Our Democracy Is In Danger

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The Sadistic Orange Beast that lives in the White House tells you the pandemic is not happening, already leaving, he is sick of hearing about it and thinks you should be sick of hearing about it too.  Nearly 100,000 new cases were identified yesterday in the United States, in my country. Roughly a thousand of us are dying every single day, and it is about to get worse. And, we’re closing in on a quarter million of us, dead.

Any elected or appointed official who has supported this man who wants to be our dictator, needs to be removed from office. Period. Hell, I think those supporting this rallies, along with Bone Spur Boy himself, should be criminally charged for knowingly putting members of the public in a life-threatening situation, and telling them it is not life threatening at the same time!

If evil were a crime, Don Jr. should be spending lots of years behind bars. This past Thursday, a a glassy-eyed Junior told a nearly salivating Fox News host, Laura Ingraham, that the death toll from covid-19 was down to almost nothing. A thousand Americans died from the virus, this past Thursday.

Our democracy is in danger. Those supporting Trump either can’t see it, or won’t see it. The universe declares, you can’t support Trump and the United States Constitution at the same time.  It is clear that Trump and the current Republican Party doesn’t care a whit about the Constitution. 

Voter suppression is an act that says, I don’t want your votes to count. I do not want them counted. Are you shitting me? My father’s generation fought in World War II and my grandfather’s generation fought in World War I. The right – do you hear that word? – right! – to vote is something many fought and died for.

Any voice in this country that declares it is not interested in including the votes of all who vote, is an un-American voice. Period. End of story.

Be Strong Wear a Mask

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Photo by Sami Anas on Pexels.com

There are men and women who genuinely believe they are being weak if they wear a mask. Some believe – and they must not be attacked for their beliefs –  if they wore a mask, they would be cowards.

Now, I have a question of honorable design. If it is an act of weakness or cowardice to wear a mask, then why is it so hard to do for some folks? I place this question before you in the hopes you will consider what it is asking. Try it on, as it were. If wearing a mask was an act of weakness, it should be easy as pie because it wouldn’t require any strength at all. 

No one wearing a mask these days staggers home at the end of the day, barely able to place one foot in front of the other, utterly exhausted from wearing a mask.

I believe the question unveils a myth we’ve been inundated with for years. Not showing emotion is an act of strength, and, in many cases, protecting yourself is considered an act of weakness. Bring it on, someone says, chin jutting out making it an easier target for a fist.

I don’t think there is a human act much stronger than giving birth to a child. But I dare any man to get so close to a woman in the middle of labor that you’re within arm’s reach, so you can ask, “Hi there. Do you feel strong right now?” Two things will then happen. First, she’s going to say no. Second, you will leave the experience a full-fledged opera soprano.

Acts of strength are not pleasant experiences because they are acts of strength. When I see a weightlifter, male or female, battling to press a ton of poundage straight up over their heads, I gotta tell you, they don’t look like they’re having fun to me. They’re not. They are using a lot of physical strength. Physical strength, emotional strength, spiritual strength. All forms of strength have one thing in common. The experience of any of them is never easy or pleasant.

When one or all are required to get you through a strength-demanding experience, this includes trauma, none of the experiences will be easy. That’s why they require strength.

Wear a mask. Please. You deserve to protect your life like every single one of us. Wear a mask. Be strong.

Joseph Goebbels would like Mark Meadows

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Mark Meadows

It occurred to me recently that Joseph Goebbels would like Mark Meadows. Meadows brings the same rabid dishonesty to what can accurately be called, Trump’s Propaganda, that Goebbels did for Adolf Hitler as the führer’s minister of propaganda from 1933 to 1945.

I remember the moment I first thought this. I felt my mind screech to a halt, thinking, “No, that can’t be right!” I didn’t accept this knee jerk reaction on its face. I thought about it some more, and I realized, the analogy fits, with scary perfection. More than eight million of my fellow Americans have the COVID-19 virus and we’re closing in on a quarter-million of us dead.

Today, I heard someone point out that twice as many Americans have died from this virus that died in World War I.  This rocked me. My grandfather, my Poppop, served in World War I. He was in the Army. In a field signal battalion that was part of the, justifiably famous, Rainbow Division. He suffered trench foot as a result of the mustard gas. He was hospitalized somewhere in France. Army doctors wanted to amputate his feet. Poppop essentially crawled out of the hospital and was taken in by French nuns who took care of him, and saved his feet.

Poppop is one of the blessed who survived the war. And now I hear that the number of us who have died from this virus is twice as many as those of us who died in World War I?

Yesterday, Trump’s minister of propaganda, Mark Meadows, said, “We can’t control the virus.” Meaning, let Americans keep dying until there is or his not herd immunity. That means two million dead Americans, at least. Yeah. I think I’m right. I’m sure of it. Joseph Goebbels would like Mark Meadows.

Trump: Let The People Die

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Our house is on fire with COVID-19, and Trump and the members of congress who support him, have decided to let it burn. Let the people die.

Americans are suffering and dying by the thousands and the president of the United States does not want to deal with it, and he has succeeded on this front. In fact, he is so out-of-his-mind with disinterest, he’s telling everybody we’ve turned the corner on this pulverizing virus experience we’re all going through and saying it on the very day more Americans were diagnosed with the COVID-19 (80,085) in a single day than on any other day of this soon to be eleven month old year. You can’t make this craziness up.

It’s deadly. It is lethal. It is murder. First degree mass murder. Trump is killing Americans by design. You see, Trump and his ilk see members of the American family as little more than revenue streams. Disposable ones.

Again: our house is on fire with COVID-19, and Trump and the members of congress who support him, have decided to let it burn. Let the people die.

Nathan Hale Is My Cousin

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This week I will visit the Nathan Hale Cemetery in Coventry, Connecticut. Nathan Hale (June 6, 1755 – September 22, 1776) is my cousin.

My name is Peter Sanford Kahrmann. It is a name I am proud of. My name for the first five weeks of my life was, Paul Clark. It is also a name I am proud of. I was adopted at five weeks of age. In  1987, I reunited with my birth-mother. Her name at when she was born was, Leona Patricia Clark. She was born January 31, 1933 and died December 19, 2001.

My mother was Irish and French Canadian, the latter coming from her mother, Mable Milo, who died when my mother was only three years old in 1936. It was researching my grandmother’s family that led me to discover Hale is my cousin.

Hale was executed by the British in New York City for being a spy for General George Washington. He is reported to have said, “I regret that I have only one life to lose for my country,” just before his death.”

British officer, Frederick MacKensie, wrote this in his diary about Nathan that day: “He behaved with great composure and resolution, saying he thought it the duty of every good Officer, to obey any orders given him by his Commander-in-Chief; and desired the Spectators to be at all times prepared to meet death in whatever shape it might appear.”

Nathan’s body was never recovered.

On October 1, 1985, the Connecticut General Assembly, declared Hale the official State Hero.

He was just 21 years old when his life ended.

Hale is the great-grandson of Reverend John Hale, a pivotal figure in the Salem witch trials. He was also an uncle to both orator and statesman Edward Everett and journalist Nathan Hale, and a grand uncle to Edward Everett Hale and his sister, Susan Hale, both writers. All of them, for me, family.

To learn that I am part of this family touches my soul, and brings tears to my eyes; it is a massively humbling reality. What skill I have with the words of my language cannot possibly express how much being part Hale’s family means to me. I can tell you this. If ever courage found its way through a family tree, Nathan Hale’s courage found my mother Leona. I’ve known no one more courageous in life than my mother, and no one with a more loving, compassionate heart.