Blog Archives

Day 99

4/28/2017

TALKING HEADS
The First 99 Days
A Conversation

April 28, 2017

AS MEMBERS in feeble standing of the tiresome, usually off-base and always vapid Chattering Class Media, Phoebe and Cat sat down today to assess Donald J. Trump’s first 99 days in office, thus getting the jump on the rest of the Punditry Commentariate, who will be dishing out endless blather tomorrow, the official 100-day mark.

PHOEBE - Let me just say that this has been as awful as everyone said it would be. Donald J. Trump, the president, is just the same as Donald J. Trump, the candidate: a vile, cruel, erratic, incompetent huckster, who disgraces democracy with his serial lies and endangers the entire planet with his impulsive and infantile whims.

CAT - Really?

Never in my seven years (49-human-equivalent) have I felt as miserable as I have since the horror of election night, Nov. 8, 2016. I go to bed scared. I wake up scared. I spend every waking minute of the day scared.

Honestly, Sweet Dog, how has your life really changed since the inauguration? Am I imagining that you still get two helpings of Natural Balance sweet-potato-and-chicken mini-chunks in your bowl every day and unlimited refills of foul-tasting Newport, R.I. tap water? Don’t you go for walks every day along the ocean with the Grouchy One? Doesn’t the Nice One let you sleep on your choice of two couches, a doggie bed and various sun-splashed rugs?

So you are okay that a madman is in charge of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal? That he will get to appoint umpteen hundreds of federal judges and lots more Supreme Court judges? That he’s trying to re-pollute the air and the water? That he’s soft on the Russians, but mad at the Canadians?

I’m saying that life is pretty much the same as it was 99 days ago. The Grouchy One keeps my kitty litter box respectable. The Nice One is generous with treats. I sleep 23 hours a day. No complaints here in Cat World.

What about how Trump demonizes immigrants?

I don’t know any immigrants.

Cat, Cat, Cat! We’ve been through that. You came from some shelter in Fall River, Massachusetts, and lord only knows where you were before that. You might even be a Canadian cat.

So what?

If Trump can demonize human immigrants, how about immigrant cats? Let’s just imagine that, as a candidate, Trump complained that immigrant cats are being adopted into homes that rightfully should be reserved for American cats.

You know what happens to honest, hard-working American cats? Too often, American cats languish in shelters – shelters that have “time-limits,” if you get my meaning. America is overrun by illegal immigrant cats. Alien cats that steal our food, slaughter our mice. These are the kind of cats that don’t share our values, unbaptized cats that are a danger to our national security.

This ends now. Today, I’m signing an executive order that will ban any cat emigrating from Canada or Mexico for the next 150 years. This order will quadruple the number of animal control officers, who will go to every home in America searching for illegal cats. There will be no sanctuary homes for cats when we get finished. Any cat found not to be appropriately American will be sent back to his or her country of origin, or better still to a shelter, the kind with “time limits."

You liberals are crazy, paranoid, over-the-top. You spend your days lapping up fake news fed to you 24-7 by the failing New York Times and the about-to-be-defunded NPR. There is NO executive order deporting cats.

I know there isn’t, Cat. I’m just trying to explain the danger this guy poses in terms that even a cat can understand.

Okay, I’ll play your little game, Phoebe. Let’s say that Donald J. Trump did promise that during his first 100 days in office that he’ll deport all illegal cats.

Like I said.

Good. Now let’s review the record of the last 99 days. Trump promised to get rid of Obamacare.

Yes.

Trump promised to build a big, beautiful wall on the Mexican border and he said that he would make the Mexicans pay for it.

True.

Trump promised to bring back American jobs, teach China a lesson about currency manipulation, cancel NAFTA, drain the Swamp, release his taxes when they’re audited and do something about student loans.

Okay, Cat. This is getting to be almost as boring as a Clinton I’m-still-here speech.

My point is that Trump, the president, doesn’t necessarily do what Trump, the candidate, promised. Trump, the president, doesn’t necessarily do what Trump, the president, promises. He’s a chronic flip-flopper.

He is.

Let’s get back to your condescending, dumbed-down and absurd hypothesis about an Alien Cat Deportation Executive Order. Let’s just say that he actually does that.

