Monthly Archives: January 2017

01.29.17
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Do You Smell It?

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My mother used to tell me about how, as a little Jewish girl in the Bronx in the 1940s, she used to have nightmares that Hitler was coming to get her and woke up crying.

Now you have to understand that my Mom was about as far away and protected from Hitler as a little girl could be, living in a Jewish enclave in New York City in a democratic country – in fact the strongest in the world – the one that was leading the fight against him. Not to mention she was the daughter of Jewish Hungarian immigrants who wisely chose to emigrate to the U.S. in the early 1930s, no doubt sensing the imminent threats in their homeland.

What a difference almost a century makes.

... or not. Dr Seuss cartoon, circa 1941.

… or not. Dr Seuss cartoon, circa 1941.

I was hoping to write about La La Land and the Oscar nominations this week. Instead, I’m lying in bed watching the news in horror. Laying? I can’t recall which one. That’s where I am at the moment. Viewing a radical racist sociopath on television who doesn’t understand that the very country he conspired with the Russians to lead runs on one simple idea:

YOU ARE WELCOME TO BECOME A PART OF A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS WHERE EVERYONE IS EQUAL AND FREE.

Sure, sometimes we don’t quite rise to our aspirations. We too often stumble around our principles in individual cases. But for the most part, this is who we actually are. Certainly, it’s who the vast majority of our elected officials are. A melting pot of cultures, religions and differences bound together under that guiding principle.

No more.

This fish rots from the head on down.

Not sure there is enough lysol for this

Not sure there is enough lysol for this

And it’s getting smellier and smellier with each passing day. As if we’re all caught in a refuse center without any vents and nary a room deodorizer in sight. There seems only one option at this point. Get rid of the racist… I mean rancid animal… by breaking the doors down, airing the whole thing out and then, when we’ve reached something approaching a new stasis – rebuilding.

If that’s at all possible.

A dear friend of mine gave me the perfect metaphor for this.

Having to deal with DJT on a daily basis is like being in an abusive relationship.

Abusers evoke feelings of powerless, depression, anger and frustration. Experts advise you to leave an abusive situation. But short of turning away from the daily horror of DJT’s actions – which in my mind is being complicit in his actions as if this were Germany in the 1930s and you partied as your country devolved into a dictatorship – this is an impossibility. This is not to say you need to focus on him 24/7. Life should and needs to go on, especially the consumption of chocolate cake, wine and other pleasures I won’t get into here. And it will make us stronger and piss him off. Especially if you include social media baiting him in the mix and subscribing to your favorite newspaper, preferably the New York Times, Washington Post or Boston Globe. Because that is who (whom? – oh, who cares) will likely/ultimately bring him down.

While back in reality, subscriptions are surging. #Watergate4EVA

While back in reality, subscriptions are surging. #Watergate4EVA

There is a movie out at the moment called Lion that is based on the true story of a very young, very poor Indian boy who gets lost, becomes a street orphan and winds up getting adopted by an Australian couple living in an appealing home by the water on the shores of Tasmania.

It’s a wonderful film for a variety of reasons – fine writing, acting, direction, visual design… Well, let’s just say they all combine to effectively tell a unique story.

Still, perhaps the most compelling moment in Lion comes at the moment the now grown up “boy’s” very WHITE, adoptive Mom explains to him why in the world she wanted to voluntarily raise and love a little BROWN kid who was not her own. I mean, clearly she had no other choices, right?

Wrong.

But no spoilers here. Watch the movie and you’ll understand why not only she does but why, at the end of the day, the world sways towards justice and inclusion — despite what we’re seeing right now at all of the nation’s major metropolitan airports (Seattle for the win below).

You can twist your words into a pretzel-like logic to explain your abusive behavior and regressive actions in the service of your master plan to discriminate against whole swaths of people based on ethnicity, religion or “otherness.”

But what you can’t ultimately do in the light of day and in the annals of history is to remove the stench from yourself. By issuing an executive order that bans innocent citizens from seven (and counting) countries from entering or re-entering the U.S. (Note: Yes, some people CAN’T get back in to their HOMES – one woman noted she doesn’t know what will happen to her DOG), DJT has officially gone from toxic waste dump to the BP Oil Spill in the eyes of the MAJORITY of the nation he theoretically seeks to guide. And it’s officially only been…one week.

We're with you lady lib. #buckleup #bumpyride

We’re with you lady lib. #buckleup #bumpyride

If only The Statue of Liberty could speak.

Oh wait. She can.

