Many thanks for all your good wishes on our marriage. Someone saw the picture and wrote, “Heather is betting on the future.” I am indeed. And there are reasons to be hopeful about that future. When I last wrote about the news, on Friday, Ukraine was launching a counteroffensive against the Russian troops occupying their territory, but it was still too early to be sure of what was happening. Now it is clear: over the weekend, Ukrainian forces drove Russian troops back, retaking more than 1000 square miles of Ukrainian territory and handing Russia a humiliating operational defeat.
Thank you. Robert Hubbell, who writes an excellent newsletter and sometimes quotes you wrote yesterday on September 11, that his eldest granddaughter was born on September 11 two years ago and he also now responds to the date as a sign of hope for the future. My first day in Italy ever was a beautiful May afternoon on the magically peaceful Lago di Lugano. I have a photograph. I learned and understood later that at that moment anti-Mafia Judge Giovanni Falcone and his wife were blown up on his weekly trip to visit his mother in Sicily. Two Italys, both real, two September 11 both real.
I'm taking your marriage--and your sharing it--as a reminder of how in the midst of all that is 2022, how important it is to honor, enjoy, and live fully our personal lives, both profoundly and in small ways. Please continue to seize these days and let's all remember to have fun.
Someone commenting on a WaPo article said Putin was sending in his second-stringer soldiers; saving the well trained ones for a big assault TBD. Don't think so.
If he's conscripting prisoners he's already scraping the bottom of the barrel. They have no deeply held convictions to fight.
The latest secret weapon? Ukrainian women are cooking a hot meal for these kids and listening, really listening to their stories. These young soldiers are abandoning their posts; throwing down their weapons, stealing civilian clothes and bicycles, and blending in with the civilians. Never underestimate the power of a hot bowl of soup and a kindly grandmother.
"In September 2021, former vice president Mike Pence spoke in Budapest at a forum denouncing immigration and urging traditional social values, where he told the audience he hoped that the U.S. Supreme Court would outlaw abortion thanks to the three justices Trump put on the court." Yesterday, I went to the funeral of a 98 year old friend (I am a kid at 80). Speakers recalled that his proudest moment was when he became an American citizen. He had many proud moments. His family left Austria in the 1930s. When we traveled to Vienna he urged us to stop at his high school where he and other Jewish students had been required to clean the front steps with toothbrushes. This immigrant to the US had many proud moments -- joining the US Army when he turned 18, serving as a spy with the Ritchie Boys in a return to Europe and later in the war interrogating Nazis. After the war, back in the US, he became a successful businessman, wrote a memoir and two novels. Opposition to immigrants is an insult to his memory and the memory of the enormous number of immigrants who have made the United States a vibrant, interesting, and powerful country. Len Lubinsky, Len's Political Notes.
Dang HCR! Take another day! We love you but sheesh. The news can wait. I’m glad you at least posted before 2:00 am….. We can entertain ourselves: we do it a lot here in the safe zone of your substack page.
All these interlocking very good news developments are on theme with your very good news on the home front. It must be gratifying to return to your labors and share reasons for us to feel optimistic.
Let's hope this trend continues when Judge Cannon rules next and you can assert the rule of law is winning. Her ruling will signal whether she's committed to doing Trump's bidding, slowing his prosecution for stealing classified documents, or committed to beginning to undo the legal travesties she's wrought.
Thank you Professor for an early bird letter full of hope. My hope is that the American people start to realize what a Democratic government does for the people, all the citizens (still working on that) and not just white Christian males, which is what we see more and more from repubs who have embraced Orban and his ideals. I’m happy to see and hear President Biden speak to the American people about legislation and policies that are helping us all, no matter party affiliation or vote. Even more I hope we can live together in a country that cares for its children, the environment and believes in Science, Truth, Equality and Democracy. For now and the future. Yes, we have much work to do to get there. That’s my speech!
Love your letter tonight so full of hope and goodwill for our future. I remember having a violin lesson as I was falling in love with the man who would become my husband. After playing for a few minutes my teacher stopped me and asked what had happened. Told him I had fallen in love and he nodded sagely. Congratulations on your marriage, Heather and Buddy!
Once again congrats! ❤️💕❤️ And while we I appreciate this update I'm certain we will all be able to endure a should you take a few more days off to celebrate 🍾 your honeymoon 😊.
"Hey Yuri, try to look like we're playing golf for those reporters' cameras over there. Listen, I need you to give me back the originals of the classified stuff I provided you. You can keep copies, but I've got to get the originals back really fast. Fast."
