March 192nd: 56 days until Election Day!
Good evening, Kibitzers!
Today I had to have an old root canal re-done. I did not know that was a thing! Turns out, the first time, they didn’t get all the way down to the ends of the root canal, so there was an opportunity for an infection to take hold in there.
Since it takes a couple of hours to do this, they kindly pry your jaw open and stuff a rubber block between the back molars on the opposite side from the work, so you don’t have to try and hold your jaw that way. I must say, though, that by the end, that really hurts anyway. Tonight, I am on Advil and eating soup.
Good thing I just made soup over the weekend! I hit the farm for a ton of vegetables and made a much larger batch of vegetable soup than I’d really intended. Also, I made marinara sauce, so I am set for spaghetti too.
All that vegetable-chopping made me think of my favorite candidate for vice-president of the United States. And not even in the context of the vegetable she will chop if he debates her! I had seen, here and there, even during primary season, videos of Kamala cooking things with other people. I decided to look some up and share them here.
Here are a couple from Iowa, where she visits the homes of her campaign volunteers and cooks something with them. First up: Apples fried with bacon in Des Moines. I am totally making this. (Luckily for the hungry, the cooking is up front and the storytelling is done at the table.)
Monster Cookies in Dubuque. Recipe appears below the video on the YouTube page. These use oatmeal instead of flour, and contain peanut butter. And they’re huge.
Kamala joins Mindy Kaling in Los Angeles to make Masala Dosa. For the record, a number of Indian people in the YT thread feel that Mindy Kaling has no idea how this dish is made, but I have zero standing to evaluate their assertions.
Fast-forward to early in the pandemic — only about March 53rd. For reasons best known to himself, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia had shared a horrifying video on Instagram in which he demonstrated how he “makes a tuna melt.” Kamala met him on Instagram Live to show him how a tuna melt is, in fact, made. Warning: contains some footage of… whatever it was Senator Warner was doing.
These two are longer, more like 20-30 minutes each. Kamala has Instagram Live chats with two chefs, sort of about cooking, but really more about legislation to aid small restaurants whose solvency is threatened by the Covid situation.
Chef José Andrés of World Central Kitchen:
Chef Tom Colicchio, host of ‘politics of food’ podcast Citizen Chef:
This is not about food, and it’s only five minutes long. I just thought you might like to see two kind, decent, intelligent people have a chat. I dream we can see more of this sort of thing in connection with presidential politics, soon.
Bonus livestream event: The Huntington Library (/Art Museum/Botanical Garden) in San Marino, CA, has a giant Corpse Flower STILL preparing to open. Since the flowers are rare and last only a day or two, and the indoor spaces there are currently closed due to Covid, they are livestreaming the plant. Note we’ve been on this since last week — that sucker is (at 6 pm ET today) looking like it’s going to burst open any minute.
Oooh! A guy came in about 6:45 and made measurements and took pictures! He startled me, because when a video of nothing but a potted plant is running, it’s quite easy to forget it’s running.
More info here. h/t to Billeh at C&J.
Stay safe! 💙💙💙💙💙
New video:
Let’s start with this lovely short tribute to Chadwick Boseman, by Senegalese artist Boubou.
The Meidas Touch:
Republican Voters Against Trump:
Really American:
Parody Project is a little early for Christmas, but they have a reminder of the crisis prior to the “losers and suckers” one:
This Founders Sing video is a few months old, but it’s still brilliant and relevant. It especially spoke to me because I love Drift Away and I love the Obama portrait that’s singing here:
This is one of theirs from a few days ago. So hard to pick just one!
So listen: all I know right now about helping this year’s California fire victims is the same thing we know every time about every disaster now: if we have a working “FEMA”, it’s World Central Kitchen.
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Yes, we have come to the point where Chef José Andrés’ worldwide relief organization is so ubiquitous that I’m just giving it its own box here. At news of any fresh disaster, it’s almost a given that their plan to respond will be among the first things we hear. They’re already on the job in California. (Special page to volunteer for California.) Also, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, post-derecho, and Lake Charles, Louisiana, post-hurricane.
You can always donate or volunteer at their website, but it may not be up on the very latest news. For that, check Twitter for Chef Andrés and for World Central Kitchen.
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🌊 🌬️ ⛈️ 🚧 ⛈️ 🌬️ 🌊
In addition, for Hurricane Laura victims, Daily Kos has assembled an ActBlue list of reputable charities involved in recovery efforts.
🦠 COVID-19 🧫
Flatten the Curve: How social distancing, hand-washing, and similar measures can help.
I’m cutting this box way down, because we’re all familiar by now with the available information, such as it is. We know how to shelter in place; we’ve been doing it to give public health measures time to be implemented. Now, many of us are just waiting for some public health measures.
My past diaries list, where the older purple boxes still live.
Georgia Tech “Event Risk Assessment” map. Use the slider on the left to pick an event size, and it shows you, for every US county, the current % risk of having at least one Covid-positive person show up.
SciShow video discusses the latest information on asymptomatic infection.
