March 3, 4, 5

 Busy morning already. It was a shopping day and I had a fairly long list. But that is done and most of the items are inside and put away. I only have a bag of bird seed, 4 gallons of water, a gallon of white vinegar, and a case of canned cat food to bring in. I will do that later if my back will stop hurting or tomorrow if not. The weather forecast says that some nasty weather is coming with a possible mix of all forms of precipitation.

04************************************************

We have solid rain today. The temperatures are still in the 40s and are expected to stay above freezing so the grass should start greening. The trees are starting to show leaf buds. I still have some items from yesterday's shopping to bring in but I am not in any hurry because none of them will be hurt where they are.

Trump is going to give a speech to a joint session of Congress. I plan to ignore it. The news tomorrow will have the high (low?) lights and I will get the gist then without having to spend time listening to his whining and bellicosity.

05************************************************

Another rainy day but it let up enough for me to get the items I had left in the car into the house. That was enough heavy lifting. I am now taking a break. I put a couple of rows on another lap/baby blanket just started. I get bored and I grab some of what is in my stash and start another project. The other crochet project still on the hook is almost finished I have a few more rows and the edging. I haven't started a doily project again. I tried a couple of "vintage" patterns but haven't figured out the author's crochet dialect yet. I still have the two embroidery pieces on hoops. Right now my get up and go waved bye-bye a while ago.

I was thinking of changing my mind and watching Trump's address with my finger hovering over the mute button but at one point the commentators observed that Vance and Johnson had bent their microphones down as Vance told Johnson he didn't see how anyone could stand up and deliver a 90-minute speech. It was already 8:30 so I turned the boob tube off and continued reading. As it turned out the speech lasted 100 minutes and, from the accounts I saw this morning, it met my expectations, whining and bellicosity with a dash of grandiose claims of "accomplishments."

I was mildly amused by an episode of news reader cluelessness yesterday. I think it was on CNBC and immediately after the segment I switched the channel. The female talking head wondered why the tariffs were causing such a furor because, of course, we would have time before they really hit. My first thought was she obviously didn't realize how perishable fruits and vegetables are or that we get a large part of our summer favorites from Mexico. Our supermarkets have to be resupplied at least a couple of times a week. Before the end of THIS week we will be feeling the increasing prices. I thought that just before their economist expert mention these facts of our life to her. My allergy to stupidity is getting worse.

Joyce Vance has, evidently, had a higher tolerance for BS than I and watched some of THE SPEECH. Here are the two things she took away from it.

So Trump proposes a "Crypto Strategic Reserve" for government "investment." Another lame brained notion from the stable genius who tanked a couple of casinos, whose Trump themed products (steaks, water, vodka, etc.) failed, whose Trump University was adjudicated a fraud for which he paid a hefty fine. I have a standard rule when I, infrequently, play games on Facebook: I never pay real money for digital goods. The idea of exchanging cash (which is a bit more substantial than blips in the ether) for digital (which is simply blips in the ether. A few of the bloggers I read rail against "fiat" currency (which is really backed only by our belief in the "full faith and credit of the U.S. government" since we went off the gold standard long ago). They usually talk about keeping some kind of silver and/or gold. My problem: "hard" currency is only valuable IF you can exchange it for something you can wear, eat, or use. My problem with the notion of digital currencies is not the it is entirely ephemeral but how easily it can disappear. I have read of several instances over the last few years of gangs, some associated with adversarial states, breaking into banking systems and disappearing the contents, both crypto and fiat. It is very hard to trace the thefts and much of the funds haven't been recovered. Establishing a "Crypto Strategic Reserve" strikes me as NOT strategic, possibly corrupt (how much will be in $Trump family "coins," and how much will be in the "currencies" whose founders have paid him in some way. Check out this article on POPULATION INFORMATION.

CROOKS & LIARS has an excellent cartoon showing our leaders since 1980.

March 2

 Sunny today and I hope it will be warm enough to melt the bit of snow we got over the last couple of days. It looked bad for a couple of rounds but didn't really amount to much. I am planning what I will plant this year and how I will rearrange the containers. We have some of our DVDs playing. I have heard more than I wanted to of the "news." It isn't new for the most part and it is alternately infuriating and depressing. I can read from multiple sources without hearing the politicians pontificate.

It will be interesting to see how Europe reacts to the changed circumstances. For years (decades?) our leaders, their leaders, and pundits of all stripes have referred to the U.S. as the "indispensable" country. Our government was involved in all the decisions and actions since the end of WWII. Now other countries and blocks have to think seriously about whether the U.S. is truly indispensable. they have to consider whether the promises our government makes can be relied on from one administration to the next. If those premises are no longer true U.S. influence will decline. Good? Bad? Who knows?

