Day 19 of 366 Crazy introspection

There are times when I wonder how much damage parents inflict on their children. Think about Trump Or DeSantis for a minute, as repulsive as it is. There hasn’t been a day thus far in 2024 when the majority of the media coverage hasn’t focused on Trump and his antics.

They were children once. What kind of childhood did they have that created them to be ruthless and vindictive? Can we really place all the blame on their parents? I’m not sure. But then I wonder what really influenced them to become these flawed creatures.

Look at DeSantis for a moment, was he so badly damaged by reading books that he wants every book he dislikes banned. If you don’t want to read a book, then don’t. Books invite discussions and those discussions help us look at issues that concern us or make us aware of things that we may not have known. Irrational fears if a child reads a book, they’ll become a lesbian or gay or even transgender are ludicrous.

Jane K. Cleland in an article in Writer’s Digest about Thematic Writing that all writing has themes when done well. Her example of an epigraph that made me chuckle was “the Godfather by Mario Puzo where the theme focuses on dueling dichotomies, crime and justice and loyalty and betrayal. The epigraph reads, “Behind every good fortune, there is a crime.” Unfortunately, many of our wealthy personas have taken that to heart.

Could that epigraph also apply to Trump or DeSantis with a slight word change, “Behind every politician lies a criminal.” However, in all fairness that epigraph could apply to any one of our politicians right now in Congress, even our local governments. That thought is repulsive but unfortunately true. It saddens me immensely that our culture is attracted to criminals and their fifteen minutes of fame.

The more repulsive things Trump Or DeSantis say and do the higher the polls rise for the Republican Party. Which is terrifying to me because so much has changed in our country and I’m not convinced it’s for the best. I realize our country needs to make changes that our forefathers couldn’t have possibly anticipated but looking at all the candidates at this time I can’t help but wonder how much this country can endure with any of them at the realm.

I find myself wondering how much crazier things are going to get.

Virgin Air’s Flight VS127 was prevented from taking off on 15 January after a passenger saw that the tops of four fasteners were missing on a panel on one of the wings. It was cancelled in order to allow engineers to carry out an additional inspection of the aircraft. However, a Virgin Air representative said in an interview that ,”Each of the wing panels on an Airbus A330 has 119 fasteners, so the fact that only four were missing did not impact “the structural integrity or load capability of the wing, and the aircraft was safe to operate.” (1)

I don’t know about you, but flying is looking less and less appealing to me. Airlines have been accumulating profits, but I think it’s long overdue since they’ve invested in maintenance.

The death toll from the polar vortex is still rising with today’s number at fifty. Sixty-six million people are affected by winter weather alerts. (2)

Las Vegas doesn’t have snow but it’s going to have different issues. The Super Bowl is here and along with that comes insanity for the residents. (3) It’s already challenging to drive here because there aren’t any bypasses like Philadelphia or Washington DC. so if you’re going to a location on the other side of the strip, you’re stuck in traffic. Most of us haven’t forgotten how difficult it was to get to different locations off the strip when the Formula One race was here. Many businesses were financially impacted from the road closures and disruptions and the Super Bowl is going to repeat a lot of that chaos.

The Financial Economics versus the residential needs on paper look ideal because the highly anticipated Super Bowl LVIII is set to take place in Las Vegas on February 11, 2024. “Held at the state-of-the-art Allegiant Stadium, this is an opportunity for the city to showcase its world-class facilities and attractions to a global audience,” says Andrew Gosselin of Money Inc.

Reality check Allegiant Stadium may be state of the art but the seating costs to attend a game or a concert for a local is astronomical. According to TicketIQ, the Raiders have the most expensive tickets of any NFL team for the upcoming season based on the average list price on the secondary market. It’s the third consecutive year this has been the case. Las Vegas has an average price of $1,035 per game. I don’t know about you but a thousand dollars buys a lot of groceries. I told you crazy knows no boundaries.

