RANTINGMAN

IT’s no secret that I HATE Tucker Carlson. Hate? I mean loathe; despise; abhor. YUP! I really do. And for many reasons. Today, I am picking a reason…maybe because I’m a nurse. Maybe because I’m elated to get my second CoVid19 vaccine dose on Saturday. Maybe because I just read a sad story about a lovely woman who died yesterday.

Mr Carlson spreads lies and undermines truths consistently and people listen. Not only does this man add to the overall falsehoods constantly spread on FOX News, but HE IS FOX News. A grinning deity with well coiffed hair, expensive suits and youthful looks. But don’t let this fool you. He is a Host so powerful and way too influential over conservatives in our country to the point of being DANGEROUS! He is NOT a precocious, smart, boyish, nor witty intellectual. He is NOT a journalist. He IS an unmanly, inhuman, mean-spirited spewer of falsehoods, DISinformation and delusional rhetoric. His wit is mean. His truth are lies. And…..(saddest part) …people are listening. MANY PEOPLE. And, his followers, so many of them, will gleefully follow him off a cliff. The Pied Piper of Hades…This man. This JERK is listened to… and! ..Scares the hell outta me…

He says many things, but! When it comes to SCIENCE (THE TRUMPTABOO), COVID19 and our vaccines….NOW I NEED TO RANT! I am so angry that FOX News (Mr, Carlson) DARE spread ANY vaccine skepticism and falsehoods. This ‘man’ is putting people’s lives in jeopardy, causing a clear and present danger to the health and well-being of Americans. In doing this, HE IS NO AMERICAN.

Mr. Carlson’s openly criticizing the ‘glitzy’ vaccine rollout as a marketing campaign? What? An intolerable suggestion mocking the very gift that may, in fact, save his life. He calls it ‘too slick’…’feels false’. Oh! Sorry, Tuck? Don’t like the packaging? Then…YOU DONOT GET ONE!

Hey! We all know The First Amendment. It’s not that this ranting fool doesn’t have the ‘right’ to say what he wants…it is simply because WHAT he is saying is a threat. His rhetoric spreads falsehoods and attempts to mislead a public that clings to his every word. He is a menace to the mental and physical health of our nation. FOX News knows this. HE IS FOX News. Mr. Carlson…you are No journalist. FOX News is NOT an News Organization. It is a dishonest publisher of an alternate reality, which for some reason, too many people adhere to. Hmmmm…. talk about ‘Fake News’. Shame on you all. PLEASEREADTHIS🗽

RANTINGMAN

IT’s no secret that I HATE Tucker Carlson. Hate? I mean loathe; despise; abhor. YUP! I really do. And for many reasons. Today, I am picking a reason…maybe because I’m a nurse. Maybe because I’m elated to get my second CoVid19 vaccine dose on Saturday. Maybe because I just read a sad story about a lovely woman who died yesterday.

Mr Carlson spreads lies and undermines truths consistently and people listen. Not only does this man add to the overall falsehoods constantly spread on FOX News, but HE IS FOX News. A grinning deity with well coiffed hair, expensive suits andyyouthful looks. But don’t let this fool you. He is a Host so powerful and way too influential over conservatives in our country to the point of being DANGEROUS! He is NOT a precocious, smart, boyish, nor witty intellectual. He is NOT a journalist. He IS an unmanly, inhuman, mean-spirited spewer of falsehoods, DISinformation and delusional rhetoric. His wit is mean. His truth are lies. And…..(saddest part) …people are listening. MANY PEOPLE. And, his followers, so many of them, will gleefully follow him off a cliff. The Pied Piper of Hades…This man. This JERK is listened to… and! ..Scares the hell outta me…

He says many things, but! When it comes to SCIENCE (THE TRUMPTABOO), COVID19 and our vaccines….NOW I NEED TO RANT! I am so angry that FOX News (Mr, Carlson) DARE spread ANY vaccine skepticism and falsehoods. This ‘man’ is putting people’s lives in jeopardy, causing a clear and present danger to the health and well-being of Americans. In doing this, HE IS NO AMERICAN.

Mr. Carlson’s openly criticizing the ‘glitzy’ vaccine rollout as a marketing campaign? What? An intolerable suggestion mocking the very gift that may, in fact, save his life. He calls it ‘too slick’…’feels false’. Oh! Sorry, Tuck? Don’t like the packaging? Then…YOU DONOT GET ONE!

