Mystery solved, sort of

I used to wonder how so many voters could be foolish enough to vote for Cheeto Mussolini. The world has known for decades that the man is a grifter whose only real skill lies in conning people. I know a big chunk of his support comes from aggrieved mediocre white guys who blame their personal failures on prejudice against white dudes even though the majority of the guys who run the country are still white men. It's a weird disconnect from reality. Still, what could explain why otherwise relatively normal people would vote for an obviously cognitively impaired con man?

Then I had an up close and personal encounter with stupidity running so deep you could drown in it. As faithful readers (all 2 of you) know I've been involved with the local historical society for quite a few years. I've been a member since about 1990, a volunteer at the historical museum since 2012, and Treasurer since 2013. In 2016 the Society decided formally to designate me as Museum Manager, which is another way of saying I could decide stuff like ordering supplies without having to run the need for paper towels past the membership. 

Not anymore. Turns out that the illusion of something for nothing turns people stupid really fast . . . and once they're fixated on the something for nothing common sense vanishes. Long story, but back in late 2023 a representative of the Ancient Artifacts Preservation Society approached the Museum about their group doing a small display of copper artifacts, all of which have an Upper Peninsula connection. The Museum decided the proposed display would fit in nicely with the archeological exhibit, and it did. Two AAPS member set up the material in 2024. 

In late October the Museum was contacted by another AAPS member about expanding their display. The Museum said we could fit in another display case without much hassle. That's when the man said he was thinking bigger than just a second case; how would we feel about adding a couple rooms to the Museum? He said he would donate funds for construction. So I did some research, found out the dude was legitimate, i.e., really did have some money, was the author of several books about ancient artifacts and the ancient copper cultures, and was not a delusional loon. Maybe. 

The Museum is on leased land so no expansion would be possible without the consent of the Village of Baraga. I told the dude that and then talked to the Village Council. The Council was amenable to the idea but made it clear that any plans or designs had to be in compliance with current regulations. Because it is Village land, the Village has veto power. I relay this information to the dude.

He tells me the Historical Society needs to set up a brokerage account. As soon as the account is in place he will transfer a few shares of stock just to make sure the process is in place and working before he does a large transfer. We get an account set up with a firm that has a Baraga county office and a good reputation locally. I send the dude the information he needed to do a transfer.

That's when the dude stalls and says repeatedly that he would prefer the Museum use a different brokerage firm. The fact he's asking us for a favor is apparently irrelevant. I tell him it's not easy setting an account up when we're in a rural area. Because we are a nonprofit corporation in Michigan we need to use a firm that has a Michigan office, which would be a problem except the closest office for the firm he's pushing is in the Downer Peninsula 338 miles away. His response is that we need to get people in a car and head for Traverse City. No, at least as fast as I'm concerned. His objection to our local guy is that firm charges commissions. 

So what? All investment companies charge fees. No one works for free. If there are fees charged it would be better to have the money go to a local office than to an office 338 miles away.

The stalling and rejecting the financial company we preferred were giant red flags. So were a number of other oddities. Long ago in a galaxy far away my employer (the federal government) decided to train me as a COTR - Contracting Office's Technical Representative - and  training laid it on thick about the need for detailed documentation. Nothing vague, ambiguous, or open ended. So I kept asking the dude for a Memorandum of Understanding. Just exactly what did he want his donation to pay for? "A beautiful new museum" is not an answer. Something like "A 2500 square foot addition with two exhibit rooms" would have closer to specifics but instead each time I talked with the dude the fantasies about the amazing new museum grew more elaborate. It went from adding two exhibit rooms to becoming two stories and including a 2-bedroom apartment for housing for staff. 

The red flags kept popping up. Every time I talked with him the stock he was going to donate changed. He made very condescending comments about the museum as it exists now when he's never been to Baraga. The last time I talked with him he said he wasn't happy that Baraga Country Historical Society states in its by-laws that the mission of the Society is to preserve Baraga County history. He thought the Society should change that to emphasize the ancient artifacts. The spectacle was looking more and more like an old-fashioned Soviet era May Day parade and not at all like a serious attempt at a donation.

