Our constant hysterical political climate disgusts me. Trump’s constant braggadocio, petty attacks and rambling , fact-free word salads disgust me. The Democrats and media hysterical spin about Trump disgusts me. As far as political commentary or analysis goes, the various smart takes in 2016 remain the same in 2019, as our American political hamster wheel spins round and round.
For the most part lately, I’ve gotten off the daily habit of tracking the partisan spin throughout the day. Perhaps if something interesting or new happens, I’ll write about it, but fair warning, the rest of this post will be another detour about my efforts to make peace between our consumerist culture and the myriad counter-cultural efforts to combat our wasteful American lifestyle.
Last night I watched a short CNN video on Twitter about a fashion designer, zero waste daniel, who started a clothing design business using only scrap fabric waste. His approach of sewing together small scraps of fabric to create larger pieces of fabric, from which to construct his clothing designs, while being a trendy environmental-mindful concept, does highlight our society’s love affair with consumer goods, where most of us acquire way more than we consume and live totally unconcerned about our wastefulness.
There’s a common mindset among more conservative Americans and the political right to dismiss everything coming from the liberal environmentalist echo chamber, but perhaps we should all try to be a little more open to listening and considering the merits of ideas, before making snap partisan political judgments.
Many aspects of our environmentally conscious activism do stem from the political left, then take hold in American businesses, who react to the political activism. Many businesses respond to and embrace the latest politicized framing of appropriate environmentally conscious policies. This type of political pressure infuriates many on the right.
On the merits, though, pushing all of the politics aside, being less wasteful, using less disposable packaging and taking a more mindful approach to our consumer habits seem like very traditional, conservative American thrifty values, that would even have appealed to Benjamin Franklin and most of our American founders. The less wasteful approaches definitely were ingrained habits to my parents and grandparents.
Moving to a crafting/needlework blog post, explains why I haven’t been blogging much lately… I have been stitching away… using all stuff that’s been sitting here for many years.
I struggle with my consumerist mindset and am working to rethink my relationship with purchasing many items, that clutter up my home, and often have never been used. However, moving to a zero waste lifestyle takes way more commitment and effort than I will expend, so it’s small steps in my life.
For decades, I purchased loads of craft and needlework supplies, without much concern or thought about the possibility of having too much stuff. Yet, the thought of parting with my craft and needlework stuff just isn’t happening yet, but I now strive not to buy more, unless it’s some basic supply that I really need.
A few years ago, I began an effort to make projects using only stuff I already have and that’s what that hummingbird cross-stitch picture above is. I bought a bunch of small Spring-themed counted cross-stitch kits (and some not so small ones too) on clearance at Walmart, over the many years that I worked there. I stitched a couple of these a few years ago and posted a photo, but never fear, I have more to go:
I have a hard time seeing to stitch on 18-count, so I used 14 Aida cloth from my supplies for the hummingbird and a bunny kit last weekend. I bought two of the bunny kits, for no logical reason…:
I did finish that Diane Graebner Amish design (out of the hoop and needs pressing):
Learning more about finishing my needlework into some useful or decorative item leads me to read a lot of cross-stitch blogs and browse Pinterest frequently. That habit leads me to want… more new cross stitch stuff, especially the nicer linens and evenweave fabrics and threads. It takes a constant effort to remind myself that, while stitching on plain old Aida cloth isn’t as nice as stitching on expensive fabrics, these kits and Aida projects still look nice, I think.
Yesterday afternoon, I was torturing myself looking at the blog of a very talented cross stitch designer, Brenda Gervais. All of her patterns scream, “I want to stitch that!”. Gervais wrote a short background story to her 2017 series, Summer Schoolhouse ~ Lessons in Abecedarian. She relates how she found a small children’s book while hunting for antiques, but it wasn’t just any old book. It was a copy of the oldest children’s book in the Library of Congress and it’s considered to be the oldest children’s book in print. This book contains the first documented use of the word, baseball. In the process of browsing cross stitch blogs, I learned a new word: abecedarian and a bit of historical trivia too.
