Knowing From Whence You Came

the cemetery plot gate - where the three brothers are buried

Three brothers, Abraham, Louis, and Benjamin (my maternal grandfather,) came to America from a shtetl near Minsk called Horviler-Davidevka. Abraham, the eldest, was known to be a hard worker who labored to bring his large family to America. Louis, who we knew as Labeh, the middle brother, partnered with his younger brother Benjamin in a kosher butcher shop. When Ben died at 42,  Labeh refused to give his widowed sister-in-law Ben's share of the business, leaving her and her 3 children to starve. They're even buried near to each other. Just a regular kinda American family. 

We who gathered this weekend are the descendants of Abraham and Benjamin. Louis's family has been unreachable for a long time. Meanwhile, the known descendants of those three brothers number 210 people, the youngest of which is 6 weeks old...and was in attendance.

I'm not about to bore you with the follies and foibles of this clan but I am going to take advantage of the my blog, my rules precept to write about this weekend in Lakeville, Connecticut. 

Blame it on Covid. Because no one could get together, the descendants of Abraham, who have always been a tight knit group, started up a regular zoom call. Whatever the genesis, they began cousin zoom calls. Someone reached out to me and my cousin Ellis, two of Benjamin's grandchildren, and invited us into the group. This cackling cadre meets on zoom every other week to talk and laugh a lot...and somewhere, someone had the brilliant idea of having a reunion. Since two of Abraham's sons had egg/chicken farms in Moodus, Connecticut where the family used to gather when I was a kid, we decided the reunion had to be in Connecticut. It took over a year of planning, but this past weekend, 45 adults and 9 kids convened for the first Simon family reunion since the impromptu ones on the farm.. 

Oh, ye skeptics of little faith! Be gone! This was a totally fabulous weekend. We got to tell stories, share memories, look at a whole lot of really old pictures and even some home movies. We saw each other as we once were...and found we rather liked each other as we are now. As we grew more comfortable with each other, we talked about the sad stuff, too. Two of our cousins were lost on 9/11.  I suspect I always knew the chicken farms were the heart of the extended family, and I was relieved to know I wasn't the only one with those memories of getting pecked. And if you've not experienced blow-up chicken races, you just haven't lived.

I did not know what to expect from this past weekend. I knew the older generation of cousins, all of whom are now gone, through my mom who kept in touch with everyone. I met most of my cohort cousins when we were kids, had kid memories of them, but besides my first cousins, no real contact in recent years. The zoom calls changed all that. Suddenly, there were all these people who knew other parts of my family's story....stories I'd heard, but never put together. Talking to them every other week was one thing, but getting together? 

The warmth, love, acceptance, and laughter was embracing and amazing. Not overwhelming at all. There was so much cross talk it was hard to get everyone to shut up for the presentations, and even then, we were yelling out additions and corrections! A veritable cacophony of information. We were all hungry for that information. We wanted to know who we were and who we are. 

One upon a time, people stayed in their villages and towns, and even ghettos. You knew who was related to whom, who was beloved, who was feared, and who shared that weird forehead wrinkle with you. There is definitely a "Simon Face;" lots of the guys have it...complete with dimples and chin clefts. We discovered blue eyes, left-handedness, breast cancer, and depression seem to run in the family. I favor my paternal side, but one of my kids is blue-eyed ....just like my mom who is also lefty....just like my grandfather....and just like my granddaughter. That makes me smile because in looking at my cousins, I got to see that same grey-blue eye color across several generations; distant or not, we are part of a shared gene pool. 

I made sure to have lunch on Saturday with my friend Wendy who actually lives near the resort and took me over there for the site-inspection last summer. On the way back from lunch, we stopped at one of the most idyllic places I'd ever seen, Twin Oaks Preserve. Apparently this is a popular site for painting, because two guys were doing just that. I asked one of them if I could shoot a picture over his shoulder. He grinned and nodded. "I've been many places," he told me as he pointed the end of his brush toward the view, "but this is why I live here."  I didn't know a thing about this guy other than he loved to paint; you could see it in his face. Whatever brought him to this spot, I wanted to believe, was out of love for something or perhaps someone. The reason didn't matter; his acceptance of his own presence did.