March 1

 Welcome to March. The winds have been doing their usual March thing: howling. I stepped out yesterday to get the mail and the wind almost tore the door out of my hand. Temperatures nearly hit 60F yesterday but this morning we have snow on the ground--perhaps a quarter of an inch so far. Not much of a surprise because the Weather Channel predicted "more normal" temperatures today before another warm up.

Did anyone REALLY enjoy the S-show in the Oval Office yesterday? I was disgusted by it. Grown men acting like five year old bullies--and I DON'T mean Zelenskyy! A number of thoughts cycled through my mind. First, the scene from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA where Starbuck, in the brig, asks Lee Adama if everyone "kissed your ass to your satisfaction?" The second was the scene at the end of BRAVEHEART where the English forces are lined up facing the Scots expecting to receive the Scottish surrender and one tells the other "I hope you washed your arse because it's about to be kissed by a king." Instead the Scottish king throws William Wallace's sword into the space between the armies and the Scots attack. It is obvious to me that Trump and Vance expected Zelenskyy to well, thoroughly, and abjectly kiss their butts and were surprised he didn't. However, another thought also came up. I read a lot of history among other subjects. Back just before 1453 the emperor and his court at Constantinople saw the writing on the wall as the city was being surrounded by a massive Muslim army. They wrote to the Pope asking for aid. Instead of giving help to fellow Christians the Pope demanded total submission to the Roman Church and their acceptance of Papal Supremacy. The Byzantines wrote back: Better the turban of the Sultan than the tiara of the Pope. The city was sacked, much of its population slaughtered and it remains an Islamic city along with the rest of Anatolia (modern day Türkiye). In case you are wondering, we aren't turning on the TV. We don't have our morning soccer and tomorrow we won't have the morning rugby games. I don't want to see any of the "news" today. We are doing a LORD OF THE RINGS marathon instead,

Stray thought: Biden, unfortunately, paved the way for Trump when he decided to run for a second term. His continuing mental decline was evident and he looked as physically frail as one would expect of someone in his early 80s. Trump's decline from 2015 to2020 and then 2024 was evident to anyone looking but it was easily dismissed by his sycophants who pointed at Biden. Without Biden on stage the decline, mentally and physically, is evident but the Republicans are intent on securing their own power by clinging to Trump's coat tails. Zelenskyy was right when he said that Trump lives in an information bubble which tells him what he wants to hear but his followers also live in that bubble. Many writers have said the we now live in a post-truth world.

Another stray though: some of the headlines I have scanned say that Ukraine's fate is even more tenuous with the Oval Office meltdown but even if the meeting ended on a more "positive note" and the minerals agreement it's situation would not have been more secure. Trump was intent on "getting something for nothing." He wanted those mineral concessions but without giving Zelenskyy any assurance of U.S. aid if Putin attacked again. Trump repeatedly dismissed the possibility that Putin would violate any agreement claiming that the presence of Americans working the mines in Ukraine would deter him. He was incensed that Zelenskyy, with his back against the wall, would refuse.

Last stray thought: isn't it sad that our foreign relations have been reduced to who is kissing Trump's ass and whose ass Trump is kissing.

February 27, 28

 Cloudy and a bit hazy. We woke up to find we had no water. It went off sometime between midnight when Mom got up to fill up her water cup and 4am when I tried to fill the coffee pot and found no flow. I finally found a small local news site which reported on a water main break that affected the Eastern part of the city. About 5am the water began flowing again but a boil order is in effect. I used to keep a supply of water on the shelf "just in case." I think I begin keeping a smaller supply again from now on. This is the first such problem since we came her 25 years ago.

I saw yesterday that Joann Fabrics is shutting down entirely. I remember that the company had been in bankruptcy for a while now. Too bad. In my area the choices for fabric lovers is Hobby Lobby (I refuse to support their Christian fundamentalist platform with my dollars) and Michaels which has recently started carrying cloth on the bolt again (perhaps with the Joann closures in mind. Right now I am still working my way through my stash so won't need any new fabric for a while. But I did like having a local alternative.

28************************************************

Looks like a sunny day today. Temps are supposed to be in the high 50s. I think I will get a couple of things cleaned out on the patio. We are still in a boil advisory. I looked and didn't see any update on the situation saying otherwise.

