Monday, March 11, 2024

There Is No Accounting for Taste

I suppose everyone wants to talk about the Oscars. I've seen a few of the nominated films, hope to see a few more, but will go on record as saying I cannot abide Emma Stone as an actor. 

Seriously, I have hated just about everything she's been in, and at the top of my list is La La Land, her other Oscar winning turn. (Okay, I liked THE HELP but thought she was hopelessly miscast.) I may be alone in this, and I'm okay with that, but I think she has a plasticine face that has two expressions: eyes wide open, and puppy-eyes about to cry. She has no range, no passion, she squeaks, and she is boring. Jump on me about this all you will, but I would not cast her as an extra. I will probably see POOR THINGS some time this week. If I change my mind about her, I will let you know. 

On the other hand, I saw KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and thought Lily Gladstone was brilliant. Let's all hope we get to see a lot more of her work.

One film I definitely want to see is ZONE OF INTEREST, mostly because it's from such a different perspective. What I did not appreciate was the subsequent misrepresentation of Jonathan Glazer's speech:

Jonathan Glazer
All our choices we made to reflect and confront us in the present, Not to say ‘look what they did then’ — rather, ‘look what we do now.’ Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza — all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?

Glazer is not refuting his Jewishness, nor the Holocaust. He is saying what many of us are saying, that using our Jewishness and the Holocaust as some kind of screwed up rationale for what is happening in Israel and in Gaza is antithetical to who we are as a people and as Zionists who believe we have a right to live in our own country.. Based on the anti-government demonstrations in Israel, I suspect most Israelis share that view. 

Those who hate Jews use the Holocaust to discredit the right of Israel to exist on our own land. Yes, we say "never again," but conflating that stand with bombing Gaza is just intolerably inaccurate. The birth of the State of Israel came out of the ashes of the Holocaust, but our right to live on our own land in our own country is over 4000 years old. To compare Gaza to the Holocaust is to give credence to the idea that Israel wishes to murder all the people living there and take over the land. Again, ongoing demonstrations in the streets against the radical right of Netanyahu's government demonstrates the exact opposite. 

Instead of jumping to inaccurate conclusions, the mouthpieces of major Jewish institutions would have done well to actually read what the guy said, then quote him accurately. I cannot imagine they support the slaughter in Gaza. No one in their right mind wants more civilians to die. That's not Jewish. That's not who we are. And right now, I don't think the government of Israel represents who we are as a people, either. 

In other news...

Mark Robinson 
Jeff Jackson won his primary for North Carolina Attorney General by a significant margin even with all the dark money poured into his opponent's campaign. This is a really good thing because the guy running as the GOP candidate for governor, Mark Robinson, is a few cards short of a full deck. He's running on a party line not unlike the one Hershel Walker used in the Georgia senate race. Feckless Loser loves him and during a rally in NC, said he was 

...Martin Luther King on steroids...I told that to Mark. I said, ‘I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you are Martin Luther King times two.’

Robinson, a long time fan of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, has used his platform to admit to wanting to go back another time. At a Moms for Liberty event last July, he told those moms:

Whether you’re talking about Adolf Hitler, whether you’re talking about Chairman Mao, whether you’re talking about Stalin, whether you’re talking about Pol Pot, whether you’re talking about Castro in Cuba, or whether you’re talking about a dozen other despots all around the globe, it is time for us to get back and start reading some of those quotes,"

Robinson is also a vociferous Holocaust denier:

...this foolishness about Hitler disarming MILLIONS of Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash.

This guy also thinks transgender women should be arrested if they use a women's bathroom and should, instead, go leave the building to relieve themselves:

If you are confused, find a corner outside somewhere to go.  

And he longs to return to an earlier, simpler time:

I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote. Do you know why? Because in those days, we had people who fought for real social change, and they were called Republicans.

Oh, yeah....Robinson is running against current NC state Attorney General, Josh Stein. Yup, you read that right. He's Jewish.

North Carolina, y'all better elect Jeff Johnson cuz y'all gonna need strong AG if Robinson wins.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

I took an impromptu meeting with the ground last Thursday. Thankfully, it was spongy from all the fine weather we've been having, so I am relatively unscathed. That means nothing broke, not even my glasses which do need an adjustment. My nose is kinda scraped, but nothing grotesque. My torso, however, is another story. Just like my not-so-flying leap in Boston a couple of years ago, I bruised my right side. Why this hurts to beat the band is a mystery to me, but arnica gel and a rotation of Tylenol, aspirin, Advil, and Aleve make movement reasonably okay. That means I'm not screaming in agony every time I try to get outta the bed in the morning. 

