PAUL SIMON THE OTHER NIGHT
https://youtu.be/ScFh0zNE0aE?si=GwYcceI-ySNROFP6
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
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
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
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/danielle-sassoons-american-bravery
‘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.’
https://lithub.com/resist-authoritarianism-by-refusing-to-obey-in-advance/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/11/eugene-vindman-trump-administration-civil-service
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
Brian Schatz On How Democrats Can ‘Start Kicking Ass Again’
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/brian-schatz-trump-musk-us-aid.html
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/democrats-must-work-with-trump-dead.html
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/03/donald-trump-world-economy-britain-us-tariffs
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.