I've been trying to avoid dwelling too much on politics

 

"Hail! Hail! Freedonia, Land of the free and the brave."

Around 90 years ago, the 4 Marx Brothers made a movie called "Duck Soup" which lampooned the lead up to war and the absurdity of fighting that war.  I wonder what witticisms Groucho would say if he were still around to see the Orange Snowflake make a mess of America and the world.

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Only a fool would take the GOP speaker of the house seriously when he blamed the House of Representatives' shutdown on Zohran Mamdani's run for Mayor of NYC.  How could a man from an opposition party, not involved in the Federal Government be the cause of the shutdown?  Sadly, this is the level of lunacy that passes for GOP logic these days.

As I see it, we will have some interesting pain points for DC politicians coming up as I write the entry:

• 11/01/25 - SNAP Benefits (Food Stamps) & ACA Healthcare Subsidies End.
  
  This is going to hurt poor people, especially in the GOP run states.  Families will not have the funds to buy enough food for their families, nor will they be able to pay the healthcare insurance premiums coming due in 2026.
   
• 11/04/25 - Election Day.
  
  Although there will be no nationwide election, several local elections may indicate how disenchanted people are with what's going on in Washington, DC and tell us who they blame for the impasse.
  
  
• 11/05/25 - The Shutdown becomes the longest in American History.
  
  It will be over a month since the last full paycheck for virtually all Federal workers (save for the Post office).  Given that most people in America live paycheck to paycheck, and that they are 3 paychecks away from financial disaster, the pain becomes very real for most government workers.
  
  
• 11/21/25 - The day the GOP's Continuing Resolution Bill expires.
  
  This is an interesting date.  The speaker of the house has kept the house out of session, so that the newly elected representative from Arizona can't be sworn in.  Why is this?  He doesn't want the 218th vote to be cast, so that a house resolution makes it to the floor, calling for the Epstein Files to be released.
  
  If the house stays out of session, there is no Continuing Resolution bill for the senate to approve, so the House GOP line that the Senate Democrats must pass the bill to reopen the government.  At this point the speaker has a hard decision to make: Does he keep the house shut down and be THE cause of the shutdown?  Or, does he bring the house members back in session, and see the Epstein File resolution pass?  
  
  

Sadly, the Democrats in the Senate caved before this entry was to go live.  In one sense, this is a good thing, as the GOP didn't decide to "Go Nuclear" and eliminate the filibuster. (I did not support this option, as I was "all in" on the shutdown.)  At least, we'll get some movement towards releasing the Epstein files, now that the congresswoman from Arizona has been sworn in.

 

A magnificent and glorious shutdown - may it last for a few more months.

 

As I write this, we are a little over two weeks into the federal government shutdown, and people are hurting. A food pantry has been set up just outside of West Point (the Army's service academy) to serve the needs of military families who are doing without pay.  Other "Essential Workers" such as Air Traffic Controllers are taking sick leave to work jobs in the "Gig Economy" to pay for necessities.  In short, the Democrats in the Senate are successfully using their only tool left in the political tool chest to protect Obamacare subsidies for the poor and middle class in America.

The GOP is wrongfully claiming that the Democrats are demanding healthcare (and other benefits) for people illegally in this country.  They are lying, as they do not want to anger the Orange Snowflake by making things right for the American public.  They only serve to benefit the "Billionaire Bandit class" (not to be confused with "Vanilla Billionaires") who see the average person as only a disposable tool to be used in increasing their wealth among their class.  The "Vanilla Billionaire" (and there are many of them) doesn't see the average person as a tool.  They see these people worthy of government services and want to make sure that these people have no reason to rebel against our capitalist system which allows the wealthy to enjoy their wealth. 

Are people hurting?  Yes!  Yet, many of us participated in the "No Kings" protests being held around the USA.  What is the GOP message about these protests?  It is that these protests are "Anti American."  Hmmm....  If we didn't protest against unjust laws 250 years ago, we'd still be flying the Union Jack over our land.  And the GOP is saying that all protest against their authoritarian ways is wrong.  As George Takei said about William Shatner in a celebrity roast (and as I'd say to the snowflake), "He can go F*** himself and the horse he came in on. (And in that roast, Shatner did ride in on a horse.)  Although I was unable to attend a "No Kings" march in October, I hope to do so the next time one is called.  Constant pressure from all sides is needed to make the GOP crack.

At this time, the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is keeping the house out of session, so that he doesn't have to swear in a new Congresswoman from Arizona.  Why, you might ask?  Well, when she is officially in congress, she'll be the 218th vote to release the Epstein Files.  We know that the Snowflake's name is mentioned many times in those files, and we know that this is the one area that MAGA demands answers from the GOP - which are not being given.  Maybe the Democratic party should alter its message slightly and "officially" focus on the other names in these files, saying that they want to expose the names of the pedophiles in the "Donor Class".  Of course, the Snowflake would figure predominantly in what is revealed, but this would make it easier for GOP congressmen to abandon support for the snowflake.

