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Posts Tagged ‘democracy’

“A Very Radical Person”

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 2, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Today’s the day!

Because TN’s Representative R-Mark Green decided to run for office and then promptly give up his seat, our extremely gerrymandered Nashville district is holding a special election. Yes, last year at this time a scandal broke out about Green and he decided not to run, but Mr T called the former Army surgeon and convinced him to run again. After all, what’s a little womanizing between friends?

“Camilla Green, the wife of Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Green, texted a group of Congress members to warn them against the evils of politics, accusing Green of being corrupted by D.C. and having an affair with a woman 27 years younger than him. The scandal, which comes less than a month after Green filed for divorce, raises questions about the Tennessee representative’s brand as a pro-family conservative, including from his own daughter.” https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pithinthewind/mark-green-affair-daughter/article_6a06fb0c-7440-11ef-9875-670dc401c023.html

And naturally, he won! Then he quit.

Like most politicians, he had more money to make in the private sector and also, he’d have to pay for a messy divorce right? So now, in the middle of a rainy cold snap and holiday shopping, Nashvillians are being asked to vote again – for the Democratic candidate, Aftyn Behn, who is being called a “very radical person” all over the media, or the Republican West Point graduate and combat veteran, Matt Van Epps who would like to keep the GOP’s majority in the House. He was hobnobbing with Marcia Blackburn out in Franklin yesterday.

“The crowd milling around the sleek multimillion-dollar barn full of gleaming vintage cars was already a snapshot of the Republican elite in Tennessee. There were donors, state representatives, five members of Congress, the governor and the candidate for the state’s House special election on Tuesday, Matt Van Epps. Then Speaker Mike Johnson, who flew in from Washington early Monday, called President Trump and put his phone on speaker…“They like to talk about affordability,” Trump said in the Monday evening tele-rally for Van Epps. “To them it’s just a con job, it’s just a word.”

“The whole world is watching Tennessee right now, and they’re watching your district,” Mr. Trump said,…” NYTimes

Well Lordy! Seems our president has nothing better to do than to call a candidate in the state of Tennessee in a district he won by over 20 points! More than $1.6 million from the pro-Trump MAGA Inc. super PAC has been poured into this race in the last few weeks. They must be running scared about this particular radical person!

I mean Behn is talking about affordability and bringing health care costs down while VanEpp is being funded by hedge fund billionaires and special interest groups to insure they get their tax cuts. You can’t fool all the people all the time Mr T, your credibility is starting to crumble with your base. Killing people on boats off Venezuela may be your kryptonite. You are running the biggest con ever on the American people. Whether we win or lose by a few percentage points here in TN, you Mr President are a lame duck.

If Behn’s radical left agenda supports voting rights, reproductive freedom, clean air and water, equality and education I’m all in. When an administration changes the name of the DOD to the Department of War and closes the Department of Education, I believe we can all see through their extremist ideology.

I’ll be teaching the twins a new take on an old song this Hanukkah (which starts early this year on December 14) when we sing, “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.” We’ll be singing “If you’re radical and you know it clap your hands.” Here’s a pic from the Thanksgiving table, set with Grandma Ada’s china, as we were sitting down with the Groom’s parents. The Bride really knows how to throw a party!

Now get out and VOTE Nashville!

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Common Sense

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 11, 2025| 2 Comments »

November is a chilly month. There were snowflakes floating by our windows here in Nashville yesterday. The Pumpkin is the only family member, besides me of course, who likes the frigid temps. He’s coming off a winning weekend, where his team placed well in its Quiz Bowl competition. After all, this is his birthday month, 11 years old! And today is 11/11… The last of our string of Fall birthdays. His friends made gooey s’mores in the backyard, (mostly boys but also 4 girls, which did my heart good) followed by a scary movie.

