Ailantha - Blog

Dr. Strangetrump

6/24/2019

      Here’s the plot line:
    The United States is on the brink of war with Iran. In fact, war is mere minutes away as U.S. bombers speed through the sky on their way to strike ground targets in that country.
     Flash back to several days previous:
    An American drone spy plane has been shot down by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, who claim they caught the drone flying in Iranian air space, though the Americans swear their drone was flying fairly and squarely over international air space. In the most secret American military circles there is conjecture – which is subsequently leaked to the public – that the American drone might possibly have nosed over the line into Iranian air space. It’s not completely clear.

The super-high-tech state-of-the-art American unmanned drone spy plane, which cost $131million to build, had been specifically designed by top engineers to evade all surface-to-air missile strikes.

But the American drone was struck down anyway by an Iranian surface-to-air missile, this after some American officials had been publicly making fun of Iran’s military capabilities. Now the Iranians are celebrating and declaring a military victory over the United States,

...and there is an expensive American hotel for the fishes at the bottom of the Gulf of Oman.

At this time the United State is a hyperkinetic nation that watches too much TV and internet and has subsequently elected as President a former reality TV star,

...a lying, impulsive megalomaniac with a crazy streak a mile long,

...which is what his fan base loves about him.

After the downing of the drone the American President is egged on by war-mongering advisors with personal ambitions of their own that might be well-served by a war.

      Caving to the urging of the war-mongers, the crazy President ignores the counsel of his generals for caution and blows off Congress, whose members are in serious deliberation over the incident, and sends a squadron of bombers on their way to Iran and, potentially, World War III.
      Flash back further to the back story.
     The fuse that is now being shortened by the second by the American bombers was lit a year earlier by the American President, whose experience with international diplomacy - as well as every other aspect of governance - was zip before he was elected to the most powerful position on the planet.
      A year earlier Iran and the United States had been more of less peacefully co-existing thanks to a nuclear arms treaty brokered by the crazy President’s predecessor.

The crazy President, however, smashed the treaty and pressed harsh economic sanctions on Iran that decimated the country’s economy and thrust the Iranian people into a state of hardship and misery.

The President and his cadre,

...were of the persuasion that this plan of making Iran suffer – which the President named Maximum Pressure, as all political power plays need a slogan to gain traction with the public – would bring Iran to its knees while stirring up patriotism among Americans by giving them another enemy to hate.
       But why Iran?
       Well, why not Iran?
       However, Operation Maximum Pressure did not yield the desired outcome and a year after its inception the only result was that now Iranians hated Americans, and at it appeared that at least some of them were bent on laying some economic damage on the Americans by choking off the oil supply from the Middle East to the West.
        Subsequently, in the weeks before the drone incident mysterious mine explosions crippled half-a-dozen international oil tankers as they carried their cargo through the Gulf of Oman.
       It was a pretty sure bet that mines were planted on the tankers by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, but Iran staunchly denied this, and so it wasn’t completely clear who mined the tankers, but it was making the crazy American President crazier and ramping up tensions and hostility between the United States and Iran.
     Then the unshootable American drone spy plane was shot down.
   Iran claimed responsibility for the strike and the Iranian populace cheered but behind the scenes intelligence leaked that the missile strike was in fact not ordered by the Iranian national leaders, who likely only wanted to harass the United States, not start a war, and who were furious at the Revolutionary Guard commander who made the decision to shoot down the American drone.
    The crazy American President, it turned out, also wasn’t so crazy that he wanted to have to deal with waging a real war either, especially since he’d been promising his adoring fan base all along that he’d make the U.S. so powerful and feared on the world stage that we’d never actually have to go to war anymore.
     But the warmongers got pushy and the President, who wasn’t really as tough as he always pretended to be, caved and now the planet was ten minutes away from the opening volleys of what could proliferate into an Armageddon of human suffering.
     Miraculously, the President’s ear is grabbed at the eleventh-and-a-half hour by a political newscaster who is the voice of the President’s base.