Just the point I was trying to make.

But that would NOT be something that I or any other cat would need to worry about.

Why? It’s just the sort of thing Donald Trump does. Wouldn’t you be scared?

Not at all. We don’t have to be scared by anything that Trump promises to do.

Then what would scare you?

What would scare me is if Donald J. Trump gives an interview to the failing New York Times, telling the reporter that he loves cats.

I see where you’re going.

To continue the nightmare: At 4:38 a.m. Donald J. Tweets the following:

Today, on the100th day that I wish I could always be at Mar-a-Lago, I will sign a wonderful new executive order. It will be the most beautiful and longest executive order ever written. I will declare that today is National Cats Have Nothing to Worry About Day.

That really would be scary.

Totally.

Day 94

4/23/2017

Standing up for Science: Reason & Resolve on a Rainy Day

April 23, 2017

I went to the Providence, R.I. edition of the national March for Science yesterday.

And why not, you ask? Science is threatened, bizarre as it sounds. Any sane dog with a little time on her paws would turn out for this one.

My reservations? Do I have to point out that there is a long and uneasy relationship between medical researchers and dogs?

As a group, we dogs have been subject to some pretty squirrelly laboratory activities, and it's not like anyone asked us for permission.

Sure, there have been some beneficial results. Open-heart surgery was tried out first on us before surgeons moved onto young kids – operations that for both groups of patients initially didn’t always go as hoped.

And that's science, for you. We have to start somewhere, and pioneers, whether they travel in covered wagons or are decked out in hospital johnnies, don’t have a 100 percent survival rate. The payoff is what counts, in lives saved, lives improved, in footprints on the moon.

Also, if you are a dog (or a dog owner) what first seems like a medical “miracle” for people soon finds parallel applications in veterinary practice, which can result in some pretty super outcomes for dogs and some shocking bills for our owners.

I mention this only to say that going to a big march of scientists isn’t as straightforward a proposition for a pooch as it might be for a kid who just won first prize at the local science fair, or an Ivy League neuroscience researcher wondering what’s going to happen to her mega-grant from the National Institutes of Health.

But, in the end, there was little choice.

Climate deniers are in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency; the proposed budget wants to cut back on all sorts of research. Data is disappearing from official Websites. And the president is a serial liar. If he says a crowd is a certain size, check the photos. If he says an aircraft carrier is on its way, check the satellite imagery.

I’m just grateful that people cared enough to stage this demonstration, just like the Women’s March the day after the horrible inauguration, and just like the big, noisy turnouts at “town halls” by the shrinking number of Congress-people with enough gumption to hold them.

Democracy is in the balance, and while big protest marches aren’t the only answer, they are crucial proof that citizens care, which is the essential step in any reform.

And what really impressed me about the Providence March for Science was that a lot of people (and quite a few dogs) showed up at the Rhode Island State House, despite the fact that the conditions were New England Miserable: drizzling, bone-chilling rain, dirt-gray skies sloppy sidewalks and slippery grass.

It took some resolve, is what I’m saying.

The speeches were, as you might expect, well-reasoned.

One lady that I liked - Yes, lady scientists, there were LOTS of them - acknowledged a real gap between ordinary people and scientists, who seem tucked away in their laboratories, talking their own peculiar language. It's up to scientists to do better, she said.

And then she showed some real passion for how important it is for her and her colleagues to do their work on the basis of facts, not politics or greed. No bureaucrat, no politician is going to dictate the results of her work.

I didn’t stay for the whole event.

People think dogs don’t mind being wet; maybe some PhD candidate can do a paper or two investigating that canard. Hypothesis: A miserable day for a person is a miserable day for a dog.

But what really gave me the chills yesterday is that there had to be a march like this in the first place.

Day 79

4/8/2017

Springtime in New England,
when a sweet dog’s thoughts turn to Trump

April 8, 2017

SPRING IS COMING slowly to our part of the planet. Which we say every year, and it’s always true. But spring is especially grudging this year, when both the political and natural climates are so out of whack.
Still, spring remains one of New England’s charms, with the light showing up earlier each morning, and hanging on later into the evening, the universal promise that things get better, life renews itself.
Here in Newport, R.I., my adopted hometown, they have a thing with daffodils – “Daffodil Days” every April, when hundreds of thousands of yellow flowers reappear, making a spectacular place all the more so. Even a transplant from Missouri like Yours Truly, not known for her green dewclaw, can appreciate the flowering of our city.

