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Posts Tagged ‘Trump’

Geography Lessons

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 3, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Anyone else love Samantha Bee? I caught a bit of her show Full Frontal one night, when she called the movie “Joker” just another story about an angry white guy. Granted I didn’t see the movie, like I didn’t watch the Super Bowl. But I was mildly comforted this morning to read that Joaquin Phoenix, who won the Best Actor award for his performance as Joker last night in Britain, said

“I think that we send a very clear message to people of colour that you’re not welcome here.” 

To me, this is everything. Because Brexit is all about not welcoming “The Other.” Mr T is all about building his wall and keeping The Others out of our country. And even though I heard that JLo and Shakira put on an excellent half-time show, the NFL is all about the money – getting people in their seats and tuning in to watch a game that white-washes the Black Lives Matter movement… at the expense of its players’ mental and physical health.

To be honest, I did catch a bit of The Puppy Bowl.

But it was a dispiriting start to the weekend for many Nashvillians when Sen Lamar Alexander cast his vote against calling witnesses in the Impeachment Trial of Donald J Trump. We really cannot call this a “trial” without witnesses or documents. Even Monica Lewinsky testified (via tape) in Clinton’s trial. Even UVA’s esteemed professor of all things political, Larry Sabato, asked on Twitter if this Senate meeting should be called a sham or a farce instead of a trial. I replied, “It’s a coverup!”

The Senate has said facts are not welcome there. First hand accounts would be useless to their deliberation. If the Donald tells them to blackball a vote why then, they must. I wondered about the etiology of the word “blackball” as soon as it came out of my mind and into my fingers:

The word blackball appears in 1770, referring to a negative vote. Voting through the process of a voter placing either a white ball, or positive vote, into a ballot box or a black ball, or negative vote, into a ballot box, means that voters will remain anonymous and are not forced to give any reason for a negative vote. In some clubs a single black ball means a candidate will be denied membership in the organization, in other clubs there must be two black balls to justify excluding a potential member.  https://grammarist.com/idiom/blackball/

The Hill actually IS a private club of mostly old, white men who are not happy with women and people of colour (as the Brits say) challenging their asses in the seats. Did you know that Mr T watched the Super Bowl with the paying members of his club at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach? We taxpayers paid to fly him down there for the weekend so he could hob nob with people who forked over nearly half a million dollars just to join his historic resort.

Is it funny that he Tweeted a congratulatory note to the Kansas City Chiefs from the “Great State of Kansas?” We have an untethered, narcissistic, idiotic, despot at the helm, who now thinks he can bribe anybody he wants cause hey, it’s in the best interests of the country. And HE is synonymous with the country. Don’t try to find that Tweet, cause somebody changed it to Missouri.

When Mr Alexander voted against calling witnesses I knew the gig was up. We will just have to beat him in November. And who is the next best hope for Iowa and the Democratic party? We cannot afford to play by the rules, we need someone who can stand up, toe to toe with Mr T and call him out on his lies. You can’t beat a bully by turning your other cheek, it doesn’t work that way. We need a fighter, and I’m afraid that Biden’s fighting days are behind him. We don’t need another angry, old white guy.

Tonight I’m heading to my favorite bookstore to hear Rick Wilson speak about Mr T; Wilson is the author of “Running Against the Devil.” About Trump’s little geographical error on Twitter, Wilson said: “This was a silly, innocent mistake” would be more viable if this wasn’t the thousandth iteration of his blistering ignorance.”

https://www.parnassusbooks.net/event/author-event-rick-wilson-author-running-against-devil

This is an art installation of all the people who were killed by guns in 2018 in Nashville. Who will have the guts to take this on?

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Whiny Weekend

Posted in an expository essay, Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Public Policy, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 26, 2020| Leave a Comment »

What’s a person to do in the middle of this Impeachment Trial, this theatrical show, a “foregone conclusion” as Andrew Yang has said? After reading that Republican Senators have been leaving the room, fidgeting with finger spinners, looking “weary and bored” according to the Associated Press, I thought our neighborhood association had a splendid idea – wine tasting!

My Go-To wine lately is “A to Z Wineworks” from Oregon, but I was willing to expand my horizons.

