“A Confederacy of Dunces”

Vegas Muse

Jeffrey Rose

vegasmuse@gmail.com

Life in the time of …

Knoxville & Las Vegas & Birmingham

February 25, 2024

What will judge Cannon do?:

The trip home from Knoxville, via DFW was my retribution for the smooth trip down. The flight from DFW to LAS had six delays (15-29 minutes each) and two gate changes. One, from D37 to D3 was a 0.6 mile walk...in the same terminal. There may have been a pressurization leak. The crew had two hours of sitting in the empty aircraft without being paid. Later, my small container of Sichuan chili powder made a decent bloody Mary out of a can of tomato juice (and a bit of vodka). I carry it in my travel vest in case I somehow (more and more unlikely) get upgraded, and I am served a bland airline meal. The first dental appointment I could get for my fallen molar was 2:00 on Tuesday. It was raining. Las Vegas drivers are not good handling precipitation. The hour driving to and from the dentist was a lot more painful than the 45 minutes in the chair. He had no clue how the implant had become unseated as nothing seemed to be wrong, so he reinstalled it and torqued it down. I was home in time to pack for my Wednesday trip to Birmingham to visit my brother and his family. For the second Wednesday in a row, security in Terminal D was absolutely empty at 6:30. So, of course, I was hit with a random check. I endured a three-hour connection in Charlotte in order to not fly through Dallas. We landed at BHM earlier than scheduled. My Birmingham visit includes a brother, sister-in-law, niece (from Atlanta), nephew (from Nashville), his wife, and four dogs, a loud visit for sure. Mary Jane, the soon-to-be systems analyst for Chick-fil-A, made the chicken (of course) entree for dinner. We ordered Thursday lunch from the whitest taco shop ever. Each of us looked up the website and texted Mary Jane our choices that she called in. It's a pretty large house that easily handled six people and four dogs. I took an afternoon walk in the woods behind the house along the Cahaba River, not seeing a soul. My brother assured me that there is a weekly geezer hike on the trail.

My brother and I escaped the melee for a run to Home Depot and then Lowes to find a part for a broken ceiling fan blade. Mission accomplished, we went to lunch at a southern cafe. I went wild, consuming fried chicken livers, greens, stewed okra, jalapeno corn bread, and banana pudding. The average age of the customers seemed to be almost 80. There was even a table of (rather calm) Red Hat ladies. Michelle called during lunch from TJ Maxx, giving us an assignment at Publix that ended up costing $150, mostly for steaks. I guess that's why my 72-year-old brother still works. I handled a Friday afternoon call from a potential job by convincing the caller that I was too expensive for the small amount of investment involved. I probably didn't mention that the investments that he was looking at weren't interesting, so I wouldn't cut my price. Nephew Andrew and I took a walk later through the woods by the river. It started raining soon after, but we continued on. We had to get back in time for him to cook the steaks. He did an excellent job. Still sated from lunch, I managed not to overeat. Later we went to a local ice cream parlor where I prudently only had one scoop of butter pecan (a Southern flavor). I had to add not letting the dogs out the front door to remembering to put down the toilet seat. I'm slow, but not too old to learn. Saturday, five of us went to Tuscaloosa because Gallettes, an Alabama bar, was pouring drinks in red Nick Saben thank-you plastic cups that are sure to be collector pieces somewhere, sometime. First we had lunch at a college pizza restaurant. College pizza is different from other kinds of pizza, still basic but no longer cheap. Mary Jane knew our server, a sorority sister. Then we toured the campus to see where Mary Jane and Kaitlyn went to class. Alabama is an attractive campus with more academic buildings than athletic buildings. Then we went to a fairly large store (one of three on the campus, that sells all things University of Alabama that cost about as much as official NFL merchandise. We finally made it to Gallettes, known for being the bar closest to the football stadium, and the red cups. The drinks in those cups, called Yellow Hammers, coated my mouth with a sickly sweet orange/pineapple juice/white rum/vodka film that took forever to dissipate. Then we found out that we could buy just the cups, without the $8 drinks, for $2, a much better deal. The parent-types in the bar all seemed to be wearing Alabama logo shirts and/or hats. This popular, even famous, bar had no draft beer or food and only one pool table. We drove back to Hoover via Dreamland barbecue (definitely a joint) on the outskirts of Tuscaloosa for three racks of ribs and some sides. They threw in a 24-oz loaf of white bread and an extra quart of barbecue sauce. Hugely sated, I was ready for bed by about 6:00 pm. I stayed up until almost nine, took an acid reducer, a shower, and went to bed.

