My current News & Advance and Kitsap Sun column --S/f, EFP

 

My thought for today

The Trump administration is putting Abrego Garcia between the proverbial rock and a hard place. He can accept a plea deal, thereby admitting guilt and serving whatever prison term the court may impose--after which he would get deported to Cost Rica (assuming he would still be alive). Or he can accept immediate deportation to Uganda.

Now that Idi Amin Dada is gone, I know next to nothing about Uganda. But I suspect a man born in El Salvador would have a hard time getting along in Uganda.

Garcia is being offered a Hobson's choice--that is, no real choice at all. Such is our legal system under Trump. --S/f, EFP

My News & Advance column for 24 August 2025

 

My current News & Advance and Kitsap Sun column

 

My thought for today --S/f, EFP

Regarding Friday's meeting in Alaska: TACO Trump rides again! He doesn't just back down about tariffs. Remember how Trump said Russia would suffer severe sanctions if Putin won't agree to an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine? Putin didn't agree to that. Trump has not announced any new sanctions. I can't help but think Trump is afraid of Putin. --S/f, EFP

My current Kitsap Sun and News & Advance Coulmn —S/f, EFP

 Trump’s been tilting at windmills for years 

Ed Palm

Columnist

President Trump is tilting at windmills again. As you may have heard, upon arriving in Scotland on July 25, Trump renewed his attack on windmills. 'Stop the windmills,' Trump said. 'You’re ruining your countries. You fly over and you see these windmills, ruining your beautiful fields and valleys. Killing your birds and ruining your oceans.'

(Trump also railed against immigration. No surprise there.)

I suppose no one has told Trump that Scotland gets over half its electricity from wind. Trump, however, is a diehard fossil fuels fan.

Trump first swore eternal enmity to windmills 14 years ago. He noticed that North Sea windmills were visible from his first Scottish golf course. That he could not abide. He later made fun of wind power during his campaign rallies, evoking an imaginative scenario in which a couple couldn’t watch their favorite TV program because the wind wasn’t blowing. I presume Trump knows that’s not the way it works and so do most of his followers. But just the idea of clean energy seems to be anathema to Trump. He’s all for maximizing oil company profits. The environment be damned!

As you probably already know, to tilt at windmills is a metaphor. It signifies stubbornly committing oneself to achieving an unrealistic or impossible goal. What you may not know is the origin of the phrase. It’s an allusion to a 17th-century classic work of Spanish literature, the novel 'Don Quixote' by Miguel de Cervantes.

Tilting, of course, is a jousting term meaning to charge with a lance or other weapon.

The premise of the work is that the title character has steeped himself in romantic works of chivalry to the point of madness. He actually begins to imagine himself to be a knight errant — a knight who wanders around in search of damsels in distress and other chivalrous challenges. If there ever really were knights errant, Don Quixote steps into the role long after the age of chivalry had passed. Nevertheless, he acquires a horse, armor, and a lance and sets out to do what he imagines a knight errant must do. He also recruits a skeptical peasant named Sancho Panza to be his squire.

Don Quixote’s first great adventure is to tilt at — i.e., to charge — an actual windmill he believes to be a monstrous giant. Sancho Panza tries to warn him it’s only a windmill and not a giant, but he won’t listen. As you can imagine, Don Quixote gets much the worst of the encounter. Undeterred, he believes an enchanter turned the giant into a windmill.

To my mind at least, there is an obvious parallel here. Trump is tilting at windmills with his tariff policies. The trade imbalances he obsesses over were never a problem. As I reported before, the editor of 'The Week' magazine illustrated the essential absurdity of Trump’s tariffs. He routinely buys from Amazon, yet Amazon has never bought anything from him. Is Amazon ripping him off? ('Truth, Justice, and the American Way,' April 27, 2025)

Think about all you buy from your favorite grocery store. Has that store ever bought anything from you? If not, is that store ripping you off? Trump is trying to fix something that wasn’t broken, and he is antagonizing the world in the process. And like Don Quixote, we’re getting worst of it. Make no mistake about it: Exporters don’t pay tariffs. Importers do, and they ultimately become a tax passed on to us. Think we can just refrain from buying imported goods. Think again. Many of the raw materials and parts that go into our cars, electronics, and other goods have to be imported.

