Grim News and Happy Stuff

 Frenzied, frantic, and fearful I am obsessively compelled to follow the news, watching Lawrence O’Donnell, following Robert Reich, Joyce Vance, and Heather Cox Richardson, reading foreign news sources, and fueling my despair. I feel shame that this is the world I’ll be leaving to my children, grandchildren and all the young of the planet. I am utterly confounded by the mentality and motivation that propel people to support our current national leaders. Wheelchair and housebound, I can’t take to the streets, but I do select organizations to support and with my limited means and mobility do what I can do speak out for measures and people that give me a glimmer of hope. I donate to the ACLU, participate in phone calls, emails, and write postcards with Indivisible and Card Campaign. I generate scripts of messages to influencers and provide addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, as well as stamps and blank postcards to people at several churches in my community. This is a shot in the dark, or more aptly, a scream in the wilderness, but I dedicate hours every week trying; I am so small, and the problem is so large. But I must feel like I’m doing something even if nothing comes of it. I get no feeling of satisfaction, feeling like I’m bailing with a thimble, while the deluge rages on our ship of state.

The wrecking ball has hit USAID, NIH, the Treasury Department's payment system, the US Attorney in the Southern District of NY (she resigned-a Federalist and a Republican - rather than accept Trump's offer to keep her job so long as she dismissed charges against Eric Adams the corrupt NY city mayor charged with all kinds of corruption). The eminently unqualified anti-vaxxer Robert Kennedy Jr has been confirmed as Secretary of HHS. Hegseth and Vance are in Europe alienating nations who have always been our firm allies. The coup continues.

But then there is this glorious victory: What you see here is my paper shredder, plugged into the wall with the green light on - proof that I was able to replace the broken plug - a prong had broken off in the wall, and that it is again in working condition, despite weak eyes, shaky hands, and no workspace. I feel very powerful as is the paper shredder once again.

Another lovely thing happened today. A resident at Atria came up to me today and said she had some money she planned to give away and she had distributed all of it except $50. She handed me the fifty and said you are active in so many things, I want you to decide what to do with this. So, while she was still standing there, I texted a friend who plans to be involved in feeding the homeless of Davis for the next week. I knew she was short of enough money to provide meals for the full week, so I gave her the $50. 

And in further lovely things, I was able to broker the transfer of a bunch of older electronic equipment, an old desktop MAC computer, a couple of notepads, some old digital cameras, and camcorders, from a friend who collects and then sells or gives them away to another friend who frequently travels to Tanzania to work with an orphanage. She provides the kids with equipment and teaches them how to use it. Made three of us very happy and still to come are happy children in Tanzania.

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More about me, Senior Living, and Political Grab Bag

Senior Living

Friday night (today is Sunday) I was up late and at 1 AM I decided to open a bottle of V8, prying the lid off with a steak knife. Predictably, the knife slipped and embedded itself into my hand at the base of my index finger. It was a jab sufficient that I had to pull the knife out of my flesh and release a geyser of blood. It was a very small cut, about 1/2 inch, but very deep. Two hours passed before I was satisfied the bleeding was under control enough to risk going to bed. I take blood thinners, so I bleed easily and profusely. None of that is particularly important, its healing nicely, but what is important is that I was quite sleep deprived Saturday. I played bridge Saturday afternoon (poorly) and at the conclusion of the game, could not find my phone. I spent all the rest of the day retracing my steps, combing through the trash, and enlisting several folks in my search. Today, Sunday, I still had not found it, went to church, searched all the places again and then went to play bridge. At the end of the game, one of the players was putting the cards and scorepads back in the canvas bag used to store them. Therein lay my phone! In the bridge bag in the conference room far from my apartment. The (nameless) player who put away the cards on Saturday had scooped up my phone with the other paraphernalia and stuffed it in the canvas bag. The nameless person is a bridge regular and quite a bit older with many infirmities, so I can't get mad at him, in fact I won't even mention it, but GEEZ!

We bridge players sit together at dinner time at a table for eight. The food offerings that night were miserable! The dinner menu usually has two selections on the main menu and they are invariably pre-cooked meals from Sysco and loaded with sodium, so I tend to order either a "naked"chicken thigh, salmon or steak with whatever salt free vegetables they have. Last night they were out of all of those protein choices, so I ordered an omelet, no cheese with a bunch of salt free vegetables. The omelet arrived raw and runny in the middle, so I didn't eat it and ordered a plain hamburger patty which had bone chips in it. Also served at our table that night was an order of sweet potato fries that were stone cold, and an order of "cooked" sweet potatoes which were essentially raw. Complaining about the food is tedious, but our dining room has reached a new low. I can't wait for our scheduled meeting with the regional vice president. 