While this is all Bialy's fault...she got excited because Poodle Puppy Lucy was returning from her walk...I cannot fault her post-flop behavior. With me for a sleepover, she was incredibly attentive...as in glued to my leg... the rest of the night, and again in the morning. She is such a limpet; she insisted on sleeping spooned up against me. Normally, I don't mind having the body on the bed, but she insists on sleeping tight...ergo pushing me off the bed. 

My grandpuppy returns for a whole week with Savata on Thursday while her family heads off on spring break. By the grace of timely gigs, the Senior Son is coming in so I will have back-up for poop-doody. (Yeah, that's weak.) If you're wondering why she doesn't go to a boarding kennel, ask yourself this: would you send your 98 year old grandma who thinks she's 20 to a trampoline park? Well, Bialy is 98 in dog years, but thinks otherwise when outside. No dog camp for you, Miss B!


The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
Spending time with Bialy is precious to me. 
I'm so glad she's coming for the week. 
FIL and Baby Bialystock

Monday, March 4, 2024

An Open Letter to SCOTUS

Dear Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States,

In 7th grade, we learned about checks and balances. Keeping in mind that I am a baby-boomer, the first generation after World War II and living amongst a great number of people with numbers tattooed on their arms, I thought checks and balances were the only way to prevent another attempt at genocide because the Supreme Court would uphold the Constitution to protect all citizens, not just a preferred few. I totally believed with a 7th grader's fervor that our representatives represented all of us when they sat in those two august chambers. That once someone was sworn in as POTUS, he was responsible for the good and welfare of all Americans because he couldn't possibly get elected if he wasn't an honest and upstanding kinda guy. 

But we weren't blind to the issues of governance. We studied the Civil War. We learned about Reconstruction. We were in New York, so we knew what was on the Statue of Liberty and that when they talked about huddled masses yearning to breathe free, they were talking about a lot of our grandparents. It was all very close to home. Our teachers told us what happened in Germany could NOT happen here because we had checks and balances built into our Constitution. And when push came to shove, the Supreme Court, an apolitical, unbiased institution would have the determining say on what could and could not legally be done. The Supreme Court was established to protect We, the People from those who would behave in unscrupulous ways. 

On the website for The Supreme Court states: [highlights are mine.]

The Supreme Court is "distinctly American in concept and function," as Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes observed. Few other courts in the world have the same authority of constitutional interpretation and none have exercised it for as long or with as much influence. In 1835, the French political observer Alexis de Tocqueville noted the unique position of the Supreme Court in the history of nations and of jurisprudence. "The representative system of government has been adopted in several states of Europe," he remarked, "but I am unaware that any nation of the globe has hitherto organized a judicial power in the same manner as the Americans. . . . A more imposing judicial power was never constituted by any people."

The unique position of the Supreme Court stems, in large part, from the deep commitment of the American people to the Rule of Law and to constitutional government. The United States has demonstrated an unprecedented determination to preserve and protect its written Constitution, thereby providing the American "experiment in democracy" with the oldest written Constitution still in force.The complex role of the Supreme Court in this system derives from its authority to invalidate legislation or executive actions which, in the Court’s considered judgment, conflict with the Constitution. This power of "judicial review" has given the Court a crucial responsibility in assuring individual rights, as well as in maintaining a "living Constitution" whose broad provisions are continually applied to complicated new situations.
Why have you abandoned We, the People?

You took away the right of women to determine how our bodies are to be used. You took away the right of parents to choose the life of the mother over the life of the fetus. (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,)

You refused to rein in Citizens United, thereby putting our elections on the auction block for anyone to spend unlimited amounts to buy votes, thereby overturning precedents dating back 100 years set by the Tillman Act of 1907. 

You refuse to take up the issue of ethics when it comes to personal behavior exhibited by members of the court, most noticeably Justice Clarence Thomas whose purchase price appears to be in reach of several of his robber-baron friends. The corollary issue of Mrs. Thomas' attempts to overturn the election has not yielded any sort of censure from that body. A shocking lack of ethics amongst the justices is not news. In fact, policing/monitoring their personal behavior has, for years, been a buried issue. Everyone knows it's an issue and it remains tidily under the rug. 

