There’s pretty much always time to explain yourself if someone doesn’t understand. You could say it the first way that comes to mind, then pause and say it the second way. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you just have to communicate. Sometimes you have to use your hands and feet, and that’s OK too.

It depends on where you’re staying and how much time you have. LA is big and you’ll probably spend a good amount of time in a car. If you can, get a nice rental car that’s not too big. Parking is often a challenge and some streets are narrow. If renting at LAX, the wait times can be long.

Go to the beach if you can. I like Redondo Beach better than Santa Monica or Venice. Pretty and less crowded. There are wide, paved walkways and places to sit and watch the ocean.

The Getty Villa is pretty and accessible, from what I remember. The museum too.

Hollywood isn’t that interesting unless you’re going to an event. If you want to see it, I’d recommend driving down Hollywood Blvd. between La Brea and Vine. Or check out Cahuenga Blvd. The Hollywood Bowl is great and has accessible options, but you should book well in advance and be prepared for a long drive or shuttle ride.

If you want glitz and glamor, go to Beverly Hills and drive down Rodeo.

Drive down Mulholland for a great view of the city, or go to the Griffith Observatory. Griffith Park is also nice and has picnic areas if you don’t want to walk.

Downtown LA isn’t really a tourist area to me, but there are good restaurants. Some of the hotels have rooftop lounges with great views. Or go to Little Tokyo and get sushi, ramen, or mochi.

Well, there’s that, and also

• Having to work really long hours to try to make ends meet
• Being underpaid
• No or minimal time off work (vacation and sick time both, and sometimes even medical leave doesn’t protect you all that much)
• Poor worker’s rights in general
• Crushing cost of housing
• Crushing cost of education
• Food and everything else you need to live is getting more expensive all the time, and the quality often goes down
• Poor quality of medical care (on top of the exorbitant cost)
• Not being able to spend much time with friends and family because they’re all drowning in work or otherwise struggling
• Thinking about the number of friends and family who have killed themselves, come close, or are likely to try

People began to rejoice in their ability to speak freely. Furious debates over the country’s future ensued. In cafes, over cups of coffee and cigarettes, furious arguments were taking place about the direction the rebel-led government would take, voices raised as people tested the new limits of their freedoms.

Still, it was not easy to shake off the idea that the regime was watching. During an interview with a public-sector employee who preferred to remain anonymous, the employee paused as they were asked about their opinion about the new government. They excused themselves and went to the next room, where they threw up.

Returning to the interview with red-rimmed eyes, the employee apologised.

“You ask me if I’m afraid? Of course, I am afraid. I am 53 years old. And in 53 years, this is the first time that I am speaking freely,” they said.

Yeah. And how is it that corporations, or big businesses in general, have elevated themselves to an almost holy status? Why is it murder when Blackrock kills 17 civilians in Iraq (Nisour Square), but not when an insurance company denies an operation that a doctor who’s at the top of their field says could save your life? And the hospital helpfully tells you it will cost over a million dollars. For all the non-Americans, that’s not an exaggeration.

And even with Blackwater, it was only the individual employees who got convicted. The company just kept going under a different name. And the employees got pardoned later.

Do you know what kind of things might get turned down and what would count as a good reason? And if your claim gets turned down, do you have any options other than “go bankrupt or suffer” like us in the U.S.?

I’d take hunting for the right form any day over being told to hork down ibuprofen for what I know is a serious problem, and hope the insurance company might eventually deign to approve an MRI. There’s a reason a lot of Americans are out of shape, and it’s not just because of desk jobs and junk food.

Interesting article, thanks for the link. I missed owl of the year last year, and the first couple posts this year. It sounds like an awful lot of work, but I love the idea.

I’d like to see an owl eating a porcupine. If it’s anything like a camel eating cactus, it’s gotta be pretty interesting. Maybe they have a way to pull out the spines.

Interesting pictures, and a very striking owl. How do you decide who gets in the bracket?

I’m curious to see how far the saw whet will get. They’re so cute with their giant heads and big eyes. Eagle owls are neat too. Maybe not as classically cute, but majestic.

I had to look up barking owls just now. They really do sound kind of like a dog barking. Interesting that they eat bats. I didn’t know there were birds that did that.

Live music does it for me. It’s best when I’m close enough to make eye contact with the musicians, and when the audience is into it too. It’s a total rush. If I had to pick between music and sex, it’d be music, hands down.

I can relate to the comment about swimming too. I imagine hiking, kayaking, or anything else physical that you really like could give you a similar feeling.

Beautiful. That’s an impressive wingspan.

That’s a lot of tiny bones in what looks like a pretty short neck (at least from the outside). Also interesting how the blood flow works. You mentioned a little bit about that before, so I got curious and found this:

Also, it has recently been discovered that in the owl neck, one of the major arteries feeding the brain passes through bony holes in the vertebrae. These hollow cavities are approximately 10 times larger in diameter than the vertebral artery travelling through it. The extra space … creates a set of cushioning air pockets that allow the artery to move around when twisted.

Blood vessels at the base of the head, just under the jaw bone, can also act as contractile blood reservoirs, allowing owls to pool blood to meet the energy needs of their large brains and eyes, while they rotate their heads.

I would read that. It’s interesting to learn how other cultures see things. And I think learning about the not-so-pretty side of things isn’t anything to shy away from, personally. As long as it’s done tactfully, it’s a good way to get more context and learn how to interact with the world around us.

Like illegal timber cutting. It can be hard to appreciate how harmful that can be until you see it, and compare it to how a healthy forest looks. Or vultures, you have to learn about how they were hunted to extinction to really appreciate how neat it is to have them back. Or how wolves help keep Yellowstone healthy.

Plus there’s plenty of cute stuff around here to balance out the negatives.

Revenue pressure was even brought down to the level of nurses – some of whom say they have been pushed to charge for the smallest of items from Kleenexes to batteries. One 2022 email, obtained by the Guardian, shows a supervisor at Parkview DeKalb telling nurses that she had reviewed their charts for the week and found they had “missed” $50,000 in charges as a team. The following year, managers told staff to be more stringent about how many linen towels they handed out to patients – an initiative they termed “linen stewardship”.

…

This fiscal year it found roughly $140m to pour into capital projects across greater Fort Wayne – investments that, a Moody’s report from July noted, will help further its goal of regional expansion.

Also mentioned in the article…some hospitals have their own private police forces.

Aww. Looks like her fur is standing on end. But she’s pretty brave, getting so close to the Ungeheuer (monster). Nice to see her exploring her new home.

Here you go. Courtesy of Courthouse News.

I love that view, especially at night. Crazy how different (and barren) it used to look.

Yeah. Those keys on the piano are E and F. You can see those notes in the sheet music for the title track. Those long rows of notes are a bunch of E’s and F’s.

If you hit the play button in the bottom left corner, you can hear a computer-generated version of the song. Real version here.

I started learning a little about music theory. I’ve been interested for a while, but always thought I wouldn’t be able to understand it. But it’s doable, a little at a time.

And I’ve been going outside more. I spend too much time in front of the computer. It’s nice to have fresh air and read, listen to music, or just take in the surroundings.

And the newer threads (from the last 1-2 years) often just aren’t that helpful. Lots of people who don’t know what they’re talking about, or comment just to say they have the same problem.

I can usually get a helpful answer by trying a couple search engines or just fighting with Google, but it takes longer than it should sometimes.