MinutePhysics video explains how N95 masks work (it’s waaaay more subtle than you may think).
Viruses on surfaces, from The Guardian.
This virus spread tracking site also has an excellent “wiki” page on virus information/misinformation, proper mask use, symptoms, etc. h/t eeff!
The Atlantic has listed their ongoing virus coverage here, and none is behind a paywall.
This excellent video explains clearly how viruses are killed by washing with soap. h/t Sara R!
And this one intelligently discusses the benefits of face masks.
If you know someone who feels wearing a mask is just too hard, maybe they need to see this.
The Washington Post offers video tips on dealing with common mask annoyances. h/t Sara R again!
New: Further discussion of masks, including some useful video and valuable tips, in Besame’s KosAbility diary.
CDC chart showing how to remove gloves properly to avoid contamination.
The lung exercises in this diary are still good for anyone, sick or not.
If you’d like some attractive handmade facemasks, see Sara’s diary here to order a set made by Sara R and WInglion from various cotton quilt fabrics: $40 + $7.75 Priority Mail shipping for a set of 5 (or other quantities at $8 each). You can contact Sara R to discuss your preference in fabrics or special needs.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (The Borowitz Report)—In a withering critique of his own voters, Donald J. Trump on Thursday blasted supporters who plan to vote for him only once. [...snip]
“I like supporters who have stamina,” he said. “Stamina means you keep voting for me until someone tells you to stop.” He said that voters should vote for him once by mail, again in person, and “maybe even more than that.” [...snip]
Asked about the legality of Trump’s suggestions, Attorney General Bill Barr said, “As Attorney General, I try to stay out of things involving laws.”
— The Borowitz Report, at The New Yorker
If You’re Bored, Part a million:
- The Chico Art Center is still physically closed, so they are offering their September exhibit, Flora: The Other Endangered Species, online throughout the month. It focuses on artwork about “native, threatened, and endangered plants”, and there are some lovely works. h/t FoundingFatherDAR!
- The Freedmen’s Bureau Transcription Project at the Smithsonian is seeking remote volunteers to help transcribe pre-1870 documents so they can be searched digitally, to help people with ancestors who were enslaved trace their heritage.
- Make a snack: this week, we have an individual coffee-mug brownie that microwaves in 1 minute, fits fine in those 11 oz. “So-and-so for President” mugs that don’t hold near enough coffee.
- Time machine: This is a live audio recording of Eric Clapton, with Derek and the Dominoes, playing Little Wing in 1970, a month after Hendrix died.
- Live Mars rover cam — check out the neighborhood.
- Brewing beer at the Obama White House.
- Ukulele duet: Sultans of Swing. You might be surprised.
- Here’s Michelle Obama’s podcast on Spotify. If you don’t have an account, you can sign up for a free preview “with occasional ads” (I have not done this, so cannot report).
- Online Arts: This list, kept current by DC Metro Theater Arts, is of arts organizations under their umbrella that are offering online performances or presentations. Although it’s all Washington DC area, cyberspace sneers at that sort of boundary.
- Samantha Bee has kindly provided information about cities that already have prominent “Defund the Police” movements, to help us contact city officials and urge them to do the right thing. There is also a link for the many of us who don’t live in such a city, to help us find contact info for our city officials just the same.
- Make hummingbird feeders from soy sauce bottles — video.
- The Frick Collection, a NYC museum/library based on the art collection of robber baron Henry Clay Frick and housed in his 5th Avenue mansion, is offering a weekly feature (live at 5 pm ET on Fridays, but viewable thereafter) called “Cocktails with a Curator”, in which a Frick curator discusses a work in the collection and also shares a cocktail recipe (the week’s recipe posted in advance). They run around 15-20 minutes. (See also the Frick’s “Travels with a Curator” series, posting Wednesdays at 5 pm ET.)
- List of 30 virtual tours of museums, zoos, aquariums, and theme parks.
- Tours of New York City museums.
- Samples of free art courses from the Museum of Modern Art.
- Free online drawing class from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- Virtual-reality tours on YouTube of the Met’s impressive spaces.
- The Metropolitan Opera is still streaming operas daily. (They do not plan to re-open physically until the start of 2021.)
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🌟 GOTV 🌟
🌟 VOTING BY MAIL: NEW: FIVETHIRTYEIGHT HAS A NEW VOTING MAP, WHICH THEY ARE KEEPING UPDATED AS POLICIES CHANGE. GO THERE AND CLICK YOUR STATE, AND IT GIVES EXTENSIVE INFORMATION ON HOW TO VOTE THERE.
(Earlier material:) Please see this diary by “Postcards To Voters” founder TonyTheDemocrat about his stance on voting by mail. I found it pretty compelling.
Some states (New Jersey is an example) don’t have vote-by-mail as their standard procedure, but issue absentee ballots with no questions asked*. Now would be a good time to check into that for your state and those of your Democratic friends and relations — Google can help. In the case of NJ, one has to download, fill out, and mail in an application. I plan to switch over to automatically getting a mail-in ballot for every election from now on, which is one of the options here. No one who does not have to touch buttons in a voting booth should be doing so!
