Health care is self-care. With all the attention on the 2018 midterm elections coming up in 3 weeks, don’t forget to take care of yourself. Mark your calendar and sign-up if you need coverage!
And! If you’re 18 or older and a US citizen, you have the pre-existing right to vote.
tl;dr? If you’re not sure if you’re registered to vote, CHECK TODAY! This is the last day to register in a long list of states.
And November 6, 2018, VOTE!
A poetry Public Service Announcement: VOTE!
Today, we take time to remember that the struggle for a more perfect union is long. Protests and protesting can seem futile. This weekend the GOP steamrolled Brett Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court. In the wake of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony, many laid down their own stories of sexual violence, assault, and rape on the track to slow or stop the train, but the Old White Guys and Gals persisted. Old age and treachery.
And so the long view. Some, poetry written, and read by Daniel Berrigan, (Hat tip: photo dropped by John Cusack on Twitter):
“Some walked and walked and walked” – Keep walking.
A few notes:
Poetry speaks to the soul. SOME reminds us that some battles are lost. Keep standing. Keep walking. It’s the future, it’s not a war, and it might not be your future, but stand, walk, protest. Not once. Not twice. Continuous.
John Cusack tweeted this photograph of SOME on October 7, 2018, 5:19PM. His parents received this from Daniel Berrigan with a heart! and I thought how wonderful to receive poetry like this in the mail! From the poet!
And, who is Daniel Berrigan? And why do I not know this?
Slipping down the Wikipedia rabbit hole, Daniel Berrigan was a Jesuit priest, activist, and poet. He took an active role in the protest of the Viet Nam War, (Catonsville Nine), and he was born in Virginia, Minnesota! And so were we! But I digress.
I’ve seen John Cusack movies, BI – Before Internet. And so in this age of the internet, it is a totally pleasant surprise to find that John Cusack is a political activist with serious chops. His reasoning and arguments go beyond slogans. Agree or disagree with him, his arguments are thoughtful, weighty, considered.
And on that note, I’ll end with this rally cry: Buckle up!
Stand, walk. We’ve work to do.
General Election Tuesday, November 6, 2018. Vote. Vote. Vote.
Before we get started, in mathematical notation, n factorial is written n! For n > 1, n! is the product of all the integers between 1 and n. Example:
4! = 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 or 24
Wowza! Factorials get pretty big, pretty fast. Let’s go!
• 1! For love of an exclamation point!
When learning to punctuate, we learn that exclamation points should not be overused. Exclamation points emphasizeexcitement! Whoops and hollers! Surprise! Etcetera! Overuse undermines their impact! See?
To which I say, bah! Humbug! As a matter of expressing my complete excitement and enthusiasm for friends, the punctuation I have opted to use in salutations and greeting for personal correspondence is “Dear Jane!” or “Jane!” (Substitute your name for Jane.)
Consider the difference in your responses between:
Dear your name,
-and-
Dear your name!
If we read past “Dear your name,” we might discover we owe money, we are in need of services we were previously unaware of needing. The comma is the punctuation of business, all business, just the business ma’am. And we hate being ma’am-ed and we head to the shredder or beat the ‘delete’ key. Of course, there ispersonal correspondence for which the comma ‘,’ is still preferred. After all, boundaries do need to be maintained. Good fences make good neighbors and all that.
But! An exclamation point engages and expresses my excitement not about what I’m writing, but about our relationship! Good things to come! maybe? Adventure is afoot! I hope. Read on! Dear your name!
• 2! FLOTUS photo. For reals?
This week a photo of FLOTUS holding a child in Africa whose skin is ebony-colored threw us off a bit because FLOTUS, Melania Trump, appeared to be genuinely happy in the embrace! Perhaps Occam’s B**bstraps is too simple an explanation and FLOTUS is not the racist we assume.
And we would be happy to be wrong but given the company she keeps, this could be just another gaslight lit on the way to making us all crazy. We’ll keep an eye on this.
• 3! or 6. Universe bends.
In a concurrent sign from the universe that I am approaching page n of my long-hand journal, the blue ink pen I was using, ran out of ink! Synchronicity!
• 4! or 24. Peak news week!
In a new news peak news week — Rosenstein-fired-not-fired, Kavanaugh, FBI investigation, FLOTUS jaunt to Africa, UPCOMING ELECTIONS – VOTE! it’s a long list — the NYTimes couldn’t contain themselves and dropped the story of Trump multi-generational tax fraud writ large.
Given the current political environment, my projections for possible outcomes:
Housing subsidies are reduced to limit the money the Trumps of the world siphon off the public good.
Increased regulation of rent subsidies.
