Been Preoccupied - Watching a Train Wreck

I didn't get a blog post up last Wednesday.  I've been, uh... ...obsessing.

Every morning this week I've awakened to the sound of the radio coming on, and after listening to music for a short while, we hear the news come on at the top of the hour.  And every day for the last week there's been something new, something big happening in the US.  And it's all been bad news.

Donald Trump is "making good" on his campaign promises with a speed and fury that is astounding to watch.  He's making use of that presidential pen, signing directive after directive:

• smacking down reproductive freedom for women, 
• pissing off Mexico (who is the US's second best customer for export and second best provider of much-needed import goods), 
• rolling back an FHA rate cut (a move that hurts first-time home buyers), 
• growling at the press, 
• insulting the CIA, 
• appointing his cronies,
• showed his support for the Dakota Access Pipeline (which Obama slapped down),
• ordering a federal investigation into the imaginary voter fraud ,

...and on it goes.  This morning's shock was the immigration ban -which he's threatened all along, but enacted so fast that legitimate US residents (who happened to be overseas on Friday) were caught unaware and ended up not being allowed to return to the US (even though they have federally granted immigration visas and green cards) not because they've done anything WRONG but because of where they were born.

Until this morning, the things he's been doing have been upsetting, but this morning's immigration news is horrific.  Now we have innocent people caught in the vice - some were released by a federal district judge, who ruled the immigrants who made it to US soil (or are in the air already on their way) can stay.  But what about the people who had sold their homes, pulled their kids out of school, got their visas (after what I can assure you would have been a long, laborious process for them) and were actually turned away at the airport!  There hasn't been an authoritative count yet, but the estimates reported in the media suggest that between 100 and 200 people are suddenly in limbo - many of them refugees who are fleeing persecution and death threats (in some cases they are running because they've assisted the US efforts in the middle east - people who risked their lives for the US...).

Then I saw the CBS interview with Trump.  Here it is, with the video and transcript together (please note: there are a string of videos here, and the videos sequence doesn't match the sequence of the transcript on the web page I'm linking to).  The long and the short of it is this:  Trump comes off in this interview as self-absorbed, sometimes idiotic, often ill-informed, vindictive, always arrogant and self-aggrandizing.  And actually... to me... he looks unbalanced, crazy.  Throughout the interview he keeps spends an inordinate amount of time trying to prove that he's a popular president, his inaugural speech was a "great speech", that more people watched his inauguration than any other.  With all the truly important things that would be needing his attention, it's distressingly obvious it's very easy to derail his focus into trivia.

It's depressing.  It's scary.  It's pretty much wrecked me this week.

So yes, I've finished the "Super Nova" quilt - and I got started yesterday on a really exciting project - or at least I tried to... with my impaired ability to concentrate, plus my urge to check the New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC News, Reuters, and a few others several times a day.

Stop in this coming Wednesday.  I'll have a quilt to show you.  But I just didn't get to it this week - I've been a bit distracted.