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.