Dilemma With Donuts

Most certainly a first world problem, I have a dilemma with donuts. 

As I’ve observed some of the patterns in my life, I’ve noticed that nearly every time I have a doughnut for breakfast my total calorie intake for the day ends up much higher (not just because of that donut). There is probably a simple explanation. 

Eating sugar makes me want to eat more sugar. Invariably, if I start things off with a donut, by the middle of the day – and then again in the evening – I am craving something sweet (again). If I can catch it, by recognizing it, I can redirect myself and end up just eating something else. However, even then, the eating-something-else strategy is still staring at me toward the end of the day. For whatever reason, it seems, my willpower to resist by the end of the day is rather low.

In simple tactical terms, it seems like the best thing I can do to try to head things off…is simply not eating a doughnut at the beginning of the day.

Here’s the thing, while wanting to avoid some of the more obvious consequences (weight gain, rising cholesterol, etc.) are sometimes yet effective, denial is a short-term tactic at best. Because on any subsequent day, I’m faced with the dilemma all over again.

So, this got me thinking — when do I address the situation in a completely different way? The day to day challenge is both tedious and wearisome. It feels like a waste of energy. And since, as I age, energy is moving up the scale for my attention, I’ve begun to consider what all else may be going on that I can work with more effectively.

I’ve been in several conversations over the years, and again lately, about the role of desire in our lives. What is it that we want? This almost inevitably leads to the next version of the question; which is, what is it that we really want? To be sure, there is a collective version of these questions. And, there is a highly personalized version, too — what do I really want?

We seem to be hardwired to want things. Many things influence what that is. Our DNA seems to set the default and then what we experience, especially in the earlier years of our lives, adds its weight to the shape of the things we want.

At this point in my life, I’ve noticed that overall health is higher on my list of things I want than it used to be. The earlier version of it was that I wanted to feel good. At that stage, wanting to feel good was often confined to things like food that tasted good. After a few too many experiences, where eating too much food that tasted good, I discovered that I often ended up not feeling good. So, then, I had to balance something out. The desire to feel good, but also to not feel bad.

After a few years of discovering this dynamic, I moved towards wanting to actually feel good, as opposed to simply enjoying things like what tasted good. And, so, it was somewhere along this point of the journey that I realized I needed to incorporate physical activity into my life intentionally because doing so made me feel good.

Fast forward a few more iterations, I got closer to the reality that while feeling good overall was important, there are other dimensions to being healthy that needed to be considered. So, now, I will actually eat things that, in my opinion, don’t taste particularly good simply because they are good for me — they contribute to my health.

I work out nearly every day now; mostly because I know it is good for me (not because I always feel like doing it). And, even as I work out, I vary things day to day because I know it is good for me to do it that way.

I do these things because of what I want. In other words, I want more than the quick savory hit I get from donuts. I still want them (and I still eat them). But, I want to be healthy even more. So, whatever combination of these things that I want works its way through what I do, I am subconsciously balancing multiple things that I want. In laymans terms, I want a doughnut. In theoretical terms, I want to be healthy. Somewhere in the middle, they meet.

So, at least for now, this is my working conclusion, I have faced a dilemma with donuts (OK, and ice cream…). But, the nature of that dilemma is shifting, even to the point where dilemma is a bit of an overstatement.

Always Do Right

Always do right.  This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.

-- Mark Twain

Point Out The Good

Point out the good when you see it. In life, in others, in yourself.

-- Topher Kearby

HISTORY: Labor Day

Each culture has a telling relationship with work.  Ours is no exception.  If nothing else, we need to know how ours has been shaped in order to effectively relate to it going forward. 

Another history: this time from a prior post about Labor Day.

Some things seem as necessary as ever. 

Truth & Freedom

Do we really believe the truth will set us free?

Like, all truth? 

Or, only the truth that (we think) benefits us?

I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for the truth; and truth rewarded me.

-- Simone de Beauvoir

The Long Way Back to Christianity

4 Observations (from Others)

What goes too long unchanged destroys itself.

-- Ursula K. Le Guin

 

Is it possible you could live your whole life and die without ever having met the person that lived your life? 

-- Thomas Merton

There is no one formula for any of us at any point in our lives. Keep being open to adapting, learning, and listening to yourself.

