I'm tired, boss

 

The line from the film "the Green Mile" was in my head this morning.

I should be writing, I tell myself every morning, but when I sit down and put my fingers on the keyboard I just can't.

I'm tired.  More than tired, I am bone weary.

The news these days sucks the life out of me.  It's harder and harder to read or watch it without feeling ill.

There has always been a schism between the political parties, but WHEN did it get like this?   ANYTHING the Democrats want is evil and we are on the rocky road to "Gasp"  Socialism!  News flash, a lot of the programs out there ARE socialism. but the seem to work. 

If Joe Biden said we all need to breathe at the proper intervals to sustain life ( as my Coach used to say)  then Mitch McConnell would DEMAND that all GOOD Republicans hold their breath.  When did the Republican Party start being a cult?  During the Reagan Era, I suppose but it got worse when the mass of them were conned by the professional Con man they put in the White House.  Follow the money.  Who got richer?  

What is up with the debt ceiling?  Not doing to pass it, close down the Government?  I think the Republican Party wants to privatize it and put money in certain pockets when they do.  They are so far from Lincoln's Government  "of the people, by the people, for the people"  it's not even a good meme.

When did the welfare of the average American become currency?   Why is it so hard to pass an infrastructure bill that will help all of us.  Passing the Trump tax cut was easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy for them but this is.. WAR.

Don't get me started on how they have convinced their followers- WITHOUT A SHRED OF EVIDENCE that there is MASSIVE voter fraud and we need to have a whole bunch of new laws to prevent what never happened from happening again.  No proof, but a whole bunch of people believe it.  It proves that Joseph Goebbels was right, if you repeat a lie often enough , it becomes the "truth".

Still we hold on and fight on, for voters rights for women's reproductive rights, to keep a small minority who cite religion as the reason for law ( RELIGION my Aunt Fanny, their only god is MONEY!)Most of these laws are written to keep them in power over women and people of color.  They are, I think, in for a rude awakening.

 

It's bugging me

 Gift  Noun "A thing willingly given to someone without payment; A present"

Gift can also be used as verb, if you say "gifted" but for the purpose of THIS rant, I am referring to the Noun.

Recently, because of the pandemic, I have been purchasing things online.  Invariably, I get an email screaming "FREE GIFT WITH PURCHASE"   Just WHAT TYPE of gift is NOT free, I ask you?  By the nature of the word and the meaning ANY gift is free- except, these gifts are not free.  You need to pay Shipping and handling and I have discovered that  half the time, it is some piece of junk I do not need.

The use of the word "myself" instead of  "me"

I was taught, and although I also make grammatical errors from time to time, that the word "myself" is a reflexive pronoun, meaning it does not stand alone or in place of another pronoun.  I listened to a person drone on and on the other day, a person who has- in theory- an advanced degree and he said "send that to myself" at least TWICE in his presentation.  Ugh.  I am glad it was Zoom and I had my mask on, maybe my camera was off, because my eyes certainly rolled.  Bugs the crap out of me.  My mother made sure I spoke correctly and for the most part I do.  The I or me parts of speech were a particular bugaboo and remain so.

Recall election

Well, my state, California, was just forced by outside money from the Rethuglican Party ( a faction of the quickly disappearing Republican Party) to hold a 300 MILLION dollar exercise in futility in trying to recall Gavin Newsome.  Is he the BEST governor ever?  No.  But there is an election next year and if they wanted to replace him, they should start now, start putting forward real options, not some version of Trump that is supposed to appeal to people of color ( please don't pander, it doesn't work that way)  Larry Elder is a talk show host on a conservative radio program.  He is also an idiot.  They "Sold " him as being anti-mask, anti- quarantine, and anti -vax and the Trump base ate it up with both hands. NO ONE seemed to notice that he was anti-equal pay, anti-minimum wage and had no practical understanding about how government actually works.  I know there is a movement to elect "outsiders"  But frankly after we were stuck with an "outsider" who desperately wanted to be an "insider" , I  am not sure that is the best course of action.  California needs to take a hard look at the recall process.  It allows a small faction to force everyone through hoops we should not have to go through unless there is GROSS malfeasance,  not just a small group of unhappy campers.  The landslide NO vote showed the cracks in that system.

 By venting, I feel better.  There's probably more, but this  will do.

twenty years gone.

 

We say grief shared is grief relived.  Maybe it is grief released, I do not know.   As we look back on this morning, twenty years ago, we still mourn the loss.  We mourn the loss of life and the loss of innocence. Each generation has an event that defines that loss of innocence.  For my parents’ generation, it was Pearl Harbor, for mine, it was the assassination of JFK.  For my daughter, it is 9/11.  These acts of terrible violence shake us and shape us as we move forward.

Each of us remembers where we were and what we were doing when the planes hit the towers.  

I woke up to it. Kate was watching the news and told me, I thought she must be watching a movie, it was six a.m.  I was groggy.  I took my daughter to school. I will never forget the police officer on the corner of Fletcher and Riverside, asking me if I had heard and telling me to stay safe from the window of her cruiser. I was closing and moving Sherman Oaks Library, when I got a call from my then-husband telling me that they were closing the transportation corridors. There would be no way for my daughter to get home from downtown LA. My crew chief told me "go get the baby" (even though she was 14) The school at first refused, but I insisted and took her back to the job- probably illegal but this was an emergency. I sent my crew home and went to the second location for the day, when the boss told me just to go home.  We followed the news reports for days in shock.  I remember getting messages in a chat room from friends on the East Coast, asking us to call their family to tell them they were ok.  Someone did. and it bonded us further- we were all a group of fans of a band and were pretty friendly to begin with.  Yesterday, my daughter called me to tell me that my grandson was studying this in his history book. We are witnesses to history.

Today, let us each take a moment to honor our dead, murdered for no reason but perceived political gain.  Let us remember the courage of the Crew and passengers on Flight 93.  The sacrifice of the New York City Fire Department and the NYPD.  

Remember too, that feeling of compassion that you felt for your fellow human; how you looked after your neighbor, how you asked random people if they were alright.  It takes a crisis to bring our humanity to the surface, We soon forget it and "roll back to original programming"   but today, try to remember that feeling.