It being St. Me Day, and with a nod to The New York Times for its story on how the DOGEbags have been taking a shillelagh to the National Nuclear Security Administration — which is said to have lost “a huge cadre of scientists, engineers, safety experts, project officers, accountants and lawyers — all in the midst of its most ambitious endeavors in a generation” — we present The Bothy Band performing, “Old Hag You Have Killed Me.”
Category: Dire portents
Ignorance is strength
The FreeDummies have finally turned their beady little eyes to the Land of Enchantment.
According to Alaina Mencinger at The New Mexican, Los Alamos National Laboratory has been “suspending programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion and climate change and scrubbing old issues of the lab’s magazine that discuss these now-disfavored topics.”
LANL employees are federal contractors, not federal employees. Nevertheless, a review has determined that at least two of Dear Leader’s edicts apply to the lab’s DEI and affirmative-action programs, “and the lab is ending such programs as a result,” Mencinger writes.
The New Mexican apparently got its hands on some internal communications — a memo signed by lab director Thom Mason went out Thursday — and bits of this, that, and the other have already begun slip-sliding away down the old memory hole, among them issues of LANL’s National Security Science magazine, focused on anything and everything from climate to diversity, nuclear deterrence to manufacturing.
And it’s not just magazines getting fed into the shredder. According to Mason, LANL has “received guidance” to suspend climate action, sustainability and carbon-neutral energy programs. It goes without saying that LANL is also removing “relevant terminology” from external communications.
But, good news, comrades! “The removal of some content isn’t permanent,” according to the Ministry for Sit the Fuck Down and Shut the Fuck Up.
“To comply with recent direction from the Presidential administration, parts of our website are temporarily unavailable while they’re under construction. We appreciate your patience as we work to update and repost them. … You may notice changes to our website while we reconstruct pages and evaluate language.”
Huh. “Construction” and “update” are not the words I would have chosen for this odious project. As for “evaluating language,” I’d be inclined to leave that sort of thing to the smarties, who are very much not in evidence as the Stalinization of the federal government continues.
Right in the eggs
Whew. Looks like I picked a good week to go on a news fast. These pendejos are pitching fastballs. At this pace there won’t be a wall without shit running down it before Valentine’s Day. A lot of it won’t stick, but it’s gonna pile up. The forecast calls for deep doo.
My news fast coincided with a cold snap that kept me off the bike. I don’t object to cycling in the 30s if the sun’s out, but when Tōnatiuh abdicates in favor of Ehecatl, it’s time to go for a run.
Thing is, I’m not a runner. Not really. A runner certainly wouldn’t call me one. Especially if s/he’d caught me at it.
I can pretend for 45 minutes but that’s about it. And that doesn’t burn a lot of daylight for a fella trying to avoid the doomscrolling.
Still, I managed. For about four days. Who can avert his or her eyes while passing a domestic disturbance in daylight or an unshaded window at night? This is like driving past a five-car crash without checking the gutters for rolling heads.
So I eased back in, slowly. A little Kevin Drum. Then a bit of Charlie Pierce. This is akin to reading the police report, if Joseph Wambaugh wrote it. The Atlantic, for a soupçon of button-down viewing with alarm.
Finally, I hit the hard stuff. The New York Times. Holy shit, etc.
I hope the rubes who elected this bozo are enjoying the shitshow. Looks like it’ll be a good long while before he gets those egg prices down.
Day coyotes and the lizard portal
So I’m noodling around in the Elena Gallegos Open Space on the Soma Double Cross, enjoying a fine mist of a light drizzle and temps in the low 70s, when a good-sized coyote ambles into my path on a fast, double-track descent.
In broad daylight.
I’d been dodging lizards all morning, so the coyote sighting instantly brought Marc Maron‘s 2020 Netflix standup “End Times Fun” to mind.
I couldn’t find that particular video clip online, so I’ll have to make do with a transcript from scrapsfromtheloft.com.
Here’s the weird thing about being a Jew. You know, I’m not religious, but I am prone to prophecy. Um, and I don’t mean that in an arrogant way. I’m not saying I’m a prophet, but if I’m terrified, I’ll go mystical, you know? I mean, I don’t mind. I’ll do it. And sometimes it doesn’t make sense. It makes sense to me, but, like, I’ll give you an example. [inhales sharply] Like, I was hiking and, um. … This wasn’t too long ago, and I’m looking at the ground, I realized, “Wow, a lot more lizards now.” I don’t know what that means, but … like, I think it’s deep. I think that Trump has opened the lizard portal and I … think you should share that. Why can’t that be a little thing of information that you spread around a little bit? Just walk up to somebody, like, say, “Maron said the lizard portal’s open.” And people will be like, “What the fuck are you talking about?” And you’re like, “I don’t know, but it sounds scary. Sounds real. Sounds like it’s happening.” “The lizard portal?” “Yup, the lizard portal is open. Saw a coyote out during the day. That’s not right, they’re nighttime monsters. You gonna tell me the lizard portal isn’t open, it is, and day coyotes are among us, and you’re gonna say that’s not a fucking problem? That’s not a harbinger of what’s happening?”
Lizard portal open? Check. Day coyotes? Roger. Oh, yeah, and did I mention he followed with a riff on (wait for it) fire season?
Our state is on fire right now. It’s on fire all the time. Every year, California is on fire to the point where it’s just the way it is. Two weeks ago, my friend Lynn said, “Aren’t the fires a little late this year?” How is that something you say … like it’s a season? It kinda is a season. Once a year, if you live in California, you’re like, “Ah, fuck, there are ants and shit’s burning. Must be summer.”
Maron’s a former Burqueño, so you know he wasn’t just talking about California. His dad still lives here. I’m certain he’s hiked the Elena Gallegos, seen the coyotes and lizards, smelled the smoke.
Hey, I’m Irish. Not religious. But I know a prophet when I see one.
Will the defendant please … relax?
Call me cynical (“You’re cynical!”), but I don’t think that other cat, the bedraggled, raggedy-ass orange tom that keeps slinking around the joint, yowling, spraying on the national furniture, and clawing the Stars & Stripes curtains into ribbons, is in danger of being put to sleep anytime soon.
Nossiree, he’s got himself a solid majority of black-robed laps in which to curl up while he awaits delivery of The Big Fish, the one that got away on Jan. 6, 2021.
Fuck me running.
Meanwhile, the playacting continues. Government shutdown: Will they or won’t they? Dueling VIP visits to The Border, that deadly, open-air, razor-wired waiting room where all the brown foreigners go to apply for the jobs nobody else wants. The Senate leadership following the House down the rabbit hole to Wonderland. Gaza. Ukraine. “Dynamic pricing” at Wendy’s.
And now, this: Is a president a king?
I thought we settled that question back in 1776. But as I recall, that king required a few years of rather aggressive convincing before he conceded the point.
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