Tuesday
A magnificent day here in Southern California. There is not a cloud in the sky. The air is dry and clean. The temperature is about 70. I was awakened by a maddening text from my bank. An immense overdraft caused by a check to Los Angeles County for property tax — half of one year — for this house in Beverly Hills that I am sitting in right now. It rocked me on my heels.
Obviously, I have to pay it. So, there it is.
Now I am thinking of something else. As I told you recently, I was in Washington, D.C., my beautiful hometown. My super driver, Bob, took my friend from the Philippines and my pal from Korea and me on a night-time tour of the monuments of our capital city.
First, we saw the Jefferson Memorial, the most perfect structure I know of. Obviously, this man was a stone genius. Also, he was a large-scale slave holder, which was, then and now, horrible. But his contributions to mankind were immense. The statue by night overlooking the Tidal Basin is breathtaking.
The next night, we saw the FDR Memorial. It is nowhere near, not even close, to the majesty of the Jefferson Memorial, but it is still humbling. He was not the nicest guy on this planet and a racist on a scale that we would not tolerate today. He supposedly told Morgenthau that America is for Northern European Protestants when Morgenthau was asking for more Jewish refugees from the Nazi murder machines. Then he slammed the door.
Still, a great, great man.
Then the Eisenhower Memorial on Independence Avenue. Now, I like Ike. More than like. Love him. Over the decades, I have been close pals by mail and email with his great-granddaughter-in-law, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, and his grandson, David Eisenhower. Both are super humans, and the general was, too. His brilliant cold war strategies in his time as president were life-saving for the planet. He was mocked and belittled by the media elites, but he was truly great.
What broke my heart is two things.
There is no monument to Richard M. Nixon, the peace...
No hoodwinking or hornswoggling here.
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