ARE THERE TWO STANDARDS

          It seems everyone is asking for apologies. It is almost ludicrous, particularly when the comment is a true one which the person does not like. 
Trump senior does not like being called to task or his policies being questioned and yet, there he is, puffing and huffing away in his hurry to destroy the country, if not the world. So today he has inflicted upon us a huge trade war. What, are we back to the time of blockades, if not ships then ridiculous prices? What will our farmers do with their surplus wheat or cranberries or soybeans and how will our manufacturers get the pieces and oars they need to complete the product and when they do finish - where to sell it? Did he think there would be no repercussions? Did he think they would not retaliate? An ass is what he is and I am being generous here!
     By the way, where is Melania? She has practically been incommunicado from her surgery on and has disappeared from  sight. What does this mean? Or has he stuffed her away someplace? Where oh where can she be?
     Pardoning real crooks, embezzlers, infamous characters. Does he think the next president will pardon him? Why does he think he could molest and harass and get away with it when every other person suffers the consequences? Why do we allow a pig, a consummate liar, a morally bankrupt person to supposedly lead us. Was Barr's comment any worse than the nasty ones he has made, inciting people to call others animals, to drum up a chant of hate, to accuse others so wrongfully of loving gangs, demeaning women, refusing to actually do something about the slaughter of children in school, refusing to admit that more guns is most certainly not the answer.
     I do not like these double standards which excuse him, which allow him to exert pressure on others to forget morals, to become cowardly in their behavior and for having so many kids think that to tell a lie is okay, for the President lies through his teeth.
     Where have the standards gone? Are there now two? One for him and his crooked Secretaries and one for the rest of us? Help anyone? any answers?

    

WHAT IN THE WORLD.....

     Anybody out there as confused as I am? It seems that the world has gone atumblin' down, all the way down, and there is no end in sight. We have lost all control over events, over ourselves and there are no more role models any longer that apply to all. Nope, for now there is the alt right and the alt left, the resurgence of hate groups, the Antifa, and the moderates? Well, where the hell are they any more?
     All common courtesy is gone. Yes, the actions of yesterdays between men and women turn into the continued actions today and we wonder when it will stop? We wonder when we will have respect for all, no matter the color or creed or ethnicity or orientation or whatever difference that makes people go nuts! We wonder when people will realize that an apology does not quite cut it. When one has been groped or raped or debased or tweeted about or bullied, the apology does not take away the hurt and the consequences which are often lifelong. Words? They can hurt and cut and they can also be too little too late.
     Semantics is a dangerous game. So Trump calls an informant, a very typical being in law enforcement and in fact, in business as well (wonder if Trump used 'spies' as he calls them in his business dealings?!) so giving them a name with negative connotation is ridiculous, just a ploy of Trump's that is getting real old real quick.
     He uses the technique that Hitler loved - the Big Lie, the one so outrageous and so huge that repetition only made it seem more real. His words and his open faced, bald faced lies appeal to his 'base' and I wonder where the hell that word came into play and how it denigrates so many of us, playing us as numbers, rather than people who actually think and the worst thing about it - we allow this to happen and fall right into the hole.
     But there are also actions and the more shocking they are, the more they spit on our customs and laws, the more we are stood on our heads and the more tired we grow of this. That is Trump's plan, for he is so egregious in his lies, in his outrageous deeds or rather misdeeds that we get so tired of being bombarded and cannot keep count or contact with his so many misdeeds and lies. All food for his gristmill.
    And the world follows along with maltreatment of children, with massacres, with hypocrisy, with insane rants about Walls that another nation state will pay for and never you mind that they have emphatically said basically what the hell!! We cozy up to allies so the Trump family can enhance its business bottom line, we have incompetent and corrupt officials at the helm, we have lost all control over a deranged individual who regularly breaks into a raging rant when crossed, when the world does not obey his wants, the very actions of a demented individual falling deeper and deeper into dementia.
     And this crap trickles down. Just yesterday in CV we had an Executive Board meeting. There were important issues to be voted upon, issues that the king in his own mind president, David Israel, pulled a fast one. Never mind all the other times he was not present for one reason or another; suddenly the fact that he was not there suddenly turned into a no vote for the meeting. What a crock!! These items were all meant to insure a fairer, more decent and open administration of UCO, a fact which turns his stomach. The person who was to have presented these items was CALLED and told not to come and then the fact that she was not there was made into another reason why the vote could not take place. We have a witness to the fact that she was called so all we got were more lies, more garbage, all from a man who needs to take a rocking chair and get out of our lives. He has allowed this place to slide into a bad state in every which way. The mold or whatever is back bigtime in the waters of the lakes and canals, the AB installation is digging up the landscape and cutting underground infrastructure left and right, suddenly we squeeze the Rag into a tiny place in the UCO building, the same paper which had demanded a much larger space than it already had and we give over a building to AB for a very nominal rent and give away a building in the very heart of the Village for false reasons.
     So what in the world, or better yet, what the hell is going on. I am so tired of the insults to people from our supposed leaders. I am so tired of their hypocrisy, their dishonesty, their debased behavior, their true ignorance of the right way to do things and the very deep lack of a wanting to do things the right way.
    And tired as we all are we have a duty to not turn away, to not give in to despair, to take action, to protest, to vote, to demonstrate, to holler and yell, to write and speak and do whatever it takes to get us back into the true groove of the United States of America in every aspect of life.

BEWARE: QUICKSAND AHEAD!

          
          So here is a question that I am more and more puzzled as to the answer. Is the man demented, deranged or is he cunning beyond words as he uses the government of the United States to increase the bottom line of his extended family? Methinks he is all these things, demented and deranged, detached from the tethers of reality in many ways, yet has the cunning often found in people developing dementia, able to perform in many ways, yet often with a tinge of meanness or cunning, having learned to hide the deficiencies with cunning in other areas.
     Dementia often comes with cruelty, meant or not. I believe that the nastiness of this man, his innate character deficiencies, have simply come to the fore as he cannot hide them anymore, having lost most of his 'brakes', and as he indulges his traits of misogyny, racism, bias, and sheer lack of any moral fiber at all.
     His behavior is worse and worse, and worst of all is the fact that with his every step deeper and deeper into his obsessive swamp, he is dragging us right along, deeper and deeper as we sink into the quagmire, begin to drown in the quicksand. Just take a look at the NY Times editorial from 2 days ago and see all the 'niceties' of his life, his rude and crude behavior, his insults, his cruelty, his sheer indifference to the needs and rights of others.
     For weeks now I have been shouting about the 'losing' of 1,500 children and don't you just love the excuses of HHS as they stumble over themselves trying to get out of the quicksand of their own making. Personally, I could care less about how many, if any, go down in this muck, but I am concerned, severely concerned over the missing children. So Ivanka shares a moment with her little boy - in that same moment how many immigrant children are being "lost"? How many are being abused? How many have been sold into the hands of traffikers? How many will never see their parents again, never even know who they really are as the government - OUR - government ripped them away from them in a crazed detachment to natural human bonds in a depraved mania re immigration.
     It is not their fault they say. They are not responsible for these kids after 30 days. Even merchandise can be returned after 30 days, but I guess immigrant children are not as valuable!!Don't you think it is special that we have given ourselves a clean blanket with which to cover our eyes and declare innocence?! Are these children and their parents untermensch, less than worthy of being called a human being? Are they lower than the proverbial animals as one does not even separate newborn creatures from their mothers. Why have we allowed ourselves to become the Nazis of today?
     And our confused and confusing foreign policies- not so confusing when one looks at the events within the sphere of them. So ZTE is going down. No, it is not. Yes, it is. Nope, and voila!!! It is final - they will be saved. This huge and dangerous to our security Chinese company will now be saved by Trump himself and why? What was the motivating factor? During this whole time Ivanka has been piling up Chinese trademarks for her business!!!!!This whole damn family of Trumps has used our country, our government, to improve their bottom line. They have refused to separate themselves from their businesses and have merrily gone down this convoluted and corrupt road.
     The cherry on top? Simple. We are being pressured into approving our own Berlin Wall. Remember when the Wall went up, the hurried and sudden runs through the shrinking openings, the daring escape attempts, more and more clever and desperate, and  its moral ugliness? Remember the excitement as people spontaneously began to tear it apart, brick by brick, piece after piece and the joy in the world as this happened? So why are we going to build another one, an even uglier one in many ways? Why are we going to satisfy the deranged and dangerous demands of a crazy and hateful man who cannot even speak on Memorial Day without praising himself? 
     So for how long will we allow the quicksand to grow? Will we say nothing as the writers of the awful new tax law which are understood by no one, flood into the lobbyist firms in new jobs, supposedly a process which was to have been stopped!
     I am sick of this man and his minions. I am sick of the moral degeneracy that he has pushed into the mainstream. I am tired of his opaqueness, his lies, his selfishness, his nastiness, sick of the whole kit and caboodle of the Trumps and their minions. Please, get out there and vote in the primaries, in the elections in November and stop this deranged family in their tracks. And let the truth come out about their activities and their collusions with any and all who further their own needs. Not so difficult to see the collusion with Russia for if that would help to win, why the hell not is their attitude.
     Impeachment? Maybe. If we can get the both Houses of Congress back into the fold, instill a vaccine of moral courage into the wimpy Republicans who seem to be on leading strings from the White House, clean the swamp of Trump appointees and rehire the ranks who bailed out because of him, get the government running again as the Constitution planned. Make sure Pence would be hobbled from carrying on with his own cruel and biased and bigoted plans and pray for the quick arrival of 2020 when we can permanently dig out from the quicksand!
     

