Laugh Instead of Cry?

Published August 9, 2025 by Nan Mykel

The E.P.A. said this week it would revoke its own ability to fight climate change. It’s the latest move in an extraordinary pivot away from science-based protections. -nytimes

It has come to my attention that I have an “inappropriate laugh.” I’m pretty sure it’s an unconscious trade-off that actually works pretty well, except for those caught in its crossfire, accidentally. So it’s no surprise that given my helplessness, and being so near the end of myself, I have to see some dark humor in the little rich boy getting richer at our expense (I speak for the lower tax brackets) and messing the world up as he goes out. Just for instance, destroying AIDS food, then acting horrified at resulting starvation. in Gaza. Can’t you see a little humor in that? I guess not, huh.

Another situation that almost makes me grim is the current spread of lying, modeled by Donnie whose advice to other men was, “never admit. Never.” I was reminded today on the news of his having told someone that he prefers married women because it’s so “wrong.”

The lyin’ AI and the ubiquitousness of purposeful misrepresentation and embrasure of lying has spread, even to discredit science. [Suspect science papers submitted]. What would be an apt metaphor for our current reality? OH! I don’t have to make up one! It’s right before us, via usatoday: Denmark’s Aalborg Zoo says donate your pets to feed our predators.

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A FORMER HELPER WROTE THIS:

87

And times short

She might not remember

today, tomorrow or a minute from now

Something important for the next generation

A central tremor waves the lines of each written letter

But she’ll never surrender

Just Hold down the fort

condo 1004A

Stockpile the amo!

Half a dozen pens and pencils

Between the bedsheets

Notebooks and tissues

Magazines and books afloat the unmade bed

A trail of trail mix down the hallway

fiery passion

And a zest

Words of wisdom are held captive on the page

Waiting to be released

As each one of them is read

And that’s how you win a war with time

While sitting in bed.

(Thanks, Carrie from 2023.) In September I’ll be 90…or not.

Short Fiction

Published August 4, 2025 by Nan Mykel

TARGETS

My folks were unable to accompany me to the meeting with my rapist, since they had retired to Costa Rica. The Restorative Justice people made an exception and allowed a friend to join me in the session, for emotional support. They didn’t realize that Mitzi had also been raped by hairy Harry Findley, the perp.

I’m Allison, another survivor. I first met Mitzi in my living room, when she attended a small women’s consciousness raising group composed of women survivors of sexual assault who were slowly learning not to think of themselves as victims, but as survivors.

We waited for Hairy in the prison psychologist’s office at Newcom State Prison. The phone had been pulled to avoid interruption, and Mitzi and I had to wait ten minutes, alone, in the office. An effort had been made to bring a little cheer into the office: a cacti arrangement and a large Vermeer print. A one-way mirror across the room offered reassurance of safety. I remember wondering at the time who the reassurance was for; him or me, since although my rage had cooled during the last year, I knew it was capable of swift re-ignition. For all my moxie, I was conscious of a dry mouth and banging heartbeat.

Mitzi and I both wore loose shirts, loose jeans, and tennies, presenting as asexual as possible for the session. The stated purpose of Restorative Justice was to heal, not dissuade reoffending, but my purpose was the latter. I’ll admit, however, that the motivation for the meeting was (I thought “confrontation” was a tad murky–I wanted to look my attacker in the eye.

We heard a small click, the doornob turned and a corrections officer ushered Harry in, handcuffed, and sat him in a chair opposite us, across a table. He was anything but appealing as he sat slouched in his bright orange prison suit that revealed long black hairs that covered his arms and the back of his hands. A five o’clock shadow had apparently sprouted in the past hour or two, but his head was shaved. The officer left us alone, hopefully behind the one-way mirror.

Although I assumed his presence was due to the hope of making an impression on the parole board someday, I said, “Thanks for coming.”

He dropped his head in acknowledgement, without making eye contact. My ears started ringing and I had to briefly shut my eyes and get centered. I said, “Why are you here?”

“Here? Do you mean in prison or in this room?”

I silently gritted my teeth. “I know why you’re in prison, believe me. But why are you in this room with me?”

He paused. “Curiosity.”

“What do you want to know?”

He was silent.

“Do you regret the sexual attack?”

“I regret prison.”

“But not causing the physical and psychologcal harm you did to me?”

