Month: May 2024

Don Jr.’s sick dreams


Source: Wikimedia Commons

After the Trump guilty verdict yesterday, we got all the batty outpourings of Republican rage that would be expected. Axios wrote, “A profound sense of rage — and an insatiable thirst for revenge — is permeating virtually every corner of the Republican Party in the wake of former President Trump’s historic conviction.”

Trump himself, for the cameras, went through the motions of displaying rage, but am I the only person who got the impression that an addled Trump only half understands what just happened? One person in particular, though, totally gets what happened. That’s Donald Trump Jr.

“Such bullshit,” Junior said. “The Democrats have succeeded in their years long attempt to turn America into a third-world shithole. November 5 is our last chance to save it.” Junior’s rage is real. If you’ve watched any of his podcasts (I’ve watched only snippets), he works himself into a deranged, spit-flinging lather.

There is a psychotic, and genuine, hatred in his rage. He is a fiend and probably was born that way. Remember the photos of Don Jr.’s and Eric’s African safari in 2012? According to one report, “In one of the photographs, Donald Jr. displays a smug grin while holding the sawed-off tail of the dead elephant, knife in hand.”

Despite the show of Republican rage, you can be sure that, behind closed doors, Republicans know that Trump’s days are numbered. The problem for MAGA world now is how to keep the movement going. Several people have tried to get anointed as the new Trump, Ron DeSantis in particular. DeSantis failed. Nikki Haley, actually, has the best numbers. But though Haley might be suitable to lead a somewhat chastened establishment GOP, she is not at all suitable to keep the MAGA cult going after Trump is out of commission. A very common way for authoritarian strongmen to keep the regime going is have a family dynasty. Think Juan and Isabel Perón, or Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos.

Don Jr.’s dream — I would even say plan — is to be the new Trump.

I have a prediction. In the coming months, no matter what the courts do or don’t do to Trump, and no matter whether or not Trump’s mental state becomes an issue, look for the Trump family to do everything they can to shift MAGA loyalty to Don Jr. as Trump Sr.’s hopes fade.

Donald Trump Jr. will run for president in 2028. The mainstream media again will fall for it, and another Trump will get another free ride in the media because of all the hits and ratings.

MAGA wants revenge, and Don Jr. is the only mutant with any hope of providing it.

The critter birth rate is high this spring


Click here for larger version.

Mama Deer was having lunch on my day lilies while Baby Deer was having lunch on Mama. The baby’s walk was very wobbly. I’d guess that the baby is not many days old.

I’m seeing lots of wildlife babies this year. There are a great many baby rabbits, baby birds, and young squirrels to be seen in the yard. A turtle comes each morning and hides at the bottom of the front steps hoping to catch a porch lizard warming itself on the steps in the morning sun. This morning, during a walk in the woods, I saw a tiny black snake no more than four inches long. I have not seen any baby foxes or baby possums, but they’ve got to be around somewhere. A neighbor says that Mama Bear up on the ridge has some cubs. I don’t think I’ll go up there to look.

All the news that’s profit-friendly


Source: Wikimedia Commons

For those of us who aim to be both well-informed and conscientious in our politics, it’s important to know that most sources of political news are corrupted by money and self-interest. For example…

When I read a few days ago that Nikki Haley has said that she will vote for Trump, my first reaction was, “Aha. As I suspected and expected, she’s now setting herself up to get the nomination when Trump either drops out or the Republicans dump him.” To me it seemed obvious all along that Haley’s intention was to set herself up as the only alternative to Trump. She succeeded, and she continued to get about 20 percent of the primary vote even after she said that she was no longer running.

But of course, that’s not what the political media reported. What the political media reported was that Haley had thrown in the towel, humiliated by getting a mere 20 percent support, making Trump indomitable and Trump 2024 inevitable. Trump-is-inevitable is one of the most profitable political memes of all time. It gets ratings and clicks on both sides of the political spectrum. It allowed the Washington Post and the New York Times to survive the steep decline of the newspaper industry. On the right, the Trump-is-inevitable meme flatters the idea of right-wing righteousness and right-wing power. On the left, the terror of it bolsters doom-scrolling. I’m not even going to mention cable news here because I don’t watch cable news and because I assume that neither does anyone else who aims to be both well-informed and conscientious in their politics.

