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Posts Tagged ‘Trump’

Sprucing and Locking Up

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 6, 2025| 2 Comments »

When you’ve been away from home for awhile, things pile up; for instance, our car’s neural network failed. Granted it also didn’t want to start, and once jumped, our Subaru kept beeping and beeping its displeasure. Turns out, the back hatch has some locking system that needed adjusting. It was my first foray into the Nashville world and all I wanted was to go to the grocery store…alone. No “Do we need that?” in my ear.

But then, my NPR radio station changed on the dashboard monitor, as if possessed. I changed it back. It changed again. So I switched to the map. The image of my street zoomed out to include the Gulf of Mexico! After saying a small thank god in my head that it was still the gulf of Mexico, I realized there was a strange feedback loop happening in the upper right corner. My car was losing its mind, and so was I. It was the most frustrating trip, so of course I called Bob to complain.

“Call Bob mobile!” I said, as I pressed the little ear/speech ativated button on the steering wheel that is connected via Bluetooth to my phone.

“Cancelling,” my car spoke back.

I won’t repeat what I said after that. Today while I’m writing, Bob is at the dealership getting this fixed. Turns out it was a manufacturing glitch for two years that included our 2018 model, and since we have tariffs to look forward to, we’re putting off purchasing another car. What we couldn’t put off was a new heating system for our house.

Right before we left for California, we were informed that we should not use our heat since we would have a carbon monoxide leak! Now this would not be an easy, or an inexpensive fix. This past week, we had a whole new HVAC system installed which included replacing possum damaged ductwork in a crawlspace sized for a Lilliputian. Needless to say, the Rheem unit outside my snug is quiet and much more efficient.

Remember back in February since the twins came early, on my first morning alone in LA, I heard a loudspeaker in the street telling people they didn’t have to open their doors to ICE agents? I can recall that surreal feeling so vividly since this weekend TN state troopers and ICE agents raided South Nashville and sent buses containing people who have no due process to a prison facility in Louisiana. I thought Nashville was a sanctuary city! I wanted to scream; he was doing it again, separating families. THIS IS HAPPENING HERE.

Mr T’s agenda is pure malicious evil. Our Mayor Freddie O”Connell clarified:

“While O’Connell cannot institute official sanctuary policies, the mayor announced a partnership with the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee to assist the families of those detained. The newly minted Belonging Fund will go towards emergency assistance for childcare, housing instability, transportation and other needs. “’Belonging is more than a feeling — it’s a sign of safety, stability, and community,” said Hal Cato, CEO of CFMT. “When immigrant families face a crisis, we want to ensure they’re not alone. This fund helps organizations on the ground respond quickly, compassionately, and effectively.’” https://www.nashville.gov/departments/mayor/news/belonging-fund-launches-provide-emergency-support-immigrants-nashville

BUT it does NOT pay for legal fees!! Why? In retrospect, my car, our home heating problems are minor compared to this administration. If you know, or would like to start a GoFundMe for legal representation for a family in crisis please comment below.

I’m so glad to see my son has continued playing guitar for his girls. Hearing from my sweet California family melts my heart and brings me peace.

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On the Cheap

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on February 10, 2025| 1 Comment »

I was cheering last night as the Eagles demolished the Chiefs. My feelings have nothing to do with football, it’s simply that my great great grandfather got on a boat from Ireland and settled in Pennsylvania. I may have grown up across the Delaware Water Gap in NJ, but my PA roots run deep. Like Jill Biden, my blood also runs green.

My concentration wavered after the halftime show. The outcome was obvious, so I may have tuned into Celebrity Jeopardy, but I swear I didn’t see the camera cut to Mr T once; I saw Taylor, and Ann Hathaway, and even Sir Paul. He was always my favorite Beatle. And since the one and only time I met our current president was at an NFL game in NY in the 80s, I had to wonder if he had enough attention last night to satisfy his outsized ego?

That morning my brother, Dr Jim, was recounting his experience of attending the Super Bowl with the Minnesota Vikings in 1975. He and his wife Anita flew to New Orleans on a private jet, attended the parties, rode on the team bus and entered the stadium with our brother Mike, the Vikings president and GM. We all knew that Mr T was trying to acquire an NFL franchise, at the same time he was acquiring a new wife, but none of the owners were willing to sell. Or maybe he didn’t have the money?

