If you missed Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on Sunday, his main story was on Drugs – well, that’s how it started, but then developed into Harm Reduction, which is basically accepting that people will take drugs, so what can be done to protect them so that they don’t actually die.  It’s a very interesting report, filled with a lot of humor and thoughtful suggestion that, while good, all mostly boil down to, “Yes, I know this means you’ll let people take drugs rather than arrest them, but…come on, folks, at least they’ll live.”

Well, it only good 21 hours, but my Internet, phone and TV services are now finally back operating.  Hopefully it will last.

As it turns out, although I had set my DVR to record a couple of TV shows yesterday, because there was no service, it couldn't record anything.  But I did catch a replay of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver today, so all's well there.

The only other thing that didn't get recorded and so I missed entirely was last night's Oscar telecast.  But I can see the results in the paper, and the show is usually pretty long and boring (which is why I set the DVR to fast-forward through all awards shows), so I'm sure I didn't miss anything...

As I mentioned the other day, the Weebly service that operates this website had a major meltdown and about three weeks of material disappeared from the site.  Actually, it still exists, but you have to know the exact URL address to find it.  There was one particular article, though, that I don't want lost -- and happily I do have the URL for it, so I tracked it down and am repeating it here.
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There was a great deal of controversy over the weekend – mostly from Republicans, though some from Democrats, as well – about President Biden supposedly calling for “regime change” in Russia. 

For starters, the president did not say that.  His nine words were – “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

For perspective's sake, over the past year so many on the far right here in the United States have been crying out about Joe Biden being president, and how the results were supposedly fixed, stolen, cheated, and that he’s not a legitimate president, and the election should be nullified, and Trump should be returned to the White House, and Democrats should be arrested and in prison.  By those standards, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power” seems pretty benign by comparison.

There's not a word in what President Biden said about the regime ruling Russia.  A regime, after all, is -- by the dictionary -- "The organization that is the governing authority of a political unit."  When we refer to "regime change," it usually implies a coup of sorts, not merely that a country has changed its leader. After all, every democracy changes leadership regularly, but we don't call that Regime Change, which has a far more visceral meaning.  What President Biden said is that the individual in charge of the current Russian government should be different.  It could be the same government, the same "regime," just a different person at the top.
 
Yes, I understand that saying that about a foreign leader rather than demanding the leaders of your own country be nullified and thrown in jail is different.  But even still, “This man cannot remain in power” is not “calling for regime change” and is still fairly benign.  If Putin was removed from power, it could conceivably be “regime change,” but it more likely would be a different leader from the same “party.” It’s not like a dictator would be replaced by a benign democratic regime.
 
But that aside, there’s a question I wish reporters would ask all Republicans who have been slamming President Biden for saying, "For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power."
 
And that’s, “For all your criticism of what the president said -- do you agree with him?”
 
This is a separate question from “Should he have said it out loud?”  It would just be good to find out exactly if their complaint is that they believe Vladimir Putin should remain in power, and that’s why they think it was wrong what President Biden said.  If they don’t disagree with that, then we should get them on record that they support his sentiment, just not how he stated it. 
 
Whether or not the president should have used those exact words is a separate issue. For instance, he could have phrased it, “This is not the leadership that I’m sure most Russians want, as we’ve seen by the 14,000 protestors who’ve already been arrested knowing that they could get sent to prison for 10 years, and so I hope Mr. Putin does the responsible thing and steps aside, handing over power to someone else in his party.”  The meaning is the same, the semantics are different.
 
And yes, semantics do matter in world diplomacy.  But then, if we’re going to focus on semantics being the issue (which is an understandable concern), then we should also be clear that as far as semantics go, Joe Biden did not call for “regime change,” like most of the outcry is saying.
 
And so, the question remains, for all those people complaining about what President said, hether or not he should have used those exact words -- do you agree the sentiment of what he said?
 
For that matter, another question for all criticizing President Biden bringing up Putin staying in power (whether or not he should have said that), they should be asked where was their equal criticism of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham when he repeatedly went much further than the president and called for Putin to be -- not just removed from power but -- actually assassinated?!!
 
I would suggest that what Sen. Graham said was far, far worse.  And yes, he’s not the President of the United States.  But he’s a United States senator, and a leading voice in his party, the former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.  I believe it’s fair to think that Vladimir Putin, indeed most of Russia, in fact most of the rest of the world would think that a U.S. senator calling repeatedly for the assassination of a foreign leader – without his own party even criticizing him – means the Republican Party supports this view.  A view that’s reprehensible.  Far beyond even “regime change,” but assassination.  And dangerous for what it could bring in return.
 
I’ve also seen the position stated that even though President Biden was not calling for “regime change,” but saying something reasonable, Vladimir Putin will likely misinterpret this, and therefore this is why it’s another Joe Biden gaffe.
 
So, let’s see, because Putin will likely misinterpret what President Biden said, it's President Biden's "gaffe"?  Not Putin’s??
 
But all that aside, Vladmir Putin likely thinks his own ministers want him removed.  And by “removed,” that pretty much means “killed.”  We’ve seen him at his massively long table sitting alone.  We’ve read about how he’s very protected by his very small inner-circle.  The other day, I heard a former Russian minister say killing the leader is a long-tradition in Russia, that in Russia it’s safer to stage a coup to kill the leader than criticize him.  I feel pretty certain that there is little doubt Putin has already thought this of Biden.  And of most other world leaders.
 
But then, if one is criticizing President Biden because Putin will likely misinterpret what he said, how do you think Putin correctly interpreted Sen. Lindsey Graham repeatedly saying he should be assassinated?!
 
I agree that what President Biden said was not the best phrasing.  But I also know that he was not saying what he’s been criticized for and did not call for “regime change,” but instead said something out loud what most Americans are likely thinking – and is reasonable.  That they think Vladimir Putin is a butcher and a danger to the world and should not remain in power.

​From the archives.  This week's contest is Christina Stone of Houston, Texas.  The hidden song is pretty clear, but as much as could tell I should know it, I just didn't guess it.  And yes, I knew it, and should have gotten it.  But I did at least get the composer style.
 

Sorry, Spectrum has had a very long outage, and my Internet service, TV service and phone service have been down for eight hours so far.  I finally got around to connecting via a mobile hotspot with my mobile phone's T-mobile, so I'll at least be able to post something here belatedly.

And yes, this means the TV is out during the Oscars telecast.  The good news is that I don't tend to watch awards shows live and record them, to fast-forward through later.  But still...  When I called Spectrum around 8 PM (the telecast began at 5:30 PM here), I mentioned to the customer service rep that the area with the outage was West Los Angeles, which is the home to many in the Motion Picture Academy.  With a sigh, she said, "Oh, I knowwww..."