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Non-Occurence At The Multiplex

1/30/2023

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​COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023:

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​"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.
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​NON-OCCURENCE AT THE MULTIPLEX

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     Last week my hubby Tom and I went to our local multiplex for an afternoon showing of M3gan,
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...the oh, so fun horror (but not horrific) flic about an A.I.-infused doll who's 'way too smart - and smart alecky - for everyone's own good. 
     Much as I ended up enjoying the movie, before it started I had a somewhat unnerving - and thought-provoking - encounter. 
         Probably because it was the middle of a Friday afternoon, the movie house was pretty empty and Tom and I were the first to arrive in the theater where "M3gan" was showing. After we settled into our seats in the back row I decided to hit the restroom before the movie started.
         As I was walking down the hallway towards the restrooms, I crossed paths with a man walking in the opposite direction, towards the theaters. He was a young white guy, looked to be in his twenties, tall and lanky, slightly scruffy hair, slightly scruffy beard, wearing a slightly scruffy baseball cap, slightly scruffy jacket, jeans and hiking boots. As we passed I smiled and said "Hi" and he smiled and said "Hi" back, this being the Ohio way when two people pass each other in a public place. 
          But as soon as we passed I was hit with the thought: Young, slightly scruffy-looking white guy walking by himself down the hall in a movie theater...
            
My mind started ticking away: He wasn't wearing a backpack, but what if there was an AR 15 tucked into the waistband of his jeans? What if he was headed to our theater? What if he got Tom before I got back? What if after I got back he stormed into our theater brandishing his AR15? There was only Tom and me in the back row...the rule is hide, run, fight, but there'd be nowhere to hide or run...I envisioned Tom and me dropping down behind our seats, then me quickly crawling to the end of the row, where I'd suddenly spring out into aisle, hopefully take the shooter by surprise and ram into him, knocking him backwards and causing him to tumble down the steps and drop his gun. I'd then grab his gun and hit him with it.
          When I arrived back at the theater the shooter wasn't there, only Tom and a group of four young people seated a few rows in front of us. I breathlessly told Tom about the scruffy young white guy in the hallway and my plan for in case he turned out to be a shooter and came to our theater. Tom sighed and said that they guy probably wasn't a shooter, but just an ordinary young white guy dressed like young white guys dress, taking a bathroom break like me and heading to the theater to rejoin his friends and watch "Avatar."
            Turned out that Tom was right about the guy not being a shooter. He probably was just an ordinary young white guy heading back to the theater to watch "Avatar" with his friends.
              But here's the point: What kind of a country do we live in when a 71-year-old lady can't go to the movies without worrying about shooters? And scruffy young white guys can't go to the movies  without worrying about old ladies worrying about them being shooters?    
            We know what kind of a country we live in. And yet I keep going to the movies. And dreaming on.
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A Rock On My Heart

