Audiobooks

I broke out my "Animal Farm" audiobook last night. It's good, but I don't know if it will make for compulsive listening, that is, as something that I can listen to, maybe, once every few months. Though, it will certainly withstand more listenings than my "Reagan" biography!

When I first bought "1984", I opted to get the book by itself rather than the box-set with "Animal Farm", because I accepted that "Animal Farm" was but a briefer, fairytale-ish version of "1984". However, those "1984" disks have a number of skips. I'm not sure why. I cannot recall coming across the problem when I listened to them the first time, and I cannot imagine how I might have scratched or maltreated them. In any case, I needed a new copy, and this time I decided to go the extra mile and get "Animal Farm" as well. I am the happier for it, provided that I don't have any trouble with these disks.

Russia

"One in four Russians lacks indoor plumbing. Only 62% have plumbing, central heating, and electricity. The money Putin & Co. stole could have brought Russia fully into the modern age, a developed democracy within the European Union instead of a gangster state at war with the world."

-- David Frum

Ground Beef

I was worried about that ground beef we got at the commissary. I decided to save one pound from the trash. I needed at least one round of burritos or tacos. Two weeks is a long time to go without ground beef. But the meat did smell and taste a little off, but only a little, I'm thinking, or hoping - I hope I don't get sick.

Lazier

I seem to have become lazier in the evenings, if that is possible. I just want to lie in bed, slip on my headphones, close my eyes, and listen to an audiobook. Is this a problem? It actually feels kind of good to me. Yet, I also feel more weakly and somehow sadder.

My Hair

Fuck, I was supposed to shower tonight. I think I'm going to hold off until tomorrow. I'd like to get a wank in before Kay arrives on Thursday. Over the past month, I confess, I've been given to letting my shower slide till the third day, and that's harder to do now since my hair is getting long enough that it can feel as though I have a greasy mop atop my head. This is counterbalanced a bit by the cooler weather, which slows down the rate of greasiness, but only a bit.

Trump

Another big Trump drama has fizzled out, or so the media seems to conclude. At least the threat to invoke a 'national emergency' has faded out. He gave a national address tonight, which seemed little more that a shout-out that he really is for the wall, even if the political stars are not aligned to make it happen - showing his fidelity to his base of deplorables.

Assuming that this is fairly right, we are perhaps fortunate in that Trump is not as mad as we have been fearing. He is usually brought back from the brink of total meltdown. He doesn't seem to be as bad as it can get. He is scary, but he actually stays within the lines - so far. It remains true that you cannot take the future for granted. Trump is a loose cannon in the White House. He is doing a lot of damage, but, so far, nothing irreparable.

Egalitarian liberalism, on the other hand, is definitely taking some vital blows. Losing the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary as a whole is just about irreparable for this political cause, but it's not the Constitutional system. And, truth be told, liberalism hasn't had a lot of life in it for a very long time anyway. We've been off that track at least since Reagan took power. Trump seems to be just giving it a few last hate-kicks and taking out a pistol to shoot it in the head and put it out of its misery.