Ailantha - Blog

So, Is Burned Pizza A Thing?

4/7/2026

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So, Is Burned Pizza A Thing?

On Thursday evening, March 26, Tom and I saw a sublime performance of "Miss Saigon" at the Short North Stage in downtown Columbus.

Having decided to seek out some dinner before the show, I looked online in advance for an eatery close to the Short North Stage. I found a pizzeria a few doors down from the theater called Pauli Gee's.
The prices were, I thought, a weence on the expensive side for pizza, but the place had stellar online reviews:

And so we decided to give Pauli Gee's a try.

The place had a charming interior, and the crowd there at 5:30 pm on a Thursday night appeared to verify the positive online reviews.

We decided to spilt an $18, 10" tomato, mozzarella and basil pizza. It arrived looking like this on top:

...and this on the bottom:

The purportedly best pizza place in Columbus brought us a burned pizza!
Or so I thought. Tom asked our friendly server about the state of our pizza. They explained to us with much enthusiasm that this was a wood-fired pizza, and so the crust wasn't burned, but "charred," as a wood-fired pizza was supposed to be.
Oh. Okay. I looked around the restaurant and tried to catch a glimpse of my fellow diners’ pizzas. From what I could see, their pizzas also looked to be pretty well "charred."
We proceeded to consume our charred wood-fired pizza, which tasted burned to us. In fact, I'd have said it was inedible if not for the fact that we were eating it and so was everybody else.
Later I googled some online images of Pauli Gee’s pizzas. They were charred every one.

I did more online research to see if by chance there was an anti-charred pizza contingent.
Apparently not:

In fact, among all the reviews I saw only one reference made to the charring. And that one was pro-char.

So what can I say?
As for me, if in the past I ever made a pizza that turned out like this,

...I’d have tossed it. Or at least tried to scrape off the burnt part. In the future, though, I guess I would serve it up proudly and call it charred (though I, for one, wouldn't eat it).

7 Comments

Why I Missed The No Kings March

4/1/2026

19 Comments

Sadly, I did not participate, except in spirit, in any of the March 28 No King's Marches here in Columbus, Ohio.

I was not among the 20,000 marchers who took to the streets in the greater Columbus area because for the past few weeks my upper respiratory system has been under siege by a virus.
Magnified 500,000 times, here's what my virus looks like under a microscope.

   It's a shape-shifting zombie virus.
That is to say, this nanoscopic little demon might attack for a few days in the form of a headache and sore throat, then beat a retreat before returning a few days later as a killer cough with a sidekick of sinus congestion from hell, until it mutates yet again into some or another underhanded entity that leaves me plodding along in that tired, achy, indescribably crappyesque state that my mother the nurse used to call general malaise, which is where I more or less was last Saturday.
   It's my understanding that a virus is not exactly a living thing. But it's not exactly a not-living thing, either. It's somewhere between a living thing and a not-living thing. In other words, a zombie. Which is why, though a virus can kill you, you can't kill it.
(If only someone could figure out how to shoot out the brains of a microbe).
  Still, I'm thankful from the bottom of my cough-wracked rib cage to all those patriotic Americans who were part of No Kings:
My good friends,

...my loved ones,

...the 8 million across this country who marched,

...and the hundreds of thousands around the world.

Thank you to you all who represented for those millions more of us who were there in spirit.

19 Comments

A Twilight Zone Vibe In Prototype: The Experimental Museum

3/28/2026

2 Comments

One day a couple of months ago while scrolling through Facebook, I came across a post touting a place located somewhere in Columbus called Prototype: The Experimental Museum.

Intrigued, I went to the link provided and found this description on the Prototype home page:

I decided that I, too, definitely wanted to check this place out.
I read no more but opted then and there to buy tickets to this "experimental museum" for my mate Tom and myself. Sometimes it's more fun not knowing too much.
Except we did need to know the location, which we learned was in Audubon Park, a peaceful nature center in downtown Columbus along the Scioto River.

And so on a snowy Monday, March 2, we headed out to Audubon Park for our 2 pm time slot at Prototype. We found the place at the edge of the park in what appeared to be a repurposed warehouse.

In the lobby we were greeted by a couple of friendly youngsters, who told us a little more about the place.

We learned that Prototype was created by a local company that designs exhibits for museums, and that each exhibit here is an interactive experiment, a prototype to be tested and played with by humans, then refined and improved over time.
As the wall signs explained:

Though all the information about this venue clearly stated that it was not for children under the age of 16, I could hear a child's chattering coming from the direction of what I assumed (correctly) was the restrooms.

"So much for no kids allowed," I quipped to my mate.
I stepped into the restroom area, where the sinks were out in the hallway,

...then I looked over where women's rooms were,

...but the chattering child was in none of those places. Then out in the hallway I saw the poster next to the sinks:

The "child" was one of the exhibits, an "AI agent with the personality of a child," the purpose of which has not been revealed. A weence creepy, I thought, and I'll bet I'm not the only grown up tricked by that bot kid voice.
True, it was the middle of a Monday afternoon, still it felt a little odd that the lobby was empty except for Tom and me.

I asked one of the staff members if we were the only visitors in the building. They said no, there were a few more people here, but that the six exhibit areas were so spread out that we likely wouldn't see anyone else. Also a weence creepy.
Feeling a bit of a Twilight Zone vibe, we stepped through the door of area 1.

The first exhibit we came across was this "Boundless Elevator,"

...a sort of sensory lab experiment that involved entering the "elevator," then turning the crank in one direction or another, which determined, based on the movement of the lights, whether one had the sensation of going up or going down while actually going nowhere. (Seemed to me there was something metaphoric about this experiment).
From there we navigated our way around the rest of the exhibits and areas.
Among the sights was a digital art exhibit that asked thought-provoking questions,

...and gave the option of magnifying details of the pictures.

An especially amusing activity was the caterpillar race, where one could design a computer caterpillar then race him against other computer caterpillars. First one designed one's caterpillar on a screen. As I am not an afficionado of creepy crawly things, even virtual ones, Tom opted to design a caterpillar. He decided to have it resemble a tomato worm, tomato worms being big, ugly green critters that not even birds will eat.
He made his tomato worm extra fat with horns and bumps and red stripes and purple polka dots. He was then required to name his caterpillar, so he named him "Donald J."

The computer then gave him a scientific name which we found oh, so pleasing and appropriate:

Tom's Donaldjia egregia then lined up with four other computer caterpillars, generic models, I imagine, and the race began.

Now, the way the race worked, Donaldjia egregia was powered by a wheel that Tom had to turn. The faster Tom turned the wheel, the faster his critter ran.

We don't know who or what was powering the other caterpillar contestants, but for a while Donaldjia egregia was in the lead.

But by the end he just couldn't keep up.

The winner.

We concluded that making him an XXL-sized caterpillar with all those horns and knobs probably slowed him down. 'Twould have been better to keep him sleek (unlike his namesake).
There was a virtual reef that allowed one to reverse the effects of global warming by pulling a lever.

(If only the pull of a lever were all it took to repair a real reef).
In one dark space there was a veil that appeared to dance over a fountain of air,

...and a giant eyeball whose gaze followed one around.

There was a Tarot card exhibit,

...and a wheel of misfortune that gave the chances of how one might die.

And with just Tom and I by ourselves in this eerie space, I could almost think of the dialogue for a Twilight Zone episode.
But there was also a happiness survey,

...which I couldn't really figure out how to read,

...but which was accompanied by a wall full of pigeon holes divided into sections by age where folks were invited to leave a thought in their age group on the secret to a happy life. Others could read the thoughts left in the pigeon holes.

I left a thought in my age group section:

...and I read a few left by others of my contemporaries:

There was a room full of sparkling strands of LED lights,

...in which was located a love hug mannequin that purported to be able to identify a person's love style based on how they hugged.

Here was my love style based on my hug of the mannequin,

...and Tom's based on his hug.

At the end of the exhibits we entered a beautiful bar where one could order a drink,

...or just sit for a while, which we did,

...and watched an engaging film about dancers.

We spent a good two-and-a-half hours at Prototype, and the above exhibits were only some of the sensory wonders we experienced there. As we were leaving I couldn't help thinking how much Rod Serling would have loved this place.

