Art is 80

The Good. We stumbled upon a Netflix series that I think is one of the best we have watched over the past few years: The Survivors. I hadn’t seen much publicity about it, but it looked interesting in part because it was filmed in Tasmania, a place I have never been, undoubtedly will never go, and did not have a mental picture of. It turns out that the part of Tasmania where the story is set, on the upper eastern coast, is very attractive, even if the small towns located there seem to have the most plebeian forms of small town architecture and design. The coast is rugged, but with broad beaches, providing very attractive views.

The story is based on events taking place 15 years earlier, when a teenage boy has wandered into off-limit coastal caves that flood at high tide. An unexpected and very strong storm arises, and he is feared lost, but his older brother and a friend venture out in their boat to rescue him. He does, in fact, survive, but the rescuers’ boat capsizes, and the two rescuers are lost. On the same night, in the same storm, a 14 year old girl from the town also disappears; her back pack washes up on shore, but her body is never found.

Fifteen years later, a young female student from “the mainland” comes to spend the summer in Tasmania, just to chill, learns of the tragedy, and also learns that the death of the two young men is remembered, but the death of the young girl ignored, and decides to make it her mission to rectify that, to tell the story of the 14 year old, and to discover, if she can, what happened to her. That is where all the trouble begins.

The Survivors has eight episodes, each between 45 and 55 minutes long. I found the story line interesting, and the acting and cinematography superb. I think you would like it.

The Bad. Pete Hegseth. My assumption is that Hegseth will be out of a job soon. Of course, until that happens, you can’t be sure, because Trump will support him until that happens. But I bet Trump is now having an internal debate: Should I (a) cut him off at the knees, or should I (b) throw him under the bus? Once he decides, we will all find out Pete’s fate. Or perhaps we won’t find out his ultimate fate until 2029, when the Department of Justice comes again into being, and the Department of Injustice is no more.

The Somewhere in the Middle. I really am not sure what to think about the special election held in Tennessee on Tuesday for the vacant House of Representatives seat. The Republican won by 9 points in a District that Trump carried by 22. Both sides claim victory.

I hadn’t paid any attention to the details of this campaign. I know nothing about either of the candidates, except for their party affiliation, so I don’t know how much the results depended on the particular qualities of the candidates, and how much was a referendum on Donald Trump’s second term performance.

But two things are clear. One is that a 9 percent spread is still a healthy spread. The second is that a performance by the Democrats 13 points better than their performance a year ago is quite significant.

We will have to see what happens, but apparently if the Democrats do 13 points better nationwide in 2026 than in 2024, they will flip about 35 House seats.

See you tomorrow. I may know more. And it may be snowing.

President Trump had a meeting of his cabinet yesterday and, nice guy that he is, he let everyone sitting around the table (and there were a lot of them) speak for five or ten minutes. They could apparently say whatever they wanted (and they wanted to say a lot), as long as they began and ended by praising their boss to the skies, marking him as the best president imaginable, and giving him credit for all of their successes. And, listening to them, you would learn that their successes were extraordinary, and were particularly extraordinary because they took over a failing country run by a President Biden, who was as bad a leader as Trump is good.

Vice President Vance said, for example, that the country has recovered 1/3 of the losses suffered under Biden in only ten months. Treasury Secretary Bessent hesitated a bit in giving a rosy picture of the present, but was rapturous about the future. Basically, his message was that, if 2025 seemed to be a bit problematic, just wait until 2026. In 2026, everything won’t be coming up roses, everything will be roses.

I don’t have the ability to fact check all of those who spoke. But I must say that we are really lucky to have a cabinet of this caliber. After all, how many countries can boast of a cabinet that goes from success to success, with never a failure, never a misstep, never an erroneous move?

There were a few things that did surprise me. For example, I had no idea that the Trump administration was planning a major redo of Dulles International Airport, which the President described as a “terrible” airport, although designed by one of the greatest architects of all time. Trump said that they were about to unveil the plans, and that they were unbelievable. We (all of us) will love them; Dulles will be the most spectacular airport in the country.

The plans must be fairly well developed. If I heard him correctly, Transportation Secretary Duffy said that the government was ready to go out for bids. I assumed this meant for design bids, but then Trump made it look like the design was already set. In any event, having heard nothing about it earlier, I was certainly surprised.

Later, however, I learned that I was not the only one who was surprised. The 17 members of the board of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority and the MWAA staff were equally surprised. The MWAA runs Dulles airport. Only 3 of the 17 board members are appointed by the President (with the advice and consent of the Senate); the others are appointed by the Governors of Maryland and Virginia and the Mayor of the District of Columbia. Apparently no one in the White House or the Department of Transportation bothered to tell anyone at the MWAA that these plans were afoot.

Under normal times, these conversations would have been going on extensively by now. But this time, I assume, they will not go on at all, until the board of the MWAA agrees to whatever plans the administration develops under penalty of receiving no more federal funding until it does. I also assume that there would be a lot of money to be made in the rebuilding of Dulles. Anyone want to bet against my assumption that Trump’s friends (and maybe Trump) will share in the profits?

And of course, this is not all. From what I read this afternoon, it looks like the redone Dulles will no longer be Dulles, but will be rechristened as The Donald J. Trump International Airport. Donald Trump did not mention this proposed name change in what I heard at his cabinet meeting. That was another surprise. But perhaps he assumed that would be obvious.

In the meantime, as the American war machine readies an assault on Venezuelan land (Trump said this was coming very soon), and attacks on ships continue, along with the buildup of American forces in the Caribbean, what does Secretary of State Rubio say? He says that he is so lucky to be working for the “peace president”. And he said this even as so much hubbub has been stirred up by the second attack on one of the 21 boats so far hit by American troops, this one apparently to make sure that two “survivors” of the first hit were killed.

As to that now infamous event, what did President Trump and Secretary Hegseth say? Trump said: I saw no evil, I heard no evil, and did no evil, and Pete told me that he didn’t either. Hegseth said: I watched the first strike on video, but I wasn’t there for the second strike; instead I took a walk. He went on to say that he never saw two people hanging onto the side of the boat, and is sure that Admiral Bradley, in charge of the whole thing, made the right decision to hit the boat again. Did Bradley know there were people hanging onto the side of the boat? It appears that Hegseth hasn’t asked him yet! All Hegseth knows is that Bradley operated within the scope of his command responsibilities and that he made the right choice.

One reason that Rubio was at the meeting, by the way, was that he wasn’t in Moscow with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. They were there to settle the Russian-Ukrainian War. Hard to see how they will do it, since Russia still maintains that it will only negotiate a peace if it gains four Ukrainian provinces, and Ukraine will only agree to a peace that restores all territory now under Russian control to Ukraine. From what we can see, although Trump’s position on this war changes more quickly than his opinion on tariffs on China, the last approach to Ukraine was based on a 28 part plan that some say not only favored Russia, but was written by Russians. In negotiations with the Ukrainians, those 28 points were apparently knocked down to 19, and it was those 19 brought back to Moscow.

Assuming that Russia will not agree, what will Trump’s representatives do? I read something yesterday that assumed that the Trump position will always favor Russia. Why is that? Not because they think Russia was either right or wrong when it invaded Ukraine (the probably don’t care), but because Russia offers a better business climate for Trump, his family, and his friends. Remember the high rise Trump wanted in Moscow? I bet you anything he still thinks about it. Keep your eye on this one.

And remember the tie-ins between the Trumps, the Kushners and others with the Saudis, the Qataris, and others in the Arab world. Don’t think that these extensive personal financial relations don’t influence our steps (and the steps of the Saudis and the Qataris) in developing plans for the future of Gaza.

And then there were Trump’s comments about the Somalis in Minnesota. He started by talking about MN governor Tim Walz, whom he called earlier this week “seriously retarded”, and then he went on to call Somalia-born Congresswoman Ilhan Omar “garbage” and then call all other Somalis “garbage” and their country stinking and a “garbage country”. He concluded with, although he acknowledged that saying so was politically incorrect, that he didn’t want any Somalis in his country. In addition to being “garbage”, he said that Omar was an “incompetent person” and a “really terrible person”. And his cabinet sat there as he said all of this, joining together afterwords in what looked like it could have been a silent “amen”.

Omar put out a statement after the press conference. What does she think of Trump. She thinks he is a bit obsessed and she “hopes he gets the help he needs’.

I myself think he is beyond help and needs to be sedated and put out to pasture, where he can spend the rest of his days chewing his cud “to his little heart’s content”.

That last line is a quote from Donald, speaking of how Zelensky should fight on if he does not accept Trump’s peace proposal.

Finally, did you see this drawing from the New York Times this morning? And, no, it is not satire.

Let us assume the following:

1. We are not at war with Venezuela.
2. We have attacked over 20 Venezuelan and other South American boats and killed over 80 people who we say were bringing drugs into the United States.
3. We have attacked one of those boats twice because there appeared to be two survivors that we did not want to survive.
4. The policy to do this was established by President Trump or Secretary of Defense Hegseth.
5. The policy was implemented by Secretary of Defense Hegseth.

Assuming this is so, is there any way that these killings could not be described as murder?

Assuming we have 80 plus cases of murder, is there any reason why Trump and Hegseth should not be indicted for murder and related crimes?

Assuming we have 80 plus cases of murder, is there any way to look at the orders leading to these murders were illegal?

Assuming they were illegal, should the active military members (from the general in charge, to the lowest ranked individuals involved) be court martialed for obeying illegal orders?

At the same time, assuming all this is correct, is there any question but that Trump and Hegseth should be impeached, convicted and removed from office?

Whether Trump can be charged with a crime is questionable, due to the unfortunate Supreme Court ruling, but certainly Hegseth can be.

(And, by the way, today’s rumor is that we already have boots on the ground in Venezuela. Small, elite military groups behind the lines ready to go into operation when our full assault begins.)

What a mess!

