{"id":22574,"date":"2018-08-10T13:16:45","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T20:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=22574"},"modified":"2018-08-10T13:55:50","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T20:55:50","slug":"friday-work-in-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=22574","title":{"rendered":"Friday Work in Progress"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen<\/a>Another outpatient physical therapy session this morning, this time including stairs. Not exercise stairs, mind, real ones. My therapist, Jenny, walked me\u00a0through hallways to an interior staircase at\u00a0the south end of the building. Without using the handrails, I went up and down the stairs three times.<\/p>\n

Jenny\u00a0continues to tell me I’m ahead of the curve\u00a0for recovery from a knee replacement, and I’m beginning to believe her. Stretching and bending exercises followed, then ten minutes on the stationary bicycle. Oh by the way, today marks one month since they sewed me back up.<\/p>\n

I’m not ready to ride a real bicycle yet, or even my motorcycle. I still have to work up to pedaling a full rotation with my right knee. A slow stroke almost to the top, reversing, doing it again, then maybe one or two full rotations backward\u2014only then am I ready to pedal forward; every over-the-top rotation accompanied by sharp pain, gradually subsiding over the course of several minutes.<\/p>\n

If I tried this on a real bicycle\u2014without two strong men to hold me up\u2014I’d fall over straight away,\u00a0probably landing smack on\u00a0my\u00a0titanium kneecap. Patience is called for. As for the motorcycle, I can lift my leg over it, but with my feet on the pegs I’m\u00a0too uncomfortable to\u00a0ride any distance. Yet more patience is called for. My goal of restarting a local\u00a0MC may have to slip from late August to mid-September; ditto Saturday morning bicycle rides with our\u00a0Trail Trash friends. But I’ll get there, and it helps to keep reminding myself I’m ahead of the curve\u2014thanks, Jenny!<\/p>\n

I’m hosting my book club Saturday a week, and that night we’re meeting our cooking club friends at a member’s house for a hot weather menu. Donna makes a mean gazpacho, but that’s what everyone else plans to make, so we’re considering bringing\u00a0Vichyssoise, which we’ve never made before. Nor have we ever tried it. Our fallback will be French onion soup, which of course is served hot, but since it seems all the other members\u00a0plan to bring cold soups, it might be a welcome treat.<\/p>\n

I voted in the Arizona primary election yesterday. I’m registered as a Democrat and yet they sent me a ballot, so perhaps voter suppression isn’t in full swing yet. I have hopes for the mid-terms in November, but don’t want to get ahead of myself. Authoritarians, though outnumbered, reliably vote. Progressives? I think a lot of us will turn out to vote this time, but I fear many won’t, and I’ll believe\u00a0in this blue wave when I see it.<\/p>\n

Speaking of authoritarians: these two Trump rally assholes in the “I’d rather be a Russian than Democrat” t-shirts?<\/p>\n

\"Dj22MRjVAAA2liN\"<\/a>
p.s. Are you too seeing a mixed message on those shirts? Yes, the words say one thing, but isn’t that a Democrat donkey puttin’ some whoop-ass\u00a0on a Republican elephant? These people are truly idiots.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s clear\u00a0these two think of themselves, despite their t-shirts, as patriotic Americans. As better Americans than you or I. Educated people\u00a0would describe them as “authoritarian.” That’s because\u00a0educated people know what the word means:<\/p>\n

Authoritarian
\n1 : of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority (had authoritarian<\/em> parents)
\n2 : of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people (an authoritarian<\/em> regime)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Trouble is, when we do that we’re talking down to the stupids, who don’t know what the word means. They think “authoritarian”\u00a0refers to a person of strong will, a leader, a person who exudes authority. They think it’s a good<\/em> thing.<\/p>\n

The ancestors of these two\u00a0shitbirds\u00a0ran to Halifax to join their fellow British loyalists the day after American\u00a0revolutionaries exchanged gunfire with the Redcoats\u00a0at Lexington and Concord. And they have the nerve to think they’re better Americans than we are? They’re the opposite of Americans. They’re bootlickers and lickspittles, waiting for a Putin to lead them, just as their forebears kneeled\u00a0to King George.<\/p>\n

So here’s a proposal, educated people: stop describing MAGAs as authoritarian. They don’t know what that means. Start describing them as authority-worshippers. Maybe that’ll penetrate a few shells.<\/p>\n

Long as I’m on a roll, here’s a tweet from @NPR<\/a>, posted on the anniversary of the white supremacist rally and counter-protest in Charlottesville, Virginia:<\/p>\n

One year ago, a car rammed into counter-protesters during a violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. Activist Heather Heyer was killed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Excuse me, Heather Heyer was murdered. And unless it was\u00a0a Transformer or one of those Uber self-driving\u00a0cars, a driver was at the wheel. A driver who deliberately rammed into a crowd of counter-protesters, then backed up over the bodies of Heather Heyer and\u00a0dozens of other victims\u00a0in a vain effort to escape.<\/p>\n

I don’t know what NPR’s problem is.\u00a0They’re not just wording things in the passive voice.\u00a0They’re whitewashing murder. Okay, maybe it’s premature to\u00a0label the driver, James Fields Jr., a murderer, being that his trial\u00a0is still two or three months away, but\u00a0the world knows an act of murder was committed. It’s a fucking fact. Why bend over backward to\u00a0turn\u00a0it into a he said\/she said “both sides do it” story, NPR?<\/p>\n

Liberal press, my ass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another outpatient physical therapy session this morning, this time including stairs. Not exercise stairs, mind, real ones. My therapist, Jenny, walked me\u00a0through hallways to an interior staircase at\u00a0the south end of the building. Without using the handrails, I went up and down the stairs three times. Jenny\u00a0continues to tell me I’m ahead of the curve\u00a0for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,15,250,10,16,5,2],"tags":[2581,1517,1146,2582,1158],"class_list":["post-22574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bicycling","category-cooking","category-culture-wars","category-current-events","category-media","category-motorcycling","category-personal","tag-authoritarianism","tag-cooking-club","tag-knee-replacement","tag-npr-bothsidesism","tag-physical-therapy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22574"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22588,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22574\/revisions\/22588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}