2 Comments

Cognitive Dissonance Over Cesar Chavez

3/23/2026

7 Comments

God sees the truth but waits - Leo Tolstoy
Idols are best when they're made of stone, heroes a nuisance to live with at home. - Joan Baez

I was among the millions of Americans, especially those of my generation, hit with shock and horror by the news: Cesar Chavez, hero of the farm labor movement in the 1960's who organized for, marched for, and finally won the battle for farm workers' rights,

...was a hideous sexual predator. He raped Dolores Huerta, co-founder with him of the farm workers' union,

...groomed little girls as young as 8, molested girls as young as 12, raped girls as young as 13.
This wasn't a Jeffrey Epstein, unequivocal scum of the earth, a waste of protoplasm; this was the man who labored tirelessly for the sake of the down trodden, the advocate of nonviolent resistance, the man we all so admired and whose work we cheered on back when I was in college. Cesar Chavez gave us hope for a better world. And for the farm laborers for whom he secured humane working conditions and a union, the world did, thanks to his endeavors, become better.

In California and the Southwest, there are schools, streets, community centers, parks, and a day of remembrance named after him.

There are monuments dedicated to him.

He was awarded, posthumously, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. There are books written about him and a movie made about his life. There was a movement in the Catholic Church to make him a saint.

How can anyone wrap their head around this new information? I can't.
And so over Cesar Chavez my brain remains in a state of cognitive dissonance, the mental discomfort that occurs when a person is faced with two conflicting realities: in this case it's the knowledge that Cesar Chavez did tremendous good, but he was also tremendously evil. The two pieces don't fit together. It feels like trying to press together two magnets with the same poles facing. It doesn't add up. It doesn't compute.
But for the victims of Chavez's crimes who suffered in silence because of shame or fear of imperiling their mission, or fear of not being believed or fear of retribution, or because they were young and helpless and voiceless, for them I'm thankful that at least now they will receive a measure of justice, though they had to wait for it more than half a century. Now these women have their voice, they are the heroes, honored for coming forward and, armed only with the truth, having the courage to stand up to the man's towering legacy.
Now the legacy of Cesar Chavez lies on the ground in a pile of rubble. His name is being removed from every building, every park, every street, every entity dedicated to his remembrance.
But still, how can it be?
So much good wrapped around so much evil. The face of an apostle for humanity, masking a monster.

References:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/us/what-to-know-cesar-chavez-sex-abuse.html

https://www.democracynow.org/2026/3/20/dolores_huerta_cesar_chavez

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Chavez

7 Comments

"Anaconda," Or The Art Of The Schlemiel

3/20/2026

4 Comments

As far as I'm concerned, any movie starring Jack Black is a must see,

...as is almost any movie starring Paul Rudd.

So when some casting director came up with the sublime idea of an on-screen paring of the two in the action-comedy-horror movie "Anaconda," of course it was for me a doubly must-see, the 48% Rotten Tomatoes rating be hanged.

That being said, of the 50% of this year's critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated movies that I saw, I thought a couple of them were okay, and the rest either awful, boring, or depressing. So, yes, my cinematic tastes frequently diverge with those of the critics.
Besides, these days I tend to be looking for laughs, or at least escape, both of which "Anaconda," happily, delivered in bucketsful when I watched it a few night ago.
Now, this "Anaconda," is not to be mistaken for a remake of the beloved 1997 cult classic,

...the story of a giant snake out to gobble up a group of intrepid Amazon venturers (some of them at cross purposes, of course), among them J Lo, Ice Cube and Jon Voight,

...which, popular as it continues to be, was likewise on the receiving end of the film critics' scorn.

The 2025 Jack Black-Paul Rudd "Anaconda" was, however, an offshoot of the 1997 "Anaconda," as Thandiwe Newton and Steve Zahn at his most hilarious join Black and Rudd,

...as a quartet of old friends, non-achievers living lives of not-so-quiet desperation, who, yearning to make something meaningful of their existence, decide to pursue their childhood group dream of being film makers by going to the Amazon and filming a remake of the the 1997 "Anaconda" movie.
Needless to say, little goes as planned as the crew bungles their way down the Amazon with their jovial snake handler and his pet snake, who is to be the star of their show,

...and the boat's captain, a mysterious woman who is obviously (to the audience if not to the other characters) not what she seems, though exactly what she is we won't learn for a while.

However, we and the characters do learn soon enough that in this stretch of the Amazon there does in fact exist a giant monster anaconda on the prowl for human prey.