“As recently as May 2021, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) shared a Russian propaganda video about its troops and suggested they were superior to the American military, which was trying to demonstrate that it includes all Americans equally. He tweeted: “Holy crap. Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea….”
which is all the proof we need that billionaire Libertarian Charles Koch pays Cruz ( and other GOP officials) through his dark $ PACs to protect his oil oligarchy. Putin takes advantage of this too through donations laundered through the NRA, the Christian evangelical PACs, and by nurturing white national groups and militias. The war in Ukraine is about oil and majority of oil suppling countries are authoritarian regimes. There is a link between these authoritarian regimes, the global oil oligarchy ( Koch’s being just one) to the GOP to not only maintain our dependence on oil and subvert a positive Climate Change agenda, but also to degrade democracies. Winning in Ukraine is vital to maintaining healthy and vibrant Western Democracies and the rule of law. We can then approach Climate constructively. By doing so we can build more equity into the middle class through investment, innovation, education, research, and usher in what will become the largest expansion of the global economy all the while protecting and spreading democracy.
"They claim that it is inefficient, making democratically led countries unable to react as quickly to the modern world as countries with a strong leader, "
Evolution is driven in part by efficiency; wild geese fly in formation for that very reason; and much of the evolutionary process is driven by the degree efficiency provides a survival edge; but that is only part of the story.
Evolution is also very much enabled by random recombinations, and also by for-its-own-sake exploratory behavior. It is powered by cooperation, conscious and opportunistic, as in the exhaust gas of green plants being O², which we need, and our's being CO², which they need. Cooperation extends down to the unicellular level.
Sexual reproduction is not very efficient, but it is resilient and creative. We as humans evolved to display a wide array of interests and talents, which we pool to become, apparently, the most creative creatures on the planet (for the good and the bad of that). We are, so far as I know, the only earthly creatures to have walked on the surface of the moon. Our science is replete with consequential discoveries that began with pure curiosity. Efficient? Fortune favors the prepared mind; prepared for a useful response to the unexpected.
Democracy is herding cats by design, and that is its burden and its strength. How else can you accommodate diversity; and how can you experience liberty without a diverse palette of responsible choices? And how can you support a diverse society without a certain amount of chaotic and sometimes frustrating complications? But we can do so and be existentially richer for it if we preponderantly act in good faith.
September 12, 2022
Thank you. Robert Hubbell, who writes an excellent newsletter and sometimes quotes you wrote yesterday on September 11, that his eldest granddaughter was born on September 11 two years ago and he also now responds to the date as a sign of hope for the future. My first day in Italy ever was a beautiful May afternoon on the magically peaceful Lago di Lugano. I have a photograph. I learned and understood later that at that moment anti-Mafia Judge Giovanni Falcone and his wife were blown up on his weekly trip to visit his mother in Sicily. Two Italys, both real, two September 11 both real.
I'm taking your marriage--and your sharing it--as a reminder of how in the midst of all that is 2022, how important it is to honor, enjoy, and live fully our personal lives, both profoundly and in small ways. Please continue to seize these days and let's all remember to have fun.
Someone commenting on a WaPo article said Putin was sending in his second-stringer soldiers; saving the well trained ones for a big assault TBD. Don't think so.
If he's conscripting prisoners he's already scraping the bottom of the barrel. They have no deeply held convictions to fight.
The latest secret weapon? Ukrainian women are cooking a hot meal for these kids and listening, really listening to their stories. These young soldiers are abandoning their posts; throwing down their weapons, stealing civilian clothes and bicycles, and blending in with the civilians. Never underestimate the power of a hot bowl of soup and a kindly grandmother.
So glad for today's missive, but *honeymoon* a bit. xoxo
Speculating on what Trump is doing in DC and the identity of the other non golfers has surpassed Wordle as top online game.
"In September 2021, former vice president Mike Pence spoke in Budapest at a forum denouncing immigration and urging traditional social values, where he told the audience he hoped that the U.S. Supreme Court would outlaw abortion thanks to the three justices Trump put on the court." Yesterday, I went to the funeral of a 98 year old friend (I am a kid at 80). Speakers recalled that his proudest moment was when he became an American citizen. He had many proud moments. His family left Austria in the 1930s. When we traveled to Vienna he urged us to stop at his high school where he and other Jewish students had been required to clean the front steps with toothbrushes. This immigrant to the US had many proud moments -- joining the US Army when he turned 18, serving as a spy with the Ritchie Boys in a return to Europe and later in the war interrogating Nazis. After the war, back in the US, he became a successful businessman, wrote a memoir and two novels. Opposition to immigrants is an insult to his memory and the memory of the enormous number of immigrants who have made the United States a vibrant, interesting, and powerful country. Len Lubinsky, Len's Political Notes.
