When I'm Not Vixen Strangely...

 

I don't know how much of an explanation this is, but it'll have to do. Maybe someone will find it useful. Maybe it'll make sense to you. Maybe it won't. I don't think it will hurt. 

 Being me sometimes hurts. Not in a big way--just in a "wake up feeling as good as I'm going to" kind of way. My knees started to sound like bubble wrap popping back when I was unloading pallets of copy paper over a quarter of a century ago. They hurt when it rains. So do my hands. So do my ankles. Not in a big way.

Usually. And different things would just rattle or seize up or feel weird sometimes, but it would pass. Or I'd be run down. 

This isn't going to be a post about an awful diagnosis. I really sort of checked out and never followed up because it wasn't bad. My problem was I was in my thirties and full of stress and could stand to lose some weight. Then it was I was in my forties and full of stress and could stand to lose some weight. And more recently, well, my birthdate is on my driver's license, and I buy my own pants, so no one could tell me a damn thing I didn't know. Maybe it was from having mono in my teens. Maybe it was just getting old. 

I just figured I would pace myself--and I self-medicated. 

Yeah. It's that kind of post.

RFK, Jr. Promises What Science Can't

 

RFK Jr: "By September we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we will be able to eliminate those exposures." pic.twitter.com/gSDVvsD9CH

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 10, 2025

You might have to read the title of the blog post more than once--it isn't complimenting Kennedy on what he claims will happen in a matter of months, but rather, if he gets an "answer' in that time, it won't be about the science. Mostly because everything he's saying is wrong.

We don't have an autism epidemic; we have a diagnosis epidemic. We don't lack for research. There are multiple genes and epigenetic factors involved. You can't "eliminate" all potential exposures related to something that has multiple causes. 

Also, and this is important: the way Kennedy speaks about eliminating exposure to a "cause" of autism makes me very concerned about what he thinks about autistic people, that the people expressing aspects of the autism spectrum are broken or less-then. 

Congratulations to the Viral Community

 

I know I've never had a really good word to say about Covid-19, HIV, Ebola, any of the avian flus, but I have got to hand it to them--somehow their guy Bobby wound up getting confirmed as the Secretary of Health and Human Services. I mean, measles, mumps, and rubella? We thought you were down and out, but it looks like you're tipping champagne bottles tonight because we've got us a Wakefield truther. 

Who knows? Maybe smallpox or polio can come on in for a bow, because conspiracy theories and barely informed opinions have just won the consent of the GOP Senate--except for Mitch McConnell, who knows first-hand what polio is about.  But couldn't seem to convey that reality to his GOP brethren and, um cistern (is that what we call Murkowski and Collins? I forget).

I think it's great if people eat more healthfully.  I, unlike RFK Jr, can admit to not having eaten fast food for a very long while. My version of the Mediterranean diet includes a little salumi, though. My oil of choice comes from the olive pit. Good luck on weaning Americans off canola and high-fructose corn syrup (there is a lobby against you). 

But here's my very important problem with RFK, Jr. He's a dumbass who just implied Trump was sent by God. Because Trump had the courage and intelligence to put RFK Jr. in charge of something to do with health. And you know, hearing that, I could almost believe Bobby was born in a manger. 

And raised outdoors his whole life like an ignorant animal. 

The Kennedy Hearing was Ugly

 

When your own family thinks you are a weird conspiracy freak who is uniquely unqualified and literally call you a grifting predator, well, that's probably bad news, right? 

But when quizzing by US Senators demonstrates you don't know Medicare from Medicaid and have not just trimmed your public pronouncements to suit your audience but are a legal grifter profiting off of your own BS (as Sen. Warren demonstrated), well, that hurts to be aired publicly, in so many words, doesn't it? 

Or maybe it doesn't.

This guy gave himself a brainworm from consuming roadkill, admits to dumping a bear corpse in a public park, seems sketchy about how germ theory works, has no medical or scientific background whatsoever, has opinions about the AIDS virus and vaccines that would have been shameful and out of date 25 years ago, let alone today, and yet?

He's got influence in his corner. Why they want him, I don't know. You might think people would want someone who isn't a whole fucking flake in an important position like Secretary of Health and Human Services--

Unless you just aren't that interested in health and will be goddamned if you see it as a basic human service. 