The next day, as I  headed back to Long Island with my cousins Ellis and Tracey, we passed the same spot, and the two guys were still painting. For a moment, I envied them, then realized I had just experienced my own sense of continuity. And perhaps more importantly, I needed to figure out how not to let that go. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Simon Zoom calls recommence next Tuesday.

We're already planning Reunion 2025.

Be there or be square.

My Blog, My Rules

I always joked about running a B&B. I was gonna call it Chez Siegfried, but the guy who thought it might be a fun thing to do left the building much sooner than we ever anticipated. The idea wasn't as much fun without him. HOWEVER, having house guests is another matter completely!

losing my star boarder

The Senior Son departed for home this morning, having been bunking in with me for 2 weeks while he did some decompressing and reconnecting with old friends. Since Mrs. Senior Son is a baker and this is June, she was more than happy to send him to Mam (that's me!) for a couple of weeks. Despite me being worried I would hock him to death, it turned out to be a fun time. He did his thing, I did mine, we had dinner together a few times, but did drink a lot of coffee in the morning. I don't know why I was surprised that it was fun, but it's happiness to have a decent relationship with my adult (almost 42-year old) child. 

One of the nice things about having the Senior Son around was the level of conversation. We did talk about politics. We did talk about the dumbing down of America. We did agree that it would be a whole different ball game had Feckless Loser just turned over the boxes and boxes of documents, and that had he done that, there would be no indictments. And we discussed this blog and the recent increase in traffic. 

That increase is significant and I'm rather enjoying watching the hit-o-meter spinning again just like it did before the cookie wars when everyone could reject all cookies. Just so you know the numbers, as I write this, the all time number of hits hit a 00 number: 

• the first episode was published on Monday, July 26th, 2010 
• there are (including this one) 675 published episodes
• there are 475,800 total hits on THE WIFELY PERSON SPEAKS
• to date, June 2023  has 12,908 separate hits.

That's a lot of hits, admittedly, more than usual these days. After checking with appropriate web monitors for web-crawlers, I have been assured this is not crawler activity. And this is not the first time I've had months like this. 

These days, I'm an old lady in the blogosphere. I have missed posting an episode only once...I was sick and put up a GONE FISHIN' sign once on May 30th, 2016. Twice if you count April 18th, 2022, but that one doesn't count because I posted one of Ziggy's jokes instead of writing something pithy. I've written through death, destruction, breast cancer surgeries, and assorted travels. I take this blog very seriously. And I have had a couple best of months when I ran the top rated episodes of all time. 

If you've never noticed, there are no ads on this blog, except for my three novels which are not sold through me, but through Amazon. I make no money from these mental meanderings nor will I ever. I do my homework and cite sources; if someone tells me I'm wrong about a statistic or a fact, and it turns out I am, I post the correction as soon as I vet it and attribute the correction to the first person who sent it. It's rare, but it does happen. I really try to be as truthful as possible and accurate in quotations.

I include a lotta links so you can see the articles and publications I reference. I want my readers to know where I'm getting my information. 

These days, I get fewer comments on the blog itself, but commentary through thewifelyperson@gmail.com have steadily increased over the years. And I answer every single email. And no, I do not get a lot of spam through that address. 

Why am I telling you this? 

The morning after last week's episode was published, someone whose opinion I respect, suggested in very specific terms that I stop writing about Feckless Loser. He offered no substantial reason, just that I should stop. This is not a right wing person, but someone who is dedicated to social justice and the Democratic party. I was stymied by the request. 

Truth be known, I would love to stop writing about Feckless Loser, but alas, this guy is not your usual press whore, he's down right dangerous. And while I know I'm usually preaching to the choir, every so often someone writes and says the links and the info I put out make a difference in their thinking. 

