Art is 80

I ask this question not being sure of the answer. Let me explain:

For almost 45 years, I was involved with Federal and other government programs designed to provide affordable housing throughout the country. I started my career working for the City of St. Louis, moved to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development and, for 40 years, dealt with these government initiatives as a private lawyer.

Throughout this time, I often found the federal and other government programs, and the administration of those programs, to be problematic, to say the least. Yet, either as I tried to work with their complexities, or as I represented clients who were tussling with them, I always actively supported the role of the government as an essential player in the housing and community development world. Was I deluding myself and simply engaging in cognitive dissonance?

The United States has always prided itself on the amount of “decent, safe and sanitary” housing available across the country, and the size and general quality of what an average family can afford. Of course, today, we find this pride tarnished a bit because of inflation, the continuation of homelessness, and the high subsidy costs (and therefore the diminution) of federal housing programs when government budgets are so stressed. But, nevertheless, this country has a lot to be proud of.

If there were no government programs to support housing, things would look very different. Entities like FNMA  provides a market for the securitization and creation of a market for mortgage loans, the Federal Housing Administration, the Farmers Home Administration and the Veterans Administration insure individual mortgage loans, and the Department of HUD and other agencies provide direct below income loans to developers and public bodies, or subsidies enabling families to pay rents at levels they could not otherwise afford. All this is crucial.

Of course, it would be nice if all government programs were perfectly designed, adequately funded, and run by government officials who were competent, patient, understanding, and unbiased. But guess what? Most programs don’t meet any of these qualifications.

What made this country work in these areas as well as well as they have has been the interaction between the private sector and public officials. And, in this regard, I usually (not always, but usually) felt that the private participants were more on the ball than the public officials when it came to particular projects, and I felt that the public officials were often overly suspicious of the private participants, thinking that they were trying to pull the wool over their eyes.

I understood this feeling, having worked at both the local and federal levels, and realizing how little government employees in the agencies dealing with housing programs really understood about the private participants’ motivations and needs. I know how little I understood before I joined the private sector myself.

On the other hand, the private participants often had no idea of the financial, time and programmatic limitations and pressures the government representatives were under, whether  because they were given constraints by their supervisors, or whether funding limitations that the private sector just couldn’t understand, and so forth.

In other words, the private and public representatives really did live in separate worldss, but were trying to work together with a high degree of misunderstanding and suspicion.

And, as you can see, between developers and managers on the one hand, the government regulators on the other hand, there was a kind of partnership between them.  And when there is a public/private partnership, it is ofyen the public partner that is the less reliable, as government programs, can so abruptly change or disappear

Without government, essential things can not be done. Working with government, there will always be misunderstandings, disagreements, and constraints. Of course, all should strive to make things go ever smoother. But the conflict is built into having these two worlds have to work so closely together. It is just a price that has to be paid.

So I could spend my days trying to get my clients’ positions to be understood by government officials, to rid these officials of suspicion about what my clients are really trying to do, and to rail against government workers who just don’t seem to get it. I can complain about the limitations of the programs, or the inadequacy of the funding.

But I never wanted to get rid of government. I never expected government officials to violate their own standards just to make my clients happy. And I thought the overall process may be too time consuming, too anxiety promoting, or unnecessarily complex. But as I said, that’s the price to pay.

So I am pro-government, yet I think that government actions are often wrong. I don’t think this is really cognitive dissonance. It is just life.

Did I make any sense today at all?

A child throws a raw egg at a wall, and it splatters. An angry parent yells at the child and says, “Get that egg off the wall, put it back together, and put it back in the carton.” The child says “OK, but I hate you”, but does not put the egg back together, and takes all the eggs out of the carton snd throws them at different walls, yelling “Bad egg. Bad egg.”. The parent realizes he/she can not control the child and decides to get someone else to put the eggs back together. No one can. The eggs keep flying, and you can’t put an egg back together.

Welcome to the United States of America.

Yesterday, courts told Trump he had to reinstate all USAID employees, and that he couldn’t summarily preclude trans people from serving in the military. Another asks more questions about sending Venezuelans to El Salvador without any semblance of due process. Trump says he will follow the courts’ orders and that he hates the judges. He will do nothing. No one else will or can do anything, either.

Welcome to the United States of America.

DOGE raids the Institute of Peace. The Institute of Peace does not let them in and calls the police. But someone else has called the police. The terrible, horrible , no good, very bad US Attorney for the District of Columbia also calls the DC police. The police respond only to the US Attorney, and kick the officials at the Institute of Peace out of their offices, allowing DOGE to enter. Say, what?

I don’t understand the Institute of Peace, which is a non-profit founded by Congress and funded by Congress. It claims that it is not part of the executive branch and that its employees are not government employees. Its directors are approved by the Senate, but include certain specified executive officials, like the Secretary of Defense.

Wouldn’t you think some process should have been undertaken to determine whether DOGE had any authority? This certainly was not an emergency. I think the police need to explain their actions.

The Institute of Peace website, interestingly, boldly states that their activities are consistent with the America First agenda. Weird. And what do they accomplish, anyway?

Speaking of peace, how is Donald doing? How are things looking in Ukraine and Gaza? Those were to be his easy fixes. But maybe he’s too busy bombing Yemen? That will work out well, I am sure.

Donald Trump probably thinks he is smarter than Vladimir Putin. Or if not smarter, at least as smart. He thinks that they can divide up a large portion of the world and then align with China, the three countries controlling all parts of the world that are really important. We would then wind up with a world split into four parts – the America Zone, the Russia Zone, the China Zone, and the Subordinated Zone, a zone dominated by the other three. Donald Trump thinks, as to the three major zones, the American Zone will be the strongest both because it is, and because it will remain so (because of the talent of Elon Musk) even in the unlikely case that Donald himself will turn out to be mortal.

Donald Trump may or may not know this is what he thinks, but take my word for it – this is what he thinks.

Ukraine is clearly in Russia’s zone. This is why the invasion of Ukraine is not something to be condemned, and the effect on Ukraine of a peace that would see 20% of its land mass become part of Russia is no problem. The same would be true if Putin decided to move west into the Baltics, or Belarus or Moldava. These countries are rightfully part of the Russian Zone. The remainder of Europe is of little concern; it is in the Subordinated Zone.

Just as Putin invaded Ukraine, the United States may be preparing to invade Greenland, Panama and perhaps even Canada. These places are all part of the American Zone, and he would expect Russian support and Chinese neutrality. China, in return, would not be opposed if it invaded Taiwan, of course.

Two major questions remain. One has to do with the two Koreas. We know Trump has a crush on Kim, and believes Kim loves him back. But we also know Korea falls naturally into the China Zone, so we will have to see how the three major zones work this out.

That leaves the Muslim world, not worthy of its own zone, but a large area that must be reckoned with. Trump believes that he can, in effect, bring Saudi Arabia into the American Zone, and that he can work with Russia and China to put the rest of the Muslim world into the Subordinated Zone.