We’re all looking forward to the release of the new Ken Burns’ documentary, “The American Revolution.” set to premiere November, 16th on PBS, but as always we will stream it on Passports. Flying in the face of this administration’s directive against DEI initiatives, Burns looks at our origin story from many points of view. And it seems there was not just one turning point that set us on our path to independence, but a constellation of events – including a little pamphlet called “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine. Written 6 months before the Declaration of Independence, he convinces the people that breaking with the British Parliament is not enough.

We had to renounce the KING.

““We have it in our power to begin the world over again,” he promises at the end. In the 80-odd pages in between, Common Sense depicts “liberty and security” as the “end of government,” outlines a democratic one calculated to advance “the greatest sum of individual happiness with the least national expense,” and assures readers that, for such a cause, Americans could prevail against all the force that Britain could muster. Life, liberty, and happiness stand as founding ideals here much as they would in the Declaration of Independence six months later. “The will of the king is as much the law of the land in Britain as in France,” Paine writes in defiance of George III. “In America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King.” This became the animating spirit of 1776; it is why that year still matters.” https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/11/american-revolution-1776-what-changed/684579/?gift=MZkyOCULmn5OA_9_ikIP-7yCQfhCLH_iVBq2ImNMOYc&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

“No Crown. No Throne. NO KINGS.”

When I heard the Gov of California, Gavin Newsom, say this after Prop 50 was passed and the Democrats swept up the last election handily, I felt it in my gut. It became a mantra, a meme. Certainly this would be a turning a point in our national nightmare. NJ elected Mikie Sherrill and Virginia elected Abigail Spanberger, surely Aftyn Behn will be next in TN? The Flapper said things happen in threes, but we’ll have to wait until Dec 2nd, a strange time for an important TN election – although dear Nashville readers, early voting starts tomorrow!

So why, riding high on the wave of this victory, did 8 Democratic Senators surrender over the weekend to a PROMISE from the most untrustworthy GOP in history? A party trying to downplay a violent insurrection with its leader bribing universities, major media (including the BBC), and law firms because…. why? He doesn’t like them? He’s vindictive? Or is it just that Mr T is lining his pockets while running the most corrupt, mob-like administration since Reconstruction. All while keeping the Epstein files under wrap.

Aunt Kiki said, “We need a new pamphlet,” on common sense. Let’s hope America watches “The American Revolution” this month. Maybe it will wake up a part of the MAGA folks who are about to witness their healthcare costs rise exponentially. Life, liberty and happiness are hanging on: one election at a time; one documentary at a time.

Here we are at High Tea at The Fairmont Empress in British Columbia.

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Hands Free

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 17, 2024| 4 Comments »

Yesterday my wrist splint came off so I’m hands free! Still doing PT but feeling lighter, like a bobble head doll stuck in a cage and not so much a soft shell crab.

To celebrate, I made the mistake of watching Rachel Maddow last night with Bob. It was either that or the Menendez Brothers’ story on Netflix. She was all about the OLIGARCHS, a word I thought was Russian; but actually Aristotle first used the term in relation to a coercive, oppressive rule by the rich, as opposed to an aristocracy. Its modern day usage centers on the corrupt control of government after the fall of the Soviet Union by extremely wealthy citizens.

“…one of a small group of powerful people who control a country or an industry.”

And what Maddow was saying last night was wake up and smell what’s happening right now in our country. We saw Elon Musk attached at the hip to Mr T, basically buying his way into political influence at a time when legislators are about to pass a bill about collecting (or NOT collecting) data on driverless cars, mostly Teslas. Maddow showed footage of a full self-driving (FSD) Tesla that stopped short in a tunnel causing a nine car pile-up. One FSD Tesla went around a stopped school bus and plowed into a child. There have been at least 13 fatal accidents since this hands-free feature debuted on Thanksgiving Day 2022.

I was reminded of the ability of gun lobbyists to keep the NIH from collecting data on gun deaths.

But for my own sanity, I prefer to think of all the things I can do now with my own two hands: I can knit, I can wash my own hair, I can open some bottles, and brushing my teeth is a lot easier! Maybe I should try flossing? I won’t be able to drive for six months but that’s because of my neck – another month in the C collar with no sudden twists or turns for me.

