Yet Another Refugee from Livejournal

I won't be able to leave the United States before Donald Trump is sworn in (groan, again) as president.  But I am taking concrete steps toward moving to some friendlier nation.

I have identified a top candidate destination, but I am not going to tell the world what it is, yet.  Better to wait until I know that I'll actually be able to go there.

It's a maddeningly slow process, the more so because I am also mildly under the weather.  I remain reasonably confident that I will be able to make it out before it's too late.

"How to Decide What to Do" is the title of a recently-added page
of my “site” at The Well, located
at

https://people.well.com/user/edelsont/philosophy/01-intro.html

All that's there, so far, is the “Introduction”
… which is full of promises of what is to come.

I have unexpectedly developed a case of writer's block: I
haven't written even a line, yet, of the (or any) following
segment.

I do have a possible inkling as to why.  I was operating
under an assumption about what writing this “book” would
entail.  To wit, that it would require me to be completely
“open” about my inner, emotional life: to be prepared to
lay bare any relevant detail about my fears, desires, or any sort
of feelings.

And I didn't feel able (or, perhaps more accurately, willing)
to do that.  I still don't.

However, this doesn't necessarily mean that the project is
doomed.  I have a faint glimmering of an approach that would
allow me to write the thing, without doing the [emotional] Full
Monty to quite that degree.

It would not be exactly the same book, but I think maybe I could
accomplish my central goal.  I guess you — and I!
— will have to wait and see whether this works out.

I apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause.

My last two journal entries were both about things I recently
posted at my “site”on The Well.  This one isn't.

This is to let you know about a couple of mishaps I've had lately: I fell down.  Twice.

The first time, I was a on a ladder in my living room, and then a twinge caused me to lose my balance, and then I was lying on the floor, on my side.  I decided not to use that ladder
again.  And I went on about my life, more or less normally, for two weeks.

Yesterday, I fell down again.  The culprit this time was some slippery outdoor stairs.  I ended up in a remarkably similar position—lying on my side—only on wet ground.

I took more drastic action this time: was seen at the doctor's office the same day.  Got X-rayed, confirmed an absence of any fractures, not even the “hairline” kind.  Wheels
were set in motion to get me into physical therapy.

This didn't come out of nowhere: a month and a half ago, I told my doctor about an increase in lower back pain.  What I didn't understand, then, was that such an increase is often gradual … until it isn't.  One day, you try a movement you've done before, but this time, the muscles (joints, whatever) can't handle it.  So: twinge of pain, spasm, fall down go boom.

No physical therapist yet, but I will claim already to have heightened powers of observation, with early indications that this may help the situation going forward.

This is what is known as a growth opportunity.
 

You remember that I have a "home page" at The Well,
right?  Just in case the URL is not at your fingertips, here
it is:

https://people.well.com/user/edelsont/index.html

There've been some changes there.

There's a whole new Category, called "Philosophy".

And there's more!  Therein, you will find a file, in PDF
format, titled "Why Do Anything?".

And what's that about?  It's about a page long.

Oh, you meant "What is its subject matter?"  Well, see
now, its title is ambiguous.  If you read it quite literally,
you might expect the subject matter to be something like "What
counts as a good reason for doing anything?"  (Well, you might
expect that if you had a philosophy degree.)

Okay, so what's the other meaning for the title "Why Do
Anything?"  That would be something like
"Why do we do anything?"

But I'm not going to recap the whole content here; this is only
a teaser.  Its purpose is to motivate you to go read the PDF
file itself.  If you want to jump directly to it, here's a
link for that:

https://people.well.com/user/edelsont/philosophy/why-do-anything.pdf

Well, my last journal entry didn't succeed in its purpose.  After pondering, I think I know why: it was a mistake to present it to you as a riddle.

So here you go: same basic idea, presented in a different format.

Bob Hope: Hey, you sing a little.  Let me ask you a question: what do you think of the Trump campaign's pick for its official song?

Bing Crosby: Sorry, I hadn't heard about it.  What was their choice?

Hope: "Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money."

Crosby: Ooh ... catchy title!  Who wrote it?

I really, really don't like summer.  Not in any of the places that I've lived since I left graduate school in 1972, at any rate.  All of those places have been in the Eastern time zone of the USA, and you will note that I now have completed fifty-one years of not liking summer.

What don't I like about it?  The weather, obviously.  The heat, and the humidity.  That's what you get in the eastern US.  Okay, bits of New England are partial exceptions, but still.

Would I be happier in a place like New Mexico, where it gets pretty hot but is always much less humid?  A few years back, I thought so.  I spent a non-trivial amount of time there, most recently in August of 2019, for the purpose of testing that hypothesis.  And what was my conclusion?

Strictly speaking, I suppose I would be happier there, weather-wise.  But not enough so.  I could conceivably still decide to move there, but, since that last trip, any real enthusiasm for the idea has pretty much evaporated.  Like summertime rain there: at times, you can see rain in the sky above you, but it doesn't reach the ground.

For that matter, my history of trying to escape from typical Eastern summers goes further back than that.  It was a big part of the motivation for the last move I actually did make: from the Raleigh area (in the region of North Carolina known as the Piedmont) to the Ashville area (in the western mountains of the same state).  It's the same story: I do like the summer weather here better than I did there, but not nearly enough so to make me glad when the summer begins.

In short, I really don't like summer.

It has come to my attention, however, that not everyone feels the same way.  There are even some, bless their strange little hearts, who enjoy what it's like in summer even in a place like Raleigh.

I invite you to tell us how you feel about summer weather.  About summers where you live, or — if so moved — about those in some other place you've been.

As you may have read, the former president, Donald Trump, has been indicted on charges related to illegal handling of classified documents.  (Or more precisely, secret, or restricted-access documents; some of them are not, technically, "classified.")

What's going to happen?  This is not one question, but many.  I will offer a possible answer to one of them.

Let's narrow the question.  Let's assume that the case will go to trial.  What sort of defense will Trump direct his lawyers to present?  I wouldn't be surprised if he told them to argue as follows:

• Trump won the 2020 election.
• Therefore, Trump remains rightfully the president.
• Therefore, if the indictment says that Trump did something illegal on a particular date, Trump was president on that date.
• So, even if Trump did each act that the indictment says he did, on the date that the indictment says he did it … none of those acts were illegal.  The president can legally do anything he chooses with any government document, "classified" or not.

I wouldn't be surprised if Trump insisted that his attorneys argue the case that way, because I think that such an argument would be entirely reasonable … to him.

What do you think?  Might this happen?  What would be the outcome if it did?