-- Jason Brown 

 

Be the reason someone believes in goodness again.

-- Chris Bharnes

Prior 4 Observations (from Others).

I Study Successful People. They Have One Habit in Common.

 

I was once stranded with my 86-year-old mother in the Atlantic Ocean. We were on a snorkeling excursion off the coast of Miami, and the two of us were quickly swept behind our boat, my mother overtaken by the current. In her panic, she’d inhaled water into both lungs and lost consciousness. Attempting to tug her to safety, I thrashed and kicked with all my might, but the ocean swallowed my efforts whole. Lungs burning, legs heavy, I changed tactics. I used one hand to keep her head above water and waved the other wildly in the air, shouting for help as I did. 

Ultimately, what saved my mother’s life that day, and mine, too, was not fighting the current on my own. It was calling for help. Continue...here. 

-- Angela Duckworth

Real Peace

Where I live, if you were just walking around most times of the day, you would hardly ever have the feeling that anything was in jeopardy. It seems just about as peaceful as things can get. So much so, in fact, it’s a bit counter-intuitive to contemplate the notion that things are more precarious than they appear.

For one thing, in society at large, it is fairly well documented that people are riddled with all kinds of anxiety. And among these kinds of anxiety are not just the imagined fears that people can tend to have. In too many cases, they are literal and real for many people. And, we know it isn't just them. It is you and me, too. Mostly, this implies a reality that goes on behind the scenes, in hidden places. And, it seems, it is often in places where such realities cannot be contained as easily that you see it manifest itself. 

People, in general, are a fearful bunch of creatures. This is not news. But, in our society, there is a strange relationship between everything that looks fine and well, and all that really isn’t.

Social media is a prime repository demonstrating this contrast. Fraught with fabrications, it also reflects many common realities. Books extensively articulate the simmering nature of the anxiousness of our generation. And, to be sure, this is not confined to just our generation. If we’re honest, there have been existential threats all along the way (look at all the TV shows we love to watch...about such things in other times). If anything is substantively different in our times, it may be the proliferation of information regarding our realities (and which invariably contribute to them). 

As a group, we human-beings often try to build systems of protection that allay these types of concerns. Civically, this is most obvious in the forms of government we create (police, fire, regulations, voting protections, military, etc.). So, accentuating our vulnerability is the breakdown of trust in the ability of such institutions to protect us. On any given day, numerous headlines underscore these breakdowns, as they reveal the trust or the places or things that we have entrusted the protections we seek to. Now, as much as ever, we see significant (if not horrifying) gaps in the human leaders we have put in place to administrate them:

Here are the military and civilian leaders who've been fired, forced out or resigned since Hegseth became defense secretary / Hegseth Must Go

Why Foodborne Illness Is Surging / Revealed: inside the US military's plan to tap huge sums from the NIH

Trump Administration Begins Blitz to Find Elusive Voter Fraud Ahead of Midterms / Election analyst Charlie Cook told Republicans today to “brace themselves” for the midterms

In the protections we seek, there is a fine line, of course, between trusting and abdicating. And, it has become painfully obvious that the sweeping characterization that we have abdicated our trust to failing leadership is true.

The opportunity we are awkwardly (to put it mildly — many would say, existentially...) presented with is to identify both what it is that we need protection from and the institutions we have come to believe are necessary to do so.

Fear often operates at undetected levels. There are, of course, manifest exceptions — like the palpable things we probably fear. But, it’s the underlying things that we ruminate over that indicate that the problem is much more pervasive.

Remedies are complex, to be sure. But, in other ways, they are also alarmingly simple. For one thing, we just have to be more honest. The system of electing people to “take care of things“ for us has become far to convenient (abdication) and burned by the influence of money for us to continue the same approach. 

Further, we need to get back involved in our shared, high endeavor of pursuing the common good. It is no longer sustainable (never really was either) to operate exclusively from a “what's good for me“ mentality.

We are tipping over at so many different levels. We have to re-engage, dispose of the buzzword-enemy-labeling strategies, and do the hard work of putting each of our shoulders to the wheel of actually working together at making things good and addressing the things that compromise doing so

...to have real peace.

Wendell Berry, 1934-2026

I'm not sure how many other men would rank above Wendell Berry as influencing my adult perspective on valuable things in life.  I've linked several observations from him that I've collected over the years...here.