And so the characters find themselves living the movie they were planning on making.
Along with the plentiful jump-scares and hair's breadth snake-escape moments, there are just as many scenes that set up the joke then spring the comic twist, often in the schlemiel/schlimazel model: someone fumbles, someone else is on the receiving end of the fumble. In other words, the schlemiel spills their soup and the schlimazel is the poor schmo the soup lands on.
The characters take turns back and forth being the schlemiel and the schlimazel, with even the pet snake ending up in one scene being the schlimazel to Paul Rudd's schlemiel.

And one of the funniest scenes you'll see in any movie is schlimazel Jack Black running away from the monster anaconda with a pig strapped to his back,

...thanks to the bumbling of his schlemiel friends.

So, I recommend you skip the Academy Award winners and settle in for an hour and a half of laughs and scares with "Anaconda."
Oh, but make sure you watch the original "Anaconda" first. That will make it so much more fun.

4 Comments

Celebrating Our 49th With A Dynamite Columbus Children's Theater Production of "Cabaret"

3/14/2026

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I always wanted to see "Cabaret." I don't mean the movie with Joel Grey and Liza Minelli, which I've seen three or four times,

...but a live stage performance.
Having listened to both the movie and the Broadway soundtracks probably close to a hundred times (I do not exaggerate), I had the impression that the stage version of "Cabaret" was quite different from the screen version. And from what I'd read, the more recent iterations of "Cabaret" from the last few years' Broadway run were given twists particularly relevant to the times we live in by using gender queer characters to populate the expressionistic fictional night spot called the Kit Kat Klub in 1930's Berlin where the good times - and metaphors - rolled while Germans went about their lives oblivious to, ignoring, or embracing the authoritarianism and oppression that was creeping into their society.

I got my chance to see "Cabaret" on stage a few weeks ago.
I'd seen an ad for a local run of the show. To be presented by the Columbus Children's Theater.
Now, the idea of "Cabaret" being performed by a children's group gave me pause. But only for a moment. I figured that a cleaned up, kid-friendly version of "Cabaret" was better than no version of all. So I bought tickets for myself and my mate Tom for the Saturday, February 21, 2 pm matinee.
Planning an outing for this date served another purpose: It gave Tom and me something to do to celebrate our 49th anniversary. Our actual anniversary is February 19, but we figured celebrating on the 21st was close enough.
Tom and me on our wedding day in 1977,

...and in 2026.

All we'd need besides our afternoon at the theater to make our anniversary celebration official would be a cake to eat afterwards.
To this end I procured a cake from Resch's, an old Columbus family bakery that makes the absolute best cakes on the planet, and that by good fortune moved its operation a few months ago from the city to a new suburban location two blocks from my house.

Our Resch's 49th anniversary cake.

(A side note of possible interest to cake afficionados: My town of Gahanna, Ohio, now happens to have to have excellent cake karma; for along with Resch's we also have the Golden Delight Bakery,

...which makes a sublime, lighter than air, unique unto itself layer cake topped and filled with a sublime, lighter than air, unique unto itself frosting and fresh sliced strawberries. A Golden Delight cake, as this confection is known in Gahanna, is a common staple at graduations and other cake-requiring events,

...though I imagine the Golden Delight cake may now be in for some serious competition with the Resch's cake.
In any case, one of our friends surprised Tom and me with a Golden Delight cake on the actual date of our anniversary, so we were able to enjoy the best of both cake worlds.

And enjoy we did).
When Saturday afternoon, February 21, rolled around, Tom and I headed for High Street in downtown Columbus,

....to the Riffe Center, a beautiful government center and theater complex,

...where "Cabaret" was staged in Studio Two, a small, intimate space with a minimalist set and the orchestra stationed up in the loft.

In the entryway to the theater there were posters that gave a preview of the interpretive approach taken by this particular production of "Cabaret." While looking at the posters It occurred to me that mayhaps this was not going to be the sanitized, kid-friendly "Cabaret" production I had envisioned, but rather a work of political statement,

...social commentary,

...and protest,

...all if which it turned out to be, along with being dynamite entertainment.
In this production, identified as part of the company's Professional Series, most of the cast were college students or young adults, with a few older adults in the older adult roles. Nonetheless all were already seasoned veterans of musical theater.

The young, energetic singers and dancers brought terrific life and exuberance to their colorful roles of the Kit Kat Klub Cabaret "Girls" and "Boys."

