This is a good one:
Reblog from Lobotero
Published December 21, 2023 by Nan MykelThis is a good one:
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Poem: Worst Job in the Universe
Published December 20, 2023 by Nan Mykel
TOUGH JOB
Of all the jobs in the universe
the worst is at Heaven’s gate.
When the day arrives and they
stand there before you
with a choir of evangelicals
singing, while thousands
behind them still weep and the
Virgin Mary protests;
children still searching for
mommies and daddies, for
parents they lost forever.
How many good enoughs are needed
to cancel out all the bad?
Your job is to count all the
ways they failed themselves
and others, worshiping the god
of money and power, lying
for personal gain;
turning with vengeance on friends,
killing thousands by inaction;
adultery; booby trapping
their country’s future.
Gatekeeper, what’s your decision?
Karma! As many lifetimes as required.
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EEEK!
By now you have probably heard that Trump cannot be listed on Colorado’s Republican primary list for the 2024 General Election, due to a ruling by the state’s Supreme Court earlier this week, based on the Fourteenth Amendment, which forbids anyone who has caused an insurrection from becoming President. Next to the Supreme Court of the land? Do you think the Fourteenth Amendment is unreasonable?
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Miscellaneous Question: When you say something is on the right side or the left side, are you inside looking out outside looking in?
What’s a Person to Do?
Published December 20, 2023 by Nan Mykel
SOMETIMES IT SEEMS LIKE THE LOAD is too huge to bear. Sometimes I get washed off my feet by the weight of it all. At such times a list of concrete goals strikes me as handy. A random list of worthy causes I try to remember, in no special order, includes: OOPS–Sorry. I didn’t get beyond the first cause today: Women:
1870 — African-Americans may vote now, but women may not.
1918 — Doctors in New York are permitted to advise their married patients about birth control for health purposes. My mother was six years old.
August 18, 1920 – Women allowed to vote – Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote. Only a smidge over a hundred years ago. Victory took decades of agitation and protest. I’ve experienced that fact like a fairy tale, not fully realizing that it occurred only fifteen years before I was born. My mother was eight years old when women were “given” the right to vote. (African Americans were granted that right in 1870.)
1936 — Judicial approval of medicinal use of birth control is established. I am one year old.
1964 — The Civil Rights Act passes, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex.
1965 — In Griswold v Connecticut, the Supreme Court overturns one of the last state laws prohibiting the prescription or use of contraceptives by married couples.
1971 — In Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corporation, the U.S. Supreme Court outlaws the practice of private employers refusing to hire women with pre-school children.
1972 — Title IX of the Education Amendments prohibits sex discrimination in all aspects of education programs that receive federal support.
1972 — In Eisenstadt v. Baird, the Supreme Court rules that the right to privacy encompasses an unmarried person’s right to use contraceptives.
1973 — With its Roe v. Wade decision, the U.S. Supreme Court declares that the Constitution protects women’s right to terminate an early pregnancy, thus making abortion legal in the U.S.
1994 — Congress adopts the Gender Equity in Education Act to train teachers in gender equity, promote math and science learning by girls, counsel pregnant teens, and prevent sexual harassment.
1994 — The Violence Against Women Act funds services for victims of rape and domestic violence, allows women to seek civil rights remedies for gender-related crimes, provides training to increase police and court officials’ sensitivity and a national 24-hour hotline for battered women.
2013 — Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. The new bill extends coverage to women of Native American tribal lands who are attacked by non-tribal residents, as well as lesbians and immigrants.
2017 — A worldwide protest called The Women’s March happens the day following Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration. It was the largest single-day protest in U.S. history with an estimated 4 million participating in local marches across the nation. The organizers’ goal for the march was “send a bold message to our new administration on their first day in office, and to the world that women’s rights are human rights.”
2022 — The Supreme Court rules that the constitution does not confer any right to abortion, thus overruling both Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) and setting off waves of protests across the U.S.
