The RESTRICT act

 I listed 10 things last night, and did a bit of practice on the shinobue. I'm pretty sure I can play a pretty good rendition of "Golden Chain" on the shinobue by next shakuhachi class, and have been listening to the temple choir singing it on YouTube daily to get to know the tune really well. If I know what it's supposed to sound like, I can learn to play it 100X faster. 

It'd be a gas to play the shakuhachi tunes I'm learning on the shinobue too, since the shinobue is not only easier to carry around but that little thing can be really loud which is why it's used in taiko. 

I remember reading years ago about a busker(?) or maybe just a homeless person who used their instrument as a noisemaker, who "terrorized" a particular street (I want to think Boulder, CO or somewhere in the Pacific Northwest) with a piccolo. I guess those can get really loud too. It might have been OK if the guy was a good player but it sound like he was not, and he could be heard all up and down the street which meant other buskers had tons of space taken from them to play their music. 

I don't want to be that kind of busker but I do like the idea of something that can be heard. 

My version of "Golden Chain" has part of it in the high register and then part in the lower register and might make quite the impression if I can play it smoothly and well. 

The ex-criminal-in-chief, Donnie Dumpo, is starting to get in actual legal trouble and of course his brain-dead followers are "rallying around him" according to the radio. It might be a lot fewer, who are being louder, though. And if they pull any terrorist stuff (and you know they will) that will harden the sane public's resolve against them and their idiotic leader. 

But there are new horrors: Something called the RESTRICT act, which is being described as Patriot Act 2.0, only worse. 10 years in prison, minimum, for using an app called WeChat. What if someone tricks you with a link, and suddenly there's a WeChat window on your screen? Now you're in for 10 years of hard time, and this is not unimaginable if the entity tricking you is your local police or sheriff because the local for-profit prison needs more bodies. 

People on Reddit are pointing out that if this goes through, the US will be far more authoritarian and unfree than China. It's already been pointed out that China is more free in a number of ways. A country that's lifting millions out of poverty while the US is throwing millions into poverty.... 

It's also being pointed out that the RESTRICT act means we'll end up with an internal passport system. I need to get my "Real ID" and renew my *external* passport, and keep working on that shakuhachi and shinobue as skills on those are all that will differentiate me from just another clueless American who wants out. 

This is what I don't get about the bums. You're out there on the street, eating literally hand-to-mouth as in the most you'll do is unwrap a burger and apparently getting enough ready-to-eat handouts to stay fed that way, plus drugs and alcohol. You've got tons of time on your hands. Why not develop some skill? There are tons of skills one can develop even if one is living in a pup tent. I offer the bums musical instruments all the time and there's never any interest. I suggest things like window washing or car detailing, and there's never any interest. 

Life is easy right now if you're a bum. But what if things get like they were when I was a kid in the 70s? No one shared food. There was little to go around and the concept of eating at a friend's place or a friend's mom caring if you were hungry was an utterly foreign one. There was no such thing as we kids going to a burger place after school, as there was no money to do so. I never tasted the burgers or fries served by a place right across from my high school. There was a WWII saying, "Food is a weapon" well, food was certainly a weapon in the Starving Seventies. 

Maybe that's one reason bums were super rare then. They'd have fucking starved. There were nothing like the amount of stray dogs and cats and chickens in Hawaii then. 

I was up in time to wash hair and shave and clean up and head out of here with 3 packages for the post office at a quarter to 4. It was cold and windy enough to keep the zombies at least somewhat holed up so that was nice. The deposit went fine and somehow I have a tiny bit more money then I calculated by a dollar or two. 

I went over to Whole Foods and got some sausages (which I suspect were made of chicken or turkey) and zucchini and peppers and a can of coffee since they didn't have any near-beer or seltzer water at all. In fact, the buffet I got my sausages etc. from was almost completely emptied out. There were two registered manned and long lines, which is becoming the norm there. I ate downstairs and thought about my day. 

I decided I'd do my Walmart run for the week now, even though I was certainly too late to get my TDAP shot at the pharmacy. So I rode down there and took my time looking through the store and putting things in my cart, and when I got to the last bit where the pharmacy is, I was surprised to see they were open. 

"You're open?" I said with surprise. "Oh yes, we're open until 7". And I wasn't too late to get my TDAP at all. I filled out a form and gave them my ID and Medi-Cal card, and the doctor fixed up the shot. Everyone in there was Vietnamese and I figured this would almost be like being in Vietnam and getting a routine vaccination, which even without insurance would be $10 or so and they people would be nice and take care of me. The doctor came out with his little cart and we went into the little booth and I got my shot which hurt a little but no biggie. I'm not saying I like getting shots but I've sure gotten used to them. And it didn't cost me a thing because I have Medi-Cal.

I paid for my stuff and even got some rejects from the CoinStar, 64c in change and a Mexican 1-peso coin that's pretty cool. 

It was a windy, somewhat wintry, ride back and I found a few books and got some bubble mailers at the Amazon place. I want to avoid that officious guy I ran into and I figure I never did for the longest time because he's in on Sundays and I'm basically never going through there on Sundays. 

I got back here, put things away, and took the step stool on the bike trailer and my "new" big orange bin and first took stuff from last night's food bombing to the base of the railroad signal (the other stuff got taken pretty quickly) and went and checked the medical place, finding some packing stuff mainly. 

I was back in here for the night a bit after 8, of course the equivalent of a bit after 11 in the before times. Late.