Today I read a wonderful suggestion. Choose Heather Cox Richardson to run for senator in Maine. Would she do it? Her husband is a lobsterman. She presents a sane voice. Why not?
To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the highest skill.
To subdue the enemy without fighting is the highest skill.”
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Yesterday I was ready to post a fun post on my experience with my new friend Claude AI but then, the political news of the horror of Trump’s comments and actions at the NATO Summit brought me down. I’m reading a wonderful book by Tamim Amsary, The Invention of Yesterday, which widens historical perspective, but even that isn’t enough to help me weather all that Trump is doing and saying. How can we ignore that the man is dangerously ill and should not be president or even allowed out on the streets?
I don’t like or trust Vance but surely anything would be better than this.
My son and his family are currently in Spain enjoying a wonderful vacation, and Trump is even going after Spain.
As Paul Krugman writes: Cutting off trade with Spain is simply not going to happen. First of all, Trump does not have the authority to do any such thing. Second, the U.S. actually does a lot of business with Spain, and American businesses would not accept any such cuts. But even more, it is impossible because Spain is part of the European Union.
Krugman continues: What we should take from it is that the statement was “completely crazy.” “In any kind of normally functioning political system,” he said, “in any kind of normally functioning party environment we would have a massive bipartisan call across the aisle, across almost everybody except for a handful of members of congress who are themselves crazy, to say okay this guy is non compos mentis. We cannot leave the fate of the United States or the world in the hands of somebody who is completely irrational, who is making demands and believing himself to have powers that he does not.”
Why isn’t something being done? Meanwhile I share photos one son sent from Ronda, Spain.
When Trump intervened for the U.S. in the World Cup, the team was compromised. They had to lose because any win would never be seen as “clean”. The required motivation was lost. A winning team is about more than skill. It’s about unity, rules, and respect.
Thomas Friedman writes today on how Trump has fleeced the whole country, especially his own supporters. Trump takes the Woody Guthrie song, This Land Was Made for You and Me, and makes it: “This land is my land, this land is my land / From California to the New York island / From my cryptocurrency to the Qatari 747 / This land belongs to me and mine.”
He even took over the 250th anniversary celebration to make it about him. The weather didn’t agree.
Friedman ends his column with Obama’s speech at the opening ceremony of his Presidential center in Chicago. His favorite passage was this:
As algorithms keep feeding us a steady stream of distraction and outrage, as only the loudest, most extreme voices get attention, fanning our prejudices, appealing to our basest, most tribal instincts, it’s tempting to give in to cynicism and even despair, to stop trying. We start thinking that appeals to democracy and civic participation are corny and old-fashioned and boring and naïve, that the very idea of working on behalf of the common good is a sucker’s bet, and that in order for us to win, somebody else has got to lose. I get it. I am not immune to anger or doubt, but I do know this: When we lose faith in each other, when we stop believing that voting matters, that citizenship matters, that our collective voices matter, that how we treat each other no longer matters, and we give away our power to decide our own futures, we open the door to the most ruthless, or the most careless, or the most fearful among us, who see some groups and some people as more equal than others, and see government as nothing more than a way to divvy up the spoils and punish enemies and keep those who are different in their place.
Obama continued, “I do not believe that is the story of America that prevails in the end. … I remain convinced that the overwhelming majority of Americans … aren’t looking for perpetual anger and division. They are looking for fairness and common sense and mutual respect, that deep in our gut we want to find a way to turn toward each other again, not further away.”
Friedman ends his column with this: “So, Democrats, you have your assignment. It’s to not let Trump bait you into blind rage and extreme ideas. He feeds off that. Just focus on how much he has been fleecing all of us while tearing us apart. And how much Democrats intend to pull the whole country together.“
’Cause this land was made for you and me.
A photo of a mountain lion capturing a deer was temporarily removed from our local Nextdoor when someone complained about it being disgusting to show such violence. Now, it’s back and I think of the spectacle Trump allowed on the White House lawn so he could graft even more money and revolt most of us. I wonder how someone can see the cycle of life and find that in need of censorship, and not question what was allowed on the White House lawn on Sunday night.
To counteract the news of Trump and the horrors, lies and financial cost of him and his administration, I come to Anne Frank who died at the age of 15 after being sent to Auschwitz and then Bergen-Belsen.
Anne Frank: “It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually turning into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us, too. I can feel the sufferings of millions, and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.”
Go to YouTube and watch The House of the Epstein Crimes. That may lead you to the grannies singing Things That Go Trump in the Night. The tide is turning. Celebrate!
Today, Andy Borowitz writes a serious column on who understands the Bible better, the Pope or Trump. Here’s his first example.
Pope Leo: “When the light of forgiveness succeeds in filtering through the deepest crevices of the heart, we understand that it is never futile. Even if the other does not accept it, even if it seems to be in vain, forgiveness frees those who give it: It dispels resentment, it restores peace, it returns us to ourselves.”
