7 Hours & 3 Weeks & Many Wee Birdies with Hammers

3/29/2022

 The following is taken from this morning’s letter from Heather Cox Richardson. If you aren’t getting her letters, why not? She’s a historian and professor and is one of the smartest and most non-inflammatory voices right now. (Subscribe to her free newsletter at: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ )

“United States District Judge David O. Carter of the US District Court for the Central District of California ordered John Eastman to disclose 101 documents to the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. Judge Carter says, “Eastman and Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history. Their campaign was a coup in search of a legal theory…. If [the] plan had worked, it would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution. If the country does not commit to investigating and pursuing accountability for those responsible, the Court fears January 6 will repeat itself.” 

And then this morning we learn: “Internal White House records from Jan show a gap in President Donald Trump’s phone logs of seven hours and 37 minutes, including the period when the building was being violently assaulted, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News.”

Today would be a good day to email or call your reps to say that you fully support the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack. Because if we all write to all our reps they will have to deal with the reality I think many Republican representatives are assuming – that since we don’t say anything to them, we don’t care.

We came THIS CLOSE. There were dozens of planners, many enablers, and hundreds of followers who were ready to overthrow our democratic process.

That was crazy and we get to and need to say so.

…

If you are wondering about my heart, well, so am I. I thought Froedtert was the premier heart place in SE Wisconsin? I called again today and my nurse practitioner’s assistant called back to say she just called the lab where I sent the heart monitor.

She says the monitor is contracted from a company. They send the monitor to that company which then prints the info somehow and then sends that to the cardiology team at the big Froedtert central hospital. They look at it and then send it back to the local clinic to the patient’s medical care person. So, it takes a while.

What do you see here? I see a medical care system that has increased profitability by outsourcing a complicated set of information to a cheaper venue. I wonder if that company is in some other nation. I don’t know, I’m guessing. Then they send it to the central people who know what the score is and can select out patients who need immediate care and also who is likely to become a profitable patient. Cynical observation? Yes, but one wonders.

I understand that margins can be tight and providing health care has many places where an institution can’t be and do everything. But it's been three weeks and here we are. I have more questions about American health care than confidence in it.

…

Let’s talk about something easier.

How do we know it is Spring? A whole lot of the “Spring is busting out all over” observations are sentimental poppycock. Flowering trees, daffodils, birds and bunnies, windy days, and kites? Easter eggs and little kids in pastel clothes? It’s the end of March in Wisconsin and right now the windchill is 24 degrees.

Instead of just going with what they have told us is spring – WHAT IN YOUR PART OF THE WORLD TELLS YOU THAT IT IS NOW SPRING?

THIS: A couple days ago I woke to a persistent racket on the other side of our bedroom wall. The sound is of someone chipping at the wall with hammers. Once again, like each year we have lived here, birds are building nests at the crook of two walls. Where gutters meet there is snug place on the gutters, under the eaves where some local flutter-budgies tamp sticks into a nest.

I hear the hammering, I see little brown birds flitting past the window, and I know that once again in our gray urban neighborhood, it’s Spring.

THIS: Fresh asparagus at the grocery store. (I picked asparagus my first job out of college. Not kidding.)

THIS: The sound of Sandhill Cranes flying WAY overhead, going north to the Arctic.

What are signs of Spring where you live?