In PD, off ties are not good times. It is when all that one is trying to hold off, to hold back, breaks through all the defenses and a rotten times ensues. Sometimes the off times are of short duration, like just around the time medication is due. But other times they last longer and at present it seems as if I am in an off period. No, one cannot see it. I look the same, act the same, but the 'offness' is there.
Averaging two hours of sleep a night is not conducive to good times. It is like walking around in a fog, dragging some heavy ropes and packages with you. It is frightening when the habits of a Parkinson gait that were vanquished a while ago seem to have returned and take a massive effort to overcome - and try doing that on two hours of sleep a night! And yet one must continue the fight, the struggle, do the exercises, take pride in new capabilities and realize that this PD is progressive but one does not have to lay down in front of it and its demands.
The off period is also an affective disorder in that one appears to be somewhat sad, low. Well, being tired, being a bit challenged, being hit in the face again with the knowledge of a future awaiting one, does not lend itself to a rip roaring happy time. But the affective side of this is also definitely not helped when the events around one seem to be going down an eddy, whirling and twirling in its death grip and what is in that eddy? Us, our country, and the world itself is trying to swim away, not get caught in that doomed circle, but it looks as if they are already there, within its circle of power.
Government agents that break into a man's home while he is being interviewed, disclosing a lie that he was told to repeat and recite - and he was always a good 'soldier', till this. Are we now truly trying to shut down free speech with force? Maxine Waters, a Congresswoman anti Trump, is now besieged with death threats. The Red Hen is being cyberattacked by people looking for profits in this mess. Another mass shooting. ICE agents that want to separate this agency into two, thus enabling the other functions to proceed apace, unhampered by the negativity and awfulness of the whole immigration mess and family separation. And remember, over 2,000 children are still separated and in some cases the government admits they are not sure where they have stored these poor kids.
Off times indeed, corresponding to my personal off times and it ain't good times. Product after product, thousands of jobs are now at risk due to the dangerous asinine tariff war policy of the jackass. The stock market is going nuts and the plans and hopes of many are quite shaky now. And then, of course, we have Amazon, the giant eating all that comes in front of it, devouring all. And if one wishes to see what a world run by giant corporations are like, well, there are any numbers of books and films about this, fiction and non fiction and an easy but scary read is The Store, by Patterson.
500 women are arrested in the Capital building for protesting the administration's immigration policy, all while wrapped in the same aluminum blanket given to the poor kids trapped in the hellhole of the government. Try to cuddle into sleep with aluminum! And hey, maybe that policy will change because aluminum costs are up already. So thank you, Donny boy!
The Constitution is endangered by this Supreme Court, now and in the near future as Trump and the wimpy Republicans try to pack it for decades to come. Our Founding Fathers, our soldiers who died in all the wars to keep us safe and honoring our values, the massive death count of the Civil War when our nation split in two, over human and humane values - and it seems we are right back there in so many ways.
We set a 'controlled' burn - and then burn up double the acreage and oops, dozens of home. The carelessness of government, the off times and attitudes, the danger of a looming chaotic crack in our country's unity and future - all is OFF, big time! I am hoping my off time will quiet down with some more sleep - working on that - and my determination to fight back, to regain the progress I had made to beat the damn PD off again - and turn 'on' in my life once again. When will the nation do this? Wish I knew.
Friday, June 29, 2018
Thursday, June 28, 2018
DAYS OF INFAMY
FDR had his day of infamy, December 7, 1941, and we too have our day of infamy, a day when the United States began to shut down, when our basic principles were thrown in the trash, when advances we had made were rolled back and when the future is not looking too healthy for us. It was one slam after another and where will it end?
Well, according to a poll just released, fully 1/3 of Americans believe there will be a civil war. Damn!!! I have been saying that for some time and some have cautiously approached this statement, but 1/3? Damn again!
Civil war will not be conducted within the halls of the government. It will not be contained within the halls and courtrooms of the judiciary. Nope. It will be fought in the streets, the alleys, the very cities and buildings of the country. It will induce a chasm within the country such that has never been seen here other than the first Civil War. And think how many we lost then, the damage to the infrastructure and now we have even more terrible weapons.
But what else to expect when the Supreme court, stacked by the almost illegal placement of Gorsuch on the bench there, has okayed prejudice and bias. The United States of America will no longer not discriminate by religion and those who think that not to worry, it is 'only' the Moslems, think again. Jews, batten down the hatches. Catholics, do the same, for it appears that the evangelical church movement that supports Trump and his insane, yes, insane policies, will become the official church and religion of the country. Think I am nuts? Think again and take a look back at the year and a half under the Trump thumb.
Not done yet, are we, for the Supreme Court dealt what could be a death blow to unions and workers throughout the country. We already have had safety regulations rolled back, work rules rolled back, and now we are told that they have no right to collect dues from all. Really? How are they to function? Well, that is exactly the point. Hopefully, for Trump et al, they will fade away, choked by a dearth of funds, choked by a country that will hound leaders of the opposition.
Now Trump has another chance to throw in another awful person for SCOTUS. Disaster!!! Honestly, I do not feel there will be a chance of avoiding that Civil War with another such backwards leaning Justice (a misnomer if I ever heard one ) sitting on the bench and simply cutting away all the progressive advances we have made. Already there are vows of fighting, of going back to courts and yet, what happens when the Supreme Court turns it all down? Again.
What we now have is a nasty world, a country where the extremists of hate and white supremacy, of the Klan, of the Aryan Knights are not ashamed to come out and publicly chant their hate mantras. Why should they be when the President does the exact same thing!!!
And should one think of escaping to Europe, think again. There was a warning yesterday that the world could be in for big trouble due to the machinations of Trump. So nowhere to go, nowhere to turn.
What bothers the hell out of me is how people can turn a blind eye to this demented and dangerous man. They now admit that he lies, incessantly. That he does stupid things - their words. That he is fickle and needs help in relearning proper etiquette, particularly with women. They admit that he rants and raves like a lunatic. Educated people cringe when they see his unedited, misspelled, illiterate tweets and who the hell runs a government on tweets!!
And after all this, all the danger to their own lives, for make no mistake about it - all are in danger - they say, but still. But still what????? When did it become fashionable to resign one's dignity, to ignore the truth, to allow authoritarianism into our government, to allow dementia to rule the country, corruption, selfishness and all else?
I cannot give all the answers, but I can join with the 1/3 of the country who believe the war is coming. G-d-damn! Can we stop all this before it is too late or will we look towards a future where we have divided the United States into different countries and we all become Third World countries at that!! Don't know about you guys, but in my mind,, yesterday was the beginning of the end. And evidently a whole bunch of people believe the same way. Damn!!
Well, according to a poll just released, fully 1/3 of Americans believe there will be a civil war. Damn!!! I have been saying that for some time and some have cautiously approached this statement, but 1/3? Damn again!
Civil war will not be conducted within the halls of the government. It will not be contained within the halls and courtrooms of the judiciary. Nope. It will be fought in the streets, the alleys, the very cities and buildings of the country. It will induce a chasm within the country such that has never been seen here other than the first Civil War. And think how many we lost then, the damage to the infrastructure and now we have even more terrible weapons.
But what else to expect when the Supreme court, stacked by the almost illegal placement of Gorsuch on the bench there, has okayed prejudice and bias. The United States of America will no longer not discriminate by religion and those who think that not to worry, it is 'only' the Moslems, think again. Jews, batten down the hatches. Catholics, do the same, for it appears that the evangelical church movement that supports Trump and his insane, yes, insane policies, will become the official church and religion of the country. Think I am nuts? Think again and take a look back at the year and a half under the Trump thumb.
Not done yet, are we, for the Supreme Court dealt what could be a death blow to unions and workers throughout the country. We already have had safety regulations rolled back, work rules rolled back, and now we are told that they have no right to collect dues from all. Really? How are they to function? Well, that is exactly the point. Hopefully, for Trump et al, they will fade away, choked by a dearth of funds, choked by a country that will hound leaders of the opposition.
Now Trump has another chance to throw in another awful person for SCOTUS. Disaster!!! Honestly, I do not feel there will be a chance of avoiding that Civil War with another such backwards leaning Justice (a misnomer if I ever heard one ) sitting on the bench and simply cutting away all the progressive advances we have made. Already there are vows of fighting, of going back to courts and yet, what happens when the Supreme Court turns it all down? Again.
What we now have is a nasty world, a country where the extremists of hate and white supremacy, of the Klan, of the Aryan Knights are not ashamed to come out and publicly chant their hate mantras. Why should they be when the President does the exact same thing!!!
And should one think of escaping to Europe, think again. There was a warning yesterday that the world could be in for big trouble due to the machinations of Trump. So nowhere to go, nowhere to turn.
What bothers the hell out of me is how people can turn a blind eye to this demented and dangerous man. They now admit that he lies, incessantly. That he does stupid things - their words. That he is fickle and needs help in relearning proper etiquette, particularly with women. They admit that he rants and raves like a lunatic. Educated people cringe when they see his unedited, misspelled, illiterate tweets and who the hell runs a government on tweets!!
And after all this, all the danger to their own lives, for make no mistake about it - all are in danger - they say, but still. But still what????? When did it become fashionable to resign one's dignity, to ignore the truth, to allow authoritarianism into our government, to allow dementia to rule the country, corruption, selfishness and all else?
I cannot give all the answers, but I can join with the 1/3 of the country who believe the war is coming. G-d-damn! Can we stop all this before it is too late or will we look towards a future where we have divided the United States into different countries and we all become Third World countries at that!! Don't know about you guys, but in my mind,, yesterday was the beginning of the end. And evidently a whole bunch of people believe the same way. Damn!!
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
AND THE LINE GROWS
Chickens are coming home to roost and they are not bringing gifts with them. Instead, they are bringing the exact news and facts and events that opponents of Trump, or indeed, anyone with a brain, had predicted. Anyone who followed his policies to their inevitable consequences saw the future - and it ain't good!
Just as the Kilauea volcano keeps erupting, sending more lava into the sky and through its river like channel, as it builds another cinder cone around fissure#8, so too do the policies of Trump continue to explode on this country and indeed the world and leave us with a growing cinder cone - of unemployment, of trade wars, of distances and anger from allies, and closer ties, personal ties, of Trump and the dictators of the world.
Harley - Davidson, a nail company, a whisky producing company, all are either moving facilities OUT of the country, the exact opposite of what Trump blasted, or are shutting down, laying off hundreds, if not thousands of workers. And just when they will need help, the anti humanists in the Trump administration are planning on cutting help available in federal programs. So SNAP, the supplemental food program will be cut, drastically and it is not very generous right now. Recipients will be forced to work - but if there are no jobs then where do they work!!!!!And so many of the recipients are either the poor elderly or the children of these laid off workers. Why are we going to add more people to the rolls of food insecurity, hunger, poor functioning with poor nutrition, of loss of homes, thus increasing homelessness, especially among families with children. What is the matter with us!!! Have we lost both brains and hearts?
In the meanwhile, we have a President who is threatening to cut due process, claims that adding more immigration judges will lead to graft!!!!???? We have workers who are telling of thousands of kids arriving at shelters far away from their parents, crying for their parents and the kids are getting younger and younger. These are exactly the kind of families we need, with young kids who will grow up as Americans, get educated and fill positions in our economy that will start to empty out as our population ages and our share of workers diminish. Their parents will work hard to raise their families, to make a place for themselves in this country where we are supposed to give hope to people, not kidnap their children!!
People are getting impatient. They are angry that they have a president who uses foul language, who curses people, who makes it all about him even as he says he does not like that. Well, he asks for it and turnabout is now fair play. We have all descended to a lower level of politics, but there comes a time when taking the higher road does not always work and when people are pushed to their very end of tolerance. The red line grows. The line separating the two Americas is growing by leaps and bounds and it does not bode well for the future of the country as a country, united, as the name states.
A vision of the future is not good. Unemployment. Hunger. Hatred. Blame games that lead to attacks and even murder. Isolation from the world. Real war from trade wars? A Great Depression that will dwarf that of 1929 and perhaps one we will never recover from? More attacks on families and people of color? Where does it end? Where and when?
Think I am an outlier here? I am sadly enough not. More and more of mainstream political commentators are saying the same thing. Patience is in short supply. The government is not functioning as it should or at all and our very principles, our very Constitution, are in danger from the very same people who are supposed to guarantee it, insure its survival and place in our lives. Not to take away due process. Not to curse people. Not to make it all about a jackass. We need to be kind, yes, and that means we should compel the President to undergo a complete physical and mental assessment done by a neutral party, not a drunk or someone anxious for a job. When the truth comes out, let us then retire this man and get on with life, having shown people down the line of succession what the people want and what they will no longer tolerate.
The line of danger, of permanent separation or division of the country, of yes, even the risk of civil war and fighting in the streets - all this, all these possibilities continue to grow. Hunger sharpens the anger as it empties the belly. Anger grows when children are ripped away, not returned, lost in a system, threatened to shut up when reporters come around. When children are not supposed to be hugged or loved or comforted.
Wake up, folks. Please, wake up. We need not make the nightmare a reality at its worst. Wake up. Look at that line. And look within yourself and be honest. This situation is not what G-d hath wrought, but one that we have wrought.
Just as the Kilauea volcano keeps erupting, sending more lava into the sky and through its river like channel, as it builds another cinder cone around fissure#8, so too do the policies of Trump continue to explode on this country and indeed the world and leave us with a growing cinder cone - of unemployment, of trade wars, of distances and anger from allies, and closer ties, personal ties, of Trump and the dictators of the world.
Harley - Davidson, a nail company, a whisky producing company, all are either moving facilities OUT of the country, the exact opposite of what Trump blasted, or are shutting down, laying off hundreds, if not thousands of workers. And just when they will need help, the anti humanists in the Trump administration are planning on cutting help available in federal programs. So SNAP, the supplemental food program will be cut, drastically and it is not very generous right now. Recipients will be forced to work - but if there are no jobs then where do they work!!!!!And so many of the recipients are either the poor elderly or the children of these laid off workers. Why are we going to add more people to the rolls of food insecurity, hunger, poor functioning with poor nutrition, of loss of homes, thus increasing homelessness, especially among families with children. What is the matter with us!!! Have we lost both brains and hearts?
In the meanwhile, we have a President who is threatening to cut due process, claims that adding more immigration judges will lead to graft!!!!???? We have workers who are telling of thousands of kids arriving at shelters far away from their parents, crying for their parents and the kids are getting younger and younger. These are exactly the kind of families we need, with young kids who will grow up as Americans, get educated and fill positions in our economy that will start to empty out as our population ages and our share of workers diminish. Their parents will work hard to raise their families, to make a place for themselves in this country where we are supposed to give hope to people, not kidnap their children!!
People are getting impatient. They are angry that they have a president who uses foul language, who curses people, who makes it all about him even as he says he does not like that. Well, he asks for it and turnabout is now fair play. We have all descended to a lower level of politics, but there comes a time when taking the higher road does not always work and when people are pushed to their very end of tolerance. The red line grows. The line separating the two Americas is growing by leaps and bounds and it does not bode well for the future of the country as a country, united, as the name states.
