Kidzdoc Takes a New Approach in 2025, Part 2

These are the books I've chosen to read preferentially this year, save for the books that fit the Levant region theme:

James Baldwin: Collected Essays by James Baldwin
Black Paper: Writing in a Dark Time by Teju Cole
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
Collected Essays & Memoirs by Albert Murray
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson
Creating a New Racial Order: How Immigration, Genomics and the Young Can Remake Race in America by Jennifer Hochschild, Vesla Weaver, & Traci Burch
Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh
Haiti After the Earthquake by Paul Farmer
Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture by Ed Morales
Life Embitters by Josep Pla
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel
My Struggle, Book 5 by Karl Ove Knausgaard
The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Maté*
Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
Pessoa: A Biography by Richard Zenith
Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-science by Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD
Self-Care for Black Men: 100 Ways to Heal and Liberate by Jor-El Caraballo
Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss
Someone Like Us by Dinaw Mengestu*
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Tremor by Teju Cole*
W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919 by David Levering Lewis

*This book isn't in my personal library, so I'll borrow it from my local library.

Selected books from the Levant region from my library (I certainly won't get to all of them this year):

Egyptian Literature
     Alaa al Aswany: The Yacoubian Building
     Nawal El Saadawi: Memoirs of a Woman Doctor
     Bahaa Taher: Love in Exile

Israeli Literature
     David Grossman: More Than I Love My Life; To the End of the Land
     Amos Oz: Elsewhere, Perhaps; In the Land of Israel
     A.B. Yehoshua: The Extra; The Tunnel

Lebanese Literature:
     Elias Khoury: Children of the Ghetto trilogy (My Name is Adam✅️; Star of the Sea; ?)

Palestinian Literature:
     Liana Badr: Eye of the Mirror: A Modern Arabic Novel from Palestine
     Mahmoud Darwish: Journal of an Ordinary Grief
     Edward Said: Out of Place; Orientalism

Syrian Literature:
     Riad Sattouf: The Arab of the Future series*

Turkish Literature:
     Yasar Kemal: They Burn the Thistles
     Orhan Pamuk: My Name Is Red; Other Colors: Essays and a Story; Snow
     Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar: A Mind at Peace

*I'll borrow the books in this series from my local library.

Currently reading:

  

Life Embitters by Josep Pla
A Black Women's History of the United States by Diana Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross

January:
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
Children of the Ghetto: My Name Is Adam by Elias Khoury
People from Oetimu by Felix Nesi
Beyond Every Wall: Becoming the 1st Black Female Transplant Surgeon by Velma P. Scantlebury M.D.

February:
Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza by Mosab Abu Toha
The Omni-Americans by Albert Murray
New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America's Second Civil Rights Movement by Juan Williams

March:
South to a Very Old Place by Albert Murray

This week's earworm is "Poor Eric" by alto saxophonist Jackie McLean, taken from his album Right Now!, which was recorded on January 29, 1965. This hauntingly beautiful funereal piece was written by pianist Larry Willis in tribute to the great and highly influential alto saxophonist Eric Dolphy, who died from complications of diabetes mellitus in 1964. In addition to McLean and Willis the album also features Bob Crenshaw on bass and Clifford Jarvis on drums.

https://youtu.be/5bJc6MdR7KU?si=2_N8G6vS2fcpQLGS

Happy new thread Darryl! I hope it brings you some good books to distract from the world. So much bad stuff out there.

Happy new thread!

I am enjoying your weekly earworms!

Happy new thread!

>5 Sakerfalcon: Thanks, Claire. Although my reading has improved from this time last year my attention has been distracted by the worrisome and infuriating news coming from Washington on a daily basis. For me this isn't a time to lose myself entirely in books while our democracy is being rapidly dismantled.

Having said that I am enjoying The Omni-Americans by Albert Murray, which was clearly a groundbreaking and glass shattering review of Black-White relationships in the United States when it was published in 1970 that still resonates to this day. I should finish it by this weekend.

>6 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita.

>7 tangledthread: Thanks, tangledthread.

Happy new thread, Darryl. Thanks for the music links. Perfect timing as nothing quite sooths the soul like music, right?

>9 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley. Music and reading help, but only to a limited degree, unfortunately.

>10 kidzdoc: - Truth. But it's better than toxic alternatives to dull or numb the pain of reality....

>11 jessibud2: You're right, Shelley.

New thread greetings, Darryl!

Related to a conversation on your last thread, I was interested to see that the documentary No Other Land is playing at the small, independent theater in Montclair, NJ (next town over from me). I am going to try to go see it next week.

Thanks to Jerry for mentioning it!

>13 katiekrug: Thanks, Katie! I look forward to your take on No Other Land; I'll have to see if it and Nickel Boys are playing locally.

I have chosen to bury myself in reading instead of listening to news. I find it too disheartening.

I continue to learn new things in my reading, and find myself becoming more introspective in my reading, along with being more highly critical of our Christian Western view of things. My current book Fourth Part of the World is causing me consternation regarding the highhanded idea that Christianity HAD to be promoted and forced on the peoples of the world at the same time that slavery, profiteering, and conquest were also foremost in the psyche of the Western World.

>15 benitastrnad: That book sounds interesting, Benita.

>16 kidzdoc:
It proved to be very interesting. It is a history of maps, mapmaking, and the Age of Exploration. The full title for the book is Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth and the Epic Story of the Map That Gave America Its Name. It is a work of narrative nonfiction that tells about the discovery of the lost Waldseemuller Map of 1507. It then delves into the reasons why this map was important, and how maps were made in the early 1500's when nobody on earth knew where the heck they were.

What bothered me about the story was how mercenary the Portuguese and Spanish were, along with their Italian merchant buddies. They didn't care about anything except spreading Christianity and claiming the entire world for Christ. It was also depressing how long they kept trying to make the world fit into their preconceived notions of how things should be, and that the Bible is irrefutable and the Pope infallible, and yada yada. The fact that nobody in this whole mess thought that just baptizing people was so important, but that bodily freedom wasn't just boggles my mind. I am getting to that stage in life when my education, real life observations, and my continued reading does not allow me to be sympathetic to my forebearers.

Thanks for the reference to "The Omni-Americans".

Good luck resisting.

>13 katiekrug: You're welcome, and I hope you get to see No Other Land, but go in understanding that it will rip your heart out. It's an extraordinary piece of filmmaking, for sure. Montclair is the next town over from you? Which town are you in? My wife is from Caldwell. I am from Newark and then Maplewood.

>18 LolaWalser: My sentiment exactly. And I LOVE the book's full title: The Omni-Americans: Some Alternatives to the Folklore of White Supremacy. Thank you for putting it on my radar!

>17 benitastrnad: Nice review of The Fourth Part of the Ends of the World, Benita.

>18 LolaWalser: You're welcome, Lola. I'm glad to see that the Democrats are finally standing up to Trump by filing court cases and speaking out publicly against him. The latest(?) outrageous announcement is that he, or rather Elon Musk, will significantly slash funding to the National Institutes of Health, which could severely affect biomedical research in this country. I'm on the lookout for more detailed information on this plan. As bad as this is it isn't as bad as Trump's stated plan to take over the Gaza Strip, which is possibly the most dangerous of all his goals.

>19 rocketjk: I saw that No Other Land is playing in an art cinema in Center City Philadelphia, about 25 miles south from where I live. Going there to see it is very doable, but I don't think I can emotionally handle watching it at this time. I did see that Nickel Boys, the acclaimed film based on Colson Whitehead's book The Nickel Boys, is playing at a theater in a nearby mall, so I'll see it there in the next week or two.

I hope that you (and Katie) weren't significantly affected by yesterday's winter storm. It started out as snow here, then quickly turned to sleet and freezing rain. We still have ice, but we didn't lose power and our trees are standing, although our closest neighbors lost a major branch from the tree in the front of their house. Fortunately the ice is slowly melting, now that the temperature is above freezing.

>20 Dilara86: You're welcome, Dilara. The Omni-Americans was published in 1970, so many of its references are dated to some degree. One of the key points in the book is that many social scientists and authors pathologized the African American community and its individuals, which adversely affected public policy and the views of private citizens who read their writings, such as the damaging report by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Assistant Secretary of Labor in President Lyndon Johnson's administration, titled The Negro Family: The Case For National Action. Murray also takes to task novelists whose main characters are African Americans but do not make the effort to get to know actual Black people, but either use tired old prejudices or create two dimensional figures that reflect their own political views. You might assume that he skewers only White novelists, but his sharpest polemics are directed toward Richard Wright and, to my horror, James Baldwin, my favorite writer. Murray also firmly claims that White writers can adequately portray Blacks in their books, most notably William Faulkner, particularly in his novel The Reivers (this comment makes me want to get going on his novels this year instead of waiting until next year. Murray also states that the best chroniclers of the Black community are not social scientists or novelists, but jazz and blues musicians, which he will undoubtedly expound upon in later books in the Library of America volume Albert Murray: Collected Essays & Memoirs that I intend to finish this year. I also see that I'll have to reread Baldwin from top to bottom, with Murray's comments in mind. (Hmm, I seem to have written a halfway decent review of The Omni-Americans, even though I'm not finished with it yet.)

>19 rocketjk: - I'm in Bloomfield. Small world!

>21 kidzdoc: - The storm wasn't bad here. We got about 2.5" of snow and a thin crust of sleet over it. I consider anything less than 6" of snow a total non-event :)

>21 kidzdoc: "I hope that you (and Katie) weren't significantly affected by yesterday's winter storm."

No, in fact I rather enjoyed it. I went over to Brooklyn last night to check out some great music at the studio of a musician named Josh Roseman, who I met during my freelance jazz writing days in San Francisco. It was a wonderful night and a chance to restart a friendship with someone I admire but whom I hadn't seen in maybe 25 years! OK, before this digression builds up any more steam . . . It was a 3-subway line journey to get to Josh's studio, at least according to Apple Maps. But on the way back I realized I could cut out the middle subway line entirely if I didn't mind walking 14th Street for about six long blocks in the falling snow. Goodness, was that magical. I'm sorry I didn't stop to snap a photo or two. This morning was a little different, as the snowplows had pushed the snow to the curbs and turned the areas around the intersections into a goop of slush. That made the first part of Rosie's morning walk a bit of a splashfest, but all and all it's been fine.

p.s. I recently bought a copy of Trading Twelves, a compilation of the letter correspondence between Albert Murray and Ralph Ellison. I might need to push that up in the wait list.

>21 kidzdoc: (Hmm, I seem to have written a halfway decent review of The Omni-Americans, even though I'm not finished with it yet.)
Thank you for that! :-D

>22 katiekrug: I've gotten spoiled by spending nearly a quarter century in the Deep South, along with mild winters since I moved back here to care for my mother in late 2021. I don't think we've had more than 3 inches here in that time, so we're certainly due for a moderate or major storm. Fortunately my father's snowblower is in good working order, and several neighbors have literally shooed me away when I did shovel snow this year.

>23 rocketjk: Your journey to Brooklyn and the jazz concert sound great, Jerry.

I loved Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray, as I've read it twice so far. The two men knew each other well from their days at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in the 1930s, and Murray thought highly of Invisible Man.

>24 Dilara86: You're welcome, Dilara.

Welp, well over a month into the year, and you already on a second thread, and I've only just now gotten caught up enough that I'm stopping by to say hi. Hi! Also, your review of The Covenant of Water a while back has reminded me that I really need to get to it. I think I keep putting it off because it's so long, but the comment that, even after 700+ pages, it still ended too soon for you is extremely encouraging! (Plus, I did really enjoy Cutting for Stone...)

>26 bragan: Hi, Betty! My first thread sped by very quickly, but this one should be easier for everyone—including me!—to keep up with. I followed everyone's threads on Club Read, but I generally don't post comments unless I have something specific to say.

It took me longer than I had expected to read The Covenant of Water, but I'm glad I did. In addition to it ending too soon it wouldn't take much for me to read it again.

Hi Daryl, Just finished Walter Isaacson's Code Breaker. I highly recommend it, though it took me almost a month to get through it. I think you mentioned it in the earlier thread?

>28 tangledthread: I'm glad that you enjoyed The Code Breaker, tangledthread. You're right, it's one of the books I own and plan to read this year, perhaps as early as next month.

Enjoyed might not be the right word. Informed or intrigued are closer. I did have a couple of sleepless nights thinking about the ramifications of gene editing.

>30 tangledthread: Hmm. Your comments make me want to read The Code Breaker even more.

I finished The Omni-Americans yesterday afternoon, which I'll want to skim in parts before writing my review; I'll give it 4½ stars for now. Next up is New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America's Second Civil Rights Movement by Juan Williams, a follow up to his 1987 book Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965, which was adapted into an award winning PBS documentary.

This week's earworm is "Con Alma (alternate take)" from Dizzy Gillespie's album "Duets," which was recorded on December 11, 1957. Although the album cover photo would suggest that tenor saxophonists Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt play alongside Diz on trumpet on each track of the album its title hints that each of the men alternates with Diz instead; the original take of "Con Alma" features Sonny Rollins, but the alternate take, which I like better, has Sonny Stitt playing with Diz. The album also features Ray Bryant on piano, Tommy Bryant on bass, and Charlie Persip on drums.

https://youtu.be/i_qXl1CyR9c?si=_o2dcN3qQ8_wm2PS

The album Sonny Side Up was recorded with the same musicians only eight days later, and both Rollins and Stitt perform alongside Diz on each track.

>32 kidzdoc: I have this album, as a CD. Excellent.

Your attention to the timing of these recordings reminds me of Natalie Weiner's 1959 Project, wherein she noted the recordings and performances of that landmark year day-by-day, 60 years later in 2019, the year of the project. I confess I was too distracted by politics then to read each day, but the ones I did read were fun.

>33 dukedom_enough: Thanks for mentioning the 1959 Project, Michael! That looks very interesting, and I'll slowly savor it over the coming weeks.

1959 is probably my second favorite year in terms of jazz, but 1964 was a much better year in all musical genres, IMO. 1961 would be number 3 on my list.

>33 dukedom_enough: Wow! I'd never heard of the 1959 Project. Thanks for the mention and the link.

>34 kidzdoc:
>35 rocketjk:
I discover that 2026 will have the same day-date pattern as 1959. Maybe we should have a thread next year to go through day by day?

(sorry, duplicate post)

>36 dukedom_enough: Count me in!

I've set a calendar reminder. Feels very optimistic to be planning a year ahead these days.

>39 dukedom_enough: Unfortunately I look at 2026 with fear and dread more than optimism...

