For any who want more, complete list of all posts by month since 2011
  • Hallelujah, Hope is Making a Comeback!

    Hallelujah, Hope is Making a Comeback!


    Thanks to former First Lady Michelle Obama for reminding me at the Democratic National Convention this week of our mutual feelings sixteen years ago when a young Senator from Illinois, her husband Barack Obama, was nominated to become President of the United States. President Obama became the champion of “hope” in my mind forever because he believed in the possibility of positive change in a nation I sensed we both loved. I’ve missed them both.

    We choose hope over fear. We see the future not as something out of our control, but as something we can shape for the better through concerted and collective effort. We reject fatalism or cynicism when it comes to human affairs; we choose to work for the world as it should be, as our children deserve it to be. (President Obama to the United Nations General Assembly, September 24, 2014)

    four-year-old Ella on board the Harris/Walz JOY Campaign Train in playhouse at the zoo yesterday while two-year-old Molly hoped for height

    My hope is we will choose to work together for the world as it should be, as all children deserve it to be.

    Onward.

  • what a difference a month makes

    what a difference a month makes


    The Presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President DonOLD Trump on June 27th. sparked a cataclysmic chain reaction that saw eighty-one-year-old President Biden change his mind about continuing his re-election campaign on July 21st., endorsing the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris instead. And the race was on with the Dems suddenly energized, emptying their pocketbooks with support for Harris.

    Meanwhile, the games of the XXXIII Olympiad began three days later on July 24th. with more than 10,000 athletes competing in Paris, France across so many events Pretty and I couldn’t possibly keep up with them for the next seventeen days of nonstop coverage streaming on a gazillion TV channels from five o’clock in the morning until way too late at night. But we tried our best. Tennis in week one, basketball in week two with track and field, swimming, diving, equestrian, fencing, even surfing in Tahiti in French Polynesia which is a long, long way from Paris. We did draw the line at break dancing which was new to the Olympics in 2024 and a bridge too far for us to cross. Maybe in 2028.

    I took a break from live streaming sports Tuesday in the midst of Hurricane Debby to tune in for the excitement of VP Harris’s running mate selection. Governor Tim Walz, or as I have dubbed him Coach Happy Tim, was announced on August 6th.; his choice has been a popular one so far with the Harris/Walz ticket drawing extraordinary support in their rallies across the country this week.

    The Olympics ended today which left me feeling at a loss over my prospects for next week’s streaming opportunities, particularly in those early morning hours when Carl’s wakeup call sounds at 5:30 a.m.

    What a difference a month makes. Life seems to be speeding past this year with record winds blowing change in every direction, or maybe hurricane season is beginning.

    Hang on. Stay tuned.

    Our Cat after Hurricane Idalia one year ago

    (missing since July 3rd.)

  • mind your own damn business, says Governor Walz

    mind your own damn business, says Governor Walz


    Yesterday Governor Tim Walz became Vice President Kamala Harris’s personal choice to become her Veep in the 2024 campaign. Of course Pretty had vetted the governor before I even knew who he was. We both sat and watched their first campaign event together in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, the birthplace of America.

    When the topic is women’s reproductive rights, follow the yellow brick road repaired by a Wizard named Walz in his home state of Minnesota six months after the Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court in June, 2022, that took away a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. Minnesota became the the first state to restore personal freedom of choice for women in January, 2023, an effort championed by its governor Tim Walz who understood from his own experience that personal health decisions must be personal.

    4-year-old granddaughter Ella watches at Aunt Coco’s house

    Daddy holds 2-year-old Molly while Uncle Seth watches with them

    both granddaughters will grow up with a woman President (hopefully!)

    I like Tim, or as I have decided to call him, Happy Tim. I also had a Civics teacher in junior high school who was a football coach, and I credit that course with sparking my interest in understanding the importance of separation of powers in our government. Coach K smiled a lot, too, but our football team wasn’t nearly as good as Coach Walz’s.