MONEY AND MOUTHS

     Almost every language and culture has a saying which basically reminds people that saying is not enough. Put the money there. Put the action there. Back up what you are mouthing with true actions. If not - then you are just doing nothing, or even exacerbating the problem.
     We are at a critical point now here in the country and our saying of 'put your money where your mouth is" is quite relevant. Where are your mouths and your money? Have you spoken out about and against the rampant rotten atmosphere of the country? Have you called Trump to account before all of us and explain and answer under oath, to display all that he should? Have you grown tired of a deranged man sitting in the Residence or the Oval Office or wherever his dementia takes him, sitting and tweeting mean and nasty stuff? If so, then do something. Write, call, text, barrage your representatives with demands for actions, for explanations, for reality checks, for moral courage.
     At this point in time I am finding it harder and harder to distinguish between the Trump manifesto and that of Hitler or any fascist dictator for that matter. The same deranged ranting and raving. The same paranoia. The same hatred of all others, even the deep suspicion about his own aides and the constant musical chairs of these very aides. The fright of people and the loss of their moral backbone. The eagerness of some, too many, to bring his fiats to reality, never mind the moral evilness of them.
      His behavior  "degrade what it means to be an American."

The U.S. has to find a way to return to decency.

"I think we will still then have work to do on repairing the tone in our country, the exposure of the real racist and sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic feeling which is on the rise in our country - a rot that has been exposed,"

    So says Chelsea Clinton and we all should agree with her for there is nothing to challenge her on this statement. Rather all back up her statement. Missing a child? Oh, too bad, if you are brown or black or pink or purple, for if you are a migrant, bah, humbug!!!That'll teach you to try to get here and achieve a better life. That'll teach you how lowly you are, how untermensch you are , how few or no rights you have to have a family in the first place!!! What is next? Slave markets for these children after they are ripped away? Open markets, open hunting season on them? How does one take even little ones, ones who cannot even speak or even walk yet, take them away and then lose them? How are they to be reunited and the answer is, they will not be. They are lost forever from their parents and the government, why they deny any and all responsibility for these kids. Uh huh. Just like the police who did the roundups of Jews, the hunters of Rohingya and Tutsis, the hunters of Christians or Buddhists of Hindus, deny all responsibility for they only followed orders and they are not responsible for what happens next.
     The judges? Why they are following the law! Is the law moral? That bothers them not. So they join the judges of Nazi Germany who said the same thing - and found out they were wrong but not before tragedy.
     So once again we have Rubio opposed to a Trump deal with ZTE but he has a habit of falling off the truck before delivery. We have another Congressman leaving because all people ask him is what is going on with Trump, his lies, his behavior.
     Budget battles once more and are the representatives of the American people finally going to stand firm and do the right thing or are they going to cave again and give us another huge deficit push? Will they give the funds for that hateful wall or will they better use it to feed hungry American citizens, pay teachers, retraining for people, fix the infrastructure and fix the tax system so there is parity and justice for the burden carried by us?
     When, people, when, are all of us going to wake up and die right!!When are we going to assess actions or inactions and stand up for the truth, for morality and decency? Erin go bragh as they took a step forward for women in their vote and we, us, should hang our heads in shame as we go backwards. Time to chew down the man who makes up lies about spygate and spies and witch hunts and paranoiac statements, who hides the truth, who demands indecency and cruelty in his followers and who, worst of all, actually has followers, otherwise thinking people who seem to have lost their marbles when it comes to him and his faults and misdeeds.
     Time for him to go on mere incompetence and deranged behavior. Demand a medical exam first if one wishes, a true exam, and  not by a drunk! Take the pet scans and the tests that will show the damage to his mind and get him gone and install the next dude but with fair warning to him - do the right thing, leave your religious extremism behind, man up about your wife, learn how to control your thoughts so if a woman is in your office with you - you can withstand 'temptation'!! Time for us to demand and get the leadership we need and deserve. Money and mouths. Check the location of yours.

MISSING THE MEMO

     I heard that phrase the other day and I like it. A lot. It seems that many of us have missed the memo on what America should be and what it has become and where we went wrong and are continuing to go wrong. So Alberto evidently cannot read, for otherwise he would have realized that he has arrived too early in the season, but who can tell him to go away?! Memos.
     But what about the other memos that have gone unread these days? Why have so many of us missed the memo or rather memos that come zooming down the track from the government? Weird definitions and lines have been drawn and yet, outrage after outrage and what? Indifference or lack of a combined effort, a sustained effort, has led to a continuation of outrages. Take one. First look at your child or little grandchild. Imagine that child being ripped from you, taken away, screaming, kicking, and you being restrained and/or knocked down by governmental officials or representatives. Worse, imagine that once you get permission - permission! - to get your child back, well, no one knows where your child is. 1,500 are now lost somewhere in the system, out of the system, abandoned somewhere, fallen into the awfulness of child trafficking worlds, possibly dead, tortured, abused and how do we lose track of children we wrongfully separated from, parents!!!! Where is the memo on human decency? Where is the memo on human rights? Where is the memo that one does not do that!!! Where? Lost in the clouds and darkness of the world of Trump.
     Where is the memo that we do not allow our children to be shot at, to fall into a situation where they expect that one day they could be killed while at their school desks, or walking in the hallways, or eating in the cafeteria? So what do we do as supposedly responsible adults? We sit back and tsk, tsk , sending prayers and thoughts but you know what that does. We send a 'moment of silence", a meaningless gesture if not followed, as Kelly Clarkson said, by a moment of action! That is what we need. But where did that memo go?
     Seems another memo came down, one that seems to have been taken to heart by some. It is the memo of increased 'religion'. Oh, we join hands, we pray aloud at every opportunity, we shout how we need to be more 'Christian', more heedful of the words of the Lord. We say that we need to believe in Jesus, or need more Catholicism in the country. And it is all a load of dangerous hooey! It is worse than that, for the religion is fake, with no depth other than that of fostering hate, attitudes toward those who disagree with your statements of religion, or dear lord, believe that they have the right to assault weapons, and here we go again.
     The actions of the football players have done more than the shouting of the haters. It has forced people to think. The actions of our own kids have forced us to think - and be ashamed of ourselves. I just came across a statistic the other day - thirty nine million bullets are made EVERY day in the world. 39 million! Nothing more needs to be said on that topic!
     And now we are back in the hate debate over LGBT. How can one say that there is no discrimination here? How can one say that one's religious feelings and beliefs can determine whether one can discriminate openly or not. Excuse me, but I can then use 'religious' beliefs to enforce my hate, my misdeeds to put it mildly and that, my friends, is yet another memo we have missed. LGBTQ people are just that. People who happen to have a different orientation in one area of their lives, just as other people do in other arenas of life. How is it not sex discrimination when their desires are the same as ours and indeed they are a part of the ours!!If we allow 'religious' discrimination - and that is what it is - to flourish, throwing away all the memos of the past - then we have returned to a dark time of humanity's history.
     So even as the President shouts louder and louder, insane shouts of brazen lies, even 'disappearing' people from meetings where they spoke, in the presence of others, even as he attempts to impose contrary and dangerous new rules upon us, even as he approves of corruption and theft from the people, even with all this, we have missed the memos that are coming faster and faster, with more urgency, heed them, heed them, for if not, no more memos will be forthcoming. A political and religious and societal catastrophe in the making for want of paying attention to memos.
      Even the world of Nature is in upheaval and how long ago did Shakespeare put forth the belief, ancient even then, that if the world of Man is not in order, neither is the world of Nature. Early storms, the fire and wrath of Pele in the paradise of Hawaii, the crack in the Arizona Memorial, the sinkhole by the White House - hmmm -  the desertification of the world, the melting of the icecaps and the loss of so much land to the sea. The violence in the world. The hatred. The bias. The lack of hope and a future for so many. Memos. Memos. Will we pay attention? Ever? Will we cross the line of no return, the tipping point? You think about it.

