"This is a low confidence forecast at this time," the agency said Wednesday. "Significant changes are possible."
"Not only is it illegal, it’s just plain unconstitutional,"
"...school board has banned the acclaimed Holocaust survivor-themed graphic novel Maus amid a conservative push to control the narrative on what is taught in history classes. The board had considered censoring the book to remove the "foul language" but eventually voted to ban it altogether by a unanimous 10-0 vote.
"...argued that it was appropriate material for a teaching module on the Holocaust and helped students learn "the difference between right and wrong" and how to "be ethical people with compassion and morals and respect for others."
Trump then interrupted his playing partner.
“Forty-fifth and 47th,” he said."
"...powerful coastal storm Friday night into Saturday night...will likely impact at least a portion of the region with heavy snow, strong winds, coastal flooding and dangerous seas," the Weather Service says. "However, still some uncertainty on the exact storm track and intensity, which will have a direct impact on snow amounts and other storm details."
"... there’s something more fundamental at stake: the survival of democracy.
“We can talk about all of those things, but everything that you are about, everything that I care about is at risk if we do not protect our democracy and if we do not protect the cornerstone of our democracy, and that is the right to vote,”
“I really believed that we could have died that day,”
So, what exactly are we referring to here? What is six and what is seven. Does it even matter? Is it the weather or the very air of the country? Is it about a bomb cyclone with powerful winds and potential damage or are we understanding the comments of Shakespeare who consistently maintained that weather and politics reflected each other? Personally, I am beginning to believe that thought. How could I not, when the comments on one mirror the comments about the other.
Look up and reread those comments. Can you tell one from the other unless more information is forthcoming? Nope, so closely are they attuned. Who knows? Perhaps even with our thoughts, particularly when reinforced by ill-conceived actions, we can influence the turns of weather as well as with harmful actions taken or not taken re the weather, the climate, the environment. Equally so with the political life blood of this country. Right down to the lowest or down ballot candidates.
The same uncertainty. The same lack of confidence in our ability to predict, foretell the almost positive consequences and where it will happen. Why? Can the situation(s) be 'fixed' or ameliorated to some degree, one that allows or gives us time to deal with lack of confidence, inability to predict the 'weather' we are facing, improve understanding of cause and effect - long and short term?
I believe, fiercely and strongly, that if we do not change our entire approach towards both, we are doomed. To death of democracy for sure. The consequences? Draw your own 'weather' map, isobars of pressure and storms galore wherever one points that laser. Death of our America as we know it or knew it. Death of the planet, at least as far as habitation by humankind? Or visions, predictions of Ice Ages, Sixth Extinction, returns to the caves, Mad Max syndromes, Snowpiercer lives? Who the hell knows and that is precisely the point. The only thing we know for sure, is that we are in for a long-term siege, mounted defenses and offenses of democracy, of sanity of actions and thoughts, of decency, compassion, forethought, all the traits that so many at the top of the heap have forgotten -much to our misfortune, again, to say the least.
We must stop saying 'the least' for we are long past that. We are in the category of 'for sure' when we contemplate both topics - weather and politics. When have we ever had such existential threats facing us? The weird and dangerous weather events -flash floods along with drought. Fires raging through the natural infrastructure of the land. Entire species moving lock, stock and barrel along with the flora because the environment has changed so drastically.
The death of democracy? The repetition of history again - Russia and Ukraine and what pretense will be used to 'justify' invasion. The reaction or lack of action of the world? The drums of war beat loud and fierce once again. Do we disinter Chamberlain as our diplomat in charge? Or will it be Churchill? Better yet - someone in between with a magic formula?!
Understand that I am not a fan of Ukrainians, remembering how they joined with unique enthusiasm and numbers, bought into the plans of Nazism to eliminate Jews from the face of the earth, my murdered relatives, as closely related as first cousins once removed. Tell me, - why are we still dealing with Holocaust denial, even as the last survivors die? Who will hear the echoes of their pain? Will those echoes die for lack of attention, for belief in lies over truth? But invasion? NO!
The same thing that is happening right here in our country. So, who do we defend, or do we say as the Duke of Verona did in Romeo and Juliet - call a pox on both houses whose fight and enmity brought tragedy to their own families along with the rest of their city?
Will we ignore the storms that rage through this country or will we face the facts, make hard decisions and take strong actions, ones necessary to safeguard, to rescue our country from its worst citizens? Will we lay responsibility where it belongs: On the perpetrators, on the evil influencers, on those who stand aside and do nothing, hide their heads, entire bodies within the sands of the world, even as the sands are drowned by the rising oceans?
There is no running away from it all. It is here. It is intertwined. We all are at personal risk, we and our children, our extended families, our friends, our nation, our world. By the increasingly hostile, unpredictable Nature along with the growing hostile, but perhaps predictable- sadly so - nature of and consequences of the politics of our times??
Sixes and sevens? Perhaps nines and tens.
"For those who suffer,
Those who endure,
And those who fight." (Dedication in a book)
"For the human soul is virtually indestructible,
And its ability to rise from the ashes
Remains as long as the body draws breathe."
(Alice Miller - For Your Own Good)
Perhaps there is yet some hope.
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