Hey! We all know The First Amendment. It’s not that this ranting fool doesn’t have the ‘right’ to say what he wants…it is simply because WHAT he is saying is a threat. His rhetoric spreads falsehoods and attempts to mislead a public that clings to his every word. He is a menace to the mental and physical health of our nation. FOX News knows this. HE IS FOX News. Mr. Carlson…you are No journalist. FOX News is NOT an News Organization. It is a dishonest publisher of an alternate reality, which for some reason, too many people adhere to. Hmmmm…. talk about ‘Fake News’. Shame on you all. PLEASEREADTHIS🗽

Homicide, just as it was before…

‘The Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide’. And, Again. You are WRONG, Mr Carlson. Dead Wrong.

To begin this story…on a Monday evening, Minneapolis Police receive a call about a man trying to use a counterfeit 20 dollar bill to buy cigarettes… and, 17 minutes later, George Floyd is seen lying motionless on the ground. He is pronounced dead shortly after. The victim was a 46 year old bouncer originally from Houston. He lost his job at a restaurant due to the Corona virus pandemic. Floyd’s death triggered major protests in Minneapolis, and sparked rage across the country.

The trial of Officer Derek Chauvin is slated to commence sometime in March in Minneapolis. But this piece is not about this trial. It is about George Floyd and what caused his death. Mr Chauvin is accused of killing Mr Floyd through asphyxiation by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes. There was a an initial scuffle where Mr Floyd was thrown into and then pulled out of a police car. However, once Officer Chauvin heaves him onto the street, Mr Floyd is now lying on the pavement, face down. That’s when two witnesses start filming. The first footage shows us that four officers are surrounding Mr Floyd. It’s the first moment when we can clearly see that Mr Floyd in fact on the ground, with three officers applying pressure to his neck, torso and legs. At 8:20 p.m., we hear Floyd’s voice for the first time. The video abruptly halts when another officer appears to tell the person to ‘Get off to the sidewalk, please. One side or the other, please.” The officers then call for non-emergency medical assistance to report an injury to Mr Floyd’s mouth. Clearly, in the background, are Mr Floyd’s calls for help while struggling with the restraints. The call is quickly upgraded to a Code 3, a call for emergency medical assistance. At this time, Darnella Frazier is filming from a different angle, with her footage clearly showing Chauvin continuing to pin down Mr Floyd. We are unable to see clearly the actions of Officers Kueng nor Lane, however, in the two videos, Floyd can be heard telling officers that he can’t breathe at least 16 times in less than five minutes. A bystander is heard asking the Officers: “You having fun?” Officer Chauvin never takes his knee off of Floyd even as his eyes close and goes unconscious.

Medical and Law Enforcement experts have stated that these four police officers have clearly committed violations. Infractions that turned deadly. Keeping Floyd lying face down on the street while continually applying pressure for at least seven minutes made it impossible for Mr Floyd to breathe. Officer Chauvin continually pushed his knee into Mr Floyd’s neck, a move banned by most police departments. Minneapolis Police Department policy states an officer can only do this if someone is, quote, “actively resisting.” And even though the officers call for medical assistance, they take no action to apply any kind of medical aid to help him while waiting for the ambulance. According to the complaints against the officers, Officer Lane asks him twice if they should roll Floyd onto his side and Chauvin clearly says ‘NO’. Twenty minutes into the arrest, an ambulance finally arrives on the scene.

The county medical examiner ruled the death a homicide caused by a combination of the officers’ use of force, the presence of fentanyl and methamphetamine in Mr. Floyd’s system and his underlying health conditions. This is a truth. Other ‘theories’ have been presented. My job here is to tell you the truth. Not as I see it. As it is clearly seen.

Misinformation about the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent protests abound. Conspiracy theories range from claims that Floyd’s arrest was staged to others saying he is still alive, despite video evidence that this 46-year-old unarmed black man died in police custody. Other gratuitous claims say Floyd’s death was part of bizarre international plot to undermine the U.S., and some go so far as citing that Officer Chauvin, who was charged with third-degree murder, is an actor.

Twitter has been an abundant source of multitudinous and preposterous theories…simply ‘Google’ the phrase “George Floyd is not dead” and you will observe a wide range of conspiratorial stories on the topic, including a theory that ‘George Floyd’s execution was part of a Russian military intelligence operation.’

