WTF-Beta

Well, seeing as searching phones is now a thing, maybe it's just safer all the way around to not carry a phone.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/16Eum4Khkc/

@kluurs I think everyone would be wise to come up with a Plan B. I don't want to plan to leave my country, but yes, by February I think it's going to be one of two things--either the Resistance is gaining ground or has even overthrown this nightmare, or, we are in what looks like the USSR. Except with raging capitalism.

The billionaires have decided that democracy is very inconvenient for them. How we take our power back is the dilemma to work out asap.

My own Plan B: I'm making tiny, incremental progress towards obtaining a European passport by right of descent. One major hurdle I just overcame a day ago--I got a photograph of my grandmother's birth record from 1897 and now know I can get a certified copy from the historical archives. For a long time I was pretty sure I would never find it.

Of course, Europe may fall to Russia, the way things are going. Then maybe on my European passport I can gain residency in Canada as a refugee.

I've just decided this morning that I am going to do the travel I was planning to do over the next year. One trip to the Yukon, another to Bhutan. Have to, while I have the resources and the physical capacity still (the later may be questionable). I'll be 70 next February and it will be the 30th anniversary of when Mr Pique and I met next March.

If this ridiculousness is still going on, I will put my electronics, including my phone, in a bank lock box here at home, and get a burner phone for travel. Both trips are for extremely remote areas on horseback, so I'm going to go full Luddite, if I can manage it.

@Bernard I had that exact Underwood typewriter. I gave it to a friend when I moved away from NYC. I have two other typewriters still--a Smith Corona 1962 manual with a jeweled escarpment that I wrote my first magazine articles on in the 1980s. And a Smith-Corona electric that my uncle gave me when I graduated from high school. Both are portables. The manual typewriter came to me when I lived in the wilderness and didn't have any electricity. My supervisor brought it up to me by mule. I'll never let go of that one.

I once read an essay by the author of "Bel Canto" that finding her old manual typewriter was like finding the axe that she used to build the house she lived in. Very much how I feel about mine.

I read a wonderful FB post where the writer described these clowns as having evidently been raised on "lead paint milkshakes" LOL

This is so exhausting

@ShiroKuro said in Be careful what you say:

@pique said in Be careful what you say:

seems like it is that or go to Japan and stay there

The problem is that it is not clear that this is what would happen.

We could go to Japan, come back in two weeks and have zero issues getting back into the country. And that is as it should be, both of us have done nothing wrong, and he has legal permanent residence.

The real problem is that there's no assurance that things actually play out as they should.

Right. Which is why I think--at this moment in time-- your options are don't leave the country at all, or leave and don't try to come back. I think your fears are entirely justified. I personally wouldn't risk it.

" So we're walking the fine line between keeping things as original as possible so it remains like it was when Keith played it and doing the necesary maintenance to make it usable for our performances now."

Keeping it like it was just is not possible. The piano was changing when Keith had it and it has continued and will continue to change. You can't put a piano in a bottle. Even if you had all original parts, the wood changes over time, the soundboard degrades... the non-profit's board needs to give up on this idea. It's a 50 year old piano, and not from Steinway's golden age. It's not going to get better and better, like a violin. It will get worse and worse, until a rebuild is necessary if they want to keep using it as a performance instrument.

I think SK's suggestion is really the best bet if they are short on funds--just keep tuning it. When that no longer works, get it rebuilt--new everything except the case and the plate. Maybe they can save up the money for that in the meantime--have a fundraiser. They are going to need a piano rebuilding fund if they want to keep it. Last I knew you could get a good rebuild done for about $20k, but I'm sure that's different now.

@kluurs you make a lot of assumptions about what I have and havent read, and what my sources are and aren't. You apparently have bought the anti-Israel narrative hook, line, and sinker, never thinking about how that narrative distorts and manipulates its consumers.

You are taking at face value what certain people say and opine about because of who they are. That isn't how I do research. I look for hard facts, not experts. I learned over many years doing this professionally that giving credence to what certain people say, just because of who those people are, doesn't lead one to the truth.

@ShiroKuro said in Be careful what you say:

@Rontuner yeah, I’m going to have to start learning about burner phones…. Because I feel like I really need to have access to my phone number while I’m away, but I think if you get a burner phone and then it has your regular phone number, it defeats the purpose right?

@pique said in Be careful what you say:

Man, SK, I'm sorry for the stress this must be causing you.

Thank you.

This is really tearing me up… Mr SK has made so many sacrifices over the years for me, to be here in the U.S. with me.

If we can’t safely travel back and forth to Japan, without fear of detainment…. Especially when neither us are doing anything wrong…

And the biggest problem I’m grappling with right now is timing, because now is the time to make airplane reservations for overseas summer travel. The longer you wait, the more expensive it gets, and seats start getting taken etc…. But I don’t have any clarity…. I don’t think anyone does.

I was going to spend the winter overseas, got delayed because of a car accident, then Covid, then when things got super crazy here--including multiple plane accidents--I started stepping back from the idea. I'm sure it's not fair to Mr SK to not be able to go home for a while, but maybe you skip this plan for now... seems like it is that or go to Japan and stay there, which I know is not possible if you want to keep the new life you have built for yourselves. (And at least that means that if everything really does go totally to hell, you and Mr SK have an out.)

I'm talking about learning the actual history of the region, reading some history books that document what actually happened there, how Israel was founded. None of these student protesters, so far as I can ascertain, know a damn thing about the actual history of the region, because they spout off a lot of garbage that has no basis in reality.

Interestingly, prior to Oct 7th, the U.N. had a white paper on their web site that cited, week by week, month by month, year by year, everything that happened in the region during and since WWI, including all the nitty gritty details of what happened during Israel's founding. It was a straight ahead, just-the-facts, detailing that laid out, in very clear language, without any slant, what transpired, all the way up to the early 1970s.

After Oct 7th, the UN scrubbed that white paper, which had existed on their site as a .pdf that was obviously screen shots of the original text that had been typed up on an old manual typewriter. Now it has been transformed into a highly slanted and biased pro-Palestinian version and rewriting of history.

I'm glad I got to read that white paper before it was scrubbed. At some point, I am going to visit the library at the UN and find it. I originally read it because of the criticisms I have read about Israel, which directly contradicted the accounts of family members, who were actually there as eyewitnesses.

In my view, the pro-Palestinian movement in America has been brainwashed by an anti-semitic narrative that comes from Israel's enemies, and this has been going on a long time.

Plenty of Jews and Palestinians have worked together for decades to find a common peace. Neither Israel/good, Arabs/bad NOR Arabs/good, Israel bad are accurate or useful portrayals. But when American leftists are up in arms about Israel because supposedly they are on "stolen" land, and they defend Hamas as freedom fighters instead of denouncing them as terrorists and promulgators of Jewish genocide, then they have lost me.

Because TikTok is such a reliable source of factual information and any videos posted there should be accepted as authentic. Riiight.

Ron, I'm curious if it wouldn't be better to just put in a new pinblock? Seems like putting in fatter tuning pins would compromise the scale design somehow? (I am just guessing here, I have no idea how to fix the problem.)

Ken, I could cite just as many, if not more, credible and credentialed experts who say it is not genocide. Believe whatever you want. To decry genocide on the part of Israel and say nothing of the clear genocidal intent in the Hamas charter is disingenuous.

Man, SK, I'm sorry for the stress this must be causing you.

Q: What borders on stupidity?
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A: Mexico and Canada

You can always get another phone in Japan, right?

Okay, but why do need a smartphone? Why won't old technology be sufficient?

Too bad these incurious students don't bother to read history.