My granddaughter is 6 months old. My daughter-in-law is Hatian. I am beside myself. The anxiety is hard on my son and his wife's new marriage. She came here at 17, unable to speak English. She now has a master's degree in counseling. Her younger brother is a junior at Princeton. The family are all citizens now except her mother who came to the US last year. She has a green card, is learning English. Theirs is the story of immigrants who work themselves nearly to death to succeed in America. What will happen to them?
Let me, in the spirit of doing the least possible, Invited your daughter to considering the wide array of post-secondary education institutions here in Canada. We are people, like you, are poised on the precipice of monumental evolutionary leaps, hoping our response can be timely, effective, and progressive - whatever form that might possibly take
A truly brilliant “wrap” by Mr. Kirschner on the two alternatives we now face as “sentient” human beings on a now greatly threatened earth: Do we crawl further into our still-safe household bunkers here on American soil, shudder at our Nation’s rapidly evolving political disaster - but do nothing? OR, do we take what action we can and speak out, which Elliott, Dan, Robert, Heather, Timothy and so many other brave, principled “Leaders” on Substack, the Contrarian and Blue Sky have been doing for some time now? For those of us advanced Seniors, sadly unable to contribute much financially, we can only “spread your words” across the spectrum of caring Americans - those we believe who will “fight to the end” to defend and SAVE American “Democracy” and “Liberty” from disaster!
Thank you all for your positive responses! We need to keep on “keeping on,” circulating these excellent Substack commentaries to as many friends and family members as possible! We are blest to “be in the company” of our “Best and brightest.” Education (in some cases, RE-education) is critical to saving our nation now from the many who have been miss-educated by highly paid propagandists. SubStack has put us “back in the classroom” …..thankfully.
All through Trump's first 4 years as President, there was a yardsign on a neighbor's lawn (Ken Burns', in fact) that gave me such cheer! It simply said: "Love Multiplies". We need to carry that thought every day right now. Love Multiplies, and w can make that happen, over and over again. Love Multiplies.
To slightly misquote former President Bill Clinton: We Canadians feel your pain.
I am struck by your reference to the performing of quotidian tasks like going to work, getting exercise, and running errands, while various apocalypic threats loom over us. To complicate matters, the overthrow of democracy in America in favour of oligarchy is strongly linked to the climate-change issue and science. Make no mistake, Elon Musk is no scientist, he's an engineer. RFK jr is supremely unqualified to be Health secretary; his disdain for vaccines and the disinformation he spreads about them has harmed or even killed children.
John Roberts, Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, publicly rebuked the trump administration yesterday with the reminder that lower court decisions can be appealed to an appeals court and that the proper legal remedy is not to impeach the lower court judge as trump threatened to do.
Sobering and beautifully written. Thank you. Some people act horribly, and yet, yesterday the SMART, emotional, curious Dolphins welcomed the astronauts a warm welcome home to Earth. Perhaps, we could put the dolphins in charge. For me...plenty of room to keep learning. As a former CBS assistant to Dan Rather...thank you Dan for teaching me. He shaped my career and how I act as an adult. And thank you, Elliot for sharing. I read your work and I am looking forward to seeing your Doc. We all have to keep doing what we can. Good luck to your daughters the 400 M is a tough race. ...College admission feels like it has become a contact sport, but once she is accepted-...she's GOLDEN!
Thank you for expressing your honest feelings. The same feelings we can all relate to in this new age of uncertainty. An evil man never knows what he’s done.
In navigation, there is a traditional term called dead reckoning. It refers to determining one's position as a function of speed, time and direction from a known point. Practically speaking, it requires that one fix on a point that is reliable. Once you've sailed far enough past the last fixed point, you're going to need a new one, as the estimations you are using, altered by things like current and wind-speed, make your estimations increasingly inaccurate with time and distance.
What we need in this fraught time are new way-points. The courts could be that constant, the reliable interpreter of constitutional fidelity. It would be ironic if public opinion becomes a more reliable measure of right and wrong than our federal executive branch, but stranger things have happened...as for me, I have turned my attention to persons and things local. I find real relationships with people and places I can reach out and touch seem far more relevant than what comes into my internet feed about what's happening in Washington DC. I'm turning towards way-points I can verify with my own senses. In a way, I'm retreating into the past where evidence was much more a thing of primary experience rather than endlessly repeated memes and tweets.