....and who warns the President that if he pulls the U.S. into this war his base will balk and he’ll never be re-elected, no matter how crazy he acts going forward.
      As it turns out, the President is less afraid of his war-mongering advisors than he is of losing the next election and, offering the inscrutable excuse that he just learned that up to 150 Iranians would likely die in the initial attack and he doesn't want to cause that kind of death over a $131 million drone, has the mission aborted and the bombers called back with ten minutes to spare.
     There is much relief in America and in Iran, too, especially among the ruling officials there. In America a bad war can cause a President to lose and election, but in Iran a bar war can cause a President to lose his head.
     Thus the President can now not only boast to his base that he has prevented a world war, but this made-for-TV President has presided over a dramatic, adrenalin-pumping move worthy of a made-for-TV docu-drama.
      Which this episode in American history may well be made into. Likely a very dark comedy.

      References:
       “Why Tanker Blasts in the Gulf of Oman Have Put the World on Edge,” David D. Kiripatrick, The New York Times, June 14, 2019

        “Downing Drone was ‘Big Mistake’ by Iran, says U.S.,” Michael Shear and Thomas Gibbons-Neff, The New York Times, June 21, 2019

“Pompeo, Steadfast Hawk, Coaxes a Hesitant President on Iran,” Edward Wong and Michael Crowley, The New York Times, , June 23, 2019

       “Swipe at U.S. Kindles Bravado in Tehran,” Farnaz Fassihi and David D. Kirkpatrick, The New York Times, June 23, 2019

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The 2019 Columbus Pride Festival

6/20/2019

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Last weekend was Pride weekend in Columbus, Ohio, the main events being the Pride Festival on Friday evening and the Pride Parade on Saturday morning.
Now, I'd never before been to an LGBTQ Pride event before,

...unless you count the time my daughter Theresa and I protested in front of the Columbus Catholic Diocese office for their having fired a lesbian high school teacher after she was outted by a cruel self-righteous parent.

And at our house we do represent every day.

     But one of my friends mentioned that she and her husband were thinking about going to the Friday night Pride Festival in downtown Columbus, so I suggested that Tom and I join them and that we all go to Pride, as the weekend events are collectively referred to, together.
      So we did.
      We parked in the garage across the street from the park known as the Columbus Commons, where there was held that same night an outdoor performance of the Columbus Pops,

...then we walked a couple of blocks to the entrance of the Pride Festival,

...which was set up along and across the Scioto River:

In Bicentennial Park,

...along Civic Center Drive on the east side of the river,

...along Washington Avenue in front of Columbus's Center for Science and Industry on the west side of the river,

...and across the Town Street and Rich Street Bridges,

...all of which locations offered some splendid panoramas of downtown Columbus,

...along with the splendid, rainbow-hued panorama of the festival itself.

There were many dozens of commercial booths,

...and public service booths.

Tom got into a conversation with the friendly youngsters from the Louisville, Kentucky public relations booth.

Many businesses were also present, showing support for the LBGTQ community.

There were also food booths,

...some with quite artfully-done displays.

We opted for some Caribbean food,

...Tom ordering the BBQ Bites over vegetables and rice,

...and the rest of us going with chicken over veggies and rice - huge portions -

...which we ate on a cozy spot on a nearby wall,

After dinner we caught a couple of the musical shows.

There was a review of Tina Turner impersonators.

They were quite good and very entertaining.

We also watched a couple of the singers and dancers on the River Stage.

Then we strolled around,enjoying the beautiful June evening,

...and at the same time proud to be part of this crowd, in this place,

...where everyone was accepted,

...and welcome to be themselves,

...no matter who we were.

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Something Visual At The First Second Saturday

6/17/2019

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"I heard you're doing something visual this time," said Christian Peck, communications director of the Gahanna Area Arts Council,

...and one of the organizers of the Second Saturday Arts in the Alley, a summer monthly local artists festival taking place in downtown Gahanna on the second Saturdays of June, July, and August.

I ran into Christian as I was having a look around at the wares of the other vendors at this year's first Second Saturday Arts in the Alley and I affirmed that yes, it was true, I was in fact trying something visual this time.
The thing is, I'd participated in last summer's Arts in the Alley events, which were held on the first Fridays of July , August, and September,

...(see post from 7/14/2018, "The Lesson Of The Rubber Duck"),

...selling my book.
Hence I sold my book,

...in July,

...in August,

...in September,

...and in September again at the Gahanna Flea Market.

