{"id":56849,"date":"2025-05-27T05:59:22","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T12:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=56849"},"modified":"2025-05-26T20:00:53","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T03:00:53","slug":"open-thread-may-27-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2025\/05\/27\/open-thread-may-27-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread May 27 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, as I was starting to check email, my radio station played a piece by Chopin, and when it was over and the DJ back announced it, she said “Frederic Chopin,” but what I thought I heard was “President Chopin.” There’s nothing wrong with her pronunciation, nor with my hearing – but apparently my brain is over-fixated. Sigh. Also yesterday – I don’t know whether this will actually work for anyone else, but I kind of got slapped in the face by my white privilege. One of the websites at which I found a birthday card last year was having a sale, and I had so much difficulty then, I thought I’d look now for birthday cards for Trinette’s two sons. We’re talking about young black men, in their twenties, whom I would probably recognize if I saw them on the street but we’re not close the way I am to their mother. So I did a search there for “birthday card black man.” I got a result of 106 pages and managed to get through 17 or 18 of those pages, despite constantly second guessing myself – “that’s gorgeous, but I don’t know whether they care much about history or African heritage – will it look like I’m talking down?” or “that’s funny, but will it look like I’m laughing at them instead of with them?” I finally managed to find 10 cards, although one is for Virgil (it says “Happy Birthday from the best decision you ever made” – he will know I’m laughing with him because he tells me that – a lot) to get a quantity discount on top of the sale prices. But it took a lot of time and a lot of self-examination. Also yesterday – ironically on Memorial Day, Korean War veteran and long time (but now retired) Congressman Charlie Rangel<\/a> (in his day known as “the lion of Lenox Avenue”) died at age 94. May he rest in power.<\/p>\n

Since yesterday was a holiday, I thought The Week Ahead<\/a> from Joyce Vance would be appropriate for today. And there’s a lot of it to digest.<\/p>\n

Robert Reich<\/a> has pretty much seen it all. If he says something is “truly horrifying,” it must actually be so – at least. Possibly worse.<\/p>\n

I guess Roberts<\/a> hasn’t learned anything yet. I’m still hoping he’s capable – the other Republicans, with the exception of Barrett (surprising though that may be, it seems to be true) are incapable of learning anything.<\/p>\n