"I don’t understand why he’s not in jail"
On May 19, 2021 Michael Cohen posted this photoshopped image to X (formerly known as Twitter).
I’ve known Donald Trump for 30 years or more. I’ve sang at two of his birthday parties. I’ve even played golf with him. And Donald Trump is a narcissist.
I think that, at first, he was running just to see if he could, just to see what would happen. And he was a celebrity, so many people voted for him for that reason. They thought, “Well, he’s got his own money so he’s not obligated to any corporations or anything like that.”
But then, Donald Trump showed up, and they could see what was going on. I don’t understand why he’s not in jail. I don’t understand how he’s still a free man walking after the insurrection on the Capitol. But I think that the people who are going to vote for him are desperate. And the powers that be in the Republican Party, they’re desperate too
- Smokey Robinson in "The Last Word", Rolling Stone, March 2023
You have to wonder WHY these people are so desperate. What kool aid did they drink that took away their sense?
ReplyDeleteWent to VT*Grand's school Spring Concert tonight. They did a wonderful show. And! We learned that she has enough credits to graduate in one more year instead of two. So, in a few weeks she'll go from Sophomore to Senior! Her hope is to go early decision to UVM...and I think she'll get it. Her GPA is good and she has lots of extra curriculars, leadership roles, and a job working at a vet's office. She wants to become a veterinarian, so their recommendation will be very helpful. They love her, as she is so comfortable with all sizes and kinds of animals, from cats and dogs to sheep, goats and horses. It's a vet that is certified "fear free" for the animals, which means they use the least stressful means of whatever needs to be done.
ReplyDeleteFor a couple of years I worked in a medical laboratory that did testing on both humans and animals. The veterinary work was a very interesting addition to the human work; one got to see infections, for instance, that you wouldn't be likely to see in your working lifetime in a regular clinical laboratory in the US, although they (or similar ones) might be common among humans elsewhere. There is a moderately common and very important parasitic disease of dogs, for instance, that presents very much like a human disease that occurs in the foothills of the Andes. In another (human) lab (in California) we discovered a human with a locally acquired type of parasitic disease (Chagas' Disease) that is common in Brazil; evidently it was a very mild form of the disease---I don't know if the CDC investigators ever discovered the presumed animal reservoir (but they were actively hunting for it). One of our former neighbors was a large animal vet who was on the last helicopter out of the US embassy in Saigon; they wouldn't let him out sooner because he was the last medical practitioner of any sort they had left. He said it was very interesting watching the North Vietnamese tanks coming down the boulevard toward the embassy. Another time he was in a slightly remote part of California on a weekend and needed a root canal, but the human dentist who had an office there was not available on weekends, and the guy was in agony. There was, however, another large animal vet; he said the only anesthetic he had was the 86-proof variety, so he asked the afflicted vet if he was a drinking man; he allowed as how he figured he could be, and when he was adequately anesthetized, the other vet pulled the offending tooth and all was well.
Delete----Alan
Really, if you have a medical problem, who are you going to trust? A doctor who only knows about a single species of animal, and depends on it being able to talk? Or one who can deal with any disease of any animal, and doesn't need it to be able to talk? [Aside: do you remember seeing Francis The Talking Mule in the movies? I remember one incident when they had to give Francis a horse pill; put a tube into his throat, put the pill into the tube and prepared to blow it in. But Francis snorted, reversing the treatment and thereby nearly choking the soldier (Francis was an Army mule) trying to administer the pill.]
Delete----Alan
Wikipedia: Francis The Talking Mule [Click]
Delete—Alan
I don't want to throw cold water on the desire to be a vet, but veterinary medicine is changing. Increasingly private vet practices are being taken over by private equity firms, to the detriment of the animals and their humans. Prices are skyrocketing; I just read somewhere that vet costs went up 10 percent last year. The animals are getting inferior care. A sad scene overall.
DeleteNah, not cold water.
DeleteHence the reason VT*Grand chose to work with this vet's office that is certified fear free. In Vermont, there are very few large offices for veterinarians. Half the vets spend most of their day making the rounds of the farms, and some of them don't even have (or need) offices. The other half see household pets, but there are some small animal vets who don't have offices, but only make house calls. For a surgery, one needs to take their pet to an animal hospital. VT*Grand has experience observing all these sorts of vets, and will be able to keep it simple, small and sweet.
One thing I appreciate about the vets she is working with currently, is that they challenge her with a sense of humour. They will, for example, have just removed a tumor from an animal and, knowing she is about to arrive, they will leave it out on the counter to gauge her reaction. So far they haven't been able to phase her. She just takes it in stride. Comes from years of her mother doing pet rescue, keeping a menagerie of pets herself, having horses and goats, pet-sitting for sheep, goats and large dogs. She has seen animals die as well as have injuries and aliments. She is as strong as she is compassionate, and that's saying a lot.
I remember Francis the talking mule, and Mr. Ed, the talking horse. VT*Grand LOVED watching old reruns of it with us!😆
DeleteVery cool medical lab you worked in, Alan. I enjoyed your stories of it very much.
DeleteThat's a good point about human doctors and veterinarians "Who ya gonna call?"
I believe there was at least one M*A*S*H episode in which a veterinarian or maybe eye doctor had to do some more complex surgery on a human...most likely one of the MDs. It sure has happened. And why not? We aren't even a hundred years since the invention of penicillin (28 SEPT 1928).