So the conman realtor bought his way into the rival, fledgling US Football Leasue (USFL) and proceeded to mount a hostile takeover of the NFL. Does this sound like a familiar business plan? His incompetent management was likely one of the reasons the USFL failed. He sued the NFL and was awarded a grand total of three DOLLARS.

In the trial, NFL attorneys framed their case around Trump, arguing that the lawsuit was a charade orchestrated by Trump as a way to get into the NFL on the cheap. The argument worked.

“I thought he was extremely arrogant, and I thought that he was obviously trying to play the game,” juror Patricia Sibilia recalled in a telephone interview last year. “He wanted an NFL franchise. . . . The USFL was a cheap way in.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/donald-trumps-long-stormy-and-unrequited-romance-with-the-nfl/2017/09/23/979264a4-a093-11e7-8ea1-ed975285475e_story.html

I guess the Commish has a short memory!

I think we are witnessing a hostile takeover of our government, a kind of coup from within, and Elon Musk is the General. We should have learned from Mr T’s business tactics, or from his biography. He’s shown his true colors time and time again – in his real estate dealings, in his marital infidelities, in his obsession with the NFL. He once said that if he’d been allowed to purchase the Buffalo Bills, he probably wouldn’t have run for president! When I read that, I nearly choked on my coffee. All he needed back then was 80 Million Dollars.

Maybe Fox gave Mr T pre-game exposure, but I didn’t watch it… besides, I was excited to see a certain ad that the Rocker’s company produced. Ticket sales to this year’s Super Bowl went down for the first time ever, and womens’ sports teams are rising which is a tiny silver lining to the past few weeks. Here is the Bug, on a winning streak.

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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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Pardon Me

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on December 3, 2024| Leave a Comment »

There’s much ado about Hunter Biden’s pardon. One of the things I learned in Catholic School was to ‘put myself in someone else’s shoes.’ What if you were President Joe for a day – would you want to pardon your son with a history of drug and alcohol addiction who had turned his life around after a long political investigation? He lied on a gun form while high on crack cocaine and didn’t pay his taxes. OTOH, he didn’t intimidate witnesses or try to overthrow the government. So, YES, I’d pardon my son.

Then again, whenever I bump into someone in a crowd, I usually say, “Pardon me.” So I’m an equal opportunity pardoner.

It’s a habit I picked up when I was first living in Boston, Massachusetts in the 60s, and continued while living in the Berkshires. Back in NJ the usual retort was a quick, “Sorry,” but not for me. Maybe my old Catholic school upbringing was to blame; how many times had I blurted out in confession, “Pardon me Father….?” It just seemed a bit more dignified, maybe even a little royal, to pardon people. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the word PARDON means to FORGIVE:

“to forgive someone for something they have said or done. This word is often used in polite expressions…. If someone who has committed a crime is pardoned, that person is officially forgiven and their punishment is stopped:“

Forgive me if i see nothing polite about the politics of this week’s Presidential pardon of Joe Biden’s son Hunter on gun and tax evasion issues is nothing new.

In fact, George Washington dismissed charges in 1795 against two Western Pennsylvania farmer/rebels, John Mitchell and Philip Weigel, involved in the Whiskey Rebellion! It would seem prescient that our young nation’s first crisis was a result of Hamilton imposing a tax on a domestic product that was grown and manufactured on the frontier – whiskey. The farmers refused to pay the tax and the resulting violent conflict was framed as a Federalist vs Anti-Federalist issue. Indeed, when Thomas Jefferson was elected President he repealed the Whiskey Tax!

“Residents viewed this tax as yet another instance of unfair policies dictated by the eastern elite that negatively affected American citizens on the frontier.” https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/whiskey-rebellion

Let’s jump ahead, past Confederate and Jimmy Hoffa pardons, to the one I remember in September, 1974. I don’t remember where I was at the time, but I do remember the feeling. Like our nation had gone through so much pain with the Watergate hearings and someone had to pay for trying to interfere with our election. When Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon I felt betrayed, not just because of his covert shenanigans, but because he had lied about stopping the war in Vietnam. I actually hated that man!

Deep down I knew that Ford was right by not being vindictive and preemptively saving us from a long trial. After all, Nixon resigned.

Today we have a twice impeached, convicted felon about to re-enter the White House. Mr T never thought to give us the courtesy of resigning, instead he sat idly by while insurrectionists attacked the Capitol. He wanted his Vice-President to overturn the will of the People. And one of his most controversial pardons was issued to his Son-in-Law’s father, Charles Kushner in 2020 after being convicted of “… tax fraud, witness tampering and making false statements to the Federal Election Commission.”