TrumpWorld Kakistocracy 3: Ill Health and Inhumane Services

 

New possible HHS secretary RFK Jr. has said chemicals in the water could be turning children gay:https://t.co/WM80MbX3nN

— Andy Kaczynski (@KFILE) November 14, 2024

Lil' Bobby Kennedy is a sad ass conspiracy theorist. I feel bad about what happened to his namesake, you know? But this weird man would be some freak with a sandwich board climbing up on a soapbox in the park if his last name wasn't Kennedy.

He wants to do away with fluoride for the sake of our precious bodily fluids.  This was a ridiculous John Birch Society joke in the goddamned 1960s--how in the hell is it a real thing in the mind of this milkweed seed eyed-motherfucker here in the 21st century? 

Dianne Feinstein Has Left the Senate

There is something jarring in considering that Sen. Feinstein was voting right until the end, giving her last vote really hours before her passing. It could speak to her drive and dedication to public life. It could also speak to the misperception of older politicians of their indispensability and their mortality alike. 

There's something of a "praising with faint damn" tack I want to tread softly with: she represented a more conservative Democratic Party than I prefer even while being a pioneering female senator. She still had her incredible moments, working on gun control, working to repeal DOMA, the release of the Senate report on torture, recently the reauthorization of VAWA.  It's easy for activists to criticize her moderation and willingness to reach out across the aisle--her job as a senator wasn't to be uncompromising but to find areas of areas of compromise for a purpose.

I don't know if there was any inkling of infirmity when she ran in 2018. I do know that the decline of her health in her final years and the speculation that she wasn't fully competent marred her final term. It gives one a terrible sense of pause: her eyes were those of a person whose body had been through the wars. Couldn't she have spent those final years at ease?

Could she have? Or did a sense of purpose make that seem impossible? And having forged on despite being condescended to in the Senate itself by such august personages (in their own minds) as Larry Craig and Ted Cruz, who tells her when to quit?  

That might just be a grain of thought elder statepersons will need to hold their own counsel about--to know not when to be told, but to realize when their age is telling on themselves.  But as for Senator Feinstein, she served until the very end. 

What in the Slap-Happy Hell?

 

Power Slap—the series developed by UFC prez Dana White—drew in nearly 300K viewers in its debut on Wednesday. The TBS show outperformed the Young Sheldon reruns that took its place last week after White exchanged slaps with his wife on NYE. My @FOS story. https://t.co/uTDbEdjEVy

— A.J. Perez (@byajperez) January 20, 2023

I have a hard time watching football anymore because of the issues regarding CTE.  A lot of good athletes and decent people have experienced brain trauma that changed their personalities, caused serious life repercussions, even cost players their lives and the lives of people around them. 

I grew up loving professional wrestling. Sadly, professional wrestling also has a reputation for being a sport where people can experience a shortened life span, and a lot of that has to do with the toll constant physical trauma has on--well, just every damn part on one's life, from pain management to potential brain damage. The incredibly talented Chris Benoit was found to have had CTE after he killed his wife and child and himself. I've seen too many people die young who are associated with that sport, as well. 

So, call me a killjoy, but I just don't see any joy in a so-called sport that revolves around rattling the fuck out of someone's brainpan and subjecting yourself to getting your own skull rocked. In any fighting discipline, it's true that you can learn how to take bumps in a way that protect your neck and head and minimize the damage your extremities experience. 

The Vandals

 

This is Kathryn Kimball Mizelle. She is a Federalist Society judge who worked for Clarence Thomas. The American Bar Association said she is unqualified to hold office, but Republicans confirmed her anyway after Trump lost.

She just ruled the CDC can’t require masks on planes. pic.twitter.com/EWMNumytaQ

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) April 18, 2022

The funny old thing about American individualism and "freedumb" and so on is that people who were sitting on crowded planes cheered the decision when advised they could take their masks off as if they had won something. They didn't. What really happened is that they received confirmation that they were no longer obliged to do the least thing to protect themselves and those around them, and it felt like freedom.

Judge Mizelle's decision to strike down the mandate is a small act of vandalism. Putting her on the bench to make dodgy decisions and partisan decisions for decades, was a big act of vandalism.

UPDATE:

 

Trump’s Surgeon General speaks out against court overturning mask mandates on airplanes. pic.twitter.com/Ov5wbKwZlz

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) April 20, 2022

Some people think she misunderstood public law regarding the definition of sanitation, and it's very possible she deliberately misunderstood.  The dual function of undermining public trust in the law and the expertise of health professionals alike is at play in this decision--but the stupid thing is not even being sure this person is capable of foreseeing that ramifications beyond this one decision, now that she's made a precedent, obtain. 

