Sunday, February 16, 2025

 


Trump under fire for likening himself to Napoleon amid attacks on judges

President posted ‘he who saves his country does not violate any laws’ quote attributed to French emperor


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/16/trump-napoleon-judges-government-firings

Saturday, February 15, 2025

 


Trump threats to revoke status unsettle Ohio’s Ukrainians: ‘The stress is real’

Thousands of Ukrainians who call Cleveland home are in limbo as fate of temporary protected status remains murky


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/15/trump-administration-tps-ukraine-cleveland

Friday, February 14, 2025

 


Stars pull out of shows and positions at Kennedy Center after Trump takeover (from ‘The Guardian’)

Issa Rae, Ben Folds and Shonda Rhimes among those who chose not to associate with the institution and president


https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/feb/13/kennedy-center-trump-issa-rae-shonda-rhimes


Danielle Sassoon’s American Bravery (in ‘The New Yorker’)
 

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/danielle-sassoons-american-bravery

Thursday, February 13, 2025

 ‘MAYBE YOU SHOULD JUST LET HIM DIE’ 


PART OF AN ARTICLE IN ‘THE NEW YORKER’ about Linda McMahon and the Department of Education:  

‘The future of the Department of Education—and of the students with disabilities who depend on it—will likely hinge less on the person appointed to lead it than on the world views of two billionaires who abhor what they perceive as weakness and waste. Children, alas, are weak and wasteful by nature, to say nothing of a child who needs a wheelchair, a hearing aid, or a paraprofessional. Trump and Musk’s public statements are instructive here. In 2023, Musk fired a longtime employee of his who has muscular dystrophy and then ridiculed him on Twitter, falsely claiming that he “did no actual work.” (Musk later apologized and indicated that the employee could remain at Twitter; he did not.) As for Trump, according to a memoir written by his nephew, the disability advocate Fred Trump III, the President once commented that some disabled people “should just die,” and said, of Fred’s own son, who is nonverbal and uses a wheelchair owing to a rare genetic disorder, “Maybe you should just let him die.’

 

 'I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.'

-James Baldwin

Wednesday, February 12, 2025


Resist Authoritarianism by Refusing to Obey in Advance

Timothy Snyder Take Us From Nazism in Austria to the Milgram Experiment

https://lithub.com/resist-authoritarianism-by-refusing-to-obey-in-advance/

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

 


‘Chaos’, ‘fear’ and ‘uncertainty’: US representative on Trump’s threats to civil service (in ‘The Guardian’)


Eugene Vindman of Virginia has taken steps to aid federal workers in wake of ‘dangerous’ recent Trump policies

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/11/eugene-vindman-trump-administration-civil-service

 



Monday, February 10, 2025

 


Israeli Police Raid Palestinian Bookshops in East Jerusalem

The police said the stores were selling books that supported terrorism and that two members of the family who owned the business had been arrested. A lawyer said their detention was “political” rather than legal.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/world/middleeast/israel-east-jerusalem-bookstore.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Friday, February 7, 2025

 



‘In a real sense, US democracy has died’: how Trump is emulating Hungary’s Orbán (‘The Guardian’)

Trump has moved to gut the federal government, fire critics and reward allies – a path similar to ‘would-be dictators’ like Orbán, experts say


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/07/trump-viktor-orban-electoral-autocracy

 

By 

Ms. Power was the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development in the Biden administration.


I Ran U.S.A.I.D. Killing It Is a Win for Autocrats Everywhere.


https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/opinion/usaid-trump-samantha-power.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Sunday, February 2, 2025

 


Bill Gates and the New Trumpian Tech Oligarchs

The Microsoft founder discusses vaccine skepticism, his fellow-billionaires’ political pivots, and his own dinner with the President at Mar-a-Lago.

https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/bill-gates-on-his-new-memoir-and-dining-with-donald-trump-at-mar-a-lago

Thursday, January 30, 2025

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

IT’S WORTH WATCHING THE VIDEO BELOW OF MERRICK GARLAND’S LAST DAY; the people clapping for him. Compare that with what Trump is bringing in. He convinced his followers that the people clapping were bad people. 

https://youtu.be/qT2-ANsg7GY?si=vlgDFkNDI7UbUx7C

MY FIRST EXERCISE WALK of the day is for 30 minutes and I usually listen to the ‘THE DAILY’ an NYT weekday podcast about some big current issue. Everyone should get the Times online. The TV news is too dramatic. And repetitious. 