1/26/2023

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          Three nights ago while I was sitting at the kitchen table my husband Tom called to me from the family room where he sat at his computer.  
           "Another shooting," he said. "At a mushroom farm near San Francisco. Eight shot, seven dead."
        My immediate response was...nothing. Not anger. Not outrage. Not grief. It was strange. It was as if I'd been struck by mental and emotional paralysis. I couldn't even dredge up anything to say about this horrific news. I felt out of words. After a few moments I managed to say, rather half-heartedly, "That's terrible." 
             How can I explain it? It was if it it were too much effort to feel anything. It was if there were a rock on my heart that I didn't have the strength to lift. 
​        Less than 48 hours  earlier eleven people had been gunned to death at a dance hall in Monterey Park, a community a few miles east of downtown Los Angeles. They were older people, mostly Asian, people in their 50's, 60's and 70's, murdered by a 72-year-old madman with an assault rifle. They were people's parents and grandparents and they liked to go out dancing. And now they're gone.
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        As are the seven people who used to work at the mushroom farm.
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       As are all the men, women and children in this country who've been indiscriminately slaughtered by men brandishing assault weapons. And as will be all the men, women, and children who will continue to be indiscriminately slaughtered by men brandishing assault weapons.
      It occurred to me that the rock I was feeling was hopelessness. Hopelessness that there was anything I could do or say or feel that would make any difference in the epidemic in this country of random mass shootings by men with assault weapons.
         I've written letters to my representatives. I've written letters to my local newspaper.
       I've gone to protests calling for a ban on assault weapons.
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       I've taken part in sit-ins in congressmen's offices
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      I've written dozens of blog posts  calling for better gun control.
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       I even wrote a protest song.
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       But what does anything I do matter? What does anything any American citizen says or does matter when our lawmakers, the only ones who have the power to end the violence by passing sensible gun laws, won't do anything because they're in the pockets of the gun lobby?  
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       Congressional and Senate Republicans kill every bill calling for the ban of assault weapons,
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...and they've stopped even pretending that they care about the lives that are taken away by gun violence. After the last two shootings within this past week they haven't even bothered to offer their  phony old pious "thoughts and prayers" pablum. I suppose they believe they don't need to bother anymore. They must know how hopelessly worn-down people like me with rocks on their hearts are.
         And yet the other day as I was driving home from the supermarket listening to the news on the radio I heard that President Biden has again called for an assault weapons ban. 
         "Oh, thank you," I said to the radio. And the rock lifted a millimeter.  
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My Near Brush With The Facebook Bot Police. Or Maybe Not?

1/21/2023

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​COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023:

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​"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.
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​
​MY NEAR BRUSH WITH THE FACEBOOK BOT POLICE. OR MAYBE NOT?

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     A few days ago I was unwittingly on the verge of being nabbed by the Facebook Bot Police and hauled off to Facebook Jail, that nether state in which one is banned from using Facebook for some infraction for a period of time, maybe a few hours, maybe a few days, or maybe, if one has been especially and repetitiously incorrigible in one's postings,
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...indefinitely.
​      Or maybe I wasn't a hairsbreadth away from Facebook Jail. Maybe what I posted wasn't in its context offensive to the Facebook community standard after all. Or maybe it was offensive and the bots, if they are insidiously efficient, will find what I posted (and soon afterwards deleted) floating somewhere around the vastness of the internet, where stuff can be created but not destroyed, and get me yet. 
          In truth, I don't actually know what my standing in the Facebookverse is at this moment. If anybody knows exactly what it is that one gets Facebook jailed for, I am looking for enlightenment.
​          Anyway, here's my tale:
       A few days ago I posted on Facebook my previous blog, which was about a WWII spy novel I'd recently read, "Crosswind" by Karen K. Brees. 
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     I found this book fascinating because of its subplot, which involved Adolph Hitler's little-known plan for a master race of Aryan plants in tandem with his plan for a master race of Aryan humans. (See https://www.ailantha.com/blog/crosswind-adolph-hitlers-plant-army).​
       I came up with the idea of photoshopping a swastika onto a photo of a garden and using it as the cover picture for my blog post. Here's what I came up with:
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      I thought it was a pretty snappy picture, and  when I posted my "Crosswind" blog on Facebook, this picture  showed up with it on my timeline. 
        About an hour after I'd posted the blog with the Nazi garden picture, one of my daughters called me. 
       "You might want to take down that swastika picture from Facebook," she said.  "If the bots catch it you could end up in Facebook Jail."
          "Facebook Jail?" said I. "It's not like I'm promoting white nationalism! Don't the bots know from context?"
          My daughter replied that she didn't know if the bots knew from context. If they did I might be all right. But if they didn't I might be Facebook toast. She said that she wouldn't bet on the bots getting context. Rather she imagined their bot-radar making a beeline for that swastika. And me.   
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       So I quickly switched out the picture of the swastika garden for a picture of the book cover:
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        And I head not a peep, snap, crackle, or pop from the Facebook bot police. 
        Still, I wonder if I'd left that swastika garden picture up, would I soon have gotten the Facebook hook? Or might the Facebook bots be more perspicacious
 than we understand?
​        Which is also a scary thought.
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"Crosswind": Adolph Hitler's Plant Army

1/17/2023

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​COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023:

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​"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.
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​"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
​
​Available on Amazon.