And now, you are working overtime to make sure Feckless Loser is re-elected. 

Let me clarify one thing: the states do NOT have the power or the discretion to remove him from the ballot. His name must appear. That's a given. But delaying the hearings on his immunity and instigation of the insurrection absolutely ensures the cases won't be heard/resolved before the conventions, and in turn, a convicted felon may very well be the GOP nominee. 

And then what happens? Let's say the trials are delayed until after the election and Feckless Loser becomes Feckless Leader Part Two? If he is a convicted felon, he cannot serve, according to the 14th Amendment, Section 3:

Disqualification from Holding Office

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

What happens if you delay the hearings and trials for so long that the election takes place and he wins? Do you think he's gonna stand around with his finger up his butt waiting for the paddy wagon to Club Fed? Or, do you think he's capable of summoning his personal military with an eye to suspension of the Constitution? 

Justices of the Supreme Court: guide us; tell us what YOU think is going to happen? Or are you already prepping your retirement on some Caribbean jewel where the agony and disarray that has become America cannot touch you?

To say I am disappointed in The Supreme Court would be a supreme understatement. I get that this is a highly polarized nation. I understand there is a giant disconnect between the Democrats and the Republicans. I grok the concept that there are three branches of government as designed by the drafters of the Constitution. That division and limitation of powers is supposed to protect us, but you are abrogating your responsibility. You patently ignore the will of the people in light of settled law and then you stage a paper coup to make sure that a candidate with a predisposition to act solely on his own behalf can retake the Oval office.

What is wrong with you people?

Recent polls show confidence in the Supreme Court to be at an all-time low. Just for shits and giggles, here are some numbers from the Marquette Law School national survey on the Supreme Court:





And the kicker:


You can see for yourself We, the People, are not thrilled with you. That's because you're supposed to be looking out for all of us, not just your preferred political ideologues. We, the People, understand we might disagree with some of your rulings, but repealing settled law is not in our best interest. The majority of Americans have serious issue with the Dobbs ruling. 

Now, all of that aside, allow me to make a recommendation: Clean. Up. Your. Act. Get your ethics house in order first and fast, then start looking out for the rest of us: get those immunity and insurrection hearings up, moving, transparent, and at the very least, transcript available to We, the People. We, the People, deserve to know if this guy is gonna attempt to overthrow the government. And We, the People, need to be prepared.

Do you really want to be known as The Last Court: The OneThat Failed America? I hope not, but folks, you are heading down that road at a pretty scary speed.

Respectfully submitted,
The Wifely Person


The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
I want to believe We, the People,
are capable of electing  proper government. 
Then again, I know better than to believe 
the people behind the curtain.


Monday, February 26, 2024

There Is No Explanation

 An active duty Air Force guy self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C, on February 25th. He sent out a bunch of statements on social media about his forthcoming suicide, then live-streamed it. According to the New York Times:

“I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” a man says in the video, echoing language that opponents of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza have used to describe the war. “I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all.”  

Standing in front of the gates of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, he sets his phone down to douse himself in a clear liquid from a metal bottle. He then lights himself on fire while yelling, “Free Palestine!” until he falls to the ground.

I cannot fathom why anyone one in their right mind would think this kind of martyrdom is useful. His death is basically meaningless in that he dies; he can no longer fight for his cause. America is fickle on a good day, callously uninterested on most days, so after the initial news report, no one cares. 

The guy self-identifies on the video as Aaron Bushnell, 25, of San Antonio. Was he Muslim? Did he have family or other close ties to Gaza? If he's military, how does he not know martyrdom by suicide is basically pointless here? I'm not suggesting that he was not passionate about what was happening in Gaza. Clearly he was, but he was an American! How could he not know this is the home of the free to be apathetic? Did he think committing suicide while live streaming would actually change minds? 

Lots of us remember the days of self-immolating Buddhist monks during the Vietnam War era. And I remember asking my Dad about it. I'd seen photographs of burning monks and honestly? They terrified me. My dad explained that these people believed that sacrificing their lives in that way would help to bring about the end of the war. I asked how that would happen, hoping to find something I could latch onto. His answer, however, was less than satisfying. He said, "I don't know."