Without the House being session, there is no hope for any compromise between Senate Democrats and the GOP.  So, I expect that this will be a very long (maybe record breaking) shutdown, as saying no to the GOP is the only leverage they have left, and would be foolish to give up before they had an iron clad commitment from the GOP that Democrats' needs will be met. And when the GOP cracks, watch the snowflake have a temper tantrum the likes you've never seen him have before.  I can't wait for this to happen!

I get frustrated when a business says something is delivered when it isn't.

 

How many of you use Amazon and get notices that your products have been delivered when this is not so?  Well, I'm tired of these presumptive notifications from vendors, as false positives cause a lot of grief when deliveries are time-sensitive.

Years ago, I subscribed to Amazon Prime because they advertised 2-day delivery for most products.  This was very important, as Amazon was the only place where I could find a girl's locking diary that I could give to a young girl before Christmas.  Today, things are different.  On Amazon's site, they tell users to do the following:

1 - Confirm shipping address in Your Orders
2 - Look for a notice of delivery attempt
3 - Check around the delivery location
4 - Ask your household members and neighbors
5 - Wait 48 hours for the package to be delivered
6 - You can check with the carrier

You'd think that Amazon (and its carriers) could always take a photograph of the delivered object where it was delivered, and include that photo as part of an email confirming delivery.  This was helpful to RQS when her package was delivered to the building next door, and made it to her place a day later.  But false positives can cause big problems.

Quite often, I get false positives from Amazon and UPS regarding product deliveries.  The worst of these occurred a while back when UPS and I got our signals cross when I ordered a phone from Motorola.  The confusion had me going back and forth between UPS and Motorola trying to find out where the product was delivered and how to get a replacement shipped to me.  I ended up paying the first month's installment on the phone before I actually received it.  Although Amazon can be bad, but UPS can be worse because they consider a product to be delivered - even when they hand it off to the post office for last-mile delivery.  This happens quite a bit for many small items, and no notice is available on UPS's site to tell the recipient that they handed off the delivery to USPS. 

Shortly before the pandemic and during part of it, I was a customer of Freshly.  Their food was good, but their last mile delivery was terrible.  Out of 13 shipments, only 3 or 4 were delivered correctly.  My boxes were left behind entry doors where I couldn't see them, left in other doorways where no one cared about them, and in one case, left in front of a vacant apartment where the food was left to rot for a week. Although I got reimbursed for my losses, I got annoyed at the last mile delivery service they used - LaserShip.  Like many "Gig Economy" services, LaserShip bid out its deliveries to the lowest bidder, and this often meant that products were delivered incorrectly, if at all.  I'll bet that firms like this were the cause of Freshly's demise.

What in the world should we do as consumers?  For me, I'd report the products as missing as soon as they are marked as delivered and found not to be so.  Someone has to pay the cost for false deliveries and businesses have more clout than consumers to insure that their products get delivered properly.  So, make them pay the cost for the problems they created until these problems are fixed.

 

Sometimes, it's the little things that count

Sometimes, it's the little things that count.  As I reported in my prior blog, I had more unsatisfactory deliveries of my Freshly box than I had satisfactory deliveries.  All of the problems related to my Freshly deliveries were related to LaserShip and its Gig Economy business model - it is an Uber for last mile package delivery.  LaserShip is well known for poor quality delivery service, and the vast majority of its Yelp reviews only assign the company a single star - the lowest possible ranking.

So why do I start my first real post in this blog on something other than life as a Transgender person?  Well, not everything in a Transgender person's life focuses around gender identity, gender presentation, or gender manifestation.  Most of the time, our lives focus on the more mundane things such as commuting to work, buying groceries, getting together with family and friends, etc.  Once we start living our lives as our authentic selves, we continue to deal with our normal trials and tribulations in addition to the new headaches of people reaction to our authentic selves. Freshly delivery is one of those normal trials and tribulations - something I'd be dealing with whether or not I was transgender.

I had skipped a month's worth of Freshly deliveries, as I had a freezer full of both Freshly and Top Chef meals.  These meals needed to be eaten before any new meal deliveries were made.  Today was the first day in a month that a new Freshly delivery was expected at my door.  So I decided to check the Freshly site to track the delivery, and I found something that pleased me very much:

It looks like Freshly has finally decided to use another "Last Mile" delivery service to get their product to my apartment.  LaserShip would misdeliver my meals by roughly 12 noon.  CDL had not yet misdelivered my meals by noon, and I take this as a positive sign that CDL would rather its delivery men and women to get the job done right than to get the job done quickly.  However, only a track record of satisfactory deliveries will prove whether this is a positive development or not.  And today's delivery was a success - the Freshly box was found in front of my door at 3:00 pm, exactly where I wanted to find it.