I must admit, however, that I’m not sure whom to cast in the role of Trump’s Sancho Panza. Marco Rubio comes to mind — mainly for his obsequious alliance with a man who once made fun of him. But the Sancho Panza of the novel at least tries to set Don Quixote straight. I rather doubt Rubio ever challenges Trump. Who in Trump’s cabinet might fill the role? I don’t know. But this much I’m sure about: Trump is not chivalric. Look up the word and note the qualities associated with it.

(I mean it now. I’m off on vacation, not to return to these pages until August 17.)

My current News & Advance column --S/f, EFP

 Just think of me as Palm the Pedant! --S/f, EFP

My current News & Advance and Kitsap Sun column --S/f, EFP

 

My thought for today

On Friday, in Texas, a reporter asked Trump, ""Families are upset because they say that warnings didn't go out in time, and they say that people could have been saved. What do you say to those families?"

Trump's response: "Only a bad person would ask a question like that. To be honest with you, I don't know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that. This has been heroism."

I beg to differ: The reporter is not a bad or evil person. The question was perfectly appropriate. I just wish the reporter had taken up for herself, insisting she is not evil and repeating the question. Reporters in general need to be more forceful and not let Trump bully them. To be sure, Trump would have an aggressive reporter removed from the room, but that would just make Trump look even worse. --S/f, EFP

My current News & Advance column

 

My current News & Advance column and Kitsap Sun

 

My thought for today

I just heard Trump say his “Big Beautiful Bill” is his gift to the nation on this July 4th. I wonder if we could somehow regift it. —S/f, EFP

My thought for today

SecDef Hegseth recently used the word "decimating" as a synonym for what he and Trump are touting as the "obliteration" of Iran's nuclear facilities. He may have been stating an unconscious truth. Someone should tell him that, strictly speaking, to "decimate" something is to reduce it by one tenth--which could be the actual extent to which we've reduced Iran's nuclear program. But, in all fairness, it's a common mistake. We've lost the original sense of the word. --S/f, EFP

My current News & Advance column --S/f, EFP

 

My thought for today

 My thought for today. Michael Paul Williams--writing for the Richmond Times Dispatch--points out that "woke" is an acrostic for Wisdom, optimism, kindness, empathy. Contrary to what Trump and Company think, we need more "woke." --S/f, EFP

My current Kitsap Sun and News & Advance columns

I'm plagued by an anxious feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop. How about you? --S/f, EFP

 

My current News & Advance column --S/f, EFP

I'm walking down Memory Lane this week. --S/f, EFP

 

My thought for today

 If ICE agents believe in, and are proud of what they are doing, why do they wear masks and otherwise conceal their identity? Secret police are unAmerican and evoke a disturbing historical parallel. —S/f, EFP

My thought for today

 I can't help but feel a Rubicon has been crossed with Trump's decision to deploy troops to Los Angeles. This is the same president who once suggested shooting protesters in the leg. Are we headed toward martial law? --S/f, EFP

My current News & Advance column

 Just think of me as Palm the Apostate. (This column also appears in the Kitsap Sun in Bremerton, Washington.) --S/f, EFP

My thought for today

 Who wishes people a "happy" Memorial Day? Donald Trump does. Think about that one. --S/f, EFP

My thought for today

 Just today, I saw some news footage of the utter destruction in Gaza--bombed out buildings and rubble as far as the eye could see--and I thought of something a Scottish warrior is reported to have said way back when about the Roman way of war: "They made a desert and called it peace." --S/f, EFP

My current News & Advance column

 The man asks for so little. Shouldn't we just let him have his big, beautiful wall? [Grin!]--S/f, EFP

P.S. The wall is likely to be covered with graffiti, and in a language Trump can't read--Spanish.

An ominous development

 You may have heard Trump successfully sued ABC News and host George Stephanopoulos for erroneously stating that Trump had been found “liable for rape.” (Honest mistake, if you ask me.) Now Trump is threatening to sue ABC News again for criticizing his acceptance of that $400 million jet from Qatar. And just last week, ABC, without explanation, did not run its longstanding Sunday morning news program “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” That’s an ominous development, don’t you think?

An unexpected guest

 This attractive young girl invited herself to lunch today. "Can we keep her?" I asked Andrea. But you know what she has always been like. --S/f, EFP (Scroll down to see all five images.) 