Just knowing that one of Mr T’s first acts as President may be to pardon the Jan 6th rioters makes me sick. But like the BBC once said, one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter. It’s just that ever since a hanging chad in FL and a 5-4 Supreme Court vote stopped the five week fight in 2000 of Al Gore vs George Bush, I’ve been disenchanted with our Electoral College. Gore won the popular vote by more than a half million votes. I wonder where we would be now if Gore had been elected when 9/11 happened?

My point is, Democrats didn’t storm the Hill and defecate in the halls of Congress.

My idea of ‘freedom’ certainly differs from the MAGA crowd. They want to be free of government interference, but the funny thing is so do we. We don’t want legislators in our doctors’ offices and they don’t want them in their business either. We also don’t want religion in our public schools or censorship in our libraries, conversely MAGA wants more God in our public places and they love pulling books off shelves.

I’m nostalgic for the good ole days when Washington DC could function, when deals got done and a consensus was reached. When senators went out to lunch together and congressmen and women played baseball together. When truth and trust were collective values. Pardon me for thinking we might return to a more congenial, centrist government eventually – a time when the farmers and the cowboys, the coastal elites and the working class middle of the country could be friends.

Here is the Bride’s Thanksgiving American pie!

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Florida Man

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 10, 2024| Leave a Comment »

No, not that Mar-a-Lago guy who thinks he can ‘debate’ a former prosecutor. I know everyone will be watching CBS tonight to see what insanity Mr T spews forth, and I’ll be reluctantly watching too. Who can resist a train wreck? But I’ll be visiting with friends at least; Bob and I will be heading over to an election debate watch party which should cushion the blows of this farce. I can only hope Kamala doesn’t spend all her time correcting the former Liar-in-Chief.

But the Florida guy on my radar this morning is good ‘ole Gov Ron DeSantis. Did you know that he has an Office of Election Crimes and Security, aka the election police? Bob said of course he does, and didn’t I remember when he started rounding up felons who thought they had had their voting rights restored after the 2020 election?

Florida is one of the few southern states that allows previously incarcerated people who’ve paid their debt to society to apply to have their voting rights reinstated.

But in the small print you cannot vote in FL if you were convicted of murder, a sexual offense, OR you have outstanding legal costs associated with that past felony conviction. Or maybe you just didn’t jump through enough hoops? The Gov’s roundup out of the blue had the police officers apologizing to the people they were arresting!

But wait – today the WaPo is reporting that election police have been showing up at people’s homes to question them about signing a petition they had signed months ago! One person reported having ten pages of personal information displayed on her dining room table! What was that about you might ask? Oh, just a little Amendment number 4 coming up on the ballot in November that would nullify the 6 week abortion ban the Gov signed into law last year…

“They want people to stay home and to not vote,” Democratic state Rep. Fentrice Driskell said at a virtual news conference Monday. “They want people to read these articles and hear it on social media that the police showed up at somebody’s door and intimidated them and made them feel bad about signing an Amendment 4 petition.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/09/09/desantis-election-abortion-referendum-fdle/

Isn’t it rich that Mr T says a vote for Harris will make us a banana republic, while his minions are incrementally toilng away to make it so. Shame, intimidation and threats of arrest are the tactics used in the sunshine state to keep people away from the polls. Nearly 70% of Floridians believe abortion should be legal in most cases, and a 6 week ban is too strict. If asked, probably most American women would say, “Mind your own damn business!” And yet, this Florida man is using the power of the state to twist our free and fair elections to his own whim.

This was a gut punch, reading this article actually made me sick. I kept thinking of SS police knocking on doors to find Jews.

The other night Bob and I joined the Bride and Groom at their election letter writing party. I had a list of potential voters in Arizona and I was supposed to write a bipartisan message urging them to vote this November. The Groom was writing that he worked in healthcare and believed in healthcare for all. I only needed to write one or two sentences per letter. Instead I wrote about gun violence to the men and bodily autonomy to the women. Who knows, maybe someone with an open mind will listen.

I hope you and your friends are throwing parties! Are you talking with your neighbors? Maybe just this once we can come together as a nation, blue and red, black and white, and say enough is enough? Here is my new Fall knitting project, shades of pink and purple with just enough grey to add gravitas.

