Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #3675 - More People with Measles - THAT ONE THING for 2503.11
I was going to let that visual stand alone, but I decided to share some context.
Vaccines work.
Thanks for tuning in. FROM REBECCA WATSON (video below)
I’ve been talking about measles for about the last 20 years, banging this drum so often that I really debated whether or not I should bother making this video. I went back and looked at some of my old posts, like this one from 2006 when there was a measles outbreak in Boston, where I lived, among the Christian Scientists, a group that believes they can cure all diseases through prayer and homeopathy.
Thanks to a tremendous vaccination effort from the Centers for Disease Control, or CDC, measles was eliminated from the United States in the year 2000, meaning there was no continuous transmission for a year. But thanks to one fraud who made up a study two years prior to scare people into not vaccinating their children for measles and buy his own vaccine instead, slowly but surely vaccination rates dropped. Celebrities like Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey and Oprah Winfrey helped spread Andrew Wakefield’s lie further, and by 2011, measles cases in the US surged past 200. By 2014, there were nearly 700 cases. By 2019, there were more than 1,000.
It’s only March and the US has already seen three outbreaks of measles in different states, with 164 reported cases, and most tragically, one death. A child died because their parents refused to give them a simple, safe, effective vaccine. Most of these cases are in children, and only 2% were fully vaccinated, meaning that they likely didn’t suffer as much.
Meanwhile, the parasitic worm rotting in the brain of our Secretary of Health and Human Services is advocating “unconventional” treatments, as one rag reported: cod oil, which will do fucking nothing to stop more kids from dying. How unconventional! You know what would do something? The safe and effective vaccine, which you can even get after exposure to protect you from measles. The only downside is that it’s pretty conventional, I guess.
It’s infuriating to see everything I’ve been warning about coming to fruition, but that’s just the world right now, right? So why bother making a video about it?
Well, I decided to make this video while I was looking back through my old posts. Back in 2015, I made a video about a new-at-that-time study in PNAS–look I don’t care if the world is on fire, I will never stop loving PNAS–where scientists recruited about 300 people and asked them how they felt about vaccines. Then they sorted them into three groups: one group was shown the facts and evidence proving that vaccines do not cause autism. The second group heard a mother describe the experience of having a child get measles, and they saw photos of children with that disease and others. The third was a control group that got unrelated information.
The group that got the facts hardly differed from the control group when it came to how many changed their opinion. But the group who saw the horrible photos had a massive shift towards viewing vaccines more positively.
The message is simple: we need to scare the shit out of people.
With that in mind, here are some fucking terrifying facts that you might want to share with any friends who might be thinking of skipping vaccination:
Measles is wildly, insanely contagious. One unvaccinated, infected person will spread it to up to 18 others, compared to just two other people for COVID. Before the vaccine was developed, every kid everywhere caught measles, and a shit ton of them died. In the early 20th century, the US lost 6,000 kids every year to measles, with tens of thousands more hospitalized. Developing nations still see a mortality rate of up to 5%. “Not dying” from measles means a week or two of high fever, coughing, and diarrhea, and a chance at seizures, brain inflammation, and blindness. About 60,000 children go blind from measles every year. As a fun bonus, if you aren’t vaccinated, then measles cripples your immune system, meaning that once you recover, you are more at risk of catching every other disease in existence.
And all you have to do to avoid that is to get vaccinated. A safe, effective vaccine.
If you got two doses of the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine) as a kid, there’s a good chance you’re protected for life, as I reported a new study found last year. But if you aren’t sure, you can go to your doctor right now and get tested to see if you are immune. If you aren’t, you can get the MMR. As a bonus, you will then also be protected from rubella, which was reported to have been found in a child in Texas last week but apparently that was just a miscommunication. But hey, why not be safe? After all, we eliminated rubella from the US in 2004, which means it should just be a few years behind measles in its comeback. And hell, we never managed to completely wipe out mumps so that’s a handy vaccine as well. Unless enormous salivary glands come into fashion, I guess.
As I mentioned in that 2015 video, anti-vaxxers tend to be younger than average, because the best way to convince a large number of people to get vaccinated is to expose them to the horrors of the disease the vaccine would eliminate. I’m not sure if that trend will continue into the future, seeing how many people directly experienced the negative effects of COVID, including hospitalization and watching friends and family die, and continue to insist that the vaccine will be killing all of us any day now. The human race may have evolved to be too stupid to even learn from our own recent history, and I’m not sure what to do about it.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2503.11 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3540 days ago & DAD = 195 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #3674 - "Muh Everyday" - Soul Mix by Andile Bhungane - Music Monday for 2503.10
I have been working on a new mix of "neo-soul" after the death of Angie Stone, which will not be strictly "neo-soul" music.
I was researching soul music and came across the mix by Andile Bhungane that is their "every day music" if I am understanding the name of the mix correctly.