Maddow introduced a Yale Professor of History last night, Timothy Snyder, to discuss our current state of affairs. His current book, “On Freedom,” follows a seminal work about oligarchs titled, “On Tyranny,” and attempts to deliver strategies for democracies to avoid authoritarianism. He told us we must not keep looking back, but instead hold the GOP accountable each and every day for their twisted policies; you know like separation of families at the border.

“…he identifies five key determinants of a truly free society – and it seems highly appropriate that those tenets can be counted on the fingers of one definitely raised fist. Each one leads to the next. The foundation is sovereignty (not the resolve of narrow nationalists but the creation of political conditions in which individuals are safe and enabled to make meaningful choices about their lives, underwritten by empathy). That in turn leads to “unpredictability”, the freedom to behave in ways that authority (and algorithms) cannot control; and mobility (the possibility for young people, in particular, to “break free of the structures (and people) that allowed them to become [sovereign]”. That is only possible with the freedom of “factuality” (“the grip on the world that allows us to challenge it” – Snyder makes a particularly impassioned argument about the devastating effect of local news deserts on democracy); and finally, “solidarity”, the recognition that these freedoms are not just for the privileged 0.1%, but for everyone.” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/sep/23/on-freedom-by-timothy-snyder-review-an-essential-manifesto-for-change

So I am 2/3 free at the moment with just an Aspen aka Cervical Collar on my neck. I want to stay optimistic, I’m determined to keep typing, to keep you informed of my family foibles and all the while shine a light on our paradoxical politics. Merry Everything Everyone!

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Sequestered

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 22, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Yesterday, Bob took me out for a ride. We drove through a McDonalds for two fish sandwiches like two old people, then we came home where I could lay in an anti-gravity chair in the warm sun. You see, within 48 hours of arriving home from France and visiting a dentist to have my tooth replaced, I tested positive once again for Covid. Rebound Covid. Nearly 50% of people, taking Paxlovid or not, will experience rebound – in fact, Joe Biden got it again! Only this time, the second time around, one cannot take Paxlovid; you’re required to just suffer in silent isolation.

What to do, what to do? During the first few days I simply existed with a brown paper bag sitting next to me filling up with tissues. I was counting the hours between Tylenol and sleep, sweet, sweat-drenched sleep. On Air France I watched “The Regime” with Kate Winslet, where she plays a wild and disinhibited dictator of some fictional European country, but back in the States my appetite changed. Now I needed pablum – we’ve started watching “The Good Place” on Netflix and it’s exactly right. And once the fever broke, I started reading again.

This month’s Atlantic must have read my feebled mind, the cover story is titled “The Case Against Pessimism; the West has to Believe That Democracy will Prevail,” by Anne Applebaum.

“Since 2018, more than 116,000 Russians have faced criminal or administrative punishment for speaking their mind. Thousands of them have been punished specifically for objecting to the war in Ukraine. Their heroic battle is mostly carried out in silence. Because the regime has imposed total control on information in Russia, their voices cannot be heard.”

Applebaum makes the case for war, and I never thought I’d agree with such a premise, but fascism in the form of Putin today, is on the march. Fascism hides beneath many names: Sovietization, Russification and even a German word: Gleichschaltung. She posits that IF Germany had armed Ukraine in 2014 when Russia first invaded Crimea, if the West had not looked away, this current war might not have happened. And now, after the full-scale invasion of 2022 and initial call to help Ukraine, western democracies’ support is starting to wane. She warn us:

“Complacency, like a virus, moves quickly across borders,” she writes. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/10/russia-ukraine-democracy-applebaum/680318/

My virus flew across the ocean courtesy of Air France. But I refuse to be complacent about our election. Our twice-impeached ex-President, you know the Apprentice candidate who sent Putin Covid tests for his own personal use before we Americans could get our hands on them, wants another crack at autocracy. Remember back when our friend and neighbor who had been in construction gave us K95 masks for our daughter the ER doctor? Mr T admires tyrants, and Arnold Palmer is running around naked in his head. It’s been a week.