A vision of the future is not good. Unemployment. Hunger. Hatred. Blame games that lead to attacks and even murder. Isolation from the world. Real war from trade wars? A Great Depression that will dwarf that of 1929 and perhaps one we will never recover from? More attacks on families and people of color? Where does it end? Where and when?
Think I am an outlier here? I am sadly enough not. More and more of mainstream political commentators are saying the same thing. Patience is in short supply. The government is not functioning as it should or at all and our very principles, our very Constitution, are in danger from the very same people who are supposed to guarantee it, insure its survival and place in our lives. Not to take away due process. Not to curse people. Not to make it all about a jackass. We need to be kind, yes, and that means we should compel the President to undergo a complete physical and mental assessment done by a neutral party, not a drunk or someone anxious for a job. When the truth comes out, let us then retire this man and get on with life, having shown people down the line of succession what the people want and what they will no longer tolerate.
The line of danger, of permanent separation or division of the country, of yes, even the risk of civil war and fighting in the streets - all this, all these possibilities continue to grow. Hunger sharpens the anger as it empties the belly. Anger grows when children are ripped away, not returned, lost in a system, threatened to shut up when reporters come around. When children are not supposed to be hugged or loved or comforted.
Wake up, folks. Please, wake up. We need not make the nightmare a reality at its worst. Wake up. Look at that line. And look within yourself and be honest. This situation is not what G-d hath wrought, but one that we have wrought.
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
IT IS HERE
What is here? Exactly what I have been worried about, what people have sounded warnings about and that is the loss of our America. Our heart and soul have long been diminished, particularly during the campaign and the 17 months we have had this lethal clown as the ostensible president. This is more, more than ever thought possible until now.
First we had a president who demeaned the justice system of the country. He believed he had the authority over it and it was mandated to serve him, judicial branch serving the executive branch. He thought it okay to threaten to lock up his opponents, a typical act of dictators.
He has succeeded in having several of his ignorant and inexperienced people named as judges and got his poisonous addition to the Supreme Court, Gorsuch. And as this court went to session, we have had rollbacks on the rights of LGBTQ people, Americans, just like us, brothers, sisters, parent, child. Don't serve them if your bigoted and primitive religious beliefs tell you they are bad. Do not allow them entry into your home, your place of business, discriminate against them, at work - the Court says it is okay.
And now we are throwing all sorts of people out of places. Sanders was tossed. An 8 year old kid was threatened to be tossed away from her water stand in front of her house for the crime of selling bottles of water. A transgender woman was thrown out because she dared to use the bathroom of her gender. Where the hell are we going?
I'll tell you where we are going. Right to hell. Now the President, the very person who is supposed to stand up for America, to preserve its values and culture, is saying no due process, no court, no trial, no hearing no nothing for the immigrants. Just toss them out, get rid of them and that will teach them!!!! If you are not horrified at this statement of policy he wants then think again. Once due process is denied and accepted as a way of life remember that you too can be denied this due process. These illegal actions of dictators do not stop. Never stop.
We are even accumulating our own desperacidos, our own disappeared , a la Argentina only these are children we are disappearing after we kidnapped them from their parents. Yes, kidnapped! Our own government, the very one that is to uphold the law is breaking every law, written and unwritten. Its leader, ugh! is supporting candidates who break the federal laws themselves such as the former sheriff in Arizona, supports hatemonger candidates, proudly and openly. He has supporters who say that slavery was a choice!!!! and Trump is right in his hatefilled and biased behavior.
This man is behaving as do all dictators or wannabes. He rants and raves in both private and public settings. He lies through his teeth and his nose is fourteen miles long. His pants are on fire, 4 alarm, and he runs naked through the streets of the country. He demands crazy loyalty and constant praise from his underlings, and even has a political appointee checking on the loyalty of State Department employees - not to the country but to him, personally! And if that is not enough, he praises himself. He has apparently colluded with our enemies, allegedly betraying his country and his ethics in order to become president and better his own bottom line and his personal ethics, such as how he treats women are out there for all to see. And do not forget his Caesar complex as he coins his own coins in gold, against the law in many cases, all to praise himself and sees himself as king.
The fall of Rome, the fall of the Soviet Empire, the decline of Greece, the fall of the ancient kingdoms, all will be nothing compared to the fall of the United States of America, the apparent agreement of the people to allow it, the cruelty to those who disagreed, and the end of all that it meant to the peoples of the world.
G-d Bless America. We greatly are in need of that blessing and of the awakening of the people.
First we had a president who demeaned the justice system of the country. He believed he had the authority over it and it was mandated to serve him, judicial branch serving the executive branch. He thought it okay to threaten to lock up his opponents, a typical act of dictators.
He has succeeded in having several of his ignorant and inexperienced people named as judges and got his poisonous addition to the Supreme Court, Gorsuch. And as this court went to session, we have had rollbacks on the rights of LGBTQ people, Americans, just like us, brothers, sisters, parent, child. Don't serve them if your bigoted and primitive religious beliefs tell you they are bad. Do not allow them entry into your home, your place of business, discriminate against them, at work - the Court says it is okay.
And now we are throwing all sorts of people out of places. Sanders was tossed. An 8 year old kid was threatened to be tossed away from her water stand in front of her house for the crime of selling bottles of water. A transgender woman was thrown out because she dared to use the bathroom of her gender. Where the hell are we going?
I'll tell you where we are going. Right to hell. Now the President, the very person who is supposed to stand up for America, to preserve its values and culture, is saying no due process, no court, no trial, no hearing no nothing for the immigrants. Just toss them out, get rid of them and that will teach them!!!! If you are not horrified at this statement of policy he wants then think again. Once due process is denied and accepted as a way of life remember that you too can be denied this due process. These illegal actions of dictators do not stop. Never stop.
We are even accumulating our own desperacidos, our own disappeared , a la Argentina only these are children we are disappearing after we kidnapped them from their parents. Yes, kidnapped! Our own government, the very one that is to uphold the law is breaking every law, written and unwritten. Its leader, ugh! is supporting candidates who break the federal laws themselves such as the former sheriff in Arizona, supports hatemonger candidates, proudly and openly. He has supporters who say that slavery was a choice!!!! and Trump is right in his hatefilled and biased behavior.
This man is behaving as do all dictators or wannabes. He rants and raves in both private and public settings. He lies through his teeth and his nose is fourteen miles long. His pants are on fire, 4 alarm, and he runs naked through the streets of the country. He demands crazy loyalty and constant praise from his underlings, and even has a political appointee checking on the loyalty of State Department employees - not to the country but to him, personally! And if that is not enough, he praises himself. He has apparently colluded with our enemies, allegedly betraying his country and his ethics in order to become president and better his own bottom line and his personal ethics, such as how he treats women are out there for all to see. And do not forget his Caesar complex as he coins his own coins in gold, against the law in many cases, all to praise himself and sees himself as king.
The fall of Rome, the fall of the Soviet Empire, the decline of Greece, the fall of the ancient kingdoms, all will be nothing compared to the fall of the United States of America, the apparent agreement of the people to allow it, the cruelty to those who disagreed, and the end of all that it meant to the peoples of the world.
G-d Bless America. We greatly are in need of that blessing and of the awakening of the people.
Monday, June 25, 2018
PARDON ME WHILE I GO BANG MY HEAD AGAINST THE WALL
We used to say to others to stop the planet so we can get off, but there is no escaping today, anywhere. The Trumpian influence, its damage, is all around and now he wishes to militarize space, not particularly a bad idea to have ideas and perhaps a kernel of a force ready, but, a great big but, there are more pressing needs down here on earth before we do that!
In any case, now is the time to bang that head on that proverbial wall. Trumpism demands a twisted mind, no heart or soul, and an ability to turn decisions on their heads at a second's notice. There is no doctrine other than the aggregation of money for oneself, no loyalty to others, but demands loyalty up the ladder and believes in the rule of the oligarch, the dictator, rather than democracy. I firmly believe that if Trump had his druthers he would turn our democracy on its head, already doing much of that anyway, and become a President for Life or a Great Leader or whatever term he wishes to satisfy his twisted ego and claim it was done in a democratic manner - a la Hamas or Erdogan or any number of ruthless dictators in the world, including his particular buddies - Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-un, Duterte, and just keep going.
I do not know about all of the rest of you, but I know that myself and many others, a growing number, are realizing that we did not sign up for this. We did not sign up to have an America that has lost its soul. We did not sign up for an America that locks up children, lies about it, and holds them for ransom, returning them - if they know where the hell they have stowed them! - if, if, the parent signs a self deportation order. Lock who up, Mr. Trump? Perhaps you and your minions who are so brazenly committing the federal crime of kidnapping every damn day!!!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Oops, a hole in the wall. Such is the level of hatred and confusion and angst and worry and despair in this country. We give the wealthy a tax cut and then pay for that loss of revenue by slashing the social safety net, by reducing , totally cancelling regulations that were meant to keep our country environmentally and financially safe for its citizens. But under Trump we now have Secretaries who state it is okay to let Big Banks loose again. Okay to pollute the rivers with chemicals. Okay to pollute our foods, our very water. Okay to cancel the safety net for our very lands, for our heritage. Okay to turn our allies and enemies upside down. Okay to push a tariff and trade war, tit for tat, and put us on the edge of economic meltdown. Okay for the level to descend to a state of declared war on Trump's personal businesses - now that I like!!! And take those of his sons and daughter and son in law with them!
We are finding out that there are many among us who seem to have no problem, no compunction, against the abuse of children, of causing rendings of the heart and soul which will last a life time. They are doing their job kind of people and I thought we were well on our way to getting rid of that. We have Congressmen and women who are afraid of the President and have resigned their rights, passing only what he will approve us, refusing to take him to task and if one does, they either resign because they cannot take it any more or they are called names and punished.
So wait a minute, Bang my head against the wall? Maybe it is better if we can stop the planet and get off! But in the meanwhile, we live here, our future generations live here and will live here. It is time to stop the destruction of our country, of the people who live within. Time to stop the hypocrisy. Say what? Well, how about we kidnap these kids, lock them up, terrify them, lose them, threaten them but also make them pledge allegiance to the flag - the American flag, the same flag of the country that is tormenting them, that refuses their dreams - every damn morning.
Now Trump says he is not against immigration - but not these people. I know, that 3 year old is desperate for that lollypop so who knows what nefarious plan he will come up with. Or that 7 year old eyeing a little girl. I am sure he is thinking of raping her in about 7 years rather than just wanting to play with her now, commiserate about their losses. Ahh, but those white immigrants, the very ones who are not coming right now, the very ones whose countrymen who preceded them lived like all others with good people and bad, with law enforcers and law breakers - these white people are the ones we want, not these brown people fleeing for their lives, wanting a life for their children that does not include horrors.
So go, bang your collective heads against the wall. Perhaps an answer will come to you. As for me, I donate to the Democratic Party, I write, I rail against the creeps who are now in power and I vow that I will not stop until banging heads on the wall is not necessary, until we have retrieved our democracy, our America. Until we have a President who is a mature adult who does not engage in childish rhyming name calling, who has morals, who has a functioning brain, and about whom I can say, that yes, this is my President. When, oh when? BANG!!!!!! (Ouch!)
In any case, now is the time to bang that head on that proverbial wall. Trumpism demands a twisted mind, no heart or soul, and an ability to turn decisions on their heads at a second's notice. There is no doctrine other than the aggregation of money for oneself, no loyalty to others, but demands loyalty up the ladder and believes in the rule of the oligarch, the dictator, rather than democracy. I firmly believe that if Trump had his druthers he would turn our democracy on its head, already doing much of that anyway, and become a President for Life or a Great Leader or whatever term he wishes to satisfy his twisted ego and claim it was done in a democratic manner - a la Hamas or Erdogan or any number of ruthless dictators in the world, including his particular buddies - Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-un, Duterte, and just keep going.
I do not know about all of the rest of you, but I know that myself and many others, a growing number, are realizing that we did not sign up for this. We did not sign up to have an America that has lost its soul. We did not sign up for an America that locks up children, lies about it, and holds them for ransom, returning them - if they know where the hell they have stowed them! - if, if, the parent signs a self deportation order. Lock who up, Mr. Trump? Perhaps you and your minions who are so brazenly committing the federal crime of kidnapping every damn day!!!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Oops, a hole in the wall. Such is the level of hatred and confusion and angst and worry and despair in this country. We give the wealthy a tax cut and then pay for that loss of revenue by slashing the social safety net, by reducing , totally cancelling regulations that were meant to keep our country environmentally and financially safe for its citizens. But under Trump we now have Secretaries who state it is okay to let Big Banks loose again. Okay to pollute the rivers with chemicals. Okay to pollute our foods, our very water. Okay to cancel the safety net for our very lands, for our heritage. Okay to turn our allies and enemies upside down. Okay to push a tariff and trade war, tit for tat, and put us on the edge of economic meltdown. Okay for the level to descend to a state of declared war on Trump's personal businesses - now that I like!!! And take those of his sons and daughter and son in law with them!
We are finding out that there are many among us who seem to have no problem, no compunction, against the abuse of children, of causing rendings of the heart and soul which will last a life time. They are doing their job kind of people and I thought we were well on our way to getting rid of that. We have Congressmen and women who are afraid of the President and have resigned their rights, passing only what he will approve us, refusing to take him to task and if one does, they either resign because they cannot take it any more or they are called names and punished.
So wait a minute, Bang my head against the wall? Maybe it is better if we can stop the planet and get off! But in the meanwhile, we live here, our future generations live here and will live here. It is time to stop the destruction of our country, of the people who live within. Time to stop the hypocrisy. Say what? Well, how about we kidnap these kids, lock them up, terrify them, lose them, threaten them but also make them pledge allegiance to the flag - the American flag, the same flag of the country that is tormenting them, that refuses their dreams - every damn morning.
Now Trump says he is not against immigration - but not these people. I know, that 3 year old is desperate for that lollypop so who knows what nefarious plan he will come up with. Or that 7 year old eyeing a little girl. I am sure he is thinking of raping her in about 7 years rather than just wanting to play with her now, commiserate about their losses. Ahh, but those white immigrants, the very ones who are not coming right now, the very ones whose countrymen who preceded them lived like all others with good people and bad, with law enforcers and law breakers - these white people are the ones we want, not these brown people fleeing for their lives, wanting a life for their children that does not include horrors.
So go, bang your collective heads against the wall. Perhaps an answer will come to you. As for me, I donate to the Democratic Party, I write, I rail against the creeps who are now in power and I vow that I will not stop until banging heads on the wall is not necessary, until we have retrieved our democracy, our America. Until we have a President who is a mature adult who does not engage in childish rhyming name calling, who has morals, who has a functioning brain, and about whom I can say, that yes, this is my President. When, oh when? BANG!!!!!! (Ouch!)
Sunday, June 24, 2018
HERE BE MONSTERS
That statement was printed on ancient maps of the world. The world was deemed to be flat and at the end of the plate of the earth there was a falling off into monster areas. I even read that one of Trump's crazy right wing nutjobs still believes in the flatness of the world. I wonder if he thinks there are monsters awaiting those who stray.
