Odd inconveniences, a good dinner, and Omigosh! What are Republicans doing to poor Ukraine

 

This morning I woke to a gray, dull day that seemed to threaten rain at any moment. Stretching and lying in bed enjoying the moment, I thought a day of reading and napping sounded just perfect. Of course, that’s not what happened. Jordan and I were out the door at 9:15 for a doctor’s appointment for me. All is well, and I got a good report, including praise for doing all the things I should—vaccinations, mammograms, etc. But I will have to take a swallow test because I’ve been having difficulty swallowing large pills lately, pills that I’ve taken for years with no problem. My doctor explained I would drink barium and they would x-ray it going down—yuck! It’s been over thirty years since I had to drink barium and I still have not-so-pleasant memories. What struck this osteopathic child was that my doctor did not palpate my throat (he said if it were thyroid there’d be a big and visible mass) and he didn’t look down my throat. He knew, without touching me, what the problem was—almost certainly not serious—and how to deal with it. But I grew up in the old days when a doctor laid hands on. I guess, like many things, I have to learn to adapt. He did come in physical contact to listen to hear and lungs and examine the healing lesion on my scalp.

When we left the doctor’s office, the sun was peeking out, and the day ultimately turned out to be pretty. I meant to get someone to take pictures of my wildflowers but didn’t get it done. But we came home to no water—it’s not as though the whole block was cut off. It was just our house. Christian called the water department, and they said it was probably a problem with our meter. They would have someone out to fix it today. Fortunately, I had leftovers in the fridge for lunch, but it was a bit frustrating to leave the unrinsed decision in the sink. To say nothing of not flushing the toilet. My nap came in handy because when I woke up, the water was back on. I don’t say this often, so here’s a cheer for the Fort Worth Water Department.

Christian fixed chicken piccata tonight following a Southern Living recipe and I made cheese grits from the same source, plus we had the cucumber salad I made earlier in the week. A really good dinner, if a bit lemony. After all these years, Southern Living is still my go-to.

Tonight I shared Dan Rather’s daily column on my Facebook page. I hope you’ll take time to read it. Rather, whom I admire a great deal, points out that by stalling aid to Ukraine Republicans in the House are fulfilling Putin’s every wish. Ukraine, which has already suffered so badly in the name of democracy for all of us, is losing territory (and men) in the eastern part of the country. MAGA Republicans don’t seem to get it through their thick heads that the freedom of Europe is a stake, and if Europe falls America is at best isolated, at the worst without trade partners and vulnerable to miliary takeover. To me, it’s as simple as teaching math to a first grader—two plus two equals Russia steamrolls across Europe. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the dimmest bulb in Congress, says Putin claims he wants no more land, just Ukraine, and she believes him. I have a bridge in Arizona to sell her. As Rather says, men like Mike Johnson are playing politics with people’s lives. Is Johnson stalling because he’s afraid of losing his speakership? I cannot tell. It’s too late to hold his caucus together—that ship sailed long ago. I suspect his motivation lies in his recent trips to Mar-a-Largo, and the idea that trump is pulling political strings to get back in the presidency, as the cost of man’s lives on the battlefield, is so abhorrent I’m speechless. And I can’t even begin to contemplate what would happen to poor Ukraine if trump weaseled his way back into the Whie House.

Please do whatever you can—write your congressman, your senator, anyone who can put pressure on Johnson. I suspect Democrats will swallow hard and support him because they simply don’t want the upheaval of having to choose another speaker, poor choice though he is. Without saying that, maybe reassure him. We’ve got to raise our voices and get the off dead center. It’s unconscionable.

Seems rather silly after that to say, “Sweet Dreams,” but that’s my wish for you. And maybe positive thoughts about the world situation.

The problem that is Russia—and ours

 

 

Like most of my generation and those ten, even twenty years younger, I have vivid memories of the Cold War, that period of deep tension between Russia and the United States that never, thank goodness, blossomed into a hot war—it remained a standoff for too many tension-filled years. If it began in 1947, as is generally accepted, I was nine years old. I remember (or is it just that I’ve heard it so often?) William Faulkner’s acceptance speech for the 1949 award in literature, with its classic line, “I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal … because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.” I remember Joseph McCarthy and the lives he ruined searching for communists in every woodpile (one might think of today’s desperate effort to impeach Biden). I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 when we were sure that Russian nuclear weapons were about to descend on major American cities. I was in a small town in Missouri, and I urged my parents to leave Chicago and travel to Missouri. I was sure, by staying, they would die. I do not remember hiding under my school desk to avoid an atomic bomb—how futile that seems to us with our knowledge today—but I think that came along after I had completed my early schooling. What I do remember and will never forget was that Russia was the archenemy of the United States. It was a giant, evil bear lurking over our lives. Eventually into the sixties, the tensions lessened. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics broke up, Russia seemed less a threat, and life went on. But I never ever forgot our history with Russia, the stories we heard about the KBG and work camps in Siberia, and other horror tales. Russia was always the enemy. Today, Vladimir Putin, with a KGB background, has brought those days back with a vengeance—not only by invading Ukraine but by his handling of dissent—prominent people poisoned, falling out of skyscraper windows, dying in prison. And his plan to infiltrate American politics and social media and influence the direction of our country has been wildly successful.

