April 2

 Sunny this morning. Thankfully the worst of the weather over the last couple of days skipped us. We had wind and heavy rain but no tornadoes. A number of tornadoes went through several states overnight with a lot more damage and several more fatalities. It got cold enough last night for frost to form a the grass and cars as well as on roofs. I got half of the patio swept out during a lull in the rain and wind. I still have the other half to do but that will wait until the temps warm up.

David Kaiser has a good retrospective of the last century and a half of our history. The last paragraph is disturbing. Summary: for most of this country's history the major parties, the major institutions and most citizens shared an interest "in preserving the legitimacy of the government." But now that shared interest has broken. Most people don't remember when respect for government was deep and wide spread--they are too young. But another thought just jumped into my mind: the government itself has been responsible for the decline in respect. The Korean War, Vietnam, demands for civil rights resisted vigorously and now seemingly being rescinded in various sneaky ways, NAFTA, off-shoring of jobs. Through all it people in the lower levels of the economy feel not only forgotten by government but directly hurt by the policies government promises will help and protect them.

I saw that only three members of the U.N. Security Council voted for a Russian draft resolution calling for an independent investigation into the explosions of the NordStream pipelines. Only three of the fifteen members of the Council voted for it while the other 12 members abstained. Only Brazil and China supported it. Sweden, Germany and Denmark are already conducting their own investigations. I would guess that Russia would like to be in a position to tailor the results to their own narrative as would the U.S.