We had play practice today, something that's taking up a lot of time, but Madison is enjoying it quite a bit. She's made new friends, and is having a great time learning about acting, and doing her positioning on stage, projecting and pronouncing. She's doing very well! It's a busy season though, with piano and taekwondo, and the waning days of the first semester. Midterms are lurking on the calendar, and those require a bit of studying. Plus there's the whole holiday season to consider, with so many choices and activities. It is fun but it can also be a bit stressful. We have Christmas cards to consider, as well as wrapping and a few more gifts to find. We're largely done for Madison, but one of the nephews has asked for something that is eluding us at the moment. Otherwise, we're not too bad in that direction. Still, there's a lot to do. Add to this a colonoscopy for Mommy, who has to get one this month because of insurance changes. A recent battle between a major insurance company and the local medical system here has forced many of us to find new doctors. While Daddy is fine with the change, Mommy has been accustomed to particular doctors since her cancer treatments. All that has to change now. We have until the end of the year to do some routine things and check-ups, so we're trying to get this one done before year's end. During the middle of Christmas season and play practice - that makes it challenging, of course.
It was a rainy day today, and not a snowy one. We were thinking about the lack of snow, but remember there was significant global warming featured in another Christmas story, the one called "White Christmas." I'm not saying it will snow on us for Christmas, but I am saying there was obviously global warming going on way back then. This makes as much sense as many current arguments about global warming. In Vermont, Private Phil Davis finds out the temperature is in the sixties in Vermont in December, and how unusual this is. And this is back many years ago - like, 1954. So obviously, this is not a new phenomenon, right?
Yes, I know it's fiction. There's a lot of fiction these days, so cool down, so to speak.
Anyway, one thing that we've been doing each day is a White House Advent Calendar, reading interesting daily facts about Christmas at the White House, going back as much as a hundred years so far. It's been a neat little thing to do each day, also obviously looking at all the trees - I think there are over sixty Christmas trees in the White House this year. Someone will complain about that, no doubt. Might as well add that to the reasons for impeachment.
Oh yeah, that. Well, that's the news that's going on, and it's kind of tough to explain to Madison. Apparently, if one party doesn't like the other party, the precedent that is in place here is simple: investigate their President until you hopefully can find something wrong. Make accusations for years - in this case three will suffice. Until you make a presentation your investigation, which in this case reveals no evidence of any wrong-doing. Try to get the media repeating the accusation for those three years too. The precedent now is that the opposing party can make any accusation, and investigate the whole time, and of course the tax payers get the bill for it, something like 28 million dollars or so?
But that's not all. Now we repeat the process with a new accusation. Again, no direct evidence, but people making statements and the media repeating that for a while, and here we are. The fact that everyone is voting along party lines is a clear indication that this is in fact a political event, which really cheapens the entire idea of impeachment. Because now it's just a political weapon, rather than some legitimate endpoint to the whole checks and balances process. Again, all votes were along party lines. That says enough, and that's why no one cares as much this time around. Because everyone knows it is a political process and not something as severe. Words like "historic" are tossed around, but nobody cares. Because it is a political maneuver.
Madison gets the idea, I think. There are charges of abuse of power, but there is no clear evidence of that, as indicated by the many witnesses that have come forward. Nevertheless, despite the lack of any clear evidence, the process moves along, despite the lack of ability to participate by the minority party. It's a political process, and it's getting super frustrating. I don't think this is what our Founding Fathers had in mind.
Anyway, that's the background noise of December. People are too busy shopping to pay too much attention, but they get the gist: the plan is to impeach the President.
Of course, simultaneously, this other news is out too, about some folks in the FBI doing some unfortunate things. I remember when the IRS was discovered to do similar things a few years ago, and it was striking: I naively thought that these government agencies simply did their jobs, like the Post Office. Imagine the Post Office delivering mail just fine to certain people, but when they find out that certain homeowners were from a certain political party, that mail gets delivered in pieces. Or not at all. As ridiculous as that sounds, that's basically what's been happening with these two government agencies.
