Why People Tune Out

Here is a sample of today’s headlines from the New York Times:

China’s New Barges Could Ease an Invasion of Taiwan

Rising Fears for Free Speech After Greenpeace’s Defeat

Trump Denies Car Exhaust Contaminates Environment

Upending the Transition to Clean Energy

Justices Weigh South Carolina’s Bid to Deny Medicaid Funding for Planned Parenthood

F.D.A. Layoffs Could Raise Nation’s Drug Costs and Erode Food Safety

C.D.C. Cutbacks Threaten Public Health, Critics Say

Lawyers for Man Wrongly Deported to El Salvador Assail White House

If New York Puts Casino in the Bronx, the Trump Organization Will Get $115 Million

Officer Won’t Be Charged in Fatal Shooting of Boy Who Had a Pellet Gun

"This Land Is Mine"

It’s a movie we are watching on Turner Classic Movies.  Made in 1943 and directed by Jean Renoir (living in exile in the U.S. at a time when we were fighting fascism, not promoting it) the movie stars Charles Laughton as a timid schoolteacher who gathers the courage to fight back.

The movie shows how the occupying authorities censor the content of school books and control the inhabitants of the town with both propaganda and threats of arrest.  It is amazing how close it feels to what is happening in my country today.

"Trump Denounces Smithsonian Exhibition"

 That headline appeared in today’s New York Times.  Trump is angry about an exhibition at the American Art Museum entitled “The Shape of Power.”  Trump says that the show “promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating ‘Race is a human invention.’”

Race is actually a human invention.  It is not a biological reality.  Blacks and Whites and Asians are not separate species.

This goofball, who never read a book in his life, is now issuing an executive order demanding changes in the exhibit and pushing a theory of race that has been discarded for years.

Doesn’t he have enough to do?  Shouldn’t he be scamming people out of their life savings for his bitcoins.  Shouldn’t he be preparing troops to invade Greenland?  Aren’t there more hairdressers to be sent to prison in El Salvador?  Good grief.

Info for this post is taken in part from Zachary Small, “Trump Denounces Smithsonian Exhibition,” New York Times, (April 2, 2025), p. C3.

The Book Club

About two weeks ago my friend Kim told me that after a meeting, four members of her book club were discussing what they could do about the policies of the Trump administration.  She said they were angry but unsure how to channel that anger.

We decided to invite them and their friends to a meeting/seminar on what they could do.  Each of them would invite friends to join us.  We’d have some pizza and wine and come up with suggestions.  We were hoping for eight to ten people.  We met tonight–about 25 participants.  Some of the suggestions were to stay informed, follow certain podcasts, and write, email, or phone members of Congress.  We distributed the names and addresses of our Senators and our House member, and then we all wrote cards and letters–over 60 in all.  A number of the participants also agreed to join an anti-MAGA demonstration on Saturday in Jim Thorpe.  

It was so pleasant (and energizing) to be in a room full of intelligent people concerned about the direction of our country and willing to act on their concerns.