March 9, 2024: A reader asked for my graphic about the Presidents since FDR first published Feb 1.  Here it is: Presidents since FDR DRAFT Feb 1 2024.

This morning (March 7), at coffee, I was musing about the conference table at my left.  It is a table quite often occupied in whole or in part by this group or that, most often what I’d refer to as “birds of a feather” – groups of one sort or another.  It seems  a good metaphor for the Presidents State of the Union coming up in a short while.

As I often do, I’m writing this before the event itself.  I’ll add a few post-State of the Union below, and in a subsequent post will once again identify myself as a participant in this entity called the United States of America.

Back to the table:

There are ten seats at the table.  I visualized randomly selecting one person each from the last ten places I’d visited in the last 24 hours – places like grocery store; my indoor walking route; Caribou Coffee, etc.  Put yourself at the head of the table, tasked with resolving some issue – any issue.  How could, or would, such a group reach consensus on anything at all?  Hint: this wouldn’t be easy.  This isn’t like a jury, dealing with evidence; or even like a “birds of a feather” dealing with a mutual interest.  This would be 10 American individuals.  “Leadership”, even of a small group, is no picnic.

Tonight one person, President Biden, will be seeking to get the attention of every citizen of the most powerful nation in the world.  I wish him well.

I will watch, the State of the Union tonight.

I am one person with one vote, as are you, as is everyone else.  How we each exercise our power. will make a huge difference, if we participate.

Enough for now.

Friday, March 8: I did watch the entirety of President Biden’s State of the Union last night.  I’ve heard him speak in person twice, in 2010 and 2012.   Sure, he was younger then; the vigor was the same last night.  As I’ve mentioned, I’m 2 1/2 years older than he is.

At coffee today, four of the chairs in the above picture were occupied by the usual Friday group of men.  It’s impossible to avoid eavesdropping – I’m three feet away.  There was mention, but little discussion of the speech itself, which didn’t surprise.  I know all of them, but only in the context of being a group of men.

Sure, I had my own takeaways last night.  The one I’ll mention was towards the end when the President took on the issue of age.  He said he was 29 when first elected to office, and they said he was too young….  There will be more, later, but for now I want to emphasize a single point.

I thought of a letter I’d sent one week earlier, on Feb 29.  It was one page to 17 persons in my heritage group – siblings and grandkids basically.  It included nine family photographs at various times in family history.  On each picture I noted the age of the ancestors when the picture was taken.  The oldest was an 1898 photo of my grandfather Bernard at Presidio San Francisco preparing to embark for a year in the Philippine in the Spanish-American War.  He was 26 years at the time.  He died at 85 when I was 17.

My last paragraph in the letter said this: “This is all just a reminder: whatever your age, now, your ancestors were that age once.  The future is for your generation to make.  I wish you well.  With love.”  The future is theirs to make, or break.

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For anyone interested, I set down my personal markers on the current situation in two posts in early August, 2020.   Yes, 2020.  The links are in the first, August 1, 2020, here.  The second is August 2.  August 20 is about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris; August 24-30 largely relate to the Republican Convention.  Other related links are also referenced.  They are word-for-word of my writing then.  This was long before the election itself, and January 6, 2021.  Nothing that has transpired since then has changed my general point of view.  In the next week, I’ll do a post for the present.  I invite you to take a look.

POSTNOTE:

Thursday, March 7: Friday is International Woman’s Day.  Here is the UN descriptor; here is more information.  Postnote March 9: Heather Cox Richardson’s column for March 8 is especially pertinent.   Read it here.

Also Friday the Prime Minister of Hungary is at Mar-a-Lago.  Here’s some basics about Hungary, the country.  It is about half the size of Minnesota, and has about twice the population.  It is essentially a totally white nation with one ethnic group, Magyar, dominant.  While difficult to find precise data, it seems about half of the population is Christian, about two-thirds of that, are Catholic.  The remaining half seems unaffiliated with organized religion.  No mention of Muslims, and small mention of Jews. Orban and Hungary seem to be a role model for what are called “white Christian nationalists” here.  It bears watching.  Orban is viewed as a successful autocrat.

The U.S. in which we live appears to be infinitely more ethnically diverse than Hungary.

An interesting, informed and troubling report about Viktor Orban can be read here.  I think you will find it interesting.