Dates selected partially from History of Women’s Rights in America (
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Time
Published December 18, 2023 by Nan Mykel
Phot0: Ruth Scribbles
TIME
Given sufficient poetic license
Time can wrap itself around our
little finger where it can change
its mind and wipe us out
anywhere, anytime.
Or around our thumb, where
it can deny it exists at all.
Around our pointer: home of our
dreams, plans, wishes
and poetry,.
The entire index finger contains all
traces of life’s grasp of itself–
nursery rhymes, ant hills, mathematics
and all existent guesses of quantum physics.
A sad last finger is known as “The,”
and contains all hurting and hurtful howls.
Perhaps a potential is held in its palm.
Maybe not.
–Nan 12/18,23
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Sunday’s Late Journal
Published December 18, 2023 by Nan Mykel
Ho Hum: MOMS FOR LIBERTY
PROUD OF MY CITY — On January 6th of 2024 the city of Athens, Ohio will outlaw single-use plastic carryout bags. The ban applies to all stores and vendors in the city of Athens, including restaurants, and covers single-use plastic carryout bags provided to customers at checkout. The law does not apply to plastic bags (usually without handles) that a store or restaurant provides within the business to hold potentially messy items such as produce, meat, fish, baked goods or bulk items. Stores or restaurants that violate the new law will be cited with an administrative offense and fined $150. If they fail to pay the fine within 30 days, they’ll be cited with a misdemeanor offense. Customers will not be subject to citations or fines. Many stores and restaurants will be posting “Remember your bags” or “BYOB” (Bring Your Own Bag.)
The ordinance can be reviewed on the city’s web site, https://library.com,oh/athens/ordinances/code_of_ordinances?no-deld=1225501. “Plastics , including bags, contain thousands of chemicals that leach out and can’t be separated from the plastics at recycling. Most of these chemicals are not identified and many are known to be toxic. Plastics last for hundreds or years. They don’t biodegrade. They break into smaller microplastics and nanoplastics that leach out toxic chemicals.
Plastic waste threatens our ecosystem and us. It is found in soil and water and our bodies and is killing wildlife, both on land and in waterways. Eliminating single-use plastic plastic bags is a start in reducing oil and gas pollution. Promoting and increasing our use of plastic is Plan B for the fossil fuel industry as they see their profits decreased by our reliance on more renewable energy sources. More plastics means more fracking and more petrochemical facilities. For more information, email Athens ReThink Plastics at AthensReThinkPlastics@gmail.com. And BYOB!
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DID YOU KNOW? A group of buzzards is called a wake, though this refers to the vultures instead of true buzzards. This name comes from a reference to a funeral practice called a wake in which family and friends of the deceased would sit by the casket and watch for signs of waking. (The vultures or true buzzards wait to make sure their deceased is truly dead before eating.) Barf.
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GREAT IDEA
This may be evermore at the level of its inception idea, but realizing that it’s too late to orchestrate one of my homemade Christmas cards, I decided it would be Happy New Year cards, and then my eyes got big and I thought about making a card of a Christmas tree with ornament balls of friends in my life, past and present. Even a page of those I’ve forgiven. Now that I’ve told my reader, at least you will know I had the idea, if I never get around to accomplishing [finishing?] it.
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WELCOME IS THE NEWS THAT today Pope Francis is allowing priests to bless same sex relationships (but not marriages).
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Regretful is the old news that I still can’t can’t navigate to return to D’Verse Poets…Oh well, can’t be young and sharp forever….
FRIDAY JOURNAL
Published December 16, 2023 by Nan Mykel
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS: Apparently when we have a win in the battle with energy corporations over their continuing damage to the environment, “we” may make it up to them with million dollar judgments from the public coffers. Did you know that? How and who allowed this to happen?