​"CROSSWIND": ADOLPH HITLER'S PLANT ARMY

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    It's common knowledge that Adolph Hitler had an insidiously demented plan for a master race of Aryan human beings. But who knew that he also had a plan for a master race of Aryan plants?
         Who knew that the Nazis were fierce ecologists with a commitment to protecting nature from what they considered to be inferior non-German vegetation?

       Who knew that "Blood and Soil," the rallying cry of the white supremacists at the 2017 "Unite the Right" monster rally in Charlottesville, Virginia,
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...was the rallying cry in Nazi Germany to promote racial purity and to raise those who lived in rural areas above those who worked in cities?
         Who knew that in the Third Reich pure-blooded Germans were believed to be rooted in the land and the soil while Jews, on the other hand, were said to be rootless city-dwellers, human weeds that needed to be pulled from society as relentlessly as vegetative weeds needed to be pulled from a garden?
           
 Who knew that German plants were seen as the superior species over all flora, and therefore not only did all non-native plants need to be eradicated from the landscape of Germany, but that once Hitler's armies had conquered Europe, all non-German plant types in the Third Reich would be ripped out and replaced with "German" plants, and a master race of Germanized plants would be in ascendance alongside a master race of Germanized people?
          Who knew that Hitler was drafting plants into his army?
        Much as is known about the preposterous notions promoted by Adolph Hitler and embraced by his followers, who knew that this irrational mindset included the Nazification of plants, as well?
        With all we know  about Hitler's Nazi Germany, who actually knew any of that?

       I didn't. I didn't know any of the above until I read "Crosswind (The World War II Adventures of M16 Agent Katrin Nissen Book 1),"
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​...the latest novel by Karen K. Brees.
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​     "Crosswind" is in fact a WWII spy thriller, but with a fascinating twist: the protagonist, an undercover wartime agent for Allied intelligence in the early days of Adolph Hitler’s blitzkrieg across Europe, happens also to be a Yale professor of botany, a Danish-born woman named Dr. Katrin Nissen. 
       
When a key German operative working for the Allies suddenly disappears, Dr. Nissen is dispatched to Berlin to find him under the guise of attending an academic conference on Plant Sociology, a Nazi construct to the effect that in nature plants form communities among their own kind and seek to weed out foreign or undesirable plants and that, following the dictates of nature, society likewise has an imperative to eliminate foreign or undesirable human beings. Under the banner of "Blood and Soil" the botanists at the University of Berlin are required to present this doctrine as science, just as all German scientists are now required to bend their findings so that they fall in line with Hitler’s ideology.
       A mysterious string of seemingly accidental deaths among the University botanists, inexplicably missing and misplaced research materials, and the ubiquitous presence of the Gestapo everywhere from the city streets to the halls of academia, create an atmosphere of fear and danger which  Katrin Nissen must carefully and surreptitiously negotiate in her search for an agent who seems to have vanished into thin air.
      
Now, while I was reading this book, much as I was enjoying the story, I nonetheless found  the whole far-fetched plot line about Nazi Plant Sociology so unbelievable that I wondered if the author had made it all up. Turns out she hadn't.
​         "Blood and Soil" was in fact a key Nazi slogan and the logo of
 
 the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture,
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....and the superiority of German plants really was part of Hitler's ideology with the eventual Germanization of all nature part of his master plan.
       Though Karen K. Brees's "Crosswind" is a suspenseful page-turner full of quick turns and simmering intrigues, it was the amazing history of Nazi plant ideology in which the espionage story is wrapped- and which I never knew about - that most captivated me. 
        "Crosswind" is a terrific read and I recommend it. It will surely light up your brain cells and provoke your thoughts. Here's the Amazon link: 

https://www.amazon.com/Crosswind-Adventures-Agent-Katrin-Nissen-ebook/dp/B0B9SP87TW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1M2OLHTH12MR4&keywords=crosswind+karen+k.+brees&qid=1673983312&sprefix=%2Caps%2C127&sr=8-1

References:
https://journals.openedition.org/etudesrurales/9153

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43695164

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Prince Harry...Who?