Speaker Johnson have any priorities other than getting the former president reelected? Trump's statement about Navalny's death turned it into being about the injustices piled on himself. Someone who would buy and wear $400 gold Trump-branded sneakers automatically drop from my “serious person” list. Nothing broadcasts success like wearing a pair of gold sneakers. It appears that Christian nationalists are preparing for the second coming of their president. Award season is getting awfully long and less interesting. Autocrats are using Interpol resources to monitor and hunt down their political enemies. Interpol keeps making changes to stop them, to no avail. Ukraine continues to fight for its life without US ammunition. The Russian penal system is probably holding on to Navalny's body until the evidence of poison disappears.

“We have lots of cash” - DJ Trump, “Buy my shoes”:

The White House, reversing itself, announced that it considers Israeli settlements illegal. Biden announced about 500 new sanctions on Russia and some of the people connected with Navalny's death. We are still waiting for the sanctions installed two years ago to work. The president canceled another $1.2 billion in student loan debt for 150,000 borrowers, now $138 billion forgiven in total. Biden's polling numbers remain low. He remains old. The administration cast its third veto on a UN resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. Senate leader Schumer met with Ukrainian president Zelensky on Friday with promises of more ammunition, but with nothing to deliver. Speaker Johnson's speech to some Republican lawmakers on how to keep their majority in congress degenerated into a Chirstian sermon on the moral rot in the US. Nikki Haley lost big yet again, this time in her home state. Trump says black voters like him more because of his indictments.

The IRS's free Direct File website is supposed to be ready form prime time...if you can manage to get on it. It's only available in 12 states for W-2 filers who make less than $200,000 and don't itemize. US military jets intercepted an unknown high-altitude balloon over Utah but judged it benign and didn't shoot it down.

Chains are required:

A material reason that so many displaced victims of the Maui fires are still living in hotels is that the county, construction interests, and developers are still making the building affordable housing virtually impossible. Some citizens of Valdez, Alaska are raising money to erect a bronze statue of Starfleet Commander William T. Riker who will be born there on August 19, 2335. At 14.38 inches, downtown Los Angles had surpassed its annual rainfall total by February 21. If you ever wanted to kayak in Death Valley, now is the time. The lake at Badwater Basin is six miles long, three miles wide, and one foot deep. Hurry, it won't be there long. Drug recovery books are the books most often stolen from the San Francisco Public Library. The DA of Maricopa County, Arizona (Phoenix) is refusing to extradite a murder suspect to New York City because she thinks the NYC DA is too soft on crime. Note that NYC's murder rate is half that of Arizona. A Colorado man died after being bitten by his pet Gila monster. Their bites aren't supposed to kill a human, but...The Texas governor is turning the city park that the state took over in Eagle Pass, Texas into a military base. The investigation into the 2022 Uvalve, Texas school shooting continues...and continues. A girl scout troop leader in Missouri was threatened with legal action after her girls decided to sell bracelets to raise money for the Palestine Children's Relief Fund. The Alabama supreme court ruled that frozen embryos are people, making IVF particularly risky causing some hospitals to pause performing IVF. The chief justice of Alabama, blending church and state, wrote, “human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.” Republicans who passed the bill didn't want that so they now have to exempt IVF. The Alabama legislature is also moving to ban diversity and to define male and female to better protect their restrooms. A gobankingrates.com survey found Foley, Alabama the best place in the US to retire with little or no savings. Florida, in the midst of a measles outbreak, is not requiring unvaccinated students to quarantine presumably because the state's surgeon general is anti-vaccine.

Drug gang violence has invaded once stable Uruguay as its port has become a hub for cocaine shipments. The wife of the assassinated president of Haiti was one of the 51 indicted for his murder. The UK wants to build more nuclear power plants to alleviate carbon emissions. The problem is that no one has figured out how to bring the power plants in on time and on budget. EU farmers continue to protest low profits by driving their tractors into the center of their capitals. Bologna, Italy, home of fast car makers, just adopted a 30 kilometer (about 20 mph) speed limit. The strike at the Eiffel Tower has ended. It will reopen today. The Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine was found shot dead, riddled with bullets, in an apparent assassination in Spain after he contacted his wife to join him. A hooded intruder seemingly familiar with the Spanish winery spilled $2.5 million (60,000 liters) of its most expensive wine. Aleksei Navalny's widow has vowed to carry on his opposition to Putin and his government. The government released Navalny's body to his mother, but he might have to be quickly buried in secret. All current Russian dissidents are either in exile or in Russian prison. Russia arrested a US citizen, accusing her of committing state treason for donating $50 to Ukraine. She'll be another trading card for Putin.