    Onward.

    ****************

    P.S. Thanks to Mama Caroline for pictures used here.

  • Embracing Imperfections: A Vice Presidential Hopeful’s Tale

    Embracing Imperfections: A Vice Presidential Hopeful’s Tale


    I’m sure VP Harris hasn’t made her final selection for her Veep because I am still waiting for the call. Here I am, send me.

    Cell phone charged? Check.

    Bag packed for possible overnight stay? Check.

    Attitude positive? Check.

    Enthusiasm for the job? Check.

    Qualifications to serve? Aha. That could be a slight problemo. Foreign affairs my worst category because I am weak in geography – as in, for example, what country is next to Peru? Sigh. But if she’s looking for expertise in domestic issues, I’m a whiz. For example, I think every American who hasn’t shot somebody should get a monthly Good Citizens’ Dividend check for $1,000 for good behavior.

    Oh, well. No candidate is perfect so maybe Vice President Harris can overlook a tiny flaw to embrace my good points.

    I wasn’t invited to DC yet, and time is running out so…

    Here I sit, watching the Olympics, waiting for the call.

    Stay tuned for updates, or you can check X tomorrow.

  • I worry about the long moral arc of the universe bending in the wrong direction

    I worry about the long moral arc of the universe bending in the wrong direction


    “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

    I am prone to worrying – that’s right. They call me the worrier, and apparently the older I am, the more I think I have to worry about. The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get as the saying goes; and the slower I go, the worrieder I am. The world to me has gone mad which makes me doubt whether the direction that long moral arc of the universe Dr. King talked about is actually bending toward justice. No justice, no peace is a chant sometimes used by marchers in various peaceful protest movements – I have internalized this slogan to define my world view, and that makes me worry about everything.

    I need hope, I need to feel better. I need someone to stand for truth, for accountability, for a future for my granddaughters to live authentic lives free from fear. I need a woman who will cut through the crap of my cynicism and crisis of confidence in the institutions I’ve cherished for seventy-eight years. Have I been living in a fantasy country?

    I need Letitia James, the first African American and first woman to be elected Attorney General for the State of New York in 2018; a woman who was born in New York City – was one of eight children; a product of the public school system, BA from City of New York University’s Lehman College, JD from HBCU Howard University in Washington, D.C., Master of Public Administration from Columbia University.

    Return with me now to the thrilling days of yesteryear – in reality earlier this year in February – return with me to the feeling I had when I first heard James say those remarkable words “Justice has been served.” Mr. Trump and his financial cohorts were hit with an incredible civil judgment in the amount of $463.9 million dollars for a massive fraud case. When Mr. Trump called No Fair, AG James threatened to sell his real estate if he couldn’t come up with the assets. No one is above the law, not even the former president of the United States, right?

    Oh, gosh. Turns out that’s not quite right anymore, according to the twice-baked, bought- and-sold Supremes in their 6-3 majority ruling last week on presidential immunity. Shame on you, John Roberts, Amy Barrett – you both knew better and yet still supported a decision that struck at the heart of that moral arc of the universe tilting away from equality under the law rather than bending toward justice. Gorsuch, Alito, Kavanaugh and Thomas continue on their road to constitutional perdition so no surprises there.

    I also need the three women Supremes I call my Dream Girls, the women who dissented from the majority in the presidential immunity ruling: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagen and Ketanji Brown Jackson. I need for them to get two votes each instead of one since they are apparently the only justices interested in justice. Just a thought.

    Okay. I see today is Old Blue Monday as my paternal grandmother used to say in her weekly letter to me in my college years and beyond. I wish I could chat with her now – she was a woman of substance if not a woman of means, a woman with a wicked sense of humor, a great storyteller. She was also a worrier which used to annoy me in my youth because I was often the target of her worries. Little did she know as a survivor of the Great Depression and two World Wars that she hadn’t seen anything yet.

    Please stay tuned.