The horror experienced while watching his live stream (which has now been scrubbed from the internet) only lasts a few minutes. You can't unsee it. But we also know you can't unsee people being hunted in their houses and the streets by terrorists who live stream that. The difference is one is voluntary; the other is murder in cold blood. I get that it's a protest. I just can't see why anyone would think it would be useful.

But then again, useful isn't always very dramatic and clearly he was going for drama. Y'know, that's a shortcut. We know what he said in his posts, but do we really know what he was thinking? I don't have to agree with his opinions or his passion to say if you wanna make a difference, you have to work at it. In Mr. Bushnell's case, it's Poof! He's gone.  Any good he might have done is over. 


Talking to a friend in Israel this morning, I asked about Rafah. Her answer was, frankly, not surprising. "I'm losing my humanity over this." I don't blame her one bit; I know I'm losing mine. Hostages are yet to be released, UNRWA weapons caches are still being uncovered, and Hamas moves its population around their shrinking chessboard as human shields. Does it only stop when everyone is dead except the guys in Qatar?

I keep asking myself, what happens when it is over? Does Hamas rearm and go for round 2? Well, if Hamas is still controlling Gaza, you better believe they will rearm and attack again. 

But where does this leave the Palestinian people? Still starving in squalor because their government will continue to spend all capital on tunnels and arms, never giving their people a thought about an economy to actually have a self-reliant state? Who is responsible for their well-being?

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."                                                                  
Rita Mae Brown in Sudden Death (1983)
For over 70 years, the Arab nations have been attacking Israel. Usually with armies, but not this time. The latest attempt to rid Israel of its indigenous inhabitants began on October 7th with an act of terror, not a declaration of war. There was no army involved...only marauders on motorcycles, in trucks, and cars murdering civilians in their homes, in their towns, and at a music festival. Attack, withdraw, repeat. Again and again and again. Insanity, no?

But now, the world says Israel isn't entitled to defend itself and its citizens, that the genocide attempted and failed on October 7th was really Israeli terrorism. That's like saying Ukrainians are terrorists. The difference between Israel and Ukraine is that Israel has been fighting to survive 70+ years. Give the Ukraine a little more time and before you know it, people will be protesting on behalf of the Russians. Wait for it, folks. It's coming. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

The news from North Carolina is curiouser and curiouser. My favorite soon to be ex-congressclown, Jeff Jackson, posted a video about possible tampering with the primaries in his state. Take a moment to listen before you read the rest. 




Remember this name:

And Justice For All PAC. From WRAL News:

As North Carolina’s 2024 primary elections heat up, it appears that at least hundreds of thousands of dollars have begun pouring in to influence some key races on the Democratic side from an unlikely source: Secretive outside groups tied to top Republican leaders. 

The Democratic primary for attorney general pits U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson against Durham District Attorney Satana Deberry and Tim Dunn, a lawyer from Fayetteville.On Friday Jackson accused an outside group — which has been heavily promoting Deberry as the more progressive candidate in the race — of being a fake liberal group that’s actually backed by GOP interests, based on a report by Charlotte public radio station WFAE. 

“It is now on track to spend $1 million just to beat me in the primary,” Jackson said in a social media video Friday. “But here's the kicker: It's funded by the other party. So I'm now running in a primary where the top spender isn't me or my opponent, it's the other party.”  

Jackson, Deberry and Dunn are running to replace Democrat Josh Stein, who’s running for governor to replace term-limited Gov. Roy Cooper, a fellow Democrat. The winner in the Democratic attorney general primary will face Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop in the general election. Bishop is running unopposed. 

Deberry criticized Jackson for attributing the mailers backing her candidacy to a secret GOP operation, noting that there's not currently any indication of who paid for the effort. 

"As any candidate for attorney general should know, it's wildly irresponsible to make assumptions about the source of funding without proof," she said.

There’s no direct proof the group behind the pro-Deberry ads, the And Justice For All PAC, is backed by Republicans. In part that’s because almost nothing is publicly known about it. The group only formed this month and has yet to submit paperwork that could show who’s funding it, or other identifying information. The political action committee’s physical address leads to a mail center in Washington, D.C., and its phone number goes straight to voicemail. The group’s listed contact did not respond to a request for comment. 

But there are some clues about who is behind it.  

