The New Coffee Room

The world's a little crazy. We need a reminder now and then.

Should Mark Carney be worried? Another "major" source of fentanyl ( a pound a year, right?) and has oil.

If I were Zelenskyy, I don’t think I would feel very safe

When Chicago's current mayor was elected, I hoped that the stupid things he'd campaigned on would fade and he'd show some intelligence. Sadly, he's clung to his deep-seated stupidity. He proposed a head tax on corporations headquartered in Chicago. One can only presume he wished to encourage more corporations to leave. Fortunately, his proposal was defeated by the City Council.

I did manage to buy another piece of equipment - probably the last important piece and it will replace/supplement bands that I use. Last year, I took up an online Pilates program - and have been pretty dedicated to it. It doesn't interfere with the rest of my workouts - and forced me to work on things I hadn't previously worked on.

Horace - that's wonderful news!! Dedication and consistency are the key - and you've done well.

Mrs. Kluurs had surgery just before Christmas - so it's been low key both holidays. Ordered Chinese food - likely watch a TBD movie.

What Klaus is doing

How soon till we have everything controlled but without affordable healthcare, housing or fast trains?

For Larry....

Helps to solidify his efforts to ensure higher long-term energy prices.

@jon-nyc said in Carol and Sarah are going to kill me for posting this:

@Doctor-Phibes said in Carol and Sarah are going to kill me for posting this:

I'm guessing that guy isn't an electrical engineer. Pure electricity my ass.

Even lower end audiophiles are regularly laughed at by EEs.

Unless they're employed by one of those high end audio companies. It's amazing to me that there are more turntable manufacturers now than back in the heyday of LPs. One can choose between several $100k turntables.

As for interconnect companies - Transparent makes a $6,600 power cord - goes alone with their $30K interconnects. Their Opus line of speaker cables start at $50K. Figure 8 at least a half dozen of those power cords, a few $25K interconnects, speaker cables and you're well on your way to a couple hundred K - and you haven't bought speakers, amplifiers, etc.

The new Fed Chair was a nice touch.

I did hire an electrician to install five separate circuits on the wall with the audio equipment.

From a different era..,

In December 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy walked out of the White House for what she believed would be the last time.
Two weeks earlier, her husband had been assassinated beside her in Dallas. Her pink suit was still stained with his blood when she boarded Air Force One. Her children—Caroline, nearly six, and John Jr., just shy of his third birthday—had lost their father.
She vowed never to return. Every hallway of that house held memories she couldn't bear to face.
Jackie rebuilt her life in New York. She remarried in 1968, seeking protection from the relentless spotlight. She avoided Washington entirely. When the White House Historical Association—the organization she had founded—commissioned official portraits of herself and President Kennedy, she faced an impossible choice.
Tradition required her to attend the public unveiling ceremony. Stand in the East Room. Face the cameras. Let the world watch her grieve again.
She couldn't do it.
So Jackie did something remarkable. She wrote a handwritten letter to First Lady Pat Nixon, asking if she and her children could "slip in unobtrusively" to see the portraits privately, without press or fanfare.
The request was unprecedented. The Nixons and Kennedys had been bitter political rivals. Richard Nixon had lost to John Kennedy in one of the closest elections in American history. He had spent years convinced the race was stolen from him. The animosity between the two men had been real.
But Pat Nixon's answer was immediate: Yes.
And then she did far more than simply agree.
On February 3, 1971—two days before the public ceremony—President Nixon sent a military jet to New York. After Caroline and John Jr. finished school that day, they boarded a plane at the airport named for their father and flew to Washington.
Only six people knew about the visit: The President, Mrs. Nixon, their daughters Tricia and Julie, and two trusted staff members. No photographers. No reporters. No announcement.
The Nixons greeted the Kennedy family at 5:30 that afternoon. They led them to the portraits—President Kennedy's hanging in the Green Room, Jackie's outside the Diplomatic Reception Room. Then Pat Nixon stepped back, giving the family privacy to experience this moment alone.
What must Jackie have felt, seeing her husband's face rendered in oils? The portrait showed him looking downward, eyes hidden, lost in thought. It was haunting and melancholy—nothing like the vigorous campaign posters. When Jackie had first seen it, she approved immediately. It felt true.
Pat Nixon personally led the tour. She showed Jackie the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden—dedicated in her honor, but which she had never seen. They walked through the state rooms, then upstairs to the private residence where the Kennedy children had once lived.
For Caroline, now thirteen, and John Jr., ten, it was a journey into their own half-remembered past. They had been so young when they lived here. John was just three days shy of his third birthday when they left. Now they could see their childhood home through older eyes.
The Nixon family dogs gave them an enthusiastic welcome. Both families shared an intimate dinner together in the private quarters—two political dynasties from opposing parties, breaking bread in the house where both had lived.
After dinner, President Nixon himself led the Kennedy children through the West Wing and into the Oval Office—the room where their father had worked, where he had faced the Cuban Missile Crisis, where he had made decisions that shaped the world.
Then it was over. The Kennedys flew home to New York. The entire visit lasted just a few hours. True to their word, the Nixons took no photographs and told no one.
The next day, Jackie wrote to Pat Nixon:
"Thank you with all my heart. A day I always dreaded turned out to be one of the most precious ones I have spent with my children."
John Jr., with the earnestness of a ten-year-old, wrote: "I can never thank you more for showing us the White House. I really liked everything about it."
Jackie never returned to the White House again. Despite living another twenty-three years, that February evening remained her only visit after 1963. Whatever peace it brought her was apparently enough.
Nixon gained nothing politically from this gesture. No photographs were taken. No press release was issued. The public didn't know about it at the time. He did it simply because it was the right thing to do.
In a world that often tells us political opponents cannot show each other basic human kindness, this story stands as quiet proof otherwise.
A Republican president and his wife. A Democratic widow and her children. A house that belonged to both of them, and to all of us.
Sometimes the most powerful thing we can offer another person isn't agreement or alliance. It's simply grace when they need it most.
That's what happened in February 1971.
And it's what's still possible today—whenever we choose compassion over grievance, and humanity over politics.