Elliot - I needed your message today. I am SO struggling with the dismantling of the federal agencies that I have seen developed over my 80+ years - to protect our history, our environment our way of life in a democracy. . . . to care for one another. Agencies that I fear can never be reassembled. This morning I felt a particular sadness upon reading that a webpage of one of the Marines who raised the flag at Iwo Jima in 1945 (a famous photo and sculpture) - Pfc Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian, who was one of six marines photographed hoisting a US flag - was removed. Why? Because he was a Native American - a gross abuse and injustice to a man who no doubt had already suffered injustices as a Native American, was exalted, and now - simply REMOVED. It broke my heart and this feeling has hovered over me all day.
Thank you for your writing. Always gives me pause and reason to really think. As for the moon I woke up a week ago right at 11:54. Rushed to put on jacket and went outside in time for the full eclipse. Cloudy everywhere but around the moon. A wonder to see.this time for our nation feels like going down a very steep mountain and looking for trees to stop the momentum.
I agree our lives are very unpredictable right now and we must stand together to try and come out the other side hopefully one piece better than we have been. You are doing all the right things for your family and guiding as you best know how. As a mother and grandmother I can attest to the fact there is no book that tells us how to parent and we all do the best we can. Be safe and take care
Thank you for insight and wisdom I am keenly aware that the color of my skin, my middle class upbringing, and my educational journey make me privileged through no grace of my own and it makes me feel the need to resist more intensely. I cannot remain unaware of all that is happening in the USA but am finding that after 35 years of sobriety I am going to more meetings to stay both hopeful and sane.
A gentle reminder of possibilities and to not loose perspectives by a dad to their daughters. Carry on. Your articles help us all to find peace in pieces of the ordinary and reminders that there are thoughtful youngins preparing for a future they will define and control, successfully I suspect. Carry on ladies.
Thank you so much for your newsletters. It is such a scary time for everyone in one way or another. Will he be able to destroy America as we know and love it? What will it be in four years? I’m 80 and live on my social security and a small pension and it worries me greatly. I get email after email asking for donations to support great candidates. I wish I could respond with money. I support them in my heart.
My granddaughter is 6 months old. My daughter-in-law is Hatian. I am beside myself. The anxiety is hard on my son and his wife's new marriage. She came here at 17, unable to speak English. She now has a master's degree in counseling. Her younger brother is a junior at Princeton. The family are all citizens now except her mother who came to the US last year. She has a green card, is learning English. Theirs is the story of immigrants who work themselves nearly to death to succeed in America. What will happen to them?
I can't imagine the anxiety your family is feeling!
Olga, all of this is so unfair to your family and countless other families that are living through this Trump/Musk nightmare.
Let me, in the spirit of doing the least possible, Invited your daughter to considering the wide array of post-secondary education institutions here in Canada. We are people, like you, are poised on the precipice of monumental evolutionary leaps, hoping our response can be timely, effective, and progressive - whatever form that might possibly take
Thank you. We're well aware of the wonderful instittuions up north.
A truly brilliant “wrap” by Mr. Kirschner on the two alternatives we now face as “sentient” human beings on a now greatly threatened earth: Do we crawl further into our still-safe household bunkers here on American soil, shudder at our Nation’s rapidly evolving political disaster - but do nothing? OR, do we take what action we can and speak out, which Elliott, Dan, Robert, Heather, Timothy and so many other brave, principled “Leaders” on Substack, the Contrarian and Blue Sky have been doing for some time now? For those of us advanced Seniors, sadly unable to contribute much financially, we can only “spread your words” across the spectrum of caring Americans - those we believe who will “fight to the end” to defend and SAVE American “Democracy” and “Liberty” from disaster!
Thank you all for your positive responses! We need to keep on “keeping on,” circulating these excellent Substack commentaries to as many friends and family members as possible! We are blest to “be in the company” of our “Best and brightest.” Education (in some cases, RE-education) is critical to saving our nation now from the many who have been miss-educated by highly paid propagandists. SubStack has put us “back in the classroom” …..thankfully.
All through Trump's first 4 years as President, there was a yardsign on a neighbor's lawn (Ken Burns', in fact) that gave me such cheer! It simply said: "Love Multiplies". We need to carry that thought every day right now. Love Multiplies, and w can make that happen, over and over again. Love Multiplies.
,
To slightly misquote former President Bill Clinton: We Canadians feel your pain.
I am struck by your reference to the performing of quotidian tasks like going to work, getting exercise, and running errands, while various apocalypic threats loom over us. To complicate matters, the overthrow of democracy in America in favour of oligarchy is strongly linked to the climate-change issue and science. Make no mistake, Elon Musk is no scientist, he's an engineer. RFK jr is supremely unqualified to be Health secretary; his disdain for vaccines and the disinformation he spreads about them has harmed or even killed children.
