Rick Kinnaird

Saturday, July 1, 2023

We got home. More on that later in this screed, but two, maybe three things.

One: I am, once again learning more legal and Constitutional sh*t than I ever cared to learn, due to the recent Supreme Court decisions and the Mothers for Liberty.

I also read a piece about this woman who has tirelessly worked to overturn Roe and ban all abortions because she saw the phony movie “Silent Scream” years ago.

The right, I am told, is worried about “grooming.” This seems to mean that children are being manipulated to believe certain things and then act in ways these folks don’t like. Their two big concerns seem to be that children will become queer and boys will pretend to be girls so they can sneak into the girls’ bathroom. (What ever happened to the old peep hole?)

Ya know, the people who seem most concerned about these things seem to project the vertical y behaviors they say they want to prevent.

I too am worried about grooming of our young people. Take for instance the graphic comic approach to selling the Junior AR15. First you need to know there is such a weapon. What’s it for? It’s for kids. Yeah, it’s a weapon of mass murder made for and marketed to kids. They market it via graphic novel layout. They show young people defending property with the JAR15. They show a boy dressed in t-shirt, baseball cap turned backwards and cargo pants with their weapon slung across his body defending property. Does it work? You betcha. Just look at what Kyle Rittenhouse was wearing the night he killed someone trying to stop him from killing someone.

The Mothers of Liberty is the latest way the right is trying to push their pseudo-Christian white supremacist ideas on us and destroy our country. This involves mainly suburban Republican women dressed up in red, white, and blue  trying to take over school boards and local government posts so they can divert money from pubic schools and put it in religious segregated schools. Talk about grooming! And, oh yeah, destroying public education.

Then we get to the Supreme Court. Let’s start with the last item first. Clarence Thomas says he didn’t know he had to report trips with friends on his financial forms. He’s going to amend those forms. Great. Case closed. Nothing to see here. I mean doesn’t everyone get all paid for vacations on yachts and stuff? As Shawn Hannity would say, “Honest mistake.”

And Thomas got into it with the other black person on the bench. Speculation is he doesn’t like not being the only black person on the court. However, I disagree. I don’t think he likes the law being explained to him by someone who is way smarter than him.

It is stunning the sh*t this court is trying to pull off. I’m no lawyer, but even I can see how outrageous it is. Last night I learned that in order to bring a suit someone has to be hurt (ie damaged), and I learned that a court does not rule on hypotheticals. That is until now. 

In one case a woman wanted to know if she expanded her business to wedding websites would she have to design a website for a gay couple? Okay, she’s not in the business as of now, but she might be someday (hypothetical) and she hasn’t been asked nor does she have a gay couple wanting her services (double hypothetical). But the court took the case and said, “No, you don’t have to do it.”

Next thing ya know, some guy who owns a restaurant is going to ask if he has to serve people he doesn’t like, or believes they are devils, or something. Maybe maybe, they are black? Maybe, he doesn’t like black people? Maybe, his religion says black people are devils so for religious reasons … This isn’t a slippery slope this is a greased track, a double black diamond.

Then there was the case that several states brought including Missouri (I think it was Missouri, maybe Arkansas) and it was about abortion or god – I forget. However, the state was arguing for a company, Amy what’s her name the last loon appointed to the bench asked, “Why isn’t the company here making the case?” The answer was simple. They didn’t want to be involved. As in, they wanted nothing to do with the case, but the state lawyer said that they, the state, could represent them. Wait. The company didn’t want to be involved, oh, and said they weren’t harmed. So what have we got? No harm. A hypothetical and the court listens? WTF?

This is what it’s come to. The highest court in the land is ruling on hypotheticals and listening to cases where the people being represented want nothing to do with it, and aren’t harmed.

And we have justices that don’t seem to know that they can’t take all expense paid trips from “friends” without reporting it. (Kind of reminds me of Ron White when he said if he got rich he’d be with “his new friends” in Palm Beach.)

Okay, back to the exciting “Adventures in Newark!”

Let me make it clear, we could have gotten out Day One on a train. However, Amtrak charges a lot if you book day of – like $360 for what would have been a $32 ticket two months before.

I could have waited on the phone ninety minutes or more to get United to do something or we could have waited in line at the customer service counter. You know it’s bad when you look at the evening news and they show the very ticket counter you opted not to wait in-line to talk to a rep. Shelby met one couple that did wait – 3 hours, moved ten feet.

Okay, so, picture this. We are in one of four hotels surrounded by high speed highways. It’s a giant oval. The only restaurant you can walk to is The  Café at The Courtyard. Otherwise it’s what you hoarded from breakfast or bought at the little store in the hotel.

