Aquilino Gonell is an immigrant and former sergeant in the Washington DC Capitol Police force. Below is an excerpt from his recently published op-ed piece in The NY Times. Worth the full read:

“For my efforts doing my duty as a Capitol Police sergeant, I was beaten and struck by raging rioters all over my body with multiple weapons until I was covered in my own blood. My hand, foot and shoulder were wounded. I thought I was going to die and never make it home to see my wife and young son.

Over the last four years, it’s been devastating to me to hear Donald Trump repeat his promise to pardon insurrectionists on the first day he’s back in office. “It will be my great honor to pardon the peaceful protesters, or as I often call them, the hostages,” he said in a speech last year...

Someone asked “Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?”

Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England, wrote this magnificent response:

“A few things spring to mind.

Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.

For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.

So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh...

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day brings to mind so very many concerns, so many issues both historical, institutional, and still in dire need of being addressed by our entire society.

But I continue to wonder if the nature of humanity is such that equality and “justice for all” are truly possible. MLK, Jr. said that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I will admit that I fear that the arc of humanity’s nature bends further towards injustice with each passing day.

And today, one where the United States of America brings a convicted felon to highest seat of its governmental power, a petty figure driven by vengeance, is not a day that believes any better of humanity’s nature.

We have been travelling, this time to St. Croix. A lovely island, with very warm people, and a contagiously relaxed vibe. We’ll likely go back, but at a different time of year.

As for the diving, well, I made a rookie mistake and really should have researched better. We were not there at a good time of year, with prevailing “Christmas Winds” making for pretty treacherous shore entries and exits. We got in some diving without serious injuries, but getting in/out wasn’t necessarily pleasant. When we headed to Frederiksted, the west side of the island, for its calmer waters and the highly recommended pier, it was always busy with cruise ships–and diving isn’t allowed when ships in port at the pier. So it wasn’t really a successful dive trip...

The year has begun the way that ’24 went out, with opportunities to simultaneously review and anticipate.

I can’t make sense of so much going on in the world of late; I still have trouble accessing the news on a regular basis. It is still inconceivable to me that so much of the world has turned to a Nationalist ideal that prizes isolation; an economic and political model that prizes oligarchic authority; and a xenophobic perspective that refuses to acknowledge the wealth brought to all by the views of those who have experienced life in other places.

And so, with a strong distaste for the state of the world, I also self-isolate. I turn further and further inward, only wishing to engage with family and a very few friends...

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Exactly so, from today’s NYTimes:

“This unfortunate fact remains: We have a fundamentally broken process for choosing federal judges,” Mr. Mangi wrote. “This is no longer a system for evaluating fitness for judicial office. It is now a channel for the raising of money based on performative McCarthyism before video cameras, and for the dissemination of dark-money-funded attacks that especially target minorities.”

Adeel Mangi, a New York lawyer picked for a spot on the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit…after Democratic senators cut a deal that in effect left him and other Biden appeals court nominees with no path to confirmation.

more pix from Thailand!