People reappear, too. The basketball courts in the parks that the Grouchy One and I go to every day become busier; baseball is underway at the university we walk past every other day; lacrosse teams do battle on the pitch of the big state park that overlooks the harbor.
I’m meeting lots more dogs, too. Not that we don’t see a lot of fellow travelers during the winter, “going out” being an imperative for our kind. But humans are willing to stay out longer and aren’t in as much a rush, which works to a sweet dog’s advantage.
What I’m trying to say is that fun is making its annual return.

WHAT, YOU ASK, does all this drivel have to do with Donald J. Trump, the subject of and only reason for our blog?
I know it sounds paranoid. Whenever I see man or beast or both having a grand old time, I wonder how that sits with the scowling, cruel person who haunts the White House. My bet is that it makes him mad as hell.
You’re thinking:
“That’s one crazy dog they’ve got down there in Rhode Island. There’s enough that’s frightening, scary for real about Donald Trump without having to make things up, like he’s against fun.
“For goodness sake, the man’s got walls to build,” you’re saying, “Cruise missiles to launch, rivers to pollute, immigrant families to separate, taxes to slash, medical care to take away, research to defund and public schools to downgrade.”

IT'S JUST THAT that I can’t imagine Trump taking pleasure in any of hundreds of things that bring joy to lots of Americans.
It’s hard to see Trump strumming a guitar, weeding a garden, baking a carrot cake, downloading music into his smart phone, subscribing to a community theater, knocking down a few brewskies at a backyard barbecue, frolicking in the surf, shooting hoops, hiking the Cliff Walk, reading up for the next book club, singing around the piano or taking a dog with gorgeous eyelashes to the park, listening to the screeches and screams of kids on playground swings and wondering how all the songbirds made it through the winter.
He plays golf, I’ll give you that. But is it for fun? Or, instead, is it an excuse to remind his companions that it’s his golf course and the greatest one in the world, or to chat them up on his latest deal or a chance to ogle the waitstaff?
I can’t help it; it’s what I think when we pass girls giggling on the sidewalk, or see kids on the merry-go-round, or watch somebody flying a kite. If Donald J. Trump saw any of that, he wouldn’t like it. He’d get his scowl on. And then, because he’s president, he do something about it. Get Bannon into the Oval Office or have Spicer explain away his latest 5:53 a.m. Twitter blast about how spring is something that Muslims are trying to spring on America.

I just doubt that when he’s down at Mar-a-Lago that he’s thinking how good it is now that spring’s back, especially in New England. And that if he saw something about spring on Fox, he would whip himself into a fury, and decide now that he’s president, it’s something he should do something about, and, in fact, that he’s the only person in the county, in the world, who can.
Maybe he’ll change his mind about climate change. Instead of it being a hoax, he’ll decide that, at least for the time being, climate change is real. And if you can do something to speed up climate change, maybe get rid of the EPA altogether, maybe install a coal furnace at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, then it's just possible that we can get rid of spring for good and quick. Call Bannon … on second thought, it’s important enough to get the son-in-law working on.
But he’ll have to act fast before it slips his mind. Stay focused. That's always the hard part. Getting rid of spring will be wonderful, the best kind of climate change the world’s ever seen.
And what could be more fun?

A "sweet dog" confronts the catastrophe of the Trump presidency

The Tracker

PHOEBE might have remained a “sweet” and apolitical dog but for the Trump crisis. Now, like millions of Americans, she wrestles daily with the challenge of what to do about it. With no illusions about the impact, she founded and is the principal writer of the Tracking Trump blog.

In Memoriam

CAT, a cat and Libertarian was Phoebe's co-author. He died Nov. 14, 2019. His self-described role was to leaven Phoebe’s naiveté and idealism with “common sense." He is remembered and missed.

Day 99

​TALKING HEADSThe First 99 Days A Conversation