The U.N. recently released a ground-breaking report titled “Paying Polluters; The Catastrophic Consequences of Investor-State Dispute Settlement for Climate and Environment Action and Human Rights” (ISDS). The article is by Melanie Foley in the Nov./Dec 2023 Public Citizen News, and includes the words of Special Rapporteur Professor David R. Boyd to the U.N. General Assembly:
“Please consider how crazy this system is. States that are trying to tackle the climate and environmental crisis and safeguard human rights of their people are being forced to pay billions of dollars in compensation to the very corporations that have caused this crisis. Instead of making polluters pay, states are paying polluters.”
The report concludes that ISDS has become ” a major obstacle to the urgent actions needed to address the planetary environmental and human rights crises.”
I suppose this could be one of my jaded “HO HUM” sharings. I went, and found via Google:
The report concludes that ISDS has become ” a major obstacle to the urgent actions needed to address the planetary environmental and human rights crises.” Some of he cases are international but I chose not to wrap my brain around those, for now at least. P.S. ISDS is not related to the Inflammatory Skin Diseases Summit nor the International Spinal Deformity Symposium. (Shame on me for being cocky on such a serious topic!)
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Thank you, PRESBYTERIAN OUTLOOK – This week serendipitous workings connected me with the June 2023 issue at the free bin at the Library. The entire issue is on “GUN VIOLENCE,” heralded on the cover as “A Christian case for repealing the 2nd Amendment. Enough already! From Despair to hope.” [I’ll drink to that!]
An observation worth quoting: “While you may choose to be silent when it comes to gun violence out of concern for who you may anger, your silence is also sending a message to those who are most impacted by gun violence (women, children, youth, LGBTQ+, and people of color) that their trauma and suffering don’t matter.”
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OOPS! Just misunderstood Time’s”Person of the Year.” I thought for sure it was an A.I. construction but my daughter, more familiar with the music culture, identified her as Taylor Swift, as does the cover. But I doubted the labeling, you see. Upon further thought, I wonder if that is really Taylor, or a costly look-alike? It’s true Time’s CEO of the year is the AI leader Sam Altman. ….Now that I think about it, Altman doesn’t look real alive, either.
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REMARKABLE: There are more mobile phones in the world than people. (Per Time, Dec. 25, 2023, p. 27–Oops, it’s an advertisement. Does that matter?)
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This August 14th, in a decision that the Republican state attorney general of Montana Austin Knudsen has appealed, a judge ruled that the state of Montana must consider the effects of climate change when deciding whether to begin or renew fossil-fuel projects. Held v. State of Montana is a first-of-its-kind case, but–“given a rising generation of young activists who know the power of speaking their minds”–is unlikely to be the last. (The 16 plaintiffs, ages 5 to 22, had taken the state of Montana to court for violating their right to a clean environment, which is enshrined in the state’s constitution.) –Ninis Twumasi
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QUOTE OF THE DAY – It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not: Oscar Wilde
This One’s On Me
Published December 15, 2023 by Nan MykelWhen I looked at the new charge card I’d had to drive to another city to get, I recognized it as the one I’d thrown away two month’s earlier and thought the real one never arrived. It had been sent without notice, without anything on the outside of the envelope, and nothing explaining it on the inside accompanying the unfamiliar card. Since every day I’ve been throwing away several unopened “wanna” envelopes, I just tossed this, opened-out-of-curiosity anyway. Ergo, I’m having to contact beaucoup automatic billing accounts. However, when I call needing to talk to a real person, it’s unbelievable how many “clicks” I have to make before giving up. Even my own town’s water department is impossible.
I know it’s my own fault for disbelieving, but perhaps I should disbelieve the 9-11 panel and the real story about Roswell and the UFO’s? And how about A.I. and the reassurances by Musk about Earth humans colonizing Mars by 2050? And Santos and…?
Sound like a failing and flailing old biddy, don’t I?