So if you want to know what has my knickers all twisted this week, read the transcript or watch a stream of William Barr, former US Attorney General, on last Sunday's Face the Nation. William Barr was on and while he has an agenda just like everyone else, he said some pretty shocking things. He's worth hearing, if only to try to sort through the hyperbole.

But maybe, if I didn't post this stuff, you might have missed a really interesting interaction...one that might help you to understand why Feckless Loser and his MAGA buddies are so very dangerous. They are not after the White House or Congress. These guys are after The Constitution Of The United States. Roe v. Wade was the canary in the coal mine, the tip of the iceberg, the man behind the curtain. 

I guess I could stop writing about that.

Or not. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

My blog, my rules.

Agree? Disagree? 

Leave a comment or send an email. 

I will write back.

Why The 37 Indictments Are Scary

I was really excited about the new indictments against Feckless Loser until I read them. Yup, I read the whole document, and while there's lots of stuff in there, the one thing I didn't see was a charge dealing with the possible sharing or sale of defense information with a foreign government or leader, like Putin or Kim Jong Un. I was really hoping to see that. Someplace. Any place. Instead, there were a whole lotta middleweight charges that a good defense lawyer could go to town on. 

So Bombastic Loser assures his adoring sycophants this is a politically motivated witch hunt while DeSantis is rattling on and on about the weaponization of the Department of Justice while demanding to know why Clinton, Biden, and Pence aren't being indicted but not exactly defending what Feckless did. Instead, he was playing outta both sides of his mouth...for a change.

The rhetoric, however, does not compare apples to apples....it compares apples to space rocks. There is no sentient comparison to be made. I mean really? Just how dumb are We, the People?

Wait. Don't answer that.

Here's the primary difference:
President Biden and former VP Pence provided access to homes and offices; any papers found were returned without question. At no time did either of them attempt to hide or destroy documents. Feckless, however, played musical storage with dozens of boxes, instructing a variety of people to move things around. In the Washington Post, Devlin Barrett addresses that very scenario:

Notably, however, the indictment does not charge Trump with the illegal retention of any of the 197 documents he returned to the archives.  

That shows that if Trump had simply returned all the classified documents he had, he probably never would have been charged with any crimes, said Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor.   

“This is not a case about what documents were taken, it’s about what former president Trump did after the government sought to retrieve those documents,” said Mintz, who noted that willful-retention cases often hinge on how much evidence prosecutors can find that a person deliberately hid material or refused to give it back.

Let's be real clear about the indictments: they are the product of the Department of Justice.  As Heather Cox Richardson, commentator extraordinaire, observed:

Still, the indictment came not from Smith, but from a federal grand jury of ordinary American citizens in Florida who reviewed evidence and determined that there was probable cause to believe that Trump committed crimes and should be tried for them. Trump’s defenders are trying to blur this reality by saying it was Biden who charged Trump, when it was really the members of a grand jury. 

In case you don't remember this from 7th grade civics, under federal law, a federal grand jury consists of 23 people who must be randomly selected from a fair cross section of the community in the location where the grand jury will convene. Names of potential jurors are drawn at random from lists of voters. The people whose names were chosen, unless exempt or excused, must appear before the court. In the most recent challenge to Feckless Loser's delusional post-presidential actions, that location was Miami, Florida, home state of DeSantis, ergo, not a foregone conclusion it was hijacked by Democrats.  

Nikki Haley, former US Ambassador to the UN and current GOP candidate for President, said:

This is what I'll tell you, two things can be true at the same time: One, the DOJ and the FBI have lost all credibility with the American people, and getting rid of just senior management isn't going to be enough to fix this. This is going to take a complete overhaul, and we have to do that," Haley said during an interview on Fox News.

Two, the second thing can also be true. If this indictment is true, if what it says is actually the case, President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security," she said. 