SUBLIME TO RIDICULOUS

     So how long does this continue? Why is it that this man, this incompetent, deranged and cruel man can continue in office while he is accused of sexual harassment and misbehavior, lies through his teeth, refuses to talk under oath, keeps secrets from the American people, cheats and fudges on his returns, taking advantage of every loophole for the rich, mixes American policies with his bottom line and turns on a dime should it negatively seem to impact on his bottom line and is an all around miserable human being.
     Sound harsh? Well, tell that to his fellow Republicans who question his behavior with ZTE, the Chinese company. Talk to others who cringe at his assuming the nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize when his boasted upon summit does not take place and the atmosphere is more muddied than ever by his mouth and that of his toadies. Talk to supporters of his who turn a blind eye to him even as they say they wish he would just shut up sometimes. Really? Try all the time, but how can one think he is a smart man or a good man after listening to his mouth's utterances and seeing what he has caused.
     Now he has gone over the top. His immigration policy, such as it is, consists of hate, pure and simple, of designating the 'other' as the source of all that is evil in the land, never mind his own shenanigans and those of his other toadies who are destroying us every day, more and more. And now he has gone a step further, really and truly over the top and if anyone can still think that he is not a demagogue in the making, that his ultimate goal is become Dictator for Life, along with the rest of those he admires, then you had better think again. Not enough that we target families, not enough that we stalk children in school, or the church where immigrants attend. No! We must stalk and rip apart and demean and debase and subsume them into an 'animal' category. And now, the next step. Dictatorship here we come. You know the football players, those who take a knee or who support the right of them to do so - try freedom of speech - well. Those players are now deemed guilty of whatever crime he has thought of in his bizarre and cruel mind and said that they need to be deported, to be thrown out of the country. Now remember, this is a great big step further on - throw American citizens out of their country and for the crime of speaking their mind, trying to address problems in the country, do so in a peaceful manner and this guy just rants and raves.
     This man is a liar in the nth degree. He is cowardly, refusing to answer questions under oath, refuses to believe that he falls into the same demands as others - he must obey the law, and if he does not, then he must pay the price. He thinks that changing his hairdo will change what others think of him? Wrong, so wrong. And the football players response - the man is an idiot. His behavior is disgusting they say, divisive and not very American.
     So how much longer? How much longer will we have a man who is a demagogue in behavior, who befriends and admires our enemies and poor examples of leadership, who have driven their respective countries to the wall, derided our allies and friends and turned off most of the country to him. He is an embarrassment to us all.
     What the hell are we doing or not! And why?

CHECK OUT THE HAIR!!!

     He snuck it past us, his fashion transformation. What, you ask? Well, despite his increasing body bulk, presumably growing to top the bulk of Kim Jong-un, Trump has changed his hair. This was pointed out to me as I prefer not to look too closely at him, but notice that his hair is now brushed to the other side in the front and makes his head look flatter.  Please note that this is the most benign change he has pushed for over the past months.
     What old Donald has done so far has wrought change in our country, but not benign at all. So let's take a brief look at some of these changes. He has rolled back the limits on banks so 2008 redux can happen again. He has given big corporations more money, lots more money, while the little people...? He has taken away national land held for its beauty, uniqueness and holiness to some tribes and opened it to disastrous mining. He has approved the pipeline and what we have had since then is one disaster after another. He has wrested protections and rights from workers, with no access to courts for a case and no use of class suits. Nice how we are going backwards at such a rate. Maybe that is why his hair is now going the other way!!!
       He has increased the use of ICE in a brutal way, ripping families apart. He has spit in the face of what makes America great - the welcoming of the fresh ideas and strength of immigrants, the providing of a beacon of hope to so many thousands upon thousands over the years. But now? No more. Just increasing brutality and cruelty. That there are so many willing to do this does not speak well for our countrymen at all. And now there is yet another one.
     School is supposed to be safe. Right, we must not forget that assault weapons trump - in every which way, do they not - the safety of our children, their right not to expect to be shot while in school and now we have another. Big Brother, Fascism, is now supposed to creep into our schools with officials there hunting down undocumented kids, reporting them to federal authorities and watch as they are dragged away. I cannot stop shuddering about this since I first read of it.
     Trump has trampled on the First Amendment, seeming to think that only the Second Amendment deserves fanatic protection even unto the cost in lives. He has tried to quash any negative statements or views about him, threatening prosecution - yet, another violation of civil and constitutional rights and now finally has been told that his use of a governmental twitter site means he cannot block people from it. Ha!!!But his violations of the Constitution are serious and dangerous to our country and why are we not shouting and yelling and rioting in the streets? I do not know, but the pressure is building and do not fool yourself. Trouble is a comin'.
     Democrats are not fighting back strongly enough, Republicans have turned into moral cowards, worrying only that they will lose the chance to keep on destroying the country, and walk on trembling feet in front of Trump. Shame on them!! Five pled guilty. Nineteen indictments or is that 22? No proof of his "Spygate", yet another deflection. He defends by offense and we need to send in the hefty blockers. Now!
     And do not forget the 'dangers' to our security. So foreign cars are a danger . Guess I better watch my Kia carefully! Never mind the 'foreign' cars that are made here or the 'American" cars that are made over the border or with foreign parts! Keep those footballers on their feet! How dare they protest peacefully! How dare they try community activism! And in the meanwhile, that second deranged Ruler, the Supreme Leader for whom Trump had a special coin struck - well, he is threatening us again. Such plans for the self presumptive Nobel Peace Prize candidate!!
     And of course, note the fact that we are running out of munitions, out of the materials necessary to make more bombs, so guess we will have to defend ourselves against China with seltzer bombs as they make what we need and why the hell would they be willing to send us those necessary bits and pieces. How ironic that we need our enemy to insure that we can make the munitions to pour down on them or their proxies on the battlefield.
    But never you mind. Just watch your cars carefully and check out that dangerous 7 year old who might be undocumented! Danger!! And hey, why not send admiring tweets to the Leader here over his policies, his bloated bulk, and his new hairdo. Remind him that the rottenness still is there below that hairdo, and the flames of Kilauea burn ever more fiercely, now with added blue flames, the ground opens up even more and the ocean boils with another intrusion of lava. Deep voices anyone? Hear them? Now go check that car!

DOWNRIGHT SCARY

     Oh yeah! We have been writing about this, we meaning major political analysts, as well as myself. Constitutional crisis. If he does this or does that or does not do the other, there will be a constitutional crisis. And then what? But no one ever said.
     This country has a Constitution. The original is in the National Archives. Any day now I would not be surprised if it disappeared and reports of its once upon existence will be termed old Fake News!! Such are the times we live in.
     We have as President a man who is ignorant of history, of truth, of continuity, of tradition, of the law. He grasps more and more power in his greedy little hands - and yes, they are little! He runs over American law like a runaway driver of a Big Wheels and then expects to be applauded for his daring. And his latest ploy is the straw, that proverbial straw.
     He demanded - demanded - that the Justice Department do things his way. He demanded that they investigate whomever he names as conspiring against him, from the FBI top administrators to anyone else in his path. It is a dictatorial trait to use the law enforcement agencies to crack down on opponents and guess what? We now have open use of that technique here. Constitutional crisis indeed. 
     And just follow along with the rampant corruption of his administration. Of the repeated attempts to shut down the press, stomp them to death and he admitted that was his design as he admitted to Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes that his plan was to demean and abuse reporters so people would not pay attention to negative news about him. For real!!! This man should have never been elected and frankly, the shenanigans of the FBI, what with stating something about emails and Hillary just prior to the election and choosing to keep quiet re the already strong investigation into the Trump campaign and its repeated contacts with Russians, well these steps led to his election when he should have been in jail answering questions about his behavior and that of his campaign aides.
     And now the next step. The physical barring of reporters from an open meeting in the EPA, already a stained and filthy department under Trump and his lackey. The reporter was physically threatened and then pushed out - strong enough that it was five feet before she came to a stop! Does nobody else hear the ripping of a revered artifact of the founding of the States? Does nobody else feel the fear, the fright that we are witnessing the death of the United States of America as it was once known?
     Think this is exaggeration? Just read about the discussion by NFL owners as to whether to punish or not the taking of a knee during the anthem at games and what the punishment would be. So now, if they have their way, peaceful protest would now be punished. Freedom to express our opinions, freedom of speech, would be gone, taking a big step down that dangerous and dark road. Dictatorship once more on the rise and for the two guys who started this - well, ask them if they have a job as free agents. They do not and I am sure that there is collusion here by the owners to punish these guys for their protest. And what is next? Will people be forced to reach a certain decibel in the singing of the anthem? Will they be forced to cheer at the end of it? What about the rest of us? What if we do not choose to sing the anthem? What if we are making our own protest? Dangerous slope we are on here, folks, dangerous indeed.
     And now for the good news. (LOL.) A year ago a sinkhole opened by Mar a Lago. Now we have the Hawaiian volcano roaring fire and brimstone in the midst of paradise. And wait - here is the kicker. There is now a growing sinkhole on the North Lawn of the White House. Hmmm. what message might be present here? I know one. So do you!!!
Anybody hear a deep and large voice calling out from somewhere? And would that be from Above or Below. Think on that one. Ahhh, the power of dreams!