Especially effective - and surprising - was the creative decision in the casting of the roll of The Emcee, usually portrayed as a sort of malevolent clown who represented the moral depravity of Berlin in the 1930's.

In this production, however, the role was played by a young woman, free of clown makeup.

Juliette Marcella as The Emcee

Watching their performance one felt that, rather than symbolizing the society of their time, these particular Kit Kat Klub characters were standing up to its cruel oppression, which was the true immorality of Nazi Germany; and that the young actors who portrayed them were, in their interpretation, standing against intolerance in our present day society.

It was an outstanding, thought-provoking performance that posed questions for the audience.

The story ended with all the characters, singers, dancers, queer, straight, German, Jew, Nazi, taking off their shoes and leaving them in a pile on the stage, perhaps symbolizing that once upon a time a repressive, murderous regime, in stealing the lives of those it murdered, stole the life of its whole society as well.

After the show we walked a block down High Street,

...to the Spaghetti Warehouse for dinner.

Though it was before 5 pm when we arrived, the restaurant was already so crowded,

...that without a reservation the only seats available were at the bar. So we happily joined the folks sitting at the bar.

The service was quick and good, and soon thereafter we were chowing down on the soft, warm, out-of-this-world bread with the herb butter that is the Spaghetti Warehouse hallmark,

...followed soon thereafter by salads and a split order of delicious 15-layer lasagna.

By the time we left the Spaghetti Warehouse even the bar area was filled.

We then walked back through town,

...and headed home to dig into our cake and finish off our anniversary, appreciative that we still lived in a time and place where we were free to carry on with "the daily things of life that are so dear."
At least for the time being.

13 Comments

Something I Wonder If Kristi Noem Now Regrets

3/9/2026

8 Comments

Whatever your feelings about Department of Homeland Security ex-Director Kristi Noem,

...I mean, you have to admit that Donald Trump double-crossed her. Just like he double-crosses almost everybody who does any kind of work for him, from the contractors, small business owners, and workers he's hired then refused to pay for materials used and services rendered, to the staffers and law makers he's made use of to do or legitimize his dirty work then fired, or reneged on an understood promise of political compensation, or allowed to land in prison, or in some other way trampled or destroyed their careers or reputations.
Or publicly humiliated, as he humiliated Kristi Noem in not telling her privately that she was fired, but making her find out along with the rest of the world when last Thursday he announced on social media that he was proud to announce that Senator Markwayne Mullin was the new head of the Department of Homeland Security.
As for Noem, she was - surprise! - now special envoy to some new, comic-book-sounding outfit nobody ever heard of called The Shield of the Americas. And for which she's already been the object of much social media memery.

Of course as head of the Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem did Donald Trump's will right down to the minute. Did it with a vengeance, even. What human being could have done the job more to Trump's liking?

Well, that's Donald Trump for you. To him everybody is two Big Macs and a large Diet Coke.
But while watching a clip of Kristi Noem's performance last week in the role of what some folks are calling Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing Barbie,

...I found myself wondering about something.
After everything Kristi Noem did to promote Donald Trump and his agenda,

...she ended up the laughing stock of the universe (which is better than what she deserves after turning the Department of Homeland Security into the Kristi Noem Theater of Cruelty).

Anyway, I wondered if now she at all regretted all that plastic surgery she underwent to achieve the look - now commonly known as Mar-a-Lago Face - that has become de rigueur for women in Donald Trump's circle.

I wondered if she ever wished she could have her old face back, the face that got her as far as a seat in Congress,

...as far as the Governor of South Dakota,

...even as far as the 1990 South Dakota Snow Queen.

The face that was, in any case, authentically her own before she hitched her wagon to Donald Trump's star then went under the knife and needle to more closely resemble the proto-Mar-a-lago Face,

...and to look 27 years old instead of her 54.

In fact, I wonder how many, if any, of the Mar-a-Lago- Faced women in the Trump orbit wish they could have their former faces back.

Lara Trump

Kimberly Guilfoyle

Laura Loomer

Karoline Leavitt

Or is it more like that episode from the Twilight Zone called "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" (January 24, 1964, Season 5, episode 17)?
The story tells of a future in which it's the societal norm for woman when they reach adulthood to go through a facial transformation, with two beautiful options to choose from. There was the Number 8:

...or the Number 12:

And so all women were beautiful, though each looked like either Number 8 or Number 12.
But it was all good, because when the women had their faces changed, their brains were changed, too, so that they all came out happy to look like each other.