On Friday night we all gathered at Richard and Linda’s townhome that sits on the edge of a park. Our sommelier Calvin was delightful; he poured a delicious chardonnay from the Finger Lakes Region, “Fox Run Vineyards.” I happen to like love unoaked whites, and he told us the climate in upstate NY is similar to Chablis in France. The motto on their website is “Drink wine, Be happy.” https://foxrunvineyards.com/

Unfortunately, drinking wine hasn’t been making me happy since 2016. But I’m willing to keep trying.

Did you know some of the best wines today are coming from Virginia and Texas? Still, one of the finest unoaked chardonnays hails from California, at $90 a bottle – Williams-Selyem 2017. “California makes more wine than any other state in the United States. Not only does the state grow a variety of noble grape varieties like Pinot Noir, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, there are also plantings of lesser-known varieties such as Nebbiolo, Roussanne and Mourvèdre to name just a few.” 

Ever since the Rocker and KiKi moved out to LA, I’ve imagined myself a California girl. A most Progressive state, with no humidity, no mosquitoes and plenty of sunshine! So naturally Mr T hates it, why else would his administration threaten to cut federal aid unless the state drops its requirement that private insurers cover abortions. Governor Gavin Newsom said:

“California will continue to protect a woman’s right to choose, and we won’t back down from defending reproductive freedom for everybody — full stop.”

The California’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, tweeted: “We will fight this by any means necessary.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/health/abortion-california-insurance.html

It’s hard for me to think of a more vindictive and malicious president in our history. He has been impeached, and knows he will most likely NOT be removed from his office, he will continue to hold his radical right-wing “rallies” and run again for a second term. Like every good con man, while we are all (A) looking at the Senate, bemoaning the lack of civility, he is (B) attacking a woman’s basic human right – to have control over her own body.

Again, this bully of a president threatens to withhold funds, but now instead of Ukraine he attacks California to please his base of white Christian zealots. “Let’s start by acknowledging that women are not things. Before we talk, like we have to, about what the attacks on abortion access mean for this anxious, awful political era, let’s establish as a ground rule that women are not vessels, or incubators, or an undifferentiated natural resource. Women are human beings whose human rights matter.”  https://newrepublic.com/article/153942/criminalization-womens-bodies-conservative-male-power

This is why your vote matters. This is why senators should actually be listening to Adam Schiff’s arguments, paying attention and not just getting their panties in a twist over his “head on a spike” comment. The GOP needs to stop whining and do their damn job! Remember that the GAO said Mr T BROKE THE LAW. Remember you can actually call on witnesses that were in the room. Remember the documents you are demanding are being withheld by the White House… We now have a tape of him saying Lev should “take her out” about the Ukraine Ambassador.

Our democracy is being held together, tenuously by our free press. Calvin and Linda are welcoming us into a new decade, this next week will no doubt set the course.

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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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The Cult of One

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on December 24, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Zoroastrianism. Did you know that this Persian religion was founded around 3,500 years ago and was the very first to worship just ONE god? This happened before Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed in the Bronze Age of Iran. Before Moses led Jewish slaves out of Egypt even. And when the big Z’s followers were nearly wiped out, Islam took over.

This Christmas Eve has me feeling sad. My dog Ms Bean is sick for one thing, really sick. We saw the Vet yesterday who was dressed in her best Santa sweater. She was kind and told me she’d actually had a dream about Bean last weekend. She said she rarely dreams about work, but that Bean was happy and healthy and sitting in her lap. In the dream.

“I see so many dogs, and here she is today,” she said smiling, holding Ms Bean in her arms while listening to her heart. I may not believe in heaven and hell, but I like to think that all dogs go to a beautiful, sunny, dog park when they die; that tennis balls abound and frisbees fly through stars.

My path to non-belief, or maybe “spiritual secularism” is a better term, has been tortuous. From being totally indoctrinated into Roman Catholicism as a child, to converting to Judaism at age 30, just before marrying Bob, I’d had plenty of dreams about the Pope and conversations with myself about the value of organized religion.

First of all, I didn’t want our future children to have to “pick and choose” their religion because we didn’t have the ability to commit.My life had been crazy enough with melded families after our Year of Living Dangerously. But my real decision to convert came right after listening to a rabbi speak about the Jonestown Massacre.

This mass murder/suicide event took place in 1978, the year before we married and the Bride was born. We were sitting in a Temple listening to a rabbi talk about how Judaism differs from other religions….mainly there is NO ONE MAN at the center of it!