“As the city prepares to host one of the biggest sporting events in the world, the Las Vegas Super Bowl Host Committee is working diligently to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Their primary objective is to create a memorable experience for visitors while leveraging the benefits of the massive influx of fans,”. says Gosselin (4)

(1) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12982309/virgin-atlantic-flight-stopped-noticed-missing-bolts-wing.html

(2) https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/more-than-50-dead-66-million-under-winter-weather-alerts-as-arctic-cold-blankets-the-nation

(3) https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/skies-airport-runways-will-be-packed-for-super-bowl-week-in-las-vegas

(4) https://moneyinc.com/what-is-the-economic-impact-of-the-super-bowl-in-las-vegas/

Day 13 Another day, another list of crazy

Oklahoma City had an earthquake Friday night the 4.3-magnitude quake. The Saturday morning earthquake. with a 4.1 magnitude Saturday morning. State seismologist Jake Walter told USA TODAY the area has recorded about 18 earthquakes in a 12-hour span.  Friday night the 4.3-magnitude quake had an epicenter about a mile away from the Saturday morning earthquake.

The Midwest has freezing temperatures and blizzard conditions. Governors from New York to Louisiana have declared it an emergency, with harsh conditions expected in St Louis. Experts with National Weather Service have issued warnings about “life-threatening” cold. temperatures.

Yet, the wildcard game is still happening in Kansas City between the Chiefs and Miami. The dangerously cold’ Chiefs-Dolphins game could be one for the NFL history books. WHY????

Go Miami! Yup, a Dolphin fan since Larry Csonka played. Yup, I’m dating myself here.

Why is the NFL subjecting the players and the diehard fans to such extreme conditions?

Is anyone familiar with the author Octavia Butler and the book Parable of the Sower? I highly recommend reading it. In case, you don’t know Octavia Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was an American science fiction writer and a multiple recipient of the Hugo and Nebula awards.  Her story written in 1993 depicts a future America ravaged by ecological collapse and civil unrest.  Sound familiar, Butler indicated that the issues faced by the characters in “Parable” and by the United States today in 2024 were inevitable. (1) I’ve just finished reading the book, I bought it during Covid when it was on the NYTimes best sellers list, twenty-seven years after it was written but unfortunately my book hoarding got out of hand, and it was shuffled down in my stack to read. After reading the book, and then seeing George Bass’s article in the Washington Post I’m inclined to agree with him. Dystopian fantasies are beginning to look, like everyday life these days.

 Butler saw our tendences of enforcing hierarchy through abuses of power as the root weakness of humanity. If you’re watching the political circus going on around us her words ring true.

Let’s all send positive energy into the universe for these two U.S. Navy SEALs who are missing off the coast of Somalia after having fallen into the water during a nighttime boarding mission on Thursday, according to two U.S. officials. It’s a dangerous hotspot to be missing. I remember when my son served in the Navy, and his ship was in dangerous places how hard it is to simply wait to get an email. My heart goes out to these families. (2)

My Wiccan spirit asks we send positive energy in the universe so that the non-stop violence around the world ends and we remember that we’re all family on this planet called earth before we destroy it. How crazy is that? One family…one planet.

My embroidery project update: I have completed the B-17 and the B-29 today. I’m still in my nightgown and I’ve been vegging in the recliner sewing. I didn’t sleep well last night, though I thought I would after being so emotionally drained. Instead, I watched my cats playing and read about the B17 and the B29. I’ve been learning about each of the planes, what their color schemes were so my creative endeavor is as authentic as I can stitch it for my doctor.

Both of these planes are Boeing aircraft, a generation apart. Both were considered flying fortresses. The B29 was designed to operate faster at higher attitudes with heavier bomb loads. The B-29 was primarily used in the Pacific theater in WWII whereas the B-17 was used primarily in the European theater of WWII. Theater is an interesting word in this commentary, don’t you agree? Why would anyone refer to any area of the war as a theater but that’s the wording used. I looked it up, “In warfare, a theater of theatre is an area in which important military events occur or are in progress. It may include airspace, land space or sea areas.” (3)

It changes the feeling when going to a show for me. Maybe it should have changed Lincoln’s desire that night to attend the theater and history might have had a different outcome for African Americans sooner than it did.

Ignorance grows. All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change.” Octavia Butler

(1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2024/01/13/octavia-butler-2024-parable-sower/

(2) https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/two-navy-seals-are-missing-after-thursday-night-mission-off-coast-of-somalia/ar-AA1mVkZ1

(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theater_(warfare)#:~:text=In%20warfare%2C%20a%20theater%20or,become%20involved%20in%20war%20operation