This year I figured that anybody in Gahanna, Ohio who wanted my book would surely already have it by now.
And so I decided to take a fling at selling some of my photographs; specifically some of the photos that I took during two hikes with my hubby Tom, the first in 2013 and the second in 2015, along the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

(see my Camino blogs at https://www.tightenyourboots.net/

...and https://www.andlightenyourpack.com/).

     I felt that most of the photos, vast landscapes, required a big print medium not fenced in by a frame.
     I chose ten photos and had them made into 12"x16" unframed canvases and I had four of the ten also blown up into 16"x20" canvases.
      In truth I would like to have made the canvases even bigger, but I feared that no one would buy a bigger canvas. In fact I feared that no one would buy the smaller canvases I'd had made, either. It turned out that my fears were not unfounded.
    But this I did not yet know as, with the the help of my loyal mate, I began preparing for my first public showing of my visual art, such as it was.

The first thing we did was practice setting up my tent in our basement to make sure we still remembered how to set it up.

Next came figuring out a display plan.
Books need only a table for display.

But canvases need a stand of some sort.

Now, I'd learned that there are all kinds of attractive stands that one can buy to display one's art.

But those display stands are expensive. And there was no guarantee that I'd sell enough photos - or any at all - to justify spending hundreds on a beautiful art display stand.
And so I gerrymandered together several art display stands from the following objects:
- a slatted room divider that I bought twenty-five years ago from a friend who needed to sell some of her things to make some money;
- another room divider I bought from a thrift store then covered with brown contact paper;
- a plastic thrift-store clothes rack upon which I hung a piece of peg board;
- a re-purposed baby gate I once bought to keep our house bunny from getting out of the family room.

(See post from 2/15/2016, "The House Bunny").

The result was mayhaps not beautiful, but I figured it would work okay, at least for a start.

I also made a few smaller 8"x10" prints that I framed.

On the afternoon of the first Second Saturday Arts in the Alley, June 8, Tom and I schlepped over to the alley and joined the other artists and artisans setting up at their designated spots.

While we were setting up we noticed that the wind was picking up. Tom worried that the wind might blow down my displays so he ran back home and procured some bags of fertilizer that he wrapped in plastic bags to hold down my displays.

The effect was in truth not the most esthetic.
But I figured it was what it was, and at least I had a secure little art gallery that people might step into and look around without having the art fall on them.

I had decided to present my photos as a series that I called "The Pilgrim's Progress," and I wrote up a program explaining the provenance of the photos:

The Pilgrim’s Progress
      For a thousand years pilgrims from all over the world have been walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, some as a spiritual journey, some as a penance, some as an adventure.
     People begin their pilgrimage from many points and there are many Camino routes through France, Spain, and Portugal, but all routes lead to Santiago, Spain and the great Cathedral of St. James, where the Camino ends and other journeys may begin.
     Thus the scallop shell, with its many rays ending in one point, is the symbol of the Camino.
    “The Pilgrim’s Progress” is a photographic chronicle of two pilgrimages walked in 2013 and 2015 along the 497-mile Camino Frances, the ancient, most historical, and most-walked of the Camino routes.
       On display are a few of the hundreds of photographs in the series.

I tagged each photo in the series with a number and a description. I priced the 12"x16" canvases at $50, the 16"x20" at $100,

...and the the 8"x10" prints at $25. ( And I decided to set up a few books, too,after all).

To my initial delight, most of the people who passed my booth stopped for a look and many folks came into my tent and made the round of my little art gallery, asking questions about the pictures and the Camino. I received many compliments on my photographs. Some people stayed at my booth looking and talking for quite a while.
Looking and talking, but, alas, not buying. I sold not one photo or book, except to a friend who came by and bought the smaller of the canvas prints of the colorful autumn field.

As for the rest,

...when the event was over we packed everything back up,

...loaded it into the car,

...and put it all back into the basement

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An Author At The Loft

6/14/2019

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A couple of Sundays ago I was at the Book Loft of German Village, the beautiful book store in the heart of the historic German Village neighborhood in downtown Columbus,

...where the books fill an amazing maze of 32 rooms and hallways,

...and then spill out into the garden.

I was at the Book Loft on that particular Sunday, June 2, as one of the authors at the Authors at the Loft book event,

...to which book lovers could come to meet Midwestern authors,

...and, hopefully, our books.

