August 9

It is one of those days when I don't really want to do anything at all. We stayed up to watch the Olympics closing ceremony which kept us up past our normal bed time. That has thrown off my rhythms somewhat. I got out to give my gardens a light watering because we were hoping for rain which has been hit and miss (most often miss) lately. However, as it is now raining heavily it is a hit today. I traced and cut out the pattern for the new style masks so I won't be using the original pattern I pieced together from the downloaded pattern. Dealing with one solid piece of paper will be so much better than working with a pattern of four pieces taped together.

We watched quite a bit of the games. They provided an acceptable background noise to help relieve Mom's tinnitus and a relief from the interminably repeated "news." We were pleasantly surprised by the coverage. They showed a greater variety of sports from the last time I watched. We tuned in at the right time to see the archery finals, skeet shooting finals, one of the cross country equestrian heats (wish we had caught the dressage), women's canoe 100 (new this year) and skateboarding (also new). I was utterly amazed by women's skateboarding where the winners were all under 15. Thoroughly in awe Molly Seidel's bronze performance in the women's marathon which was only her third marathon ever. The opening and closing ceremonies were brilliantly staged. Successful all the way around.

August 11--almost half past another month!!

We had thundershowers and heavy rain pass through very early this morning so I won't be gardening today. I finished another cross-stitched table runner this morning--one with a fall theme. I am still in the doldrums where I don't really want to do much at all. We'll see if I find anything worth the energy to comment on this morning. 

I guess the Senate finally got off its collective butt to pass the "hard" infrastructure bill with 19 Republicans joining the majority and an outline for the "human" infrastructure bill (not fully written yet) on strictly Democratic votes (49-50). Now it all goes to the House where nothing is sure.

The news media has subjected us to an interminable series of stories (with more to come I am sure) on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Most involve a large dose of second guessing because of the advances and atrocities of the Taliban. All of that handwringing and moaning falls flat with me. All of the analysis ignores several factors and fails to ask several basic questions. First, much of the current situation derived from our Cold War against the Soviet Union. We funded and supplied the Taliban (among other groups) asking only if they opposed the Soviets. We didn't ask how they felt about the condition of women or democracy. Of course, we were shocked (SHOCKED) when the Taliban established a repressive, medieval, fundamentalist Islamic government. Second, we went bonkers when a group of hijackers who were mostly Saudis and led by a Saudi expat living in Afghanistan took down the World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon, and crashed one plane in rural Pennsylvania. We invaded, expelled the Taliban, and supported a nominally democratic government without asking how much support that government or its leaders had in the country generally. Rather reminds me of our support for the Diem family inVietnam which turned out so well. Third, what our leaders (and most of our society) knew about the history, society, and culture of Afghanistan and its surrounding countries wouldn't even fill a small thimble. And our knowledge hasn't really increased over time. We never asked ourselves if we could even achieve whatever goals we wanted to do. I am not sure we had any besides killing Osama bin Ladin. The Taliban were unlucky enough to stand between us and our revenge. We never questioned the use of military force or whether some other means might have achieved better results. I think I will let this goal before it gives me a headache.

We live in a crazy country. We have at least two governors who are insisting they won't impose mask mandates and will forbid any one else from imposing as in cities and school boards and individual schools. Of course the two I am thinking of particularly are governors of two of the most populous with the highest rates of COVID-delta infections and hospitals near or exceeding capacity. But we also have a couple of other governors (I forget which ones) advising doctors to administer third or booster shots and a number of people clamoring for such shots on their own while a lot of others are refusing even after people near and dear to them have died of the disease.