Get Moving Again

After we terrorize ourselves with self-doubt, our only relief is to get moving again.

-- Twyla Tharp

What You Take In

Ever noticed...that what you take in influences how you see things…including what you even see?

Silence

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. 

-- Mother Teresa

What we need most in order to make progress is to be silent before this great God.

-- St. John of the Cross

3 Observations & A Question

Sleep may be among your better friends.

 

Justice is not a one-way street — if it is…it isn’t justice.

People of faith are often viewed as naïve, while people with faith are not.

Who are you going to reach out to this week?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

How People's Lives Are Changed, Con't

Another lingering reflection, on a recent I'm Wondering...:

I'm wondering...about how people's lives are changed.

The thing is, in spite of what we'd like to think, we don’t really know how to change someone else’s life (maybe that's a good thing; after all, we're not God...). This is probably true because we mostly don’t understand very much about how lives are really changed in the first place. This is complicated a bit further because we often too quickly assume that what changed something significant in our own life would (or should!) do the same for someone else. 

But, understanding the real dynamics of how such things work is critical.

My observation is that, more often than not, it isn’t information itself that changes someone. The context of the need and the particular moment that coincides with something meaningful generates the spark of change. In other words, it is highly contextualized and experiential. Information is involved, but often somewhat serendipitously (or, if one believes such things — which I do — providentially). It was already there, in most cases. But, when the context or the need changes, experience of that information can be completely different.

And, this, is rarely orchestratable by someone else. Sure, sometimes it is. For example, people will often say an experience like military service really changed them. That can be orchestrated. There are other situations where circumstantial change is 'forced'. But, more often the kind of change that really happens internally is when someone is ready to change — they need to because they want to.

Practically speaking, I'm thinking these are often among the catalysts for real change:

• INSPIRATION — exposure to something highly captivating to one's sense of being or purpose
• REVELATION — something is revealed that is different from prior working assumptions
• PAIN — it's too painful not to make a change 

What would you add? 

More Than We Think We Can

At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.

-- Frida Kahlo

We Sat AOC Down With Republican Voters.

If you make the system your god, you'll soon be telling lies in order to remain consistent.

-- Elisabeth Elliot

Trump 2.0 has deleted or altered nearly 400 US datasets, endangering public health, education and more 

Ultimately, we either believe in the value of truth...or we don't (click image):

 
Truth Matters

...even when it hurts, in the end, the truth is the only thing that will keep us free.  When lying becomes normalized (which it feels like it has), we're in worse trouble than we know.

...especially when it leads to dehumanization (also now becoming normalized):

 

ICE Arrests Soar as People With No Criminal Record Are Increasingly Targeted

Besides the fact that basic human decency is a value of mine, I have to admit that some of what is driving these things for me is fear:

When Donald Trump’s cruelty hits home

You or Someone You Love Could Be Next

What will it take for Republican shame to emerge?

How is this possible? It's hard not to notice the love of money: 

...I think we all know the answer — not until it impacts them directly (like data centers):

It's not like any of this is a surprise either: 

They All Knew Who He Was

The Less I Call It Work

The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.

-- Richard Bach

What Changes Someone's Life

I'm wondering...about how people's lives are changed.

I Don't Really Like To Paint

I don't really like to paint.

Actually...that's not completely true.  

A friend recently asked me to help with a (very) small painting project.  I was glad to try and help, in part because of all the prep-work he had already done.

I had been putting off painting our bathroom for some time. His request nudged me to just get it done already.  

I don't really like the prep-work often involved in painting.  It’s all the time it takes to remove all the things you need to (Can you believe that towel-bar doesn't use a standard screwdriver? C’mon! Where are my allen-wrenches anyway?  I always put it in the same spot! ...except for the last time, apparently).  And, invariably it seems, there is always something you discover in doing so that needs to addressed before...you can actually start the painting.  “Dang it, I’m spending more time doing this than actually painting…”, I mutter to myself.

Painting itself isn't too bad and is kind of rewarding for the pleasure of it when finished.  Almost everyone likes the crisp cleanness of a fresh coat of paint (isn't that what gives you that brief pause, before quickly putting all the pictures back up?).