>40 kidzdoc: We gotta hope (and work) for some good results in the mid-term elections that year. Assuming we're still having elections, of course. But, yes, count me in for the jazz release calendar crawl.

>41 rocketjk: I feel the same as Daryl. In any case so much damage has been done already. And still so many still support Trump, saying he is doing what. he said he’d do. Which is correct. We just didn’t believe it. Plus now there’s Mr X.

ditto; i cant imagine how they could reverse the damage. Ive been thinking about these public servants who assumed theyd have a life long job only to be kicked out by someone who was not even elected. I cant imagine how they are handling this shock, as well as the shock that work that they were doing just ceased happening, leaving thousands of people in limbo.47 and X have a lot to answer for, but that likely wont happen

>41 rocketjk: An interview with the Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman appeared on the PBS NewsHour Thursday night. In his closing remark Krugman stated that his biggest fear was that historians will look back and say that American democracy ended on January 2025. I share his sentiment, as I firmly believe that Trump and the MAGAts, in addition to destroying the pillars of our democracy, are currently working to undermine the electoral process so that the United States becomes an autocracy governed by oligarchs.

>42 kjuliff: Right, Kate. I suspect that "buyer's remorse" by Trump supporters will eventually take place, but by the time it takes hold it will be too late.

>43 cindydavid4: I agree, Cindy.

>44 kidzdoc: Krugman's fear may well come true. There's no doubt that the peril is real. I've actually felt that the country was running in that direction since Regan, but I wasn't expecting anyone to be so crass and overwhelming about it.

>45 rocketjk: Unfortunately this seems to be a "perfect storm," in the manner of a historically devastating nor'easter: a combination of White grievance and anxiety about the future, the rise of White evangelicalism, the widely held opinion that the Democratic Party is focused more on identity politics, abortion rights and LGBTQ+ rights than the concerns and fears of working class mostly uneducated folks in small town and rural America, combined with someone, and a party, who could tap into these voters' largely wrongheaded beliefs. I'm hopeful that MAGAts will eventually realize that they have been played for fools once inflation, housing prices and prices of household items increase under Trump's "policies"—I doubt that he is intelligent enough to formulate actual policies—and that their insurance policies and retirement accounts suffer, but, again, the damage that co-Presidents Musk and Trump enact may not be able to be reversed, at least not in the short term.

Omg, someone is paying attention to the news at least... watching from the outside, you have no idea how bewilderingly passive and quiet American public seems, like sheep to the slaughter.

A friend of mine in LA says it's because the white majority in the end simply doesn't care. Because either they are already fans of Trump, or Trump doesn't bother them because the main thing, their material comfort, is guaranteed. Frankly I can't see much that is wrong with that argument.

>46 kidzdoc: I'm hopeful that MAGAts will eventually realize that they have been played for fools

I hope you are right Daryl. But people don’t like to admit they’ve been played for fools and may look - and be encouraged to look -for other explanations.

Trump is bringing out the worst in many people. People one never thought would succumb to him are doing so. Plus he’s so outrageous that even his Gaza-lago plan is hardly causing a ripple domestically.

Nobody seems to care about the insults to Canada either. We're supposed to be understanding; or maybe more Americans than I'd like to think see nothing odd about claiming Canada sooner or later. (I admit, I always thought the American war on Canada for its resources is inevitable, given what the US is like, but I didn't imagine it could happen within my lifetime--I was thinking 80-100 years or so).

>49 LolaWalser: I care about Canada. But unfortunately people here (and in Australia now I think about it) who are anti-Trump tend to lump all Trump and Musks’ absurdities into one basket.

What really bothers me is that so few look at the damage being done to the structure of government and the dismantling of democracy . Not that I ever bought the American myth that America was the world’s greatest democracy.

>46 kidzdoc: I'm hopeful that MAGAts will eventually realize that they have been played for fools ...

Honestly, I don't know. I think there's a human tendency to double down rather than feel the fool. Further, I think this tendency is likely to be ultra-strong among the type of personalities that are MAGA in the first place. After all, if you were actually paying attention, 2016-2020 would have been the writing on the wall, no?

I live in the effin' echo chamber otherwise known as Texas, so maybe I'm not getting an accurate picture of where a lot of America stands right now, but MAGA is getting more strident, not less, around me.

... the damage that co-Presidents Musk and Trump enact may not be able to be reversed, at least not in the short term.

There, I'm starting to believe, is the nub of things. I think the body took too much of a blow, and America will never really heal from it. Yes, I believe there will be some shift back toward a norm. But that's all subject to the winds of public opinion.

The real problem is that the loopholes and flaws in our institutions have been identified and will remain for exploitation. Newt Gingrich started the fundamental shift, and Donald Trump is a logical extension. It's too difficult to amend the Constitution (q.v. the ERA). The Supreme Court isn't a remedy (even if we ignore the Trump/Vance trial balloon about just ignoring court orders) because politicizing the Supreme Court is one of those loopholes that has been identified. Extremist politics (on both sides) have been found to galvanize more voters then centrism. That pushes out more rational conservative voices in favor of the Marjorie Taylor Greenes and Earl “Buddy” Carters. Et cetera.

>47 LolaWalser: I think that saying the white majority doesn't care is a bit over-simplifying. Is there a segment who doesn't care? Of course. Is it large? Yes.

But there are many other segments, falling all along the spectrum. There are segments that care very deeply but are feeling (or actually are) powerless. There are single-issue voters who care very deeply about what they see as disastrous problems, but not other things. There are segments that care very much, but are mistaken on how to combat the situation (screaming into the void is not going to work—MAGA screams louder). There are segments who see the peril of the far left as greater than the peril of the far right, and don't think the middle ground has any chance, so they choose. Et cetera.

It's actually an inordinately complicated soup involving—yes, that first segment—but also involving all the others, and gerrymandering, term limits, constitutional checks and balances, the Civil War and Reconstruction, states' rights, Originalism ... the list goes on and on.

>49 LolaWalser: I think you've got that all wrong. It's just that:

a) A lot of us (and I spend significant portions of every year living in Canada and care quite a bit) view "insults" as way down on the scale of Trump offenses. We're too busy worrying about actual damage.

b) There is a general sentiment that, when it comes to Canada and Greenland (though maybe not Panama), this is Trump being more of a blowhard than normal, and that nothing will come of it. It's one thing to run roughshod over people that elected you. It's quite another to try to dictate to sovereign nations. Especially those who have massive connections with other first world nations.

>49 LolaWalser: >51 TadAD:
If I were Canadian I would be wanting the government to develop an independent nuclear-weapons capability. The best bet for deterring actual takeover attempts.

>52 dukedom_enough: The big thing in my mind is NATO. Canada and Denmark are members. Article 5 of the NATO treaty summarizes to: "an attack on one is an attack on all." France and the UK are also members ... and are nuclear powers. Hmm.

>51 TadAD: "Honestly, I don't know. I think there's a human tendency to double down rather than feel the fool. "

Yes, I think this is a pretty well established element of cognitive dissonance. When presented with evidence that their opinions are wrong, people do tend to dig in all the more. When people lose their jobs or the price of groceries goes through the roof or their employees get deported, these people will be 100% convinced that it's Biden's fault.

"There, I'm starting to believe, is the nub of things. I think the body took too much of a blow, and America will never really heal from it. Yes, I believe there will be some shift back toward a norm. But that's all subject to the winds of public opinion.

The real problem is that the loopholes and flaws in our institutions have been identified and will remain for exploitation. Newt Gingrich started the fundamental shift, and Donald Trump is a logical extension."

Can't disagree. And I think this is the real horror for a lot of people. It's been a blitzkreig, and people are shellshocked, as was intended. Though I might go back as far as Regan rather than starting with Gingrich. But that's just splitting hairs at this point, I guess.

"Is there a segment who doesn't care? Of course. Is it large? Yes. But there are many other segments, falling all along the spectrum. There are segments that care very deeply but are feeling (or actually are) powerless. There are single-issue voters who care very deeply about what they see as disastrous problems, but not other things. There are segments that care very much, but are mistaken on how to combat the situation (screaming into the void is not going to work—MAGA screams louder). There are segments who see the peril of the far left as greater than the peril of the far right, and don't think the middle ground has any chance, so they choose. Et cetera.

It's actually an inordinately complicated soup involving—yes, that first segment—but also involving gerrymandering, term limits, constitutional checks and balances, the Civil War and Reconstruction, states' rights, Originalism ... the list goes on and on."

I think this is well said. I'm still hoping that sooner rather than later some leverage points will be identified that people can coalesce around and start taking effective action. (Well, action, anyway. Whether effective or not will remain to be seen.) For what it's worth, my wife and I are going to a demonstration/march tomorrow in Manhattan. And I am attending a volunteer orientation zoom on Tuesday for the New York Immigrant Coalition. They're really looking for people who are bilingual, which, sadly, I am not, but I'm hoping there are ways I can help them nevertheless.

"That pushes out more rational conservative voices in favor of the Marjorie Taylor Greenes and Earl “Buddy” Carters. Et cetera."

Of course it would help a lot if the supposedly "more rational" conservative voices hadn't reached around behind themselves and pulled their own spines out.

Well, the UK won't support Canada or Denmark over the US, I think.

Somewhere I once read the claim that no alliance has ever outlasted the war it was designed to fight. If NATO was for the Cold War, maybe it's been past its usefulness since 1991? But of course you could say the Cold War transitioned into the current information war.

Türkiye and Greece came close to war in the 1960s, over Cyprus, IIRC, and they were both NATO members. So there's precedent.

>47 LolaWalser: Yes, I'm definitely paying attention, both in general and, as a pediatrician, to the reduction of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) workforce and the decrease in NIH (National Institutes of Health) funding for essential biomedical research, and the confirmation of the conspiracy theorist and former heroin addict Robert F Kennedy Jr as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). (I know that you know these abbreviations, but I'm posting them as part of the conversation.) I watched as much of the two day nomination hearings of RFK Jr by the Senate Finance and Health Committees as I could, and it was plainly obvious that RFK Jr didn't know jack, especially when he confused Medicare and Medicaid, backtracked on his former outlandish claims about infectious diseases and vaccines, although he did admit that he probably previously said that Lyme disease was created as a bioweapon by the Department of Homeland Security, and appeared to have less knowledge of basic biomedical science than a high school student. I wrote on my Facebook timeline that I didn't think he was qualified to teach high school Biology, nonetheless run one of the most important cabinet positions in the US government.

Pediatricians have been very vocal about their strong opposition to RFK Jr, in particular his extremely dangerous and uneducated views on vaccines. I trained to become a pediatrician in the late 1990s, an era in which vaccines against Neisseria meningitidis (meningococcus) and Streptococcus pneumonia (pneumococcus) were part of the routine childhood vaccination schedule that all kids had to have to be able to attend school. These vaccines were available for all children by the early and mid 1990s, and as a result I never saw a single case of bacterial meningitis caused by those two deadly pathogens, as compared to my colleagues who trained five or more years before I did. They recounted stories of performing spinal taps on sick kids with symptoms suggestive of meningitis and seeing cerebrospinal fluid, which should look like clear water, thick and purulent (pus like); I've done dozens of spinal taps in my career, but never saw that. I also haven't seen a case of measles, although there currently is an outbreak in Texas, and it's been years since I saw a case of chickenpox in a child who required hospitalization; it's normally a benign illness, but it can cause a severe case of encephalitis (infection of the brain), which I saw at least twice. Cases of pertussis (whooping cough) decreased significantly over my career, and since parents often eschewed the influenza vaccine either primary influenza pneumonia or secondary bacterial pneumonia was the most common vaccine preventable illness, at least before the adoption of the COVID-19 vaccines.

I watch MSNBC and the PBS NewsHour regularly, and I subscribe to the print edition of The New York Times, although the dumb ass who delivers my paper frequently doesn't deliver it (twice this week) or puts it in a single plastic wrap instead of doubling it, which renders it all but completely unreadable, as he did this morning.

A friend of mine in LA says it's because the white majority in the end simply doesn't care. Because either they are already fans of Trump, or Trump doesn't bother them because the main thing, their material comfort, is guaranteed. Frankly I can't see much that is wrong with that argument.

Hmm. I don't know that I completely agree with that. Most of my friends are either liberal or left of center, few of them voted for Trump (or at least didn't admit to doing so publicly), and were very vocal in their anger about the 2016 and 2024 election results and his policies. Their reactions were certainly sharper and angrier in 2016; maybe it's because very few people expected him to win the first time, but his election seemed to be much more certain this past November. I suspect that most Whites are thoroughly fed up with the Democratic Party—as am I, to be completely honest—and are willing to give Trump the chance to remake the government, eliminate what they have been spoon fed as wasteful spending, and decrease everyday living expenses. The Republican Party was effectively able to portray Democrats as more focused on identity issues (abortion, immigration, minority rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and especially transgender rights for children) than on kitchen table issues that concern them. Most Whites in small town and rural America only see people who look and think like themselves, and are likely to get their opinions on Others from social media, far right wing "news" outlets such as Fox News and One News Network, which only feed into and validate their fears and prejudices rather than educating and enlightening them. I think it's also human nature to not admit you were wrong, or at least until it's patently obvious. However, the Democratic Party will have to transform itself into a viable alternative to win back the votes of Middle America, which I have yet to see happen.

I'll reply to subsequent posts after I make breakfast for my mother.

I'm watching what's going on in the U.S. from afar Darryl, and it seems horrifying. All those much vaunted checks and balances just seem to be dissolving. I can't imagine how concerning it must be for you. But is does seem like the whole post World War II world order is collapsing about our ears at the moment and who knows what will replace it?

To be honest I'm not very happy with our own government at the moment either, and concerned that a lack of results on their part will push many people further and further right in the U.K. as well.

Vaccine researcher Paul A. Offit has written that RFK, Jr. actually does not believe in the germ theory of infectious disease - he believes in "miasma theory", which germ theory displaced in the 1800s. Link to Offit's post here; this is a substack so you may have to click through to see it. Many of Trump/Musk's allies want to undo the entire modern era.

>48 kjuliff: I hope you are right Daryl. But people don’t like to admit they’ve been played for fools and may look - and be encouraged to look -for other explanations.

Exactly, Kate.

Trump is bringing out the worst in many people. People one never thought would succumb to him are doing so. Plus he’s so outrageous that even his Gaza-lago plan is hardly causing a ripple domestically.

The book I'm reading now, New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America's Second Civil Rights Movement speaks to the polarization of Americans that took off during and after the Obama presidency. Now many Americans, left and right, view those they disagree with as The Enemy, although I would argue that the right is more guilty of this, and MAGAts seem to draw great pleasure from "owning the libs," even if doing so adversely affects them. Eventually I expect that they collectively will understand that Trump/Musk do not have their best interests at heart, but again it will likely come after our democracy has been irrevocably damaged.

