I'm taking a few days off. No recipe. No odd political word of the week on Sunday. I want a little time reading, and birding, and batting. Yes, the bats are back, and I will have photos on Monday! We went out Thursday night and enjoyed a really nice night of the first flying of the bats for 2026! As a result I have 25 individual bites from assorted creatures, mosquitos in particular, which need treating.
OUCH!
So, enjoy your Saturday and Sunday! See you in a couple days.
"We should be profoundly skeptical when one party claims certainty and blames the other for our problems. That's a con. You know life isn't like that. That's why we invented democracies in the first place."
~ Scott Pelley
Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search For Meaning In The Stories Of Our Times
Scott Pelley's Full Statement
"60" has been the number one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.
The waste is heartbreaking.
Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause/. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.
For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I've been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.
At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to "keep up the good fight." Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership o ^0 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.
I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion... a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again... a day when sanity, competence, and courage return."
~Scott Pelley
June 3rd, 2026
Scott Pelley's firing last Tuesday was Earth shaking. The Trump and his administration and donors are nothing short of a bunch of oligarchs and crooks. We are closer than ever to losing the American experience, all to make a few ultra rich, even richer, while we pay $6 a gallon for gas! This summer will be among the most challenging I will have experienced in my lifetime. Not just as I maneuver through my own health challenges, but also the stress of watching Trump destroy the country I was lucky to live in my whole life. This is the country my grandfather immigrated to, because he saw all the possibilities! He loved America, as did my father. My heart breaks daily. Dad would be beside himself to see what's happening. I miss my father, I think if him daily, but I would never want him to know about what we are all facing right now.
This story will more than likely shake out over the summer. I know we haven't heard the last of Scott Pelley. He truly earned my respect the other day, when he did his job and spoke truth to power! I felt good and found my own self respect the other day too. I haven't watched CBS in ages, their programming has gotten too repetitive! How many CSI shows does one network need? So, after Steven Colbert was kicked to the curb, never watching that network was no loss, but let me tell you, cancelling our Paramount+ subscription made me feel really good! All this pain at that network, and beyond, is for a merger that will bring us closer to having to endure state media, rather than a free press! I am not going to pay to support these people. They can kiss my ass. And as for Donald Trump, he hasn't permeated every area of my life yet, so with any luck he will be impeached, and with a little luck, we won't have him to kick around any more!
"Never use a big one, when a little filthy one will do."
~Johnny Carson
Yes, I know, I was MIA yesterday, because, well, I didn't wanna. I feel like I am one horrific Trump incident, from checking myself into Briarcliff! ( see American Horror Story/Asylum ) because the truth is, Tuesday kicked my ass! We won't even know for several days, or even weeks, what the what will be as far as the California races go. However, there are some things that seem clear right now. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass will go on to a runoff in November, but it hasn't been determined yet if Spencer Pratt is who she will be running against. Also, it's fairly clear, at least to me, that in the governor's race, Xavier Becerra and Steve Hinton will face off in the fall, as Tom Steyer is out of the running. Yikes. I have a knot in my stomach just thinking about it. But for right now I am not thinking about it, I'm concentrating on enjoying my summer, and not taking it all that seriously. I need to take my vitamins. Laugh as much as possible and enjoy life, because there will be a lot to fret about come the autumn. So, while I deal with the overwhelming brain drain I am experiencing, lets take a look back at the Johnny Carson show from November 12th, 1976.
Frank Sinatra, Olivia Newton John and David Janssen!
True celebrity royalty!
Bonus Video... The Full Wedding Of Tiny Tim to Miss Vicky
"Here's the truth: for every bill that's too high, there's special interest profiting off keeping it there. They want you to believe that's inevitable. That's just how that market works. But that's BULLSHIT!"
~Tom Steyer
San Francisco Speech
2026
Here we go, it's June 2nd, 2026, California Primary Day!
Come on California, vote with a clear head about all we've been through with Donald Trump. My pick for California Governor is Tom Steyer and Michael Tubbs for Lt. Governor. To be honest, the top offices were pretty much all that mattered to me in my district, however, I am closely watching a race in Central California, Bakersfield, David Valadao, who will face two Democratic candidates with impressive backing by different parts of the party. Physician Jasmeet Bains, and Randy Villegas. Valadao is the last of the republican representatives who voted to impeach Trump, not once, but twice! For that reason I don't hate him, but lets face it, at the end of the day, he's a republican, and you can't trust the lot of them. As my dad used to say, why would you vote for a republican if you don't have to?
And, of course, the race for Mayor of Los Angeles has me on edge. The current mayor, Karen Bass, has had a rocky time, especially after the devastating wildfire ravaged the southland in early 2025! Republicans were there to spread misinformation, that she was never able to get out in front of. Once again, conspiracy theories managed to rewrite history. I believe her biggest opponent tonight will be Spencer Pratt. I can't roll my eyes enough at the mere thought of it!. He's a former reality TV actor. A villain. Who is currently running a campaign right out of Trump's playbook, complete with AI generated superhero imaginations of himself, because, I don't know, everyone loves a Marvel superhero? Everyone wants to be entertained? Pratt has NO experience in governance, in balancing a budget for an entire city, for any kind of emergency response. He's a stupid choice. But L.A. you do you!
I can't make people be smart.
I just pray they act with wisdom when casting their vote.
Amelia: Do you know what Napoleon gave Josephine as a wedding present? It was a gold locket. And on the inside he made an inscription, 'Destiny'.
