Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Democrats’

Party Planning

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 19, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Bob and I have been known to throw a good party over the years. We’ve done a clambake in our Jersey Shore backyard, we did Bob’s infamous 40th “Come as You Were in the 60s” birthday bash, and of course the post-flood homecoming in Rumson, not to mention the Big Chill Thanksgivings and numerous Grandma Ada birthday parties – and the 2000 Millennial New Year’s Eve. There’s nothing I love better than cooking for a crowd, well maybe catering…

I had to laugh when I overheard one political commentator say, “The Democrats have to throw the kind of party you want to go to.” A light went off in my head!

Of course, we don’t want to be all doom and gloom. But I also don’t do raves either, luckily that trend has skipped my generation. Still, turn on Fox News and their anchors are actually having questionable fun. I don’t stay on Fox for long, but everyone is sitting around telling jokes, instead of stating facts or analyzing policy. They are not worried about the end of democracy while their president and his oligarch, tech-bro, side-kick go about trampling everything in their path like two giant Gullivers run amok.

So what kind of party would you want to attend? I hear that Rubrik’s Cube parties are all the rage in Paris. I’m not quite sure how you play, but wearing articles of clothing in the cube’s colors is de rigeur. Or what about a Knives Out mystery party? Maybe we should leave weapons out of the equation. An escape room? I’d love to escape reality, forget this past year, a year of nearly dying from a simple fall that happened the day before our election.

Well, both splints are off my hands and the Aspen collar has been packed away. I look perfectly normal, if not shorter, but that is an illusion. I’m tempered. I’ve had to face mortality and my head still feels like a bowling ball. My right hand doesn’t work the way it used to, but then again, pretty much nothing else does either. Ah, to be seventy again!

Let’s plan on throwing a party for the Dems. Let’s brainstorm all the things we want to happen, like getting egg prices down, controlling bird flu, and not whether or not to buy Greenland. Let’s talk about the positive things we can do to help the climate, and help families with childcare. We need to make our party fun again and build community.

We need to party like it’s 1999! And Happy Anniversary to these two!

Read Full Post »

Deja Vu Again

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on July 22, 2024| 1 Comment »

Why am I always in the kitchen when momentous things happen? I was prepping for a small dinner party last night, slicing cucumbers and washing berries, when my phone played a series of bells that meant only one thing – Aunt Kiki sent a text!

“Biben Drops Out of Presidential Race.”

It was a NYT’s headline. I had to sit down. My reaction was visceral, nausea followed immediately by goosebumps. The family text chain began, my adult children all weighing in with the Rocker’s digital sound from LA and the Bride’s iconic melody from Rehoboth Beach pinging from my phone as Bob pivoted from making (yes making from scratch) pasta and turned on the TV. It was finally official, our President bowed out after succumbing to Covid and the incessant pressure of his Democratic colleagues.

The family didn’t have to take the car keys away, he gave them up willingly. I started to cry just a little with relief from the last month of speculation and an impending sense of doom. I had wanted Biden to stay the course, I wanted to believe our country would be able to differentiate between a mensch and a conman. But my son, one of the original Bernie Bros, and my daughter, a Mayor Pete believer, have grown into good Democrats with a capital “D.” I knew the younger generation was right, and I could feel the excitement rising as I dressed the salad.

Our friends walked in with a gorgeous peach pie.

I remember when Bobby Kennedy was shot in a hotel kitchen in 1968. It was the end of an era. I was 19 years old; bereft, about to marry the rebound boyfriend, and still grieving the loss of my ‘one true love.’ I stood in the long line of mourners at St Patrick’s Cathedral to pay my respects to the Senator from New York. It was a beautiful but exceptionally hot day in June; I nearly fainted from lack of sleep and a simmering depression.

“He was, of course, an extraordinary man, a complex one; each time we saw him there was more to see. He could never be accurately measured, especially in terms of the past; he was always in the process of becoming. He was responsive to change, and changed himself. These changes were always attributed to his driving desire to win—except by those who knew him, who were aware of his great capacity for growth, his dedication, the widening of his concern. The people around him, we found, adored him—there is no other word. They would do anything for him, go any distance—and part of it was because they were convinced he would do the same for them.” 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1968/06/15/When-New-York-City-Mourned-RFK

This was written about RFK, but it describes Joe Biden as well. Remember that he kickstarted marriage equality, that his first years on the Hill were forged through pain and loss. That he took the train home every weekend from Washington to be with his two young sons. We all know his story, an Irish Catholic from Scranton, just like my birth family. The Bride wrote Joe a letter when she was in 7th Grade, asking him to run for President, and he wrote back to her.

