Nobody reads

According to an article by Rose Horowitch in the latest Harper’s entitled “The Age of Reading is Over,” fewer than half of Americans read a book last year.  Not one book.  Most teenagers no longer read any books for enjoyment.  People don’t read newspapers.  Our President doesn’t even read position papers, and I will bet he has never read a single book.

Do you know what I would like to read?  Something that is good news.  Spain winning the World Cup was good news, but it is too fleeting, and it was on TV anyway.  In the meantime I’m almost finished with David Sedaris’ Theft by Finding:  Diaries 1977-2002.  And like everything David Sedaris writes, it is very good.

I’ll be happy to take other suggestions.  No rom coms, historical fiction, fantasy, or religious stuff.  I never got Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter if that helps.

The Annual Bat Count

Every summer I count our bats for the Pennsylvania Game Commission.  We have a bat house on the east end of our shed, and last year’s count was 42.  

Tonight I only counted 31.  It was a relatively cool evening, with the temp about 63 degrees, but they still should be coming out to catch insects.  According to a bat expert from the Game Commission who stopped by earlier this summer, Pennsylvania’s bats have been slowly increasing since the low point some years ago from a disease known as “white nose syndrome.”  The expert, Robyn, is coming back in September with a crew to put up a better bat house on a pole, so that may help our population.

I am supposed to count on two separate nights, so I’ll probably try again tomorrow.  We like our bats; I hope I just missed something.

Fact checkers examine Trump's speech

My friend Bill sent me an item from columnist Andy Borowitz, who said that fact checkers on Trump’s speech could find none.

Not ready for prime time

Did anyone watch Trump’s speech last night?  I understand two networks didn’t bother to carry it.  I didn’t see it–we haven’t had a tv for at least ten days.  Plus I listened to a talk and demonstration of medieval string instruments, which actually sound ethereal and amazingly better than a blowhard babbling on about election integrity.  

I really think we have reached to point where people are saying “Oh, him again.  What’s he spouting off about this time?”  He’s become a bore.

Children and the President

In a study of children’s attitude toward the President completed in the 1950s, Yale political scientist Fred Greenstein found that children had a benevolent attitude toward the President of the United States, sometimes conflating the President with God.  Keep in mind he was doing his study in the 1950s, when the President was Eisenhower, organizer of D-Day and a man who often seemed to be above politics.  Greenstein’s work was criticized, since his study focused on New Haven school children, few of whom were black or hispanic.  Given those limitations I think the study was fairly accurate.  

When Kennedy was assassinated people were depressed for months.  People couldn’t sleep, felt bereft.  You don’t feel like that when your U.S. Representative dies.  A group of my friends and I drove to Washington to attend Kennedy’s funeral.  It was a major event in my life.

I believe that most parents and teachers taught their children or pupils that the president was to be respected and revered.  When our daughter came home from her elementary school in Oakland in the Seventies talking about “Pig Nixon,” I was shocked.   This was at a time when I loathed Nixon and loathed his Vietnam War policies and demonstrated against him.  In spite of that, I remember telling her, “He is the President of the United States.  We do not call the President a pig.” 

I would have said the same thing for Ford, or Reagan, or either of the Bushes.  The President was a figure to be respected.

No more.  There is no way our current President is a person to be respected.  Unlike previous presidents, even those whom historians rank at the bottom like Buchanan or Harding or Johnson, I cannot think of any redeeming qualities of the current occupant of the White House.  Not one.  None.

Members of the House of Representatives pass a bill!

Yes, the House members passed a bill to make Daylight Savings Time permanent.  Can they do something about the Trump arch and the East Wing?  What about the war in Iran?  What about Red Flag laws or gun restrictions?  Can they rein in Pete Hegseth, or Robert Kennedy, Jr., or Kash Patel?  Can they stop ICE from its cruelty?  Can they regulate AI?  Can they do something as simple as shoring up the Post Office, let alone shoring up Social Security?

No, by God, they can’t.  But they can pat themselves on the back for passing such an IMPORTANT BILL as making Daylight Savings Time permanent.  We should be proud of them. 

Bad year, good year, happy day

 It is really a bad year for raspberries.  I looked in the usual spots and I can’t find any.  Not even the plants.  Lots of invasives but no raspberries.  The mulberries are tiny and few; the quince tree has no fruit whatsoever. The currents were tiny, and I had to buy four quarts from my friend Tom to make jelly.  Not a good year.

On the other hand it’s a good year for E. Jean Carroll.  She got her $5.6 million legal settlement from Trump today.  Finally.  That rapist had to cough up, not that he will notice with all the money he is stealing from the American public.

Happy Bastille Day.  Vive la France!