It boggles my mind today to read that some Republican members of the House will admit that Russian propaganda has infiltrated some members of the Republican Party, and sometimes the Russian line appears on the floor of the U. S. House of Representatives. (Heather Cox Richardon has an explosive column about how the Russian propaganda machine has been effective in America since trump’s election: (61) April 8, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson (substack.com) MAGA representatives oppose aid to Ukraine, saying that we need to spend those dollars at home to help the poor—disregard that they are the party who is desperate to cut social security, Medicaid and Medicare and continually votes to close school lunch prograns and anything designed to help low income families get a grip. Disregard also that stopping Russia now ensure the security of America in the future, and also that economists point out that helping beleaguered countries boosts our trade partners in the future—when that war is over and Ukraine stabilized, that country’s grain supplies will again become crucial to the world—and to America.

The presumptive MAGA leader, one former president of our country, has a plan to end the war in Ukraine: he will simply give Ukraine to the Russians, and then fighting will cease. (He has apparently not consulted Zelensky about this). MAGA followers have no idea that stopping the Russian incursion into Ukraine is vital to our country’s security. If Russia is allowed to swallow Ukraine, it will have been rewarded for breaking international law in an unprovoked attack on another country. Russia will then be free to march across Europe, swallowing countries. America will be left without major allies—in addition to defense, that would weaken our trade with other countries, our sales, our whole economy. People who advocate isolationism simply don’t realize what a small world we live in today—America would not survive without its allies.

Have these MAGA folks not studied their history? Do they not know about the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis? Do they not know a bit of earlier history about Germany doing just what Russia is now trying to do—march across Europe subjugating countries. In the late 1930s British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain agreed to let Germany annex Sudetenland, a German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia, because Hitler promised not to take any more land. We know how that worked out. Chamberlain’s disastrous policy of appeasement led to WWII.

Does Marjorie Taylor Greene not know any of this history? Matt Goetz? Mike Johnson? It is appalling to me that we have elected so-called leaders who are so blind to the basics of democracy and to our history. I don’t know whether to blame our education system for not teaching them history or to place the blame squarely on their shoulders for being seduced by power and notoriety. Either way, we need leaders with a grasp of history and diplomacy and international relationships. Trump and his minions are not that.

Rant over.

Politics, but maybe not as usual

 

Tonight was the only debate there will be between Texas gubernatorial candidates, Governor Greg Abbott and Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke. Abbott decreed there would be only one debate and no audience, so questions came from three political journalists, plus a few call-in ones from across the state. There was some concern, at least on my part, that Beto’s temper might get the better of him, but he was good—calm, controlled, knowledgeable, sincere, and sharp. Sure, he responded a couple of times when it wasn’t his turn but nothing bad or obvious. Abbott was as he always is calm, cold. self-assured—and blaming everything on President Biden or accusing Beto of twisting the truth.

I could tell when Abbott was dodging, dissembling, and glossing over only because I’ve made a point of educating myself. He totally dodged a question about whether he had become extremely right-wing, and he blew it on abortion, saying Beto favored it up until the first breath. Clearly, Abbott doesn’t understand medical considerations or the Hippocratic Oath—doctors are bound by their oath and by law to do their best to save all patients. So they would resuscitate a baby about to take its first breath or one that survived an abortion procedure. I truly thought Beto came off much better, but I am prejudiced.

To put it in context: I had an interesting visitor tonight, a longtime friend (forty years or more) who I haven’t seen in several years. We caught up on families and old friends in common—mostly who had died, which is discouraging. But we have been estranged since 2015 over her support of trump. She apparently didn’t realize it and shrugged it off saying she had to vote with her late husband—but that’s another story. It came up easily in conversation, so I addressed the elephant in the room with us, and she asked me to explain my beliefs. So I talked about immigration and the unequal distribution of wealth under Republicans for the last forty years, among other topics. I thought maybe I had made a convert, but it turns out I flattered myself.

She asked how I knew all this, and I replied that I make it a point to be well informed. She said she has access to the New York Times and the Washington Post, but I couldn’t tell that she reads either. So I promised to send her some links. But as she left, she said, “I’m just not that interested in politics.” I replied that she should be because the future of our country is at stake, and she said, “I think the country’s doing just fine, no matter who’s in charge.” That, I thought, is it: voter apathy. I cannot tell you how discouraged I was. But now the debate has energized me again.

I’m anxious to read the analyses from political reporters. Guess I’ll go prowling on the web.

And that’s it for tonight, because my focus today was on the debate, though I will brag that I’ve written two thousand words in the last two days. And my puzzlement for the day: UPS has sent me a bill, with a return envelope, for three cents. I seriously thought of taping three pennies to the bill and returning it, but I’m not sure I could scrounge up three pennies—you never see them in circulation anymore. And I remember reading somewhere that it costs seven dollars to write and process a check. And they want me to write a check for three cents?

I did get rid of a bit of my corporate anger today. Cigna sent me a reminder that my six-month dental checkup is around the corner and in a separate email a reminder that my account was past due. This from the company that wrote me in September they had cancelled my insurance July 31? When I called, they said they still had an active account for me. I told them to cancel it because there was no way I would ever deal with Cigna again. Told them I had called simply because I thought they should know how poor their customer relations are but if they wanted to send me a gold-plated apology that, too, would be appropriate. I can’t remember which one of us hung up first, but they were profuse in their apologies.

And so the world goes on. Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling is the most troublesome thing I can think of tonight, and I am tempted to reread Faulkner’s 1950 Nobel Prize Speech: “I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail.” Putin has gone from claiming Ukraine was aggressive to blaming the western world, and one analyst has suggested we are already fighting World War III—on Ukrainian territory. That’s an awful thought to sign off on.

Live in the present moment: it’s fall, a time when life seems to pick up the pace again, another year begins with all its opportunities. I am tempted to quote the words with which the mother of a good friend from my childhood days used to waken us in the morning: “God has made another new day. Think! Shall we let it slip useless away?” Well, God has made another school year. We won’t let it slip useless away. Sweet dreams.