The first snowfall of winter – A trail in Fairfax – Trump without legal counsel – Coup in Myanmar – Evening statistics
The first real snowfall in two years in the DC metro area was of course played up by the media, with ominous hints of its having the potential of becoming a crippling blizzard. How much total accumulation we’ll eventually get is unclear but it appears that the amount of snow will not be at all extraordinary. I shoveled the sidewalk and driveway in the late morning. It was not very cold today and much of the snow that fell afterwards melted fairly quickly. The snow will continue through the night and most of the day tomorrow, but the prediction for tomorrow is for “light snow” only. In all probability we will be getting a fair amount of ice by tomorrow from the amount of melted snow freezing overnight.
I had intended to remain indoors except for the purposes of shoveling the sidewalk and driveway, but an Email from a friend prodded me into going out by challenging me to hike if I could by “walking to the trailhead.” As it happens, there is a trailhead just about a mile from my house: the Daniel Run Trail. So I went out to that and took photos to prove that I was indeed on a trail that day. It is not, to be sure, a very challenging trail. It is practically flat and it never strays very far from the suburban streets; but it still is a trail and it does goes through woodland. Indeed, the trail has warning signs posted for users to be on the alert against coyotes, which have occasionally been seen in the neighborhood. The snow was falling very sporadically, with perhaps an inch on the ground during the late afternoon.
At this point the five lawyers originally engaged to handle Trump’s defense for the upcoming impeachment trial have all quitted the case, allegedly because Trump is not being cooperative with their strategy for defending him. So we are in the situation of having a trial looming ahead in which Trump, as the defendant, will have no legal counsel to aid him but whose judges, or at any rate a significant portion thereof, seem determined in advance to acquit him. Well, in all probability the impeachment trial will be a fruitless gesture, but it still seems worthwhile to go through with it. It will divert his energies, it will cost him money, and it may even shake the faith of some of his less ardent supporters if the charges of sedition and treason are repeated often enough.
The Tatmadaw, the military of Myanmar, has just completed a coup in which State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi has been placed under house arrest. Suu Kyi became the country’s leader after leading a decades-long nonviolent struggle against military rule. Her party captured 396 out of 476 seats in the combined lower and upper houses of Parliament in the November polls. But the military holds 25% of the total seats under the 2008 military-drafted constitution and several key ministerial positions are reserved for military appointees. The Myanmar lawmakers are supposed to convene tomorrow in Naypyitaw, the capital, but it is now unclear whether they will be allowed to do so. The justification that the military used to overturn Suu Kyi’s administration is “massive election fraud.” Why does this sound vaguely familiar?
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 103,507,287; # of deaths worldwide: 2,236,975; # of cases U.S.: 26,767,229; # of deaths; U.S.: 452,225. Our infection rate is now over 8% of the population.