SOMETIMES I WONDER....

     Sorry for being AWOL these past few days. Could not be helped and I just forgot to tell of this prior to my absence. So mea culpa!
     Did you ever wonder at the absurdities of life? For example: why is it that it is always a "courageous" battle with some disease that has a fatal ending? Why is it courageous? Shit happens. Period. And one has to deal with it, like it or not. So yes, it is a crappy card one has to play when hit with cancer or some awful disease and one knows the inevitable outcome. Sometimes one is lucky and there is a cure, or something to hopefully lessen the impact, but why courageous. What is one to do? Just give in, or commit suicide? Well, I think that the ability to accept something or decide to take one's life is also a decision of courage. A different kind of courage, but still courage.
     And what about people out there who simply cannot see where the world is headed. Or the people who cannot see the irony in situations. Example? Okay. So the man who hides everything, the man who refuses to release tax information, medical records of truth, who lies through his teeth every time he opens his mouth, this man is now demanding, raving about the 'mustness' of releasing secret papers by the Justice Department!!! Goose and gander, folks, goose and gander. But it seems that truth and transparency is a forgotten term and policy in this administration. It seems that separation of powers, of three independent branches of government, a basic founding principle of the country - all this is to be tossed out with the trash as we more and more accept a raving lunatic, no better than any two cent tinpot dictator who is doing the same to his republic. Orban. Duterte. So many African and Asian countries. South America as in Venezuela where the supposed head of government is actually starving his countrymen to death! And in the meanwhile, Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump are getting fatter and fatter, more bloated, even as more and more of their countrymen fall into the category of food insecure - meaning they do not know where the next meal for their children or themselves is coming from, will it even be there?? 
     Have you ever wondered at the scary future in sight, the one that echoes the past? Talking with people over the past few days I began to tremble as I thought over their words and beliefs. These are good people, thinking people, kind people, charity givers, helpers to those who need help and yet, and yet...
     I sat there and heard the canards of the past being applied to new groups. So immigrants are the people bringing disease into the country, from the flu to polio and beyond. So these are the people taking the jobs of deserving people. These are the people who are demanding equality. Truly? So they want socialism, or so I am told. How we get there from here is beyond me. I hear the scary echoing of the accusations throughout the centuries that Jews were filthy, that Jews brought disease, started the Black Plague, brought cholera to the populace, sucked the blood out of the economy, and various other disgusting claims and of course, do not forget the horns. And now these canards are being applied to others. Does no one wonder at the similarities, for hate never changes, only its targets. 
     Does no one wonder where the future will go, what an apocalyptic world will be like? Evidently Sweden has hit the point of belief in a problematic future as they hand out pamphlets explaining what such a world will be like, be it from war, natural disaster or cyberwarfare which brings the world back to pre electric times!!!
     Does any one out there wonder at what we are doing to the world? Does any one wonder out there if all these natural disasters are messages from a Higher Power or is it just our own stupidity and limited or blindfolded or ignorant thinking. Does one wonder how we got here? And why we continue to allow it?
     Does one wonder at the gross attitudes and actions of child molesters as they openly advertise and order their next victim? Yes, order! Like a meal from a fast food outlet. Disgusting. But why do they think it is okay? Because we have lost our morality. We have lost our sense of humanity, our oneness of humanity, never mind the color or the religion or country of origin. We have become perpetually angry, non hearing of others, deaf and blind to the necessary turns and paths we must negotiate. We skip over the story of infants, children still toddlers and in fact, all minors, who are separated from parents because these same parents dared to dream - just as our parents and grandparents and great grandparents dared to do. Only they do it in a more hostile world, hostile to those who would join us, become part of our country. We have a messed up system and rather than fix it, we make it worse.
     Did you ever wonder if we are going to hell in that proverbial handbasket or have we made it there already? 

EVERYWHERE ASND NOWHERE

     I saw that line this morning on an article re Mueller and his investigation. It is so true, as he keeps finding more and more, uncovering other misdeeds and yet keeps going with no official announcements as to the status of the main issue: just how deeply is Trump himself enmeshed in this whole disgusting mess.
     But this phrase also describes our country. We are everywhere yet nowhere. We cannot seem to find a solid base for ourselves, a solid core of beliefs that will sustain us through these hard times. It is a shivery process indeed when we read of ICE raids in five states, when we hear the President call immigrants "animals" and then say it refers only to gang members. Puh-lease!! What it means is that the president is a total racist and is comfortable with the idea of 'rounding' people up like cattle, with focusing on a class of human beings and treating them like dirt. How many more times are we going to see a situation like this? Have we not seen this enough throughout history, then and now, very much now, all over the world and why not? The very country that is supposed to welcome people is making them 'cattle'. And that there are so many willing to do this job - worst news ever.
     The White House sends out rants and raves, threatens one and all, but for the wrong reasons. Never mind the acts of alleged criminality. Never mind the acts of indecency uncovered, the gross mismanagement, the incompetence and the list goes on - but never mind them, rather mind the one who leaks. See, it is not the wrong deed, the misdeed, the criminal action, but the fact that someone tells on it!!! Don't get caught and utmost - do not leak about it. It is disgusting, to say the least.
     We are very close to ceding the end of our system of government to a malicious and evil minded man and his henchmen, ceding control of the judiciary, of the legislature, of everything becoming part and parcel of the executive branch. And why? Why are we willing to do this? I believe it is a deep and tiring malaise that eats away at us, at our inner core, at the inherent optimism of the American people. In fact, the very idea of the American people seems to be fading away, dissolving in the acid baths that this White House seems to be giving it. 
     So we look to other places to give us joy. We are enmeshed in the fairy tale story of Meghan Markle. We are consumed by the ending of the season of NCIS and Grey's Anatomy. We find enjoyment and see it is not all bad, in the story of a couple who found a buried safe in their yard and returned all the treasure inside to their neighbors who had been robbed of it lo these many a year ago. We find happiness and laughter in the stories of cute kids on Facebook. We send each other messages, the modern day version of the good luck letters that used to go around.
     But what we do not do is sit down and take a deep and long look into the present and future and not  everywhere yet nowhere. We need to be somewhere, soon. We need to reidentify ourselves with the traditional American values, and not the new ones of tribalism and hatred. We need to value competence, honesty, morality once more. We need to stop this "Christian" identity that is everything but Christian in the truest sense of the word and the people who have hijacked the term for the bad. We need to stop the indecency of extremism, be it religious, political or otherwise. We need to find our somewhere and very soon or someone will be putting us in a place we do not want to be. The End.

AHA!!! NOW I GOT IT!

        Feeling a tad better than yesterday, but just looking at the news on the various pages can bring one to the knees within a nanosecond. I remember back to the good old days when at least the wrongdoings of officials were hidden in the dark, not brazenly boasted of, not so alarmingly large in scope and certainly not to conspire with the enemy. Nor was it okay for the President of the United States to plot and plan for his bottom line to gain momentum should he be elected. Yet that is what we have today - a brazen open display of greed, of shenanigans barely under the covers, of filth and cruelty beyond all belief.
     So is that the way to achieve success in this world? Is this what we are to tell our grandchildren? Cheat. Lie. Be filled with hatred of 'others'. Remember the bottom line is money, money, money. Never mind hard work, honesty, cooperation, respect of and for others, doing the right thing, remembering that morals and the right outweigh the greed. Life is different now and it is not a change for the better.
    Never before have I ever had such disrespect for a president. Never did I think it would ever be. And the underlings, from Vice president to Secretaries, to various underlings and those hanging around - the greed, the attitudes, the nastiness - whoa!! It is astounding in its depths and widths.
     So yesterday we had Tillerson trolling Trump, using this language and while the name was not mentioned, it was very clear, crystal clear, as to whom the target was. "If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom."Yet Tillerson must accept a share of the blame for this state of affairs as he willingly served and evidently had little effect on his master and nor did he speak up while in  office. Shame, shame. Everybody seems to have lost their moral courage, forgotten the righteous outrage that demands public condemnation.
     Where were the mouths yesterday to condemn yet another racial rant by Trump, calling illegal immigrants animals! This is the pride he takes in some of his worst deeds. I guess he should also take pride in his new facilities meant to "warehouse" the children who are ripped from their parents, taken away, lost in the shuffle and worse. Read it and weep. “You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people, these are animals, and we’re taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that’s never happened before.” 
     And what is coming out of the reports and papers that are being released is enough to make one mourn for an age where patriotism was real and valued over greed, when the president , the President! did not sell out his country for money. Did not collude with his son who conveniently loses his recall of the calls he made, most probably to his father after and around these meetings. The guy does nothing without papa's permission but suddenly his memory gets fuzzy.
     It is at times like this that I can undo some of the sadness of my PD when I think of the condition of the world today and its ugly lack of recognition of virtue and morality, at its emptiness in the cupboards of courage.
     Will we ever return to status quo or better yet, the improvement of the status quo? Somehow, I have major doubts at this point. Sad. Bigly sad. Fantastically sad.
     

