New year, old problems

This year has barely begun, and already old problems are repeating. Fortunately, none of them are my fault, but that fact doesn’t make them any less annoying. Worse, there’s very little I can do about the problems, and what I can do isn’t a good option. Complicated stuff, and barely into the year.

Yesterday, I posted my first blog post of the year, one that talked, in part, about the “Y2K Bug”. That caused a big problem for me, one that requires a bit of a back story.

There’s a Google-supplied sharing bar at the bottom at the bottom of all my blog posts, making it easy to share a post by email, to “re-blog” it to Blogger, or to share it on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest. I’ve used this for a very long time to share my blog posts to Facebook, but they made some changes at some point, adding a “Send Message” button to whatever post I share, and that goes to what appears to be an AI chatbot, for some unknown reason. Even worse, the ENTIRE Facebook post is a link to that Messenger chat thing (sample at right). In other words, it makes sharing posts this way utterly pointless.

I was first alerted to the problem by a subscriber to the AmeriNZ Facebook Page. When I clicked on the link, it worked fine, but it turns out that’s because I was using the page as AmeriNZ, not as myself. I started including a direct link to my blog post in the comments, and that seemed to work well—until last night when the new problem appeared.

Last night I shared my blog post as usual, and then I left the direct link in the comments on Facebook, as usual. Later, I opened Facebook and there was a Notification from Facebook telling me they’d removed my comment because, it said, “This goes against our Community Standards on Spam.” WTF?! As always, my comment had a direct link to the same thing I was sharing to the page.

Naturally, I read what they were referring to:

We don't allow people to use misleading links or content to trick people to visit, or stay on, a website.

Examples of things that we don't allow

• Telling people that they must like a Page to access content on another site
• Using irrelevant pop-ups on websites to prevent people from leaving easily
• Disguising a link as something on our platform, such as a poll or video, to get clicks

Obviously none of that was remotely relevant to me sharing a link to my blog post in a comment. So, I clicked on “read the full policy”, and it was just as irrelevant to this situation:

We do not allow content that is designed to deceive, mislead or overwhelm users in order to artificially increase viewership. This content detracts from people's ability to engage authentically on our platforms and can threaten the security, stability and usability of our services. We also seek to prevent abusive tactics, such as spreading deceptive links to draw unsuspecting users in through misleading functionality or code, or impersonating a trusted domain.

Most (I suspect all…) comment moderation on Facebook is done by bots and algorithms, so I had a hunch I was just another victim of technology, and I was right. I clicked on “How we made this decision” and read: “Our technology found that your content doesn't follow our Community Standards,” it said. “As a result, our technology took action.” Their “technology” means no human had anything to do with it, which was obvious, of course.

As usual, there was no way to appeal their decision, and there are no actual humans to contact (apparently if I pay to become “verified”, which would give me a blue checkmark, it might be possible to reach a human). So, there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

My next step was to try to remove the message option from posts, but that doesn’t seem to be possible. After the better part of an hour clicking various settings, including on the Meta for Business part that provides no way to go back to ordinary page administration (I had to close the tab, open a new one and launch the Facebook Page again), I found nothing. Facebook is notorious for putting controls for various settings in weird and illogical places, but it could just be that they don’t permit that.

So, the only option I have is to stop using the share button and copy and paste the link directly in a post on the Facebook Page (that’s also my only option for sharing podcast episodes). I have no idea whether Facebook’s “technology” will allow me to do that, but if it doesn’t the AmeriNZ Facebook Page will be useless to me, and I may as well delete it.

Meanwhile, another problem has resurfaced with my podcast: Folks clicking links are blocked by their web browser due to a supposedly missing or expired “security certificate”. I set that up only a few weeks ago when Roger Green alerted me to the problem. In fact, I was getting it on Chrome, too, but could click a few times to get the part where I could tell Chrome to let me do what I want on the Internet. However, Safari on my iPad wouldn’t let me override it, and it prevented me from accessing the site or use any direct link to a post. When I added the security certificate, all of that stopped—for me, anyway.

The podcast site is currently hosted by Go Daddy, and I’m sick of the constant problems and how difficult it is to navigate their systems to fix them—although, if I used it a lot, like if I was a web developer or something, it might be easier; I need to do something on it maybe once or twice a year. This is an open project at the moment.

Finally, a problem that took me awhile to identify: I wasn’t able to do certain things because I have a VPN (Virtual Private Network). I originally got it last January, just before my trip to Fiji with the family, because I knew Internet access was through wifi, and there’s no way of knowing how secure such things are. The VPN I chose, like most others, allow me to include all my devices, and while I mainly wanted it for my phone and iPad, I realised it could useful for things like watching news videos that are geoblocked. It worked great in Fiji, but then we came home.

I would try to access some websites and be refused access, something that sometimes happened before the VPN, but I assumed it was just a glitch. On a whim, really, I switched off the VPN and I could access the sites. Similarly, I use an FTP program to upload my podcasts to my site, and the one I use is called Cyberduck, something I've used for years, including for work. Earlier this year, I started having trouble connecting to the server to upload my podcast files: It would be very slow to login, then to access the folders on my site so I could upload my file, and then the upload would often fail, sometimes many times. I wasn’t suspicious because there were somewhat similar problems sometimes in the past, so it didn’t surprise me that there were glitches using it—ones that Nigel fixed for me, of course. I eventually started logging in through Go Daddy’s website, because even though it was much slower using a web browser, at least it worked.

When I resumed podcasting in early December, I and ran into the same problem using Cyberduck. Then, on a hunch more than a whim, I paused my VPN, and Cyberduck worked perfectly—fast login, fast access to the folder I needed, and VERY fast upload—all exactly as it should be, and how it was before I installed the VPN.

What all of these problems have in common is that at first I didn’t realise what was wrong, for different reasons. Once I worked out what was going on, I tried solutions for Facebook and for people to access to my podcast site, only to discover find out the solutions weren’t as simple as they seemed. Of all of those, only the problem using Cyberduck was easy to fix, and it’s remained fixed.

In a year in which I had very little room in my head to try and figure out complicated technical things, especially on top of everything else that was going on, it’s not a surprise that the problems took as long to work out as they did, and also why some of them didn’t work. Still this is new year, with, I hope, some new perspectives that can lead to new solutions.

Still, this certainly is not what I wanted to wrestle with on the New Year’s Public Holidays—or any other day, actually. This is one of those times where, “it is what it is.” Onward! I hope…

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 417 is now available

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 417, “Happy New Year”, is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast episode, along with any other episode.

The five most recent episodes of the podcast are listed on the sidebar on the right side of this blog.

Welcoming 2025 and my own past

2025 has arrived—another year that sounds all future-y. Maybe that’s just me, but, then, I’ve accumulated a bit of experience in this life thing, so I may have a bit of perspective on such things. Or maybe it’s delusions? Either way, I have thoughts about it all.

It seems crazy to think that a mere 25 years ago today we’d just found out that the “Y2K Bug” had really been squashed. In the run up to December 31, 1999 there was so much panicking going on—and without the benefit of social media, or even general Internet as much as there is now. These days, such the panic would probably do what the “bug” couldn’t do—bring the world to a halt, if only briefly.

On “Millennium Night”, Nigel was the Call Centre Manager for what was then Auckland City Council. They’d arranged a special night those who had to work that (the call centre was pretty much 24-hour, especially when there was a big event, like that year’s New Year’s Eve). Nigel was allowed to invite family to join him.

That evening my cousin-in-law picked me up and we went to my sister-in-law’s house for dinner, then the three of us, plus my niece drove into the central Auckland at around 10pm to join Nigel at his work. My journal from January 1, 2000 picks up the story (edited):

We got to Nigel’s work and I rang up for him, because he had to come down and let us in. We checked in with the security guard, and went upstairs.…

There was a big buffet on the seventh floor, and we waited there watching TV3’s coverage on a big screen TV as we waited for midnight. We watched the Chathams celebrate midnight, about a half-hour before us, then made our way up the 18th floor.