The event was sponsored by the local book podcast yourbookmybook.com,

...organized by youbookmy
book.com Media Production Coordinator Miguel Lopez,

...and hosted by the friendly, accommodating, always smiling Book Loft Manager, Glen Welch.

Some of the authors had tables in the garden and some of us set up inside the store.
I had a cozy spot inside at the top of the second-story landing in the heart of the fiction section,

...where Tom, who'd come to help me, found himself a nice cubby.

Besides author book-signings and book give-aways, there were also yourbookmybook.com author live interview podcasts,

...and some of the authors, myself among them, gave book talks,

...though we gave our talks outside in the garden.

It was a good time, and the event was surely a labor of love all around,

...or so if felt to us authors.

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Portraits Of My Mother And Other Subjects, Part 2

6/12/2019

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...Continued from yesterday:
On Saturday afternoon my mother suggested that she, Tom, and I go out for lunch at Applebee's.
My mother seldom eats at Applebees, preferring rather to patronize the several small, locally-owned eateries in Seaford - she said she hadn't been to Applebees in years - but she thought it would be nice to go there for a change, a special occasion.

So we did.

Tom had the Salmon,

...while my mom and I split a Bouron Street Chicken and Shrimp. Delish!

    After we returned home my mom started reminiscing about her mother, how she did laundry for a living, how my mother when she was a little girl would walk to people's houses to pick up the dirty laundry, help her mother with the washing, and then on foot return the clean, ironed, and folded laundry to the customers.
    My mother told us that her mother charged twenty-five cents to wash, stretch, and iron a pair of curtains.
     She then talked a little about her mother's recipes, which reminded me that one of my mother's favorite comfort foods from her childhood was rice pudding - which was also one of my favorite comfort foods from my childhood.
      So I decided to make a batch of rice pudding.
      For anyone else who might have a hankering for rice pudding, here's my recipe:
      Patti's Rice Pudding:
      Ingredients:
      5 1/2 cups milk
      1/2 cup sugar
       1/2 cup rice
       A few shakes of cinnamon
       2 Tablespoons raisins

2 teaspoons vanilla extract, if you can find some. (See post from 5/18/2019, "The Vanilla Beans")

Instructions:
1. Combine all ingredients except the vanilla in a large sauce pan.

2. Cook on low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture just boils. (This takes a while. Maybe fifteen minutes. Be patient. The rice pudding can't be rushed.)

3. Gently simmer for 50-60 minutes, stirring occasionally. Mixture should be pretty thick.

      4. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
    5. Enjoy! Delicious hot or cold.
      Or with some milk poured over it, as is my mom's preference.

The following morning, Sunday morning, after mass we went back to P.K.'s (see yesterday's post) for breakfast.

After we returned home I took a walk around my mom's yard and saw a pretty orange and white cat hanging out in the yard, though he took off when I tried to get a picture of him.

   When I asked my mom who the orange and white cat was she said that oh, he was just one of the cats who liked to hang around.
    I have the impression that my mom's house is to all the neighborhood cats what our house was to all the neighborhood kids when I was growing up.
    That afternoon we received a call from one of my brothers that he and his wife were going to drive down from Pennsylvania and meet us for dinner.
    This time we went out to the Stargate, another of my mother's local dining venues of choice.

My mom had the Ravioli,

...Tom had Broiled Tilapia,

...my brother had the salad bar,

...my sister-in-law had an omelette with hash browns,

...while I had a hankering for an omelette with a side of home fries smothered in onions and another side of pancakes.

Later that evening - as this was the last night of our visit, we'd leave Seaford the following morning - I once again besought my mom to let me take one more round of portraits.

Once again she was a good sport about it,

...even if she did find it funny that anyone would still want her as a photographic model.

And yet she always was very photogenic.

My mom and me.

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Portraits Of My Mother And Other Subjects, Part 1

6/11/2019

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     The above is a picture of my mother, who will be 99 years old in a couple of weeks.
     On Thursday, May 23, Tom and I drove ten hours from Columbus, Ohio to Seaford, Delaware to visit her.
      It had been five months since I'd seen my mother, and in recent years every time we plan a visit I always wonder how my mother will look when I see her again after not having seen her for a few months.
        This time as soon as we arrived I thought she looked so pretty that I immediately made her sit in her kitchen for a few portraits:

     She was a good sport about it, though she made her usual joke that I should watch that her old mug didn't break my lens.
    She was dressed for going out that evening, as the plan had been that when we arrived we'd all go out for dinner with my brother and his wife.
      However, shortly after we arrived a thunderstorm flashed down from the sky, complete with torrential rains and high winds,

...so we opted rather to have my brother and his wife bring over some fried chicken, upon which we feasted in my mother's dining room.

