October 24

 Damn--we are almost at the end of another month. I got out this morning to run errands: bank, grocery store (needed a cake for Mom's birthday (turning 94 tomorrow) and some hamburger buns for the sloppy joes we are having for supper, pay rent, and fill up the car's gas tank. It is a nice day though cool enough to remind us that the seasons are changing definitely. The colors are coming up on the trees and some patches are very pretty. I can see a few areas which are stress from the dry conditions we have. The rain we got didn't do much for long.

Making good progress on needlework though for the last couple of days I haven't spent as much time as I would have liked because my concentration wasn't up to the task for long. I thought it better to just stop before I became too frustrated. That was a good strategy because I got a good bit done today on the granny hexagons and I have a good notion of what I will do with the project: a new shawl.

So now the errands are done and the needlework is put away. I am going through my e-mail.

 Does it really surprise anyone that the Administration is having some difficulties revamping up the numbers of ICE agents? Reports over the last couple of days indicate that recruits arrived for training without having been fully vetted, can't pass the minimal physical tests, were academically deficient, had failed drug tests and had criminal backgrounds. And the department has to offer $50K signing bonuses. I have read for years about how the military can't make their recruiting targets because so many of the prospective recruits are unfit, academically challenged, and often have failed drug tests or criminal backgrounds. Military recruiters have also resorted, last I heard, to offering signing bonuses and reenlistment bonuses.

Among the most annoying ads on TV are those urging viewers to bet on something, on anything. Given the long list of every possible aspect of any sporting event one can lay a wager on, the gambling scandal that has embroiled and embarrassed the NBA seems like it was always inevitable.

I remember seeing the obliteration of the White House Rose Garden and feeling like someone punched me in my gut. I was pained and breathless. And the soul-less, tasteless "patio" Trump put in so the cameras could get a clear shot of him walking along the path. The supreme narcissist couldn't abide having to share the frame with flowers. I had another emotion when I saw the gaudy gold embellishment's he slapped on the Oval Office--contempt for a man with such a fragile ego that he had to have such things to buck him up. And when he demolished the East Wing of the White House to build his Versailles on the Potomac, I was angry. This petty man had to erase part of a symbol of our country and a emblem of our history so he could pretend he was a true peer of the likes of Louis XIV, Vladimir Putin, or, perhaps, the Chinese emperors in their Forbidden City.

I have said before that the insurance business model is breaking (perhaps already broken). It is caught in a statistical scissors  because the costs of paying out on premiums are increasing while the population of people able to afford the premiums is shrinking as the middle class shrinks. That is playing holy hell with their bottom line. NBC posted this story which covers the choices facing ordinary people with the rise in costs because the extension of the subsidies for ACA insurance. People at my level of the socio-economic system have mostly bad choices. They can try to keep their insurance and find other expenses to trim (or cut out). [I wonder if anyone remembers stories in the late 1970s and early 1980s showing retirees eating cat/dog food because human grade meats were out of their reach because of inflation.] Or they can drop the insurance and pray they don't experience a major health catastrophe. But take a look at the chart in the article of the costs for ordinary medical treatments. How many have that much money in a savings account. Even those of us with Medicare would find it difficult to cover the 20% Medicare doesn't cover. I read once that treatment for a broken bone could add up to more than $10K--which means that the retiree would be on the hook for $2K.

I decided I wanted some cold cereal today so I picked up a box of Corn Chex when I went to the grocery store. The cost was $7 for the box (family size but the only one available in that variety.) I did check my usual supermarket on line and they had smaller boxes of the same cereal for much less but still considerably more than I remembered. To be honest, we haven't had cold cereal for several years. And I don't want the sweetened brands. I thought of that when I read this article on THE ECOLOGIST. In the back of my mind as I read all of the stories about effect of the tariffs on inflation generally and on food prices specifically was the question about the effects of our weird weather. Though the article concerns the situation in the U.K. We have had strange weather also and I haven't seen any information on what our harvests are like. But, as I remarked to Mom, I haven't seen any news that carried farm reports like they did when I was much younger. And I just read a small snippet that North China's grain producing region got flattened by storms and floods.

Paul Krugman has a few comments on Trump and his self aggrandizing style. Krugman mentioned Louis XIV and I suddenly remembered that the extravagance of the Sun King's court and of his grandson Louis XVI eventually led to the Revolution which cost the latter his throne and head.

One one of the people interviewed on a news/commentary show (sorry I can't remember who or which show) made some interesting comments on her recent trip to Canada and how the U.S. is viewed up there indicates that the trade relations won't be repaired very soon. From the license plates she saw the traffic was overwhelmingly Americans visiting Canada and returning to the States. Canadians used to come here often. Also ordinary people are making choices that basically remove U.S. products from their lives. No alcohol from U.S. producers on the shelfs. Replacing U.S. fruit and produce with Canadian grown.