Nan says “Amen” to this:On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 8:54 AM Keith Wilson <kwilsonbtg@earthlink.net> wrote:The beat goes on. A Republican Georgia state senator Colton Moore wants to impeach the Atlanta area district attorney for bringing charges against the former president. I sent the following email to the Senator.
“As an independent and former Republican voter who went to Georgia State University and whose parents grew up in Georgia, your position to try to impeach Ms. Fani Willis is highly disappointing.
With the latest and perhaps most detailed charges against the former US president and eighteen of his collaborators, I am long past weary of too many Republican elected officials telling their constituents that the system is out to get Donald Trump. There is only one constant in this equation – he is the guy who has earned this scrutiny. He is the guy who looks back at the former president from the mirror when he shaves.
I have shared the following theme with staff of several of these elected officials. The message they need to impart is simple. ‘These are serious charges against the former president. We must get to the bottom of this.’
The other message I add to the staff is if we find the former president guilty of any of these charges, we cannot have him in the White House. Full stop. It truly matters not what party he is in.
Your constituents may not like this, but that is what this independent and former Republican thinks.”
We must get to the bottom of this.*
*Note: Since I put this post together this morning, I saw where some of the more extreme followers of the former president have threatened violence against some of the grand jury members for daring to try to hold the former president accountable for breaking the law. This is simply dangerous and asinine. I called the Georgia governor Brian Kemp, who did say earlier this week Trump lost in Georgia in 2020, to beseech him to condemn the violence and reiterate what I said above. Let me speak plainly – the lack of accountability and responsibility of the former president has led us down this path. He is not adult enough to admit he lost. His petty whiny behavior has endangered Americans. As his niece Mary said in November, 2020, her uncle “would burn it all down to avoid losing the election.” How many people have to go to prison for his followers to see what is obvious. Not only is Donald Trump an election loser, he is “sore loser.”
Keith Wilson, Charlotte
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All posts for the month August, 2023
WOULDN’T IT BE LOVERLY…
Published August 20, 2023 by Nan MykelIf the United States would unite in rage over SOMETHING….as New Zealand did when they “let out a howl of fury” after seeing footage of Americans manhandling one of the flightless birds at Zoo Miami? If only we could be United We Stand about something! -The Week 6/16/23
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I see I need someone on my staff besides me, because although I endeavor to be current, I just found out about commercial content moderation screening via Sarah T. Roberts’ Behind the Screen , Yale University Press, 2019. For those who also are behind the times, Roberts defines the worldwide practice as the commercial organized practice of screening user-generated content posted to internet sites [that’s us], social media, and other online outlets.”
The good news is that the viewing public is protected from what is determined to be gross and hate footage. The underpaid screeners do the suffering, instead of us. I’m not clear if MegaTech is the only commercial screening company or one of several.
Although I am thankful that I am protected from being offended and/or grossed out with nightmares, I wonder…
With this possibility due to expanded tech, why wouldn’t wealthy individuals or PR groups wipe out embarrassing earlier negative footage, unbeknownst to viewers? It seems if anyone else has suspicions, they do not discuss it very much. Maybe they take it for granted. Is no one but me concerned about this possibility or do they just placidly assume that to be the case?
Earlier I wondered why I couldn’t find a much earlier story about Henry Ford fighting another inventer’s internal combustion engine for years, delaying its widespread use. I realized I may just have done a poor search, but then I looked to credit a much earlier photo of Trump not saluting to the National Anthem while the other candidates did. I had it in my Media Library, but when I looked it up on the internet the only portion of the original photo was of Trump.–no others saluting.
I also wonder if showing the shocking photos of dead school children blown away by guns at school might curb the NRA’s takeover.
Will the ultimate result be a national doctored history of the United States, sufficiently “clean” to be taught in the public schools? And how will AI be utilized? It feels like the ice is thin, although not an apt metaphor for climate change.
Oh, That’s What Happened…
Published August 19, 2023 by Nan MykelThe Secret History of Gun Rights: How Lawmakers Armed the N.R.A
“They served in Congress and on the N.R.A.’s board at the same time. Over decades, a small group of legislators led by a prominent Democrat pushed the gun lobby to help transform the law, the courts and views on the Second Amendment”.
Long before the National Rifle Association tightened its grip on Congress, won over the Supreme Court and prescribed more guns as a solution to gun violence — before all that, Representative John D. Dingell Jr. had a plan.
First jotted on a yellow legal pad in 1975, it would transform the N.R.A. from a fusty club of sportsmen into a lobbying juggernaut that would enforce elected officials’ allegiance, derail legislation behind the scenes, redefine the legal landscape and deploy “all available resources at every level to influence the decision making process…..