This morning I tested negative for Covid!! We voted early! Instead of going to the movies afterwards, Bob wheeled me around Lowes looking for mums. I didn’t wear white like I did when I voted for Hillary, I’m lucky I got dressed at all. I’ve been humbled, and not by children, by the fragility of our democracy. This is not a forkin joke. Please remember to vote like your life depends on it.

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Nana Camp

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on July 2, 2024| Leave a Comment »

There are no day camps this week for the Grands. No sailing, Taylor Swift, or pottery camps. Plus, on July 1, all the brand-spanking-new doctors have started their rounds, and so the Groom has a lot of teaching to do in the MICU, and the Bride gets to explain how to write a prescription to an intern. It can be taxing, and so I cook dinner for six people just in case they get home in time. On July 4, we’ll be relaxing by our dear neighbor’s pool while the “little doctors,” as Grandma Ada called them, save lives.

This Fourth will be the 75th anniversary, if you want to call it that, of the Flapper’s car accident. Dr Jim has been doing some soul searching around the event that left our Nana, Mother, and Sister lying bloodied and comatose on the side of the road. He was only seven years old, and so it was up to him to tell the police their names and where they lived. It is an early memory, but not his first. That was the day, earlier that Year of Living Dangerously, when our Father returned from the hospital after brain surgery, his head wrapped in bandages.

Sometimes I wonder what memories our Grands will keep with them. I’ll bet they will remember their parents coming home from their hospitals during the pandemic and having to shower before a hug. Will they remember seeing the David in Florence? Or will they remember a feeling of ease, an all encompassing feeling that everything will be alright when they arrive at Nana Camp? That it’s not all action and adventure all the time. Sometimes we bake muffins with abandon, or we swim in the pool. Sometimes we take field trips to museums and then we watch Jeopardy! There’s a rhythm to life in this house, and my grilled cheese sandwiches often hit the mark.

Today the Bride is home and so we are off duty. I try not to think about the recent SCOTUS decisions. Like the presidential debate/debacle, I put those thoughts into the “things I cannot change” basket. I can put the basket in a river and let the water flow through it, or I can unpack the basket on the riverbank and perseverate about our time and place in history. I’m not a Monday night MSNBC type. It’s hard to imagine changing course so close to an election, and I know Joe Biden.

Like my birth family, Irish Catholics from Scranton, PA, he will never give up. When the going gets tough and all. Like the Flapper telling her doctors she’ll not only walk again, she’ll dance on their graves. We come from a strong line of strong, smart women forged by coal miners. I’ll bet Dr Jill has ancestors just as tough and resilient. We need a Democrat in the White House now more than ever, so I’ll be voting accordingly.

Have a safe and uneventful Fourth of July. Steer clear of the naysayers and knee-jerkers. Look at the long view. America is still that beautiful shining city, our democracy cannot topple over!

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For the Love of Language

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 28, 2022| 3 Comments »

Coming home to a cold and rainy Nashville has been hard. But our daffodils are in bloom, the tulip magnolia has tiny pink buds, and today the sun has returned. The promise of spring is in the air, along with all the construction noise of living downtown. It’s time for a rebirth; for us to start sorting, cleaning and organizing. After all, next month we move into our cozy, quiet, new/old bungalow!

Then the non-stop news from Ukraine disrupted my Pollyanna tendencies. How could a war like this happen in the 21st Century?

If we could flip a switch back to the last century, I would be heading toward the local library to read up on the history of Ukraine and Russia. After all, I have a vivid memory of my foster mother Nell (a first generation Slovak) crying in front of our black and white TV when Russian tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia. My generation came of age during the Cold War, we are primed to distrust Vladimir Putin. My children OTOH, can barely remember the Berlin Wall.

Instead of visiting the free public library, I Googled the conflict. Did you know that Stalin actually killed 4 Million Ukrainians? FOUR MILLION.