He did not answer.

“Have you ever been raped? I hear that sometimes happens in prison.”

He rolled his shoulders and snarled, “Not likely.”

“Were you mad at me? Did you want to hurt me?”

“Yes. Yes, I wanted to hurt you and all women that play so hard to get. I belong to Intel, and women won’t have anything to do with us. We can’t get any!”

“Any–love? Tenderness? Friendship?”

“Pussy!”

I had read about this group of men who clustered on an internet blog, and that their activities have been referred to as “weaponized misogyny.” Mitzi, beside me, was squirming uncomfortably as he ranted.

“It’s true,” I said in an aside to MItzi. “Evolution scripts females to be attracted to males with the most regular features.”

Hairy’s face turned red and he emitted a subdued roar when he heard me speaking to Mitzi. “It isn’t fair.”

“Nor is it fair to rape and destroy a woman’s healthy sense of self for a life structure she’s a victim of herself!” I frowned. regretting have used the victim word myself.

Hairy didn’t respond immediately, but began fingering his fly, whereupon I rapped sharply on the one way mirror. I was glad ro note that Hairy wore a puzzled expression on his face as he was led out to rejoin the prison population. Mitzi sighed. I squeezed her hand and sighed, myself.

By Nan

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HORIZON

The train doesn’t stop here anymore,

but tonight it did, and the conductor

was impatient for me to board.

The ride was free but the destination

unknown. Goodbye, my dears.

CLIMATE NEWS!…?

Published July 27, 2025 by Nan Mykel

Trump’s EPA now says greenhouse gases don’t endanger people, per NPR….

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NEW BOOK

I’ve been reading Douglas Rushkoff’s new book, Survival of the Richest, about what he calls the Mindset of the wealthiest, and read today that “we” now have 902 billionaires in the USA, as reported by Forbes. It is difficult to assess how many are wed to AI, but Rushkoff suggests that the leading edge are both enamored and encouraging of it [and perhaps already profiting from it?].

He quotes Gabe Newell, billionaire founder of the game platform Valve in Wired, the human body is a mere “meat peripheral” that is resistant to upgrades or repair and “not at all reflective of consumer preference.” Virtual reality will give users more “choice” over their perception and experience of the world. “The real world will seem flat, colorless, blurry compared to the experience you’ll be able to create in people’s brains.”

Oculus Rift Chief Technologist Officer John Cormack explained on the Joe Rogan podcast, “VR [virtual reality] is the new solution to climate change–or maybe the ultimate surrender to its inevitability. As resources vanish and economic conditions worsen, technological simulations can fill in where real wealth has disappeared [from you?] The author says, “After all, it’s called an iPad, not an usPad.”

This is not to say that all the 902 USA billionaires want great things from AI.* They do appear to plan to reject (and use) those with lower intelligence than them. (But it’s money that anoints them, not an IQ test?). Musk explained in a Vanity Fair article that one of his reasons for colonizing Mars is to have a “bolt hole” if AI goes rogue. [How many people of less wealth and intelligence will be included in the bolt hole?]

Could the new regime be getting even with God? Who else? …And in my book the destruction of baled, ready to go food in the face of human starvation is not a ticket to whatever pleasant afterlife there might be. Bearing false witness, murder, adultery, theft…. In his final chapter, Rushkoff writes that there’s “no escape, and there is no later. If we’re not doing it at the moment, we’re not doing it at all.”

*With very few exceptions

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SHAMED BY MEXICAN LARGESSE

Check out Google for descriptions of many recent instances of Mexican firefighters aiding their U.S. neighbors, and apparently continuing to do so.

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POEMETTE

Look Upward

Each dances to its own beat

separately: grape vine leaves

in the sky, kissed by wind–

oh my!

No, not in pairs; all alone

together, sparkling the day

as the air shuffles through.

Cha cha cha

Nan

Homefront News

Published July 24, 2025 by Nan Mykel

Still living from pillar to post. I’ll protect the name of one motel we stayed at briefly, following the second flood of my basement condo. The toilet must have been built for potty training and the door would not open or close when one sat on the throne. Since I am not of potty training age, I could not arise from that throne but had to go on my knees, crawling out into the main room. BUT from my position on the floor, by the bed, I could not arise, not even with the aid of my daughter. Finally I asked her to call the police. She did and they connected with a free EMT and lo and behold three hefty weightlifters appeared and lifted me to the security of my motel bed. Two of the three wore uniforms which I thought were police uniforms, and the third was a young professional in training with a jolly disposition. I had thought to call the police because not long before, a groundhog had gotten his head under, but not out, of, strong fencing around a locked trash enclosure. A neighbor knew to call for help. Two men I assumed were police had wirecutters with them and also the strength to lift the edge. See that grateful groundhog run! He had been trapped with his head under the wire for more than a day.