And Israel? Israel is obviously a special case. Too small to be its own zone, Israel will also be part of the American Zone, with American protection. After all, God is not neutral in all of this. God has two favorites, America and Israel. And with God’s backing, what could go wrong?

That isn’t a rhetorical question. What could possibly go wrong?

Sometimes, when you go to see a play, you wonder why you spent both the time and the money. Sometimes, you come out of a theater pleased, having seen a good show. Rarely, you come out of a theater and say: “Wow. This is what theater is all about.” Today was one of those days.

We have a subscription to Washington’s Shakespeare Theater, one of the city’s preeminent theaters. This afternoon, we saw Kunene and the King, written by John Kani and starring John Kani and Ed Gero. If you live in Washington and tend to go to Shakespeare or other top DC theaters, you probably know Ed Gero, who has been performing her for about the last 40 years. But do you know John Kani? I must admit I didn’t. Or at least I should say that his name didn’t trigger any response.

John Kani is three months older than I am, and looks like he is 65. He is a South African native Xhosa speaker, who became an anti-apartheid activist, was beaten up when he was in his 20s and left for dead in Johannesburg, saved by a White doctor whom he has never been able to identify. He had been stabbed eleven times and lost his left eye in the process.

At a young age, Kani worked with white South African playwright Athol Fugard (who died just a little over a week ago at 92) to write Sizwe Banzi is Dead, which he also starred in. He has been a champion of South African theater, a Shakespearean actor, a Black South African cultural leader and much more. Googling him will tell you a lot.

But back to the play. “Kunene” is the Xhosa word for “truth” and “King” is “King Lear”. In other words, the play is about facing the truth and embracing culture (both English and South African).

There are two main roles. Jack is an aging, white South African Shakespearean actor, just diagnosed with terminal Stage 4 liver cancer. Lungo is a Black, male nurse who has been engaged to care for, and live with, Jack until he “gets better”. They have both spent their entire life in South Africa, but they have never lived in the same country, and their relationship is a challenge.

But they do have something in common– Shakespeare. Jack pretends he will be able to fulfill his obligation to play Lear in Capetown in several months. Lungo helps him prepare, tells him that he once performed in Julius Caesar, but in Xhosa.

Their relationship goes back and forth, depending on whether, at a given time, they see each other as two human beings or as a representative of White or Black South Africans. The play is funny and sad and deep, and beautifully written.

As far as I know, wherever this play has been performed, including in South Africa and New York, Kani has played the role of Lungo. But there have been several Jacks and several directors.  So, each time, even though the playwright has not only been present and played a lead role, the performance has been different.

But I can not imagine it better than this. No one could be a better Jack than Gero. Playing a sick man is difficult, and Gero can actually make himself look sick and then immediately take on a healthier appearance. He can writhe in pain and then start to dance. His soft, calm voice can scream and become highly agitated and in a second turn soft again. Both roles have a high degree of physicality. A lot for actors who are far from being spring chickens.

The show closes one week from today. See it if you can.

Changing subjects, yesterday I mentioned three podcasts that I recommended. One on Ezra Klein’s YouTube channel, one from Politics and Prose, and one with Andrew Weissman and Joyce Vance. I still recommend all three.

And now I add a fourth. A post from two days ago on the Foreign Affairs channel festuring Fiona Hill. She gives an overlay of the state of the world, and it’s a bravura performance. The US, Canada, Greenland,  Panama, Europe, Russia, china, Taiwan…..they are all included. What you see is how interconnected everything is, and how much can go wrong through misunderstandings or miscalculations or just plain mischief. In the course of an hour, you will see today’s world from a global perspective, and you will learn much. And you probably won’t be able to sleep for a week.

If you read yesterday’s post, you may remember that I was very mixed up as to the day of the week since we got back from vacation on Wednesday. I hope to straighten myself out soon, and I know that, as I write this, it is Saturday night. Other than a visit to see Michelle, we stayed home today, the telephone didn’t ring (none of the telephones), and it was very quiet.

A couple of accomplishments:

(1) I heard a podcast with Gillian Tett, a trained cultural anthropologist who writes for the Financial Times talk about Donald Trump (she was speaking with Ezra Klein). She seems very bright, speaks very well, and believes that Donald Trump is motivated, pure and simply, by POWER.

(2) Then I watched a video of an author presentation at Politics and Prose with Michael Wolff, speaking about his fourth book on Donald Trump, All Or Nothing. Wolff, who has been (most surprising to himself) writing about Trump now for a decade, knows all about Trump and believes that Donald Trump is motivated, pure and simply, by a craving for ATTENTION.

There you have it. Two experts, two different Trump motivations. And clearly neither of the motivations have to do with the good of America or Americans.

(3) Then I watched another podcast, this time a conversation between two MSNBC legal analysts, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, and former FBI General Counsel, Andrew Weissman. This one was basically just an enjoyable conversation between two friends. They really didn’t talk about Trump. They talked about the first time they met, about their admiration for former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, about how much wine Andrew Weissman drank over the course of the pandemic, about Joyce Vance’s 12 week old German Shepherd puppy, Elsa, and mainly about the book that Vance is now writing about what to do now that we are in so much trouble in order to restore democracy. I learned that Andrew Weissman thinks he is a bad dinner guest because all he does it ask too many questions of the other guests, and that neither of them are natural book writers. As Weissman said regarding his book, when he describes a meeting, he says something like: “We had a meeting and three things were decided.” His editor then says: “And how did you feel about that?” And Weissman says “Huh? How did I what?”. [obviously, I paraphrase]. It is a remark I identified with. He says it’s the result of legal training. I say it’s a characteristic of someone who decides to become a lawyer.

What else happened today? I did watch the Capitals/Sharks hockey game. Alex Ovechkin scored one of the Caps’ five goals, and is now only eight goals shy of Gretzky’s record. Final score: 5-1.

What else? I made a pasta dinner, and did not burn the spaghetti. Actually, my biggest dinner accomplishment was finding the oregano. I did not wash the dishes.

I spent about 45 minutes on our exercise bike, and we ended the evening by watching Episode 4 of Who Is Erin Carter? My guess is no one else has watched that series. We now know who she is, which is more than I can say for her husband, unless he has seen the series himself.

And, oh yes, I started a book. The first one that I started since we got home. I did read one short book while we were away, Alejandro F. Pascual’s Key West: Passion for Cuba’s Liberty. Yesterday, I started A City So Grand: The Rise of an American Metropolis: Boston, 1850-1900 by Stephen Puleo. I read the first four chapters of the book (101 pages). They were about: Abolitionism and the Fugitive Slave Law in Boston; The coming of the Railroads, Clipper Ships, and horse drawn street cars; The arrival of the Irish to Boston; and Filling in the Back Bay. Having spent four years in Boston, I find it all very interesting.

But now to bed.

I went to Breads Unlimited yesterday and bought a challah for Friday night and some hamentaschen for Purim. The bakery has a special on apple pies for Pi Day, Irish soda bread for St. Patrick’s Day, even cookies shaped like Easter bunnies. I looked for the Ramadan specials, but they were nowhere to be seen.