Then a red flag came up that was a doozy. Normally I'd say it was a garrison sized flag, but maybe a Camping World size flag would be more accurate. The dude asked me as Historical Society treasurer to write him a receipt for a 2024 donation valued at over $38,000. He needed the deduction for his 2024 tax return. One huge problem. As of late April 2025 the Museum had received nothing tangible from the dude. Lots of vague promises but absolutely nothing tangible. No money, no objects, just lots of vague promises. 

You would think that when the Historical Society membership heard about the request for us to commit a federal felony they'd react like sane people and recognize the dude was scamming us. You'd be wrong. Instead they pushed hard for kissing the dude's butt, doing the drive to Traverse City, and giving him the false receipt. They seem to think getting the theoretical donation will magically become an ATM for their pet projects. After I made it clear I don't look good in orange, one member organized a meeting without telling me and proceeded to vote me out and installed herself as new Treasurer. I didn't find out about it until several days afterwards.

The sneaking around trying to be clever royally pissed me off, of course. If they had bothered talking with me I would have been ecstatic to pass on the headaches involved in dealing with the delusional dude with the mythical money. I could watch someone else get grilled by IRS investigators while I quietly worked on exhibits or inventory. As it was, the blindsiding bullshit resulted in a bridge so thoroughly incinerated it's gone. Not even ashes left. 

The woman whose brilliant plan it was to remove me totally overlooked the fact that I wasn't just the Treasurer. I was the volunteer curator, archivist, Secretary, and grants writer. They're kind of floundering at the moment. Somewhere the world's tiniest violin . . .

FWIW I believe the dude is sincere in the desire for a museum and he probably has the money but he is either slipping into his dotage or is being poorly advised. For sure he was not behaving like a high dollar donor who knew what the proper procedures should be. 

Lessons learned in health care

Never make the radiologist laugh when he's got a tool that merited a Black and Decker logo inserted in  your breast. Apparently not many patients ask if the needle biopsy will check for growth rings. Would the bruising have been slightly less colorful if I had kept my mouth shut? Probably not. 

They may not have found growth rings but things did look sufficiently atypical to suggest an excisional biopsy (aka lumpectomy) might be wise. More colorful bruising and the recognition that I'm not driving a car for awhile. The driver's side seat belt puts pressure on the offended (violated?) boob that makes driving rather painful. I was lucky. No major post surgery pain but it is tender so it would be good to not annoy it more. Plus, of course, it's a handy excuse to not do anything. And the S.O. is stuck being a chauffeur for another week or two. Maybe three. Maybe all summer if I do enough whining. 

The excised lump got sent to a lab downstate. My personal parasite appears to be an unusual enough tumor that the oncologist at the local clinic wanted a specialized lab to look at it. Once again my body decided to do something out of the norm. When we lived in Omaha Dr. Sltorious told me every time I saw him that he wished he had a student with him. I kept showing up with moderately weird stuff, things like a Bible cyst* or a blocked salivary gland, you know, stuff that wasn't life threatening, just odd or annoying but not super common. (Minor digression: Dr. Sitorious at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha was probably the best doctor I've ever had. Any med students, interns, and residents who were his students were lucky. The man was amazing.)

It's going to be another two weeks, more or less, before the biopsy results make it across the bridge. Should I worry?  Maybe, maybe not. For now I'm going to focus on planning camping jaunts for this summer. We've never camped in Minnesota or the Dakotas. It would be nice to see Wind Cave National Park without having to count the steps, which was a remarkably boring task I got paid to do back when I worked for the National Park Service. I've always wondered what the cave looks like if you're not looking at your feet.

*The name comes from the traditional fix: slamming a humongous family Bible down on the cyst to flatten it. The cyst is a synovial cyst on the back of your hand. 

 

What's new at the museum, you ask?

Odd assortment of little plastic dudes (and dog) 

Yes, I'm still volunteering there, although I definitely have days when I wonder why. You know that old adage about being careful what you wish for? Well, I wished for more members, got them, and have been enjoying cat herding. 

The nadir probably occurred last August when two of the newer volunteers decided to rearrange several long established exhibits, move not-yet-inventoried items out of storage and mix them into the exhibits, and cap it all by selling half a dozen books from the Museum's permanent James Oliver Curwood collection, all without bothering to check with the museum manager (moi) about any of it. And they did it all in a remarkably short time. One actually bragged that it had taken less than half an hour. Holy wah. Not just happy to admit to vandalism but proud of how quickly they had done it.