I’m still out of my condo but this time staying with a friend in her updated trailer home that has an adult potty. Recently there was major sewer work on West Union, by my condo, and they suspect workmen may have sent a wrong sewer into and through my condo. I finally got my computer back from the condo. Thus endeth my personal report. Now for real news:

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1995 NEWS/VIEWS on WOMEN — We found a March 21, 1955 Time magazine in the library’s free book shelf : From A Piece of Equipment in The Farm Quarterly: “When a farmer buys a cow, wrote Farm Editor R.J. McGinnis, he looks at her long and carefully, goes over her point by point and weighs his pocketbook against her virtues and her faults. He should be no less calculating when he takes a wife…This flint-hearted approach ….will appear to many, especially the female sex, as a way of saying that a wife should be regarded as a piece of farm equipment. That is quite right.” (Other good remarks but some more proper wording is suddenly suggested by Word Press’s Gutenberg AI, I presume: 12 ways to show deep respect for your wife....Go figure.)

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OH, THAT’s WHY!

I was puzzled by the sudden drive against aliens (and those not so alien) in recent months, and still am.

As I’ve come to understand, via The Week of May 2, 2025, that Musk wants to seed the earth with more human beings of high intelligence “before the apocalypse.” I wonder if he assumes the high intelligence should come from the male or female parent. If that’s the case, why is he so against public school and university survival? Does intelligence mean being uneducated? Did he select the women of his fourteen children on the basis of intelligence or fecundity? Maybe hooking the brain up to AI would take care of all that? I hear that’s being developed.

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Pope Leo will bless same-sex unions: LGBTQ Nation Newsletter

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OH DEAR…

Did Netanyahu really nominate our president for the Nobel Peace Prize, or is that a Saturday Night show joke? I can’t tell these days.

ANSWER: Jill Dennison says it’s true…INCIDENTLY, read her blog today! (About our 902 U.S. billionaires)

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Poem by Milton Ploghoft, 2013:

DESTINATIONS

Where will we go for the sweet bye and bye?

No doubt we will aim for a Heaven on high.

But astrophysicists with views telescopic

Suggest that man’s gaze is gravely myopic.

There is plenty of space beyond cloud and star

But how to prepare from that which we now are?

Will eating and breathing be as we know here?

And will we bump into old friends so dear?

Will we greet kin from centuries ago

Or meet only family whom we so well know?

So many questions, who can tell

Will all the doubters go straight to Hell?

TID BITS

Published July 21, 2025 by Nan Mykel

RED-FACED – The previous post (Dog Camp) was my first attempt at a video and it posted itself before I added more. My helper, Shannon, helped get this much done but left the balance to me. Ho Ho!

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Beginning in August, you can buy a new Presidential smartphone! -The Week 6/27/25

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POEM

A nurse in the hospital 53 years ago gave me this poem when my “special child” was born. It is by Edna Massimilla. reprinted in an old “Dear Abby” column by abigail van buren:

“Heaven’s Very Special Child”

A meeting was held quite far from earth

“It’s time again for another birth.”

Said the angels to the Lord above,

“This special child will need much love.”

His progress may seem very slow

Accomplishments he may not show

And he’ll require extra care from

the folks he meets way down there.

He may not run or laugh or play

His thoughts may seem quite far away

In many ways he won’t adapt

And he’ll be known as handicapped.

So let’s be careful where he’s sent

We want his life to be content

Please, Lord, find the parents who

Will do a special job for you.

They will not realize right away

The leading role they’re asked to play

But with this child sent from above

Come stronger faith and richer love.

And soon they’ll know the privilege given

In caring for this gift from heaven

Their precious charge, so meek and mild,

Is heaven’s very special child.

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Dog Camp

Published July 21, 2025 by Nan Mykel

Doggone!