An organization with as many members, and as many potential resources, both financial and influential within its ranks, should not have to go 2d or 3d Class in a fight for survival,” Mr. Dingell wrote, advocating a new aggressive strategy. It should go First Class.”
Read more…
Putting Forced Unwanted babies to Work, Quick!
Published August 19, 2023 by Nan Mykel
Unwanted babies: As if it weren’t cruel enough for an unwanted baby to be forced into the world, several Republican-led states have rolled back their child labor laws to “let them” go to work at fourteen.
Freshman girls can now serve alcohol in Wisconsin. In Ohio, fourteen year-olds can now work until 9 p.m. on school nights [homework, anyone?], and in Iowa, a child can now work in slaughterhouses. [Is this one of those who will one day discover a cure for cancer?]
Conservatives try to justify child labor by claiming minors are needed to fill a worker shortage [instead of raising the pay?].
“A century ago, this country passed child labor laws to prevent the exploitation of teens in slaughterhouses and mines. Apparently they “think that was a mistake.”
LZ Granderson in Los Angeles Times, via The Week 6/16/23
TODAY I SAW…
Published August 18, 2023 by Nan Mykel…Two fannies hanging out from under short short shorts.
I am told short shorts and neckless tops are all the rage, a “statement” about women being humans, or some such. I hope those women will not be among those complaining of being treated like sex objects by men. We passed through the stage of women being “dumb blondes,” didn’t we? Do we see our worth by revealing our bodies instead of our personhood or have we re-defined our personhood by focusing on our bodies in contrast to our brains? Have we given up on our brains being equal?
Are women really so jealous of men being able to go without shirts on hot days? A reading on evolution will demonstrate the difference in sexual underpinnings between female and male. Ignoring the difference in drives strikes me as naive.
Bikinis at the beach in no way shouts “personhood” to me, but a wanting to please male viewers, and not as an equal human being. In writing this I wish I were not so old because such a stand is so easily attributed to being a “fuddy duddy.” I just hope that these short short short and neckless tops women won’t complain loudly of being seen as sex objects. Of course, they may have just given up on being seen as equals, due in part to current political oppression and behavior of their dingbat political sisters.
I’m not under the impression that the new female CEO’s wear enticing garments to their jobs environments.
Please feel free to argue with me in “comments”.
Two Poems By Patricia
Published August 17, 2023 by Nan MykelPatricia L. H. Black has again given permission to share two of her poems:
FARM POND
A dawn-tinged ruckus rose on the pond
where a dozen migratory geese laid over
for the night. All but one were circling and
circling, calling to a lone waterbound goose
beating the water with one wing, the other
damaged in a night-predator attack. Again
and again, her mate splashed down to her,
then returned to the circling skein. Migration
imperative kept pulling the ring of geese
southward. They cried encouragement till finally
instinct overrode their distress; they lined out,
headed away. Her mate stayed for a few minutes
then, torn, surged after the departing fliers.
I could not tell if his cries said Wait! Wait for me!
I’ll be back! Or Good-bye. I’m sorry! Farewell!
Patricia L. H. Black, 2023
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STOPPING BY WOODS ON A BLOWY EVENING
Whose woods these are I do not care
His house is in the village where
he is inside, toasty warm.
I only wish that I were there.
I wish that Robert would reform,
stop acting so outside the norm
by having these poetic spells.
I wish we both were somewhere warm.
I think I’ll shake my harness bells
so that the brassy sound impels
that dreamer in the driver’s seat
to notice how the cold wind yells.
The woods are dark and I am beat,
the snow is turning into sleet.
I’ve miles to go before I eat;
I’ve miles to go before I eat.
–Patricia L. H. Black 2023
MOM
Published August 5, 2023 by Nan MykelMy Mom didn’t want to be a bother so so she willed her body to the university medical school to be a cadaver. I imagine she carried that off adequately. You may think me heartless to speak so lightly, but I have plans for becoming a cadaver myself, and presume that I shall also carry that off adequately.
What happens is, after a year has passed, the family gets a letter that says Mom’s ashes are ready for you, and you can have what’s left. They do have a brief memorial service for all that year’s cadavers together. After some discussion, our family decided to plant Mom in the back yard and sow flowers on top of her. I know you’re supposed to to quit referring to one’s remains with pronouns, but it seems friendlier that way, somehow. Anyway, I’m not positive where she is, other than down in the northwest corner of the yard, at our old house. It was unforeseen, the move, and we couldn’t really take her with us. I didn’t mention to the prospective buyers that my mother still inhabited the back yard, out of kindness and not wanting to nix a sale.
