Weekly Journal 2024-03-10

Garlic is up in the garden: yield looks pretty good. Somehow building a brush pile escaped me this week so I need to get cracking on that. Many robins and other birds have arrived. Lilacs are beginning to bud. All signs are present for an early spring.

Class reunion

Nothing can sober a person like figuring out who died from one’s high school class. For my class of 1970, our research shows 42 of about 260 classmates have died. That is in line with what insurance company actuarial tables suggest should be our experience. It doesn’t make dealing with those deaths any easier. “Who died?” was the most frequently asked question at our 40th reunion in 2010 so the planning committee is front loading work to have a better answer this time.

When I work on the organizing committee for a reunion I’m more likely to attend. My main interests are finding out what people have been doing during the years since we graduated, planning the event, and catching up on news. I would not likely attend if I wasn’t on the planning committee. The event is in July, dubbed the 50th Reunion (Delayed) because we canceled during the coronavirus pandemic when our 50th would have been.

Charlatan

I finished reading Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam by Pope Brock this week. It is a well-researched and easy to read book about early 20th Century medical practices and associated quackery. Dr. John Binkley, the charlatan, is reminiscent of B.J. Palmer, son of the discoverer of the chiropractic principle, who lived in Davenport. Palmer started the first radio stations west of the Mississippi River in Davenport and Des Moines, paraded elephants through the city streets to advertise the chiropractic principle, and had a museum called Little Bit O’Heaven at his chiropractic school. The museum had artifacts collected during his global travels. While chiropractic thrives into the 21st Century as a respected medical profession, its trajectory in the early years is tied to that of the goat-gland charlatan depicted in this book. Worth reading for this and other reasons.

State of the Union

I viewed video of the entire State of the Union Address. It took me multiple segments to get through it. Biden did an excellent job, of the kind I expect from a Democratic president. I also viewed video of the Alabama housewife (and U.S. Senator) who delivered the Republican response. They have nothing! Seriously, Biden got criticized for having a campaign TikTok account. Do Republicans not know about the numerous objections among users to federal attempts to regulate TikTok? OMG! Governor Kim Reynolds made a press release reacting to the State of the Union with a tepid response. Why did she even bother if she had nothing to say? Republicans really do want to take the country backward.

Hope your week went as well. Cheers!