Midnight came, the lights stayed on, and I’m sure everyone sighed with relief. Unfortunately, the bad weather almost ruined the fireworks. We couldn’t even see the top of Skytower, which was hidden in a cloud. Still, what we could see looked good, and we could imagine how nice it would have been if the weather had been better. We had some more champagne, then went back down to the seventh floor for more food. We rang Nigel’s folks to wish them a Happy New Year, then by around 1:30, my sister-in-law, niece, and cousin-in-law] left. I decided to stay because, in part, I could help keep Nigel awake on the drive home.

I sent an e-mail to my brother and sister at 1.30 to let them know everything was OK.

About 2:15, the Mayor, Christine Fletcher, stopped by to see the people working, carrying an entourage behind her (including one aide who was very cute). We were all sitting around watching TV, she came back in the room from the loo, I presume, and she sneezed. I said "gesundheit”, as is my custom. She said, "That's my first sneeze of the new millennium!" and I said, "and I gave you your first blessing of the new millennium." They left a little while later, and a half-hour or so later, so did we.

Things went so smoothly with Y2K issues that the Emergency Operations Communications (what they used to call the civil defence communications bunker) centre closed at about 2.30.

We got home around three-thirty, spent some time with Saibh, then went to bed around ten to four, and that was our day.

I quote that at length because it felt like such a cool thing to be part of, and was very unusual. At the same time, though, I’d forgotten some of the details, and I’m so glad I wrote that down in those pre-blogging days, especially because I probably wouldn’t have blogged about all that, anyway.

Today I discovered something else I wasn’t really aware of before, and it was thanks to this blog. I knew that there were several different times over the years that I’ve mentioned that I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions, but I didn’t remember that the first time I did so was on December 31, 2006, in my last post of that year, my very first with this blog (which began September 13 that year). Specifically, I said:

I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. I think it just sets people up to fail, and we all have plenty of failures in our lives without adding more of our own creation.

Instead, I make some general goals for the year, things that are, perhaps, only “would be nice” rather than “must do”. I also set goals and targets low enough that they can be reasonably achieved, freeing me to make newer goals.

It’s always been that way for me, and I don’t see that changing. So, no resolutions for me, though I’ve already started what some people make resolutions about: I started gentle walking workouts, as I mentioned on Sunday (which, because of my recent blogging frenzy, seems like a month ago…). My goal is to get fitter to see if that will help me mind the mowing less, and so that I can use the cross trainer I have in the garage (I’m definitely not fit enough at the moment). We‘;’ll see—it’s just a general goal, after all.

And that’s been my New Year’s Day: Relaxing after a quiet New Year’s Eve with Leo (my usual tradition)< then today was about remembering and rediscovering my own past even as we all launch into a new year. That last part seems especially perfect for someone with a blog.

Happy New Year!

I saw the image up top on the Internet many times, and in many places. I have no idea who originally uploaded it, nor where I found it.

Last photo of 2024

The photo above is the last photo of Leo and me for 2024. It’s a different take on a photo I shared on December 31, 2022. There’s an earlier one, from my first New Year’s Eve in this house back in 2020, that I shared to Instagram, but not here. That Instagram photo may have inspired the 2022 phoro (because of the time on the clock), but I it could’ve been coincidence, too. However, this year it was deliberate—and Leo was less thrilled than he was in 2022.

At any rate, we have our final photo of the year, which was the main objective. Now, on to 2025!

It was definitely a year

I think I’ve made clear that 2024 was not my favourite year. I’ve also been clear that the year absolutely wasn’t all bad—far from it, in fact. It’s just that for a lot of reasons, and no reason, 2024 and I just didn’t quite get along.

As always, I think that my blogging productivity—the number of posts I publish in a particular month—is a pretty good quick indicator of how I was doing that month. It’s certainly not a perfect measure, since there’s no quick way to differentiate between positive and negative tones/topics, for example, but the fact remains that if I had an unproductive month, there are probably reasons for that.

When the year began, I was full of optimism, not the least because 2023 had been my best blogging year since Nigel died—not as good as the days of old, but much better than any year after 2019. And then as 2024 went on it very nearly became my worst-ever full year of blogging—though I couldn’t have known that at the start of the year.

January, in fact, had a lot going for it. That was when I went on a trip to Fiji with family, and that trip included my 65th birthday. January 2024 was, in fact, was my most productive January since back in 2019 when I turned 60.

Things began slowing down in February, and despite many good things happening that month, when I went to check on the house on Auckland’s North Shore that Nigel and I lived in for a decade, up until February 2017 when we shited and the house became a rental, I found the trip unexpectedly challenging. Even so, I was still expressing optimism that month.

March was a bit worse, followed by a much better April—and then the wheels fell off and my productivity resumed falling. August had what would’ve been Nigel’s 60th birthday, and the following month had the fifth anniversary of his death—five years to the very day.

If the emotional, or perhaps existential, drag on me in 2024 was just about the significant anniversaries or emotional events during the year, then things should’ve improved after September. But, obviously, that didn’t happen. And yet, even some of what felt like my most difficult months, I nevertheless wrote blog posts that were positive, talking about things that interested me or that even made me happy.

Then the disastrous US elections in November definitely brought me down before humble December came charging onto the scene, saving the day. On Boxing Day, the post I published that day helped my blog pass the annual total for 2022, my worst-ever full year of blogging, and this month became my second best December since Nigel died, barely beaten by December 2020’s 35 posts. In fact, my two most productive months for the full year of 2020 though 2024 were December 2020 in first place, and this month, December 2024, in second place. An added bonus: The order I mentioned in that Boxing Day post arrived today, adding a nice pretty bow onto the final busy blogging day of a year that at its start looked so promising.

The larger lessons from all this is that my blog really is a reflection of me: When I’m not doing well, neither is this blog, and when I am, it does well, too. Underneath all that is an entirely different but equally important fact: This blog is a record of my life for more than 18 years. This blog has chronicled things I’ve done, wanted to do, or thought about doing, along with things that interested me, amused me, or even made me angry. I’ve talked about family, including my furbabies, and I’ve talked in detail about navigating through the loss of my entire family apart from Leo and me. So if it seems I place too much importance on my blogging productivity over a year, this is why: This blog is me—well, the parts I’m willing to talk about, anyway.

Someday I’ll be gone, as will we all, but there’s a good chance that long after I’m dead this blog will still be out in the ether—a fact which almost makes me want to delete it right now! Seriously, though, this year has taught me that this blog, with its nearly two decades of content, can be a great tool for me to understand myself. I think that’s a pretty great thing for a hobby to be able to do.

I can’t make any predictions about what will happen in 2025, and I don’t want to make the mistake of being as totally wrong as I was at the very start of this year. Instead, I’d rather just see what happens. To me, that's part of the excitement of every new year, anyway.

So, Happy New Year! I sincerely hope that 2025 is the best year yet for the entire world—and especially my little corner of it.

My mother would be 108

Today (US time) is my mother’s 108th birthday, something I always remember—on both days: US time and NZ time. This year is no different.

For several years, I published her birthday blog post when it was her birthday in my timezone, but five years ago I switched to publishing when it was her birthday in the timezone she was born in. I did that because I’d become a widower just three months earlier, and I was still processing it, so I had unusually hazy-thinking. Since then, I’ve still always thought about writing a post for the day before her “true” birthday—when the date arrives here, because of those same timezones. I usually only remember which day to use when I look up the previous year’s post to see what I’d said that year. Then, the schedule is reset, and I repeat it the following year. I suppose that’s one method…

Last year I said:

The reality is that I think about the birthdays of everyone I know when the date arrives here, which is a day early for friends in Europe or the USA. Actually, Facebook does the same thing, reminding me of someone’s birthday when the date arrives here, in my timezone, and not on the date it arrives where the person lives. This situation is confusing under the best of circumstances, but add in my lack of focus and general forgetfulness, and it means that I miss more birthdays than I remember.

