When I read stories about preventable chaos in the US, I sometimes feel enraged. But sometimes I weep.
As I read that the regime has, per the LA Times [paywall likely], “reversed the U.S. government’s longstanding scientific conclusion that planet-heating pollution seriously threatens Americans, erasing a foundational piece of the country’s efforts to address climate change,” I fret, What kind of country are we leaving my daughter? I cry a bit.
.
“The repeal of the 2009 endangerment finding — a conclusion based on decades of science that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare — represents one of the biggest environmental rollbacks in U.S. history…” One of? Then I get ticked off again.
ICE detention
Democracy Now highlights “The Children of Dilley.” “That’s the title of a new ProPublica investigation into the South Texas Family Residential Center, a sprawling ICE detention complex in the town of Dilley, a few dozen miles from the southern border with Mexico. It’s run by the private prison company CoreCivic. Dilley was first opened by the Obama administration in 2014.”
It’s a place “where families describe horrific conditions inside, such as being served contaminated food, with children and parents at times finding worms in their meals. Lights are reportedly left on for 24 hours a day. [It] detains an estimated 3,500 people, more than half of them children.
“There are also mounting reports of psychological abuse by guards, some of whom have allegedly threatened families with separation. ‘Many of the children who are now being sent there are being arrested by ICE around the country, and some of them, like Ariana, have been living [in the U.S.] for years,’ says Mica Rosenberg, investigative reporter at ProPublica.”
Sadism makes me weep.
Measles
What REALLY did me in, though, was a story in The Atlantic. I don’t currently have a subscription, but there is a feature called “One Story to Read Today” that “highlights a single newly published—or newly relevant—Atlantic story that’s worth your time.”
The title was This Is How A Child Dies Of Measles by Elizabeth Bruenig. From the excerpt: “You don’t want to worry your daughter, so you try to sound calm when you call the pediatrician and describe her symptoms at a rapid clip. The receptionist responds gently, types swiftly, and then pauses. Are your children vaccinated? she asks. Her tone is flat and inscrutable, but you detect an undercurrent of judgment. You wince and tell her the truth. No, you say, no vaccines. She puts you on hold.
“While you wait, you take your son out of his high chair and wipe his runny nose with his bib. The receptionist is back. She asks if you can be at the office within the hour. In an even, professional voice, she gives you a number to call as soon as you arrive, but tells you to stay in your car. The doctor, she says, will come to you.”
And then
“You’re there in 30 minutes, unshowered and wearing sweatpants, with your daughter bundled up and shivering in her pajamas and your son fussing in his car seat. You call the office. From the car, you cannot see the sign on the pediatrician’s office door instructing patients with a list of symptoms, like your daughter’s, not to come inside. Flashes of the pandemic play back as you see the pediatrician and two nurses approaching in the rearview mirror wearing N95 masks. It hits you: This is not the flu. This is not chicken pox. This is serious.”
If that isn’t gutting enough to make me weep, there’s a twist.
Non-Cooperation: When does cooperation become complicity? And what other choice is there?
Everything Is for Sale: Exploiting the 250th Anniversary of US Independence for Yet Another Grift
The EPA repealed the bedrock scientific finding that says greenhouse gases threaten human life and well-being. It means the agency can no longer regulate them.
The White House regularly circulates imagery that has been manipulated by A.I. But the photo of Nekima Levy Armstrong was different.
The Hardest Part of Fighting Fascism Comes After the Fascists Have Fallen
Dying in Broad Daylight. ‘This Is a Wake-Up Call’: Critics Disgusted as Billionaire Bezos Guts Washington Post. “Oligarchs are not the benevolent saviors media have long depicted them to be.”
Was Jeffrey Epstein running a kompromat operation for Russia?
Grid reliability projected to decline as data centers drive demand, watchdog says
A drop in CDC health alerts leaves doctors flying blind.
The World Factbook has sunset. It served the Intelligence Community and the general public as a longstanding, one-stop basic reference about countries and communities around the globe. [As a librarian, I used this source all of the time for info about other countries.]
Wordsmith: read especially the email of the week and limericks
The United States of consumption – Our trash and our lives, here and abroad
Clowns + Firefighters = Police? and The Video Game System That Ran Up a $500,000 Bill, and Why is Mark Zuckerberg Suing Facebook?and The San Francisco Egg War
O’Hara
Catherine O’Hara, “Home Alone” and “Schitt’s Creek” actress, died at age 71 after a brief illness. . I especially loved her in SCTV and the mockumentaries such as Best In Show (2000), A Mighty Wind (2003), and For Your Consideration (2006). Top 10 Greatest Moments. Monologue: Musical Improvisation – Saturday Night Live.
She had previously revealed a diagnosis of dextrocardia with situs inversus, a rare congenital condition characterized by an abnormal positioning of the heart, which ismostly benign but highly peculiar. Her cause of death was pulmonary embolism, with rectal cancer as the underlying cause.
