I'm in a Tuesday morning group of mostly clergy and a lay folk or two, all of whom are Democrats.
Today, one of the group said 'only Joe Biden' could beat President Who Will Not Be Named Here.
I'm fine with Biden--I'm fine with any of the candidates and like Warren, Sanders and Harris more than Biden. But I'm fine with Biden.
I objected, saying that several Democrats could beat He WWNBNH.
That's when I was told 'no socialist leaning' candidate could win--no 'left winger'. The country, I was told was not ready for radical change.
But, as a Democratic Socialist, I think the country, at least enough to beat he WWNBNH, are willing to embrace sweeping changes.
Biden wants people like me to compromise--not go so far 'left'. And I really think, after this presidency, people will want radical changes to health care, college costs, environmental restraints, immigration, taxing the rich and other issues.
Maybe I'm wrong. I'd be fine with Biden but happier with Warren or Sanders. I'd be fine with Biden if Warren or Harris were his choice for Vice-President.
And I think it is time for radical moves, to make this once more the democracy it is meant to be and not the semi-dictatorship the current President and most of his Republican allies seem to want it to be.
Big change!
That's what I want..
But my friends in my group don't agree.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Monday, August 26, 2019
What's up with this....
What's up with this weather?
It's the last week of August and our air conditioning has been off for two days and nights--today is the third day.
Bern said it was 47 degrees when she got up at 7.
I had to put on a hoodie to sit on the deck and read this morning.
No humidity and pleasant temperatures.
I went out at 4 p.m. today and though my windows in my car were up, the car was barely warm.
I seriously don't want to know when it's ending because it is so pleasant.
But something's up--but not the temperature.
It's the last week of August and our air conditioning has been off for two days and nights--today is the third day.
Bern said it was 47 degrees when she got up at 7.
I had to put on a hoodie to sit on the deck and read this morning.
No humidity and pleasant temperatures.
I went out at 4 p.m. today and though my windows in my car were up, the car was barely warm.
I seriously don't want to know when it's ending because it is so pleasant.
But something's up--but not the temperature.
Sunday, August 25, 2019
If you really like music
Short but sweet--if you really like music go to you tube and seek "Live from here Esperanza Spalding Dancing the Animal",
If it doesn't give you goose bumps you're not like me.
I find it absolutely, positively, without a doubt amazing!!!
If it doesn't give you goose bumps you're not like me.
I find it absolutely, positively, without a doubt amazing!!!
bomb the storms
OK, even I, who has ceased being confounded by our so-call President, didn't believe this until I read it in three news sources.
The President, Who Will Not Be Named here, apparently and seriously suggested we should bomb tropical storms to keep them from becoming hurricanes that hit the East Coast.
Some who heard the comments said he meant nuclear bombs, but others said 'no', so I'll let that slide.
"They start off the west coast of Africa," he allegedly said, so we should bomb them in the mid-Atlantic and break them up.
Hey, maybe a way to get rid of the mosquitoes in your back yard--a fire cracker into the swarm.
Bombs, like traffics, can solve all kinds of problems.
He wants to welcome back Russia into the G-7 (now meeting in France) so he'll have a dictator to talk to.
Our President has a hard time getting along with the leaders of the free world because they treat him as an equal and don't been over backwards to curry his favor like dictators, who want to seem to have the support of the United States do.
How wrong can things go at the G-7?
Wronger than any of us imagine....
The President, Who Will Not Be Named here, apparently and seriously suggested we should bomb tropical storms to keep them from becoming hurricanes that hit the East Coast.
Some who heard the comments said he meant nuclear bombs, but others said 'no', so I'll let that slide.
"They start off the west coast of Africa," he allegedly said, so we should bomb them in the mid-Atlantic and break them up.
Hey, maybe a way to get rid of the mosquitoes in your back yard--a fire cracker into the swarm.
Bombs, like traffics, can solve all kinds of problems.
He wants to welcome back Russia into the G-7 (now meeting in France) so he'll have a dictator to talk to.
Our President has a hard time getting along with the leaders of the free world because they treat him as an equal and don't been over backwards to curry his favor like dictators, who want to seem to have the support of the United States do.
How wrong can things go at the G-7?
Wronger than any of us imagine....
Saturday, August 24, 2019
Six days and counting
We leave for Oak Island, NC next Saturday. Mimi and Tim and Eleanor will join us, as will John, Sherrie and Jack who are friends for 40 years in John's case and 35 in Jack and Sherrie's cases.
I'm trying to finish a long short story (is that an oxymoron?) to leave for you when I go. I only write on my blog or get email on my desk top computer. So I won't be able to write here for a week or so.
I was thinking today about our neighbors. The men on our street are Steve, Joe, Mark, Scott, John, Robert and Jim. Not much diversity, I'd say.The women are Clair, Lisa, Linda, Sally, Marsha, Naomi and Bernadine. My wife, half Italian and half Hungarian is the closest to diversity we have on this little stretch of Cornwall. There were two adopted Korean girls, but they are grown now.
But solid white Cheshire is diversifying. More Blacks and Muslims are moving here. Not fast enough for me, but with some regularity. Very few Hispanics though. We need more.
When we moved to Cheshire, 32 years ago now, I went to city hall to register to vote. I told the woman I wanted to register and she reached for a file folder. "Democrat", I said and she stared at me and reached for a totally different folder.
"Am I the only one?" I asked.
"There are a few of you," she answered.
But now Cheshire regularly votes state-wide and nationally Democratic. Locally, it's pretty close--but Cheshire Republicans are not of the current bloodline. Fiscally conservative and moderate in social issues.
Diversity has come in 32 years, in a fashion.
So, I'll try to write a lot this week and be crazed to be cut off from this outlet for my thoughts and feelings for a week.
We'll all survive.
But I do worry about taking Brigit to the kennel, though it is the best in the land--Holiday Pet Lodge in a rural part of Wallingford. They are great, wondrous, loving people. A family business.
I just hope she doesn't think we're abandoning her. She's been abandoned before--probably more than once--so we'll take lots of her stuff to the kennel, hoping the smells will remind her of us. We also take her food, so at least meals will taste like home.
Six days and counting.
I'm trying to finish a long short story (is that an oxymoron?) to leave for you when I go. I only write on my blog or get email on my desk top computer. So I won't be able to write here for a week or so.
I was thinking today about our neighbors. The men on our street are Steve, Joe, Mark, Scott, John, Robert and Jim. Not much diversity, I'd say.The women are Clair, Lisa, Linda, Sally, Marsha, Naomi and Bernadine. My wife, half Italian and half Hungarian is the closest to diversity we have on this little stretch of Cornwall. There were two adopted Korean girls, but they are grown now.
But solid white Cheshire is diversifying. More Blacks and Muslims are moving here. Not fast enough for me, but with some regularity. Very few Hispanics though. We need more.
When we moved to Cheshire, 32 years ago now, I went to city hall to register to vote. I told the woman I wanted to register and she reached for a file folder. "Democrat", I said and she stared at me and reached for a totally different folder.
"Am I the only one?" I asked.
"There are a few of you," she answered.
But now Cheshire regularly votes state-wide and nationally Democratic. Locally, it's pretty close--but Cheshire Republicans are not of the current bloodline. Fiscally conservative and moderate in social issues.
Diversity has come in 32 years, in a fashion.
So, I'll try to write a lot this week and be crazed to be cut off from this outlet for my thoughts and feelings for a week.
We'll all survive.
But I do worry about taking Brigit to the kennel, though it is the best in the land--Holiday Pet Lodge in a rural part of Wallingford. They are great, wondrous, loving people. A family business.
I just hope she doesn't think we're abandoning her. She's been abandoned before--probably more than once--so we'll take lots of her stuff to the kennel, hoping the smells will remind her of us. We also take her food, so at least meals will taste like home.
Six days and counting.
Friday, August 23, 2019
Just when you thought nothing worse could happen....
The president, in what may have been his longest tweet ever, gave the lie to thinking nothing worse could happen.
What did he say?
1) He increased more tariffs against China after they answered his earlier tariffs with those of their own. (The Dow Jones Average fell 643 points over that statement!)
2) He said 'fake news' (by which he means the honest mainstream media) was fueling talk of a recession that can't happen since the American economy has never been better.
3) He pondered whether dictator Xi of China or Jerome Powell, head of the Federal Reserve Bank was the greatest enemy of America. (The President appointed Powell to the job!!! So, if he is an enemy of American, who put him there???)
4) He said American companies are 'ordered' not to do business with China. (Never mind that no President has that power or has ever suggested they did. Plus, in the global economy, the US is intimately connected to China as well as Western Europe, Japan, Mexico and markets in the rest of the world. Parts of every thing you own, though manufactured in America, came from China or some other countries. Things we sell to China have parts made in China.)
That would seem to be enough for one day, but he is leaving in an hour or so for the G-7 summit of 7 of the most important countries in the world (Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, the UK and the US) most of whom have no idea what he's thinking or how he will behave. He left the last G-7 summit over a tiff with Angela Merkel.
I want to go to sleep tonight and wake up with Obama or any responsible adult as President in the morning.
And I want the Republicans to come to their senses and realize this guy is dragging them down the rabbit hole...or a black hole.
I believe in two party government. We don't have that now--we have the Democrats, who have lots of disagreements but will stand together, a few honest and brave Republicans, who seem to retire from Congress after becoming honest and brave, and these folks who mindlessly follow a man who has some serious issues that make him unfit to be President.
God save us.....
A very bad, awful, terrible, no-good day today.
What did he say?
1) He increased more tariffs against China after they answered his earlier tariffs with those of their own. (The Dow Jones Average fell 643 points over that statement!)
2) He said 'fake news' (by which he means the honest mainstream media) was fueling talk of a recession that can't happen since the American economy has never been better.
3) He pondered whether dictator Xi of China or Jerome Powell, head of the Federal Reserve Bank was the greatest enemy of America. (The President appointed Powell to the job!!! So, if he is an enemy of American, who put him there???)
4) He said American companies are 'ordered' not to do business with China. (Never mind that no President has that power or has ever suggested they did. Plus, in the global economy, the US is intimately connected to China as well as Western Europe, Japan, Mexico and markets in the rest of the world. Parts of every thing you own, though manufactured in America, came from China or some other countries. Things we sell to China have parts made in China.)
That would seem to be enough for one day, but he is leaving in an hour or so for the G-7 summit of 7 of the most important countries in the world (Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, the UK and the US) most of whom have no idea what he's thinking or how he will behave. He left the last G-7 summit over a tiff with Angela Merkel.
I want to go to sleep tonight and wake up with Obama or any responsible adult as President in the morning.
And I want the Republicans to come to their senses and realize this guy is dragging them down the rabbit hole...or a black hole.
I believe in two party government. We don't have that now--we have the Democrats, who have lots of disagreements but will stand together, a few honest and brave Republicans, who seem to retire from Congress after becoming honest and brave, and these folks who mindlessly follow a man who has some serious issues that make him unfit to be President.
God save us.....
A very bad, awful, terrible, no-good day today.
Thursday, August 22, 2019
jokes can hurt
President Who-Will-Not-Be-Named joked today about 'trading' Puerto Rico for Greenland.
The response from our island possession was swift and unambiguous.
"Yes!!!" the Puerto Ricans said. "Let us be part of Denmark!"
People started posting "becoming Denmark" kits on line--with some winter clothes and a Spanish/Danish dictionary.
It was laughable in some respects.
But deep down, it was racist and painful.
To trade one island populated by Hispanics for one populated by almost all white people is not a joke: it is how this president thinks and believes.
I know, I know....some people still content, as he does, that he doesn't have a racist bone in his body. But between his many comments about brown people and his recent anti-Semitic views that any Jew who votes for a Democrat is being 'disloyal' to Israel and his attacks on four Congresswomen of color...come on, you've got to at least admit he sounds racists.
Don't you?
And if you don't, contact me and we'll talk about it. Either comment on the blog or write to me at Padrejgb@alo.com.
We'll talk without racist sounding jokes.
The response from our island possession was swift and unambiguous.
"Yes!!!" the Puerto Ricans said. "Let us be part of Denmark!"
People started posting "becoming Denmark" kits on line--with some winter clothes and a Spanish/Danish dictionary.
It was laughable in some respects.
But deep down, it was racist and painful.
To trade one island populated by Hispanics for one populated by almost all white people is not a joke: it is how this president thinks and believes.
I know, I know....some people still content, as he does, that he doesn't have a racist bone in his body. But between his many comments about brown people and his recent anti-Semitic views that any Jew who votes for a Democrat is being 'disloyal' to Israel and his attacks on four Congresswomen of color...come on, you've got to at least admit he sounds racists.
Don't you?
And if you don't, contact me and we'll talk about it. Either comment on the blog or write to me at Padrejgb@alo.com.
We'll talk without racist sounding jokes.
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