Or, my favorite: investigation and prosecution of white collar, briefcase crime!
You might have waited for a less busy news week, but that might have been a long wait. So, great reporting NYTimes! Tax fraud is what sunk Al Capone.
• 5! or 120. Clickbait.
It may interest you to know that blog posts get more attention if they include photos and references to food. This is not a photo of tacos:
Morning coffee with Lupita.
• 6! or 720. Friends!
In other late-breaking photographic video evidence this week, we are saddened but not surprised to learn that Prescedense OTUS does not have any friends, acquaintances, aid. No one is close enough to him, concerned enough to tell him or help him, or interested enough in his appearance to inform him that there was toilet paper stuck on his shoe. Between a bathroom, the tarmac, the stairs. No.one.said.a.word.
Return text to FEMA Presidential alert from all of us: Hard to make America great again with toilet paper on your shoe, you orange-redacted-redacted-redacted redacted.
But maybe it was intentional? The USA as the metaphorical unflushed toilet paper stuck to his shoe? I digress. If FLOTUS were not off in Africa? I’d bet the toilet paper would still be stuck on his shoe all the way up the stairs and onto Air Force 1. Just sayin’.
• 7! or 5040. Civic participation!
With the abysmal performance of SCOTUS-nominee Brett Kavanaughnaw under pressure, the limited FBI investigation, the rush by die.die.die Mitch McConnell to seat Kavanaughnaw when there are other suitably objectionable candidates, Kavanaughnaw’s sorry-sad-sack-abuse-cycle-continues statement in the WSJ, I am so.in awe at the number, quantity, quality, and responsiveness of protests arising around the country and especially in Washington, D.C.
Individually, we’re navelent. In aggregate, we are a civic American force to be reckoned with.
With the advent of personal communication devices, is it any wonder interpersonal relationships suffer? We cannot compete. We do not operate in micro-nano-itsy-bitsy-mini second moments. We operate in tree time, in real life rings earned by trips around the sun, the slow build-up of experience, time expressed in minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades. The slow patina of age. And we short-circuit all that age and grace with clickbait — the flying bits sent through space and time which do not require our attention but consume our thoughts.
With a touch of irony, I offer this bit of clickbait – a video by Edward Tufte of Inge Druckery – a designer and educator. It is a lush production taken at a pace which encourages one to slow.down, to immerse oneself in a pursuit that does not have an immediate payback or maybe any payback at all. This video reminds me that thoughts should be sustained beyond the rush-rush of 24-hours news cycles and click bait. There is a long game. It includes thoughtful design and beauty.
I find even 3- or 4-minutes restorative. (The entire video is 37 minutes long.)
Before I get to raging, I would offer a CAPS LOCK ON, BIG BOLD THANK YOU to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. The perfunctory nod to a full vetting of a Supreme Court Justice nominee yesterday by the GOP-chaired Judiciary Committee was a sideshow shamshow spamshow. And yet she persisted. Silence would have been easier. Never say a word and she could watch her teenage attacker take a rightfulhard-earned SCOTUS seat of white male privilege he assumes.
In the recount of her assault thirty-plus years on, the hurdles she had to leap to be seated in her seat of testimony, the emotions she still lives with, Dr. Blasey Ford is the face of civic bravery.
#IBELIEVEHER
#IBELIEVEDRFORD
Kavanaugh Circus Shamshow Spamshow
Yesterday women listened to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee of the assault she experienced as a teen at a party with SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Women across the country listened. And wept. Vivid memories were recounted for the circus shamshow spamshow the GOP reluctantly hosted to demonstrate THEIR COMPLETE LACK OF RESPECT FOR WOMEN, CONSTITUENTS OR OTHERWISE.
Dr. Blasey Ford has been haunted 34 years by the sound of the laughter of her attackers as they walked down the stairs, back to the party. Laughter while she made a hasty exit. In the echo chamber of the internet void yesterday, the webs and live broadcasts filled with different stories, other lyrics sung to the same tune. Abuse, attacks, violence lived through and past and what they can’t forget. What sticks. What haunts.
The pain of the laughter of their attackers in retreat.
Laugh it off.
It.
Objects are ‘it’.
WOMEN ARE NOT ‘IT’.
Hacking Anonymity
The New York Times recently ran an article about Defcon 2018, hackers and anonymity. The tech world has been dissed in the last few years for being too insular, too exclusive. It has been difficult for women to gain a foothold in STEM technologies. Intelligence is not enough.
Concurrent with hackers losing anonymity, the formerly anonymous Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, isn’t. She had to rally her troops, tough it out, move, hire security. She requested the FBI investigate and corroborate her assault. Maybe a chance that she could remain anonymous, but no.