Political (or not?) stuff - judge for yourself

Today after church I handed out scripts for phone calls to the eight confirmed cabinet members asking them to advise the people in their organizations to refuse the buy out because it is unfunded and can't be trusted and will deplete the ranks of vital operations. We'll see. Next week, I'll prepare scripts to thank various religious leaders for standing behind Bishop Budde and condemning HR59 which vilifies Budde.

Transcript Of Rev. Budde’s Plea To Trump

 Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you and, as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some who fear for their lives. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They…may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurudwaras and temples. I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people. Good of all people in this nation and the world. Amen”

Crucial Quote

After the sermon, Budde told the New York Times that she “wasn’t necessarily calling the president out,” but rather making a plea “because of the fear” she has seen among immigrants and LGBTQ+ communities. Budde said she wants Trump to be “mindful of the people who are scared,” and added “I was trying to say: The country has been entrusted to you…And one of the qualities of a leader is mercy.”

Chief Critic

Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., shared a clip of the sermon on X and wrote: “The person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list.

And Trump said on Truth Social:

Trump, in a 12:39 a.m. ET post Wednesday on Truth Social, called Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde a "Radical Left hard line Trump hater" who "brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way."

"She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart," Trump added

And then HR 59 was introduced

RESOLUTION

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the sermon given by the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde at the National Prayer Service on January 21st, 2025, at the National Cathedral was a display of political activism and condemning its distorted message.

Whereas the National Prayer Service is a longstanding tradition in which the United States publicly affirms dependence upon God and prays for the success of our President and Vice President;

Whereas, on January 21, 2025, President Donald J. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance took part in the National Prayer Service at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC; and

Whereas the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, the bishop leading the inaugural prayer service, used her position inappropriately, promoting political bias instead of advocating the full counsel of biblical teaching: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That—

(1) it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the sermon given at the National Prayer Service on January 21st, 2025, at the National Cathedral was a display of political activism; and

(2) the House of Representatives condemns the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde’s distorted message.

Thursday's Meanderings

 A Little About me

I'm way too busy. but the more I put on my schedule the more I get done. Today, I had a 1-1/2 hour ZOOM class - the second of two sessions on Eleanor and Franklin (Roosevelt). Very interesting- great teachers, new to me, and lots of familiar faces who keep turning up in the various classes I take. Tomorrow, I have a Reading the New Yorker ZOOM class and an afternoon Friday with Friends session. Also tomorrow, I lead the Atria Writer's Workshop. Having nothing fresh to read, I may just read this blog post.

I decided to go back to posting on Facebook, but exclusively political opposition posts. We'll see what Facebook's algorithms make of that. Posts from a very right wing "Bill Blair" (no one I know) keep showing up in my feed. I wonder if FB is proselytizing, trying to convert me.

The pants hemming activity seems to be picking up, there are a couple more "customers" waiting in the wings.

Today's News Made Political:

Last night an Army helicopter crashed into an American Airlines Regional Jet. Three soldiers were in the copter and 60 people in the plane. They crashed midair as the AA plane was on final approach over the Potomac. The wreckage and the people all landed in the nearly freezing cold river. No survivors and many American figure skaters and their teachers, a married couple, immigrants from Russia.

Today Trump blamed DEI enforcement policies for the crash - implying that maybe the pilots or the air traffic controllers were hired to comply with DEI policy rather than because they were qualified and competent. You have to realize, he knew nothing about the identities of the people he's vilifying- just a crazy wild-assed assumption - he had to find blame that would support his hate and rage-filled paradigm. 

Assisted Living Life:

I have found my tribe here and call several people "friend". Theses friendships are fragile because we all recognize we are in the winter of our lives. Yet, we come to trust, care for, laugh with, confide in, and seek out each other's company. My circle is formed around the people I play bridge with and those who share my love of reading and writing. We all admit that there is no place we would rather live at this point in our lives, yet one of our common bonds is our shared complaints about the facility. In an earlier post, I've mentioned our gripes about the dining room and our plan of attack.

Today's issue is the barking dog on our hallway. The resident next to me has a little dog that barks constantly when she is not in her apartment. It is quite an annoyance. I hate to complain about this because I know the dog gives her comfort, but it is clearly miserable. So, I helped draft another letter asking our acting executive director, who is a regional vice president, to address the problem. I don't want the role of complainer-in-chief, but doing nothing except to grumble in our beards is pointless. So, I drafted another letter, hoping it will go out over someone else's signature.