I called one place, asked if they delivered, “Yes,” but not there and they hung up. I went to the front desk and they shared three menus of places that did deliver: Chinese, deli/pizza, and Thai.

We got subs day one and Chinese later that evening. The next day we did the super interesting wet/carby breakfast bar and hoarded gorp. I had bought a bottle of white wine to go with the Chinese the night before, so I had that and some left over red. I had gone to the Courtyard (a happening place, btw. They had a bar with people at it!!!)

I bought two tiny Ben and Jerry’s cups and two pints – thirty bucks. One pint. was a Twixt Chocolate cookie thing and the other was some yogurt like ice cream or maybe it was soy – who knows?

At 2pm we had to leave our room. That was as late a check out they would allow. We’re sitting in the lobby. I finished the red in the room and the Twixt. So I’ve got the gorp, white wine and the soy/ice cream/ yogurt thing in a bag. Our flight is at 8:20pm. We decide to hang out in the lobby. The DING bell isn’t going off much because it’s kind of low volume at the front desk and market in mid afternoon.

I’m reading a book about the decipherment of Egyptian Hieroglyphs. I call United, answer the robot questions and am referred to an associate, I am informed the wait will be 90 minutes. At least they didn’t have a loop of ads with things like “Did you know? … Thanks for flying United.” Instead they played very bland quiet music on hold. I left one ear bud in and read 60 or 70 pages before someone came on line about one hour and 45 minutes after being on hold. 

We had gotten our flights with our miles. We got our new flight with more miles. However, the new flight had cost significantly more in miles, because it was booked at the last minute. Well, the quiet man on the other end of the line said we’d have to take that up with the redemption unit or whatever he called it. And like so many people who were kind enough to give us advice which always started with, “Just tell them …” To which I responded “After ninety minutes …”

He put me on hold for twenty minutes while he got our refund started on our original leg.

“What about paying for the hotel? etc.”

I don’t know. didn’t ask. Didn’t come up. My experience with North West years ago was that under “amenities” they mention that only First Class and International travelers get accommodations.

I had never thought to look under amenities for getting screwed.

So maybe there’s a chance we’ll get some compensation. Just call and tell them …

Oh and so I was in the lobby, waiting for the shuttle to take us to the airport. What to do with the pint of unopened soy/ice cream whatever. Well, I wasn’t going to drink the warm slushy mess. I walked to “the Market” DONG! opened the freezer door and put it in there next to the frozen pasta. I noted the upper shelf was now full of little Ben and Jerry’s cups. Nice.

As I went by the front desk I mentioned that to the women that they now had ice cream. They tittered. I wondered what would happen when someone tried to buy that pint of soy whatever?

“I’m sorry. We don’t shoe that in our computer. Let me call someone. … Yeah. I don’t know. We don’t have it on our screen. It says … sir, can you show me that again? Cookie dough Soy … Yeah, I think the Courtyard sells it. It doesn’t scan here. I don’t know.”

Will the person in front of the desk get my soy stuff or will they not?

A question I will never know the answer to.

Maybe, I should call the Fairfield and ask? “hey I left a pint of soy ice cream in the freezer. Would you mind sending it to me?”

The story should end here but it doesn’t. We got to the airport about 5:30. Our flight is at 8:20. It’s delayed until 9:20.

The flight in front of us was delayed so our flight delayed leaving, waiting for the gate to clear.

Then we were delayed until 10:20. Then they announced a gate change. It was in the other arm of the terminal. I was tired. My back hurt. Oh and when we checked our bags for the flight I was over weight. So here I am pulling out socks and underwear, much to the chagrin of Shelby, to get down four pounds. the pisser was, I had checked my weight with my never fail weigh scale. I had already pulled out books and stuff so my carry on and my backpack were already heavy. This guy comes out from security and stops right in the stream of traffic and looks up. There’s nothing to look up to at that point. It’s like the people who take the down escalator, which is packed and stop when they get off, then get angry when they get pushed. I plowed into the guy. Too tired to go around. I don’t know if he minded or even felt it. He was pretty oblivious and I was moving so who knows?

I mumbled, “Sorry” to no one in particular.

We got off the ground at 12:01am and landed in Richmond a little after one o’clock in the morning. I was trying to get an Uber while waiting for our bags. Weird responses. “We can’t pick you up there” What? Blackish screen. I kept trying. Nothing. By nothing I mean I couldn’t find any part of my phone’s screen that would respond to being poked or prodded. While I was doing this Shelby was looking for our bags. The luggage conveyor had stopped there were six army duffel bags on the track and that was it.