We like to renew things.  Or, at least, we like things when they are renewed (perhaps it's just sometimes, that we like to be the ones doing it).  But, I'm going with the first notion here; there is something about making things new.  We get a double-satisfaction from it, if we're willing to notice.  It not only looks better (most of the time), but we seem to get something from the effort itself.  The combo seems to fit something innate within us, to work at making things better.

Using things is good (especially as opposed to not using them). Wear-and-tear because of that use happens and is noticeable.  We like a bit of that look, too.  And when things get worn-down too much, it is good to restore them...to return them to a good and usable state and to include beauty as part of the process.  It all speaks to something within us, something that seems good.

So, it sounds like I do like to paint....

3 Observations & A Question

Much of life requires at least a modicum of effort. 

 

As opposed to testosterone, real strength might be best represented by patience.

 

As we age, the more we can't deny the vulnerabilities we feel.

 

Isn't it really not so much a question of whether the green-eyed monster lives in all of us, as it is what we feed it?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

Bitterness, A Lasso Hero, and Earth’s Night Lights

How do I guard against being a bitter and mean old lady?

One example (of 'more love than shit' — see link above):

And this is, if nothing else, just interesting:

How Earth’s night lights became our most honest economist

Leaps and Bounds

The body grows slowly and steadily, but the soul grows by leaps and bounds.

-- Lucy Maud Montgomery

Another, Seriously — This Is Our President?

Another, Seriously — This is our President?:

 

U.S. Debt Hits $40 Trillion as America’s Borrowing Binge Continue

From God Witnesses Injustice:

They sold the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of shoes. They pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the humble.

-- Amos 2:6–7

Your princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves; everyone loves bribes, and follows after rewards.

-- Isaiah 1:23

Hear, I beg of you, O heads of Jacob …. Is it not for you to know justice? You who hate the good and love the evil.

-- Micah 3:1

Scott MacFarlane Reports

So, apparently, it's a matter of priorities.  Or is that itself a profound under-representation?

“He is spending a huge amount of energy, mental and otherwise, on these renovation projects, beautification projects around Washington, and then monuments to self."

In other words, he's not just selling the poor, he continues to fleece all of us...not for America's greatness nearly as much as for the perception of his own.

Trump 2.0 has deleted or altered nearly 400 US datasets, endangering public health, education and more

As long as we're invoking 'righteous' indignation, sometimes a single sentence tells you more about the character of a person than a whole book could:

"Not Nearly Long Enough":

Meanwhile, in the presence of a child: 

Trump’s latest absurd attack on a female reporter 

Not Without Effort

You can get the answer without effort, but you can't get the understanding.

-- Shane Parrish

So Why Bother

I’ve noticed…"nothing is going to change, so why bother" is not an uncommon thought (sometimes even within myself).

Such thinking is a form of cynicism, which not only questions what matters, but leans towards the conclusion that nothing does.

But, it can also lead to a core under-pinning question like, does what matters only matter if it works? Or, do things matter even if they don't appear to be working, at any given moment? 

Discover, Rather Than Save

My sense, after being a priest for over fifty years, is that we would have done much better to help Christians discover their souls instead of “save” them.

-- Richard Rohr

For example, what if we knew more about the judgment we carry within us?

3 Observations & A Question

Focus on what you are, not on what you’re not.

Many times our circumstances just set in motion what was already there. 

You have to decide what kind of life you want to live…and, then, what you are going to do about it.

 

We can tell the difference between those who can repeat the theory and those who actually believe it, right?

 

Prior 3 Observations & A Question…

National Park Service, Vaccines, ICE Shock-Gloves, etc.

So, NOT privately funded after all (surprising NO ONE) — the real priorities are obvious:

  
Scott MacFarlane Reports

Scott MacFarlane Reports

Oh, and just when you thought…:

ICE plans to give officers gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks

HISTORY: Social Security Act

Another history:  The Social Security Act is so embedded in the core expectation of the government by the American people.  But, how many even know how it started, not to mention why it continues?

Trying Not To Fall

Sometimes you can try so hard not to fall...that you actually end up falling. 

In other words, sometimes trying to keep something from happening actually makes it happen. 

