Nick Cave on the point in life
Nick Cave answers a reader’s question.
How to have a root canal
In seventeen steps.
Rep removal
I did a change of address for my mom’s healthcare and discovered that my dad is still listed as someone who could speak for her, a so-called policyholder representative. But he died in 2015, I told the rep, a point verifiable from the company’s records. It would be nice if you could speak to my dad, I said, though it may be tough to reach him.
Gosh darn urbane
Three tote bags for a trip to Aldi.
LTC
You know that you have the well-being of an older family member on your mind when you see a money-asking e-mail from LTC (Ret.) Alex Vindman in your inbox and the first thing you think is long-term care.
Sam Potts’s five-point plan
I especially like no. 3: “Heed the wisdom of Mickey Rivers,” who said this: “Ain’t no sense worrying about things you got no control over because if you got no control, ain’t no sense worrying. And there ain’t no sense worrying about things you got control over, because if you got control, ain’t no sense worrying.”
The ten-second balance test
“This simple, often neglected skill can pay huge dividends later in life.”
Rats in cars
A tip our Toyota dealer offered: set the ventilation to recirculate if you’re leaving a car parked for any length of time — say in an airport parking lot. Doing so keeps at least some of the innards off-limits to critters.
A letter to our representative
“It seems to us that your willingness to protect life begins and ends in the uterus.”
Darren Bailey posted to Facebook
And he said, among other things, “Let’s move on.”
Mary Miller has tweeted
Hours after the massacre in Highland Park, she tweets about monuments and statues and liberty and history. WTF, Mary?
Highland Park
“This scene has repeated itself over and over again because of the unfettered access to weapons of war,” said Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat from suburban Chicago.
Squirrels on metal roofs
How do squirrels contend with metal roofs?
Mary Miller, lying
Congresswoman Mary Miller (R, IL-15) questions Dr. Miguel Cardona, Secretary of Education and offers a crazy quilt of lies and irrelevancies ending in a self-own.
Aaron Rupar collecting
On Twitter, Aaron Rupar has collected today a number of Republican comments on the latest school massacre. The comments are either absurd (“When 9/11 happened, we didn’t ban planes”) or wholly evasive.
HCR on “the right to bear arms”
Heather Cox Richardson gives a short lesson about the history of a peculiarly American idea.
Red flags
Our household’s representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, IL-15), has touted, loudly, repeatedly, her opposition to red-flag laws.
“Why are you here?”
Senator Chris Murphy (D, CT): “What are we doing? Why are you here, if not to solve a problem as existential as this? This isn’t inevitable. These kids weren’t unlucky. This only happens in this country, and nowhere else. Nowhere else do little kids go to school thinking they might be shot that day.”
“Coming back as a cat”
A gravedigger speaks, from Ronald Blythe’s Akenfield.
Birx’s merch
Dr. Deborah Birx has a makeover and a book. As she makes the rounds of ��the shows,” her praise of the defeated former president in 2020 renders irrelevant whatever she says now.
The Girl with the Pilates Mat
A certified Pilates instructor who began posting workout videos to YouTube during the pandemic. Rachel’s great — her channel now has more than twelve million views.
“It will be sunny one day”
From Letters of Note, a letter from Stephen Fry to a stranger.
Cellar music
Vera Lytovchenko, violinist, plays for the dozen or so people in a bomb shelter in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Schwarzenegger speaks to Russians
Well said.
Here, there
George Bodmer drew a cartoon: “There is no here, there is no there.”
Foggy days
Way to clear a foggy brain.
AFT for Ukraine
To help refugee children.
Thích Nhất Hạnh (1926–2022)
Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes.
Close the door
Fire safety. “Close the door” is the theme of a famed PSA created by the sound recordist Tony Schwartz.
Poverty and dignity
“I think if there’s one thing I’ve learned in thirty-five years, it’s the opposite of poverty isn’t wealth. The opposite of poverty is dignity”: Jacqueline Novogratz.