The next morning, Friday morning, the weather having cleared, Tom and I joined my mother in her daily routine of attending morning mass at her beautiful little parish church, Our Lady of Lourdes,

...after which we went to my mom's favorite breakfast eatery, Pizza King,

...or P.K.'s as it's known among the locals,

...where my mom goes for breakfast after mass so often with her church friends that no sooner had we sat down than the server hurried over to our table with the pot of decaf, my mother's breakfast beverage of choice, to fill my mom's cup.
When we were ready to order the friendly server asked my mom, "your regular, Hon?", my mom's regular being the "one-one-one," which is one egg, one slice of bacon and one pancake for $3.99.
Tom and I, however, felt we needed to look over the menu, of which I commenced snapping a few shots.

     I noticed my mother was chuckling and I asked her what was funny.
   "I was just wondering if you take pictures of the toilets when you use the bathrooms."
     I informed her that as a matter of fact I have been known to snap a shot of a toilet if I came a cross a particularly distinctive one,

...such as this Toto Washlet I encountered in a mall bathroom in Honolulu.

(See post from 5/9/2019, "A Nice Surprise At The Royal Hawaiian Center").

After breakfast we returned home and I then set about taking pictures of my mother's house,

...which for me somehow never loses it's charm.

The table used for my mother's church group, which meets at her house every week.

The front yard,

...and back yard.

Next, camera in hand, I headed off my mother's three cats,

Hidey,

...who likes to hide,

...Blacky,

...and Funny Face.

I also met a neighborhood cat,

...who sometimes stops by for a bite.

I got the idea of making a blueberry pie, so my mom and I drove over to Walmart to buy the berries and, of course, some ice cream.

This time when I raised my camera for a shot my mother saluted me,

...even though she's the former U.S. Army officer.
Here are some pictures of her taken during World War II, during which she was an Army nurse,

...this one at the Army hospital in Puerto Rico where she was stationed during the war.

After we returned home with the berries I made the pie.

Later in the afternoon we watched a couple of re-runs of my mom's favorite show, M.A.S.H,

...which, frankly, I had never seen, not being much of a TV person back in the era of M.A.S.H. or even now,

...still, I thought this show was pretty witty and I can understand why it was so popular, something I can't understand regarding many of the TV shows past and present that I've briefly perused.
When dinnertime rolled around we headed over to another of my mom's favorite local restaurants,

...the Golden Eagle,

...where my mom had the Fish 'n Chips,

...Tom had the Stuffed Flounder,

...and I started with a bowl of yummy Cream of Crab Soup,

...followed by the likewise yummy Gyro and Fries.

Then we went home and desserted on blueberry pie.

To be continued...

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Bag O' Skins

6/4/2019

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      This morning I was listening to Joel Riley, early morning host of Columbus radio station 610 WTVN when he broke the news story of the launching of a new KFC product: chicken skins without the chicken.
      Apparently one can now buy a bag of chicken skins. This is obviously a development born of the generally-accepted narrative that what people love about Kentucky Fried Chicken is the chicken skin; that we in fact buy the chicken so that we can peel off the skin and gobble it down.
      But then we're left to deal with the naked chicken, which holds far less charm without its crispy, tasty, covering.
       Which creates the perennial KFC paradox: The chicken derives its worth from the skin, but the skin is 'way yummier than the chicken.
      Perhaps some South Park afficionados recall the episode a few years ago in which one of the kids’ mothers buys a bucket of KFC for her son and his friends to share. But one of the boys,

...the ever-opprobrious Cartman,

...sneaks into the kitchen and eats all the skin off all the KFC.
Cartman gets extremely sick to his stomach,

...and his friends are so angry with him that they decide to ignore him and act like he's not among them.

      Cartman subsequently believes that he's become a ghost, having died from eating all the chicken skins.
      Anyway, the point is that everybody knows the skin is the best part.
      I suppose it's amazing that no one came up with the idea of chickenless skin sooner.
      Perhaps even more amazing to us Americans is that this idea was not born here in our country, the origin of Kentucky Fried Chicken as well as many of the other addictive links in the unhealthy food chain.

