I'll just leave this here

Succinct, from Marisa Kabas on Bluesky (all lower case was her choice, not mine)
"republicans are disappearing people under the guise of fighting antisemitism and can’t even pretend to give a fuck when a jewish governor’s house gets firebombed on passover." 1

I think her point is exactly the central concern, and it is gross that it happened on Passover, but it would have been equally bad earlier last week. And I kept being irritated a bit that so much of the commentary (even from Zelenskyy himself) was about Russia's bombing yesterday being heinous on Palm Sunday. 2
Again, why is doing something terrible on a religious holiday any worse than a non-special day?



1 https://www.npr.org/2025/04/13/nx-s1-5363707/fire-pennsylvania-governor-josh-shapiro-residence-arson

2 https://www.npr.org/2025/04/13/g-s1-60065/more-than-20-people-killed-in-russian-missile-attack-on-ukrainian-city-of-sumy

I believe the expression is "cut the cord"

Like the old person I am, I have a bundle with Verizon Fios for TV and internet plus the land line (which isn't really a landline, because it's fiber optic cable and not copper wire, and during power outages it doesn't work). For months Verizon has been threatening me that the TV will stop working if I don't order the new box. Finally they sent it to me anyway. Flo was here and helped me set everything up (including the gratuitous new router, which is identical to the old router). We got most of the way through the set-up menu on the TV and were required to accept the Google terms and services because for some reason Verizon is using Google to suck up data on viewers. I shouted and ranted and called tech support. She was trying to sound sympathetic but finally, to the yes or no question about whether I could get TV from Verizon if I didn't accept the T & S, the answer is no, at least not with the new box. She agreed that the box that was working fine today is about to stop working, but said that the version prior to that would work, and I could call customer service. What?
I have a smartish TV that my mother had only had for a little while. Flo unplugged the boxes (plural) that she had just carefully installed. The apps on the TV like Netflix and Viki still worked fine. She fiddled around and discovered that I have internet connection to a wide variety of random stations. Big names like CNN. Niche things like Korean baseball (yay!). Not the major networks. I am eligible for the PBS passport and am willing to just watch that on my laptop. I think I will call Verizon in the morning and see whether she was right about ordering an old box. Also see if dropping the FIOS TV will save me much. I may actually dump it.

Also had a breakdown near tears about how could I focus on cable TV when my tax dollars are torturing and murdering people in El Salvador? Short answer is that I enjoy escapist entertainment, I guess.