I’m 63 years old now, and I’ve noticed that my awareness of the possibility of falling has been increasing of late. Maybe this is normal. But, even if it isn’t, it struck me the other day after attempting to ride my grandson’s skateboard, at his behest (who, by the way, uses the word behest?), that my sense of balance was in play and that I probably needed to consider who’s favor that balance was most likely to serve. So, while I still wanted to do it, I knew I should really think about some possibilities (ok, likelihoods).

I suspect that while this one was fairly happenstance, it was being informed by a recent hike in Hawaii that involved some rather treacherous terrain. Certain spots specifically seemed to prompt me internally to go slow and be careful. A couple, in fact, were much closer to something like 'I’m not sure I can do this'.

I was aware, at the time, that other hikers seem to breeze through some of these spots (not pausing to shuffle-slide their way through them). I’ve noticed in other similar situations that sometimes the very pace of your movement seems to help with any precariousness that seems to be involved. Moving quickly, without waiting to test every possibility first, can be a preferred approach. But, here I was staring it down, inching my way forward…poised to turn back at any moment.

I was also becoming more keenly aware that the prospect of weighing out moving forward or not, was wearing me out. I wasn’t even enjoying the hike anymore (for all the reasons that a good hike typically supplies). If nothing else, the effort was starting to feel like a significant waste of energy.

As I reflect on these two situations now, I wonder how true that is in a number of domains of life, not just the physical ones. Besides, most of the time, learning to respect your limitations is not an unwise posture overall.

But, trying not to fall in life seems to (though still logical) create an unintended endgame. It tends to lead to a general stance of risk-avoidance and mitigates both the option to consider alternative approaches and opportunities to experience things you otherwise never would…when simply trying not to fall becomes your goal.

When we were younger, we didn’t seem to anticipate falling as much as we do after a lifetime of experience. We just fall, skin our knee a few times, and then get back up and keep going. I'm guessing that some of this disposition could continue to serve us well. 

Perhaps a happy medium is a little bit of both — acknowledge our limitations and take a few risks now and then.

Either way, simply trying not to fall is not a particularly complete strategy for living our lives.

Make Your Life Meaningful

You make your life meaningful by applying meaning to it.

-- Sheila Heti

Success

One problem with success is what you end up believing about why it’s sustainable.

In Retrospect

Ever noticed...that we often don’t comprehend much of what is happening to us, until in retrospect?

To Be Our Teachers

God didn't give us neighbors to be our projects; He surrounded us with them to be our teachers.  Love you neighbor.

HISTORY: first president in U.S. history to resign

Another history:  today was the first time a President of the United States resigned from office.

Déjà Vu?   

Probably not.  The difference between then and now?  Apparently, the public's tolerance....

I Should Have Seen This Coming, by David Brooks.

3 Observations & A Question

You love what you care for (yes, sometimes in that order). 

 

How you set up the game determines a lot about how it is played. 

 

It seems easier right now to say what you’re not, than to say what you are…but, that leads to problems, too.

 

Can you imagine what it would be like to… (how would you fill in the blank)? 

 

Prior 3 Observations & A Question…

[the river]

 
The Crucial Years

 
'Poem for the week' -- "[the river]":

the river                   the blood
the branches           the trees

the blood                the duck
the oil                     the goose
the sea             the greed

the brief
the break
the decree
the one who held the key

           grief broke the tree
           so the oppressor could
           never break the free

-- Marwa Helal

You Can Pretty Much Assume

GALLUP - Front Page

You can pretty much assume right now that if someone is saying the other guys are doing it, it's to cover the fact that, actually, they're the ones doing it.  

It seems distraction works better than ever:

Looking the Other Way: How Wall Street Banks Enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex Trafficking

Until it doesn't:

We are watching Donald Trump implode

The price of the incompetence involved in so many domains, that the American people now see, has only begun to be paid:

The U.S. has used “virtually all” of its highly accurate long-range missiles

Unfortunately, at least to some extent, such things seem to always be (in the past, now, and likely again in the future).  It comes from a deeply flawed understanding of the true nature of our existence.  And, it is fed by the unavoidable consequences of living out of that misunderstanding.

An alternative has always been an option (and it continues to be one):

With Hands Behind Your Back from A.J. Swoboda describes some of it and many along the way have ended up taking it.  It obviously is a better one than the lead referenced above and it is, in fact, much closer to something both real and good.

