Day 532 – I’m Back!

Wednesday, June 24, 2026

I have just come back from a trip to the Mayan area in Mexico. I got sick the week before when I went to see the grandkids so I wasn’t in the best shape for the trip. I made it back and was in a very nasty mood. I was tired of being sick. All of a sudden early this morning I think a cloud lifted and the cold has retreated. I’m not sure, but I’m hopeful because I have not been myself, which is frustrating and weird. I seem to almost ask myself “who is this person that is inhabiting my body?”

Being sick like this makes me reflective. I’ve been watching the World Cup (that’s soccer or Football depending on where you grew up.) It is so wonderful to see the teams compete from around the world. There is joy and hope. And heartbreak. I was in Mexico at an open air restaurant when Mexico played Korea. (Interestingly, they didn’t say “South Korea,” just Korea.) I got there a few minutes before Mexico scored the only goal of the game. Wow. 

When the Korean goalie leaped in the air, grabbed the ball and hit the ground with his body extended the ball came loose and one of the Mexican players nudged it in. It wasn’t a blast. More like a soft pass, but it was a goal. The restaurant, the street outside, everywhere exploded in joy and noise. A guy came out from the back wearing a big floppy sombrero. He was jumping up and down. The hat was flapping. People were shouting and cheering. Horns were honking. It was crazy fun.

On the flight into Mexico City there were a lot of people wearing Columbian jerseys. They had come from New York to see Columbia play Uzbekistan. When else are you going to see Uzbekistan people and Columbian people together? The flight attendants made a comment as we were about to land about Columbia and the plane erupted in cheers.

On the way home I watched a bit of a documentary about The Women’s World Cup 1971. I had not realized that women were forbidden to play soccer in many countries. It was thought to be too dangerous. An Englishman got the liquor manufacturer Martini & Rossi to sponsor the tournament. 

FIFA which is governed by men, all men, tried everything they could to stop it. They threatened clubs with fines and expulsion if they let women use their fields. In Mexico they banned them from using any of the club fields. The only stadiums they could use were the two largest, which they filled. But still to this day the prejudice exists. Megan Rapinoe wrote about how her women’s team would qualify when the men’s team didn’t. Yet, the women were given little money while the men flew in chartered jets, and the women were making the ticket sales! Not the men.

Yet in the world you see the joy and camaraderie that a sport brings. It’s huge. What I really like is that at the end of the game the players from either team congratulate each other. No fighting. Hugs.

When I arrived home I had run out of my medicine and was still sick and started to go downhill again. It was depressing, annoying, frustrating, and tiring. It did make for good lump sitting and watching the games.

I also got filled in on the latest outrages and opposition to our President. I read that there are cheers in stadiums denouncing Trump and linking him to Epstein. His staff is trying to find a “safe” game where he won’t be booed. So far, no luck.

I watched a clip of him trying to put a medal around a soldier’s neck. He couldn’t clip it and had to tie it on with a granny knot. It reminded me of what many believe was the fall of Egypt’s Old Kingdom when Pepy II got so old that he couldn’t pull the bowstring to shot the ceremonial arrow.

But that’s only the tip of the shitberg, there’s the disaster of the Reflecting Pool with its peeling liner and algae problem. People touching it are arrested and denounced as “radical left lunatics”, including an Olympic cyclist. Others come and cheer for the algae.

It’s been reported the Trump has taken to gluing gold stuff to the walls in the White House. The Ballroom has been stopped by court order. The Rose Garden has been paved over to look like a patio at a poolside cheap resort. The 250 foot monstrosity monument has been halted (I think). The Kennedy Center has its name restored, but they won’t take down the curtain hiding the fact the Trump’s name is off it. The Oval beyond the White House looks like a decimated lawn. ICE is giving up on six of its super detention centers. The effort by the administration to haul up the deep sea monitoring equipment and junk it has been halted. (Why on Earth did they want to stop that? And spend millions to do it?)

But the we get to Tulsi Gabbard. Why did she resign as head of our national security? Turns out she was taking direct orders from her cult leader. She is and was in a cult and she does exactly what this guy says. I mean the guy makes people eat his toe nail clippings? That’s weird.. And she was in charge of our national security. And it’s not like people didn’t know. But the Washington Post (that leftist rag owned by multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos “his worst investment”) published stuff showing memos sent to Gabbard telling her exactly what to say and she said it word for word. Not just what to say but as a legislator what to enact. She was shown what they were about topublish and resigned. I think she is vacationing with Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem, learning new skills like puppy shooting.