John Roberts, Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, publicly rebuked the trump administration yesterday with the reminder that lower court decisions can be appealed to an appeals court and that the proper legal remedy is not to impeach the lower court judge as trump threatened to do.
Actually Musk is not even an engineer. He has a BA degree in physics and and a BS in economics. He is really more of an investor/manager.
I surmised from watching him that his BS had nothing to do with economics except for his personal finances.
Musk is a bad imitation of Peter Thiel who he claims as a mentor.
Sobering and beautifully written. Thank you. Some people act horribly, and yet, yesterday the SMART, emotional, curious Dolphins welcomed the astronauts a warm welcome home to Earth. Perhaps, we could put the dolphins in charge. For me...plenty of room to keep learning. As a former CBS assistant to Dan Rather...thank you Dan for teaching me. He shaped my career and how I act as an adult. And thank you, Elliot for sharing. I read your work and I am looking forward to seeing your Doc. We all have to keep doing what we can. Good luck to your daughters the 400 M is a tough race. ...College admission feels like it has become a contact sport, but once she is accepted-...she's GOLDEN!
Thank you for expressing your honest feelings. The same feelings we can all relate to in this new age of uncertainty. An evil man never knows what he’s done.
In navigation, there is a traditional term called dead reckoning. It refers to determining one's position as a function of speed, time and direction from a known point. Practically speaking, it requires that one fix on a point that is reliable. Once you've sailed far enough past the last fixed point, you're going to need a new one, as the estimations you are using, altered by things like current and wind-speed, make your estimations increasingly inaccurate with time and distance.
What we need in this fraught time are new way-points. The courts could be that constant, the reliable interpreter of constitutional fidelity. It would be ironic if public opinion becomes a more reliable measure of right and wrong than our federal executive branch, but stranger things have happened...as for me, I have turned my attention to persons and things local. I find real relationships with people and places I can reach out and touch seem far more relevant than what comes into my internet feed about what's happening in Washington DC. I'm turning towards way-points I can verify with my own senses. In a way, I'm retreating into the past where evidence was much more a thing of primary experience rather than endlessly repeated memes and tweets.
Elliot - I needed your message today. I am SO struggling with the dismantling of the federal agencies that I have seen developed over my 80+ years - to protect our history, our environment our way of life in a democracy. . . . to care for one another. Agencies that I fear can never be reassembled. This morning I felt a particular sadness upon reading that a webpage of one of the Marines who raised the flag at Iwo Jima in 1945 (a famous photo and sculpture) - Pfc Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian, who was one of six marines photographed hoisting a US flag - was removed. Why? Because he was a Native American - a gross abuse and injustice to a man who no doubt had already suffered injustices as a Native American, was exalted, and now - simply REMOVED. It broke my heart and this feeling has hovered over me all day.
Thank you for your writing. Always gives me pause and reason to really think. As for the moon I woke up a week ago right at 11:54. Rushed to put on jacket and went outside in time for the full eclipse. Cloudy everywhere but around the moon. A wonder to see.this time for our nation feels like going down a very steep mountain and looking for trees to stop the momentum.
Yes, you are singing a familiar tune. And yes, I think love is the path we must follow. Hard though it is. So hard.
I agree our lives are very unpredictable right now and we must stand together to try and come out the other side hopefully one piece better than we have been. You are doing all the right things for your family and guiding as you best know how. As a mother and grandmother I can attest to the fact there is no book that tells us how to parent and we all do the best we can. Be safe and take care
Dear Elliot,
Thank you for insight and wisdom I am keenly aware that the color of my skin, my middle class upbringing, and my educational journey make me privileged through no grace of my own and it makes me feel the need to resist more intensely. I cannot remain unaware of all that is happening in the USA but am finding that after 35 years of sobriety I am going to more meetings to stay both hopeful and sane.
Be careful. Remember, they put Galileo in prison.
A gentle reminder of possibilities and to not loose perspectives by a dad to their daughters. Carry on. Your articles help us all to find peace in pieces of the ordinary and reminders that there are thoughtful youngins preparing for a future they will define and control, successfully I suspect. Carry on ladies.
Thank you so much for your newsletters. It is such a scary time for everyone in one way or another. Will he be able to destroy America as we know and love it? What will it be in four years? I’m 80 and live on my social security and a small pension and it worries me greatly. I get email after email asking for donations to support great candidates. I wish I could respond with money. I support them in my heart.