Most distressing to me is a news clip seen on FOXNews in which the ‘SHOCKJOCK’ Tucker Carlson states that Mr Floyd’s death has been attributed to an overdose of Fentanyl. ‘There was no physical evidence that George Floyd was murdered by a cop’, Mr Carlson so untruthfully and acrimoniously declares. He goes on to say ‘the autopsy showed that George Floyd almost certainly died of a drug overdose’. However, and IT IS CLEAR, the report released by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s office said Floyd died of “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression.” The manner of death was ruled homicide, Mr Carlson. Again, your preachings will be entered in the Guinness Book of World Record Falsehoods.

“George died because he needed a breath,” said Ben Crump, the attorney representing Floyd’s family. “He needed a breath of air”. It is as simple as that. And, as we near the beginning of Officer Chauvin’s murder trial, we need to understand that bigotry and white supremacy are also in trial here. A trial in the name of upholding the knowledge and acceptance that Black Lives Matter.

In conclusion, when there is distraction and confusion, there presents an opportunity for distortion and falsification to enter into the arena. The lack of reliable information creates a stage for false players to exploit with mis- and disinformation.” In the end, Mr. Crump, the family’s legal representative, encourages all of us and the community to “take a breath for justice, take a breath for peace, take a breath for our country, but more importantly, take a breath for George, since he didn’t get the opportunity to take a breath.”

Disagree to agree …family dynamics in the age of Trump

The beginning

Yes. I have a loved one one who is a Trump supporter. I do not say ‘was’, as even though he is no longer president, the continuation of TRUMPISM endures. It is a horrifying position that I hoped I would NEVER personally witness. Yet, here I am. It’s not a situation where the person of whom I am speaking just ‘voted’ years ago for Trump. The loved one of whom I speak is a follower. A Trumpster. And now, with his absence from the White House, it goes on. Replacement figures. Same ideology. This makes it worse, for I deluded myself that things between us would improve, amend, rejuvenate. No. I remain just as heartbroken; disgruntled; distressed. I need to maintain a close relationship with this loved one. And it is hard. Almost inconceivable. Absurd, really. So unthinkable that it is ALL I think of! I ruminate. I ponder. I deliberate. I brood. It is constant. I breathe it. I sleep it. I eat it. It is my being. And, no, I am not able to talk about it with them. I have tried. It is futile. We fight. I mean robustly argue. It gets dirty. Nasty. Mean. No one says anything right. I turn into a witch. He curses me, labels me ‘judgmental, for ‘he is a good, kind person’! How can I be so objectionable and disagreeable? Mean? … and, I erupt at him like a volcano with an ocean of fierce words, offensive remarks using insulting quotes made famous by the ‘accused’… I start with the name-calling – words like ‘racist’, ‘homophophobic’ ‘egomaniacal’, ‘compulsive liar’, ‘womanizer, ‘anti-feminist’, mean-spirited’ ‘misogynnistic, and on and on. I start crying – screaming. You get it?

This happened once. A disaster. And, it really didn’t help except that we both learned just how explosive and ardent we both are. But even this does not matter. It would start a degradative pattern that we are both too inflamed to avoid. We are just too damn angry. And the anger, I dare say, is more directed to each other than the original issue. We are broken. Heartbroken. Wounded and both guilty of inflicting wounds we feel justified to inflict. It is war.

I don’t know, but sometimes, in my head, I compare this dilemma to the the stages of grief I learned about in college and later. Knowing my loved one was a Republican BEFORE 2016 was tolerable. Disagreeing about Obamacare was tolerable. Also, my penchant for politics was nearly dormant. I voted and ‘acted’ any Good Democrat, depicting a liberal and open- minded view of the world. No debates. No Marches to attend , just a simple boring follower. Then…SHOCK. WHAT? Hillary lost??? My world ended as I knew it. This trauma morphed into disbelief. This man, this braggadocio is now our President? And, as I cried….he celebrated. As I grumbled…he rejoiced. Amid our first conversation just after that fated day and while whispering to myself that some kind of shaman has brainwashed him, I became mute. Numb. Dead. During those years, while disbelief reigned and where, although in my heart I knew Tucker Carlson was his hero. His patriot. A sage…. I kept quiet. Bit my tongue, while feeling the searing ulcer piecing into the lining of my belly. For Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity,etc. were misogynistic devils. Liars…Villians…

Watch Out! Entrez! ANGER. I mean… Really? How can he? He’s a demon. A monster. He’s mean, bigoted and BUILDING A WALL! A wall… Aren’t we ALL immigrants? So I tried to bargain…to pray. I mean, really pray. Even go to mass. But then…. just when I thought… I overhear giggling … laughing at ‘his’ ridiculing Biden’s mask wearing…and I just sighed. And failure re-entered my heart like a metasticizing cancer. Depression set in like a duck to water. So I watched CNN constantly to ensure that others were as fervent as I and Trevor Noah, the only one who could make laugh in this dire time.