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Everybody’s Weird

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Don’t get me wrong, I’m in love with the Harris-Walz ticket. We are overdue for a female president, and her VP pick reminds me of my own foster father, Daddy Jim. He’s the guy who went to work every day and came home with a tiny surprise for me. He drove me to the swimming pond and the ice cream store after Sunday Mass. He built me a doll house out of popsicle sticks! Jim and Nell literally saved my life after our family’s Year of Living Dangerously.

And some of my earliest memories involve leaving our tiny home in Victory Gardens only to realize that other people are weird: I had lunch with a friend and her mother swept the entire kitchen floor after we finished – Jim cleaned the kitchen floor every Saturday. I slept over at a cousin’s house and the grandfather clock kept me awake all night – there was no clock, no bells chiming the hour and half hour in our house at night. And when my foster parents would take me to Scranton to visit the Flapper, well everything was different! I didn’t have to clean my plate for instance, the Flapper said,

“All the more for us!”

She also used to say, “Everybody has a story,” which is probably why I became a journalist. I wanted to capture all the details, to connect all the dots, maybe because my life felt so disconnected – one family in NJ and another in PA. I have a vivid memory of swinging on a dutch door that was in the Flapper’s kitchen, and when I close my eyes I can see a curly-headed blond girl in saddle shoes hanging on the bottom half of a blue door.

This morning I was surprised to read that 1-4% of the population cannot construct an image in their brain. Could you close your eyes and imagine an apple? Well, if you can’t don’t worry, it’s not a disorder, but it does have a name, aphantasia. I was intrigued. I asked Bob, so he closed his eyes and told me yes, he can see an apple. But I pressed on; really, can you actually see one in your mind’s eye? Well, he said he’s not seeing numbers… And the funny thing is, I couldn’t.

Closing your eyes and remembering something is different from conjuring up an object out of thin air. I started thinking in words about my favorite apple from Jefferson’s orchard, Pink Lady, which made me think about the Bride’s wedding on Carters Mountain. I could certainly picture that day, the chuppah blowing in the wind of my mind… but the apple, a simple red (or pink) apple was eluding me. Maybe it’s just ADHD in my head? Maybe I really am weird!

“That would make it really hard to draw anything,” the Pumpkin told me in the pool.

“But really, everybody’s weird, Nanay says. We all sit on the spectrum between hyperphantasia and aphantasia. It’s not only possible but likely that you have a totally different internal experience from someone you walk by on the street. ‘The world—as we see it, smell it, hear it, think about it—is reconstructed,’ Shomstein says. Even a single shared experience, a thought, a memory, or a simple image of an apple can look and feel shockingly different on the mind’s stage.” https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/08/aphantasia-visual-imagination/679427/?gift=MZkyOCULmn5OA_9_ikIP-3k9e9svpxXbPFSNPM4epew&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Now this would seem self-evident, that everybody has their own unique perception of the world. But you’ve got to admit, that Mr T is becoming more and more delusional. I mean come on, to say that Joe Biden will take back the nomination and that the crowd size for a Harris-Walz rally was a conspiracy generated by AI??? Yesterday he insisted on his media platform that the Michigan airplane hangar crowd “DIDN”T EXIST!” I mean I’m almost starting to feel sorry for the guy. He wants his followers to think the picture is fake, just like a good cult leader.

I bet what the ex-president sees when he closes his eyes is a prison cell. We all dream, and some of us daydream, to create our own reality. And sometimes we design perfect, pearl eternity necklaces – pretty weird stuff!

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A Rallying Cry

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on July 14, 2024| Leave a Comment »

It was a Saturday like any other weekend day. Bob and I took a very early walk around the greenway before the unbearable heat of the day. Then I jumped in the pool to do my exercises and the Bride joined me with the Grands. Later, I made plans to get together with a friend and was washing up the dinner dishes – which is to say the dishwasher was going as I cleaned my ancient wok. It was nearly 100 degrees in Nashville yesterday. I’d just returned from rinsing and refilling the birdbath with fresh cold water when I stopped to sit down and catch my breath.

Something was amiss on CNN. My muted TV had a video on repeat, red hats and shirts ducking, black suits encircling the speaker like crows with wings outstretched..

The family text chain began almost immidiately, from Cali to TN, we all registered our disbelief. Was it just fireworks, a stunt by a reality TV star gone wrong? How could this be happening, again? Finally, the Rocker sent us an X interview from an ER doc on the scene – it was very real. One person was shot dead, and Mr T was injured, clipped by a bullet to his ear.