Today, however, the question, or rather the reality of it all, is that there are monsters, yes, and they are not waiting at the edges of the world. Nope. These monsters have crawled out of the air, the ether, the muck, wherever they lived and are now amongst us. If one prefers, we can use a statement by Nietzche who warned humanity that if one goes too far in his explorations, looks too deeply into that abyss, looks too long at monsters, we find that the abyss has looked into our own souls and the monsters? Why they are us.
I do not know how else to term some of the people today. We are monsters who turn families into shreds and then say that others were doing it so why not them. It turns out that others did not do it as a matter of routine precisely due to the horrific effects of it. So there went that excuse and in any case, since when is it a reasonable justification to do evil because someone else does it. That kind of stays in primary school where it belongs. Hopefully kids learn better as they grow up. But what about the adults who do not grow up or who grow up twisted and turn demented as time ages them?
What is anyone who thinks that solving family destruction is to ensure that we can keep children for more than 20 days! Now is not that a great solution! And hey, we have just the facilities - tent internments, old federal prisons that are unhealthy even for adults so of course, let's shove the kids in and hey, maybe they will die off preventing future interactions!!! Sounds cruel but what else can one think? How else is one to think!
Where else is the monster but within that Oval Office. How can we term him anything else when he consistently deems human as animals, as bugs infesting our world, as targets of ridicule based on their looks or name, using infantile rhymes, denigrating ethnic backgrounds, just being so totally vile that he turns one's stomach on an almost hourly basis. At least Pelosi, a target of his, answered him with a beautiful statement. “We believe, some of us who are attracted to the political arena, to government and public service, that we’re all God’s children, there’s a spark of divinity in every person on Earth, and that we all have to recognize that as we respect the dignity and worth of every person and as we recognize our responsibilities with that spark of divinity within us,” Warren does the same with him, refusing to back down, even as Huckabee, daughter and father, continue on in their nasty paths. The GOP has morphed, turning into the opposite of is founding people, applauding slavery, the rich, isolationism, and a total lack of social responsibility. Time for GOP members with a spine, with morals to stand up.
Yes, folks, here be monsters. They are indeed us. When a grown white woman calls the police on a little eight year old African American girl selling bottles of water, insisting she is a criminal because she is selling without a permit! Where the hell have we gone. Where the hell are we standing? What have we become? What if she was a Dreamer? Would that 'crime' make her ineligible for citizenship, eligible to be granted the new privilege of America - to be grabbed off the sidewalk and deported?! Watch out for your kids and grandkids selling that lemonade or those same bottle of water on a hot day.
Yes, folks. Here be monsters and they have been met with recognition as they are us in so many ways. Where is the America we used to be? Yes, we made errors, sometimes awful ones, but we were always willing to listen, to hear, to learn and to progress. Yes, some people never do that and they are now emboldened to come out of the woodwork where they have hidden for lo these many a year - or perhaps not even that long!
Time for those heroes - the everyday people - who can stand up to these monsters, who can root them out, and who can allow children to live in peace and sell their drinks - and be applauded for their stands! Here be monsters. And they are among us. Here be monsters. Time for soul searching, for truth, for courage, for justice, for valor, for honesty, for humanity. Let us figuratively slay the dragons, the monsters. Let us give them no room within our society. Toss them out of office, out of positions of power. Teach them the right way by showing them the right way. Cleanse our souls and minds and hearts. Let the monsters stay on the old maps. Let us remember who we truly are and how much we need to get back there.
Today, however, the question, or rather the reality of it all, is that there are monsters, yes, and they are not waiting at the edges of the world. Nope. These monsters have crawled out of the air, the ether, the muck, wherever they lived and are now amongst us. If one prefers, we can use a statement by Nietzche who warned humanity that if one goes too far in his explorations, looks too deeply into that abyss, looks too long at monsters, we find that the abyss has looked into our own souls and the monsters? Why they are us.
I do not know how else to term some of the people today. We are monsters who turn families into shreds and then say that others were doing it so why not them. It turns out that others did not do it as a matter of routine precisely due to the horrific effects of it. So there went that excuse and in any case, since when is it a reasonable justification to do evil because someone else does it. That kind of stays in primary school where it belongs. Hopefully kids learn better as they grow up. But what about the adults who do not grow up or who grow up twisted and turn demented as time ages them?
What is anyone who thinks that solving family destruction is to ensure that we can keep children for more than 20 days! Now is not that a great solution! And hey, we have just the facilities - tent internments, old federal prisons that are unhealthy even for adults so of course, let's shove the kids in and hey, maybe they will die off preventing future interactions!!! Sounds cruel but what else can one think? How else is one to think!
Where else is the monster but within that Oval Office. How can we term him anything else when he consistently deems human as animals, as bugs infesting our world, as targets of ridicule based on their looks or name, using infantile rhymes, denigrating ethnic backgrounds, just being so totally vile that he turns one's stomach on an almost hourly basis. At least Pelosi, a target of his, answered him with a beautiful statement. “We believe, some of us who are attracted to the political arena, to government and public service, that we’re all God’s children, there’s a spark of divinity in every person on Earth, and that we all have to recognize that as we respect the dignity and worth of every person and as we recognize our responsibilities with that spark of divinity within us,” Warren does the same with him, refusing to back down, even as Huckabee, daughter and father, continue on in their nasty paths. The GOP has morphed, turning into the opposite of is founding people, applauding slavery, the rich, isolationism, and a total lack of social responsibility. Time for GOP members with a spine, with morals to stand up.
Yes, folks, here be monsters. They are indeed us. When a grown white woman calls the police on a little eight year old African American girl selling bottles of water, insisting she is a criminal because she is selling without a permit! Where the hell have we gone. Where the hell are we standing? What have we become? What if she was a Dreamer? Would that 'crime' make her ineligible for citizenship, eligible to be granted the new privilege of America - to be grabbed off the sidewalk and deported?! Watch out for your kids and grandkids selling that lemonade or those same bottle of water on a hot day.
Yes, folks. Here be monsters and they have been met with recognition as they are us in so many ways. Where is the America we used to be? Yes, we made errors, sometimes awful ones, but we were always willing to listen, to hear, to learn and to progress. Yes, some people never do that and they are now emboldened to come out of the woodwork where they have hidden for lo these many a year - or perhaps not even that long!
Time for those heroes - the everyday people - who can stand up to these monsters, who can root them out, and who can allow children to live in peace and sell their drinks - and be applauded for their stands! Here be monsters. And they are among us. Here be monsters. Time for soul searching, for truth, for courage, for justice, for valor, for honesty, for humanity. Let us figuratively slay the dragons, the monsters. Let us give them no room within our society. Toss them out of office, out of positions of power. Teach them the right way by showing them the right way. Cleanse our souls and minds and hearts. Let the monsters stay on the old maps. Let us remember who we truly are and how much we need to get back there.
Friday, June 22, 2018
WELL I DO!
So our semi disappearing First Lady has reappeared wearing a jacket from Zara - Zara! - the same shops that my granddaughters like to find good deals, and on it there is a mysterious message - "I Don't Care. Do U?
Well. Zara? Incongruous. A message, perhaps trying to be like everyone else, one with the masses? Or a message to Donald that she does not care what he thinks and she is going and making statements that she wishes and that jacket was on her back when she deplaned upon her return. Whatever, it does ask a question of the country and unfortunately many will answer that they, too, do not really care.
Or perhaps it is the message that she has not fallen for her husband's fake and forced capitulation re separation of families at the borders. And lookee here what garbage has come to the surface. And remember that I warned that there was a lot of muck underneath it all.
The Office for Refugee Resettlement. A shiver goes thru me at the use of that word - resettlement. How many are they planning and will this supposedly benign term eventually morph into a resettlement akin to the Japanese internments of WWII or that of the Jews in Nazi Europe? And please, do not say or mouth that ridiculous statement that it cannot happen here. It HAS happened here.
Even as that crocodile is saying how hurt he was about the kids, the separations will continue according to a private statement by Nielsen. The government on the civilian side has now looked into the settlement or is that resettlement of at least 20,000 kids on army bases! Army bases! Anyone still not shuddering? Anyone still not caring? And now it has come out that these kids and others caught in this resettlement net for whatever reason have been illegally sedated with powerful psychotropic medication, used for experimentation, and simply just about abused in every which way one can think. The simple - simple? - act of ripping away from parents is a violation of human rights.
And let us not compare this to one convicted of murder or robbery or kidnapping -hmmm, would that mean that we would have to take all the children of those implicated in this official kidnapping and holding for ransom that the government is pulling? Interesting thought, that. These parents, for the most part - and I am being generous here - are simple people willing to go through hell in order to get their kids to a better place. To a place where they will not be forced into a gang or to service a gang member, or forced to kill, or live in a hopeless, dark world. These parents too dream the same way that our parents and grandparents and go down the line all dreamed and that included Trump who is only second generation born here. Remember that , Donny Boy. Wonder if he is convicted of a crime if he can be deported back to country of original origin, Germany. Can you just see Angela Merkel greeting him, throwing tons of candy, a hail of candy at him?! Love it!!
But seriously. What are we doing. We are going to lock up thousands upon thousands of children in makeshift shelters on army bases in some of the toughest areas of our country? We are going to use soldiers to guard these oh so scary kids? Will the soldiers change diapers? Will they herd the older kids? Will these kids grow up in a lawless society that we have forced them into and of course, making sure they never receive a touch of love or encouragement!
That weasel Sessions and all the rest of those hypocritical religiosos, shame on all of you. The Bible does not okay this. It does not okay slavery. It does not okay oppression of children. It does not okay separating children from family. It does not okay keeping these children away, NOT reuniting them with their parents. It does not okay losing these kids in the system somewhere. And even if it did, even so, the simple laws of humanity do not okay this!!!
So for the question Do U Care? please answer a resounding yes. Be sure to keep our humanity. Be sure to look for the ways to change this administration, to throw them out of office, to regain the true American soul and be able to hold our heads up high once again. Do U Care? I do. A lot. We all should. How can we not?
Well. Zara? Incongruous. A message, perhaps trying to be like everyone else, one with the masses? Or a message to Donald that she does not care what he thinks and she is going and making statements that she wishes and that jacket was on her back when she deplaned upon her return. Whatever, it does ask a question of the country and unfortunately many will answer that they, too, do not really care.
Or perhaps it is the message that she has not fallen for her husband's fake and forced capitulation re separation of families at the borders. And lookee here what garbage has come to the surface. And remember that I warned that there was a lot of muck underneath it all.
The Office for Refugee Resettlement. A shiver goes thru me at the use of that word - resettlement. How many are they planning and will this supposedly benign term eventually morph into a resettlement akin to the Japanese internments of WWII or that of the Jews in Nazi Europe? And please, do not say or mouth that ridiculous statement that it cannot happen here. It HAS happened here.
Even as that crocodile is saying how hurt he was about the kids, the separations will continue according to a private statement by Nielsen. The government on the civilian side has now looked into the settlement or is that resettlement of at least 20,000 kids on army bases! Army bases! Anyone still not shuddering? Anyone still not caring? And now it has come out that these kids and others caught in this resettlement net for whatever reason have been illegally sedated with powerful psychotropic medication, used for experimentation, and simply just about abused in every which way one can think. The simple - simple? - act of ripping away from parents is a violation of human rights.
And let us not compare this to one convicted of murder or robbery or kidnapping -hmmm, would that mean that we would have to take all the children of those implicated in this official kidnapping and holding for ransom that the government is pulling? Interesting thought, that. These parents, for the most part - and I am being generous here - are simple people willing to go through hell in order to get their kids to a better place. To a place where they will not be forced into a gang or to service a gang member, or forced to kill, or live in a hopeless, dark world. These parents too dream the same way that our parents and grandparents and go down the line all dreamed and that included Trump who is only second generation born here. Remember that , Donny Boy. Wonder if he is convicted of a crime if he can be deported back to country of original origin, Germany. Can you just see Angela Merkel greeting him, throwing tons of candy, a hail of candy at him?! Love it!!
But seriously. What are we doing. We are going to lock up thousands upon thousands of children in makeshift shelters on army bases in some of the toughest areas of our country? We are going to use soldiers to guard these oh so scary kids? Will the soldiers change diapers? Will they herd the older kids? Will these kids grow up in a lawless society that we have forced them into and of course, making sure they never receive a touch of love or encouragement!
That weasel Sessions and all the rest of those hypocritical religiosos, shame on all of you. The Bible does not okay this. It does not okay slavery. It does not okay oppression of children. It does not okay separating children from family. It does not okay keeping these children away, NOT reuniting them with their parents. It does not okay losing these kids in the system somewhere. And even if it did, even so, the simple laws of humanity do not okay this!!!
So for the question Do U Care? please answer a resounding yes. Be sure to keep our humanity. Be sure to look for the ways to change this administration, to throw them out of office, to regain the true American soul and be able to hold our heads up high once again. Do U Care? I do. A lot. We all should. How can we not?
Thursday, June 21, 2018
HANG ON A MINUTE!
So part of the cookie crumbled, right? Well, yes, but not enough. The pig and the members of his stymates are still working on keeping families apart and wasting our national resources on chasing resident 'criminals' - no license, because they are not allowed to get one, working in a meat packing factory - and no white person wants that job - working on the lawns - and no white person wants those jobs - working on the roofs in the heat of the summer - and no white person wants that job. Of course, Mar a Lago and all Trump properties have no problem because somehow, Trump et al get the visa permissions they need for all their necessary workers. Wow! Can't imagine how that happens!
After telling lies, wallowing in lies, at least 14 times over this issue alone, Trump and minions finally caved - but only to a degree. First of all, I would like to see it actually in practice, but the kids now lingering in prison, in their cages, or in refurbished box stores, or crying their hearts out in foster homes, or being walked in lines, like prisoners, to porta-potties in broiling tent cities surrounded by scrubland, they are left out in the cold, so to speak. They will not be grandfathered in. So stated and so it will be.
It will be interesting to see how these kids now in their cages, you know, those dangerous toddlers, those nefarious children, those dangerous teens who are now locked up because they followed their parents or their hearts and dreams, how will they be transported within the country? Four airlines - American, United, Frontier, Southwest, have all issued statements basically stating that they will not transport migrant children separated from family. Period. Numerous stories have been told and retold about crying groups of kids chaperoned by an adult and attendants being highly discouraged from interacting with them.
What a brave and bold country we have. What brave and bold ICE and Border Patrol and Homeland people we have when they spend our resources on raiding factories where no one else wants to work, haunt the outsides of courts and churches to find more victims, do random stops in migrant neighborhoods, arrest and nab up long time, even legal residents, on spurious charges and never mind the American spouses and children they have, the businesses they have set up. You see, not everyone, contrary to the idiot's statements are MS13!!!!!
Think what could be done with all the manhours and money spent on this program. Food for the hungry. Work training programs. Fixing the infrastructure of our country that is crumbling. Better veteran care. Infusions of funds into schools. Raising the salaries of teachers. Any other ideas? Feel free to add them to the list.