The small, niche bank in Virginia it uses was founded by a former Republican U.S. senator and media reports indicate it serves a clientele made up largely of Republican politicians and political groups. The PAC’s ad buyer is Political Communications Advertising, which public records show has worked almost exclusively for Republican clients in the past — mostly the National Republican Congressional Committee, a group run by U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson, a Republican from North Carolina and a colleague of both Bishop and Jackson in Congress. 
While that PAC is seeking to bolster the more progressive candidate in the Democratic primary for attorney general, a separate dark money group with deep ties to GOP leadership at the state level is taking the opposite tactic.
And you thought Putin was trying to buy elections.

The problem with Jeff Jackson is that he keeps posting these videos about how government really works for transparency's sake. The GOP in NC damn well better be afraid of him if he wins the AG job.

Frankly, I think he should be running for president in 2028.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
If an opportunity arises to do something a little different, you should take it. 
Like hosting an impromptu mah jongg game on a Monday 
instead of writing the blog. 
It was more fun than you can possibly imagine...even if I did lose all my quarters. 




 

Monday, February 19, 2024

To Make Or Break A Community?

Photo credit - D. Getsug
Today, our beloved Grand Avenue in Saint Paul was papered over with signs. Not the signs we are used to seeing these days, but pictures of Gaza children with the label MURDERED by Israel. The text on the flyers is very interesting and bears closer scrutiny:

Since its creation in 1948, Israel has committed the most atrocious crimes on the Palestinian population. Murders and brutalities that extend far beyond October 7th. 

As the world silently watches a systematic genocide, we will continue to raise our voices and our stories - of murder,

mutilation, targeted attacks of civilians, and the grim reality of a

ruthless and bloody apartheid 

Spread the truth. Change the narrative. Take a photo.

Palestinians have every right to their land.

Palestinians have every right to resist.

Spread the truth? Change the narrative? 

What narrative would you like? One that buries the history of the region? Instead, how about facing historically verified the truth and confronting your own historically inaccurate narrative?

Israel was created in 1948? They left off the BCE part. 

Apartheid? Genocide? 
How about ethnic cleansing? 

They'll never mention the removal of Jews from Arab lands in 1948. Nope. They conveniently forgot about that housecleaning part. 

Sure, let's forget that since 1948 CE, the Arab countries en masse have been attacking our own indigenous population that is a tiny fraction of the population of the Levant....and can't manage to win.  

A calendar that provides an emerging population with events to be celebrated as a unified community is the first step in creating a unified culture. The Hebrew calendar as set down in the Torah gives us our framework to be unified as a community. From shabbat to the biggies like Rosh HaShannah and the harvest trio, we observe momentous events together. This is true for any unified culture. Christians have Christmas and Easter, and a raft of smaller holy days. Islam has Ramadan, Hindus have a whole raft of holy days, the French have Bastille Day, the Welsh have St. David's Day, and the US has Thanksgiving and July 4th. Every country has a calendar. 

In his novel, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Milan Kundera wrote:
The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long that nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was... The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.
Isn't that exactly what that poster is doing? The creators deny the history of Israel, refuse to acknowledge that Judaism predates Islam by more than two thousand years, and take no responsibility for their part in keeping a government that uses their own people as human shields, denies humanitarian aid to the population, and openly robs their own population of a working economy that would bring stability...and quite probably statehood...to their own land. 

I would present a very different version of truth: the Eben family of Ba'eri, Israel:
Chen and his wife Rinat and their four children - Alon (16), Idan (14), Tomer (12) and Nir (8) - began to suffocate from the smoke, ran outside and hid in the bushes. They decided to lie in a pile to protect the children. Little Tomer and Nir laying down, with Alon and Ido on top of them and the parents on top of them.

They were found and shot - Chen, Rinat, Ido and Alon were killed on the spot, while Tomer and Nir were saved. They hid quietly under the bodies of their family members, and in a moment of silence they ran to the window of a neighbor’s apartment and knocked on it. The neighbor opened it and pulled them both in, thus saving their lives.
Comparisons, as Miss Pease, our civics teacher, used to say, are odious, and comparing the tragedy of October 7th to the tragedy of Gaza probably is certainly odious. The genesis of one is really not comparable to the genesis of the other. People asleep in their beds and dancing at a music festival were hunted down, shot, tortured, raped, murdered. 

The war came to Gaza with the hostages. Return the hostages, the war stops.

