Buds and Blooms

 First the bleeding heart has become a bush. 

Buds on the peonies. 

The iris in the gardens are in a race to open first. 

Chives in bloom. 

Iris from Vicki L.

 

Another bush problem. This time it’s the rhododendron.

We initially bought and planted three, three years ago. One died so we purchased this as a replacement. The other two died and now we just have this one. If it dies no more replacements. 

Not many normal looking leaves. 

The statue garden with new blue items. Plus new hosta given by a friend. 

The hosta garden above and below looking good. 

And here are some photos on the newest expansion to the rock garden.  These were taken a couple of weeks ago before we had all our rain, cold temps and no sun for a week.

The peony given by Emily last year recovered and returned.

New plant purchases: liatris, coneflowers and butterfly weed.

Planted.

On Memorial Day - A Big Thanks to Readers who are Veterans.

 

Undaunted: Veterans

America owes them so much more

JENNIFER RUBIN MAY 23

READ IN APP

Observing the United States from abroad as it begins the Memorial Day weekend, I am struck by how much of the world that we know today would not exist, but for American military and financial sacrifice. That sounds too pristine. If not for young men and women ready to lay down their lives for others, Europe today would not be free, democratic, and devoted to Western values. In countries that experienced dictatorship (e.g., Spain) firsthand, the potential for the U.S. to slide into authoritarian rule and isolationism is unfathomable.

It’s an appropriate time, as Donald Trump and his MAGA know-nothings throw aside American values (e.g., empathy, selflessness, ingenuity, inclusion), to appreciate the sacrifice of all those who have served. In the midst of debates about Medicaid cuts, debt, and tax cuts for billionaires, we should not lose track of honoring our veterans, whom Trump has nonchalantly kicked to the curb.

“It may be no surprise that President Donald Trump, who did not serve in the active-duty military, would rather celebrate victory than veterans,” CNN reports. “In multiple social media posts this month, Trump said he would declare November 11 as Victory Day for World War I. He didn’t mention that it’s already a federal holiday: Veterans Day.”

While he cuts billions from the Veterans Affairs Department and lays off tens of thousands of vets, Trump wants to throw away tens of millions on a cringeworthy military parade on his birthday, which also happens to be the US Army’s 250th birthday and Flag Day. Rather than honor others’ service by keeping our commitments, he preens amid military pomp like every two-bit dictator on the planet.

Trump cares not one wit about those who, unlike him, risked their lives. Quite the opposite: he has made life notably challenging for vets. Thanks to some masterful Washington Post reporting on the trauma he intentionally inflicted on tens of thousands of government workers, we have learned about the inexcusable toll on veterans in particular, who disproportionately serve in the federal government. Sadly, “Phone operators for the Veterans Crisis Line said they’d seen a rise in calls from federal employees and others worried about cuts to the VA.”

Elon Musk and Trump have treated government workers, including veterans, as disposable slackers. The results may be disastrous:

Some advocates are particularly concerned for veterans, who make up 30 percent of the federal workforce. Almost a third of all veterans already suffer from a service-connected physical or mental disability. Roughly 11 to 20 percent of those who served in Iraq or Afghanistan have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder. Many have training and access to firearms, which increases suicide risk.

Virtually every aspect of the MAGA budget—from federal civilian personnel firings to Medicaid and VA spending cuts—will hit vets who rely on such services especially hard. “From layoffs at the Department of Veterans Affairs to a Pentagon purge of archives that documented diversity in the military, veterans have been acutely affected by Trump’s actions,” PBS reported. “And with the Republican president determined to continue slashing the federal government, the burden will only grow on veterans, who make up roughly 30% of the federal workforce and often tap government benefits they earned with their military service.”

Earlier this month, ProPublica reported on “Trump administration’s moves to shrink the Department of Veterans Affairs….after a ProPublica investigation revealed widespread disruptions across the agency’s health care system.” The pain is evident for anyone who cares to look. It also reported on “dozens of emails sent from staff at VA hospitals and clinics across the country to headquarters warning how cuts could, and in some cases are, degrading the agency’s ability to provide for the roughly 9 million veterans who rely on it.”

Hiring freezes and other edicts from the White House have left medical providers scrambling and short-staffed amid an ever-shifting series of policy moves, including the cancellation of contracts with companies that maintain cancer registries, the emails said. Staffers at VA centers in Pennsylvania warned the cuts were causing “severe and immediate impacts,” including to “life-saving cancer trials.” . . . . Staffers at [a Pennsylvania VA] hospital warned more than 1,000 veterans would lose access to treatment for diseases ranging from metastatic head and neck cancers to kidney disease, to traumatic brain injuries.