GUILT! Was it MY fault? Was I too phlegmatic with my politics? Did I love Obama too much? Sicken him with my glorification of Michele’s ‘prête à porter’ style? Overzealously speak of our probable upcoming first female POTUS? Could I have prevented this war!

ACCEPTANCE…and this is, for me, the simple fact that my loved one is unequivocally WRONG, but a good person. Try that on. You think it works? For one on the dark side, seeing ‘the light’ will most likely never happen, until the world makes sense again…

The middle

It’s a challenge to write this piece without bashing conservatives in a brazen narrative that may reference FOXNews— and I’ll attempt to refrain from it for now simply because the conservative I’m talking about is a loved one. I literally DAYDREAM ABOUT discussing politics at family gatherings, commiserating in disgust at the latest scum to come from Trump or his disciples. To FINALLY poke fun at that brazen fly taking to Pence’s head or belly-laughing at the brownish smears of makeup running amok onto Giuluani’s jowls. But cannot. Nope. Even a swipe at a Chloroquinine colonic is contraband. What a shame. Such fodder for the best meal EVER! O! To fancy such reveries!

Holiday family dinners embody the kind of superficial conversations you might have in a restaurant with acquaintances. Certainly not the sentimental and meaningful sharing that binds families. Week after week, month after month, year after year. It can feel like poverty. Jail. Emptiness. Resentment. The feeling that you can’t reach nor change people no matter how hard you try. It is exasperating. And sifting through the existential question of ‘how could this be possible…how could you ACCEPT THAT THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE HOLD BELIEFS THAT YOU THINK AND KNOW ARE ROOTED IN HATE’? Families can no longer talk, relax enjoy each other. We are afraid. Hurting. Bitter. And shamed. IT is abominable. …makes me so very sad and lonely to think they don’t really know me.

Sometimes I compare this to religion, in that politics can sit in this same space. It’s that important and meaningful because it has to do with which society, which caste I am affiliated with. Where I ‘belong’. And when a family member expresses opposite political views, it’s upsetting because it can feel like your loved one converted to an enemy religion, creating a cognitive dissonance that can seem unbearable.

The fervor of people’s political persuasions, and the suspicions of those with diverging views, have made the work of Sarah Stewart and Beth Holland, the co-authors of the new book I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening) problematic. It provides a kind of structure for us on how one might attempt to have political conversations with those they love and yet strongly disagree with – to ‘take off their jerseys’, that is, to purposefully distance themselves from the platform of partisan policies and rather examine issues individually, finding the ‘whys’, i.e., talk about issues in terms of each person’s belief for what an ideal result might be. It encourages us to abandon early on the idea of winning an argument and to discard the goal of convincing others of the ‘wrongness’ of their position. We need to surrender a ‘value’ judgement, aiming at having a dialogue where each party’s goal is to understands more clearly why the other holds a given belief. Each participant, they emphasize, should approach the conversation with a sense of inquisitiveness and even ‘enthusiasm’, while leaving room for implications, refinements and grace, with the sense of ‘goodwill’ permeating the interactions. Oh! If only….

Others commenting on these similar situations advise that lecturing someone with facts and figures isn’t nearly as conducive to an enlightening – as a polite exchange such as sharing personal or firsthand experiences with policies or issues. It would not be fruitful, for example to say …’Let me share this idea/data.’ Instead start with, ‘Here’s my story, as I see it’. This may be more effective as when people see you supporting [a policy because of] something you know to be true, as opposed to you trying to convince them that it’s true. This, then, may be able to change the ‘direction’ or ‘drift’ of their responses to it. In a time when there is such extensive and diffuse published information of any and all kinds of political information and opinion with all so routinely second-guessed or accused of political bias – a personal story is more difficult to dismiss out of hand as “fake news.”