Though some of the tunes are the same as others in rhythm and beat, that slow, soul cadence, others are unique and fascinating.
I love discovering new music, especially music outside of my lived experience.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2503.10 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3539 days ago & DAD = 194 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #3673 - SoD Reprint from 2014 - IBM SELECTRIC and Comic Book Sunday for 2503.09
I was chatting with someone about the IBM Selectric, a typewriter so great I would spend late nights at my Dad's office using it.
I thought I had done a whole post on this typewriter, but when I searched, I discovered that I had made it part of a COMIC BOOK post in that slow time between the March 2014 end of the T-shirts blog and the beginning of HEY MOM in July 0f 2015.
I find it funny that when I checked this post that I am reprinting from Friday, March 6, 2015 concerns
Weekly Comics for 1408.20 (August 20th, 2014). It's funnier because I am working on a post for January 2025 comics that has been pushed back a few times but is on the schedule now for March 30th. Not bad really. I can't post about the comics until I finish reading them, which mostly happened by the end of February, but there were some stragglers that I just finished a week or so ago.
Anyway, when I found the 2015 entry (exactly four months before the start of HEY MOM on July 6th 2015), it had the Selectric content but a broken video, which I fixed, and then added new videos here, one of which is likely the same content, one of the old commercials for the typewriter.
So, still in reprint mode but shifting gears next week.
Tomorrow's will be a new post (music), then alternating THAT ONE THING and reprints the rest of the week, which as I write is almost over. It's Friday the 14th; I am six days behind! So catching up!
LOW POWER MODE: I sometimes put the blog in what I call LOW POWER MODE. If you see this note, the blog is operating like a sleeping computer, maintaining static memory, but making no new computations. If I am in low power mode, it's because I do not have time to do much that's inventive, original, or even substantive on the blog. This means I am posting straight shares, limited content posts, reprints, often something qualifying for the THAT ONE THING category and other easy to make posts to keep me daily. That's the deal. Thanks for reading.
Weekly Comic for 1408.20
"If you want to concentrate, if you want to write in your own mind, write with a typewriter. You see the words hit the paper. There’s no distractions.” - Paul Schweitzer, Typewriter Repairman
The capital letters on the name "Typewriter Repairman" are not necessary.
A problem (one of many) with my recent blog work is that often these entries are developed haphazardly over a long period of time (in the case of this one, more than thirty days), and so it's easy for me to lose focus. Also, I am not sure that a review (and not even a very in depth review) of comics from six months ago interests anyone who may click over to this environment.
And yet, in addition to writing about comics that I have quite forgotten about reading, I want to share some thoughts on typewriters hence the lead quote, which came to me long after I started this entry, hence the comments on development over a long period of time. Inserting can be achieved so easily with the computer, which also makes me think about typewriters because insertion was not easy with words typed to the page in ink. Cut and paste were quite literal back then in the typewriter era. I know many of you know this, even those who lived through it, and yet, I feel we need to remind ourselves of how far we have evolved in just a few decades.
Thoughts about typewriters also seem in line with the Supreme Blue Rose comic, which is somewhat futuristic but in a washed out and retro-themed way. The color washes (yes, I used that word on purpose) are breath-taking. And yet, the whole comic has a bombed-out, post-war feel. The landscapes are desolate and lonely. The character styles are retro of the Art Deco period updated with space-faring chic. It's all very intriguing. More on this topic farther down in the comics section. Read on.
So, continuing something I mentioned in the last post. It's the 1970s, some time either during my seventh grade year or my eighth grade year (I am not sure), so that would place it around 1974-1976, I decided I wanted to be a publisher. Learning that the school would let me use the mimeograph machine for a "school project," I decided that I wanted to create a magazine, which I would publish and sell. I managed to gather several people who would write articles in whatever frequency we could manage (monthly?); we were not sure. It would focus on hobbies, so we had articles ranging from stamp collecting to wood work to electronics.
Given my increased seriousness, my parents bought a typewriter for the family to use. This was a manual typewriter, but a nice Smith-Corona. In this part of the 1970s, electric typewriters were still very expensive. I coveted the IBM Selectric at my father's office and used it when we visited, especially when visiting after hours, as it was likely in use during business hours. The IBM Selectric allowed for different typefaces with switchable balls that contained the type. My sturdy old, manual Smith-Corona, and even my upgrade to the electric version my senior year of high school, when, as I prepared for college, my parents could also see that I was serious about writing, both of these could only produce regular typeface from keys on levers that struck the page one at a time. The Selectric's balls of type -- which IBM called a "golf ball sized typing element" -- could be switched out for italics or other type effects. Oh Heaven!! These simple utilities are available today with a hot-key (ctrl-i for instance) directly from the key board. But then, in the 1970s, and even for most of the 1980s, such a feature was special and expensive. By 1987-88, I had my own PC in my home office/ bed room. My phone has at least ten times the CPU speed, memory, and storage of that original machine. My current desktop, on which I am writing this, has even more computing power in total. My first two machines didn't even have hard drives.