We don’t really know much more this morning. It was a 20 year old, with an assault rifle on a roof. I don’t need to know the name of the shooter, or his motivation, as I’ve said countless times before. Like most mass shooters, it was a young man with a gun. The media will interview his friends and his family and they will say he was always different, bullied, shy, didn’t like women… and so on. All the usual tropes. Except this obviously troubled individual lived in the USA where we have 120 guns per 100 people on the street. He lived in a country where the right to bear arms is a given, and no number of school shootings can change that.

We Americans sacrifice our children on the altar of freedom.

I’ve lived through JFK, MLK and RFK’s assasinations. I remember when Reagan was shot – nobody blamed the other party for these horrendous acts of violence. And yet, the Speaker of the House this morning mentions that our President said, “it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye” to some of his donors. FOX news is all about blaming Democratic rhetoric for the assassination attempt yesterday, when in reality, a man with an AR15 can show up anywhere he pleases – at a shopping mall, at a school, at a Vegas concert. He could walk into a church or a synagogue.

What did Mr T say as he was escorted off the stage at his rally, once the Secret Service found his shoes? “FIGHT!”

What are we fighting each other for Mr T? Tell me why hanging your VP seemed like just another option for your followers? Pumping your fist in defiance is noteworthy, but will it help unite our country? Everyone will get behind you now, calling for an end to “political” violence, and the need to tone down our speech. And this is just my humble opinion, but what if you and Joe decided to ban assault weapons forever? Now would be the time to do something magnanimous, something tangible for the people you want to lead.

Who is willing to give up the baby, rather than have it be torn apart?  

 

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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.

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Fear of Falling

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on January 30, 2024| 2 Comments »

Turns out, my fear of falling has not subsided. It was only my fear of leaving the house – when ICE is covering everything outside my door – that was on full display last week. But fear has been creeping up gradually; the hesitation, the tenacity when crossing a threshold, looking down instead of up. It seems that overnight I’ve become really really old after falling off a ladder that resulted in an osteoporotic pelvic fracture. You might say my fear is well deserved! But, a generalized ‘fear of falling‘ is bad for your health.

Dr Jim, my psychologist brother, sent me this article from “Life Spark,” a purely wonderful, mid-western company that delivers comprehensive senior care, in home and out:

“Fear of falling is a gradual, insidious spiral,” said Julie Varno, Physical Therapist – Case Manager with Lifespark Home Health. “It might start with a fall, but not necessarily. Either way, you become less active, which leads to weaker muscles and stiffer joints which, in turn, affect your balance and your ability to react. Then an  uneven sidewalk, a misplaced area rug, or an excited puppy can put you at risk  for a fall…. According to some studies, having the fear without the fall is actually more limiting than having multiple falls…”

https://lifespark.com/overcoming-the-fear-of-falling-to-age-magnificently/?utm_campaign=Seek%20On%20Blog&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=290919488&_hsenc=p2ANqtz–6BgMBnXz_u28LZ3is8OMJ5K8pRnDCnkYUElx_Dqsf0zEDIk74cl61-t-PE4VgsMG1HH7aPnqN5W3ObJlGpVGcdf5ROCTjEa2UueYil-YaxnIAa00&utm_content=290919488&utm_source=hs_email

I’ve fallen over Ms Bean. Twice. Once I was carrying a load of laundry and just stumbled right over her, luckily keeping my balance. Did you know that brown fur blends beautifully with wood floors? The other time I was leaving the table on my blind-side, and hit the floor with a plate in my hand. Nothing broke! I’ve fallen off a stair landing in the darkness of dawn after just moving to Nashville. I fell feeding the birds on our Germantown rain-slicked deck. And then, there’s the Malibu fall.

My sister Kay suffers from Meniere’s disease. It is an auto-immune, inner ear problem resulting in vertigo so severe your world could start spinning at any time. She’s had surgery and lost hearing in the affected ear. Pushing 90 years old this Fall, she has had her fair share of falls but she won’t let that stop her. With metal in both hips, and seemingly in her blood, she walks outside with her walker nearly every day, cruising the upper-east-side like a Dowager Empress.

I suppose if I asked Kay if she fears falling she would say something like, ‘I can’t stop moving.’