DOWN DAY

     Sorry, folks. Don't know why, but it is just a down day today. Could not seem to drag myself out of bed and just remained lying there staring off into the semi darkness. The cause? Who knows.
     Is it a day that comes with PD? Depression is part and parcel of it, but today seems the worst it has ever been. Am I tired of putting on a happy face, showing the battling side of my nature, my determination to not allow this thing to get the better of me? It is not easy to try to always show a positive face, a positive outlook to a situation which can only get worse.
     Or is it the situation of my home, my Village. Have we allowed a selfish individual who cannot see beyond his own wishes, see the reality of it and the costs to the Village of his wishes. Right now we are right in the same path as the Federal government, running a straight line to future bankruptcy and inability to pay bills, the huge bills that will come due as our crumbling infrastructure demands fixing. No more patchwork, but a whole job and where the hell does the money come from? He delivers pie in the sky presentations to the delegates, a quarter of whom are walking zombies and listen to their master for the sake of their pathetic 'power'.
     We have committed to a ten year contract to a company which has bitten off more than it can chew and we are the undigested mouthful. Dirt piles all over the Village, long ugly scars of 'directional boring' which turned into old fashioned ugly trenches. Cut wires and pipes and by Wellington our grass has not received its irrigation due to a long term cutting of the power and/or pipes - not sure anymore at this point, but in any case, the problem seems unable to be fixed, despite Don's earnest efforts and so our 'boring' has turned into a dry and ugly hard earth scar and our grass withers. At least this rain will help. And to add insult to injury, the gunk is back in the lake!
     Our 'shed' building which was supposed to be the place for The Rag is now being given, given away to Atlantic Broadband and the realty building, well, blow me down, but it still seems to be standing there and no one is being carried out on a gurney felled by the supposedly desperately unhealthy air. Shafted again, residents. And who pushed this? Guess!
     But why be shocked when the whole country is being run by a bunch of denizens of the swamp, corrupt, selfish, incompetent, nasty people who are true role models for the "tuchus lickers" of the year! Need translation? Think of your hindmost portion of your body!!We have at the head a demented person who believes that ranting and raving are the way to go, who has just received a dose of his own medicine from the other demented dude, Kim Jong-un. He befriends 'great' guys, like Putin, gives China a break on its phone company right after the Justice Department had done otherwise. He has brought us to a point of panic and many points of not light, but darkness within our country.
     We have become tribal. We do not hear anyone anymore. We ban all political talk among friends and family due to vehement feelings and disagreements. People willfully blind themselves to his immoral and disgusting behavior, excuse it, saying he has done much. Huh!! Yes, given to the rich, a true Robin Hood in reverse! He has tanked our economy for the future as the debt grows and grows and the taxes are cut for the oh so deserving rich once again.
     And the depths of our depravity, the depravity of the world is uncovered daily by the revelations concerning harassment and abuse of women by men with power over them. When will this stop? When even a champion fighter in this area is revealed as a practicing member of the crowd - well, then the despair grows even deeper and darker.
     When the world expects Israel to cut its own fences of the border and its own throat and allow in screaming beings with fire and explosives in their hands and hatred in their hearts and allow them to kill and maim and burn and torture and kill and ransack and destroy - from the 'river to the sea', to kill the Yahud -and oh, dear, must not forget proportionality! When does this hatred ever stop? When do people stop lying and tell the truth - anti Zionism, anti Israel, IS anti Semitism and it cannot be denied, though one tries to do so. When does killing the Jew stop being a legitimate expression of political opposition and when are Jews allowed to defend themselves and is there an unwritten rule about that - how many they have to sacrifice before it is allowed?
     Just a down and dark day and this rainy weather, while helping the grass of ours with its useless and inoperable irrigation, does not help. It seems that today nothing will truly help and I will just muddle through hoping for a better day tomorrow And as for that chocolate? There is not enough in the world to change the deep and dark mood of me, of the country, of the world. Not today.

RAINDROPS ON ROSES

     Whiskers on kittens. Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens. Or we are advised to whistle whenever afraid. Our arts world is filled with advice as to how to overcome moments of sadness or worry. Sometimes this advice works merely by singing inside one's head and at other times it appears as if nothing will help.
     And what if one is beset by problems both large and small, both personal and universal? What does one do then? Though nothing will ever take away worry and concern 100%, there are ways to at least divert that channel of worry to a smaller, less prominent area.
     What do I do? When the legs of mine start to jitter or a thumb appears to move of its own volition, yes, I worry. Yes, I can get sad and concerned for the future. When a score on one of those brain games goes the wrong way I wonder if I am losing it, ignoring the fact of increasing complications of the games or tiredness of the player or simply the natural fluctuations of a game player!
     What I do find is that true enough, that old maxim is correct. Laughter is the best medicine. I will think of the kids; I will wonder how children from the same clan can be so different. One granddaughter never makes a demand or request and another is the stimulus to the economy all by herself. One little one lectures me on the intricacies of baseball while the other regales me with a lesson learned from his Judaic studies. And it all makes me smile. Laughter at a funny memory. All will do to take the mind away from the at times awfulness of reality.
     Irony and gallows humor is yet another way to go. It takes the edge off. For example, how could one not laugh when Manafort's lawyers whine about 'false' information given out about their client - which did not happen - but this from the camp of tell as many lies as one can; pump up one's expertise in falsehoods!!! Ya gotta love it!!
     Or turn from the page of politics and the scary world they present to the page of the volcano in Hawaii.  I think of the time when we walked on the caldera, saw a rift, saw molten lava and vents of gas. It was an adventure, yet vague enough with the last major volcano disaster there in 1990.And now I watch with heart in throat and wonder at the awesomeness of nature, its fierce power and beauty at the same time. I wonder. Is there a lesson here for all of us. Do we stress too much of the 'stuff' of life rather than the reality all around us? Have we forgotten that we are small and almost insignificant in the grand scheme of things, yet wonder again at the power we have to rival this stream of fire, all by our misusing other powers of nature. Do we learn? Anything? I kinda doubt it.
     Will we ever learn to be and do the right thing? Will we ever stop warring against each other, trying to wrest all we can from another? Will we ever be evenhanded in our dealings and demands with and on others? Will we ever stop using the word 'proportionately' when discussing the defensive actions of Israel as they keep 50,000 people in 13 locations from overwhelming the forces of defense and break through the border fence and head toward Nahal Oz or any of the other small villages on and in the land of Israel and there kill, kidnap, maim and destroy, men women, children, the soldiers. It matters not. So what is proportional? Should Israel ask for a moment of attention, count the invaders shot and then ask among the Israelis to volunteer to be shot or killed so proportionality is there!!!!! Have we not lost enough of our Jewish compatriots? Are we once again to allow ourselves to be slaughtered while the world stands aside? Will the world then cry crocodile tears at this once again? There is no proportionality in death. One defends oneself and one's country from those who would harm and destroy it and all its inhabitants within.
     I think it is time to pull out the albums again or flip thru the pictures online. Time to crack a sick joke. Time to whistle or think of packages or the glow in a grandchild's face upon spotting you at the airport. Time to talk to a friend - well, a bit later on, anyway. Time to find that chocolate! Would that the whole world would eat that piece of chocolate every day.
     

DANGER! OVERLOAD! DANGER!