Was it going to start up again?  A guy with the yellow kneepads on said no that was it. I continued to poke at the Uber app. All of a sudden there was Shelby’s with our bags. “They were in this room. Must have come on the earlier flight. I had to crawl over a bunch of bags to get them.” An older couple was standing at the doorway of the luggage room wondering if they should go in. “Do you see your bags?” “Yes, They are over there.” “Well, hat are you waiting for?”

We went out to the street and joined the gang waiting for Ubers. Ta-dah the app now worked. We got home after 2am. Hauled the bags into the garage and up to the entry way and left them there. I showered. We slept like the dead.

Friday, June 30, 2023

To bring you up to last night – We were on our way to Heathrow Airport, London when our United app informed us our trip had been cancelled because one leg of the trip had the flight cancelled. It turned out to be the last leg.The one hour and four minute flight from Newark, New Jersey to Richmond, Virginia.

Hey? Can’t we take the London to Newark flight? Why sure, but you can’t do that via the app or the check-in kiosk. You have to stand in line behind a bunch of people to talk to the one United employee working the desk. Then a second person showed up and we were on our way to Newark. Ta-Dah!

Shelby got us a room for the cheapest price possible – two hundred dollars. What a deal!

We were in an oval of super highways. Four hotels in a row. Only one restaurant – the Café at the Court Yard. The Courtyard is Marriott’s signature brand. We were in the Fairfield. The Marriott’s not signature brand. The difference is The Courtyard has a bar and a café. The Courtyard charges you for breakfast. The Fairfield includes it: two warmer round hot hinged devices holding four pre-made, recently reheated “products,” cold cereal, hot oatmeal, fruit (not ripe), eight condiments( sunflower seeds, granola, raisins, sliced almonds, etc.) coffee (all day! all night!)* etc.

*The cups said, “Starbucks” and it was between “okay” and “good,” which just goes to show that if you don’t let the baristas at Starbucks brew the swill it can actually be made to taste okay as opposed to burnt, acidic, and over-caffeinated. Amazing.

The round hot service had egg product, which was some sort of watery premade scrambled egg. This is a staple of “the breakfast included” menu at any hotel. It typically shares the burner with either sausage, vegan sausage, bacon, or Canadian bacon. Ours had vegan sausage beside the scrambled product. God knows what that is made of. 

The other burner was divided between real sausage with watery grease and on the first day a cheesy egg croissant. The croissant part was soggy from the wet warm environment it was served in. They were dumped into the serving half side and some didn’t quite make it and were slightly crushed when the lid came down. Others had their contents slipping out. Some had both! Crushed and slipping out – take your pick. Yum. I went for the watery egg product with muffin. Yes, they had muffins.

The second day the croissant was replaced with a ham, egg, and cheese sandwich. Their take on a egg McMuffin. I took the last one and told the ladies in the back who brought out “the product” and coffee. They were rapidly talking in Spanish. They laughed when my presence interrupted them. One woman whom I knew by sight and nod said, “Okay (senor?)”  as she laughingly passed me and sort of put her hand up to my arm like an old friend would do when they found something very funny. A few moments later I went back to that doorway with the sandwich still on the plate. The one lady whom I had spoken to looked at me questionably. 

“This sandwich.”

“Si? No good?”

“No. It’s actually good.”

She laughed with a kind of “whew” gesture. Like it must be some mistake. You actually had something that tasted good. I mean it still had the soggy half crushed, contents falling out display but it tasted decent.

Not something one expects at the free breakfast bar.

Shelby had the great idea to take a coffee cup and put a collection of the condiments and make some gorp. A combination of the sugary granola, sunflower seeds, raisins, and sliced almonds. I did it too. We used a lid to hold it in while we shook it to mix it up. Great. Snackage.

Due to storms across the country, lots of flights had been cancelled. Originally, we got through Customs before most people because we have “Global Entry.” That means we are pre-registered and put our right hand on a finger print pad and take a head shot picture and were through. While I waited for bags Shelby went ahead to see about booking our final leg home.

When I came out from Baggage Claim, Shelby was near the end of a snaking cordoned line to a United counter. she had come out, seen the line, went upstairs to find another United counter only to discover the actual United ticket counter was in a different terminal. Screw it: get a cab, go to the hotel, figure it out later.

