President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his wife, Jill Biden, attended a Veterans Day observance at the Korean War Memorial in Philadelphia on Wednesday.
Wednesday/ Veterans Day
Tuesday/ the time to concede is now
Trump & his Trumpublicans have not conceded the election.
They need to — and NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME.
Professor of History at Yale, Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder on Twitter, writes in a series of tweets:
1/20. Democracy is precious and exceptional.
2/20. Democracy is undone from within rather than from without.
3/20. The occasion to undo democracy is often an election.
4/20. The mechanism to undo democracy is usually a fake emergency, a claim that internal enemies have done something outrageous.
5/20. A tyrant cares about his person, not the Republic.
6/20. A tyrant fears prosecution and poverty after leaving office.
7/20. Donald Trump faces criminal investigations and owes a billion dollars to creditors.
8/20. Donald Trump has said all along that he would ignore the vote count.
9/20. What Donald Trump is attempting to do has a name: coup d’état. Poorly organized though it might seem, it is not bound to fail. It must be made to fail.
10/20. Coups are defeated quickly or not at all. While they take place we are meant to look away, as many of us are doing. When they are complete we are powerless.
11/20. American exceptionalism prevents us from seeing basic truths.
12/20. Biden voters are wrong to see a Biden administration as inevitable. Take responsibility, Democrats.
13/20. In an authoritarian situation, the election is only round one. You don’t win by winning round one.
14/20. Peaceful demonstrations after elections are necessary for transitions away from authoritarianism, as in Poland in 1989, Serbia in 1999, or Belarus right now.
15/20. It is up to civil society, organized citizens, to defend the vote and to peacefully defend democracy.
16/20. Dance after the wedding, not before. Take responsibility, Americans.
17/20. Republicans endorsing the claim of fraud endanger the Republic.
18/20. Calling an opponent’s victory fraudulent risks assassination, as in Poland in 1922.
19/20. Creating a myth of a “stab in the back” by internal enemies, as Republicans are helping Trump to do, justifies violence against other citizens, as in interwar Germany.
20/20. Persuading your voters that the other side cheated starts a downward spiral. Your voters will expect you to cheat next time. Take responsibility, Republicans.
Monday/ Indigenous Peoples’ Day
It was Indigenous Peoples’ Day today here in the United States, and I wondered how long ago the first humans had reached the North American continent.
The answer: We don’t know for sure! Some 10,000 to 25,000 yrs ago. Indigenous Americans, who include Alaska Natives, Canadian First Nations, and Native Americans, descend from humans who crossed an ancient land bridge called Beringia, connecting Siberia in Russia to Alaska.
P.S. Anatomically modern Homo sapiens evolved by at least 130,000 years ago from ancestors who had remained in Africa. As far back as 2.5 million years ago, our ancestors – apelike creatures in Africa that began to walk habitually on two legs – were flaking crude stone tools.
Thursday/ Tintin, in Welsh
I have Welsh ancestors, and so a Welsh translation to add to my collection of translations of Tintin adventure called ‘King Ottokar’s Sceptre’ was definitely required.
Quick Quiz (answers below): In which country is Welsh is spoken? Which city is the country’s capital?
Welsh is the only language that is de jure* official in any part of the United Kingdom, with English being de facto official.
*de jure- by law; de facto- in fact/ the reality
Welsh has been spoken continuously in Wales throughout recorded history, but by 1911 it had already become a minority language. Today Welsh is spoken by some 850,000 people in Wales. The Welsh government plan to have one million Welsh language speakers by 2050. [Information from Wikipedia]
(Answers to the Quiz: Wales, in the southwest of Great Britain, capital Cardiff).
The panel seems to be a play on the word ‘fur’ (referring to Tintin’s white pooch Snowy, called Milyn in Welsh):
Detective Parry-Williams: We are holding tight, to fur with you!
Detective Williams-Parry: In fact, we’re holding the fur, tight with you!
Tintin: All right!