1/13/2023

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​COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023:

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​"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions" Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.
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​"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
​
​Available on Amazon.


​PRINCE HARRY...WHO?

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      Though I haven't yet watched the Netflix series,
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...or any of the TV interviews,
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...I have, like the rest of the conscious world, been following the saga of Harry and Meghan.
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      Still, for all that I've read or heard about the ex-royal couple,
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...I still have one question that I haven't seen addressed anywhere: What's Harry's last name?
    Is it Windsor? Sussex? Markle? Does he even have one? Do any of the British royals have one?              What name do they put on their drivers' licenses? How do they sign their credit cards?
    Of course they probably have someone to drive them anywhere they'd like to go and buy them anything they need, so it's likely they don't need those sorts of nuisances in their lives. 
       So my guess is that Harry probably doesn't have a last name per se.  I'm guessing it might be like what I used to tell my piano students:
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     "We only need our music when we don't know what the notes are."
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      Maybe last names are the same principle: We only need one when everybody in the world doesn't know who we are. Which isn't the case with Prince Harry: Everybody in the world knows who he is and what he looks like. I mean, would anybody mistake this face for anybody else?
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...especially if it were attached to the name "Prince Harry?"
      Still, if he and Meghan are intending to stay here in the States, as it appears they are at least for a good while, he might find that he'll need to write something other than "Prince Harry" on the forms the IRS will surely expedite to him in order to collect their share of the multi-millions he'll hoover up from his newly-released book.
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     In this case he probably really will have to figure something out vis-a-vis the last name situ. Maybe he can get some advice from Lady Gaga.​
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Stacy's Bridal Shower

1/10/2023

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​COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023:

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​"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions" Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.
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​"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
​
​Available on Amazon.


​STACY'S BRIDAL SHOWER

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       This past Saturday, January 7, Tom, Theresa, and I drove north from Columbus to Amherst, a scenic small-town exurb of Cleveland, 
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...for the shower of my niece Stacy, here with her fiancé, Mike.
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      Before driving off to meet-up with his brothers, Tom dropped Theresa and I off at the shower venue, the Amherst Historical Society,
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...where one learns upon enter the charming foyer that one is in the Sandstone center of the world. 
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      The shower was held in the events space, where Mike was a good sport about staying and joining in the festivities.
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     Stacy with her mom, Mary Jane.
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...and with her mom, sister, Audrey, and nieces.
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        The food was prepared by the mom of the bride with side dishes and assistance provided by family members and friends. 
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     We started with yummy appetizers,
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      Especially tasty among the apps were the "Caprese Salad," cherry tomatoes toothpicked to a daub of pesto and a square of mozzarella sitting in a coating of balsamic dressing,
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...and the "Cowboy Caviar," a savory mix of beans and chopped veggies,
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​...(which I, for one, preferred by far over the fish-egg kind).
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    There were also fruit drinks and mimosas available at the bar.
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     While we munched on our hors d'oeuvres,
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...we took the "Would She Rather" quiz, guessing what we thought the bride would prefer.
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     After we'd all filled in our sheets Stacy and her assistant read the answers.
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     To everyone's surprise and amusement, my daughter-in-law Emily, who'd just met Stacy for the first time that day, won the prize for getting the most right answers.
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     Next we dove into the entrées, over-the-top delicious chicken salad croissants and quiche made by Mary Jane,
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...and some also delicious salad sides.
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      Then we played another game, the Wedding Shoe Game.      
     We guessed our answers, and afterwards Stacy and Mike sat upfront with their shoes in their hands. As they were asked the questions, they held up the shoe of the one that they thought fit the question.
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     We then had dessert, cake,   
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...and cherry almond streusel pie with a side of whip cream, which I brought.
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     (Some of the guests tried a spritz of whip cream on their cake and became instant disciples of whip cream on cake).
       Then Stacy and Mike opened their gifts.