The awful stench drifting over Cape Town, South Africa was from a Kuwaiti ship carrying 19,000 cows and two weeks worth of their defecation. Japan is suffering from an unprecedented February heat wave. Women finally got to participate in a Japanese religious festival after 1,250 all-male years. A top Japanese Anime producer was arrested on child pornography charges. South Korean doctors are striking, harming patients, to keep from increasing the number of medical students in the country, afraid that more doctors will lower their incomes. South Korea, with an aging population, already has a doctor shortage. News broke that private industry Chinese hackers are reporting to the government. Could that have been a surprise? An Australian equestrian, three time Olympic medalist, was briefly banned from competition while Equestrian Australia investigated whether his wearing of a “mankini” at a charity competition violated its code of conduct. They quickly backed down because...it's Australia.

Buy five, get the sixth for regular price:

Interest rates may go down, but home prices won't. Last year the US experienced 28 disasters that cost over $1 billion each in damages with 2.5 million residents displaced. Fear of gun violence is keeping foreign travelers from visiting the United States. Capital One announced that it will acquire Discover for $35.3 billion, adding 305 million cardholders to their wallet. Regulatory scrutiny is expected. US home builders are lobbying for states to keep outdated construction standards, inflating the extra costs, because they are afraid of change even for safety or energy efficiency. WiFi 7 is here. You don't need it yet. Airlines are raising baggage fees again. Air Canada found out that it is responsible for the promises made by a chatbot through its website. American Airlines will stop giving frequent flyer miles unless the flight is booked through the airline. Boeing's 737 MAX program chief is finally leaving the company. Houston-based Intuitive Machines made the first moon landing in 51 years. The craft toppled over at landing but remains somewhat functional. Anthropic, an artificial intelligence start-up, has raised $7.3 billion in the past year. The company makes a chatbot called Claude. Tech investors are requiring their invested companies to use the investors' products and services. An internal study of Meta found that about 500,000 child Instagram accounts had “inappropriate” interactions daily. Some of AT&T's national wireless network went down early Thursday morning. The company rushed to fix it, not knowing why it failed or how many customers were affected. Turned out that a software update was responsible. Landlines were not in evidence. The company apologized. Nvidia is kicking ass. Reddit is going public. It's been 19 unprofitable years, but there is always hope. Google's self-driving cars keep hitting things. Berkshire Hathaway made $97.1 billion last year, a record. With the end of free and easy returns on Internet shopping, will the local neighborhood stores be making a comeback? The price of cocoa is up 65% over last year. Yale is returning to standardized tests required for admission. Vice Media est morte. A near-empty mall is a great place for a charter school. It used to be that you could make a large fortune into a small one by buying a winery. Now you can add buying a lower-tier English soccer team.

Last year 436,000 cassettes were sold in the US. Taylor Swift was responsible for 74,500 of them. The NBA All-Star Game ended with the East winning 211-186. It must have been one team on the court at a time. If you want to know what big-time college football teams do with their money, look at these new locker rooms. Billionaire Jim Ratcliffe finally bought 25% and day-to-day control of Manchester United for $1.5 billion from the hated Glazer family. Now he has to turn the club back into a winner. The NCAA didn't recognize any women's sports before 1982, when the organization was forced to recognize women.

“Don't promise. Just prove”:

Clusters of old homes turned into restaurant hubs is now a thing. There is quite a science in the design of airport carpets to do more than just hide dirt. The return of the doily is again a thing. Subdivisions of 400 square foot houses are now a thing. Michael J Fox stood up from his wheelchair to present the best picture award at the Baftas in London. Oppenheimer won best film, best director, and five other awards. Barbie? Nope. Ashwath Kaushik, eight years and six months old, has become the youngest chess player to defeat a grandmaster. Beyonce became the first black woman to hit Number One hit on Billboard's country chart. Malia Obama, now a film maker, has dropped her last name and is now professionally known as Malia Ann. Seth Meyers has been on late-night television for ten years. George Santos is suing Jimmy Kimmel for duping him into making cameos. Santos suing for being duped? John Oliver personally offered Clarence Thomas a million dollars a year and a luxurious $2.4 million motor coach if he resigns from the supreme court within 30 days. Mike Lindell still hasn't paid off the $5 million he promised in the 2021 “Prove Mike Wrong” contest. Republican Robert Zeidman, a computer forensics expert, proved him wrong. A Manhattan jury found longtime NRA president La Pierre misspent charitable funds, mostly for personal use, and was ordered him to repay $4.35 million.

Winter is the riskiest time of the year for dying in the US. January is the worst month, with about 20% more deaths in January than August. There are a lot of markers that can help induce dementia. It appears that we needed to start working on them in our 20's. Pet rabbits are quiet and vegetarian, $50 a month and virtually no carbon footprint. It's sad, but new studies indicate that red wine does not protect you from heart disease. A new study found that almost a quarter of menthol cigarette smokers quit in the two years after menthol cigarettes were banned. Half found other brands to smoke and another quarter found menthol cigarettes to continue smoking.