#RESIST #ACT #DONATE #DEMONSTRATE

WE. ARE. THE. MAJORITY.

01.22.17
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Notes from the Revolution

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750,000 strong in L.A.

500,000 in Washington, DC

250,000 in Chicago

150,000 in Boston

120,000 in Seattle (!)

100,000 in Saint Paul (!)

100,000 in Denver (!)

And 400,000 plus in Manhattan

Not to mention 10,000 strong in my beloved Ithaca, NY #ithacaisgorges

Not to mention 10,000 strong in my beloved Ithaca, NY #ithacaisgorges

Welcome to a street protest sampling on Day 2 in Trump America. To say nothing of the demonstrations in 37 cities worldwide, including London, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Tokyo and many others (including ANTARTICA… yes, really).

Welcome to the Women’s March all over the world.

Welcome to the PEOPLE’S ANTIDOTE to the much touted right wing nativist – or shall we just say it – white nationalist – movement.

Welcome to the ANTI – REVOLUTION. The REAL REVOLUTION

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The real story was in the crowd. Aged from two to early 80s in Los Angeles, my home turf. Well, at least I thought it was the oldest were in their early 80s. Given L.A. standards of “beauty,” that man could have been in his 180’s and those two gray haired older ladies, who had clearly marched in the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s might have been even older. At least chronologically. We preserve ourselves well out here. Or, well, at least we can make it look that way. Welcome to the deepest blue state in America.   But don’t be jealous. Instead, come join us.

Greetings from LA LA LAND

Greetings from LA LA LAND

The ingenuity of the signs and the phrases they came up with other than “Dump Trump’ really got me. Very clever.

People of Quality, Don’t Fear Equality.

Love Women, Don’t Grab Them.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun-Damental Rights

A Woman’s Place is in the Resistance.

If You Thought SHE was Nasty, Get a Load of Us.

And my ABSOLUTE favorite:

THE. BEST.

THE. BEST.

People were EVERYWHERE.

You couldn’t march much of anywhere but that wasn’t the point. The point was to show Congress and perhaps the world what we believed. That THIS is the movement. That we won’t take it lying down. Who knew that so many in the world were already with us?

That poor Telemundo reporter and her camera person. It was gridlock. She was in full hair and makeup. But not sweating. No one was sweating. It was a beautiful L.A. day – in the high fifties, brisk, sun shining. People’s faces were not gleeful so much as they were welcoming.

The Metro stations were jammed. Luckily I parked at a friend’s house about a half hour walk away. I met friends who drove in from several hours away. And then friends of their friends from various spots all over southern California. As their friends to the north were demonstrating in San Francisco, while mine were doing the same in Oakland.

The Chair (2nd from right) and his crew #strongertogether

The Chair (2nd from right) and his crew #strongertogether

It wasn’t just women. At least a third to a half were men. The march was about women’s rights – reproductive and otherwise. But it was also about immigration. And health care. About LGBTQ rights. About racism and the rights of black and brown and yellow people. Mostly, it was about equality. Women brought their 8 year old daughters. Men clasped their 6 year old boys by the hand, pointing and leading them through a sea of humanity and teaching them, or perhaps the better word is instructing them, on how to behave as kids, and, in turn, as adults.

Sing it, sister

Sing it, sister

There will be NO TOLERANCE for a curtailment of hard fought freedom.

There will be NO PEACE if the person who is now occupying the White House who lost the popular vote by almost THREE MILLION – begins to roll back women’s reproductive rights, or begins mass deportation of immigrants, or tries to normalize discrimination against the LGBT community through exercise or non-exercise of a white nationalist agenda.

What we were demonstrating is that ALL of these rights are essentially the same. If you scapegoat ONE of us, you scapegoat ALL of us. We Americans will not put up with a strategy of turning us all against each other. Even if a plurality of the White House’s current occupant’s voters are fine with allowing it.

WE, THE MAJORITY, will continue to speak out. To Resist. To Demonstrate. Every day for the next four years, if necessary.

The new occupant will not bring America to its knees.

We, the people, will monitor the new occupant and, if necessary, cut his agenda off at its symbolic knees. And then, if still necessary, EVICT him.

This will happen if he refuses to listen to the majority because THE NEW REALITY is that HE WORKS FOR US.

And he knows better than anyone does that when employees do not listen to reason from their boss – the boss, at the end of the day, can only answer them with two words:

YOU’RE FIRED.

#Demonstrate. #Resist. #Act. #Donate.