Maybe the reason this earlier genocide didn’t catch the attention of the international press was because Germany was bigger news? Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, but in 1932 Stalin ordered his soldiers to confiscate all Ukrainian grain and farm animals – he deliberately tried to starve the Ukrainian people to death. Children were eating acorns.

Still earlier, Russian Czars knew that to extinguish a culture, you start with their language.

“And, very early, the Russian Empire recognized the threat posed by a separate and particularly literary Ukrainian language to the unity of the empire. So, starting in the eighteen-sixties, there was a more than forty-year period of prohibition on the publication of Ukrainian, basically arresting the development of the literary language… and in the middle of World War One and revolution, with other nationalities trying and in some cases gaining independence, Ukrainians tried to do that but were ultimately defeated.“

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/vladimir-putins-revisionist-history-of-russia-and-ukraine

Along with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine finally won its freedom. “On 21 January 1990, over 300,000 Ukrainians organized a human chain for Ukrainian independence between Kyiv and Lviv.“

Once an authoritarian state begins to flex its muscles – to demolish a free press and ban books, including those written in a certain language – we must all pay attention. With the election of Mr T, our country came very close to the edge of democracy; our school board members were threatened with violence, and his followers are still trying to ban books! Why would the GOP continue to flirt with our twice-impeached, retired golfer at Mar-a-Lago? The craziest Florida Man I know has been praising Putin. He even fantasized aloud about being president forever like Xi Jinping!

And just like Mr T, Putin is stuck in the past. He probably wishes he’d thought of a “Make Russia Great Again” slogan. Only young Russians aren’t buying it. They live in a wired world, where truth confronts fiction. Only the elderly watch state-sponsored Russian TV. Only the old venture into libraries; young Russians and Ukrainians alike have the world at their fingertips, in their smart phones. This is becoming an intergenerational war, one Putin didn’t predict. Ukrainian civilians aren’t throwing flowers at Russian troops, they are making molotov cocktails!

My Irish ancestors taught the Irish language in schools, even though it was not allowed at the time. What can we do here to help Ukraine? The Flapper always said, “Charity starts at home!” First, I’d work to make sure our own elections are safe and secure, and that ALL Americans who are eligible to vote actually have the chance to cast their ballots. Let’s make election day a national holiday! I’d fight the misinformation and propaganda machine that is FOX news, and I’d contribute to the cause of independent journalism. Subscribe to a newspaper online that isn’t owned by a venture capitalist.

The Washington Post has an excellent article on how we can donate directly to help Ukraine. “Journalists with the Kyiv Independent have done tremendous work covering the war, offering the world constant updates as they fear for themselves, their families and their homes. The Independent has started a GoFundMe asking for support, but they’ve also promoted a separate GoFundMe — “Keep Ukraine’s media going” — for journalists around the country who have received less international attention.” 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/27/how-to-help-ukraine/

We need a virtual human chain today to fend off the Russian bear.

The next generation

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Strangers in the Night

Posted in an expository essay, Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Memoir, religion, Roman Catholic Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 17, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Have you ever heard strange sounds in the middle of the night? Not like squirrels in the chimney, or mice in the walls. And not like thunder and lightning followed by a deranged dog trying to crawl under your bed. More like footsteps out on your porch at 4 am?

Well, that’s how our weekend began. Someone was clomping around on our porch – but let’s start from the very beginning.

On Friday I really wanted to see the Groom. We’d called, texted and Zoomed and Facetimed, but he was finally out of the Tower and back in the bosom of his family. I had to make sure he was doing well and warn the Bride not to expect too much; he needed to rest after all. Covid can take a lot out of a person. I mean just walking to the mailbox could be exhausting.

But you can’t keep a good man down for long because on Friday he had already been teaching the Love Bug how to ride a bike, setting up their “tiny school” at home, and then he took the dogs on a 30 minute walk! So I rewarded my Son-in-Law’s enthusiasm with a big plate of chicken parmigiana that night. As we were leaving, the Bride began to take the Grands blood for a study at the university.