Published July 7, 2025 by Nan Mykel

Our dogs have been rescued from
travails at our home, taken
by auto to Atlanta
where they’ll not be forsaken.

See, our domicile has been
twice flooded and we have too,
— mysterious occasions
since sewage is quite phew.

FUNNY?

“…nothing could prepare us for the experience itself. At no time is this more sharply felt than when the helicopter drops one off for the first time in some godforsaken part of the Arctic, totally alone. The first thought is of polar bears. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve scanned the landscape looking for white specks that move. This anxiety can make you see things. In our first week in the Arctic, one of the crew saw a moving white speck. It looked like a polar bear about a quarter mile away. We scramble like Keystone kops for our guns, flares, and whistles until we discovered that our bear was a white Arctic hare 200 feet away. With no trees or houses by which to judge distance, you lose perspective in the Arctic.”
–Your Inner Fish, by Neil Shubin page 17

1962 Missile Crisis

Published June 15, 2025 by Nan Mykel

I worked as the “Radio Editor” at the Atlanta Journal after graduation from UF and just before the arrival of my first child. In going through earlier papers, I came across a column from October, 1962, I’d like to share, especially since I’ve sworn off giving any coverage to you-know-who:

RADIOS ON THE STREET BUT FACES ARE SOMBER

If one didn’t know better, he might think it was still World Series time–as many people are carrying their portable radios on buses and trolleys these days. Of course there is a tenseness in their expressions that wasn’t there before, and they’re quieter. They’re listening for news they dread to hear. War.

This isn’t the first time the radio has carried somber news, of course, and it won’t be the last. But the people feel a certain urgency in this crisis. Besides, Cuba is so near…

They aren’t sure how much personal precaution should really be taken. (After all, it’s never happened here before.) It’s hard to gain a perspective on something hundreds of miles away. But for good measure, many are keeping close to their radios, especially their portables. They know that should an attack come, a battery radio would be their mainstay.

The Department of Civil Defense is telling people this, and Atlanta department stores report a run in battery-operated receivers.

CONELRAD– In the grim eventuality of an actual attack, all radio stations would ask listeners to turn to 640 or 1240 on their dials, where a Conelrad station would would keep the public informed in civil defense measures and the situation in general.

According to Major Herbert O. Connor, in charge of communications at Atlanta’s Office of Civil Defense, there are four Atlanta radio stations on the Conelrad hookup. Just which stations they are must remain a secret for security reasons. A direct line runs between the Office of Civil Defense and the Conelrad station setup, he said. The same programming would be over both frequencies, and would be continuous until the all-clear signal. Conelrad, by the way, stands for “Control of Electro-Magnetic Radiation”

EDITORIALS AND NEWS–News coverage has been stepped up by all Alanta’s radio stations. Being state-owned, WGST doesn’t editorialize, but news staffer Bill Conover says that the news staff has “doubled up” and is on duty from Sign-On to Sign-Off….WQXI’s editorials have stressed keeping calm and giving Civil Defense advice….At WAKE, bulletins are put over the air as soon as they come off the wire, “fast and furious.”…At WAOK, Jim Wood editorialized that “while the Reds were mounting their machines of war, at our back door, we were fighting over letting citizens live as true Americans. It took several thousands of troops to help one black American veteran go to school. Not all our enemies are in Cuba or Russia…And at WIIN they’re playing a harp at station breaks, but it’s been going on for years, Jim Stevenson says. It’s not meant as a commentary on current events….

WHAT/ ME WORRY?–Life went on in many ways as usual, however. There seem to be enough mundane things to do, like change diapers or wait in lines–it’s somehow reassuring. True, a few ladies who don’t read the radio column got upset when they saw the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber promotional stunt last Wednesday. They thought the plane had been attacked by Cubans. Incidentally, WAKE’s Buddy Moore and WGUN’s Dave Hill, who rode to Cincinnati, Ohio in the World War II bomber, said it would have been fun if it weren’t so cold. They flew from 12-14,000 feet up, with all the windows busted out….

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NOTE – Signing off for a few days. Basement condo flooded with water, again. Hop[ed to be in touch later. Nan

How Is James Redfield?