OK, Carlson, You Got Me

 

Is this not a recipe for man-parts melanoma? (or other calamity)  I asked myself, agape and aghast at the genital microwaving (this link is cursed) I saw displayed. I mean, dudes looking to procreate wear loose boxers and try to give their boys air if they are having some difficulties, so treating your hotdog to the convenience store lamp treatment in order to boost vitamin "D" seems entirely counterintuitive (read: stupid as fuck). Frankly, the best things you can do to boost test (non-pharma) are get good sleep, eat good food, move your ass, and don't be stressed out as all fuck. You know what else boosts test? Winning at actual stuff, instead of being the kind of guy who obsesses over whether you are manly or not. 

Gronk gets it. Beckham does, too. You are more than the sum of your hormones or social drag. 

I am not going to ask myself if the intro cut was homoerotic, because worrying about that is far more the Dan White Society's president's problem than mine. And I find I do not care what Pee Wee Better in the Original German thinks about gender stuff, since he once described beating up a gay person in a men's room, and it sort became a thing conservatives worry about in bathrooms now, and want to persecute non-gender conforming people about in public restrooms because ack!--weird when people need to pee, right? Because maybe sex stuff? (Actually, not really. It just gets talked about.) 

This man is so insecure he needs a passcode to grab his own dick in the john. This man is so insecure he supports pedophilia so long as it's the straight, very religiously-perversely-defended kind. (And women who own their own sexuality are whores. That's another extremely insecure thing.) 

So yes, I find I need to mock Carlson because wow, this thing was so needy and so totally about his own toxic masculine gender conflict, but it feels like he totally laid it out as bait so gender-wise hipsters would skewer him and martyr his poor UV rayed in effigy man-bits with opprobrium that he could then point to the mean-ass libs as the witches who were stealing his penis? 

Shut up you guys, I'm just a feminist asking questions.  And yes, I did the cock-robbin'. In the rest room with the lead pipe, And I would do it again! 

The 48-hour Quarantine

#BREAKING North Paulding High School will shut down for two days due to Covid-19. @wsbtv pic.twitter.com/zZrac2iUNG

— Chris Jose (@ChrisJoseWSB) August 9, 2020

So, North Paulding HS, whose crowded hallway scene demonstrated for many of us the futility of social distancing and returning students to in-person classes, has now had several students and staff test positive for COVID-19, after making a point of trying to silence the real concerns of students and staff who knew good and well that this set-up did not look safe.

So, what do they think is going to happen in 48 hours? Are all the kids and staff going to get COVID-19 tests, and get their results back, and all the affected folks will go for the long quarantine while the unaffected ones come back as safe as safe as well-insured houses? Or is saying they will go online for two whole days just a work-around to look like they are addressing the problem while making it perfectly clear that no, in fact, they don't give a fuck but also, shut up and fuck you?

See, 48 hours is bullshit. Not everyone is getting tested, or getting results, or making the decision to quarantine, or anything else in that period of time. None of that is happening. And even if a dozen or so more cases emerge--have they set any idea of when they will shut it all down?

Here's what we're finding out about kids and coronavirus--they are certainly testing positive, and that means they are not "immune". What we're seeing with school re-opening is not pretty. It isn't that schooling isn't important or can't be done, but people should be observing what doesn't work well, and what work-arounds might be beneficial. What is interesting to me is hearing conservatives appear to be slagging justifications for homeschooling due to the potential for child abuse or poor socialization, when they have previously been champions for it when it comes to religious reasons. Why the volte face?

It's just astounding to me that people are approaching this as a binary : Do or do not, instead of trying to think of ways to do things as thoughtfully and well and with success in mind as possible. People are prioritizing individuality instead of working as a community. Is it so hard for people to get on the same page and work together?

He Got "Extra Points"?

Haltingly repeating the phrase “person, woman, man, camera, TV” to show off his memory, the president claimed he left doctors in awe. https://t.co/FEvQ7AndRA

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) July 23, 2020

I'm afraid that as long as Trump can't leave his cognitive test alone, I'm not going to be able to leave his cognitive test alone, because this guy has the nuclear codes and ordered Homeland Security to invade Portland and teargas hippie moms over graffiti. The constant rehashing of a test regarding basic mental function isn't the GRE's. It's not Stanford-Binet. It's about whether you're "all there" and can do stuff like live on your own. And this reminds me a bit of Mary Trump's warning in her book that we can think of Donald Trump as having lived an institutionalized life. He's been fail-proofed like a little toddler to keep him from (mostly) jamming forks in the electrical sockets.