Over 900 people killed themselves or were poisoned because of Jim Jones, an American cult leader who led his followers to Guyana. https://www.history.com/topics/crime/jonestown

Think about that for second:

  • Nobody to tell you to drink the Kool-Aid;
  • Nobody to die for your sins and promise eternal life;
  • No man in a saffron rob saying his dharma is the one true dharma;
  • No guy who told millions to kill infidels, so flying planes into buildings was fine.

Nope, for Jews celebrating Chanukah this week, a very minor holiday on the calendar, God is represented in many, amorphous ways – God was never a man. And the study of Torah only leads to lots of questions. Something I was taught in Catholic school we should never do, we didn’t question our nuns or priests. We were told to have “Blind Faith!” I was taught to memorize Catechism, which pretty much made me hate school.

Yes, Nancy, Pelosi I know “hate” is a powerful word… maybe we need a more powerful word for how we Progressives feel about Mr T.

He is a shining example of a cult leader, many of his evangelical faithful refer to him in the glowing language of a savior.

“The power of the evangelicals as a voting bloc is in their sheer size, and in their symbiotic relationship with the president.“Because they are a third of the Republican base, Trump needs white evangelical Protestants to get elected,” said Robert P. Jones, chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute. “And because white evangelicals see themselves as a shrinking minority, in both racial and religious terms, they need Trump.”  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/us/politics/christianity-today-trump-evangelicals.html?searchResultPosition=2

He may mock women and the handicapped, pay off prostitutes and lie with equanimity, he may bend the constitution to fit his needs, but by God he’s still appointing conservative judges to life-long appellate benches.

This is the happiest season for some, but for me it’s a mixed blessing. “Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign announced on Friday evening that he would go to Miami on Jan. 3 to start an “Evangelicals for Trump’’ coalition.”

Thank you to my daughter who is following in her Daddy’s footsteps and taking care of the poor and injured today and tomorrow. Thanks to all the Christian and non-Christian first responders and medical personnel working this week. And a very special thanks to my Veterinarian.

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A Rough Patch

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Climate Change, tagged , , , , , , , on December 5, 2019| Leave a Comment »

This morning I came across an article about the old Mid-Life Crisis, for our kids’ generation. It’s not what Boomers would consider a crisis – you don’t leave your wife and children, lose 20 pounds and buy a Porsche. It’s a more nuanced place, when today’s 40-50 year old couple hits the pinnacle of their careers, they have two kids and two dogs and maybe a Peloton in the family room. But they wake up one morning wondering if they could have had more, or done something differently.

Taffy Brodesser-Akner writes eloquently about today’s rough patch in her book Fleishman is in Trouble.  https://forge.medium.com/welcome-to-the-new-midlife-crisis-6ad07840a503

“First, the people who reported having an age-related crisis in their forties or fifties were also highly likely to have reported dissatisfaction or anxiety in their younger years as well. If you are besieged with self-doubt at midlife, in other words, it is most likely not your first existential rodeo.

And second, the stereotypical midlife crisis is a luxury. No more than 10% to 20% of middle-aged people go through one,… It takes privilege to chuck everything and start anew.”

I always told Bob he’s not allowed to have a Mid-Life Crisis because he went to Woodstock, and really, enough is enough. We’ve weathered lots of storms, moves to different states, rebellious teens, Bob’s back, shoulder and neck surgeries, and even my bout with West Nile. Talk about an existential crisis.

I had to smile the other night when John Meacham asked a group of scholars “What keeps you up at night?”

“Viruses,” Carl Zimmer said!

Zimmer was the most entertaining panelist, a journalist who writes about science and even has a tapeworm named after him! He has written many books and currently writes the column, “MATTER” for the New York Times.

Bob reminded me, in that Vanderbilt auditorium surrounded by really old people and really, really young students (presumably because mid-lifers were home putting their kids to bed), that Zimmer was the son of a former Representative from our old district in NJ. “Carl Zimmer’s father is Dick Zimmer, a Republican politician from New Jersey, who was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 to 1997.”

I thought about our home in Rumson, NJ, about living on a tributary with a tide ebbing and flowing into our backyard, and mosquitoes. Lots and lots of mosquitoes.