Still, one cannot dismiss the ponderous sadness and disconsolation of both. The children and civilians of Gaza did not ask to be human shields. They were unwitting participants in a battle they may have known little about. I'm certain had they known their leaders were living the high life safely in Qatar and some of the other states while their homes, school, and hospitals sat over miles of weaponized tunnels and armament command centers, they might have been concerned about their own safety. They expected UNRWA and other UN agencies to provide promised humanitarian aid, completely unaware that it was diverted to support Hamas operatives in a grand style. One can hardly blame them for swallowing and digesting all the propaganda fed to them and to their kids in school, blaming Israel and the West for their abhorrent conditions. Never mind that when they went to Israel for medical care, they were cared for just as any Israeli was cared for. But the poison was already in their veins, fed to them by Hamas. All those dead kids and civilians are a tragedy because they didn't have to die. Their leaders chose that fate for them. 

Keep in mind that when Hamas held that fateful election in 2006, they ran on a platform of cleaning up corruption and establishing an economy. The exit poll for that election is a fascinating study of expectation vs reality. No sooner than Hamas had wrested control, they threw out the rest of the existing government to establish an Islamic state.There have been no real elections since; hence, no opportunity for Gaza to replace them. And beginning a new campaign to replace Hamas is the same as volunteering for a death sentence. 

But the reality right now is Hamas controls Gaza and views its only objective to be the dismantling of Israel and the removal of Jews from their own homeland. On the other side of the fence, Israelis are working to get aid into Gaza. They are protesting the actions of their own government on behalf of the people of Gaza. They are NOT celebrating the deaths of Muslims caught in this horrendous war. And therein lies the biggest difference of all.

Only one group wants this war....and it ain't Jews. 

Meanwhile, back in Minnesota, 2 cops and a fireman/EMT were killed by a crazy barricaded in his house very early Sunday morning. The two cops were from the Burnsville Police Department, and the fireman/EMT guy was a member of the SWAT first responder team. The EMT guy was killed while tending to one of the fallen cops. You can read about it in the link above. Try not to vomit. 

The shooter had 7 kids in the house, 5 of them were his. In fact, he had been awarded 2/3 custody because he had a "stable, high paying" job. He had priors, as well as an injunction forbidding him to have guns. Like that mattered. According to his ex, the kids adored their dad yet he "invited" them to go with him when he killed himself. 

Burnsville isn't far from me. I have friends who live there. It's a suburb like any other, full of just regular people going about their business....while having unfettered access to guns. How is that even possible? I just don't know. This town is shattered. But like everywhere else, nothing will come if it. 

Yeah, we don't have a gun problem in this country. People kill people.

But here's the thing, We, the People are proving ourselves to be completely delusional when it comes to politics and politicians. No one is willing to stand up against the epidemic of people killing people. No one wants to confront a seditious old man who lies non-stop every time he's handed a mike. This is something so disturbing about this and I don't know which disgusts me more: the refusal of We, the People, to admit our lawmakers aren't doing their jobs, or that We, the People, keep re-electing them. 

You tell me.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

My Aunty Gladknit turns 95 this week
and to celebrate
she became a first time great-grandmother!
Mazel tov, Aunty G!

The woman is a total rock star!

Monday, February 12, 2024

Down the Rabbit Hole

This has been a busy week on a whole lotta levels. I learned about stuff I didn't know. Some of it good, some of it not so good, but nothing earth shattering. In between trying to learn how to operate the new car....and I do set a few minutes aside every morning to learn another function... but you still need an engineering degree ...and thinking about war (yeah, I know) I've also had to examine and re-examine some of my previously held-dear concepts. 

First, let's talk cars. I finally got the full accident report on the Rogue and holey buckets! there was one heck of a surprise in there. Big-ass-truck driver was drunk. Yep. Six o'clock on a Saturday evening and he blew a .15 on the ol' breathalyzer. Officially drunk in Minnesota is .08. I guess I didn't get close enough to him that night, but apparently he had serious booze-breath because he was "alcohol suspected" on the form. Now I know why he was so freaked out. I have been hit by a drunk before, so I'm not a fan of the drink'n'drive club since that last one almost took out my then 4-year old son. Thank G-d I was in the Volvo that day. 

