Mr. Toy's Mental Notes

My message to Congressman Jimmy Panetta After reading your May 4th newsletter on the chaotic first 100 days of Trump 2.0, I'm more convinced than ever that Congressional Democrats are taking boxing gloves to a gun fight. You write about legislation to curb Trump's abuse of power. But this legislation will require some Republican cooperation to pass, and most importantly, would need Trump's signature to go into effect unless you miraculously get a veto-proof majority in both the House and Senate.  Considering how unlikely it is that any of this legislation could ever become law it looks like you're just engaging in busywork so it looks like you're doing something, but which is clearly a waste of time. I understand you wanting to play by the rules, and certainly you shouldn't break any laws fighting Trump, But the Trumpers have thrown out the rule book, so you need to be more aggressive and visible than you would be under ordinary circumstances. Maybe I missed ...

CBS News posted this brief news item on Facebook: "World War II codebreaker Julia Parsons died last month at 104 years old. She was part of an all-woman team unscrambling messages to and from German submarines." When I was a kid, a common topic of adult conversation involved things that happened "during the war." Mostly they talked about everyday things that happened on the home front, like where they lived, who they knew, how they used gas ration cards, that sort of thing, as if it happened yesterday. I was fascinated by those stories, and it prompted me to learn everything could about WWII. Today there's almost nobody left to tell those tales.  The last civil war soldier died in 1956, at age 106, just three years before I was born. We think about the civil war as ancient 19th century history, but many people who were there lived through the first half of the 20th century.  Lately I've encountered several young people who are very interested in 1960s cu...