>49 LolaWalser: Nobody seems to care about the insults to Canada either. We're supposed to be understanding; or maybe more Americans than I'd like to think see nothing odd about claiming Canada sooner or later. (I admit, I always thought the American war on Canada for its resources is inevitable, given what the US is like, but I didn't imagine it could happen within my lifetime--I was thinking 80-100 years or so).

I suspect that the average American is almost completely ignorant about Canada and its people, and thus doesn't care all that much about offending it. Chrystia Freeland, one of the leading candidates to replace Justin Trudeau as the Prime Minister of Canada, was interviewed at least twice here after Trump announced his proposed tariffs on the country, and she pulled no punches in expressing her strong disapproval of him, and her disgust at Americans for voting him back into office.

>50 kjuliff: What really bothers me is that so few look at the damage being done to the structure of government and the dismantling of democracy . Not that I ever bought the American myth that America was the world’s greatest democracy.

Agreed. Too many Americans are terribly insular, especially those who have never traveled outside of the country or learned about other, far better, democracies. I'm very appreciative of the opportunity I had to succeed in my career, which would not have been the case 50 years in the past due to systemic racism. Anti-Black racism hasn't gone away, of course, but conditions are far better now thanks to the efforts of the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement.

>51 TadAD: I think there's a human tendency to double down rather than feel the fool.

Definitely.

Further, I think this tendency is likely to be ultra-strong among the type of personalities that are MAGA in the first place.

I wonder if the extreme views of MAGAts come from a point of weakness rather than strength. If you have to openly sport a weapon capable of killing others and are not able to formulate thoughtful and intelligent reposted to your stated beliefs and positions are you really a strong person?

After all, if you were actually paying attention, 2016-2020 would have been the writing on the wall, no?

That is one of the main things that infuriates me about the Democratic Party. Biden, despite his win in 2020, was a very unpopular—and very old—President at the time of his election, and early in his term he vowed to serve only one term, so that a younger candidate with fresh ideas could emerge and challenge Trump in 2024. However, he apparently grew drunk on the power of the office, and he had to be all but forcibly removed as the Democratic candidate at the last minute, in part because the Democratic Party elite squelched any opposition to him. Candidates to replace him should have been identified in 2022, and there should have been a Democratic primary election to allow voters to choose the best candidate.

There, I'm starting to believe, is the nub of things. I think the body took too much of a blow, and America will never really heal from it. Yes, I believe there will be some shift back toward a norm. But that's all subject to the winds of public opinion.

Agreed. I'm not convinced that our democracy, as flawed as it was, will ever again be what it was, and if so, it won't happen during my lifetime.

The real problem is that the loopholes and flaws in our institutions have been identified and will remain for exploitation. Newt Gingrich started the fundamental shift, and Donald Trump is a logical extension. It's too difficult to amend the Constitution (q.v. the ERA). The Supreme Court isn't a remedy (even if we ignore the Trump/Vance trial balloon about just ignoring court orders) because politicizing the Supreme Court is one of those loopholes that has been identified. Extremist politics (on both sides) have been found to galvanize more voters then centrism. That pushes out more rational conservative voices in favor of the Marjorie Taylor Greenes and Earl “Buddy” Carters. Et cetera.

Yes. The Republican Party, or at least the most extreme elements of it, admittedly has done an admirable, if not despicable, job in finding the weak points in our democracy and corrupting them for its own benefit.

Ugh. Seeing or thinking about MTG or Buddy Carter makes me utterly nauseous.

I think that saying the white majority doesn't care is a bit over-simplifying. Is there a segment who doesn't care? Of course. Is it large? Yes.

But there are many other segments, falling all along the spectrum. There are segments that care very deeply but are feeling (or actually are) powerless. There are single-issue voters who care very deeply about what they see as disastrous problems, but not other things. There are segments that care very much, but are mistaken on how to combat the situation (screaming into the void is not going to work—MAGA screams louder). There are segments who see the peril of the far left as greater than the peril of the far right, and don't think the middle ground has any chance, so they choose. Et cetera.

It's actually an inordinately complicated soup involving—yes, that first segment—but also involving all the others, and gerrymandering, term limits, constitutional checks and balances, the Civil War and Reconstruction, states' rights, Originalism ... the list goes on and on.

There is definitely a NIMBYesque element to the American voting public, left, center or right. As long as the government doesn't affect what things matter most to the average American they are willing to accept almost anything else, IMO.

>51 TadAD: I'm with Lola here on the attitudes toward Canada seen from north of the border.
A lot of us (and I spend significant portions of every year living in Canada and care quite a bit) view "insults" as way down on the scale of Trump offenses. We're too busy worrying about actual damage.
I do agree that the actual damage being inflicted on American institutions is terrible. That said, on this side of the border, insults are not standard discourse, and are perceived as threats: a "real thing" in the words of the Prime Minister.

>59 kidzdoc: We know that the average American is almost completely ignorant about Canada and its people Perhaps if some started following Canadian media, or media from countries other than the US, they would see the difficulties, perceived or real, that Canadians are currently facing.
It also might help if they researched what tariffs actually do in the country imposing them, and started protesting them more, as some of the northern governors are doing.

There is also a fear and dismay in Canada that other countries don't protest this treatment of a strong ally by its neighbour, as those other countries are too timid to stick their necks out. At least at the Munich conference this week it was mentioned in conjunction with Europe as a strong defender of the values currently under attack. Other organizations to which Canada belongs are deafeningly silent.

>52 dukedom_enough: If I were Canadian I would be wanting the government to develop an independent nuclear-weapons capability. The best bet for deterring actual takeover attempts.

That might be the only thing that keeps the US government from doing anything utterly unthinkable. The thought of Trump being Commander in Chief and having access to nuclear codes is horrifying.

>53 TadAD: The big thing in my mind is NATO. Canada and Denmark are members. Article 5 of the NATO treaty summarizes to: "an attack on one is an attack on all." France and the UK are also members ... and are nuclear powers. Hmm.

I wonder if Trump will decide to stay in NATO, given his belligerent comments about Canada, Denmark and Greenland.

>54 rocketjk: When people lose their jobs or the price of groceries goes through the roof or their employees get deported, these people will be 100% convinced that it's Biden's fault.

Definitely.

I'm still hoping that sooner rather than later some leverage points will be identified that people can coalesce around and start taking effective action.

IMO we need a presidential candidate, or even an alternative party, that will speak to the concerns of most Americans and unite the country. I would like to see the Democratic Party as it stands be deconstructed, as I don't believe that they really get it, despite what happened in November. At a minimum the party elites need to be kicked to the curb, as they seem to have become too insular and power hungry.

>55 dukedom_enough: Well, the UK won't support Canada or Denmark over the US, I think.

Hmm. That's an interesting statement; I don't know if I agree or not.

Somewhere I once read the claim that no alliance has ever outlasted the war it was designed to fight. If NATO was for the Cold War, maybe it's been past its usefulness since 1991? But of course you could say the Cold War transitioned into the current information war.

Hmm again. Assuming that the potential Russia-Ukraine "peace deal" means that Russia is awarded the disputed territory formerly part of Ukraine would there incrased concern that Putin may want to attempt to gain further territory in Ukraine or other neighboring countries, and thus NATO's aims would still be valid? I haven't read or heard anything about this, though.

Türkiye and Greece came close to war in the 1960s, over Cyprus, IIRC, and they were both NATO members. So there's precedent.

I had wondered about this.

I think Americans' relationship with Canada is driven in part by where you live. I could see that in LA or Texas, the US-Mexican relationship seems overwhelmingly important. In both northern states that I have lived in (Maine and Washington), people are very aware of the interconnectedness of the US and Canada. Everything from trade, wildfires, pipelines, fishing rights, and tourism between those states and Canada are important. Or as important as it gets to your average insular American. In Maine, a large percentage (roughly 30%) of the population is French Canadian/Quebecois. Most speak French at home, like my grandfather and his family.

>62 kidzdoc: IMO we need a presidential candidate, or even an alternative party, that will speak to the concerns of most Americans and unite the country

Isn’t the problem going forward that of changing the constitution? It’s always a problem when you have a politically elected president. In many countries the head of government is chosen by the elected members of the people’s House of Representatives.

Trump has demonstrated that despite the intentions of the Founding Fathers, the American system of checks and balances doesn’t work.

>57 SandDune: I'm watching what's going on in the U.S. from afar Darryl, and it seems horrifying. All those much vaunted checks and balances just seem to be dissolving. I can't imagine how concerning it must be for you. But is does seem like the whole post World War II world order is collapsing about our ears at the moment and who knows what will replace it?

I'm definitely very concerned, Rhian. If I didn't have to care for my mother I would be looking to retire outside of the United States ASAP, but given the right of far right parties and governments in the world there's no guarantee that Portugal or any other country I would consider settling down in would be a better long term alternative.

To be honest I'm not very happy with our own government at the moment either, and concerned that a lack of results on their part will push many people further and further right in the U.K. as well.

The New York Times usually provides decent coverage of UK politics, but that hasn't been the case since our presidential election in November, and the same goes for the television news stations I watch most often, so I know almost nothing about the political situation there, unfortunately. I'm sorry that Keir Starmer and the Labour Party has been disappointing so far, especially since the leaders of the Conservative Party seem utterly creepy to me.

>58 dukedom_enough: Thanks, Michael; I just created a Substack account and made Paul Offit the first person I'll follow. The miasma theory? Seriously?! That was disproven in the 1880s, but that would explain some of RFK Jr's most outlandish statements about infectious illnesses and vaccines. He claimed in his Senate confirmation hearings that he wants to "follow the science" in creating health policy, but I do wonder what "science" he is referring to.

>61 SassyLassy: I do agree that the actual damage being inflicted on American institutions is terrible. That said, on this side of the border, insults are not standard discourse, and are perceived as threats: a "real thing" in the words of the Prime Minister.

Some of what comes out of Trump's mouth is bombastic and poorly thought out nonsense that he has to walk back in short order, or is designed to negotiate from a position of superiority in order to intimidate his opponents. However, it's hard to know what is really going on in that twisted mind of his.

We know that the average American is almost completely ignorant about Canada and its people Perhaps if some started following Canadian media, or media from countries other than the US, they would see the difficulties, perceived or real, that Canadians are currently facing.
It also might help if they researched what tariffs actually do in the country imposing them, and started protesting them more, as some of the northern governors are doing.

One major problem is that we Americans, even those of us who try to stay abreast of world news, have essentially no access to Canadian media. We can't watch the CBC the way we can BBC World News, which is a dedicated channel here, although we can apparently stream CBC radio programs, similar to the ones on the BBC Radio stations; this is the first time I tried to do so (I"m now listening to the story "Reach out and talk to your U.S. friends about tariffs, says ex-PM Joe Clark"). Print media like The Toronto Star is limited by paywalls, and I'll have to see if we can get access for a price. Even if I can, though, I'm already paying for access to at least five newspapers, at least four online and one in print, so I would be reluctant to subscribe to anything else, especially since it's a challenge to stay abreast to the content I already subscribe to.

There is also a fear and dismay in Canada that other countries don't protest this treatment of a strong ally by its neighbour, as those other countries are too timid to stick their necks out. At least at the Munich conference this week it was mentioned in conjunction with Europe as a strong defender of the values currently under attack. Other organizations to which Canada belongs are deafeningly silent.

That is very disturbing. This is the time for NATO members to stand up strongly against Trump and in solidarity with its fellow members. On Thursday JD Vance gave what was essentially a condescending lecture to NATO members, especially Germany, regarding their reluctance to allow far right parties such as the fascist Germany party AfD to have a representative voice in their governments, and today's lead article in the NYT is the German chancellor's strong rebuke against that unwanted speech.

>55 dukedom_enough: >62 kidzdoc: Well, the UK won't support Canada or Denmark over the US, I think.

Agreeing with >55 dukedom_enough: Canada and Denmark are just not important enough to Westminster, where they like to think of themselves as major players, and that means playing with the US. That's part of what I was trying to say in >61 SassyLassy:, last paragraph

----
Edited to say posted at the same time as >65 kidzdoc:, so didn't read >65 kidzdoc: comments before posting

Definitely a challenge to keep up with all the media, but CBC radio streaming is probably the best.
For a break from politics, on CBC radio, you might also like to look at the archives for Writers and Company, which has excellent interviews with many internationally known authors over a couple of decades.

Off to make your cod recipe.

>62 kidzdoc: "IMO we need a presidential candidate, or even an alternative party, that will speak to the concerns of most Americans and unite the country."

AOC is now 35 and so eligible to be president. I haven't always agreed with every one of her policies, or thought they were articulated most effectively, but I have never doubted her intelligence or her integrity. Over the past few years I've only become more impressed. Maybe she should announce her candidacy for 2028 now, and use a longterm campaign as a platform for gathering critical mass and momentum for opposition and action. Even if she didn't end up gaining the Democratic nomination, this sort of activism could go a long way toward shaking up the Democratic Party establishment and helping other relatively young and more dynamic people to gain traction. She's been making some excellent speeches in Congress, but it's one thing to try to spread these comments, made before a seemingly mostly empty congressional chamber, on social media, and another to imagine the major coverage large scale campaign rallies would garner. In more "normal" times, I might think she was still a bit young for this sort of campaign and needed a bit more experience to be a good president, but in times like these, I think those considerations pale. Of course, one major question, probably the biggest, is where would she get the money for this sort of action?

I highly recommend The Age of the Strongman by Gideon Rachman for a fascinating look at the move away from liberal democratic values over the past couple of decades. Trump is not an aberration.

>65 kidzdoc: If I didn't have to care for my mother I would be looking to retire outside of the United States ASAP,

If I wasn’t chronically ill and unable to fly I’d be going back to Australia ASAP. Indeed I would have left in 2016 but could not.

And now I hear from my son that the current Labor Party government in Australia is likely to lose to the right wing LCP Party in the upcoming election. Still we have a constitution in Australia that does not have a political president and Australians don’t have to wait four years to change government.

>67 rocketjk: Do you really think there will be a fair election in four years? I can’t see Trump allowing it.

>56 kidzdoc: RFK Jr
At my annual check-up in early January, I had nothing notable to discuss medically, so I asked my doctor what the plan was if anti-vaxxers took control of the government. This is a small practice in my neighborhood, part of a regional entity that is part of University of Pennsylvania Health System. The doctor said the first step is to recommend vaccinations if a patient isn't up to date. If the patient is resistant, she has a conversation explaining vaccinations and their importance. Some people are receptive. Others are not. She isn't going to refuse to treat the patient for other issues, so she says her piece then lets it be. She was focused on her direct interactions with patients, and was not aware of discussions at the management level.

