Channeling my inner Marcus Aurelius and what I'm reading today...
Only 1,452 days to go...
During Covid, I went down a lot of “Google rabbit holes.” I’d see some quote or read some line in a book and curiosity would take hold. For example, I really got into studying the 1918 influenza pandemic, which infected approximately 500 million people and many during the First World War. This viral infection reported more deaths than the war itself and the disease caused the fatalities of more than 50 million people worldwide. (If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend John Barry’s book, The Great Influenza.)
There were so many parallels from the 1918 pandemic to our recent disastrous pandemic experience. #FOTUS led us through the pandemic in much the same way Wilson did in 1918 — pretend it isn’t happening. As a nation, we seem to be incapable of learning from past mistakes.
It is so obvious that #FOTUS has never studied history, because he seems so intent on repeating it. (A Bungled Health Crisis Sank Trump’s First Term. Is He Making the Same Mistakes?) And so many of the voters in this country, seem to have amnesia about how Trump fumbled the one major crisis of his first administration.
Lest you have forgotten, he downplayed Covid19’s severity; promoted pseudoscience and quackery cures; encouraged flaunting of effective control and common sense containment methods; and disparaged the one bright moment of his presidency: the vaccine. The US death rate per capita was one of the highest in the world, primarily because of his catastrophic lack of leadership.
Not surprisingly, early in the pandemic, urban areas were disproportionately impacted due to the lack of information about the disease. And also not surprisingly, in each subsequent wave, the nation’s least dense counties registered higher death rates than the most densely populated places.
I digress… this topic really gets me going.
“If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.” ~Marcus Aurelius
Another Google rabbit hole I went down was triggered by reading a quote from Marcus Aurelius, which in turn took me down another hole: Stoicism.
Stoicism was out of favor when I took Philosophy 101 in college, so I didn’t know anything about it. Like most people, I equated stoic behavior as being cold, unemotional and unfeeling. But the more I read of Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus, et al, the more the philosophy felt familiar to me. I was raised on stoic principles. While my parents were living, practicing, and promoting Christian character traits, they were fundamentally Stoics. (Interestingly enough, some historians believe that many of the early Christians also embraced stoicism.)
What do Stoics believe?
The universe is rational and operates according to a system of cause and effect
Humans have the ability to reason, which is a unique human capacity
Living in accordance with nature means living in accordance with reason
The goal of inquiry is to find a way of living that is tranquil and morally sound
What does it mean to be stoic?
To be stoic means to be calm under pressure and to avoid emotional extremes
A stoic mindset helps people manage stress, setbacks, and uncertainty
How can people practice Stoicism today?
Focus on what you can control and accept what you can't
Practice humility and openness
Turn obstacles into opportunities
Prepare for worst case scenarios
Well, the worst case scenario happened last November and now we’re experiencing the damage done. #GodHelpUS
I think today, I’m going to (try to) channel my inner Marcus Aurelius and embrace Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer.
Thought for the day…
"The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury. The best revenge is to let it go, and live a better life".
~ Marcus Aurelius
What I read every day…
I’ve decided to eliminate a few sites from my posts, specifically, Letters from an American and The Bulwark. You can go directly to their Substack accounts to read what I read every day. I very much encourage you to subscribe to both. The links to their sites are below.
Quote of the day:
“As leaders of the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations, we write with extreme alarm about the Administration’s efforts to undermine Congress’s power of the purse, threaten our national security, and deny resources for states, localities, American families, and businesses. The President has issued a number of Executive Orders to unilaterally freeze or contravene critical funding provided in bipartisan laws, sowing chaos across states, families, and communities… The scope of what you are ordering is breathtaking, unprecedented, and will have devastating consequences across the country. We write today to urge you in the strongest possible terms to uphold the law and the Constitution and ensure all federal resources are delivered in accordance with the law.”
~Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut
What I’m reading today…
Project 2025 was the plan all along. Trump is proving it now.
Some overlap between a Republican president and a conservative think tank's policy ideas would be expected, but Trump's immediate embrace of very specific ideas in the 900-page proposal makes his disavowals of it on the campaign trail seem disingenuous, at best.
No state or municipality — not Vermont, North Carolina or California — has the capacity to respond on its own. Climate change will continue to worsen and communities across America will feel the pain of weather crises. Climate denialism and policies by the new administration that roll back progress made in the past four years will only exacerbate this problem.
How About a Department of Learning?
What’s missing from this debate is this question: What’s the difference between Education and Learning?
‘Malicious Compliance’ Is Not the Issue With Trump’s Executive Orders
Trump’s wave of executive orders is designed to be performatively malicious… The series of presidential decrees is largely intended to delight the Republican base; unfortunately, government workers cannot divine what Trump really meant.
Asheville’s Big Attraction, Its Food Scene, Tries to Hit Reset
To spread the word that it’s safe to dine in Asheville again, the visitor’s bureau is set to air a TV ad, “Be Part of the Comeback,” with footage of smiling chefs and a couple drinking at one of downtown’s rooftop bars. The bureau is also working with the James Beard Foundation to sponsor a food-policy symposium in April, the Chef Action Summit. Asheville Restaurant Week was just produced by the Chamber of Commerce in January as usual, with more than 50 establishments offering discounts or deals, but this year the chamber is repeating the promotion in February.
Will Trump Bring Russia and Ukraine to the Table?
The president campaigned on ending the war even sooner, claiming he’d have it in the bag as soon as he became president-elect, before he was even sworn in. But a week into his term, his administration is now suggesting a slightly longer timeline: 100 days.
Congressional Republicans’ coming war on poor people
Trump has a habit of evaluating economic policy based on stock market reaction, and it’s true that unlike with broad tariffs, there’s no reason to think the S&P 500 would object to taking medical care away from poor kids and the disabled to pay for business tax cuts. Your mileage may vary on the ethics of that.
Trump fills his government with billionaires after running on a working-class message
His second White House is looking a lot like the inside of Mar-a-Lago, with extremely wealthy Americans taking key roles in his Republican administration… raise concerns about conflicts of interest at odds with Trump’s pledge to fight for “forgotten men and women.”
China is also not so silly as to treat one form of electricity generation as more conservative, liberal or Maoist than another. In the end, the outputs are all just electrons. They have no politics. All Beijing cares about is which is most abundant, efficient, cheap and clean.
It’s an Illegal Executive Order. And It’s Stealing.
“It’s creating chaos. I honestly don’t think the people who are dealing with this know what they are doing.”
Judge blocks Trump’s spending freeze
A federal judge has halted President Donald Trump’s freeze on federal aid programs, ruling that the courts need more time to consider the potentially far-reaching ramifications of his order.
Worth Watching:
Caroline Kennedy closed the letter with a plea for the senators to reject her cousin’s nomination on behalf of the doctors, nurses, scientists and caregivers who fuel the American health care system. “They deserve a secretary committed to advancing cutting-edge medicine to save lives, not rejecting the advances we have already made. They deserve a stable, moral and ethical person at the helm of this crucial agency. They deserve better than Bobby Kennedy — and so do the rest of us.”
Things I read everyday….
I read Letters from An American everyday, so I am no longer going to reference it in my Substack posts. Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletters are fabulous, so I encourage you to subscribe on your own.
I’m also a big fan of The Bulwark. I started subscribing to it shortly after I discovered it in 2019. The Bulwark was founded to provide analysis and reporting in defense of America’s liberal democracy. That’s it. That’s the mission. I find their podcasts and articles thoughtful and helpful in making sense of what is going on with the US.