To fill my fix for something new, there are lots of free patterns online. I stitched this free St.Patrick’s Day cats piece, by Lynn B., twice. I am going to make them into little decorative pillows or perhaps frame them, but one is for a family member and then I liked these black cats so much, I stitched one for me too:
Yesterday, was another free pattern start, Russian Dolls, this one from DMC:
Plus, I have a bigger cross stitch project of a Liberty Bell, that’s in progress, but that one deserves a fancier Belfast white linen, not plain old Aida cloth. Just started this, so it’s only the top of Independence Hall and some of the lettering:
Of course, still working on plastic canvas too:
Not sure what I’ll do with this house picture, but it’s a design that I like, so I stitched it…
It’s very hard for me to concentrate on writing lately, but I’ll try to get back to politics soon.
libertybelle diaries 
Because of Vance (at this point anyway – even though ultimately big picturewise I really don’t have to because Arkansas is gonna go Hog Wild for the same ticket) Anyway, because of Vance I’ll be voting that ticket.
But as I seem to recall putting on this very thread of ours LB, ‘With all this Lawfare the D’s are gonna fool around and make Trump unbeatable’:
https://havechanged.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-vessel.html
Trump does have a big opportunity here to widen his lead, JK
JK, Your friend’s blog post here hits points I’ve thought about, but could never express so well. I’m not committing to any candidate, even though I lean Trump at the moment, as long as he doesn’t do anything too crazy. I’m not holding my breath there. He will surely start playing his own team members against each other as usual, switch positions on a whim, without so much as giving his team a heads up and November still feels like a long way off.
Our country is is quite a mess.
Superb info here : And in more recent posts LB. Hope you’re well, my current state is less than ideal. Hanging in there though.
https://havechanged.blogspot.com/2024/08/veep.html
Sorry to here you’re not doing well, JK. I will keep you in my prayers.
The Harris campaign is completely fake and unfortunately many people, especially women will buy into all of it – all the fake “joy,” all the fake “folksy” nonsense about Walz, all the policy flips to more centrist positions, because it’s all appeals to emotion and not one iota of thinking.
The larger looming threat is looming and already being road-tested in the UK with the new thought police enforcement efforts. That “cognitive security” effort was largely developed by US military and contractor efforts, funded by US taxpayers, I believe.
And our liberal news media will aid and abet this effort to silence Americans, who dare challenge the thought and speech police effort here.
Alarmingly, I read this article and believe there’s a step uphill climb to reverse this trend: https://nypost.com/2024/08/07/us-news/majority-of-americans-believe-the-first-amendment-goes-too-far-poll/
Almost posted this in comments for your current post (thanks much!) but because it’s a blog and disagreeing comments I thought best to put it before just you LB. This “Willman” guy is my favorite Turco author; well maybe a tie with some of Walrus’ stuff but so it goes
https://turcopolier.com/the-democratic-partys-convention-is-to-happen-this-week-or-it-has-already-happened-or-something-has-happened/
Some further/additional perspective relating to your current post LB.
(Incidentally, yesterday was the best day I’ve had since [before beginning my cancer treatments] April 22nd of this year. All praise to the Lord and Christ Jesus.)
https://areaocho.com/arlington/
Sorry to hear you’re going through such a bad time with cancer treatments, JK.
I’m back to following a lot of politics crap on X – not sure if it’s worth the effort to keep trying to fight against the Dem/liberal media spin war, but I feel we’re reaching some sort of critical mass level with all of this Dem/media corruption. Not sure where this all ends, but there are bad signs for western civilization and increasing threats all-around – some internal and some external.
No no LB, since the 5th I’m really really doing much much better. Actually, I’ve felt almost “back to my old self.” Got some issues with my, oh, “waterworks” I suppose but I’m hoping (praying!) that with time that somewhat-easily-handled issue can/will be worked out too!
