Pass The Buck

Harry S Truman was famous for having a sign on his desk declaring, "The Buck Stops Here". Our current president during his 40 days in office, has shown that the buck stops anywhere but at his desk. Now, in many ways, Trump has committed the biggest insult of those 40 days. He blames the "generals" for the debacle of the raid that he ordered in which a Navy Seal was killed along with multiple civilians. No apparent benefit to the United States happened. But the buck didn't stop at his desk even though he ordered the raid to go forward despite cautions.

In the United States right now and for decades we have an all volunteer military. The one concept that those volunteers trust in is that those in charge won't be stupid. They won't risk lives for political glory or self aggrandizement. Trump has already failed that test.

Details Being Added

Yesterday I finished piecing the tenth and last fish for the first baby quilt and today I am working on appliqueing the eyes and embroidering the mouth. Gail Garber, the quilt's designer added eyelashes and dimples which I don't think are necessary on what look sort of like either piggy perch or sunfish. The black and white details stand out against all of the bright colors nicely.

Modern Propaganda

There's a fascinating article in The Guardian about Robert Mercer, a computer billionaire who uses his money and his expertise to influence voting. There is also an interesting article in Politico about the ways in which online social media are influencing military attitudes. Combining the information in the articles makes for some disturbing thoughts. Most of us have already been a little creeped out about how social media watches us to track our purchases and then advertise similar items to us. Then there is the whole separate issue of security for our personal information, not limited to stealing from our bank accounts and credit cards but also our health records.

So watching Trump affect reporting and investigations is like a master class in disinformation and propaganda. The problematic side of the equation is that too many people don't understand that they are being manipulated. We hardly even teach civics to students any more let alone the pervasive effect that social media can have.

Delicious Irony

Reince Priebus contacted the FBI demanding that they stop news media from writing or presenting information about investigations being conducted that are looking into any Russian involvement in the past presidential election cycle or any other Russian involvement with the Trump administration. Comey pointed out that this was a highly improper request as the investigations were ongoing. Apparently Priebus then whined that this needed to be done because the newspapers weren't telling the truth.

Pot meet kettle.

This afternoon Sean Spicer barred several major news organizations from attending a press "gaggle". Several others chose to stand in solidarity with the barred groups, which included CNN, the New York Times, among others. This behavior should remind everyone of some banana republic rather than the United States that put freedom of the press in the first amendment to the Constitution.

I have two more fish to make in the first baby quilt. The colors are very bright and cheerful, sure to brighten any little boy's room.

Educational Outcomes

I just finished scoring two sets of essays. Every time it reminds me of hitting myself on the head with a hammer because it feels so good when I stop. While there are different paths to the same outcome, theoretically schools, parents, teachers, and the students themselves want students to succeed. If that is correct, then serious steps need to be taken far earlier than the involvement I have with students which usually starts at tenth grade. Our schools are overcrowded and underfunded with Utah scoring at the lowest in per pupil spending of all the states and territories. Money alone is not a panacea and cannot guarantee any outcome, but cramming over 35 students into an AP English Literature class when at least half of those students are not native English speakers does foreshadow failure on multiple levels.

There are dozens of languages spoken at the high school I work with. Everything from native English speakers to Mandarin Chinese, to Russian, to Croatian, to Somali, to Spanish--well you get the idea. Most of the students in the AP English classes are also IB Diploma hopefuls which usually means they are advanced in math and science--separate languages in a very real sense. But that doesn't mean that they read or write easily in English. But the district and the state have declared that STEM classes are where the effort and money will go despite knowing that success in college often depends on being able to write. Even the native English speakers get very little if any instruction in grammar, syntax, style or anything anymore. Everyone pats them on the head because they don't want to damage their egos.

Add to that problem the growing issue of parents forgiving all of their students' sins. Time was when students were expected to learn without parental intervention or at least without the excuses that modern parenting advocates. Gone are the days when I could tell a student to do some work on her own and to know that she would follow through on that. I tutor for free so one might expect that I would be inundated with students asking for help. Unfortunately they either don't understand that they really do need to learn to write, or they think that their brilliance in science will make up for their shortcomings in language, or they simply don't want to do work that isn't required.