The hotel is in an oval circle of high speed highways. It’s one of four. My only question was, “Do they have a bar?” Answer, “No,” but they have a basket next to the the place where you check in that holds four bottles of wine. (“Better snag one of those bad-boys before they run out.”) I later learned they had white wine in the refrigerator in their “Market.” That’s the place that went “Dong!” every time someone went into the space.

The United app could book us a new flight at higher prices or we could use more miles, at higher mileage rates than the canceled leg. Amtrak would sell us tickets for $360. The same ticket you could buy a month in advance for $32. Nice. Same for other modes of transportation. Rental cars – sold out. I called United, answered the robots questions, listened to the instructions of using the app or website, declined all that and was told a representative would be with me shortly before I got the “We are experiencing higher than normal wait time” message. Do these airlines employ statisticians? Because if they do I’d like to know at what time do they not experience “higher than normal” wait times? Maybe, I should write a letter and ask.

To whom it may concern,

Every time I connect to your staff they are experiencing “higher than normal” wait times. Is this always the case? ie that you always are experiencing “higher than normal” wait times? If so, than I’d like to point out that your “higher than normal” wait times are your normal wait times.

Thank-you,

A concerned customer.

This might be better than:

Listen you idiots, I know what you’re doing! Do you think I’m stupid? You’re the idiots. We already established that in my first sentence.

The “experiencing higher than normal wait times” message was followed by “your wait time is over 90 minutes” and the “you can use our app” or “go to our website” messages.

Ninety minutes! We’ll try later.

To Be continued …

Thursday, June 29, 2023

Last night I listened to a lawyer for Michael Flynn talk about Trump’s lawyers’ strategy in the documents case. He said what they are going to do is to try and get one juror to hold out. As I listened to the reasoning I got to thinking that this is the least of Trump’s crimes. What about the other ones? And is this merely a distractive smoke screen?

I thought about Jared. Why did he get two billion from the Saudis? Even the Saudis were stunned at how transactional Jared was. Even more so than his father-in-law. I’m not really sure what transactional means but it seems to mean he’d sell his grandmother for a nickel.

Remember, when Trump got in office it was Jared trying to set up a secret communication with the Russians. Why?

It was also believed that when Khashoggi was murdered by the Saudis that he was investigating Jared’s activities.

Also about that time 66 (or was it 100?) Chinese were killed by their government. All had been working for us. Some thought the information was passed along by Jared via the Saudis to China.

And now Trump wants us to believe that when he was showing a paper with how we would attack Iran if necessary and calling it, “pretty cool” that he was just holding up random papers.

In other news the Supreme Court would not go along with the latest Republican election law idea. Imagine that? Seems the idea that a state legislature could for no reason, other than they didn’t like the result, could over turn the election would not fly with the justices. But it was not unanimous Alito and Thomas thought it was fine.

Howard Dean was on TV last night and said something that I didn’t follow the specifics of, but the implication? Yikes. He said we are close to being in the same position we were just before the crash of ’29. The rich aren’t paying anything and the poor and middle class are getting clobbered. When this happened in Constantinople the middle class took to the hills. Now, I guess the world economy collapses.

The Biden White House has taken to pointing out how good our economy is right now. Imagine if he had gotten the IRS properly funded and the newly hired accountants went after the rich tax cheats?

We are still in Newark. Maybe the flight out won’t get cancelled? They are offering us vouchers to stay as the flight is over sold. Hum. Nine highway circles of Newark or go home? Home is looking pretty good. Maybe. Just maybe we’ll get there tonight. 

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

An FBI analyst got four and a half years for having classified documents in her home. She kept them in her bathroom. 

DJT – a tape has surfaced where he is heard to be showing off documents to people writing a book. They didn’t have clearances. Now we hear twelve different excuses from The Donald. The one I like the best goes like this, “there were lots of papers – plans. Yeah, that’s it. Plans. Plans of – um – places, buildings. Yeah. That’s it.”

OMG.

Then there’s the old news about the Titanic sub. At least it crushed quickly and the people probably had no idea or the pain was brief. Like milliseconds.

I’m in a hotel in Newark, New Jersey. Surrounded by highways. Like nine. We’re in an oval. Order food and hope they deliver. Train or plane out – not tomorrow, but day after. Could be worse. the hotel could run out of over-priced wine by the bottle.

We flew in from London. United was kind enough to tell us our last leg from Newark to Richmond had been cancelled. If you want to book a train or a flight the-day-of, or the next day, you’re talking $360. From now on maybe we’ll book a train way in advance, then it’s 32 bucks.

Other than new sh*t on Trump, which is the same olde stuff, the commentary is the same. Just throw him in jail.