Trump: “I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them.”
I picked up an interesting book at the library, The Oak and the Larch: A Forest History of Russia and Its Empires by Sophie Pinkham. It’s a fascinating look at the importance of forests in our lives. In one scenario, I was reminded of the Zen Story: Is that so? In the story, what happens is met with equanimity, non-judgment, and non-attachment.
In the 1950’s, Russia began building the Kakhovka dam. In June, 2023, they blew it up. “Eighty villages were flooded, one hundred people died, and forty nature preserves were swallowed up by the water. The southern reservoir that had once powered a hydroelectric plant flooded into the Black Sea, along with land mines and an array of chemicals that soon caused a toxic algae bloom.” Tragic, yes?
And yet, “But after a year, the reservoir was covered in native willow trees as high as three meters tall, as well as poplars, a green sea. This youthful stand is now Europe’s largest floodplain forest.” Now they aren’t planning to rebuild the dam which was both environmentally harmful and inefficient.
And so, though it may be challenging at times, as much as we can, we can pause and ask Is That So?
I bought a book for my grandson with the same message. That’s Good! That’s Bad! by Margery Cuyler. Back and forth we go.
I’ve just re-read two books: The Art of Peace by Morihei Ueshiba, history’s greatest martial artist, and Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise by Thich Nhat Hanh. I recommend them both as an anchor in these times of being led by those who are ruled by power and greed, with no awareness of a world we share, a world of interdependence and connection.
You can read Morihei’s three visions in his book translated by John Stevens. I give two.
“After defeating a high-ranking swordsman by avoiding all his cuts and thrusts (Morehei was unarmed), Morihei went into his garden. “Suddenly the earth trembled. Golden vapor welled up from the ground and engulfed me. I felt transformed into a golden image, and my body seemed as light as a feather. All at once I understood the nature of creation: the Way of a Warrior is to manifest Divine Love, a spirit that embraces and nurtures all things. Tears of gratitude and joy streamed down my cheeks. I saw the entire earth as my home, and the sun, moon, and stars as my intimate friends. All attachment to material things vanished.”
“The third vision was in 1942, during the worst of the fighting of World War II and in one of the darkest periods of human history. Morihei had a vision of the Great Spirit of Peace, a path that could lead to the elimination of all strife and the reconciliation of humankind, “The Way of the Warrior has been misunderstood as a means to kill and destroy others. Those who seek competition are making a grave mistake. To smash, injure, or destroy is the worst sin a human being can commit. The real Way of a Warrior is to prevent slaughter – it is the Art of Peace, the power of love.”
I continue to find the political news challenging. Then I come to Thomas Friedman’s column today as he responds to Trump and Stephen Miller. Thomas Friedman:
Well, Stephen, maybe you don’t know the real world after all, because your private ICE army — “governed by strength” and “force” — was sent packing by a bunch of moms and dads armed only with cellphone cameras and whistles, ready to walk out on a freezing morning in bathrobes and bunny slippers, to defend their neighbors, some of whom they barely knew.
Yes, Stephen, maybe you don’t know the “real world” after all, because the real score here is Neighboring, 1. Trumpism, 0.
Today I’m not sick, but I feel sick. Where does one put the continuing lies and disgrace?
From Heather Cox Richardson: Trump was hosting a fund raiser at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, as the U.S. offensive began. The New York Times reported last November that tickets for the dinner dance were $1 million apiece. The optics of Trump partying with his rich cronies while American soldiers died is at least partly what is behind the fact that today,
“#SendBarron” trended on social media.
She goes on and comes to this: Natasha Bertrand, Zachary Cohen, and Jennifer Hansler of CNN reported this evening that briefers from the Pentagon today told congressional staff that Iran had not been planning to attack U.S. forces or bases in the Middle East unless Israel attacked first. Trump administration officials said on Saturday that Iran was planning to strike the U.S. preemptively and thus posed an imminent threat. The briefers said there was no intelligence to support that claim. Trump seems unclear about the end game of the conflict he has started.
From Robert Hubbell: Trump started an illegal war on Iran just as the DOJ was under intense pressure to release three FBI interviews with a 13-year-old-girl who accused Trump of sexual abuse. The attack on Iran should not reduce public pressure for the release of documents that may shed light on that accusation and the DOJ’s complicity in covering up Trump’s involvement in the Epstein sex trafficking enterprise.
He goes on: But most importantly, I will address the new round of fears by Americans that the war on Iran will be used as a pretext for the declaration of a national emergency to interfere with the 2026 midterms. That is undoubtedly Trump’s half-baked plan; he may attempt to do so; but he will fail if he tries—because we and the courts will stop him.
I know we need to continue to fight, and for today, I’m wrapped in a cocoon of protection to renew and balance on what’s good and true. Family and friends were snorkeling in the Caribbean. I offer a respite from the sea.