That is it for today. What a mess! (Did I already say that?)

Remember when I was bemoaning Washington’s sports teams a few weeks ago, and said it was surprising that the Capitals were in last place in their NHL division? Well, rest assured. The times, they’ve been a-changing. The Caps are now only 2 points out of the division lead.

The Commanders, however, have continued to lose week after week. Well, I guess that isn’t correct. They did not lose last week because they didn’t play. But they lost yesterday to a first place team, the Denver Broncos, by 1 point, in overtime. The thing is…they did not have to lose. They lost because they made the decision to risk a loss by trying a 2 point extra point. And they failed. I think that was the wrong move. I thought that even before they failed.

The game wasn’t over until after midnight. Edie thought I was nuts to stay up for a game that I (being honest) really didn’t care about. Of course, she was right. But what about those 65,000 fans who, after midnight, first left their seats and headed for their cars. I think, if they lived in our house, they would get here about 1:30.

It’s cold here. 35 this morning. I guess that’s because it is December already, making 2025 the quickest year on record. I didn’t leave the house yesterday, except to pull out the trash.

I did make an ambitious move. I started to read William Taubman’s biography of Mikhail Gorbachev, all 700 pages of text. I am on page 50, and Misha has left his cold, impoverished small town home, having been accepted at Moscow State University, a move that will change his life, for sure.

I should also mention that I finished reading Dan Glickman’s memoir, which was both a fairly quick read, and surprisingly interesting. Who? Having grown up in the small Jewish community of Wichita with a father who owned a Cubs minor league affiliate, he went to the University of Michigan and then came to DC, where he attended the George Washington University Law School. He worked for two Republican Congressman before returning to Kansas as a Democrat.

Glickman served 9 terms in the House of Representatives, then as Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Agriculture, head of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School and its Institute of Politics, and finally for 6  years he led the Motion Picture Association of America. A very interesting career.

On the screen, we finished watching Claire Danes’ The Beast in Me, an eight episode thriller teaching you never to trust your neighbors (a lesson to be learned not only by one neighbor, but by both). I recommend it for the complexity of the plot which is nevertheless comprehensible, as well as the acting. I also finished watching a Spanish film called A Widow’s Game, apparently a dramatization of a true story of a young woman who convinces a co-worker to kill her husband, and then proves not to be what he thinks she is. It’s pretty good, too, as a story of police work. Of course, the real star of the show is the City of Valencia. It has been my treadmill film.

Enough of this. Time to face the week.

It is so difficult for me to understand so much. Yesterday, on Facebook, I mentioned this bit of seeming confusion: The National Guard was  brought to DC to assist the police, to be visible and discourage crime, and allow the police to concentrate on more important duties, but now – after the shooting of the two Guard members – the police are being diverted to protect members of the Guard. Say, what?

And now, he is pardoning former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, a convicted serious drug trafficker, while blowing up boats and threatening war against Venezuela, because its president, he alleges, is a drug trafficker.

Nothing he does makes any real sense, yet people let him do it. Just as they have let dictators and mentally disturbed political leaders do it from time immemorial.

I am not going to list anew everything he has done that has been harmful to the country and the world. But I will mention one more thing. What is his goal in shaming and insulting female journalists? And shouldn’t at least one of them stand up to him?

I am thinking about the woman who asked him yesterday about the asylum approval for the DC shooter with the impossible to remember name. The asylum approval was given three months into the Trump second term. He blamed it on Biden, held up a barely relevant photo, and responded “what are you, stupid?” And then he repeated “stupid” several more times. I saw the clip of this a few times yesterday and each time, I wanted her simply to respond with, “I’m not the one who is stupid”. But she didn’t.

I wanted the reporter he called “Piggy” to say, ” Say that to me one more time, and every reporter in this room is going to stand up and walk out.”

Or what about when he posted on his private social media site that an NYT reporter was “a third rate reporter, ugly inside and out.” The Times responded with a “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” response. But that just is not enough.

Polite, written responses are inadequate. They normalize the abnormal. They are read by few, and the few who read them already think Trump a pitiful lowlife. People need to stand up to him publicly right in his face. “You call me Piggy? I call you a banana slug!” Make some news; it won’t hurt your career. And organize as many of those journalists as you can. He insults a woman, they all stand up and walk out. Or they all stand up, yell and scream until he walks out. Do something!

And print media, don’t just report what he said and bemoan it. Every time you write his name, preface it with “Banana Slug” or something. “Banana Slug Trump says he will attack Venzuela. Refusing to give any specifics, the big Slug instead decided to play a little golf…”   Or put his picture on your front page, with a piggy head, and have him say, “Oink, oink”. Make it your entire front page. For a week. Or a month.

Let’s shame the guy. Keep him on the defensive. Get him angry. Make him explode. Don’t let him off the hook for a minute. Make him look like the four year old he emotionally is. There is nothing he can do to you that he won’t do anyway, hasn’t done already.

End of rant.

Can I get an “amen”?

Thanksgiving weekends can be very long. For me, of course, they are often broken up by my birthday, which can add something to the otherwise idle stretch of time, but the holiday period can drag on, nevertheless.

When I was growing up, I remember we had a big Thanksgiving meal, followed by a day off of school where the main activity was eating leftovers, and then came the weekend, a weekend like others. Back in those days (1940s and 1950s), my memory of Thanksgiving was that it was a holiday that began when school let out after regular Wednesday classes. In those far off times, I don’t remember my friends doing much traveling. I guess that was in part due to the (or so I thought) relatively isolated location of St. Louis. I actually don’t remember any of my friends having grandparents outside of St. Louis; they were all there. And certainly no one had divorced parents with one of them having moved across the country to far away cities. So, everyone stayed put.

When I went to college a thousand miles away, I would come home for the Christmas break (that is what it was, no matter what you might have called it) and, I think, each year for Spring Vacation (maybe). It never occurred to me to come home for Thanksgiving. Today, I think, things are much different. People jump on airplanes and fly to Taipei and Bangladesh and Sydney for Thanksgiving. Not then.

(Of course, Thanksgiving no longer starts at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon. Now, schools are closed on Wednesday, attendance is sparse on Tuesdays, and many families take off the entire week. Not then. At all.)

Each year (I think each year) of college, I had Thanksgiving dinner with many of my roommates at the house of one of theirs in Belmont MA. Always a good and warm time, with good food and conversation, and sometimes other guests). As I recall, nothing ever went to waste because one of my roommates would eat everything left on the table, much to the amusement/puzzlement of our hostess.

Things changed in law school. During my first year, I was invited to come from New Haven back up to Belmont. Not much of a schlep. I could get there in just a couple of hours, and my trusty 1964 VW was undoubtedly anxious to get on the road, but I declined (and declined a couple of other invites). I found law school to be a bit of a mysterious journey, and I didn’t feel like I had as of yet caught on, so I decided to stay in New Haven for the long weekend, and catch up on all of my class work.

Big mistake. New Haven (back then and to a great extent now) had a major university and (to me, at least) really nothing else. Very few people I knew lived there, and most were from other parts of the east coast, mainly the New York area, but also New England, Philadelphia, Washington and the like. Everyone was going home for Thanksgiving. (And no one was going to Taipei, Bangladesh or Sydney.) But I decided to stay.

After all, I figured, I wouldn’t be alone. There would surely be someone to have a nice Thanksgiving dinner with and spend some idle time with.

Wrong. I seemed to be it. Yale Law School had been abandoned. And, what is more, the entire city of New Haven seemed to have closed down, at least that part near the university. Needless to say, the following happened: (1) I got very depressed, and (2) I got absolutely no work done.

That year, 1964, Thanksgiving fell on my birthday; I was 22 years old. No one even wished me happy birthday.  Even with no one else around (all Yale food halls were closed), I thought I could pick up my spirits by going out for a nice breakfast, a nice lunch and a nice dinner. It would break up my day, I would see other people, and who knows what might happen. It never occurred to me that every restaurant within walking distance, including those places where you got a cup of coffee and a pastry, would be closed. But they were. My breakfast, and my lunch, came from the Yale Law School vending machine room. And, no, these weren’t vending machines where you could get a sandwich or maybe soup you could microwave (what, microwave? what’s that?). These were candy bars, peanuts, and crackers. And, of course, while feasting on these treats, no one else came into the vending area. Obviously not. No one else seemed to be there.

As I remember it, Thanksgiving Day was also gray and very, very cold. And, at dinner time, it was very dark outside. But I was determined. I walked and I walked and I walked. And then…….an open restaurant. A Chinese restaurant (name forgotten, probably not there 61 years later) and it was open for business. I, it turned out, was their business. No other customers all the time I was there.

When Friday came, things started to improve. Restaurants and shops were open, there were cars on the street, and one-by-one people began to return to campus.

Lesson learned.

If you do the daily New York Times crossword, stop reading right now until you have finished with today’s. The NYT Wordle and crossword usually fill part of my mornings. If I hadn’t written my blog post the night before, they often get done before I write in the morning. That is what happened today.

Not that there was anything special about today’s crossword. It was a typical Friday. I looked it over, decided it was beyond me, finally found one short entry I could make with some confidence, and then things began to fall into place. This one, IMHO, turned about to be challenging, but doable in a reasonable period of time.

After I finish a puzzle, I often go to see what Rex Parker (not his real name) thinks about it. (Rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com.) He called this one Easy-Medium.

Rex analyzes the puzzle, entry by entry, with a mix of erudition and humor. You will have to decide which this is:

This is St. Denis as he may have looked in the 3rd century after he was decapitated when he walked around Paris, head in hand, preaching to the masses. St. Denis is an answer in the puzzle.

Rex points out that his decapitation made St. Denis a cephelophone, a word I didn’t know. It also made him the patron saint of both Paris and France.