Published June 12, 2025 by Nan Mykel

I looked him up after reading The Celestine Prophecy this week. Oh, I know it was all the rage when published back in 1993, but is he still alive and still believing? Had the reality of 2025 wiped him out? His photo on the dust jacket was so cheerful and full of hope that I feared for him. I had only read about his book; never come across it. Quick to the answer, he’s fine, still alive at the age of 75, and still believing in the Spiritual rather than in Religion, which is “much too familiar with the alignment of individual doctrines.”

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PERFECT METAPHOR

A.I. Oh my. I’ll cry!

We were gifted somehow

as Caretakers of life

on Earth. Toss a penny,

save or destroy was

the question; what

would we do with all our power:

Make or shake or desecrate?

We lost control and as the

nasty pus of greed triumphs,

steaming toward 2050,

what will be will be.

Nan

UF Students Meet MLK

Published June 11, 2025 by Nan Mykel

Red, white and blue flags hung from the ceiling of the Fort Homer W. Hesterly auditorium in Tampa Sunday night. More than 2,000 people sitting on folding chairs and bleachers listened to the high school choir sing hymns while they waited patiently for the arrival of the speaker. Suddenly a Tampa policeman stepped to the microphone and said, “Please go outside the building. We have received word that a bomb has been planted here. Please take your time going out and remain outside until we have checked.”

Four student members of the Americans for Democratic Action were among the group which filed back out into the night to wait. For the students the experience was a unique one. For the throng of well-dressed Negroes it was just one incident among many.

Few, if any, were scared away from the area by the bomb threat. For twenty minutes they stood outside chatting and talking with friends. No angry murmur against the segment which thus persecuted them.

While waiting for word that the auditorium was safe, the UF students were able to speak to Dr. Martin Luther King, the speaker.

REV. KING listened to the students, made suggestions, and expressed an interest in receiving more information about the ADA group and its plans to desegregate UF’s lower division. If the group was what it appeared to be, he said that he would lend his name to the drive here in Florida. [Obviously the visit was prior to UF’s integration in 1958]

Then the word went round: no bomb. And the people thronged back to their seats under the flag-draped ceiling to hear the choir sing “This Is My Country.” Then everyone stood and sang the “Star Spangled Banner.”

The invocation was quiet and reserved. In part, the minister said, “And thank you for America. We can’t say land of the free, because some of us yet have fear.” And he prayed for those who gave the bomb scare, and as he prayed the sirens were wailing in the background as the cars returned to pick up the police and firemen.

A HUSH FELL over the audience as Martin Luther King stepped forward to speak to his people. He outlined the Negro’s new sense of dignity and destiny.

“One of the challenges the Negro must meet is his responsibility to “develop a world perspective,” he said. “We have made of this world a neighborhood, and we must make of it a brotherhood. We must learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish as fools.” He suggested that the black man could teach nonviolence to the rest of the world.

“A second challenge to the Negro today is to be able to compete with all people on a universal level,” he said. “We are challenged also to continue to engage in the creative protest to break down all barriers of segregation and discrimination that still exist.”

King listed two myths that must be gotten rid of. One was what he termed the “Myth of time.”

“People say that ‘time will solve this problem–pray and stop pushing!’ We must be patient and pray, true, but we must say to those people that time is neutral, and can be used constructively or destructively.

“EDUCATIONAL determinism is another myth. People say that only education will solve this problem. I say that morality cannot be legislated but behavior can be regulated.

“It cannot make men love me but it can keep him from lynching me, and this is important to me.” King called for a second Emancipation Proclamation from President Kennedy. “The time has come for the President to issue an executive order calling for an end to all segregation because it stands against the 14th amendment to the constitution of the United States,” he said.

He further called for more Negroes to vote; “One of the most significant steps a Negro can take now is that short walk to the voting booth. Within ten years we can elect more than ten Negro congressmen from the South to vote in policies for our nation.”

Striking out against communism, King said where democracy differs is that it wants to secure moral ends by moral means.

“We must be able to stand up before the oppressor and say we will match your capacity for inflicting pain by our capacity to endure suffering,” he said.

He received a standing ovation, and as the crowd filed out one of the students, noticing paper pasted over part of the men’s room sign, lifted the sheet and looked under it. It said “White only.”

(The above was found in the 1960 column of “Artifacts,” my files of the UF Alligator).

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Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis at the age of 39, April 4, 1968.

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INTERESTING

“Obeying Orders Lowers Moral Responsibility Perception in the Brain“