Maybe it's like that in the MAGA Zone. But what about after you've been jettisoned from the Zone? Will you still like looking at your Mar-a-Lago Face then?

References
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/06/politics/kristi-noem-lost-trump-markwayne-mullin

https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/kristi-noem-tapped-to-head-shield-of-americas-in-doral-summit-40529468/

https://www.nickiswift.com/2070369/what-happened-kristi-noem-face-transformation/

https://www.thelist.com/2081857/most-jarring-plastic-surgery-transformations-in-maga-history/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_8713341

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The First Victims of The Israel/United States War On Iran

3/4/2026

25 Comments

Last Saturday, February 28, in the middle of the night, when most Americans in the Eastern Standard Time zone were asleep and Donald Trump should have been, he was instead making a surprise announcement to the world - including to the United States Congress and the American people - from his luxury hideout in Mar-a-Lago that he had declared war on Iran. The bombs were already falling.

I believe I'll never forget how shocked I was to wake up on Saturday morning to learn that we were at war with Iran, with whom we were supposedly in the middle of negotiations.
Though Trump offered a carnival wheel of reasons for bombing Iran - spin the wheel and see where it lands - he neglected to share at that time that Israel had joined the United States - or rather, that the United States that had agreed to join and empower Israel - and that this was in fact a joint Israel/U.S. war against Iran.
One of the first places in Iran where the bombs were dropped was on a girls' school in the town of Minab. 180 people were killed, many more wounded, most of them school children, girls between the ages of 7 and 12. The walls of the school were destroyed and the roof collapsed. Children and teachers were buried and trapped beneath the rubble.

Faced with worldwide outrage and accusations of a war crime, both the United States and Israel denied that any of their planes were responsible for the bombing. But it doesn't matter whether it was an American fighter pilot or an Israeli fighter pilot who dropped the bombs on those girls; the guilt lies with the United States, since we supplied Israel with their planes,

...and their bombs.

In fact, we supplied Israel with their whole war. Because, as is now coming out, this is not America's war; this is Israel's war.
As reported yesterday in the New York Times, and reprinted in various other news sources since, Benjamin Netanyahu had been pressuring Donald Trump for months to take military action against Iran. According to a USA Today article from today, Netanyahu had been planning to attack Iran since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.

According to the New York Times article:
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel walked into the Oval Office on the morning of Feb. 11, determined to keep the American president on the path to war. For weeks, the United States and Israel had been secretly discussing a military offensive against Iran. But Trump administration officials had recently begun negotiating with the Iranians over the future of their nuclear program, and the Israeli leader wanted to make sure that the new diplomatic effort did not undermine the plans."
And so, though the United States and Iran were in the midst of nuclear talks which, as of Thursday, February, 26, were on track to continue the following week, Trump told the New York Times the day after the February 28 attack on Iran, "Toward the end of the negotiation, I realized that these guys weren’t going to get there. I said, ‘Let’s just do it.’”
And so he and Netanyahu just did it.

References
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/read-trumps-full-statement-on-iran-attack?fbclid=IwY2xjawQTzTlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFlZ1ZkaHNYZzlPWndEYkFkc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHqYQ4wfsF-J87UCF0ckGDLi0F5esWpRo_C0wut9wSBMc6Piek4vJZh6gPA0Z_aem_dbPRHBCVPv2sFDbJtsABkg

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/us/politics/trump-war-iran-israel.html

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2026/03/03/israel-decision-kill-khamenei-after-oct-7/88957910007/#

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/daily-on-defense/4479726/trump-gut-told-him-time-strike-iran/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg1vd95nl9o

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/27/us-iran-nuclear-talks-oil-middle-east.html

25 Comments

Three Things I Wondered About From Trump's State Of The Union

2/27/2026

23 Comments

I stayed up on Tuesday night to watch Donald Trump's longest-in-history State of the Union address. Though, as everyone else who stayed up to watch along knows, it was really less of a speech and more of a gala show, chock full of guest appearances, awards, frequent declarations of praise by Trump for himself,