We can trust the New York Times and the Washington Post (and even cable news!) on a great many subjects — culture, sports, entertainment, food, weather, and even, for the most part, international events. There is only one area in which the mainstream media absolutely cannot be trusted. That’s politics, because politics is so closely connected with media profits, with the job security of the mediocre herd of people who work in the political media, and with the attention that the political punditry can draw, preferably from “both sides.” This is why the media will make a very big deal out of a poll that shows Trump leading the horse race but bury a poll that shows the opposite. The formula is ridiculously simple and transparent: Flatter Republicans, scare the hell out of liberals.

Not until today did I read anything supporting my view that Nikki Haley is cleverly unfolding her strategy for positioning herself as the only alternative to Trump when Trump implodes. It’s no surprise that this came from the daily newsletter of Heather Cox Richardson. Richardson is a liberal historian. Though no doubt she is monitored by some elements on the right who want to know what the liberal intelligentsia are thinking, Richardson does not need right-wing clicks or ratings, either to boost profits or to support a sham of objectivity and impartiality. Richardson wrote, in this morning’s newsletter:

“There are two ways to look at Haley’s capitulation. It might show that Trump is so strong that he has captured the entire party and is sweeping it before him. In contrast, it might show that Trump is weak, and Haley made this concession to his voters either in hopes of stepping into his place or in a desperate move to cobble the party, whose leaders are keenly aware they are an unpopular minority in the country, together.

“The Republican Party is in the midst of a civil war. The last of the establishment Republican leaders who controlled the party before 2016 are trying to wrest control of it back from Trump’s MAGA Republicans, who have taken control of the key official positions. At the same time, Trump’s MAGA voters, while a key part of the Republican base, have pushed the party so far right they have left the majority of Americans—including Republicans—far behind.”

If anyone has seen, either in a mainstream media news item or an opinion piece, the ideas that Heather Cox Richardson relates so concisely above, then I will stand corrected. But I haven’t seen it in anything I’ve read. My view is that this is one of the things that the mainstream political media cannot say, because it would weaken the Trump-is-inevitable meme that profits depend on.

Now we get into a gray zone in which everything is murky because of probabilities, the likelihood of unforeseen developments, and even the actions of the state and federal courts, some of which have been corrupted by Republicans, including Trump, who appointed three members of the current Supreme Court.

So…

I still am strongly of the view that Trump will not be on the ballot in November. How can he be, because he is a criminal, because he is one of the most hated people in the world, because his faculties are failing so fast that he can’t follow a teleprompter, because his memory is shot, and because he is so out of it that he can’t stay awake in court and farts loudly at the defense table. We still don’t have the smoking gun (it will have to be caught on video) that will force the mainstream media to report that Trump is increasingly senile. Only a smoking gun on video will do, because Trump’s increasing senility does not support the Trump-is-inevitable meme. The political media will do everything they can to avoid having to write about Trump’s mental state.

On the other hand, writing about Biden’s age does support the Trump-is-inevitable meme. I’m not going to try to predict what the verdict will be New York, because there is always the chance of a jury fluke in such a politically charged case. But, if there is any justice, the jury will convict Trump on 34 felony counts, because it was entirely obvious, even before we heard the evidence in court, that Trump is guilty as sin.

Here is a kind of scientific real-world test of my view that Trump is doomed. On May 15, it was reported that Biden and Trump have agreed on two debates, the first of which is to be on CNN on June 27. In my view, Trump’s handlers know that Trump is by no means fit to appear in a live debate with Biden. According to my view, it was extremely clever of the Biden campaign to get Trump to agree to such a debate. The Biden campaign knows that Trump’s mind is shot. Scheduling a debate can only be a win for Biden. By far the most likely outcome is that Trump will come up with some lie to explain why he is backing out. If such a debate did happen, then Trump would get slaughtered on live television. If the June 27 debate actually happens, then I’m wrong and will have to do some rethinking.

If Republicans were smart — they aren’t — they would find a way to get Trump to withdraw before the Republican National Convention (July 15-18 in Milwaukee). If establishment Republicans fail to accomplish that, and if Trump drops out (or is somehow forced out) after the convention but before voting begins in November, then Republicans will be stuck with elevating their vice presidential choice to be the candidate for president. You can be pretty confident that Nikki Haley and establishment Republicans are secretly working to get Haley chosen as Trump’s running mate, instead of the bat-shit crazy Republicans who are at present jostling for the job (such as Kristi Noem, who boasted of killing a dog, confirming that the cruelty is the point). Getting Trump and the crazies out of the way by July 18 is Republicans’ best hope.