We Democrats are NOT a cult of personality. We do not blame God for political assassinations, or for surviving them intact… with maybe a little cartilage missing. We do not think there are good people on both sides of a line in Charlottesville. We don’t separate refugee children from their parents. We know where to draw that line, at corruption and sexual predation. We knew this election was an existential crisis for our country, some of us whispered this fact and some shouted. But the fear of violence, the fear of banning books and eroding our public schools, our public TRUST, the fear of a SCOTUS that would allow our fundamental human rights to be challenged is starting to abate.

Families fight, and they forgive. They also visit unexpectedly with four Scottish Deerhounds! Democrats are energized, and we are hopeful once again and for that Mr President, your country thanks you.

Read Full Post »

Inegalite

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »

VIVA LA FRANCE!

Have you heard the news from France? They have enshrined a woman’s Right to Choose, her own bodily autonomy is now constitutionally a “guaranteed freedom.” France is the very first country in the world to write this basic human right into their constitution. And why has a Catholic country decided to vote 780-72 in favor of women at this moment in time? It’s because they’ve been watching us, the American people; they have seen how methodically and malignantly our human rights have been stripped away by judges and politicians in the pocket of Mr T.

I caught a bit of Van Jones’ CNN special the other night about what’s been happening in Tennessee. He interviewed the “Justins” and he spoke with Republicans outside of Davidson County. He tried to find common ground, but what if that’s impossible? Here’s the problem. Christian Nationalists are overtaking the GOP. It’s not just that they didn’t want the government telling them to get a Covid vaccine; it’s that they would like the government to censor books in public schools. And along with books, let’s take control of reproductive healthcare for millions of women!

One cult sect of the Christian Nationalist movement, the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), is an extreme branch of Christianity with its tentacles reaching very close to the American White House. I had to dig deeper into their mythology after listening to Terry Gross interview their founder about casting demons out of people. Yes, you heard me right. Demons.

“A central tenet of NAR’s belief system is that it is God’s will for Christians to take control of all aspects of U.S. society—including education, arts and entertainment, the media, and businesses—to create a religious nation.“

https://newrepublic.com/post/176861/mike-johnson-flying-christian-nationalist-flag-outside-office

Our Speaker, Mike Johnson, has three flags hanging outside his office: the American flag, the Louisiana state flag, and a flag representing the NAR movement that wants to turn the US into a Christian nation. Its design is from a Revolutionary War flag and is called “An Appeal to Heaven.” Many of these flags, sporting an evergreen tree in its center, were seen at the Jan 6th insurrection. That bears repeating – the flag hanging outside our Speaker’s DC office was flying alongside traitors to our country on Jan 6!

Today is Super Tuesday and the landscaping companies are out in full force in my neighborhood. Loud machinery has replaced the annual raking of garden beds in preparation for planting. I wonder how many rabbit nests are being destroyed while my forsythia begins to burst into yellow bloom. A cherry tree has pinked out and the magnificent tulip magnolias wave from bare branches. Spring is here!

Bob wants to vote today, but I’m less enthusiastic. In TN you can vote for blue or red in the primary, which is funny don’t you think? Each state is different, in some you must vote for the party you’ve registered with, but not here. Doesn’t seem very “united” to me. So I could vote for Joseph R Biden or:

Republican Primary Ballot:

  • Ryan Binkley
  • Chris Christie
  • Ron DeSantis
  • Nikki Haley
  • Asa Hutchinson
  • Vivek Ramaswamy
  • David Stuckenberg
  • Donald J. Trump

Too bad it’s not November. Right after Halloween, in the presidential elections, Tennesseans will be able to vote for Joe and Gloria Johnson to replace Marsha Blackburn in the Senate! Johnson stood alongside the Justins demanding gun control legislation but wasn’t expelled from the state house, because, well maybe because she’s … a woman? Even Taylor Swift has called Marsha Blackburn “Trump in a wig.”

But it’s only March with a looong election season ahead of us. I’m hoping that TN Democrats will show up today, in the rain, and vote for Joe. We need to vote like our lives depend on it today and in November.  Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.

TO THE BARRICADES, I mean POLLS!!! Here we are on a French island.

Read Full Post »

Momala Kamala

Posted in an expository essay, Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 14, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I stood up clapping and yelling in my empty office after Kamala Harris spoke to an empty auditorium in Delaware on Wednesday. It was her first time appearing with Joe Biden as his running mate, and I was on pins and needles waiting for them. When she said the case against Mr T was “…open and shut,” I swooned. When she called our Toddler-in-Chief a whiner, I Tweeted; then I followed her husband – possibly the first ever Second Gentleman – on every social media platform!

