Rime Time

 

We had freezing fog again this morning, which meant there was rime on everything again. I hope my readers will indulge me in posting yet more photos of it. Some of these (the really good close-ups) are from my neighbor's cellphone, some are from my cellphone, and some are from my good camera.

Now the willow tree across the river is half gold and half silver!

My original cuddly rosary (the prototype) is getting kind of worn, so Ma Hat made me another one. These are perfect for praying the rosary outside in weather like we've had this week - just below freezing. If winter was always like this, I wouldn't even complain about it! But they say we're getting a polar vortex soon...

Here are the fridge magnets I made on New Year's Eve. This is the Irish Collection: a rosary, an ancient Celtic symbol, and a bottle of whiskey!

And here they are, in their natural environment on the fridge.

I notice that the leftwing social media chatter is like this: "I think the Capitol Police were in on it! Why were there so few of them there? Why did they remove barriers for the rioters? And why did they pose for selfies with them??" While that does sound a little conspiracy theorist-ish, these are excellent questions. We ALL know the Capitol Police would not have reacted that way to Black Lives Matter protesters trying to get into the Capitol Building! And if you don't believe that, you are lying to yourself. This lays bare just how deep the racism lies in law enforcement, so much so that I consider the Thin Blue Line flag a racist symbol. Also deeply hypocritical: can you imagine what those on the right would say if a left-leaning group changed the American flag like that???

So the rightwing social media chatter is more schizophrenic; it goes something like this: "Those patriots were frustrated with the corrupt election, so you can't blame them for protesting! Anyway, it wasn't any worse than the Black Lives Matter protests! (Because yeah, we ALL remember when BLM broke into the Capitol Building and vandalized lawmakers' offices!!!) And besides, those weren't Trump supporters - they were Antifa in a false flag operation!" (Even if plenty of the people have been ID'd, and we know they have been Trump supporters for years.) Weirder still, I have seen all these arguments in a SINGLE POST. It must get tiring to hold so many competing ideas in your head at the same time, but if Dear Leader says 2 + 2 = 5, then it must be true - just ask Orwell. 

The really annoying thing is that there is no way to prove to these people that there was no corruption - our side is guilty until proven innocent, and the bar keeps getting set higher for proving our innocence. As a friend of mine who now is one of these tinfoil hat types used to say, you can't argue logic with crazy. So no point in my trying to persuade him. It's not that they really believe Trump lost, it's that they think it's wrong that Trump could have lost. They refuse to give the rest of us the same agency they have, to decide who the President will be. Our votes don't count because we voted for the "wrong" guy instead of their Lord and God Donald J. Trump. As McConnell (a guy I usually hold in low regard) said, "If you refuse to accept the results of a free election because you don't like the results, then democracy ceases to have any meaning." He's right about that! 

Famous Hat