Diary

It looks as if winter is starting to wind down. After several warm winters in a row, this was somewhat of a shock. This is the first year that Lake Champlain has frozen over since 2019, and the ice fishermen are out. I haven't had much trouble, since my road is well-maintained and I have a good snow blower. The oil delivery truck got stuck – it didn't have snow tires – and I helped the driver free it. He was very appreciative and said that we should get together for a beer when it warms up. The only disadvantage is that Buderus boilers don't always follow the thermostat exactly and the house can be colder than you would like. In Middlebury it didn't matter as much because of the wood stove. So I started to wear hats around the house for the first time in several years. Exercise has been somewhat more difficult, because of the snow. I have been hiking between snow storms, but that isn't enough. I've done some longer jogs in the basement, and today I drove downtown and walked around on the sidewalks.

Entertainment is also problematic, since I don't like TV programs, and the news quality is quite bad now. It doesn't help that I hardly ever enjoy new films. On top of this, I don't care in the slightest about professional, college or high school sports. I also ignore the Olympics and film awards. There is very little programming that appeals to me other than some NPR programming during the day. Also, PBS Newshour no longer broadcasts on weekends due to funding cuts, and I had thought that the weekend broadcasts were better than weekday broadcasts. I now watch BBC News on weekends, but that is sort of generic. I am working my way through the Criterion Channel, but the pickings are slim. I just rewatched Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (1946) and still find it amazing. I highly recommend it. 

I'm trying not to burden you with Trump talk and still think that he's on the way out. Still, it is an incredible state of affairs to have a president routinely violate the constitution and break other laws with impunity. It is a little difficult to know exactly what John Roberts thinks, but even though he seems to have come out as a right wing Republican, he may intentionally be allowing Trump to have enough rope to hang himself. Trump is so incompetent that it's pretty much a sure bet. This way, the supreme court may avoid the appearance of partisanship by cracking down on Trump too early, and, over time, because of his stupidity, Trump is actually making a stronger case against himself. Furthermore, because Trump's popularity is declining, his supporters will have time to adjust to the collapse of MAGA. It is also likely that, because of Trump's negative impact on the economy, Charles Koch and the tech bros may soon rein him in. Small business owners already hate him.

I've become a little tired of writing about the arts, and, for a change of pace, I'm about to start on a new book on geology.