Friday/ Ruth Bader Ginsberg (1933-2020)
Growing up in Brooklyn in the 1930s and ’40s, Ginsburg was discouraged from working by her father, who thought a woman’s place was in the home. Regardless, she went to Cornell University, where men outnumbered women four to one. There, she met her husband, Martin Ginsburg, and found her calling as a lawyer. Despite discrimination against Jews, females, and working mothers, Ginsburg went on to become Columbia Law School’s first tenured female professor, a judge for the US Court of Appeals, and finally, a Supreme Court Justice. [Description of the book from barnesandnoble.com]
She was a trailblazer and a champion of gender equality. Now that she is gone, there may be profound consequences for the Court, and for the country.
Only 3 of the remaining 8 justices are now considered progressive or liberal, with 5 conservative.
Tuesday/ Luby’s may be going out of business
I dined at Luby’s a few times while I lived in Houston in 1999.
The restaurant chain is now headed for liquidation.
Writes Jill Smits in Texas Highways Magazine:
‘If you grew up in Texas, you’ve probably eaten at Luby’s. And if you’ve eaten at Luby’s, your feelings about the restaurant may run surprisingly deep. While it’s been decades since I stepped inside one, my nostalgia for square fish, church clothes, and green Jell-O has been in overdrive since hearing the 73-year-old Houston-based cafeteria chain is closing multiple locations and heading toward liquidation’.
Friday/ 19 years since 9.11
2,974 victims were confirmed to have died in the initial attacks. It has been reported that over 1,400 9/11 rescue workers who responded to the scene in the days and months after the attacks have since died. (Figures from Wikipedia).
Here is a list of dates and events that followed the 9/11 attacks ..
| Year | Day | Milestone |
|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Tue–Sept11 | The 9/11 attacks |
| 2001 | Sun–Oct07 | Taliban driven from power/ War in Afghanistan starts |
| 2003 | Thu–Mar20 | War in Iraq starts |
| 2006 | Thu–Apr27 | One World Tower construction starts |
| 2011 | Mon–May02 | Osama bin Laden killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan |
| 2011 | Sun–Dec18 | War in Iraq ends |
| 2015 | Fri–May29 | One World Tower observation deck opens |
| 2020 | Sat–Feb29 | Conditional peace deal signed with Taliban in Doha, Qatar |
Tuesday/ the explosion in Beirut
‘This is like Hiroshima‘
– Mayor of Beirut, Marwan Abboud, while appearing to be in tears while addressing reporters a few hours after the massive explosion that rocked the city on Monday evening
As someone said on Twitter: in a city that still bears the scars of a civil war of 15 years (1975-1990), the people of Beirut deserve better than this.
Early indications are that the explosion was the accidental ignition of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate used in fertilisers and bombs had been stored for six years at the port without safety measures.
Thursday/ John Lewis laid to rest
Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.
– John Lewis (80), in an essay he wrote shortly before his death on July 17.
Civil rights icon and former congressman John Lewis was laid to rest today after three former presidents (Clinton, Bush, Obama) had delivered eulogies for him at a service in Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
Minutes later, with white onlookers cheering them on, Alabama State troopers in riot gear brutalized and trampled unarmed men, women and children, beating them with clubs and unleashing tear gas. Lewis was hit on the head and fell to the ground and when he tried to get up, was struck again, leaving him unconscious.
Friday/ it’s Juneteenth Day
Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation – which had become official January 1, 1863.
More at https://www.juneteenth.com/history.htm
The Trump campaign did good work (unintentionally) by initially scheduling his stupid rally in Tulsa, OK for today. Oh! It’s Juneteenth, had no idea (I’m parapharasing), said he, we will move it. (Moved it by one day, to Saturday). So now many millions more Americans — at long last — know what Juneteenth is, and there will be a push from Congress to make it a federal holiday.
As for Saturday’s rally, there is the reality of Oklahoma being in the middle of a spike in Covid-19 cases. No matter. Deaf to Oklahoma public health officials, the Trump 2020 campaign will pack 20,000 adulating Trump barbarians into the Bank of Oklahoma Center. They will not be required to wear masks. Tulsa Mayor, and Oklahoma Governor — the consequences will be on you.
