Good evening, Kibitzers! Hope you’re all well!
Monday morning, I happened to look out my front door, and there on the doorstep, I beheld an unobtrusive sheet of white letter-size paper. It had the letterhead of the water company, which is never a good sign. The text said:
ON TUESDAY,JULY 7, 2020, FROM 8:00 AM TO 3:00 PM
WE WILL BE TEMPORARILY SHUTTING YOUR WATER OFF TO PERFORM NECESSARY REPAIRS TO THE WATER MAINS. SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE THIS MAY CAUSE.
I’m afraid my reaction to this first world problem was rather intemperate, but, you know, it’s not as if I could arrange to be somewhere else today. I ran around all day Monday doing the laundry, cooking everything that needed to be cooked for the near future and then running the half-full dishwasher, making gallons of the iced red tea I drink all day (plus coffee!), and then filling up every container I could find from the tap, because I really don’t trust these people to have the water back on when they say. Supposedly everything will be all better by the time this posts, so we’ll see. I’m writing Monday night; at the moment, all I can do is think about plumbing.
I was surprised at how many video histories of every aspect of plumbing are available. I picked a few (and then picked a few more when some of those could not be embedded).
Here’s a short tour of the Plumbing Museum in Watertown, Massachusetts, a place I surely must visit if I ever manage to see my family again.
More detail on the story of toilets.
In answer to the question, “Why did the Gates foundation fund that video about toilets?”, I’ll let Bill Gates give his two-part answer himself. I thought his presentation was more comprehensive than a CBS story I saw about his toilet project, but I’ll give them a shoutout for their use in it of the chyron “Rage Against the Latrine”. Someone must have been awfully proud of that.)
Okay, time for music. This song is accompanied only by sounds made by water in one way or another, and you may be surprised at their variety. If you are an audio geek and/or creative geek, the young composer has a whole video twice as long as the song, explaining how he processed all the water sounds to use them as instruments, but the music video itself shows you what each sound basically is.
This song is just lovely. It comes to us from First Nations people in Canada, who called upon an elder woman to compose it and then share it widely. They have included women of many cultures in this video, and they invite all women, who they regard as Keepers of the Water (men are Keepers of Fire), to learn the short, simple song and, as a regular practice, sing it each day in a set of four repetitions, once facing in each direction: east, south, west, and north (instructions and phonetic lyrics/meaning here). It expresses gratitude for water. The First Nations people hope by this to raise awareness of the vital importance of water and of the need for our actions to protect it as it continues to be threatened. Readers of our friends Aji and Ojibwa may recognize the “chi miigwech” said near the end as a thank you in their language.
And finally, some water music I just enjoy and hope you do too.
Stay safe! 💙💙💙💙💙
New mockery!
🦠 COVID-19 🧫
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.
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!
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)—Mike Pence’s turbulent relationship with “Hamilton” continued over the weekend, as he walked out of the Broadway show in his own living room. Pence, who walked out after the Tony Award–winning musical in 2016, when the cast tried to address him, told reporters that he tuned in to the streaming version of “Hamilton” on July 4th specifically to walk out of it once more. [...snip]
Pence dismissed reporters’ questions about the limited impact of his gesture, since the cast of “Hamilton” was unable to see him get up from his couch and leave in a huff.
“President Trump told me to walk out of my living room, and I am grateful for the opportunity to obey him,” Pence said, adding that he intends to walk out of “Hamilton” again tonight.
— The Borowitz Report, at The New Yorker
If You’re Bored, Part a million:
- 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 Obamas interact with small children ::sigh:: — photo collage video
- If you worry that everyone at Harvard is studying full time to be an evil
genius idiot, you might like the work of HarvardTHUD, a student percussion group that plays pretty much anything one can percuss with. Here, they offer a Here Comes the Sun medley played on Boomwhackers.
- For NASA fans, their NASA JPL channel posts all kinds of interesting content. Here’s a recent video about how two astronauts upgraded the Cold Atom Laboratory aboard the ISS.
- 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.)
- For kids, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan will email you a fun activity every day — sign up at their website.
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🌟 GOTV 🌟
🌟 VOTING BY MAIL: 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!
🌟 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!
🌟 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 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 1,021 DAYS SINCE HURRICANE MARIA MADE LANDFALL IN PUERTO RICO ON SEPTEMBER 20, 2017. JUNE 1 BEGAN THE THIRD HURRICANE SEASON AFTER MARIA’S SEASON.
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.
⛈️ 🌊 💥 HURRICANE MARIA AND EARTHQUAKES 💥 🌊 ⛈️
🐨 🔥 AUSTRALIAN FIRES 2019-20 🔥 🐨
🚒 🔥 CALIFORNIA FIRES 2019 🔥 🚒
⛈️ 🌊 HURRICANE DORIAN 🌊 ⛈️
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