Bridge

Bridge as we play it deserves its own special heading. In Thursday's bridge, the big news is that I bid and made a grand slam - 7 no Trump (I wish!). I think this is a lifetime first 7NT slam for me. The rest of the game was our usual slapstick routine. The first hand of the day was dealt and came up one card short. Because we keep doing the same silly things over and over again, we each counted our cards. Everyone had 13 cards except the dealer who had 12. We looked on the floor and then we looked to the third most common explanation, a card left in its box, but it was a red card, and we were playing with a blue deck (some would doubt we ever played with a full deck). Looking in all the boxes, we found the missing blue card. We played for a while until one player had only two cards left while all the others had four. The missing two turned up under the chair of the player. This happens frequently and we usually can patch together what the play would have been, but this time it was just hopelessly confusing. We do need to make a video of outtakes of all the feeble ways we play. But the important thing is we don't take ourselves seriously (except in the matter of 7NT Grand Slams), we prop each other up and laugh at ourselves.

A Little About Me

A busy and satisfying day. I started at 7am by phone banking with Indivisible Yolo. Indivisible is getting quite a bit of traction nationally. I will become more connected to them. They seem to be a good, well-organized opposition organization. 

Then, I had my first customer in my pants shortening mission. Because I spend most of my time in a wheel chair I see most people from the vantage point of a very short person and thus, I can see how many of the residents here on the farm need to have their pants shortened. And it turns out I enjoy shortening pants! It gives me a silly feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction to offer this service for free and it gives me subtle access to try to move them to political action.

Then, I had three hours of my OLLI memoir class, followed by dinner with my bridge buddies. Finally, at 7:00 I went to a Board meeting of the Residents Association where I presented and defended my proposal to an Atria Vice President for improvements to our dining experience. It was enthusiastically received and approved. It will now go forward the the VP at an in-person meeting on February 4 and it will be mailed to the Ombudsman, Randy Dinning. (Dining/Dinning, HA!)

And now at nearly 11 o'clock, I'm trying to get a post together.

Family:

In family news, Valery will be performing with her tai chi group in April. They will do a routine that involves movement with canes and she has chosen to Grandma's (GG's) cane. I think that is so lovely!

And Sam (not quite family) has received one of Trump's buy-out offers. He says if he could trust it, he would sign today. He is currently in Islamabad and his family is in McKinleyville.

Politics:

I called Senators Schiff, Padilla, and Representative Thompson today to block confirmation of Patel, Kennedy, and Gabbard and to thank Thompson for opposing Laken- Riley even though it passed, And I passed out 10 scripts to get other folks to call as well.

I also wrote a half dozen scripts on hot political issues for post card advocacy writing at church this past Sunday. The local Presbyterian church will also write post cards using my scripts. 

Tomorrow Confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy for Secretary of Health and Human Services comes before the Senate. He is a nutcase and conspiracy theorist with racist leanings. If confirmed he would head NIH, CDC, FDDA, Medicare and Medicaid. He is an anti-vaxxer who is personally responsible for more than 200 child deaths from measles in Samoa, Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard are also up for approval this week. All would be disaster!

And he fired all the inspectors general - the watchdogs of Federal agencies. Of course he did.

Today was totally nuts in Trumplalaland. He declared all federal funding related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal funds. Never thinking he was cutting off funds for Federal programs including all foreign aid, all grants including Pell grants, Medicaid, Headstart, Veteran Suicide, infrastructure building, etc. Chaos reined and rained and reigned. He would probably lose at least 40% of his base by such action. 

He offered 2,000,000 Federal workers incentives to resign. He hasn't rescinded that yet.

Lest we forget - here are the folks Trump has pardoned.

https://open.substack.com/pub/adamkinzinger/p/revisiting-january-6th-the-truth?r=act5e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

https://open.substack.com/pub/thebulwark/p/democrats-lost-border-debate-immigration-trump-miller?r=epscg&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Life on the "Farm"

Family life

#1 Grandson Tom turned 40 yesterday. For his 0th birthday, I remember buying him the newest novelty toy, the Teddy Ruxpin "talking" bear. I paid $50 for it. 

Today Tom is working in a job I cannot describe, but it has something to do with building and energy efficiency and compliance with government regulations, as near as I can tell. He researches, and writes papers, and presents them, I think. It's all very wonky, but he loves it and seems to be good at it. 

Assisted Living Life

I'm busy. Recently I posted a sign on the bulletin board in the mailroom saying that I would hem pants for free. Not long ago I bought a couple of pair of pants that needed hemming, and I discovered that I actually enjoyed doing it and that it was very simple. I got pleasure out of taking something that was frustrating to me and turning it into something that gave me great satisfaction. So I decided I would offer to shorten pants for anyone who wanted them. So far, only one person has showed up.