Stray thought: some years (decades?) ago I read a sci-fi novel in which a very rich man secretly funded the development a fast spreading disease and the vaccine to neutralize it planning to spread the disease but protect particular groups of people. He believed that the human had to be reduced to a level the earth could sustain. I don't think the MAGA/DOGE idiots in D.C. have any such coherent thought but many of their cuts seem designed to accomplish the same goal Their actions couldn't better constructed to cull the human herd. We are watching the largest outbreak of measles for decades here in which one child has died, two dozen are hospitalized, more than 120 people have tested positive for the virus, and which has now spread to ten states (and counting). But the Federal agencies which would normally have responded haven't and the committee of experts that should have met to consider the date from the southern hemisphere and decide what flu strains should be included in next seasons flu vaccines didn't meet because the meeting had been canceled. Because USAID has been dismantled we aren't sending resources to identify and develop treatments for the new, recently discovered hemorrhagic fever that is exploding in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But that aid was axed along with that for ebola treatment and AIDS treatments, and the Musk was totally clueless. He promised to reverse the freeze but according to the news hasn't yet.

Another stray thought: another bit of fiction I re-read recently involved how a technological civilization might lose that civilization over three generations. The last vignette focused on an old man who, in his youth, trained as an engineer while there was some hope that the high tech society could continue. He and a few friends cobbled together a small generator that actually produced enough electricity to keep a small refrigerator running. However, other aspects of our technology were beyond them. Electric lights? They didn't have the industrial infrastructure to create a vacuum or to produce a tungsten filament or some of the other parts needed to build light bulbs. And keeping the one bit of technology, the fridge, was impossible because parts broke that, without the supporting industrial infrastructure, couldn't be replaced. Trump's lawyers, fighting a lower court and appeals court order to unfreeze the funds USAID distributed to combat disease and hunger in various parts of the world, appealed to the Supreme Court raising the argument they hadn't raised in the lower courts that they couldn't comply because it would take months to restart the funds flowing. USAID provided the "infrastructure" for the funds to flow through a web of contractors and other organizations. The freeze blew up that up. The USAID "infrastructure" shriveled and couldn't be rebuilt as quickly as the DOGE bros were able to destroy it.

Heather Cox Richardson posted a long article on the actions of the DOGE wrecking crew and their effects on us here at home. It isn't pretty.

Wildfire Labs substack published a very long article on the potential economic effects of GLP-1 drugs--Ozempic and others in that class. Our consumer economy is based on impulse. Our stores and malls are laid out to trigger impulse buying. But GLP-1 drugs depress impulses. And it isn't just impulses around food but in other areas as well.

February 26

https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-fraud-fraud?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=310897&post_id=157957491&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=cfres&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email Cloudy with rain off and on. Most of the snow is gone. The 10-day weather forecast has only two days below 40F. The rest are 40s and 50s. Saturday is the first day of meteorological Spring and, if the forecast is accurate, I should be able to start the garden/patio clean up. I plan to change the arrangements of the pots drastically. Also I have the remains of last year's plants to remove and get the pots filled and fertilized. But I won't be doing it all at once. I have time since I don't intend to plant til middle April or first of May.

Stray thought during the news/commentary shows last night: more talking heads are taking to task those who wish Trump/Musk would "show some compassion" for those whose jobs are either cancelled or at risk or whose health care is at risk if proposed cuts to Medicaid are enacted. They rightly note that the prime movers in the process "don't care." One came out and said bluntly that Trump's "revenge tour" has broadened to include all Americans. I recalled something I read a long time ago that described Hitler's state of mind a short time before he committed suicide. People around him begged him to allow serious negotiations with the Allies, especially the British and U.S.. He supposedly said that if Germans weren't willing to fight to the last person they didn't deserve him and didn't deserve to survive. Around that time he issued the Nero Decree ordering the destruction of German infrastructure and resources. I get the feeling that Trump might feel the same way. He won the first time by capturing enough Electoral College votes but lost the nationwide popular vote. He lost the second time in both the Electoral College and the popular vote. He won both the third time but neither he nor Kamala Harris won 50% of the vote. He didn't really win the landslides he claims and he knows it. I wonder if he isn't intent on burning the whole thing down since he can't get unqualified love. However, my natural tendency to look at different sides lead me to note that the kind of spite described above doesn't look much different from someone absolutely convinced of the righteousness of his beliefs/actions even if people are hurt. You can justify any atrocity if you think the end justifies the means. I forget which Holy Roman Emperor said he would rather rule a desert than a kingdom of heretics and proceeded to try to create a desert. It was called THE THIRTY YEARS WAR.

Timothy has an interesting piece on his substack site describing the heavy lifting the word "fraud" does in the administration's program. Of course the EVIDENCE for fraud of any kind is rather thin or nonexistent.

My mind often makes strange connections. It feels like the Trump/Musk administration is intent on breaking our social/political/economic systems. It is very easy to become depressed at the thought and somehow afraid of what is to come. It can't be good. But I suddenly remembered a video I saw of a Japanese art form, Kintsugi, in which an artist takes broken pottery, some incredibly beautiful before it broke, and recreates it by piecing it back together with glue which includes gold, silver, or platinum dust or dusting the glued seam with the metal dust. You can read about it here. Or take a look at this YouTube piece. I hope that somehow our fractured society can be repaired and become a thing of beauty.

