I am pleased that everyone actually shook hands after this one, as that hadn't happened in a while

Washington's Birthday

This was the first Saturday in a while where I could just ease into the day, drink a lot of tea and read books all afternoon.

I spent most of my day reading Paul Krugman and Langston Hughes while listening to The Moody Blues, Duke Ellington, Freddie Hubbard and John Coltrane.

Around 7 an old friend I'd met in New Zealand came to visit.  He's been an environmental lawyer in Washington for several years now.  He recently got a house, married, and now he reveals he's going to be a father soon.  We spent the evening dissecting the nation's issues and proposing solutions.  Ironically, the conclusion of his ideas all night rested on the historical examples that large empires were kept afloat by their bureaucracies, regardless of who their leaders were.  I'd imagine that isn't the most inspiring political campaign line to energize voters, but there's a truth to it.

Anyway, congratulations to Mr. Sanders on his trio of victories.  I'd like to think he has a chance of swaying the bureaucracy toward responsible environmental and fiscal policies (I do in no way equate "fiscally conservative" with "fiscally responsible."  I've been looking at the results.)

Above all, can Bernie win?  Every candidate has uncertain chances of victory, but if people are going to vote Democratic anyway, just think of him as someone who is starting a negotiation from a hard line position in order to push the votes to a more necessary side of the table, as opposed to starting from the center and being willing to move to the right on issues regarding the future civilization of the human race on our only planet.  This race will be slow and nerve-racking in any scenario, but as long as the message continues to be steady, we can win

Presidents Day

I woke up in Washington County, drove across the George Washington Bridge, completed the chapter about Thomas Jefferson in Richard Hofstadter's The American Political Tradition, continued reading W.E.B. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk (having already completed My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass and Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington), noticed a husky-type dog on the way to my apartment, which was strange because I read Jack London's The Call of the Wild the day before, and also read a long chapter from Paul Krugman's Arguing With Zombies where he analyzes the "salt water" and "freshwater" schools of economics and their contrasting responses to recessions and depressions, the former's resurgence of Keynesian principles supporting government spending to stimulate the economy being preferable to trusting the theoretical rationality of all who participate in the market.  To complement the books with music, I enjoyed driving while experiencing my first listens to Johnny Winter's Johnny Winter and Second Winter, Yo La Tengo's President Yo La Tengo, and the second and third records by Return to Forever.

Now I'm going to take a walk, because I've earned one.

Amsterdam, Hamburg and Berlin 018

I never posted the rest of the photos from my European adventure in 2018, when I first met my nephew.  I figure I should take a break from political posts, so here goes.

I went to Dublin and Brussels in June of 2018, and posted those pictures soon thereafter.  I've been distracted ever since, so now I've got a free moment on a Saturday afternoon.

After a day in Brussels I traveled to Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where I spent four days, before a night in Hamburg en route to Berlin.  Here they are: