Marj-at-Large: News &Views

The idiocy—and the hypocrisy—is astounding. Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Trump-wannabe governor of Florida, has mandated, in effect, that school districts must not require students to wear masks. If they do, they risk losing state funding, upon which most districts heavily rely.

In Texas, the famously failed state where a winter storm left millions without power or safe drinking water and summer heat has resulted in hundreds of power outages, Gov. Greg Abbott has issued an executive order also denying school districts the right to require masks on campus.

As I write, Arkansas and South Carolina are similarly restricted, though the former’s Gov. Asa Hutchinson has expressed regret over signing the bill that put the ban in place.

With luck, by the time you read this, those states (and others) will have come to the common sense recognition that they need to change their ways. A mask mandate is a no-brainer.

However, it seems the Dark Ages are upon us once again. Ignorance reigns. A former political party, now a cult, has led millions into a wilderness where healthcare decisions are based not on science, but on the rantings of politicians and a spurious belief that a vaccine is more dangerous than the disease that has taken over 600,000 American lives.

In banning mask mandates, Gov. DeSantis declared that they deprive parents of the freedom to make decisions regarding their children. Apparently, he's willing to risk the lives of the innocent and powerless. Children rely on the "wisdom" of grown-ups. De Santis betrays that trust.

And where's the logic? Critical thinking, to use the lingo of the day, has been canceled.

Think about it: Parents, these hands-off states say, should be free to make decisions in an arena where their choices may have a devastating impact not only on their child, but on unknown numbers of people in contact with that child. However, in those same states a female facing one of the most profound decisions of her life, a decision which endangers no-one, must first participate in state-directed counseling or undergo invasive procedures or face unrealistic deadlines—or, in some cases, all three. Because apparently the state knows best. You know what I’m talking about.

There’s also this: If we can’t get people to face the imminent and obvious danger posed by a here-and-now deadly disease, how on this (temporarily) green earth are we going to get them to take seriously the devastation promised by climate change? How many more fires, floods, and famines will it take? If climate change continues unaddressed, soon—like the movies—they’ll be coming to a theater near you. The unthinkable continues.

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The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

7/29/2021

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …” Thus, Charles Dickens, 19th century novelist and social commentator, opened his classic novel, A Tale of Two Cities. He continued “… it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair …”

Unconstrained by an English teacher disdainful of run-on sentences, he ran on: “…we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Sound familiar? Think about where we are today. We have the wisdom of Dr. Fauci, the CDC, the vaccine developers; the foolishness of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the anti-vaxxers, the climate change deniers.

We have the positive beliefs of the Black Lives Matter movement; the incredulity and refusal to believe of the white supremacists.

We have the light of the young leaders of March for Our Lives; the darkness and ignorance of the insurrectionists.

We have the hope of Amanda Gorman*; the despair of the drug-addicted.

And in regard to the last sentence in the Dickens quote above, remember we recently had a noisy “authority” who was addicted to superlatives. I suspect he still is, but mercifully he’s no longer in authority except to those who have willingly surrendered their independence and free will.

But I digress.

One of my favorite pieces of literature to share with teen-agers during my teaching years was William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. In that book, a group of young boys are stranded on an uninhabited island. With no adult guidance, they soon quarrel over what they should do and eventually split into two antagonistic groups. Chaos ensues and two of the boys are killed. The book closes when a naval officer lands on the island and finds the boys, some of whom have been longing for an adult to take charge.

As I listened to Joe Biden’s inauguration speech six months ago, I realized how the boys in that book must have felt when that grown-up appeared: Instantly relieved, but not fully aware of what awaited.

But now we have an inkling: Details to follow.

*Amanda Gorman is the young poet who read her work, "The Hill We Climb," at Joe Biden's inauguration. Read it here.

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Half Crazed and Half Sane: Political Life in America

6/6/2021

On June 17, 1858, Abraham Lincoln accepted the Illinois Republican Party’s nomination for a seat in the U.S. Senate. In his acceptance speech, he famously said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure … half slave and half free.”

Racism had enabled Whites, apparently guilt-free, to enslave other human beings. More than 150 years later, with racism still a force in America, we’ve come to another critical divide, not as cruel, not as inhumane, but dangerous for us all. That’s the divide between illusion and reality.

This democracy cannot survive, half crazed and half sane.

Lost Opportunities

Republican senators had two opportunities to join their Democratic colleagues in convicting an inept, corrupt president after he was impeached by the Democratically-controlled House. Hostage to Trump, Republican senators refused.

They then could have joined their Democratic colleagues in creating an independent panel to investigate the unprecedented (and, until the age of Trump, unimaginable) attack on the Capitol on January 6th. Hostage to Trump, again they refused.

That’s head-in-the-sand insane. The Republican party has been hijacked. It lives in the world of Donald Trump's illusion.

Meanwhile, while Trump continues to hawk the notion that the Dems "stole" the election, a video surfaces in which the Texas attorney general happily takes credit for Trump's win there. He simply blocked the distribution of mail-in ballots in selected areas, he tells us. Then there's also the inconvenient fact that federal judges rejected or declined to hear 61 of the 62 lawsuits in which Trump attempted to overturn election results in states Joe Biden won.

The Time of Magical Thinking

Analyzing stages of child development, Jean Piaget, 20th century Swiss psychologist, identified early childhood as a time of magical thinking, a time in which a child believes that what he or she wishes will affect actual events. Piaget theorized that most children emerge from that stage around the age of 10.

But as Trump continues to claim he’ll be “reinstated” as president soon, I wonder: Is Trump stuck in this stage, the time of magical thinking? And is this “stuckness” reinforced by a Republican party that has taken him to heights that, by any objective is beyond his scope? Do Republicans truly believe their only power comes from a guy

whose support depends entirely upon their surrendering independent thought and action?

If so, they become powerful, ironically, only by becoming powerless.

Think of the consequences …

In the House, Greg Pence, Indiana 6th congressional district rep, votes against authorizing an independent investigation into the January 6th insurrection, one aim of which was to hang the vice president, aka his brother!
In the Senate, Mitch McConnell, majority leader, repeatedly demands that Republican senators block action that would support the continued existence of democracy--by authorizing the creation of an independent body to investigate the insurrection, for instance.
Republican senators, complicit in the constipation of the Senate and hungry for donations from deep-pocket donors, sheep-like, comply.

What Motivates Voters?

Still, there’s the question of what motivates the voters to cast their ballots for such a transparently selfish and unprepared man.

Science journalist Tanya Lewis, writing in Scientific American, says “What attracts people to Trump? … The reasons are multiple and varied, but … developmental wounds … make the leader-follower relationship magnetically attractive. The leader, hungry for adulation to compensate for an inner lack of self-worth, projects grandiose omnipotence—while the followers, rendered needy by societal stress or developmental injury, yearn for a parental figure. … When a highly symptomatic individual is placed in an influential position, the person’s symptoms can spread through the population through emotional bonds, heightening existing pathologies and inducing delusions, paranoia and propensity for violence—even in previously healthy individuals.”

In Plain English ...

In other words (and more crassly), it’s akin to the relationship between Jim Jones and the 900-plus members of his cult who “drank the kool-aid” in a mass suicide in Jonestown in 1978.

It should come as no surprise that Trump’s hunger for adulation is driving him to resume prematurely his “rallies.” I suppose they fill a need for a man once characterized by an interviewer as having achieved something remarkable: “an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.”

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Fear the Fearful Republicans

5/28/2021

Once we had two major political parties that, every four years, articulated their goals in documents known as platforms, revealing their concerns for the country and plans for improving our lives. Now we have a party that still does that and another that has been captured by the man now known as “the former guy.”

It must be terrible to be in the latter group. With a few notable exceptions, to be a Republican operative in good standing is to give up your right to conscience, critical thought and free will. Instead, you surrender to fear.

Then this is what happens ...

Your fear of large swaths of voters drives you to do whatever you can to deprive selected constituents, especially Blacks and other minorities, of their right to vote. (Witness states' voter suppression laws.)

Your fear of females (even if you’re a female yourself—go figure) means you believe state governments rightfully limit women’s control over their own bodies. Mandating vaginal probes. Requiring a pregnant woman to view ultrasounds of the fetus. Setting impossibly early deadlines for abortion decisions. (This is "small government?")

Your fear of those who identify as LGBTQ results in your failure to support states’ anti-discrimination laws in areas such as housing and to stand behind measures limiting the participation of transgender athletes in sports they love. (What, exactly, are you afraid of?)

But worse than all the above, you fear the truth. You fear the truth so desperately that you demand expensive recounts of votes in what has been characterized by those in the know as the most secure election in history.*

You fear the truth so desperately that you blocked the creation of an independent commission to investigate the facts surrounding the bloody insurrection at our Capitol on January 6th.

And this brings us to the most damning fear of all, the one that renders you powerless: You fear a man who, in four tumultuous years in office, proved over and over again that he is functionally illiterate, ill-informed, incompetent, uncaring, dishonest, cruel, a total narcissist, and completely lacking in adult social graces.

Every time I wonder aloud at this widespread selling of the Republican soul, I’m told by people of analytical bent that it’s all about power. They align with Trump in order to stay in power, the analysts tell me. But to stay in power, I argue, they actually become powerless—and worse yet, powerless in the face of incompetence.

“Doesn’t matter” is the usual return. “Just doesn’t matter. They just don’t care. They just want to stay in office.”

So . . . Self-respect doesn’t matter. How do they live with themselves?

First thing every morning, I read the latest posting in “Letters from an American” by Heather Cox Richardson,** a college history professor who writes clear overnight summaries of almost every day’s major political events. It’s a way to start the day without hyperbole or gnashing of teeth or other distractions. However, even Heather has limits and in one of the bi-weekly talks on her Facebook page she spoke about the danger of losing our democracy and urged her followers to contact their congresspeople.***

“I’m very, very concerned about the Republican party” she said, “doubling down on this lie [that the election was stolen], tying themselves to Donald Trump and that wing of the party … so thoroughly that it’s very difficult for a Democrat to overcome. … this is the moment when we either level the playing field again or we recognize that we’re in very deep trouble indeed. … we really need to step up now and make our voices heard because if, in fact, the Trump people lock themselves into power after 2022, we’re not going to get another chance …”****

* In Arizona, this has been done by a private company called Cyber Ninjas. I can’t help myself: Did you know a ninja is “a person trained in ancient Japanese martial arts and employed especially for espionage and assassinations”? (Merriam-Webster)

** To visit her Facebook page, click here

*** For information on contacting your Representative, click here
For information on contacting your Senator, click here

**** To see the video, click here
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Two Bretts and a. Life Sentence

4/26/2021

Elections have consequences. Some affect millions in ways both trivial and profound; others affect only a few, but for those few, the consequences can be life-changing.

Such is the situation in Jones v. Mississippi. In that case, by a vote of 6-3, the Supreme Court recently overturned precedent to uphold the life sentence without possibility of parole of Brett Jones, a juvenile offender, who was 15 at the time of his offense.

Over the past 16 years, the court had limited the use of the harshest penalties for juveniles, first striking down the juvenile death penalty and later restricting life imprisonment without possibility of parole to those whom a trial court had found to be “permanently incorrigible.” Such a finding had not been made in the Jones case.

What does all this have to do with elections? Well, look at the Supreme Court vote. The justices in the majority were Republican appointees, all: Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.* Opposed were the Democratic appointees Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Elections have consequences.

Brett Jones, the plaintiff in question, was 15 in 2004 when he stabbed his grandfather to death in an altercation about young Brett’s girlfriend. Irony abounds. The court’s majority opinion was written by Brett Kavanaugh. In a Washington Post opinion piece Ruth Marcus writes, “Brett Kavanaugh upheld Brett Jones’s sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing his grandfather just 23 days after his 15th birthday. (And, yes, let us pause here to note a certain irony in the fact that the opinion was written by a justice whose confirmation hearings featured discussion about how people can change after high school.)”

In arguing against the majority ruling, Justice Sotomayor pointed out that, while Jones is white, 70 percent of juvenile offenders sentenced to die in prison are children of color. She further noted that in Louisiana, where a finding of incorrigibility is not required, a life sentence without the possibility of parole has been imposed on 57 percent of eligible juvenile offenders. In Pennsylvania, where a finding of incorrigibility is required, fewer than 2 percent have received such a sentence.

There is no judicial recourse from a Supreme Court decision.

The timing of this decision is striking: A 15-year-old, in the heat of the moment, stabbed and killed his grandfather and is serving a lifetime in prison. His appeal from this sentence fails. This, on the heels of the conviction of Derek Chauvin, who spent 9 minutes and 29 seconds—plenty of time to reflect and change his behavior—choking the life out of George Floyd. Although Chauvin has not yet been sentenced, it is expected it will fall far short of the 40 years which could be imposed.

Justice?

*And just think of this: Of the six, three were appointed by presidents whose last name was Bush (Thomas by George H.W. Bush, Roberts and Alito by George W. Bush) and three were appointed by Trump ( Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Comey). Just sayin’.

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The Tyranny of the Minority

3/18/2021

I was introduced to life in the hallowed halls of Congress when I was 12, old enough to tolerate a modicum of boredom, but young enough to recognize absurdity when I saw it. My father was scheduled to attend a conference in D.C. (we lived in Indiana at the time) so it was decided the whole family would go along for the ride. My dad said we’d get to see where and how laws were made (or not, as it turned out) before his conference started.

The first day there, off we went to the Senate gallery, from whence we watched some grizzled “lawmaker” drone on about the number of boxcars sitting, unused, on sidings all over the country.* Happily for me, my tolerance for boredom being strained, we didn’t stay long, and after we left, I asked my dad what law they were talking about.

“Oh, they weren’t talking about a law,” he explained. “That was just a filibuster.” He went on, of course, to explain what that meant.

“Just a filibuster.” That was back in the days when a filibuster (a word which, incidentally, appears nowhere in the Constitution) meant someone had to stand up and speak for hours and hours to keep the senate from voting on a bill he didn’t want to pass. (Save for Margaret Chase Smith, they were all “hes” back then, more’s the pity.) I thought it a strange way for sentient adults to pass the time, but oh, well …

Now, however, the standing up and speaking for hours on end isn’t necessary. As Philip Bump explained in the Washington Post,“… In practical terms, filibusters these days are only rarely hours-long riffs driven by passion for a cause. They are much more frequently hand-wavey threats to offer such a speech, with the end game of forcing legislation to meet a supermajority standard before passage.”

By some arcane process a senator who knows he’s in the minority on the bill in question can, in effect, announce he’s conducting an imaginary filibuster to prevent the proposal moving through the august body enroute to

becoming a law. Sixty votes (a 3/5 majority) are required to overcome the tyranny of the minority he represents and move the proposal along in a process called “cloture.”

Currently, Republicans all over the country have been pushing new state laws to make it ever more difficult for those with Democratic leanings to vote. In response, the House of Representatives, controlled by the Democrats, has passed the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. It is now up to the Senate, where Republicans threaten to block the proposal with a filibuster.

While the Democrats have a slim majority (48 Dems, 2 Independents, and the tie-breaking vote of VP Kamala Harris) and could either abolish the filibuster or make it harder (by requiring those marathon speeches, for instance), they hesitate. Why? Well, first, they’re not sure they’d have all 50 votes of the aforementioned senators and for another, when they’re the minority party, they sometimes like to use the filibuster themselves.

The fact is that the proposed voting rights act is vital to our democracy. Without it, we face a future in which Republicans can dominate the electoral college without ever receiving a majority of the popular vote. That’s happened twice already in this young millennium and we’ve all seen how that’s turned out. The GOP is now pushing for new restrictions that would make it even more difficult for minorities and the disadvantaged to vote in 33 states.

Why? In a recent Supreme Court hearing in Arizona, the attorney representing the Arizona Republican party explained that without the restriction in question, the Republicans would be “at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats.” In other words, the Republicans need to stack the deck to win.

Preserve the filibuster? Or preserve democracy? That’s the issue here. Let your senator know which is more important to you.

*Interestingly, the aforementioned trip to the nation's Capitol occurred in the last millennium. Apparently, the boxcar problem remained unsolved for a long time. I googled "boxcars on sidings" and found several newspaper articles complaining about the boxcar problem. They were published in newspapers in 2009. Click here to see the Wall Street Journal coverage.

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The CPAC Experience: Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo

3/3/2021

Soon, someone is sure to pen a fictionalized version of the bizarre story of Donald Trump and our tortured recent past. Perhaps somebody already has. If so, what, I wonder, is the genre? Satire? Fantasy? Psychological thriller? Apocalyptic tale? … Horror?

The story of last weekend’s CPAC alone would lend itself to any one of those literary types. Think about the name, for instance: Conservative Political Action Conference. I’ll admit I couldn’t bear to watch the entire lunatic event, but when I did, I didn’t see any conservatives and there was no conferring going on. The “former guy” (gotta love the Biden-inflicted moniker) fumed, whined and lied in a repetitive dump of hubris and prevarication that passed as a major speech. Sucking the oxygen out of the ballroom for an hour and 30 minutes, he provided lots of grist for satire, but none of it involved conferring with other attendees.

You haven’t experienced the real Donald Trump until you’ve read, as opposed to heard, a few “sentences.” Here’s a sample from his opening remarks: “I stand before you today to declare that the incredible journey we’ve begun together, we went through a journey like nobody else. There’s never been a journey like it. There’s never been a journey so successful.” And you thought listening to him was painful! (For complete text of the former guy’s verbal meandering, click here.)

Then there’s Ted Cruz, fresh from the self-imposed embarrassment of his Cancun adventure. (You know … the one where he abandoned his Texas constituents in their frozen, unheated, waterless state.)

He showed up in Orlando, stuffed into a business suit, and strutted about the stage, spouting inanities. “Bernie is wearing mittens, and AOC is telling us she was murdered,” he crowed a propos of nothing. And later we wandered into “… the media here looks at the men and women gathered here, at the young people gathered here, as dangerous radicals. This is the Rebel Alliance and Vader and the emperor, and let’s be clear, they’re not your father, are terrified of the rebels who are here. And I’m proud to tell you, Gina Carano [whoever she is] is standing with us.” Winding down, he closes with what he calls encouragement: “ . . . these are dark days and the media tells us this is the new Galactic Empire forever and 1,000 years.” Ted Cruz is a horror story in and of himself, and an apocalyptic one at that. (For text of his verbal adventure, click here.)

The speeches are blessedly forgettable, but I don’t know how I’m going to delete from memory the study in chaos that is the golden icon: that six-foot statue of Donald in flag-themed board shorts, red flip-flops, and (oops!) business attire on top; holding a star-topped magic wand worthy of Cindy’s fairy godmother in one hand and a document headed “We the people” in the other. And here’s the piece de resistance: hair styled in a pompadour a là Elvis Presley. It’s kind of Elvis meets the founders for a day at the beach and a long speech with a magical lady.
And never mind the inevitable comparisons with the idolizing of the golden calf in the Bible. That adventure turned out badly. Republicans, beware . . . (Text of Exodus 32 here. It’s short. You should read the whole thing.) Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo!

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"We Did Not Send Him There to Do the Right Thing"

2/16/2021

The "PA GOP official" quoted above is Dave Bell, chair of the Washington County (Pennsylvania) Republican Party ... and the complete quote is even more damning: "We did not send him there to vote his conscience," Bell said. "We did not send him there to do the right thing ... or whatever he said he was doing. We sent him there to represent us." Representing, of course, was exactly what he was doing. Representing as he saw fit, as he understood what was right, based on the evidence presented at trial.

The vote, of course, was Saturday's U.S. Senate ballot on whether to convict Donald Trump of inciting an insurrection. Forty-three Republican senators voted not to convict despite the fact that less than six weeks earlier, millions of us had watched Trump do just that. In a typical lie-laced speech, he'd sent a crush of supporters to the Capitol, promising "I'll be there with you" before retreating to the White House to watch the televised chaos unfold.

For several hours, the mob he'd unleashed stormed the Capitol, smashed windows, crashed through doors, trashed legislative chambers, ransacked private offices, beat outnumbered officers, taunted and verbally threatened VP Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and made pigsties of the restrooms. Brian Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer, was killed. Two others, reportedly traumatized by what they had endured, later committed suicide.

Another, Officer Eugene Goodman, Acting Deputy Sergeant at Arms of the Senate, became an instant hero as he baited the rioting white mob to follow him away from the entrance to the Senate chamber before it had been evacuated. Senators have voted to award him the Medal of Honor.

Nevertheless, on Saturday, by a vote of 57 (in favor of conviction) to 43 (opposed), the Senate acquitted Trump of the charge of inciting an insurrection. Foreign journalists reportedly were confused about how the majority lost, but the tyranny of the minority is grist for another mill.*

We now have one political party and one craven cult. What will become of the "Republicans"?

*In case you haven't been paying attention, the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority (i.e., 67 votes) to carry the day in impeachment cases.

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"The Chaos of the End of Something"

1/19/2021

My first days-long immersion in real-time TV began on Nov. 22, 1963 It was early in my fleeting career with the San Diego County Welfare Department. As a mid-morning orientation session wound down, a woman burst in saying, “The president’s been shot!”

In that innocent time, the unthinkable didn’t compute, and someone asked, “The President of what?”

“The president!” the messenger insisted, “President Kennedy.”

Within an hour, county officials closed all public buildings and sent everybody home. I remember walking past a flag already at half-staff, driving home on a nearly empty freeway, hearing my husband’s car pull into the drive as I turned on the TV, and watching events unfold together until after the state funeral three days later. Real life had come to a standstill.

That sensation—the cancellation of real life and time—didn’t happen again, for me anyway, for nearly four decades. By then, 9/11/2001, I was working as a school counselor. Nursing a miserable cold, I called in sick to ask a clerk to reschedule my appointments.

“Do you have your TV on?” she snapped. I didn’t. “Turn it on and tell me what’s happening,” she said, and I did—just in time to see the South Tower of the World Trade Center tumble to the ground.

Strange … how traumatic world events sear into your memory details that, in more normal times, would be so mundane you’d never recall them: a tone of voice, a flagpole, the sound of a car in the driveway, the blank face of a TV not yet tuned in to the day.

There have been other traumatic national events, of course: assassinations, mass shootings, cataclysmic hurricanes, demonstrations against systemic injustice.

But now this …

January 6th, 2021

How do we make sense of it? Spurred by a sitting president, a mob seeking to block the validation of a demonstrably legal election, ransacks the Capitol, calls for the hanging of Mike Pence, desecrates the halls where bills become laws, loots legislators’ offices, and flourishes Confederate flags in their frenzy. Once again, I’m glued to the TV.

Once again, I’m struck by the sense that I’m living in another country, a country not my own. For a long time now, I’ve accepted the fact that this country is a violent one, uneasily hostage to gun-lovers and the NRA. But I’ve never thought … until now … that we would be threatened with insurrection, especially one triggered by a petulant sitting president. But here we are.

It’s discouraging. Unexpectedly, however, I stumbled upon hope. In a classic example of what therapists call reframing, Anand Giridharadas, author and publisher of The.Ink newsletter and several books gave his take on the storming of the Capitol in a conversation with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC.

“This is not the chaos of the beginning of something," Giridharadas said, referring to the plundering of the Capitol. "This is the chaos of the end of something. … It’s not the engine of history. It’s the revolt against the engine of history. … It’s a funeral for white supremacy, a funeral for a kind of outdated, outmoded male power, a mourning for a time in which certain Americans could claim to be the default of an American and not have to share … What we’re trying to do is build a country that has never existed—a minority majority superpower.”

Food for thought, a glimmer of hope. Led by a thoughtful, competent President, much work to be done by all of us.

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Another Country

1/4/2021

Traveling in the Balkans a few years ago, I took a city tour with a local guide. I’m embarrassed to say now that I can’t be sure which country I was in at the time, though I believe it was Montenegro. Such is life on a cruise with way-too-brief shore excursions crammed into way-too-few days. Our city guide met us dockside, introduced herself and told us briefly about her background.

“I’ve never moved,” she said, “but I’ve lived in three different countries.” Thus she described life where unrest and fighting sometimes results in an area being taken over by another nation, which then imposes a new name and a new regime on the land in question.

Here, in my lifetime, we’ve had none of that. But still … though the land where I’ve lived my entire life hasn’t changed its name nor its political structure, for the last four years I’ve often felt as though I’m living in another country. But then, a couple of months ago, we had an election. I started to breathe again as I looked forward to sane, experienced leadership and—belatedly—for the first time, a woman (yay!) in the second highest office in the land. It felt like a homecoming.

But then … but then … the self-absorbed occupant of the most expensive government housing in the country decided he wanted to stay—the constitution, the law, and the time-honored tradition of the peaceful transfer of power be damned. And that, the peaceful transfer of power, never breached, is the keystone of this democratic republic.

As I write, I persist in believing that we’ll stave off this threat from the most ignorant and self-absorbed president ever to sully the oval office. I'd be even more optimistic if Republicans would follow the lead of their colleagues in Georgia. There, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger handled a one-hour phone call with the grace and aplomb of a diplomat as Trump demanded that he "find 11,780 votes" to put Trump over the top in that state. Later, Gabriel Sterling, Georgia voting systems implementation manager, offered up a detailed televised answer to all the accusations of voting irregularities.

I do worry about the Republican party as a whole, however. They brought us here and many of them are more than eager, even at this eleventh hour, when they should be ushering the wannabe tyrant out, to support him in his quest to overturn a free and fair election. The disregard for themselves, their constituents, and their constitutional duties is mind-boggling. Who do they see when they look in the mirror?

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The Pandemic Shines a Light

12/17/2020

When the Biden/Harris ticket was elected, I felt nothing but relief and gratitude. At the time (pre-Thanksgiving), I planned to write an upbeat column on those decidedly upbeat feelings. However, that wasn’t the way it turned out. I just couldn’t switch gears. What I actually wrote, my previous entry on Marj-inized, called “The Audacity of Hope,” is hardly sweetness and light.

Since then, I’ve tried to focus on the positives of the whole pandemic experience, both personally and politically.

Personally, now in the tenth month of semi-isolation, what I’m most grateful for are pretty practical—things like Zoom, for instance. I’ve never been a fan of chatting on the phone with a disembodied voice, but video chats are different--more like “being there.” You feel more connected and the more you use it, the more normal it feels. I’ve watched my son and granddaughter tie-dye shirts a continent away and had frequent family visits with all three kids at once as their work schedules (and three-hour time differences) allowed.

And every week, I’ve had chats with my two sibs (each of them hundreds of miles away), virtual Happy Hours with some of my favorite locals, video visits with a new friend, discussions in a virtual forum on topics ranging from politics and economics to religion and the challenges families face in these parlous times. In other words, with Zoom—and other video chat applications—I’ve stayed connected. Without that technology, the pandemic would have been so much more isolating.

The Gift of Time

The pandemic has also brought the gift of time. Like magic, commitments were cancelled. While I often berate myself for accomplishing what feels like next to nothing in a mostly unscheduled day, I have reviewed hundreds of 35-millimeter slides, ferreted out the best and grouped them to go to a scanner. I’m beginning the daunting task of de-cluttering, no small feat when you’ve lived in the same house for 35 years. (How can that be?) Suddenly, it just makes sense to get to those “put-off-able” tasks now.

And finally, while the pandemic hasn’t made me or my family stronger, it has made me made me appreciate the bonds we have.

One of my sons caught Covid-19 in March, very early. All we knew then was that it was highly contagious, presented with unpredictable symptoms, had no known cure, and was often fatal. With him on the east coast, me on the west, and travel foolhardy, I stayed home in spite of that famous motherly instinct to fly to the rescue. We kept in touch with frequent phone calls, but as one day turned into another and his symptoms worsened, there were sleepless nights for both of us.

Late one night I could tell he hardly had the strength to talk, but sensed he needed to feel connected. Finally, I said, “How would you like me to read to you?” With that, I pulled Marley and Me off the shelf and started reading. By the end of the first chapter, he was asleep. I was grateful not only that he had temporary relief from pain but that I had finally found something I could do to help. Sometimes the helper is as needy as the helped.

A Blessing in Disguise

With such a bungled pandemic response from the government, finding anything to be grateful for on the political scene has been a challenge, but the glaring clarity with which we can now see the Republican Party is a blessing in disguise. Clarity has been bought at an unthinkable cost: millions sickened, hundreds of thousands dead, businesses ravaged, jobs lost, the economy decimated, political division a chasm.

However, the GOP now is a party exposed. It’s clear that, in its current iteration, it is incapable of governing. Inexplicably childlike in the face of a national bully, the party has been hijacked by an ignorant, heartless, self-serving man trapped in his own delusions. As if the craven cowardice of the past four years were not enough, now we have Republicans signing on to Trump’s many attempts to get the results of the election overturned. It boggles the mind. Trump, it seems, is stuck in the developmental phase child experts call the time of magical thinking—and his followers have signed on for the ride.

Meanwhile—and here’s the good part—prominent members of the party are beginning to hurtle out of the playpen. Consider, for instance, the creators of the Lincoln Project and the numbers who increasingly speak out on national news outlets--George Conway, Steve Schmidt, Justin Amash, Paul Mitchell, to name just a few.

The Dying GOP

I’m not sure the Republican Party can be rehabilitated. The party’s performance in the Time of Trump has made it clear that they’re too immature to carry on in their current state. I’m grateful that the pandemic, coming on the heels of a chaotic three years, has clarified the need not only for a new administration, but for a new political party to replace the dying GOP. We need two parties, but we need both of them to represent legitimate principles in the political, economic, and social arenas, not to be sycophants of an inept and unqualified “leader.”

Meanwhile, we have elected two adults, eminently qualified to take on the daunting tasks at hand: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. For that, I’m grateful.

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The Audacity of Hope

11/23/2020

Well, hallelujah!

Belatedly, the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has been recognized by the current administration. This means the new kids will have office space, briefings from key outgoing officers, and opportunities for a coordinated approach to planning a smooth transition enroute to Inauguration Day.

Lately, I've been feeling like a minor character in a bad novel by an author who's lost control and can't figure out how to bring his miserable literary endeavor to an end. In this story, the main character, supposedly the hero of the piece, golfs around in the background while supporting players emerge from time to time to make a show of trying to save him.

It's like being trapped in a John Grisham novel. His books keep your attention for awhile until at the end you're dropped off in an unsatisfactory place, wondering how you got there.

It's a real-life Groundhog Day with none of the levity. Every day, we've had rising numbers of new coronavirus cases, Trump on the golf course, increases in the number of coronavirus deaths, Trump on the golf course, frivolous lawsuits filed in one state or another, Trump on the golf course, judges' dismissals of said lawsuits ... Trump on the golf course.

He cares not how many die, how many families lose their homes; how many children go hungry, lose their parents, miss out on vital parts of their education, feel less and less secure; how many health care workers lose their lives as they try to save others.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and their appointees will face huge challenges. But at least it's realistic, now, to indulge in the audacity of hope.

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Re-electing Trump: What Would That Say About Us?

10/31/2020

We make generalizations about entire countries based on the bits of news we hear about them. Even with countries as similar to ours as the UK or Australia or New Zealand, most of us know little about their internal party politics or the belief systems of various groups within the citizenry. No doubt the same is true of those living in other countries when looking at our own.

Thus, it made me think when I heard a talk show host inquire, “If we re-elect Donald Trump, what will that say about America?” With less than five days to go to the election, I immediately became too busy wondering how I would answer that question to hear the response of the interviewee. But here are a few thoughts that occurred to me:

It would say character is not important in America. It would say, for instance, that we’re fine with …

a leader whose lies are blatant, frequent and egregious
a leader who forcefully separates infants and children from parents seeking a better life
a leader who publicly insults and mocks others
a leader totally lacking in empathy and concern for others
a leader who believes there are "fine people" in the ranks of the white supremacists and has no plan for addressing the issues of persistent, systemic racism
a leader who lacks the courage to tell the truth about a roaring pandemic and to take the simple precautions that would serve as a model for protection—and who, even worse, holds “super spreader” campaign events endangering thousands of people while he knows full well he is placing them all in danger

Little known fact: The U.S. reported more new coronavirus cases (98,583) on Friday, Oct. 30th, than the entire number of cases (91,339) reported in China since the virus was first identified in December 2019. (Source, Laurie Garrett, prize-winning science journalist and author)

It would say that we accept a president who tramples on long-standing norms and uses his office for his own personal gain. It would say, for instance, that we’re fine with a leader who …

refuses to release his income tax information and to place his assets in a blind trust as modern leaders have customarily done
sullies the White House by using it as a campaign venue, an act that technically makes criminals of his participating staff who are thus in violation of the Hatch Act
muddies the concept of the separation of powers—holding unprecedented gratuitous swearing-in ceremonies at the White House for his three conservative Supreme Court appointees
steers events and visitors, foreign and domestic, to venues he either owns or otherwise profits from himself
installs “acting” appointees to high office without Senate confirmation, then fires them at will, creating a revolving door of high-level officers, many with little background in the endeavors they're tasked with supervising

Perhaps most damning, however, is what it would say, not about what we accept from a president, but about what we accept in ourselves. It would say, for instance …

that equal justice for all is not a priority
that, like Trump himself, we lack the ability to “walk in another’s shoes,” to imagine life homeless, or without health insurance, or without a reliable income that allows us to shelter and feed our families
that lower taxes, especially for the upper financial echelons, are more important than upgraded transportation and infrastructure; more important than solving the problems of homelessness and hunger; more important than health care for all; more important than a living wage as a minimum wage, affordable child care, or retraining programs for displaced workers; more important than vast wealth and income inequality that leaves millions with a poor quality of life and little hope for better

Finally, it would say that we don’t engage in critical thought. It would say, for instance …

that we can’t discern truth from lies
that we don’t recognize the dangers posed by a president who knows little history—our own or the history of world
that we fail to see parallels between armed troops’ clearing of protesters from a public square—to make way for a presidential photo op, of all things—and the modus operandi of authoritarians around the world
that we accept the word of a reckless, medically ignorant president, who mocks mask-wearing and social distancing, invites us all to his super-spreader events, and tells us the virus will magically disappear, over the word of scientifically trained, experienced doctors who tell us every day how we can best protect ourselves and others from illness
that we don’t realize a chaotic administration, more focused on undoing the work of a predecessor than on instituting forward-looking programs, may be entertaining, but is simply a failed administration

We can do better than this. We'll soon know whether enough of us make that choice.

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Toxic Maskulinity

10/25/2020

There’s a new kind of toxic masculinity. Contagious and more closely related to one’s political affiliation than to gender, it afflicts Republicans more than Democrats. Caused by an unusual toxin, the word describing it should more accurately be spelled with a k, instead of a c. Toxic maskulinity: the fear of appearing weak while wearing a face mask.

We knew months ago—and so did Donald Trump—that the best things we could do to protect ourselves and others against covid 19 were pretty low tech: wear masks, keep “socially distant,” wash hands frequently, avoid crowds. The simplicity of all that makes the behavior of the man who aspires to a second term in the White House inexplicable. He refused for months to wear a mask or to require his staff to do so—and even now, does so only sporadically.

Trump’s behavior makes sense only as a psychological aberration, a break from reality so profound that those around him—and others who support him—have been unable to resist the vortex swirling them all into a kind of collective insanity. Who of right mind would routinely risk their own and their family’s lives by refusing to take simple protective precautions?

And what leader of right mind would hold events designed to lure those thus deranged—and most likely to vote for him—into the hazards we now call super spreader events? It makes no sense.

But then, the fact that we elected him in 2016 made no sense, and very little has made sense since then.

Hope is on the horizon. We have a stark choice between an ignorant, reckless, self-absorbed man who cannot lead and a proven, compassionate, thoughtful leader who understands the problems of real people. A major bonus comes with the latter: Joe Biden has extensive foreign relations experience, first as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and later as Barack Obama’s foreign relations adviser. He knows history and geography and how to conduct himself like an adult. Distracted by the domestic disruption caused by Trump’s bungled non-response to the pandemic, we overlook at our peril the damage done to our relationships with allies and competitors on the international scene.

The next four years: We can begin the work of rescuing an endangered species—government of the people, by the people, and for the people—or we can swirl around in the vortex. Which will it be?

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Debate or Bully-ism?

9/30/2020

The first so-called Presidential debate of 2020 wasn’t a debate at all. It was an exercise in bully-ism, nationally televised evidence that some people truly never grow up, and redundant proof that a child-man lives in the White House. It confirmed once more the wisdom of Maya Angelou's admonition: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.” We all know who Trump is. I naively believed, however, that being on public display with a competitor clearly his superior would temper Trump's behavior. Au contraire! He displayed even more immaturity, more rudeness, more ugliness than I anticipated. … And my expectations were lower than a lizard’s belly.

The “debate” was a contest between barbarism and civility. At first blush, it might appear that barbarism won. I didn't count the words, but I'm sure, if the win had been based on word count, the barbarian would have been the victor. After all, he used his own allotted time and some of Biden's, too. The agreement had been that each candidate would give a two-minute, uninterrupted response to the initial question in each of the six segments of the program. Those statements were to be followed by a few minutes of discussion--as in "give and take." You might be familiar with the concept; in debates of yore, this would have seen one candidate speaking at a time. Not so now.

Was anyone surprised when Trump jumped in to talk over both Joe Biden and moderator Chris Wallace as they spoke? Shortly, the event became a free-for-all, Trump performing with all the grace of a grizzly at a tailgate party and Biden treading a fine line: respond in kind or let the bully rant? It was a no-win choice. Meanwhile, Trump lied, bragged, dodged, and attacked the Biden family. Did we know any more about his policies at the end of the night than we did at the beginning? (Does he have any policies? That's a question for another time. His "party." you know has no platform.)

The winner was not the guy who spewed out the most words. The winner was Joe Biden. While Trump confirmed his immature, bull-in-the-china-shop ignorance; Biden showed us his capacity for empathy, his love of family, and his concern for those who are suffering health and economic devastation brought on by the coronavirus. He was as presidential as a guy can be while in the sights of a run-away bulldozer.

The absence of a policy discussion was a plus for Trump. With no party platform and no plan of his own, Trump goes wherever his impulses take him. A serious discussion of policies would have been such an inconvenient handicap.

I can't help myself. I thought the best line of the night was uttered by CNN's Anderson Cooper in the “post-game” analysis when he described Donald Trump as “obesely immoral.” I’m not sure what that means, but as one of my educator colleagues used to say, “It communicates.”

There’s no point in further debates unless the moderator—or another designated person—is given a “kill” switch which would enable them to turn off the microphone of the person not designated to speak. Some have even proposed putting the candidates in sound-proof booths like those used in high stakes game shows. Unless some kind of controlling measures are instituted, the debates are an exercise in futility, of no value except for the purpose of highlighting the differences between an ignorant bully and an experienced, empathic leader. But we already knew about that.

In these chaotic times, get your day off to an equilibrious start, by reading the work of Heather Cox Richardson on Facebook. She describes herself as “a political historian who uses facts and history to make observations about contemporary American politics.” She posts a column nearly every day. They're always rational and cogent and deal with major events in the news.

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What? No Platform?

8/28/2020

Planks in political platforms are often honored in the breach. Nevertheless, voters expect that every four years each major party will formulate and publish a party platform—a coherent statement of aspiration revealing what the party stands for and its plans for the next four years.

Here’s the GOP platform for Campaign 2020: “Trust us.”

And here is the nutshell version of the 90-page Democratic platform:

To protect Americans and recover from the Covid 19 pandemic
To build a stronger, fairer economy
To achieve universal, affordable, quality health care
To protect communities and build trust by reforming our criminal justice system
To heal the soul of America
To combat the climate crisis and pursue environmental justice
To restore and strengthen our democracy
To create a 21st century immigration system
To provide a world class education in every zip code
To renew American leadership

Here, I remind you, is the Republican platform: “Trust us.”

It’s the ultimate insult. In failing to publish a platform, that’s what the Republicans are saying: “Trust us.”