But how do we move forward when we have a lunatic at the head. He goes on a rally for a candidate and ends up screaming the same old lying crap about Hilary! We find that he had real bursts of almost insane like anger at the G7 summit and threw candies at Merkel with an insulting remark. He cancels a traditional picnic - oh, such presidential decision making - but holds a $100,000 per plate fund raising dinner. The hypocrisy stinks to the heavens.
But what is even worse is the fact that there are still people, including many Republicans in Congress, who still want to continue and even ramp us this nasty program of separation of families. Evidently they think they are immune to such things happening to them and their families. They are not, no one is, for again, hatred never ends, knows no bounds. How can there be such cruelty in so many? How can people still be deluded by this man? He lies and lies and lies and lies. He is demeaning of others in cruel manners. Argues with the world and we are going nowhere but to hell in a handbasket with this man.
Oh and by the way, still need another place to spend money rather than chasing and locking up children? How about environment and climate change. Just saw a video presentation of cities that will be mostly or a great deal under water between 2060 and 2100. Not a pretty sight as major and small cities alike will be gone, the homes gone, the people scattered. Hey, maybe the cages can be recycled! Put in some carpeting, cover up the fencing and who knows, recycling at its best, huh! New homes for the displaced citizens of flooded shoreline cities.
Part of the cookie crumbled, but the bakers are busy making plans for more and trying to resurrect this crumbled cookie. Time for the chief baker and all his assistants to go. Throw the lot of them out of office, ASAP. Use the courts, the impeachment process, pressure to resign, whatever works, but get them gone and let us replace them with humanistic people, people who remember they are Americans first and not Republican or Democrat first and foremost. Replace them with people with hearts, people who know how to prioritize properly, people who recognize what new immigrants contribute to this country.
I used to love Lee Greenwood's song and sing out loud, proud and strong, how I was proud to be an American. Not now. Not for quite some time. Wish I could sing it again. Bet you do too.
After telling lies, wallowing in lies, at least 14 times over this issue alone, Trump and minions finally caved - but only to a degree. First of all, I would like to see it actually in practice, but the kids now lingering in prison, in their cages, or in refurbished box stores, or crying their hearts out in foster homes, or being walked in lines, like prisoners, to porta-potties in broiling tent cities surrounded by scrubland, they are left out in the cold, so to speak. They will not be grandfathered in. So stated and so it will be.
It will be interesting to see how these kids now in their cages, you know, those dangerous toddlers, those nefarious children, those dangerous teens who are now locked up because they followed their parents or their hearts and dreams, how will they be transported within the country? Four airlines - American, United, Frontier, Southwest, have all issued statements basically stating that they will not transport migrant children separated from family. Period. Numerous stories have been told and retold about crying groups of kids chaperoned by an adult and attendants being highly discouraged from interacting with them.
What a brave and bold country we have. What brave and bold ICE and Border Patrol and Homeland people we have when they spend our resources on raiding factories where no one else wants to work, haunt the outsides of courts and churches to find more victims, do random stops in migrant neighborhoods, arrest and nab up long time, even legal residents, on spurious charges and never mind the American spouses and children they have, the businesses they have set up. You see, not everyone, contrary to the idiot's statements are MS13!!!!!
Think what could be done with all the manhours and money spent on this program. Food for the hungry. Work training programs. Fixing the infrastructure of our country that is crumbling. Better veteran care. Infusions of funds into schools. Raising the salaries of teachers. Any other ideas? Feel free to add them to the list.
But how do we move forward when we have a lunatic at the head. He goes on a rally for a candidate and ends up screaming the same old lying crap about Hilary! We find that he had real bursts of almost insane like anger at the G7 summit and threw candies at Merkel with an insulting remark. He cancels a traditional picnic - oh, such presidential decision making - but holds a $100,000 per plate fund raising dinner. The hypocrisy stinks to the heavens.
But what is even worse is the fact that there are still people, including many Republicans in Congress, who still want to continue and even ramp us this nasty program of separation of families. Evidently they think they are immune to such things happening to them and their families. They are not, no one is, for again, hatred never ends, knows no bounds. How can there be such cruelty in so many? How can people still be deluded by this man? He lies and lies and lies and lies. He is demeaning of others in cruel manners. Argues with the world and we are going nowhere but to hell in a handbasket with this man.
Oh and by the way, still need another place to spend money rather than chasing and locking up children? How about environment and climate change. Just saw a video presentation of cities that will be mostly or a great deal under water between 2060 and 2100. Not a pretty sight as major and small cities alike will be gone, the homes gone, the people scattered. Hey, maybe the cages can be recycled! Put in some carpeting, cover up the fencing and who knows, recycling at its best, huh! New homes for the displaced citizens of flooded shoreline cities.
Part of the cookie crumbled, but the bakers are busy making plans for more and trying to resurrect this crumbled cookie. Time for the chief baker and all his assistants to go. Throw the lot of them out of office, ASAP. Use the courts, the impeachment process, pressure to resign, whatever works, but get them gone and let us replace them with humanistic people, people who remember they are Americans first and not Republican or Democrat first and foremost. Replace them with people with hearts, people who know how to prioritize properly, people who recognize what new immigrants contribute to this country.
I used to love Lee Greenwood's song and sing out loud, proud and strong, how I was proud to be an American. Not now. Not for quite some time. Wish I could sing it again. Bet you do too.
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
THE MUCK UNDERNEATH
These have been bad days, mean days for the country. To find ourselves at this point arguing whether it is okay to lock kids up, whether it is okay to take pre school kids, infants, and lock then up in "tender age" containment centers, otherwise known as prisons! A rose is a rose whatever name one calls it.
So what is the muck underneath? It is ugly enough on top, on the surface alone. What is the muck? It is the truth under all this. It is the showing of the flag, the ugly, nasty flag of those who think it okay to do this to kids and one must ask - if it is okay, then jump to the necessary conclusion that what is planned or being done already to the adults must be even more grievous than ever. Simply separating a parent and child . How are we any better than the Boko Haram or the Shabab, any other terror group that comes to a village and kidnaps all the kids, or breaks into a school for girls and takes them all to be sex slaves and servants. How is it any different?
The answer is - it is not different, just in a different place and circumstance, but the end result is the same. Damaged parents, traumatized for life kids and an ugly stain on the soul of our nation. That stain is the indication that under our surface adherence to decency, to democracy, to human rights, under it all is the ugly truth about too many of our people. Truly, the ugly American.
Who are these ugly people? Well, for one we have the President, who calls these immigrants an "infestation" - dehumanizing them, another fascist act, who signed and ordered this whole nastiness into operation. He is the one ranting about child smuggling! What a crock of ….. These are parents with kids, with babies, trying to take them to a better life and at times, yes, there are no parents, just another relative or friend who has taken it upon themselves to deliver this child to a parent who has gone before. Yes, I am sure there are some bad dudes among these immigrants, but then again, there are bad dudes among us all, else why are the prisons overcrowded and do not get me started on that!
Think how strong these illegal immigrants are, and their kids. They are trekking for hundreds and even thousands of miles. There is no luxury bus with soft seats and Muzak. There is only feet, or hanging off train roofs, scrambling for food and water when supplies run out. It is conquering fear of uniformed people for the chance to provide a better future for their kids Think of the strength they have, the inner strength. Think of the contributions they can make to us, to our economy, to our schools and think tanks. Think what we are throwing away! Better we should throw some other people away!
So Nielsen eats in a Mexican restaurant. Hmmm, says something, does it not? She is heckled and rightfully so. Trump is met by members of a Congressional Hispanic Caucus after he gives a ridiculous and abusive meeting to Republicans from Congress. Trump trashes his own Party members, nasty and mean, as usual, and an intern yells an epithet to Trump. Pompeo cancels a meeting after even the last minute, once again disrespecting legislators, still covering up the truth about North Korea - there is no deal, folks. Simply none and saying there is one with no details, no concrete points - there is no deal. Period. The emperor is still naked.
Our country is splitting apart. When a Texas billboard tells 'liberals' to keep driving and basically get out of town, then where are we as a nation. The muck underneath is oozing upwards, coming into the open and it ain't pretty. The fact that we have people like Ingraham or Lewandowski who can crack jokes about separation of families, Republican legislators who cynically, after making a 1 trillion dollar plus tax cut bill which benefitted the uber wealthy, causing great national debt and so now they are planning to solve it on the backs and lives of Medicare and Social Security!!!!! Filthy motives and deeds.
Worst of all is the fact that there are so many willing to rip these kids away, ignore their crying, even crack jokes about it and where does it end. Tent cities or internment camps. What is the true name? Imitation tactics of other fascists and the excuse that one is doing his job!!! Been there, done that, have we not?
Get your wading boots ready and stock up for a long and dangerous journey. We are being overwhelmed with muck, human and otherwise. Our nation is splitting apart. Where will it end? Will we cover over the muck or will it overwhelm us all? Scary future there.
So what is the muck underneath? It is ugly enough on top, on the surface alone. What is the muck? It is the truth under all this. It is the showing of the flag, the ugly, nasty flag of those who think it okay to do this to kids and one must ask - if it is okay, then jump to the necessary conclusion that what is planned or being done already to the adults must be even more grievous than ever. Simply separating a parent and child . How are we any better than the Boko Haram or the Shabab, any other terror group that comes to a village and kidnaps all the kids, or breaks into a school for girls and takes them all to be sex slaves and servants. How is it any different?
The answer is - it is not different, just in a different place and circumstance, but the end result is the same. Damaged parents, traumatized for life kids and an ugly stain on the soul of our nation. That stain is the indication that under our surface adherence to decency, to democracy, to human rights, under it all is the ugly truth about too many of our people. Truly, the ugly American.
Who are these ugly people? Well, for one we have the President, who calls these immigrants an "infestation" - dehumanizing them, another fascist act, who signed and ordered this whole nastiness into operation. He is the one ranting about child smuggling! What a crock of ….. These are parents with kids, with babies, trying to take them to a better life and at times, yes, there are no parents, just another relative or friend who has taken it upon themselves to deliver this child to a parent who has gone before. Yes, I am sure there are some bad dudes among these immigrants, but then again, there are bad dudes among us all, else why are the prisons overcrowded and do not get me started on that!
Think how strong these illegal immigrants are, and their kids. They are trekking for hundreds and even thousands of miles. There is no luxury bus with soft seats and Muzak. There is only feet, or hanging off train roofs, scrambling for food and water when supplies run out. It is conquering fear of uniformed people for the chance to provide a better future for their kids Think of the strength they have, the inner strength. Think of the contributions they can make to us, to our economy, to our schools and think tanks. Think what we are throwing away! Better we should throw some other people away!
So Nielsen eats in a Mexican restaurant. Hmmm, says something, does it not? She is heckled and rightfully so. Trump is met by members of a Congressional Hispanic Caucus after he gives a ridiculous and abusive meeting to Republicans from Congress. Trump trashes his own Party members, nasty and mean, as usual, and an intern yells an epithet to Trump. Pompeo cancels a meeting after even the last minute, once again disrespecting legislators, still covering up the truth about North Korea - there is no deal, folks. Simply none and saying there is one with no details, no concrete points - there is no deal. Period. The emperor is still naked.
Our country is splitting apart. When a Texas billboard tells 'liberals' to keep driving and basically get out of town, then where are we as a nation. The muck underneath is oozing upwards, coming into the open and it ain't pretty. The fact that we have people like Ingraham or Lewandowski who can crack jokes about separation of families, Republican legislators who cynically, after making a 1 trillion dollar plus tax cut bill which benefitted the uber wealthy, causing great national debt and so now they are planning to solve it on the backs and lives of Medicare and Social Security!!!!! Filthy motives and deeds.
Worst of all is the fact that there are so many willing to rip these kids away, ignore their crying, even crack jokes about it and where does it end. Tent cities or internment camps. What is the true name? Imitation tactics of other fascists and the excuse that one is doing his job!!! Been there, done that, have we not?
Get your wading boots ready and stock up for a long and dangerous journey. We are being overwhelmed with muck, human and otherwise. Our nation is splitting apart. Where will it end? Will we cover over the muck or will it overwhelm us all? Scary future there.
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
IS THE COOKIE CRUMBLING?
Or perhaps I should have said oyster, as Trump and minions seem to feel that the USA is their oyster, their chocolate chip cookies, to eat and crumble as they see fit. Secretary after Secretary have proven themselves corrupt, liars, cheaters, with barely a human feeling between them. The latest? Ross, found out that he owned companies tied to Russia and China, played financial games with the stocks and now handed them over to a friend to control - but really now!!!!
But the worst, or perhaps the best, now, is the fact that maybe, just maybe, the Trump administration has reached its cliff edge. Their cruel tactic of family separation has reached a height that even the spineless Republicans cannot ignore, even if it is just to realize that never mind it is so wrong and cruel, just realize that the 2018 elections will be bad for them with this policy hanging over them. Oysters and crumbling cookies.
The video visual and auditory went viral yesterday, not only the one with the little girl crying for her mother, whose shoelaces were taken away - what so she does not commit suicide when separated from her mother? This was the video, about 20 minutes of kids, little ones, ripped from their parents, crying for Mama and Daddy, crying for the ones who have raised them and nourished them and have tried to bring them to a better and brighter world. We tell the parents that their children are going for baths?! Then they never return? Their whereabouts lost in so many cases? The chills of the lies and their purposes should wrack every natural human being, and certainly any Jew, any member of the human tribe, in fact.
I have been raising this issue for quite some time and am thrilled to see that others have finally awoken to its threat to our very soul as a country. Millions were raised in a short time to help reunite families, pay bonds so they can be released, trying to make amends for people taking inhumane actions in our name. Well, no more. Let the government fall over this issue for it is symbolic of their very wrongness, their evil - yes, evil. From mauling women, to lying on taxes, from using charitable funds for one's own purposes, business and political, to behaving in a demented and erratic manner, cursing and calling people names made up by a kindergarten mentally aged supposed adult - this has all got to go. And thank G-d some Republicans are realizing this.
Ted Cruz has finally woken up and is sponsoring a bill to end this policy. Republicans are speaking up and out and saying they disapprove and their representatives are finally clearing out their ears - and their souls? Just knowing that two rabid anti immigration people are now in places of power and control can make one sick. Sessions and Miller were two outliers on this issue and yet here they are, running this very sad and bad and cruel and immoral program and think of all the names one wants, this has got to stop. It must. This nonsensical lie of Trump's that it is the Democrats doing this - what the hell is the matter with him? Is there no lie he is unwilling to say? Or is it that he is now incapable of walking on the right side of any street?
Where are his adult children to protest this policy? Where are the rest of the administration who also have children and grandchildren. "There but for the grace of G-d"...and remember that hatred does not end, never ends, and picks new victims as the first are swallowed up by this hatred and evil.
I would so love to get back to some funny postings, some musings, go back after David Israel as there are so many things he has neglected, letting our beautiful Village find itself on shaky ground in so many ways. But the children are the priority. Always and forever. Yours and mine and all of ours, black, white, pink, purple or whatever color you wish. A child is a child and a parent is a parent. That 2 year old is not an MS13 gangster! Just a little one crying for momma, or a slightly older child now being placed in charge of his or her little sibling in a confused and seemingly heartless world. STOP!!!!