I also learned about Pearl Harbor this week. I mean, long ago I learned the big chunks, but I never paid much attention to the numbers. It was, after all, WWII and lots of people died in that war. But I went down a research rabbit hole on this one. The official death toll at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941 was 2,403 and that was military and civilian deaths. There had been no declaration of war prior to December 7th. In fact, the declaration of war from Japan came about two days after the attack. Ergo, we were not at war with Japan even though there were tensions over Japanese expansion into China and restrictions of trade between Japan and the US. Then I thought about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Between 110,000 and 210,000 died from the atom bombs dropped on those cities. They can't be sure of the number because so many people were incinerated. 

After reading about the lead up to Pearl Harbor and the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I came to the only conclusion there was: if you start a war, people will die. It's really just that simple. The bombing probably saved millions of lives: Japanese, Asian, and others. It might've been done with one, not two bombs, but in the end, it stopped the war...and that saved lives...especially in Japan. No, it wasn't humanitarian...it was efficient. In war efficiency used to count. And if it stopped the killing, so be it. 

War, however, is never really simple. There are two or more sides. Both sides will skew numbers to their benefit. Both sides think only stupid people cannot see the truth...their version of the truth, at least. And sometimes history set in stone is treated as propaganda, facts are dismissed as convenient fiction, and people on both sides still die. And people will lie forever about the causes. I mean, even Niki Haley didn't think the Civil War was about slavery yet a whole lotta people died for that one. But I digress. 

This brought me around to thinking about death. 

This month is Adar Alef. This year, there's also an Adar Bet. See, the Hebrew calendar doesn't have a leap day, it has a leap month. Okay, try wrapping your head around this: 
A leap year in the Jewish calendar has 13 months and occurs 7 times in a 19-year cycle. In Hebrew, a leap year is referred to as Shanah Me'uberet, or pregnant year.
L to R: Budge, Dave, Mom 
And I have no idea how this works mathematically, nor do I wanna know. What I do know is that Adar, whether it's Alef or just plain Adar, begins the spring yahrzeit parade for me....Grandma Sarah first, then my mom, then my Uncle Dave, then my MIL, then Grandpa Moishe, then Uncle Budge, and finally, Ziggy. There are more yahrzeits than you can shake a stick at...or put a rock on a grave. Whatever. It's a tough time for me and my thoughts do turn to my own demise. Did I do a good enough job for the kids? Did I do right by the old folks? Am I leaving anything undone? 
What would Mom have done? What can I still fix? 

Ah, there she is: the fixer. I want to kiss all the booboos and make them go away. I want to smooth all the paths. I want everyone to love each other and play nice. The truth is, I cannot do that. No one can. But somehow I manage to periodically beat myself up for things I coulda, woulda, shoulda. When I stand at the edge of that particular rabbit hole, I now know enough to force myself back from the edge. A couple of weeks ago, I caught myself wanting to fix something that the conscious me knows can never be fixed because, frankly, it's not a me problem; I simply adopted it because it needed to be fixed and I truly believed in kisses and band-aids. 

Which brings me back to, believe it or not, war. Honestly, it must be the flawed end of human nature that makes us fight to the death. Since the very beginning, history has been nothing but a long line of hateful actions that end in war. And we all know if you start a war, people will die. Even the familial/interpersonal wars...those are death by a thousand slights...but pieces of one's heart die when the wars cannot be stopped.

That teeny tiny white speck is Israel
My heart is dying in pieces for my people, the Jewish people. We make up less than .2% of the world's population. Our traditional homeland, the place where we have continuously lived for over 4,000 years, is about 8,550 square miles, about the size of New Jersey. The Arab nations of North Africa and the Middle East are about 5,000,000 square miles. That means Israel takes up about .17% of the land. A veritable speck. Why do they want to throw us off so tiny a parcel? I
s there something we could've done to prevent this...I mean short of marching into the sea? Can this be fixed and still have our home intact? I think every one of us asks that question every day.

Yet, every war that has been started against the modern State of Israel has been lost. Even when statehood was offered, it was refused because Hamas and its predecessors wanted all the land to be Judenrein...Jew free. Why do they hate us? Because. Abraham sent Ishmael away? Because we learned to be portable in exile? Because we have succeeded wherever we have gone without being permitted to own any land?

Or is it because we are a stiff-necked people who refuse to bow down to other versions of God because we have retained our identity as Jews? 