The company I work for coordinates some projects with a lab at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The lab is now worried about losing funding for an upcoming clinical trial. The health system and the school are both components of Penn Medicine, which per the Philadelphia Inquirer is eliminating DEI initiatives so as not to incur wrath. This does not bode well.

>63 labfs39: Perhaps you're right, Lisa. While I live in Texas, that is a recent (and, hopefully, very temporary) situation. I was an all-over-the-world Army brat as a kid, but I lived in the Northeast all of my teen and adult life until recently. And, as I said, I spend a substantial amount of time in Canada—not to mention a month or so in Maine—so the Canadian relationship preoccupies me far more than the Mexican one.

>67 rocketjk: Unfortunately, I don't see AOC being electable as she is unless she can somehow figure out a way to fire up a massive, active crowd the way MAGA has. She's too far left of center to win the general election without majorly serious voter turnout in her bloc. I may be wrong since we are in the midst of a generational change, and that may bring a different dynamic, but as things stand, her committed core is not large enough to carry the electors.

>70 kjuliff: If you look to other strong-man governments around the world as examples, that is the next logical step, isn't it?

>72 TadAD: Yes to all.

>64 kjuliff: Trump has demonstrated that despite the intentions of the Founding Fathers, the American system of checks and balances doesn’t work.

Yep im just sick over this. What it has done to the hundreds of civil service workers -kicked out without any recourse, wondering how they will pay their morgage and whether they can put fook on the table tho I wonder if the hundreds turn to thousands and they can unionize; and what this has done to the trust people had about the safety and privacy re finances, and that now these jerks can get into anyones accounts it seems. what was done was illegal Mush had no business doing what he did and should have been arrested for tampering with governments business.

>60 kidzdoc: Agreed. I'm not convinced that our democracy, as flawed as it was, will ever again be what it was, and if so, it won't happen during my lifetime.

sadly i see the same thing. I remember Krusev pounding the table in the United Nations saying "we will bury you" it took a while but with trumps help, it just might happen

>70 kjuliff: Yes. I still think so. Ask me again in six months, though.

>72 TadAD: "Unfortunately, I don't see AOC being electable as she is unless she can somehow figure out a way to fire up a massive, active crowd the way MAGA has. She's too far left of center to win the general election without majorly serious voter turnout in her bloc. I may be wrong since we are in the midst of a generational change, and that may bring a different dynamic, but as things stand, her committed core is not large enough to carry the electors."

Well, in my (admittedly pie in the sky) scenario, she runs for president for three years and her committed core grows. That's the point of the idea. But, you know, not all the people who voted for Trump this time were part of his "committed core." I don't think Biden, when he won, ever had a particularly large committed core. There were just people who thought he could beat Trump. But, as I said above, AOC doesn't even have to win the Democratic nomination. My concept is not about her specifically (though I would personally vote for her in a heartbeat, and I'm not part of her committed core, either). My point is that by starting to run now instead of waiting, just by campaigning she'll be able to garner media attention for her takedowns of the cruelty and misdeeds of the current administrations. She's been doing a good job doing that, but, as I noted above, doing it in front of Congress only, and therefore being essentially ignored. But as far as her being too left of center, or being perceived as such, it's a valid point, but sustained exposure may well show people that the things she focuses on are the things the Democrats supposedly failed so badly to articulate, a concern for the needs of everyday working people: health care, child care, women's reproductive rights, the environment, jobs and support for organized labor. If we castigate the Democrats for not articulating these things, but then say that the person actually articulating them can't get elected, well then, where are we? And she wouldn't be going around doing what Harris did, which was giving the same canned answers in every interview until people tuned her out, which is what I think happened. Anyway, I get that my idea of a 3 1/2 year presidential campaign by her, or anyone, is not really workable. My point, and as others here have said, is that we need an effective communicator (or better still a dozen such) forcefully articulating the misdeeds and horrors as well as the positive alternatives.

Pete Buttigieg has also been doing a good job articulating the crimes of the current administration, or so I'm told. I haven't seen it covered by anyone. I read a suggestion that he be designated the Democrats' official spokesperson and start giving daily press conferences. Give the media something to cover and thereby a forceful speaker they can quote.

The Democrats should be doing stuff like buying up billboard space around the country with signs like, "Trump gave an unelected billionaire who gets millions of dollars daily from the Federal Government access to your Social Security information." Or "The Trump administration is withholding funding for an organization that clears landmines around the world. Children will die." Any one of us here could come up with a dozen such signs in about five minutes.

I don't know if any of this would even matter. I still feel like there's time to turn the tide of public opinion, thereby delegitimizing the criminals. I know that the MAGA ghouls want us to give up and despair. For whatever it's worth and for whatever good it will do, today (Monday) my wife and I be taking part in a President's Day March from 110th Street to 17th Street in Manhattan. It probably won't do a bit of good, I guess, but it's better than sitting home. I get that not everybody's retired and/or able to take a day off of work. But my wife and I are able to go, so we are going.

>75 rocketjk: Those are some good points, particularly your point that the Democratic party has been inept in communication. AOC is certainly not that.

Darryl, I hope this is all OK to post on your thread. Please let me know if you'd prefer I delete it.

Here is, I think, I thought-provoking breakdown of the situation that I saw posted this morning on FB by a fellow named Joohn Choe. (I think he adds the second O to his first name online to differentiate himself from other John Choe's, but I'm not for sure about that.) I'd never heard of him, but based on his Patreon page* (I'd never heard of Patreon, either), he seems to be a thoughtful fellow:

I think there are three major schools of thought on the way that America's headed right now and what to do about it in the 'resistance' such as it is: Reclamationists, Mitigationists, and Pessimists.

Reclamationists think that whatever damage Trump does to American institutions can be undone, whatever DOGE destroys can be rebuilt; and while the result might not be recognizable as what came before, it'll still be America. Sam B. Girgus' piece in 'The Bulwark' on Nov. 27 of last year fits into this category.

Mitigationists believe in focusing on damage mitigation and in some cases reversal, after a few elections which may or may not be 'free and fair' ones (in the sense of being free from voter-targeted disinformation and 'fair' in the sense of not being voter-suppressed). Indivisible's pressure campaign on Vought's nomination at OMB is an example of this, I'd argue; they knew there was a relatively low probability of ending the Vought nomination by itself, but the 'fresh' infrastructure they built organizing, educating and getting people to call their Senators positions them to better mitigate & reverse institutional damage through activism around elections.

Pessimists believe 'it's all circling the drain', to put it colloquially: it was never sustainable the way that post-WWII America ran massive budget deficits, consumed natural resources, polluted the environment, addled and stupefied its people with television then social media, bullied the world with nuclear weapons and military interventions, 'brain-drained' the world's smartest people then, nowadays, deported them, all of that was like Babylon, bound to fall. Ross Douthat, to the extent that he's realistic about what the Trump administration is (arguably not very) fits here; you could extend his 'decadence' concept to include where we are today with Trump. Climate pessimists, 'declinists' and a lot of people who believe hard-leftist critiques of American anti-blackness or imperialism also fit here.

As for which which camp I fall into: I don't think it's going to be easy to re-hire federal employees or remake, from the ground up, institutions like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or the U.S. Agency for International Development, or National Institutes of Health, so I'm not a reclamationist.

I don't think it's possible to mitigate a lot of institutional damage, either, at least until 2026, just by virtue of the kind of lock on the "high-entropy" politics of the stupid that right-wing extremists have. Support for mass deportation (~44%) or decreasing support for Ukraine (~37%) or Trump himself (46.6%) suggests that as long as politicians gin up the right outsider threat (Black criminals, Islamic terrorists, migrant criminals, etc., etc.) they will ignore what's important and vote for whoever best protects them from the imaginary threat, and slightly less than half of America still seems to think that person is Trump.

I think somewhere around a pessimist position that recognizes the systemic factors that got us to where we are today - again, this is a conversation we've all had, where people blame everything from Reagan to slavery to Phyllis Schlafly to right-wing talk radio to Republicanism in general, the best answer is 'it's multifactorial' - and also recognizes the possibility of renewal, not reconstruction, ends up being where I am.

* https://www.patreon.com/joohn (you have to scroll down just a little past the subscription requisitions)

>75 rocketjk: effective communicator (or better still a dozen such) ...AOC ...Pete Buttigieg
A suggestion I've seen is a shadow cabinet. The trick is how to be official (i.e. someone media turn to) without getting squelched by the risk-averse consultant treatment. Maybe running for president could do it, though as you say difficult to sustain.

>77 rocketjk: I'd never heard of Patreon, either

It's a site where you can become a "patron" of someone, usually by sending periodic money. Sometimes in return for special or early-release content. Authors and other kinds of artists use it extensively. I have a couple of struggling-author friends whom I've subscribed to.

I think "renewal, not reconstruction" is probably the highest probability for the long term.

>79 TadAD: "I think "renewal, not reconstruction" is probably the highest probability for the long term."

That seems right to me, as well.

Post away, everyone. I'll be especially busy this week with two doctors' appointments and my first appointment with a physical therapist for idiopathic right leg weakness and balance problems, for which I'll need to see a neurologist and schedule an MRI of my lower back and a nerve conduction study (electromyelograph), so I'll read these comments eventually.

>75 rocketjk: what Harris did, which was giving the same canned answers in every interview until people tuned her out, which is what I think happened

this drove me crazy; at the convention at the debate, at any public events. I thought she was getting help from the obamas or the clintons but maybe not. I was not surprised she lost, but devasted by what that meant for the county and citizens (I did vote for her

>77 rocketjk: I think somewhere around a pessimist position that recognizes the systemic factors that got us to where we are today - again, this is a conversation we've all had, where people blame everything from Reagan to slavery to Phyllis Schlafly to right-wing talk radio to Republicanism in general, the best answer is 'it's multifactorial' - and also recognizes the possibility of renewal, not reconstruction, ends up being where I am.\

yeah me too.

Thanks for allowing this conversation in your thread, Darryl. I deleted my longish post as I've come to realise that it is of no use.

Thanks Sassy for expressing what I meant, when I just left it hanging at "insults". Of course it is not about insults as in "offending someone's finer feelings" or some such; the American RAPIST president Trump has been consistently, repeatedly threatening Canadian (among others) sovereignty, the very physical well-being of its citizens--and many Americans seem to find this... okay, or at least funny.

I've criticised the US a lot since I first made the mistake of choosing it for my graduate studies, 34 years ago. The very intensity of my criticism is a testament to my involvement and desperate desire that the US would do better by its own population and everyone else. But nothing has changed. Today no less than in the fall of 1992, I am flabbergasted that the richest country in the world allows its people to fall into indigence due to medical bills. The shameful "Jim Crow forever" incarceration and ghettoisation of the Black underclass. The relegation of women to the status of cattle. The deterioration of political discourse, and of political imagination, to the point where centrist progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders are seen as dangerous radicals.

But the US cannot be helped from the outside. It can only be fought.

>77 rocketjk: If those are the categories, I fear I'm in the Pessimist camp. We've already lost the consumer protection agencies and the health agencies. Medicare has been announced as targeted. Musk was just handed the key to Social Security and he's already stated it needs to be "streamlined" ... which to date has meant "destroyed." All inspectors general are gone. Judges without legal tenure are gone. The central bank will go soon. News media has been denied access to the government unless it kowtows to MAGA. We're rapidly losing every ally except maybe Israel. It really feels like a Chernobyl situation to me. Oh yeah, they also fired all the people who managed nuclear stuff in the country ... so maybe that's not just a metaphor?!?

I'm hoping I'm just being too doom-and-gloom.

>82 cindydavid4: I'm not particularly surprised Kamala lost, despite despairing that she did. I would think most people are not because, extremely unfortunately, she ran a lackluster campaign (and that's after 4 years of being largely invisible). Biden's approach to both his presidency and 2024 didn't help her. The point about the Obamas and the Clintons is one I think a lot of people wonder about. Both of those presidents knew how to communicate, and you'd think there would have been some game-time, "Hey, Kamala, you need to do XYZ." If the liberal side of politics doesn't figure out how to reconnect and mobilize its constituency, I fear we're in for more than just 4 years because the conservative side has.

Actually, I should say the ultra-conservative. One of the truisms in American politics has always been to "grab the center." The center is not a fixed point, and it has definitely moved right. However, I don't believe it has moved MAGA-right, and I think middle America is still within reach. Certainly if ... as now looks possible after yesterday's court decision ... Social Security is destroyed. That will ruin the lives of countless middle Americans which would, one hopes, open a few eyes and maybe reduce that 46% approval rating for Trump.

Part of the difficulty is that the Democratic Party has declined (not sure that's the right word, but I'll go with it) to coalesce around a central figure, preferring to keep a divide between more centrist and more progressive factions. The Republican Party didn't coalesce at first either, but brute strong-arm tactics made it happen. That puts the Democrats in an inherently weaker position. Despite thinking that Jerry made some good points, I stand by my opinion that AOC is not electable at this time for a number of reasons, not least that she is liberal on all fronts, which means that every single conservative is against her, even the single-issue conservatives. (I know ginormous numbers of those.) She is probably a prime candidate for getting discourse started, but I feel that the donkey party needs to find a rising star and get it shining. I love Pete Buttigieg, but poll after poll shows him underwater in a general election. Among the governors: Jared Polis is popular, but will homophobic America vote an openly gay person into the presidency? Pritzker is also popular, but I wonder if being a billionaire will count against him as America reacts to billionaires being shadow government now. Maybe Beshear. Maybe Whitmer. Whoever it is, I think they need to start building them up now as the opposition leader, not rely on a last-minute campaign to make them known to America.

>86 TadAD: "She is probably a prime candidate for getting discourse started,"

Yes, this was my point. As I said, she wouldn't even have to win the Democratic nomination to make the strategy worthwhile.

'Whoever it is, I think they need to start building them up now as the opposition leader, not rely on a last-minute campaign to make them known to America."

Yes, if not AOC, then someone else. Someone forceful and not afraid to actually answer questions. And talk directly to Trump voters. There's an interesting interview in The NY Times right now with Rueben Gallego, who beat Kari Lake to take a Senate seat in Arizona, a state that Harris lost. Here's an excerpt:

You outperformed Harris in your state, meaning that you won over some Trump voters. Why do you think that happened? Because I understand that not all Trump voters are actual straight-down-the-line Trump voters. I think there are a lot of people that voted for Trump because they were frustrated with what was happening in this country, and we weren’t afraid to reach out to them. We went to some of the hardest places in the state. We sat down with Trump supporters. We weren’t afraid to talk to them.