And I’m conflicted. I celebrate Ms. Sell’s achievements and recognition for dark web expertise.
I tend toward disgust that I think the NYTimes is pandering to the current women’s movement.
The Fall of Wisconsin, by Dan Kaufman
I read a review of the recently published The Fall of Wisconsin by Dan Kaufman.
Once we were a progressive state. I guess now we’re a regressive state. Roads here are the 2nd worst in the country to which I say, what else needs to be wrecked to take 1st place? It can’t be much more less. The Safe Transportation Over Politics (STOP) has renamed potholes “Scott Holes” in honor of current Governor Scott Walker, the self-serving political opportunist who grasps for the national brass ring, Koch money, FauxCons.
And it is Fall in Wisconsin! The leaves turn, the acorns fall, the squirrels chunk up, the sun barrels toward the solstice and rises later, sets sooner. The air is crisp. Cold enough for the furnace to occasionally kick in.
And so, as the winter solstice approaches with the speed of the earth around the sun, I hope November 6th brings with it a metaphorical political solstice. We have wintered through the Walker.
VOTE!
Calendars
I watched the Senate Judiciary hearing yesterday. Some thoughts and prayers:
Brett Kavanaugh is an angry man. Fuming, spitting angry with a disproportionate response for one who claims innocence. Definitely unbefitting, undesirable, unacceptable behavior for a Supreme Court Justice.
If he is seated, my prayers are with Justices Ginsberg, Kagan, and Sotomayor. If I were in their robes, I would choke the living spam out of him just on principle. And that is why I expect more of Supreme Court Justices. They are better persons than me.
Brett Kavanaugh has calendars. Calendars from HIGH SCHOOL! What the spam!? That was a Mitt Romney and ‘binders full of women’ moment.
Elaborating on small details from high school and then college, I could only think ‘guilty, guilty, guilty’ and if not guilty of the charge, guilty of something. He is definitely not SCOTUS material. Not temperament or character.
Under cross-examination, an exacting intellect, a kind personality, an individual intent on maintaining the independence and reputation of the judicial branch would not default to aggressive and defensive language. And Brett Kavanaugh was aggressive. When he was yelling — privileged, immune, elite, unaccountable – it was a short leap to imagine him as Dr. Blasey Ford described. I cry for her all over again.
Someone should check on Ashley Kavanaugh. Judge Kavanaugh’s comportment and delivery of his opening statements seemed to be those of an abuser. Intimidation, outrage, denial, shifting of blame. His were the opening statements of an innocent man? Nope. Not buying it.
Based on his opening statements and comportment throughout the hearing:
BRETT KAVANAUGH DOES NOT BELONG ON THE SUPREME COURT.
BRETT KAVANAUGH SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM HIS CURRENT POSITION AS A FEDERAL JUDGE.
BRETT KAVANAUGH IS NOT A SAFE PERSON.
STILETTOS!
I end with this observation.
Women are taking big steps, huge strides forward to claim, inhabit, and create space for safety, sanctuary, equality.
#METOO will be self-hobbled by fashion if Net-a-Porter is any harbinger of trends, and it is. I flip through its pages looking for a sign that it’s okay to wear mom jeans again, and it is, but I digress.
The latest issue features the article Stepping Back Into Stilettos by Gianvito Rossi. Well isn’t that wonderful? What’s next? Corsets? Foot-binding?
WE WILL INTENTIONALLY HOBBLE OURSELVES FOR FASHION.
Free and fair elections, right? I mean this IS the United States of America. Democracy is our middle name. Democracy is in our DNA. Democracy is a struggle for a more perfect union.
This week I heard a story about a farm visit and the invitation included the warning to stay out of the barn. The old, family-farm wooden barn.
Let’s face it. That sounds like a direct come-hither invitation to see what’s in the barn.
And so it was.
You were born here, a US citizen. Your residence has never been elsewhere. When you reached adulthood, ‘voter‘ was assumed as part of your identity. That barn is not off limits to you. You can vote with impunity. ‘Voter’ is redundant with your standing as a lifelong citizen of the US.
Not so fast.
In the struggle towards a more perfect union, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 reminds us that the right to representation was not guaranteed for racial minorities. Until the 19th amendment was passed, approximately half of the population couldn’t vote. And prior to 1828, white male non-landowners weren’t represented in the struggling union either. Big legislative strokes were needed to include minorities, women, and white male non-landowners.
