what he's really wanting to do), I'm reminded of the many nights I laid in bed not sleeping because I was worrying about nuclear annihilation because of the Cold War with the US and the U.S.S.R. aiming missiles at each other. 

The difference between then and now is that Republican leaders didn't actively praise Russian autocrats. 

I've called the former president #MoscowDon over the years for a reason.