If This, Then That

Mister B, thanks to a persistent case of valley fever, knows our destination the moment we turn onto 22nd Street from Wilmot Road. Oh, no, the animal hospital again?

I took him there Wednesday, where he endured having blood drawn for a titer test to show whether any valley fever cooties remain in his system. If so, we’ll switch to a stronger medication. He’s doing fine with his current med and is symptom-free, but we know if we let up on it the valley fever will come back. When it was at its worst we thought he might die, so you understand we want it gone, once and for all. We should have the results of his test Monday or Tuesday.

The animal hospital’s still doing curbside pet pickups and returns, and now has an app you can put on your smartphone so you don’t have to physically call when you arrive for an appointment. I didn’t download it because I thope (think/hope) we’re almost done with these visits. But the whole “no pet owners allowed inside” thing? I think that’ll go on for at least another year.

In my last post I mentioned our grandson’s high school graduation ceremony, which’ll be held in the Las Vegas Convention Center, and to which each student’s family has received only four tickets. That means Q’s parents, Gregory and Beth, can go, along with Q’s sister Taylor and grandmother Donna. I’ll be the 5th wheel, staying at Q’s house while the rest of them go to the ceremony. Maybe Gregory can livestream it and I can watch on my iPad.

Hey, though, it’s a better deal than most grandparents got last year, when high school seniors across the country graduated in their cars, rolling their windows down to receive their diplomas in parking lots. And by the time Q graduates from college, we’ll be back to sitting on bleachers on football fields, listening to speeches and Pomp & Circumstances.

Slowly, slowly, things are getting back to the way they used to be. From February 2020 to March 2021 my book club held monthly meetings by Zoom. Last month we took our first tentative step back toward normality with a hybrid meeting … part face-to-face, part virtual. Some members, wearing masks, gathered at the host’s house, while others, like me, checked in by Zoom. I’m hosting the next meeting on the 15th. One of our members says she’ll come over early to set up a camera-equipped laptop so remote attendees can see the rest of us in my living room (and we can see them on the laptop monitor). Oh, the book? “Leviathan’s Wake,” the first book in the nine-novel The Expanse series (I’ve read it twice now and you can read my review here).

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I took this screen grab off the CNN website this morning, infuriated by the both-siderism on display. Bidenism, my ass … as if there’s a cult of personality centered on Joe Biden, with slavish acolytes ready to lynch politicians opposed to him, fervently flooding social media with conspiratorial posts about Donald Jr’s laptop, deliberately wearing masks outdoors to trigger Fox Nation, getting vaccinations not because they think they need them but solely to own the right.

Naturally, the article doesn’t mention Bidenism or attempt to draw any equivalence between Trump and Biden. Because there isn’t any. But they sure found room for it in the headline, which is all most people will ever read, especially now when most news and opinion is paywalled.

The mind of the media: if there is this, there must be that. If there is Trumpism, there must be Bidenism. If Trumpites commit crimes and try to overturn elections, there must be Bidenites doing the same thing on the other side! Because both sides! Because balance!

I know. I’m yelling at clouds. The media can no more stop doing this than a dog can stop licking its balls.

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In 2014, I wrote an Air-Minded post about the Douglas F3D Skyknight. A few weeks ago the author of this piece wrote to ask if he could use some of the photos and information from my post. They weren’t my photos in the first place, and information is information, but I said sure. His article came out two days ago, and I’m cited in it. Since then, he and another aviation journalist who writes for The War Zone have told me I’m welcome to submit articles, but I suspect I’ll have to pitch ideas to them or their boss first. Because they pay for what they publish.

That’s a big step for me, but I’ll probably take it. Please wish me luck!

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One last thing: on Monday, Rachel Maddow weighed in on Twitter with this:

Oldster here. As dependent on Google as anyone. But! this belligerent new thing where search results jump down the page to make room for un-labeled ads, and then when you click a result, google instead opens a new tab with an ad you weren’t trying to click… Grrr. I’ll switch.

I dispute the existence of Bidenism, but I can’t deny my Rachelism. That very night I changed my default search engine and home page from Google to DuckDuckGo. This, and the new Mac ios that allows one to turn off targeted advertising on Facebook, may make a difference. We’ll see.