     I feel the lights flickering within. I see the darkness that is left behind. And I ask myself just what will be with my country; just what will this man leave behind to take pride in and for? The smacks to our national ethos keep coming down the track and I do not see an end to it unless and until Mueller says it is done and time for all the accusations and indictments to be public.
     The question is will it? It seems that the more dirt that is uncovered, the more dirt begins to appear. How does one react to laughing at the stupidities of a person, at his greed and sheer gall at attempting to rob the people of money to enhance his own bottom line. Sure, just have the government use our money to pay to house people in his hotel in Scotland! Just have the foreign toadies line up to book in his Washington hotel and where does that money go? You guess. You have one try.
     Everyone around him is touched by the dirtiness and yes, tragedy. We are a tragic nation now, enmired in muck, wondering if we are sputtering with last gasps as we allow a corrupt and incompetent individual, a man with no class or set of ethics, an immoral being, a man such a this, to run the country. 
     He rants in private and even in public in Hitler like storms. He accuses all of traitorous behavior.  His associates are of the same ilk, enmired in their own selfish plans, tainted with dirty money and overblown egos, and the smell of compost in DC reeks overpoweringly.
     And yet, I wonder. How do we stop this runaway train of corruption, of accusations, of nastiness, of incompetence that puts the world in danger? Even should we get rid of this man, who is there behind him? Pence. Ugh!! A man who is not allowed to talk to a woman without his wife's presence and permission. Can you see Merkel or May sharing top secrets with the missus so Pence can remain "untainted" by his inner lust? ! Shades of Jimmy Carter who "lusted in his heart." A man who has designs on the rights and independence of women, who wants to turn the clock back to the fifties. Overload!! Overload!!
     What have we done? What have they done to us? Where do the fault lines lay and will the fissures of our own political volcano destroy us once and for all? Watch it creep into our daily lives as the price of gasoline is shooting up once again. As people now find out that thanks to the "tax cut' of the Republicans, they will be paying lots more taxes to the states. And not to lose sleep, the big guys will do just fine; it is the fading middle class that will be socked hard. Our children are becoming jaded in and by the system - not a good thing. Cynicism, selfishness, apathy or the other side - of violence, hatred among the 'tribes' of America. Which way will they choose, none of them truly the best way, correct? And the rest of the world has gone off the tracks, with revolutions and rebellions, selfish and murderous behavior growing by leaps and bounds and why not? 
     The United States of America, which used to throw its weight behind human rights is now busy destroying them in its own country, so everything is up for grabs. Enemies become heroes in the  mind of a deranged individual and another demented one with neither heart nor soul is praised for kidnapping people, holding them prisoner and then releasing them as if he has done such a wonderful good deed. Do we praise a child who steals another's possessions, or kicks someone when they are down and then praise him for stopping the kicking? Truly!
    Overload! Overload! Danger Ahead!
    Gotta take a break before I lose what is left of my sanity! Where is my book, my cup of root beer, my favorite chair and yes, there is that piece of chocolate. Ahhhh. Relief - for a  bit.

MOMS

     Time for official recognition of the importance of mothers. Where would we all be without them? Well, first of all, we would not be here! Science has not progressed - it that would be progress - and cut out the mom's role in birth. So there. Thank your mom for your existence! Now!!
     Think of your childhood, your adolescence, your young adulthood and your sudden transformation into new versions of your parents and then   - shudder - you actually hear your mom's voice coming out of your mouth - with her words as well! It is then that you realize that you would be nowhere without your mom.
     Mothers are special. No one loves you like a mom. No one. Your hangnail is the crisis of the day and though your mom actually has a far more severe health issue, her mind and heart and head focus on you and your pains. See, one never grows up according to mothers. You are always and forever her baby and nothing and no one will convince her otherwise.
     A mother's job is never done, her work ongoing. It takes her an hour to get to bed after saying she is doing so. Why? Because she does a last walk around, picks up the newest layer of whatever that everyone else left, making sure everyone and everything is ready for the next morning, does a last check of the kitchen, checks doors and windows and does a last peek in of the kids, kisses the sleeping ones and with a tired voice tells the one who is not to go to sleep already! Tomorrow is almost upon us.
     The amazing thing is that moms are like this all over the world. Their sacrifices are consistent, their love universal. That last piece of bread, that last sip of water, that place of safety - all to the children. The hug to a sobbing child, the praise and advice - no one does it as good as mom. No one.
     As for us, the moms of the world, we now laugh at the agonies of our kids and adolescence, how we never thought either of us would make it through, and certainly not sane. We laugh at the antics of the grandchildren, and admit it - have a little quiet giggle at the chips off the old block and think how your threat that one day they would have one just like them - ha!! It happened.
     And the momness of us all continues on to the next generation, even better, for these kids are returned at the end of a visit and you do not have to pickup after them every night and day and the warm hugs and sloppy kisses are the best. Even better though, is the union of grandparent and grandchild against the common enemy - the generation in between. Ha! Gotcha!
     So it is nice to get official notice one day a year or two if birthdays count as well, notice that you are loved and appreciated. But let me give you a clue. It means far more to your mom that you give her a call every day or every other day, even just to say hi and I love you. Share a laugh. Ask for advice. Plan a visit. Tell her of your achievements for that is pure joy to a mother. And you do not need a mother's day to do this, not here and not anywhere in the world.
     We are all the same. We love you. We love you. We love you. Forever and a day. And you are always our baby.
     And Mom. I love you and miss you more than words can say. I send my love up to you and ask that you keep watching over us all. And not to worry, I see you all the time - every time I look in the mirror!!

PUT UP YOUR DUKES

      Remember the days of yore, when people negotiated? When they compromised? When they remembered that Republican or Democrat, they were all Americans, with a common goal of mostly bettering the life of the residents of this great country. And yes, Big Business got its way many times, but there were major social legislative acts passed and there was progress.
      Today we all put up our dukes. No one talks quietly. No one listens, keeping minds shut to possible points from the other side. No one compromises. And worst of all is the fact that we have come to treat opponents as 'the enemy' - our fellow Americans.
     There is reason for that aplenty. When one side, for the most part, sees the other as oppressors, as robbers trying to steal the social safety net away, seeming to care less about the people and more about these vague entities called Big …… for whatever field they are in. And like it or not, people must recognize the fact that if a leader of a side is corrupt, demented and deranged, almost functionally illiterate and who depends on a right wing group to pass him information and guides to decisions through Fox and Friends, well, what can we expect? This pugnacious and crude individual has proved himself to be persona non  grata among many of the world's leaders and humanists. It is believed that he is a danger to the safety and survival of the world's populations. And so it is.
     I have two homelands - the United States of America and the State of Israel. I am both proud and sometimes ashamed of both countries. The level of poor behavior among politicians, the level of corruption and selfishness among administrative appointees or elected officials, the demonization of the opposition - what has happened to us?
     And now? Now, we are at a danger point for both countries and for the globe. We were presented with a serious issue, with a rogue country having, or gaining, atomic powers and weapons. Rogue countries are difficult to control as they seem to be lacking some prime ingredient for understanding the needs of other countries or the social pacts that nations make with each other.
     Iran is such a rogue country. It oppresses its own citizens, wages war on those who do not conform, has major humanitarian sins, and is an extremist country when it comes to religious tolerance. And, they want the bomb. They want it desperately, thinking it will vault them into the ranks of major powers and enhance their political power. This deep drive of theirs is inherently dangerous to us all, but especially to the people of Israel, the people of the Middle East and the people of America. It is an existential threat, threatening their continued existence in this world.
     So what to do? Trump goes his usual path and blusters and brags, threatens and vacillates until the world is dizzy from him. Yes, the deal was imperfect. Yes, there were gaps. But yes, on the whole, Iran went along with it, happy to have the sanctions removed and allowed to get on with life as a state, and if they colored outside the lines, Israel could usually set them straight with a mission or the world could do it with their own restless statements.
     No more. I believe that there is real danger of a war that will drag the whole globe into the mire. Israel must respond, proactively or reactively, to threats from Iran as they sit there and arm Syrian forces, send missiles over to Israel, try to keep a huge flow of weapons and arms into Lebanon and Hezbollah. It has no choice if it is to safeguard its citizens. None at all. It has learned the hard way that the world does not defend Israel when push comes to shove, when the dukes are up. Oh, they will cry crocodile tears and then mourn as the hypocrites they are at the wounding or worse of Israel, but help afore this? None. They backed away in 1967 when the Straits of Tiran were blockaded. They did nothing to stop the Arabs from invading in 1973 on the holiest day of the year for Jews, and did nothing to stop this until Israel managed to claw its way back at the cost of thousands, and then, only then, were gestures made to stop the war - when Israel was coming to the top. 
     Other nations defend their borders. Trump rages on about his borders. But when Israel defends its borders from thousands of people who threaten, are planning and have already acted, upon a plan to invade the country, to cross the border and to attack the Israeli small communities just over the border, with plans to kill, to maim, to kidnap children and soldiers, to shock the very heart of the country - why, how dare they defend themselves the world cries. And the boldness of the enemies of Israel is enhanced and encouraged by this ripping up of the deal. Why stick to the rules for the most part if what one gets in the end is nothing out of it. That is the thinking of Iran, basically. 
     And so Israel is now, like it or not, on the edge of a war such as they have not seen since their War of Independence when six Arab nations invaded this fledgling country trying to remain alive, defeat its enemies and at the same time take in the shards and remnants of the Jewish population of Europe, that which remained after the war, and the refugees from Arab lands, thrown out from countries where they had lived for centuries, all with nothing, as their belongings had long ago been taken away or denied to them.
      So here we are again. A multi sided war with Hezbollah from the north, Gaza and Hamas from the south, Syria from the other side of the north, Iran joining in and in Judea and Samaria, otherwise known as the West Bank - who knows. What will the  Palestinian Authority do? Where will the nations of the world and the rest of the Arab nations stand? Only G-d knows and I am not sure even He can figure out the twisted paths.
     So we all put up our dukes, each side thinking that all the right, and therefore all the might, is on their side. And I think of the futility of most of the wars of man's history. I think of the losses of so many, millions upon millions, of the savagery found on all sides, and I think of the time of the pipes of peace, when German and Allied soldiers climbed out of the bloody trenches of WWI and played ball, sang Christmas songs, exchanged mementoes, only to fall back into the trenches when the day was over, back to the killing of fellow men.
     Must we always bluster? Must we always threaten? Must we always put up our dukes? Is there no other way than war? There needs to be found a way for negotiations and compromise, not being weak, but finding a better way. There has to be if we are to save ourselves and not all fall off the cliff into ….. your guess, your thought, your mind images. Other than the defeat of Hitler, what have we gained from war? The War to End All Wars led to another war, another world conflagration and here we are again and again and  again. It must stop! It has to.

