Thinking outside the box? I was listening to the C-Span call-in this morning, and a Republican caller had an interesting take on America’s problems.  It is all the fault of Roe v. Wade. Can you guess his reasoning?

Were it not for abortions as a result of Roe v. Wade, the US population today would be 600,000,000. If our population was 600 million, with so many of them young, we would (1) have a working population ready to fill manufacturing jobs brought back to the country, and (2) we would have so many more people paying into Social Security that we wouldn’t worry about it going bankrupt. Can you refute that?

Thinking outside the box? So many people describe Trump’s following as a messianic cult, Trump as another Jesus or as a harbinger of the Second Coming. For those who believe that, the chaos that he is fomenting may actually deepen their belief, that a time of troubles and final battles may indeed pressage the Golden Age.

But of course, there have been many false messiahs, and I wonder if Trump may be more akin to Shabtai Tzvi than to Jesus. Know him? A Jewish would-be messiah who developed a following across the 18th century Jewish world, including famous rabbis and thousands of families who sold their homes and possessions to move to the holy land. What happened to him? He was arrested in Istanbul and decided that conversion to Islam was better than immediate death. If you see Donald prostrate himself five times a day, you will understand what is happening.

It’s 10 a.m., and the Dow is down another 1000 points. Treasury Secretary Bessent says that normal Americans are not concerned about daily market fluctuations, or about the possibility of a recession.

By normal Americans, he may mean billionaires. Even Warren Buffet is apparently not concerned that his life savings may disappear.

And Commerce Secretary Lutnick, the billionaire whose 94 year old mother won’t care if her April social security payment is delayed a month, put his other foot in his now overcrowded mouth over the weekend. When asked why Trump put tariffs on two islands in Antarctica which are inhabited only by penguins, he said (with as straight a face as is possible for him): if we didn’t do that, other countries would take their goods to those islands and be able to export them to the US without any tariffs at all.

Oh, Vanya. Last night, we saw Uncle Vanya at Shakespeare Theatre. When I opened up this app this morning,  I thought Uncle Vanya would be my subject. Maybe tomorrow.