That’s still true, of course—and still annoying. I don’t mean to miss the birthday of anyone I know, but that shifting of dates means it’s inevitable I will. Oh, well.

There’s one thing that can help: If I put the birthday on my personal calendar shared on all my devices, and then set the timezone to where the person is, the alert I get will be on their birthday in their timezone. Doing that can be a lot of work, though.

Of course, in my mother’s time, there were no “personal computers”, no electronic calendars on cellphones (or any cellphones, for that matter), and social media didn’t emerge until a couple decades after she died. Everything that challenges me about remembering birthdays is connected to things she never experienced, and never could experience.

The entire arc of my life over the past 44 years is something she also didn’t get to see. She wasn’t here to help me celebrate wins and achievements, nor to help me handle loss. I adapted to that reality long before I moved to New Zealand, but the fact that I did made it easier for me to try to embrace the good moments as much as I was able to at the time—and I succeeded more often than not. That could even be seen as part of her legacy to me.

So much has changed over the past 44 years since she died, and even in the time since I began this blog. But everything I am today is built on the foundation she and my father created for me, and I think about that often, especially on their birthdays.

Sure, I may have trouble remembering her birthday on the correct day (because there are technically two “correct” dates), but the larger point is that I DO remember. And, really, thinking about my mother two days in a row isn’t exactly a bad thing.

Happy Birthday, Mom, and thanks. Always.

Previous birthday posts:
My mother would be 107 (2023)
My mother would be 106 (2022)
My mother would be 105 (2021)
Remembering my mother’s birthday in 2020 (2020)
Remembering my mother’s birthday in a new life (2019)
Still remembering my mother’s birthday (2018)
Remembering my mother’s birthday (2017)
My mom would be 100 (2016)
Mom at 99 (2015)
Remembering my mother (2014)
Mom’s birthday (2013)
Mom’s treasure (2012)
Remembering birthdays (2011)
That time of year (2009)
Memories and words (2008)

Related:
Tears of a clown – A 2009 post that’s still one of my favourites about my mother.

Ask Arthur 2024, Part 4: Miscellaneous and me

It’s absolutely no surprise that several of the questions in this year’s “Ask Arthur” series have dealt with serious, even dark, topics. So, I decided to end the series with lighter topics, because I can. On New Year’s Eve I just don’t feel like dwelling on the dark stuff.

Today’s questions are all from Roger Green. First up:

What TV services do you currently have (streaming, network)? How many are free?

New Zealand has two main broadcast companies. First, and largest overall, is New Zealand government-owned Television New Zealand (TVNZ). It has three broadcast channels: TV1, TV2, and Duke. They also have a streaming service, TVNZ+, that I’ll talk more about soon.

The other main broadcaster is Warner Bros. Discovery New Zealand (WBD), the local operation of the global US corporation. They have TV3, HGTV, Bravo, Eden, and Rush.

All broadcast television is done through a service called Freeview, a digital free-to-air broadcast service. There are two versions; One uses satellite, which transmits standard definition programming using the same satellite as pay-TV operator Sky Television. The other version—the one I use—is HD over UHF.

There’s already talk about shutting off the ground-based transmitters in the 2030s, but this wouldn’t necessarily change anything but the delivery: Satellite transmission could remain, and there could be a version streaming over the Internet. In fact, the rapid growth of streaming services is precisely why the industry is in discussions to shut down the ground-based transmitters.

And that brings me to streaming services.

I use TVNZ+ a lot. It began as a way for me to watch TVNZ broadcasts that I’d missed, and since then my use has expanded to include TV series like Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, for example (NZ doesn’t have Paramount+, though Australia apparently does). They also have a good collection of TV series that haven’t been shown in New Zealand, movies, and all sorts of other programming. TVNZ+ is a free ad-supported service, with one minute ad breaks at the start and then roughly every half hour afterward.

Similarly, WBD has a free streaming service called ThreeNOW that includes much of the programming from the company’s broadcast channels, and, I presume other programming not broadcast. I don’t actually know what’s on it because I never use the service, though it’s not because of what’s on it or not on it, it’s just that I find that the amount of programming I could watch on all the various services greatly exceeds my time (and patience) to watch it.

I have one streaming service I pay for—Disney+—though I don’t watch that anywhere near as much as a I should (since I pay for it)—and I probably would if the amount of programming I might watch didn’t greatly exceed my time (and patience) to watch it (a recurring theme).

I used to subscribe to UK streaming service History Hit, a documentary channel, but I changed credit cards and couldn’t figure out how to update my details, which was probably just as well: At the time I engaged in austerity measures and started cancelling all “unnecessary” subscriptions. Still, if I wasn’t overwhelmed with options of things to watch, maybe I’d have kept it?

Having said all that, the streaming service I watch more than any other—by far—is YouTube, and I have the free version and all its many (many) ads. I’ve thought about paying so I don’t have to watch all the bloody ads, but so far I’m not willing to add any paid services, particularly when I feel I’m overwhelmed by all the options of things to watch (I said it was a recurring theme…). At any rate, what I like about YouTube is that the videos are usually short—a half hour or less (in my case, usually much less), and that suits my way-too-short attention span nicely.

Next up, Roger also asked:

Do you think doing quizzes would increase the output of your blog? Also are we going to get more podcasts in 2025 from Arthur? Will we hear 2political next year?

Well, yes, actually. In fact, a month os so ago I started putting aside quiz-like memes and meme-like Facebook posts from friends that I thought I’d alter and answer here, mainly as a springboard for further discussion. They might suit a weekend best, and since I like word play like alliteration, I’m thinking I may call them, I don’t know, something like “Saturday Stealing”. Dunno.

There will definitely be more AmeriNZ podcasts in 2025, maybe even on a regular schedule again. Because it’s always been about whatever’s on my mind when I sit down to record, it’s not something I can easily plan ahead. Maybe that’s part of why I still do it. Still, I never stop tinkering with it, so there will probably be some of that, too.

As for 2Political, Jason and I talked vaguely about resurrecting it, though not in any kid of depth or detail. The website is gone because I allowed is end when the contract ran out. It had somehow become borked (possibly from a hack or maybe the unintended consequence of a plugin update—I have no idea what happened. Whatever it was that went wrong, even I couldn’t access the site any more, and by then we hadn’t posted anything for a couple years, anyway, so it was best to let it go. However, I still own the domain so if we choose to revive it, it’s just be a case of setting up a new home for it.

I also haven’t (definitely) ruled my reviving my forgotten child, my YouTube Channel, so there may be something about that in the new year, too. Or not. Part of the reason so much is in a fluid state is that I’m unsure about my AmeriNZ branding. I’ve spend more than two decades building it (which is a strong argument for keeping it), but after the US elections, I began to seriously question whether I wanted to create a different brand, one perhaps more appropriate for my current stage of life and the many changed realities that involves. We’ll see.

Speaking of blogging, Roger asked:

Are are you going to pose any questions to Roger when he does his Ask Roger Anything in December? (You can think about your question now; you don't even have to wait until then to offer it.)

Yes. In fact, I already did, though I was a bit late to the party because it’s such a busy time of the year (that’s the particular truth I decided to cling to).

I was amused by Roger saying on that post, “Running a daily blog involves talking to oneself, so having you talk to him is much more enjoyable and far less schizophrenic.” The humour for me wasn’t because of the necessary pondering whether writing about oneself in the third person might be an indication of schizophrenia, but, rather, because what he said is so very true. Although, it’s not like Arthur would know, of course, because he hasn’t run a daily blog in several years.

Thanks to Roger for today’s questions—and thanks to him and Sherry for all the questions in this year’s series. Thanks, too, to everyone who’s read even part of this year’s series. I hope 2025 creates plenty of opportunities for everything good—including new questions at the end of the year.

Thanks again!