What next

Yet!!! I AM sure that I AM right, and that my views result in overall less suffering for Americans, something I care deeply about. And…HE IS sure that HE IS right. The only common ground is the love we have for each other. And that is not a small thing. I guess in my attempt to assimilate a solution to this dilemma, I must, foremost, recognize that agreeing on matters of politics MUST always be lower on the priority list than maintaining a LOVING AND CARING relationship. There will come a time when I must remember..’Okay, this is my family member. We love each other. We MUST move on, for now’

And, I wonder… will relationships heal now that Mr. Trump is out of office? I venture to guess the answer is ‘no’, at least not immediately. It’s as if we had seen things in each other that we weren’t supposed to. But now that we had, we could not un-see them. Damages are done. We ALL have been wounded. We will hold grudges. But life must go on. Thanksgiving dinners endure. And I have learned in writing this that THERE ARE approaches and tactics to ease the pain of these battles. Utilizing them is a personal decision but is it nice to know that I am not the only one in this messy predicament. PLEASEREADTHIS🗽

the day the walls did not fall

This has taken months to write. Processing all still. Giving it time, after-thoughts, removal, immersion, The pain starting to ebb. The anger languidly seeping out of my pores-yet only intermittently. The ability to think or talk about IT fluently just being born. An infant. But not writing can’t happen anymore. It’s abnormal. It feels tight in my body like an internal blister. It’s gotta pop but it cannot in the way it happened. Because it happened in a way that made no sense and was too heartbreaking to remember. It happened in relation to other horrors…deaths, plane crashes, train wrecks, mass shootings, earthquakes, pandemics. bombings…. it was a pairing with something else because if experiencedalone, without a corollary, a counterpart, it would be annihilating. So…Here it goes through the birth canal…

As a jubilant Democrat in early November, I placed Trump on that shelf in one’s closet relegated for the pointy-toed Frye cowboy boots you KNOW you will never wear again. Yet, they need to ‘stored’… ‘just in case’. But the reservations about the boots are different. It’s not like they were using up too much space. Trump’s space was different. Ominous. Like when you KNOW your passport is expiring, or your mammogram is due within weeks… with Trump I felt that uneasiness in ‘storing’ him, as I ‘suspected’ he would reappear, like a case of shingles, on the skin of our lives. But what I didn’t know is that I underestimated the disease. A case of benign ‘shingles’ turned into a melanoma… and a deadly one.

I loathe the man and I was half invested in learning about the dangerous extent of Trump loyalists, you know, the mass rejection of the democratic process, the rejection of a verified reality… until January 6th. I knew the delusions of his followers, however, I wasn’t sure who exactly were ‘HIS’ pure devotees vs who were the regular conservative Republicans – those who were just plain disappointed….you know…friends, relatives, co-workers, acquaintances who wanted to challenge the voting process, having ‘valid’ questions of machinery, mail-in ballot uncertainties…intelligent process questions. I was wrong here. Dead wrong. Their concerns became a twisted reality. These ‘concerns’ worded so skillfully that their ability to ‘trick’ my trust in their soundness of mind was sinisterly accomplished. Surely, I continued to presume, these people wouldn’t consider anything more than voicing concerns, demanding recounts in certain instances…..certainly not planning nor participating in any of Trump’s post election rallies. Did they actually believe the election was rigged? or just question the integrity of a few machines… NOPE! MAN, the joke was on me WTF! A hornet stung my meaty thigh, like in August. And NO amount of ice was to offer an elixir to my PIERCING pain. Not sure how I let myself slip. Ignorance is a malady. A disease. A faux pas. A mistake. A sense of unhealthiness leaving you fearful of what will happen next. And, this ‘next’ is the hard part.

So…On December 12th, when thousands of Trump’s supporters — four weeks after a similar protest— flocked to the nation’s capital for a protest in support of the president and his false claims of a stolen election, I did not give it much attention. However, by Saturday night, when the clashes between rallygoers and counter protesters escalated into violence, I started paying attention. Four people stabbed, 33 people arrested into Sunday morning. Nine transported to hospital. Two of the nine were police officers. Members of The Proud Boys -a far right group defined as extremists were seen roaming the streets violating onlookers. Later, protesters burned ‘Black Lives Matter’ banners belonging to local predominantly Black churches. {Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio later claimed full responsibility for this act}.