Harvard had nearly 40,000 applicants this year. It stands to reason that the ones who are chosen are the ones who excel in all areas rather than the ones who stand out in one. Harvard is not the be all and end all of college and isn't a good fit for many students, but it is the one school that virtually all of the students I work with yearn for. 

Having Fun, Moving Forward

I have been working on the first fish quilt, by Gail Garber, from the March issue of American quilter. Although she recommends having fun and using one's stash to make this quilt,  I don't know how anybody but a true fabric hoarder such as I could make this quilt without new purchases. Even with that caveat I am having a great time. The paper piecing is easy, the end result is charming and happy. I will ask my husband to take pictures tomorrow.

The Truth Will Out

It became obvious over the past two days why Trump went on vacation again. His "campaign" rallies were not campaigns for candidates but opportunities for him to receive the adulation and admiration that he craves. All the cheering mobs feed his ego so rather than stay in Washington, and do the hard work necessary to finish his staffing, he flew down to where he knew his ego could get stroked. Meanwhile US intelligence agencies are in turmoil.

Double Standard

Trump flew to South Carolina today after a very bad week in DC and plans to go on to Florida, his Mar al Lago resort again. The SC visit was called a campaign visit, but what campaign  there involves Trump? The Florida visit hasn't been described as yet by the White House or by anyone in Florida. Where are all the people who accused Obama of playing too much golf? Seriously, he hasn't even filled his cabinet and questions abound after his press conference yesterday so he goes on vacation to Mar al Lago for the second time in less than three weeks, when he hasn't even been POTUS for a month?

One of Trump's nominees, who turned down the job, described the opportunity as a "shit sandwich".  Thank goodness there are still salty sailors.

I started work on my first fishy quilt today. As I wrote previously, every time I do paper piecing, even if it's simple, it is as if I am trying to see the world in a fourth dimension. My first big problem was that I put the wrong new needle in the machine. I wanted a new needle because it had been a while so even though I was going to do paper piecing which destroys needles, I thought I should replace the one there. I cleaned the feed dog, dusted the bobbin holder, but the new needle was too fine for the task and kept failing. Of course this was frustrating, but I didn't even consider that the gauge was wrong until the under threads kept snarling.

But because I was having those self imposed problems I got very frustrated and actually left out a piece in the first fish. It won't matter in the end product because the directions cut all the pieces larger than life, but paper piecing always means one looks at the paper, not the product, so I didn't realize what I had done until I thought I was all done with the block. So I will have one fish that is missing one stripe on its side.  

Half Of A Quarter

I started this quilt right around the beginning of 2017. The quilt consists of 16 blocks with sashing and four elaborately appliqued borders and four corner blocks. I have completed four blocks and half of the first border.

This is the half border. Once again it looks askew simply because of the way it is pinned to the wall. I haven't done all the embroidery touches on this half but I have done the center section which in the picture is the right hand side.

Since this project will take a long time and babies get older every day (as do we all if we are lucky), I am moving from this project to the two fish quilts for the dental assistants. I have been going to the same dentist for at least a dozen years if not longer and his two assistants who had babies this past year have been cleaning my teeth for nearly that entire time, I know them well. And like most quilters, I am always looking for recipients. I don't have grandchildren so my quilts and other creative outlets other than food are like orphans.

Cracks In The Facade

If you watched Trump's news conference or even watched bits on the news and still thought this man was a strong leader, he is looking for people to work for him, perhaps you. His new NSA choice has already turned him down, he still hasn't secured a communications director, several of his upcoming choices will not be approved. Trump's choices prove that there are no job descriptions or requirements. Anyone of you 44 million who voted for him because he would make your lives better should step up because you are the true believers.

I finished half of the first border. I have just visited the Metropolitan Museum and in the past have visited other museums around the world. When I finished the half all I thought of was that this was like making a robe for a Chinese emperor. There is so much in this border and so much detail and so many beautiful flowers and berries that only a dedicated person or a slave would do it. I will try to get my husband to take a picture tomorrow. Then I am going to move sideways to the two baby quilts for a brief time before I return to the magnum opus.

Full Faith and Confidence

Today Trump blamed the "fake media" for General Flynn's departure from his NSA appointment. This is disturbing on several levels including that term. The fake media Trump points at is not the infamous media that runs headlines such as "Contraceptives Make Women Ugly" but the long respected reporters, newspapers, and shows that certainly have shortcomings but do far better than Trump's chosen favorites.

