Pun involving blood

I just got home from having blood drawn again (not blaming my PcP who is trying to find a balance between how much thyroid i need to have energy to get up in the morning, or even afternoon, and how much is too much for my osteoporosis, while at the same time pampering my kidneys.) I was reminded of this joke:

Three vampires walk into a bar. Bartender says, "What'll you have?" First vampire says, "I'll have a glass of blood, please." Second vampire says, "Same for me, thanks." Third vampire says, "I think I'll just have a glass of plasma today." Bartender says, "Right. Two bloods and a blood lite."

Unfortunately I only thought of it on the way out. Virtually no wait time, and the draw was fast and painless, so I didn't really have time to think. I'll try to remember it for next time.

Honoring Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman

I did a search for this and didn't find it i if someone else has posted it,I apologize.

I received an email from the DLCC chair, who suggested the following things we can do to honor the memory of this amazing Democratic woman:

The real cause of violence?

This is from The New Yorker and it's paywalled so I found an archive non-paywalled link - https://archive.is/tlvOP

What We Get Wrong About Violent Crime

Late on a Sunday night in June of 2023, a woman named Carlishia Hood and her fourteen-year-old son, an honor student, pulled into Maxwell Street Express, a fast-food joint in West Pullman, on the far South Side of Chicago. Her son stayed in the car. Hood went inside. Maxwell is a no-frills place—takeout-style, no indoor seating. It’s open twenty-four hours a day. Hood asked for a special order—without realizing that at Maxwell, a busy place, special orders are frowned upon. The man behind her in line got upset; she was slowing things down. His name was Jeremy Brown. On the street, they called him the Knock-Out King. Brown began to gesticulate, his arms rising and falling in exasperation. He argued with Hood, growing more agitated. Then he cocked his fist, leaned back to bring the full weight of his body into the motion, and punched her in the head.

When the argument had started, Hood texted her son, asking him to come inside. Now he was at the door, slight and tentative in a white hoodie. He saw Brown punch his mother a second time. The boy pulled out a revolver and shot Brown in the back. Brown ran from the restaurant. The boy pursued him, still firing. Brown died on the street—one of a dozen men killed by gunfire in Chicago that weekend.

/snip/

The central argument of “Unforgiving Places” is that Americans, in their attempts to curb crime, have made a fundamental conceptual error. We’ve assumed that the problem is instrumental violence—and have fashioned our criminal-justice system around that assumption. But the real problem is expressive violence. The ongoing bloodshed in America’s streets is just Maxwell Street Express, over and over again.

/snip/

The New Yorker goes into a lot of detail, which makes it literally impossible to get the essence of the article into three paragraphs. But even if you just read a page or two (I printed is as a pdf for my own reference, and it came to 9 pages), it will be a revelation. Incidentally, it's consistent with the concept that gun control can reduce violence. Sure, if you really want tokill someone, you'll find a way.. But if most violence is spur-of-the-moment, and you don't have a gun in your pocket, you won't shoot that person in that moment.

Former Pres. Biden tells #TheView he "wasn't surprised" by Pres. Trump's win in 2024

How did I fail to notice this before?

"Merrick Garland is Getting a Bum Rap"

Those are not my words, but the words of Harry Litman, whose article for Substack I will be quoting from, and who, with Michael Popok, is one of two attorneys who are features by Meidas Touch. Sine Ben Meiselas, the eldest brother, is a lawyer himself, I take that to imply that he respects the judgments of both. and has good reason to do so.

https://harrylitman.substack.com/p/merrick-garland-is-getting-a-bum

He starts this way:

"Get ready for a contrarian entry that will no doubt provoke the ire of many supporters, as did the shorter piece that ran yesterday in The New Republic. If you find yourself reflexively opposed before you even look at it, I can only say you’ve got a lot of company and ask you to make your best efforts to suspend judgment and evaluate the evidence. Thanks."



After another paragraph or so in which he assesses the potential tarnishing of Garland's legacy, he dives in:

"The storyline that Garland let moss grow on the investigation—some say until Smith came aboard, others until the work of the January 6 Committee embarrassed the Department—doesn’t survive scrutiny.