“I can’t stop moving!” Simple but oh so sneaky. As we age we adapt – we move into a one-level home so we’re no longer climbing stairs, or we put up a grab bar near the toilet so we don’t engage our quads. I’ve been walking more in our neighborhood now that the ice is gone. And I’ve signed up for a T’ai Chi class at Vanderbilt to work on my balance. Plus, I can roll out the yoga mat and go through all the PT exercises I’ve ever learned.

But fear is an emotion. It’s a mind problem, not a physical one. And I’ve read that in order to overthrow a democracy, fear is the first, most potent weapon – fear of others, and fear of the dictator himself. I’ve often wondered what Republicans fear about Mr T, or is it his followers they fear? I heard that a child in a metro school had a swastika carved into his desk. Are we becoming a nation that runs on fear? Fear of good people not voting due to apathy? Fear of being the one guy in the crowd who keeps his arms folded when everyone else is saluting? Does fear make us obey in advance, before being directly told?

Watching E Jean Carroll on the talk show circuit has eased my feminist fears a bit. She hit T where it hurt, 83.3 Million Dollars worth of pain. And when she looked down on him from the witness chair, all she saw was a big, fat “ZERO.” Carroll is my shero. She was afraid to face him in court, but she found his toddler antics and his sycophant lawyers had turned him into an Emperor Without Clothes. My fondest wish is that his followers wake up.

Of course if I do fall again, knock on wood, I’ve got an outstanding medical team!

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A Little Light Music

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on December 20, 2022| 3 Comments »

To prepare for the Festival of Lights, we watched the new Pinocchio movie by Guillermo del Toro with the Grands. https://www.netflix.com/title/80218455

At the very end of this stop-action masterpiece of a movie, which does not end in the way we all think the fairy tale ends, the Pumpkin said, “Well that’s a cliff hanger!” Spoiler alert, the conclusion keeps us guessing. Del Toro weaves a dark story – Pinocchio’s father drinks too much, there are monsters in the deep sea and poker-playing rabbits keeping watch over the rainbow bridge to eternity. It’s not simply an allegory about lying and noses growing. It’s an homage to love in all its purest forms.

Kate Blanchett, who voiced the endearingly ugly monkey, Spazzatura (a name that means “garbage” in Italian), said this about the film: “Del Toro is “able to somehow Trojan-horse these really big discussions about fascism and humanity into a really entertaining movie that’s going to spark conversation,” Blanchett said, according to Netflix press materials. “I think it’s about curiosity and humility and the death of innocence, the loss of innocence, and about the deep love, the abiding love between people and it’s a real true adventure.” https://www.npr.org/2022/12/13/1142418925/academy-award-winner-alexandre-desplat-scores-del-toros-pinocchio

Tomorrow is the Winter Solstice; it will also be the fourth night of Hanukkah. We Jews are in the middle of celebrating a little night magic – the oil in the Temple banishing the dark for eight nights, instead of one. I’ve placed my ‘vintage’ electric menorah in the living room window, while neighbors have felt the need to place signs reading, “We stand with our Jewish neighbors” on their lawns. We talk with our grandchildren about a little wooden puppet who wasn’t afraid to be different.

Starting tomorrow, the days, the light, will be getting longer. The temperatures are due to plummet to single digits. And by the grace of God, Merrick Garland may summon the courage to indict an ex, twice impeached president. As we say in the South, “He might could.” The January 6 Committee has shown us in stark detail what Mr T did for over three hours while a violent insurrection was happening at the Capital. He wanted to overthrow the will of the people, he was hoping for a coup, he did nothing to stop his base of proud boys and feckless women. He watched as one woman was shot in the face, and a police officer was crushed and beaten to near death.

I’m old enough to remember a time when Republicans actually stood up for their country above their party. We cannot compare the Nixon White House to the Trump years, although Intellectuals, Ivy Leaguers, and Jews were all equally despised. But we Americans found it in our hearts to forgive Nixon, or at least accept the Ford pardon for years of deceit. We found out about his shenanigans because he taped everything, probably for his library. Nixon too thought he was above the law.

“The Jews are all over the government,” Nixon complained to his chief of staff, H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, in an Oval Office meeting recorded on one of a set of White House tapes released yesterday at the National Archives. Nixon said the Jews needed to be brought under control by putting someone “in charge who is not Jewish” in key agencies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/oct99/nixon6.htm

Every single election denier was defeated last month. Truth cannot be subjective, there are no alternate versions of the Holocaust. And I can still believe in miracles.

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