All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-24”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, ”Ask Arthur”.

Previously in the 2024 series:

”Let the annual inquisition begin for 2024” – The first post in this year’s series.
”Ask Arthur 2024, Part 1: Pardon?4”
”Ask Arthur 2024, Part 2: An Orange hue”
”Ask Arthur 2024, Part 3: Racism and change”

Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 21: The final notes

If I’d thoroughly thought through this series, I’d have planned it better. I don’t merely mean that I could’ve written all the posts in advance, but rarely did, I also could’ve planned its end better. If I’d thought about it, I would’ve made this past Sunday’s Part 20 the final in this series, rather than choosing the following Tuesday (for a “Weekend” Diversion post…). And yet, here we are.

The weekend-on-Tuesday thing aside, the real issue is that my original vague idea turned out to be unworkable, and that would’ve been obvious if I’d written posts in advance. I’d originally intended to list the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1984 without ever realising that listing 100 songs is, well, a bit much—especially when I had so many blogging loose ends I wanted to tie up before midnight.

My original idea was to include the entire list, with links to my posts for the  songs that were Number One, and then—well, it turns out I never thought past that point. So, instead I suggest following the link and looking at the list yourself. The links to all my posts on Number One songs of 1984 are at the bottom of this post, and the Wikipedia article has links to the songs that weren’t Number One. That’s the thing that I thought was interesting, and why I was originally going to talk about it: There are songs that did well enough to end up on the Year-End Hot 100 even though they never reached Number One during the year. Obviously, this happens all the time.

So, instead of what I’d “planned” to do with this post, I thought I’d talk about the series overall, and what’s coming in the 1985 series next year. Blogger’s prerogative or something.

What I enjoy about these series is revisiting songs that were a part of a very important time in my life—the early to mid-1980s. However, it’s also true that any given year can also be an important time in our lives too, so I suppose we have our own “Hot 100” chart of our months and years. In any case, revisiting those songs means revisiting memories, and that’s both interesting and fun for me. It’s possible others may think so, too—or not—but I wouldn’t do the series if I didn’t enjoy doing it. Besides, it gives me something to talk about other than mowing my lawns and not clearing/organising my house or garage.

In 1985, twenty-seven songs hit Number One, though one of those was also the last Number One of 1984, and I already talked about that in Part 19—one less post to write! Still, 26 posts is a lot to research and write, but the multi-week runs of some songs will give me a chance to write in advance (and no, I’m not secretly laughing at myself…).

What all of this teaches me is that, first, planning is good, and second, actually thinking before planning is even better. For example, the final Number One of 1985 reached the position on the penultimate Sunday of the year, and that, like this year, leaves the final Sunday open for me to add something else, like a final post in the series. I didn’t realise that until today.

Next year’s series, then, ought to be better planned than this year’s was, which has got to be a good thing, I think. And the fact that I didn’t truly think about this post until today? It’s not all bad. This post gave me the chance to use three different “ough” words in a row in my opening sentence. I got something new from this post after all.

The first post in next year’s 1985 series will be on February 2, 2025.

Previously in the “Weekend Diversion – 1984” series:

Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 1 – January 21, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 2 – February 4, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 3 – February 25, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 4 – March 31, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 5 – April 21, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 6 – May 12, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 7 – May 26, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 8 – June 9, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 9 – June 23, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 10 – July 7, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 11 – August 11, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 12 – September 1, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 13 – September 22, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 14 – September 29, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 15 – October 13, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 16 – November 3, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 17 – November 17, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 18 – December 8, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 19 – December 22, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 20: Seasonal songs – December 29, 2024

Intended updates

There are many (many, many…) posts I’d planned on doing this year, but never managed to get done, and for lots of reasons. In several cases, I began rough drafts that never went anywhere—again, for lots of reasons. One of the ones that kept popping into my head was doing an Updates post. It turns out, the last time I did a post with multiple Updates was in July 2023, though I’ve done more specific posts with that tag/label—and it’s entirely possible I did one after that but forgot to tag it properly. In any case, here we are.

The ongoing peanut butter saga

Back in April, I published ”Kitchen experiments abound” about a variety of food items I’d been trying, but one of them was just buying the peanut butter I prefer in a large jar. That wasn’t a success.

The jar lasted much longer than the ordinary (small) jar I’d been buying, but it lasted a bit too long—months, I think. The problem was that by the end, the peanut butter at the bottom of the jar was too hard to spread, probably because I didn’t properly stir it when I opened it. At any rate, that wasn’t what I wanted, so I’ve gone back to the small jar I’d been using.

One day I was in a supermarket and saw the smaller jar was on special. The unit price per gram was lower than the unit price on the large jar (ordinarily, when neither is on special, the unit price for the large jar is lower, as I’d expect. I realised that if I buy a small jar when it’s on special, and before I need one, it’ll be a good compromise, giving me a somewhat lower cost, and helping me ensure I don’t run out. Hopefully, this is the end of my peanut butter saga.

Tabling a change

On May 23 of this year, I talked about needing a new cover for my patio table and chairs. In the end, I chose a third option: I took the old patio cover and put it on top of the one that was wearing out, and just taped over the holes. It’s functioned well ever since. In fact, in one way it’s been much better: Whenever the breezes were strong, the cover would billow and make a lot of noise, but when I put the old cover on top, that pretty much stopped—maybe it was the added weight? This isn’t a permanent solution, of course, but it at least gives me more time to figure out what I want to do without spending a single cent to buy that time.

Some unusual updates

In February 2019, I published a post called “A kitchen failure” in which I talked about unsuccessfully using a plant-based chicken substitute from a company called “Sunfed Meats”. I next tried their beef mince (hamburger) substitute in October 2022, and that was somewhat more successful. Finally, in November 2022, I tried their bacon substitute, which I thought was boring.

I mention that to underscore that I was both utterly surprised, and also not at all surprised, that in April of this year, it was announced that Sunfed Meats was closing down. According to RNZ:

Sunfed’s CEO, Shama Sukul Lee, said the "plant-based bubble" had burst. She also said Lee said Covid, staff shortages, supply chain disruptions, and skyrocketing costs had left the business "pretty battered and bruised" and in need of a cash injection, which they couldn’t obtain.

The second part is undoubtedly true, because it was for many companies in various industries, but the first part? There are more plant-based options now than ever, so if the bubble has really “burst”, it didn’t destroy the entire industry. When I first saw the news alert, my first thought was how unsurprised I was, based on my experience using their products. Still, I’d moved on not long after my final experience with their products and I not longer use meat substitutes, making meat-free meals instead.

It turns out, I also have an update about a meat-free meal without meat substitutes. Back in July 2018, I wrote about a lentil-based bolognaise recipe we’d tried, and I mentioned where I found the recipe, the BBC Series Eat Well For Less. At the end of November of this year, the co-presenter of the series, Gregg Wallace, was accused of "inappropriate behaviour" that allegedly rises to the legal definition of sexual harassment. That caught me by surprise.

Speaking of TV presenters, back March of 2018. I talked about a trick to make a bitter cup of coffee better, something I’d learned watching the BBC Two series, The Secrets of Your Food with presenter Dr. Michael Mosely. In June of this year, Dr. Mosley died while on a hike in Agia Marina, Symi, Greece. Following an inquest into his death, the coroner said that the cause of Dr. Mosley's death was "indeterminate" and "unascertainable", and that it "was most likely attributable either to heatstroke (accidental) or non-identified pathological cause". I still use the coffee trick I learned from him, but never the intermittent fasting he also advocated. Mostly, I was surprised by his unexpected death.

So, there was an update to several older posts that didn’t surprise me, and two updates to even older posts that did surprise me, and all of those updates happened this year. I can’t remember such major updates to old posts happening in the same year before.

• • •

There! I finally got around to to the updates I wanted to get done this year. The Update backlog is now clear for the new year.

Onward.

