Like the Wicked Witch of the West

 Awake at 2:30, up at 3. 

The 'Rump continues to slowly melt like the Wicked Witch of the West, and adults are slowly taking over again. On the radio they said the 'Rump is "acting out" like you'd describe the behavior of a kid during the "terrible two's". 

NPR pulled a good one. They said something about how the president is reacting, then played a baby squalling and then said something like "That's totally some turkeys..." I know what turkeys sound like, and that was not turkeys.  

I was out the door at a quarter after 6 and did my drop-offs and not too many zombie problems. Although, it was funny, coming back here from going across the Foxconn parking lot then up Queen's Lane, there was a big white pickup truck with its hazard lights on, obviously one of the crappy vehicles the zombies around here that barely run. It seemed it was unable to move, but I kept a cautious distance and when I was closest to it, it appeared to try to make a lunge at me but didn't have the strength and I sped up and veered away - then it started honking its horn randomly. A zombie trick is to pretend to have car trouble to lure victims in ... you'll get your brains eaten that way. Bet they were really pissed they didn't lure me in because I have a reputation for being helpful so maybe in their zombie-addled minds they thought they had a sure victim. 

There's the most amazing interview on NPR right now on the "Impossible Burger" and now I really want to try it. The origin story is: A super-duper smart scientist goes to a big hot-shot meeting of environmentalists in Europe where they all discuss the fucked up environmental situation we're in late into the night, and what works out to feed all these hungry scientists late at night is the super-duper smart scientist's partner fries up lots of sliders. The super-duper smart scientist knows that the other scientists, being smart too, know that beef is a huge detriment to the environment, but that's all there was. So the super-duper smart scientist is trying to make something better than beef. 

The interview also goes into how much damage beef-raising does and how much of the world's agriculture is is, and the answer is: a LOT. Chickens and pigs and so on cause some damage, but beef is many, many times as harmful.

People don't light their houses with whale oil any more because there's a replacement that's better. And I think that's the idea. 

But what I think can really change things is simply changing social mores. We in the US don't eat dogs, although the First Nations people did, enthusiastically. We generally don't eat cats, turtles, parrots, whales, and suchlike things because we just don't. In a generation or two, eating beef could be seen the way smoking is now.

I'm finding singing teachers galore on YouTube, but caveat emptor I guess because I'll find one with "bel canto" exercises then in the comments people saying they're training singers saying their teaching is bad and wrong. Luckily I have my trumpet experience to fall back on. Things like using the diaphragm, not straining, don't force vibrato, don't force range ...