They had volunteered to work on inventorying and updating the Museum's vintage and antique toys exhibit. That was the one thing they didn't touch.

Speaking of vintage toys, a hard rubber car c1932

There was a moderately humorous element. When I freaked out I was treated to a lengthy treatise via email about how I obviously didn't have a clue how to manage a museum, all my talk about consulting with the National Park Service about museum practice was total bullshit, I was a liar because the person ranting about my incompetence had never seen a person with any connection to the Park Service in the museum, and the whole inventory thing (i.e., PastPerfect) was garbage I'd made up. (If only. If I had designed an inventory program it would be a heck of lot more user friendly than PastPerfect.) 

I saved the demented email, of course. I know stuff theoretically lives forever in cyberspace but it never hurts to archive weirdness. When my offspring heard about this incident they both asked the same question: how fucking stupid are the women that it never occurred to them to Google me? I'm not prone to ego-surfing but the second thing that came up when I did few minutes ago was a reference to me working as an architectural historian with the National Park Service. 

I also asked for keys back, which the person refused to do. Instead she doubled down on how I had no authority, was clueless, and she wouldn't return the keys unless one of the male members told her to. The dude she viewed as the ultimate authority is married to the other idiot volunteer, which makes life a little awkward. He's still saying the two women were good volunteers so we should be "bigger" and let their fuck-ups slide. Hell no, especially when his wife is also the bigot who pretty obviously is prejudiced against Native people (not a good look when the Museum is on the rez). The dude is actually a great volunteer so it's a shame his spouse is a racist moron. 

End result was ~$110 spent on a locksmith changing the locks. 

Minor digression: am I the only one who notices that the person being asked to be the bigger person, to just let things slide, is almost always the person who got damaged the most? 

Anyway, back to the museum. Despite feeling a strong urge to just say, "Fine, you think you can do it better? It's all yours," I resisted the urge to walk. Which turned out to be a good thing, at least for the museum, because in December the historical society was given an amazing offer, a potential million dollar donation, and we're now in the process of nailing that down and proceeding with planning for a major expansion. Details to follow when the donation is nailed down. I do not want to jinx it by saying too much until we've seen some actual funding. If it does come through, though, the museum's footprint will double and it may actually be able to hire a full-time manager. And I'll get to hand in my keys.  

The toys shown were found in a bucket in the museum's storage building. The bucket contained some obvious junk on top, but hiding underneath a dirty rag were the plastic guys, a railroad spike, three hard rubber cars from the early 1930s, and a spud wrench. Once again we found something nifty (the 1930s toys) in an unexpected place.

Memories, sort of

 

This photo was taken April 2, 2018. Nifty flora, obviously things were blooming in Arizona. Only question I now have is where did I decide this particular agave needed to be immortalized. Is it from the Boyce Thompson Arboretum over towards Phoenix, were we in Tucson at the Sonora Desert Museum, or was it someplace else, like Saguaro National Park? And if I can't remember where we were at the time, why did I bother saving the photo? 

The arboretum, incidentally, was lovely. We were there in the spring so maybe that is where I took the photo. It's a place I'd probably go to on a regular basis if we lived a whole lot closer. As it is, given our general dislike of everything within spitting distance of Phoenix and our total lack of desire to be snowbirds in the desert, we'll probably never visit it again.  

I have been going through hard copies of photos, pitching the ones that I figure would be meaningless to anyone other than myself. Basically saving my heirs some time and trash bags. So should I be doing the same with digital? Is anyone ever going to look at them for any reason? Probably not, so maybe they can just sit there quietly in electronic limbo indefinitely. 

How far do they expect people to commute?

This piece of advertising was in the mailbox the other day. It baffled me at the time because so far as I know the closest Amazon facility of any type is down near Milwaukee, which is a good five or six hour drive from here. Talked with a couple friends, and it appears that every mailbox in the 49946 zip code was graced with this gem. It turns out that Amazon is building a distribution center in Escanaba (or close to it). Escanaba is about 130 miles from where we live. I know desperate workers in various urban areas do some killer commutes but 100+ miles one way in the U.P.? Not going to happen, not unless the paychecks are a heck of a lot better than anything Amazon is willing to disburse. 

So, did Amazon blanket every zip code in the U.P. with this ad or did they think in terms of actual distance? You know, send a card to everyone between Ironwood and Sault Ste. Marie or just the addresses that might be within 150 miles? Then again, 150 miles from Escanaba in any direction could include most of upper Michigan. It seems odd for multiple reasons, the most obvious being that it's kind of weird to start advertising for workers before construction on the building has even begun.

There are way too many invertebrates out there

For years I've been hearing that the only effective way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them, call their bluff, dare them to do their worst, because as long as they keep getting their way the bullying will just get worse. Apparently way too many people in what one would assume are positions of power are actually spineless cowards because the number of people willing to stand up to the orange cockwomble is depressingly small. Cheeto Mussolini says "jump" and the cowards don't even bother to ask how high. They just comply. 

On the positive side, sort of, the high power law firm of Paul, Weiss is now enjoying a shit ton of condemnation from the legal community for caving in to the Human Yam's demands. Ditto Columbia University. And of course gutless Senator Schumer is getting to see his planned book tour cancelled because it was clear he was going to be greeted by jeering crowds anywhere he was dumb enough to go.

I am, to be honest, totally baffled why so many people who could actually do something are instead doing nothing, or worse. Nada. Zilch. Just a lot of baffled deer in the headlights body language and vague blathering on about the need to be civil and "work with" the Trump administration. Is there a polite way to say "fucking morons?"  

For sure I need to include our state's senior senator as a moron, the spineless idiot who is actually in a position to be confrontational -- he's announced he won't run again in 2026 so has nothing to lose by pissing off MAGAts or Cheeto Mussolini. Trump decided years ago to fuck over Michigan because he hates our Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, so Gary Peters could say or do anything and it wouldn't make things worse. 

There are numerous reports of how unhappy even the hard core right wing nutjobs are with the path of destruction tRump has created, but none of them are willing to stand up to him either. Joni Ernst, the junior senator from Iowa, was making noises about voting against one of Trump's nominees but then she reportedly got some death threats -- and that's when her spine turned to jello. Ditto her colleagues. They all know just how willing the MAGAts are to engage in violence -- anyone who was in Congress on January 6, 2021, got a vivid demonstration of MAGA lunacy -- but if a few of them managed to find the guts to say, screw it, do your worst, most of the MAGAts would just crawl back under their rocks. There are some who are sufficiently brain dead to harass people, threaten them in various ways, maybe even attempt to shoot someone, but the number of MAGAts willing to put their own lives on the line when they're not part of mob is pretty small. MAGAts may be delusional but most aren't totally stupid. Talking big at the local watering hole is one thing; going and actually doing something is different. 

In any case, all it would take is a handful of people with the guts to be the first to tell the Human Yam to fuck off to inspire others to stop cowering and grow some cojones. I don't think it's likely to happen -- the Republican Party has operated under Newt Gingrich rules* for too long -- but I can dream. 

*Gingrich believes the only thing that counts is winning a majority for the party; whatever happens to the country is irrelevant as long as the other party loses.

Turkeys have really big feet

1874 turkey track quilt

I spotted the biggest bird tracks I'd ever seen in the snow recently. I was ambling up the driveway to the Woman Cave when I saw the largest prints I'd ever seen outside of a zoo. My first thought was, holy wah, do the new neighbors have emus? If I'd spotted huge bird foot prints in the summer I'd have thought "sandhill crane" because we have a pair that nest on the edge of our property every year, but in early March? It didn't hit me immediately that lately most of the turkeys I've seen have been single birds, not flocks. 

The turkey tracks were, in any case, a nice distraction from the flaming dumpster fire that is the tRump administration's incredibly chaotic approach to governance. How incompetent do you have to be to think that first telling remote workers that they have to return to an office and then turning around and cancelling the leases on the offices they're supposed to come back to is some sort of genius solution to eliminating waste and fraud? I can understand (sort of) the decision to cancel leases on some facilities, the part-time offices where maybe a representative from the IRS or Social Security visits once a week, but cancelling leases for a national park's headquarters? Which is what the DOGE geniuses did in Arkansas: cancelled the lease on the headquarters for Buffalo National River. I've been to BUFF's headquarters multiple times. 