To believe the mainstream media is to believe that Donald Trump, who has never won a majority of the popular vote and who lost, big, in 2020, has somehow been made even more powerful and popular in spite of everything that has happened in the last four years. This could be true only if voting Americans are even more deceived now than ever. It’s certainly true that the mainstream media are working alongside the right-wing media to maximize deceit. Deceit has been as profitable for the mainstream media as it has been for the right-wing media. On the right, it’s about billions of dollars in profits. For the mainstream, sadly, it’s about survival.

It seems the mainstream media don’t think far enough ahead to consider what would happen to their profits if MAGA ever got back into power and had four more years to create in America a Russian-style kleptocratic economy, a Russian-style police and military, a Russian-style judiciary and justice department, and a Russian-style media.

Update 1:

A new viral podcast, “Shrinking Trump,” has become a must-listen. The mainstream media have, of course, ignored it, viral or not. Two prominent clinical psychologists talk about Trump’s mental condition.

Update 2:

The Washington Post knew in January 2021 about the Alitos’ upside-down American flag. They sat on the story, claiming that they believed the explanation that Alito’s wife gave. Note that the New York Times first reported this on May 16, while the Washington Post is just now admitting, on May 25, that it caught the story and killed it. Why did it take the Post so long to admit this? Also, you can be sure that the Washington press corps — a herd — all know each other and drink together. If Post reporters knew about the flag in January 2021, then it’s a good bet that Times reporters found out about it too. It’s juicy talk at Washington watering holes, but it’s not something that we mouth-breathing common folk need to know.

The rottenness of the political media still continues to shock me, though it is something that I have understood for many years.

Update 3:

The Washington Post is starting to catch hell for suppressing the Alito flag story. The Post deserves all the contempt and ridicule that it’s going to get.

Forbes: Washington Post Had—But Passed—On Blockbuster Alito Flag Story In 2021.

DailyKos: Washington Post sat on Alito flag story for 3+ years

Update 4:

From Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter this morning (May 29, 2024):

‘Last November, Matt Gertz of Media Matters reported that ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News provided 18 times more coverage of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s comment at a fundraising event that “you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables” who are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic,” than they provided of Trump’s November 2023 promise to “root out the communist, Marxist, fascist and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

‘CNN, the Fox News Channel, and MSNBC mentioned the “deplorables” comment nearly 9 times more than Trump’s “vermin” language. The ratio for the five highest-circulating U.S. newspapers was 29:1.’

I found some celeriac!


Mashed celeriac

A few weeks ago, I wrote here about my curiosity about the root vegetable celeriac, which I had never had. I was thrilled to find some yesterday at the Whole Foods store in Winston-Salem. I bought two of them.

I understand that celeriac can be prepared in many ways, raw or cooked, including roasting or making it into a slaw with apples. For my first experiment with celeriac, I decided to treat it like mashed potatoes. I boiled the celeriac for about 25 minutues, then mashed it with butter, cream, and salt. It was delicious.

Though the taste obviously can be compared with celery, I don’t think I can compare the texture with any other vegetable. Some online recipes suggest puréeing the celeriac in a food processor, because it doesn’t mash as smoothly as potatoes. To me that would be a mistake, because I like its texture.

The history of celeriac is fascinating. It was familiar to the ancient Greeks, and it was mentioned by Homer. It became very popular throughout the Mediterranean and made its way deeper into Europe. It’s new to most Americans, including me. We might think of it as occupying the potato niche in Europe before Spaniards brought potatoes to Europe in the 16th Century. When I took my first bite of my mashed celeriac, it seemed strangely familiar and ancient, as though, if there is such a thing as reincarnation, I had eaten it in past lives.

I hope that celeriac will become better known in the U.S. after the recent film “The Taste of Things,” in which celeriac appears twice — first in the garden, and later in the kitchen. There is a celeriac recipe in my 1948 edition of a Scottish cookbook that was first published in 1925. It’s called “celery root” or just “celery” in that cookbook, as though celery root was better known in Scotland than the above-ground celery stalks and leaves. They are different plants, though of course they are relatives.