On a sad note: a child has died of measles in the Texas outbreak which is still expanding.

Ed West at WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY posted this article about geography and political attitudes, including voting patterns. I read about the phenomenon in both the Brexit vote and a closely contented election in Germany during Angela Merkel's tenure as Chancellor. 

February ?, 25

Very sunny today with warmer temps. I can see some grass popping up in the snowy lawns. I just finished a bit of embroidery and almost completed one of the corners in the tablecloth. It is a Saturday so we are taking a break from the usual TV offerings and watching the Premier League games. The Manchester United vs. Everton game just finished with a 2-2 tie. So far, 23 minutes in, the Ipswich-Tottenham game stands at 1-0 in favor of Tottenham. Ooops. Score went to 2-1 in Tottenham's favor.

Well, King Donald I has started cleaning house at the Pentagon. I noticed he is rapidly making the world safe for white men. He plans to replace the head of the Joint Chiefs, the second black man to hold the post, with a white man. And he has dismissed the first woman to lead the navy. Earlier they fired the first woman to head the coast guard in as brutal and humiliating way possible--giving her three hours to vacate her quarters while she was out of town on official business.

Ruben Bolling has a very apt cartoon I found by way of THE CONTRARIAN.

25****************************************************************

Another sunny day and the temps are definitely climbing. I think I missed a couple of days here. There simply isn't much to comment on that I haven't already written about.

Well, it seems we are now on the Russian side with "our" president unable to acknowledge Putin is a dictator and "our" representative at the UN refusing to vote for any proposals that criticize Putin. Hell--the "secretary of Defense" on weekend news shows couldn't even come out an acknowledge that Russia started the current iteration of the war. According to Hegseth "it's complicated." The newly elected chancellor of Germany has said that his country will increase defense spending AND will look at options that don't include the U.S.

The spectacle of politicians of both parties going home and being confronted with boos and jeers from their constituents at town hall meetings. A couple of commentators made a some good observations. First, though it was good to see the pushback at the local level all too many were angry because of the protestors were unhappy because of the hit they or their local area was taking. When it became personal they suddenly are taking notice. I remember a popular observation during the past recessions: it is a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it is a depression when you lose yours. Second, some noticed how the main focus seems to be on Musk's activities.. They want the elected officials to "do your job." They are hoping that the Senate and/or House would take back its right to determine spending. But this ignores the fact that Musk wields the powers Trump ceded to him. Musk it the lightening rod deflecting criticism from Trump and Trump protects Musk. 

 Sunny today with the temps a bit higher and projected to go higher by the end of next week. Not much going on except for the usual round of needlework and reading. And watching the demolition of the U.S. as we have known it. My dad, long dead now, often said when he heard any "liberal" criticism of the country said "Our country; love it or leave it. The wrecking crew in D.C. say "hell no--whether you love it or not we're kicking it down. Don't like it? Tough shit!" According to some of the news coverage a number of Republican House members are getting push back and loud criticism at "town hall" meetings in their districts.

Stay thought: only two people, a commentator and the writer he quoted, have noticed that the focus now is on the immediate effects of the administration's actions (job losses, immediate cancelation of contracts, etc.) but the real damage is in the secondary, tertiary and quaternary effects (and even further down line). Those will last decades. Because of the medical research that is never undertaken and so never produces needed treatments. The young and highly trained people who have had their careers cut off before they began and decide to go to other countries. Once upon a time we benefited from a similar "brain drain" which brought highly trained and motivated people from abroad to our shores. Now the pump is going to go the other way.

Heather Cox Richardson published a good piece today which I think is right on point. As the lyrics of BIG YELLOW TAXI says it 

Don't it always seem to go

That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone?

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

I have often said, while listening to people criticizing Social Security or labor unions or some other government function, they either have forgotten what it was like before those functions or organizations came into being or never knew what it was like to begin with. And our education system has failed us miserably by not teaching our history as it was not as some fantasize it was.

Stray thought: though people seem to think that Trump's pivot toward Russia and against Ukraine is sudden there were signs during his first term that he was tilting that way. The speed was definitely surprising but, perhaps shouldn't have been. He has had several years to prepare. Someone said that a failed coup is simply a dress rehearsal for a successful later. Trump's first term and the miserable mess of the riot at the capitol was preparation on both the foreign affairs and the domestic actions. And yet so many thought he didn't really mean what he said or that someone would stop him. Well, he did mean it and no one has been able to stop him.