I'm enrolled in a bunch of OLLI (Oscher Lifelong Learning Institute) classes from UC Davis. I've been doing this for three quarters now and really like it. They are virtual classes on ZOOM with about 15 people in each class. Apparently, OLLI junkies (like me) turn up quarter after quarter in several classes. This time I'm taking classes on the Ocean, on AI, on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, on reading the New Yorker, and a memoir class. I love making connections in the larger Davis community with bright and stimulating people from outside Atria. 

Friday afternoons, I lead a writing workshop here within Atria. An essay I wrote has evolved into a project to improve food and conditions in the dining room. The food quality has deteriorated precipitously, and little accommodation is mad for low-sodium diets. Acoustics in the dining room are so bad that dinner table conversation is nearly impossible because some idiot painted over the acoustic ceiling tiles making them reflect rather than absorb sound. My essay about these conditions was so well received that we formed a committee to formally approach executive regional management. We seem to have been heard and I expect some action soon.

Tomorrow afternoon I will play bridge. A group ranging from 4 to 8 players meet three times a week. The games can only loosely be called bridge. We make so many allowances for our various enfeeblements that Charles Goren would surely not recognize the game. Some can't see and mix up the suits, some can't hear, some have memory issues and can never remember what trump is, what's the bid, whose lead it is, and what has been played, some with shaky hands frequently drop their cards and few retain the dexterity to pick them up. But we tolerate and compensate for each other and still manage to have a good time. 

Political Notes

Mariann Edgar Budde

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde at the National Cathedral during the National Prayer Service attended by Trump, Vance, and their wives directly addressed the President and asked him to "have mercy on the people in our country who are scared right now." She mentioned immigrants and LGBTQIA. He later vilified her on Truth Social. Maybe she is our latter day MLK. She Shall Overcome.

Tuesday morning, I participated in a phone bank coordinated by Indivisible Yolo. I called Senators Padilla and Schiff as well as congressman Thompson to ask them to oppose cabinet appointments of Patel, Hegseth, Vught, and Noem. Not included was Bondi whom I can't stand simply for her steadfast refusal to say that Biden won the 2020 election.

 Trump pulled out of WHO and Paris Climate Accords.

 Around 10,000 refugees have had their flights cancelled after Trump signed an executive order suspending their entry.

The felon-in-chief rescinded Biden's executive order 14087 lowering the prices on several drugs.

Vivek Ramaswamy axed from "department of government efficiency" by Musk. VR went back to Ohio with his tail between his legs ostensibly to prep for a run for governor of Ohio.

#47 signed an unconstitutional executive order that aims to deny birthright citizenship to certain children born in the United States.

Oligarchs are buying up DC property.

All federal DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) staff put on paid leave and all government publications and websites were ordered to remove all mention of DEI.

January 20, a Day That Shall Live in Infamy

 I'm no longer active on Facebook as of today. Because I want to stay in touch with friends and family far and wide, I'm resurrecting my blog. Please feel free to comment if you wish to send me a message.

I love this photo of Melania's wide-brimmed hat keeping her repulsive husband from closing in for a kiss.

In other revolting news: The felon-in-chief has already started swinging his wrecking ball. He has pardoned nearly all of the 1,600 incarcerated January insurrectionists. He withdrew from the Paris climate accords. He declared a National Emergency at the Southern border allowing him to unlock federal funding for the wall and deploy the National Guard and military. And pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords.Then there is the cryptocurrency meme coin scam he and Melania launched on January 18. There's more, so much more, transgender, immigrants, women's rights, immigrants, the environment
all under attack. You read it in the news, saw it on TV, found it on your phone, I'm just making these notes to remind me.

On to happier notes - yesterday was a wonderful day celebrating Logan's birthday at Sam's Chowder House in Half Moon Bay. Valery, Ben, Logan and I feasted and enjoyed the nippy sea air. I loved getting to spend time with these wonderful people.

We saw this goofy motorcycle in a Half Moon Bay parking lot where surfers hang out. I think it is supposed to be a snail, or maybe a slug. Half Moon Bay is really surfer city because of Mavericks, the bodacious surfer site. Our waitress told a record was broken last week when a surfer conquered a 100-foot wave.

Do you all know I have moved into Atria Covell Gardens Assisted Living? For the most part I'm very happy there. I have many new interesting friends and have found much of interest in the Davis community outside the facility. I enjoy playing bridge with an assortment of friends with various limitations (I also have some) which makes for a rather unique and often hilarious version of bridge which I'm sure has Charles Goren churning in his grave. I will be sharing some of these moments as time goes by. I'm involved with some local political stuff, attend the Davis United Methodist Church and serve on their Social Justice committee. I take several OLLI classes from UC Davis and have made new friends through that connection. More details on all that in subsequent posts. 

I'm going to sign off for tonight but will be back soon to do further political venting and to stay in touch with all of you.