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        Before leaving, some of us left words of advice and good wishes for the soon-to-be-newlyweds.
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      It was a joyful day for all of us there,
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...with an even happier day on the horizon.
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A Tale Of Two Speakers

1/9/2023

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​COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023:

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​"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions" Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.
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​"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
​
​Available on Amazon.

​
​A TALE OF TWO SPEAKERS

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​    Nancy Pelosi has turned over her gavel as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and stepped down as the leader of House Democrats, a position she held for 20 years.
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    During those 20 years Pelosi was, until the election of  Vice-President Kamala Harris, the highest-ranking female law-maker in the history of American government. Barack Obama called her the best Speaker the House of Representatives ever had.
       And right President Obama was; for Nancy Pelosi has always been a staunch
 Progressive, a champion of health care, civil liberties, LGBTQ and women's rights, education, and the environment. 
        And even when the right wing made her their target, painted her name as synonymous with evil, spewed at her a constant torrent of free-floating generic hatred that at times endangered her life and caused her husband to almost lose his, even then she remained firm and strong. For Nancy Pelosi has always been a firm, strong, courageous woman, a force to be reckoned with who stood by her principles and got things done.  
          Now compare this woman to the man who is replacing her, incoming Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
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      Kevin McCarthy has made a career of chasing personal ambition, of changing his political ideology according to whichever direction the winds of opportunity blew, of selling himself to the highest bidder. After Donald Trump incited the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol McCarthy briefly waffled over whether or not to hold Trump accountable for his crime, then decided, along with the majority of his Republican colleagues in the House and Senate, that it was in his best interest not to. Rather he latched onto Donald Trump on the bet that Trump's patronage would easily win him the Speakership of the House of Representatives when the great Red wave rolled in during the 2022 midterm elections.
            But, of course, that Red wave never rolled in, Donald Trump's political influence  dropped to ten cents on the dollar, and in the end McCarthy had to give in to every demand made of him, to grease every greedy Congressional palm held out to him with promises of power and positions of influence in order to buy the votes he needed to win the Speakership. 
​            
 Donald Trump called Kevin McCarthy "My Kevin." Now  he's everybody's Kevin.
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        Nancy Pelosi was never anybody's Nancy.    
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Kevin McCarthy's Deal With The Devil

1/5/2023

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​COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023:

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​ "Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions" Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.
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​"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
​
​Available on Amazon.

​
​KEVIN MCCARTHY'S DEAL WITH THE DEVIL

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    At the moment I'm writing this on Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 9:11 pm, The United States House of Representatives, after eleven rounds of voting over three days, still hasn't elected a Speaker of the House.    
     Kevin McCarthy, the purported anointed one to become the new Republican Speaker after the Democrats lost the House in the midterms, 
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...is having his life's ambition kiboshed by these twenty far-right wing, hard-line House Republicans, who apparently have formed the Never Kevin caucus.
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   Why are these twenty Republicans sworn in concrete against having Kevin McCarthy as their leader?  
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    Fierce Donald Trump loyalists all, I might venture a guess that they are subscribing to Trump's modus operandi of setting off major disruption and drama as a strategy for winning personal gain and power. But that's just a guess.
     Anyway, the irony is that Kevin McCarthy tossed his conscience and integrity out the window to 
be Donald Trump's Gunga Din, most loyal of lackies, carrying Trump's  water on his back like a limpin' lump o' brick-dust.
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    But if Kevin McCarthy thought that toadying to Donald Trump would win the hearts and minds of all Trump's Congressional disciples, for the past three days he's been learning a hard lesson:  If you sell your soul to the Devil you should never expect a fair bargain.
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The Christmas Tree Frosting Board.