Even a temporary disruption in services can have life-threatening consequences. “One clinical trial to treat veterans for opioid addiction was hobbled by temporary layoffs.” Nevertheless, those funds and livelihoods are less important than Trump’s desire to throw himself—of all things—a military parade.

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If Republicans cannot be persuaded to drop or deny these draconian cuts, perhaps vets can help persuade voters to drop Republicans. Fortunately, some veterans are taking up the gauntlet that cruel, ignorant, and reckless MAGA politicians have thrown down. Progressive groups that help new candidates run for office have been inundated with requests from fired federal workers, veterans specifically. Run for Something founder Amanda Littman told USA Today that “federal workers make compelling candidates because many are veterans and have ‘a deep understanding of how the system works and a willingness to fight for it in a different way from the inside.’” People abused and mistreated by the likes of Musk and Trump have a “compelling campaign story,” Littman says.

Individual Democrats such as Lt. Colonel (Ret.) Amy McGrath and Eric Mosley, as well as established groups like VoteVets are working to elect veterans dedicated to democracy. Electing pro-democracy veterans angered by the dismal treatment of veterans (both in and outside the federal workforce) would provide some measure of justice for those whose loyalty, dedication, and sacrifice Trump and his cohort refuse to recognize, let alone honor.

Veterans and their families have remained undaunted in military service and in the face of grotesque betrayal by the MAGA ingrates. They deserve better than this president, his cronies, and MAGA flunkies have offered. During their Memorial Day recess, Republican lawmakers who have enabled Trump’s cruelty should take a moment to reflect on what it truly means to put country above self.

We honor the Undaunted veterans who have defined patriotism to our country, and who will be remembered by history for their dignity and service. 

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Some Good News for a Change

 From The Americans of Conscience

See more at the AoC Website.

And I’ve been writing letters about issues identified by AoC. A first for me.

From Indivisible

Watching this short video is eye opening. 

Spotlight

ADOPT AN INSTITUTION 

From Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny (2017):

“It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of "our institutions" unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning. (Bolded, mine.) So choose an institution you care about - a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union — and take its side. 

We tend to assume that institutions will automatically maintain themselves against even the most direct attacks. This was the very mistake that some German Jews made about Hitler and the Nazis after they had formed a government. On February 2, 1933, for example, a leading newspaper for German Jews published an editorial expressing this mislaid trust:

‘We do not subscribe to the view that Mr. Hitler and his friends, now finally in possession of the power they have so long desired, will implement the proposals circulating in [Nazi newspapers]; they will not suddenly deprive German Jews of their constitutional rights, nor enclose them in ghettos, nor subject them to the jealous and murderous impulses of the mob. They cannot do this because a number of crucial factors hold powers in check….. and they clearly do not want to go down that road. When one acts as a European power, the whole atmosphere tends towards ethical reflection upon one's better self and away from revisiting one's earlier oppositional posture’” (pp. 24-26).

Reading the excerpt above is a little surreal, isn’t it? I hear echoes of the voices of so many Republican MoC’s who have, since the traitor’s first term, denied the destructive aims of their leader. 

But the point is, while every institution is under attack, please consider picking just one - your favorite, or the one you consider most important, or the least defended - pick that ONE and work at defending it. Letters to the editor, calls to your MoC’s, financial contributions to worthy organizations that will defend your one institution. 

If you can do this, it will help. But don’t take our word for it. Here’s what Chenoweth and Stephan (2011) say,

“…High levels of participation in resistance campaigns can activate numerous mechanisms that improve the odds of success. Such mobilization is not always manifested in the form of mass rallies and street demonstrations but rather can manifest in numerous forms of social, political, and economic noncooperation. The tactical advantage of high levels of diverse participation explain – in large part – the historical success of nonviolent campaigns” (p.31). 

See John Lithgow read Twenty Lessons on Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder here:

20 Lessons on Tyranny: by Timothy Snyder / read by John Lithgow

10:27 minutes

I was away

 Nephew on Dan’s side of the family got married on Saturday at a lovely venue. 

Bally Spring Inn in Barto, PA.

The wedding party used the house to get ready and the barn below had been converted to space for the reception and accommodations.  We stayed in a lower level room.

Here's the nephew.

And here's the new Mrs. Brown surrounding by the rest of us who are also Mrs. Brown. My sisters in law on on each end and the wife of another nephew is 2nd from left. That leaves me second from right.

We drove down a few days early to meet friends at a BnB outside of Lancaster: The E.J. Bowman House.

Here's the second course of breakfast the first morning.  First course was strawberry shortcake.

What the house once looked like.

We spent a lot of time in this parlor.  Everything about the place was super comfortable.

There was even this puzzle waiting to be done.  Janet and I obliged and completed it.

Dan noticed the table - my puzzle table is the same style!

Though we have plenty of covered bridges to see here at home we took a tour of 5 in the area.  It got us out in the countryside to see the Amish farms.