Folks, if you are so threatened by this tiny sliver of population on this tiny sliver of land, you have other problems that need fixing and shitting on us isn't gonna fix your issues. Stop wasting your time trying to kill us; we don't die. We reinvent and we survive. Jews playing the victim went out at the end of World War II. We no longer have any interest in placating your issues while dying in the process. Deal with yourself and your own shortcomings. Build yourselves an economy. We did it, and the civilized world wants to help you do it. Build industries, not tunnels. There. Isn't that easy?

In the end, all any of us want as Jews is to be left alone to be Jews in the place we've called home for 4,000 years. You want to share that space? Fabulous...do it respectfully and democratically. Work hard, play hard, send your kids to school, drink potable water and use the electricity. Serve in the government...you get a voice, you know. But understand this: Israel is Israel is Israel is Israel is Israel. It is our home and we're not leaving. 

Can you possibly grok that concept?  

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
Still pushing to free Palestine?
Great idea! Free them from Hamas
because that's who's holding them back. 

Monday, February 5, 2024

The Long Game

I am not yet in a place where I can write about the news, political, domestic, or international without my head in explode mode. Which, loosely translated, means I have little to say about anything tonight that won't come out like a whiny screed. And that's the last thing I wanna do. So instead, I'm gonna make a few observations, toss 'em into the ring, and see if I ultimately hit the mark farther down the road.
 
Nikki Haley is one smart cookie and I hope she doesn't drop out of the race. Yeah, I know you're all thinking she's a waste of time and money, but I don't think so. I think she's playing the long game on this one and she's betting on Feckless getting convicted in at least one trial and getting jail time along with it. As a felon, he may not be able to vote in Florida, but apparently there is no prohibition against his serving from a cell if elected. 

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment states: 
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

So it's possible. Haley, I suspect, will go after him on sedition if he's convicted and will align herself as an MOR GOP kinda candidate. Not that it would get her elected. IF We, the People see fit to elect a convicted seditionist, the fight is functionally over.  As is the Constitution. 

For the moment, Nikki Haley appears to be the only sane person in the room, and that's not sayin' much.

At the same time, do I think Taylor Swift is a Pentagon asset? That her romance with Travis Kelce is a sinister plot to influence the election? What is so scary about two people in the early days of a relationship? I mean, really folks. Why can't two high profile people date without absurd speculation? Why is she so scary? Because they are an attractive couple? What magical powers radiate from her friendship bracelets? 
All these fear-mongers do is telegraph their own lack of penis size. What? Her vagina is gonna bite them? They wish. Even failed GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy posted something that sounds like it's out of a bad novel:
And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple [wink wink] this fall. Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next 8 months.
Ja, sure, you betcha! What is this guy smoking....that makes him think anyone believes this shit?

Oh, wait. We already know they believe Feckless is some kind of messiah figure. 

But maybe Taylor should be?

Look, I am no Swiftie, or a Taylor Swift devotee, or even like her music very much. I don't have a single Taylor Swift song on any playlist. Ed Sheeren? Yup. Imagine Dragons? Fer sure. Stevie Nicks? Absolutely. But that does not keep me from being in total awe of this woman who took on Scooter Braun and the music cabal. I've listened to a boatload of interviews and chat show appearances trying to figure out what makes her so appealing and why I think all girls should grow up emulating her fierce determination to be captain of her own ship. Take the time to listen to her acceptance speech for Billboard's Woman of the Decade speech in 2020. She's really something: smart, erudite, blunt, direct, prescient,  and brooks no shit. 

         


She lays it all on the line and she is spot on. Swift says stuff ALL women artists, whether we're musicians, painters, sculptors, photographers, or writers have and are experiencing. For this speech alone, she should be on a stamp. I know it's long, but if you're not a female artist, or living with a female artist, or the parent of a female artist, you might not fully realize the gender inequity we all face now and will continue to face in a future that will probably be dominated by AI. 

Here's the real conspiracy theory: if these pencil dicks manage to win or usurp this election, count on the suspension of the Constitution of These Here United States. Count on the immediate implementation of martial law to "keep the peace."

And kiss democracy, however imperfect, goodbye.

I've said it a billion times: you elect the government you deserve. 

Yeah, I know I'm being whiny et al, but folks, it's just too hard to keep quiet.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
I wish we had a candidate as compelling as Ms. Swift.
I am not suggesting she run for POTUS, 
only that we should find someone 
cut from similar cloth. 
Preferably a woman.
Lord knows men have been screwing this country long enough.