Disappointments

 Didn't realize it was so late... of course, this is what I get for watching a movie, watching Duke, and finishing a book in one night.   The film was "Thieves' Highway," a film noir from 1949.  While it was well-recommended, to me it was just...meh.  Very flat; not that we didn't know what would happen (it was a film from 1949, after all) but it was just hard to get excited about anything.  Even the moral arcs were...suppressed?  Alas.

Speaking of suppressed, so too are the Blue Devils' hope of being an NCAA tournament team; yes, the Hokies are tough, and yes, they were on the road, but the Hokies are not very good, and Duke is... prone to dumbness, especially down the stretch.  Oi.

I finally finished book six -- Skepticism and American Faith -- and while it was interesting, it was also...disjointed?  Basically it was a look at American skeptics and agnostics, and how they came to be; wrapped up in it was how they survived/presented their ideas in the generally and culturally Protestant Christian America of the time (not well).  He pretty much skipped the Civil War, which was odd, as it must have been an immense challenge to peoples' faiths, to put it mildly.  The next tomes on the pile are a bit thinner, and I hope they promise to be smoother reads.

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2023/01/cuyahoga-county-food-pantries-snap-recipients-bracing-for-reduction-in-benefits.html

As I am fond of saying, if only there was some magic way for people to obtain money to buy the food they need.  Now, I know, of course, that it is not as simple as it sounds, but as I like to say... people would feel better about the system -- and the money would be better spent -- if the people who could (and should) legitimately earned their keep did so, and if the people who merited aid spent what they had wisely... as there are no mechanisms for either approach, people feel that the system is a sham/scam, and they are not entirely incorrect.

https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-son-of-democrat-house-minority-whip-katherine-clark-arrested-for-assaulting-cop-during-boston-antifa-event?utm_campaign=64466

Is it me, or has the state that produced John Adams and John Quincy Adams gone... haywire?  Ted Kennedy?  Barney Frank?  Pocohontas?  This lady?  Hell, if we had any brains, you'd think the GOP Congress would appoint a special committee to investigate this.  I mean, it would be amusing as hell, and a litany of Dem scandals and crimes is always a good thing...