Moving on…

There was one other item in the puzzle that intrigued me. The answer is “cheese curls”, and the definition includes the words “junk food”. I know little about cheese curls, but my basic research this morning shows me that it is not a copyrighted name, but a name used by multiple food brands. Also, when you look up cheese curls, generically or individually, they are called a “snack food”, not a “junk food”.

That got me to ask Google AI to tell me what a junk food is. Google gave me a generic definition (you know, sugar, bad fats, salt, high in calories, and low in nutrients). It then goes on to give examples. It doesn’t specifically mention cheese curls, but cheese curls definitely fit the definition, but guess what it also included in what they mention? Burgers and fried chicken. Really?

Okay, did I take your mind of Donald Trump? Something has to. Unless you just want to go out in the street and yell and scream. I am thinking about his statement today that he will permanently pause any immigration from countries which are filled with people who, for their own safety, need to emigrate, whether or not they are qualified to enter this country. And that he is going to examine existing green cards and asylum determinations for everyone already in the U.S. who come from those countries. Yes, only White Europeans (or White residents of former British colonies), with perhaps an occasional Asian, will be allowed in and, of those, people with $1million or more to invest here will be favored.

There is a lot being written, of course, about Trump’s declining mental condition. Perhaps, it has declined enough that one could say that Trump has, in fact, lost his head.

This would make him our first cephelophone president. I asked ChatGPT to draw me a picture of a headless Trump carrying his head, and guess what? It refused.

What do you think of that?

I am waiting for the morning press conference to learn more about the shooting of the two National Guard members here in Washington yesterday. An obvious tragedy and, just as obvious, our insightful president is responding in the absolutely wrong way.

It seems that the attacker was an Afghan national who had worked for a considerable period of time with the United States during our military action in Afghanistan, was admitted to the United States during the Biden administration as part of a program to allow in Afghans who had worked with us and consequently would likely be targeted under Taliban rule and who, it has been said, had recently been granted permanent asylum under the Trump administration. What caused him to do what he did is, I believe, unknown at this time. But it seems that he clearly targeted his victims. And, moreover, he did not live in Washington, DC, but lived across the country in the State of Washington.

This means a couple of things. First, he is not part of any perceived (or real) DC crime problem. Second, it seems highly unlikely that he would have shot anyone had the National Guard not been patrolling our streets.

The National Guard currently assigned to Washington apparently number about 2,000. You see them now and then walking around, loitering at Metro Stations, talking to passers-by or on their cell phones, harming no one, but also not really adding anything to local security or the local scene. Some are armed, some are not, but they are limited in their authority. Most importantly, they are not seen as law enforcement officers, and they are not even permitted, as I understand it, to help local or federal police in apprehending criminals. Hence, as has been reported, they are sometimes assigned tasks (not necessarily unimportant, but…..) like picking up trash.

You would think that the reaction to a shooting such as the one which occurred yesterday would, in part, to analyze whether having the Guard patrol the streets is just putting the members of the National Guard in harm’s way, especially now that it is possible, if unlikely, that there will be copycat attacks. But, no, the reaction of the Trump administration is to call up more members of the National Guard and put another 500 on the DC streets, saying this is necessary as part of the plan to decrease DC crime. To me, it seems obvious that this has less possibility of decreasing crime on the streets than it does setting the stage for more crime. And, I point out again, that this shooting had nothing to do with “DC crime on the streets” at all; it was one person who lives 3000 miles away who decided to shoot two members of the National Guard and drove across the country to do it.

This, of course, was not the only perverse reaction of Mr. Trump. Again, from what I think I heard, this man was one of 75,000 Afghans allowed into the U.S. as part of the program directed to those who were allied with us during the fighting, and one of about 200,000 Afghans allowed into the country on various programs after the U.S. left the country. I haven’t seen anything even hinting that the Afghans allowed in have been participating in criminal activity at any abnormal level. But of course, this is irrelevant to our Immigration Enforcer in Chief, who has now said that there will be no more Afghans allowed in and that there will be some sort of investigation of those already here. ICE: one more disgusting task for you, it appears.

Well, he probably didn’t realize it, but the shooter did sort of spoil my birthday. It was a low key day, anyway. Our only scheduled activity was to pick up a turkey and deliver it to our daughter who is hosting today’s dinner. And that went off without a hitch. I still wonder how Moti’s Kosher Supermarket works. You tell them in advance that you want a turkey and give them a size, and tell them when you plan to get it. You go to the store at the appointed time, they don’t ask you your name, and they have a rafter of turkeys in the meat counter and, in effect, say “take what you want”.

I like a “rafter of turkeys”. AI tells me that is the correct term.

We did have two restaurant  meals  yesterday, something we normally do only when we are out of town. Both were excellent. Lunch was at the not-very-well-named restaurant, Hello, Vietnam!, on Veirs Mill Road in Rockville, and dinner at Le Chat Noir, just about a mile to our west. Le Chat Noir has become our go-to birthday restaurant, and we both had a delicious river trout dinner (along with soup, salad, dessert, and a glass of sparkling rose). Could not have been better.

I heard from many friends and relatives yesterday, and appreciated every one of them. They say that socialization is important as you age, and although I probably socialize more than most at 83, I would like to keep in contact with friends and relatives more often than once a year. It’s harder than you would think, though.

I also want to point out that a group of neuroscientists from the University of Cambridge yesterday published a study of brain aging. They said that brains do not change every day, but seem to have significant changes at particular times over a lifetime. The last change, what the study terms as “Late Aging”, occurs at age 83. Not that I understand the brief published description of what happens when you reach 83, but that it is a shift from “global to local” while “whole brain connectivity declines even further and it relies on certain regions as others fade”. Whatever that means, it probably is not good.

While writing, I have watched U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and FBI Director Kash Patel talk about yesterday’s attack. Their comments were totally misguided and disgusting. Pure and simple. Why? Because they both turned this tragedy into political speeches – it is all the result of the Biden administration’s disastrous departure from Afghanistan, and as a result of Biden letting all these Afghans in the country without vetting them at all. Of course, this is completely false and disgusting but, to some listeners (many listeners) undoubtedly convincing.

I looked at what I posted last year on my birthday, and I don’t think I can top it. So, here it is again, with one number changed in the title.

Yes, it’s my birthday, and I’ll cry if I want to. After all, 82 is a pretty big number. I’d much rather be 28 (I think). And, no, I am certainly not crying.

I thought about the birthday parties my parents gave me when I was young, today. Or rather, I thought about thinking about my early birthday parties, but the truth is I really don’t remember them. Did I have birthday parties? I mean real birthday parties, with friends and classmates, not just birthday cake and candles with my family. I am not sure. Michael Bobroff, do you remember?

Actually, I do remember one party. I don’t know how old I was, but I was in elementary school, and my memory is that the party was the party that I wanted to have. My guess is it was a Saturday afternoon, and I think we all went to see a matinee at the Tivoli or the Varsity, the two theaters then operating in the Delmar Loop area in University City, Missouri. And then we went down the street to the Velvet Freeze Ice Cream Store, and had ice cream. My memory is that I became very upset while I was at Velvet Freeze, and that my party was ruined. But I don’t know why I was upset. Maybe because my friends were more interested in the ice cream and in each other than with me. But that’s just a guess. And now that I am thinking about it, maybe there was no movie, just Velvet Freeze. I have no idea.

Since I couldn’t remember much about my other birthdays, and I only remember Velvet Freeze (if you aren’t from St. Louis, or maybe Kansas City, you have never heard of Velvet Freeze), I decided to look up Velvet Freeze. The article I saw at losttables.com, a website devoted to old St. Louis restaurants, was very informative. The article started with the invention of the ice cream cone at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair (an accidental invention to be sure, when someone took a waffle from the waffle man and wrapped it around his ice cream, and everyone said: “Voila, you have invented the ice cream cone.”

Well, in fact, we don’t know the name of the guy who wrapped his waffle around his ice cream (it was probably not Voila), but we do know the name of one guy who decided that this might be a business opportunity, and quickly became a large manufacturer of cones in the city which then supplied most of the cones made in America, and shipped them around the country. His name was Grosberg. Oscar Grosberg.

Now, until today, I didn’t know anything about Oscar Grosberg and his cone factory. I found it interesting that Grosberg was spelled with one “s”, not two, which is not typical. And then I remember that my father’s sister, Mary (I called her Aunt Mary, by the way) had a very good, long time friend named Roz Grosberg, and I just looked her up on findagrave.com, and – lo and behold – she was a one “s” Grosberg. Could she have been the daughter of the cone king? Is this something you would like me to look into further?

Well, back to our story. It turned out that another Jewish immigrant to St. Louis, Jacob Martin, started what he called the Union Ice Cream Company (later the Original Double Dip Ice Cream Company), which operated at the same time that Oscar Grosberg was making cones. And, wouldn’t you know it, Jacob and Oscar decided to join forces and make both ice cream, and they named their new company: Velvet Freeze, Inc.

This was no small company. It had two ice cream factories, one in South St. Louis on Gravois (do you know how to pronounce Gravois?), and another in the north of the city. And, according to the article, by 1936, it had 50 stores in the greater St. Louis area, and then expanded into Kansas City and elsewhere.

The company continued to thrive through the 1970s, under different ownership, but eventually the stores began to close and, in 1986, the Velvet Freeze factory stopped making ice cream. A major St. Louis dairy, Pevely (“white in the bottle, pink on the cheeks”) began to manufacture ice cream under the Velvet Freeze name, but it really didn’t catch on.

Today, November 26, 2024, there is only one Velvet Freeze ice cream store left. It is a homey looking place on West Florissant Boulevard in the suburb of Jennings. You can’t go there today, because they aren’t open on Mondays or Tuesdays, but they should be there tomorrow, opening at 2 p.m. Next trip to St. Louis, I may try it out. They have over 50 flavors, and they make their own ice cream using the original Velvet Freeze recipes, on Saturday nights.