What's remarkable about her statement is that it recognizes there is a problem with musical storage for national secrets, and it comes from a place one would hope fellow Republicans might respect. I'm in no way a fan or supporter of Ms. Haley, but she makes a good point. That she's willing to say something like this is remarkable considering the shape and length of the noses stuck up Feckless Loser's butt. She goes on to say:

More than that, I’m a military spouse, my husband’s about to deploy this weekend. This puts all of our military men and women in danger if you are going to talk about what our military is capable of or how we would go about invading or doing something with one of our enemies. And if that’s the case, it’s reckless, it’s frustrating and it causes problems.

Meanwhile, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, their Governor Kevin Stitt, a DeSantis supporter, called the indictment a "political tool to take out an opponent," adding "The weaponization of the federal government is very, very concerning for Americans and Oklahomans." 

Hey! This misogynistic pyscho-ceramicist is in Oklahoma! Notice how he doesn't mention the weaponization of medicine or Christianization of his state. Nah, why would he? Frankly, if I lived in Oklahoma, chas v'chalilah (heaven forbid!) weaponization of the federal government would be pretty low on my list of things to worry about. Constitution? We don' need no stinking Constitution.

Recent polls indicate a majority of Americans believe Feckless behaved in a manner inconsistent with the protocols for national security. HOWEVER, and isn't there always one of those...the majority of GOP folks polled may have had a problem with musical document storage, but also think the DoJ is a political arm of the White House operated and controlled by President Biden pulling Merrick Garland's string. Funny thing is that they didn't think that when Barr was the attorney general and Trump was loud and clear in public about what he wanted/expected the DoJ to do. 

Does anyone besides me see a disconnect there?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, why am I worried about this indictment?

Because the spin equates the DoJ to a banana republic-type government where at the president's discretion, political enemies are silenced. The disconnect between this...and say Richard Nixon's demise is that in 1972, Democrats and Republicans pretty much agreed that the President's actions were an obstruction to the investigation of the burglary of the Democratic National Headquarters. Both parties viewed that very apparent attempt to undermine that investigation as a threat to our democracy. Whether or not you were a Nixon supporter wasn't an issue; the president's actions were illegal and that cast significant doubt on his ability to serve out his second term. 

What it wasn't was exposing classified military and security to an uncleared number of people. The documents withheld were not in any way protected from public access, and there was enough hard evidence to conclude they had been moved around to shield them from discovery. In an analysis of the 37 indictments, NBC news reported the following, including a citation of an earlier report by CNN:

From NBC

Chief among the examples prosecutors lay out in the indictment of Trump sharing classified intelligence with unauthorized individuals took place during a July 2021 sit-down he had with an author and a publisher for an upcoming book on his presidency. Two Trump staffers without proper clearances were also in the room for the discussion.

 

While the indictment does not name the author and publisher, it does include a transcript of a conversation Trump had with the two about a classified military document described as a “plan of attack” against another country. That conversation, which stems from an audio recording, was reported earlier Friday by CNN.

 

“Secret. This is secret information,” Trump said. “Look, look at this."

From CNN 

The recording indicates Trump understood he retained classified material after leaving the White House, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation. On the recording, Trump’s comments suggest he would like to share the information but he’s aware of limitations on his ability post-presidency to declassify records, two of the sources said.

In the end, there is overwhelming evidence that Feckless Loser not only ignored requests to return classified documents, he shared them with others without security clearance of any kind. 

Did he put the United States at risk? Absolutely.

But unless someone comes up with concrete proof/evidence/photographs that he sold our military secrets to the highest bidder, a significant portion of We, the People, will continue to believe this  witch hunt is orchestrated by the Democratic Party. 

Considering the militia-minded cadre that supports this guy, you gotta wonder why they don't see this as a national security problem. Congressclown Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana) tweeted this after the indictments were handed down:

Jeff Sharlet of  The Atlantic provided an excellent analysis of the tweet:

Note that Higgins begins with “President Trump,” not “former President Trump.” That Trump is still president has been a Higgins claim since at least 2021, when he mourned Trump’s Facebook ban in a post of his own describing Joe Biden as “iPOTUS” controlled by a “cabal.” Cabal is a QAnon term; iPOTUS appears to be Higgins’s own coinage, possibly for “imposter POTUS.”
 