Mr. Stoler recently had a pretty good post up concerning, generally speaking “the fact-checking business.” By my count last night (again – I was listening via radio) Trump got factchecked five times while Mrs. Harris not a single time even though she made the ridiculous statement that “Under this/our administration not one US service member is in harm’s way.”
(I suppose it’s possible nobody’s told her Yemen’s Houthis are firing missiles at our warships in the Red Sea on a daily basis.)
https://havechanged.blogspot.com/2024/08/temporarily-demoted.html
Glad you’re doing better, JK. Cancer treatment sucks, but it beats the alternative.
I am spending too much time following the politics again – need to cut back. I definitely couldn’t vote for Kamala, but Trump is still a hard choice for me. He surrounds himself with weirdos and incompetents, who constantly feed him crazy conspiracy theories and crap, that distract from his policy message. Same old Trump though.
With this second assassination attempt on Trump today, I saw this post on X and was wondering what you make of it? https://x.com/SaraCarterDC/status/1835504426703880488
And that Crooks fella and this 2nd shooter both appeared in Blackrock ads. What are the odds of that odd connection?
Have a question while I’m looking at your most recent LB.
What’s the “most definitive story” on that Crooks fellow? I’m figuring the Bureau to’ve done the best coverup the Bureau could manage.
But what I came here for today LB, and I consider it the very most highly recommended book I’ve ever recommended:
Title: Blind Spots
Author: Dr. Marty Makary MD
I just got it today (Dennis Prager interviewed Makary awhile back but the book’s only just now available from … Well I don’t promote advertising)
Anyway. GET IT! READ IT!
(I’ve since ordered two more copies. One for my local library and one for a specific friend of mine.)
https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/the-mccarthy-report/last-minute-lawfare/
My question would be not if, but when or rather, how quickly. Good comments [nearly *all].
https://ricochet.com/1735900/gosh-i-wonder-if-there-will-be-democrat-riots-this-time/
Eh. Pure coincidence ya think LB?
https://x.com/LarryOConnor/status/1847404507631964323?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1847404507631964323%7Ctwgr%5E04d61d84c8abf0cda2e7e0ee26b010f461ea37c1%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.diogenesmiddlefinger.com%2F2024%2F10%2Fyour-final-pre-election-almost-official.html
I’ve gone through a lot of mixed emotions today, JK. After 25 years, this Trump decisive win felt like a serious blow to the Dem/liberal media spin information war, but they will regroup. If Repubs are smart they’ll work fast to try to start dividing the Dem cabal and peeling off informants and flipping some to turn on higher-up Dems – by setting up a commission or some legal framework to investigate the vast public corruption, especially in the FBI and our intel agencies..
After 25 years of trying to expose this Dem corruption that I still believe involved that witch in the video you linked, I felt a moment’s sense of real hope.
It was my unfortunate luck to piss off my husband’s brigade commander’s wife during Desert Storm that got me into this mess. When I went on those Excite message boards in 1998, I had no idea about risks – I just thought it was a forum for friendly political debate, but when the Clinton impeachment got underway things changed. A lot of better political writers descended on those message boards and they worked together to silence right-wing posters. My gut instinct after that mess happened to me was I still believe that witch was involved in reading or responding on those Excite message boards during impeachment. I just thought I was dealing with ordinary bullies. I believe she was involved in the attack on me. It was after that mess that I realized the only way that Desert Storm commander, by then a retired general, would have participated in something like that attack on me was if he believed I was a serious threat of some sort.
Anyway, with Hillary and Kamala, the truth is they rode men’s coattails to move up the political ladder, one through marriage, the other slept her way up,. On their own – they’re insufferable harpies. I hope Trump and Republicans will organize to deal with the economy, the border, foreign policy, but I sure hope they don’t assume the Dem/spin war is over or that Dems are going to turn over a new leaf. The corruption within the Clinton, Obama machines is so vast that they won’t just reform unless they are truly defeated.
So, I felt relief that Dems didn’t secure their final victory with this election, but they are not defeated until there is some accountability and true public exposure of the vast corruption.