By the way, the “lost tables” website is a great one, if you are interested in old St. Louis restaurants. I did also read the write up of Rinaldi’s Pizzeria, located just a few blocks from the Velvet Freeze on Delmar, where I spent much of my high school years with dates and friends and the likes, eating the square cut, extraordinarily greasy, pizzas with home made (I think home made) sausage. And – and this is true – I tasted every bit of that pizza as I read the article this afternoon. It was that good.

Rinaldi’s is not there anymore either (in fact the block that it was on has been torn down I saw a few weeks ago, getting ready for something big, I assume), and moved from University City west to Creve Coeur in the early 1970s. It’s not there any more either. I don’t think any of Al Rinaldi’s kids wanted to take over a pizza business.

Arizona Senator Mark Kelly was a Captain in the U.S. Navy, retiring about 15 years ago after 25 years of active service. Now, he may be called back into the Navy for the sole purpose of facing a court martial for giving “illegal orders”. This goes into the category “if it wasn’t so sad, it would be funny”.

The “illegal order” was given by Senator Kelly when he participated in that (in my mind, not very well thought out) video with five other Democratic legislators, purportedly telling current members of the U.S. military that they do not have to follow illegal orders.

The thing that is weird is that it is obvious that members of the military do not have to follow illegal orders. How this works in practice is another, and more difficult, question – how does someone decide if an order is illegal; if someone believes in good faith that an order is illegal and it turns out they are wrong, are they liable for failing to respond to a legal order; if someone follows an illegal order, believing it to be a legal order or arguably a legal order, and it is turns out that the order was indeed illegal, can they be liable for their activity (whether or not it could constitute a war crime). And so on, and so on.

But that is for another day. Today, the question is whether someone can be called back into active duty to be court martialled for giving an “illegal order” when what they said was neither an “order” nor a misstatement of a legal rule. And, if Kelly gets a notice that he is again active duty Captain Kelly, how does he argue against such a notice? Is that a civil or a military question?

Pete Hegseth was also in the military. He was on active duty three times, for a total of ten years or so. He became an Army Major, several ranks below a Navy Captain, but that isn’t really relevant. Could he be called back for crimes committed after he left the service? This goes into the “Who knows?” category. But it might be a relevant one.

Going back for a minute to substance…..Does Hegseth, our wanna be War Secretary who is in fact Secretary of Defense, think that this is a false statement: “Members of the military can disobey illegal orders”? Does that mean that he thinks that this is a true statement: “Members of the military must obey illegal orders”?

If it can be construed that the answer to that question is “yes” and, in his current position, he is in fact telling members of the military that they must obey illegal orders, isn’t he in fact giving an illegal order and, when the administration next changes, can’t he be called back into the military and court martialled for giving an illegal order? It seems that this situation and Senator Kelly’s situation are pretty parallel. Only one major difference. Kelly’s “order” was not illegal, but Hegseth’s “order” was clearly illegal.

But all of this nonsense (and I think it is truly nonsense) fades when compared to the real problem that today exists and tomorrow may become exacerbated: war against Venezuela.

Members of the military are now being ordered to take actions that are resulting in the deaths of civilians allegedly engaged in the drug trade, and there is the clear possibility that the concentration of military forces in the Caribbean is a prologue to an invasion of Venezuela for the purpose of deposing the Maduro regime (a regime that has destroyed the Venezuelan economy and Venezuelan society). The American Congress seems firmly opposed to this action, is not going to issue a declaration of war, and may take action, by resolution or otherwise, to try to stop the Trump regime from pursuing this path. There are and will be members of Congress who will loudly claim Trump’s actions, on various grounds, to be illegal.

In this instance, what are members of the military expected to do? And what are officers leading troops expected to do if they have troops under their command who refuse to obey orders on this basis? These are real questions.

As the Trump administration goes from failure to failure, dangers abound. Will questions like these discourage young Americans from joining the military? This is a serious question, as recruitment is always a challenge. Similar questions are being asked in other contexts. What if potential immigrants stop coming to the United States, or are not allowed in? Farm workers, construction workers, nurses, doctors, scientists? Jobs will remain unfilled, tasks undone, the country vastly weakened.

Eliminating Trump and MAGA from power is more necessary than ever, and I suggest we all work to do just that.

And here is the final question of the day. Having suggested that regime change is crucial in the United States, and that all Americans should work to advance that goal, have I given an “illegal order”? I was discharged from the United States Army Reserve in September of 1973, having fulfilled my six year obligation with distinction (okay, not with distinction). Can they call me back into active service to court martial me? I’m not scared. Sergeant Hessel, reporting for duty.

It is the start of Thanksgiving Week. What does it mean in the year 2025, a year of so much national turmoil? What did it ever mean?

The first Thanksgiving, surrounded in myth and undoubtedly distorted, was premised on a feast hosted by a group of illegal immigrants, arriving from foreign shores, speaking a different language, and bringing with them a culture totally at odds with the natives whose home they were invading. The year was 1621, there had been some accommodation made between the two groups, and there may, or may not, have been a feast with meat, fish, fowl, and all the trimmings. And while the invaders, a/k/a the Pilgrims, might have been giving thanks their God for their safety (and their turkey), you can be certain that the minds of the natives were directed elsewhere.

While Thanksgiving-type ceremonies continued on behalf of the growing number of European immigrants and refugees, it quickly ceased being celebrated by the natives, who were quickly at war with most of the newcomers, and who were outclassed both in weaponry and amorality by their White neighbors.

In 1789, first President George Washington issued a Thanksgiving proclamation which actually made great sense for the times. It was thanks for a new country, a new and unique government, with great hope for the future. Again, the thanks were given to God. And why not? And again it was Thanksgiving by Whites. After all, Blacks had recently been counted each as 3/5 of a White, and indigenous Americans, well on their way to removal or extinction, so it appeared, hardly were counted at all.

Apparently, the real start to an annual Thanksgiving holiday came in 1863 at the behest of President Abraham Lincoln. I don’t know what others think, but I find his Thanksgiving proclamation to be bizarre. After all, what was there to be thankful about?

Let’s see. Even though we are killing each other unmercifully in a Civil War, we are not fighting with any foreign nations. Thankfully, our industry is supplying us with enough war making materiel. And we have farms supplying us with enough food even as our armies are destroying farms wherever they are fighting.

I guess it’s always been this way. Those of us lucky to have food and shelter are thankful that God has chosen us to be the ones with food and shelter.  There, but for the grace of God, go we.

I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same? ICE is picking people off the streets, putting them in detention, sending them to remote parts of the world, breaking up families, and we celebrate Thanksgiving.  There but for the grace of God, go we. Thank you God for making it them who suffer, not us. You must be Great.

In fact though, the circumstances of 1621 and of 2025 are not the same. In 1621, Thanksgiving demonstrated the possibility, the potential, that natives and invaders could get along. In 2025, the natives (formerly the invaders) are circling the wagons and expelling the new iterations of themselves out the country as brutally as possible. And for this, we are to be thankful and to thank our God.

Let’s not be thankful for the flawed country we have today. Let’s define the country we want, work to see it come into being. Then, we can celebrate a true Thanksgiving.

Not a sermon, just a thought (as somebody says).

Yesterday, we went to see the new film Blue Moon, the sad story of lyricist Lorenz Hart of Rodgers and Hart fame. You will either like the film or not, but you will have to admit that it is not your normal biopic, and you will have to give it credit for what it tried to do (whether or not you think it succeeded).

First, some background. Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart first met at Columbia University, collaborating on writing for some student shows. Later they became a song writing duo, with Rodgers writing the music and Hart the lyrics. “Blue Moon”, “My Funny Valentine”, “The Lady is a Tramp”, “This Can’t Be Love”, “Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered”, and many, many more. They worked together for over 20 years, and their work included the music for many Broadway hit shows, like Pal Joey and The Boys from Syracuse.

Richard Rodgers seems to have been a quite normal guy with a lot of talent. Lorenz Hart also had a lot of talent, but normalcy was not one of his most obvious traits. Lorenz Hart was one sad fellow. He was barely 5 feet tall (if that), was probably attracted to men as much or more than he was to women, never had a true romantic relationship, and lived with his mother. All of his wishes and deepest desires he put into his lyrics. His lyrics seem to have been his life.

During their successful years, Hart made a lot of money and gained a lot of fame. I think people liked and respected him, and he was always a welcoming friend and hosted party after party. But hosting parties where other guests got the girls or the guys was not healthy, particularly if you were an alcoholic. Lorenz Hart was an alcoholic. And as Hart’s alcoholism got worse, his ability to work with Rodgers (or anyone else) became more and more troubled.

Finally, Rodgers had enough and collaborated with Oscar Hammerstein II, already a well known lyricist and librettist, who had written the book and lyrics for Show Boat with Jerome Kern. Their first production was Oklahoma!, which won universal praise, won a Pulitzer Prize, and ran for more than 2200 performances on Broadway. Lorenz Hart, who had nothing to do with Oklahoma!, attended the opening night performance, and the party given in the show’s honor that night. The film Blue Moon takes place the night Oklahoma! opened, at a party given at Sardi’s Restaurant in New York.

Whether there was a party that night at Sardi’s is not known, apparently, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the Sardi’s in the film is a mythical place, where (until the Rodgers crowd arrived, for some reason hours after the performance ended) the only human beings were Hart, the bartender, a cigarette girl, a pianist named Rifkin who went by the name of Rafferty, and journalist/writer E.B. White, sitting at a table all by himself. Hart, drinking “just one drink” several times, goes into a monologue that lasts almost an hour, talking about himself, his career, Rodgers, Hammerstein, a girl who is a student in a Yale arts program in New Haven with whom he is madly in love (she is 20, he is 47), beauty in all genders and more. The others in the room are “extras” in his life, there to listen to and to respond to Hart’s far ranging speech.