We had dinner last night at daughter Hannah’s house. The DC public schools were closed Thursday and Friday for teacher conferences, and 9 year old Joan was embarrassed to be thinking that she had school the next day, forgetting she was on a four day weekend.

But I am with her, totally confused as to what today is. On a 2 week vacation, days merge into each other. We got back on a Wednesday afternoon, went to the nightly minyan for Edie’s mother’s yahrzeit, and the next night back to the synagogue for Purim, after having our 4 year old grandson at our house all day since he had no school.

I woke up this morning, thinking of all of yesterday’s news, and my reaction was: wow, they sure did a lot yesterday, considering it was Sunday. Will Ivever straighten out?

A lot did happen yesterday. Unsurprisingly,  nothing good resulted, at least as of yet, from negotiations to end the wars in the Middle East or Ukraine. Trump, who promised peace in His time, has pretty much left Israel out of Middle East talks and Ukraine out of Ukraine talks. He has also kept any experienced American diplomats out of those conversations. So far, things are worse, not better. Surprise!

Then, there was a court decision in Trump’s favor, saying that He could shut down DEI offices. I don’t find that surprising, as neither the Constitution nor, to my knowledge,  any statute require a DEI office. But, and I haven’t heard any details about the decision, there still needs to be compliance with Civil Rights laws and the 14th Amendment. And with Trump’s base being White Christian Nationalist, there is an assumption that the 14th Amendment will be lost in the weeds, and the definition of discrimination will be turned on its head. The best example, perhaps, being the dropping of the case against the petrochemical company in Louisiana because the pollution victims are Black and a claim that the basis for the case was DEI. As I said yesterday, “Yes, you read that right.”

In the meantime, Trump spoke yesterday at the Department of Justice. He apparently spoke for an hour. I saw only a short clip, showing Him making a few misguided statements to the repeated applause of the DOJ audience, which really surprised me. I then learned it was an invitation-only DOJ crowd. Any dissenters could dissent somewhere else.

The speech was highly political, even though Trump and Bondi promised no politics at DOJ. That was not surprising. Trump declared Himself the country’s chief law enforcement officer,  I understand and set out a list of nefarious tasks He wanted to see accomplished.

Perhaps the worst thing He did yesterday was to take away security clearances from the lawyers at Paul, Weiss, another major law firm. He had just been raked over the coals by a federal court for doing this to lawyers at Perkins Couie. Told he could not do this in no uncertain terms, He went right ahead and did it again. This may be the first real indication that He will simply ignore court rulings He doesn’t like.

Our country is being upended by a man who believes in power and not in law. It is as simple as that. The goal of MAGA is greatness as defined as untamed power externally and internally. What could be more un-American?

I do not think He will succeed in the long run. Dictators tend to wind up on the ash heap, destroyed without pity. Their place in history is far from glorified.

We don’t yet know how this will happen. But, Mr. Trump, you should beware the Ides of March

As I understand it, the Continuing Resolution that the Republicans are putting before the Senate would keep the government “open” for six months, giving Congress a further opportunity to adopt a budget and certain other essential bills. In the House of Representatives, not one Democrat voted for this CR. What will happen in the Senate, where a vote is scheduled for tomorrow (the day before a shut off would start), is unclear. There needs to be 60 votes to end a filibuster, and it had been assumed that the 60 vote threshold would not be met.

But, surprisingly (to me, at least), Democratic leader Chuck Shumer has said that he will vote for a terrible CR, rather than let the government shut down. But the CR is not really a CR, as we have known it. A normal CR says that there will be a time extension where the existing spending levels would continue. But in this CR, there are changes to spending levels of all sorts, including spending by the DC government for such priorities as police (yes, the GOP wants to defund DC police), the fire department (and that includes EMT services), and the public schools, even though all this spending comes from DC tax income (that would be my money).

The majority of Democrats, I am sure, will vote against this CR. But Shumer, unless someone convinces him between now and tomorrow afternoon, will support the CR as an alternative to a shut down.

Obviously, neither position is a good one. It is a lose-lose. But I would rather lose in opposition to the Trump White House, rather that in collaboration with it.

The unnecessary reduction in permissible DC spending leads to a question. Why is this occurring, as it doesn’t even affect the budget? The answer seems clear. While DC residents are hopeful that one day, DC becomes a State, the Republicans of the world are hopeful that one day soon (really soon), DC will not only not become a State, but will lose its 50 year old Home Rule rights, and rather than being led by an elected mayor, would be controlled by a commission appointed by the President.

Again, because 60 votes would be needed in the Senate, this is unlikely to happen. But even without this, Trump will take the position that He can run the DC government by Executive Order or fiat, and will try to do so. His success, I am sure he feels, will be influenced by his ability to convince everyone that DC is competent to run itself. And one way to do this, is to make unilateral cuts to federal funding of DC or to pass laws which restrict DC’s funding or authority on a piecemeal basis. This CR is Step 1 in this process.

While ensuring that DC residents cannot receive the benefits that other Americans have (like controlling their local environment), Trump today is expressing determination for American dominance in other ways. He is doubling down on Canada becoming a State (won’t happen, of course) by threatening tariffs and more if it refuses, he is putting together military plans to take over the Panama Canal, and he is saying that he will annex Greenland, and capture half of the rare mineral wealth of Ukraine. As to the future of current American territories, like Puerto Rico, the Virgin Island and the various lands in the South Pacific, he is silent. Just like he is silent as to whether citizens of Canada and citizens of Greenland would automatically become citizens of the United States, rather than have to go through individual vetting.

Yes, this brave new world is certainly exciting. And we cope with it as best we can, day to day. And, today, one of the ways we cope with it is to hear the Magillah Esther read on the holiday of Purim, and boo all references to the evil Haman (who perhaps has his counterpart in today’s America).

At Adas Israel tonight, the Purim Spiel (traditionally a comic and/or musical skit) was done very professionally. A large crowd (it looked like it filled the sanctuary, which has just under 2000 seats, if I recall correctly) was on hand. And the reader of Chapter Six had his assistants.

Whenever I return from a vacation, I am usually happy driving back into Washington. The city always looks beautiful, no matter the weather, and it makes me proud to be a resident.

But yesterday, when we drove back from our 13 days away, I had a very different feeling. The weather was beautiful, the sun was shining, daffodils were blooming along Beach Drive near Rock Creek Park, and I couldn’t enjoy it at all. I felt burdened, and sad. The city seemed a tragic place, and anything I saw that looked like it was something new seemed to me that it was bad. Bad, bad, bad. Bad.

And then I thought about it. Everything that has happened since Donald Trump got into office has been bad. I can’t think of one good thing that has happened. And I, like everyone else, has not figured out what to do about it.