Ok. So it’s not that my head was TOTALLY in the sand! When I became aware that another MAGA pro-Trump rally was planned for January 6, the third in less than two months, and filed through the Park Service permit application, I certainly became a bit more apprehensive of its intentions. But they DID [or so I thought] have permission from the Park’s Department to do so. Reading Mr Trump’s tweets about a ‘big’ protest happening on that date and his telling his fans to ‘be there’ AND that it will be ‘wild’ – encouraged my recognition of a more malignant setting. I certainly knew January 6th was IMPORTANT, due to its date [set by law] for Congress to officially count the electoral votes in order to officially declare Biden/Harris the election winners. And it rattled my sense of safety. It felt threatening. Malefic. Sinister….

Continually, the media was reporting This ‘day of reckoning’ and I continually relegated these threats as a minority of madmen who were distant from my world. “Persons gathering to ‘STOP THE STEAL’”? Huh? Who stole what? I mean, yeah, obviously there was a ‘culture’ – a ‘society’ out there who were delusional enough to think there was still election fraud (even after the 60 odd investigations) …but certainly no one I knew. Did I? Who would believe this ‘stuff’? So foreign. So weird. So fragmentary.

I did not work that day. Stayed home glued to CNN in anticipation of the final consecration of the BELOVED BIDEN/ Harris Team. Muting the coverage of the rally, as it would most likely turn my stomach, I watched half-heartedly, while occasionally texting friends venomous messages about the Master of Deception spewing lies over a loud speaker. But then, seemingly there were hundreds gathered. THOUSANDS. Unmuted the TV and the sound physically hurt. My eyes assaulted. The hats! The logos!The costumes! Everything BUT proper mouth/nose masks! What? A parade? A pageant? Halloween Redux? Yet this crowd included all kinds of people. There were Republicans we know. Republicans we don’t know. Republicans we don’t want to know. And…MAGA supporters jubilantly singing! Militarily garbed supporters! Friends of supporters! Families of supporters! Children! Supporters of supporters! Climbing statues, shouting, waving flags, all kinds of flags, militia- geared rioters looking ominous, scary, too ‘ready’ … all while glaringly caustic incongruous music played and … and, on a podium glued to Trump, Rudy telling all to go to the Capitol to FIGHT! And they did…

But that is not the whole story. Let’s talk a bit of pandemic. Yes! January 6th was 2021. NOT a different year. A different time. Still, hoards of my fellow Americans traveled to the nation’s capital and gathered in very large numbers. Masks were sparse with each MAGAette infecting one another with COVID-19 a plausible reality. Social distancing absurdly absent. I’m thinking these protesters will contract the disease, not really caring, but worrying they will unknowingly carry it back to their hometowns, my town, to Rutherford, to New York, to Missouri. To people I love. People I know. People I work with. And…I. Am. Mad. What if they suffer thereafter, whether from their own sickness or death. The knowledge that, by attending, it would be a super-spreader event…and they contributed to the suffering and death of a parent, a wife, a husband, a CHILD…or an Uber driver, or the ER physician, the nurse who is relegated to inserting the breathing tube ….ugh. It Terrible. Just terrible.

Donald Trump all but insured such affliction for some of his most earnest fans when, even with the emergence of novel COVID19 variants, he incited the MAGAette masses to converge. He did not wear a mask. Neither did his attorney. His family. His ‘colleagues’. No social distancing on his stage. His podium of lies. He summoned them all. To assemble in a massive swarm descending on Washington DC that day. That day, January 6, 2021, in order to protest Joe Biden’s victory. Trump tweeted, “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election…Saturday! Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” As reported by The Washington Post, “the District has mobilized the National Guard and will have every city police officer on duty … to handle protests of the November presidential election, which Mayor Muriel E. Bowser said may include people looking to instigate violence.” This happened. He made it happen. This proves it. I continue…

Now…This is no campaign rally, as Americans have already withstood a fair election during a pandemic, casting their votes as democratic citizens. No. This is a ranting post-election ceremonial poor loser venting, achieving NOTHING BUT LICKING THE WOUNDS OF A LAME DUCK’s EGO while people die, become morbidly wounded physically and mentally and our nation’s Capitol desecrated in HIS NAME. And, this is a tragedy.

Only One Man could have prevented this nightmare. This One Man could have diminished this mob. This One Man could have called it off. This One Man could have prevented this protest. This One Man could have told all to stay away. To go home. That it was not safe. Not safe for anyone. For Everyone. There is a PANDEMIC. Numbers rising. Variants increasing. No vaccines. Anti- maskers. Non-believers. Skeptics. Carriers. Children. Infected onlookers. Infected rioters. Infected extremists. Infection of body. Infection of spirit. Infection of soul. A diseased day. The Insurrection.

