Maple Syrup TIme

 Sunday we gathered around daughter and son in law's fire where they were boiling sugar maple sap they'd collected last week and will continue to collect this week.

We brought some leftover key lime pie to share and I used the sap to make myself some tea - a bit too sweet.

Later that day some of thier friends stopped by with kids and the gathering continued while the kids played.

A great Sunday afternoon in early Spring.

Below and above Emily is skimming off the froth.  As the sap boils down they keep adding more from those orange buckets.

Jennifer Rubin Says it Clearly

 This Friday, March 1st, Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post made it clear that tRump is a racist and often the media fails to call him on it.

Here is her editorial.

What caught my eye The Republican Party wants to have it both ways: appeal to white Christian nationalists and peel off Black voters from Democrats; play up the “great replacement” theory while wooing Hispanics. MAGA Republicans often pull off such jaw-dropping hypocrisy because the docile right-wing media will not ask Republicans hard questions nor point to obvious contradictions. However, now and then, the gap between Republicans’ pretense of decency and their real attitudes toward Black people and immigrants becomes glaring to all but the most rabid MAGA voters. On race, Trump’s apologists, including those in “respectable” conservative quarters, insist — despite his rhetoric (e.g., “shithole countries,” “very good people on both sides”) and downplaying endemic racism in policing — that we cannot assume he is a racist. We also are expected to ignore, one supposes, his vendetta against the Central Park Five, his real estate company’s history of discrimination and his failure to appoint a single African American to the circuit courts or the Supreme Court. His slurs against Black female prosecutors and vivid social media posting showing him attacking Black Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg get brushed off by his supporters, who portray him as the real victim. The media periodically does cover his abjectly racist language, as when he quoted Adolf Hitler on blood purity. Then, voters not entirely cocooned within the right-wing media bubble realize he and his party abhor fundamental American principles. But soon, journalists contend with straight faces that Trump has a real shot to win over large numbers of African American voters. That assumes such voters are as easily bamboozled as the red-hat-wearing cultists. And before long, defying attempts to normalize him, Trump opens his mouth to spew forth a string of mind-boggling racist remarks, leaving his apologists with egg on their faces. He insisted in a speech last week in South Carolina that his indictments and mug shots are why “a lot of people said that that’s why the Black people like me.” He also proclaimed: “These lights are so bright in my eyes that I can’t see too many people out there. But I can only see the Black ones, I can’t see any White ones, you see, that’s how far I’ve come.” He persisted: “That’s how far I’ve come. That’s a long way, isn’t it? These lights. We’ve come a long way together.” Such casual racism wins plaudits with the white-nationalist crowd but reveals his true mind-set. Likewise, he left no doubt about his noxious bigotry toward immigrants at his unhinged rant at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “They’re coming from Asia, they’re coming from the Middle East, coming from all over the world, coming from Africa, and we’re not going to stand for it. They’re destroying our country,” he said. “We have languages coming into our country … they have languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of. It’s a horrible thing.” His plan to round up and deport millions of undocumented immigrants goes hand in hand with his effort to dehumanize them. And, finally, voters should not forget his persistent efforts to disenfranchise non-White voters. He tried in 2020 to throw out millions of African American votes and vilified two African American poll workers in an effort to steal votes in Georgia. He still rails against mail-in voting (which allows many low-income workers to votewithout missing work). And he now accuses Democrats of preparing to let illegal immigrants vote, foreshadowing future claims of fraud and harking back to baseless claims he won the popular vote in 2016 (despite “millions” of illegal votes, he insisted). In sum, MAGA is a movement largely for and by white Christian nationalists who insist they are the “real” Americans. Mainstream media outlets seem disinclined to devote sustained coverage to Trump’s racist outlook and his party’s coddling of white nationalists. It will be up to Democrats to remind voters: Trump is the champion of white supremacy. Distinguished people of the week Mainstream journalists refuse to cover Trump’s mental and emotional defects with anything remotely approaching the fervor they show about exploring the effects of President Biden’s age. The New York Times headlined Trump’s outing at CPAC as “Trump invokes clashing visions of America.” One would have thought he was presenting a political science paper on the decline of the middle class rather than incoherent invective replete with racist rants about migrants (and something about “The Silence of the Lambs”?!). Not every outlet persists in ignoring Trump’s alarming rants and verbal pratfalls. Outlets taking Trump’s obviously loopy state of mind seriously deserve recognition. Salon interviewed John Gartner, a psychologist and former professor at Johns Hopkins University Medical School who contributed to the 2017 book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.” Gartner was analytic, specific and frank. He pointed to “‘phonemic paraphasias’ — the substitution of non-words for words that sound similar.” He spelled out his observations: Trump also engages in what we call “tangential speech.” He just becomes incomprehensible when he engages in free association word salad speech that is all over the place. Again, that’s a sign of real brain damage, not being old, not being slow, not losing a step ... but of severe cognitive deterioration. What I don’t understand is why those clips aren’t replayed over and over in the mainstream media. Isn’t Trump babbling incoherently the most newsworthy part of his rally? You can be sure it would be if it were Biden.  U.S. News & World Report also explored the topic, interviewing Gartner and others who caution against making a diagnosis of dementia or other conditions without examining the patient firsthand. The report raised the issue in a responsible, sober manner. These are, unfortunately, the exceptions to a press corps determined to minimize Trump’s rambling, incoherent speeches and slurred, jumbled words — plus his angry outbursts, word salads and calls for violence. Perhaps outlets and figures such as Gartner who responsibly discuss Trump’s mental and emotional condition will shame the rest of the media into covering what should be a major story.

WORDLE Success

I play WORDLE with my siblings.  We take turns suggesting the start word. Of late I have been suggesting IMAGE as the start word.

Yesterday morning my brother suggested it. He wrote:

And guess what?  It was the word!

I have had two other start words, EARTH and ROUTE, that ended up being the word but unfortunately we didn't start with those words on their day.

Now I'm going to lobby for CLAIM.

 

Words for Wednesday

Today I was in a shoe store that sells only shoes, nothing else. A young girl with a tattoo and green hair walked over to me and asked, "What brings you in today, I looked at her and said, "I'm interested in buying a refrigerator." She didn't quite know how to respond, had that deer in the headlights look.

I was thinking about old age and decided that old age is when you still have something on the ball, but you are just too tired to bounce it.

When people see a cat's litter box they always say, "Oh, have you got a cat" I just say, "No, it's for company!"

Employment application blanks always ask who is to be called in case of an emergency. I think you should write, "An ambulance."

The older you get the tougher it is to lose weight because by then your body and your fat have gotten to be really good friends.

The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.

Have you ever noticed: The Roman Numerals for forty (40) are XL.

The sole purpose of a child's middle name is so he knows when he's really in trouble.

Did you ever notice that when you put the 2 words "The" and "IRS" together it spells "Theirs"

Aging: Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.

Some people try to turn back their "odometers." Not me.

I want people to know why I look this way.

I've traveled a long way and a lot of the roads were not paved.

Ah! Being young is beautiful but being old is comfortable.

Lord, keep your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth.

May you always have:

Love to share,

Cash to spare,

Tires with air,

And friends who care.

Thanks to my friend, Marilyn, for sharing these with me.