I was able to find some celeriac seeds (on eBay), and Brittany and Richard, from whom I buy vegetables each week, are going to try to grow some for me. The seeds are tiny. According to the last report I had, after three weeks in their greenhouse, the seeds still had not sprouted. I still have some hope. Brittany and Richard say that they don’t think they can grow celeriac profitably, because it takes a long time to mature. But they’re growing some partly as an experiment, and partly for me. If celeriac was easy to find hereabouts, it would always be on my grocery list.


In the bin at Whole Foods. It was between the parsnips and rutabagas at $2.99 a pound. The label identified it as organic and grown in Canada.

C.J. Sansom’s Dissolution

I was not aware of C.J. Sansom until I read his obituary in the New York Times. I immediately ordered his first novel, Dissolution, and read it pretty fast, because it was quite good. There are seven novels in the Shardlake series. Matthew Shardlake is a kind of Tudor-era detective and lawyer who (at least in the first book of the series) works for Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is in the process of dissolving England’s monasteries for King Henry VIII. The Shardlake character is one of Cromwell’s “commissioners” who go out to the monasteries and do Cromwell’s legal work (and dirty work).

Sansom died just a few days before a television series named “Shardlake” started streaming. According to every source I’ve seen, the series was made by Disney+, but I can’t for the life of me find it on Disney+. I did find it, though, on Hulu.

After the first few chapters of Dissolution I was a bit disappointed, because Sansom doesn’t write the snappiest dialogue in the history of fiction. But by the end of the novel I was impressed. The novel is beautifully constructed. Sansom, who was also a lawyer, had a Ph.D. in history. I am highly inclined to trust Sansom’s take on the history of the dissolution of the English monasteries under Henry VIII. In a historical note at the end of the book, Sansom comments on the scarcity of studies on the dissolution of the monasteries. He pretty much dismisses two fairly recent books — 1992 (Yale) and 1993 (Oxford) — and says that the last major study of the dissolution was published in 1959 — The Religious Orders in England: The Tudor Age, David Knowles, Cambridge University Press, 1959. I have ordered a copy of the 1959 Knowles book on eBay and will probably write about it here later on. I am not the least interested in Catholicism in England, but as an unrepentant heathen I am very interested in the erasure of Catholicism in England.

So far I have watched only the first episode of the “Shardlake” television series. The television series is not, not, not faithful to Sansom’s novel. The television series removes one of Sansom’s key characters (Mark Poer) and replaces him with a character named Jack Barak. I do not, not, not approve. The writer of the TV series, Stephen Butchard, says that Sansom’s Mark Poer was too submissive for television and that a character was needed who would do more head-butting with Shardlake. That really irks me, because the television character is a snarky contemporary smart-ass like any number of cookie-cutter male characters that you’ll find on HBO or Netflix. Sansom’s Mark Poer character never snarks at Shardlake, but he certainly was man enough to think his own thoughts and go his own way. I also am skeptical of the television version of the Shardlake character, who sometimes seems mean and heartless in a way that Sansom’s Shardlake never was. It makes me wonder whether the actors have even read the books, the same way I have wondered whether the cast of the 2015 television version of Winston Graham’s Poldark had ever read the books, because they got their characters all wrong.

In any case, if you think you might be interested in C.J. Sansom’s Shardlake novels, I’d highly recommend reading the books first.

As for the dissolution of the monasteries, I hope to have a more informed view after I’ve read The Religious Orders in England: The Tudor Age. But based on what (admittedly little) I know at present, I have to wonder if the history of Western civilization wouldn’t be very different if Henry VIII had never shut down the monasteries (and reallocated the monasteries’ money and land). If Rome had continued to keep England barefoot and domesticated for five hundred more years, could Elizabeth I or the British Empire ever have happened? If not for the religious turmoil that so changed the church and transferred so much power downward from the pope and the bishops to literate commoners, could Edinburgh ever have led the Enlightenment? Could the American colonists have thrown off both a king and a pope?


Anthony Boyle as Jack Barak

Cabbage rolls

Some of the most beautiful leaves in the garden are the outer leaves of cabbage. They’re usually wasted, though. Some are removed at the farm, some at the grocery store, and some at home. But if you can get them fresh enough, there are things you can do with them.

Last week when I picked up my weekly vegetable box from Brittany and Richard, I pre-arranged to get, this week, a cone cabbage that they would cut while I was there, outer leaves and all. Then I’d rush home and make cabbage rolls. This dish was in progress in the kitchen less than an hour after the cabbage was cut.