It was kind of moving, the interment. My son read the One Hundredth Psalm beside the final resting place, since that was her favorite. She would have been touched by the seriousness of his reading and the tremor in his voice. We shooed the cat away.
One of my more sentimental relatives suggested a marker be placed in Mom’s family’s burial plot in Florida, but I declined. She was a free spirit, and I won’t let them get her in the end. When I say free spirit I am referring to her more independent streak, which enabled her to elope with my father, back in 1934. I wish now I had gotten the details of the elopement drama. Too late now to ask anybody just how it went when my Mom sneaked out of her parents’ very proper Florida home to run away to a red headed, basically unemployed and alcoholically destined fiance in N.C. who was living in his parents’ North Carolina farm house at the time. Hardly the way for a dear daughter and member of the Junior League to behave, but I think she was fighting for her personhood, if that makes any sense. Her own mother’s personality was just a little strong.
I do have a copy of the belatedly released 1934 wedding announcement, and a respectable year did pass prior to my arrival. They had met on the tennis courts in Jacksonville. It didn’t help our own subsequent relationship that Mom had a long and painful labor or that she perceived me red-faced and angry from the beginning, me having refused to nurse. Maybe you get a little flavor of how things went….She asked me once why I called her by her given name rather than Mother, and I stumbled over my words, not wanting to tell her I needed to get some distance from her for the survival of my own personhood. From time to time now, when thinking of her, I try to make myself think “Mom,” for all the good that may do.
I don’t know how Mom lived to be 74, wound as tight as she was. A dropped spoon or other loud clatter would set her to shouting and slamming things, a kind of kneejerk response she had. As a child I was aware of her vulnerability, but leery of the land mines she had planted around her.
Ours was a “don’t upset your father because he might start drinking” household, and he always did, anyway. Mom had physically escaped her aristocratic roots, but remained tethered to the notion that the only real people are men. Unfortunately for her, she only bore daughters.
I knew our family was different, but lacking perspective, I wasn’t aware of the unhappiness that hung over us all. So it was a mixed blessing when I was sent away to my maternal grandparents–then in Chevy Chase–to attend the fifth grade. I escaped the numbing unpleasantness of my own home that year to a gracious world of dinner served by candlelight. The cost was exposure to her strong personality, a small price to pay, I figured.
As luxurious as the Chevy Chase environment was, it was a lonely year, due in part to my Grandmother’s critical opinion of all the classmates I brought home. It seems her objections had to do with what she called their “breeding,” apparently evidenced by a coarse physical feature she thought she detected in them.
It was beyond her ken to realize that the families of those same Chevy Chase classmates she scorned would have distanced themselves with haste from my immediate family, back home, a fact that I dwelled on at some length at night while lying in my small room off the back staircase.
This was the background of conflicting and alien values against which I one day informed my grandmother that I thought I might be going crazy. Without a heartbeat she rebuked me with the firm assurance that “our family doesn’t go crazy.” She didn’t add that “it isn’t nice,” but I got the message, and more fodder for insight into my own Mom’s struggle.
But Mom had the last laugh, I guess, if you could call it that. She was 54 at the time, and working long hours as a jitney driver with a regular route in Miami Beach, when as luck would have it she picked up a woman from Chevy Chase. The two got to talking about family and roots and one thing and another, and the passenger offered to call Mom’s mother when she returned to Chevy Chase and send Mom’s regards. I suspect that Mom did not discourage her. Just what went down is better left to the imagination. Not too long after that Mom’s mother passed on from heart trouble, although I’m not suggesting the two things were connected.
Mom’s great difficulty coping with her emotions was highlighted many years later, when she struggled to inform me of the death of her father (a great intelligent warm man) from a massive heart attack. Perhaps she was already experiencing the early stage of the Alzheimer’s which subsequently claimed her, or maybe it was a lifelong pattern of repression brought into focus, but what she said was, “Do you know where I can get a black dress?”
“Lots of places. Why?”
“I’m trying to tell you, Daddy’s dead.”
One of my biggest regrets is that I was not with Mom when she died, nor did I pen an obituary.
My handsome suitor from Indiana was waiting for me in the lobby at the time of my last visit with Mom in the nursing home, when she apparently went into ventral fibrillation and began panting for breath. I stopped at the nurse’s station as I was leaving and asked that they look in on her, blocking from my own awareness the evidence that she was rapidly approaching the end of her own long road.