“This is a perimeter probe from the oppressors,” Higgins’s tweet continues. The “oppressors,” of course, are members of the “cabal,” the tyranny decried by Three Percenters. Higgins has also referred to them as “Leviathan.” A perimeter probe is reconnaissance meant to determine your force’s strength.
 
“Hold,” Higgins writes. Another way of putting that is “Stand back and stand by.” The term rPOTUS translates as “the real president, Trump.” “rPOTUS has this” will be read by some QAnon adherents—and the many more Trumpists who don’t identify with Q even as its mythology has seeped into standard GOP rhetoric—as “Trust the plan.” Trump has it under control. Everything is happening for a reason. “God wins.”
 
“Buckle up”: Get ready. Remember what rPOTUS said in January after he stood for the J6 Prison Choir’s hit single “Justice for All”? That “2024 is the final battle.”
 
Then comes the phrase that mystified those who don’t spend their weekends “training” for insurrection or doomsday: “1/50K know your bridges.” 1:50,000 is a scale used on military maps. It’s also used on some U.S. Geological Survey maps, largely in relation to areas surrounding military installations. Know your bridges isn’t jargon or metaphor. For the militia-minded, it means knowing the approaches to your location—especially bridges, which can be seized, much the way Canadian far-right truckers blockaded the Ambassador Bridge to Detroit in 2022.  And it can mean more than that. The liberal nightmare of militias marching on government institutions—realized on January 6—doesn’t match the fascist fantasy of retreating to strongholds. That is, of closing off counties under the authority of the “Constitutional sheriffs,” a popular movement that devolves—or escalates—from states’ rights to counties’ rights, with sheriffs empowered to enforce or not enforce laws as they see fit.
 
“Rock steady calm,” writes Higgins. The moment, he is saying, is not now. Not yet. Hold your fire. Hold the line. Necessary rhetoric, because Higgins and the whole Freedom Caucus put together don’t have the status to actually summon the armed masses into action. So Higgins—like Andy Biggs, like Kari Lake, like Trump himself—alludes to the threat that fascism may yet pose. It’s a tidy maneuver: They spook liberals into mocking them. That mockery feeds their own base.

On June 10th, Congressclown Clay backed off, tweeting:

Just so you know: Congressclown Higgins was US Army, a former cop, and is now a militia supporter. He's been associated with a variety of far-right groups, including the Three Percenters. And you wanna good laugh? Here's his congressional committee assignments:

• Committee on Homeland Security
  • Subcommittee on Border Security, Facilitation and Operations (Ranking Member)
  • Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response and Recovery
• Committee on Oversight and Reform
  • Subcommittee on National Security
  • Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

Really? Really.

And you're wondering why I think the indictments are flawed? Doesn't matter if they're true or not. They're gonna be politicized and weaponized. It's what the far right fringe does best.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

If you're driving in a smokey area where the air quality sucks,

use the AIR RECIRCULATE setting in the car.

It will slow the amount of irritants being sucked into the car.

Ear Worms

As I wrap up the annual eight weeks of feeling like shit, the one thing I don't feel like is writing. What's different about this one is that I have ear-worms for two songs that are from long after Ziggy stopped singing (badly, I'm sorry to admit) but lyrics that he would've appreciated. Maybe because the actual yahrzeit falls today, Monday, that makes me a bit sadder than usual. Couldn't tell you. Instead, I'm posting a link to each song and the lyrics. It's about all I can handle at this frozen moment in time.

Dan Reynolds

 WRECKED   

Performed by Imagine Dragons 

Songwriters: Benjamin Arthur Mckee / Daniel Coulter Reynolds / Daniel Wayne Sermon / Daniel James Platzman 

Days pass by and my eyes stay dry, and I think that I'm okay
'Til I find myself in conversation, fading away
The way you smile, the way you walk
The time you took to teach me all that you had taught
Tell me, how am I supposed to move on?

