While we await the wisdom of the WordPress Wizards, SAO — one of our longtime readers who can still post comments — suggests that the Dog Blog’s theme, Penscratch 2, may be at least part of the problem.
Penscratch 2 is an old theme — not as old as its predecessor, Kubrick — but still, plenty of white hair in its ears and a stoop to its bony shoulders, plus it seems to have forgotten where it left its keys to the comments. Also, it may have shit the bed.
So, while we wait — and wait, and wait, annnnnnnnnnnnd wait —I need someone who is still unable to comment using Safari, DuckDuckGo, or whatever to try adding a comment to the most recent post, “Age limits,” at this unused blog, which runs the Independent Publisher 2 theme.
We had apricot crisp for dessert last night. WordPress says you lot need cookies.
OK, I finally heard back from the Wizards about the comments issue. They advise thusly:
Please ask your readers to check if third-party cookies are enabled. If not, enable them. Here are the steps you need to follow: In the Safari app on your Mac, navigate to Safari → Preferences → Advanced, then unselect “Block all cookies.” Here is our guide to check and disable/enable third-party cookies.
I’ve asked whether this is a new thing, since this is the first time the comments issue has been so widespread. More as I hear it.
So, yeah. If anyone wants to give that a go, have at it with my compliments. In the meantime, if you have fresh intel, new questions, or just want to vent, you can reach me at maddogmedia (at) the Fabulous GeeMail (dot) com.
¡Basta ya! I embarked on a news diet yesterday. As in “fasting.”
Throughout the long Fourth I consumed exactly zero news, save for checking the weather to see if it was suitable for the healthy outdoor exercise.
And really, I could’ve just stepped outside for that.
But still. Shit.
The media had been keening without letup at a pitch that made an Irish wake look like sitting zazen. The Internet is said to be bottomless, the way a cup of joe used to be, but they came perilously close to filling the fucker up.
The fans in my 10-year-old MacBook Pro were approaching a Boeing level of failure. Every hot take a platter of steaming horseshit, smack in the gob. In my Father’s Bistro there are Many Dishes, I mused blasphemously. I sure as hell don’t have to eat this shit.
So I pulled a Level One Roberto Duran: “No más, no más.”
As mentioned in the previous post, yesterday I took my coffee on the couch, not at the desk. After breakfast Herself and I went for a short trail run. I followed that up with a 90-minute ride.
Then I set a loaf of bread to baking, poured the fixings for Sarah DiGregorio’s chipotle-honey chicken tacos into the Crock-Pot, argued with the Voices in my head about which of our many subscriptions we should cancel, entertained Miss Mia Sopaipilla, and served up the grub.
The three of us dined in front of the TV, streaming a couple episodes of “The Bear,” season three. (Spoiler alert: There was less hollering, even when Sugar was in labor.)
Afterward we joined the neighbors for their annual fireworks extravaganza in the cul-de-sac. No flyers or boomers, just ground-level sparklers and sizzlers. But an enjoyable tradition nonetheless.
One of the grandkids was leaping and cavorting throughout, trying to grab a handful of smoke, as grandpa performed his pyrotechnical wizardry. I caught my share of the exhaust while sitting down, in my clothing, eyes, and windpipe, and both Herself and I had to hit the showers afterward to hose off the residue of whatever those wily foreign devils put in their whizbangs.
The Republic I left to its own devices. I expect there was no shortage of counsel, and plenty of fireworks, too.
• Meanwhile, a housekeeping note: If any of you have tried and failed to post a comment recently, and you are using an Apple device, the problem may reside with the Safari browser. Herself was able to comment from an M1 Mac Mini using Firefox. I’ve pinged the WordPress people and will get back to you with whatever they have to say. But in the meantime, you might try using another browser to make your voices heard.
Five-thirty in the morning. Doors and windows open to a cooling breeze. Birds and crickets singing up the sun.
The house totems: pig and bicycle.
An old analog clock ticks off the seconds. The clock is the front wheel of a bicycle. I don’t think of this as time rolling away from me, because this tiny bicycle’s wheels do not move. But the hands of its clock do — tick, tock; tick, tock — so maybe I’m mistaken. I’m a scribbler, not a theoretical physicist.
As dawn unfolds the lawn looks good from my perch on the couch. After yesterday’s ride on an actual bicycle I watered, mowed, raked, and just sort of generally tidied up back there. This morning I’ve set aside my traditional practice of washing down the news of the day — The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Albuquerque Journal, The New Mexican, et al. — with the first cup of coffee. I’ve had enough of their squawking for the moment — call it a declaration of independence — so this limited reconnaissance from the couch will have to serve as my newsgathering as the sun comes up on this Fourth of July.
My first post this morning, like the ticking bicycle clock, was analog. I stepped outside and stuck our two cheapo plastic flags into the dirt at either side of the front walkway. Right side up, too.
I was thinking of our old Bibleburg friend and neighbor, Marv Berkman, who when asked why a freethinking old saloon picker like himself would fly the Stars and Stripes every morning replied, “I don’t want those people to think they’re the only ones who can do it.”
“Joe, the Supremes just said you can stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and can’t nobody do a god-damned thing about it. What are we waiting for?”
“No, they said he could do that. We try that shit and unless you learned how to make a shiv out of a toothbrush at Harvard Law we’ll be getting hourly prostate exams in the Leavenworth shower room. Until we ‘hang ourselves’ in our cells.”
“OK, OK, so maybe that’s getting too far out over our skis, even for the Supremes. Maybe we just Gitmo his fat ass?”
“You keeping up with our W-L record in the courts? I’m not at all sure we could beat a speeding ticket if we were taking a stroked-out Pope to an ER in Boston.”
“I feel ya, Boss. What about a plane crash? He’s still using that old Boeing piece of shit, yeah? Those things go down more often than Lauren Boebert. Accidents happen, amirite?”
“Only works on Democrats and rock stars.”
“Deranged loner?”
“All registered Republicans. We checked in 2016, remember?”
“Oh, yeah, right. OK, how’bout we get Stormy to sign a sworn affidavit saying he liked to make the ’shroom angry by licking Mickey D’s ketchup off a 10-year-old kid or boinking a golden retriever, has a library of videos that makes a Scranton fuck-book shop look like a Christian Science reading room. Send the FBI over to ‘check it out,’ they get into a ‘gunfight’ with his SS detail, he goes down in the crossfire. Shit, I bet at least half his SS detail wants to shoot him three times before breakfast.”
“Too many moving parts; too much wobble. But the dog thing. … How about this? We invite him over for lunch and I introduce him to my dog, Commander.”
“Jesus, Joe. We’re talking a dog bite here? Fuck that. Go big or go home.”
“Going home is starting to look awfully good. I could use a nap.”
Mad Blog Media 