But the worst, or perhaps the best, now, is the fact that maybe, just maybe, the Trump administration has reached its cliff edge. Their cruel tactic of family separation has reached a height that even the spineless Republicans cannot ignore, even if it is just to realize that never mind it is so wrong and cruel, just realize that the 2018 elections will be bad for them with this policy hanging over them. Oysters and crumbling cookies.
The video visual and auditory went viral yesterday, not only the one with the little girl crying for her mother, whose shoelaces were taken away - what so she does not commit suicide when separated from her mother? This was the video, about 20 minutes of kids, little ones, ripped from their parents, crying for Mama and Daddy, crying for the ones who have raised them and nourished them and have tried to bring them to a better and brighter world. We tell the parents that their children are going for baths?! Then they never return? Their whereabouts lost in so many cases? The chills of the lies and their purposes should wrack every natural human being, and certainly any Jew, any member of the human tribe, in fact.
I have been raising this issue for quite some time and am thrilled to see that others have finally awoken to its threat to our very soul as a country. Millions were raised in a short time to help reunite families, pay bonds so they can be released, trying to make amends for people taking inhumane actions in our name. Well, no more. Let the government fall over this issue for it is symbolic of their very wrongness, their evil - yes, evil. From mauling women, to lying on taxes, from using charitable funds for one's own purposes, business and political, to behaving in a demented and erratic manner, cursing and calling people names made up by a kindergarten mentally aged supposed adult - this has all got to go. And thank G-d some Republicans are realizing this.
Ted Cruz has finally woken up and is sponsoring a bill to end this policy. Republicans are speaking up and out and saying they disapprove and their representatives are finally clearing out their ears - and their souls? Just knowing that two rabid anti immigration people are now in places of power and control can make one sick. Sessions and Miller were two outliers on this issue and yet here they are, running this very sad and bad and cruel and immoral program and think of all the names one wants, this has got to stop. It must. This nonsensical lie of Trump's that it is the Democrats doing this - what the hell is the matter with him? Is there no lie he is unwilling to say? Or is it that he is now incapable of walking on the right side of any street?
Where are his adult children to protest this policy? Where are the rest of the administration who also have children and grandchildren. "There but for the grace of G-d"...and remember that hatred does not end, never ends, and picks new victims as the first are swallowed up by this hatred and evil.
I would so love to get back to some funny postings, some musings, go back after David Israel as there are so many things he has neglected, letting our beautiful Village find itself on shaky ground in so many ways. But the children are the priority. Always and forever. Yours and mine and all of ours, black, white, pink, purple or whatever color you wish. A child is a child and a parent is a parent. That 2 year old is not an MS13 gangster! Just a little one crying for momma, or a slightly older child now being placed in charge of his or her little sibling in a confused and seemingly heartless world. STOP!!!!
Monday, June 18, 2018
OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF ......
Whose mouths does one believe? Does one believe the supposed leader of a free country who calls the media Fake News, calls it Sick in capital letters, who has caused a long time member of Fox to denounce the company, saying he is embarrassed to work for it when a Fox News character says “always assume the opposite of what they’re telling you on the big news stations.”
That, my friends, is a challenge to the very structure of our country, a challenge to it, a tactic of all dictators throughout history who have tried to keep the truth away from the people, a tactic which is found memorialized in such classics as 1984 or Brave New World. So, whose mouth?
When an almost perfect caricature of a southern sheriff tries to use a deadly high speed chase as an example of why the borders need walls and cameras and sensors and does not hear the echo of Iron Curtain countries, of East Berlin, of the horrific losses of life of heroes trying to leave these dictatorial countries?
And where was the chase? Why in Texas, the same Texas where the government - our representative in this world - has opened a tent camp, yup, just like the refugee camps in the poorest of countries, a camp in the brutal heat, and for whom? For teenage boys who dared to cross the border, who dared to try to find a better life for themselves, a life away from death threats, a life reunited with family or separated now from families as they dared to ask for asylum - NOT a crime, though that animal Trump calls it one.
This egregious behavior, this brutality, this keeping of kids in cages - yes, cages! -or old empty box stores, of a no touch policy, so how does one comfort a little one crying for the mother or father, even as Ivanka or Junior take pictures of themselves with their children! Talk about rubbing salt in a wound. Where was Jared? Guess he was busy trying to firm up some more contacts within North Korea so he could anticipate prosperous business dealings. He has been doing this all along so why stop now?!
So whose mouth? How about the thousands who are protesting this cage policy? How about the ex ethics chief who resigned due to the awful nature of the Trump regime - and yes, it is more and more a regime rather than an administration. He said, " Your problems are nothing compared to the problems you're creating for the terrified children you're ripping from the arms of desperate parents at the border. This is monstrous. Stop it. Stop it now!'
When challenged by Nielsen, the one in charge of this abomination, who defended this policy, he simplified it - "Sorry, @SecNielsen, that was probably confusing. I don't mean to be unfair. Let me try to put it in terms you'll understand: Liar. Period," ".
Need more mouths? Okay. How about Melania Trump. Yes, that disappeared First Lady has spoken via a spokesperson and said, " "Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform, ... we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart." "
Or how about Laura Bush, a model of a First Lady? "this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart." And added, "Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso. These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history.
Need more? How about Hillary?
Mouths. Choose your own, edit your own. Listen to it and the truth it says - or does not. And then judge yourself in your inner soul according to your mouth.
That, my friends, is a challenge to the very structure of our country, a challenge to it, a tactic of all dictators throughout history who have tried to keep the truth away from the people, a tactic which is found memorialized in such classics as 1984 or Brave New World. So, whose mouth?
When an almost perfect caricature of a southern sheriff tries to use a deadly high speed chase as an example of why the borders need walls and cameras and sensors and does not hear the echo of Iron Curtain countries, of East Berlin, of the horrific losses of life of heroes trying to leave these dictatorial countries?
And where was the chase? Why in Texas, the same Texas where the government - our representative in this world - has opened a tent camp, yup, just like the refugee camps in the poorest of countries, a camp in the brutal heat, and for whom? For teenage boys who dared to cross the border, who dared to try to find a better life for themselves, a life away from death threats, a life reunited with family or separated now from families as they dared to ask for asylum - NOT a crime, though that animal Trump calls it one.
This egregious behavior, this brutality, this keeping of kids in cages - yes, cages! -or old empty box stores, of a no touch policy, so how does one comfort a little one crying for the mother or father, even as Ivanka or Junior take pictures of themselves with their children! Talk about rubbing salt in a wound. Where was Jared? Guess he was busy trying to firm up some more contacts within North Korea so he could anticipate prosperous business dealings. He has been doing this all along so why stop now?!
So whose mouth? How about the thousands who are protesting this cage policy? How about the ex ethics chief who resigned due to the awful nature of the Trump regime - and yes, it is more and more a regime rather than an administration. He said, " Your problems are nothing compared to the problems you're creating for the terrified children you're ripping from the arms of desperate parents at the border. This is monstrous. Stop it. Stop it now!'
When challenged by Nielsen, the one in charge of this abomination, who defended this policy, he simplified it - "Sorry, @SecNielsen, that was probably confusing. I don't mean to be unfair. Let me try to put it in terms you'll understand: Liar. Period," ".
Need more mouths? Okay. How about Melania Trump. Yes, that disappeared First Lady has spoken via a spokesperson and said, " "Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform, ... we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart." "
Or how about Laura Bush, a model of a First Lady? "this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart." And added, "Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso. These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history.
Need more? How about Hillary?
"Like so many others, I am horrified and heartbroken by what is happening to immigrant kids and families because of this administration’s disastrous policies. ... As a mother and a grandmother, it’s devastating to even imagine."
In a further tweet, Clinton wrote, "There is no more important test of our country than the way we treat the most vulnerable among us, especially children. We cannot turn away from what’s happening on our watch - we have to act."
Enough? Certainly we have had more than enough of this brutal policy. Best way to cure us now? For Trump to resign, plain and simple. He is unqualified, mentally deranged, emotionally short circuited, immoral and amoral, and destroying our country. Let him go and take his cowardly and dastardly people with him.Mouths. Choose your own, edit your own. Listen to it and the truth it says - or does not. And then judge yourself in your inner soul according to your mouth.
Sunday, June 17, 2018
SO WHY
Ever say something, do something and then smack yourself upside your own head because you did or said what you just did? We have all been there, done that and we will all continue to do that but here is the difference right now from the way it used to be. Today nothing is secret. Nothing is forgotten or forgiven. Nothing is truly secret any longer. What one did at 16 can bite you where it hurts when you are 46 or 24 and looking for a job and that picture that you sexted to your oh so forever boyfriend at his behest is now making the rounds, going viral and right into your future boss's inbox.
The world is topsy-turvy when adults need to find the closest juvenile to ask for advice and guidance as to how to work a critical daily device. It is inverted, standing on its head when kids during adolescence are asked to think as adults able to foresee and understand consequences, at a time when their brains are being rewired. And the errors they make at this time - are etched in stone, always there to haunt them. And where are their role models? Nowhere to be found.
So why do we allow this? Why do we not extend an understanding mind and hand to people who have done something wrong and then never done or been where they should not have been. Why? Because we are at a loss in this top speed world, no time to think, no time to assess, just act and say and do and decide or go with the flow. That flow, that fast white water flow is simply not good. So why do we drown ourselves in it?
Why? For the same reason that it is now a big fad or movement to check our DNA, know where we came from or what or when our ancestors came here to our country and from whence. I was floored to see that an ancestor of mine came to America circa 1825and a whole bunch more in 1850. Ha! I am a Yankee for more generations than I knew. I also found out that I am 2% Iberian. So do I have Sephardic blood or am I related to Moorish or Spanish royalty? It allows one to dream, to enjoy life in an often frightening world.
But there are more serious consequences in this whirly world of ours. It is natural to want to feel safe, to have the decisions made by others and just go along, living your life and leaving the big questions to others for their answers. But these answers will affect us, greatly so, so why. Why is it that we allow a mean and dangerous barely literate amoral selfish and greedy man to ruin the world? Why do we allow him to turn the world on its head, inch by inch, mile by mile, turning our democracy into a dictatorship with his openly fascistic tendencies. Why do we allow a man to make decisions that are so wrong and are based on his desires to build condos on a beach in the country of our enemy.
Why do we make believe that there are no lies in his administration, allow him and his minions to lie about the deaths in Puerto Rico and the neglect of the federal forces of that beautiful isle, filled as it is with brown people. Why? The lies are open and there for the seeing. And when they are uncovered what do we do? Nothing, it seems.
So why is that? Why do we allow a policy today that is going to cause such trouble in the future and even if one cannot or does not have a heart today, can see little ones taken away from parents, sit screaming in a shelter/prison for children, for toddlers, for adolescents who need parental guidance for kids who are not allowed to be touched or picked up even as they sit and scream, not understanding this sudden ripped apart world of theirs. What are we building for the future when these kids grow up with no humanity, no sense of love, growing without the human touch so essential to true life. This is not America, America is better than this a visitor to one of these detention centers says and yet, this IS America today. So why, why, why?
So why do we allow this? Why are we not rioting in the streets, screaming from the pages and leaves of our minds and hearts? Why are we allowing this man to do what he does? Why do we allow his corrupt and venal appointees, his incompetent appointed judges, to ruin our country, to do wrong!!! Why, so why?
Are we to forgive a man his misdeeds when he continues to accelerate in their size and scope? The answer is a definite NO and where, oh where, are courageous Republicans who need to call him out, to impeach and convict him? Where are the doctors who are honest and who know that his brain is probably cheesy with holes, unable to put together a sensible sentence, let alone an entire paragraph unless it is fed to him word by word. Why do they allow, no, why do we allow, this man, erratic, unknowing, nasty, cruel, so devastatingly unqualified to be President - to be President?
So why? Because we are cowards? Or because we are confused in a confusing world? Because we feel we need a dictator, a strong man to control us and our destiny? Because we are ready to hand over our country, tired of carrying the burden? You make an answer that suits you. As for me, I am sitting here holding my head in my hands wondering so why, why?
The world is topsy-turvy when adults need to find the closest juvenile to ask for advice and guidance as to how to work a critical daily device. It is inverted, standing on its head when kids during adolescence are asked to think as adults able to foresee and understand consequences, at a time when their brains are being rewired. And the errors they make at this time - are etched in stone, always there to haunt them. And where are their role models? Nowhere to be found.
So why do we allow this? Why do we not extend an understanding mind and hand to people who have done something wrong and then never done or been where they should not have been. Why? Because we are at a loss in this top speed world, no time to think, no time to assess, just act and say and do and decide or go with the flow. That flow, that fast white water flow is simply not good. So why do we drown ourselves in it?
Why? For the same reason that it is now a big fad or movement to check our DNA, know where we came from or what or when our ancestors came here to our country and from whence. I was floored to see that an ancestor of mine came to America circa 1825and a whole bunch more in 1850. Ha! I am a Yankee for more generations than I knew. I also found out that I am 2% Iberian. So do I have Sephardic blood or am I related to Moorish or Spanish royalty? It allows one to dream, to enjoy life in an often frightening world.
But there are more serious consequences in this whirly world of ours. It is natural to want to feel safe, to have the decisions made by others and just go along, living your life and leaving the big questions to others for their answers. But these answers will affect us, greatly so, so why. Why is it that we allow a mean and dangerous barely literate amoral selfish and greedy man to ruin the world? Why do we allow him to turn the world on its head, inch by inch, mile by mile, turning our democracy into a dictatorship with his openly fascistic tendencies. Why do we allow a man to make decisions that are so wrong and are based on his desires to build condos on a beach in the country of our enemy.
Why do we make believe that there are no lies in his administration, allow him and his minions to lie about the deaths in Puerto Rico and the neglect of the federal forces of that beautiful isle, filled as it is with brown people. Why? The lies are open and there for the seeing. And when they are uncovered what do we do? Nothing, it seems.
So why is that? Why do we allow a policy today that is going to cause such trouble in the future and even if one cannot or does not have a heart today, can see little ones taken away from parents, sit screaming in a shelter/prison for children, for toddlers, for adolescents who need parental guidance for kids who are not allowed to be touched or picked up even as they sit and scream, not understanding this sudden ripped apart world of theirs. What are we building for the future when these kids grow up with no humanity, no sense of love, growing without the human touch so essential to true life. This is not America, America is better than this a visitor to one of these detention centers says and yet, this IS America today. So why, why, why?
So why do we allow this? Why are we not rioting in the streets, screaming from the pages and leaves of our minds and hearts? Why are we allowing this man to do what he does? Why do we allow his corrupt and venal appointees, his incompetent appointed judges, to ruin our country, to do wrong!!! Why, so why?