You think Democrats are afraid to talk to Trump voters? I think Democrats are afraid to talk to Trump voters. I think Democrats are afraid to talk to people that are going to criticize them. In a state like Arizona, there are 300,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats. I had no choice. It was either do it, or you’re not going to make it.

Why do you think Democrats are afraid to talk to Trump voters? I don’t know. Why aren’t they going into the reddest areas of the country? Donald Trump goes to Harlem. Do we go to the equivalent of Harlem for the red voter? No, we don’t.

So that's a part of it, too.

In the meantime, for whatever it might be worth, there were over 10,000 of us on the street in New York City yesterday, walking from Union Square to Washington Square Park on a cold and windy day.

Here's the Gallego interview. You should be able to see it as I'm sharing it as a "gift" article: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/15/magazine/ruben-gallego-interview.html?unlocke...

Mam oh man, I’m having trouble finding your correct thread this morning, Darryl. I hope this is the right one!

You had a troll problem? Jeesh. That’s one thing I don’t see happen often here.

I hope your week is off to a good start, and I’m sending positive vibes your mom’s way.

P.S. i sent you a DM, too.

>86 TadAD: {Harris} ran a lackluster campaign

I don't think she did. There were strong headwinds against her; incumbent parties lost all around the world last year, and there's been a shift throughout the democratic world towards the extreme right wing. She had only four months to put together a campaign and make herself known to voters.

And with all that, she lost the popular vote by less than a point and a half.

In light of the political trends against her, it's not surprising that she got a smaller percentage of the vote than Biden in almost every state (Utah, for some reason, swung in her direction compared to 2020). But the average Biden-to-Harris drop was smaller in the swing states, where she spent nearly all of her time, than in the rest of the country. The people who saw her the most often, in other words, were the most convinced by her message.

She didn't run a perfect campaign, to be sure; letting the consultant class chase her away from the "weird" message that worked so well in her first month was a terrible mistake. But had she had the time a candidate would normally have had to campaign more widely, and to get beyond the point where she had to waste time just delivering her basic biography and could spend more time on the actual issues, she'd have won. She ran a damned good campaign under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

>89 KeithChaffee: - I also think that most (right wingnut) Americans (ie trump supporters) are simply afraid of an strong, experienced, intelligent female. Yeah, I know that is a very simplistic and perhaps naive opinion, but that's sure how it looked to me.

>89 KeithChaffee: I agree.

>89 KeithChaffee: >88 jnwelch: I don’t this there was a Democratic candidate who could have beaten Trump. I can’t see one now. Certainly the Democrats handled the whole election poorly, but Trump knew how to appeal to enough voters to win easily.

>87 rocketjk: Why do you think Democrats are afraid to talk to Trump voters? I don’t know. Why aren’t they going into the reddest areas of the country? Donald Trump goes to Harlem. Do we go to the equivalent of Harlem for the red voter? No, we don’t.

I couldn’t agree more. And the more people in red and swing states hear and see people preaching to the choir, the more the MAGAs dig their heels in.

>92 kjuliff: She campaigned in Texas. And she campaigned heavily in the swing states.

>93 RidgewayGirl: I thought she did a good job. And for a while there I had hope. But I still don’t think Democratic presidential candidates put enough emphasis on red states.

But it seems the whole world is shifting right. In my home country Australia it seems that the equivalent of the US Republican Party - the Liberal Country Party will oust the present ALP - Australian Labor Party in May.

Looking back, I don’t think Harrris ever had a chance.

>89 KeithChaffee: I guess we just disagree. I agree about the handicaps—she didn't have time, she hadn't gotten a lot of visibility under Biden—but it's because there were those handicaps that I felt she needed to move away from "canned answers," which is how she came across to me. The choices you refer to starting around late February were what took the luster off, imo.

And popular vote ... well, as sad as it makes me to say it, and as "how the f*** can you use the word 'democracy' anymore" ... popular vote is no longer of any importance. It's the Electoral College that counts, and she got shellacked.

It's okay to disagree about her campaign, though. It doesn't mean we disagree about what's underneath.

>94 kjuliff: But it seems the whole world is shifting right.

Yes, sadly. Although what's "right" varies by country. I was messaging back and forth with my best friend from high school. He lives in Sweden now. His definition of "centrist" and my definition of "centrist" are quite different. :-)

>96 TadAD: I quite agree. Australia’s right is closer to the right wing of the Democratic Party in the USA. I’m sure many Americans would consider both Australia’s main political parties as socialist. I think most who use that word in a negative sense don’t know what it means.

>97 kjuliff: Yes. In America, I think many consider it virtually synonymous with communist ... and through a combination of McCarthyism and the Cold War, communist is somewhere close to mass murderer in their minds.

Great comments, everyone. I don't have much more to add, unfortunately, and I'm admittedly overwhelmed by the volume of the posts, even though they are very worthwhile.

Darryl, this is jumping boxes quite a bit, but I wanted to let you know I got a copy of Albert Murray's works from the library, so should you be ready to read South to a Very Old Place in the next six weeks or so, I'll have it.

>100 bell7: Great, Mary. I'm halfway through New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America's Second Prize Movement by Juan Williams, which I'll finish by this weekend, and I'll read A Black Women's History of the United States by Diana Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross to finish my Black History Month reading; I'll be read to move on to South to a Very Old Place after that.

Darryl, having had such a great start to my Archipelago subscription, I am itching to dive into the next one. Looking at the upcoming books, and given that we got People from Oetimu a few weeks early, I think we may be in for two books in March. It's surprisingly hard to wait without knowing when the next book will come.

>102 RidgewayGirl: I think you're right, Kay. I saw that three books would be published in April, which means that subscribers could possibly receive some or all of them next month. It's not uncommon to receive two books in one mailing as long as they aren't tomes.

>87 rocketjk: I think I know why dems wont talk to Maga coz I have friends who are trumpers and you cannot have a conversation without them escalating and turning the conversation to their talking points and not listning to mine Yes im still friends with them known since HS and as long as we are talking about kids or work we are fine So know i dont care to get jumped on when I say the wrong thing

This week's earworm is "Where," taken from the album "Live at the Five Spot" by Randy Weston, which was recorded at The Five Spot Café in NYC on October 26, 1959. The track opens with a heart wrenching vocal solo by Brock Peters, who is best known for playing Tom Robinson in the movie adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. Kenny Dorham on trumpet is next, followed by Weston on piano, and the unmistakable growl of the legendary Coleman Hawkins on tenor saxophone, before Peters takes us home. Also featured on this track are Wilbur Little on bass, and Roy Haynes on drums.

https://youtu.be/aoLEv2RKOSA?si=BjgKpFWU5eSnWqCh

>87 rocketjk: Did you re the latest about his move to stop a NYC traffic regulation?

“CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED,” he wrote. “LONG LIVE THE KING!”.

I’m giving up on it all.
Source: Truth Social, reported in the NY Times Feb 19th 2025.

>106 kjuliff: Governor Hochul had a very impassioned response to Trump's tweet, part of which was shown during tonight's edition of the PBS NewsHour:

“I’m here to say, New York hasn’t labored under a king in over 250 years, and we sure as hell are not going to start now,” the governor said. “The streets of the city where battles were fought, we stood up to a king, and we won then. In case you don’t know New Yorkers, when we’re in a fight, we do not back down — not now, not ever.”

>107 kidzdoc: I wish her well. People, especially politicians need to stand up to him, but too many cave.

Pre 2023 if he’d referred to himself as King, there’d be an uproar.

>104 cindydavid4: I hear you.

>105 kidzdoc: I love Randy Weston. Great choice!

>106 kjuliff: -- >108 kjuliff: I knew he had revoked federal support for congestion pricing, but I'm just now learning about that tweet. I hope Hochul continues standing up to him. She's got a state constitutional power to remove Adams for cause from the Mayor's office, too. She's said she's considering it, and getting a lot of pressure from other state Dems to do so. The next week will be very interesting around here. And she's right, New Yorkers are not going to bow down.

Appreciate you hosting this political conversation. I’m just getting here. I’m traumatized by what’s happening. It’s infected deeply into my mood and everything i think about. I try not to know everything, but bad news crawls out through all the cracks. Every morning the top five headlines are catastrophic and distasteful and entirely avoidable trump stories.

There was some protest Monday, significant.

I can’t understand why there is anyone alive who doesn’t despise trump and isn’t completely horrified by what’s being done right now. But I’ve stopped talking to these supporters as they’re incoherent.

>110 dchaikin: It’s infected deeply into my mood and everything i think about.
I’m exactly the same Dan. It’s affected my whole life. Once-unthinkable things are happening daily.

>110 dchaikin: im feeling the same way. I do not understand how anyone can be so blind to what is happenning here. like you, Ive giving up trying to converse with the other side. I make sure I find some glimmers, things in my life that make me smile and remember how good it is. I go out for walks to find them and I always do. but then like you say, the stories come through the cracks (thought thats how the light gets in but not anymore)

I feel so bad for all the people who have been fired for doing their jobs. I cant imagine how horrible that must be I wonder if there are receiving any help.they dont deserve this

>110 dchaikin: I didn't decide to host this conversation, Dan. It began organically here, then took off like wildfire. It's grown too large for me to want to keep up with, so I would suggest that anyone who wishes to continue this conversation create a unique thread for it.

>113 kidzdoc: got it! It has taken over your thread and i mistakenly thought you welcomed that. There are groups for politics on LT. I would prefer we don’t also have a dedicated thread here.

I discovered I have a book by Albert Murray, Stomping the blues (and I see that it's included in the LOA volume you have...) I appreciate Murray's highly personal voice; he comes across as somewhat of a gadfly. I'll be hurrying to read more by him.

>114 dchaikin:

What is your problem with politics? Maybe if Americans didn't make it such a taboo you wouldn't be waking up in the 21st century with bloody Nazis in the government.

Yes, I lost my temper, again. Sorry, Darryl; not sorry for anyone else.

>116 LolaWalser: the bickering. It completely changes the vibe of the group from an oasis to salivation and spittle. These forums are not a healthy ways argue politics.

>118 dchaikin:

In my opinion that is pure nonsense, insulting to the adults and indicative of a society-wide problem in the US. I'm going to trust that health itself is adults discussing politics and make a thread for politics; anyone who doesn't like it is welcome to Ignore it.

Daryl,
Wanted to let you know that I survived the Great Freeze. Today it got above freezing, so the snow cover is now gone. I also survived the first week at the Post Office. It is a part time job at 3 hours a day M-F and 1 hour on Saturday mornings. I intend to use the money to pay back the moving loan.

I enjoy your ear worm posts. Keep it up. There is such a wide wonderful world of music out there and we need to be reminded of those amazing different genres.

I am sorry about your thread getting hijacked, but I appreciate that you just let it roll. It is a scary time for all of us. I hope things are going OK with your mother and that you are coping with all that entails. It has been just over one year since my Mom died and the cold weather this last week reminded me of the week that she died.

I am reading the last book of a space opera series and having fun with it, and then I shall return to the second book in the Balkan Trilogy about the runup to WWII in the Balkans.

>120 benitastrnad: Benita, I'm reading The Balkan Trilogy now and loving it.

>120 benitastrnad: What space opera series, and is it any good? I'm always on the lookout for science fiction as I've never lost my enjoyment of it.

>122 TadAD:
I am reading the Murderbot series by Martha Wells. There are 7 books in the series. 6 novellas and 1 novel. The novel is the last to be published and that is the one I am reading.

>123 benitastrnad: Ah, I read the first one, All Systems Red, and enjoyed it. However, I got lured into other books and never went on to the next.

>123 benitastrnad:
>124 TadAD:

Apparently there's soon to be a streaming series (apple tv+) of the murderbot stories:
https://winteriscoming.net/the-murderbot-show-with-alexander-skarsgard-is-coming...

Haven't read any of these myself, yet, but FYI.

Mom has been sick with a bad cold starting on Friday, which has progressively worsened, so I took her to our closest urgent care center this morning, where she was diagnosed with viral vs. bacterial bronchitis; her CXR was read as normal by the urgent care physician we saw. She'll start on an antibiotic tonight, and hopefully she'll feel better soon. She becomes quite difficult and challenging when she's sick, so hopefully I can get back to reading and commenting on threads today.

>115 LolaWalser: Great, Lola. You're right, Stomping the Blues is one of the books contained with the Library of America edition of Albert Murray: Collected Essays & Memoirs, so I should get to it this year.

>120 benitastrnad: That's great, Benita. I hope that you enjoy The Balkan Trilogy.

>126 kidzdoc: Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that your mum is ill. Fingers crossed that the antibiotics help. I wish her a speedy recovery.

>127 Ameise1: Do they ever give your mom prednisone? I’m given it often for my COPD exacerbations, and I try to avoid it. It’s good she got onto antibiotics early. I’m always concerned after a respiratory illness that I’ll get pneumonia. I see that the Pope has it now.

>127 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara.

>128 kjuliff: I can't remember if my mother has ever received prednisone for a respiratory infection. This is the most significant one she's had in nearly three years, and I think I cared for her at home without bring her to an urgent care center; she did see her primary care physician if I recall correctly. She had an light audible wheeze yesterday afternoon, but neither I nor the urgent care doctor heard it today. She will start a 7 day course of doxycycline this evening, and I'll take her to see her primary care physician in a couple of days.

She has mild intermittent asthma, but I was diagnosed with moderate persistent asthma by my allergist/immunologist early last year, who serves as my asthma specialist. That diagnosis was based on pulmonary function tests and my clinical presentation (audible wheezing and a cough productive of thick brownish mucus) during that first visit, as she diagnosed me with bronchopneumonia and an asthma exacerbation. At that time I was given prescriptions for Augmentin and a Medrol (steroid) dose pack, and within a few days I was noticably better. I'm now using a fluticasone-salmeterol inhaler twice daily and taking montelukast once a day, and starting on March 1 I'll start Flonase nasal spray and Zyrtec.

>129 kidzdoc: I have emphysema -moderate-severe. I have two inhalers that I take daily. I have an excellent pnemonologist .

I met him in a hospital. He was checking on me when I was having my gallbladder removed. He reminded me in looks and manner of someone I used to work with. I asked if he could be my pnemonologist (I wasn’t happy with my current one at the time). I’ve been seeing him for six years. He’s a lovely man, a credit to the profession.