We have at-home kits to take blood, but not to test for this virus?

As we drove home from our socially distanced dinner on their front porch, we passed a long Catholic parade on the streets of Germantown. An official Bishop-type led dozens of priests and altar boys carrying a statue of the Virgin Mary adorned with flowers, there were at least a hundred people following the procession – the Assumption of Mary. Many of the women wore a lacey head covering, but virtually nobody wore a mask. Everyone was singing!

As I opened the car window and looked on adoringly, thinking about all those years at a Catholic camp singing with nuns in the woods on our way to a grotto, Bob yelled, “Wear a damn mask!” breaking the spell.

And that was the night, or actually early the next morning, we heard the intruder on our porch. Bob immediately went downstairs and I immediately thought to myself, “My phone is plugged in downstairs, what if I need to call 911…”

Then I heard Bob’s voice, he was talking to somebody. Prompting Ms Bean to leave her cozy bed, she led the way downstairs; so much for our little guard dog, she never uttered a peep, not a growl or a bark! Bob had already locked the door and sent a young man, who was surely a drunk tourist, on his way.

“What did you say?” I asked him.

“I asked him what he thought he was doing here,” Bob said. Sometimes the NJ vibe just cannot be contained. I was stunned. What if he had a gun? What if What if What if…..

Once before, in the Blue Ridge, a large van pulled up to our house at around midnight. Bob got up and looked out the window to see an elderly man standing there, putting on a jacket. We opened the front door and the man said, “We’re here for Mr Young.” Now Mr Young was actually an older gentleman farmer and former UVA professor who lived down our country road a piece, and he had died in his sleep. The van was from the Cremation Society of Virginia.

Would it be wrong to say how relieved we were – that the van wasn’t coming for us? We were living on 14 acres in the middle of a forest, still Bob wasn’t scared. And he had no fear in the wee hours before daybreak on Saturday, in fact, he went back to sleep! While I stayed up replaying all the different scenarios in my head. Maybe we should move out of the city? Should we start looking for a beach house, again?

When in doubt, cook! Yesterday I sent Bob to Whole Foods for tahini because the Insta people voted on Baba Ganoush as an appetizer. Although zucchini season was done, Bob’s elegant Japanese eggplants were just getting started. I haven’t made this yummy hummus-like spread since the 70s and it was a major hit at our party for two.

How many lives do we humans get? I survived a car accident in 1949, the Groom survived Covid in 2020. I wonder if our democracy will survive this political pandemic season.

IMG_8108

 

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Wax and Wane

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Public Policy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 28, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Like the phases of the moon, our country has slowly moved from embracing conservative, anti- (big)-government ideology toward a more socialist democracy, and back again. In the 18th Century, we threw off the mantle of a king, and instituted checks and balances with our elected leaders in Congress. It was working pretty well for awhile and our political ship was trending toward starboard.

Then in 1994, Newt Gingrich happened.

Wanting to bring back orphanages was actually not a part of Newt’s “Contract with America,” he was just “thinking aloud.” Wanting to build more prisons and give tax breaks to millionaires was! He started complaining about “big media,” and comparing Democrats to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Sound familiar?

“The states’ main fear is that if the federal government could not legally run a deficit, it would simply pass on safety, environmental, health, and other obligations to the states, without giving them the money to pay for new programs. Congress’s habit of enacting “unfunded mandates” has been the major strain on state budgets in the last decade. A federal balanced-budget amendment would likely make it worse.”

His nightmare scenario has come true, Mr T passes on everything, including his responsibility, in this public health emergency to the states. When I watched Gov Andrew Cuomo in his  daily presser, complain about having to get in a bidding war with other states just to acquire life-saving PPE and ventilators, I thought we were deranged… and when he said FEMA would jump in and UP the price even more, I knew we were deranged and possibly doomed.

I remembered reporting on Rumson Borough Council meetings in the 90s, how this Republican group of mostly old, white men waxed on about unfunded federal mandates. They choked at the idea. And just the other day, Mitch McConnell (a modern day Newt) told states to declare bankruptcy??