Ask Arthur 2024, Part 3: Racism and change

With one more post in this year’s “Ask Arthur” series, I decided to talk about the remaining “heavy” topic today rather than end the series with it, for no particular reason other than it felt right.

So, today’s question is from Roger Green, who asked:

From your vantage point, how has race and racism changed in the United States compared to, say, when you were living in the United States? Was Obama's presidency helpful or harmful in addressing racism; likewise, black lives matter, affirmative action, DEI. What has moved the needle in terms of race in America and in which direction? While you're at it, you could talk about race in New Zealand, which is a different animal, I know.

This topic is one of the most fraught because the opinions have become so polarised, and, for many it’s become a kind of moral litmus test. In my opinion, and from what I’ve seen and experienced personally, the folks on the Left seem to approach the topic from lived experience or based on their values (or both). In contrast, those on the Right seem to come, more often than not, from a place of fear and/or ignorance—which doesn’t mean they’re stupid, just that they’re uninformed, and, sadly, too often by choice.

I watched race and racism in the USA improved steadily, culminating in the election of President Obama. The rise of the “tea party,” however, led to a rise in openly racist rhetoric, leading up to and getting stronger after the 2010 Midterm Elections. To me, it’s been all downhill from there, and the situation is worse now than it was before I left the USA.

President Obama’s election in 2008 broke a barrier, one that can’t be rebuilt. Now, the idea of a black man being president is no longer weird, because it’s already happened. In that sense only, President Obama’s election in 2008 was very helpful. However, he also played down the historic nature of his election and administration, so it didn’t have the legacy-building it could have had. That, however, wasn’t the reason the USA started slipping backward: That was the deliberate work of the Rightwing.

The USA’s Rightwing spent a lot of time and effort spreading propaganda that was built on deliberate lies and disinformation, like, for example, when they said the Affordable Care Act would lead to “death panels”. Many Republican leaders, elected or not, used dog-whistle rhetoric to imply that President Obama and his supporters were "less than” in many ways, though often unspecified. Again, this took flight with the rise of the teabaggers, something I wrote about a lot at the time.

Affirmative Action was a useful policy for reducing systemic barriers to black people (in particular) breaking getting a chance in education and employment, but it was created in a different time when politicians saw the value in lifting up those who had been deliberately excluded from so much of society. Its success reinforced opposition from traditional conservatives, and created resentment among white people who felt that if someone else succeeded, it inevitably meant they (the white people) would have to fail. That was absurd, but telling disgruntled people that their feelings are absurd and not based in reality doesn’t make the disgruntled folks change their minds, it makes them more firmly disgruntled and very angry, something that inevitably leads to reactionary politics and turning back the clock. So, Affirmative Action started out as a positive, but because the resentment of white folks was never properly addressed, it became a flashpoint for everyone who was certain (though almost always wrong) that they’d been deprived of something by “a minority” person. Its downfall was predictable.

The Black Lives Matter movement was, like President Obama, the victim of unrestrained and often unhinged Rightwing rhetoric. By the time that BLM emerged, the Rightwing propaganda system was fully developed and operational, and when combined with legacy media failing to report fairly or accurately, that meant it was possible for people to never hear facts or reality in reporting on BLM, and that meant it was easily scapegoated by white folks who blamed it as an example of why they weren’t rich and CEO of a major corporation (or whatever).

This same fate befell DEI and even Critical Race Theory.

DEI is something that many people didn’t understand at all. Some may have had “cultural training” of some sort at work, which was intended to make sure workers weren’t insensitive to fellow workers or customers who were different from themselves, but it morphed into meaning a different version of affirmative action, leading to their claims that “unqualified” people were supposedly given preferential treatment over “qualified” people who were passed over because they weren’t part of a recognised minority, and that, in turn, led to it becoming an all-purpose epithet against anyone who wasn’t a white, cisgender, heterosexual male, such as, derisively calling someone a “DEI-hire”.

It’s certain that everyone spewing angry rhetoric about CRT has never had anything to do with it, since it was only ever part of graduate-level coursework in very particular fields. Many of the folks complaining the loudest barely completed high school, if that, and because they didn’t know what CRT was, they bought the Rightwing propaganda that it was about teaching 5 year old white kids to hate the fact they’re white—because so many of 5 year olds are doing graduate coursework at universities these days…

So, overall, race and racism have gone backward in recent years, and the main reason is that for far too many Republicans, nativism, white nationalism, christian nationalism, etc., have become defining characteristics of their politics, something that’s been driven by an extensive Rightwing propaganda media ecosystem and politicians eager to exploit it.

You didn’t ask about this, but one of the solutions, in my opinion, is to develop a strong alternative media ecosystem for the centre and the left, one that reports fairly and accurately, without resorting to the lazy “both-sides-ism” of the legacy media, nor the deliberate disinformation the Rightwing uses. If we can’t get back to facts-based and reality-based policy discussions, we won’t have a hope of moving things forward.

Pretty much everything I’ve said is also true for New Zealand, albeit with local flavour and issues specific to this country. The current Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, the leader of a rightwing populist party, campaigned using rhetoric lifted directly from the USA’s MAGAts. Just like their Dear Leader, Winnie (as he’s “affectionately” known) railed against transgender people (such as, he wanted a law that would require restaurant and cafe owners to ensure the public toilets customers used matched their birth gender—though he never said how that was to be done, like, maybe a quick genital check?), and he said that every policy he didn’t like, no matter how sensible, was "woke"—including government programmes designed to help Māori. In a plot twist, Winston is Māori.

Similarly, the leader of a hard-right neoliberal party, and set to become Deputy Prime Minister in around six months, David Seymour, railed against “special treatment” for Māori, and wanted a national referendum on the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, the nation’s founding document, to strip out everything he decided was “special treatment” for Māori in favour of one standard based on English law and customs. He, too, is Māori.

The current Prime Minister, the leader of the conservative National Party, has also railed again Māori, including demanding that all government agencies must use their English language name first and most prominently. This was in reaction to government departments using their Maori name first, as is the ordinary custom. For example, we used to have Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand, and now those two are reversed. Similarly, Waka Kotahi–NZ Transport Agency is also switched around. In both cases the English name is stylised at a much larger type size than the Māori one. It will surprise no one who knows anything about me that I continue to use the Māori names, and exclusively. 

In doing so, the PM was pandering to the older, mostly white base of his party who “don’t like all that marry [sic] stuff” (older white folks often incorrectly pronounce Māori as “marry”, and it often seems deliberate. During the campaign, the PM said that “no one” could remember the Māori names of government agencies and got them confused, which was an incredibly condescending thing to say: The English names of LOTS of government agencies have changed—sometimes multiple times—and yet the PM apparently thinks that people magically didn’t have any difficulty remembering the changed English names.

Those of us who oppose the current government call it the “Coalition of Chaos” (or CoC) for their general incompetence, the corruption of some ministers, their lies, and their ulterior motives for some of their initiatives. But nowhere is opposition stronger or louder than against the COC’s “war on Māori”, as the loudest critics put it. The haka in Parliament and the <i>massive</i> hikoi (march) to Parliament are probably the best-known overseas. The PM agreed to support Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill only to the First Reading, and then will oppose it at the second and third—something that Seymour has attacked, of course. With National and all the Opposition parties against it, the bill cannot pass, no matter what the mercurial Winston does (though he’s unlikely to support it, if for no other reason than that it’s Seymour’s central policy objective.

Having said all that, there’s a very important way in which New Zealand is very unlike the USA: We can change it at the next election in 2026 by making the CoC a one-term government. If the Centre-Left win the next election, they will undo the worst things the CoC has done to Māori, as well as poor and working people generally. NZ doesn’t have the kind of “establishment consensus” that too often keeps Democrats from making real progressive change when they have power—and, arguably, that’s part of why Democrats lost so badly in 2024. Both the Democrats in the USA and the Centre-Left in NZ have every opportunity to come roaring back in 2026 IF they back real concrete progress. If they do, the conservatives’ failures on race will likely be one of the reasons the Right will be shown the door.