And a lot of this corrupt Dem spin info war is the female catfighting model. which is how the Soviet propaganda machine operated too, imo. It always was alien to the American military, which is run by macho men. Communist operations always struck me as weaselly and about turning people on each other within groups – and that is female catfighting 101 – manipulating people (especially men) for advantage. All that leftist Saul Alinsky stuff was Hillary’s ideal of political operations too… In this election that dimwit, Jen Psaki, pushed the idea that Kamala should add “redefining masculinity” to her campaign messaging and they hyped Emhoff and Tampon Tim… Men revolted and voted Trump.
I don’t think anyone would care about what happened to me all those years ago, but I still post comments on X and keep my blog going. I actually came up with a comprehensive strategy, totally legal and non-violent, on how to truly expose my mess, if I ever got the opportunity – years ago. I dust it off in my mind every now and then and revise parts of it, but I don’t expect that to ever happen. I will be happy if the corrupt Obamas, Clintons, Pelosi and others are truly defeated, for the good of our constitutional republic. Trump has an opportunity to tackle this, I believe and he sure has been victimized by their corruption more than me.
A “just for fun” video LB
For your considered LB
https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-endarkenment
In my humble opinion, this philosopher’s ruminations provides a lot to chew on
Sorry, JK, I’ve been busy posting on X and haven’t been keeping up with my blog.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours LB.
(And for what its worth, posting (and watching) to X is likely more productive overall – except to those of us for whom blog-reading is preferable than “registering” on any social media platform.)
Owing to (I suppose) so much going on viz the coming new administration – “much” is being overlooked
https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024.12.04-SSCP-FINAL-REPORT-ANS.pdf
So far as Hegseth’s thing goes where I’d continue to back him is that, too too frequently since about Viet Nam [LBJ] there’s been a REVOLVING DOOR between defense contractors [admittedly hi-level positions] and the Pentagon.
Happens in far too many government departments [see above] Big Pharma & Fauci et al.
IN HINDSIGHT [LOL] predicting this stuff should’ve been easy … with our “new & improved IC” at the tiller (nevermind that Israel’s been striking the nation almost non-stop since Hizbollah joined Hamas’ effort : what about 13 or so months?)
But alas … a day behind and a dollar too short:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/12/09/erdogan-gets-his-leader-of-the-muslim-world-moment/
Merry Christmas to You & Yours LB
Merry Christmas, JK.
Get any snow where you are LB? How’s about a picture (if you did)?
Speaking of “climate change” (mentioned in your current post)
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2013/06/01/64062/
We got a couple inches of ice-packed snow, JK. Some of it melted today, but there’s still a good bit left. I should have taken pictures when the sun was shining today, but didn’t think about it. It was really quite lovely.
Funny thing this morning, since there’s no snow plows or anything here, is the road was very icy and some idiot man was on a small motorcycle trying to head up the street and he kept spinning and sliding every time he moved a few inches. Later some guy drove by on a small ATV and he was doing okay. By this afternoon a lot of the stuff on the road had melted. Southerners and winter precipitation are entertaining.
Mentioned to a friend yesterday your observing “southerners and winter precip were entertaining” at which he sought to remind me of something I’d forgot.
We had this pal (and the pal’s wife and kids of course) living right aside a four-way stop in 35 mph zone Springfield Missouri residential area. A sturdy stone wall – totally recommended for this exercise! – encompassing his property.
Pretty certain LB, you can see what’s coming!
At any rate our friend had invited us to come up and charcoal steaks and we’d queried “Seems a little cool just now to be grilling ol’ hoss – whyn’t we hit a restaurant?” The reply was “Ain’t nothing can touch the entertainment my neighborhood provides, just be sure to come in your company truck” [4WD].
We sat comfortably in lawn chairs and made a day of it!
Not just southerners LB. I guarantee!
Ever listen to the Ruthless podcast LB? I’ve mentioned my being a regular listener of Hugh Hewitt – except that I can listen to his show on the radio. Give it 30 minutes LB. Its for adults and intelligent.