And, many times, just how we look at things makes all the difference:

Feed My Sheep 

Formidable Mixture

Courage and grace is a formidable mixture.

-- Marlene Dietrich

LT: So Goes The Leader

So goes the leader, so goes the culture.

So goes the culture, so goes the company.

-- Simon Sinek

Laziest

I'm wondering...if we’re the laziest when it comes to what we give our attention.

Whatever Way

Barbara Brown Taylor looks back on a time when she was discerning God’s will for her life. After a time of lamentation and prayer, she recalls: 

The answer I got was the deep conviction that I was loved, and what I was called to do was to love back in whatever way allowed me to love the best and most.... The specifics did not seem to matter to God…. 

That sort of answer does not sit well with most of us…. We want a definitive word. We want specific instructions and clear guidelines…. The vehicle most of us use in this search is the Bible. I have been surprised by how many people have come to ask me what the Bible says about this romantic predicament or that job offer…. Some of them want to know if they should let the Bible fall open at will or close their eyes and point to a passage for the answer to their questions…. 

The motives of these people are entirely honorable. They are seeking the will of God for their lives, but what surprises me is their willingness to put the answers they find in the Bible on a pedestal above the answers they find in their own minds and hearts, in the counsel of their friends, and in the world around them. 

Brown Taylor insists that the Bible is not an oracle or a “how to” book, but a collection of stories that model God’s love in people’s lives: 

In addition to lots of laws, a few genealogies and some sound advice, what the Bible contains are many biographies. Abraham and Sarah, ... Hosea and Habakkuk, John the Baptist, Mary and Joseph, Peter and Mary Magdalene.... It contains the stories of all their relationships with God and the particular things God had to say to each of them, how [God] loved each of them. 

 

What all those stories tell us is that God’s word, God’s will for their lives, did not come to them in a printed manual, with specific answers to be found on page 536…. God’s will for them, which was [God’s] love for them, came in the form of a living relationship that they were free to embrace or flee.... 

Reading about their relationships cannot be a substitute for seeking our own. We are called to live out our own stories, to search for the unique shape our own lives will take in communion with God, and find [God’s] particular word to us.

-- Barbara Brown Taylor

Supreme Court

 
AXIOS

Saturday Morning Rain

Sometimes, there is just nothing better on a Saturday morning than sitting on the porch watching it rain.

4 Observations (from Others)

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

--  Aristotle

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.

-- Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder

 

Nature is one of the only places where you don’t have to perform. When you’re outside, your brain isn’t being asked to respond to emails, alerts or decisions. It can simply be present. 

-- Susan Albers, How Nature Can Improve Your Mental Health

 

Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God.

--  George Washington Carver

 

Prior 4 Observations (from Others).

Why Most People Stay Stuck — Because They Ignore These Two Simple Words

Most people believe their lives are difficult because they lack something.

More money.

More opportunities.

More recognition.

More confidence.

More time.

They spend years chasing external solutions to internal problems — believing that when their circumstances finally change, they will finally feel at peace.

But what if the opposite is true?

What if the reason you feel trapped is not because your life is missing something…

…but because you are holding onto something you were never meant to control?  

Continue...here.

-- ThePsychologyReset

Your suffering is often created not by what happens to you, but by your judgment of what happens to you.

-- Marcus Aurelius

Another, Seriously — This Is Our President?

Another, Seriously — This is our President?:

Trump Asks Supreme Court to Allow Order Restricting Mail Voting

Because if they don’t (allow it):

In one year, the country will be absolutely bankrupt. You’ll live in squalor. 

-- Donald Trump, this week at a General Motors facility in Michigan

The Atlantic

Letters from an American 

And, then, this one isn't even…adolescent (again, the activity of the President of the most powerful country in the free world?): 

The President of the United States has lost his mind 

The activity of the highest office in the land should represent the highest ideals of our country, rather than the personal insecurities and political whims of its inhabitant.  Besides the kind of 'work' that appears to be going on in the middle of the night, the real effort is having to be fought during daylight hours:

Presidential 1776 Award competition and Saving America’s Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage 

And, regarding the latest of Trumped-up charges: 

Charges Dropped in Reflecting Pool Case as Prosecutors Say Work Was ‘Botched’