What is worse is that Trump isn't really pointing the finger at the news distributors, he is pointing the finger at the intelligence agencies that produce the reports. When he does that, he calls into question their conclusions. Trump's method is to castigate the messenger and the message. If we cannot trust our intelligence agencies, who were merely reporting what had been observed and recorded, had made those reports to Trump in a timely fashion, and then been described as liars by him, then we are left with no confidence in those agencies on which we depend. That is if we are as credulous as he believes we are.

When I was a very young girl I read all of L. Frank Baum's Oz series. The man behind the curtain is now in front of the curtain telling us not to believe. Don't believe him.

And for those who insist that this be quilt related, I have two flowers and then leaves left on the first half of the first border. This is a labor intense quilt. 

Applique Moves Forward

My husband had his hand surgery yesterday. Clearly too early to tell if removing the trapezium will do the trick for him but the procedure went smoothly and quickly. The best news was that his heart stayed in sinus rhythm throughout and his blood pressure stayed low.

Our trip to NYC slowed me down and today I have a stack of essays to score, but sometime this week I will complete half, yes half, of the first border on the Baltimore Album quilt.  When I get that done, I think I will break a long standing personal rule and suspend that quilt while I make the two crib quilts for the young women in my dentist's office. Normally it makes me very antsy to have a UFO lying around but this album project is so labor intensive that getting the crib quilts done just makes sense.

And of course the president is a clown, complete with the dyed hair held aloft by miracle hair products. Ronald McDonald is jealous. Every one of Trump's minions given the privilege of speaking on his behalf lies repeatedly and forcefully, insulting the intelligence of Americans. Now we have North Korea holding ballistic missile tests and Russia testing our defenses off the east coast while also breaking a long standing prohibition against placing cruise missiles in our hemisphere. The question is not if we would have been better off with Clinton. The question is if we can survive Trump.

So if you don't want to read entries like that, go elsewhere. There are plenty of blogs with anodyne words and pictures of babies and butterflies.

Liar Squared

If you have read my blog from the beginning, then you know that my father was a career Army officer, who fought as a paratrooper in the Pacific during WWII. So don't even begin to think that I pick on Trump's NSA guy Michael Flynn because he is military.

What he is is a liar. But even more special is that this liar, got defended by a liar. Flynn lied multiple times about his conversations with Russian representatives prior to the election, including lying to Mike Pence. Now he's claiming that he cannot remember exactly what he said or what he did. But Kellyanne came out to say that Flynn still had the president's confidence. That makes it liar squared. I bet by the weekend it will be liar cubed. 

If Trump thought that being president would improve his brand he is wrong.

Edit: Flynn is gone but serious questions still remain. Apparently the Trump administration was told about Flynn's conversations a month ago but did not take any action. Or rather the action taken was to still push forward his nomination to head the NSA rather than ask him to withdraw his name. What makes it even more special is the warning from the Justice Department came from the same Sally Yates, acting AG, whom Trump fired after she told him she would not enforce his travel ban. So just as in the Nixon administration, the question is "What did the President know and when did he know it?" Anyone who expects a straight answer from these clowns needs help. 

I Wish I'd Said That

There's a marvelous line from Jonathan Swift that I thought of after seeing Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer and Alec Baldwin as Trump. "...satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own."

Most of us have a hard time laughing at ourselves. Trump seems to take this truism to an extreme, taking umbrage at the smallest slights, threatening legal action over inconsequential actions. If he were a private person this would be annoying; as President it is alarming.

Funny

I practically sprayed my coffee all over the table this morning. I was reading the newspaper and came across this comment, "Who knew that Trump meant a small-minded government, not a smaller government?"

Having Fun

I caught the cold my husband took to New York. Despite the usual issues of sneezing, coughing, aching, sore muscles, etc., I have been moving forward on the first border. I am not even halfway through, but the intricacies of this border remind me of solving quadratic equations.

When?

The Republican party is so overjoyed at winning all three branches of government that they are willing to turn a blind eye to the eccentricities, peccadilloes, and illegalities of the gang that has taken over the White House. Trump is in violation of the Constitution for his unprecedented insistence on keeping ownership of his far flung business holdings. The authors of the Constitution thought the emoluments clause important enough to make violation of it an impeachable offense, but there is no evidence that any Republican wants to go there despite the notion that upholding the Constitution is the very oath that Trump swore to.