>130 kjuliff: I'm glad that you have an excellent pulmonologist, Kate. From what you've said in the past I gather that this is especially important for you. I love my doctor, and I like that she checks my pulmonary function tests each time I see her. My most recent test two weeks ago showed that my fracticional exhaled nitric oxide level was 35, still above the normal threshold of 0-25 (and consistent with her diagnosis of persistent asthma), but much lower than it was (207) when I first saw her.

>131 kidzdoc: I have several doctors but I’ve had some bad experiences with doctors both here and in Australia. But now I have three that I like. The ophthalmologist for her competence, the pulmonologist for his expertise and political views and caring nature, and my cardiologist because he looks like Al Pacino when he was in Dog Day Afternoon. Well actually he’s not young but has that sexy Italian look.

My lung function is so dysfunctional that the pulmonary function tests are too painful to bear. Early on I had those beginner tests where you blow monkeys out of trees. I’d be lucky to blow even one out now. My lungs are so far gone it’s not worth more testing in my pulmonologist’s and my own opinion.

>118 dchaikin: plus there is a place for it Pro/Con I was on it during covid and learned alot from other posters plus its well moderated

>132 kjuliff: It's so important to have physicians that you like and trust. My list of physical problems has increased significantly now that I'm no longer living in Atlanta and have gotten older, and I'm taking many more medications as well. Thankfully all of my doctors are great, have my best interests in heart, and are very responsive, which I'm fully aware is not always the case.

The first time I saw my allergist/immunologist I underwent an extensive series of tests that lasted a good hour before I saw her, which consisted of extensive pulmonary function tests and skin prick tests to see what allergens I was allergic to, which were read roughly 15 minutes later. Based on caring for hundreds of kids in the hospital I self diagnosed myself with moderate persistent asthma, and these tests officially confirmed that diagnosis, and the skin prick tests showed that cat dander was the allergen I was most sensitive to, which I also thought beforehand. It was useful to get formal confirmation, though, and the tests revealed that I was mildly to moderately allergic to dogs, molds, some grasses and some tree pollen. Per Dr Gordon's recommendation I'll start taking Flonase nasal spray and Zyrtec on March 1, in advance of the mid month spring pollen season.

I'm sorry that your lungs are in such bad shape. Is a single or double lung transplant an option? (I would guess that it isn't.)

>134 kidzdoc: It's so important to have physicians that you like and trust.

I'm still working on it down here. I have an ever-growing suite as I get older. My biggest issue right now is my cardiologist. Do I think he's competent? Absolutely. Do I think he's communicative? Kind of the way a rock is communicative. He walks in, asks some questions, does some tests, listens, whatever, says "Okay" ... then starts to walk out. Then I have to stop him at the door with:

"Um, so how did my heart sound? Better, worse, the same?"
"Um, why are you prescribing this medicine? What does it do?"
"Um, another stress test in XXX months ... is that the norm or is this something special?"
"Um, when you say, 'Get some nitro,' is that because you think I'm at imminent risk of a heart attack, or purely a safety measure?"

It drives me crazy!

I was definitely lucky when I was back east to have the types of doctors who spent time and explained things, instead of trying to conveyor-belt a patient through every 10-15 minutes.

>135 TadAD: That is highly annoying and, IMO, unprofessional, Tad. The only physician I've had recently who treated me that way was the first orthopedic surgeon I saw for confirmation and management of the case of trochanteric (hip) bursitis I was diagnosed with in October. He was halfway out of the door while I still had a question or two for him, possibly because his clinic schedule was tightly booked, but he was a very cold and impersonal physician. Hoeever, he referred me to one of his partners, who gave me a steroid injection into my inflamed bursa, and even though that surgeon seemed to be equally busy as the first one he did answer my questions, completely explained a plan of care, and encouraged me to follow up with him if my symptoms returned or didn't get better.

It could be argued that I'm a beneficiary of professional courtesy, though. I rarely if ever mention that I am a physician, but it comes out somehow, usually when the tech or nurse who sees me first asks what my profession is. On the other hand, the most obnoxious and arrogant SOB I ever saw was an African American male internist in Atlanta, who was recommended to me by two of my partners at work, but still treated me like crap. He addressed me as "D" rather than my full first name —I don't expect anyone to address me as Mr Morris or Dr Morris—but that was incredibly insulting.

Yikes: get some nitro?!

last year I had horrible pain in my hip that went down the leg. pain rellivers, pt, the usual excercises didnt help. Dr told me I had tendonitis and bursitis. I read the mri and it said I did not. just said arthritis When I asked the dr for the descrepancy he said the MRI are often wrong and he wanted me to have a procedure called XTen which cuts away the bad part of the tendon, Someone got me to a pain dr, and based on mre and xrays he said I had piriformis syndrom which matched my symtpms. gave me 5 shots in my spine and muscle over 6 months and now am walking and dancing and functionally normal Needless to say I dropped the ortho an am going to a new one next week . hopefully i can trust him We'llsee

>137 cindydavid4: I did a quick search of piriformis syndrome online. Surgery is apparently an option if all other modalities have failed. Hopefully the steroid injections and exercise will be sufficient for you.

Sending best wishes for your Mom Darryl!

>139 SandDune: Thanks, Rhian. She still has a wet cough and wheezing, but she seems to be doing a bit better so far today.

I finally found your thread, Darryl. I echo everyone's comments about our broken country and feel quite down every day. I hope your mom recovers quickly as I know her being sick only adds stress to your life. I love seeing the list of books on your Levant list. A few of your "preferenial books" I've read recently. I gave Snyder's book a quick reread recently as well. To try to keep my spirits up, I've been reading lighter fare, jigsaw puzzling and baking/cooking. I hope to add gardening to this mix when the weather warms up. I try to stay politically engaged by emaiing my senators and congressman (who, fortunately, are wonderful in Maryland) and hope to get to some local protests when the weather is a bit more agreeable.

>141 SqueakyChu: Thanks for visiting me here, Madeline. Unfortunately it's all I can do to keep up with posts in this group, due to the time consuming responsibility of caring for my mother and keeping my parents' house in order, and after years of being active here and in the 75 Books group I decided to make Club Read my permanent home on LibraryThing. I'm glad that you're staying busy and politically active in these very troubled times.

>134 kidzdoc: A double transplant isn’t an option. I am used to coping with this disease - there’s no use fighting it. I just keep my Covid vaccinations up to date, and hope.

>143 kjuliff: That what I suspected, Kate.

thanks; so far so good.Ill do anything to avoid surgery.my brother had back surgrey when he was my age and he never really recovered from them So I am grateful I dont need to worry about it.

Darryl, I hope your mom continues to recover from her bronchitis and that you can take time to care for yourself too.

>145 cindydavid4: I hope that you can avoid back surgery, Cindy. I saw my primary care physician two weeks ago because I was having right leg weakness, which was especially noticeable climbing stairs, and because I had two falls in which my right leg gave out. He noticed that my patellar (knee) reflex was diminished, so I'll need to get an MRI of my lumbar region, and a electromyogram (EMG, or nerve conduction study), start physical therapy, which I began this past Friday, and see a neuromuscular specialist. I'm also hopeful that surgery won't be necessary, especially since someone will have to care for my mother while I recuperate. Fortunately my leg was already getting stronger a few days before I began PT, and I'm doing daily exercises at home, which are making a difference. My PCP didn't detect right leg weakness, but the therapist definitely did. Once I'm able to walk without difficulty and my balance returns to normal I plan to start walking longer distances on days that I can bring my mother to the adult day center she goes to, and start going to the nearby Planet Fitness center.

>146 Sakerfalcon: Thanks, Claire. I haven't gone downstairs to check on my mother yet, but compared to this time yesterday morning her cough has dramatically improved. Hopefully she has a good day today, for her sake and mine, and if so I'll take her to the adult day center tomorrow, as I'm supposed to see my physical therapist and donate blood tomorrow afternoon.

This week's earworm is dedicated to my favorite soul singer, Roberta Flack, who died on Monday at the age of 88. She was a unique singer who poured her heart into her music, with achingly sad and touching lyrics that frequently left this listener moved to tears. This song, which comes from her 1969 debut album First Take, will always have special meaning for me.

Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye

>148 kidzdoc: Couldn't do better.

>148 kidzdoc: A singer I recognize from my youth, and a song I recognize from Leonard Cohen. Memories going back 50+ years. Thanks.

>148 kidzdoc: That album is one of my all-time favorites. I listened to it on vinyl in the ’70s, on CDs in the ’80s, back to vinyl at the turn of the century, and now that we've moved into a living space too small for an album collection, on high-res flac files. It's simply one of the incomparable albums, imo.

>151 TadAD: Yes, I’ve had to store my vinyls in my son’s attic. Mine is not a large collection but I do have original early Dylan records (as we used to call them) and the Fugs first album.

>149 SassyLassy: I agree, Sassy. She was one of a kind, and she influenced countless singers who followed her.

>150 qebo: I was eight years old when First Take was released, my father bought the album and played it often, and songs from it, especially this one and "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" were staples on NYC area radio stations that we listened to. Leonard Cohen wrote this song, but Roberta Flack put her indelible stamp on it.

>151 TadAD: I agree, Tad. First Take is unquestionably one of my 10 favorite albums, and Chapter Two is at least in my top 25.

>152 kjuliff: I still own many of the jazz albums I bought in the early 1980s, and although I haven't looked through them yet we should have some potentially priceless ones from as far back as the 1940s and 1950s that we inherited from one of my great uncles after he died.

>153 kidzdoc: I remember my father’s old jazz collection. Sadly they disappeared somewhere in New Zealand where he died. But as I remember as a child, they seemed to be made from some plastic-stuff -brittle to the touch. Would they have been early vinyls?

>154 kjuliff: I suspect so, Kate. I'll look at my great uncle's albums to see if some of them are also early vinyls.

>154 kjuliff: The thick material you may be thinking of is called acetate, and it's what was used before the vinyl record was developed. I've got a few of those, but nothing to play them on, unfortunately.

Until we packed up to move from California to New York, I still had more or less every LP I'd purchased since my first album, Time: Peace, the Rascals Greatest Hits, purchased in 1968 when I was 13. The collection was, I don't know, somewhere around 5,000 LPs strong. I divested around a quarter of them when we moved. I was sad to see the rejects go, but a good buddy of mine took the bulk of them, so at least I know where they are! And, obviously, I still have quite a few. I simply love them, that's all. My wife, somewhat less so, so now they are all in my home office.

>156 rocketjk: Ah! thanks. I don’t know what happened to my dad’s collection. He was always giving things away. Acetate - I’ll remember that.

>156 rocketjk: Thanks, Jerry. I have heard of acetate albums, but I don't recall seeing, and definitely not owning, any of them.

>157 kjuliff: I took a quick peek at the old LPs we have. Some of them are undoubtedly from my great uncle, as they go back to as early as the mid 1950s, when my father was a full time college student who had to work nights in order to pay for books and tuition and presumably couldn't afford to buy many, if any, records.



This album has to be one of my great uncle's. WDAS is an FM radio station that has served the African American community in Philadelphia, where my great uncle and his wife, my grandmother's sister, lived, continuously since 1959. The songs on this album were recorded between 1959 and 1965.

>158 kidzdoc: Love the cover. I think my father bought records before he married. It would have been in the forties or even early. He never went to school at all - not even elementary - and don’t know how he afforded them. But he would have acquired them before marriage as my mother didn’t “get” his music.

Flack was such a wonderful artist. My mom and her sisters were big fans, so we heard her a fair bit through them.

>156 rocketjk: Was acetate a short lived period? I'm familiar with shellac records from the first half of the 20th century but not acetate. My granddaddy spent all his money on records and was obsessive about his music starting at a very young age (he could not understand people chatting with music in the background vs just listening). Sadly perhaps, he essentially traded the entire record collection to someone who could transfer it all to reel-to-reel tapes when moving to Egypt for his job in the 1960s so he could take it all with him.

I still have most of my original LP collection and inherited some of my dad's vast collection after he passed away, nearly 30 years ago. I remember being shocked and not a small bit ticked off at my mother when I discovered that she had, for reasons I will never understand, knowing how much I loved his collection, given many away. I did manage to salvage some. I even bought a turntable several years ago and do listen to them from time to time. Many of my dad's collection were not always my taste in music but many were. I don't know if his were acetate but I do have 2 collections in a kind of box-set thingy, that are, I believe, 78s. Hmm, I wonder if they'd be worth anything these days....

>158 kidzdoc:

Could you be tempted to catalogue your collection? So many people got rid of their LPs that it's rare to come across such original accumulations.

>161 jessibud2:

They might be! I wish I still had the stereo system that included a turntable. Although I have very few LPs with me, and my old collection suffered from loss and "poaching" over the years of my absence.

I caught up on your thread yesterday, Darryl. And now there were 15 new posts to read! Whew things move fast around here. Nice to see people are enjoying music rather than worrying about the state of the world (if only for a moment)

>161 jessibud2: I have all of my lifetime collection of LPs that I started when I was in high school (the 60s). My younger son and his two children sometimes listen to them (Beatles, Doors, Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, Carole King, Credence Clearwater, and many, many more). I took very precious care of them, and all are still in their original covers and in excellent condition. No, I do not want to sell them. :)

>164 SqueakyChu: Wow!

>159 kjuliff: That is something, Kate, both that your father never attended elementary school and that he acquired a sizable record collection.

>160 mabith: I've been a huge fan of Roberta Flack since the 1970s, thanks mainly to my father.

>161 jessibud2: That's a shame that your mother gave away so many of my father's albums, Shelley. I'll need to go through our sizable record collection, but knowing my father I suspect that he kept most of the albums he enjoyed. There is a record player in my room—I can't remember if he bought it or if I bought him one as a gift years ago—so I'll be able to listen to them, especially the obscure ones I'm completely unfamiliar with.

>162 LolaWalser: Great idea, Lola! Yes, I can be easily encouraged to do that. I like that some members of LibraryThing catalog their music collections here, although I'll use a cataloging app to do so, possibly Obsidian, the mobile app that thorold spoke highly of recently.

>163 Nickelini: Hi, Joyce! Music has been a huge part of my life since the late 1960s, and I remember my parents buying me one of those portable record players for kids for my 9th birthday in 1970; the first 45 rpm record I bought with my birthday was something by the Jackson 5, possibly "ABC."

>164 SqueakyChu: That's great, Madeline!

>166 kidzdoc: My father had a job in a shoe factory after he left the boys home where he was “looked after” when his mother died when he was four. At the home he was put to work in the laundry and abused by priests. No schooling was provided.

When he was twelve he left the home. He jot a job in a boot factory. Later he taught himself to read and joined a left-wing theatre group. He became an actor and had small parts in films in New Zealand. But he was always embarrassed about his lack of writing skills. He could read but never managed to easily use a pen.

