shimmy shakers today....

 little buggers but they still catch you off guard.  the quakes continue to rattle through the town and get on plenty of folks nerves.  i think we've had several that were noticeable these past few days so that gets you on edge all over i guess. so far i seem to be faring pretty well. there can be added damage in these aftershocks so i do keep looking for new cracks.  will have to do a good check after the snow thaws later.  my doors seem to be opening and closing without issues though so that is good.

 i don't see any new cracks.  the water heater seems to be holding up since that first day of leaking, the thing is pretty old. 

 these are from a summer trip to Homer still.  always a favorite escape.

 the dogs love being at the beach as well.

 Happy New Year officially i guess. i walked the dogs, i watched the parade and otherwise i did not much else.

 my hometown float got ripped off a bit.  they were about at the end of the parade and a huge float broke down.  i don't think that float really had the required hitch to tow it in the event of it breaking down so that huge thing put a plug on the last part of the parade.  a band that flew all the way in from Sweden did get through eventually and even longer after that my hometown float got through. 

 sadly the coverage of the parade opted out rather than wait for those last floats and groups to go by.  people started to pick up and take off.  i guess crowds were jeering at others for leaving before the whole parade was done.  But for those that stayed they gave our little float and the one behind it as much of a cheer as they would have gotten if everyone had stayed. 

 ironically, my little hometown float was blasting Bob Marley's, "everything gonna be alright".  haha. saw a clip of them bringing the float home to South Pasadena. my sister said she'd drive down if i opted to hit the parade one of these days.  that could be fun. 

 so I chilled around the house watched the parade between other things.  then i put my Netflix movie in. I'd read the book and as i had been reading the book i saw that there was a movie based on it.  i really liked it.  "the story of Ove".  it is a foreign flick, which i tend to enjoy as well.

 today was more of the same. i walked the dogs out at Rovers Run.  a nice loop.  we did some extra training out there as there were several skiers, bikers and joggers.  always good to keep the dogs trained up. Tusker has been slacking these past few weeks. i made a game out of the hold ups and sits and stays.  i think they were nicely tired out as well.

 this evening i gave them a good brushing, which they always enjoy, while i watched an old movie from 1990, Mermaids.  another good movie.

 i posted an opinion piece on the rise of fascism.  it got a lot of discussion.  there were 14 elements that had been found in common in an analysis of 20th century fascist regimes....it's based on research by a political scientist...done back in 2003.  but still i was accused of not checking facts when posting this.  people quickly jump all over it. 

 i suspect the truth in your face just makes you lash out for want of not having to actually have to deal with the truth.  it takes years often for a nation to fail.  it rarely happens suddenly.  it was like 20 years of fighting before the US Civil War came to pass.  the rebels lost by the way.

 no discussion is complete on facebook without folks turning it into an arms fight.  haha. some people are so easy.  fear makes people weak though and easy to manipulate...that is what i always say....and it's true.

 it was an interesting read and one that everyone should be aware of...the signs are there. i don't actually believe we are devolving into that at this time, but there are some pretty solid signs that our nation is in trouble and we won't get through this without a lot of pain and possibly some blood shed.  we are too divided.  it behooves all to be aware...but some would rather ignore the history of others...as they say, those who refuse to learn from history are bound to repeat it. 

 1.  was the expressions of nationalism.  our current potus even stood up at a rally and stated he is proud to be a nationalist.  it is patriotism gone mad...but in his case nationalism has come to be a term that means white nationalism.  in the article, this first thing was people clinging onto symbolism's, motto's, flags and songs more tightly than is normal I'd guess.  things like freaking out at blacks kneeling in protest during the national anthem do come to mind. this nationalism also includes increased suspicion of other nations.  I'd say this first sign is alive and well here...i just felt it was cause for alarm and observation...