I was writing for The Two River Times then, I was Forty-Something. And if you’ve been following me for awhile you know where this is going.  I like to think my tiny column for the paper helped to unseat the elder Zimmer after he voted to allow the Assault Weapon Ban to expire. I asked my readers how he could look at himself in the mirror every morning.

The Vanderbilt Chancellor’s Lecture Series was addressing, “2020 and Beyond: Tackling Global Issues in the Decades to Come.”  Most of the conversation onstage was about Climate Change. Meacham began with, “Are facts out of fashion?” The other two academics pointed out that OUR very own EPA Climate Change web page has been erased! If you search for it you’ll find a notice that says, “The information you are looking for is not here” and you are directed to the archives!!

How can we address Climate Change or viruses when we have a Climate Denier in the White House? How can we possibly reduce global greenhouse gases by 50% in 15 years?

2020 will be a “Rough Patch” for our country. But I believe in good journalism and our Constitution. Facts are funny things that will take down Republicans seen lying on TV, lying and obfuscating all week at the Impeachment Hearings – “Clouding real facts with a miasma of falsity,” the Vandy Writer-in-Residence said.

George Washington helped us forge this great nation, and Abraham Lincoln helped heal our still seeping wound of slavery. A Leader will appear to guide us through this collective Mid-Life Crisis. I have to believe as Brodesser-Akner said about mid-life:

“To mature is to accept one’s role as both a person with pain and one with strength to endure it. It is the ability to say to oneself or to those we love: I see you. I hear you. I will sit here with you until it passes, as all things must.

The view out my kitchen window of our hawk in the city.

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Second Chances

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on November 30, 2019| Leave a Comment »

I’m all for second chances. You need to warmup your arm before you serve a tennis ball. Or try making that cake again when the first one won’t come out of the pan. But we need to have a talk with Ohio; a fertilized egg that has jumped the gun and implanted itself in a fallopian tube is a done deal. It can kill its host and cause all sorts of problems. So let’s be perfectly clear, there is NO such procedure known to medicine as “re-implanting an ectopic pregnancy.” NONE.

“Ohio lawmakers have introduced legislation that would jail doctors for “abortion murder” unless they reimplant ectopic pregnancies in the uterus. Unfortunately, there no such procedure in medical science. Ectopic pregnancies, where the embryo is implanted in the fallopian tube, can be fatal for mothers. Legislators have been told in the past that this fantasy operation cannot be done. Ohio obstetrician and gynecologist Dr David Hackney wrote on Twitter: “I don’t believe I’m typing this again but, that’s impossible. We’ll all be going to jail.” The bill proposes punishing women and girls as young as 13 with “abortion murder” if they have an abortion, and creates a new law called “aggravated abortion murder” which would be enforced with the death penalty.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/ohio-bill-says-doctors-must-reimplant-ectopic-pregnancy-or-be-jailed-for-abortion-murder?

There have been times when I’ve felt like we’re approaching the Handmaid’s Tale, but seeing this pop up on Twitter made me question if we’re not already there – living in a dystopian future where extreme religious right legislation has codified a woman’s body.

Once legislators decide a fertilized egg is a “Person” – which it is NOT btw – well, then the government gets to decide your future. You’re a 16 year old girl and your step father raped you? Too bad, you either go to prison for trying to get on with your life, for wanting a second chance, or you have a baby and give it up for adoption.

Or maybe worse yet, you end up giving the baby to your mom and step dad to raise. Of course today, you could always keep the baby and live with a friend or relative, finish high school, get a job…. But let’s not forget our government cares less about child care for working families and single moms than it does about a cluster of cells.

Not everyone has an Aunt Bee child care story like Elizabeth Warren, and she was a law professor with a husband at the time.

The language politicians use around women is prescient, so listen very carefully. Mr T talks about women in a very gendered, “marked” way. He calls Nancy Pelosi “nervous Nancy” and added to his crude comments on a bus with Billy Bush, he specifically calls out their sex, usually followed by saying how much he “loves” women, implying they need his protection.

“Justifying his decision to oust her (Marie Yavanovitch), the president told Fox & Friends last Friday he heard “bad things” about “the ambassador, the woman… This was not an angel, this woman, okay? And there were a lot of things that she did that I didn’t like.”