The park occupied multiple rooms in their leased space in Harrison. All of that space was used, packed full of stuff. The park historian's space alone was crammed with files and books and enough material that it would take several large U-Haul's to empty just that one room -- which does beg the question, where is that material supposed to go? Is it saving any money when the park then ends up having to rent storage elsewhere? Where do the fifty-plus years of park administrative records go? The archeological artifacts collection? The employees who were not fired but no longer have an office to go to? No planning, no thought, just a bunch of mindless Musk acolytes crossing stuff off lists and then bragging about how much they're saving the country by causing chaos. 

I noticed the news item about BUFF because it was (and still is) one of my favorite parks but the Younger Daughter tells me DOGE also hit facilities in Fayetteville, although she wasn't sure exactly what. She's actually been paying more attention to Cheeto Mussolini's antics than I have. She is a federal employee and she does worry about just how safe anyone's job is now. It's easy to imagine tRump deciding entire job categories aren't necessary, like historian or writer. If something doesn't have an obvious immediate resale value, the orange cockwomble figures it's useless or should be trashed. 

Only 202 weeks left to go, assuming we all survive.  

Jackie Sue was right

 

We're fucked. 

I've been watching Cheeto Mussolini and his minions in action since the inauguration. Every time I think they've done the dumbest thing ever they manage to do something even dumber. Planes are falling out of the sky? Not a problem. Just blame it on a nonissue (committing the sin of hiring people who aren't white or male) and say it's all Biden's or Obama's or maybe even Carter's fault. Claiming you're going to eliminate waste in government spending? Solution: fire every low level employee unlucky enough to still be on probation and ignore all the GS-15 dead weight, the various managers and supervisors who have been Retired on Active Duty (ROAD) or Retired in Place (RIP) for years. 

Anyone who's ever had a government job knows about the RIPs.  I think most agencies have slots where the people who fill them are the codgers (geezettes?) who are already eligible for retirement but want to keep getting a full paycheck for a few more years. When I worked for the National Park Service I swear there were a couple parks where the superintendents were already mentally on their bass boat. They were useless as managers. They'd found a geographic location they liked, they had the government move them (the higher in the food chain a position is, the more generous Transfer of Station funds become), help with the purchase of a house (their retirement cabin on the river or on a hillside with a great mountain view), and be bitched about by park staff for the next two, three, or four years. I doubt if any of that dead weight got noticed by the Musk's DOGE tech bros. 

But talking about RIP personnel is a bit of a digression. I'm more intrigued by Musk deciding he needed to re-invent the wheel, and do a piss poor job in the process. Some of us geezers still remember the 1990s and Clinton-Gore. Clinton et al. decided the Vice President should have more to do than attend funerals in foreign countries. Al Gore got tasked with reducing waste and redundancies in government. Spoiler alert: he actually did it. The task force cut the federal government's payroll by a significant amount, duplicate offices and agencies were eliminated. The one I always remember most clearly was in regulating coal mining. The Bureau of Mines vanished. My faith in the tRump administration to always fuck stuff up is so strong that I firmly believe the government will emerge from the DOGE purge with zero funds saved, gazillions being doled out to private contractors, and several new offices, task forces, agencies, etc., created to provide jobs to loyal suck-ups. They may even bring the Bureau of Mines back from the dead. No reason to, of course, but it could make some good sound bites for the orange cockwomble to brag about helping America's coal industry.

The way the Clinton administration's task force succeeded in shrinking government was, of course, to do it carefully. No blanket across the board reductions in force, just a meticulous examination of who was doing what and where. Had Musk possessed more brain cells than a gerbil (or had a shit ton less ego) he'd have followed similar methods. Less trauma, more good press, and for sure no internet memes speculating about the Muskrat's micro penis and/or botched dick enlargement surgery. (Those memes must be comforting to all the broke-ass dudes out there. If the richest man in the world can't buy himself a macro member then maybe being poor isn't so horrible after all.)