Good news
Complexly, the media company that produces Crash Course, SciShow, Eons, Bizarre Beasts, Study Hall, and more has always been privately owned by Hank and John Green. It is now a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit! “It’s never been easier to find information, but it’s also never been harder to know what to trust”. In addition to accessing more support from foundations and grants, this change means we can accept tax-deductible donations from you! You can donate to support our work at any time at complexly.org.
The day before DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s termination of Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation, U.S. District Court Judge Ana C. Reyes stopped that termination until a pending court case worked its way through the courts. TPS holders participate in the workforce at an exceptionally high rate of 94.6%. Haitian TPS holders pay $1.3 billion a year in taxes, and through their work in sectors that are desperate for laborers, they add about $3.4 billion to the U.S. economy annually.
Open Letter to Tech Companies: Protect Your Users From Lawless DHS Subpoenas
ICE plans to build mega warehouses for immigration detention spark growing concern
Illness Is Rampant Among Children Trapped in ICE’s Massive Jail in Texas
A.Word.A.Day: kleptocrat – A politician or an official who uses their position to enrich themselves.
United States Boycotts UN Human Rights Review. The move sets “a terrible precedent that would only embolden dictators and autocrats and dangerously weaken respect for human rights at home and abroad.”
SCOTUS ruling allows ICE to use racial profiling in Los Angeles raids.
Israel’s Attacks on Seed Banks Destroy Millennia of Palestinian Cultural Heritage, and Israel Bombs Hamas Ceasefire Negotiating Team in Doha
Lysenkoism Comes to America: As RFK Jr. purges the CDC and cancels billions in research grants, Americans need a refresher course on what happened to Soviet biological research during the Stalin years.
Submit Your Official Comment Against the EPA’s Plan to Rescind Its Ability to Limit Greenhouse Gas Emissions Created By Any Industry and Gut Vehicle Standards Needed to Fight Climate Change
Tax cuts helped health giants dodge billions while patients faced higher costs and denials.
In Memoriam: Mark Volman of the Turtles (1947-2025). From Stuart Mason: The masterpiece of the album The Battle of the Bands was ‘Elenore,’ simultaneously an absolutely deathless sunshine pop classic and a not particularly subtle middle finger to White Whale Records.
Supertramp co-founder, singer, and keyboardist Rick Davies died at the age of 81 after a 10-year battle with Multiple Myeloma. 5 standout Rick Davies tracks by Supertramp.
How to champion libraries in Congress: a free virtual event on Tuesday, September 9 at 5 PM ET / 4 PM CT / 2 PM PT, where ALA policy experts and special guests will share updates, inspiring stories, and how you can pitch in at the start of this school year.
Mike Lindell & MyStore: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Marvel v. DC: The 25-Cent War from Tales From My Spinner Rack! by Gary Sassaman
Now I Know: The Dancing Plague and The Baseball Player With The Special ID, and He Bought His Freedom With Fake Money, and Why Some Movies Can’t Give it a Rest, and His Hometown Went to Pot? and Excel Has Bad Genes
ICE Raids and DC Occupation
Make democracy work part of ordinary life, not an add-on (ht/Paul Tonko). Lauren DesRosiers quoted Audre Lorde: “Every day of your lives is practice in becoming the person you want to be. No instantaneous miracle is suddenly going to occur and make you brave and courageous and true. And every day that you sit back silent, refusing to use your power, terrible things are being done in our name.”
DHS is using the Bible to promote ICE, claiming ‘righteous’ fight against immigrants. The agency refers to Scripture, including Micah 6:8, as it seeks to recruit agents.
New York State has seen a surge in ICE arrests, with totals four times the number seen during the same June-July period last year.
Don’t Let ICE’s Legal Abuses Stop You From Asserting Your Rights
My Congressperson, US Rep. Paul Tonko: “I traveled to the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia… This visit was even more urgent given the results of a report from ICE’s Office of the Inspector General from an unannounced facility inspection earlier this summer. The report found the facility and ICE staff were not in compliance with federal law and used excessive, inappropriate force, including striking detainees and spraying them with pepper spray.
“Despite the pressing need for oversight and in violation of federal law that grants me and all Members of Congress access to these facilities, I was denied at the gate. The facility guards blocking my entry went so far as to confirm that they knew they were in violation of the law. If they are fine ignoring the legal rights of a Member of Congress, what does that mean for our own communities and individuals who are detained?”
You may or may not be able to read my state senator, Pat Fahy’s, newest op-ed in the Times Union, “about the paramilitary-type tactics taking over our streets.
“No visible identification, no judicial warrants, no due process – these are setting a dangerous precedent for Americans and normalizing paramilitary secret police style tactics on our streets. That’s why I introduced legislation to prohibit ICE agents from wearing masks or face coverings during civil immigration enforcement in New York.
“Security and humanity can both exist, and instilling fear will not create the immigration reforms we need to enrich America and honor its legacy.”
