Posted Thursday morning, June 21, 2018. Before there were her emails, there was his birth certificate. Image courtesy of CNN. Message courtesy of Donald Trump enabled by the political press who knew better than to take him seriously. You say something that turns out to be true you might just have been misinformed or mistaken. You say it again after you’ve been given the evidence it’s not true, you might just be a stubborn blockhead. You say it again and again because you’re convinced it’s true in spite of the evidence and what they say, you’re either a heroically stubborn... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Sunday afternoon, June 17. Posted Monday morning, June 18. Given that the path from the neuro unit at Westchester Med to Helen Hayes is one many patients travel, this really could be the same woman continuing the same personal drama. She’s on her cell, pacing the hall outside the floor dining room: “I’m very angry right now. I’m completely hurt. Why did you walk away from me like that? Why did you turn your back on me and walk away like that?” Long pause while she listens to whoever’s on the other end of the call.... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Monday evening, June 4, 2018. Westchester Med. Posted Monday morning, June 18. Opening credits… Drama! So much drama at the hospital. They ought to set TV shows at hospitals. Tonight, out in the hall outside Mrs M’s room. Woman out in the hall on her cell. She doesn't sound happy: "You need to meet me halfway. Meet me on Route 100. Pretend it's the bar, then you'll be more than happy to go." Continue reading

Wednesday. 8:35 p.m. 76 degrees. On my to the car. Pretty night. Muggy though. Sun almost down. Sky still light but pale, drained of color. Trees and buildings to the west in silhouette. Robins heading home to the roost. Last song birds to bed. No singing as they fly to their nests and perches for the night. Irritable chittering and clucking. Out of my way! I’m coming! Hold your horses! One dipping low over the parking lot, circling and then swooping up into the young tree he’s chosen for his choir loft for his evensong. Continue reading

Posted Thursday, June 14, 2018. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (left) and German Chancellor Adolf Hitler (in light jacket), leave their meeting at Bad Godesberg, 23 September 1938. Wikipedia Commons via Vox. I don’t know, maybe I read too much… Despite the arguments made by the Times the prime ministers it vigorously supported--first Stanley Baldwin and the [Neville Chamberlain] it is clear now that appeasement rested more on self-delusion than on rational calculation, because it necessarily required faith in Hitler’s sanity and trustworthiness. Chamberlain himself told his sister privately that Hitler was “a man who could be relied on when... Continue reading

Movie star at McDonald’s. New Windsor, New York. This morning around eleven. Wednesday, June 13, 2018. Continue reading

Monday. 10:05 a.m. 69 degrees. Beautiful spring day. Leaving for the hospital. Catbird perched on the mailbox, giving me the eye as I walk out to the car and put my books and computer bag in the backseat, looking like he’s trying not to look like he’s not impatient for me to get out of here so he can take over the holly bushes. I’m telling you. They think they own the place and we’re their tenants. Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Friday, June 8, 2018. Posted Tuesday afternoon, June 12. Doing a little scribbling in the common room while Mrs M takes a nap. Patient, man in his late fifties, in a wheelchair talking to his wife as they enter and settle themselves at a table. Man was expecting someone to come with her to visit. “Where’s Habbie?” “He’s working.” “He’s where?” “He’s working.” “Working? He’s working?” “Yes. He’s working.” “Does he even know what that is?” Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks Wednesday afternoon, June 6, 2018. Posted Monday, June 11. This is the common room just down the hall from Mrs M’s room in the rehab hospital. It’s going to be my office window for the next four to six weeks. First things first. Thank you to all of you who have helped us out these last couple of months, and I’m not talking just to those who were able to help us out financially. I mean all of you! Your kindness, concern, encouragement, prayers, and love have kept all us Mannions going. Ken and Oliver join... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Friday June 1, 2018. Posted Saturday morning, June 9. “Port de mer au soleil couchant”: A French seaport at the height of mercantilism. 1639. Claude Lorrian. Courtesy of the National Gallery, London, via Wikipedia. Political journalists have to stop doing this, covering Trump as if there’s serious presidenting going on, or even something like it. President Trump often seems as though he’s stuck in the ’80s. But maybe the better comparison is to the 1680s, not the Reagan era. Consider his announcement Thursday of new tariffs on steel and aluminum imported from the European Union, Canada... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks May 18, 2018. Posted June 6. Spotted Owl: Symbol of the movement or Public Enemy Number One, depending on how your tribe ranks its totems. Photo copyright Max Leibowitz, courtesy of the Macauley Library, via All About Birds, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Yeah, I know. One party elects many more tribalists than the other, but the point holds: Environmental issues became ways for politicians to flag their identity to supporters---less statements about practical problems with solutions that people could debate than symbols of identity. They signaled membership in a cause: taking back the country, either... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, May 18, 2018. Posted June 6, 2018. Acid rain, still a thing. Photo via worldatlas. Once upon a time, even conservative Republicans could be environmentalists. But they noticed that it was costing them real money: Soon, though, business interests realized that these rules were just the beginning. Dirty air was succeeded by new alarms about the atmosphere, one after another. The ozone hole. Nuclear winter. Acid rain. Each was more abstract than its predecessor, but larger in its immediate economic impact. Industry, sensing a trend, became wary. What had begun as a feel-good movement against a... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Sunday, May 20, 2018. Posted Monday, June 4. The Westchester County Jail is next door to the hospital. Actually, it’s essentially on the same grounds and looks like an extension of the med school campus, except for the razor wire. The hospital is for all intents and purposes the jail infirmary. Jail is a leftover term. It’s a prison with a population of longterm inmates, convicted felons of various degrees, although I’m not sure that includes first-degree ones. Ill and injured prisoners who wind up at the hospital are still prisoners, of course, and need to... Continue reading