Mr Trump added that his staff felt they had to be kind because “she’s a woman – we have to be nice.” Professor Marianne LaFrance, a psychologist at Yale University, says this remark is a prime example of gendered language.

“That referencing says she’s not an individual, she’s not a professional, she’s first and foremost a woman,” Prof LaFrance says.” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50563106

You have to be “nice” because she’s a woman? Mr T wasn’t happy with Ms Yavanovitch because she was actually doing her job for the American people, fighting corruption in Ukraine, making Rudy’s shady political dealing difficult. That portrait thing was just another lie.

Stop calling our candidates a “woman politician,” do we call men that “man politician?” Stop making up medical procedures for women that do not exist.                                     Stop calling for “personhood bills.” Stop the nonsense.

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“Who Put You in Charge”

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on November 27, 2019| Leave a Comment »

This is the week we give thanks.

This is also the week we prep, cook, and bake like banshees for a few minutes around the Thanksgiving table. Like Columbus Day, this is another holiday deserving a second look – certainly Native Americans have a different point of view. And more and more families are trying out a plant-based diet, giving more and more turkeys the day off, or a pardon by the president.

Our family is staying put this year; the Big Chill has diminished from death and divorce, and all the grandchildren require our presence. In the words of a great American jazz singer Benard Ighner, “Everything must change” is one of those eternal truths… “the young become the old, mysteries do unfold.”  https://secondhandsongs.com/work/4541

A couple of friends have gone to Disneyland, FL, which is a fantastic idea. Maybe next year we’ll do Disneyland, CA?

Disney never disappoints. This past weekend, all 3 generations saw Frozen 2, like most of the families on this planet. Its opening weekend saw a total, world-wide box office toll of 350 Million – breaking the previous record for an animation release! I made some sandwiches to trade for the concession stand, and leaned over to remind the Bride that her brother composed one of the trailers while we settled into our reclining seats.

My daughter reached for my hand when Olaf and Anna were in the cave (spoiler alert), we both had tears in our eyes as the little sister held her snowman. All of a sudden, our L’il Pumpkin turned to us and said,

“It’s not the end, The end is happy.” 

Elsa, the big sister, knew that change was necessary; she had a suspicion that the origin story they were fed as children didn’t add up. It was time to do something drastic, so she sent Anna and Olaf out of harm’s way in a canoe. Elsa took charge, she went looking for that happy ending.

“You say you’re a king, who put you in charge?” Lyrics by the not-so-well-known Christian rapper NF popped into my mind as I listened to Fiona Hill testify. She had asked Ambassador Sondland,

“Who put you in charge of the Ukraine?”

My heart stopped a little. I mean come on, was anyone going to take the heat for this fiasco, this tempest of a “perfect call” vs “Quid pro Quo” aka bribery, abuse of power?

“The President,” Mr Sondland said.

“Hill is due process and righteous anger, brains and brilliance and fire and loyalty ready to be deployed for her country, now and forever.

It is not just that we are hungry for norms and qualifications. We are desperate for someone competent and principled to be in charge. We want someone smart to tell us it will be okay and that they care.

 

He who would be king seems to have been in charge of it all, like a bull in a china shop, Mr T continues to wreck havoc with our constitution.

If President Obama sent his personal lawyer to another country to shakedown political dirt on Mitt Romney, I wonder what Lindsay Graham would say? When will the GOP wake from this Trump the Grifter nightmare and realize this president in NOT the chosen one.

Tomorrow, at the Thanksgiving table, I will give thanks for Adam Schiff and his diligence in unfolding this mystery. I will think about our founders and their definition of high crimes, of their wish to keep royalty on the other side of the pond. I am grateful for all the selfless civil servants who toil without fanfare in their offices around the world, and I will pray for a “competent and principled” person to rise from the ranks of the Democratic candidates’ field.

Forget Mike Bloomberg – Bob Iger, any interest in running? Remember, it’s not over till we get the happy ending, or the blue cookie.

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Untold Stories of the ER

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 18, 2019| Leave a Comment »

People never just “go” to the Emergency Room, they rush to the ER. And if you’re Mr T, you take your motorcade along, a helicopter would be too flashy. He wanted to avoid the “fake news” after all. The Bride caught wind of his “irregular” trip to Walter Reed on Saturday while she was working in her ER because it was blowing up in her private female MD social media group – I mean Twitter wasn’t even on the story yet. I wonder why Google hasn’t told us the reason for his visit.