I love the Internet. In reminiscing about early type-writer work, I found this old advertisement for the IBM Selectric online.
And of course there was also a commercial on YOU TUBE. We live in a world of magical access to information.
Speaking of typing machines, because obviously I have typing machines on the brain, I discovered this article (linked) recently about a man who still repairs the machines as well as refurbishes them for re-sale.
And yet, I digress, distracted by the evolution of my own ability to type words.
I was reminiscing about said ability because I remember spending one whole weekend writing a very lengthy (30 typed and single spaced pages before I finished) review of new comic books with keen insights by yours truly.
I am amused that 40-some years later, I am still doing the same thing, the same writing, though my machine for producing the writing has evolved.
And so on to this subject of comics books from August 2014 as I sit writing this entry in February of 2015.... OOPs, I started in February. It's now March.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS RE: SPOILERS: I don't have to explain that you read at your own risk, right? =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=++=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=++=+=+
Double whammy of Warren Ellis books this week with both Trees and the beautifully rendered though somewhat inscrutable Supreme Blue Rose #2, which I chose for the banner art atop the entry for this week.
As much as I love the Warren Ellis books, they often take a back seat to other comics that are either easier to read or more eagerly anticipated. Often I want to give myself time to thoroughly digest Ellis' comics. Often I reread the previous issues before delving into the new stuff, that is, if I can find the previous issues. I had to perform this reread function for both Ellis books from this week. I will return to this issue presently, but first the ordering.
The Wicked + the Divine #3 earns top ranks again, like in its debut week, after the second issue was bumped from the top slot by Original Sin # 6 (of 8), Savage Hulk #002, Teen Titans #1, and Robin Rises Omega #1 in comics for July 16th, 2014. Notice how Teen Titans has fallen. That book is dreadful.
I have written about many of these comics before, and I am sure I will again, so I will restrict my comments to the two Warren Ellis comics before I post this very late entry.
The art for Supreme Blue Rose is gorgeous.
I had not heard of Tula Lotay until Warren Ellis started messaging about her in preparation for their work on Supreme Blue Rose published by Image.
However, as much as I like Ellis' writing and find Lotay's art gorgeous, Supreme Blue Rose is a bit inscrutable to me simply because I had not read any of the previous Supreme comics. Ellis wastes no narrative on explanations. So, the stories lack resonance, and yet they are enjoyable as a stand alone project with much back story left unexplained.
Trees is easier to grasp, though I find I have to review each comic's past issues when the new issue arrives because I have forgotten details and Ellis is not one for recap.
The art of Supreme Blue Rose has greater impact but both are worthy of a look, especially in the soon to come trade volumes (Trees actually came out while I was still completing this entry with Supreme Blue Rose soon to follow).
Check out these gorgeous pages...
And think about typewriters.
Until next time.
SUPREME BLUE ROSE #2 - PAGES
RANKED COMICS from AUGUST 20, 2014
The Wicked + the Divine #3 The Fade Out #1 ---------------- decided to read in trade (which just arrived in the comic store months later in February) Daredevil #7 Mighty Avengers #013 Infinity Man and the Forever People #3 Batman and Robin #34 Nova: Original Sin #20 New Avengers #023 Stray Bullets: Killers #6 Supreme Blue Rose #2 Trees #4 Ms. Marvel #007 Sensation Comics: Wonder Woman #1 Teen Titans #2
BACK LOG Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 10 #6 Fables #143 Secret Avengers #007 The New 52: Futures End #16 Batman Eternal #20
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2503.09 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3538 days ago & DAD = 193 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #3672 - SoD Reprint of #976 from 2018 Throwback Thursday and Various - with PUPPIES
Still in reprint mode.
This was a very good one from seven years ago when I had not quite been here in the PACNW for a full year having moved in August of 2017. Ellory was also just about 28 months old, here.
Fun fact, as I create this post I have two puppies snuggled right beside me: Satchel and Essel.
This reprint is a great time machine to what I was doing and looking at seven years ago.
Thanks for tuning in.
The link to the original post I am reprinting below:
LOW POWER MODE: I sometimes put the blog in what I call LOW POWER MODE. If you see this note, the blog is operating like a sleeping computer, maintaining static memory, but making no new computations. If I am in low power mode, it's because I do not have time to do much that's inventive, original, or even substantive on the blog. This means I am posting straight shares, limited content posts, reprints, often something qualifying for the THAT ONE THING category and other easy to make posts to keep me daily. That's the deal. Thanks for reading.
seventiesscifiart1975 cover art for “Star Trek: Log One.” It's taken from a frame on the 1973 episode "Yesteryear" in Star Trek: The Animated Series.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #976 - Comic Book News, Dog Walks, and Recovery - Throwback Thursday 1803.08
Hi Mom, So, this is not a Thorwback photo of me and you, Mom, from my childhood, but it is art from 1973 and the "Yesteryear" episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series that was used as the cover art for the Star Trek Log One compilation of adaptations of the show's scripts that is still sitting on book shelf. No, this one did not get purged.