Eventually, Rodgers and Hammerstein arrive, as does his 20 year old “protege” from New Haven, and the monologue becomes often a dialogue, sometimes with Rodgers, sometimes with Elizabeth, his young friend. Rodgers is very patient, promising to continue their 20 year partnership, but saying (basically) that he wants to date others, like Hammerstein. He tells Hart that he wants to collaborate with him on a redo of an earlier show, A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and Hart talks about wanting to do a serious musical (not a frivolous one like Oklahoma!) about Marco Polo, with samples of music from everywhere Polo visited on his journey to the Far East.

The party ends, the film ends.

In real life, though, things did not end. The year all this happened was 1943. Later that year, Hart’s mother died. Still later that year, the revised Rodgers and Hart Yankee in King Arthur’s Court did open on Broadway. The night of the opening, there was of course another party. Hart got drunk, his sister took him to her home, he wandered away, drank some more, and was found collapsed in an alley. He was taken to a hospital, he developed pneumonia, and four days later, he was dead. He was 48. What could be sadder?

Rodgers and Hammerstein developed hit show after hit show. Hammerstein was easier to work with, probably even more talented (he was the librettist as well as a lyricist, which Hart was not), and much taller than Hart. Yes, as I said, Hart was maybe an even 5′. Hammerstein was 6’3″. This led to one of the better lines of the film. At the Oklahoma! party, Hart goes up to Hammerstein to congratulate him, saying as his opening greeting, “Oscar! You get taller every time I see you.”

(The other memorable line was when Hart was going on about choreographer Jerome Robbins, who started life as Jerome Rabinowitz. Hart said that Robbins had “circumcised his name”.)

I enjoyed and admired the film. I thought that Ethan Hawke, who lost about a foot in height through various director’s tricks, did a masterful job, as did pretty much everyone else, although Hawke was really the only one who mattered. But the film, as a basic monologue, does drag a bit. I think they could have done with a little less of the interplay between Hart and Elizabeth (but every film needs a pretty girl, I guess, and their relationship does bring more ambiguity into Hart’s sexual preferences).

Should you see it? Yes. And I think you should see it on the big screen. It is not a “big” film, and seeing it on your home screen may make it seem a bit too small.

(As to this post’s title……when you remember Blue Moon, you remember Rodgers’ music, not Hart’s words, am I right? I think that’s so.)

I always thought that the best talent to have was to be able to take a blank canvass, or its equivalent, some paints and brushes, and create a work of art. I recently read that a painting by Klimt sold at auction for more than $240,000,000, and this morning in the New York Times, I see that a self portrait by Frida Kahlo just sold for $55,000,000. If I could just sit down for a few minutes at an easel and create something equivalent, I wouldn’t have to work any more.

Yes, I know, I am not working any more, but you know what I mean. Then, I realized that neither Gustav Klimt or Frida Kahlo are around to enjoy the value of their talent, so I guess I have to think about other ways to make my fortune out of nothing. One way, I guess, is to become a friend of Ari Melber, although I am not sure how this friendship translates into dollars. What it does translate into is the ability to appear regularly on his MSNOW (or is it MS NOW?) show, exhibit no talent or serious intellect whatsoever, and answer his relatively inane questions with your own relatively inane answers. Another, of course is to become Donald Trump. If I were Donald Trump and I wrote a daily blog (obviously at this point we have no proof that Donald Trump can write at all, much less write daily), I could simply say: Give me $10 million, and I will put your name in my next blog post. And I would be inundated with suitors.

You know, this is what Art Buchwald did for his column. But he did it much more altruistically. He did it at charity auctions. I remember this as a rather regular “gift” to the charity, and people would pay hundreds (if not millions) of dollars so that the next Buchwald column would start with: “I glanced at the briefcase of the man sitting next to me. It identified him as A_____ H_____. I watched him get off the bus……”. Easy, no?

Speaking of MS NOW (or MSNOW), I don’t think this is a very good name that they chose, and they probably spent millions of dollars choosing it. After all, Pepsi Cola Company (whatever its original name was) spent millions to convert to Pepsico, and United States Rubber became Uniroyal, and so on, and so on. Do you have any idea how much American Associates, Ben Gurion University of the Negev spent to become Americans for Ben Gurion University of the Negev?

But the MS part of MS NOW sounds like a disease you would just as soon not get. NOW, although it connotes the present (and that may be good) is a very ugly word (not as beautiful as, say, tariffs), and if you put the letters together, without a space between letters two and three, it looks like you are talking about SNOW and if you are not going skiing, that just means annoyance.

To make matters worse, they are putting these little MS tag lines in the lower right hand corner of your screen and one of them, MS WORLD, just looks like they have combined their energies with Donald T’s to sponsor a beauty contest that it would be best to forget about.

I know that so far I have not provided you with much information this morning. Or with much of anything else. There are those days, you know.

It’s just that I can’t compete with the world as it is. The two great populists, Donald Trump, and Zohran Momdani hitting it off. Who would have guessed? Whatever could have been on Trump’s mind? And poor Elise Stefanik! Planning to run a campaign for governor of New York based on her love of Donald Trump and her determination to destroy Zohran Momdani, she now finds herself pledged to destroy her biggest supporter’s best friend. Yes, I feel sorry for these Venezuelans who are nuked out of the water by American drones, but I don’t feel sorry for Elise Stefanik. She deserves to know how much more complicated the world is than she figured it out to be.

And Marjorie Taylor Greene? She only has one life (so far) to give to her benefactor turned enemy. Time for her to go back to northern Georgia, where people are people, it seems. MAGA has turned against both Greene and Stefanik. And that reminds of me of something else I have been thinking about.

What the hell is MAGA anyway, other than complete devotion to Donald Trump? If Trump says “let’s put on tariffs; it won’t cost Americans anything”, MAGA is putting on tariffs. If Trump then says “let’s take off tariffs; they are costing Americans too much”, MAGA is taking off tariffs. It is that simple.

We who are not MAGA know that Trump’s tariff policy is, at best, contradictory, and perhaps even more, is really no policy at all. We have known that for some time. But guess what? It looks like people who self-define as MAGA are beginning to realize that, too.

My own thinking is that MAGA really doesn’t exist, and if Donald Trump disappears from the scene for whatever reason (which he will undoubtedly do), there will no longer be a MAGA for a number of reasons. First, because there is no overall MAGA platform or policy. You can’t tell me what MAGA believes, other than to agree with everything Trump says. This is why the Republican platform, for the past two elections, didn’t really exist. MAGA, and therefore the Republicans, have no platform, have no policies. Sure, there are the things put out by Heritage, Project Twenty Twenty Whatever It Is, but they are only the MAGA policy because Trump adopts them.

The other reason that MAGA will disappear is that there is no apparent successor to Trump. Certainly not negative charisma Vance and, if not Vance, who? There was a chance it could have been Charlie Kirk, I think, if he had grown further into the role and given some positions of responsibility and visibility, but that didn’t happen. And it couldn’t be Stefanik, who shares the negative charisma of our Vice President, and maybe it could have been Marjorie Taylor Greene, had she been a man. But it won’t be any of them and there is no one else.

Barring cataclysm, the Democrats will control the House of Representatives for Trump’s last two years, and in order to salvage anything of his legacy, Trump will have to play nice to the House Democrats. Maybe he realizes that and is testing the waters with Momdani. We will see.

But whatever the reason, Trump clearly surprised his supporters yesterday. Andy Borowitz might have said it best. The headline he posted yesterday was “Totally smitten Trump converts to Islam”.

Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. Remember Shabtai Zvi? I know you don’t, but you can look him up. Borowitz would have had fun with him, too.

I paraphrase:

“No man should be above the law”, says almost everyone since the days of ancient Greece.

“If the President does it, it isn’t illegal”, says Richard Nixon.

“If the President does it and it is illegal, he can’t be held responsible”, says Chief Justice John Roberts.

Every individual is responsible for war crimes and the like, even if they were “just following orders”, says the Nurenburg War Crimes tribunal.

(Lincoln Caplan has an article about John Roberts in the latest edition of Harvard Magazine where he says that, when Roberts decided as he did in the case involving Trump’s scope of liability, ruling that the threat of being held accountable could cripple a presidency, he never even considered that a president could act the way President Trump has been acting. He says that not to excuse Roberts, but to try to explain his thinking.)

Along with “no one should be above the law”, a lot of folks have said over the years, “Don’t poke the bear”. In most cases, this seems to be good advice. But if you are going to poke a bear, I would suggest one more thing you should keep in mind: “Don’t hit a wrong note, if you don’t know what note to hit next.” That is a variation on something that jazz pianist Erroll Garner once proclaimed, and which I keep in mind.

There is no question but that the words of Donald Trump (who for the purposes of this post should be considered the bear) proclaiming that six Democratic members of Congress should be arrested and held for sedition, punishable by death are dangerous, stupid and many other despicable things. But it is also true that the bear said what he did only because he was poked and that the Democratic Six (a different group than the Democratic Eight who voted to reopen the government last week) knew they were poking. And they weren’t poking by making quiet, side comments, but by creating a flashy TV spot, addressing members of the U.S. military and others subject to an official command structure that they are not to follow orders if the orders are not legal.

Their saying this does not break new ground. There is probably no one (or there should not be anyone) subject to this instruction who does not always know that this is the rule that they have sworn to follow.

It is very difficult to determine if an order is legal. Take, for example, either the strikes against Venezuelan fishing boats in the Caribbean, or certain orders which can be given to National Guard members patrolling American cities. These orders might be very controversial, some experts arguing one way, some arguing the other. You can’t have each individual deciding for himself, and you can’t have a soldier respond to any order with “Let’s see first what the Supreme Court says”.

The video gave no advice as to how one is to determine what is an illegal order. So what is a 19 year old recruit to do?

The video also has led to threats against the lives of the Six, something that puts them in danger, but to which they have no clear next move, other than to say “Don’t “.