When Kamala said, “I’ve had a lot of titles over my career and certainly vice president will be great, but ‘Momala’ will always be the one that means the most,” I got it.  I’m pretty sure only Italians and Jewish people use Momala as a token of endearment. She married Doug Emhoff, an entertainment lawyer, in 2014 and her two step-children started calling her Momala. Great Grandma Ada, who btw I’ve called Momala for years, called me up to tell me Emhoff was from Brooklyn; and then I read that Kamala broke a glass at their wedding to honor his tradition.

Wait, I misspoke. I wasn’t entirely alone watching Kamala on CNN. Ms Bean had been napping peacefully on her bed, only slightly medicated because of those pesky afternoon  thunderstorms, when my cheering started. I guess I must have been jumping around too much because she joined in with ferocity, barking and climbing up on me. She hasn’t seen me that excited in almost six months, or maybe even four years.

The Flapper was a realist when it came to politicians. Except for the great FDR, I remember her saying, “They’re all crooks.” But my foster parents were dyed-in-the-wool Democrats. I remember them getting dressed up to vote at night after Daddy Jim came home from work. And try as I might, they’d never say who they voted for, although it was pretty clear to me that they voted a straight line Democratic ticket.

After all, the Democrats were for the “working man,” the great “middle class.” I was also told the Irish vote blue, so there ya go. And once Kennedy, the first Irish Catholic president was elected and later assassinated when I was just 15 years old, my tribal loyalties were sealed in stone. McGovern was my first presidential vote, and I’m still proud of it to this day.

Many Dems I know felt discouraged after voting for Hillary in 2016 and watching the electoral college – a holdover from the southern slave states – trample our desire for a woman president. Discouraged and depressed. But this time there is something in the air. Systemic racism has crawled out of the shadows, and sitting on a fence for this election is simply unacceptable. Thanks to this administration, the American people will be asked to make a choice:

Continue running our government into the ground, chipping away at affordable healthcare during a global pandemic, and ignoring the economic plight of our people? Should we vote for a man who has single-handedly destroyed our trust in institutions like the Post Office and makes a mockery of the Justice Department? Or shall we vote for a return to truth and dignity with a Biden/Harris ticket?

She broke a piece of crystal under her heel at her wedding, and she will be the one to shatter the glass ceiling. Painting of Wonder Woman by Ashley Longshore.

IMG_8095

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Prime Time

Posted in an expository essay, Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Public Policy, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 11, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Democrats fall in love with their candidate, Republicans fall in line.

Spoiler alert! The last two (D) candidates to win both Iowa and New Hampshire were nominated and promptly lost their elections – Al Gore and John Kerry. Remember them? Kerry actually criticized Bush for the Iraq war, and let’s face it, that may have been too soon and his running mate, John Edwards, may have been too slick hiding a love child from his wife. But I still fell in love with both nominees, just a little.

This is why I’m not too concerned with the first NH primary today. I want a man (or a woman – love is love) who can flip the Senate blue. I’m waiting to see who will give me goosebumps. The way Brad Pitt did at the Oscars, gently scolding the GOP for disallowing witnesses.

Is it just me, or did anyone else not see any of the Oscar nominated movies this year? Well wait, Bob and I did see the first half of “The Irishman” in our local artsy theatre… but it was getting past someone’s bedtime, so we left via an Uber. Did DeNiro kill Hoffa? I’ll have to catch up on Netflix.

Netflix was the star attraction this past weekend when we joined some friends to watch “Knives Out” at their home. In this historic row house, a screen surprised me descending down a wall, with a projector hanging from the middle of the ceiling. It was almost like going to the movies! I have such serious home envy whenever I set foot in that home.

And to top it off, we had two big, fluffy dogs who would come to attention and bark whenever there were dogs in a scene!

Who doesn’t love a good murder mystery on a cold rainy night? I won’t spoil the plot of “Knives Out” by saying that current political issues figure prominently when the investigator, played by Daniel Craig with a Southern accent, focuses his attention on a nurse named Marta. The privileged white clan/cast cannot seem to agree on what South American country Marta’s family has immigrated from – Paraguay, Ecuador?  https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/11/the-unlikely-hero-of-rian-johnsons-knives-out/602701/

Immigration politics swirls around the story of my night table book, “American Dirt.” First of all, it was one of my monthly First Edition Parnassus Bookclub picks, that arrived in its burlap sack a few weeks ago. I’d already been hooked by American Dirt’s violent opening chapter when I started reading the criticism on Twitter. At first I thought well maybe the author, Jeannine Cummins, isn’t Latina, so undocumented folks and those who love them were skeptical. But she had also initially claimed her husband was an immigrant, without saying he’s from Ireland. Cummins cancelled her book tour.