1/2/2023

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Coming Out In April, 2023:

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     "Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions" Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.
Picture
"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
​
​Available on Amazon.

​
​THE CHRISTMAS TREE FROSTING BOARD.

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     I first heard of the concept of a frosting board from my grand daughters, who heard their mom exclaim that this edible objet d'art, 
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... that she'd seen on Instagram, was what she wanted for Christmas.
       (Here's the link to the frosting board post in case anyone's interested or doesn't believe such a thing actually exists.):
       
https://www.instagram.weom/reel/Ckt4uwDJzBn/?igshid=ZmMyNmFmZTc%3D
​
      Now, when my daughter made the declaration that she wanted a massive mound of frosting in which to dip cookies for Christmas she was doing so tongue-in-cheekily.
       Or perhaps wishful-thinkily, as my daughter, a dessertitarian with a prodigious sweet tooth, comes from a line of dessertitarians  with prodigious sweet teeth: this trait she inherited from me,
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...just as I inherited it from my mother before me,
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...then passed it down to my daughter,
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...who then passed it down to her sugar-loving daughters.
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​     People like myself, my mother, my daughter, and my grand daughters see our plate of meat, potatoes and veggies as the gateway we must eat our way through before reaching what it is that we really want: our dessert. We may at times deny ourselves the sweets we crave, but we crave them all the same.
     But even I, who love frosting above all, would never dream - well, except in my dreams - of slathering icing on a platter, scooping it up with a cookie, and boldly daring to call it a legitimate dessert. Surely that sort of thing couldn't possibly be acceptable. Leastways not in the grown-up world.
     But then, my grand daughters, who showed me the frosting board Instagram post, have not quite yet left the portals of childhood's joyland,
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 ...where such wondrous things as Christmas trees made of frosting and sprinkles that you scoop up with a cookie seem perfectly acceptable.
       But now hear this! Scooping up a gob of frosting with a cookie has just crashed the world of the acceptable: It's on Instagram. Complete with step-by-step video instructions given by a lady with nice hands and the no-nonsense tone of a Home Ec teacher.
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       The frosting board, having received the breath of life on Instagram, is now undeniably a thing. 
      And, it being a thing, my grand daughters and I decided to make one for Christmas Eve.
       The first step was to make the cookies for dipping, which we did early in the day.
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      The girls made a batch of Toll House cookies with M&M's,
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...and I made some sugar cookies.
         Per the instructions of the Instagram Home Ec teacher, who gave the warning not to make the frosting board far in advance as the frosting would dry out, the girls and I waited until after the first course of Christmas Eve dinner was finished.
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      We then exhorted everyone to stay at the table while we zipped into the kitchen and whipped together the Christmas tree frosting board.
​        I was permitted to add the green food coloring to the frosting (only because I pressed the issue), but the girls insisted on making the rest of this sugary chef d'oeuvre by themselves, sans my asistance.
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     We forgot to buy a candy bar to use for the tree's trunk, however we did have some Nutella on hand, so the girls fashioned the trunk from Nutella, which worked fine.
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      They laid the frosting on extra thick.
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      My daughter couldn't believe we actually made her Christmas tree frosting board. Actually none of the grown-ups could believe it. Actually I couldn't believe it myself. And when we all gathered 'round the frosting board and started diving in with the cookies we couldn't believe we were actually doing that, either.
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        But dive into the frosting board we did, though I served it with ice cream, whipped cream, and fruit salad, just to make it seem more, I don't know, legitimate.
​         Anyway, it was incredible, delightful, delicious, delovely, not to mention a turbo-charged sugar high. And by the time it was over we'd really put a hurt on that Christmas tree.
Picture
       "Should I save the left-over frosting?" I asked my daughter.
        "Get rid of it," she said. "We need to pretend this never happened."
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    "Equal And Opposite Reactions"
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    ​"Hail Mary"
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    "Tropical Depression" 
    by Patti Liszkay
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