Watching MSNBC last night was so depressing (yet important to see) that I turned on Newsmax to see how they were reporting the news. Not for long, but long enough. I saw two things. First, I saw that even Newsmax could not help but noting that things were not really going swimmingly over the first six Trump weeks. And of course, even Trump realizes that. But that does not mean that they are admitting that mistakes have been made, or even that a single mistake might possibly have been made. Their response to Trump era problems are twofold: first, you can’t turn the Titanic on a dime. Second, it’s all Biden’s fault.

They had Tommy Tuberville on, the Alabama Senator who was clearly a better football coach than public statesman, and he spoke for several minutes talking about how it was just going to take time to move the country in the right direction because, after all, Joe Biden was such a terrible, corrupt, criminal and demented president, that unraveling what he did was not easy.

And then the host of the show (maybe his name is Michael Schmitt?) began talking about Joe Biden’s use of an auto-pen to sign various documents, showing identical auto-pen signatures and comparing them to a document hand signed by Biden. For Schmitt, this proves beyond a reasonable doubt, that Biden was too sick even to sign a document, showing that his dementia had made him a hollow president relying on the real president (an unidentified man, a Deep Throat from the Deep State), who was the real president during the Biden term. And, according to Schmitt, the use of an auto-pen to sign things (even Thomas Jefferson had one, right?) by Biden was perhaps the biggest scandal in American history.

And back to MSNBC. Showing a Republican House committee chairman calling newly elected Delaware Congresswoman Sarah McBride, a trans woman, “Mr.”, and insisting that he was correct in doing that. And then there is reporting that Donald Trump, having wasted money sending “illegals” to Guantanamo Bay (in Cuba) in shackles (to the tune of $16 million), has now brought them all back to the country, and is housing them elsewhere. He was under criticism for taking them out of the country, many calling it illegal. And now they are back.

In this regard, you may also remember a gloating Marco Rubio saying that El Salvador had agreed to house American prisoners in its 40,000 prisoner facility in the mountains of that country. Of course, no one has been moved there, and I am pretty sure no one ever will be.

And then there is Mahmoud Khalil, the supporter of Palestinian rights who strongly has opposed Israel’s actions in Gaza, and been a leader (making speeches, not doing anything physical) of the protests last year at Columbia University. He was arrested by ICE officials, even though he is a Green Card holder with First Amendment rights, without any charges being brought. He was then shipped out of New York to Louisiana, where he cannot communicate with his lawyers and where the government thought they would get a more sympathetic judge to defend against Khalil’s attempt to quash the arrest. I have read a fair amount about Khalil, and do not think he is a national security threat at all. But the government will argue that courts cannot review national security threats determined by the president.

Yes, there is more. There is the attempt to destroy the law firms of Covington and Burling and Perkins Coie, a few of whose lawyers assisted Special Counsel Jack Smith and others, by denying any of their lawyers security clearances, cutting off their representation of any parties whose cases involving the government which might involve matters of secrecy, and making it clear to clients and potential clients that hiring this firm would not help them reach a settlement in their cases. An apparent blatantly unconstitutional act, which would mean that any lawyer or law firm could be destroyed at the whim of a president.

The president yesterday went further in his destruction of the Department of Justice, and  fired half of the employees of the Education Department, and a quarter of the employees at NOAH. The Education secretary said that they didn’t fire any of the “best people”, and the leader of the employee union at the agency said that, basically, they fired the people of color and left the whites in place.

After there were firings at the Office of Personnel Management, where also all of the good people were left in place, including one young white woman who used much of her office time to create Instagram videos where she modeled and sold appropriate office clothing for the professional woman. This was shown by Rachel Maddow. It was not that different, I guess, from Donald Trump selling Teslas on the White House lawn. And, by the way, that heartfelt endorsement given by Trump might not have been heartfelt. He was reading it.

Then, there is the area in Louisiana, inhabited almost all by Blacks, where there have been decades of very high cancer rates, presumably because of a petrochemical plant in the area, and the law suit brought by the government against the owner of that plant. The lawsuit was apparently dropped today by the government, because it was viewed as a DEI lawsuit. Yes, you read that right.

Finally, there was Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office alongside Irish president Michael Martin, proclaiming that the EU was created “to screw the United States”, and that Chuck Schumer was no longer Jewish, but rather had become a Palestinian.

This is only a part of what I heard yesterday. Now, do you understand why I felt so blue coming home?

Late start yesterday, after a relaxing breakfast with the Goldmans in Charleston. Most of the day spent coming up Interstate 95, with only a few short diversions. Lunch was at the Orchard Cafe in Manning SC. A tuna and a turkey sandwich, best described as ordinary and inexpensive. Dinner at Don Juan Mexican Restaurante in Roanoke Rapids NC, whose food can best be described as ordinary and inexpensive.  We are staying there at a Hampton Inn.

After our lunch, we splurged on a bakery-made chocolate and pistachio bar that can best be described as excellent.  After our dinner, I tried one of the brittles we bought at Georgia Peach World, which can best be described as inedible.

A few more podcasts today. Trying to keep up with the news. I do have a reaction to everything that is going on: AARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

Not really. That is too mild.

Okay, what else? Oh, yes, we stopped at Buc-ees for the first time. It’s like Costco on the road. I knew nothing about the store at all, except seeing the billboards. But our friend Shelly (last name on request), when we had dinner in Key West, told us about Buc-ees, and told us (believe it or not) that he stops, whenever they pass a Buc-ees, in order to buy several containers of key lime pudding. My own reaction is that Buc-ees is an enormous store filled to the brim with things that, as far as I am concerned, should stay in the store, forever.

And have you read about the reorganization of the news desk at the Washington Post,? I have read several articles about it, and I hardly understand a word of what is being said. It seems that the Post will concentrate on its digital footprint, not the print version. But I don’t know what that means, just as I don’t understand the difference between the political and national desks. If you haven’t heard about this yet, Google the CNN article or any other.

Time for me to watch Rachel Maddow to see what’s new.

AARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

The Best Western on US 1 in St. Augustine turned out to be okay. Until we checked in the night before, I hadn’t really realized that it was one of those motels where the rooms opened to the outside, rather than to an interior hallway. I have long avoided those, but the room here was large, clean, modern, and so forth.

It reminded me of my mother, traveling in the 1950s. She was always someone who had certain standards and who made sure she maintained them. One of her inviolable standards was that she would never stay at a motel that did not have a swimming pool. It simply was not a safe thing to do. You could not trust its management.

Now, of course, my mother never used the swimming pool. That, too, would have violated some standard. But in fact, I don’t think my mother could swim. Here is the story as I heard it:

My mother graduated from Washington University in 1936, after six years where she earned both a bachelor’s and a law degree. One of the inviolable rules of Washington University in 1936 was that, to graduate, you had to pass a swimming test. My mother refused to take the test. I assume she never entered the pool. My future-lawyer mother won her first case, arguing that the swimming test rule simply didn’t apply to her.

The day yesterday started off with loud thunder and blinding rain, our first of the trip. We did, however, drive through the oldest continually occupied city in the United States.