Are we to forgive a man his misdeeds when he continues to accelerate in their size and scope? The answer is a definite NO and where, oh where, are courageous Republicans who need to call him out, to impeach and convict him? Where are the doctors who are honest and who know that his brain is probably cheesy with holes, unable to put together a sensible sentence, let alone an entire paragraph unless it is fed to him word by word. Why do they allow, no, why do we allow, this man, erratic, unknowing, nasty, cruel, so devastatingly unqualified to be President - to be President?
So why? Because we are cowards? Or because we are confused in a confusing world? Because we feel we need a dictator, a strong man to control us and our destiny? Because we are ready to hand over our country, tired of carrying the burden? You make an answer that suits you. As for me, I am sitting here holding my head in my hands wondering so why, why?
Friday, June 15, 2018
DO NOT GO TO SLEEP!
Even now, as grownups, we still awaken at times to see a weird shadow that looks like a monster or a thief and we lie there in a stiff terror wondering just what to do. It takes some time, but we convince ourselves it is nothing and hopefully we are back asleep.
Today, these times, have given us monsters on the wall, under the bed and in the closet, hanging from the ceiling and tramping around in the attic. It seems there is no lack of monsters and monster wannabes and certainly not for lack of trying. As amusing as it is at times, it is truthfully a nightmare that seems to advance every time we shut our eyes so....do not go to sleep.
I wonder, at times, if it is the proper environment, the proper times to start a new , third party and perhaps get rid of a formerly sane major one which has stood itself on its collective ears, trying shamefully to outdo each other in their slavish and cultish adoration and flattering of an insane man bent on the destruction of the USA as constitutionally set up. The members of this party are shouting at each other in a kindergarten free for all and yet it is not kindergarten, it is the government and it is our future. Time for a Republican Party to return to its roots of Abraham Lincoln, of all it stood for, and let the old one rot the way it deserves, right along with its current master.
Are we not ashamed? Are we not diving into the sleep mode in order to hide ourselves from the shame of it all? All the knowledge was there; it just took some work to put it all together. So now we have a sexual pervert, misogynist, nasty, illiterate, bored, tweeting man as president and now it is an open secret and a court case, one which the IRS can actually turn into a Federal case, a cheater, a thief of donated funds meant for charity taken and used to settle private debts, court settlements and fines, political donations and who knows what all else. And this is what we present to the world as our chosen leader?! Go back to sleep and hope this is a nightmare that will dissipate with the dawn.
But wish as we might, it will not disappear; it will only get worse if we continue to sleep at the wheel. Jeff Sessions is a creep of the highest magnitude. He is a man of slave owning mentality and I could just see him hiring masses of Simon Legrees to carry out his bidding. When the Pope calls the separation of families immoral, Sessions rebounds with a religious justification, a Biblical justification, if you will, for his godawful policy. The hypocrisy, the ugliness, the cruelty, the sheer wrongness of the whole thing and this is the head of the Justice Department?!!!! Nightmares indeed, and nightmares that seem to inflict us whether we are asleep or up.
This man, this increasingly dictatorial and mad man, now honors the dictators and murderers of the world - Putin, Kim Jong-un, Duterte, the Moslem countries where Christians and women and other religions or even sects of Islam are slaughtered, and right here in our country, such as it remains, he plumps for the biased, the hateful and hate filled candidates and threatens all who do not fall under his thumb.
Truly, we have lost our way, awake or asleep. We have sleepwalked through life as of late and we now have to live with a tribal country, one that will split along terribly deep lines and who knows what will happen then. All I do know for sure is that there are people like me who will not submit, who will not go down without a fight, who will demand that we return to America. The land of the free, the home of the truly brave, the land that G-d can truly bless, and not the fake and cruel religion of Sessions. Wake up, USA. Wake up!!
Today, these times, have given us monsters on the wall, under the bed and in the closet, hanging from the ceiling and tramping around in the attic. It seems there is no lack of monsters and monster wannabes and certainly not for lack of trying. As amusing as it is at times, it is truthfully a nightmare that seems to advance every time we shut our eyes so....do not go to sleep.
I wonder, at times, if it is the proper environment, the proper times to start a new , third party and perhaps get rid of a formerly sane major one which has stood itself on its collective ears, trying shamefully to outdo each other in their slavish and cultish adoration and flattering of an insane man bent on the destruction of the USA as constitutionally set up. The members of this party are shouting at each other in a kindergarten free for all and yet it is not kindergarten, it is the government and it is our future. Time for a Republican Party to return to its roots of Abraham Lincoln, of all it stood for, and let the old one rot the way it deserves, right along with its current master.
Are we not ashamed? Are we not diving into the sleep mode in order to hide ourselves from the shame of it all? All the knowledge was there; it just took some work to put it all together. So now we have a sexual pervert, misogynist, nasty, illiterate, bored, tweeting man as president and now it is an open secret and a court case, one which the IRS can actually turn into a Federal case, a cheater, a thief of donated funds meant for charity taken and used to settle private debts, court settlements and fines, political donations and who knows what all else. And this is what we present to the world as our chosen leader?! Go back to sleep and hope this is a nightmare that will dissipate with the dawn.
But wish as we might, it will not disappear; it will only get worse if we continue to sleep at the wheel. Jeff Sessions is a creep of the highest magnitude. He is a man of slave owning mentality and I could just see him hiring masses of Simon Legrees to carry out his bidding. When the Pope calls the separation of families immoral, Sessions rebounds with a religious justification, a Biblical justification, if you will, for his godawful policy. The hypocrisy, the ugliness, the cruelty, the sheer wrongness of the whole thing and this is the head of the Justice Department?!!!! Nightmares indeed, and nightmares that seem to inflict us whether we are asleep or up.
This man, this increasingly dictatorial and mad man, now honors the dictators and murderers of the world - Putin, Kim Jong-un, Duterte, the Moslem countries where Christians and women and other religions or even sects of Islam are slaughtered, and right here in our country, such as it remains, he plumps for the biased, the hateful and hate filled candidates and threatens all who do not fall under his thumb.
Truly, we have lost our way, awake or asleep. We have sleepwalked through life as of late and we now have to live with a tribal country, one that will split along terribly deep lines and who knows what will happen then. All I do know for sure is that there are people like me who will not submit, who will not go down without a fight, who will demand that we return to America. The land of the free, the home of the truly brave, the land that G-d can truly bless, and not the fake and cruel religion of Sessions. Wake up, USA. Wake up!!
Thursday, June 14, 2018
THE CHILDREN OF THUNDERDOME
Those children lived in a time of chaos, no society, of brutality, of death and as children were in the worst position ever. Well. Think about today and see if you feel the same way I do, and if not, then look deep inside yourself and ask yourself what have you become.
In Hosea, the book of the prophet of the same name, there is a verse which warns that the Lord and His People will accept only three sins, violations by an enemy and on the fourth, will return in kind to them what they have given or done to others. In 1973 as Israel was almost destroyed by a coalition of Arab states and the cowardice of the world, this song became popular, a song of defiance and hope. And Israel is still here.
But I wonder about the rest of the world today as well. We have become the nation of evil, the Damesek (Hebrew name) of Hosea. And how? Let's enumerate.
Today, studies have been shown to pinpoint the fact that Trump and his misdeeds, his grievous behavior have induced actual anxiety and ill feeling within people. I know. I am one of them. The columnists use the strongest language I have ever seen in print when they talk about the President. The strongest ever. There is an element of almost hopelessness, an attitude of we will just have to wait it out and hope we survive. His administration has turned into the biggest grab bag ever, with his appointees using the USA as their own private piggybank, raping the countryside, tearing away safety nets, consigning millions to die needless and painful deaths, and draining the lifeblood of the country.
It has turned the Republican Party on its head as it endorses the exact opposite of all that it had endorsed before. It has turned grown men into whimpering wimps, with no backbone, no spine, no balls, no morals, no soul.
But all this , all these wrongdoings are the three first misdeeds. What is the fourth is the one that condemns us all the way into the future and just as today we recall the Holocaust and its cruelties, how people lost themselves in its evil, became active participants or silent bystanders, thus allowing it to go on, they will recall the way we here in America have allowed our most innocent and helpless immigrants, the lifeblood of the future, to be taken away, to be ripped away and then? And then?
Told that your child is taken for a bathe and then never getting him or her back? Having an infant ripped from a mother's breast as she is feeding the baby? Huge camps of tiny kids roaming around or lying there listless. thousands of children raised without love, able to be taken away and used for what? For child soldiers? For sex dolls and victims? For slaves, and body servants. Or just left to wither away. And America will have to bear this stain forever. Forever.
What will you say or your grandchildren say when they are asked what you did about this? Did you fight it? Did you speak up about it? Against it? Did you harbor any children for safety? Did you support those who did? Or did you emasculate your soul and cheer it on falling under the cult of Trump, the dictator, the antitheses of what America is and supposed to be and was, at least until this man.
The children of the Thunderdome. Not just a song by Tina Turner. Not just a movie about Mad Max. But a real life event now, an ongoing and growing worse every minute crisis. Our own imitation of the Holocaust.
Who are we? What are we? Are these children less valuable because most are brown? Are they less feeling because they are brown? Do their parents not love them, hope for them, dream for them or is it that they are brown and therefore less human, untermensch and the horror in my mind, is that Jews can support this man who encourages it all, this Trump and his henchman Sessions and the people who do this job. It is not a job. It is not morally correct. It is so wrong that I sputter as I try to describe my despair, my hopelessness, my outrage.
Look within yourself. Take a good deep look. Who are you? Where will your children be soon enough, for hate does not stop. There are no boundaries. Look!!!!!
In Hosea, the book of the prophet of the same name, there is a verse which warns that the Lord and His People will accept only three sins, violations by an enemy and on the fourth, will return in kind to them what they have given or done to others. In 1973 as Israel was almost destroyed by a coalition of Arab states and the cowardice of the world, this song became popular, a song of defiance and hope. And Israel is still here.
But I wonder about the rest of the world today as well. We have become the nation of evil, the Damesek (Hebrew name) of Hosea. And how? Let's enumerate.
Today, studies have been shown to pinpoint the fact that Trump and his misdeeds, his grievous behavior have induced actual anxiety and ill feeling within people. I know. I am one of them. The columnists use the strongest language I have ever seen in print when they talk about the President. The strongest ever. There is an element of almost hopelessness, an attitude of we will just have to wait it out and hope we survive. His administration has turned into the biggest grab bag ever, with his appointees using the USA as their own private piggybank, raping the countryside, tearing away safety nets, consigning millions to die needless and painful deaths, and draining the lifeblood of the country.
It has turned the Republican Party on its head as it endorses the exact opposite of all that it had endorsed before. It has turned grown men into whimpering wimps, with no backbone, no spine, no balls, no morals, no soul.
But all this , all these wrongdoings are the three first misdeeds. What is the fourth is the one that condemns us all the way into the future and just as today we recall the Holocaust and its cruelties, how people lost themselves in its evil, became active participants or silent bystanders, thus allowing it to go on, they will recall the way we here in America have allowed our most innocent and helpless immigrants, the lifeblood of the future, to be taken away, to be ripped away and then? And then?
Told that your child is taken for a bathe and then never getting him or her back? Having an infant ripped from a mother's breast as she is feeding the baby? Huge camps of tiny kids roaming around or lying there listless. thousands of children raised without love, able to be taken away and used for what? For child soldiers? For sex dolls and victims? For slaves, and body servants. Or just left to wither away. And America will have to bear this stain forever. Forever.
What will you say or your grandchildren say when they are asked what you did about this? Did you fight it? Did you speak up about it? Against it? Did you harbor any children for safety? Did you support those who did? Or did you emasculate your soul and cheer it on falling under the cult of Trump, the dictator, the antitheses of what America is and supposed to be and was, at least until this man.
The children of the Thunderdome. Not just a song by Tina Turner. Not just a movie about Mad Max. But a real life event now, an ongoing and growing worse every minute crisis. Our own imitation of the Holocaust.
Who are we? What are we? Are these children less valuable because most are brown? Are they less feeling because they are brown? Do their parents not love them, hope for them, dream for them or is it that they are brown and therefore less human, untermensch and the horror in my mind, is that Jews can support this man who encourages it all, this Trump and his henchman Sessions and the people who do this job. It is not a job. It is not morally correct. It is so wrong that I sputter as I try to describe my despair, my hopelessness, my outrage.
Look within yourself. Take a good deep look. Who are you? Where will your children be soon enough, for hate does not stop. There are no boundaries. Look!!!!!
Wednesday, June 13, 2018
PHONES CALLED X
Yesterday I doomed myself. I was eligible for a phone upgrade, and though still yearning for my old flip phone, I agreed to go for the I phone x. Oy vey!! It is a distant cousin of my older I phone and much trickier to get used to. Even a certain techie I know very well is taking lessons off YouTube to figure it out - so what the hell am I supposed to do!? At least it recognizes and appreciates my face to unlock its secrets!
Sometimes it seems as if the rest of life is also moving away from the easily understood. It used to be that Americans plumped for America and did not do the bidding of other nations, particularly our enemies. Now, it seems that the more the current president obeys the heeds and callings of Putin, the happier his base is. And now, over the top, Trump had his people make a video that is straight out of the North Korean propaganda machine. It has soaring music, idealized pictures of North Korea, conveniently leaving out the sight of hungry people, oppressed people, its inhuman prison camp network. Nope, this one praises Kim, the dictator and juxtaposes Trump right along with him, two dictators. TWO DICTATORS. And his base goes right along with it, straight into the garbage heap of history as the American democracy fades into the setting sun. And the man boasts about it too!
Now our very being, our very existence as people in this country is being challenged. We were promised drug price reductions within two weeks. Ahem, not happening - and they admit it. But what seems to be happening and we will see as the insurance companies ramp up for next year's offerings, is whether pre existing conditions will be covered at the same cost as everyone else or if Trump et al will continue to push it as 'unconstitutional'. What? How? Is it more constitutional to kill people by neglect, by putting the meds they need to survive out of reach of their pockets? Is it more constitutional to force people to choose between meds or the people using them, to cut the daily use to every other day or even more? And more experienced people resign because they cannot take the stink of this regime any longer.
But wait! There's more. If your heart and stomach are not yet churning, then hear this. Trump himself is going to Texas to see if Fort Bliss can accommodate a tent camp - a tent camp! - to hold close to 5,000 children, children ripped from their parents' hearts and arms. So right in the middle of the heat, of floods or prejudice or whatever Texas is so good at providing, we will have 5,000 little innocent minors and who will hug them? Who will wipe their noses? Who will watch the little one take first steps? Who will encourage them to grow, to challenge themselves? Who will show them that love and kindness and hope are necessary?
But there is hope. Even as certain candidates win Republican primaries, the candidates which flaunt the Confederate flag, honor their heroes, spout modern day prejudice, even as this is happening, on the Democratic side there are advances. Women are winning. Trump has actually done one good deed, albeit unwillingly. This man who manhandles and disrespects women, is now hopefully going to face legislative bodies with more women in them, more people who are unafraid of him and his habits and his mouth.
And now, folks, back to the mysteries of the universe. Time to go figure out yet another thing my phone does. By the time I get it all figured out, x will have morphed into y. Y for Yikes! Getting too old for this, but not too old to be oblivious to the threats to our way of living, the values of our lives.