On a daily basis all of us are witness to the contempt with which that White House gang views us. Today Kellyanne Conway broke federal law by promoting Ivanka Trump's products on government time and with government equipment. That's your tax dollars promoting Ivanka Trump's goods in violation of federal law. If any of us had the audacity to pursue such a course we would already be visited by agents, but Sean Spicer assures us that Conway has been counseled. Counseled? She is a lawyer. She knows the law including the part about ignorance of statutes not being a defense to illegal actions.

When do we see Kellyanne do the perp walk?    

New Kid On The Block

My husband and I just returned from a weekend trip to NYC for our 47th wedding anniversary. As I wrote previously, City Quilter is gone as a brick and mortar but there is a fairly new store on the upper East Side called Pins & Needles. It is not a quilt store per se, but they have some nice cottons and some of the notions that quilters always need. I got some bright cottons to make two baby quilts for my dentist's dental assistants, both of whom had baby boys about five months ago. The newest issue of AQ magazine has a cute fish quilt by Judi Madsen that I plan to make (or at least that's the starting point) for both babies. 

Not Ready For Prime Time

When Trump proposed a 20% import fee on imports from Mexico, many warned him that this would hit American consumers. Most products that I purchase for quilting aren't made in the USA, but I had never thought about Mexico as a producer. However, I had to buy some regular old sewing thread, I like Dual Duty Plus for my foundation piecing, and I went to the store and found what I was looking for only to find that my thread is made in Mexico.

The question really is whether we get angry at Trump for what obviously wasn't thought through, or whether we get mad at Coats & Clark, a long time American producer. Several years ago I researched the production of US Army uniforms. All zippers are produced outside the country. Most fabrics and most fibers are produced outside the country. Most buttons are produced outside the country. There is still a contract for merino wool lambs for production of merino wool specifically for US Army uniforms.

The upshot of that is that if we declare war on pretty much anyone, our soldiers will have to hold on to the uniforms they have because we don't even make the zippers to close their flies.

I don't buy pet food from anywhere but the USA but as a quilter I am stuck with the products from China, Japan, Mexico, Bangladesh...you get the idea. 

Tax Code

Trump wants to abolish the Johnson Amendment that prohibits designated tax exempt charitable organizations from making partisan political statements. Betsy DeVos wants to give tax dollars to parochial and other religious schools.

I propose that all of my political donations become tax deductible.

Aargh!

I just found out that the brick and mortar side of New York City's City Quilter is gone like the wind. That isn't that surprising since NYC's rents and real estate have all been getting more expensive. But it is still a big loss. I know that quilting ebbs and flows in public understanding but still endures. I just don't want to have to wait twenty years since I probably don't have that many left, certainly not for quilting.

My husband is having an operation next Tuesday. He has arthritis in his hands that has progressively caused more pain and problems so he is having a bone in his left hand removed. Apparently this is fairly common and if he is satisfied with the results he will have his right hand done later this year. Although the human body is designed for optimal function with most of your parts intact and working,  it is always surprising what can be lost without total dysfunction. I have had two surgeries on my left thumb to repair a badly damaged (torn) ligament and both surgeries  have subsequently failed. I had the procedure redone the first time but haven't bothered the second. My middle son ripped the tendon to his left bicep so his bicep now sits unattached at one end just above his elbow joint. It looks very odd but hasn't impaired his physicality much. He is a rock climber, snow boarder, skier, and inveterate tool guy working on heavy duty projects. So I don't expect too much problem with my husband's procedure except he is always a big baby when it comes to medical stuff.

Luckily any radiogram done of my hands has shown absolutely no arthritis so that won't be in my own future.

How Long?

How long does it take for a relatively sane, relatively intelligent person to stop listening and watching blatant lying and obvious chicanery? Even if that sane, intelligent person voted for Trump (and yes they weren't all morons) and has a confirmation bias that sways perception, the lies that come from Kellyanne Conway's mouth should appall and horrify a sane, intelligent person. She isn't even good at lying but she persists in telling the biggest whoppers. Alternate facts aren't true, they are lies. I think all of the networks should just stop interviewing and filming her.