The chickenless skin concept actually rose up in Indonesia,

...where it is currently available exclusively at six KFC locations throughout that country, specifically in Cideng, MT Haryono, Kelapa Gading, Salemba, Kemang and Kalimalang.

Apparently the item has been selling out faster than the stores can produce it.
So what do you think of that, America?

References:
https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/kfc-fried-chicken-skin

http://thesource.com/2019/05/30/kfc-indonesia-new-fried-chicken-skin/

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Thoughts On The Last Day Of May, 2019

5/31/2019

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So much news flashing in my eyes
- Randy Rainbow

      Yes, to quote the modern-day musical Jeremiah Randy Rainbow, who cries out - or rather sings out - like a voice in the wilderness, there is so much news flashing in one's eyes and zipping along the conduits to one's brain that sometimes one wishes there was such a thing as an SPF to prevent brain burn.
        But there's not, and so the only thing we can do is either block it all out and be happy as mushrooms growing in the dark, or take it all in and try to sort through, make some sense of, and decide what we think about things.
        To that end, here are a few of my brain stormings - by that I mean the storms going on in my brain - over a few of the big news events that have been flashing in all our eyes:

1. The Mueller Reports

“If we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”

The above was Special Counsel Robert Mueller's synopsis which he gave in a brief public statement this past Wednesday of his team's investigation into whether Donald Trump committed a crime contiguous to Russia's interference in our 2016 elections.

Robert Mueller is like Pythia, known as the Oracle of Delphi, who was the highest of priestesses in the ancient Greek world, purported to be filled with the spirit and wisdom of the gods in her dispensing of judgement and prophecy.

The only problem was that in general the Oracle's words were so enigmatic that nobody was one hundred percent sure what the she really meant, and so her statements could be interpreted however one wished to interpret them.
Like Robert Mueller's statement the other day.

In fact, the whole Mueller Report is like the Bible, from which people can pick, choose, and interpret however they want to prove their own beliefs, whatever those beliefs might be. People claim as truth whatever they want to claim as truth and state that it's in the Bible. Or the Mueller Report. Even if they've never read the Bible. Or the Mueller Report.

2. On Impeaching Donald Trump

Impeach: To charge someone with doing something wrong, specifically a high government official, such as the U.S. president, a senator, or a federal judge. Fortunately, very few presidents have had the dishonor of being impeached. Impeach comes from the Latin impedicare, meaning "catch, entangle."
- Vocabulary.com.
       The House Democrats keep on talking about impeaching Donald Trump.
       Now, it is the job and duty of the United States House of Representatives to oversee the actions of the President, thereby upholding our Constitution and protecting our democracy and the well-being of our country.
         So if Donald Trump, aka the President of the United States, has committed wrongdoing that calls for impeachment, the House must uphold its responsibility and bring formal charges against him for specific acts and lay these acts and charges out plainly and clearly to the public.
            If Donald Trump has committed an impeachable act or acts the members of the House should not sit back and wait to determine whether or not impeachment will score political points for their party,

....or worry that Mitch McConnell and his Senate Republicans will circle the wagons around Trump and kill the impeachment proceedings.

    If McConnell and his minions did that the wrongdoing would be on them. But the fact that they just might do it is no reason for the members of the House not to do their duty and the right thing, which would be to write up articles of impeachment against Donald Trump.
       If his actions honestly justify impeachment.
       If, on the other hand, he has not committed offenses that unequivocally call for impeachment, then the Democrats should stop talking about impeachment,

...and quit running the idea up the flagpole to see who salutes.

In other words, either impeach or get off the soapbox.