But “old age and treachery always overcomes youth and skill.” ¹
Not quite so immediate and identifiable, voter suppression laws now are more subtle. Strict voter ID laws² infer a voter has access to a government facility which issues valid ID, limited voting hours restrict those constrained by work requirements, limited voting locations infer access to adequate transportation to and from the polls, and the list goes on. Laws designed to keep you out of the barn. We may not be subjected to a poll tax, but the resources needed to get you to the polls takes its toll — hidden poll taxes in plain sight.
So check out that old, family-farm wooden barn while you can. They are falling apart all over.
And vote like you can’t! The union is struggling.
Check your voter registration status! Today! Many states have voter registration deadlines.
General Election Tuesday, November 6, 2018. Vote. Vote. Vote.
Chop wood, carry water. So Zen. Small, consistent actions win the day. Enlightenment will be yours. Already enlightened?
Chop wood, carry water.
This week the New Hampshire Gazette – Admiral Fowle’s Piscataqua River Tidal Guide (Not for Navigational Purposes)¹ column contained this little gem dated September 28:
“1891 – In New York a 72-year-old writer named Herman Melville dies in obscurity.”
Herman Melville died not knowing that 90 years later, in 1981, Moby Dick was force-fed reading for an American Literature course. And I was not the only one, it was not the only course, and it was not the only university. After Melville died, Moby Dick became a thread in the rich fabric of American literature. Speaking of fabric, another Melville quote:
“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.”
-Herman Melville
In life, Melville was not feted for Moby Dick. One-hundred-twenty-seven years after his death? Plays staged, movies made, and the Moby Dick Wikipedia entry looks to be a comprehensive Master’s thesis with 167 footnotes. Whoa!
You don’t know if what you do makes a difference. Do it anyway.
Chop wood. Carry Water.
I worked at an electric utility on the bulk electric or, to my way of thinking the supply-side of the house. Power was measured in units of megawatts. Every four (4) seconds at hundreds of meter points across the footprint, measurements were taken, calculations were made and generators set to respond would follow the load. In megawatts. For the sciencey, a megawatt is 10 raised to the 6th power, (10**6 or 1,000,000). By way of comparison, kilowatts are delivered to residences, consumption is billed in kwh, A kilowatt is 10 raised to the 3rd power or 10³, but let’s get out of this rabbit hole.
If you plugged in your Christmas tree lights on a hot muggy day in July, we wouldn’t notice. Air conditioners running full bore, your string of lights would be a drop in the ocean. Our attention was focused elsewhere. But! The first Monday after Thanksgiving, tens of thousands of homes have Christmas tree lights plugged in and ready to go. The sun goes down, the load goes up but not like the Monday before. In aggregate, those Christmas tree lights make a difference, and you have our attention. Everyone weighs in with more light. And the point?
You might not be aware of the difference you make. Make a difference anyway.
¹ My absolute favorite newspaper: The New Hampshire Gazette, Volume 262, No. 26, September 14, 2018. Admiral Fowle’s Piscataqua River Tidal Guide (Not for Navigational Purposes) is on the back page.
As we struggle a more perfect union, I observe that more and more vowels are taking a knee replaced with an asterisk to mask the pedestrian words that have merged into the fast lane on the public discourse freeway. She*t. P*ss. F*ck. Low words abundant in high places. But just like we know it’s Superman hiding behind a suit and glasses, we can still read all the words Clark Kent has cleaned up. When the headline includes the word ‘b***h’, Superman knows it isn’t a blush or brush Clark’s talking about.
And so dear reader, when editing or masking words, I’ve taken the tack that vowels remain in place and instead choose to mask select consonants. Sh*t becomes s*it. P*ss becomes pi*s. H*ll becomes he*l, or *ell. Still readable. You still know of what we speak. S*it could be slit and pi*s could be pits but you know they’re not and you do not need to buy a vowel. You’ve got the puzzle covered.
But then the conundrum of how to censor f*ck.F*ck is not so simple. Censored any other way it still sounds like it reads. Maybe *uck? Nah. And so taking a trick from the Monty Pythons, I propose that ‘spam’ be used as a substitute for the words that are still too robust, still too raw, still too pedestrian to walk by the editor’s blue pencil. Spam, a four-letter word, it can be a noun, an adjective, or it can be verbed and we can leave the asterisk alone. Totally flexible that spam:
Go to spam.
Spamhead.
Spam it.
What the spam?
Spam right off.
He hasn’t a spamming clue.
Spam! Bonus: suitable as a substitute for longer words too:
That spam better have my money.
Grab them by the spam.
You know what’s been said. And the Pencesniffians can read through all that spam too!
Spam. Spam. Spam.
It works.
I offer this clip of Monty Python’s ‘Spam’ in the event you think I used too much spam in this post:
