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Boy, has it been a while.

 May 25th, 2025

I'd practically forgotten about this blog, but I was looking at jobs online, and one question asked for a sample blog post.
Things have changed so much.
Dad died in 2021, just 20 days before his 91st birthday.  I wanted him to hold out for a fabulous cake.
By the time he died, he'd grown so weak he couldn't move, but his mind was all there, and boy, was he pissed!
They don't tell you that bodies give up, but brains don't stop. I couldn't tell Dad, "This is it, Pop-o. You're dying."
I don't know if he understood, but he was angry. He raged "against the dying of the light." And I had to drizzle Morphine and Atavan into him to help him slip away.
Unlike when my mother died, Hospice didn't even come by.  I just called the funeral home, and two people came in an unmarked van with a stretcher, lifted him inside his sheets, and carried him off to a freezer.
Unlike when I lost Mom, I was as ready as someone could possibly be when someone you have loved all of your life dies. 
I paid for his funeral and my sister gave money for the church/preacher expenses.

Well, that's not where I thought this would go when I started writing, but there it is.

When this blog rested, there was little hint of the fascism to come. No one could envision the descent into oligarchical kakistocracy that's happening now. 

In 2015, a millonaire developer and media personality named Donald Trump made a speech.
He was running for President.  His speech was a literal word soup, and I'm sure it's one of the many things that his cadre of propagandists has eradicated.
I was driving, and I remember that he never finished a single thought. His mind was all over the place.
His sentences ended in the middle.  There wasn't a single paragraph of thought in the entire jumble, but it was peppered with hate.  Every few half-thoughts, he would intentionally slur "Moose-zlims."
He was jacking up the lowest in our country to feel free to hate.  He called them out from under their rocks and they cheered and screamed.  Here was their leader, the man who would destroy America.

His first presidency was a daily nightmare.  Every day I dreaded waking up to find out what he'd done, or what he would do.
I almost wish I had blogged it all so that there would be a record of ... the malignant chaos.

Joe Biden was elected president after him, and he was mild-mannered and imperfect but he looked at infrastructure and tried to fix it.  He helped correct the course of the budget, and got lots of new jobs happening. No president is ever perfect or saintly, but he was good man with good, unselfish intentions for the most part.

The story of Donald Trump isn't just about Trump, but about Americans.  Two-thirds of us want peace and justice, a thriving economy in which everyone can do their best to succeed.  The rest are Trump's people and they want to burn it all to the ground regardless of who it hurts or what it does to the US and to the world.
Who are they?  Our friends, neighbors, and family members.  You would think that most of them would be under-educated hicks, but a lot of them are well-educated and powerful. 
They've been brainwashed to believe that America wasn't working so the thing to do was take all the money and jobs and give it to the very rich.
Oh, they cheer now, as education and welfare and regulations are slashed.  But they don't seem to realize or care that the money isn't going back to them.
It's really hard to understand, exceppt it's quite obvious the hate unites them.
There are less of them than there are of good people, but "them" are loud and brutish, and they have media at their service.

Hopefully, history will eventually be restored enough that you'll see what happened, but how it happened... whew... I guess "them" have been  groomed all along to smile and nod until they sleeper code was spoken.

And this pres is just a figurehead.  The guy with enough money and power and fame to capture and hold "them."

"They" "gaslight."  They do everything they accuse everyone else of.  Especially this President, because he is a malignant narcissist who can never do any wrong.  It's ALWAYS someone else fault.  He's always been terribly wronged by (insert anyone and everyone here.)

He's in league with Putin, the genocidal dictator of Russia.  His son, Junior, once proudly proclaimed on live media, "We get most of our money from Russia."

While Presidents are supposed to divest themselves from their businesses, though it's not a law or an official requirement, as T has not.  In fact, he uses the presidency for personal gain, selling watches and Bibles and sneakers.  Yeah, I said Bibles, which he autographs. You can't make this stuff up!

The Christian Nationalists (You can call them "Nazis," if you want to, because that's what they have become.) worship him. He thinks he is God, so he's quite all right with that.