    3. The Abortion Bans
     In the past few months one conservative state after another has passed laws criminalizing abortion. These bans have ignited debate and dissension between pro-life and pro-choice groups, but I feel like there's a huge and critical point of agreement that's being totally ignored in the discussion and it's this: that in truth everybody is pro-life. Nobody is really pro-aborting a baby, and though we talk about women's bodies and women's right to choose, no woman who believed she had any other choice would choose an abortion. The problem is that sometimes women really don't have any other choice.
      And I think that if the mission of right-to-life groups in this country were really to end abortion they'd lobby for affordable health care, especially prenatal and maternal health care, as well as for other social safety nets to make sure that no woman or family ever has to fear for how they'll care for, feed, clothe, and educate a child. Because that fear is a factor that drives women to abortion.
      If the mission of pro-life groups were really to end abortion they'd lobby for sex education and free contraception - why not make it free, if that would be a way of preventing abortions?
     And if all babies are precious and have a right to be born, why would pro-life groups not work to make ours a society which truly does welcome and celebrate and care about every child born, totally judgement-free of the circumstances of the mother?
      And why would they not work to ease the circumstances of every expectant mother in our society, whatever those circumstances might be, so that no pregnant woman would ever fear moral censure or find herself so alone and in such desperate straits that she would have to consider an abortion?
     Why do right-to-life groups not lobby for women's civil and economic rights and hold men as the equally responsible parties that they are in every pregnancy?
      If saving the lives of the unborn is really the mission, why not address the underlying problems that cause women to have abortions?
        Because in truth simply making abortion illegal isn't the answer.

References:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/william-barr-robert-mueller-donald-trump-obstruction-of-justice-russia-investigation

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My 2019 Commencement Speech

5/28/2019

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It’s that time of year again, when commencement speakers, persons of great accomplishment and/or celebrity, may impart words of wisdom and encouragement to young graduates,

...and maybe even pay off their college loans for them.

Alas, I have not the means to pay off anyone’s college loans – though I wish I did, and that I could pay off everybody’s - and in my life I’ve accrued neither fortune nor fame, but, as I do every year, I’ll offer this year’s graduates a few words of advice - some previously dispensed, some new - gleaned from my many years kicking around this planet that, hopefully, may be of some worth to someone, some time, somewhere along the road.
So Here it is, my 2019 commencement speech:

1. Graduates, remember that any accomplishment that comes easily and without considerable effort or work is probably not worth much. Or, as master martial artist Bruce Lee once put it: “I fear not the man who has practiced 10, 000 kicks once, but the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times”.

2. And remember the quote used by motivational speakers everywhere, including my yoga teacher: "The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit."

3. When you are in social situations be sure to steer the conversation towards others: ask them about themselves before you jump in and start talking about yourself. And whatever you do, don't be a conversation hog who talks and talks and talks, making it impossible for anyone else to get a word in edgewise and boring them to death.

4. Don't talk about something you're going to do with a friend or friends in the presence of another friend or friends who isn't/aren't invited. Don't even do this when you're adults. Adults don't like being left out any more than kids do.

5. Don't hook up and don't be a friend with benefits.
Though prevalent, widespread and, I guess, socially acceptable, hooking up and FWBing are bad ideas. You can't sleep you way to love or friendship.

6. Don't sleep with anyone if accidentally getting pregnant by that person (or getting them pregnant) would wreak havoc on your life or the life of the person you're considering sleeping with. And remember, no matter what precautions you take, babies have a habit of doing whatever it takes to be born.

7. If you can't afford at least a 20% tip, don't eat in a restaurant.

8. If you stay in a hotel, every morning leave a $5, $10, or $20 tip (however much you can afford) on the bed for the housekeepers.

9. When you exit the airport shuttle bus hand a tip of a few dollars to the driver.

10. If your restaurant order is wrong or bad, it's all right to ask the server to take it back or fix what's wrong, so long as you're super-polite to the server about it.

11. Try giving up Christmas gift exchanging. It'll change your life.

12. If you're invited to a potluck at someone's house leave what you brought with your host when you leave.

13. If you're hosting a pot luck and there are sufficient yummy left-overs it's gracious to invite your guests to take home a plate of food and/or dessert.

14. Though they say whole wheat bread is healthier for you, white bread makes better French toast and grilled cheese sandwiches.

15. And speaking of grilled cheese, Here's a recipe that was popular back when I lived in a college dorm room for making a grilled cheese sandwich with an iron:
Heat your iron to medium heat. Make sure the steam is turned off and there's no water in the iron. Butter the bread slices. Place a couple of slices of cheese between the bread. Wrap the sandwich in aluminum foil. Place the foil-wrapped sandwich on your ironing board. Press the iron onto the sandwich, flip after a few minutes, then press the iron onto the other side. (Be careful not to burn your sandwich. You can unwrap and check the bread from time to time until you have the hang of the process). Unwrap the foil and if the bread is golden brown and the cheese is melted, your grilled cheese is ready.

