#^d 2017-04-16 #^h Weekend Roundup

After a long post on Saturday, I need to keep this one short, almost schematic.

Saddened to hear of the death of Amy Durfee, 88, a neighbor of my wife's when she was growing up in Oak Park, Michigan. Amy and Art Durfee remained close friends of the family, people we saw every trip we made to Detroit. I feel fortunate to have known them.

The big story this past week has been the Trump Administration's attempt to show North Korea that when they get into a pissing contest the US will not only stand up the challenges but will take the extra step in showing itself to be more insanely belligerent. As best I recall, even Nixon regarded his infamous "madman" ploy as something of a joke -- a nuance Trump clearly is incapable of fathoming. So far, it's been hard to argue that any of Trump's belligerence has transgressed lines that Hillary Clinton was comfortable with, but in Korea he could easily step out too far. This is probably something to write a long post about. Indeed, I've written about Korea several times, including a passage at the start of my memoir, given that I was born the same week China entered the Korean War and turned an American rout into a bloody stalemate. That was the beginning of the end of America both as a global empire and as a nation that could lay some claim to decent and honorable values. Korea was where Americans learned to become the sore losers who invest so much effort in bullying the world and are so unforgiving of any offense. And here we are, sixty-six years later, still picking at the scab of our past embarrassment.


Some scattered links this week in the Trumpiverse:


Also a few links less directly tied to Trump, though sometimes still to America's bout of political insanity: