It Ain't Over 'Til The Rule of Law Sings

It ain't over 'til the rule of law sings.

I think today, the rule of law is going to sing.

#45isGoingDown #TheConstitutionWins #AmericaEndures

Thinking About This Coming Sunday: Transgender Day of Remembrance 2022

As I lay in bed, pre-crack-of-dawn, freezing (it got very cold by Florida standards last night, and I only had one cover on, and somehow couldn't summon the requisite energy required to go get a second one, so I opted to freeze into a solid block of ice instead), I realized dawn was, in fact, just starting to break.  And I realized this is the day my employer is honoring/marking Transgender Day of Remembrance--which actually falls on this coming Sunday, November 20, but today is the last weekday ahead of that, so they are doing the following today--with a flag raising ceremony.  I lay there in bed feeling grateful to work there (as I posted about the other day, upon learning of the upcoming ceremony).  And then I thought about how this will be the first Transgender Day of Remembrance since someone I love with all my heart and soul, who was trans, passed away.

Every TDOR, she posted about it on Facebook.  But she didn't just try to educate about everything trans people go through on that one day.  To her, every day was Transgender Day of Remembrance.

I've been--or fancied myself, anyway--an extremely liberal, progressive, or whatever word you want to use, person all my life.  I was raised that way and I also think/feel that I hatched straight out of the egg that/this way.  I abhor prejudice in all forms.  I am passionate about the human--and also very American (when we're at our best)--ideals of equality and fairness.  I'm all about what is now buzz-worded as DEIB:  diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.  Yet, until my trans loved one came back into my life, after DECADES of us being lost to each other (yep:  I date back before Facebook, social media, or event the internet, to prehistoric days when you could actually lose touch with someone and have no idea where they were, or what was going on with them), I had no idea what trans people go through, or even really the slightest idea what it really is to be trans.  I thought I was an aware, educated human being yet, in point on fact, on all things trans, I 100% was NOT.

When my friend, Mika, came back into my life, and I learned she is trans, I had a steep learning curve to even begin to understand and know what she and other trans people go through.  For just one example, I had zero idea--zero, none, nunca, no clue--that trans people are murdered every day, for no other reason than existing while trans.

Just to go out of the house, just to walk outside, is risking your life.

My friend told me about being "trans bashed"--beaten to a pulp--back in the late 1980s.  She told me this in 2011.  I wanted to KILL someone or several someones, whomever did this to her.  My heart raced, my blood boiled, I started almost hyperventilating, I started crying, and I wanted to, as I said, hunt down the people who did this and KILL THEM.  I had to tell myself:  Edna, this happened years ago.  Decades ago.  You cannot do anything.  And it's over.  Calm down.  Yet I couldn't seem to make my heart or any part of my physical body catch up with my mind to understand that this did not just happen five seconds ago.  I could not calm down.  And that was 2011, when I was told this, and still my heart starts racing and I feel myself going into "fight or flight" mode, just thinking about it.

That is only one fraction of the fear and other emotions that trans people go through on a daily basis, just trying to go to the grocery store, or walk outside as their true selves.

I had no idea of so much about being trans, and the issues they face, but even just that ONE thing:  you can't walk down the street without the very real chance that you could be attacked, and killed, should give us all pause and hopefully make those of you who may not have known this before want to fight for transgender rights.

You may not think you personally know anyone who is trans but you probably do.  Maybe they, like my friend, back when I first knew her, haven't yet been able to name what it is they feel--maybe they don't even know yet.  Or maybe they are afraid to come out.  Or maybe they are out and you don't realize that they used to present to the world as another gender.  But I guarantee you that someone you know is trans, or somehow doesn't fit neatly into the black and white gender boxes we try to put them into.

And, when that person lets you know, please respond with love, kindness and acceptance.  And when you see a stranger who you think is trans, no matter what you think, even if you don't accept them for who they are, please at least tolerate them:  We are supposed to be a tolerant society, a respectful society.  Please live and let live.  You don't have to understand everyone, but as long as a person is peaceful and not hurting anyone, please be peaceful and don't hurt them back.

Today is only Friday and TDOR isn't until Sunday, but I felt compelled, lying there in the cold, dark dawn this morning, to write about it NOW.  I felt the need to post about it NOW.  Why wait?  This is the first year that my dear friend, Mika, is not here herself to give voice to her truth, and her community, and speak up and out, and bring awareness to Transgender Day of Awareness.  So I will do it.  Please:  take a moment on Sunday, November 20, 2022, to reflect on all the trans people who have been murdered just for not fitting into the gender box, the artificial lines we draw on a page to try to fit people into, when we are learning that gender is so much more complex than that.  Please, if someone tells you what their gender is, believe them, and give them not hate but a hug.

VOTE this time, or there may not be a next time...

Every American who cares at all about America, as in, everything that TRULY makes us special and great when we are at our best, and is truly worth fighting for (our democracy, the right to vote, the rule of law, stuff like that), MUST watch at least the first 27 minutes of tonight's The Rachel Maddow Show (link below). As my mom would say: "Yes, that's a direct order."

Watch it. And then VOTE. And don't let anyone stop you, because the coup is still in process and those in the bright red caps who may or may not have guns with them as they wait to write down your license plate at the drop box are going to try. Do not let them stop you. Do not let them stop our democracy. Too many have fought too long and sacrificed everything for our right to vote and for all that America truly does stand for and truly can be at its best. That best, that ideal America which, yes, we've many times in our history fallen waaaaaay short of, yet other times have dazzled the world by being, and which is still worth loving and fighting for making reality in the present and future, is completely dependent on YOUR vote.

Every election cycle since I came of age, I've been saying, with increasing urgency each time, "Your vote matters." This election cycle, I'm saying: if you do not vote this time, and vote BLUE, next time your vote may not matter. As there may not be a next time.

Watch the 1st 27 minutes of tonight's (10/24/2022) The Rachel Maddow Show

Go, Joe!

BREAKING: Joe Biden is on fire again! Delivering a great speech, as I'm composing this, at the DNC! I'm so proud to be a lifelong Democrat, especially at this moment in history. We haven't always dared to be daring, dared to be strong enough in our platform (and, by "we", I mean my party--I myself have been daring as all get out since I was a small sprout, but I digress #AlwaysVeryLiberal/Progressive), but I feel that now, in large part thanks to my beloved Bernie and all of us Berners, quite frankly, and our influence on the party, as well as thanks to a convergence of demographic influences and socioeconomic influences and other factors coming together, I'm hearing some GOOD, substantive stuff coming from Joe, for one, and we have also managed to PASS some good stuff recently. But we have so, so much more that urgently needs DOING!

While the repugs talk about cutting--read: eliminating--Social Security and Medicare, which we all pay into with every paycheck for our entire lives, so they truly ARE entitlements, don't let the repugs' attempts to make that into a dirty word succeed: Social Security and Medicare ARE entitlements--we all pay into them all our lives, and are thus entitled to them, we, Democrats, are talking about PROTECTING same. What we really need is single-payer, universal health care (among other things, but I got thinking about single payer due to mentioning the repugs actually trying to cut/eliminate Medicare, when we need to be trending the OTHER WAY, massively), but anyway: Joe is on fire, I appreciate him, and I think he is getting BETTER with age, like a fine, deep, complex vintage wine. You go, dear Joe!

P.S. For goodness/democracy's sake, VOTE in November! And vote BLUE!

Solar Employs, Nuclear Destroys

Those who have foisted the horror of nuclear power on the world have always tried to sell it to us as being safe, clean and affordable. The reality, the nightmare truth, is that nuclear power is the extreme opposite of all of those false, yet historically effective, sales pitches: nuclear power is epically dangerous, incredibly and catastrophically toxic to all life, and not affordable in any sense of that word.

When they start handing out iodine pills, we're all in trouble. You would think, after Three Mile Island, after Chernobyl, and after Fukushima, the lie could not be sold, could not be sustained, anymore, yet here we are: iodine pills being handed out in Ukraine.

"Oh, but who could predict a (clearly) mad man, fascist head of state using a huge nuclear power plant as cover in a military takeover?" Let's see: Oh, I know! How about: ANYONE WITH A BRAIN!

Why, why, why are these monsters, these nuclear power plants, still in existence? They all need to be decommissioned and shut down FOREVER.

In the immortal words of the old anti-nuclear slogan I have on many a treasured, vintage button in my credenza: "Solar employs, nuclear destroys".

My question to you, friends, is: do human beings ever LEARN? Do we ever understand our place? By the latter, I mean: do/will we ever understand that we have to live in respect, reverence for, and harmony with nature, as we are a part of nature. Whatever we do that is in violation of that--that is literally violence to nature--WE will pay the price for.

Will we learn in time to save ourselves? Are we capable of learning? We bill ourselves as the most intelligent species... yet I don't see any other species building nuclear power plants, and something tells me it ain't just because they don't have opposable thumbs.

One Thing I Don't Worry About...

 1.  I just love how Mary Trump (the ONLY Trump I like) calls 45 "Donald".

2.  I am known throughout the land as a worry wort.  I've been told all my life, "You worry too much."  I am getting better on that front, with intention and work, wisdom and effort, yet I'm still an Olympic level worrier.  So it is within that context that I want you to hear this:  one thing I do not worry about AT ALL, in the slightest, whatsoever, is the possibility of 45 becoming President again.  It is not going to happen.

If, somehow, he is not either in jail or in exile in another country by 2024, and if, somehow, he gets the repug nomination (which would be the best gift that ever could happen for my currently lackluster, boldness-free party that is frustrating even its most loyal forever members, such as myself), there is no chance in hell that he could actually win.  The man has been impeached, TWICE.  No, he wasn't convicted, due to the spineless, traitorous-to-the-constitution repugs who were complicit with him, but, I reiterate:  HE WAS IMPEACHED TWICE.  And that's just for starters!  I think many more people now see, unlike the few of us who did in 2015/16, that he is clearly a sociopathic con artist, a treasonous traitor, and a fascist.  Not a fascist wannabe like he was in 2015/16, but an ACTUAL FASCIST.  He kidnapped babies and tortured them in actual concentration camps that meet every known definition of that term.  THE MAN WILL NEVER, EVER, EVER BECOME PRESIDENT AGAIN, so rest easy about that, all.

What we have to worry about are the smarter-than-45s who want to be the next 45, such as the governor of my state.  Now there is an individual to worry about re 2024.

45, a.k.a. "Donald" will only be a factor from his jail cell, his home in exile in the Seychelles, or throwing plates of food around Mar-a-Lago.

Independence Day 2022

The weirdest/eeriest thing just happened.  I was having a very peaceful, restful 4th of July holiday Monday today.  I was just making some tea.  While waiting for the water to boil, I was putting some clean dishes and utensils away in the kitchen, and thinking about how I was going to go into another room and turn the TV on once I got my tea.  All of a sudden, I got a feeling.  And I said out loud to my cat, Kioko, "I have this feeling there's been another mass shooting."  I had a strong feeling that, when I turned on the TV, there would be some sort of horrible news, and furthermore, it would be a mass shooting.

Now, one could argue that this truly is "an INFJ thing".  I'm an INFJ and we do tend to have such strong intuition that it can border on, and, in some cases, at some times, even BE to the level of what some call "ESP" or extra sensory perception, and I've experienced this in the past:  precognition.  I just experienced it again.  Because I just turned on the TV and:  at least 6 killed, 31 injured in yet another mass shooting carried out with what should be, and is in other countries, a weapon of war that is not accessible to civilians.  But in America, where we seem to value being the wild, wild west above almost all else, we are "free" to carry around weapons that have no other purpose at all except to kill the maximum number of people in the minimum number of moments.  So one really doesn't have to be an INFJ to think "I have a feeling there was another mass shooting", turn on the TV, and see that it's true.

Friends, I love my country, America, very dearly.  I'm patriotic.  For all her faults, she's got so much that is very, very special in very, very awesomely good ways about her.  But in this way--this way of having more and more and more and more mass shootings, massacres--we are "special" in a very, very terrible way.  And we don't have to be.

This is the 4th of July.  A day to celebrate all that is good about America.  A day to celebrate our Independence and that we exist.  When Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, someone called out an eager question to him:  “What have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” Ben Franklin responded, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

A republic, if you can keep it.  Already a phrase I've been reflecting on so much, in the wake of 45's reign of terror.  The republic held, but in some ways, barely, and it was and remains a close call.  Our very foundations were shaken, and some cracks happened and/or were exposed.  We have a lot of work to do.  We have a lot of shoring up and rebuilding and we have also reached a moment of reckoning in our country about a lot of our history that isn't so star-spangled, and that is ugly, and that was wrong.  Yet there is so much beautiful and to cherish and to fight for--to shore up, to build up, to fix where needed and to lovingly preserve and/or restore where needed.  So I was, in the midst of all that is wrong, also celebrating the 4th in my heart, mind and imagination--wherever one's ideals live--as always.

But turning on the TV and seeing that six worlds just ended and 31 more are shattered and imperiled, and all because we think "freedom" includes wielding weapons of mass murder, makes me, and this day for me in 2022, indescribably sad.  How many times can I and others say:  BAN ASSAULT WEAPONS AND AMMUNITION FROM CIVILIAN HANDS?

Freedom is the freedom to go to church, synagogue, mosque, the grocery store, work, your elementary school, or a 4th of July parade without the very real fear of being gunned down in a massacre.  This is the wild, wild west on steroids.  This is not what our, or any, country should stand for.  We should reflect on this, this 4th of July, as six worlds just ended and 31 more might from one massacre, and then we should do a lot more than reflect on every day after this 4th of July until we get a full, federal assault weapons (and ammo) ban.

Another thing about us INFJs is that we are very idealistic.  This--an assault weapons ban--is considered a pie in the sky ideal.  But is it?  How pathological is a society in which just being able to leave the house without being gunned down is considered a pie in the sky ideal?  And how pathological is a society in which the "freedom" to own a weapon of war, of mass murder, that can kill hundreds of people in moments, is somehow considered a "right"?  Guess what, it is not mentioned in the constitution.  So let's sic Clarence Thomas on this one, since he's very big on anything not explicitly mentioned in the constitution:  there is ZERO right to carry military assault weapons of war, let him write a draft opinion on THAT.  And then, my Democratic President and Congress, LET'S ENACT A NEW LAW BANNING ASSAULT RIFLES FROM CIVILIAN HANDS, so that we can celebrate our independence with a parade and not fear being gunned down in the process.

We'll take a cup of kindness yet...

Just thinking about something.  A lot has happened to our world, in our world, and thus, to one degree or another, to all of us, in the last ... at least six-ish years.  For example, we've lived through 45, January 6, an epic global pandemic with over a million Americans dying of COVID-19, massacres of innocent people happening in our country on an almost non-stop basis... a lot.  Just this week, 19 children slaughtered, and two adults.  Right before that, innocent people in a grocery store, just for shopping while black.  It's all too much to bear, and that's just what we've gone through together, as a world and/or as a country.  I personally have also gone through a lot--a lot--in those same years.

So what is striking me this evening is simply this:  tread gently.  I think we are all way more traumatized than we sometimes realize.  As we go through our day to day lives, let's all try to be kind to each other, and ourselves.  Try to see beyond the surface to the weight that we are all carrying right now.  We may each be in varying processes and stages of trying to carry it, to let go of it, to work through it, to make sense of it... let's try extra intentionally to be kind to each other.  Just take that extra beat, that extra pause, to think about our words and actions.  That little bit of extra kindness just might change the world.

Spring

Passover and Easter both have themes of rising above persecution.  Spring itself is about surviving, new birth, transformation and hope.

Every morning, after the dark night, the sun rises.  Every Spring, after the cold, stripping bare minimalism of winter, new life bursts forth in a gentle green act of hope and faith.

In this season of survival, rebirth and hope, I pray that I, and all of us, can do the same.  I pray that I, and our weary world will trend gentle and green, life-affirming and hopeful.  Nature does.  May I, and we as humanity, take our cues from her.

Don't be silent in the face of genocide, stand with Ukraine

 I have to go to work in a few minutes but something is weighing on my heart.

You may feel like the atrocities, the crimes against humanity, the war in Ukraine, is very far away.  Maybe you think it doesn't have anything to do with you or your life.

I say that any time you have a Hitler in power, committing genocide, it has to do with all of us, and all of us have to choose:  do we turn and look away, or do we stand up for our fellow human beings and what is right?

However, what I just wrote above may not faze you.  Maybe it isn't personal enough.  How about this?

I personally have two friends who both were born in Ukraine.  Both came here to America when they were young.  One was brought here when she was very, very young, just a tiny child.  She is one of the brightest, most talented people I know, yet what stands out the most about her as a person is how very kind she is.  When she first met my dear, gentle dog, she was so movingly loving to him.  Maybe she sensed that he had been through a lot as a puppy, as she had when she was a baby and tiny child, too.  Whatever the reason, she is one of the kindest people I know, and she just has that "old soul" feel emanating from her, yet she is still very young.  She has a bright future--very bright--here in the United States, where she has been for most of her life.

But she had a half brother still in Ukraine, as well as a sister and a very young nephew.  Here is what has happened to them since Putin began his genocide.  Her half brother went to the front lines to defend Ukraine and try to stop this madness.  He has been killed.  Her sister and nephew have had to make the decision to leave their country, their home, and everything and everyone they know, to flee and try to stay alive.  They have now, with a lot of help from very good people, made it to Poland.  My friend is traveling there from the US to get them and bring them here.

Is this personal enough to make those of you who are not speaking up against this genocide realize that we all have to?  I spoke up when Putin committed war crimes in Syria, though I did not personally know anyone impacted.  I said and wrote incessantly about the need for the US to open our doors to the refugees.  I say that again now, and have been, re Ukraine.  The Ukraine genocide is in progress and, I strongly believe, it is each of our, and all of our, duty to do whatever we can to stop it.

I was not alive during the Holocaust.  But my relatives, my recent ancestors, were.  Emphasis on were, for the ones in Germany.  Had I been alive then, and in Germany, I very likely would have been exterminated in a gas chamber.  Had I been in the United States, as my grandparents were, and my mom was as a child then, I would hope I would have used my voice to speak up.  I'm alive now and I'm using it for my Ukrainian brothers and sisters, as humanity is really all one big family.  It is also personal, when I think of my two friends, who are both two of the dearest souls imaginable.  Think of all the souls who are trapped there.  Don't be silent.  Let's all use our voices.

Hey, world: we need to heed the lessons of WWII and remove war criminal Putin from power NOW.

I'm so horrified about what Putin is doing to Ukraine.  He has a history and present of committing war crimes.  He is a war criminal.  I know the man has nukes and that does give us all profound pause regarding applying the lessons of World War II here.  Otherwise, I would have written weeks ago that the man should be taken down by any means necessary.  However, in the last few weeks, it has become clear that, nukes or no nukes, the lessons of World War II apply:  fascist war criminals, who commit crimes against humanity, need to be stopped by the rest of the world BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.

Yes he has nukes, but it appears he has either gone crazy, or is a horrifying combination of sane, ruthless and limit-free:  either way, we--the rest of the world--have to go in there and stop him, now.  He may well use chemical weapons.  He may well use nukes.  He may well do all of that ANYWAY, which is one of the reasons he must be stopped now.

If a head of state is a war criminal, the world has a right to stop him from committing any further war crimes, either by capturing him and removing him from power, or stopping him by any other means necessary.

I believe in non-violence.  Whenever possible.  But when dealing with someone committing violence, on a huge scale, crimes against humanity, do we stage a non-violent sit-in, in which we all pray for peace and sing kumbaya, or do we TAKE HIM OUT?  The former has power, I passionately believe.  But the latter is, rarely, necessary in this world.  If you came home from work one day and someone was inside your house, killing your child, would you try to reason with the perpetrator?  Would you make a sign and protest?  While you might do the former for a moment or two, if it didn't work, you would STOP THE PERSON FROM KILLING YOUR CHILD.

Putin is killing many children.  He cannot be reasoned with.  He did this in Syria.  He has poisoned people who spoke out against him and were not even inside Russia (he poisoned a journalist with polonium in Britain).  He is a war criminal.  And right now, he has started World War III.  It's not if, it's here.  It's now.  It's happening.  All those air raid sirens that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I was a very small child were about THIS.  This is not a drill.  This is precisely what the Cold War sirens warned about, only minus a possibly violently insane person at the helm of the nukes on the other side.

PUTIN HAS TO BE STOPPED RIGHT NOW, BY THE REST OF THE WORLD, INCLUDING US HERE IN THE UNITED STATES.

He's not going to stop on his own.  It's not going to happen.  He won't stop until he has Ukraine, and then what?  Will he keep going?  Or even if not, will we allow him to set this precedent, that it is okay to take over another country by obliterating innocent, civilian targets in the most brutal, war crime-intensive way imaginable?

It's time for the whole world--yes, including us--to get involved.  Yes, Putin could literally go nuclear but the US should have thought of that during all the DECADES that some of us were passionately and loudly protesting nuclear weapons.  NUCLEAR WEAPONS DO NOT MAKE THE WORLD A SAFER PLACE.  They just give cover to mad men who have a stash of them.  Maybe now those in power here are starting to understand that.  Maybe not.  Maybe the world someday will get that nuclear weapons do the opposite of making the world a safer place, just as nuclear power is the exact opposite of safe, clean and affordable.  Maybe, maybe not, but right now?  PUTIN NEEDS TO BE STOPPED, even though he has nukes, and especially because he has nukes.

The world--including us--needs to go in there and remove the man from power.  By any means necessary.  The fact that he is a war criminal gives the world license to do this.  Get him out of power, NOW.

(And, P.S., as I said shouted many times over when Putin did what he did in Syria a few years back, we--the United States--need to welcome as many of his victims/refugees as we possibly can.  THAT is what makes us great, not walls or bans.)

Should we duck and cover?

Waking up to images on my television of what may be the opening salvo of World War III.

As a child of the cold war, the same age as the child in the iconic "daisy ad", with the mushroom cloud exploding as she picked flowers in a field (see video link in comment below), my generation grew up in the shadow of the mushroom cloud.

Seeing Russian tanks move into Ukraine this morning is what you might call a trigger.  Air raid sirens that blared as drills in my childhood.  I was a tad too young to have experienced "duck and cover" drills... but just the tiniest tad.  The older cohort of my same generation did.  As if getting under a wooden desk would protect you from nuclear war.

My attention shifted from nuclear war to climate change over the years, but you know what?  Nuclear weapons never went away.  The cold war may have unofficially ended yet the weapons remain.  And the worst potentials--just like the best potentials--within humankind remain.  There's a Native American parable that's message is:  "it depends which wolf you feed".  We should choose our loving wolves.  But this morning, the images on my television are not of that.

This could be what those long ago air raid siren drills, which always made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, were warning about.  If so, no wooden desks will protect us.

"The Daisy Ad", from 1964