Amelia ( Catherine Zeta-Jones)
The Terminal
2004
The Terminal, was another film I had never seen before, but the other night I did, and it was just what I needed, a story with heart, humor and love that made me believe that the world can still be a good place to live in. Tom Hanks makes those kinds of movies! I mean, have you ever walked out of one of his films hating his guts? So what the HELL with folks on the right throwing shade, or out right accusing him of deeply awful conspiracy theories? He was even bashed for, he and his wife, donating antibodies during the Covid-19 crisis. The republicans determination to hate anyone on the left who is willing to help in times of trouble, are exactly what leads to the kind of discouragement that causes me to run to movies, like this one, for the relief and clarity it gives me.
The movie is directed by Steven Spielberg, and features, Stanly Tucci, and Catherine-Zeta Jones. I have always loved Steven Spielberg films, but it's the movies he's made that featured reality that I always appreciated the most. The Color Purple, Catch Me If You Can, The Post, there are so many great ones, I can't name them all! I remember completely pissing off a friend of mine, years ago, when she mentioned that Spielberg was her favorite director. I shared (I shouldn't have shared ) that I wasn't that impressed with him anymore because I felt his movies had become mostly cookie cutter sci-fi! Well, BOOM! A causal observation, had just given birth to my having NO taste in movies or directors! In fact I didn't understand art of any kind! LOL. Eventually her odd anger wore off, and we didn't discuss films ever again. Shrug. Life.
I haven't seen my old friend in a long time. I am not sure if it was the great Spielberg debate, or if, as happens in life, we simply drifted apart, like characters from a really good Spielberg movie. But as I watched, The Terminal, I wondered to myself how she would have felt about this amazing, heartfelt story. There's zero sci-fi involved, but it is a Steven Spielberg film that delivers all the observations of life, with none of the negativity, because even the "villains" in the film come from a place the audience can understand and accept without the urge to see them ran over by a bus. I'll take that over all the pearl clutching and hand ringing that seems to permeate life in 2026.
"Remembrance of things past, are not necessarily remembrance as things were."
~Marcel Proust
I found the black and white picture on BlueSky this past weekend, and the memories of one of my visits to Los Angeles when I was a kid, popped into my head as if I had just lived through it just a day ago! I am sure you remember me sharing about my sister, sister-in-law and I driving down the Sunset strip one night in 1970, and being amazed at all the neon lights and the glamourous people walking about. One of the neon lights I remember was from the Whisky A- Go-Go. First of all, I loved the name, and second all those cool kids standing around were, well, cool! I was around 7 years old, or so, and I had spent half my life wanting to be a hippy flower child! An idea my mother was never to keen on, but even less so after the Manson murders! LOL.
You know how it is, moms are overprotective. But somehow, she was sure Manson himself was going to escape, comeback to the Bay Area, find my sister and I and that would be it... we'd be dead. Eventually Dad convinced her that Manson would not be heading our way, and a trip to L.A. to Disneyland would be good for my sister and I. So, down HWY 5 we went. A mere 7 hours later we hit Los Angeles! We checked into the Disneyland Hotel, grabbed a quick meal, and hit the strip as the kids called it. I have no idea who was booked at the Whisky a Go-Go that night, but I love Johnny Rivers, and I found him singing one of my favorite songs on the Ed Sullivan show, so I hope you enjoy this post. It's meant to make you smile, and enjoy a look back, before we have to go forward with another week, and another month!
"Can't you see that I am only advising you to beg yourself to not be so dumb."
~Petronus
The Satyricon
On the night of May 31st, 2017, the whole world came together and shared a single point of wonder. We were all wondering, what the actual fuck, did Trump mean when he Tweeted, Covfefe? We never did get an actual explanation about what happened that night, and what it regarded, but I watched it happen real time and let me tell you, there were some very interesting ideas about what it could have meant. Everything from it was the nuclear codes, to his form of swearing, but substituting the word COVFEFE for the word, FUCK. In any case, the word remained on Trump's Twitter account for hours with no explanation. But here is what the White House had to say later in the day...
It apparently shocked everyone. No Shit! It was one of the first overt signs that Donald Trump was beginning to lose whatever was left of his mental faculties! Since that time there has been a flood of evidence that he is incapable of being a full and effective president, as demonstrated daily, with his obsession with vanity projects. But boy howdy, that night and the following day sure was a ride, and as it just might have been the beginning of what brought us to where we are now. Sky high gas prices, sky high daily living prices, and folks thrown off the medical coverage. Not to mention the current Iran war, started with no clear end in sight, and Trump eyeing another war with Cuba. Before he left office the first time, Trump suggested drinking disinfectant might cure Covid-19, you'd think that would have been enough for folks to see that his lights had now dimmed, but no, so all these years later we have that fond memory and a million more like it to keep us warm until the next night of Covfefe.
While Covfefe is not an official word in the Merriam-Webster or Oxford dictionaries, I thought the holiday was still worth a mention this week. Covfefe made quite the impression on culture, banking speculation, and even it's own legislation with the Covfefe ACT. While the it never became law, I think there is merit in revisiting the idea! I hope one day Covfefe will be an official word, so it can join a long list of the silly, archaic, political words, in the official word graveyard. On the other hand, there's a lot that can be learned from that word, so maybe we should be listening closer to the nonsensical. Hey, why not, Words With Friends, sees some value in it!