Thanks to Roger for today’s question!

All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-24”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, ”Ask Arthur”.

Previously in the 2024 series:

”Let the annual inquisition begin for 2024” – The first post in this year’s series.
”Ask Arthur 2024, Part 1: Pardon?4”
”Ask Arthur 2024, Part 2: An Orange hue”

Jimmy Carter 1924-2024

President Carter's official portrait.

Today we all heard the sad, but totally expected, news that former President Jimmy Carter has died, aged 100. [See also: “Jimmy Carter, the 39th US president, has died at 100”, AP News].  While I never voted for President Carter, I nevertheless grew to respect him—so much so, that I wish I’d voted for him the one chance I had.

I’ve mentioned a few times that in 1976 I was too young to vote, so instead I volunteered to do some election work for President Gerald Ford, who died in 2006. There were many reasons for that, including the fact I grew up in a Republican home, but there was one thing more: I didn’t trust Carter’s religiousness.

In 1976, I was still very deeply closeted, but on some level I recognised that fundamentalist Christians were the greatest threat to my freedom, liberty, and human rights. I knew Carter was a Southern Baptist, and had helped to popularise the phrase “born again”, so I was suspicious. As it turned out, I was also very wrong about him and his beliefs.

The Carter Administration ended the ban on gay and lesbian people working for the US Foreign Service. In 1977, his presidential advisor, Midge Costanza, invited gay and lesbian activists to the White House for a meeting to discuss relevant federal policy—the first time any presidential administration had done that. In 2012, he spoke out in favour of gay people and, specifically, his support for our right to marry, something I talked about at the time.

All of this by itself demonstrates that Carter was nothing like I’d assumed in 1976, but there was far more evidence. In 2000, he left the Southern Baptist Convention after they decided to stop ordaining women as pastors. He also spent his post-politics life working for peace and justice, and by building homes for poor people through Habitat for Humanity. Put another way, he was putting his Christianity into action, something very few “evangelicals” ever do, possibly because they’re too busy ordering other people how to live their lives in ways that the “evangelicals” approve of. Jimmy Carter was never like that, and I was totally wrong about him in 1976.

After he left office, he went on to become what many people—including me—consider to be the most effective former president in US history. I remember back when Reagan finally left office I said that when Jimmy Carter left office, he volunteered to build houses for the poor, and when Reagan left office, he registered as a paid lobbyist for for a foreign government. That pretty much sums up the huge difference between the character of Jimmy Carter and his successor as president. Also, if President Carter had won re-election in 1980 I’m certain that the federal government’s handling of HIV/AIDS would have dramatically better and actually humane and just than it was under Reagan. I’m certain that there’s absolutely no way it would’ve taken President Carter FOUR YEARS to acknowledge HIV/AIDS, and it’s definite that it wouldn’t have taken him SIX YEARS to give an address on it, unlike President Carter’s awful successor.

Jimmy Carter wasn’t the USA’s best president—I doubt anyone would seriously claim he was—but, apart from the Rightwing, not many folks would say he was the worst, either, not with so many other presidents having the “worst” rankings sewn up. Personally, I think he was good man who perhaps wasn’t suited to the presidency, though he tried his best. Regardless, all of that is overshadowed by what he did over the nearly four-and-a-half decades since he left the White House.

I still wish I’d voted for him in 1980, and maybe even volunteered for him in 1976, but all any of us can do at any time is to try to do our best, as far as we’re able. Jimmy Carter did that, and I’m profoundly grateful he did.

Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 20: Seasonal songs

Every year, there are plenty of pop songs that never make it to Number One on the Billboard “Hot 100”, despite being popular, like in the Top 10 for weeks, for example. Because these series are about the pop songs that reach Number One, that means some pretty big hits are left out entirely unless I add extra posts. This post is about two of those songs of 1984.

In December 1984, two Christmas songs were released that both became Number One hits in the UK and other countries, though not on the “Hot 100”. Both songs were loved by some, and loathed by others, but both are still played on pop radio at Christmas. On December 4, 1984, the first of the two songs was released: ”Last Christmas” by British duo Wham!. Three days later, December 7, 1984, saw the release of the charity single ”Do They Know It's Christmas?” by a mostly UK and Irish supergroup Band Aid. The two songs endure to this day.

I’ll talk about the two songs in the order they were released, beginning with “Last Christmas”:



“Last Christmas” spent five consecutive weeks at Number 2 on the UK chart, being kept from Number One by “Do They Know It's Christmas?”, a song on which George Michael was also a featured singer. So, he sang on the Number One song in the UK, but it wasn’t his own. After fans streamed the song a record number of times, George Michael's dream was finally fulfilled in 2023 when the  song was finally the Christmas Number One.

The song is essentially about the ex-girlfriend of George Michael's character, and the music video has a visual allusion to the lyrics, one it’d be easy to miss—as I did until I read about the video at the ink. There’s a scene where Andrew Ridgeley's character is wearing a jewelled brooch, and it's upside down. Later in the video there’s a flashback scene in which Michael gives the broach to the woman who apparently “gave it away” to Ridgeley. According to the music video director, Andrew Morahan, the brooch originally belonged to Ridgeley's grandmother

I was as aware of this song back in the day as I am now, and I appreciated (and still do) the strong 1980s pop vibe of the song, and the power in George Michael’s voice. However, I became fully aware of the song in the social media age, in 2010, when folks began taking part in “Whammagedon”, the object of which is to avoid hearing the original version of “Last Christmas” until Christmas Day (remixes and covers are allowed). It was intended as a bit of fun, but it's kind of negative, really, so some folks invented different versions. I was aware of one called “Reverse Whammagedon” in which the object is to gain points by hearing the original version, and that means no worries about hearing it on the radio or in shopping malls—in fact, if someone does hear it, it helps them. I prefer that version.

This year, the BBC released a documentary about the song called “Last Christmas Unwrapped”, to celebrate the song’s 40th anniversary. That documentary was shown by TVNZ, though it was either Christmas Eve or Day, so I didn’t see it (it may be on TVNZ+, the broadcaster’s streaming service; I haven’t checked). People I know who did see it thought it was good. Update: This evening, after I published this post, I watched the documentary and thought it was very, very good. They talked about the video, and how most of the cast in the video were their real-life friends, which is why they all seemed so comfortable around each other, and why they seemed like they were genuinely having fun )(and, also, the wine was real…). Basically, the video reminded me once again why I loved the music of Wham! and George Michael so much.

The song “Last Christmas” reached Number 2 in Australia (7x Platinum), 2 in Canada (9x Platinum), Number One in New Zealand (2x Platinum), 2 in the UK (7x Platinum), as well as 3 on the USA’s Billboard “Hot 100” and their “Dance Club Songs” charts, and was also Number 7 on Rolling Stone “Top 100”. It was also certified 7x Platinum in the USA. (it’s worth mentioning that certifications are cumulative, in this case, 1984-2024).

Next, the second song released, “Do They Know It's Christmas?”:



This song had a who’s who of mid-1980s pop music artists from the UK and Ireland, and the sound definitely reflected that. There was a lot of criticism of the song, both about some of the lyrics, and the well-off white people deigning to help black Africans. The first had some merit (even in 1984 I thought some lyrics were a bit cringey), the second I understood, but didn’t fully agree with: When there’s great need, those who are best positioned to raise money and awareness—like pop music artists—should do so. However, more serious criticism was that the song reinforced negative stereotypes about Africa, leading to lost opportunities to make money to help end the crises the songs several versions were intending to help ease. The sequels were Band Aid 2 (1989), Band Aid 20 (2004), Band Aid 30 (2014—with some of the most contentious lyrics re-written), and Band Aid 40 (2024), the latter a remix of earlier versions.