The stuffing is brown Basmati rice and crushed Brazil nuts, well seasoned. The sauce is a basic red sauce. I didn’t bother to even steam or boil the cabbage leaves before rolling them. They seemed tender enough, and I cut out the thickest part of the stem.

It’s a wonderful thing being able to get one’s vegetables fresh and organic from a farm only a couple of miles away. One of the things I realized today, as I took things out of the box and got them ready for the fridge, is that the growing of the vegetables is only part of the luxury. The other part is that the vegetables have already had their first wash, and they’re ready for the kitchen or the fridge. I also get to do a garden walk-through during my weekly pickups and even poke my head into the greenhouses.

As I mentioned last week, I’ve not completely quit gardening. This year I’ll grow tomatoes, cucumbers, and basil in my own garden.


The cabbage, fresh from the garden


I also got some beets today, with the beet greens in perfect condition. Click here for high resolution version.

Hazelnut chocolate bombs

Recently a friend gave me a pound of California hazelnuts. What to do with them? I hit upon making no-bake hazelnut chocolate bombs.

Whiz equal parts (by volume) hazelnuts and dates in a food processor. I used about a cup of each. Add cocoa, and, if you have them, some chocolate chips. I added enough Grandma’s molasses to make them hold together into bombs. As the mixture becomes sticky, it will form up into a big ball in the food processor. Some brandy would have been a nice addition, but I didn’t have any. I rolled the bombs in date sugar to make them less sticky. I’m storing the dough in the refrigerator and will roll them into balls as needed.

You could use any kind of nuts. They take no time at all to make. They’re very high calorie — about the same as ice cream, I’d guess — but they’re more nutritious than ice cream and even have a lot of fiber. And, in spite of all the calories, they’re a better form of carbs than cookie-cookies.

A John Rawls recipe book

Free and Equal: What Would a Fair Society Look Like? Daniel Chandler. Penguin Random House, 2023. 404 pages.

As the jacket blurb says, this book about the philosophy of John Rawls aims at “dragging his theory of justice down from Harvard’s ivory towers and into the streets with the people.”

For those already familiar with Rawls (unfortunately not many people), this book will be redundant. But Chandler does lay out Rawls’ theory of “justice as fairness” in lay language rather than in the dense language of moral and political philosophy. Chandler includes real-world examples of where some of Rawls’ ideas actually have been put to the test, and he proposes ways of bringing justice as fairness into the theory and practice of good politics.

Chandler is an economist and philosopher at the London School of Economics.

A scene from Mississippi

I apologize for being just another person out to make a political point from what’s happening on university campuses. But I do think that everyone needs to see this video. It was shot May 3 at the University of Mississippi. According to news reports, counter-protesters — mostly white males — greatly outnumbered the protesters. I can’t determine the original source of the video, but it appears to be nonprofessional video shot with a phone. Many news organizations have used the video.

My political comment would be: Let’s keep this in mind when Republicans tell us that universities are liberal indoctrination centers where conservative students dare not express an opinion.

The first box of 2024 produce


Bok choi, snap peas, green onions, cone cabbage, lettuce, and broccolini

It’s only the 3rd of May, and I just picked up my first box of 2024 vegetables. Again this year, I’m outsourcing the gardening. A young couple who live about two miles away, who moved here from Chicago, are making a living from their little farm. This year they’ll have three seasons of community sourced agriculture boxes each week — spring, summer, and fall.

They are superb gardeners. Over the winter they added a second greenhouse (for starting their vegetables from seeds). They do organic, no-till gardening on remarkably little land. None of the space they have is wasted, with some room left over for blooming things that feed the birds and bees. They sell most of their produce at a high-end farmer’s market in Greensboro, which is open on Saturday mornings. I believe I’m their only local customer who picks up at the farm, which is a bit sad. Most rural people just don’t care about fresh vegetables anymore. Very few people garden, and based on what I see local people buying in the grocery store, their diets are terrible. As much as rural people complain about grocery prices, you’d think they’d get a clue.

I have a standing appointment for pickups on Fridays at 11. They pick my things early in the morning, wash it, and put it in their chiller. When I pick it up it’s fresh from their garden.

Again this year I’ll grow tomatoes and herbs (especially basil) in my own garden plot. But I’ll get everything else from Brittany and Richard.