...alternating with his barbed scorn for his Democratic enemies, not to mention his fierce immigrant hatred, especially against Somalians. All of that was interspersed with heart-touching human-interest stories involving Olympic athletes, children, parents, working folks, wounded soldiers, and two centenarian veterans, most of whom appeared to be exceedingly grateful to the Presidential Master of Ceremonies, who appeared exceedingly gratified by their gratitude.
There was just so much to take in, all of it the same old excruciatingly predictable, unchanging, perpetually self-aggrandizing Trumpian schtick that we've had playing in our ears and flashing in our eyes for the past ten and a half years. I didn't take most of it in.
Except for three times during the show when I found myself sitting up, taking notice, and wondering, now, what's going on here?
The first time was when the President began talking up the benefits of some government pharmaceutical program called Trump Rx that, according to Trump, "took prescription drugs from the highest price in the entire world to the lowest." He went on to say, "The result is price differences of 300, 400, 500, 600 percent and more, all available right now at a new website called Trump Rx. gov." (He added that he didn't name the website, likely lest we suspect he had an oversized ego).
I had never heard of Trump Rx and was intrigued, so I immediately went to the TrumpRx.gov website to check it out. Here's what I found on the hype-y home page:

However, when I went to the "Browse Medications" page, there were only 43 drugs listed, most of them for fertility, diabetes and weight-loss. Some of the drugs were not very expensive even without the discount,

...though most were quite expensive even with the discount.

Apparently the way TrumpRx works is, one prints off a coupon from the website.

One then presents the coupon to a participating pharmacy in order to receive the discounted price on one's prescription. One must pay this price out of pocket, as insurance is not accepted with TrumpRx coupons. Nor does TrumpRx cover generic options. Subsequently, the price of the drug is likely to be much cheaper if one has insurance, but TrumpRx coupons are generally meant to be used by the uninsured.
Ergo, mayhaps Donald Trump's State of the Union claims about TrumpRx giving Americans the lowest drug prices in the entire world was as inflated as the TrumpRx homepage?
The second episode that made me wonder occurred when Trump directed attention to audience member Sage Blair.

Trump introduced Sage Blair as a young woman from Virginia who, when she was 14, school officials sought to transition from a girl to a boy without her parents' knowledge. He told of how Sage ran away from home, was sexually trafficked, then, in Trump's words, "After she was found in a horrific situation in Maryland, a left-wing judge refused to return Sage to her parents because they did not immediately state that their daughter was their son. Sage was thrown into an all boys state home and suffered terribly for a long time." Trump ended by saying that today all of that was behind her because now "Sage is a proud and wonderful young woman with a full ride scholarship to Liberty University." He then asked Sage and her paternal grandmother, Michelle, who has been Sage's legal guardian since she was two, to stand for a round of applause.

Now, one couldn't help - at least, I couldn't help - but notice during most of Trump's tribute to Sage Blair the sadness in their face, their frequent blinking,

...the brief, inscrutable glance they exchanged with the man sitting next to them.

I wondered what Sage Blair was thinking and feeling. Did they want to be there? Were they there of their own will? Were they trying in their mind to be somewhere or someone else? Were they in fact a "proud and wonderful young woman" for whom their terrible suffering in the past was behind them? Was the life and identity they were now living their choice or was it being forced upon them? Were they receiving whatever mental health care they needed? And who were those two men sitting close next to them who looked like guards?
And I mostly wondered what they meant by the little finger clap they gave while the rest of the audience was cheering for them.

I googled "finger clapping" and learned that it signifies the expression "clock it," for which I found two meanings, this one:

...and this one:

I wondered which meaning Sage Blair intended to communicate?
And finally, I wondered about Chief Warrant Officer 5 Eric Slover who during the State of the Union was presented with the Medal of Honor (Which Donald Trump kept erroneously referring to as "The Congressional Medal of Honor"), the highest award given by the United States military. CW5 Slover is an army pilot who was shot several times in the leg and hip while landing the lead helicopter during the January 3 raid of this year that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro. Though seriously wounded, CW5 Slover landed the helicopter, enabling his crew to carry out their mission of overthrowing Maduro and taking him prisoner.
When Trump called CW5 Slover to come forward he appeared holding on to a walker beside his smiling wife.