According to most news outlets, the White House has a regular mini-clinic-hospital in one of its wings. So this unscheduled, outside of protocol trip to the ER is a mystery. Does anyone believe the press secretary’s line that Mr T was only fulfilling the first part of a routine medical exam? His BFF Roger Stone goes to prison and the impeachment witnesses are heating up reality TV, and rumor has it Ivanka actually observes the Saturday sabbath with her family, so he was all alone in the residence… and figured he’d get a check-up?

Naturally with two-too-many ER docs in the family, we try to avoid ER visits, unless it’s to deliver apple cider donuts. Last week, Great Grandpa Hudson was having a problem breathing, certainly a good reason to call an ambulance. Instead, two ER docs showed up to check him out and he was just fine. Thousands of Medicare dollars saved because a 93 year old man would certainly have been admitted for the complete work-up. His only problem – a salt-loaded free restaurant meal at a local restaurant for Veteran’s Day.

Maybe Mr T had one too many hamburgers? His cholesterol is rather high and his weight is an issue. Or maybe he thought he was having a heart attack, and it was only a panic attack!

I have a friend who went back to work years ago, and left their 3 month old baby with her husband who worked at home. He ended up in an ER with a panic attack that can mimic a full-blown MI – sweating, heart irregularities, a feeling like your world is coming to an end. I’ve had one or two panic attacks myself while I was trying to conceive a second baby and kept having miscarriages. I went into hard core OCD and didn’t want to drive over bridges.

Maybe the constant strain of being presidential, rising at 6 am and taking 3 hours of “executive time” to watch state-sanctioned FOX News, then starting your day at 11 am and ending with very busy Twitter fingers is taking its toll. I wonder if he has dinner with Melania, or if she eats early with Baron? Or is she even there? Then there’s all that golf on the weekends. It must be exhausting!

He left Walter Reed without a jacket, his shirt open, no tie. Sounds like it was a quick exit, the kind of patient who leaves an ER “against medical advice.” You know the type, and Mr T is certainly that type of arrogant, egoist.

He is back at Tweeting his agenda this morning – using middle school bullying tactics and name calling to intimidate his enemies. Nancy Pelosi is “Nervous Nancy.” The “Do Nothing Democrats” are at it again with “Fake News.” Mr Tweety T whines that he was only exercising his First Amendment rights when he live-Tweeted a threat to ex-Ambassador Maria Yovanovitch on Friday.

“Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad,” Trump wrote. “She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. it is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors.”  https://www.vox.com/2019/11/15/20966716/impeachment-hearings-trump-yovanovitch-witness-tampering

I was thinking somebody should have removed him from office, or at the very least removed his not-so-smart phone from his tiny fingers. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; an honorable woman who had been told to leave her post in the Ukraine quickly, “on the next plane,” was again being maligned in public, on TV, by our commander in comedy.

She talked about being “knee-capped,” like his administration is a cast from the Sopranos.

“According to the Department of Justice, intimidation of witnesses testifying before Congress is a crime under 18 U.S.C. § 1515(a)(1). However, in this case it is the president who is allegedly doing the witness intimidation and an OLC opinion (see Indicting a President Is Not Foreclosed: The Complex History – Lawfare) states that a sitting president cannot be indicted.”

It’s a shame really, or a sham that this president who sits around all day surrounded by sycophants cannot be indicted. Because he’s not just intimidating a witness, he’s projecting his insane policy of panic and chaos around the world.

In other weekend news, two ER docs and two writers went out for sushi with two adorable children. Can you find the redhead?

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Party Time

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on November 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Our L’il Pumpkin just turned 5, so naturally the Bride and Groom threw him a party.

Nashville’s Adventure Science Museum is a hands-on wonderland for kids, and it proved the perfect setting for science experiments and birthday cake. But let’s talk about the logistics of an almost “holiday” birthday – Thursday night was Trick or Treating and a house party with a whole neighborhood, Friday night was a family dinner with the Big Four generations followed by a sleepover at Nana and Pop Bob’s, and Saturday we had nearly 20 kids at his kids’ birthday party.

In other words, it was party central here all weekend!

