A New Year

 

Yesterday I took all the entries in this blog for 2024 and sent them to pixxi books.com to be printed up as a book.  I was dismayed to learn that Blog2Print was no longer in service.  Their parent company sent me to another site but I couldn't make that work beyond the downloading process.  So I tried pixxi books and I am encouraged by their email response today telling me that my book is in the print queue and they will let me know when it is shipped.  

2025 has begun with a tragedy when a person the authorities are calling a domestic terrorist took his rental truck and drove into a crowd celebrating the new year on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.  At least 15 people are dead and many more injured.  The driver was shot and killed by police.

This meant that the Sugar Bowl in which Notre Dame is meeting Georgia was postponed from January 1 to today, January 2.  I will write more about that later this evening.  Jim has asked if I am going to help him stay calm and I reminded him that ND has had such a good year up to this point.  Their record is 12 wins with only on memorable loss to Northern Illinois early in the season.  

--------------Hooray for the Irish!  It was a 23-10 win over Georgia and now we get to watch them again in the Orange Bowl when they play Penn State next Thursday, January 9.

I feel anxious about a new year hoping that we can stay healthy and enjoy each other's company.  I wonder if we will stay in our apartment or make the big move to senior living.  I wonder if the Trump era will create the chaos he threatens with deportation of illegal aliens and the revenge he says he will take on those who have opposed him in government and in the press. Will he really be able to replace thousands of civil service employees with his loyalists?  Will this affect some in our family and some friends? Are there enough good and principled people to stop him? 

January 4 from Heather Coxe Richardson's Letters from an American:

Yesterday, Biden awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal, given to those “who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens,” to twenty Americans including former Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who served on the January 6 committee. Today, Trump attacked Cheney and others who investigated the events of January 6, 2021, as “dishonest Thugs.”

Cheney responded: “Donald, this is not the Soviet Union. You can’t change the truth and you cannot silence us. Remember all your lies about the voting machines, the election workers, your countless allegations of fraud that never happened? Many of your lawyers have been sanctioned, disciplined or disbarred, the courts ruled against you, and dozens of your own White House, administration, and campaign aides testified against you. Remember how you sent a mob to our Capitol and then watched the violence on television and refused for hours to instruct the mob to leave? Remember how your former Vice President prevented you from overturning our Republic? We remember. And now, as you take office again, the American people need to reject your latest malicious falsehoods and stand as the guardrails of our Constitutional Republic—to protect the America we love from you.”

I am posting this excerpt because I don't want to forget the concerns we have for our country right now and I hope that the good can prevail.  The judge in Trump's New York trial is going to sentence him on January 10.  He will not dismiss the case saying that the jury system must not be discounted.  However, he probably will not sentence him to prison--how can a President serve from prison?  But Trump will go down in history as the first felon to serve as President.  The civil suits against him stand but I don't think he has paid off any off his penalties yet.