My current News & Advance column

 This column also appears in today's Kitsap Sun in Bremerton, Washington. --S/f, EFP

My thought for today

Palestinian lives matter! It needs to be said, and it is neither an anti-Semitic nor a pro-Hamas statement. --S/f, EFP

My current News & Advance column --S/f, EFP

 File this one under the heading "True Confessions" or "Guilty Pleasures." You decide. --S/f, EFP

My thought for today --S/f, EFP

 Trump recently said Saudi Arabia has a "beautiful culture." I wonder how many Saudi women would agree with that. More to the point, I wonder why Trump is enamored of their culture.

Saudi Arabia: 10 Reasons Why Women Flee | Human Rights Watch

My thought for today

Regarding the multi-million-dollar palatial airplane Qatar intends to give to Trump, he says it would be "stupid" not to accept it. If there really was an ancient Trojan War, and if Homer's Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid truly recount how that war ended, the leaders of Troy probably said it would be stupid not to accept a large wooden horse from the Greeks. I wonder if Trump and Company are familiar with this old saw: "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts." It might be wise to beware of Qataris bearing gifts.

My current News & Advance and Kitsap Sun columns

 

My thought for today

 So Donald Trump doesn't know if he is bound by the Constitution. He must not remember the following oath, which he took twice: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

My thought for today

 My thought for today: Did you happen to catch Trump's austerity pitch aimed at little girls--that they may have to settle for two dolls instead of 30 and that the dolls may cost a few dollars more? That reminds me somehow of Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake." --S/f, EFP

My current News & Advance column

 I'm sure this one will not be well-received in some quarters, but I have to call them like I see them. --S/f, EFP

My current News & Advance and Kitsap Sun column. --S/f, EFP

 

An afterword. In the words of the poet, "What oft [is being] thought, but ne’er so well expressed," regarding the plight of Kilmar Abrego Garcia: "This is about much more than immigration or deportation policy. This is about whether we live in a free country, where our rights are protected, or a police state, where none of us are safe." Said by John Favreau, host of CNN’s Pod Save America on April 16.

My current News & Advance column --S/f, EFP

 

My current News & Advance and Kitsap Sun column --S/f, EFP

 

My Current News & Advance column--S/f, EFP

 

My thought for today —S/f, EFP

 T. S. Eliot didn’t know the half of it. April is indeed the cruelest month, breeding divisive tariffs out of a deranged mind. —S/f, EFP

My current News & Advance and Kitsap Sun columns --S/f, EFP

 

        [I was able to add this afterword to the Kitsap Sun version of the column.}

An Afterword. Last week, on one of the Sunday morning talk shows, I heard Border Czar Tom Homan grilled about whether those recently sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador received any due process. He dismissed the concern by resorting to inflammatory whataboutism. “All those young women who were raped and murdered by TDA,” he asked, “where was their due process?” The thing is, two wrongs don’t make a right. Granted, a few undocumented immigrants have committed heinous crimes. But presuming all undocumented aliens to be capable of such crimes, and preemptively deporting them, does not balance the scales of justice.

            Also, on that same Sunday talk show, I heard Bernie Sanders remind viewers of the fly in Trump’s mass-deportation operation: “I’ve got news for you. Trump’s billionaire friends are not going to pick the crops in California or work in the meat-packing plants.”

            A friend said he would “pay good money to see that.” So would I.

My thought for today

 You may have heard that London's Heathrow Airport has no electricity. That means no air traffic control and no runway lights. So I suppose pilots wanting to take off from or land at Heathrow have to ask themselves, "Do I feel lucky?" --S/f, EFP

My current News & Advance column

 

My current Kitsap Sun and News & Advance column

 I'm returning to those not-so-thrilling days of yesteryear. Truth be told, I'm not held in such high esteem at the Naval Academy. I wonder why. It may have had something to do with the article I mention below as well as one I published in the Chronicle of Higher Education in 1996--"Putting the Naval Academy on Course," 27 May 1996. (I'm using the same topic this week for the News & Advance.) --S/f, EFP

P.S. My apologies for the typo in the 7th paragraph. It was a Freudian slip. I always thought the faculty at the Naval Academy is faulty. --S/f, EFP

Enough said! --S/f, EFP