Let’s put it this way. St. Augustine was founded in 1565, and was the capital or major city of Spanish Florida for more than 250 years before the United States took control in 1822.

The oldest part of the oldest city is relatively small, but very picturesque. This is how it looks in the rain.

The drive from St. Augustine to Charleston was not very noteworthy, except to say that the traffic was heavy and that the cars seemed to be outnumbered by the trucks and RVs.

We stopped at Georgia Peach World, where they sell peach everything (and probably real peaches in season). They have peach jams, peach cookies, peach oils, peach salsas, peach pies, peach salad dressings, peach butters, peach brittle, peach relishes, jars of half peaches, quarter peaches and peach slices, and peanuts. We bought one of everything they had.

Close to Peach World is Angie’s Diner.

If you want to go to a place that was last remodeled in 1952, and where the clientele has not changed since then, this is for you.  Edie had a sandwich and fries (the fries thrown in compliments of our waitress), but I attacked the $7.99 buffet: fried chicken, fried okra, collards, mac and cheese, potatoes and cheese and more. I skipped the jello and puddings because we had peach cobbler cookies waiting in the car.

A very nice evening with our friends, the Goldmans, the conversation centered on the many ways civilization and humanity itself will probably be destroyed before summer. I now have a list: Leonard Cohen has nothing on us. Excellent dinner at one of their favorite Frenchish restaurants. The hostess recently had a baby, our server was very personable and attentive to detail (“Do you want your Ketel One with a few rocks or a lot of rocks? Do you want plain olives or olives with blue cheese?”), and she was accompanied by a waiter who was on the first night of his one week training. He did just fine.

Today, we continue. Tomorrow,  we finish.

Let’s talk about swordfish. Not about which ones are kosher, but about which ones are good.

I have always liked swordfish. But I don’t eat it often. We don’t have it at home, so I don’t pay attention to it at The Fishery. And it isn’t on every restaurant menu. And it has a lot of mercury.

I have ordered swordfish several times over the past few years at the Parthenon and have always been a bit disappointed. Not terribly disappointed. Just a bit.

Saturday night, we went with our friends to Carmine’s Trattoria in Riviera Beach, FL. Carmine’s is an upscale and very, very, very, very big and popular restaurant, the kind that has Bentleys and Astin Martins parked out front and has every table filled. We had eaten there before, but I don’t remember what I ate. This time, I ordered swordfish.  It looked similar to the swordfish at the Parthenon. But it didn’t even make the disappointing grade I give the Parthenon. In fact, it was so dry that I sent it back. They were nice about it, offered me substitutes, took it off the bill, etc. But I said, “No, I am fine.” I learned from the years I was a vegetarian that skipping the main course does not leave you hungry.

Yesterday, we got off the highway to find a lunch spot overlooking water. We found the Sebastian Saltwater Marina Restaurant.

This was a view from table on the large deck. It had an interesting menu which included a “catch of the day,” which turned out to be (ta-da!) swordfish.

I thought this might be my last swordfish ever, but I took a deep breath and ordered it, slightly blackened. It was perfect. Undoubtedly caught that morning. Restoring my faith in swordfish. But I will only order it dockside.

Our drive yesterday was fine, listening mainly to podcasts about Ukraine, with one diversion when we again left the road to explore Daytona Beach, where we had never been before.

I remember Daytona from tales about Spring Break dusturbances and NASCAR racing. The beach stretches a long way, there are many spaced out condos and hotels which looked nice enough, but the commercial areas did have sort of a sad and left-behind look, which I think is accurate.  No need ever to get off the road to explore it again.

We are now in the outskirts of St. Augustine, the country’s oldest city, at a nice Best Western. The plan was to explore the city a bit this morning,  but we are faced with our first rain of the trip, complete with very loud thunder, so I am not sure.

The desk clerk told us we should go to the historic part of town for dinner last night, but we ignored her advice and went to Cortesse’s Flamingo Bar (1 minute drive, said GPS) and had a delicious dinner at a small but packed restaurant which has piano music 7 nights a week. Yesterday, playing was Alex Richman, playing blues and the like, and singing, and she was worth the price of admission.

Today, onward to Charleston and friends, and the hope that the weather doesn’t slow us down too much.

Nice day yesterday with our friends, and seeing another baseball game. Now, the true climb north begins. We bought a new Bentley for the trip north, trading in our reliable, but aging, Prius. We understand we will get the same mileage, about 65 mpg on the highway.

And it won’t just be the rwo of us. Our friend Screech will be sitting in the back seat.

But while enjoying the good company and good weather,  the serious worries obviously continue. We listened to a podcast with Yale’s Tim Snyder talking about how we should be approaching the country’s march into a form of dictatorship, which was chilling.

One of the things that Snyder warned about was acting in anticipation of the pending dictator. Of normalizing the abnormal on your own. This reminded me of something that happened in Europe as Hitler moved east, and residents began chasing Jews on their own before forced to by the Germans. The thinking was: the Nazis are coming, they will roundup and kill the Jews, and if we do it first, thdy will like us and treat us well.

I see this happening in the 180 degree response to DEI going on now in so many places. Anything that smacks of taking race into account in any hiring or admission decision is being avoided like the plague.

This does not result in an even playing field, as the proponents of this change dishonestly suggest, but rather enables prejudices against Blacks and others silently come into operation. Not only is the history of Black oppression ignored, but there is now an assumption that every Black has earned his or her position only through DEI, and his probably unqualified, that there is a more qualified White who should have that job, and whoever hired the Black employee in the first place should be canceled. If you haven’t read about it, a good example is the firing of the chancellor of VMI.

And when a company or institution changes its hiring practices on its own, it simply plays into the hands of the authoritarian. Think about it.

Yet, I don’t see or hear a groundswell of opposition from Black leadership yet. I go back to the Hitler days when so many American Jews refused to raise their voices for fear that it would simply stoke more antisemitism here.

So many issues. So little time.

Time to hit the road.

The day started with breakfast at Goldman’s Deli, located in a shopping center on Route 1 as you head out of (or in to) Key West. At about 9 a.m., it was bustling. The menu looks like any other Jewishy deli, the people who work there look like every other deli staff, and the menu could be from a Goldman’s Deli anywhere. There was nothing that resembled anything else we saw in Key West. The food was fine. But strange things happened.

Edie ordered granola and yogurt. Our server (name given only on request) came back and said, ” I forgot to ask. You want 8 or 16 ounces of yogurt?”

I ordered oatmeal  with brown sugar and raisins. She brought me oatmeal and brown sugar. She apologized and said, “We are looking for the raisins.”

The raisins came several minutes later. When they arrived, Edie asked for tea. Our server said “Sure” and walked away. Five minutes later, she returned without the tea, but with a question. “What did you ask me for? My brain isn’t working this morning.”

When we were finished, she put our check on the table. I put a credit card on the check and it was whisked away by a different  employee, who looked to me like he was a second or third generation Goldman.