Yes, the video restated the obvious, but it did so in a manner designed to poke the bear. It sure seems to me an unnecessary poke, one which inevitably will stir up more trouble for everyone. And that should have been obvious from the start.

My views may be in the minority, but I think them correct. In voting to reopen the government, the  Democratic Eight were right. In poking the bear without a clear sense of what next notes to play, the Democratic Six were wrong.

I wish I knew more about what I am writing about this morning. I only know a little, but it’s enough to get us all thinking. We need to put some things together.

First, Pam Bondi and Kash Patel announced indictments of Ryan Wedding and others for a number of crimes relating to significant cocaine trafficking. I listened to their description and they included an accusation regarding the murder of a prospective witness in an earlier case against Wedding as the witness was eating in a restaurant in Medellin, Colombia. He was shot in the head five times.

Then, I was listening, but only with one ear, to Jan Psaki on MS NOW last night when she was talking to an Epstein survivor making her first public appearance. The survivor, whose name I did not get, said that she was trafficked to other men than just Epstein, that some of them had names we would recognize, and that she could or would not name any names. On the same program was the brother of Virginia Giuffre, the Epstein victim who both wrote a book and then took her own life. He said that the survivors could not name names because there were some very important people involved, and that some of them have made threats to the survivors, and to their families.

Think about the poor prospective witness in Colombia. Where do powerful, privileged individuals stop when they feel threatened?

Third, you may remember my post earlier this week after we saw Ibsen’s The Wild Duck. In that play, a happy family was forced to face truths about their relationship and family’s history, and those previously unknown truths tore the family apart with fatal consequences. At that time, I warned to beware the release of the Epstein files.

Assuming that Bondi and Trump do release the documents and do not redact names (and I think the legislation as passed requires names to be named), there may be some surprising names on the list. It might be appropriate for the men involved to have their participation made public, but many or most of these men may have totally innocent wives, and totally innocent children and grandchildren. All will be permanently affected. The Epstein saga has already taken the life of Virginia Giuffre. The Ibsen play took the life of a 14 year old family member. The Wedding saga has taken the life of a potential witness. What will be the result of the release of the remaining Epstein files, and of the inevitable actions that will be called for after those files are made public?

I just wish things could be handled with less confusion and potential for more hurt and harm.

So far, the only definitive names we have heard are Former Prince Andrew, who has been divorced for 30 years, and whose two daughters are in their mid-30s; Steve Bannon, divorced with a 30 year old daughter; and Larry Summers, married to his second wife for over 20 years, with three adult children from his first wife. Summers’ position is the strangest since, as I understand it, he was looking for romantic advice from Epstein while married to his current wife. Is that true?

I am now watching Dick Cheney’s funeral on C-Span. That is something I never thought I would be compelled to do, as I was so opposed to everything Cheney stood for through so much of his career. But times have changed, and I view Cheney as representative of the country that we now seem to have lost and for which I feel a great deal of nostalgia.

By the way, you probably know that today is Joe Biden’s 83rd birthday. He is spending it at Dick Cheney’s funeral. Cheney was 84.

I pulled out the contents of a random drawer in my office desk, which has 12 drawers. What would you do with these things if you were clearing out my house?

I am sure that guides to the renowned St. Louis Zoo are a dime a dozen. But this one is from 1881. You might be confused if you thought the St. Louis Zoo was established after the 1904 World’s Fair closed. You actually are correct. This is a much earlier, private zoo located at what is now Fairgrounds Park in north St. Louis.

The guide was written by 22 year old Festus Wade, who later became one of the leaders of the organization which developed the World’s Fair, as well as the founder of the Mercantile Bank and Trust, for a long time St. Louis’ largest bank, and then president of the American Bankers Association, and an individual asked by President Taft to help draft the Federal Reserve Act.

I have not located another copy of this booklet.

This original zoo had a large building called the Bear Pit, which held grizzly and black bears, and which still exists today, unused. And no one, I bet, who uses that park knows what once was there.

I think I said this before, but singer Al Jolson and my father were first cousins. I have quite a collection of Jolson memorabilia. This signed photo is one piece that does have some value. Jolson’s father, Moshe Reuben Yoelson (my grandfather’s older, but not oldest, brother) lived in Washington DC, where Jolson was born. He led a synagogue in S.W. DC (the building is no longer there), which merged into today’s Ohev Shalom Synagogue on 16th Street. I never met Jolson (who died in 1950) or his father, who died earlier.

This is a small Russian (or I should say Soviet) world atlas from 1960. I know no one keeps or uses any atlases today, and one in Russian from 1960 has limited value, but I have a number of Soviet atlases of that vintage, as well as a Russian language globe in perfect condition. It’s interesting because it notes lakes and rivers and mountain ranges, and oceans and cities, but has no country markings at all. It is not in a drawer.

This theater playbill may have limited interest to most of you. If you were clearing the house and came upon it, what would you do? Easy to toss it, right? Looking on EBay, though, I see that someone is selling a copy from the same year (but Washington instead of New York) for just under $200. Maybe throwing it out would not be so smart.

This map of St. Louis is from 1905, one year after the World’s Fair. Now look closely…..

This is obviously the same map. Just as obviously, perhaps, the green marks show city parks and cemeteries, pretty much the same today as then. The largest park (center, left) is Forest Park, where the Fair was located, and where the St. Louis Art Museum and today’s zoo can be found. As an aside, abutting the western park boundary, just outside the city limits, is the start of the Washington University campus. If you look northeast of Forest Park, you see some more green spaces. The smallest and furthest south is today’s Fairgrounds Park, the home of the old zoo referenced above. By the way, there was also a race track in the park. Horseracing was banned in Missouri in 1905. St. Louis’ three tracks all closed, and the area’s racing moved across the river to Illinois.

The rest of the drawer is a hodgepodge. An 19th century map of Africa showing a lot of unknown territory, a 19th century lithograph of the St. Louis waterfront, a very complete guidebook to Plymouth MA from 1920,  a brochure in English and Chinese publishing the then new Constitution of the Republic of China in 1928, the year Chiang Ksi-Shek declared the country unified under a new overall structure (didn’t last that long), a note from right winger Pat Buchanan, a letter to Metropolitan Opera General Manager Schuyler Chapin, a 1920s invitation to “you and your lady” to attend a speech by Vice President Charles Dawes under the auspices of the Nebraska Society of Chicago, a 165 page 1946 guide to Washington DC with a large pull-out street map, a three-hole laminated notebook sheet on how to improve your bowling, and finally a small pre-Nazi German book titled Die Minnesinger, with very nice illustrations:

And, yes, my entire house looks just like this.

When it was time to clean out my parents’ house, and Edie’s parents’ house, it was pretty easy. They lived in modestly sized homes, there were family members around who took some things (my sister in St. Louis took quite a bit), we had a one day non-professional estate sale at Edie’s, and we gave things to charity and threw out the rest. My mother never wanted anything that wasn’t top quality and, because she couldn’t afford a Picasso, she had a limited number of things. My father had no feeling for possessions at all. Basically, he left behind his clothes.

Our house is totally different. There is so much in it that it will take our two daughters decades to dispose of things. It is, I know, irresponsible of us to leave them with that task, but it sure looks like that is what we are going to do.

Sure, I could throw some things out today. Like, for example, a large cardboard box filled with a few hundred foreign cigarette  packages.

With a small number ofUI exceptions that were given to me, I picked them all up off the street on various trips, or on the streets of DC. I will still pick one up off the streets if I come across one, but the pandemic really changed things. You might not have noticed, but you see many fewer empty cigarette packs on the street than you did prior to 2020. That is a fact.

At one point, my collection wasn’t limited to foreign packages. I had an equivalent box with domestic packs (only one of a kind), and another of other tobacco products, like chewing tobacco and cigarillos. Some time ago, both went into the trash.

The cigarillos really surprised me. Every flavor imaginable, and they were everywhere along the streets of DC. But…..I never saw anyone smoking them. I could never figure it out.

Picking these things up as I took long walks (something I do much less of now) served two purposes. First, it gave me a goal for my walks and having a goal was important. Second, like any collection you build, you become interested in both the differences and similarities of what you are putting together. Designs, for example. Or the large variety in so many languages of warning about the dangers of smoking. Or in how many different parts of the world they make Marlboros or Lucky Strikes. Or how much more colorful cigarette boxes are elsewhere, even in Canada.

Now, I never open this box to look through my cigarette packets. Never. And I could take this box and throw it in the trash. Or I guess ask on Facebook Marketplace if anyone wants it.

But I wouldn’t be doing my kids much of a favor by doing this, would I? Throwing this box out would be so easy for them. It isn’t even heavy. You pick it up, put it in the trash, and you have a feeling of accomplishment, of immediate gratification. I don’t want to take that from them. Everything else is so difficult.

In addition to picking up cigarette packs as I took walks, I would also pick up business cards. They too have pretty much disappeared since the pandemic. I have well more than a thousand business cards. I could throw them out, too, but why? They take up very little space.

The same is true of my collection of bookmarks. How many? I am not sure, certainly hundreds and, like the cigarettes and business cards, come from all over. I especially like the bookmarks from foreign bookstores, those made of materials other than paper, and those approaching 100 years old.

And of course, there is my collection of (only) 60 or so foreign Hard Rock Cafe tee-shirts. I see them advertised on EBay for $10 or $15 apiece, so they aren’t ready for the trash heap. If I had the energy, I would dispos of them myself and not leave these to the kids, but …….

Getting rid of these 4 collections wouldn’t give much of a break to Michelle and Hannah. They would still have 99.99% of my stuff to remove. Of course, the easiest thing would be to rent a storage space or two. Then, they could leave everything to their kids. But that would be heartless, wouldn’t it?

I have long been a fan of Williams Davies King (about whom I know very little) a professor of theater at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  He has written about the art of collecting items that are themselves individually nothing, but become something when they form a collection. He has written about his collection of pieces of scrap metal that he picks up while he walks around town, as well as his collection of cereal boxes. It is so reassuring to know you are not alone.