Watched two movies on the way here: Women Talking, and The Portrait of a Woman on Fire. Women Talking is powerful stuff. Woman on Fire is French. Don’t expect it at your multiplex. Like other French films I’ve watched it’s very je nais sais quoi or full of ennui or leaves you with that “Um, life.” feeling.

Oh wait, saw The Fabelmans too. Most excellent.

The hotel has a bell that goes off every time someone comes through the front door. More like a gong. DONG! … DONG! Adds a touch of French ennui to the situation. Waiting for United – DONG! 

Correction: not the front door but the “market.” Frozen pasta, drinks, and candy. No ice cream.

I can see the news . DONG! They are showing people queued up twenty deep at a counter trying to arrange flights. I know that counter. We were there! DONG! We decided to go to a hotel instead. I called United. Wait time ninety minutes. DONG! Forget it.

DONG!

Why were we in London? To see Katie, Jon, and our grandson. Katie has been on sabbatical, working on a project with Elaine Chew who is conducting research on the effects of music on heart patients. Elaine has a data collection machine, and she’s a concert level classic pianist. She can record music and play it back. That way when they conduct their research they know the subjects are listening to the exact same music.

Elaine sat down and played. To stand that close and hear her play, brought tears to me. I don’t know how well her data collection is going but wow. How anyone can think music doesn’t somehow tame us is beyond me. Near the end of her brief piece I recognized “Happy Birthday.” The piece she played, at the beginning was an inversion on that tune. Then it clearly came out at the end. It reminded me of a New Year’s party many years ago. the theme was personal expressionism. Each guest did a little something. Jack Pfieffer went to the piano and played. Jack was a producer of classic recordings. He figured out how to record in stereo. RCA used his recordings to make their line called Red Seal Records. He recorded Van Clyburn and Horowitz among others. As Jack played that night, all of a sudden we heard Olde Lang Zyne. It was midnight.

There are times that are magical. One was that New Year Eve party. Another was listening to Elaine play on their “data collection device.”

Thank you. And good night.

Monday, June 19, 2023

Why didn’t Jack Smith demand Trump’s passport and like that there?

I got an answer – time.

Any request for things like holding a passport would lead to a hearing, which would delay the trial.

Ah ha. Smart man Jack Smith.

If Trump flees any chance he has for political office is gone. If he stays and runs for office he loses (hopefully). Then we get to see the trial and jail time and speculate how that will play out.

I’m in the UK right now and there’s a woman here who held some political office but no longer who greatly admires Sarah Palin. Shockingly, she has various conspiratorial beliefs.

A recent headline here was “We Warned You.” This from the head of The Bank of England talking about the inflation caused by Brexit.

Boris Johnson has resigned and the news shows video of him out for a jog. Apparently, there was a party during the Covid lockdown. This did not go over well.

I’ve heard Ms. Bobbert is bankrupt. Too bad. Maybe she can get a job busing tables at the Mexican restaurant that replaced her two shot saloon?

Gavin Newsome, Governor of California, went on Fox’s Hannity show and poor Shawn wasn’t able to play the Jim Jordan slice and dice game with him. Instead, Shawn was confronted with this strange phenomena that he doesn’t do much of on air. Facts. Yeah, kind of embarrassing when you build up your whole persona and show on untruths and imaginary slights. In fact, it might be so embarrassing that he could get sued, or is he already being sued? I forget. 

It’s hard to spin a minus job creation number under Trump to be better than the best job creation numbers in fifty years under Biden as good, but Shawn tried!

You would think after years and years of telling lies that at some point you’d want to come clean, but this is not what happens to people like Shawn. They dig deeper and double down. The only time I ever heard Hannity admit to a mistake was after Jon Stewart eviscerated him over showing a huge rally and claiming it was a Trump event. It wasn’t and Shawn meekly said it was an honest mistake. Honest my ass. They (Fox and its brethren) keep making these “honest mistakes” all the time, but now they don’t even apologize they just move on to something else.

Here’s two to think about: (“Claim” vs Fact)

“Migrants are bringing crime here.” Migrants commit crimes at 50% lower than the average population.

“People don’t want to work. The higher wages are causing inflation.” Unemployment is at record lows. People are working, There are more jobs than people to do them. Inflation is up 15%; wages are up 10% so people who work have lost 5% in real earnings. Therefore, it’s not wages driving inflation. (what could it be? Taxes on the rich are at record lows. Goldman Sachs VP’s got $500K bonses. You figure it out.)

You won’t hear this on Hannity.