Except for now--he's been given extraordinary power, by people (like William Barr) who think that the presidency should wield extraordinary power. This multiple-bankrupt. This grifter. (And the grift goes on, apparently.) He's fucked up the economy because he's fucked up the COVID-19 response. He's fucked up trade, foreign policy, race relations, divided the country as no one could, and since he's running for re-election, I guess he thinks there is still oodles of up-fuckery he can still engage in. But don't call him stupid.

Trump's been rabid for years about his IQ, his real good brain, his genes, his being a "stable genius". I tend to think you don't have to do that much explaining, unless you've really behaved in a way that begs that question (like a dog!). So, what's the deal?

On one hand, it could be a sign that he isn't entirely a Dunning Krueger case, and realizes almost how godawful dumb he might be. On the other, it might just be a sign of a paralyzing sense of his own mortality--having lost his Dad, the person who had done the most to shape his life, to dementia, maybe it makes sense that he needs to consider his wits on a different level of sharpness. He's boasting that he's fit to duel with the reaper, in part, to psyche himself up.

But trying to understand his fixation is just me, an orderly person, trying to sort his apparent dysfunction into some rational frame. The thing is, he says these things out loud where all the people can hear. At some point, regularly drawing attention to whether your own damn head works fails to be strategically sound. Claiming one's doctors were surprised and gave extra points on a basic cognition test that now was administered because Trump asked for it, so, on purpose, because so there! feels really sketchy, the more he keeps embellishing it. It's like he's digging a hole into the center of his own broken-ass brain.

Not that I think he should stop talking about it, of course. Ye gods no! I really feel like at least fifty percent of his coronavirus briefings should be about how well he did on the cognitive test, fifty percent should be about how well America is doing versus all the other countries in terms of testing and cases and hospitalizations and all, and then another fifty percent should be about how not a racist president he is and totally like Abraham Lincoln. Which is 150% of a coronavirus briefing, but of course--Trump should go for the extra points, right?

Person, woman, man, camera, tv. Things that were right in front of Trump when he extemporized. He was making up his experience of the test in the retelling. As people who don't recall things sometimes do.

This Story has a Whiff of the Aquatic Life About It

Trump on his trip to Walter Reed: “I went for a physical and I came back. My wife said, ‘Darling are you okay? What’s wrong? Oh, they’re reporting you may have had a heart attack.’ I said, ‘Why did I have a heart attack?’ ‘Because you went to Walter Reed Medical Center.”

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 19, 2019

Now, I know that dwelling on this is just obsessive, but if the First Lady knew very well that her husband was going in for a planned check-up, why in the world would she be concerned about speculative information out on the media? She would have been "in the loop" about what was going on! It seems like some kind of needless embellishment to chide others about making any minimally-informed speculation (which I guess is fair; it does border on the ghoulish). She would have known he was ok, so she....sigh.

Before I spend another brain cell on this, suffice it to say maybe he's just jealous of Rep. Steve Scalise for having the kind of wife who would cry if he was in the hospital. You know, not every wife would do that.

Maybe there's Method in the Madness

President Trump on John McCain: "I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve. I don't care about this. I didn’t get thank you. That's ok. We sent him on the way, but I wasn't a fan of John McCain." pic.twitter.com/hG4XwOiIBO

— CSPAN (@cspan) March 20, 2019

I've started wondering if Trump's feud with a Senator and war hero who has been dead for seven months, and his feud with George Conway, husband of KellyAnne, who has strongly indicated that Trump has a mental disorder, are related. Trump does strike me as a malignant narcissist and he's certainly gone off in speeches and on Twitter before, but it seems really extra of late. Maybe a little too extra?

Insanity defense as a last resort, anyone?

Freedom Pox

Immunizations work, are safe, and people should have them unless very specifically medically counter-indicated. The earth is basically round and revolves around the sun. Trickle-down economics is bullshit because the rich get richer and crap rolls downhill. 

There are a handful of things in this life that seem to me to be just obvious, but also have the benefit of being backed up with evidence, studies, and real life experience. That Vaccinations Are Good is one of those things. Once upon a time, people got things like smallpox and were terrifically disfigured or died, or they got polio and were disabled and died, or got measles or mumps and sometimes died, or were sterilized or became blind--basically, we think of history in mostly filmy costume set-piece terms because we watch a fuckton of television, but most of it was a nasty, brutish and disease-ridden hellscape. And then we learned about germs and viruses, got hygienic and developed vaccines for things, and lifespans improved a lot. 

