There is enough tumult and confusion abroad in our land and the world we share that we decided to take a break and have surgery this morning to relax. The current events’ part?
Lordy, these are historic times, and ours are reflected by ones elsewhere. NATO is in our town- your nation’s capital- to chat about how they might contribute more of their GDP’s to defend a non-member nation- you know the one. Italy lurched right a year ago. France and the UK just lurched in the other direction, leaping over the old centers to large majorities of parliamentary members who favor “more” of all sorts of things. Those include re-distribution, regulation and the assortment of wokeries so popular on that side of the aisle.
If there were aisles, of course. Unlike America, both nations have multiple parties in their new majority coalitions, but there is more in play. Europe wide, “Patriots for Europe” is gaining support from rising EU populism. That includes Rightists in Le Pen’s party in France, Hungary’s Orban, and Italy’s Meloni. There could be fireworks in the EU parliament, since the left’s gains in seats is not reflected by a gain in popular votes.
We will see how that works, and the NATO meeting will show it begins to unfold.
Here ? we are unfolding. We discussed the Sunday meeting of the one-circle-out from the inner-hard-core circle in the White House about what is next. You know we honor and support anyone for whom such support is mandated by our previous oaths and punishable under Article-88 of the UCMJ.
So, even a non-partisan account of the situation in the incumbent party is hard to capture. The President is under great pressure about his health, and suitability for another term as the Chief. He has, though effective party-work over the Spring and Summer, an unassailable lead in committed delegates only he can release at next month’s Convention in Chicago. An attempt to remove him under the provisions of the 25th Amendment must be managed by the Vice President, whose polling is worse than the President but still considers herself a likely First Female President. After Edith Wilson and Dr. Biden, of course, but this would be more formal.
Some have suggested that having painted themselves into this corner with crass political machinations, the likely cause would be to urge an honorable resignation. Yesterday night, it seemed then groundswell for resignation abruptly subsided. Apparently, the incumbent, or whoever programs his teleprompters, is determined to stay the course. A fight about who to run before the Convention would seem unseemly if it did not include the Vice President so for now, the pieces on the gameboard are set.
That desolate array someone could come to think that only a black swan event is the only way out. We hope not, but these are challenging times. We will see. It has been a most interesting three days since the president announced that only God themself would tell him to get out. And that he wasn’t coming back any time soon.
We will see about that. One pundit summed it up nicely. Incumbent out in Late July, early August, stepping aside for the VP, resigns so she can succeed hims, or throws open the Convention by releasing his thousand committed delegates. We will see. But that in fact is what we are going to see about ourselves this morning.
Today’s installment of the Medical adventure will drag us away from the keyboard in a moment. The epic journey has thus far included a platoon of surgeons who, by turn, have assaulted both legs with scalpels and removed a couple of toes no longer of any utility to me.
Today features no blades. The last installment of the medical episode was only four weeks ago and had an anxiety component commensurate with the target. It was not toes for amputation, or a leg for clot bi-pass intervention. The surgery was to remove things they termed “cataracts.” The nature of what they were was a bit of a mystery, since we had always thought the manifestation would be some blob-like object floating in the middle distance. It was not, at least in my case. The remedy had included phrases like “lens removal” and “replacement.”
Those terms were the cause of the trepidation, since it brought images of hulking physicians with blades and a gleam in their eyes.
Our impression could not have been more wrong! Our surgeon was a petite woman of great skill and delicate hands. Her tools included no blades, but lasers, and the procedure only took about an hour, with a week of protective cover required for protection during a brief period of healing. Oh, and an improvement in sight on the left eye from 20-5- to 20-25!
Consequently, we are looking forward to this session. We removed the old glasses a couple weeks ago after wearing them for thirty years, and have discovered the wonders of being able to read the fine print again without assistance! So, this morning beckons with the usual clinical disorientation, but also relief that sight will be back for as long as I need it.
So, if you had been counselled to have your eyes repaired, we just want to assure you that with a good surgeon like Dr, Ahmed, the procedure is quick, only briefly uncomfortable and the results extraordinary.
So, more on all that after it occurs. And in the meantime, see how the new political landscape in Europe does here under the careful supervision of our assorted leadership. We will be hearing a new tone from the media, after the revelations which make the lamented
Watergate Affair who apparently has been having a few medical issues that everyone around him was painfully aware of, but which they chose to keep concealed until they couldn’t any longer.
We’ll see about that, you know?
Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com