16. If you're already full, eating something you don't really want because you don't want to waste it is wasting it just the same as if you threw it away. Except that if you throw it away you won't pack on the extra calories.

17. If you're ever feeling terribly down or depressed, try to look past the moment you're in; it's hard to do, but try. And turn to someone, get help, and remember that depression is a disease that can be treated with medication and therapy and the pain you feel is a symptom that's crying out for treatment. And remember that your life doesn't belong to you alone; it belongs to your friends, your family, your co-workers, everyone who loves and cherishes and depends upon you; your life belongs to your community and your country and this world that you were created for and placed in for the purpose of doing some good. Remember all that, no matter how badly you may be feeling at some moment in time.

18. If you have no idea what you want to do with your life or what career path you want to take, just pick something to do or something to pursue. It's better to be doing something productive than nothing.

19. Pick something to do with your life even if it's not your dream, and even if you don't yet know what your dream is. Often by choosing one path that path leads to another that eventually takes us to who or what we want to be in life.

20. Do something wonderful. People may imitate it (Albert Schweitzer).

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A Billionaire Takes A Bullet

5/24/2019

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Last week a lucky group of students dodged a bullet. They were saved from a bullet that was aimed at them because a generous, some would say heroic, man stood in front of them and took the bullet for them.

I’m talking of course about Robert F. Smith, the philanthropic billionaire who intercepted the killer college debt , 10 to 40 million dollars worth, that would have hit hundreds of young African American graduates of Morehouse College soon after their graduation ceremony.

   How very fortunate for those several hundred young men who by chance attended a college that, their very year of graduation, happened to invite a commencement speaker who decided to pay off the loans of every graduating student of that class.
         But only the loans of those students in that class.
       How very unfortunate for the million upon millions of college graduates who happened not to have been members of that particular class in that particular school, the past, present, and future young people who have been and will be crushed by student debt, many of them too financially debilitated to move out of their parents’ houses for years, let alone get married, buy a house of their own, or start a family.
     However it’s not only student debt that’s economically crippling college graduates. It’s underemployment and low wages in the workplace. Forty-one percent of this year’s college graduates will enter the work force into jobs for which they are over-qualified and that pay hourly wages that may not cover the cost of independent living,

...let alone student loan payments.

True, unemployment in this country is currently low, but so are wages.

But at least one small class of 2019 graduates won’t have the ball and chair of student debt to drag along with them,

...unlike the others.

Now, I am a believer of doing what one can, when one can, for whomever one can,

...and I know that no one person can save every star fish of the millions struggling on the beach.

Still, one good-hearted billionaire rescuing one class of college graduates by paying off their loans no more solves the student debt crisis in this country than one brave person saving a few people by stepping into the path of a gunman solves the problem of mass shootings in this country.
Both problems need legislation, and - as has been pointed out in OpEd pieces in the New York Times and Washington Post (see references below) - far better than having a philanthropic billionaire occasionally giving a random gift of charity to some lucky few recipients would be for all the super rich members of our society, instead of paying nothing to almost nothing in taxes because of our loopholes-for-the-super-rich-laden tax laws, pay an equitable share in taxes that could then be used for government-subsidized tuition assistance to make an education affordable for all the young starfish from sea to shining sea.

References:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/opinion/morehouse-college-debt.html

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/underemployment-for-recent-grads-worse-today-than-in-early-2000-s-180429491.html

https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/why-robert-f-smiths-pledge-to-pay-off-morehouse-loans-is-a-turning-point-for-colleges-and-the-billionaires-that-support-them-2019-05-22?link=MW_latest_news

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7058019/Morehouse-College-students-loans-paid-billionaire-Robert-F-Smith-speak-out.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490

https://www.dispatch.com/opinion/20190522/editorial-billionaires-gift-tackles-student-debt

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Dr. Strangetrump

The 2019 Columbus Pride Festival

Something Visual At The First Second Saturday

An Author At The Loft

Portraits Of My Mother And Other Subjects, Part 2

Portraits Of My Mother And Other Subjects, Part 1

Bag O' Skins

Thoughts On The Last Day Of May, 2019

My 2019 Commencement Speech

A Billionaire Takes A Bullet

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