Within days of being sworn in as Attorney General on March 21, 2021, Garland gathered prosecutors working on any aspect of the Trump investigations—including U.S. attorneys, the national security division, and the public integrity section—and instructed them to 'follow the connective tissue upward.' He told them to aggressively follow the money in pursuit of connections between the January 6 marauders and Team Trump. Garland charged the entire team to proceed without restrictions, even if it led to Trump himself."

As the New York Times recently reported, this line of investigation didn’t pan out, but it was a reasonable approach and shows that Garland and his deputy, Lisa Monaco, were focused on the Trump trail from day one."



Having now slightly exceeded the customary three-paragraph limit, I will now do my best to summarize.

Litman goes on to address the criticism of lack of imagination, the criticism that he merely "piggybacked" on the Select Committee's work, the claim of "if only", and the claim that, had the cases been brought sooner, sad gone to court before the election, they would have changed the outcome of that election. Then he puts forward what he calls the "smartest" criticism he has heard, that "Garland walked into the wrong movie." He even discusses the potential effect on the country had Garland been more aggressive.

It's not as long as I have probably made it sound, and it's not technical; it's an easy read. And I hope you will read it and at least consider it. Of course, as always, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Full disclosure: I've felt all along that Garland was doing the best he could.

"Scream Church"

Photographs from Nazi occupied Paris

This is from NPR - Idid check to make sure no one else hd posted it (and was kind of surprised no one had.)

https://www.npr.org/2024/10/28/nx-s1-5157701/france-wwii-war-photos-mystery

What will it take for a woman to be president? by Errin Haines, the 19th

Originally published by The 19th
This column first appeared in The Amendment, a biweekly newsletter by Errin Haines, The 19th’s editor-at-large. Subscribe today to get early access to Election 2024 analysis.
In 2016, America couldn't vote for that woman. In 2020, the country couldn't vote for those women. 
In 2024, the same answer: Not her, either. 
I have said this election would be about who we are as much as it was about both of the candidates running for president. So who are we?
The democracy that still has not put a woman in the White House. 
Will we ever be ready? What will it take?
The first woman to run for president seeking a major party nomination, Shirley Chisholm, died in 2005. She did not live to see Hillary Clinton make history as the Democratic Party's first woman nominee, who won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College. Four years later, Kamala Harris became the first woman vice president, giving the country a chance to normalize the leadership of a woman of color at the highest levels. 
Harris was a worthy, capable and qualified adversary who put together a remarkable campaign in only 107 days. Much will be written about her shortcomings and the mistakes of the Democratic Party. But this is less an outcome about what Harris did wrong and more about Donald Trump’s strength and enduring power within the Republican Party, which I don't know that any candidate could've overcome. 
This raises questions about electability and the barriers that remain for women seeking our nation's highest office. 
Who will try again after the country has twice rejected the woman at the top of the ticket? Adding insult to injury, voters both times chose instead the same man, one with a history of racism and misogyny, who has been credibly accused of sexual assault, who admitted to groping women without their permission and who kept his vow to end federal protections for abortion. 
To win, he relentlessly and repeatedly insulted his women opponents -- a strategy that resonated with far too many of his supporters. In some cases, they encouraged him; in others, they looked away. 
For the second time in eight years, his behavior has been reaffirmed by half of the American electorate, and we are faced with a reality: that much of the country still wants to be who we have always been, incapable of putting a woman in power.  
Trump’s campaign was based on appeals to masculinity. He went on podcasts whose audiences are overwhelmingly men, and largely young men. Wrestling and mixed martial arts appeared at his convention and at his victory night party. His Make America Great Again movement hearkens to a time when women held less power. 
Trump lost — but felt empowered to run again. After losing the Democratic primary in 2008, Hillary Clinton ran again in 2016, winning the popular vote but losing the Electoral College and the presidency. It is unclear whether Harris, who pledged in her concession speech to keep fighting, and who ran unsuccessfully in 2020, will run again in four years — or ever. 
To be a first is to be a pioneer; to come up short is to be a pariah. For the women who have come achingly close to the presidency, to lose is not just about one race; it is about the door closing for the next person, the next cycle, indefinitely.

Willie Mays died yesterday...