January 14, 15

 Oh, my!! Almost half past January. I picked up the damaged tablecloth and started on a couple of the small motifs. I decided to put them into a log cabin quilt. I thought that would kill two birds--use the parts of the quilt I can rescue and use some of my stash of fabric.

15*********************************************************************************

Sunny but cold today. The weather people say the temperature won't break 20F. I finished the last lap blanket this morning and got a couple or so rows on the fillet crochet doily. We turned off the broadcast TV VERY early. I caught a few minutes of the sickening "hearing" concerning Hegseth's nomination. Sickening on two counts: the mewling, nonsensical questions from the Republican side and Hegseth's ridiculous non-answers. I decided I didn't want exposure to anything similar today and put the TV on mute so Mom could see the picture and put Pandora on my laptop for the music. Right now we have our own DVD reruns on. 

Stray thought: as I watched the bit of the hearing yesterday and suffered through the replays on the (s)news I vaguely remembered a scene I once read and its source finally surfaced this morning. It was from Rumor Godden's IN THIS HOUSE OF BREDE. The nuns are faced with an economic catastrophe because their recently deceased Abbess embarked on an expensive "renovation" project.  The only nun who knew about the project was the one in charge of the finances was the cellarer, equivalent of a corporate CFO, who had said nothing to anyone. She was a vain, petty, sycophantic person who basked in the confidences of the stronger personality--her abbess. As several sisters wondered why the usually sensible abbess who was a good judge of character would choose that nun to handle finances one said aloud what no one else would: so she could be cellarer herself. Listening to Hegseth it occurred to me that appointing him Secretary of Defense would allow Trump to be his own Secretary of Defense. The same might be said of Bondi as Attorney General, Rubio as Secretary of State, Patel as head of the FBI, and Gabbard for the Director of National Intelligence. They are all yes "men" who will do as their master wishes.

Second stray thought: In 27 BCE Augustus Caesar became ruler of the Roman Empire though he never claimed as royal title--Romans detested the notion of a king by any name. Instead as Princeps he consolidated all the levers of power into his own hands and thoroughly dominated the Senate. The Senate was gradually reduced to an impotent, sycophantic body with prestige but no power. Are we seeing the beginning of a similar process here? Right now our legislative bodies are tied in knots because they are 1) very evenly divided and 2) whose members have lost both civility and the ability to cooperate. A related thought--in the 150 years before August consolidated power the Senate was equally split in antagonist factions. Several cycles of political violence rocked Roman society. That set Rome up to accept an absolute ruler.