Sat. Jun 20: Trump delivered his usual disjointed speech; told the thin crowd he ‘wanted to slow testing down’, and called the corona virus Kung Flu.
His appearance at the outside overflow area was cancelled. The overflow area was empty.
Tuesday/ the day apartheid died
The march had been peaceful, but then a police convoy arrived. Not long after that, the protestors were fired upon with live ammunition, causing the deaths of several young students. There was more bloodshed the next day. The number of young people who died is usually given as 176, but other estimates put it at hundreds more.
Many white South Africans were outraged at the government’s actions in Soweto. It would be another 14 years before Nelson Mandela would be let out of jail, but at no point after 1976, was the government able to restore the relative peace and social stability of the early 1970s.
Wednesday/ more than 100,000 lives lost
So here it is, four months in: the United States reached the 100,000 mark for Covid-19 fatalities. We have a long way to go – but at this point the US has a far, far worse outcome compared to most other countries in the world.
Moreover, the actual number for the pandemic may already be as high as 125,000, if one adds in what is called ‘excess death*’ statistics.
*The observed number of deaths, minus the expected number of deaths under normal conditions, for a certain population.
There was not a word out of Trump about all this, who was at the SpaceX launch event in Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Fla. (scrubbed at the last minute due to bad weather).
Memorial Day
The last Monday in May is Memorial Day.
The Korean War (1950-1953) is called ‘The Forgotten War’, but let’s also remember those soldiers that had paid with their lives in the very recent wars in Afghanistan (2001-present) and in Iraq (2003-2011).
Sunday/ trying to peer into the future
‘Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.’—Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher
To help keep my sense of time and seasons intact, I drew up a little timeline of the 9 months that still stretch ahead of Seattle and the world in 2020.
Major sport events in the world have now been cancelled through July (including Wimbledon tennis at the famous ‘All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club’, and the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics).
After that – well, we just don’t know right now.
Friday/ the U.K. leaves the E.U.
P.S. Some grammar geeks point out that the so-called ‘Oxford comma’ should have been used before the ‘and’. That would clarify to the reader that all of the three things mentioned, are wished between the U.K. and other nations —not only friendship.
From the Royal Mint website: ‘Commonly known as ‘Brexit,’ the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union officially took place on 31 January 2020.
The withdrawal serves as culmination of a period in British history kicked off by a referendum on 23 June 2016 which was followed by the country triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty on 29 March 2017′.
Monday/ ‘bring jelly, and blankets’
The horrors of the Auschwitz concentration camp came to an end 75 years ago. I confess that I did not know that it was the Russians that liberated the people trapped in the camp.
Here is a little bit of what Don Greenbaum (94), says of the U.S. Army Liberation of the Dachau Concentration Camp (this was on April 29, 1945). From German news weekly Die Spiegel :
We couldn’t communicate at first. The prisoners spoke all sorts of languages, German, Czech, just no English. Then we found out that one of our boys could speak Yiddish. He said: “We are American soldiers. We are here to free you. You can go wherever you want.” But where should the poor devils go? We couldn’t even feed the prisoners. People were so starved that they were unable to eat normal food. We said to the comrades behind us: “Bring something to the people here that they can keep with them! Soft food, something like jelly. Anything they can swallow. And bring blankets! “
Tuesday/ the Twin Towers in 1999
Here is a digital scan of the 35mm film negative, of a picture of the Twin Towers, that I had taken in 1999 from the Hudson River. I was on a Circle Line boat tour around Manhattan island.
Monday/ Martin Luther King Jr. Day
It was the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday here in the States today, and it felt like a Sunday to me.
Martin Luther King: (my paraphrasing) all people should have equal political rights and social freedoms, and we should speak up, and act, when we see someone’s civil rights violated.
Friday/ unpacking my bags
My bags are unpacked.
As usual, I dug out several items between the layers of clothes in my suitcases that I had ‘acquired’ during my visit to Tokyo and Perth.
Friday/ for my stamp collection
I stopped at an ‘Australia Post’ post office today.
I had the poor clerk behind the counter flip through the big album, full of sheets of stamps, so that I could pick out colorful and interesting stamps to buy. She was very patient with me!