 2. disdain for importance of human rights.  minorities are marginalized and disinformation is rampant.  that sounds familiar.  who can tell anymore who is telling truth.  the potus today had an open cabinet meeting and that shit was full of big whoppers.  the right has made this wall battle out to be a matter of life or death of our nation.  as if we are literally under attack from these immigrants...and plenty out there seem to fully buy in to this. 

 in truth the numbers crossing are less than previously.  most of our illegals are overstays of visa's or people just fly in or drive in.  drugs are hidden in vehicles more than brought in.  walls do not really work.  the iitoo mentioned the Israeli wall.  first off, it is much smaller area and the facts are the black market is alive and well there.  it's more porous than you know.  the researcher was Lawerence Britt and the opinion piece was  by Rick Steiner

 3. identifying others as scape goats...well lets see what the list of scape goats is for the right.  liberals, Obama, Hillary and Bill, the deep state, Mexicans, Blacks, Muslims...i think this list goes on. these are used...and the iitoo is great at this...as a distraction. 

 4. supremacy of the military/militarism.  when funding for military takes all importance over domestic funding.  folks are totally convinced that we are under attack and the strangest part to me is that while they claim our military would never turn on it's own citizens, they insist that everyone needs to be able to have guns in order to be able to defend against a rouge military or government take over.  never mind that the government can't take us over without the military.  fear does seem to be a factor with this.  we fear our opponent so much that we can't ever have enough weapons. 

 5. sexism.  women in their place, fear of homosexuality...that seems pretty basic. 

 6. controlled mass media.  thankfully this is a tougher one to control in our nation.  though propaganda seems to be evident and the current potus rules through TV watching rather than listening to those around him who may have actual expertise.  it is funny that the same who blast the liberal media seem to have no problem with Hannity's obvious open love fest with the POTUS...but Obama...i know i know.  haha.  that or but hillary is the rights answer to everything that they don't actually want to deal with.  he watches fox and then makes policy decisions based on their opinions..because they rarely deliver any actual news.

 7. obsession with national security. i think this is where the word treason is bantered back and forth on all sides.   keeping our government open and accessible and transparent are good ways to prevent this sort of thing.  the right has created a cause of distrust in all things government with their deep state rhetoric.  anyone on the right who breaks rank and bad mouths the current administration may be deemed to be members of the deep state and therefore demonized.

 8. religion and the ruling elite are tied together.  that is never good.  the idea is to keep religion separate and sadly our organized religions are more and more becoming nothing more than an extension of the corporate world.  they run at the top as corporations anyway.  they enjoy tax exempt status while running as corporations.  many radical Christians openly believe that trump was actually sent by God to save American and to save Christianity. that alone, should terrify us all. having faith in God is one thing, having that kind of blind faith in a government is crazy talk.  no government should be treated like a religion. 

 9. power of corporations is protected.  lobbies and corporations in our case here. our votes have become diminished as the corporations and the greed surrounding them have become more powerful.  corporations have been forming into mega corporations.  we are morphing into an oligarchy power in many ways.  this must be cut back before it's too late. 

 10. power of labor is suppressed or eliminated.  there is a bit of a war on unions with this current administration.  currently, government workers are being used as pawns in the rights battle for the wall.  the iitoo initially stated that he would take all blame for the shut down, now he blames others, even going to the point of stating that most who work for the government in these jobs are actually democrats so who cares. they still collect their pay check so what do they care...also oddly, the coast guard is treated differently than other branches of the military so in their paranoia that we are getting attacked from Mexico they are cutting the coast guards ability to do their job via their government shut down. 

 11. disdain and suppression of the intellectuals and the arts...well it does seem like many are suppressing their intellectual sides, but that is another story.  there is a bit of a battle against science.  if you don't like what they say just trash them.  easier to trash the facts they have researched than to admit that perhaps there could and should be things we could be doing to improve the situation our earth finds itself in.  elites they call them...there is disdain for all in the arts as being too liberal...unless they happen to be conservative...if you are conservative and in the arts then you will be glorified...even if your only art is TV reality shows i guess. 