SAY WHAT?

     As a lover of language, as a teacher of Language Arts, I love the use of language to express thoughts, dreams, concerns and both words of love and words of distaste. Language can bring people together or separate them into camps of opinion or tribal mentality. Today we have a new and growing variant of the English language - Trumpspeak - and mostly all one can say is 'say what?'
     For several years now we have been bombarded with accusations of 'fake news' as he and his ranted about it. Then yesterday we received an explanation of fake news and its apparent remedy from the horse's mouth. Fake news equals news that is not false or made up; in fact it is true but one problem. It is news that is negative towards and about Trump and his many misdeeds and ridiculous statements and habits. Negative re Trump apparently equals fake news. The remedy? Not to improve oneself but to take away the credentials of the media. Fascism in its open confession. Freedom of the press tossed aside as if it does not matter and does not violate this prime principle since the case of Peter Zenger and the governor of New York under the British rule, colonial times.
 “The president is not involved in any respect. It’s a dead issue as far as I’m concerned.”
     So says Giuliani re Trump's level of knowledge re Cohen's snarky dealings and so the case is closed - as far as he is concerned. Say what? I think, especially after his most recent statements re his client, that his opinion counts for naught and if Trump has any brains at all, he would fire this man.
     The Republicans are drooling in glee at the news of Schneiderman's fall from grace, but no sympathy expressed for the victims - only a gleeful "gotcha" from Kellyanne Conway. Say what? We had her guy from day one, before that even, so tell me why the glee. Why is it that all men exposed as creeps are suffering well deserved consequences and even fessing up, but her guy, Trump, remains there with his dirty mind and hands and other bodily parts and thinks he will get away with it and listen to this statement from a Republican.“Democrats keep falling for this fantasy that because Donald Trump’s personal character issues are so awful, that voters will naturally rally to their side,” Uh huh. Say what again. Even they acknowledge that their guy is a creep, to say the least.
     Trump says his reneging on the deal with Iran is the way to go. He says something will happen. Or it won't. Could be bad. Maybe not. We'll see. Say what? So he reneges and Iran attacks israel with a massive barrage of rockets.
     And the open expression of racism continues to grow with yet another police call out on a 34 year old graduate student who was gasp! sleeping in a common room in Yale after falling asleep after working thru the nite. And then even more cops came. Why? To reinforce the army needed to question a person rightfully within the grounds of Yale as she is a student there. What the hell is going on here?  And why is this allowed? Anybody here ever go into Starbucks and just sit there with a laptop, or wait for friends and not order? Or the same in Panera. Anyone? What is the matter with us?
     And do not think that Europe is immune. Today the criminal is first diagnosed and scrutinized for nationality and woe upon him/her if they are not pure countryman. If the name is foreign or the color off - uh oh! And the same goes in the Moslem countries as well. None of us seem immune to this disgusting crust of prejudice that is growing over all of us.
    So we read of rebellions and protests all over the world. Freedom. Of the press. Of the electoral process. Of the courts. But then when that protest is successful, the principles are forgotten. Look what has happened in Russia under Putin. Just waiting for him to claim he is a reincarnation of the Tsar!!Look at Myanmar. Look at Turkey.
    Say what grows exponentially as the world sinks into a what - a torpor? A swamp? A lake of hypocrisy and hatred? Are the voices asking say what strong enough to overcome all the negativity and misdeeds? You tell me. Say what?
  

AW, C'MON!!

     A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and  expecting a different result. I guess sometimes that repetitive action takes place during a time of desperation, as when a refugee might try time and again to escape from a dangerous and/or life threatening situation but plagiarism? C'mon! 
     We already know how dumb, almost illiterate, Trump is. He has been doing the same thing over and over again and getting away with it and that is why he is so upset that people are now calling him out on all his acts of the past and present. Well, tough! So his lies have come home to roost and his indecency and moral turpitude have risen to the top like the scum on a glass bottle of milk. Kinda' what we expect of him now, sickening as it is.
     But now we have yet another attempt to pull the same lying stunt and think that no one would notice or care if they did. And if they did, well, just pull the pity us position that it is "opposition" media which is exposing the lie so therefore it does not count. Really?
     We all look at Melania and her telegraphing of her dislike of her husband and who can blame her? We see, or rather, hope, that she is a good mother to Barron, protecting him from adverse publicity. And that is all to the good, though one wonders why the hell she married him in the first place, or went to bed with him - ugh! - and why she stays with him. Was it to get legal status - oooohhhhh- or for the money? Who the hell knows but here we go again - and no, this is not the Mamma Mia reboot.
      At the 2016 convention, Melania either was cynically given a speech of Michelle Obama or it was thought that no one would notice. Worse possibility, they wished to make fun of her, her presentation, her accent, her apparent inability to come up with something original, or the lack of concern in the Trump bandwagon as to whether she was a figure of ridicule or not. Even worse is the possibility that they would make her a laughingstock so that when her distaste for her husband came out, people would remember when she was a fool and used a plagiarized speech.
      And yet again. A big rollout for Melania. She was finally going to do something worthy of a First Lady and her role in or for the country. And it was not a bad idea, following in the path she had begun to walk - cyberbullying, opioid addiction, emotional pressure and stress - all on the children of our country. Great! It must be noted though, that her husband is a big bully on the internet, he puts pressure on all his aides and indeed on the country with his deranged behavior, and he does actually nothing about the opioid problem other than blabbing away with nothing done.
     Oh well. Some "opposition" media people doing their jobs, quaint as that thought seems to be to Trump et al, uncovered the not really hidden fact that the Be Best pamphlet was actually a repackaging of another prior pamphlet from the Federal Trade Commission and all that was original was the foreword. Oh dear, oh dear. The truth comes out again and sadly so - oh, not that the truth came out, but the questions raised once more about Melania and her innate intelligence and possibilities or lack of them to serve as the First Lady in every which way she is supposed to do and be.
     So what gives here? Is she an abused wife? Emotionally, if not physically? Is she forced into these situations? Does she have a brain of her own, a mind of her own, and is she capable of resisting the situations of mockery and derision in which she is placed?
     And the rest of the crap of this administration goes on. Look at these numbers. All TPS people in this country legally, who have made lives here. 57,000 Hondurans. 195,000 Salvadorans. 46,000 Haitians. 273,000 American born children who will either be separated from their parents or thrown out of their own country. 690,000 Dreamers. Just look at those numbers. Are or have we grown so cruel and how has this happened?
     The government seems willing to sacrifice the life of a top source of intelligence for us. It is willing to see tens of thousands of seniors thrown out of nursing homes in Louisiana due to denial of Medicaid. We find that companies are actually receiving little 'gifts of law" that allow them to save millions upon millions of dollars even as the people struggle. We read that AT&T has given Cohen money to gain insights about the Trump administration.
     Aw, c'mon!! Enough of this cruelty. Enough of this nastiness. Enough of this immoral behavior. Enough of these brazen lies and the who cares attitude. Enough of this not America! C'mon!!!
     

