February 8, 2024- I love February, in spite of itself. I love it, despite the lingering cold, the slowly receding dark and the icy roads of morning and late night. I love the second calendar month because we humans respond to dreariness, with festivity: Lunar New Year, Super Bowl Sunday,Mardi Gras (I will never willingly say “Fat Tuesday”, anymore than I would say “plastic silverware”, “six-month anniversary” or “Feb-yoo-ery”. -but that’s me.), Valentine’s Day, and Ayyam-i-Ha (Days of God’s Essence, or Intercalary Days), which are the Baha’i gift giving period. This last is called Intercalary Days, because the Baha’i devotional calendar consists of nineteen months, with nineteen days each. That leaves four days (five, in a Leap Year), at the end of the year.
It is also a month when I see an increase in behaviour, of the kind that the late President Reagan would call “Looney Tunes”. Maybe it’s a reaction to lingering cold, slowly receding darkness, icy roads, or All-American malapropisms, but I have to ask: Why insist on driving 60 mph, in the dark, on an icy 35 mph road, with heavy snow coming down? Why refuse to shovel one’s section of sidewalk, or at least have someone else do it, when there is 5-6 inches of snow on it, and the Sun isn’t coming out for quite a while? Why make such a furious mess about Taylor Swift?, and my fave-Why go against your own bill that would restore some sense of order to the Mexican border?
I will leave those questions, and the proper pronunciation of “February”, to those with intelligence quotients that are several points higher than my own-people like Taylor Swift, for example.
On a more serious note: My sincerest wishes that there be a dry period in California, so that our western neighbours can get on with repairs to roads, bridges and beach fronts.
A Sagittarian Seeker 
There WILL be a dry period in California — we may have to wait a coupe of months for its beginning, but deserts don’t stay dry if there’s rain like we’ve just seen for any length of time! It’s been a brutal week, but all signs turned today to a calmer period ahead!
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Amen to that. We are expecting more snow tonight and tomorrow morning-and rain from the 17th-22nd. That second storm will come directly from the Northwest, rather than from Hawai’i, so SoCal may be spared.
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February is a short and oft maligned month due to the cold and darkness! But I’m always happy for February to end…
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As much as I enjoy the parties and festive air of February, the year really gets its sea legs for me, with the coming of Spring.
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60 million for Ukraine, 20 million for Israel and 18 million for our border is unacceptable. Pass a clean bill and it will pass in the house. Everything in that border bill was in effect on Jan. 19, 2021. On Jan. 20, 2021 Biden signed executive orders to over turn every border policy Trump put into effect. He did this intentionally saying that he was going to eliminate all of Trump’s policies and open the border It was petty and vindictive. If Biden wanted to close the border he could sign executive orders to reinstate Trump’s policies. Biden broke it. He needs to fix it.
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I am all for not reinventing the wheel, and for enforcing what is already in effect. As for the seeming imbalance between spending on Ukraine, Israel and the Mexican border, I think there is not enough attention being paid, across the board, to misspending and fiscal waste. We could do a whole lot better, with the people’s money. This culture of profligacy goes way beyond containing Putin or disarming the Iranian proxies (both of which are worthy goals, btw). An honest, sincere fiscal conservative could work wonders with the budget. It needs, however, to not be tied to any one person’s, or group’s, agenda. Transparency is crucial.
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