This all sounds really cab, and it is worse than it sounds.  

The people are protesting, but the media isn't covering it.  The people aren't just protesting here.  It's happening all over the world, for us and for other fascists trying to take over other countries.

The last time this happened on the planet, we were the good guys and we worked together with other countries and we beat the bad guys, the Nazis. We fought WITH Russia in World War II.  We fought with France, England, Canada, Ethiopia, China, Czechoslovakia, Poland, India, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Belgium, Greece, Yugoslavia, and South Africa.

But now other countries are looking at us and laughing, or sighing in despair, or outright screaming "WTF, America?!"

I'm glad Dad didn't live to see this.  He was a real American hero. Douglas MacArthur told him so, personally.

Dad said more than once that if he was physically able, he'd get a rifle and take Trump out himself, and even though it would be a fatal mission, it would be worth it.
Two people have tried and failed.

And by the way, Trump's ear is perfectly healthy. He was never shot. A young father on the stands took the bullet instead and died.  All to stare at a babbling fools ass with his kids.  And his widow wouldn't accept condolences from Joe Biden, the president when it happened, because her husband had no respect for a loyal American man.

Sheesh.  Hopefully, if anyone ever reads this far into the future, we'll have things turned back around for you. Maybe we aren't doing enough, but we're trying. We're doing the best with what we've got to work with. We've exceeded total exhaustion. There's no shock anymore. No disbelief because it's all real.  Horrors.  Innocent people being taken off the street by people who probably aren't even legitimate lawmen, and disappeared.  Off to cruel gulags in other countries.  

And why?  For speaking against Israel.  For being pro-Palestine.  For being an immigrant whose Visa expired.  For being a refugee from a foreign gang, and being redelivered to the country you fled from.
There are vans stopping lawn companies on the streets of my little city to check IDs.
It's inhuman.  It's inhumane.  I'll take one hard-working, family-oriented Mexican over a stadium filled with starry-eyed worshippers of the golden buffoon.

Regain humanity. That's the goal. Let our duly-elected representatives represent US.
And you ma hear about January 6th.  It WAS an insurrection.  That should have been the end of Trump.
But nothing stops him.  They're even erasing his speeches from the internet so there's no record of his incompetence.

I've only told you a fraction of this story.  If other things you hear or read about this time seem unbelievable, they are probably true.  Our brains have lost incredulity. We see daily inhumanity and incompetence.  Our brains are changing with the constant bombardment of trauma.

And I am sorry about any of this that you future generations have to deal with. I don't want this for you.

I can't believe this blog is still here.  Is anyone still blogging?
I have been homebound with Dad since July of 2019.  Who knew that the rest of the world would follow my lead?
I decided to start writing again because I feel like I'm starting to lose my mind.
I used to be very literate but now words don't come to me and I thought it would be healthy to get back into the practice.
I can't even remember what the last thing was that I couldn't remember.
I'm a 55 year old woman.  Does that make anything make more sense?

Ok. It's the year 2020. How do I cash in on that little deal that reads "What's your big worth?" I could really use the money!

Hello!

I'm delighted to have been able to transfer my original blog from AOL to blogger.
Thank you, Google!

I just wanna add...

something I'm quite proud of:

You can still follow my thoughts

http://newday-jean.blogspot.com/

Death of a Blog

When AOL put banner ads across the top of our blogs, it was an affront.  It was as though someone stuck an ad in the center of the page of a book.  We weren't asked or even warned.  They just showed up one day.

The thing is that bloggers PAY for their subscription (even though blogging is a bonus, a free opportunity.)  You cannot blog on AOL if you are not a subscriber.

The company was using the attention bloggers get to bring in revenue.

A bunch of bloggers (me included), some of them noted for their blogs (myself not included), left AOL for that reason.  Thus, this blog is left to slowly die.

Just recently, they increased our subscription price.

They didn't offer any consideration to the bloggers.  Some of those options might have been whether to have an ad on their blog or not and maybe some subscription price reduction for agreeing to carry an ad.

I don't buy t-shirts or other clothing that advertises itself or anything else unless it is something I support.  Why should my personal thoughts be sublet to advertise cell phones and banks? 

And if a bloggers thoughts are used in such a way, with or without their consent, shouldn't they get some consideration?

AOL advertises "Your Thoughts.  Your Blog."

There ought to be a proviso.  Something like: "Your thoughts, used for profit."

 

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Alas.

It doesn't look like we'll be coming back to AOL to blog, I'm sorry to say.

AOL did post a disclaimer under the ads.  I guess they thought that was big of them.

The funny thing is, if they had asked, we might have responded with what ads we would accept and they might have made even more profit from the diversity and good will from those who chose to advertise for charities and non-profit organizations.

Judi's blog alone gets some 2,000+ hits a month.  Tsk tsk  That makes her pretty darn popular as bloggers go.  In fact, I'd almost call her famous... and AOL just let her and her friends split.

Don't you miss the old-fashioned way of doing business?

 

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Enough already

I am getting mail from people trying to tell me how to get action from AOL.

You know, I like AOL.  I just don't like the ads.

I can't imagine moving to any other server.  The customer service has been OUTSTANDING; a model for other companies.

I left primarily in support of my friends.  I understand the nature of advertising.  Almost everything you see when you open AOL is advertising something, football, movies, recipes, ways of living, cars...

I'd like to come back here.  That's the honest truth.

I also do not CARE if they delete my journal.  Really.  If you have ever read it, you know that I believe in the transient nature of things.

I'm leaving the trail of my life inside the people who have read and been affected by me.  The physical evidence of all people eventually fades.  Think of all of the people throughout history.  Very few names have stayed on our tongues.  Maybe this journal is as close as I ever get to 15 minutes of fame.  Still if we passed in the street, you wouldn't know me... and I am SO okay with that. I am content to be unimportant to the masses.

I have appreciated AOL for the Freedom of Speech it has afforded me.  They have never scolded or censored me.  I got some strange TOS (Terms of Service) message once, but I still have no idea what it was about.

I have made a few suggestions about how to get noticed in our complaint.  Hopefully, they weren't too mean.  I don't think we should resort to viciousness.  I've said it before.  I'd like to be able to come back... with my friends.

I would stand with my friends in a legal complaint.  I would sign my name to a petition... in fact, I'm pretty sure I did so already.

It behooves AOL to give us an ear.  In these days of cold business machines, listening to your customers is still an effective way to promote yourself and your good will. 

I guess I need to welcome suggestions but I really just want a peaceful resolution, no matter what the outcome.

 

My blog is worth $4,516.32.
How much is your blog worth?

Check this out

http://journals.aol.com/journalseditor/magicsmoke/

 

If we can choose not to receive these, then why not allow us to block ads on our journals?

"America Online extends a variety of marketing offers for valuable merchandise that are specially selected for our members.  We've created this area to let you know more about these marketing offers, and to provide you with the option of not receiving such offers, if this is your preference.

Our special relationships with other companies often allow us to offer these products to you at significant discounts. 

Some examples of the types of products include:
  • The newest and fastest modems
  • Digital cameras
  • Scanners
  • Computer software
  • Electronics and more

If you would prefer, you can choose not to receive these marketing offers by telephone, e-mail, U.S. mail, or pop-up screens. To do so, just click on the appropriate button to the right, then follow the instructions provided.  You may choose not to have your name and address included on the mailing lists we provide to other companies, as well as other AOL companies, by clicking on the button labeled "U.S. Mail from Other Organizations".  Please note that from time to time AOL may still contact you to deliver important information about AOL features and services or your account."

AND

"Mail Preference Service

For many people, advertising mail is informative and provides value, convenience and fun.  However, direct marketing companies recognize that some people do not like to receive advertising mail.

If you want to reduce the amount of national advertising mail you receive at home, send your name and address to the Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service (MPS):

DMA Mail Preference Service
P.O. Box 643
Carmel, NY 10512

After a few months, the MPS will reduce the amount of advertising mail you receive.  You will continue to receive mail from companies with which you do business.

