The Royal We and Margot

I enjoyed the new Hallmark Channel film about a pair of royals who were pressed together to negotiate a marriage of convenience to bring peace to their kingdoms. She went to America to live a normal life, but her sister married a commoner, and our "spare" had to step in. They turn out to be a good match. 

Hallmark is having a few royal-based films this month. One charm here was that few Hallmark films involving royals focus on female royals. The actress years ago was in a musical medieval t.v. series. 

The actress is Australian, so she has a certain international flavor mixed in with a believable foreign accent. She also has nice hair.

I read a good book on Anne Frank's diary, and it included a reference to her sister's lost diary. I also found a reference to this fictional account of Margot Frank's survival. Good try, but it didn't work for me. 

One problem is that the book has a half-baked explanation of what happened. Margot Frank supposedly jumped off a train to the concentration camp where she died in real life. The plan was for both sisters to jump. Anne, however, did not manage. 

Okay. So, why did people think she died? Did Anne pretend someone else was her sister? Furthermore, why did Margot think her father was dead until the diary came out? She looked at reports to find the others who had died. 

It's okay to suspend belief, but if you go halfway with an explanation, which is not truly necessary given the whole exercise here, go all the way. 

However, there was no report of Otto dying. And, she even stayed for a long time with a friend of her mother's. He had no connections with Otto or his surviving family whom Otto corresponded with? 

(We simply get no sense of what happened when Margot finally told Otto years later.)

If we move past that, the story itself is not too rewarding. First, she finds someone with Peter's name (it turns out "really" she and Peter were an item; apparently, Anne made up her relationship with Peter) in Philadelphia, where she is now living. The book draws out for too long her finding out it isn't Peter.

Plus, a relationship with Peter is not necessary for the plot. Besides that, there's some drama at the law firm she works for (she hides that she is a Jew or a survivor), including a Holocaust survivor who claims discrimination. This provides some dramatic weight but not enough for over three hundred pages.

Again, it's an interesting idea, but it didn't work for me. I do wish to know more about Margot. Each Annex member has a story, including the dentist whose non-Jewish girlfriend and his son from his first marriage both survived the war. 

The book didn't do enough to help us learn about her, and a major thing was unnecessarily made up. 

Western Europe Is Carrying Its Weight in Multiple Ways

One thing that Trump argues is that Europe does not pull its weight, including funding NATO. Do we really want to downgrade our superiority in this area? There is value in being a superpower and having "soft power" by controlling resources and ideas. 

Our military is a major part of our sense of self. Do we want Europe to truly have more power there? Maybe, in some ways, that would be a good idea. Do conservatives really want it? I doubt it.

U.S. and Germany pay the same percentage of the NATO operations budget (under 16% each), with the UK & France combined paying over 20% combined. United States military make up around 38 percent of the 3.4 million combined troops from NATO allied countries. Western Europe is not quite doing nothing.

Europe also gave more aid to Ukraine. Note that U.S. aid will often help the U.S. by involving spending that profits the U.S. If Ukraine relies on the U.S. more for weapons, who obtains the profits for them? 

Europe also hosts a lot of refugees. By the end of 2022, Europe hosted 1 in 3 refugees in the world (36 percent). This often causes difficulties since the U.S. is more of a melting pot. Western Europe is made of individual nations with more ethnic uniformity.

Europe also honors human rights and international law. Finally, Hungary has not done well in avoiding authoritarian leadership lately, but the U.S. twice voted for an incompetent Putin puppet. 

We should have some modesty. Europe will have to step in more now that Trump is in power. Again, there is some value in regional powers having a larger role in regulating their zone of interest. We can say that while respecting what they are doing already. 

The United States has a national interest in playing an important role in international relations, including the use of foreign aid. Let's just say that even if we want Europe to have more of a footprint, Trump doesn't provide the finesse required to balance things out. 

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Reports are out that Trump will hand down an executive order making English the official language. We shall see what that means. 

Multiple states have made English an official language. Nonetheless, from the very beginning, Congress has not. And, as I have written, that is fine.

Andrew Cuomo: GTFA

We have local elections this year in New York City. 

The first time to regain a Bronx Democratic city council seat (my district). A long time ago, my area had a Republican in the state legislature. As Bronx areas go, we are more conservative. A conservative district office is nearby. Still. This feels wrong. 

More importantly,* a chance to replace Mayor Eric Adams with a better option that is not corrupt and/or a Trump puppet. We are due for a good mayor. There are various good options but no leading option. Mayor Adams is in trouble.

So, in sweeps Andrew fucking Cuomo. My House rep, thanks to a second round of redistricting, is Ritchie Torres. Among other annoyances, he endorsed Cuomo. Torres is a possible challenger to Governor Kathy Hochul, Cuomo's former lieutenant governor. 

Cuomo resigning in disgrace is why we have a somewhat lackluster governor. Torres is not an appealing replacement. He is strongly anti-Trump but has a lot of baggage. Supporting Cuomo doesn't help.

Cuomo resigned in 2021 in the face of multiple scandals. He was accused of mishandling COVID-19 after talking a good game against Trump. His book deal had issues. And, of course:

[He] was accused of sexual harassment and inappropriate sexual contact by multiple women, including state employees. A report by state Attorney General Letitia James found credible claims of harassment from 11 women, and a subsequent report by the Biden Department of Justice found he subjected 13 women who worked for the state to sexual harassment.

Cuomo largely denied any wrongdoing except some bullshit about handling some things badly. A major thing was that he hung around too long and tried to stay on past his sell date. Now, a few years have passed. Will the people accept him again?

He is also talking like a Republican with scare tactics:

"You feel it when you walk down the street and try not to make eye contact with a mentally ill homeless person, or when the anxiety rises up in your chest as you're walking down into the subway,” he said. “You see it in the empty storefronts, the graffiti, the grime, the migrant influx to random violence, the city just feels threatening, out of control and in crisis.

I do not. He also sent a message that he will play nice with Trump:

The former governor also said he was willing to work with President Trump, pointing out he had done so during Trump’s first term, when he was governor, but also said he was willing to push back, both at the president and governor, as well.

The polling is mixed and instant runoff voting helps the concern that opposition will split the anti-Cuomo vote. I fear for the future, though. And, I'm so fucking tired, so fucking tired, of assholes.

I wish they would just go the fuck away. 

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* I would rather a Democrat hold the seat. 

I also didn't like multiple positions of the incumbent, including a scare tactic regarding a proposed center for former prisoners. And as a Republican, she has positions now that I oppose. 

Republicans have so few seats in the city council, however, that her being there is not too horrible.