I remember 1/6 like I remember 9/11. But unlike 20 years ago, nothing ‘fell’. Imploded. Disintegrated. No blocks of dust. Ash. Debris. Bodies. Body parts. Yet America was brutalized. Different but the same. This time I WAS working when odd police chatter was emanating from my walkie -talkie in my nurse’s office. Staccato noises. Sirens? Odd words which I knew were more severe. More impending. More immediate. Having no television service, I turned on my transistor radio. The rest is history…

It was September 11, 2001, about 9:30am. A beautiful day. I remember being sad summer was over and I was back at work, yet the striking clarity of the morning wiped away my longing. There was much to do, as the beginning of a new school year for a school nurse is daunting. But upon hearing this information by sternly startled voices on the radio saying things like ‘airplane struck one of the twin towers’ and ‘explosions in sky downtown ’ our lives ended in a way that would never be the same. Climbing up to the top floor of my building, some 15 miles from downtown Manhattan, we were able to see smoke. Flames. Blazes. Towers crumbling… smoke….Lots of it and other things too painful to remember.

Mohamed Atta , Abdulaziz al-Omari, Wail al-Shehri, Waleed al-Shehri, and Satam al-Suqami also all saw the same glorious day that I witnessed. A day awash in the same magnificent light. Yet they wanted something different. To fly the planes they were commandeering into the towers full of people. And, for me, I felt, for the first time, the vulnerability of my country. That the crumbling towers were my country. That The United States was perishable. Expendable. Fortifications meaningless. I haven’t felt this way again, that is, until January 6th, 2021.

The Capitol insurrection was certainly not a total shock because the perpetrators did not come from the sky in hijacked planes. They came from and with hijacked minds. They had been talking about their plans for weeks, and in broader terms for years; he, Donald Trump, the most audible man in the world, had been tweeting and talking about it ever since he lost the election. The day of reckoning is coming, so he tells us. Again, not working that day, I gaze a section of my suspended TV thinking I am having ‘floaters’ from a new medication I recently started taking. Unable to readily focus due to an innate vulnerability – an unhealed wound from 20 years ago, because I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. It couldn’t happen again. Denying a glimpse of a figure, then figures in places too sacred for men to trespass. Yet I did not see, because my need for normalcy overcame my tolerance for dissonance. But I do see it. I saw men on the steps of the Capitol. Bad Men. I knew it. And, first real shock of the day begins. These men were inviting others to join them. They looked sinister, ominous, blackhearted. They are presented with an opportunity to seize their main chance to…get…INSIDE the Capitol! To ravage this blessed horizontal anchor – this sacred building and all the ideals, beliefs and convictions it has EVER symbolized.

The building yielded easily to the mob costumed in red hats, horned helmets and shirts proclaiming the persuasive triumph of the letter Q. For they were vandals, pillagers and villains in these hallowed halls. How can the idea that the Capitol is supposed to embody be so decomposable. So unstable. So short-lived. My belly ached and my hands trembled in disbelief and disgust. I myself was being betrayed. Desecrated. Pillaged. Again. Twenty years later.

Am I wrong to revere our buildings too much? To honor our country’s architecture? To exalt our sacred structures? So that when disaster strikes we need to be reminded and advised to realize that concrete and steel are not what matters. No! It is the lives these buildings are constructed to shelter and protect. Three thousand souls died on 9/11 when the towers were attacked and fell. And, we must remember that at least five people lost their lives in the insurrection on January 6, 2021. And let us also not forget that 500,000 Americans have now died due to the pandemic. And it is the same man who incited this heinous mob to March to The Capitol – The People’s House as the man who has yet to see fit in grieving with or speaking to an aching nation whose loss is unspeakable. The same man who said he did not want to wear a mask and told us the ‘Chinese virus would go away…just like that’! Yet, days later, the Capitol still stands, a testament that these traitors, these insurrectionists who attempted to seize it cared more for the edifice than for the Americans they terrorized. Yet Congress marched on and a new President was finally proclaimed. The hope for a better four years. Democracy survived…again. Yet, how many more times will we need to rediscover our patriotism? Doubt our fortresses?Rebuild our courage and strength? We have felt the edge of defeat too many times. The fear is too great and insidious to forget. We can no longer accept naivety. We cannot afford to. And most pointedly, we can no longer trust our fellow Americans. No! This time the walls did not fall down, but were defaced by Americans who did not believe in them. And, this is the most bitter part of the now past. And also…the hardest to accept. PLEASEREADTHIS🗽