Sometimes it seems as if the rest of life is also moving away from the easily understood. It used to be that Americans plumped for America and did not do the bidding of other nations, particularly our enemies. Now, it seems that the more the current president obeys the heeds and callings of Putin, the happier his base is. And now, over the top, Trump had his people make a video that is straight out of the North Korean propaganda machine. It has soaring music, idealized pictures of North Korea, conveniently leaving out the sight of hungry people, oppressed people, its inhuman prison camp network. Nope, this one praises Kim, the dictator and juxtaposes Trump right along with him, two dictators. TWO DICTATORS. And his base goes right along with it, straight into the garbage heap of history as the American democracy fades into the setting sun. And the man boasts about it too!
Now our very being, our very existence as people in this country is being challenged. We were promised drug price reductions within two weeks. Ahem, not happening - and they admit it. But what seems to be happening and we will see as the insurance companies ramp up for next year's offerings, is whether pre existing conditions will be covered at the same cost as everyone else or if Trump et al will continue to push it as 'unconstitutional'. What? How? Is it more constitutional to kill people by neglect, by putting the meds they need to survive out of reach of their pockets? Is it more constitutional to force people to choose between meds or the people using them, to cut the daily use to every other day or even more? And more experienced people resign because they cannot take the stink of this regime any longer.
But wait! There's more. If your heart and stomach are not yet churning, then hear this. Trump himself is going to Texas to see if Fort Bliss can accommodate a tent camp - a tent camp! - to hold close to 5,000 children, children ripped from their parents' hearts and arms. So right in the middle of the heat, of floods or prejudice or whatever Texas is so good at providing, we will have 5,000 little innocent minors and who will hug them? Who will wipe their noses? Who will watch the little one take first steps? Who will encourage them to grow, to challenge themselves? Who will show them that love and kindness and hope are necessary?
But there is hope. Even as certain candidates win Republican primaries, the candidates which flaunt the Confederate flag, honor their heroes, spout modern day prejudice, even as this is happening, on the Democratic side there are advances. Women are winning. Trump has actually done one good deed, albeit unwillingly. This man who manhandles and disrespects women, is now hopefully going to face legislative bodies with more women in them, more people who are unafraid of him and his habits and his mouth.
And now, folks, back to the mysteries of the universe. Time to go figure out yet another thing my phone does. By the time I get it all figured out, x will have morphed into y. Y for Yikes! Getting too old for this, but not too old to be oblivious to the threats to our way of living, the values of our lives.
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
ROBERT FROST, WHERE ARE YOU?
Sometimes people disappear just when you need them. So, Robert Frost, where are you? We need your advice, your thinking on questions you posed in your poems. Which path are we to choose now in these difficult times and how do we know we still have miles to go before we sleep - or before we cross the line of no return?
You advise the reader to take the path less chosen, the one with perhaps more difficulties but also perhaps with the most value for its returns and I do not mean monetary reward either. You advice the reader that at a times there are miles to go before one can sleep, take a rest, a break, from hard labors. Now your country is truly at that point.
We here in America are at a crossroads which will determine the manner of survival of the USA as one state or another. Will we be the country, the democracy, the ever forward looking country envisioned by our Founding Fathers or will we turn into the harsh, dictatorial, humanity hating country of Trump, Sessions, Pruitt, Perdue, Bolton and the rest of the hatemongers. The choice is ours, but the time to make that choice is in a fast shrinking window. Day by day we lose another piece of our humanity. Day by day we watch the ostensible President of the country break off yet another piece of our heart as he insults and alienates our allies and makes nice-nice to our enemies, carrying out the foreign policy wishes of Putin and actually shaking hands with a mass murderer, Kim Jong-un from North Korea and showing off his crazy car to him, like the boastful infant he so truly is. And all the meanwhile, gives away the store with nothing in return and engages in his ridiculous man fights of the handshake.
This man, who demands personal and unquestioning loyalty, as do all dictators, this man who threatens the freedom of the press, who threatens to use the Justice Department to destroy his foes, this man who profits and benefits from his holdings using his position as President to funnel profits into his family's coffers, this man is sickening! Period.
Not satisfied with ripping families apart, children from mothers and fathers, babies and all, we now have a further step into what? It is so much more than nastiness. So much more. Now we are going to turn away people, mainly women and children, who are running from domestic abuse, gang threats and violence and what the hell is the matter with us? I am so ashamed of us, ashamed at this point to be an American. This is not my America, the home of the free and the brave. This is instead the home of the weak and spineless Republicans who lack morals and honesty, no moral fiber at all.
At least there are people who are fighting back. With speech and writing we are fighting back. With associations to counter Trump et al and their disgusting behavior, we are assuring our friends that this is temporary. But is it? Will we have that chance to choose another path or will that path be blocked, covered over, guarded with walls and guns and dogs? Will we be able to walk those miles before we can fall into our beds with a satisfied sigh, sure that our country is back on track?
Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman, Theodore Dreiser, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Dolly Madison, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Sanger, and all the rest of the men and women who built our country on moral principles for the benefit of mankind - where are you and your spirits? Surely we need them more than ever. Choose, folks, before the choice opportunity is gone.
You advise the reader to take the path less chosen, the one with perhaps more difficulties but also perhaps with the most value for its returns and I do not mean monetary reward either. You advice the reader that at a times there are miles to go before one can sleep, take a rest, a break, from hard labors. Now your country is truly at that point.
We here in America are at a crossroads which will determine the manner of survival of the USA as one state or another. Will we be the country, the democracy, the ever forward looking country envisioned by our Founding Fathers or will we turn into the harsh, dictatorial, humanity hating country of Trump, Sessions, Pruitt, Perdue, Bolton and the rest of the hatemongers. The choice is ours, but the time to make that choice is in a fast shrinking window. Day by day we lose another piece of our humanity. Day by day we watch the ostensible President of the country break off yet another piece of our heart as he insults and alienates our allies and makes nice-nice to our enemies, carrying out the foreign policy wishes of Putin and actually shaking hands with a mass murderer, Kim Jong-un from North Korea and showing off his crazy car to him, like the boastful infant he so truly is. And all the meanwhile, gives away the store with nothing in return and engages in his ridiculous man fights of the handshake.
This man, who demands personal and unquestioning loyalty, as do all dictators, this man who threatens the freedom of the press, who threatens to use the Justice Department to destroy his foes, this man who profits and benefits from his holdings using his position as President to funnel profits into his family's coffers, this man is sickening! Period.
Not satisfied with ripping families apart, children from mothers and fathers, babies and all, we now have a further step into what? It is so much more than nastiness. So much more. Now we are going to turn away people, mainly women and children, who are running from domestic abuse, gang threats and violence and what the hell is the matter with us? I am so ashamed of us, ashamed at this point to be an American. This is not my America, the home of the free and the brave. This is instead the home of the weak and spineless Republicans who lack morals and honesty, no moral fiber at all.
At least there are people who are fighting back. With speech and writing we are fighting back. With associations to counter Trump et al and their disgusting behavior, we are assuring our friends that this is temporary. But is it? Will we have that chance to choose another path or will that path be blocked, covered over, guarded with walls and guns and dogs? Will we be able to walk those miles before we can fall into our beds with a satisfied sigh, sure that our country is back on track?
Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman, Theodore Dreiser, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Dolly Madison, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Sanger, and all the rest of the men and women who built our country on moral principles for the benefit of mankind - where are you and your spirits? Surely we need them more than ever. Choose, folks, before the choice opportunity is gone.
Monday, June 11, 2018
MINI STAYCATION
Today, today is the day I take a mini vacation, a staycation. Ain't going anywhere. Just relaxing around the place and trying to ignore that disheveled, pouting infant in a man's bloated body who has brought us to the cusp of war with our allies, as we find out more and more about Russia's interference with our election, with Brexit and with almost any other thing you can think of. I am going to ignore for a day the fact that that overgrown moron has taken steps to negate our freedom of the press. Today, today is the day I take a selfish break.
Today is my day. ME day. I go for my hour of movement therapy and work with some great and caring people, young people, who give me hope for my future as well as the country's. I will have some great conversations and Face Times with the kids and mini kids and share some laughs. I will let in more of the light and the love today, enough to overcome the stink of corruption and greed.
Today is a fun day wherein I get to pick a new phone and see the even more complicated things to do on it and then I will stick to my old fashioned phone calls, texting, and playing my Whirly Word game. Maybe I will even figure out What'sapp and laugh at myself and my silly errors. Today is the day when I voice my wishes and longing for my good old lip phone! With its great little keyboard!
Today, today is the day when I read a good book, nothing deep, just a good thriller from one of my favorite authors. Today is the day when I will not only do the NY Times crossword but I will also dig out a Times crossword book and do some more. Crosswords are good for the soul and the head!
Today is the day to watch some movies from the library, ones we missed in the theater and want to see. Again, nothing deep, depressing or sad. Just good action movies where I can lose myself in the action and admire the special effects.
We're on vacation, as the song went, and at least for a day I will refuse to look at CNN - okay, just once or twice, maybe. I will refuse to allow that creep into my house today. I will refuse to think on the scary fact that he is destroying the world as we know it, taking down our country and its democracy, from ripping up state papers to telling vast lies to disrespecting all save his own family and I am not even sure about that.
Nope. No more about that goddam a-hole! Not today. Today I am on staycation and thinking of treating myself to a good ice cream shake over there in Carvel. The hell with diets and prohibitions today. Today is a staycation, a needed one, necessary to shake out the cobwebs and the filth left behind by that creep and remember that tomorrow, well, tomorrow is another day and another entry into the fray.
But today? Today I am on staycation.
Today is my day. ME day. I go for my hour of movement therapy and work with some great and caring people, young people, who give me hope for my future as well as the country's. I will have some great conversations and Face Times with the kids and mini kids and share some laughs. I will let in more of the light and the love today, enough to overcome the stink of corruption and greed.
Today is a fun day wherein I get to pick a new phone and see the even more complicated things to do on it and then I will stick to my old fashioned phone calls, texting, and playing my Whirly Word game. Maybe I will even figure out What'sapp and laugh at myself and my silly errors. Today is the day when I voice my wishes and longing for my good old lip phone! With its great little keyboard!
Today, today is the day when I read a good book, nothing deep, just a good thriller from one of my favorite authors. Today is the day when I will not only do the NY Times crossword but I will also dig out a Times crossword book and do some more. Crosswords are good for the soul and the head!
Today is the day to watch some movies from the library, ones we missed in the theater and want to see. Again, nothing deep, depressing or sad. Just good action movies where I can lose myself in the action and admire the special effects.
We're on vacation, as the song went, and at least for a day I will refuse to look at CNN - okay, just once or twice, maybe. I will refuse to allow that creep into my house today. I will refuse to think on the scary fact that he is destroying the world as we know it, taking down our country and its democracy, from ripping up state papers to telling vast lies to disrespecting all save his own family and I am not even sure about that.
Nope. No more about that goddam a-hole! Not today. Today I am on staycation and thinking of treating myself to a good ice cream shake over there in Carvel. The hell with diets and prohibitions today. Today is a staycation, a needed one, necessary to shake out the cobwebs and the filth left behind by that creep and remember that tomorrow, well, tomorrow is another day and another entry into the fray.
But today? Today I am on staycation.
Sunday, June 10, 2018
SEVENTY 70 !!!!!!!!!
70. Seventy. Whew!! From the standpoint of memory, this seemed almost unimaginable. It was the allotted biblical three score and ten. In my mind, as a little girl, I could not even fathom it. How could someone be seventy? Why that was even older than my grandparents and they were old - or so I thought.
And yet, thanks to G-d and my parents and friends and medical advancements here I am. And I wonder if the so called other advancements of society are truly that or have we gone the other way, lost something from our essential selves as people, as individuals, as a nation.
I rode on trolleys and considered it a big treat for no one ran around then on an everyday basis. Too expensive. Too time consuming. One organized. The trolleys were a great treat and to go on a subway? Wow!!! Today people fly all over, casually, and some have even reserved seats on flights to Mars and the moon. Not me on that!
We used to think with our heads, talk to each other, actually talk face to face rather than keep our heads in a bent position and text, even when sitting next to the person! What is the matter with that picture? I think we have lost part of our humanity in this. We do not talk anymore and as such, as a consequence we forget to look at faces, hear intonations, inflections and truly understand others.
I remember the Weekly Reader in second grade which spoke of the room size IBM computer and the glories for the future. Now we walk around with teeny little chips in our watches, our phones and ask yourself if this is a real improvement. It seems as if every advancement comes with serious side effects, do they not? Now we can be hacked at a moment's notice, be it our computers, our businesses and governments and even our cars. Not such a great advancement was it?
And governments. Once upon a time we trusted our government to look out for us, for its citizens. We looked to it for progress and yes, we had a long way to go, but ask yourself if we have gotten better at this or not. Once we instituted governmental programs, a safety net for the needy, the ill, the elderly and yes, it was expensive, but yes, it was necessary and part of being human and advancing ourselves from the caves! We knew who our enemies were, and the USSR was right there, was it not? And we knew how to behave with our enemies and we also had an unwritten contract that neither of the big dudes was going to start that nuclear destruction. Today? Today nutty countries, or rather nutty leaders have the power and yes, even the will, to push that button - and that includes our own President, our own as a nation, but not mine personally. As said in the movies - "I disavow any knowledge of him!" I only. If only.
Today we have a partisan country, a tribal country, right along the lines of Afghanistan. We block each other out. We have lost our humanity. We rip apart families, threaten little kids, use them as hostages and that practice is growing even as we stuff more and more into cramped spaces. What the hell is the matter with us? All those years ago I never ever thought of the government that way. Never. Yes, we had the rich, the super wealthy, but they mostly followed the line that to whom much is given, much is demanded. They flocked into governmental service. They took up philanthropy. People looked at each other as people. Today? Answer that yourself.
We have a President who is crazy. Openly so. He supports our enemy or enemies and screws with our allies. He acts out in the most infantile manner, is barely literate, and behaves as a child with adult powers that are overwhelming. He encourages the loss of help for our citizens, wishing to condemn so many to food insecurity, to no medical care - I guess just die, so less expenses for all. We are closer to the cusp of war than ever in a long time and the clock is close to one minute before midnight.
We deport pizza delivery guys and doesn't that make us feel safe!!!! No longer do we welcome refugees, new immigrants, fresh ideas, new brains and thinking, new additions to our culture. We have lost the sense of America. We do so much wrong, so much undoing of the progress we have made. What the hell are we doing?
So here at seventy I take stock and realize that there are two sides to a life- the public and the private. The public one, the one affected by the government is not in such good shape, very unhappy or rather frightened at the future and what it means not so much for me, but for my kids and grandchildren - and yours too. Privately, I love my life. Family, friends, a great husband, a good life and I wonder how long till the public truly impinges on the private and what I will do then. But in the meanwhile I celebrate the landmark of seventy and rejoice and am thankful for what I do have. Amen.