I bought the 12-inch single of the 1984 song back in the day, and part of it featured spoken word recordings from various artists, including a charity message from David Bowie. I made Bowie's recording the outgoing message on the phone answering machine my partner at the time and I had in December 1984—and I have absolutely NO memory of how I did that in those analog days.

Still, the original version raised a lot of money, some £8 million in its first year—including, it turns out, the royalties from "Last Christmas" which George Michael chose to donate to famine relief. That’d be some £24,248,000 in today’s money (today, roughly NZ$54,104,562, or US$30,484,585).

Ultimately, the song “Do They Know It's Christmas?” reached Number One in Australia, Canada, New Zealand (Platinum), the UK (Silver), but in 1984 it only reached Number 13 on the USA’s Billboard “Hot 100”, though it would eventually achieve Number One. It was also ultimately certified 4x Platinum in the USA.

It’s certainly true that every year there are plenty of pop songs that never make it to Number One, despite being popular. Many of them are more interesting to me than maybe these two are, and if it hadn’t been for my malaise and ennui this year, and the neglect it caused for this blog, I may have talked about some of those other songs. However, things are as they are, and it’s it’s still true that these two songs both took off in unconventional ways. They’re still part of pop music culture forty years after they were first released, and that’s pretty good for what were essentially very specific songs associated with Christmas.

I’ll publish the finale for this year’s series on December 31 (NZDT, of course).

Previously in the “Weekend Diversion – 1984” series:

Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 1 – January 21, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 2 – February 4, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 3 – February 25, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 4 – March 31, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 5 – April 21, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 6 – May 12, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 7 – May 26, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 8 – June 9, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 9 – June 23, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 10 – July 7, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 11 – August 11, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 12 – September 1, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 13 – September 22, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 14 – September 29, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 15 – October 13, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 16 – November 3, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 17 – November 17, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 18 – December 8, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 19 – December 22, 2024

Mowing to knowing

I mowed the lawns yesterday (out front) and today (the back). I wasn’t going to mention it, mainly because even I’m tired of my jokes about it. However, this time I learned a couple things, and that makes my latest mowing adventures worthy of a mention.

I originally planned to mow out front on Friday, which would leave Saturday for the back. However, the breezes on Friday were quite strong, and when I checked the Met Service weather app, it said the wind would be “fresh”. I had absolutely no idea what that meant, not even after 29 years of seeing it in NZ weather forecasts. Yesterday, when the app still mentioned “fresh” breezes, I finally looked it up.

It turns out that a “fresh” breeze is one with wind “force” of 5 on the Beaufort Scale—another thing I knew nothing about, so I had no idea what that meant. The first explanation I saw first said “or 17-21 knots”. All I recall about knots is that it had something to do with the number of nautical miles per hour—but nautical miles are another thing I don’t really understand, either (too much math involved). As someone who grew up in the middle of a continent, with no interest in boats or sailing, I never really needed to know about knots or nautical miles.

Fortunately, the Internet is there to help. One explanation offered “19 to 24mph”, which would’ve been helpful, except that after 29 years using the metric system daily, I’m kind of rusty on Imperial measurements. Turns out, that same explainer said it corresponds to 29-38 kilometres per hour, and that I can understand.

Whatever the scale, the “fresh” breeze was quite strong at my house on Friday—it could’ve easily blown the sun hat off my head. I postponed mowing the front to yesterday, Saturday, when the breezes were much gentler—does that mean they were “stale”? (more than likely, it'd have been a 3, or even a 2 on the Beaufort Scale). 

Which brings me to what I learned today while mowing the back lawn. Actually, I’d briefly considered doing that yesterday evening—before I came to my senses.

For the first time ever, today I realised that if I set my Apple Watch to record me doing an “Outdoor Walk” workout, which mowing basically is, I could record precisely how much time it took, how much energy I burned, how far I walked, and what my average heart rate was. I’ve been mowing the lawns at this house for nearly five years, and I never thought of doing that before. Sheesh. The results are in the image above.

Today, my mowing adventure (the word “workout” seems a bit inappropriate) took me 18:32, including putting the mower away and taking off my mowing shoes (my cool-down?). The total distance I walked was 1.37 kilometres (approximately 0.85 miles)—just walking back and forth in my back yard, and not even all of that (I did the side yard yesterday). Huh.

In total, I burned 1,095kJ (roughly 260 US calories), which, my watch told me, is the most I’ve ever burned doing a walking workout. Okay, then. Also, I think the kilojoules measure sounds like a bigger deal, which may motivate me to continue walking, because I’m competitive with myself.

The data said my average pace was 13 minutes, 28 seconds per kilometre, and I know from records of my previous walking workouts that that’s around 2 to 3 minutes faster than most have been. Nice, I guess.

My average heart rate was 108 BPM, which is a bit faster than I’d have expected mowing a flat—though quite bumpy and lumpy—lawn. So I looked at the full data, and it turns out that the peak was 131-133 BPM, which was roughly at the halfway point, probably about the time I was over it and wondering why I was doing that to myself, and if I just went a bit faster, it’d be over faster. I mean, that’s probably what was going on.

When I next mow, probably around 10 days or so from now, I’ll do the “Outdoor Walk” workout thing again, and over time I’ll build a picture of what’s going on with my body, something that will probably lead to an indoor workout: Making a spreadsheet to track it all. I’ll definitely enjoy doing that much more than the mowing.

Over the years, doctors have praised me for doing the mowing, but I honestly thought they were just being kind. Thanks to today’s adventure, I know for sure that there reality are health benefits for me. Between that and finally learning what a “fresh” breeze is, this has been a very educational weekend—and productive, too.

But I’m glad I won’t have to worry about either for awhile.

Ask Arthur 2024, Part 2: An Orange hue

It’s no surprise that several questions this year deal with US politics, including some specifically about the regime due to take power on January 20. Today I thought I’d take on questions related to the Orange One.

The first question is from Roger Green, who asked:

How would you explain to someone that your disappointment at djt not being held liable for his crimes and alleged crimes is not from a personal vendetta against him, but by the sense that the rule of law has been totally scuttled?

The question kind of assumes that I know hoards of people who wouldn’t understand that, and I don’t. Whether Americans or Kiwis, people I talk with (online or in real life) all think he should have been held accountable for all his crimes, not just the political ones, but his various business-related crimes, too. Those people just assume that the rule of law has failed if someone like the Orange One has almost never has to face criminal trial (his 34 state felony convictions in New York notwithstanding), and they would never assume that someone had a personal grudge against him.

For a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of the Orange One, there’s probably nothing I could possibly say that would help them understand or to convince them that it’s not just “radical communist leftist thug” hatred of the Orange One. However, a study has shown that AI has promise in helping conspiracy theory believers come to their senses, so maybe that approach could work for people bathing daily in MAGA koolaid.

In between those two extremes are a lot of people who aren’t true believers nor particularly sceptical of MAGA, either. Some of them may be too young to really remember the Orange One’s 2017-21 Reign of Error, or, more likely, they’re just not tuned into politics enough to pay much attention, and might be persuadable. If so it’d be because of what Roger was saying: The rule of law matters.

There’s one thing more, though: I’ve never once heard any of the Orange One’s fiercest opponents say that he should be arrested for non-existent crimes, something the Orange One says about his “enemies” pretty much every day. His fiercest opponents have never suggested that he should be thrown in prison without trial, but that, too, is something the Orange One says about his “enemies” pretty much every day. It’s really true that every one of their accusations is a confession, and that the ones who hold personal vendettas are all on the MAGA side.

So, for a person willing to listen in good faith, I’d probably say something along the lines of what Roger said in his question and begin simply saying that the disappointment is based on “the sense that the rule of law has been totally scuttled”. If they brought up the “personal vendetta” thing, I’d probably have to point out, as I have here, that the side with the vendetta is not those who oppose the Orange One.

Next, Roger asked:

Orange says he will impose 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico on Day 1. Why is this an inane idea?