Isn’t it nice to know that White House staffers could bring their little ghosts and goblins to a Halloween party at the Eisenhower Executive Office that was hosted by Mike Pence? Did they bob for apples? No, they were given brick-colored card stock and told to write their names on the cards, oh and then paste their cards up on that wall over there in the hallway, under the big letters that said “BUILD THE WALL.”  https://news.yahoo.com/children-were-told-to-build-the-wall-at-white-house-halloween-party-153024720.html

What is going on in our country? Mr T shows up at a baseball game and the crowd chants, “Lock HIM up!” Then he goes to Madison Square Garden and gets Booed by Mixed Martial Arts fans… I’m surprised we didn’t see anyone dressed up as Mr T for Halloween. Or maybe an anonymous whistleblower…

It was just your typical crew of super heroes and princesses, followed by teenagers without costumes holding out plastic bags. I’m glad we don’t have Mischief Night in TN. Egging cars and teepeeing trees seems to be more of a northeastern tradition. There was even an enforced curfew in NJ, one both of my kids ignored!

I was hoping I’d wake up from my candy and birthday cake coma today and the Impeachment would be over. We could go back to expanding human rights and building bridges, but alas, that scary clown is still in the Oval Office. And worse yet, if he is removed, the VP of making kids create propaganda wall art will be in charge.

It’s a good thing we have a rebel star fighter and a black cat to fight for truth and justice!

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Dog Days

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on October 29, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Bob will often recount that time I cried over a news report about a dog being thrown out of a car onto a highway.

It was at the end of the evening news – remember that quaint time of day we’d all turn to our favorite anchor person to sum up the world’s most important events? We didn’t have the New York Times or NPR on our phones. We weren’t glued to political coverage at odd hours.

We were just sitting there in our not/so/big house while the list of deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq scrolled across a screen, ending with that poor innocent dog. That’s what got me.

Well, it happened again this week. One morning I was watching Mr T walk up to a podium and scowl at his audience for the longest presidential pause in history. This in itself was intriguing; then without an introduction, not even so much as a, “Good Morning nice people of the Fake News,”  he announced the raid on an ISIS terrorist and he also mentioned a K9 was injured as a cave exploded. The suspect had fled with 3 of his children when he detonated his vest; civilians had been killed too. But a dog…and it was probably a German Shepherd dog like our Bones.

Why don’t they send robots or drones or droids into caves?

Last week I had a mammogram, because October is breast cancer awareness month, and I’ve been told that some Artificial Intelligence (AI) actually reads the test! It recognizes patterns in breast tissue and tells the radiologist what to report. Since my test was negative, I didn’t give it very much thought. Still, having an AI interpret a mammogram left me wondering what’s next. Maybe the government is afraid of a robot army? But robot doctors are fine.

Could a robot K9 sniff out cannabis? Nashville International Airport has 8 real drug-sniffing dogs!

“A list released by the police department indicates that in the last 12 months, BNA Police have seized, approximately 600 pounds of marijuana, 800 THC pens, one pound of meth, six ounces of cocaine, and five ounces of heroin.

Chief Griswold says, “Our main focus is to make this a safe and secure airport and if you are coming through here with a large amount of drugs, some people might make this as a test thing to see if they can get something worse through, so we make those arrests and make sure they have a record on them,” said the chief.  https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/new-drug-k9s-at-nashville-airport-sniff-out-16-pounds-of-marijuana-in-mans-luggage/

I like the idea of a bomb-sniffing dog at an airport. Heck, I love dogs doing just about anything and will immediately melt to the sidewalk when confronted with a Corgi. I guess you could call me a severe dog lover.

Word on Twitter is that Mr T wants this injured K9 from the battlefield in Syria to come visit him at the White House. Isn’t he the ONLY president to NOT have a family dog? I would imagine dogs growl when they sniff him, most dogs can smell fear and inferiority and just plain craziness instantly. This brave canine would surely know he or she’s being used as a political prop, something to buoy his sinking ship.

Mr T should also stop using the phrase, “He died like a dog.” When it was Bones’ time, he went under our porch and wouldn’t come out. I had to coax him out with steak, and then we brought him to the Vet. There was no whimpering or crying, he was the such a beautiful, brave boy.

If you have a little love leftover in your heart, give it to a rescue dog and love will be returned tenfold. Here is my sweet, old Ms Bean in my office who would never hurt anyone but could kill a squirrel in 3 seconds.

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