This morning I found this article about a billionaire enlightening in a creepy way. How does American capitalism work, how should business work; for the greater good, or for their investors’ greater bank accounts?  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/business/coronavirus-marc-benioff-salesforce.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage

In a nutshell, The Chancellor of the University of California San Francisco could see the writing on the wall in early March. Cases of Covid were starting to skyrocket and he knew his medical center’s supply of PPE was low. So he called his buddy, the billionaire and “hyper-connected” donor, Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce.

“…that phone call set off a frenzied effort by Mr. Benioff and his team that drew in major companies like FedEx, Walmart, Uber and Alibaba. In a matter of weeks, Mr. Benioff’s team spent more than $25 million to procure more than 50 million pieces of protective equipment. Fifteen million units have already been delivered to hospitals, medical facilities and states, and more are on the way.

The relative ease with which Salesforce acquired so much protective gear stands in sharp contrast to the often chaotic government efforts. While states have had to compete against each other for scarce supplies and the strategic national stockpile of protective gear is depleted, Mr. Benioff and his team simply called up their business partners in China and started writing checks.”

 

Some might call Mr Benioff a saint, but while I found his actions altruistic, I was concerned that our country had to depend on his beneficence. Do we live in a democracy with a small “d” or is this an oligarchy, or a kleptocracy?

I sent a box of Lysol wipes and Formula 409 out to the Rocker and Aunt Kiki in LA last week, and somebody stole most of the contents en route. We are making masks in our kitchen and we can’t find disinfectant wipes, but Benioff can find a warehouse full of N95 masks from China in LA? To make matters worse, Republicans are still trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/republicans-could-kill-obamacare-in-the-middle-of-coronavirus-recovery

As our quarantine wanes piecemeal, state by state, we must remember this time in history when governors had to beg to save peoples’ lives.

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Lack of Decorum

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 22, 2020| 1 Comment »

It’s been a busy week: I started physical therapy; Great Grandma Ada had a visiting  friend from New Jersey, so I took her to a drag brunch; and Ada also regaled her JCC Book Club with a look back on her life… which will have to be continued since 95 years cannot possibly be distilled into an hour!

We did learn something new though – Ada was voted “Most Charming” by her Brooklyn high school class.

Since I’ve found the Senate Impeachment Trial of Mr T most distressing, and not charming at all, I refuse to watch it. Relying on the occasional Tweet to keep me up to date, especially of my favorite Senator Amy Klobuchar, it would seem that only Justice Roberts is taking this trial seriously. I’m glad he admonished both sides to keep it civil and behave with the gravitas the Senate chamber deserves.

A trial with no witnesses and no documents is still a trial worthy of respect. Right?

I was served a subpoena twice. Once a long, long time ago when I was working at Head Start in Jersey City I accidentally hit a homeless woman illegally crossing the street. Just as the sun came up over the skyline of Manhattan, I was blinded turning a corner and didn’t see her. My insurance company kept me in good hands and settled for the maximum amount on my policy.

The second time I was served we had just moved from NJ, and I had left my old car behind, it was a green Ford Explorer that the Rocker had inherited and drove to high school every day. But he wasn’t allowed a car on his college campus in Trenton, so we sold it. Or I should say, Bob sold it to a young man while I was in VA.

Long story short, he was arrested the next day for having marijuana in the car, my old Ford Explorer, and somehow or another I was still listed as the registered owner. Hence, a guy shows up at my door in Virginia ordering me to appear for a trial in New Jersey.  Again, a lawyer was deployed, money was exchanged, and a calamity was averted.

Isn’t it strange that I’ve never been called for jury duty, something I’ve actually wanted to do all my life, but I’ve been served TWO subpoenas! What if I didn’t have car insurance or the money to pay for a good defense? I was recently talking to a friend about Jane Fonda getting arrested for her Climate inspired Fire Drill Friday demonstrations.