 12. obsession with crime and punishment.  increased power for police forces, increased numbers of citizens imprisoned.  i think overall our police force are upstanding citizens.  our laws have put many in prison.  a prison reform law was just signed, thankfully, but it is just a start.  truth is everyone was fine tossing drug addicts in prison for extended times until more and more drug addicts were white.  now it's hitting too close to home and so laws can finally be softened. 

 13. rampant cronyism and corruption.  i think this has been building in both parties for years..it's just time for a major clean out...sadly, this potus ran saying he'd drain the swamp and people believed him...still do.  what they haven't gotten is that he is worse than the swamp.  he's lived his entire adult life on the edge of illegal..or just flat out illegal and because of the family wealth he's been able to skate by. they seem fine not knowing who he actually owed money to, what relationship he has with put, what put knows of him or could have over him...along with the Saudi's.  he and his crony's are quickly learning how to bilk our nation out of all they can.  it may be a double edged sword though...as i don't think the iitoo is all that smart.  if he had been...we'd be in much worse shape at this time.  his greed may put the spot light on his finances for decades and be his undoing in the end.  he would have been better off not running for potus...and i truly believe his rag tag group of greedy thugs counted on him losing and raking up the cash and walking away.  then he won....

 lastly 14. fraudulent elections.  with the help of Rus we have had voter misinformation for sure.  gerrymandering and voter suppression have been done on both sides, but the GOP is more skilled at it than anyone has ever been and bold.  this is something we should fix...you'd think all would want to...it's the GOP now but it could just as easily be the Dems.  I'd have to say we should do something with the electoral college as it is not as representative of our actual population desires.  our original national elections were only meant to be for land holders, men, those with money.  the times are changing and our elections should adapt to address this. 

 anyway...that generated a lot of discussion...most  of it not really related to the signs and symptoms of fascism...but who actual reads anymore.  right.  haha.

 the comments on the ADN...where the opinion piece was published got a lot of comments...mostly pissed off conservatives...a lot of angry folks out there.  i have no idea how the division gets sown back together...does anyone have magic thread? 

 with humans though it's more likely to be war, death and mayhem before folks remember that war is hell and losing lives on both sides of an argument is no way to win the argument.  perhaps after the bloodshed folks will remember that compromise must be found if people with wildly varying opinions are to live together harmoniously.  life is not black and white...it's all matter of grey.  you are not right and me wrong...we just see things differently.  humans like to be right...i know I'm one of them.  it happens in politics, in religion.  wars happen because humans like to believe they are right, that their truth is the right truth. 

 we can't accept that there are many ways to get to the same truth..i see this in medicine.  some restrict themselves...this is the way to treat that, when actually there may be many ways to go about treating an ailment...different ailments respond differently in different folks so changing it up and trying something old or new may do the trick...but many will say, no, this is how it is, this is the way to treat that...

 if you can't be flexible in life, if you can't dare to think things can be different than what you know them to be...well you may box yourself in.  being boxed in is no way to live, but it is how many live.

 not everyone can find their way out of the box of what is and out into the world of what could be.

 and that is why humans repeat the bad history.  we create it because we fear change, because we fear breaking out of the box of what is in our lives.  i say smash it, tear it down...freedom of the mind is a glorious thing. 

 i guess that is enough words for the day.  i did start to go through my boxed up kitchen stuff and moved some items into cabinets. 

 i will head back to work tomorrow.  see what awaits me.  my friends trying to freak us all out by saying they are predicting a 6.o quake on Friday or Saturday.  we do have the possibility of 6's. I'm okay with all these smaller quakes because in my mind all the smaller ones release the energy bit by bit. 

 be kind and if you can't be kind, be sarcastic...save yourself. 

 snuggle time with my furs...Happy Birthday Miss Breezy Chatterbug.  i don't actually know my cats birthday. it may be more of her guesstimated birthday.  she is 7 though, give or take a few weeks i guess.

thankful for:  A.  freedom of speech  B. freedom of the press C and yes, the right to bear arms...but can we make it rational and with some controls please.