R(obert). J. Nello
@rjnello
“Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair.” ~ Jane Austen, 1814. #5amWritersClub #writingcommunity rjnello.com Devon, England (NYC born).
Looking at Argentina’s team here, it is sad, really. None of these guys were alive in 1982. Yet remove the idiot smiles and they look just like any group of the freezing, barely-fed, conscripts the junta sent off to “fight” and who weeks later surrendered en masse in the Falklands to the British:
Saw a cartoon of Trump’s final resting place and a dog relieving himself on the grave. Won’t happen. Trump will certainly be interred on private property. In comparison, Martin van Buren, and Hannah, are in Kinderhook, NY’s cemetery. Anyone may visit. I have been alone with the 8th US president.
It is not an “arts institution.” It is a MEMORIAL to a MURDERED president. Felon Trump tried to grave-rob. Between this and the “mainstream” religious scholars saying women should lose the vote (Name one? The Pope? The - woman - Archbishop of Canterbury?), and more below, have you lost your minds?
Throwback to La-Roche-en-Ardenne, Belgium in September 2025. The city was virtually destroyed during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944-45. Belgium is a great place (and Trump is a felonious meatball who should be impeached/removed from office for numerous “misdemeanors” as well as “high Crimes”):
1/2 From not only Lafayette, Rochambeau, and over half of the force at Yorktown, to von Steuben, de Kalb, Kosciusko, Juan de Miralles, the non-13-Colonies-born Hamilton and Richard Montgomery, and others, Washington surrounded his “desk” with “foreigners”… because they *knew* their damn business.
Most working Americans ages 21-65 have never had the holiday time to travel abroad, so have never needed passports. That long-time reality is now truly dangerous. For one, it allows space for the Trump regime to lie about NATO allies those Americans never visit in person: rjnello.com/2024/02/21/t...
In a flagrant violation of Art 1 of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, Donald J Trump, on “Meet the Press,” May 4, 2025, refused to eliminate force from his “options” as a way to seize Denmark’s Greenland. That war threat was a “high Crime.” He should have been impeached and removed from office.
“Exclusive” is also more confirmation what we have with Trump is clown-show fascism. Who does “Dear Leader” propaganda by *pay* TV? The point is the masses should not be able escape it, yet most people don’t have Paramount Plus. Let’s be grateful Trump is, above all else, a dim money-grubber.
#FlagDay A 33-star US flag flying over Fort Clinch, Florida, in 2022. This was the national flag from July 1859 until July 1861.
A Normandy visit is an emotional one for an American. I’ve been twice. You see US flags all over the place. Locals revere the memories of the Americans, and the other Allies, who were killed liberating France and defeating Nazism. A Fox-idiot-fascist meatball like Hegseth infuriates them.
#WritingCommunity "Most writers" don't "miss it." "I" works for, say, a cop story. (“I saw the body, and Mademoiselle was standing over it.") “I” won’t work for broader tales because it forces every event and other character to be only what “I” see/hear. Try writing “War and Peace" in 1st person:
I do NOT want to “Ask AI” freakin’ anything. Where did this “prompt” come from? I see no way to remove it; it hovers. How do I turn it off? I do NOT want this ever-present “AI” slop prompt on my draft screen. I PAY for this site. “Trash” indeed is where I’d like to put it. @wordpress.com
Edward R. Murrow, CBS Radio broadcast, from a liberated concentration camp, Germany, April 1945: “It will not be pleasant listening. If you are at lunch, or if you have no appetite to hear what Germans have done, now is a good time to switch off the radio, for I propose to tell you of Buchenwald.”
Far-right French girlfriend of anti-immigrant far-right English politician tries to insult English women. But it is not easy to insult the English…
Trump hero, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, would be utterly appalled at this misuse of the White House:
Two 2017 photos. One is the grave of a Union NY soldier killed in 1864 fighting Robert E. Lee’s Confederates. His and two others visible are just outside Lee’s confiscated home, seen in the other pic. These graves were among the earliest in what is now Arlington National Cemetery. #MemorialDay
This #Thucydides is first "adult" book I recall trying to read. I was 9. A 1962 edition, it was Dad's. l found it on a bookshelf. I was - like a little kid might be - fascinated by its cover. Dad gave it to me eventually. Notice the list price: 90c. (I did read it years later in the full version.)
Dartmouth, Devon is flat right at the river, but going inland becomes a STEEP hill. You don’t need a gym membership, only to walk that hill daily. Curious, though, I asked Google for the easiest *walk* from the river to the supermarket at the top. “AI” answer: “The bus” is the easiest “walk”.🚌😂
I see from the BBC homepage this lunchtime that we are now firmly in the “Nigel Farage says…” [and we are just his stenographers] stage of British “journalism”:
It is comforting to consider them largely an "import," but let’s not delude ourselves. The US did not need Putin/Orban to have "hard right" politics; they have existed since 1776, with their most well-known “uprising” having been "the Confederacy.” Trump and this GOP is just the current version.
#WritingCommunity #5amWritersClub We’ve had so much ugliness from the Supreme Court lately. Here’s a moment of historical court levity: Chief Justice John Marshall in 1826 writing to Justice Joseph Story, playfully scolding Story for omitting #JaneAusten from Story’s list of favorite women writers:
This has been plain since at least January 6, 2021, and Trump has also long voiced his “Robert E. Lee fetish.” Modern party labels now mean nothing. It is not “Blue” [state] or “Red” [state], but best described as “Union” [Blue] or “Confederate” (Trump/MAGA) [Gray]. I know which I am:
The Collins Dictionary notes use of “ballroom,” coined c.1730, increased in the 2010s. It does not suggest why. When 2018-26 is studied, its use likely will jump lots more due to Trump’s use of the word, his flunkies online parroting him, and them therefore getting the rest of us also saying it:
Three October 2023 pics I took at the Runnymede site where the Magna Carta was agreed in 1215:
When I see the word(s) “grift/grifter” I think of “Joe Brody” in “The Big Sleep” - nickel and dime stuff. Trump’s corruption is on such a scale we don’t really have an accurate word for it yet. Time to coin one: “Trumpery.” (Ex.,“Restitution needs to be made for the trumpery.”) #writingcommunity