The Last 100 Days Presidential tenures are often defined by their first one hundred days. This tradition began with Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933 and is the direct result of a comment he made in a speech to the nation right after his first 100 days. It therefore seems somehow fitting that the last 100 days of the Biden presidency (defined as the last 100 days before the election) would perhaps most define Joe Biden’s…
The Battle Begins This morning, after picking up bagels as per my usual Sunday morning chores, Kim and I took the kids and grandkids to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Our annual Zoo membership entitles us to four half-price tickets. Technically we were supposed to accompany the kids, but we drove two cars (technically a car and a truck) and took Buddy along for the ride and just dropped them off and skedaddled. It…
Good Old Joe If things don’t happen in the next day or two, we may have to stop saying that. I have turned myself into a pretzel as many of you probably have, trying to show the respect and support I think Joe Biden deserves for the job he has done as president, while considering our best prospects for avoiding the dreaded unmentionable. In 2016, when in theory he should have been the logical next…
Trump Nation I saw the newest cover of The New Yorker and it shows the seated picture of the Supreme Court with Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagen, Ketanji Brown Jackson and then six identical scowling Donald Trumps. The cover article is titled “The Face of Justice” and even without reading the article, I pretty much know what it will say. Now I want to ponder the why of all of this. I have been quite outspoken…
Hillbilly Nation You know where this is going more than I know where it’s going. I am perplexed and trying to make sense in the broadest possible way with the announcement that J.D. Vance is not only Donald Trump’s last-minute Vice Presidential pick, but that he has suddenly been elevated at age 39 to the national political stage and characterized by none less than Nate Cohn of the New York Times as the future leader…
Reading Tea Leaves This political cycle has us all so flummoxed that we are left to read tea leaves and coffee grounds in order to divine the future of our nation and planet. Whenever I use a colloquialism or metaphor like “reading tea leaves”, I get curious about where that phrase came from. Tea drinking dates back to China and the first evidence of it comes from some tea leaves found in the tomb of…
Being American I have a friend who has been trying very hard to create a theory that at our core all of us Americans are really more alike than different. I’ve heard him mention this theme several times now and then just recently he published a story that he sent to me and to several of our mutual friends who operate at the far more conservative end of the political spectrum. He genuinely wanted us…
Continuing Confusion It’s now been eight days since the dreaded debate that was heard around the world. The cycling of political emotions has been out of hand and continuously on everyone’s mind. What began as shock and awe turned immediately into taking sides. People on the right have stayed unusually quiet because they just can’t believe their own good fortune for the self-inflicted wounds being perpetrated by their opponents. First, Joe Biden shoots himself in…
Sleeping It Off It’s the morning of July 4th and I am bone tired. I actually have a decent reason for that. My daughter and her family of four flew in last night. It was late last night because while we reserved the flight more than four months ago, this is a big travel year as we read about more and more every day. Making up for COVID may be a part of it, but…
A Voice In The Wilderness Our copy of The Hidden Meadows News was in our mailbox when we got home and it was hard not to notice that Kim’s profile in the local gazette has risen to quite a noticeable level. She and her activities represent 3 out of the 8 pages of editorial coverage in our community and she is pictured 4 times. She was given credit for her “respected” co-leadership of the Garden…