I think I listened to that podcast once, JK. Sorry for not responding sooner, but I’ve been buried in my garage trying to sort through boxes and trying to rehome a lot of this crap to the trash or Goodwill… the bane of being a lifelong pack rat.
“Rehome” huh?
Got any tips about I might “help” my Mom do that with/for the nephew (of mine) grandson (of hers) who moved in with her (temporarily ? !!!) near on two years ago?
Talk about “a lot of crap” !
Within your current post LB,
“… sends a strong signal to other countries that the US can change the terms of agreements …”
I may’ve missed something LB, what “agreement” – for that matter I missed whatever the strategy and the war aim (goal) was ever supposed to be in the first place too.
Of course we’ve always had our reasonable people can reasonably disagree difference where all this support a free Ukraine business is concerned but honestly, I can’t for the life of me ever remember any agreements having been made (unless maybe Victoria Nuland-Kagen on behalf of the Clinton State Department made such?).
We spent what, 17 years fighting in Iraq? And that “strategy/goal” was for what? (Of course Iran probably thanks us for ‘staying the course’ there.)
And what’s for our 20 years in Afghanistan? Maybe the Taliban sends us Christmas cards thanking the American taxpayers for all that kit?
Don’t know if you read ‘Dawn’s Early Light’ book by that Heritage Foundation guy (Roberts I think) but if you have I’d hope you’d read again that chapter entitled ‘We Are Not an Empire’ wherein Washington’s Farewell Address is fairly extensively excerpted.
I was referring to all the aid to Ukraine thus far – I don’t recall Congress attaching repayment demands to that aid, but now Trump wants this mineral rights deal as payback for that aid.
Okay. But I was thinking that, perhaps, there was some kinda ‘Lend-Lease’ provision somewhere that i might of missed. Which would be entirely possible as I really haven’t paid all that much attention to, owing that all the *progress reports I’ve seen have been courtesy of ISW.
And I think you know how reliable I’ve long considered that organization.
Everybody’s confused where that damn war’s concerned and I honor their confusion. But its not just “the right wing” (&/or Trump) but everybody (sincere or not) whose attempting to explain it. Really maybe the only party (or group) with a halfway clear tale of all the manipulations and machinations that’s got all of us to this point is former SecState Clinton and the crowd over at ISW. Oh and yeah, her too:
https://www.scmp.com/video/1606855/recorded-conversation-between-asst-sec-state-victoria-nuland-and-amb-jeffery-pyatt
Having no stated goal from the very get go and definitely no clearly delineated strategy hasn’t been at all helpful either.
This whole thing is and ever has been an unmitigated and unrecoverable mess.
And everybody loses.
Well, Trump trying to ram through a peace deal quickly catering to Putin seems even worse than the current mess, I think. That would send signals to all our adversaries, I believe, that will be worse for us than just throwing away a lot of money on the Ukraine War.
When one turns the pages in a dictionary to the word “dissemble” this senior correspondent is the definition:
I admit to enjoying seeing Tapper and so many of these smug liberal “journalists” being thoroughly discredited for selling Dems spin e to prop up Biden. The Dem spin war has imploded, but the right-wing media sphere spinning for Trump is headed down the same path – both parties just rerun endless spin drama. So, Comer will rush to get media attention, blabbing about “more investigations” – that go nowhere. We will likely never get a straight answer who was really making the day-today decisions in the Biden WH.
Correct LB.
And O think, if you’ll reflect back some years, you’ll may recall it was all along me insisting “all (*both sides) media” is not to be trusted.
Hope you’re well LB, pretty good here. Gonna have to do one last surgery (supra-pubic catheterization) hopefully sometime next month but, overall appears I’m cancer free. Still though, at this point my view is that, the ‘having cancer’ was better than ‘being cured of’ if that makes sense.
I intensely dislike the state of the world now but having said that:
https://havechanged.blogspot.com/2025/06/iran-refresher.html
I pray *we don’t do something idiotic.
Glad to hear you’re making progress in your cancer battle. My prayers are with you.