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“We’ve cleaned, renovated, and beautified over 45 Monuments and Memorials, 28 Statues, and 22 Fountains in Washington, DC,” Trump wrote in a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform on Friday night. “However, we’ve had some real problems with Vandalism at the beautiful Reflecting Pool, which sits between The Washington Monument and The Lincoln Memorial.”

He noted that “86 47” was recently etched onto a vast patch of grass nearby – “86” is frequently used across the restaurant industry to mean “stop” or to get rid of something, while Trump is the 47th president of the US – and claimed some people had “also done everything possible to hurt the inside surface” of the pool painted as part of the recent renovation.

“No different than the chemicals that were used on the National Mall, they used something similar in the Reflecting Pool to try to destroy and demean our beautiful work,” Trump alleged, again without evidence.

Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor who ran against Trump and JD Vance as the running mate of Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “Found an imaginary problem, said only they could fix it, didn’t listen to experts, hired buddies who grifted millions, failed miserably, bragged how great it went. The entire Trump presidency in a nutshell.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/20/trump-reflecting-pool-renovation-vandalism

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Scientists discuss the algae. Interesting point:

Christova said last month's renovations may have affected the balance of nutrients in the pool, potentially accelerating the algae blooms. Goodale similarly views the resurfacing as one of several contributing factors.

"The new, darker interior surface is going to absorb more sunlight," Goodale says. "It is going to result in water that's warmer, and that ultimately is going to lead to more prolific algae growth."

https://www.npr.org/2026/06/19/nx-s1-5863044/dc-reflecting-pool-algae-green-trump

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Old friends.

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It's tomorrow (Friday), and I had it on my calendar to start a birthday thread. I saw that she mentioned in another thread that it's a milestone birthday (one divisible evenly by 10)!

Let's start the celebration early!!!

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The paint on Washington's newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Thursday was ‌peeling away from the bottom and into the algae-tinted water, less than two weeks after President Donald Trump announced the job's completion.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/paint-is-already-peeling-trumps-renovated-washington-reflecting-pool-2026-06-18/

“The advanced nanobubbler technology very effectively killed the algae that has plagued every Lincoln Reflecting Pool reopening—most infamously Obama's reopening—since 1922,” the Interior Department wrote on X. The Reflecting Pool water is crystal clear, and our National Park Service team is now vacuuming up the dead algae resting on the bottom of some parts of the Reflecting Pool.”

“Just like the destroyed Iranian Navy resting on the bottom of the Persian Gulf,” added the department led by former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

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Mr wtg has been going to day rehab three times a week since he got home in early April. PT, OT, and SLP, though the speech therapy was dropped after 20 visits.

He's made good progress on the PT/walking front, though he still requires someone to be close by and help him a bit when the right leg doesn't quite follow through. He's gone on a muscle relaxant to help with post-stroke spasticity; it's helped quite a bit. And he's going to be fitted with a custom brace to help with the foot drop.

Occupational therapy was kind of a bummer yesterday. The various therapy disciplines do an evaluation every 10th visit to see how things are progressing; that was yesterday. They indicated that his right arm isn't really responding to all the therapies that they were throwing at it. Mr wtg has been diligent about doing the exercises, mirror box therapy, and imagery, but there hasn't been much progress in the arm. While Mr wtg had kind of sensed that, it was hard to hear it from the "expert". And she didn't do a good job of talking about their assessment of his status; he was totally bummed.

But then, maybe an hour after we got home...

The doorbell rang and when I answered it, a nice looking man about our age said "I'm a classmate of Mr wtg. My name is Larry S". I had heard stories about the legendary Larry, so of course we invited him in to visit. He and Mr wtg hadn't been in touch since college.

The guy is a force of nature. He's married to Carole Coleman, who was a reporter for an Irish broadcaster called RTE.

https://magill.ie/archive/alleluia-carole

She's written three books, and Larry brought us her most recent one, which is a look back at the first three months of COVID. They moved to her home town in Ireland after Sandy Hook; they had two adopted daughters from Russia and decided they wanted to be elsewhere, so they moved .

The story gets better...

I had forgotten that Larry is an MD and I asked him what his specialty was. Lo and behold, he was an interventional neurologist who used to place stents in people's carotid and cerebral arteries. Talk about serendipity! He was much more encouraging about the possibility of Mr wtg's arm regaining function, and he encouraged him to keep at it. "I've seen miracles. Don't give up." He also told him that he was doing really well considering where in the brain the stroke was. "The 1%".

Such a happy day. And he stopped by again today and visited for a while longer. He's in town for his aunt's funeral. Apparently he has been back in the area many times and kept thinking about stopping by, but thought he might not be welcomed with open arms because of the long hiatus in communication. His wife finally said to him, "Just do it. It will be fine."

She was right.

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Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Is 40—Here’s the Story Behind the Real-Life Ferrari House

On the anniversary of the film, AD goes behind the movie magic that allowed a sports car to burst through the glass at an architecturally significant property

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/ferris-buellers-day-off-is-40-heres-the-story-behind-the-real-life-ferrari-house

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@AdagioM said:

Food people: here’s a recipe for avocado blueberry quinoa salad

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Dear Republic,

Maybe you liked Calvin and Hobbes as a kid but you probably have no idea of the scrupulous moral integrity that went into it, as Matthew Morgan demonstrates in this deeply-researched piece.

-ROL

https://therepublicofletters.substack.com/p/calvin-and-hobbes-and-the-price-of

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