Seems great to me. Then we developed the internet, and some dumb people fucked that up. Failed anti-vaccine scientists who are not considered very good at science make propaganda, and because there are people who think reality is democratic, think this is new knowledge and it becomes really difficult to disabuse them of the new thing they think they have "learned". 

One thing that surely doesn't help is the presence of international shit-stirrers who have made a job of weakening social norms and sowing division by furthering bad science memes. But there's something I've heard a couple of times this week that really concerns the hell out of me. There are US politicians who are making the vaccination "controversy" (which should, by all actual evidence, be a "nontroversy") into a political statement about "freedom!" and "certainly not being Communist!" and "the purity of our bodily essence" or something like that.

I wish I was kidding.

An Arizona state senator, Kelly Townsend, made a Facebook post that literally calls vaccinations "communist" because they are for the collective good:

The legislator, Republican state Rep. Kelly Townsend, wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday that "it seems we are prepared to give up our liberty, the very sovereignty of our body, because of measles."

"I read yesterday that the idea is being floated that if not enough people get vaccinated, then we are going to force them to," wrote Townsend, who has written controversial social media posts in the past. "The idea that we force someone to give up their liberty for the sake of the collective is not based on American values but rather, Communist."

 It could not possibly be the case that the United States was founded on any such principles as: establishing Justice, insuring domestic Tranquility, providing for the common defence, promoting the general Welfare, and securing the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, with any collective intent, right? Except our founders seemed to have had as much in mind by creating a government with any such principles in mind, with promoting the general welfare being among those things. The idea of bodily sovereignty to a nation that had a military draft and still has a selective service seems like a laugh. As Ms. Townsend is also pro-life, it appears her notions of bodily sovereignty certainly do have a (very selective) limit, based on her preferences, not necessarily any given individual's.

But as to the fear of the collective, maybe she has been flummoxed by the term "herd immunity".  Wouldn't a rugged individualist want to be anything but "one of the herd"?

Which takes us to Crazy Nephew Liberty, son of Crazy Uncle Liberty, Dr. Rand Paul. His recent statement took a very novel approach to ideas of both liberty and security:

“As we contemplate forcing parents to choose this or that vaccine, I think it’s important to remember that force is not consistent with the American story, nor is force consistent with the liberty our forefathers sought when they came to America,” said Paul, reading off a paper.

“I don't think you have to have one or the other, though. I'm not here to say don’t vaccinate your kids. If this hearing is for persuasion I’m all for the persuasion. I’ve vaccinated myself and I’ve vaccinated my kids. For myself and my children I believe that the benefits of vaccines greatly outweighing the risks, but I still don’t favor giving up on liberty for a false sense of security.”

(Shit, I will leave the formatting, because whev. ) Since he knows good and well vaccines work because he's getting his own kids vaccinated--where's the "false sense of security"? And if he wants to talk about "liberty" in terms this broad, why even have laws? I was vaccinated as a wee bitty thing, and never felt robbed of my liberty. The actual choice never intersected with my freedom to do anything--I have never said "Well, I would attend this meeting/take a vacation abroad/marry my spouse/pursue my chosen profession, but no, I had MMR and booster shots."  It did not even affect my credit. Given that there are people in this world who find their lives disrupted by their gender/orientation/race/religion, I just can't even with Rand Paul talking about the liberty of parents who want their special version of science to keep life-saving needles out of their experimental human spawn tushies.  And he is supposedly a doctor. 

I've also seen a narrative that we need childhood diseases to toughen up our immune systems, as if measles was like CrossFit, but for white blood cells. What's next? Calling them "freedom pox"? Deciding that mumps is the new "swole"? That fevers are the new "hotness"?

This is just sheer damn stupidity--but it's worse because it's politicized. Let's get real--vaccinate your damn kids. 

Somehow, Twitter is Free

I don't know what this means for the rest of 2018, but Brit Hume has gone wild and it's only January.

(Also, while there is actually no penis talk as a result of Trump's good health report, there is an awful lot of speculation about whether his height and weight figures were fudged. I don't know--I think he snuck in at least an inch in height because at his age, people usually are not still growing, his height has previously been given as 6'2", and in pictures where he has stood next to Jeb Bush (actually 6'3") he seems shorter, and next to Barack Obama (6'1") he seems about the same. Sports Illustrated did a comparison of Trump's physique vs. athletes of similar height and weight stats which seems a bit unfair. I find that I genuinely do not care what Trump's weight is, and also wonder if I should be watching more football.)