I mean with all the protesting I’ve done over the years for women/human rights, why haven’t I been arrested? It’s almost a badge of honor today.

Congress should have subpoenaed Ambassador Bolton, sure, and he would have every right to hire a lawyer and fight it, if the Senate had the guts to call on him. It sounds like he’s willing to talk, and he might even lend some decorum to the proceedings, but his Republican cronies are afraid of the truth. They can’t handle the truth! 

Here is Amy Klobuchar’s early morning Tweet:

 “At 1:30 a.m. after a bunch of votes to stifle key witnesses the Republicans just voted down having Justice Roberts decide the witnesses! Why have this job if you’re not going to protect the Constitution? We are sworn to protect our democracy, not serve the President’s interests.”

Can you handle this cuteness?

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Consensus

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on August 13, 2017| 1 Comment »

Yesterday, Bob and I had a scheduled morning meeting to learn all about cohousing in Nashville. We met lovely people of different ages, and I was schooled in the latest feminist lingo; when I asked if a woman’s husband was babysitting, she said, “Oh no, he’s Daddying.” (smile) I made a note to myself to remember that term!

But my heart wasn’t in that room. I had silenced my cell but wanted to check Twitter every few minutes. I didn’t. But I follow a young newspaper reporter, Lauren Berg @laurenbergk who writes for The Daily Progress in Cville. And I knew she was in the thick of it, the Unite the Right rally was just getting underway and I had no idea what would happen.

Now we all know the deadly consequences of hate speech writ large and accompanied by Nazi symbolism, cloaked in national pride. My friend, Lynne Goldman, owns a unique jewelry store on the Downtown Mall. She and I were Planned Parenthood bus mates over the years, and we traveled to the Women’s March together this year in sisterhood. She and her husband came to our Seder in April.

At the cohousing meeting, people spoke of building community. Of planning this in, by designing a parking lot behind the condos so you are forced to walk into a courtyard and pass your neighbors every day. No more driving into a garage and disappearing. Two families do communal dinners once a week, they pay for everything together (roof repair, utilities, etc), and they manage by “consensus” not by our typical way of voting, when the “Ayes” have it!.

Consensus 

noun, plural consensuses.
1.
majority of opinion:
The consensus of the group was that they should meet twice a month.
2.
general agreement or concord; harmony.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Lynne. Everyone else I knew back in my adopted hometown was present and accounted for, but I had seen on Twitter that somebody sprayed Lauren with a chemical and that riot police were staging near the Paramount Theatre. And then the unthinkable happened. A home-grown, white supremacist Nazi thug terrorist drove into a crowd of peaceful counter-protestors… right on the corner of Lynne’s store.

It has come to this. Racism only needs an excuse to spread its evil, twisted ideology, like tearing down a monument to General Robert E Lee. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/us/charlottesville-rally-protest-statue.html

In Emancipation Park, a few steps from the Bride and Groom’s first home. In my serene and peaceful burg, a blue dot that is rapidly turning the state of VA purple; at the seat of democracy itself, Monticello, built by Slaves and saved and refurbished by Jews. http://www.isjl.org/virginia-charlottesville-encyclopedia.html

Lynne and her husband Steve arrived home safe and sound last night. Lauren is busy Tweeting this morning, gathering facts about the day, reminding us that two VA State Troopers are dead as a result of this tragedy. And Mr T has no plans for the day according to his White House Communications Director, standing by his statement against violence on “many sides.”

This extreme Neo-Nazi side is not my side Mr T, in fact my Father-in-Law Hudson fought in a war so that scum of the earth would never rise again. Stop blustering about nuclear war, and study Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This may indeed be a turning point for our country, and it may be time for all of us to pray and #resist.

Here we were at one of our favorite French restaurants on the Downtown Mall for our last Wedding Anniversary in June. You can see the incomplete Tyvek hotel in the background, just as it was for the Bride’s wedding. Our democracy is incomplete, there is much left to do. Reconciliation and forgiveness will take time, but we must start now. We must listen to each other, and build consensus.

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