First you say you will, and then you won’t.  Then you say you do and then you don’t. So, what are ya gonna do?

I am speaking to you, Donald Trump.

You say that “tariff” is the most beautiful word in the English language, that we need tariffs to rebuild our country’s economy, that tariffs are paid by foreign countries, and that tariffs will have no effect on American consumer prices. Now, you are cutting tariffs on things like coffee, beef, and chocolates because their prices have risen so much and eliminating tariffs should bring them down.

You argue that you are the “peace president” and that you have solved eight, or is it 80, wars. But you have attacked 21 boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing at least 80 people, and have moved extensive naval fire power into the area and threatened to launch an attack on Venezuela.

You have instructed your Republican Congressional puppets to leave town and not assemble for over a month to avoid public  release of the Epstein files, and now you have instructed those same puppets to vote for their release.

And I could go on……will the real Donald Trump please stand up?

Yesterday, we went to see a production of Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck at the Shakespeare Theatre. In 19th century Norway, a husband and wife and their 13 year old daughter are living a simple, but happy life, thanks to the wealthiest man in the neighborhood, who had once been the business partner of the now impoverished father of the husband. The rich man’s son returns to town, having lived elsewhere for years, armed with the belief that society is flawed because it is built on deception and what is  necessary is truth and honesty.

Exploring the relationship of his father to this family, he concludes that his father was so helpful to this family not because of warm feelings for his old business partner, but because he had had an ongoing sexual relationships with the wife and because the daughter was likely his daughter, not the husband’s. This news tears the family apart, the young girl shoots herself with the gun that appeared in the first act, and the play ends.

What did I take from this?

Beware the release of the Epstein files! You never know where the (presumed) truth might lead.

You can’t really blame him. After all, Alexander Ovechkin is the only player in the history of the National Hockey League ever to score  900 goals, and he is 40 years old and his beard is gray. But I don’t think we thought that the Washington Capitals would be in last place in the NHL’s Metropolitan Division at this time of the year, but there they are, with only 18 points. They lost last night to the division leading New Jersey Devils in a shoot-out, 3-2.

Ovechkin did score his 5th goal of the year, but that is only about one a week. I have recently learned that  perhaps his attention is elsewhere. I think this may be the case, as I Ovi is now not only in the hockey business, but the cereal business.

Someone needs to tell him to slow down. You can’t do everything.

The Capitals were expected to be a competitive team this year, and might still be as the season goes on…..if Ovi gives up his extracurricular activity.

The Washington Wizards of the National Basketball Association were never supposed to be good this year, but they have started the season not even living up to their preseason expectations. The Wizards record as of now? One win, eleven losses. No cereal.

This of course leaves the NFL’s Washington Commanders. They stand at 3-7. Pretty good for a Washington team this year, right? Of course, they have lost 5 in a row with none of the games close, and their star quarterback, pass receivers, and several others are not playing because of injury. Today, they play a team with an identical record, the Miami Dolphins, but I bet I know what will happen. Want to get to the game? Better hurry. It is now 8:30 a.m. in Washington. The game starts in an hour. They are playing it in Madrid. Go figure.

Of course, there are other teams in town. The Nationals came in last in the MLB National League, losing 30 more games than they won. Of the 15 teams in Major League Soccer’s Eastern Division, DC United came in – you guessed it – 15th. But the Washington Mystics of the WNBA did do a little better this year. They were 10th out of a league of 13 teams. Not bad for DC, you say. But who knows what would have happened if the season had gone on longer? After all, the Mystics lost their last ten games.

But there must be at least one sport that Washington is good at. Let’s say, for example, war. Okay, our last attempts (Iraq, Afghanistan) didn’t really see us in the victory column, but it’s a new season, and I am looking forward to opening day against Venezuela. The preseason games have been pretty easy for our guys and gals, and we can only hope for a lopsided victory. The rest of the season, however, may prove tougher.

Let’s just hope our coach does not get diverted.

I don’t think anyone knows the artist who created this 12 foot statue of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein holding hands, but it is now sitting at 14th and V Streets NW, in front of Busboys and Poets, at least for a while. There is, I understand, a larger story behind the displaying of this statue, but guess what? I don’t really care.

By the way, for what it may be worth, when I went down to take a photo of the statue, which as you may know is in a very busy area filled with people in their 20s and 30s, there was a small crowd doing the same thing. The average age of the picture takers was probably about 70. Make of that what you will.

Today is a very special day in the world of artis80.blog. It is the blog’s 4th anniversary. And, because I have not missed a day, this is blog post number 1,097. If the average post would be  2 or 3 pages in print, we would have about 2500 pages of printed text, or about 8 volumes at about 300 pages per book. Just sayin’.

We celebrated the anniversary last night by having a grandchild sleepover. We watched the Adam Sandler animated film Leo. No one had seen it of the four of us. I really liked it.

Leo is a pet lizard kept in Ms. Malkin’s 5th grade classroom, along with his friend Squirtle the Turtle. They have been in this classroom quite some time. Leo is 74 years old and learns that lizards live 75 years. He panics, and decides it’s time to spread his wisdom to the kids.

The unique thing is that Leo and Squirtle can talk, although nobody knows it. They keep that trick secret. But when Ms. Malkin decides that every weekend  Leo should go home with a child, Leo tells each child he can talk, but swears them to secrecy.

Each child has a problem. One is shy, one a bully, one never stops talking, one is very rich and thinks she should get everything she wants. Leo helps each of them deal with their problems.

Of course, there is adventure, too. Leo must be rescued after he is dumped in the Everglades, for example. And that’s not easy.

This morning, they turned on another film to watch while we’re getting ready to ship them off. This time, it was the Minecraft movie, which they seem to know almost by heart. I wasn’t paying close attention, but it seemed to me just an awful film.

One reason I didn’t pay close attention to the film is that I did a 7:15 a.m. run to Bethesda Bagels. A great time to go. You can actually park right on the street and the line was only 1 person long. But it sure operates like a factory with important deadlines to meet. The kitchen and counter filled with people, each multi-tasking with beginning of the day energy.

We hope to have a quiet day today. The schedule tomorrow is fuller. Probably too full.

Until then….

As I understand it, the U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving has announced it has stopped minting pennies. For me, this is exciting new, because I have two large glass containers, each with, I am sure, thousands of pennies. I had been previously led to believe that once pennies were no longer being minted, prices for all items would be rounded up to the nearest nickel and pennies would be given the value of nickels. So my, say, 2000 pennies will no longer be worth $20, but now be worth $100, making my investment in pennies the most successful investment I have ever made.

Now, no one has yet publically stated that one penny equals one nickel, but I assume that will come in time. The delay may because there is now talk about eliminating the nickel and moving its value to a dime. It is my understanding that it costs the government about a dime to make each nickel, so this would make sense and double the value of my portfolio to $200.  When the dime becomes a quarter, I will be up to $500 and then we are talking real money. For $500, for example, our furnace people can come to our house and say “everything looks good”.

Well, I read the other day that about 90% of U S. money is imaginary anyway. If I write you a check for $50 from my bank account and you deposit the check into your bank account, no money moves from one to another. We just pretend it does. And our bank supports our imagination by sending us every month a piece of paper showing how much imaginary money is in our account. And it lets us use that imaginary money to buy real things.

Of course it used to be much different. At one time, real money was the only money. And then, paper evidences of money were printed, but you could take that money to designated places and exchange it for gold. And later, you could exchange it for silver. You can’t exchange your money for anything like that now. What you have, with regard to your paper money, are “Federal Reserve Notes”. The role of the Federal Reserve in this instance is to convince us that this money really is worth more than the paper it’s printed on. And it can only do that by playing on our gullibility, because in fact, outside of our imagination, it is only  worth the paper it is printed on.

Of course, we think it also has the backing of the government.  But does it? And what does that even mean? Inflation can tear its value to pieces.

That gets me to cryptocurrency, about which I understand not very much. But I think I understand this much. Cryptocurrency is just a different form of imaginary money. But cryptocurrencies are not backed by the Federal Reserve or by any other governmental agency. They are only backed by others who are invested in cryptocurrency, all of whom are determined to keep the imaginary value of this non-existent money very high. We will see how long they can do it and what happens if they can’t.

Now here is where my understanding collapses. U.S. imaginary money exists because the Federal Reserve says it exists and decides how much of it should exist at any given time.

Without the Fed, who decides how much imaginary cryptocurrency exists? Naturally, it is the original inventors of the imaginary cryptocurrency concept, who want to make sure the imaginary supply of this imaginary money is kept to a limited amount.

In order to do this, they developed the imaginary concept of “mining” this imaginary money using not pickaxes, but computers. And they developed a way to mine cryptocurrency that is very technical, very expensive, and very time consuming, and which requires a large amount of expensive equipment and uses an unimaginable amount of energy and electricity. All to “produce” something that you can not feel or see, because it does not exist.

But in order you produce this imaginary currency that benefits only those rich enough to play a part in this game, you (1) have to build large data centers that eat up a large amount of land, (2) and use an inordinate amount of electricity, putting a strain on real customers of that electricity as they see prices rise and capacity diminish.

What is the government to do in this situation? It could limit and regulate cryptocurrency, or it can ignore the problem because one of the big beneficiaries of the sordid business is the president of the United States himself.

Getting back to my pennies….

Manhattan Island is 22.82 square miles in land area. The City of San Francisco is 46.87 square miles in land area. The Denver International Airport is 54 square miles in land area. I tell you this not because this information sets forth a universal truth, but simply to say show you that some elements of reality are completely unreal.

That includes information about American rabbis and rabbinic students. For example, we have all heard that some congregations find it difficult to find rabbis. Apparently, that is the case. But, if you are a university Hillel (sort of a congregation, to be sure) and you are looking for a new rabbi, you will, on average, have 19 applicants.