What possibly fertilized the idea of avoiding the truth appears to have been sidetracked and weaponized by its political opponents. I’m referring to MAGA’s focus on protecting youth and even those at the college level from historical (and current?) truths. Beyond the well-publicized school mufflers is, for example the recent movement by Ohio Republicans to cut State funding of centers of higher learning such as colleges and universities for continuing actions of allowing protests by students and faculty. NEWS FLASH: On Nov. 29, 2023, The Ohio House has seemingly killed the controversial legislation to overhaul the Ohio education system, resulting in a win for public education advocates. We’ll follow this report…(Ohio bills limiting college protests – Google Search).
Google can lead you to varieties of political correctness, also:
adjective as in not causing offense: Strongest match
Monday Already?
Published December 14, 2023 by Nan Mykel
Today we’re going to visit Molly at GDC. That’s usually a Sunday occurrence, but …well, nothing is ever written in stone. We wanted to bring her home for Christmas, but the last time she had refused to leave, and also two grandchildren will be visiting me and their mother in my small Ohio condo. And her Downs Syndrome turned into dementia a coupla years ago. By the end of weekly visits from us she recognizes her sister and me, but we don’t want to risk dive bombing the grandchildren’s Christmas… Molly’s birthday is a bigger day for her anyway, three days later, at now it will be 52. The connection between Downs and dementia is a recent truth now that their lifespan has increased. The photo is one of our earlier photos. (Molly is a near-miss for her name). I just vsited Dear Downs, one of my “pages,” and had no ideda so many folks had visited it. (It is not reproduced on ths site). Sorry I never responded to any of you.
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WE TOOK MOLLY TO SEE THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS
The city of Gallipolis has a central park ready-made for a Christmas light extravaganza. If you happen to be anywhere near this old French-settled town on the Ohio River, take a look during December. Stupendous! Molly liked it too, and I suspect Uri our chihuahua puppy did also. Here’s one shot of many:
HO HUM — On the way to see Molly we had to go through the town of Cheshire, owned by the energy company. Here’s what we saw there:
FUN: The “F” Word
Published December 13, 2023 by Nan Mykel1. WHAT’S THIS?
2. AND THIS??
3. AND THIS?
ANSWERS:
- Statue of Sigmund Feud hanging by one hand in Prague, Czech Republic. called “Man,” by sculptor David Cerny.
2. A pillow of Sigmund Freud for sale at Amazon
3. The couch in Feud’s office where patients reported dreams.
TO YOU
Sweet dreams…,
Struggling for Empathy
Published December 10, 2023 by Nan Mykel
It’s amazing how many postings Google has about the difference between empathy and sympathy. So if I struggle to understand the humanity of members of the new super rich super exclusive super expensive social clubs in, say, New York City, which should I be? If I feel sympathy I might think “poor–” no, I couldn’t say “Poor.” I couldn’t say “heartless,” “alienated” or “greedy,” for that would not be true sympathy. So, for me, sympathy would not be possible. Empathy…will be a challenge.
We’re all born to a “blooming, buzzing confusion,’ wrote William James, and we are, too. Entirely innocent. And then…Money and prestige, maybe power, became the most important existence in the world. Is it their fault that Mommy and Daddy and friends enjoyed the greatest posessions and status possible? Probably not their immediate fault that the unclean hordes were…inconvenienced, homeless, hungry. My way or the highway? Stop! That’s not empathy.
So…growing up without empathy, basking in perks, setting the styles, feeling entitled, envied by many, reinforced by parents, a glory in the mirror, what’s the problem, Bozo?
What is my struggle with being emphatic…I mean empathic? Jealousy! That’s it! If I had it would I want to spend money on building homes for the homeless or pay the initial $20,000 fee plus an annual fee of, say, $5,000— an exclusive members-only social club in New York City? Or being able to buy a table, immediately, in any exclusive restaurant for anywhere between $100 – $1,ooo, say? Or a purse from Louis Vuitton for $3,400? …but wait, delivery is free.
Today’s Quotation: What is the meaning of “there but for the grace of God go I”? However it is expressed, “there but for the grace of God go I” is a statement of humility and gratitude that acknowledges one’s own sinful nature …
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