These days I'm becoming everything that I hate
Wishing you were around but now it's too late
My mind is a place that I can't escape your ghost

Sometimes I wish that I could wish it all away
One more rainy day without you
Sometimes I wish that I could see you one more day
One more rainy day

Oh, I'm a wreck without you here
Yeah, I'm a wreck since you've been gone
I've tried to put this all behind me
I think I was wrecked all along
Yeah, I'm a wreck

They say that the time will heal it, the pain will go away
But everything, it reminds me of you and it comes in waves
Way you laugh when your shoulders shook
The time you took to teach me all that you had taught
Tell me, how am I supposed to move on?

These days I'm becoming everything that I hate
Wishing you were around but now it's too late
My mind is a place that I can't escape your ghost

Sometimes I wish that I could wish it all away
One more rainy day without you
Sometimes I wish that I could see you one more day
One more rainy day

Oh, I'm a wreck without you here
Yeah, I'm a wreck since you've been gone
I've tried to put this all behind me
I think I was wrecked all along

These days when I'm on the brink of the edge
Remember the words that you said
Remember the life you led
You'd say, "Oh, suck it all up, don't get stuck in the mud
Thinkin' of things that you should have done"
I'll see you again, my loved one

I'll see you again, my loved one
Yeah, I'm a wreck

I'll see you again, my loved one

Yeah, I'm a wreck without you here (loved one)
Yeah, I'm a wreck since you've been gone (I'm a wreck since you've been gone)
I've tried to put this all behind me
I think I was wrecked all along (I'm a wreck)
Yeah, I'm a wreck

Sometimes I wish that I could wish it all away but I can't
One more rainy day without you (one more rainy day)
Sometimes I wish that I could see you one more day but I can't

One more rainy day 

 

Lewis Capaldi

SOMEONE YOU LOVED 

Performed by Lewis Capaldi 

Songwriters: Benjamin Kohn / Lewis Capaldi / Peter Kelleher          / Samuel Roman / Tom Barnes 

I'm going under and this time I fear there's no one to save me

This all or nothing really got a way of driving me crazy

I need somebody to heal

Somebody to know

Somebody to have

Somebody to hold

It's easy to say

But it's never the same

I guess I kinda liked the way you numbed all the pain

Now the day bleeds

Into nightfall

And you're not here

To get me through it all

I let my guard down

And then you pulled the rug

I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved

I'm going under and this time I fear there's no one to turn to

This all or nothing way of loving got me sleeping without you

Now, I need somebody to know

Somebody to heal

Somebody to have

Just to know how it feels

It's easy to say but it's never the same

I guess I kinda liked the way you helped me escape

Now the day bleeds

Into nightfall

And you're not here

To get me through it all

I let my guard down

And then you pulled the rug

I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved

And I tend to close my eyes when it hurts sometimes

I fall into your arms

I'll be safe in your sound 'til I come back around

For now the day bleeds

Into nightfall

And you're not here

To get me through it all

I let my guard down

And then you pulled the rug

I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved

But now the day bleeds

Into nightfall

And you're not here

To get me through it all

I let my guard down

And then you pulled the rug

I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved

I let my guard down

And then you pulled the rug

I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved

Unexpectedly, in the world of pop music, neither song is about a break-up. WRECKED is the response to the untimely death of Mr. Reynold's sister-in-law with whom he was very close and SOMEONE YOU LOVED is about the loss of Mr. Capaldi's grandmother. Both are about the loss of partnership, not romantic love, which may be why both songs make me cry. A lot. 

Sometimes, music helps. Sometimes, hearing someone else share the pain of loss through words and notes makes one feel a tad less alone. It's like grief and widowhood in general: you cannot predict what will touch you, move you, or even make you cry when it comes on the car radio. 

I promise to be more pithy, sarcastic, and generally upbeat (?) next week. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

You are allowed to be sad.

You are allowed to grieve

You are most certainly allowed to miss another person.

You don't need permission from anyone but yourself.