Why would we? Hostage to the most immature, ignorant and mentally challenged person ever to walk the halls of the White House, the Republicans are a political party in name only. They’re props.

Apparently, they believe the 2016 platform would do and saw no need for an update. After all, the only things that have happened are … well, let’s see … a deadly global pandemic, the collapse of the economy and … uh, record-breaking weeks-long demonstrations in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, and, of course, the issue of how to keep safely educating our kids. And then there were the multiple, caught-on-camera killings of black men by the police and calls for considering more effective ways to perform the policing functions of government. Nothing much …

Interestingly, by copying and pasting the entirety of their tired 2016 platform, the GOP inadvertently told the truth about one point: "The current Administration [that, as any careful reader knows, is the one led by Donald Trump] has exceeded its constitutional authority, brazenly and flagrantly violated the separation of powers, sought to divide America into groups and turn citizen against citizen.” Yes, they have!

Unwritten is what the Republicans apparently believe: Trump will do what Trump will do, any platform be damned. It is what it is. Give us antediluvian judges, chip away at reproductive rights, continue corporate welfare and … oh, tax cuts for the well-to-do: Those are the things that matter.

Both parties’ conventions were—well—unconventional this year, but the differences between them couldn’t have been more stark. From the Democrats, we heard the sweet song of sanity: Pointed speeches, some delivered from the homes of the speakers; votes for nominees cast by citizens around the country against the backdrop of their ordinary lives; a talk by a brave 13-year-old stutterer thrust into the spotlight after a chance encounter with Joe Biden on the campaign trail.

From the Republicans, we had a serenade of sycophants: A parade of Trumps trotted out on stage (but where were the endearing personal remembrances we expect from children of the well-known?); pompous Mike Pompeo, happily ignoring the Hatch act as he touted the wonderfulness of Trump from a perch in Jerusalem; Mike Pence, fawner-in-chief, praising his boss’s handling of the corona virus pandemic … and the lies, always the lies.

Then there was also the illegal use of the White House looking like the venue of a campaign party on steroids. … But that’s another whole issue.

Right now, with historians warning we could lose our democracy within a year, this is what matters: VOTE!

Read the Democratic Party's 2020 Platform

Read the Republican Party's 2016 Platform

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Pandem-ic/onium

7/31/2020

Many years ago, our first-born, then three years old, accidentally knocked over a full glass of milk as the dinner hour began. Fortunately for him, the milk flowed across the table, whereupon we—the grown-ups in the room and those most affected by the spillage—jumped up and did what grown-ups do. Finishing the clean-up, we noticed Kevin had continued to eat through it all, only mildly interested in the commotion and certainly feeling no responsibility for what had happened.

I thought of this incident while watching footage of Trump golfing recently as the pandemic roared, federal agents wreaked havoc on the streets of Portland, millions worried about eviction, hunger, and health, and children faced an uncertain school year and even more uncertain prospects for a productive future.

Meanwhile, there was a grinning Trump in “thumbs up” pose as a photographer took a shot to memorialize the golfers’ happy day.

Yes, what I’m saying is that Trump has the maturity of a three-year-old. More than 150,000 deaths in this country alone, health care workers hammered, businesses collapsed, no coherent plans for educating kids, and an obsession with creating doubts about the validity of an election which hasn’t even occurred yet: All that, and oblivious to the suffering of millions, the most powerful man in the country, the one who could—if he would—do more to address our multiple catastrophes than anyone else in the country … golfs.

This is leadership? A struggling reader (witness the halting, expressionless rendition of his “prepared” remarks and speeches), Trump has only a distant relationship with the U.S. Constitution. His knowledge of history is limited, and a constricted vocabulary leaves him without the tools needed to think critically and analyze complex situations.

Cocooned by a feckless party that embraces the most ignorant and irresponsible person ever to occupy the White House, Trump flails his way from crisis to crisis.

Legend has it that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Trump golfs.

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Words Matter: Don’t Defund the Police

7/23/2020

Whoever came up with the call to “defund the police” made a grievous error. They used the wrong word: Defund. You don’t need a dictionary to tell you that, to the English speaking brain, that means “take all the money away,” clearly a preposterous proposal. Understandably, there’s resistance to that, and folks who support “defunding” are constantly required to explain what that term means to them.

What it means is something like restructuring, reorganizing, even reconstructing. Clearly, deep change is needed. Any time an individual believes he can, with impunity, murder another while cell phone cameras record an agonizing strangulation, it’s clear that person and the organization he represents are out of control. That’s what happened on May 25th of this year when Derek Chauvin, a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police held his knee on the neck of a prone George Floyd until he died lying in the grit of a city street. Bystanders repeatedly beseeched Chauvin to stop. Chauvin, hand-in-pocket, looked directly at them. Unmoved he continued his murderous pursuit until George Floyd died a cruel and senseless death.

Now, we’ve seen. Now, we know. And now, after weeks of protests spanning the country and, indeed, the globe in the midst of the chaos already brought by an unprecedented pandemic, we’re called upon to act. Turning “police departments” into broad-based “departments of public safety,” staffed not only by law enforcement but also medical, mental health, and social work personnel makes sense.

Less than a month after Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, Rayshard Brooks fell asleep in his car in the drive-through lane of a Wendy’s. After an initial encounter during which both Brooks and the officers sent to check on him spoke calmly, they attempted to handcuff him and, when he ran away, shot him dead. Had unarmed medical or mental health personnel, not police, been sent to the scene, Brooks would likely be alive today. We need a broader view of what constitutes public safety.

This will become even more important as we struggle through the pandemic and its aftermath.. The medical and mental health effects of prolonged isolation, job loss, economic devastation, and as yet unknown health issues to be experienced by coronavirus survivors will demand a multi-faceted response to public health and safety far beyond what a traditional police response can provide. Leadership for this will have to come from local governments. Perhaps this will be the proverbial silver lining.

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So Much Lost, So Much to Gain

7/6/2020