However Slover looked like a prisoner of war, stone faced, his uniform cinched in at the waist and hanging loose on his frame.
His stony, hollow-eyed, flat affect didn't change while he received his Medal of Honor,

...except for once while he was being applauded, when his face showed, for less than a second, a robotic-looking effort at a smile.

And I wondered, what happened to that man? What is going on behind those lightless eyes?

References
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBKYqf7emEo

https://trumprx.gov/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8G4eQyjPSM

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/02/invited-an-ex-trans-christian-student-to-the-sotu-yesterday-who-is-she/

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/us/politics/virginia-trans-student-trump-sotu-guest.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFtxacUUmZ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6S2xTlmGY4

23 Comments

Beware Of The Department Of Homeland Security If You've Posted Anything Critical Of ICE

2/19/2026

10 Comments

It wasn't that the thought had never occurred to me that posting blogs critical of Donald Trump and/or his accomplices might be risky. After all, the abuse of power for self dealing and the abuse of power to deal out retribution are twin pillars of the Trump agenda.
But I never took too seriously the thought that I might be affected. True, these days my blog posts do tend to be jeremiads against the authoritarianism, misdeeds and cruelty of the MAGA powers that be,

...still, the collective readership of my blog is, in truth, pretty small. And so I always figured that no matter what I said, my voice was likely hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles below the radar or interest of the Trump MAGAverse.
But then a couple of nights ago my hubby Tom and I sat scrolling on our devices through the day's news when he looked up from his reading. "Listen to this," he said. "It says in the New York Times that tech company workers have leaked that the Department of Homeland Security has subpoenaed all the social media sites for the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of people who criticize ICE on social media."
Upon hearing this I felt in the middle of my chest a sudden sensation of...something: Fear? Anxiety? Anger? I'd say anxiety was the closest. "No, wait," I said, "that can't be right. Just about everybody I know criticizes ICE on social media. And my blog is on social media. I mean, my blog is social media...isn't it?"
"You better read for yourself," said my mate. So I did.
Sure enough, there was the article in the Times.

And in multiple other news sources, as well.

I read a few of the articles, which were generally a dissemination of the information published in the Times and stated that the Department of Homeland Security has sent hundreds of administrative subpoenas to Google, Meta, Reddit, Discord and other social media companies demanding the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of users who've posted critical comments about Customs and Immigration Enforcement.
But reading a little deeper, I learned that what DHS actually wanted was to find out the identities of the people behind social media accounts that don't have a real person's name attached to them. Such as:

Apparently the social media companies have given the Department of Homeland Security the personal information behind a few of the accounts, which is appalling.
Still, I felt a moment of relief after reading that DHS was only after information on people whose names weren't attached to their critical posts. That wouldn't be me. My name is attached to the Facebook account on which I post my blogs.
But then it took only another moment for the light to click on in my brain that the reason DHS didn't subpoena the names of the people whose names were already on their social media posts was because...our names were already on our social media posts.
In an article in Military.com referenced below, Greg Nojeim, senior counsel and director of the Security and Surveillance Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology said, "The government can use (administrative subpoenas) to compel the disclosure of your personal information even when there is no suspicion that you committed a crime. ICE is apparently using them to silence people who speak out."
Which is. of course, the obvious answer to the obvious question of why the Department of Homeland Security wants information on people who criticize ICE: to silence - or do worse to - those of us who speak out.
In the same Military.com article there was a related story about a man in the Philadelphia area who, upon reading in the Washington Post about a person seeking asylum from Afghanistan who had been badly treated by the Department of Homeland Security, wrote an email to the DHS urging them to “apply principles of common sense and decency” in its treatment of the asylum seeker. Soon afterwards the man was notified that the Trump administration had issued a subpoena to Google seeking the man's identity and home address. Two weeks later two DHS agents and a police officer showed up at the man's residence and interrogated him.
If this isn't proof that we are living in an authoritarian police state, I don't know what is.
Still, I wonder - and worry: Is every one of us who has ever posted something negative about ICE on the radar of DHS? All tens of millions of us? Or are we all just little balls in a game of DHS police state roulette? In any case, do we dare to keep speaking up?

References:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/dhs-anti-ice-social-media.html

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2026/02/17/dhs-collecting-big-tech-users-personal-data-issuing-subpoenas-ice-related-criticism.html

10 Comments

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Beware Of The Department Of Homeland Security If You've Posted Anything Critical Of ICE

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