Kudos to them both.
MUSIC
Not Me No Way – Rebecca Jade ℗ 2025 Ultimate Vibe Recordings, Released on: 2025-08-18
Coverville 1545: Cover Stories for Steve Martin and Modest Mouse and 1546: The Mamas & The Papas Cover Story
The Mamas & The Papas cover Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart songs: My Heart Stood Still (from One Dam’ Thing after Another, 1927); Glad To Be Unhappy (from On Your Toes, 1936); Sing For Your Supper (from The Boys from Syracuse, 1938). They sang those three songs and Here In My Heart (from Dearest Enemy, 1925) for Rodgers and Hart Today, a salute to the composers, which aired March 2, 1967, on ABC TV, then reworked it as No Salt On Her Tail.
I’ve been experiencing what they used to call manic depression. My highs can be really high and often unexpected. But my lows might be rage-fueled tantrums.
In music, which I’ve listened to dozens of times before, I’m often struck by how emotional I will get. Familiar pieces can bring me extraordinary joy – or great contemplation. An example of the former: The Concerto in F by George Gershwin is a recently heard example.
This tale of a memorial service brought me familiar recognition.
Here’s a wonderful bio piece about first niece Rebecca Jade for a concert she performed last week.
I loved the clue on a recent JEOPARDY so much that I stopped the recording – I watch almost nothing in real time – to point it out to my wife. 3 CONSONANTS IN A ROW, $800. “The comical coinage aibohphobia describes the fear of this type of word.” What is palindromes? I should have gotten it because it was used before, in 1999. PALINDROMES, $1000. “The whimsical coinage ‘aibohphobia’ means this.” What is fear of palindromes? It was a triple stumper both times.
I am bemused and more than slightly amused by how much the Jeffrey Epstein issue is the hill that MAGA people are willing to die on. Besides knowing that Epstein was dreadful, I’ve thought of nothing about him. Given all the other things happening in the country, he took no space in my brain.
Won’t get fooled again
I got an e-mail from what purported to be the company that hosts my blog saying that the payment didn’t go through. Given my technological difficulties a few weeks ago, this was a reasonably possible situation. So I went to the login page, but it wasn’t my provider’s URL, though it looked like their page. I contacted my provider, and they asked me to resend them visuals, as I must not have properly understood. So it was with GREAT JOY when they indicated they’d gotten enough complaints on this topic from others that I didn’t need to send them anything else—something off my plate.
Our backyard has a shed that holds our bicycles, lawn chairs, grill, etc. We could no longer lock it because some gophers or other rodents had undermined the shed’s base. This was a great concern because there’s a neighbor boy about 12 who would wander into our backyard; our next-door neighbor came to our house to express concern about the kid. We started putting cinder blocks in front of our yard gate, but that’s suboptimal. So I was pleased when one day we came home and suddenly the shed door locked; it must have been our contractor, whom we had contacted several days earlier. It gave me a sense of real joy.
Conversely
The news in the country made me not just disappointed but furious, enraged. No recent story ticked me off more than ICE being able to access information from CMS about 79 million Medicaid users, including home addresses and ethnicities, information being passed along so that they could “root out fraud.” It infuriated me so much that – and my wife can verify – I was spewing invectives to no one in particular. “Don’t those F***ing SOBs know about HIPAA privacy laws? Their ethnic bigotry knows no end!”
Then I read about the US Secretary of State’s plan to burn 500 metric tons of emergency food aid that had “expired” because the State Department failed to distribute it when it took over USAID.
The EPA says it will eliminate its scientific research arm and “begin firing hundreds of chemists, biologists, toxicologists, and other scientists, after denying for months that it intended to do so.”
And this, on top of the other crappy things, such as Congress codifying the cuts of previously allocated funds to PBS and NPR, and authorizing health cuts that would have prevented people from dying, really broiled me. Oh, former criminals need more access to guns!
You may have seen David Brooks share Alistair McIntyre’s explanation of FOTUS in The Atlantic magazine: He “doesn’t even try to speak the language of morality. When he pardons unrepentant sleazeballs, it doesn’t seem to even occur to him that he is doing something that weakens our shared moral norms. [He] speaks the languages we moderns can understand. The language of preference: I want. The language of power: I have the leverage. The languages of self, of gain, of acquisition. [FOTUS] doesn’t subsume himself in a social role. He doesn’t try to live up to the standards of excellence inherent in a social practice. He treats even the presidency itself as a piece of personal property he can use to get what he wants. As the political theorist Yuval Levin has observed, there are a lot of people, and [FOTUS] is one of them, who don’t seek to be formed by the institutions they enter. They seek instead to use those institutions as a stage to perform on, to display their wonderful selves.”
And it makes me think of less than charitable thoughts… So, some joy, some rage. The rage turns into the melancholy of One More Damn Thing.
When I read stories about preventable chaos in the US, I sometimes feel enraged. But sometimes I weep.
