Love this quote from Len Blackwell. He and his Wife Mary became our friends when Len was President of the Mississippi Bar and I was President of the Florida Bar. There are actually some really smart terrific people like Len and Mary, even in Mississippi, just not enough of them.
“ What haunts me is that I’m just not smart enough for this many people to be this much stupider than I am”.
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I have walked 638 steps in the past seven days
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Not hard to follow my mind: I saw that McConnell has led a delegation of Republican Senators to Ukraine. There is a famous theatrical story about a talentless Pia Zadora whose rich then-Husband mistakenly starred her in “The Diary of Anne Frank”. Zadora was so bad that when the Nazi came to the front door looking for her, the audience stood up en masse and shouted, “She’s in the attic!”
Can anyone call a Trumper they know and get me Putin’s email address?
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There were at least two mass shootings in the United States before dinnertime on the east coast Saturday. The second one flashed across my I Pad as I was getting ready to turn out the lights a little after 10 p.m. Florence time.
We are quickly heading back to the days of Wyatt Earp. I could become Jesse James and just change one of my names.
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The Marlins finally scored some runs and beat the Brewers 9 to 3. It is very unfortunate that they lost their momentum when they were, I believe, 4 games over .500 and it had started looking like they could have a decent season. The Mets win the Division. They have the team, the ownership, and the money, and are going about trying to win in the right way. The Marlins ownership Is going about it ass backwards
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Never left my bed yesterday. Hopefully, my fracture is healing. It will be a long time until I can walk.normally and without pain.
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When get back to Florida, I hope our new storm windows are installed and our new generator is up and running. Thank you son Steven for helping with this project in our absence
Barbara will not move from our house to downsize so we decided to make the house as stress free as possible.
I have always known that we would never sell our Florida house. We just have too much stuff and, while we are still working, the house suits our needs. As long as we are together and can take care of one another we are fine. I would have said it was impossible for us, at this point in our lives, to ever move out of Florida. Maybe an extra month in Italy, but our family and work is in Florida. Most of our friends are in the States.
I must say, however, that the situation in the United States is deteriorating so rapidly that more people than you might imagine are looking for alternative places to live. There are thousands of great places in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, to name just a few where democracy will flourish and where the cost of living is affordable.
For many reasons, Barbara and I are stuck but people younger are already seriously looking in droves at places where abortion is not illegal, more than adequate medical care is free, prescription drugs are a fraction of the cost, Gun violence and most other crime is much less, and education is often better, the infrastructure is more modern, and your vote is easily cast and fairly counted than in the States.
No place is perfect. However, if trends are important, there will be millions who discern that as great as the United States was and could still be, it will not likely happen. There is no longer a two party system, there are way too many wackos. Cruz, Hawley, Greene, Gaetz, Trump, and countless others should be in jail. DeSantis is a maniac and, honestly, I think Rubio is so incompetent it is scary.
However, the scariest thing is the millions of Americans who like what is going on and more millions who do not care. Other great civilizations came and went and ours appears to be next.
I never thought I would live to see happening what is happening. Our Supreme Court is a joke. McConnell and McCarthy may be smart, but they should never be in public office.
Many Republican officeholders are totally uneducated. Many never went to college. Does anyone really think Herschel Walker has, other than name recognition, a single credential to serve as a US Senator? MGT should be in jail. Cawthorn should be in jail.
Someone becoming a citizen has to know more about our history and Constitution than someone serving in Congress. We are electing athletes, football coaches, actors, and others who know nothing about governing or law making.
This is graduation season. It has been many years since I was given the bully pulpit afforded a commencement speaker. However, if I had the opportunity, I would have to give two addresses.
The first address would be directed to white Christian men willing to have a frontal lobotomy, leaving them with a partial brain only able to follow the will of some anarchist who does not believe in democracy, our Constitution, or equal opportunity for all regardless of race, creed, religion, sexual orientation. The ones who vote how they are told to vote, not how their constituents desire
The second address would be directed to everyone else. If you love someone of the same sex, if you are not white, not male, not Christian, if you wish to marry someone of a different race, or if you think a woman should have the choice of what do do with her own body, pay a fair share of taxes, and live in a society where there is control of guns and a functioning government for the people, then start looking around for other countries in which to live. The United States is no longer the place of opportunity for you.
Like Miniver Cheevy, you were born too late. A country cannot survive with one political party and a bunch of hoodlums
I am not likely to be alive ten years from today or still care if I am, but I am still with my faculties and what I see coming, if not already arrived, is incomprehensible and dismal beyond words
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As you know, my favorite single piece of music is Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. I love listening to it and do almost daily, but even more, I love going on YouTube and watching the soloist, the conductor, and the orchestra.
I am not an expert. I know there have been dozens of great violinists, I know their names but I cannot discuss their techniques or relative strengths and weaknesses. I can tell you that there are many great soloists I have played many times, but the one who seems to get to me just a little more is Yehudi Menuhin
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Totally across the musical spectrum I watched a one-woman show by Loretta Lynn that I adored. I will watch it again very soon. This woman can sing.
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Go Ukraine. Keep Zelensky safe. Do what you will with some of his visitors.
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