And yet, thanks to G-d and my parents and friends and medical advancements here I am. And I wonder if the so called other advancements of society are truly that or have we gone the other way, lost something from our essential selves as people, as individuals, as a nation.
I rode on trolleys and considered it a big treat for no one ran around then on an everyday basis. Too expensive. Too time consuming. One organized. The trolleys were a great treat and to go on a subway? Wow!!! Today people fly all over, casually, and some have even reserved seats on flights to Mars and the moon. Not me on that!
We used to think with our heads, talk to each other, actually talk face to face rather than keep our heads in a bent position and text, even when sitting next to the person! What is the matter with that picture? I think we have lost part of our humanity in this. We do not talk anymore and as such, as a consequence we forget to look at faces, hear intonations, inflections and truly understand others.
I remember the Weekly Reader in second grade which spoke of the room size IBM computer and the glories for the future. Now we walk around with teeny little chips in our watches, our phones and ask yourself if this is a real improvement. It seems as if every advancement comes with serious side effects, do they not? Now we can be hacked at a moment's notice, be it our computers, our businesses and governments and even our cars. Not such a great advancement was it?
And governments. Once upon a time we trusted our government to look out for us, for its citizens. We looked to it for progress and yes, we had a long way to go, but ask yourself if we have gotten better at this or not. Once we instituted governmental programs, a safety net for the needy, the ill, the elderly and yes, it was expensive, but yes, it was necessary and part of being human and advancing ourselves from the caves! We knew who our enemies were, and the USSR was right there, was it not? And we knew how to behave with our enemies and we also had an unwritten contract that neither of the big dudes was going to start that nuclear destruction. Today? Today nutty countries, or rather nutty leaders have the power and yes, even the will, to push that button - and that includes our own President, our own as a nation, but not mine personally. As said in the movies - "I disavow any knowledge of him!" I only. If only.
Today we have a partisan country, a tribal country, right along the lines of Afghanistan. We block each other out. We have lost our humanity. We rip apart families, threaten little kids, use them as hostages and that practice is growing even as we stuff more and more into cramped spaces. What the hell is the matter with us? All those years ago I never ever thought of the government that way. Never. Yes, we had the rich, the super wealthy, but they mostly followed the line that to whom much is given, much is demanded. They flocked into governmental service. They took up philanthropy. People looked at each other as people. Today? Answer that yourself.
We have a President who is crazy. Openly so. He supports our enemy or enemies and screws with our allies. He acts out in the most infantile manner, is barely literate, and behaves as a child with adult powers that are overwhelming. He encourages the loss of help for our citizens, wishing to condemn so many to food insecurity, to no medical care - I guess just die, so less expenses for all. We are closer to the cusp of war than ever in a long time and the clock is close to one minute before midnight.
We deport pizza delivery guys and doesn't that make us feel safe!!!! No longer do we welcome refugees, new immigrants, fresh ideas, new brains and thinking, new additions to our culture. We have lost the sense of America. We do so much wrong, so much undoing of the progress we have made. What the hell are we doing?
So here at seventy I take stock and realize that there are two sides to a life- the public and the private. The public one, the one affected by the government is not in such good shape, very unhappy or rather frightened at the future and what it means not so much for me, but for my kids and grandchildren - and yours too. Privately, I love my life. Family, friends, a great husband, a good life and I wonder how long till the public truly impinges on the private and what I will do then. But in the meanwhile I celebrate the landmark of seventy and rejoice and am thankful for what I do have. Amen.
Friday, June 8, 2018
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
Reality now is a game wherein we ignore reality, look away from the details of life, and instead concentrate on only certain aspects. We have left politics to the extremes of the spectrum and the voices of sanity and reason are being drowned out. We have an illiterate President, unable to read nor keep facts straight in his head or limited brain, a First family which is in itself living in a fractured world, and the largest set of corrupt, selfish, incompetent, venial set of administrators ever! Other than that everything's AOK, right?
Nope. It is not. I truly cannot imagine how much longer we can exist in this state of mind and reality. When a commission on school violence purposely says no mention of guns, then here we go again! When a government defends its practice of separating children from parents, little ones too, then what have we become? When the agencies of justice are suborned by the president in his endless chase after his 'enemies' - otherwise known as people doing their jobs - then what have we become? When we pass a horrendous tax cut which provides nicely for the uber wealthy and shafts the middle class, why are we now cutting $15 billion dollars from the spending budget, most of it on the backs of children and health, of social nets for the needy, and allowing bad stuff to go on, all in the name of keeping the rich happy.
When the government prosecutes the right stuff and defends the bad stuff, there is serious wrongdoing here. When the government allows people to die in their custody, agonizing deaths from things such as bacterial meningitis because there is none or little medical care or concern for these 'terrible' migrants, what have we become? When we alienate every professional and experienced person in the government, to the extent that there has been the equivalent of a massive walkout, then what are we doing?
When every nutjob lawyer, every has been, signs on to the law staff of Trump, what the hell!! Giuliani claims to speak for all, including Melania, who, incidentally, denies it all. When the rats are now scrambling for safety and deals, watch all the filth rise to the surface and then we need to hang our heads in shame that we allowed this to happen.
When we have a split personality for a leader then wonder what the hey!!! Notice his tweets of late? We still have the poor sentence structure, the one syllable words, the repeated use of the same terms, the misuse of capitals, the mixed up structure and content and then suddenly we are getting erudite tweets with compound complex sentences, words of two or three syllables and we are expected to believe the same person wrote all of these? Uh - uh. Can't sell that bridge to me!
When we have a governmental press on the press, trying to muzzle them, threatening to jail them, calling them names, demanding their deportation even, well, what is that all about?
When we have our allies threatening to leave us out of a major statement, and rightfully so, actually as we are definitely schizoid right now as a country, with a whacked out Trump at the head. When all this happens, what have we become?
This picture, this oh so wrong picture, tells us that we cannot continue on this path forever, not even for much longer. I believe we are at our most dangerous and life threatening point in the history of our country save the Revolution. Our very existence is being threatened, our life blood of human and civil rights is being choked off. A plan of meritocracy in civil service has been shattered. Our picture for the year is skewed and distorted.
What is wrong with this picture? So, so much.
Nope. It is not. I truly cannot imagine how much longer we can exist in this state of mind and reality. When a commission on school violence purposely says no mention of guns, then here we go again! When a government defends its practice of separating children from parents, little ones too, then what have we become? When the agencies of justice are suborned by the president in his endless chase after his 'enemies' - otherwise known as people doing their jobs - then what have we become? When we pass a horrendous tax cut which provides nicely for the uber wealthy and shafts the middle class, why are we now cutting $15 billion dollars from the spending budget, most of it on the backs of children and health, of social nets for the needy, and allowing bad stuff to go on, all in the name of keeping the rich happy.
When the government prosecutes the right stuff and defends the bad stuff, there is serious wrongdoing here. When the government allows people to die in their custody, agonizing deaths from things such as bacterial meningitis because there is none or little medical care or concern for these 'terrible' migrants, what have we become? When we alienate every professional and experienced person in the government, to the extent that there has been the equivalent of a massive walkout, then what are we doing?
When every nutjob lawyer, every has been, signs on to the law staff of Trump, what the hell!! Giuliani claims to speak for all, including Melania, who, incidentally, denies it all. When the rats are now scrambling for safety and deals, watch all the filth rise to the surface and then we need to hang our heads in shame that we allowed this to happen.
When we have a split personality for a leader then wonder what the hey!!! Notice his tweets of late? We still have the poor sentence structure, the one syllable words, the repeated use of the same terms, the misuse of capitals, the mixed up structure and content and then suddenly we are getting erudite tweets with compound complex sentences, words of two or three syllables and we are expected to believe the same person wrote all of these? Uh - uh. Can't sell that bridge to me!
When we have a governmental press on the press, trying to muzzle them, threatening to jail them, calling them names, demanding their deportation even, well, what is that all about?
When we have our allies threatening to leave us out of a major statement, and rightfully so, actually as we are definitely schizoid right now as a country, with a whacked out Trump at the head. When all this happens, what have we become?
This picture, this oh so wrong picture, tells us that we cannot continue on this path forever, not even for much longer. I believe we are at our most dangerous and life threatening point in the history of our country save the Revolution. Our very existence is being threatened, our life blood of human and civil rights is being choked off. A plan of meritocracy in civil service has been shattered. Our picture for the year is skewed and distorted.
What is wrong with this picture? So, so much.
Thursday, June 7, 2018
HYDRILLA
Hydrilla. It is an aquatic plant not native to this country or continent and it clogs up our waterways. It takes beautiful bodies of water and turns them into some kind of floating mats of this stuff and it is ugly. Personally speaking, it has ruined the lake just outside my window and not for the first time either. If not taken care of immediately, it begins to overwhelm its new home and therein lies a lesson for us all. Take care from the beginning and do not let it grow into an almost insurmountable problem. Unfortunately, we seemed to have missed the boat here in CV and now we have yet another uphill battle with this thing. Where is David Israel? Why is he not getting on top of this ASAP? Because he is seemingly AWOL, down with some issue or other and the same as with Bob Marshall or anyone else, if one is too ill to do or perform the responsibilities of one's office, there needs to be a resignation and a new and more capable person installed. Now!
Now to the larger world. We seem to have been inflicted with hydrilla in real life outside this Village as well. Certain ideas of Europe do not fit well here. They are not native to our country and need to be gone. At our very founding we tossed away the dictatorship of kings and insured that we would have a free and democratic government that has grown progressively over the years into an even more inclusive one. The old and broken and mean hydrilla coming over the ocean from Europe and Asia are not for us. These regimes that limit liberty, that kill journalists and stomp on free speech, that threaten to prosecute or more appropriately persecute and jail advocates for human rights, for free press, for democracy, these regimes and their ideas have no place here in the USA. And yet, here we go, with one who would have that here. This is one who has brought a hydrilla overflow into our country, behaving as a tyrant, shouting and ranting, tweeting his minimal brains out, demanding obsequious praise from his underlings and growing ever larger in his body as his mind continues to shrink. A mat of hydrilla like ideas. Bad. So bigly bad. So fantastically bad.
Every day there are more shady characters introduced into the lexicon of people in the Trump camp who have a rotten odor around and about them. Every day we hear of more and more shady dealings and yet, there is Pruitt, still leeching off the American taxpayer and that used mattress he needs from Trump - yich!!!! And of course we have that video of Pence and Trump at a meeting wherein Pence mimics all that Trump does, from the expression on his face to the placement of water bottles. What the hell!! Is it a virus? Is it contagious? Woe upon us if it is!!
We are still arresting and charging migrants, asylum seekers but now en masse. We are ramming them thru courts - minus their children of course - in large groups and the stink of this anti democratic behavior is fouling the air.
We have started a global tariff war, us against the rest, and it is not good. American businesses are suffering already, being denied parts they need, soaring prices for them, tariffs imposed on their products and on top of it all, we have an ignoramus of a man who thinks the War of 1812 was with Canada who trust me, did NOT burn the White House. That was the British, you idiot.
More hydrilla in the negligence and/or purposeful neglect of our citizens in Puerto Rico, still suffering from last year's hurricane even as we enter a new season. So many deaths. So much tragedy and this fool, this hydrilla sucking the air out of our very lungs just rolls along, tweeting and ruining all. Our diplomats are felled by some weird medical issue, the attacker emboldened by Trump's lunatic behavior and loss of control, and it seems that even the football players have to continue with their downs as this president continues to attack them in a very nasty manner. Freedom to protest, to speak one's mind, an American and indeed human right - and this annoys the human hydrilla greatly. Tough!! There are even state rules that protect this behavior so there! Listen up, Donald!
Just as the lava is covering over huge areas, filling up a freshwater lake in Hawaii, with the mass of lava a half mile wide and 10 to 15 feet deep, we are being covered with a mass of political hydrilla and it ain't good! So far the primaries have been good for us. But we need to go strong, be strong thru November and demand of any and all candidates a promise to remember that we are flowers all, not parasites and we need America to be the leader for the good and humane once more and not the dangerous disappointment it has now become. Tear the hydrilla out by its roots. Deny those roots any nourishment. Use the full power of the law to get it gone.
Now to the larger world. We seem to have been inflicted with hydrilla in real life outside this Village as well. Certain ideas of Europe do not fit well here. They are not native to our country and need to be gone. At our very founding we tossed away the dictatorship of kings and insured that we would have a free and democratic government that has grown progressively over the years into an even more inclusive one. The old and broken and mean hydrilla coming over the ocean from Europe and Asia are not for us. These regimes that limit liberty, that kill journalists and stomp on free speech, that threaten to prosecute or more appropriately persecute and jail advocates for human rights, for free press, for democracy, these regimes and their ideas have no place here in the USA. And yet, here we go, with one who would have that here. This is one who has brought a hydrilla overflow into our country, behaving as a tyrant, shouting and ranting, tweeting his minimal brains out, demanding obsequious praise from his underlings and growing ever larger in his body as his mind continues to shrink. A mat of hydrilla like ideas. Bad. So bigly bad. So fantastically bad.
Every day there are more shady characters introduced into the lexicon of people in the Trump camp who have a rotten odor around and about them. Every day we hear of more and more shady dealings and yet, there is Pruitt, still leeching off the American taxpayer and that used mattress he needs from Trump - yich!!!! And of course we have that video of Pence and Trump at a meeting wherein Pence mimics all that Trump does, from the expression on his face to the placement of water bottles. What the hell!! Is it a virus? Is it contagious? Woe upon us if it is!!
We are still arresting and charging migrants, asylum seekers but now en masse. We are ramming them thru courts - minus their children of course - in large groups and the stink of this anti democratic behavior is fouling the air.
We have started a global tariff war, us against the rest, and it is not good. American businesses are suffering already, being denied parts they need, soaring prices for them, tariffs imposed on their products and on top of it all, we have an ignoramus of a man who thinks the War of 1812 was with Canada who trust me, did NOT burn the White House. That was the British, you idiot.
More hydrilla in the negligence and/or purposeful neglect of our citizens in Puerto Rico, still suffering from last year's hurricane even as we enter a new season. So many deaths. So much tragedy and this fool, this hydrilla sucking the air out of our very lungs just rolls along, tweeting and ruining all. Our diplomats are felled by some weird medical issue, the attacker emboldened by Trump's lunatic behavior and loss of control, and it seems that even the football players have to continue with their downs as this president continues to attack them in a very nasty manner. Freedom to protest, to speak one's mind, an American and indeed human right - and this annoys the human hydrilla greatly. Tough!! There are even state rules that protect this behavior so there! Listen up, Donald!
Just as the lava is covering over huge areas, filling up a freshwater lake in Hawaii, with the mass of lava a half mile wide and 10 to 15 feet deep, we are being covered with a mass of political hydrilla and it ain't good! So far the primaries have been good for us. But we need to go strong, be strong thru November and demand of any and all candidates a promise to remember that we are flowers all, not parasites and we need America to be the leader for the good and humane once more and not the dangerous disappointment it has now become. Tear the hydrilla out by its roots. Deny those roots any nourishment. Use the full power of the law to get it gone.
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