It was the left-wing theatre group - New Theatre - that saved him. It was modeled on the NYC one. Intellectuals, communists and writers there told him what to read and what music to listen to. One was the Australian writer Judah Waten best known for Alien Son.

You can see a photo and short bio of my dad, Bill Juliff in the IMDB database here.

My mother was his second wife. His first wife fell in love with an American GI on R&R in WWII and moved to the US.

He had an interesting life but it ended in divorce from his third wife and he ended up working as a janitor, getting bit parts in movies.

>167 kidzdoc: I've been gradually cataloguing my record collection on Discogs. I spent a lot of time with it during Covid. You can really get into the weeds about different pressings and rereleases, etc., but you don't have to. You can just catalog your albums and not worry about whether you're using the "correct" version of your LP.

My collection, currently standing at 902 records cataloged (with a lot more to go) is here, listed in alphabetical order by record label:
https://www.discogs.com/user/NewarkBoy47/collection

>168 kjuliff: Wow. It seems that your father did the best he could with the rotten hand that he was dealt at birth.

>169 rocketjk: Thanks, Jerry. I'll take a look at Discogs, and your music collection.

>167 kidzdoc:

Cool! Yes, I'm also one of those who catalogued her music here (separate account), way before they added any sources for music (I think now you can use ASIN or some such info on a number of sources). But I find "manual" cataloguing restful, almost meditative, so I didn't mind taking my sweet time with it.

>169 rocketjk:

Excellent! I shall pore over this, coffee in hand and some choice album playing! I bought stuff through Discogs and used it as image and info source. I like how exhaustive it seems, I even found some Yugoslav-made pressings listed, and even tapes.

>171 LolaWalser: Nice, Lola. I think that I would also enjoy gradual manual cataloguing to be an enjoyable endeavor.

I just registered for a Discogs account: https://www.discogs.com/user/kidzdoc00

Happy cataloguing!

eta: I added you and Jerry as friends. I forget what my username there is but the pic is a woman in egg costume

yaaaaa

sorry about serial posting but I just found the very first LP I bought ever!!! Not just the title, but actual Jugoton pressing (although is it possible it was from 1973? They must have made more up to that day in 1983...)

https://www.discogs.com/release/3518724-Various-Jazz-Classics-Of-New-Orleans

>173 LolaWalser: Thanks, Lola! I'll have to figure out how to add you and Jerry as friends, along with my non-LibraryThing fellow music lovers.

I distinctly remember that the first LP album I purchased was Still Bill by Bill Withers, which included his most favorite song, "Lean On Me."

>173 LolaWalser: & >174 kidzdoc: Hey, that's cool! Friends on Discog! I love seeing that album, Lola. I don't think I have any Yugoslav pressings but I know I have at least one Polish pressing (don't think it's been cataloged, yet) of a jazz album that I bought in a shop in Turino. Even all these months after moving, my LPs are still a jumble on my shelves, not put in alphabetical order yet. Once that's done, I know I'll come upon that record.

>148 kidzdoc: Loved her! so many great songs. too many to list and I agree listening to her songs lead to tears. Esp the above. The sound of "last time ever I saw your face' was so moving, and I could listen to it over and over again. Her music touched so many lives; may her memory be for a blessing

One that became a big hit was "Jesse" which I recognized from another singer Janis Ian. I had thought she wrote it, and was surprised to hear people say it was Flack. Later on Flack made it known that Jesse was written by Ian which helped her career quite a bit

>176 cindydavid4: Right, Cindy. I think anyone who has deeply loved someone, especially if that love didn't or couldn't work out, would be especially affected by Roberta Flack's music. Like the best of singers she took a song written by someone else and made it either the definitive version of it, or made it practically unrecognizable as compared to previous or subsequent interpretations.

Another favorite of mine is Bob Dylan's "Just Like a Woman" from her album Chapter Two; it has a special meaning to me for the same reason that "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" does.

I hope your mom is feeling better, Darryl. BTW, my niece's latest x-rays were very encouraging. She is now out of the boot and in a stiff shoe. She will have one more set of xrays in two weeks, and if those are satisfactory, we will be beyond this particular trauma.

>178 labfs39: Thanks, Lisa. We're both doing better; her cough has improved, although she still has audible wheezing, and she's breathing normally. We'll see her primary care physician on Tuesday; unfortunately we couldn't see her last week.

My right leg is much stronger after 1½ weeks of physical therapy, and my balance is nearly normal. My PCP ordered an MRI of my lumbar spine and an EMG (nerve conduction study, or electromyogram), as he detected decreased right sided patellar (knee) reflex when I saw him last month, but I'll send him a message through the patient portal on Monday to see if I should postpone these tests.

>179 kidzdoc: I'm glad PT worked out so well for you.

My copy of The Harmattan Winds finally arrived and I'm going to start it next week.

>180 RidgewayGirl: Thanks. I thought that PT would be helpful, but I didn't expect to have this much improvement in such a short period of time.

I'm glad that your copy of The Harmattan Winds finally arrived. My current work of fiction, Life Embitters by Josep Pla, another Archipelago Books title, is composed of several unconnected segments, so I could join you next week.

>160 mabith: Was acetate a short lived period? I'm familiar with shellac records from the first half of the 20th century but not acetate."

Hope it's OK to revive and older conversation, but this is my first chance to respond here, as the week has been busy. Meredith, I think that "shellac" was actually the word I was looking for. My memory now is that acetate is the original pressings of records was done on acetate, and that records were then mass produced from that. So acetate wouldn't have available for sale. But 78s and other older records are, indeed, as you pointed out, made of shellac.

Just for fun, here is the oldest "record" I own, produced in 1914 at Thomas Edison Labs in Orange, New Jersey:

*

Sadly, I cannot play this record, as the paper dust jacket that it came in stipulates that it may only be played on an Edison Diamond Disc Phonograph at 80 rpm.

>177 kidzdoc: "Like the best of singers she took a song written by someone else and made it either the definitive version of it, or made it practically unrecognizable as compared to previous or subsequent interpretations."

I, too, love Roberta Flack's version of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." I also love this version, by Gordon Lightfoot, a personal favorite of mine, which is closer to the song's original life, as written by British singer-songwriter Ewan MacColl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5rEAILOiX4&t=35s

To be clear, I could listen to both versions all day, and like you, Darryl, very much enjoy it when highly creative artists are able to take a song and make of it something more or less entirely their own. I'm just adding Lightfoot's version for comparison sake, for folks who aren't aware of what Roberta Flack adapted the song from.

>179 kidzdoc: Also, I want to add my congratulations that PT has worked so well for you, and so quickly.

>126 kidzdoc: I am sorry to hear about your mom. I hope the cold exits soon!

>182 rocketjk: Thanks for educating us about early music albums, Jerry. Wow; which artists are on that album?

>183 rocketjk: Thanks also for Gordon Lightfoot's version of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." In general, Roberta Flack slowed down renditions of songs, and squeezed every drop of emotion out of them, for maximum effect.

>184 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita. My mother's infection is gone, but she is still coughing frequently, although her wheezing has markedly improved the past couple of days.

>185 kidzdoc: Ive had a lot of Pt over the years and find if you follow the PTs directions on how to do the exercises and are motivated enough to do them on a regular basis, the results really are extraodinary/ Because I was having so much trouble walking for so long my usually firm legs just went flat. a few weeks and I was closse to normal and now pretty much so. Caveat, alot depends on the PT but Ive had some wonderful ones

>186 cindydavid4: I'm definitely motivated to keep PT appointments 2-3 times a week and perform exercises at home, both because I've had a marked and, to me, unbelievable improvement in my leg strength and balance in only three sessions over two weeks, including today (I had to cancel two appointments because of my mother's case of bronchitis). I like my therapist at my local NovaCare rehabilitation center, who happens to live in my neighborhood, and we definitely work well together. I'll see him again on Wednesday, and possibly on Friday.

>187 kidzdoc: oh i have no doubt about your motivation. just reporting my experience. glad things are going well with you

>188 cindydavid4: Thanks, Cindy.

>181 kidzdoc: I'm glad you're doing better. Take care!

>182 rocketjk: 1914! That's extraordinary.

Hi Darryl--I've been largely MIA on LT in 2025, but I'm trying to catch up. Glad to hear that you and your Mom are both feeling better. Hope the trend continues. And happy reading! : )

Oh, and I have no LPs (sold them years ago, dang it!), but my daughter thought they were cool and retro and she has started a collection and must have about 50 of them by now. Mostly newer groups, but I think she has a Beatles album.

>191 Berly: "a Beatles album"

Haha! I think I have most (if not all) of them from when I bought them (back in the Dark Ages)!

>192 SqueakyChu: - Ha! I don't think I have that many but the ones I have are all the originals I bought back *in the dark ages*, too! We are old, Madeline!

>193 jessibud2: LOL, Shelley! How can we get younger?! Actually, I'm not *that* old. This weekend our family is going to a party to celebrate the birthday of a friend who will be 101 years old this week! It is going tobe a 101 Dalmations Birthday Party and should be tons of fun. Our friend Shirley is hard of hearing and a bit frail, but otherwise in stable health. I remember years and years ago telling her that when I will be eighty years old, I want to be like her. She was so vivacious at that time! I don't have half the energy in my 70s that she had at age 80. :)

>192 SqueakyChu: & >193 jessibud2: I, too, have all the original U.S. version Beatles LPs in mono. My sister, who is four years older than I am, was right of the age to be swept up in Beatlemania. She bought all the LPs immediately upon their release. I think she lost interest around the time Revolver came out. At any rate, when she left for college, she left them, and all her other LPs, behind. They were immediately absorbed into my own record collection, and I have them still. Of the early records, I find the A Hard Days Night soundtrack particularly gorgeous.

>185 kidzdoc: "Wow; which artists are on that album?"

On one side we have Humoresque by Anton Dvorak: Violin solo Albert Spalding, Pianoforte by Audre Benoist

The other side simply says Cavatina op. 85 #3 by Joseph Raff: Violin solo, Piano accompaniment. Whether that means this side also features Spalding and Benoist or some other, for some reason uncredited musicians, I don't know.

Happy weekend, Darryl! I missed hearing from you yesterday where you are in South to a Very Old Place, and hope it was just a busy day rather than anything more serious. I finished "Tuskegee" last night and am ready to start "Mobile" when you are.

I'm enjoying all the music talk. I have no LPs and no way to play them, but I still have a few dozen CDs that I've purchased over the years. My car still has a CD player, and I listen to music most when I'm driving.

>197 bell7: Hi Mary! You're right, I did have a very full day yesterday. Instead of reading last night or posting on LibraryThing I did research on cataract surgery, as my new optometrist told me that I had cataracts in both eyes, which I did not have during my most recent dlated eye exam two years ago, and that I would like need to have my lens in both eyes removed and replaced relatively soon, possibly as early as this year or next. I was also still wiped out from Wednesday's blood donation, which seemed to make me far more tired than previous donations.

I don't have anything planned for today, so I plan to complete "Alabama" and finish "Tuskegee" today in South to a Very Old Place, so that I can catch up with you and start reading "Mobile" tomorrow.

Darryl, I had cataract surgery last year and it was the best thing I'd ever done. My eyes were so bad I couldn't see the clock on my dresser when I was in bed, without my glasses. I have to tell you, I was terrified (I am a person who took years to even use mascara, I was so freaked at anything coming near my eyes). But my doctor did one eye first, then the second a month later. Now, I technically don't even need glasses but I have them (new almost nothing lenses) because I felt naked without them plus, the doctor said they protect my eyes anyhow from dust and dirt, etc. It is an amazing surgery, took very little time and was painless. For me, the hardest part were doing the drops for weeks after but I did. Do it. You will be happy you did.

Darryl, I , too, had cataract surgery- I see colours more vividly-especially blues. I had one done first and the second 10 days later. I do need reading glasses but that is fine!

>199 jessibud2: ditto. wondered why I was having so much trouble till after I got them. Do it, it works like a charrm

<200 - Yes, I forgot to mention how clear and colourful everything was after it was all done. I hadn't realized how dull my vision had been until after it wasn't!

>199 jessibud2:, >200 torontoc:, >201 cindydavid4:, >202 jessibud2: Thanks for your input and advice, everyone. I was admittedly very nervous about the procedure, but this video by a Canadian optometrist answered all of my questions and alleviated my concerns:

https://youtu.be/_jz7ysnFokU?si=Wh37zperQ4ABBslD

>203 kidzdoc: - Wow, that was good. I wish I had watched this before I had my eyes done. Good that you found it, Darryl. He was thorough!

>203 kidzdoc: I am making a note of that video. My mother is going to need cataract surgery sooner or later, and she is very nervous about it, as, like @jessibud2, she totally freaks out about anything coming near her eyes. She's been trying to teach herself not to flinch away from eye drops, but I'm not sure how well that's going.

>205 bragan: I did that same thing. I would never allow anything near my eyes. I was even terrified of eye drops. Because I had to do it for the surgery, those became nonthreatening after a few days. I 100% understand your mom's fear. Fortunately, she will see how easy it as after her first surgery which will make going into her second surgery much easier psychologically. :)

>206 SqueakyChu: I was always pretty bad about it, myself, until I had to start using eyedrops after a cat knocked a book into my eye. I got used to them pretty quickly after that. But she's way worse about this sort of thing even than I am. Keeping my fingers crossed it's not too impossible for her, when it gets to that point.

>207 bragan: - The very *thought* of eye drops used to be enough to make go screaming in the other direction. But when you have to do it, you do it. When I went for appointments at the doctor's office, they always put the drops in quickly, before I could react, which was a good thing. I think what bothered me most, at those times, was that the office is obviously brightly lit. Afterwards, when I had to put in the drops at home, I always preferred to put them in with the light turned off so it wasn't adding to my misery. It was just easier for me that way. Once the month of drops was over, my doctor suggested I still use non-prescription drops such as Systane, if my eyes felt gritty or itchy, which wasn't often. I still turn my lights off when I do, lol

>207 bragan: using eyedrops after a cat knocked a book into my eye

there is an interesting story here I assume.....

>208 jessibud2: Yeah, it is amazing to me what you can do once you really, really have to.

>209 cindydavid4: Not really. I had a (very large) book on the shelf at the headboard of my bed, I'd just woken up and was lying there in bed, and the cat jumped up on the shelf and knocked the book corner-first into my eye. Scratched the heck out of my cornea. It's never a good thing when you go to the emergency room and someone looks at your injury and goes "holy cow!" Fortunately, both my eyeball and I survived. As did the cat, not that I wasn't tempted to kill him for it. :)

It is the most me thing in the world, though, that what lands me in the emergency room is a book-and-cat related injury.

