Dear everyone,
Spring finally feels like it has made the final
breakthrough, several days after the 21st. We had a day around 70 on Friday, although
the temperature rapidly plunged down to 40 in the course of a few hours. I don’t think we will get any more snow
though, and I see crocus, daffodil, and blue flowers (Scilla?) coming out
everywhere.
Jasper has been back to school for a week, and Lucas spent a
couple of days here, then with Nicola, before heading back to Oberlin. We will visit Lucas in a month to hear him
present his senior seminar, and about a month after that, his graduation. It looks like he is going to be in Crete (Mochlos)
for 10 weeks on a dig this summer, and he is considering extending his stay with an application to another dig in
the Cyclades in the early fall. I’m sure
the Greek economy will be happy to have him.
The vagaries of national and international politics. We live in an upside down world - - can you
imagine, even ten years ago, the ‘president’ of Russia meeting with a far right
French candidate, as Putin did with Le Pen this week? It goes to show that these people are all
about the power, and never about the people (and note that defections from the
far right or left always seem attracted by their political opposite - - you never hear of them going towards the center).
At least here
Mr. T and his Republican cronies have fallen flat this week; first with the FBI
pretty clearly indicating that Obama was not wire-tapping him and his crew (at
least, on purpose), and then the total failure of the Republican ‘Repeal and
Replace’. It shows the poverty of their
ideas - - they complained about this law for six years, and could have easily
prepared something in all that time. There
is a big difference in opposing versus governing. I don’t want to write any more on this other
than to say the proposal was so flawed that many Republicans couldn’t stomach
voting for it. So is lost a big opportunity
to make changes for the better.
And I
have also suffered (greatly), via Public Radio, the Kabuki Theater of vetting a Supreme
Court justice. Do you ever notice that
each senator gets 30 minutes to question the witness, and about 27 minutes is
spent with the senator bloviating, and 3 minutes is the candidate saying “I can’t
answer that question’? What is the point of that?
We had the big reveal this Friday of Barbara’s surprise
(late) 88th birthday party.
We had a great meal at Froggy’s thanks to Andy’s planning.
We also got to meet ‘Spot’ (nee Scotch), the new golden
doodle. He seems very nice; I hope he
doesn’t turn out to be too large to handle.
Cindy and I saw Monuments Men last
night, a vanity project of George Clooney (he wrote, directed and starred in
it). I thought it was pretty boring and
stiff, corny, and apparently not historically accurate either. If you skip it, you won’t miss much. Jasper revealed a new anime series to me, Baccano!, that I am on the
verge of finishing (there are only 16 episodes). It’s very confusing, with several mafia
families from the 1930s, immortal alchemists from the 1700’s, and some other
characters all mixed up together. I did
read a very interesting book recently, Do
No Harm, a melancholy series of essays by a renowned British neurosurgeon
near the end of his career; some deal with his errors in operating judgement
and others with patients with essentially inoperable disease. Certainly interesting to me (although
pathology is only mentioned fleetingly once in the entire book, and there not
in a particularly favorable light)! It’s very well written, and worth reading.
Love, H.
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