Time passed. All of a sudden, a third server appeared near the register, held my credit card high, and in a loud voice, yelled “Is there an Arthur Hessel here? We have your credit card.”

Do I recommend Goldman’s? Absolutely. The selection of bagels looked excellent, as did all the pastries, even though we tried none of them.

The ride to West Palm Beach (actually Riviera Beach) was fine and uneventful. We are at our friends’ condo with a beautiful view. 

Last night, we saw the Nats beat the Mets 5 to 4, scoring in the bottom of the 9th on a double by Nasim Nunez. Today, we go back to see the Nats and the Cardinals. Tomorrow,  we continue north. Home on the 12th.

This was our last day in Key West. We finished it by going back to Cafe Solé for the third time, but this time not alone. A high school classmate of Edie’s happened to be here for a few days with her husband from their home in The Villages (yes, The Villages) and we had a nice visit with them. We last saw them two years ago and plan on seeing them at Edie’s high school reunion in October.

But we started off the day at the Key West Botanical Garden, not the biggest such garden in the world, but an interesting one, as all the plants and trees are tropical, and the identifying signage is exceptional. Let’s look, for example, at mahogany.

Or, look at some of the Cuban palms

We went to another part of town to make sure we tasted Blue Heaven’s key lime pie, but found it mostly meringue. Here is the pie and some shots of the large, very popular restaurant.

This area of Key West is called Bahama Village, where we saw some of the few examples of Key West street art.

Key West and the rest of Monroe County voted for Trump, about 60-40. But there are a lot of federal employees here, especially for the Navy. Jobs are being cut, and many are afraid they are next. We spoke to two former federal employees, one a former high ranking Navy official, who told us what they see going on.

Hopefully, tomorrow will show us on the road early. Tomorrow, it’s baseball. Go, Nats.

And, Go Musk. SpaceX rocket explodes. Tesla stock down 40%. It’s time for you to attend to business, Elon. It’s time for you to go.

Harry Truman spent 175 days at his Little White House in Key West. His home was originally the home of the commanding admiral of the Key West Naval Base, built in 1890 and remodeled in 1948. The major portion of the base is long closed, and a great deal of it was transformed by a developer named Singh over a period of many years. It is called the Truman Annex and has close to 500 single family dwellings and additional condos and townhouses, most of which are used, I am sure, as second homes. Single family homes seem to start at about $4 million, condos at $2 million, and small townhouses at about $1.5 million. It is one exclusive neighborhood.

In fact, it is so exclusive that, to visit the Little White House, you cannot park in the Truman Annex at all, but have to find a rare space nearby or pay $30 to park on a lot about a half mile away.

The tour of the house tells you much you did not know about the house, its history and the Trumans. Did you know Truman took a shot of bourbon under doctor’s orders every morning? 

For some reason, except for one room, photos are not permitted. Here is one shot of the exterior, one of the interior, and one of the President’s limousine, a 1950 Lincoln.

Oh, yes, Harry’s piano.

We did go to the beach for a short while. There is a lot of beach on Key West, but we went to Ft. Zachary Taylor State Park, found a bench away from the beach itself, and enjoyed the rocks and the water.

Food?

Lunch was at Olive’s, a six month old, ten seat restaurant,  run by a young man from Turkey, using his grandmother’s and grandfather’s recipes. As I told Edie, my skewer of chicken was maybe the best chicken I ever tasted. We picked the restaurant because we found a parking spot. Then I looked at ratings on Google. 5.0. And his story is very interesting.

For dinner, it was Mangia Mangia, strangely called a “pasta cafe”. Our pappardelle, which we split, with spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, and garbanzos was also perfect.

And yes, we still saw many chickens. But we made a new friend, as well.

This was also at Ft. Taylor. Ft. Taylor was built before the Civil War to protect Florida from a Caribbean attack. The U.S. never lost control: throughout the Civil War, Key West always remained in the control of Union forces.

Tomorrow? Our last day on Key West. It will be a little cooler.

1. It all started with Tik Tok, and no one ever mentions it. For reasons of national security as described by American intelligence,  Congress passed a bill saying that Tik Tok would be unavailable in the country as of Jan 19, unless it was under contract to be sold by its Chinese owner to an American entity.  On Jan 19, Tik Tok went silent. On Jan 20,newly inaugurated Trump brought it back and said it would soon be sold. This was a clearly illegal act; no one denies that. When no one yelled and screamed, Trump must have realized that he could do anything he wanted, the law be damned.
2. So the 5-4 Supreme Court agrees that Musktrump does not have the authority to abruptly cancel all US foreign aid. But they send it back to the District Court to rewrite their injunctive relief with more specificity.  What do I take from this? That means that the District Court has a very difficult problem and whatever they do will be subject to appeal. Let’s assume the courts are all the king’s horses. How will they put the government together again?
3. I heard Trump last night. Touting his tariffs, he told how excited American automakers were. Today, already a different story. Now he does talk to the industry leaders, sees how upset they are, and pauses auto tariffs 30 days. Ready, fire, aim, then run for cover.
4. Senator Slotkin’s Democratic response was, I thought, underwhelming. After introducing herself, I don’t remember one thing she said. Disappointed, but probably not many watched her anyway.

We are staying in a small hotel. 23 rooms, a patio and a pool. Our room is small, but adequate. And with a very nice shower. It is located in the historic part of Key West, surrounded by homes built between 1850 and 1890, the growth period for this 25,000 (today) population island.

The breakfast is a cold breakfast, with a fair number of choices. The only thing warm is the coffee. Next to the coffee, there is a large assortment of tea bags. Unfortunately,  there is no hot water for the tea. The response from a hotel worker was simply “No, we have no hot water today.”

Tomorrow? “I doubt we will have hot water tomorrow.”

Go figure.

Today was a 10,000 step day. Much of it walking through old Key West from the hotel to Duval Street,  the biggest commercial street in town. What does it look like? Here:

This last house has an interesting past.

Our biggest stop was at Ernest Hemingway’s house, which he and wife #2 bought in 1931. The house had been vacant for 40 years, so needed much renovation. Wife Pauline’s uncle paid the bill (he was a founder of Pfizer pharmaceuticals) for the acquisition and renovation.

We had a terrific guide and learned many things. Here are a few photos:

Very worthwhile.

Very near the house is the Key West lighthouse. Both the lighthouse and the keeper’s museum looked good, and I would have liked to see the view from the tops, but….no elevator, and we are not spring chickens. Just under 100 claustrophobic steps up. And down.

Speaking of chickens, roosters and hens wander  all around the city. Here is one:

And there are cats. Like this one:

The Hemingway house has 57 cats, with their own staff.

The other highlight of the day was meeting Alejandro F. Pascual, author of this book.

Key West is 50 miles closer to Cuba than it is to Miami, and its history is replete with Cuban influence. For one thing, I didn’t know that Key West once had over 100 cigar factories, all rolling Cuban grown tobacco. After a major fire before the end of the 19th century, cigar rollers, led by the Ybar family, began to move to Tampa.