Sidney the shrink had to operate at least once. I don't remember other shady characters doing so *smile* but my memory isn't what it used to be.
DeleteYes, Alan, thank you. Most interesting. Have you ever thought of writing a book?
Listener, that granddaughter of yours sounds like one impressive young lady!
DeleteYep---sounds like she has a head on her shoulders, and isn't in the grip of a sudden infatuation. That combined human/veterinary lab I worked in served the Indian Health doctors who took care of a reservation out on the west side of the county; the antibiotic resistance patterns there were similar to animals, because the doctors didn't dispense antibiotics willy-nilly. Penicillin was still effective for bacteria in urban areas that used it for sauce. There was an endemic focus in our area of ehrlichiosis (an infectious disease of horses diagnosed from symptoms and detection of parasites in white blood cells); I remember one of the large animal vets saying that the textbooks said it wasn't transmitted by ticks; but in every case he had, he found ticks if he looked carefully; treating the ticks cured the disease, "but ticks don't transmit ehrlichiosis." I understand that the textbooks nowadays agree with his observation. Another neat thing I saw was kitty nose exudates with "sulfur granules," a symptom of nocardia infection. Nocardia are a microorganism that seems rather like a cross between a bacterium and a fungus, and is ubiquitous in dirt. It is commonly seen in humans who go barefoot, and here among kitties since they go nosing about in places humans don't. Easy to diagnose, but seeing a case brings it home the way merely reading about it in a book does not.
Delete-----Alan
----Alan
----Alan
No, I have never thought of writing a book. I just take advantage of fresh audiences by telling them old stories.
Delete-----Alan
{listener}
ReplyDeleteNikki Haley says she is voting for DT for President 🤦🏻♀️ 🤷🏻♀️
It will be interesting to see if he gets the Republican nomination after he goes to the Big House.
Delete----Alan
There's nothing to stop him campaigning from there. I can't help wondering, though, if it will even occur to MAGA-ersthat there's anything slightly off about casting their presidential votes for a currently incarcerated convict. Probably not. They seem a little - oh, what's the right word? - tone deaf? divorced from both morality and reality?
DeleteI woke up thinking it would be a nice touch for TFG to be sent to jail for ten or twelve counts of contempt of court, at a month each, sequential, while the judge considers sentencing for the jury's guilty verdict. That's a lot to hope for, but a fellow can dream.
ReplyDelete-----Alan
🤗 Wouldn't that be justice?!
DeleteWorks for me!
DeleteCan ‘rock weathering’ help tackle the climate crisis and boost farming? [Click] “Trials show spreading basalt on farmland helps capture CO2 from the atmosphere and improves crop yields.”
ReplyDelete——Alan
Huh! Who knew?
DeleteEuclid telescope spies rogue planets floating free in Milky Way [Click] It would seem that we are entering a golden age of astronomy. I can't help but wonder if I will live to see news of at least one estraterrestrial technosignature.
ReplyDelete——Alan
Times Radio video interview: Putin's forces 'hollowed out' as Russia's military 'can't keep up' with high losses [Click]
ReplyDelete——Alan
It's easy for me to say, not being a megalomaniac, but Putin is destroying his country. He must be truly mad not to see that. I mean, a nation can't survive when all it's young people either are killed in war or go abroad to avoid being called up. I gather from what you post that the oil industry is in a shambles. The wider economy must be suffering from foreign sanctions, and that means ordinary people are suffering. I wonder how much longer Russia will survive as a state. And what will happen when it collapses?
DeleteThey are funding the war to a considerable degree by misappropriating monies set aside for social purposes--- old age pensions, medical care, etc. Putin is certainly aware of what happened to Nicholas II. That infamous super-long table at which he holds conferences is built in a way that would protect against the sort of bomb that very nearly did in Hitler (Hitler's trousers were shredded). He has a sewer (a person whose role is to taste food before the ruler does), and frequently changes all his servants. I suppose that the weapons of the ceremonial guards at his public appearances are disabled. It appears that he uses body doubles. His chances of being able to disappear into a bolt hole and preserve his life there are probably somewhere between nil and nothing. I think we might see the collapse of the Russia empire; things are becoming reminiscent of the early stages of the Revolution. Scene from Doctor Zhivago: “Stick together!” [Click]
Delete----Alan
A while back I read about the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Corruption siphoned off a large amount of the monies invested (most from foreign bond purchasers), and the quality of the work was often poor. Some things just don't seem to change. Which reminds me of what Lenin said: 'There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.'
Delete---Alan
Inside Russia Video: Will Russian Army Mutiny Soon? [Click] Four arrests today, plus removal of a Belorussian army leader.
Delete——Alan
You're quite welcome.
ReplyDeleteOhio Governor Calls Special Session to Get Biden on Ballot [Click]
ReplyDelete——Alan
Migrant Crossings Plunge 54% [Click]
ReplyDelete——Alan
Gavin Newsom signs bill to help people in Arizona get abortions in California [Click] 1864 Arizona law repealed, but repeals take effect in 90 days.
ReplyDelete——Alan
Video: Glenn Kirschner | Judge Aileen Cannon Grinds Trump's Classified Documents/Obstruction/Espionage Case to a Halt - Click
ReplyDelete