Monday, April 6, 2026

Redbud is not really red.



Redbud trees and bushes are usually not red, rather more pinkish/lavender. Right now, they are flowering everywhere all around here. As summer approaches, their brilliant hues will turn to a more usual green. Now in spring, they display a real array of hues. 










An extended family, my lifelong friends living in Vermont, sent me this photo below of a recent family gathering. It's wonderful to see them all together. I am so happy to see them there. I regard them as members of my own family. 


And seen here below is my friend Carol, who sent me this family photos, as a young girl with a ram her family was raising. In the photo above, she is in the middle of the back row wearing a colorful top. Her late mother who lived to age 104 was born in Egypt. I often spoke with her mother by phone. The mother told me that her life after age 100 had been rather hard (probably hard for her family too). She had 2 Spanish-speaking women helping care for her then--I also spoke with them by phone in Spanish. This family has lived on their farm ever since my friend's own childhood. That's how long we have actually known each other. 


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Orthodox Jewish boys run from Israeli police after Orthodox men were ordered to enlist in the military. 

Here is Donald Trump's Easter message to Iran: Open the F--kin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ ll be living in Hell.

                        What would Trump's evangelical supporters think of that rant? 


Yahoo. Hegseth Fires Army Chief Amid Battle With Its Leaders

As already stated, Pete Hegseth is a blatant war criminal who had ordered the killing of surrendering Caribbean boaters with their hands raised high. He has virtually no military training or experience, and doesn't know squat about what he is doing in his job or why. Most of us could actually do better. He has blamed "the fog of war" for his mistakes, some having proved fatal for others. But the buck stops with President Trump who appointed him and who keeps him on the payroll. Did his family perhaps make a big campaign donation to Trump? 



The Hill















China now tops US in global approval ratings: Gallup

At least China doesn't have some obviously crazy people still in charge over there.

Was Donald Trump always this unhinged or is he actually getting worse with age? 

Now it's 6:30 pm on Easter Sunday here in West Virginia. the time when computer problems often start. so I'll continue here tomorrow. 


She fixed the toilet.


Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch fixed a malfunctioning toilet aboard the Orion spacecraft shortly after launch in April 2026. Guided by Mission Control, she successfully restored the urine transfer system, playfully referring to herself as the "space plumber". The repair ensured full function for the lunar mission.





The Hill

The Cuban government on Thursday said it would release 2,010 prisoners in a move that comes as President Trump has put the island’s government under extreme economic pressure with an effective oil blockade. The Cuban Embassy in the U.S. published the announcement on social platform X. The Cuban government said the prisoner release was being done as a “humanitarian gesture” and taking place in the context of Holy Week, without citing the tension with the Trump administration.









Sunday, April 5, 2026

In Trump's second term, the USA has become a bad joke, no longer a nation to be admired and emulated.


Local scenes



Have a happy Easter!  


When friends living elsewhere stop answering emails and phone calls does that mean they have died or only that they've changed email addresses and phone numbers? Or else maybe their phone or computer stopped working for some reason? Sometimes, we just don't know. I hope when I die that my family will put a notice on my email accounts and on my blog to inform people so they won't have to keep guessing. 
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A Gallup poll conducted in 2025 across more than 130 countries found median approval of U.S. leadership dropped from 39 percent in 2024 to 31 percent in 2025. At the same time, disapproval rose to a record-high, 48 percent.



Yahoo News. Active-duty Marines now refer to Pete Hegseth’s department as the Department of War Crimes,” 

Wash. Post, ‘Israel made us do it’: The Democratic Party has taken a turn


According to an NBC News poll published in March, when asked if they sympathize more with Israelis or Palestinians, Democrats responded 67 percent to 17 percent in favor of Palestinians. Just 13 percent of Democrats view Israel positively, down from 34 percent in 2023.


Reddit, Israel is the primary beneficiary of this war against Iran, while America bears the costs



Yahoo News: Trump, speaking ahead of an address to the nation this week about the Iran war, signaled the military is his priority, setting up a clash ahead in Congress. “We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of day care,” Trump said at a private White House event Wednesday. “It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare — all these individual things,” he said. “They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal.”

Why, pray tell, are we even fighting a war or wars right now? The facts are rather mundane. Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to delay his corruption trial and to remain as prime minister because he didn't want to go to jail. So he urged a very befuddled and suggestible Donald Trump to attack Iran, but to keep it a secret and not to tell Congress, as is required by law. So now we are at war with Iran and Bibi's trial has been delayed, perhaps even indefinitely. Was that actually worth the trade-off? Worth the many lives lost?

It is no use lamenting what did not happen, which would have been electing Kamala as our president, someone who is more emotionally grounded and way more saavy than Trumup,  who would never have made the colossal mistakes that Trump keeps on making. (Many of us could even do better,) The guy is in full-blown senile dementia. Voters, you are the ones who have made the crucial first mistake that brought us to this war, that is by electing Donald Trump as our US president. He is not mentally competent, as seems pretty obvious.

People of all ages and on all sides, even beyond the borders of the US, Israel, and Iran, are now being wounded and killed for no good reason. Trump, Netanyahu, and Hegseth are a cruely destructive trio of idiots and incompetents, also blatant war criminals, who together have brought the US and the whole world to this unfortunate and unnecessarily destructive point. We need to get rid of Trump sooner rather later--3 years is just too long to wait as he is already doing way too much damage. Can't he be impeached and put safely behind bars, but without his phone? Somebody needs to figure out how to do that. Let him putt golf balls in his cell and take long daytime naps. Surely he is guilty of something, whether from the Epstein files or anything else. 

So Democrats, first you need to get elected, then come up with an effective strategy to simply muffle and stymy The Donald.  Now Trump, Hegseth, and Netanyahu, an unholy trio, are just running amok, destroying everything and everyone in their path. Time to call a halt to their antics and get back on a more rational and sustainable track. 


Wash. Post, Trump wants to remake the way we fight wildfires. The stakes couldn’t be higher.

Donald Trump considers himself an expert on anything and everything, making it unnecessary to consult with experts in their fields. 



The US had deliberately started this fight and remains at war with Iran. Do we even know why?

                    A crew member of this US aircraft downed by Iran has been missing. 

NY Times, Macron Snaps Back at Trump, Reflecting Europe’s Growing Anger Over Iran


Yahoo News, Active-duty Marines now refer to Pete Hegseth’s department as the "Department of War Crimes,” 



CBS News

Ousted Army chief of staff says soldiers deserve "courageous leaders" in farewell email


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Here's a post now on Cuba:

 https://www.wsj.com/opinion/cuba-waits-in-darkness-for-easter-f5873281



The Artemas crew is currently headed toward the moon.

Best of luck to them. 


And here is planet earth as seen from space.