David Siskind | Sunday, 25 May 2025
I’m in NY getting ready to leave for Wyoming. I’m going with my cousin’s husband, Hunter. We will stay at North Platte Lodge who’ll provide guide services for three days. There are some good hatches until run-off starts later in June and we’ll likely be fishing small nymphs fairly high in the water column according to Eric at Grey Reef Outfitters. We’ll be floating most of the time but will likely be getting in and out of the boat to fish “weird corners.” There are some stretches on the river owned privately where wading or even anchoring is prohibited, but recently another 8 miles of bank has been opened to public access on foot. We’ll fish a fourth day un-guided, wading either in Fremont Canyon, Miracle Mile, or whatever stretch of public water is fishing well - yet to be determined. This trip was Hunter’s idea. He’s been there before. I fished there one afternoon forty years ago, swinging a Hornberg through a riffle to no avail. I think I had a fever. Now I’m ready to be surprised and charmed.
In the meantime, while I happily fish, the world does it’s thing. Israel appears to be escalating attacks on civilians in Gaza, the US is disengaging from crafting peace in Ukraine, and the House has just passed the Big Beautiful Budget. This is, apparently, the largest transfer ever of wealth from poor to rich; also I’m looking forward to my ride on that beautiful luxury jet Qatar just gave to the American people.
Deportations of brown and black migrants and citizen children are proceeding apace and the regime and the courts are locking horns over due process. We’re opening up the country to white South African farmers. Maybe they’ll be available to replace the deported agricultural workers, however, most look a little too old and fat. We’ll see. And then there’s Harvard.
I’m a Columbia grad and have watched this declining institution fold shamefully in the face of pressure from the regime. The campus is closed to the public for the first time in my memory and what was a joyous, busy public space, is now not. The leaving seniors booed the university president at the graduation ceremony last week. We always basked in the contrast between our gritty Big Apple vibe and the effete entitled attitudes we imagined were taught at Harvard but now we have to hand it to the Crimson. Their backs are up. Good on them. Trump’s war on Harvard seems odd given the role this university plays supplying the leadership elite for both business and government. No one is backing down - it’s like a prison yard. If you back down you’re a pussy. Standby.
David Siskind