Pascual left Cuba at 14. Spent the biggest part of his career working in New York for the Latin American edition of Newsweek Magazine. Moved to Key West twenty years ago because the vegetation and the feel of the air here is like Cuba.

I read a little of the book about the settlement of Cuba that I had never thought about. By 1850, Spain had been kicked out of Latin America, leaving only Puerto Rico (then less developed) and Cuba as Spanish colonies. Latin American Spanish loyalists flocked to Havana. They were by and large, as you would imagine, both conservative and financially successful. When Castro took over and so many Cubans fled to the US, they probably included descendants of this earlier group. It might explain the financial success of the immigrant population and their predilection to vote Republican.

We went back to Cafe Sole last night. Hogback snapper and tuna.

We ended our evening with Donald Trump.

We made it to Key West. The roads don’t go any farther. I thought it would be a fairly quick drive – 3 1/2 hours, but I decided to avoid the Florida Turnpike and instead just go down Route 1. So we learned how big Dade County is. It added about an hour to the trip. But then, south of Marathon Island, we began to hear sirens and emergency vehicles speeding past us, going in our direction but on the wrong side of the street. Clearly, northward traffic had been blocked. Soon, our side stopped moving as well. We were on a causeway. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink. And no bathrooms. We were stuck for more than an hour. Three ambulances went back north, sirens blaring. And two tow trucks, one with a pickup and one with an SUV, both totally smashed in front.

After we were able to move, we could see how backed up the north lanes were. Maybe two miles.

At any rate, our arrival was not 2:30 or even 3:30, but 4:30. But here we are for the next three days.

As to the ride through the Keys itself, I have done it once before. About 50 years ago. The scenery is much different now. And not at all for the better. In fact, there is so much kitsch on the way down here on the more than 100 miles of US 1, that I wonder why anyone vacations on the Keys, when there are so many other places so much closer.

Key West is different. It looks like it looked 125 years ago, but the rest of the Keys?

Street parking is free in Key West. If you can find a place. We did, about four blocks from our small hotel. I hope we can let it just sit there until we leave.

Our goal is to walk around, see the major sites, and chill. Our inn, Heron House Court, has a very comfortable looking front porch, which I hope we get to use.

As to food, we found a restaurant named Sole, less than two blo ks from here, which it turns out has been ranked by Zagat as the best restaurant in the Keys. My duck and Edie’s snapper were A plus. It’s not inexpensive – the entrees are all over $40 – but, what the hell, it is so good and so convenient, we may make it our go to place.

In the meantime, we did hear a few more podcasts about current tragic events. Looking forward to tomorrow night’s speech (ha ha), and wondering what the Dems would do. I asked Edie how, if she were Shumer or Jeffries, she would tell the Democrats to act. She gave me some very responsible answers. My answer to my question was different.  I would tell the Democrats to wear old shoes. Just in case after they threw them, they weren’t able to retrieve them.

Finally, free coffee, tea and cokes. Two days in a row. Can you guess how that happened?

And one more question.  Why did the chicken cross the road?

Remember when we were stuck on I-95 for two hours two days ago?

Well, todY, we have been stuck so far for an hour on US 1 south of Marathon Island on account of a major crash somewhere ahead of us. There have been 4 or 5 police cars, three ambulances which have already returned with siren on, lights flashing, and two tow trucks. Have no idea what happened or how long we will be here. Beautiful day, water on both sides, 42 miles from our destination.

First, a passenger in the vehicle in front of us was very attractive. She wore a ponytail, and that really suited her.

Second, typical DEI is so 2024. But how about DEI for white men? Probably OK, even today.

Third, cheap Coca-Cola and cheap gas (they go together?).

But the best sign, I drove by too quickly to photograph. At, I think, a storage facility in Savannah,  they have a marquis, which said: “Email us and tell us 5 things you accomplished last week.”

The day was a long one in the car, almost 500 miles. We are now in South Miami.

Tomorrow,  we go further south.

Because we were in the car, had lunch at a Culvers  and even stopped at a Cracker Barrel, there isn’t much to report. The highlights were a number of YouTube podcasts we heard.

I suggest you find (1) yesterday’s podcast featuring Anthony Scaramucci and Michael Wolff, talking about Wolf’s new book, All or Nothing, about the 2024 Trump campaign, (2) a recent conversation between Bill Kristal and Anne Appelbaum on the reaction in Europe the recent visit by  President Zelensky, and (3) an interview of dissident Russian journalist Konstantin Samoilov called Threats to Putin Growing, showing some (to me) surprising developments in Russia as a result of Trump”s about face.

As I said, we are in South Miami, where everyone but us speaks Spanish (apparently over 70% of Miami’s residents are Hispanic  and almost 2/3 of those are Cuban).

We are staying at the Novotel. Here is the view from our room

We walked to Casa Tua for a very good dinner.

And on the way, sundown..

Now, the Oscars.

As we headed south, our oroginal plan was to stop in Savannah, and head into Florida the next day. But then, I said, let’s go all the way to Brunswick, about another hour, and we will have less driving the next day.

We passed Savannah at about 5 pm. With an estimated day end arrival a little after six.

Here is a question for you. Have you ever been stuck in traffic on an Interstate for about two hours, never going faster than 10 mph, but often going at 0 mph? Something, termed roadwork, caused the 3 lanes of I-95 to compress to one lane, and that caused (when we got there) at least a 20-mile backup. After close to two hours, we saw a sign that showed we had at least 10 miles to go, so we left the highway and backtracked about 10 miles to Savannah, and found a Hilton Spark that had room.

I initially called a Hilton Tru, but they were filled. My Hilton representative on the phone, who was probably in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh, using very precise English, tried very hard to please me and tell me over and over how I could get 500 extra Hilton Honors points when all I wanted was a room. He told me I could stay at the Sp_______, and when I asked him to spell, I think he said S, as in Samuel, P as in Paul, A as in alpha, R as in Romeo, K as in time.

At any rate, we then needed dinner and went down the street to a Texas Roadhouse, where we avoided the beef. We were looking for a refreshing meal. It was already about 7:30, and were told the wait could takec50 minutes (it was over 30), so we were seated after eight. The food was fine (my third good meal at a TXRH out of three tries). We remarked at how many servers they have working – over 20, maybe 30. And how hard they worked.

That gave us an opportunity to learn a little about Texas Roadhouse. It is headquartered in Kentucky, not Texas (as opposed to KFC, which now based in Texas). It prides itself on its training courses and employee support programs, and its phlilanthropy. Jim Cramer, it appears, advised just two days ago that people should sell their Wendy’s stock and buy Texas Roadhouse. I think he is correct.

Oh, yes lunch. It was in a part of Charleston that seems to be in the middle of nowhere and is part of a development still being built. A Mexican restaurant call Catrina’s. Quite large and carefully adorned. Like this:

TXRH is much more ordinary:

Any other adventure? Certainly, no touring. But yes. Edie’s phone is missing. It was in the car, out of power  when we went to lunch, and by mid-afternoon, it was nowhere. We alerted the restaurant, but they did not have it. We can get a new phone, but her passwords are home, not here.