>210 bragan: actually I remember what one of my cats did on an early monday morning the cats were chasing each other and one jumped on my bed and ran right over my right ear and managed to scrape it up pretty well. tried to get it to stop bleeding and and couldnt so went to urgent care, they taped it up for me and for a day or two. unfortunately I couldnt wear my hearing aid which meant Id be useless at work and stayed home took all day for the bleeding to totally stop.

>210 bragan: "I had a (very large) book on the shelf at the headboard of my bed,"

Ah, yes. I remember this story from Greek mythology: The Book of Damocles.

>211 cindydavid4: They're very dangerous animals, cats!

>212 rocketjk: LOL!

Hi Darryl—finally catching up on your thread. I've been behind on everything recreational-web-related, but... I'm trying. And wow, reading the whole thing was a strange trip through the accruing horrors of the first couple of months of this year. But I won't go there, since that discussion has come anbd gone. I do hope your mom is feeling better, and I send you good vibes in advance for the cataract surgery.

I really like reading about everyone's vinyl—I had a large collection, a lot of it pretty crappy. Once upon a time I loved pawing through the discount bins at St. Marks Sounds on 8th Street, searching for and finding some album that I had wanted so much, scratchy but playable, but in the end nothing I wanted to hang onto. I gave away most of it to an aspiring DJ in my neighborhood, keeping 15 or 20 that had some kind of value for me.

>198 kidzdoc: The Albert Murray interests me. Are you liking it?

>214 lisapeet: I did enjoy South to a Very Old Place, Lisa. I just tried LibraryThing's new review feature, but I don't know if I used it correctly.

>215 kidzdoc: Great review, Darryl! Thanks for letting me jump in and read it along with you.

>217 bell7: Thanks, Mary! I appreciate you reading it with me.

>215 kidzdoc: Terrific review. Thanks, Darryl.

>215 kidzdoc: Wonderful review. And I had to google Uncle Remus and Aunt Hagar - I don't think I had ever heard about the names and what they represent before.

>215 kidzdoc: Another theme is the repeated appearances of Uncle Remus and Aunt Hagar, two well known characters of African American folklore who were wise elderly former slaves that overcame hardship and imparted downhome wisdom to all who would listen to them.

love uncle remus and the brer rabbit (born and bred in the cabbage patch!) I have always wondered if it was still ok to refer to them and other characters so I hesitate to mention them. your thoughts?

>221 cindydavid4: They are part of American history and folklore, so I would say yes.

>222 kidzdoc: good, thank you

I haven't posted an earworm for a few weeks so I submit, for your listening pleasure, this live rendition of "Detour Ahead" as sung by Sarah Vaughan, which comes from her album After Hours at the London House that was recorded on March 7, 1958 at The London House in Chicago:

https://youtu.be/1Hyps3oh9tc?si=WwYralKKOKckxTN_

>224 kidzdoc: - Great review, and analysis, Darryl. Something really has to give. t-rump is just hell-bent on ruining everything he can while he can. So far, sadly, he is succeeding. It is almost unbelievable, and that he is getting away with it, even more. A real nightmare, not just in your country but everywhere.

>225 kidzdoc: - That was lovely, thanks. My dad used to have several albums by Sarah Vaughan, among many other artists and he'd play them on the *hi-fi* at night, when I was going to bed. The soundtrack of my childhood. Sometimes, he'd let me choose what he played. I always laugh that I was probably the only 8-year old who knew all the words to all of those crooners of the 50s and 60s. I still love them!

>224 kidzdoc: Thank you for that excellent review.

>224 kidzdoc: Great review, Darryl. If you've never read it, I highly recommend the late Gwen Ifill's book, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, which highlights particularly the dynamic between the generations in the African American community during the Obama and Clinton campaigns for the Democratic nomination. Ifill's book was, obviously, written much closer to those events.

>226 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley. Trump is a narcissistic sociopath IMO, and he only wishes to gain more power for himself and more control over others. What is particularly distressing is the willingness of Republican senators and congressmen to yield to his demands with little or no pushback. However there is a groundswell of widespread public fear and anger over what he and Musk are doing to the lives of everyday Americans, and, instead of hiding their heads in the sand and refusing to meet their constituents at town halls, these same Republican legislators may finally be persuaded to make a break from Trump if they hope to remain in power in 2026. That seems to be the only hope we have to preserve the near permanent destruction of our democracy.

I'm glad you liked that rendition of "Detour Ahead;" Vaughan's singing in an intimate venue comes through in that recording, and I love the trombone solo.

>227 RidgewayGirl: You're welcome, Kay. I'm glad that you liked my review.

>228 rocketjk: Thanks, Jerry. Apparently I have The Breakthrough in my library, but I haven't read it yet.

Happy birthday my dear friend.

>230 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul!

Happy birthday, Darryl!! Treat yourself to something completely self-indulgent! :-) (how about a book? or some music?)

Happy birthday!

As I was reading your review of New Prize for These Eyes, the only thing I could think of was how stopping at 2/6/2021 completely misses the cataclysm that follows and undoes so much of the Obama years. Of course, the author couldn't know.

>229 kidzdoc: Trump is a narcissistic sociopath IMO — There was an article in The Guardian some time back that argued that Trump is not a narcissist since they seek the approval of others in their self-regard. It argues that he is, instead, a solipsist completely absent of any external connection. Reading the dictionary definition ("the self is the only existent thing ... extreme egocentrism"), I see their point.

>232 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley. Unfortunately we've had steady rain in the Philadelphia area all day, which put a damper on my plans to spend part of the day in the City (i can only spend a few hours away, as the adult day center my mother goes to closes at 5 pm). I stayed local, and had a nice serving of takeaway chicken Pad Thai and part of a slice of a decadent piece of chocolate peanut butter cake from an outstanding Italian bakery for lunch, which was a special treat. I was going to go to the Black feminist indie bookshop in the City that particularly like, but I didn't feel like driving 25 miles to and from there on Interstate 95 in the rain, and a new indie bookshop in the same town where my mother currently is isn't open today.

>233 TadAD: That's an interesting take on Trump, Tad. I see their point, but I would suggest that he does seek the approval of dictators such as Putin, Xi Jinping, Argentina's Maduro and others in that realm, as he would like to join their company and rule without any guardrails, including presidential elections, and for that reason I still view him as a narcisstic sociopath. (I could be wrong, though.)

Happy birthday, Darryl!

>235 bell7: Thanks, Mary!

Happy Birthday, Darryl!

Happy birthday Darryl!

>234 kidzdoc: - "...decadent piece of chocolate peanut butter cake..."

Swoon....!

>215 kidzdoc:, >224 kidzdoc: Thanks for those detailed reviews, distressing as the trajectory currently seems.
Happy birthday!

Happy Birthday! I'm glad you had a little me time and a delicious piece of cake.

Happy Birthday, Darryl. I'm glad there was cake.

>237 labfs39:, >238 SandDune:, >239 jessibud2:, >240 qebo:, >241 ELiz_M:, >242 RidgewayGirl: Thanks for your birthday wishes, everyone!

happy birthday!!!!

Happy birthday, Darryl!

Hope you had a great day!

Happy birthday! :)

>244 cindydavid4:, >245 Berly:, >246 SqueakyChu:, >247 SqueakyChu:, >248 AnnieMod: Thank you!

Belated birthday greetings.

I think Donald Trump definitely likes praise and positive feedback (not that he deserves it)

Your mention of the presidents of other countries: I think you mean Javier Milei in Argentina?

I'm not sure Trump is seeking the approval of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.

>250 elkiedee: Thanks, Luci. I was thinking of Maduro as being a dictator, but I obviously had the wrong country in mind. You're probably right in saying that Trump doesn't respect him, though.

Belated birthday wishes, Darryl!

I made a chocolate peanut butter cake for The Wayne's birthday, which he shares with you (along with taste in cakes 🙂).

>252 katiekrug: Thanks, Katie!

Happy belated birthday Daryl!

>254 markon: Thanks, Ardene!

Belated birthday wishes Darryl. I hope you had a good day and made a book purchase or two.

>224 kidzdoc: goes on my list.

>256 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. I didn't go book shopping on Monday as I had planned, due to inclement weather, but I discovered last night that my cousin Tina had sent me a $75 gift card last Sunday. I used it to purchase four books that were at the very top of my wish list:

Tremor by Teju Cole
On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service by Anthony Fauci, M.D.
Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah
Someone Like Us by Dinaw Mengestu

I specifically purchased books by male authors, as I still intend to go to Harriett's Bookshop, the Black feminist bookshop in Philadelphia that I'm particularly fond of, and buy books by female authors there when I go in the next week or two.

I recently learned that Harriet's has a sister shop (Ida's) in Haddon, NJ. Sadly, it's not very close to me, but I'd like to go if I'm ever down that way...

Happy belated birthday!

>257 kidzdoc: I liked Tremor Darryl.

I remember Laura (Laurelkeet) visiting Harriets when she lived in Philly.

>257 kidzdoc: Anthony Fauci
I've gotten this as an audio book (narrated by the author). May be able to persuade my book group to read it, long but we've done this before by extending to two months instead of the usual one.

>258 katiekrug: Right, Katie. The bookmarks I get from my book purchases from Harriett's Bookshop show that bookstore on one side and Ida's on the other; Harriett's is named after Harriet Tubman (although misspelled), and Ida's after Ida B. Wells. Ida's is south of Cherry Hill and is further south from me that Harriett's is, so I doubt I'll go there.

>259 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita!

>260 Caroline_McElwee: I'm a fan of Teju Cole's work, so I knew that I would want to borrow or purchase this book, along with the others I chose. I have Black Paper: Writing in a Dark Time, his recent collection of essays "that meditates on what it means to sustain our humanity–and witness our hmanity–in a time of darkness" on the sofa next to me, as I'll probably start reading it this coming week, as I can't think of a time more darker than the present during my adult lifetime.

I was supposed to have had lunch in the Fishtown section of Philadelphia and go to Harriett's with Laura and her husband several years ago when they briefly lived there. Unfortunately there was a torrential downpour that afternoon, and since I would have taken public transit (commuter train, subway and possibly a trolley) I knew that I would have gotten completely soaked down to my boxers, as I didn't have access to my parents' car that day, so I cancelled our planned meet up.

I hope that you do read Tony Fauci's book, Katherine. If so you'll probably get to it before I do.
__________________

On a separate note I picked up my new prescription glasses on Friday. They are marginally better than my previous pair, as my vision is still blurry. My new optometrist told me that the best she could do was improve my vision to 20/40, so it seems to be only a matter of months before I'll need cataract surgery.

>263 kidzdoc: you'll probably get to it before I do
Not so sure about that as I have a backlog of literally dozens, and my current pace is about 3 books per month. Unless I persuade my book group, in which case I'll be committed to doing the homework.

>264 qebo: Fair enough.

>229 kidzdoc:, >233 TadAD: An article was written in the University of London newspaper a few months ago on the ethics of psychologists attempting to clinically diagnose Trump from afar, as apparently this contravenes a rule within the profession of not diagnosing people until they have been properly assessed. Interestingly, the article (pre-election) was in response to 200 mental professionals warning in an open letter of Trump's 'malignant narcissism'. I had to look that up:

Malignant narcissism is a theoretical personality construct comprising a combination of narcissism, antisocial behaviour, sadism and a paranoid outlook on life.

Make of that what you will.

>266 AlisonY: I've read the same thing about numerous cases; psychologists and psychiatrists frown on clinically diagnosing people who they have not assessed in person, which seems appropriate and professional. Having said that I Googled "antisocial behavior," which is what sociopaths demonstrate; thus, and for what little it's worth, it still seems to me that he is a narcissistic sociopath.

However, a far more useful and professional analysis is likely the one that Dr Mary Trump, Donald's niece, a clinical psychologist, described in her book Too Much and Never Enough. According to excerpts from her book from an article in Vanity Fair, Dr Trump says "“I have no problem calling Donald a narcissist—he meets all nine criteria,” and “A case could be made that he also meets the criteria for antisocial personality disorder, which in its most severe forms is generally considered sociopathy but can also refer to chronic criminality, arrogance, and disregard for the rights of others,” she writes. “Is there comorbidity? Probably. Donald may also meet some of the criteria for dependent personality disorder, the hallmarks of which include an inability to make decisions or take responsibility, discomfort with being alone, and going to excessive lengths to obtain support from others. Are there other factors that should be considered? Absolutely. He may have a long-undiagnosed learning disability that for decades has interfered with his ability to process information.”

As you said, Alison, make of that what you will.

>266 AlisonY: I've read the same thing about numerous cases; psychologists and psychiatrists frown on clinically diagnosing people who they have not assessed in person, which seems appropriate and professional. Having said that I Googled "antisocial behavior," which is what sociopaths demonstrate; thus, and for what little it's worth, it still seems to me that he is a narcissistic sociopath.

However, a far more useful and professional analysis is likely the one that Dr Mary Trump, Donald's niece, a clinical psychologist, described in her book Too Much and Never Enough. According to excerpts from her book from an article in Vanity Fair, Dr Trump says "“I have no problem calling Donald a narcissist—he meets all nine criteria,” and “A case could be made that he also meets the criteria for antisocial personality disorder, which in its most severe forms is generally considered sociopathy but can also refer to chronic criminality, arrogance, and disregard for the rights of others,” she writes. “Is there comorbidity? Probably. Donald may also meet some of the criteria for dependent personality disorder, the hallmarks of which include an inability to make decisions or take responsibility, discomfort with being alone, and going to excessive lengths to obtain support from others. Are there other factors that should be considered? Absolutely. He may have a long-undiagnosed learning disability that for decades has interfered with his ability to process information.”

As you said, Alison, make of that what you will.

ETA: Here's a link to that article: The Trumps
“I Had to Take Donald Down”: In Mary Trump’s New Book, a Conclusive Diagnosis of Donald Trump’s Psychopathology

>268 kidzdoc: That's a really interesting article on a number of fronts. Her opinion on his personality is obviously very interesting in itself, but I've never known anything of Trump's family beyond his own children, so that was fascinating to read a bit about his relationship with his wider family.

Happy Very Belated Birthday, kidzdoc! 🎂

>269 AlisonY: Right, Alison. Donald Trump's father was an absolute monster, as he was arrested during a Ku Klux Klan rally in NYC in 1927 and he may have surreptitiously supported the Nazi Party in the 1930s. He destroyed his children and his entire family, especially Donald's much maligned brother.

>270 avidmom: Thanks, avidmom!

My new thread can be found here.