This is according to the Atra Center for Rabbinic Innovation and is part of a recently released study that covers all but the most Orthodox of rabbinic movements. The study turns up some fascinating hard to believe conclusions. It is not hard to believe that female rabbinic students outnumber male students. This seems to be true in so many fields. You know that  in the Catholic Church if female priests were permitted, it would lead to a mixed gender College of Cardinals, and eventually to a female Pope. A female Pope is etymologically impossible, so what would  she be called?

Going back to rabbinic students, Atra reports that 12 percent of them identify as bisexual. That is more than double the approximately 5.2 percent of Americans in general who describe themselves that way, and it seems like a big number.

But beyond this, another figure really surprised me. According to the study, 51 percent of rabbinic students identify as LGBTQ. That is, by my calculations, a majority, and about 5 times the percentage of self-identified LGBTQ people in the United States generally. Assuming this number is true, why is that the case? And is related to the amount of  gay men found to be in the Catholic priesthood?  Are members of minority sexual orientations more apt to be looking for answers to basic life questions, and hoping to find them in religious communities or by delving deeply into religious thought?

I bring you these facts and more (such as a giraffe has a 21 inch tongue) to take your mind off the more pressing questions of the day, such as (1) what did Trump know? and (2) when did he know it? To say that “he knew about the girls” tells me nothing. Of course, he knew there were girls there. But “what” did he know about them?

But it goes beyond Trump and ex-Prince Andrew, right? The accusations included Andrew as a participant. No one has, at least yet, said that about Trump. But the many survivors all have their own lists of men who were active participants, to one or another extent, in their victimization. But none have named names. If it is appropriate to hound Trump for whatever he did, is there a reason to leave the others alone? Shouldn’t it be that everything should be laid bare (no pun intended), or nothing should be? And if the answer to that is an easy “yes”, what is the answer to the harder followup question?

And one thing more. What did Ghislaine name her prison service dog? That just might be the key. My guess? My guess is he is Prince Andrew.

Jennifer Rubin, formerly of the Washington Post and currently one of the founders/leaders of the website/podcast The Contrarian, published a vituperative posting yesterday/this morning tearing apart the eight Democratic senators who voted with the Republicans to end the government shutdown. Rubin was so angry at them that she suggested that the Democratic Party cut off all funding support for their next re-election campaigns and suggested that Illinois Senator Dick Durban should not only be removed from his role as Democratic whip in the Senate, and should not only not be nominated by his party for another term (Durban is my age and has already said he will not run for re-election), but should immediately resign and let Illinois governor Pritzker pick a real Democrat to take his place.

Jennifer Rubin is wrong. The Democrats made their point and publicized what would happen to health insurance costs and availability for millions of Americans, so that everyone (hopefully) understands the problem. They stood up for what they believed, and the government shut down because the Republicans refused even to meet with or talk to their Democratic counterparts. The shutdown lasted longer than any other government shutdown and was beginning to drastically curtail SNAP payments, relied upon by many, and air traffic schedules, relied upon perhaps even by more, as well as other governmental functions. Continuing the shutdown would simply continue and increase pain.

At this point, the politics of the shutdown seemed to favor the Democrats, as seen from their victories in last week’s elections. Continuing the shutdown indefinitely might have changed that, and both parties might have found themselves equally blamed for the inevitable chaos. By voting to end the shutdown, the eight Democrats showed that they were looking out for the overall good of the American people. On the other hand, the Republicans showed that they were willing to increase the suffering of the population indefinitely, rather than talk to the Democrats or consider any change to their current position.

If you saw Lawrence O’Donnell last night, you would have seen a much more reasoned response to the vote by the eight senators. Basically, he said that the decision on how to vote involved a “guess” as to what would happen in the future. And the eight made a guess that letting the shutdown continue would wind up hurting, not helping, the country. Others are making a different guess. No one knows which guess is correct, but the task is to start from where we are today, not yesterday, and work as hard as possible to obtain a change to the current position of the Republicans.

O’Donnell is correct.

You might remember Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, who during the height of the Vietnam War, suggested that the United States should simply bring all its troops home, and declare victory. Leahy was correct. The Democrats now should do the same thing regarding the shutdown. Declare victory, show that their point has been proven, and state that now is the time to work towards continued, and then better, health care coverage. They obviously have not done this yet, and now it seems that Leader Trump has declared that the ending of the shutdown is a big Republican victory. Trump is wrong, but the Democrats might be letting him get away with it.

In the meantime, what about Leader Trump, our great peace president, who has ended at least eight wars (none of which seem to have really ended, but that’s just a detail)? Now, he is talking about starting at least two wars. He wants to attack Venezuela (and maybe other South American countries while he is at it), and he wants to attack Nigeria, of all places, so that the country will stop attacking Christians. Say, what? And somewhere in the background, isn’t there still the possibility that he will take military action to wrest Greenland from Denmark or the canal from Panama? And what happened to the Great State of Canada, USA?

Of course a lot can happen between now and November 2026, but it looks today like the ability of the Big Beautiful Bully to operate within the Bully Pulpit at will may then be coming to a close.

Finally for today…..tariffs. The original purposes of the tariffs, said Trump, were to make the United States less reliant on other countries, to build up the economy of the United States, and to raise money to help curtail spending and slow, or stop completely, the rise of the National Debt. This seems to have changed as his ICE policies make it more difficult to staff the ventures he wants to bring stateside, and now even more as he says he wants to give $2000 to every American (that includes you, Elon Musk) out of the tariff revenues.

The question is simple. How can you slow the rise of, or begin to pay off, the National Debt if you give away the money you have raised to do that? And, while you are curtailing subsidies for health insurance premiums and SNAP assistance, how can you justify giving $2000 to Elon Musk (and everyone else)?

Those are my questions from yesterday. Today will, I am certain, bring more.

It was Will Rogers, I believe, who said: “I don’t belong to any political party. I’m a Democrat.” This is because the Democratic Party was always a big tent party, then with southern segregationists and New York socialists, banded together to keep this country from the grips of big business. Times have changed – and you can’t even tell which party is more in the grips of big business – but once again we have the specter of a unified Republican Party under the absolute control of its Dear Leader, and a Democratic Party divided as to how it should be dealing with the current government shutdown and divided as to whether its current leadership is right for the times and up for the challenge.

Of course all of this is happening while the country is reeling under a government whose three branches are all controlled by the Republicans, and a country, as was shown last Tuesday (seems like a month ago already), ready to kick the GOP out of office wherever the opportunity arises.

I happen to think that the eight Democratic senators who voted with the Republicans to end the shutdown were correct. There are those who say that they were traitors to the cause of extending the ACA subsidies and other health care benefits set to expire, but their conclusion was that the Republicans were not going to give up on these points, and that the shutdown was going to drag too many people down, as SNAP benefits were being slashed, air traffic controllers and others not being paid, and much, much more.

But it is also true that the eight senators did not simply roll over. They obtained a number of benefits – reopening the government being an important one. Another was the reinstatement of all federal employees who have been fired or furloughed during the shutdown, with a promise not to fire or furlough any more federal employees before the end of January. It also guarantees that all federal employees, those required to work without pay during the shutdown and those laid off during the shutdown, will get full back pay.

The government is now funded until January 30, 2026, and three appropriations bills for the entire fiscal year, previously approved, are presumably now ready for signature, with time to finish the other FY 2026 appropriations bills. Before now,  appropriations for the past year would have ended before Thanksgiving, ten days from today. And SNAP payments, along with appropriations for various other essential programs, have now been assured through September 2026.

The big question, of course, not answered by the proposed legislation ending the shutdown relates to the health care subsidies and related matters. This was the reason given by the Senate Democrats for refusing to agree to appropriations bills for other agencies for FY 2026, and this is what led to the shutdown. Now, the only progress on this crucial point is that Majority Leader Thune has agreed with the Democrats that he will allow a vote on a bill, prepared by the Democrats, to extend the subsidies. The bill has not yet been written; I don’t think that the timing is clear. And, of course, any such bill, written by the minority party, would require a 60-40 vote to pass, and that outcome now seems pretty unlikely. In addition, such a bill would of course also have to be approved by the House of Representatives, and Majority Leader Johnson has not committed even to allow such a vote.

So the question is: if the eight Democrats had not voted to end the shutdown and had the shutdown continued, would the Republicans have buckled under and reached a compromise, or not? My guess is that they would not have, or at best would have suggested an incomplete compromise only after the shutdown had brought much more suffering (in some ways hard to imagine) to the country, and that by then blame for the shutdown would be placed at least as much on the Democrats as on the Republicans. Now, the polls show the Republicans bearing most of the blame, and that calculus is important with the midterms coming up now in less than a year.

And, of course, negotiations on the future of the Obamacare subsidies are not dead. They will have to be settled by the end of January or, who knows, another shutdown may occur. And the negotiations won’t be undertaken with a fear that premiums will go up in the future (the date being Jan 1?), but with premiums already having risen. Presumably, that will put more pressure on the Republicans to compromise, or will sway the electorate even more towards the Democrats.

Ken Martin seems to be doing a good job as chair of the Democratic National Committee (based on November 4 results). Hopefully, he will weigh in and be listened to.

In the meantime, leadership of the Democrats is in question. I have said several times on this blog that both Schumer and Jeffries need to be replaced by more charismatic individuals, and by people who do not talk with New York City accents. This is not because I hold anything against either of them; I just don’t think they are right for the job today. There are several Democratic legislators saying the same thing now. Of course, this does make the party look like it is divided (and perhaps to some extent it is), and I believe it is up to current leadership to end that divide by stepping aside. I also think that it is important that this happens now, not later. Why? Easy. There is a must-win election coming up next November, and the Democrats need to put their best feet forward. They must be united, and they should not present themselves with outmoded or lame duck leadership.