*For this election, NJ is going to a fabulous special procedure, which I understand as follows: They mail every registered voter a mail-in ballot, starting Oct. 3. You can return the ballot by mail, and there will also be special dropboxes, at least 10 in each county. (They did that with the primaries, but there are to be more dropboxes this time.) If you instead wish to vote on election day by going to a polling place, YOU DO THIS BY BRINGING THE POLLING PLACE YOUR PAPER BALLOT. I imagine they have a procedure for people who don’t have the paper. The main point is, they will have ADA-compliant voting machines at these locations, but the ONLY people allowed to vote by machine are people whose disability makes it impossible for them to vote with the paper ballot. I was extremely pleased with my state to hear this, and hope they keep doing it this way.
🌟 POSTCARDING: If you are looking for a way to help and can’t do things like canvassing or phoning, consider hand-writing postcards asking people to vote. It’s easy because you’re given specific talking points from the campaign you’re working with, so you don’t have to think up what to say, and no one will be coming back at you with questions. And if you like to color, you can get creative decorating the cards. Note that you are responsible for buying postcards (and stamps if you don’t use pre-stamped ones.) Postcard stamps are 35 cents each; pre-stamped postcards from USPS are 39 cents each; two different pretty designs. If you can spend a little more, the two postcarding sites below sell their designs; or, searching the phrase “postcards to voters” on Amazon will show you many designs.
To get started:
🌟 PERSONALIZED LETTERS: Similarly, you can do more good than you might expect by writing personalized letters (from a template) to Democrats who are unlikely voters, adding a brief personal statement about why you VOTE EVERY TIME. Studies have shown this can boost turnout by enough to make a difference. As with postcards, you get names/addresses for these voters in targeted districts from the website, fill in the letters, address/stamp/fill the envelopes, but then, you hold them and mail them on Oct. 27, a week before election day! Note that, as with the postcards, you are responsible for buying envelopes, paper (no special paper required), and stamps. First class letter stamps are 55 cents each. (A new Gwen Ifill stamp came out recently!) You can also buy pre-stamped business-size envelopes, also two designs.
For more info:
(Postcard v. letters: letters are to registered Dems who seldom vote, trying to persuade them voting is important. Postcards are to registered Dems likely to vote, giving them information on specific elections/candidates.)
THESE MAIL PROJECTS ALSO HELP SUPPORT THE USPS, THE LATEST GOP TARGET!
🌟 FOLLOW THE DIARIES OF Yosef 52: He posts at least once a day with tons of information and links to help us vote, get others out to vote, and support candidates, and if the last election was any guide, he will only jam in more and more info as time goes on. I highly recommend his work as a resource!
🌟 ANOTHER GREAT RESOURCE is Shower Cap’s Fascist-Flushing 2020 Action Guide: For a rude satirist in a bathrobe and luchador mask, Shower Cap has done an excellent job at assembling clear and thorough information on vital House and Senate races, to help us easily see who to support and how.
🌟 CONFIRM YOU ARE REGISTERED, REPEAT REGULARLY, AND GET YOUR FAMILY AND OTHERS TO DO THE SAME!!! FIGHTING VOTER SUPPRESSION STARTS AT HOME!
- Many folks here have been surprised to find that their or a family member’s registration has mysteriously disappeared, even though it had been active. Don’t wait until too late to catch and correct this bullshit.
- HEADCOUNT.ORG will direct you to your state’s Department of State/Division of Elections (or similar) webpage, which is the horse’s mouth, as it were.
- Or, google something like “am I registered to vote” plus your state, and go to your state government’s page directly.
🌟 If you can do more, do it! These are just things you can do at home at 3 am. Some of us have the wherewithal to do more, and we should! No one is coming to save us. Act accordingly.
Remember we need the House and Senate, or no president will be able to help us. If you’re sad your presidential/VP candidate wasn’t nominated (I was), please find some downticket races to get excited about. We all need each other.
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It has been 1,084 DAYS SINCE HURRICANE MARIA MADE LANDFALL IN PUERTO RICO ON SEPTEMBER 20, 2017. JUNE 1 BEGAN THE THIRD HURRICANE SEASON AFTER MARIA’S SEASON.
NOW, they’ve been hit by Isaias AND Laura, and they have even more damage to contend with.
Full power has never been restored there, and many homes still have blue tarps for roofs. Earthquakes (still!) and now coronavirus, the giant dust storm, AND a severe drought have made recovery still harder. Sadly, this is the Trump model for handling any kind of disaster.
If you can help one of the organizations working to help the people of Puerto Rico or any of the subsequent disasters, please check out the diary of links.
⛈️ 🌊 💥 HURRICANES AND EARTHQUAKES 💥 🌊 ⛈️
🐨 🔥 AUSTRALIAN FIRES 2019-20 🔥 🐨
🚒 🔥 CALIFORNIA FIRES 2019 🔥 🚒
⛈️ 🌊 HURRICANE DORIAN 🌊 ⛈️
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