Names remain part of the MPS for five years.  After five years, you will need to register with the MPS again.

If you continue to receive unwanted mail after a few months, the Direct Marketing Association suggests that you write directly to the mailer to request that your name be removed from the mailer's list.

Telephone Preference Service

If you want to reduce the amount of national advertising calls you receive at home, send your name, address, area code and telephone number to the Direct Marketing Association's Telephone Preference Service (TPS):

DMA Telephone Preference Service
P.O. Box 1559
Carmel, NY 10512

After a few months, the TPS will reduce the amount of advertising calls you receive from national marketers such as credit card and magazine subscription companies.  Some local organizations and charities may not participate.

Names remain part of the TPS for five years.  After five years, you will need to register with the TPS again.

If you continue to receive unwanted phone calls after a few months, the Direct Marketing Association suggests that you request your name be removed from a company's list when they call."

These two items are from Marketing Preferences in "Privacy and Marketing Settings" within the "Settings" here on AOL.

I'm thinking... I'm thinking...

Ooo, that hurts.

 

 

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I like this about AOL.  Easy to stick a picture here.

It worked.  Didn't work in Blogger.  (sigh)

 

By the way

Undisputed King of AOL Journalers John Scalzi has links and things regarding the ad banner controversy.

http://journals.aol.com/johnmscalzi/bytheway/

hey folks, take it easy on me, please

My life has been turned sideways since Wilma.  Don't hussle me out of AOL just yet.  I neither have great amounts of leisure time nor of cash to go whippin' around setting myself up with something that doesn't work as well as AOL dial-up.

I concur with my friends and fellow journalers that the ads are unfair, but I'm just getting my life back.  Please... give me a "moment."

The truth of the matter is in your suggestion that it only hurts when we cancel our subscriptions but it is also true that we are replaceable.  In the overall scheme, it just doesn't matter what we do unless we really bring AOL to widespread public notice.

Has anyone called The Washington Post or The New York Times?  The Week?  The Daily Show?

Has anyone whose blog has made headlines called the reporter who wrote their story?

Huh?

You wanna be loud about your protests?  Say it with publicity as well as the withdrawal of subscription funds.

I didn't want to leave AOL, but their failure to enable anyone who wants to leave a comment to do so has been my greatest disappointment, not the placement of ads which may actually serve to keep our costs down over time. 

I am not advocating using what should be personal space to advertise for corporate monsters like Kodak and Bank of America, but you best believe I'd allow it if I could get extra money for food and shelter from it.

I believe we should be allowed to choose and should be given some financial consideration if we allow ads. 

I have been helped much more than hindered by the online help at AOL and I am not in a rush to desert AOL completely.

I am however in complete sympathy with my friends who take great offense at the unsolicited advertising in their journals and that is why I moved my journal to Blogger.  I've had another journal there for quite a while but preferred the camaradery and ease of AOL.

 

More later.  Gotta get back to work....

Jean

 

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Solidarity

http://getithereat.blogspot.com/

 

Alas.

The Mad Secretary has left AOL journals in protest of the ad banners on our journals.

Find her at: http://saveasecretaryfrominsanity.blogspot.com/

Hang on

I need to update my journal links for new friends...  I'll get a round tuit.

 I am moving home regardless of the awful water.  I have two offers in my neck o' the woods.  One for shower privileges, the other to stay... but I want my kitty with me.  Her company at lunchtime and the ability to journal/compute at-will are what I have missed.  I will not miss the 11-mile trek that takes half an hour behind slow people and service trucks and vans and folks just toodling down the two-lane highway who seem to have all day... or burning up 132-plus miles of gas-o-line each week.

Those of you who see me on-line will be seeing me more.  Unless the water is unbearable.  This girl 'sa camper

 

 

Never mind removing 'em, I want MONEY!

As for these ad headers, if you're gonna put them on my journal then give me a kickback.  I got bills to pay!