This is crazy. You can’t make this up. It would never make it as a Hollywood script because it’s too off the wall.

Then we get to a piece by Paul Krugman. You know that hack Nobel winning economist. He pointed out that Timothy Snyder (that hack professor who wrote a thin book called “On Tyranny”) said of Hegseth and Trump that, I quote:

“The attack on Iran began with a longing — a subjective sense that violence is pleasurable and can bring a utopia in which desires become reality. In the statements of President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth, such a utopia of violence is palpable.”

And Krugman goes on to point out how Hegseth has  stalled or ruined the careers of women and people of color. The integration in our military of women and black people had been a source of pride and now this has been degrades as has our military preparedness. 

Trump’s war of whim with Iran has now been lost and he has to pay. So instead of having an agreement with Iran like we did under Obama we have a stronger more dangerous Iran. 

This list of incompetence is long. But it’s not just incompetence. It’s dishonesty. it’s deceit. It’s crime – done openly. I mean Martha Stewart went to jail for one insider trading tip. Trump? How many has he had? Well, they weren’t tip were they? He created them. I mean he invests in a company a day or so before he announces the Federal Government is buying a lot of that company’s stuff? I have to wonder how does he have time to do anything governmental? You know, like running the government? I mean if you are trading as many times as is alleged that means he’s trading all day every day.

Then there’s the nutty health care stuff. How about the breakout of disease at some, was it?, air force base? Because now vaccinations are up to the whim of the individual??? Yeah, raise your hand if you want to be cheek and jowl with someone in a foxhole that could have plague. (or mumps, or COVID, or measles, or any of the other diseases we have preventatives for). And don’t forget it you get bitten by a rodent or dog and want to find out if you have rabies they ain’t got people to do those tests anymore. Flu? Yeah. It won’t be as up to snuff as it used to be. I mean you gotta have people to do that work and who know what they are doing, but they’re gone. How about “the best and the brightest”? They aren’t coming here to study anymore.They are going to those shithole countries like Denmark. Oh sorry, you’re white. I mean you’re okay.

It’s sad. It’s dishonest. It’s criminal. It’s stupid. But that is where we are right now.

This is not the country I grew up in. When I was growing up a Republican was President. He played golf once in a while. He strengthened Social Security. He built The Interstate Highway System. He believed in science and he was wary of “the military industrial complex.” Those days are long gone. 

Day 532a – Reflecting Pool update

June 24, 2026

An addendum to the day:

If you were doing something and it was going to be a crucial piece to your legacy, agenda, whatever wouldn’t you want to get advice from the best people you could? I mean, the most knowledgeable?

That approach wound be called what? Common sense? 

The Park Service has reported on the damage to the Reflecting Pool. Seems there are two very long “cuts” along the edge of the pool. We’re talking about 177 feet for each or thereabouts. When I read that I immediately thought that’s a heck of a long cut. If someone was trying to do that with a knife that would be hard and take a lot of time and effort. Well, it could be “radical left lunatics,” but wouldn’t someone have seen a person crawling along the edge of the Reflecting Pool on their knees for 177 feet? Twice?

The newspaper I was reading (That disreputable rag The New York Times) did something really weird. They called up a person who knows something about pool liners and pool lining. His opinion? Well, he wouldn’t rule out a knife but more likely he thought it could be that not enough material was put down. That the application was too thin, and done too hastily. Now does that make sense to you? I mean if ya got sumptin’ and it’s real thin and it needs to contract, or expand, well gosh there just ain’t too much to work with and yeah it might just create a big long separation – oftentimes referred to as “a cut.”

Now this here expert didn’t say nuthin’ ‘bout the boys doin’ the job, but he did say that there are people in this bizness that know what they are doing.

Maybe giving a no bid contract to a buddy wasn’t such a good idea?

Put it another way: which is more like Trump? Hasty, thin, and cheap; or thoughtful, well researched, and knowledgeable?

If it has to be redone can we get some sparkles? You know like fireworks. Bombs bursting in air and all that? I hear the President has some glue left over from his tacky tack job in The White House.

I wonder if the guy got paid? I mean it is so Trump like to not pay.