Anyway, there's a lot of clean-up that needs to go on in Washington these days. Some call it "draining the swamp."
We had time to call the grandparents today, and there was good news there: Ba-Ba has gained some weight. It was a video call, so we were able to take them for a tour of the house so they could see the Christmas trees and decorations around the house. It was a nice moment to catch up, but of course we had play practice after that, which takes a while.
The calendar is suddenly looming a bit more as the day of the production draws closer. The kids are doing fantastic though, learning and having a great time as well.
It was a rainy day today, and not a snowy one. We were thinking about the lack of snow, but remember there was significant global warming featured in another Christmas story, the one called "White Christmas." I'm not saying it will snow on us for Christmas, but I am saying there was obviously global warming going on way back then. This makes as much sense as many current arguments about global warming. In Vermont, Private Phil Davis finds out the temperature is in the sixties in Vermont in December, and how unusual this is. And this is back many years ago - like, 1954. So obviously, this is not a new phenomenon, right?
Yes, I know it's fiction. There's a lot of fiction these days, so cool down, so to speak.
Anyway, one thing that we've been doing each day is a White House Advent Calendar, reading interesting daily facts about Christmas at the White House, going back as much as a hundred years so far. It's been a neat little thing to do each day, also obviously looking at all the trees - I think there are over sixty Christmas trees in the White House this year. Someone will complain about that, no doubt. Might as well add that to the reasons for impeachment.
Oh yeah, that. Well, that's the news that's going on, and it's kind of tough to explain to Madison. Apparently, if one party doesn't like the other party, the precedent that is in place here is simple: investigate their President until you hopefully can find something wrong. Make accusations for years - in this case three will suffice. Until you make a presentation your investigation, which in this case reveals no evidence of any wrong-doing. Try to get the media repeating the accusation for those three years too. The precedent now is that the opposing party can make any accusation, and investigate the whole time, and of course the tax payers get the bill for it, something like 28 million dollars or so?
But that's not all. Now we repeat the process with a new accusation. Again, no direct evidence, but people making statements and the media repeating that for a while, and here we are. The fact that everyone is voting along party lines is a clear indication that this is in fact a political event, which really cheapens the entire idea of impeachment. Because now it's just a political weapon, rather than some legitimate endpoint to the whole checks and balances process. Again, all votes were along party lines. That says enough, and that's why no one cares as much this time around. Because everyone knows it is a political process and not something as severe. Words like "historic" are tossed around, but nobody cares. Because it is a political maneuver.
Madison gets the idea, I think. There are charges of abuse of power, but there is no clear evidence of that, as indicated by the many witnesses that have come forward. Nevertheless, despite the lack of any clear evidence, the process moves along, despite the lack of ability to participate by the minority party. It's a political process, and it's getting super frustrating. I don't think this is what our Founding Fathers had in mind.
Anyway, that's the background noise of December. People are too busy shopping to pay too much attention, but they get the gist: the plan is to impeach the President.
Of course, simultaneously, this other news is out too, about some folks in the FBI doing some unfortunate things. I remember when the IRS was discovered to do similar things a few years ago, and it was striking: I naively thought that these government agencies simply did their jobs, like the Post Office. Imagine the Post Office delivering mail just fine to certain people, but when they find out that certain homeowners were from a certain political party, that mail gets delivered in pieces. Or not at all. As ridiculous as that sounds, that's basically what's been happening with these two government agencies.
Anyway, there's a lot of clean-up that needs to go on in Washington these days. Some call it "draining the swamp."
We had time to call the grandparents today, and there was good news there: Ba-Ba has gained some weight. It was a video call, so we were able to take them for a tour of the house so they could see the Christmas trees and decorations around the house. It was a nice moment to catch up, but of course we had play practice after that, which takes a while.
The calendar is suddenly looming a bit more as the day of the production draws closer. The kids are doing fantastic though, learning and having a great time as well.
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