4/6/2025

 Sunday, April 6, 2025

D+151/77

1830 Joseph Smith and others organized the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 

1934 418 Lutheran ministers were arrested in Germany

1994 The plane carrying the Rwandan President and Burundian President was shot down by surface-to-air missiles,  sparking the Rwandan Genocide. 

2016 US primary elections: Wisconsin was won by Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz

2021 Jeff Bezos, worth $177 billion, tops Forbes Billionaires list of 2,755 people, including new entry Kim Kardashian

2022 New Mexico's largest wildfire started as a supposedly controlled burn off by US Forest Service. It went on to displace 100 people, burn 341,000 acres, 62 million trees 

2022 Scientists in North Dakota claimed to have found dinosaur remains killed on the very day a giant asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago beginning their extinction 

In bed at 9:05, awake and up at 5:20, and my brain like the bait bucket filled with minnows.  I did my usual early morning routine: filled my water bottle, made a cup of chamomile lavender tea, refilled the humidifier, and took my first dose of prednisone.  32°, mostly sunny, high of 46°

Prednisone, day 351; 3 mg., day 10/21; Kevzara, day 5/14; CGM, day4/15; Trulicity, day 3/7.  2 mg. of prednisone at 5:50 a.m. and 1 mg. at  5 p.m.   Other meds at  7:30 a.m.

Yesterday's nationwide "Hands Off" demonstrations were very impressive and heart-warming to an old liberal like me, but they probably won't accomplish much in terms of changing Trump's policies and practices between now and the mid-term elections in 2026.  

The NYTimes reported: "While crowd sizes are difficult to estimate, organizers said that more than 600,000 people had signed up to participate and that events also took place in U.S. territories and a dozen locations across the globe.

On Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the protest stretched for nearly 20 blocks. In Chicago, thousands flooded Daley Plaza and adjacent streets, while, in the nation’s capital, tens of thousands surrounded the Washington Monument. In Atlanta, the police estimated the crowd marching to the gold-domed statehouse at over 20,000.

Mr. Trump, who was playing golf in Florida on Saturday, appeared to be largely ignoring the protests. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

75,000,000 Americans voted against him in 2024.  Fewer than 1% of them showed up for yesterday's demonstrations.  Trump will probably blow off the demonstrations as a failure, perhaps even as a show of decreasing opposition to his leadership.  In his world, all that counts is power, and in our winner-take-all politics and government, he knows that he has all the power and the liberals and Democrats have none.  Is that too harsh an assessment?  I don't think so.   With Republican control of both the House and the Senate (and the Supreme Court), and with Trump's cultish following by the MAGA crowd coupled with his partnership with Elon Musk and his ability to finance primary challengers to any who oppose him and Trump, Trump/Musk is/are in the catbird seat.     

David Gruber was one of my students in a Trial Practice course I taught in 1982.  He teamed up with his future wife, Nancy Rice.   I thought he was a bit of a goof then.  I never suspected that he would become probably the most well-known person in the state of Wisconsin.  Every Wisconsinite who has a television set has been inundated for years with endless commercials featuring David Gruber flashing his toothy smile and intoning "One call, that's all!"  A couple of things are clear.  One, David has a very high regard for himself.  Two, he really enjoys seeing himself on televison (and on billboards, print ads, and hearing himself on the radio."  He didn't create the "One call, that's all!' advertising; he is licensed to use it by a Dallas media company.  I remember seeing a lawyer in Phoenix spouting "One Call, that's all!" when visiting Kitty many years ago.  There are other lawyers in New Orleans, Atlanta, and elsewhere, all  hawking "One call, that's all!:  What I wonder thought is whether there is any lawyer in the entire United States who saturates the public consciousness as much as David Gruber.  His website notes that "David has built a team of top-notch lawyers and 130 legal professionals at Gruber Law Offices. He is extremely proud of the firm’s quality legal work, case results, and talented team members, many of whom have received distinguished awards and memberships," yet the only one mentioned on his ubiquitious commericals is David Gruber.  I think David is a latter-day Narcissus.  Hw reminds me of the short comedy film Oedipus Wrecks, in which Woody Allen is beset by a nagging, belittling mother who he wishes would disappear.  In wish fulillment, she does disappear from his corporal life  but reappears as a huge visage hovering over New York City, nagging and belittling him, but with all of New York witnessing it, and joining in.  I've come to feel like Woddie's character with David Gruber as the ubigquitous, inescapable mother.

David and Ellis  came over to visit.  I had a nice chat with Ellis about her busy life: school, ballet, judo, art club, drama, friends, dogs, etc.  We watched part of Oedipus Wrecks together.  Geri schmoozed a bit with David about the effet of the Trump tariffs on his company's business.  The sophisticated coffee machines they see are made in Germany and Switzerland.  Sarah's company does business all around the world so it seems it will surely be badly affected by the tariffs.  Both companies will be hit with a double whammy if there is a recession.