HOME AGAIN

Well, I am back, having just dodged really bad weather in Paris.  Although I cannot access my blog in Paris to post, I was able to read the comments, and my general impression is that you do not need me at all!  A lively, knowledgeable, vigorous discussion took place in my absence.  Maybe I should go away more often.

What is new in Paris?  The Seine is still above its normal level.  Our good friend Joan has a new little dog who is lovely but can never truly take the place of Apollon, who passed away when we were there in October.  Gael, our favorite waitperson at the café, has been promoted to daytime manager, well deserved.  Oh yes, I have been invited by a Marxist organization in Brussels to give a lecture in June as part of their celebration of the 200^th anniversary of Marx’s birth [an event not stimulating much in the way of recognition here in our benighted United States.]

While in Paris I completely changed my plans for the next Marx lecture, to be delivered tomorrow.  I will actually talk about what I said I would talk about, rather than going on a riff about Burt Reynolds, capitalism, and a hotel I watched being built several years ago.  I shall save my notes on that for a future lecture.

Let’s see, while I was away, Rex Tillerson was fired, as was a senior State Departmnent official for telling the truth, Trump’s body man was frogmarched out of the White House because of an out-of-control gambling problem, Conor Lamb won a smashing 627 vote victory in Pennsylvania’s 18^th CD, the lawyer for Stephanie Clifford [a.k.a. Stormy Daniels] stated flatly on TV that the payoff to her to keep quiet about her affair with Trump directly involved Trump and that she has been physically threatened, details to be released in a Sixty Minutes interview to be aired next Sunday, and for the first time ever a Number 16 seed beat a number 1 seed in the first round of the NCAA March Madness.

I was only away for twelve days, for crissakes!

Seen from abroad, the United States looks to be spiraling rapidly into a modern reality TV form of dictatorship.  I am ashamed to have an American passport.

When the bags are unpacked and the laundry is done, I shall spend some time kibitzing the exchanges in the Comments section.

I missed you.