Hard drawn moments look
To shut me down and do
When the words are gone
Where is my father
I am loosely tethered
To the life I’m in
When the words are gone
Where is my mother
When The Words Are Gone
Reply
Books Read – 2020
1) Can You Forgive Her? | Trollope, Anthony |
| 2) The Mayor of Casterbridge | Hardy, Thomas |
| 3) Under the Greenwood Tree | Hardy, Thomas |
| 4) The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West | McCullough, David |
| 5) A Backward Glance | Wharton, Edith |
| 6) Unleavened Bread | Grant, Robert |
| 7) A Guilty Thing Surprised (Inspector Wexford, #5) | Rendell, Ruth |
| 8) Mason’s Retreat | Tilghman,Christopher |
| 9) The Hills Beyond | Wolfe, Thomas |
| 10) The Pioneers: James Fenimore Cooper | Cooper,JamesFenimore |
| 11) Excellent Women | Pym, Barbara |
| 12) When We Were Orphans | Ishiguro, Kazuo |
| 13) The Genuine Article (The Sheriff Chick Charleston Mysteries Book 2) | Guthrie Jr., A.B. |
| 14) Mandela’s Way: Lessons for an Uncertain Age | Stengel, Richard |
| 15) Dombey and Son | Dickens, Charles |
| 16) A New England boyhood | Hale, Edward Everett |
| 17) The Big Bad City (87th Precinct, #49) | McBain, Ed |
| 18) No Second Wind | Guthrie Jr., A.B. |
| 19) A High Wind in Jamaica | Hughes, Richard |
| 20) The Vicar of Wakefield | Goldsmith, Oliver |
| 21) Nocturne (87th Precinct, #48) | McBain, Ed |
| 22) Murders at Moon Dance | Guthrie Jr., A.B. |
| 23) Coming Up for Air | Orwell, George |
| 24) Keep the Aspidistra Flying | Orwell, George |
| 25) Burmese Days | Orwell, George |
| 26) Benjamin Franklin: An American Life | Isaacson, Walter |
| 27) Twice Shy | Francis, Dick |
| 28) The Eustace Diamonds | Trollope, Anthony |
| 29) The Woodlanders | Hardy, Thomas |
| 30) The Belton Estate | Trollope, Anthony |
| 31) Miller’s Valley | Quindlen, Anna |
| 32) Phineas Redux, Vol. 1 | Trollope, Anthony |
| 33) Phineas Redux, Volume 2 | Trollope, Anthony |
| 34) The American Senator | Trollope, Anthony |
| 35) The Turn of the Screw | James, Henry |
Our Democracy Is In Danger
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
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
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.