I also got to swing by the house my dad called home in Lancaster (below) and the house my mother grew up in and the one I visited where my maternal grandparents moved to (too dark by that time for photos) outside of Lancaster.

It was nice to experience the summer temperatures.  We've returned to cool ones.  As I write this on Monday evening, it's in the 40s with windchill of 32º.  

Appalling

 

Why white South Africans are migrants the Trump adminstration can love

Brown or Black immigrants? Invaders. White ones? Refugees. It's no surprise from Musk and Trump.

May 19, 2025

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By Shalise Manza Young

Among the many terrible, horrible, no-good things the Trump administration has done since re-taking office in January is firing as many Black federal employees who have risen up the management ladder as possible.

The firings are abrupt and without cause, and because media writ large are reporting on the firehose of scandals and stupid decisions coming daily, many of these firings have received little to no coverage.

But if those dismissals, along with the constant refrain of blaming DEI—nearly always code for Black—for pretty much everything are a wink to the racism that undergirds the MAGA base, last week the administration put its “white is right” values on display so obviously they might as well be written in neon lights worthy of the Vegas strip.

Earlier this week, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau welcomed 59 Afrikaner farmers to the United States, meeting with the group in a hangar at Dulles International Airport after they touched down in a government-chartered plane.

Afrikaners are white South Africans who some, including Elon Musk, a South African, claim are facing unfair treatment in their home country. With Musk’s encouragement, the administration termed them refugees and expedited their arrival.

Trump has shut off resettlement programs for refugees from other countries, but white South Africans got the green light. Not anyone trying to flee Sudan, where a second genocide has begun just 20 years after the last. Not Palestinians, who are being bombed and who are starving. Not those seeking to escape Nicolas Maduro’s violent regime in Venezuela.

White South Africans got red-carpet treatment as Trump’s administration ended the protected status for Afghan refugees living here—Afghans who risked their lives helping American troops—shamefully breaking the promise made to those who allied with the United States and who will be in grave danger if they are returned to Afghanistan.

White South Africans were treated like dignitaries arriving for a state visit while Hispanic and Muslim people who are here legally are kidnapped by mask-wearing thugs and sent to a gulag in El Salvador or a deplorable prison in Louisiana where they are deprived of crucial medicines.

White South Africans get special treatment while non-white immigrants and migrants are called “invaders” and “vermin.”

White South Africans were embraced months after Haitians who influenced the revitalization of a dying Ohio factory town dealt with bomb threats after the future vice president baselessly accused them of eating their neighbors’ pets.

Seeing a pattern?

Just as JD Vance’s stories about the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were lies, so, too, is Musk’s assertion that Afrikaner farmers are facing “white genocide.”

Afrikaners, the descendants of the Dutch colonizers who ran the South African government for hundreds of years and installed the apartheid system—the strict stratification of races that ensured all power rested in the white minority while Black Africans were stripped of all human rights—are a minority in South Africa.

Apartheid ended 30 years ago, and Black South Africans have had full civil rights restored, but inequality persists. It’s not much different from Black people in the United States: When you deprive a group of opportunities for generations and don’t actively try to make them whole, they’ll always be behind, particularly economically.

And just as many white Americans throw temper tantrums when anyone makes an attempt to level the playing field for Blacks, so, too, do many white South Africans.

Despite making up just 7% of the population, white farmers own 70% of the commercial farmland in the country. The South African government has approved seizing land without compensation, but that hasn’t happened yet.

That hasn’t stopped Musk, who has openly supported far-right racist groups and threw Nazi salutes from the dais at Trump’s Nuremburg rally (sorry, post-inaugural party), from claiming that it’s reverse racism to attempt to give Black South Africans ownership of their native land and some political figures are “actively promoting white genocide.”

There is no evidence that white farmers are being targeted. The South African government has firmly denied that intentional harm is being done to whites, and even Afrikaner-led groups say there’s no truth to either claim.

But when a rich boy raised in apartheid South Africa in a family so devoted to the cause that his maternal grandparents moved there from Canada to be part of it gets together with Trump, who has long shown racist tendencies, reality goes out the window and a solution without a problem is devised.

And thus, a deputy secretary of state went to Dulles to greet the Afrikaners with open arms. Asked by a reporter why this group of people had been granted refugee status and not others from war-torn lands facing oppression or famine, Landau said, “They [can] be assimilated easily into our country.”

As subtle as the neon lights on the Vegas strip.

Shalise Manza Young was most recently a columnist at Yahoo Sports, focusing on the intersection of race, gender and culture in sports. The Associated Press Sports Editors named her one of the 10 best columnists in the country in 2020. She has also written for the Boston Globe and Providence Journal. Find her on Bluesky @shalisemyoung.

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