I’d call rather call it insane than inane, but I know that the Orange One has absolutely no idea what tariffs even are, and doesn’t understand at all how they actually work. For the benefit of anyone reading this who doesn’t know, tariffs are paid by the importer, and NOT by the country the goods are coming from, as the Orange One keeps stubbornly insisting, even after world-renowned economists debunked him. The cost of those tariffs are ultimately always passed on to consumers, meaning prices consumers pay always rise whenever tariffs on imports are imposed.

The specific problem with the Orange One’s particular tariff threats against Canada and Mexico is that nearly everything US consumers buy—cars, fresh fruit and vegetables, oil, building materials, and so much more—comes in whole or in part from those two countries. If the Orange One follows through on his threat, ordinary Americans will see prices for nearly everything they buy jump by at least 25%—or, more realistically, maybe a lot more than that because corporations will take advantage of the opportunity to raise prices by more than the tariff amount in order to increase profits, just like many did after Covid.

I’ve noticed that the Orange One hasn’t been threatening Mexico as much since Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum stood up to him; maybe Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should do the same. I wouldn’t be surprised if China doesn’t get tariffs imposed, though, because the actual incoming president, Elon Musk, depends on China for manufacturing his products, among other things.

Next, Roger asked about the Orange One’s nominees:

I heard Chris Christie on George Stephanopoulos' Sunday morning talk show suggest that the Democrats should challenge only one of the orange man's nominees for the Cabinet on the theory that if they go after three or more they won't be able to affect any of them. I happen to think this is BS but I was wondering what you thought.

I’ve heard a lot of Democrats and folks on the Left say something similar. For example, Brian Tyler Cohen has said many times that if everything feels like a 5-alarm fire, nothing feels like a 5-alarm fire. The central thing for both is one of tactics: Some of the Orange One’s choices are far worse than others, and the Republican majority in the US Senate is far too comfortable with doing whatever their party’s Dear Leader wants—except for being willing to approve Matt Gaetz because he was so awful that not even sycophantic Republicans could back him. So, since many or most of the Orange One’s nominees will be approved, the argument goes that the focus should be on stopping the worst of them, such as Kash Patel for FBI and Tulsi Gabbard for director of National Intelligence.

However, there’s an obvious flaw in that strategy: Rightwing media’s propaganda would spin that strategy as personal vendetta (vendetta is clearly a central theme in MAGA-land…), against the nominees because they’re close to the Orange One (or whatever). So, maybe a better strategy is to release whatever publicly available data exists on the nominees, and have Democrats go on Leftwing alternative media to spread awareness, as well as asking direct, pointed questions in confirmation hearings.

Pete Hegseth is apparently pretty much an all around awful person, but it’s unlikely he could damage the country as much as Patel and Gabbard. Pam Bondi as Attorney General would also be awful, but in addition to being hyper-partisan and unalterably loyal to the Orange One, she’s also VERY ambitious and no doubt views the job as positioning her to run for higher office, even president. So, she’d be more likely to lead the Orange One on, but avoid doing anything blatantly illegal or unconstitutional. So, going after too many awful but not catastrophic nominees could risk getting the worst confirmed. I wouldn’t want to be in Senators’ shoes!

Finally today, my friend Sherry asks:

Everyone knows we are doomed and bound for terrible change here in the U.S. How can I fight Trump on his road to autocracy and an oligarchy? He is immune to any law, and he and his minions will do whatever they want.

Even though I’m on the other side of the world, I feel the same fear and trepidation. I’ll say first that it’s important to remember how incompetent and stupid the Orange One is: Those natural traits are what saved the USA in 2017-21. A lot of what happens in the upcoming regime will depend on which of his gang members get confirmed by the Senate, but the essence of who the Orange One is hasn’t changed.

The second thing to keep in mind is that the Orange One’s entire political method is”kayfabe”, the pro wrestling term meaning “the portrayal of staged events within the industry as ‘real’ or ‘true’.” As a member of the WWE Hall of Fame because of his long business association with them, and apparently being a genuine fan, everything the Orange One says is kayfabe. This is what his fans were getting at when they said they took him seriously, but not literally. His entire political career is built on what he learned from pro wrestling.

Put those two things together, and it means he’s unpredictable, and talks a lot of shit, but the danger he poses will mainly be to his personal “enemies” and to the wallets of ordinary people who will suffer from his fetish for tariffs (see above). However, as I also talked about above, the level of danger will depend on which of his many awful cabinet nominees actually get confirmed.

Something to remember is that direct lobbying of members of Congress works: When incoming president Elon Musk ordered Republicans in the House to vote against a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown, his followers on Twitter flooded the Capital with messages demanding Republican Congressmen vote it down—and they did. If enough Americans contact their representatives and tell them to oppose the latest batshit crazy thing the Orange One or his boss Elon demand, they’ll do it. Most Democrats in Congress will do that automatically, of course, but many Republicans are pretty susceptible to pressure (unless they’re full-on MAGA), especially from the folks who live in their districts.

Next, never “obey in advance”, that is, we mustn’t do what we think the autocrat will demand before he demands it. I’ve seen people talking about deleting their social media accounts, or just their posts, so the incoming regime can’t use it against them. Apart from the fact that it’s stupid (everything’s archived, even on Facebook, for a long time), it means voluntarily giving up one’s freedom, willingly, and without even being asked. This isn’t easy precisely because people are frightened of what could happen if they state their opposition to whatever the regime has just proposed.

Another very important thing is to seek out independent media on the Centre and Left. The legacy media utterly failed to take seriously the danger the Orange One posed to democracy and the rule of law. There are numerous media organisations to follow, depending on your interests and issues of concern, but here are some I highly recommend: ProPublica is an award-winning nonprofit independent news organisation that specialises in investigative journalism. They’re non-partisan, but being on the side of the people and justice means the Right doesn’t like them. Another good choice is Democracy Docket, a legal organisation that specialises in fighting for democracy and voting rights. They talk at length about litigation on those issues. Then there’s The Bulwark, a centre/centre right pro-democracy media outlet that was built by never-trumpers, including present and former Republicans, along with some Democrats. For a perspective more to the left, there’s Meidas Touch. For a more or less centrist team, there’s Crooked Media, which was founded mainly by former senior staffers of President Obama. All of these organisations have YouTube Channels (and I subscribe to them all), but for the hardest-working progressive on YouTube, it’d have to be Brian Tyler Cohen, who I mentioned above. His content is direct: He doesn’t dance around the issues, including getting sweary sometimes (I identify with that, LOL), and he has interesting guests.

The independent progressive and pro-democracy media will help keep you informed about important issues that the legacy media doesn’t even talk about. There are plenty more than the ones I’ve listed, of course, so my advice is to try different ones and see what resonates with you.

Finally, and tying this all together, be careful about taking the regime too seriously. While they’re absolutely a threat to democracy, not everything they say is actually real (kayfabe again). Sometimes folks in the regime or Rightwingers in Congress or the legacy media will say outrageous things in the hope it was cause an over-reaction from the Left. This is why focusing on a few issues is important, as is one thing more: Occasionally turning off the news and social media from a little while will be very important to preserve our mental health.

And remember: It was because of the disaster that the Orange One oversaw in 2017-2018 that Democrats won so many seats in Congress in the 2018 elections, why President Biden won in 2020, and why the supposed “Red Wave” of 2022 because more of a pink puddle as Democrats outperformed everywhere, beating the predictions and even history. The moral of the story is that the Orange One’s incompetence and stupidity, combined with what an awful person he his, will inevitably cause a reaction and a rejection of him and Republicans more broadly.

All of which is to say: There’s always reason to hope, even when things seem bleakest. The MAGAts want us to feel discouraged, deflated, defeated, and powerless. Don't give them what they want!

Thanks to Roger and Sherry for today’s questions!

All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-24”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, ”Ask Arthur”.

Previously in the 2024 series:

”Let the annual inquisition begin for 2024” – The first post in this year’s series.

”Ask Arthur 2024, Part 1: Pardon?”