Later that afternoon the doctor called to let me know that Mom had passed, and that he had been with her at the time. Although I had run away, she had not died alone after all.
It was my failure of of the heart.
GROWING EDGE
Published August 2, 2023 by Nan MykelMaybe it’s from currently doing all those jigsaw puzzles and ending up with pieces missing, but I think it may have more to do with therapy and graduate school in clinical psychology, where a lot of us talked about our growing edge, referring to our attempt to expand ourselves to become more whole beings. I’m not saying it very well, but it was a familiar retort of mine when someone corrected me (“I know, and I’m working on it.”) And I was!
I guess graduate school in psychology at Georgia State University back in the seventies was a little unusual; but maybe it wasn’t, I wouldn’t know, but it was a clinical stronghole [stronghold?] of Gestalt Psychology, especially with the guiding examples of Irma Shepherd and Joen Fagan, Earl Brown and George Taylor etc. George once said to me after an encounter, “Thank you for the gift of your anger.” Wow.
I’ve been toying with the challenge of how to spend my remaining time. Just having fun may be adequate as a goal for some, but I feel the urge more clearly now to get back to uncovering my growing edge. I’ll be eighty-eight in September, and I have so far to go [grow!]. I had settled down into near acceptance of myself as is, and then had an insight: I experienced the possibility of a new growing edge.
I have always seen myself as a somewhat avoidant personality, having gone to eleven public schools in twelve years–which limited the cultivation of friendship experience; and there was the intrusion of my alcoholic father, but I did luck out and survive. But does a survivor just live on to have fun? I had no idea what my options were. Now, I wasn’t wanting to be a late-life born again do-gooder to earn my admission to heaven…Besides, I didn’t have the energy to ladle out soup in a food line, when something happened to let me see a needy room for improvement. The details aren’t necessary for this post, but an incident uncovered my need to focus on personally reaching out to others, not for support but to support Big deal, hunh, but it was a big deal for me, and thus today’s blog.
Maybe others have all the pieces of their puzzle, but I have a sneaking suspicion I still need to find some. The following poem by Felix is by someone who has a full deck…er…all his pieces. See his poem:
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BEING OLD
Now that I have become quite old, I seldom do what I am told. I rise each day before the sun and ponder what I’ll do for fun.
Content I am to live alone For twenty years it’s all I’ve known. I shun things of complexity. My bliss is in simplicity.
The food I eat is often plain. For me to cook is just a pain. I sate more quickly than before and eat much less. It’s not I’m poor.
A jigsaw puzzle I find fun; I’ve books to read before I’m done I walk my laps when at the gym and try to stay alert and trim.
Despite the aches I must assuage, there’s joie de vivre in my old age. There are but few sins I repent. So all in all, I’m quite content.
As I turn over life’s last pages, I don’t expect to live for ages. I welcome being old and grey, for I’ve known love along my way.
August 2023 – Used by permission of Felix Gagliano*
[The contorted line spacing above does not reflect Felix, but my own oldster ignorance of technical contraptions. Too late to change that!]
An Alternate Universe
Published August 2, 2023 by Nan Mykel
ALTERNATE UNIVERSE
I am well fed.
She eats garbage.
I sleep under an electric blanket.
Her toes are frost bitten.
My family supports me.
Her family died in an earthquake.
I am white.
She is black.
I chose who I married.
She was a sex worker.
My children all live.
Hers died in infancy.
I am old.
She is already dead.
I can’t remember her name.
Maybe she was only a nightmare.
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Of the roughly 32 million refugees in the world today, the United States’ current cap for resettlement is just 125,000. In 2022 the United States came nowhere near meeting it, resettling just 25,000 refugees
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I applaud folks who believe in themselves and are willing to expend energy and commitment to following through. A New York Times weekender column story led me to the website of Avi Loeb, a passage in which follows:
“Given that most sun-like stars formed billions of years before the Sun, there must be many lost worlds out there, encapsulating tragedies of lost species and the rubbles of memories. The only long-term memorabilia left from lost technological worlds are the probes they launched to interstellar space. These probes would appear to astronomers as anomalous interstellar objects, unlike the asteroids and comets found in the solar system. If their technological expiration date had long passed, they would constitute space trash. When colliding with Earth, each of them would light-up as a meteor fireball due to its friction with air. The fireballs of technological objects can be viewed as memorial candles, each commemorating a civilization which may no longer be with us. In that case, these fireballs should be labeled as ‘memorial encounters of the third kind’.”
From <https://avi-loeb.medium.com/celebration-of-life-as-we-know-it-5eba067f99c>
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