The best laid plans.

My mind was thrown off by our president and vice president,  who preplanned and purposely made public today’s event with President Zelensky. They proved three things: One, they are mentally adolescent bullies who do not belong anywhere in public life. Two, they have no idea how to conduct diplomacy. And three, they have no idea how to treat a guest. Shame, shame, shame. So I don’t think that I will even mention them today.

I didn’t think of them when we started our dsy in Virginia Beach, which probably has more street art per block than anywhere else.  A few pieces of outside art we saw today.

Our night at the Capes resort was fine, but ventured out for breakfast and wound up at a dingy place called Waffles & Co., a place which for its own sake, I hope has seen better days. It seems to be run by three men, probably in their 70s. My guess is that, after they retired from their careers, their wives got together and bought this place for them to get them out of the house.

We drove south, spent a little time driving through beautiful Edenton NC and had lunch in Washington NC, known as the Original Washington, because it was given its name in 1776. The first city named for George. It is a nice town of about 10,000, with pleasure boating and fishing on the Pamlico River, and is the home of the North Carolina Estuarium (look it up). More importantly,  it is the home town of Ryan Zimmerman.

We had a wonderful light lunch at 1906 Bistro and Bourbon. Here is the wall behind the bar:

Its building was constructed in 1906 for a bank. There was a small hotel on the site before that, which served as the  location of the meetings of the local temperance society.

After lunch, a brief stroll, a stop at the Pamlico Book Store, and coffee (very good coffee) from the Washington Cafe.

A nice ride further south to Wilmington, a charming city. We explored downtown, but decided not to stay in a downtown hotel, as we were just passing through, so we stayed on Wilmington’s version of Rockville Pike. We had supper at a Bonefish Grill across the street in Wikmington’s version of Congressional Plaza. Edie’s salmon was quite good. I had “soy infused, blackened tuna”, which, I am sure was soy infused, but was horseradish infested, overriding any real taste of the tuna. Madison, our server, was certain there was no horseradish in the mix. I told her to try a little when she went back to the kitchen. “No”, she said smiling, “I am a very picky eater.” She came back to the table a few minutes later after checking the “prep sheet”. Horseradish.

While driving from DC to Virginia Beach yesterday, I am pleased to report that we didn’t listen to the news at all. When we checked into our hotel, I looked to see what I missed. I missed Kash Patel’s brilliant thought that what the FBI really needed was a partnership with UFC, the martial arts entertainment company, with UFC setting up programs to train FBI agents on MME moves. I admit that I had never thought of this before, but am surprised no one else had. No wonder Chris Wray was fired.

We left our home at about 10:30 with gray skies and light rain. Typical slow traffic on I-95 until we were past Quantico and the US Marines Museum, and a little after twelve, we drove into Fredericksburg and passed the campus of the University of Mary Washington. Two things you may not know: first, Mary Washington was the mother of George and lived in Fredericksburg for many years, and second, until 1972, the University of Virginia was male-only, and highly qualified women were sent to Mary Washington.

We had lunch at Foode, a highly rated restaurant housed in a building that once housed the Farmers National Bank and was built in 1819. We were served by Robert in the Lincoln Room and admired the vault.

We were intrigued by the marker in front.

After lunch, we visited the Fredericksburg Area Museum, home to many historic artifacts from the city, and much instructional material on the history of the city, including racial history and economic history. Very well done. Very provocative.  Here is a small selection of photos I took.

The building is the former city hall, a three story building from the 1840s. The first floor was a food market, with no access to the other two floors. Apparently, this was an Eglish style, rarely used in the US.

Avoiding I-95 south of Fredericksburg,  we took US 17, which passes through Tappahanock and by Yorktown, with historical signs all along the route.

After horrendous traffic on I-64 after we left US 17, we pulled into Virginia Beach, got an oceanfront room at the Capes Hotel ($88 for an oceanview room in February), we picked up my cousin Susan Day and had dinner at the very busy and quite good Lucky Oyster.

The restaurant is filled with fish stuff on its walls. I was intrigued by this….for obvious reasons:

Susan is my second cousin. Our maternal grandfathers were brothers. She is my age and has lived in Virginia Beach for years.

The evening ended, we returned to the hotel in a serious rain storm, and -of course – turned on Rachel Maddow, only to find out that everyone in the government seems to have been fired. And a judge said that you can’t do that and so far, no one pays attention to that judge, who may be impeached, anyway. Lifetime tenure is so, so temporary.

By the way, something big happening at Virginia Beach.  There is zero sand on the beach where we are. A lot of work underway. Spring will be here soon.

I will start today by confessing two things. First, I am not, nor have I ever be a bully. Second, I am not, nor have I ever been a deal maker. Neither is in my DNA.

As to being a bully, I have often (well, okay, not so often) wondered that if I were 6’6″, rather than 5’6″, and 280 pounds, rather than 140 pounds, would I have developed a different personality. I think the answer to that is “yes”, but I don’t think that different personality would have been that of a bully.

The deal maker question does not have anything to do with my size. There have been short deal makers and tall deal makers, I am sure. But it’s just not who I am. This is what explains that, during my 40 years of law practice, I was much more comfortable defending clients who were being attacked by government agencies than I was representing clients buying or selling properties. To be a good transaction lawyer, you need to be something of a deal maker for sure. To be a good defense counsel, you just need to try to attain justice.

So, there you have it. I am not Donald Trump. But I pay attention to Donald Trump, as do now all of us, and I pay attention to Donald Trump, the deal maker.

Donald Trump is in the middle of making, or trying to make, two deals. He is trying to make a deal for the future of Gaza as a part of a deal to end the Hamas-Israel war. And, he is trying to make a deal to get for America (?) a good portion of the valuable mineral resources of Ukraine as a part of a deal to the Russo-Ukraine War. The question is, in both cases, is whether he is trying to accomplish these transactions as a deal maker, or as a bully. Of course, in the case of Donald Trump, these two ways of going about his business may blend into each other, as they always have. To a true deal maker, I guess, deal making takes precedence over bullying. To one who looks for justice, I believe it is the opposite.

So, as President Zelensky comes to the United States, we await the potential completion of the negotiations over Ukrainian minerals. Will Trump simply say “Gimme, gimme, gimme, or we will stop supporting you and really join forces with Russia”? Is that what will happen? Or will Zelensky say: ” Let’s talk about security guarantees, and weapons, and peacekeepers….”, with Trump saying: “Of course, let’s talk.”

And a similar description can be used in talking about Gaza, with an additional question as to with whom negotiations would even be undertaken.

We will see what we see. King Donald the Dealer or King Donald the Bully. I have my guesses.

Today, Edie and I are getting in our trusty Prius and starting our annual winter/spring road trip. Read the posts and you will accompany us, with the Trump administration taking second place to our adventures.

Where are we going? Be patient. You will find out.