HYBYCOZO Update
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War Prints¹
Today, the Pentagon released its budget request for next year, $1.5T. In addition, to being the largest US military budget request ever, it also represents a 40% increase year-to-year from this year’s military budget. In addition to this request there is in a $200B supplemental budget request that was made last month to cover initial Iran war expenses. The Whitehouse announced that it would seek a 10% cut in non-Defense spending to balance these budget increases. Read major cuts to “daycare, Medicaid, Medicare”. All to pay for a war that no one wanted.
Today, we went to the botanical gardens. The weather was warm and the garden was crowded. Afterwards, we went looking for some late lunch on South Grand. The odd hour and quite a few closings left little to choose from. We settled on the Taste of Persia. We decided to share an entree, but each added a beverage, mango lassi, plus we added lamb flavored rice. Muhammad, our server, comped us with their normal white rice, so that we could taste that too. When he came back to ask us how our food was, Anne asked him if he had any relatives in Iran.
He said that he had two daughters, but one of them died when the US bombed the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, at the beginning of the war. She didn’t attend the school but lived in an adjoining home. We felt awful and awkwardly offered him our condolences. But what can you say to assuage such grief? At the end of our meal, we asked for a to-go box for all the rice. He brought the box and also a topping sauce that we added to the box. We apologized again for our country. He absolved us with, “What can you do?”
- The print with this post shows how the news was reported in Japan back then. The graphics look cartoonish, by today’s standards. But in a country where most people were illiterate, this is how people got the news then.
Mother and Child Woodblock Print
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My God, it’s full of stars!
Yesterday, after months of delay Artemis II finally launched to the moon. It will not land on but circle the moon, much like Apollo 8 did almost sixty years ago. This back to the future (or is it the past?) flight occurs against a backdrop of our latest so-called Mission Accomplished war against Iran and closer to home, there are the problems with Anne’s iPhone.
She has been complaining for days about problems with her phone. I have offered to help but have been rebuffed. Lately, though they seem to have multiplied. New problems include Google not being able to access the microphone and the calendar app not being able to add new events. When she tries, she gets an error message saying, “Calendar does not have permission to access your calendar.” I googled these errors and found online solutions.
Equipped with this advice I was able to convince Anne to allow me to assist her. Unfortunately, none of the menu trees called out by Google’s AI matched what was available on the phone. With mounting frustration, I tried calling the Apple Genius Bar to make an appointment. All I got was a lot of run around, but eventually in lieu of an appointment, their AI suggested that we reboot the phone. We did this and voilà! Like magic everything was working again.
I guess it was my bedside manner or lack thereof, but Anne was not happy with me. Words were had and at that point I wisely baled. Returning later, ruffled feathers were smoothed and peace reined over the land. Well, at least here.
Dave And I Picking Up the Boys
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Fool’s Day
Besotted with tales of medieval knights and ladies, Edwin Austin Abbey collected fabrics, read histories, and studied original artifacts to ensure the authenticity of his work. He described this troubadour as a “Gringoirish¹ Barnaby Rudge² kind of Blondel-like³ person,” naming two medieval minstrels and the character of a fool from Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens.
I love using footnotes in my blog posts. I feel (probably wrongly) more sophisticated by using them. Being an engineering student in college, I never had much call while writing Fortran for using footnotes in school.
On every April 1st I operate with “shields up”. Yesterday, Anne was fooled by a joke that claimed that an executive order had just been issued to chop down all of the cherry trees in Washington. With this administration it is easy to believe such outlandish stories. With them it is hard to know whether they are being serious or not. I guess when ICE beats down your door, then you’ll know.
I am especially wary of NPR today. They frequently have a prank news article. Something that they inherited from the BBC, who famously broadcasted an article in 1957 about Swiss spaghetti harvesting. A practice that friends and us once recreated. This was in the era of homemade pasta machine. Anne was coaxed into dressing up as a rural peasant, and we photographed her picking limp pasta noodles off a “spaghetti tree”. I wonder if Bob still has those pics?
The BBC reported, “Spaghetti cultivation here in Switzerland is not of course carried out on anything like the tremendous scale of the Italian industry. Many of you, I’m sure will have seen pictures of the vast spaghetti plantations.” They eventually had issue a retraction, because they were being inundated with requests for where one could get a spaghetti tree.
These days with politics being what they are and with AI looming overall, it is harder to find humor in such foolery. Another example of why we cannot have nice things anymore. But maybe if I use my noodle, I can come up with one.
- Gringoirish (Pierre Gringoire): Refers to the 15th-century French poet and playwright, often depicted as a starving, eccentric, or idealistic traveler, famously featured in Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.
- Barnaby Rudge: The title character of Charles Dickens’ novel, known as an “intellectually handicapped man-boy” who is simple-minded, innocent, and often wandering with a pet raven.
- Blondel-like: Refers to Blondel de Nesle, the 12th-century French troubadour who is legendary for traveling to find his imprisoned king, Richard the Lionheart, symbolizing loyal, romantic artistic devotion.