The novel follows the story of a Mexican woman and her son fleeing to the United States after a drug cartel massacre.
Cummins, who spent five years writing the book, isn’t Mexican or a migrant. The book, which was just published January 21, immediately sparked debate about who can tell what story and diversity within the publishing industry.
It also faced criticism for its reliance on migrant stereotypes, with many pointing out that if an author is going to write about someone different from them, it must be done well. “American Dirt,” some have said, was not — though the book has also been praised by a number of prominent authors.  https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/29/us/american-dirt-jeanine-cummins-author-tour-cancel-trnd/index.html

Is this what we mean by cancel culture? Was Joaquin Phoenix onto something in his Oscar speech before he swerved into the cow/milk controversy? Urban Dictionary tells us this culture is a direct result of social media and people who are, “…quick to judge and slow to question.”

Let’s ask the hard questions of our our Democratic candidates as they head into prime time and super Tuesday. Bloomberg can understand what a single mom is going through, he doesn’t have to be one. I believe a writer should be able to write about anything – a man can write from a woman’s point of view, and vice versa. If I’m writing about the Jewish mob, I need not be a member of that group, I can do the research. And I’m not ready to cancel anyone out of our primary process. I haven’t fallen in love, not yet.

Except for these two chocolate-teeth cherubs!

59235124161__05D55FE2-30F7-435B-9CD8-C2EFCD9534CD

 

 

Read Full Post »

A Kiss is Just a Kiss

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 2, 2019| 2 Comments »

Today is #EqualPayDay across the globe, meaning any woman who thinks she isn’t a feminist isn’t paying attention. For every single dollar, or euro, a man makes, a woman will collect only 80 cents. Think about it, we make almost one quarter less than what men make for doing the same work! Maybe back in the day, where MAGA-hat-wearing people long to live, men went out to work and plunder leaving their mates at home, barefoot and pregnant. But today, we ladies are half of the workforce, maybe the “better half?”

Last week, the D Majority House passed the Paycheck Fairness Act. Why should that matter? Certainly some industries are fair when it comes to the payroll – historically women-centered careers like healthcare and teaching have been gender-neutral for the most part. But now the Paycheck Fairness Act will help to close the 20% wage gap in a broader way by banning employers from asking about former salaries. And maybe most importantly, prohibit companies from firing or retaliating at workers who share their wage information!

So step over to the next cubicle and talk about money people!

I remember my first real job. Before my days of teaching at a Head Start in Jersey City, I was hired to interview temp workers for a large American firm. This entry HR job meant I had to administer typing tests and ask the kinds of questions above and beyond what your last salary looked like – “Are you married?” “Do you want to have children?” Those were the good ole days, when it was more of what your body actually “looked like;” the days when my older sister Kay had to keep her child a secret if she wanted to continue to work as a stewardess in the airline industry.

And she had to starve herself too, in order to stay at a certain weight. We women of a certain age have these memories floating around in our hippocampus, judging ourselves in the mirror every day.

And being a card-carrying feminist means one should fight against sexual harassment in the workplace, or anyplace really. But listen up, I may offend some of you here, maybe we’ve gone a step too far? I mean, I LOVE ex-Veep Joe Biden! He hails from my hometown, and has the most authentic, warmest smile. His son died of the same kind of brain tumor that killed my biological father. He reminds me of my foster father, Daddy Jim; I’d share a cup of tea with him anytime! And guess what…

If he kissed the back of my head, or leaned in for some Eskimo kisses or even butterfly kisses… why, I’d hug him right back! There, I said it. Most women can differentiate between a lecherous old guy who is too handy and goes for your lips, and a Mensch. The first kind of man makes you instantly turn your face away, he hugs too hard and too long, we can see it in their hungry eyes. Great Grandma Ada had a friend like that, even into his 90s he’d put the moves on you.

But Uncle Joe just doesn’t strike me that way, you know, the way Mr T strikes me.

So let’s settle down Dems, we will never win in 2020 by fighting amongst ourselves. Let’s teach our little boys about consent, without scaring them away from intimacy. Teach them how to know when to shake hands or hug hello. Here is Pop Bob (a genuine Mensch) teaching the L’il Pumpkin about tools with his very first tool box. Clap your hands if you believe in fairy houses.

D37DDDA4-609E-49D6-ACFC-AB52380619EB

 

Read Full Post »