and often I have a very hard time telling who exactly is criticizing him this time. People don't usually have labels like far left or right on their atavar. Lots of genuine anger though, and lots of dislike.

A little digging usually reveals that I'm reading from a far right source and all the comments agreeing are also right nutters such as are commonly found online.

Mainstream Democrats also seem to dislike him but are quiet as he looks to win the Maine senate seat they need. I'm waiting for the hard left, and there is plenty there for them not to like. When asked about guns he replied he had some ARs. Not "an" not "a couple" but "some". he he. Platner also has spoken with the voice of a 4 tour infantryman, which can be a little rough around the edges.

Looking carefully at his background I don't see any there there. He does come from a family that has done well sporadically as have many New England families. That might well have filtered down to dad helping out with a mortgage or paying a years tuition at the prep school he dropped out of, but his mother sounds like a tie die wearing not very wealthy liberal, and that's where he grew up, a long way from his lawyerly dad.

I'd think "progressives" would find him distasteful but they haven't yet morphed over to more widespread hating as with Fetterman.

Interesting.

Ukraine continues along as it was, as does Russia.

The suicide sounds suspicious to me with graduation and wedding in the offing. Anyone have a grudge?

The world continues sitting on the fulcrum of power shifting east. The US is doing a pretty good job of alienating the majority of the world.

We're finally getting some rain, and have moved from drought to abnormally dry. Been sitting on the tractor trying to knock back the jungle. We caught rain at the festival last week as well. Decided to take and wash all the dirty clothes & sheets at the laundry mat to get it all done at once. To my surprise the fee for a single load is $10. Took three washers for all our stuff. How do poor folks get by? We were able to bring it all home and hang it outside to dry as it was the one dry day this week.

Enjoy your birds and wildlife. They know how to follow the patterns of life.

The Peace of Wild Things
by
Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives might be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Have a good weekend and thanks for the OT!

client, but I find it unlikely that your long past involvement was remotely contributory. Introspection can be a good thing and can foster growth and self-awareness, but it can also lead one to unwarranted self-doubt, misguided fault finding,, and worse.

Generally, when reviewing events, whether participatory or not, it is important to remember that the experiment cannot be repeated. I cannot rewind and re-run last Wednesday omitting my decision to do that thing 'x' that may or may not have led or contributed to the occurrence of event 'y', so I will never know and I also will never know, if 'y' didn't happen, would that have worked out for the better or not. That is simply the way the world works. The butterfly effect is real, but also seemingly randomized and all the myriad inputs into each and every event of the day are gone and there is no do-over available.

Politics, bleagh. We have both a primary and a SPECIAL ELECTION for the now "retiring" representative for my district. I never liked him from day one of his first candidacy, though, to some extent, he wasn't as bad as I anticipated. We have a jungle primary and 40 some odd candidates for governator including a billionaire who promises to do a great many things for the benefit of the little folk and to rein in the corporations and ultra-wealthy and is spending gawd-awful amounts in trying to sell us on that idea. I have to turn in my ballot(s) within the next few days and really need to take a look at it but have well over 60 years of relatively full socio-political awareness. 1) Nobody running for anything really has my interests at heart. 2) Most who can and do propose initiatives and like that a) have ulterior motives b) get carried away c) lose track of what they were up to and d) are incapable of drafting language that will actually achieve their objective and also lack innumerable unforeseen but foreseeable consequences. 3) Whoever is not already bought soon will be. All of this was sufficiently common knowledge n my youth that it was taken for granted even in the funny papers, but folks no longer seem aware of any of it. What, for example is the value of a campaign promise? Everybody over the age of six used to know that those were special purpose lies, what happened to that awareness?

be well and have a good one