Dang HCR! Take another day! We love you but sheesh. The news can wait. I’m glad you at least posted before 2:00 am….. We can entertain ourselves: we do it a lot here in the safe zone of your substack page.
All these interlocking very good news developments are on theme with your very good news on the home front. It must be gratifying to return to your labors and share reasons for us to feel optimistic.
Let's hope this trend continues when Judge Cannon rules next and you can assert the rule of law is winning. Her ruling will signal whether she's committed to doing Trump's bidding, slowing his prosecution for stealing classified documents, or committed to beginning to undo the legal travesties she's wrought.
Thank you Professor for an early bird letter full of hope. My hope is that the American people start to realize what a Democratic government does for the people, all the citizens (still working on that) and not just white Christian males, which is what we see more and more from repubs who have embraced Orban and his ideals. I’m happy to see and hear President Biden speak to the American people about legislation and policies that are helping us all, no matter party affiliation or vote. Even more I hope we can live together in a country that cares for its children, the environment and believes in Science, Truth, Equality and Democracy. For now and the future. Yes, we have much work to do to get there. That’s my speech!
Love your letter tonight so full of hope and goodwill for our future. I remember having a violin lesson as I was falling in love with the man who would become my husband. After playing for a few minutes my teacher stopped me and asked what had happened. Told him I had fallen in love and he nodded sagely. Congratulations on your marriage, Heather and Buddy!
Once again congrats! ❤️💕❤️ And while we I appreciate this update I'm certain we will all be able to endure a should you take a few more days off to celebrate 🍾 your honeymoon 😊.
"Hey Yuri, try to look like we're playing golf for those reporters' cameras over there. Listen, I need you to give me back the originals of the classified stuff I provided you. You can keep copies, but I've got to get the originals back really fast. Fast."
Congratulations you two, you look so sweet together and I wish you so much happiness.
“As recently as May 2021, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) shared a Russian propaganda video about its troops and suggested they were superior to the American military, which was trying to demonstrate that it includes all Americans equally. He tweeted: “Holy crap. Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea….”
which is all the proof we need that billionaire Libertarian Charles Koch pays Cruz ( and other GOP officials) through his dark $ PACs to protect his oil oligarchy. Putin takes advantage of this too through donations laundered through the NRA, the Christian evangelical PACs, and by nurturing white national groups and militias. The war in Ukraine is about oil and majority of oil suppling countries are authoritarian regimes. There is a link between these authoritarian regimes, the global oil oligarchy ( Koch’s being just one) to the GOP to not only maintain our dependence on oil and subvert a positive Climate Change agenda, but also to degrade democracies. Winning in Ukraine is vital to maintaining healthy and vibrant Western Democracies and the rule of law. We can then approach Climate constructively. By doing so we can build more equity into the middle class through investment, innovation, education, research, and usher in what will become the largest expansion of the global economy all the while protecting and spreading democracy.
There were not even any golf clubs or bags on any of the golf carts.
They were clearly going to remote greens and teeboxes where their conversations couldn't be overheard.
For a brief moment, I read "Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)" as "Senator Ted Cruz (Russia-TX)."
"They claim that it is inefficient, making democratically led countries unable to react as quickly to the modern world as countries with a strong leader, "
Evolution is driven in part by efficiency; wild geese fly in formation for that very reason; and much of the evolutionary process is driven by the degree efficiency provides a survival edge; but that is only part of the story.
Evolution is also very much enabled by random recombinations, and also by for-its-own-sake exploratory behavior. It is powered by cooperation, conscious and opportunistic, as in the exhaust gas of green plants being O², which we need, and our's being CO², which they need. Cooperation extends down to the unicellular level.
Sexual reproduction is not very efficient, but it is resilient and creative. We as humans evolved to display a wide array of interests and talents, which we pool to become, apparently, the most creative creatures on the planet (for the good and the bad of that). We are, so far as I know, the only earthly creatures to have walked on the surface of the moon. Our science is replete with consequential discoveries that began with pure curiosity. Efficient? Fortune favors the prepared mind; prepared for a useful response to the unexpected.
Democracy is herding cats by design, and that is its burden and its strength. How else can you accommodate diversity; and how can you experience liberty without a diverse palette of responsible choices? And how can you support a diverse society without a certain amount of chaotic and sometimes frustrating complications? But we can do so and be existentially richer for it if we preponderantly act in good faith.