WHERE HAVE ALL THE GOOD MEN GONE?

     Long time passing. The song's word was young men, but the question today is about the 'good' man. Where has he gone? Where is the role model who has no skeletons rattling away in his closet, who did not succumb to the evidently secret rules of the men's club which allowed abuse of women, dishonesty, and nastiness as long as it mostly was concealed or an open secret that never broke open on the surface.
     Yesterday I was nauseated by the statements of Sessions, the head of the Justice Department and what a misnomer that is. He said in no uncertain terms that the business of his department, of his Border Patrol and his ICE people was to separate the parents and the children, to put these kids in a program of supposed resettlement - that word alone brings chills to my soul, never mind my back - and this program has already LOST the locations and whereabouts of over 1,400 children. Think of that! Your kid is ripped from your arms, remains in your heart, but no one knows where the hell that child is and the evident attitude of Sessions is tough shit! You tried to 'smuggle' that child into the country and so you are punished and lose that child. So this is the true culture of the southern gentleman? Lose your kid for trying to give him a better life?! Why do we not just openly declare that all Nazi oriented people who feel they can do the job of 'resettlement' and ignore the screams and heartrending scenes of this program should come in and apply for these ever growing positions. Such a disgusting weasel is this man.
     The biggest shock this AM was when I opened the computer and saw the headlines of Schneiderman's resignation - due to accusations of violence and physical attacks made by four women. This man was a hero over the years. He took on all comers, was diligent and zealous in pursing justice, no matter who the wrongdoer is or was and he was a big hope of the anti Trump and his ilk people. Are there no good men around at all? Was this some secret education program to boys growing up that they could do whatever the hell they wanted as adults and all would be okay because they are men?!
     Sounds silly, yet how do we explain the bursting of the ugly pimple on the conscience of America and in fact on the world as story after story, accusation after accusation comes to the fore. Heads of governments in Europe, politicians in England, here in America, be it North, Central or South, high placed men and all the filth and the arrogance spewing out. The flow of lava has nothing to say that compares with the fiery flames of the underneath of the world's soul.
     Zinke. Pruitt. Giuliani. Trump. Jones. Blankenship. Schneiderman. Cohen. And the list can go on and we know so many more remain underneath. And the new question in my mind is if the growing and hopefully thriving world of women running for office, achieving high positions in the world of business, if this will lead them to this kind of behavior. I hope not. I truly hope not.
     Melania Trump announces her Be Best program and it is signed by her husband. What a crock. He should have been kept far, far away, for he signifies and portrays all that this program is supposed to address. And she knows it. See her face as he grabs her in a hug. That is not the face of love and partnership. It is the face of a woman who knows that the father of her son truly is and it ain't good!
     Well, at least I know of one man who was good to the bottom of his heart and soul, a man who gave secret Tzedaka, or charity. A man who was a gentleman who was able to laugh at himself and at the antics of humanity. But a man who always demanded truth, honor, the right way or path in life. Today is his birthday and I miss him ever more than I can express. Would that he were here to lead the way and we could answer the question of where the good men have gone with an affirmative and hopeful - right here. Happy Birthday, Pops! Keep up your chats with the Big Guy up there and perhaps between the two of you, with Mommy inserting her pieces of wisdom, some way can be found.
     The Book of Genesis tells us of a time when the land was filled with a behavior that contained all that was wrong within it - chamas (huh, sounds like something terrible today!) The end result after no improvement, was the Flood. And I look around, watch, think, hope and pray and despair and wonder if today this same world qualifies with that descriptive phrase - the land was filled with chamas. And I wonder. How long will the good Lord above have patience or will we destroy ourselves before that? G-d promised never to destroy the world in a flood, but hey, folks, there are many other ways, including our own misbehavior and stupidity. And I watch the videos of the fiery beauty of the lava flow in my beloved Hawaii and I wonder, I truly do.

EXCUSE ME? WHAT WAS THAT?

       People do not always say what they mean. That is a given. Some times it is on purpose and other times it is not. However, it seems that during the present times it has become the more popular way to speak and communicate. And in response, it seems that one must say or ask, "What was that again?" Not a pleasant state of affairs.
    Locally we have a great example of this 1984 kind of speech. No need to even go back a few years as the present is rife with this newspeak. So....Atlantic Broadband is going to use great new technology, directional boring, to input all their cables and whatever. Well, what was that? Seems that directional boring is another name for trenching, long, ugly trenches into the landscape of the Village. It leaves scars, indentations in the earth and piles of dirt left around where it can no longer fit. And for extra decoration we have orange and gray tubes sticking out of the ground like a sci-fi monster. And in the meanwhile, they have perfected the art of cutting underground infrastructure to pieces but aha, they are so advanced. Just ask David Israel and minions.
     Meanwhile, this company, this small company has decided to give the east coast of Florida great deals. Or so they say, and have gone eagerly after the business of Comcast. In the cases of many, it seems that the supposed leaders have agreed to this while the residents are not very happy. They liked their Comcast, the choices it gave them, the service it provided and the size of it, enough to go around. Atlantic Broadband, AB, it seems to me, will have to gear up a whole lot to fulfill its commitments and I am afraid that it is all a pipe dream. And so what was that again?
    Want more? Okay....We were told that the realty building was falling to pieces, a dangerous place and if we did not agree to a tradeoff we were in effect condemning the people who worked there to a dangerous and life threatening place of work. It would all be on our shoulders. So all we had to do was give Levy this prime spot of property and in return we would get a concrete shed which needed it all from soup to nuts. I would love to see the receipts here as to who is actually paying for what. But in any case, we were told it would become a wonderful place, a new home, for The Rag, as it was homeless. Well. Now we find that it will soon be all done and guess what? It will be "handed over to Atlantic Broadband!!!!!"What was that?
     But wait. It does not end here with the barrel of lies and obfuscations of the Village and David Israel. Nope, our oh so intrepid leader, Trump, has his own version of this and he apparently has found a whole community of people ready to follow him down this not so golden brick road.
     What? Stormy Daniels? Who is that? Oh, Cohen paid her $130,000. Oh, I never knew that. Oh, but yes I did. But Cohen did it out of the goodness of his heart and his love for me. Oh, but I paid him back - more than $300,000 more!
     My lawyers are great. But most seemingly had to go for one reason or another. I am hoping that at least some quit due to disgust with their Trump client, but some were just incompetent, a conglomeration of Keystone Lawyers who inserted feet every time they opened their mouths. The newest and seems to me a truly great one at this is Giuliani. He puts his client deeper into the hole each time he opens his mouth and that, apparently, is called, getting up to speed, a learning curve. Say what? What was that?
     Sanders is falling all over her lying tongue, Haley puts Trump in his place and takes no crap from him, his aides cannot get their lies together and what was that becomes the mantra of the day when it comes to Trumpspeak. And the politicians seem to follow right along and what was that? One Pennsylvania legislator needs a bodyguard to protect her from another one, an ex boyfriend? What was that? Oh, never mind that. How about the hypocrite who ranted against the right to choose and then tried to force his pregnant mistress to get an abortion. No right to choose there!? What was that?
     And do not think international affairs are any different. Oh, no, I am not an anti Semite. It is just that the Jews cheat everyone by their usury and role in society. They lie, the Bible lies, they are a bastard branch of humanity. The Rohingya? Oh, they set their own villages on fire and waded across rivers so they can rot in hunger and despair in Bangladesh refugee camps. And those wishful immigrants who try to come thru our orders from gasp! Mexico or Central America? What gall they have to seek refuge in the most famous place of refuge in the history of the world! The nerve! So what was that? But not to worry, for it seems that we have enough people willing to do the job of chasing these people, ripping families apart, kicking those already down, rounding them up, rendering their lives asunder They even volunteer to do it for no pay. Wow! Such a redeeming trait they have! What was that?
     So between Russia's ads on Facebook, backdoor meetings with Trump campaign people, deny it though they do, Duterte's murderous rampage which seemingly is an anti drug campaign - seems if one kills all the people there will be no drug problems. Interesting method.
     And the world keeps spinning on its what was that speech. It spins the lies and then dips them in Kool Aid for all to swallow. And that so many do swallow that Kool Aid is disheartening. So we need to keep asking and demanding WHAT WAS THAT? And demand answers, ones that make sense and at least carry some of the scent of truth.