Prologue to a blog…

A blog (a truncation of “weblog“)is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). …Wikipedia

Cambridge Dictionary defines a blog as “a website on which one person or group puts new information regularly, often every day; weblog”

However, ask me? What really is a blog, anyway? I always wanted to write one. Appealing, those abbreviated editorials about anything and everything. Modest housing of words. Abrupt tidbits of info, teasing short stories, fleeting theories, previews of coming attractions. After thoughts. Non-confrontive Opinion. No strings attached commentaries. Commitment free. Easy. Punctuation questionable. Grammar? Well, take a look! Could be interesting, meaningful, relatable, fun to read, compelling… Maybe. Or so I think. Could serve a purpose. Let’s see… Let’s make this one SHORT! (because a definition shouldn’t really be a blog)…

A blog, to me, easy way out to writing ‘properly’. I honestly think most people don’t really know what it is, which then allows experimentation and illusion. References and footnotes abandoned. as ‘it’s a blog’ not an journal article. It’s about creative thinking and writing with rules neglected. Having sometimes ‘naughty’ fun in subject matter or style. Hmmm… or so I say.

Seriously, blog content can present as posts on one continuous streaming page or posts on individual pages. They can then be accessed through one or more pages set up in a list-style format as post TITLE links, excerpts and related tags. Myself! I use a website I paid a nominal fee to set up my blogs on a website in a simple and approachable format. REALLY nothing to it. PAY AND SAY. You give it a title. And start writing! There are many such format platforms readily available. Most are relatively inexpensive. Or FREE!

Be it formal in a website or casual in a diary, it is still a blog! It can include text, media, emojis, GIfs- fun stuff. Or not. I like to include cartoons, like those in the New Yorker. Raises the bar, no? Blogs can merely be for personal entertainment or for sharing with an exclusive group, like on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Or, engage the public, as I chose, using a website to publish and display my pieces on my website but also on Facebook and other social media. However, I am particular which blogs I share to the public, as I tend to be cowardly, aka ‘sensitive to others feelings’ in publishing all my blogs to everyone…. Traits not as admirable as you might think. Ulterior motives are part of this. But to me that’s one of the blogger’s ‘perks’! Can’t ‘come out’ yet on every topic to everyone YET! I’m not ready to be besties and comrads with Mary {Trump}. Hey! You never know! Maybe… Anyway, personal blogs may be set up as an online journal or simply in a diary, as implied earlier, as a hobby without any public access at all! But with apps like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Tumblr, Instagram, etc, people are finding new ways to connect with people. Setting up a social media channel is easy, but you may need to associate a blog site to connect with your audience in ways social apps don’t allow.

….‘Dear Blogary’

Additionally, social and anti-social people can blog to make friends, build new friendships and other kinds of relationships. It can be a great way to attain a better understanding of themselves and of the lives of people, some whom they most likely would not interact with on a daily basis. Blogging can afford people the opportunities to interact with others from other cultures, live in other geographic regions, and work in different career paths. Explore different lifestyles, open one’s mind.

In summary, we blog for a wide range of reasons. Myself, I am not one to use the traditional offline diary writing. Yet I find I need an outlet for my ideas, thoughts and feelings beyond that format. Face-to-face interactions, phone calls or online chats…way too personal. Some people like myself feel more comfortable sharing my innermost thoughts and ‘rantings’ with someone outside my immediate circle, maybe someone half way around the world. Or someone close with whom an intimate rapport may stir conflict or bad feelings. Also, blogging can simply be a helpline for a person with no offline friends or support system and can blog to help deal with upsetting life events and loneliness. Who knows? It certainly cannot hurt anyone to utilize any form of communication, especially for those in crisis or just plain alienation. So to blog? Or, not to blog? It’s not for everyone but if you find yourself needing an outlet to share your ideas, be heard and to learn from others, blogging can be a simple way to engage in something that may turn out to be a helpful form of communication. Start slow and simple. Who knows how it may grow? Or not. You will find out soon enough. PLEASEREADTHIS🗽