Today's post is just a random assortment of things starting with some comic book news.
How did I miss this?
Yes, I sit in front of a computer all day long, and though I have Twitter's firehose at a trickle, the fact that I missed the big news that BENDIS IS LEAVING MARVEL FOR DC is proof of how I am not skimming the news that is important to me AND not visiting a comic book shop weekly as I did in Michigan where my well-meaning and nerdy friends would tell me the BENDIS NEWS. Oh my. I am sure it was on Twitter, but again, TRICKLE.
So, SUPERMAN GETS THE BENDIS RELAUNCH, which may be a good thing. There's a sect of comic book nerds who seem to have some weird self-righteous position of pseudo-authority based on what (I don't know? Junk Food consumed? Number of comic boxes in the basement? Secret sex fantasies about X-Men?) who seem to look down their noses at Bendis. He's oft-maligned by certain groups of so-called fans, and yet Bendis is popular because he has done great things for comics. He is definitely one of the top ten comic book writers in the history of superhero comics, or just Marvel comics specifically. I have loved most everything he has written as it has been thoughtful, well-paced, emotionally moving, and riveting. So, though I will miss his work at Marvel, he has really done most everything at that company, and it's very exciting that he's moving over to DC.
“Many of our perennially best-selling, critically acclaimed books were produced when we unleashed our top talent on stand-alone, often out-of-continuity projects featuring our most iconic characters, a prime example being Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns,” DC Entertainment co-publisher Jim Lee explained in a statement about the new imprint. “Creating DC Black Label doubles down on our commitment to working with all-star talent and trusting them to tell epic, moving stories that only they can tell with the highest levels of creative freedom.” Invoking Miller was not a random choice; the iconic creator is writing his first full Superman project, Superman: Year One, for the imprint, with John Romita Jr. illustrating. Also on tap are Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo, reteaming for Batman: Damned — which teams the Dark Knight with John Constantine for a story that tests the former’s sanity after the Joker is found dead — and, in her first major DC work, Bitch Planet and Pretty Deadlyco-creator Kelly Sue DeConnick, partnering with Phil Jimenez for Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons, which tells the lost history of Wonder Woman’s people from their creation through the arrival of Steve Trevor on Paradise Island. (Jimenez’s promotional art for Wonder Woman Historia is above.) Each of the DC Black Label titles will be released in a format and schedule dictated by its creators and take place outside of the canonical DC Universe as seen in the regular comic book series, allowing creators to take full advantage of the creative possibilities on offer.
OXFORD, ENGLAND—Providing insight into the culture of early Western civilization, historians from the University of Oxford announced Friday the discovery of new evidence revealing that ancient Greeks immediately regretted inventing theater. “Our research shows that directly after developing theatrical performances as a way to honor the gods during religious festivals, the people of sixth-century Athens realized what a terrible thing they had done,” said research associate Hannah Brubaker, whose team of translators and anthropologists are working to catalogue reams of writing in which classical Greeks confessed that the idea of a professional class of people wearing costumes and masks while standing on stage and performing stories was a horrendous mistake. “It appears the Greeks almost immediately recognized that this new craft would create an entire subcommunity centered around the worst attention-seeking narcissists in their society and inspire a litany of terrible productions that they would all have to sit through. The Athenians in particular, being the most refined, sensitive, and sophisticated of the Greeks, instantly wished they had never conceived of theater in the first place.” Brubaker added that several new findings suggest the ancient Greeks also lamented encouraging those prone to pondering life’s unanswerable questions out loud to call themselves “philosophers.”
In other news, I spotted a big HAWK sitting on our fence last week.
Also, my puppies helped me recover from my illness.
SATCHEL AND ELLORY GALLERY - MARCH 3, 2018
On Monday, Piper took Ellory for a walk in the woods.
And so, I promised Satchel a nature walk of her own on Wednesday when Ellory goes to Paradise Dog Ranch (hence that "I ran with the pack" tag on her collar). Here's the photos from my walk with Satchel at Paradise Point State Park (not related to Paradise Dog Ranch). Here's the map and photos from Wednesday March 7th.
Reflect and connect. Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you, Mom. I miss you so very much, Mom. Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.
- Days ago = 978 days ago - Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1803.08 - 10:10
NEW (written 1708.27) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2503.08 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3537 days ago & DAD = 192 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