Posted Saturday June 2, 2018. New posts below, but before scrolling down please read... Actually, I have enough gas in the tank to get home tonight, but on top of everything else,, we're having the usual end of the month cash crunch and could use a little help with the gas and groceries this week. Plus, there are Mrs M's sugar cookies to pay for. So...if you like what goes on around here and you can swing it and you like sugar cookies, a little donation it would be a big big help. Here's the link to donate via PayPal.... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks Wednesday, May 9, 2018. Posted Saturday morning, June 2, 2018. "The three American prisoners freed from North Korea, Tony Kim, left, Kim Hak-song and Kim Dong-chul, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence, Mr. and Mrs. Trump, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo." Photo credit: Tom Brenner/The New York Times. Are we supposed to be keeping score? The release of the three prisoners, all American citizens of Korean descent, was a diplomatic victory for Mr. Trump and in some ways the most tangible gesture of sincerity shown by North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, to improve relations with... Continue reading

Posted Thursday morning, May 31, 2018. This pickup belongs to an Army veteran. Says so. In two places. That decal in the right hand corner of the rear window and another, smaller one with the Army insignia in the front windshield. Obviously it also belongs to a proud American, a Christian, and an Arkansas Razorbacks fan . I’m trying to decide if the two American flag decals outweigh that goddamn Confederate one on the bumper. So far, he’s not getting the benefit of my doubt. The Blue Lives Matter flag isn't scoring him any points. I’m at Barnes & Noble,... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Wednesday afternoon, May 23, 2018. Posted Thursday morning, May 31. On the patio. Young nurse on her cell at a nearby table Thin, dark haired, dark eyed, narrow-faced but with a big, wide smile that doesn’t seem to ever go away and a merry voice. Not eating her salad as she talks but absently turning over the greens with her fork. “And then he told me he was trying to get Nidia pregnant, and I was like, Wow! Yeah. He just wanted a baby. Then he had the nerve to text me to wish me Happy... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Friday, May 25, 2018. Posted Wednesday morning, May 30. If nothing else I’m getting a refresher course in elementary neurology. Dr W stopped in to see Mrs M today. Dr W and Dr B are good explainers. They give you the details without too much jargon with the intent of helping you understand what they’re doing and why instead of intending to impress you with their knowledge and expertise. I am impressed by their knowledge and expertise. It’s a question though whether I understand. But today Dr W explained the concepts of “regard and attention” and... Continue reading

Posted Monday, May 28, 2018. Way back in 1968, Beverly Cleary predicted the course of my life over the last thirty years in her wonderful book “Ramona the Pest”. I didn’t read “Ramona” when it came out. I was too caught up in the Hardy Boys. But Mrs M did and loved it, and I’ve often wondered if it put ideas in her head: Ramona came to a halt at the intersection guarded by Henry Huggins in his yellow slicker…”Look at all the nice mud,” she said [to her friend Howie], pointing to the area that was to be the... Continue reading

Wednesday. 3:45 p.m.. 79 degrees. No humidity. Wind 8 mph, from the NW. Just enough breeze to luft the flags. Beautiful afternoon to sit out on the patio in the shade and have an ice tea and read a book, even if the patio is a hospital's and the ice tea was bought at the hospital's overpriced cafeteria. Continue reading

Posted Sunday morning, May 27, 2018. This post is really about Winston Churchill… The political press corps is wary of calling Trump a liar because it’s hard to know when he’s consciously lying, repeating bullshit he’s heard on Fox and Friends or been fed by friends, family, and scheming advisors he believes is true, when he’s just spouting off, saying stuff or the sake of saying stuff without checking or caring if it’s true, and when he’s simply demonstrating his monumental ignorance and stupidity. Journalistic conventions and professional concerns about reporting facts not opinions and a realistic fear of lawsuits... Continue reading

New Paltz, New York. Thursday afternoon, May 24, 2018. Posted Friday morning, May 25. Well, this is new… Ken had a doctor’s appointment yesterday and this was on a small side table in the rest room. No sign. No explanation. It wasn’t there last time I was here in April. Presumably they’re free for the taking. I wonder if there’s something going on they’re not telling us about. Continue reading

Posted Wednesday, May 23, 2018. On the planet Ekos, which, under the (mis)guidance of a deranged Earth historian, has modeled itself on Nazi Germany, a disguised Mr Spock is interrogated by the Deputy Fuhrer Malakon in an episode of the original Star Trek TV series called “Patterns of Force,” the only “What If the Nazis Had Won?” story I’ve ever enjoyed. But then I just started Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America.” Roth’s gone. Somewhere in the archives I’m sure I have more on him and his work, but this post from January is within easiest reach at the moment…... Continue reading

Posted Tuesday morning, May 22, 2018. Used to be a secular proverb that carried the wisdom of scripture: “If you meet an asshole in the course of your day, you’ve met an asshole. But if everybody you meet is an asshole, then you’re the asshole.” Now maybe I’ve become an asshole, but it seems to me that there’s now a critical mass of assholes and the world is more and more crowded with them so the proverb should be amended. “If you meet ten assholes…” There’s an occasionally erupting debate over which generation is worse, the Boomers or the Millennials.... Continue reading