Midnight Mutterings | April 5, 2025

When you read this, what happened across the country on April 5, 2025, will already have happened or is, at least, in progress. I am muttering at midnight just before the beginning of April 5, 2025. Molly the Cat is asleep at the foot of my bed. Her sister, Rose is sleeping on the couch in the living room. This means I am in Bellingham at my son’s house.

Tomorrow, April 5, 2025, across the United States there are at least 1200 protests planned, one of which will be on Orcas Island and another in Bellingham, which I will attend. According to Rachel Maddow, garden tours at the White House in Washington, D.C. have been cancelled because of the protests planned there.

Some of the planned protests are called ‘Hands Off’ referring to proposed and already accomplished cuts and firings of government programs and jobs as well as cuts planned for the immediate future and fears of even more cuts threatened for the near and far future.

Some of specifics are ‘Hands Off our Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,’ programs as well as the in-progress dissolution of the Department of Education. (Let the states take care of that—never mind that much of the funding for public schools and colleges comes from the federal government.) Many people are concerned about what will happen to medical and other scientific research as programs are cut mid-research as funds disappear, people fired. And even if programs are reinstated, it takes a lot, and may be impossible after programs are halted midway. As we all know, beginning a research program takes a lot of planning, getting funding, hiring staff and program directors, getting equipment, recruiting subjects, etc., etc. When research is interrupted, it can’t be restarted midway. If administrative personnel isn’t supportive of a particular line of research, then restarting, even if possible, will not occur. Which is what is happening right now: For example, successful vaccine programs based on research in Africa and other third world communities, are already threatened, some already halted.

I have to assume that vaccine deniers have never seen a single photograph of someone with smallpox. (Not to mention the ones who died.) You can see some photos here, though I wouldn’t advise it:

https://www.immunize.org/clinical/image-library/smallpox/

Meanwhile I’m not impressed that children are already dying in the US of measles. Not many, so far, but the fewer children vaccinated with measles, the larger an epidemic can become. Measles virus is very contagious. I have read that almost all unvaccinated children exposed to the virus will get sick, thus endangering an ever expanding number of victims, who may have permanent brain damage resulting in  vision or hearing loss, seizures, as well as lung and kidney and immune deficiencies. And this is just a tiny breath in public health endangerment. What have we done in electing officials who choose such misinformed ‘experts’ to set our public health agenda, to dismantle all the hard work trying to improve public health? And, of course, it’s always the most marginalized of our citizens and those of other countries, who will suffer most.

And then there are deportations to protest. When many families separated at the southern border in the teens have not yet been (and never will be) reunited, here we are ruining the hopes and dreams and very survival of another generation of immigrants, in spite of court orders to the contrary and/or prematurely shipped out.

So, by this time in less than 24 hours, we will know what, if anything, the protests looked and sounded like, and if anyone in power is listening, much less reacting favorably…

Somehow, I imagine what is happening on the stock market, at least partially as a result of tariffs enacted and threatened, will get a lot more attention than children in our own and other countries going hungry, getting sick and dying of preventable illnesses, etc., etc. The stock market dropped 22 points on Friday, April 4, 2025. That was the second day of serious loss and the beginning of a bear market in at least one market index.

Our President, elected for the second time by We the People in November, 2024, said yesterday that ‘tariff’ was his favorite word in the dictionary, even more than ‘love’ and (well, I’ve forgotten the other words that he didn’t love as well as he loves the word ‘tariff’).

I wish I’d be seeing you at 2:00 PM today, but I’ll be thinking about you. We on Orcas Island, are so lucky (for the most part) that I’m encouraged when we care about the welfare of the less lucky. Not many of us are chronically hungry right now. We have access to good medical care, even if we do have to take a ferry when what we need is more specialized.

I’ve finally finished my muttering. Molly the Cat seemed to be sleeping with her eyes open. It’s the first time I’ve seen that in a cat. She closes them briefly when Rose the Cat joined her and then looked alert. Molly’s unfocused stare was disconcerting for sure. And now the Cat sisters are engaged in a vigorous bath sharing session at the end of my bed.

Sending this off to Lin now. I haven’t looked at the weather report, but I hope it’s nice when you gather together as I join the Bellinghamians in protest of cuts and tariffs and whatever else is bugging us about our government. After all, our President loves a crowd. I hope we give him 1200 or more of the crowds he loves. We the People are speaking up in one of the few ways besides voting.