Monday, January 27, 2025

 

HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY. 


https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2025/jan/27/holocaust-remembrance-day-2025-in-pictures


IT WAS COLD THIS MORNING but not bitter cold like last week. Not windy either. I went downtown with the sign. First time in over a week. My hands are still buzzing a little from being in the cold. I’m glad I went. The oatmeal tastes better.



Saturday, January 25, 2025

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

WITH NO SIGN TO HOLD in the biting cold this week, I find myself restless in the early morning and I find myself at my breakfast place by 8:00. Alone, though I’m meeting a guy there on Friday morning. What I notice, and the picture shows as have all the pictures I’ve posted from the city, no one looks or dresses like a hot shot. These four guys meeting before work could be anywhere.



 WATCH THIS

https://youtu.be/KluZw9x3gas?si=68DLJGm0u7vu-pt-


 

MY ENTHUSIASM FOR DAVID LYNCH has a lot to do with his unending belief in TM (transcendental meditation). He had done it for over 40 years, twice a day. So have I. I’d recommend it to all of you. No matter your age. I did it first thing this morning. 

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

IT WAS WAY TOO COLD to go out with the sign this morning. That gave me two extra hours in my apartment. I didn’t watch a second of yesterday’s Trump inauguration, and I didn’t watch the news about it either. I’m going to try to avoid him. With the extra time inside I turned on the Ken Burns’ three part documentary about the Holocaust. I’d watched it before, but for some reason I watched the first two of three parts so far today. There’s something in it, that’s troubling for today about Trump. Something.



 

“The world doesn’t work the way the schoolbooks said it did and we are different from what our parents and teachers expected us to be.”

—David Lynch

Monday, January 20, 2025

EASILY MORE THAN A DECADE AGO I was on my corner waiting for the light to change early in the morning before rush hour. It was just me on the corner. I don’t remember why I was up. Suddenly up to the corner from back by my apartment building came a very beautiful tall woman. She stood next to me for a minute. I knew she was somebody, but I didn’t know her name. She looked busy already. Intent on making something of the day. 

R.I.P. Cecile Richards.



 M.L.K. 



Sunday, January 19, 2025

RESTLESS I WOKE UP EARLY AGAIN AND WENT OUT TO BREAKFAST at the usual place. I got blueberry pancakes. Eggs on a separate plate. Scrambled. I went home and soon still restless because of the Inauguration tomorrow and the big college football game tomorrow night and because my oldest daughter is flying to India this afternoon for work, I decided I’d go buy a book at close-by big Barnes & Noble which has a staggering amount of trade paperbacks on all sorts of tables. I usually walk to my favorite bookstore but it was too far for me to go today. I looked at many tables. No book jumped out to me though. Finally on an upper floor this one did. I’m 77. It’s my era. I’ve likely read most of the entries before. But I bought it. In a kind of a fuck you to Trump and Musk and Jon Voight. 



AT THE BIG (four floors) BARNES & NOBLE NEAR ME just now. 



Saturday, January 18, 2025

 SHE’S NOT GOING TO THE INAUGURATION. You don’t have to watch.  


Friday, January 17, 2025


I TAKE WAY FEWER PHOTOS WITH MY PHONE since I quit posting things on Facebook. I used to feel a nudge to take a photo on the subway or on my walks so I could put the photo on Facebook. Nothing really wrong with that. But any phone or computer identity—this place too—is not real life. I’ve noticed that since I’m not online with Facebook which was the only place I went. No X or Instagram. I’m sure people who are on them, enjoy them. Younger people. My grandchildren. It’s not my world. I do miss the people I connected with on Facebook, if it’s really a connection. I liked seeing their names come up. I’ll say this though. Life is more real off the computer. I’m not a better person. Just freer somehow. Or more free.