Politics

I’ve been reading Arnold J. Toynbee’s A Study of History, in an abridgement put together by one D.C. Somervell. I understand that his influence is not today what it was during the middle of the 20th Century. Read more about The Challenge

Trump goes to a NATO meeting and tells off the Secretary General of NATO, over breakfast. The next day he comes out and claims victory for things the Obama administration had already accomplished, giving a back handed “you’re welcome” to his European confederates for thank you’s he claims to have received. No European leader admits to having thanked him for anything. Read more about The Age of Thanos

I’m watching the second season of The Handmaid’s Tale, and I encourage everyone who can (it’s on Hulu) to join me.

Here’s the thing: this season spends some time chronicling the first intimations of change in what was, at the beginning, a world we recognize as our own. Suddenly there are more intrusive questions asked, women need a husband’s signature for birth control pills, identification as LGBTQ becomes, not illegal but … problematic. Read more about The Handmaid’s Tale - A Primer

Nobody on my side of the aisle is asking that question. The assumption is that he is guilty of collusion with Russia, among other things, and that he is more than impeachable. He is imprisonable.

There are a lot of reasons for believing in his guilt, beginning with the assumption that an innocent man does not behave the way that Donald Trump behaves. I agree with them, because Donald Trump is guilty of a great many things. There is never a reason to believe him innocent of anything. Read more about Is Donald Trump Innocent?

It’s fair to say I’ve been a lifelong Democrat, although that may actually have begun with Kennedy. My father was an Eisenhower Republican; my mother likely a closet Kennedy Democrat like me. But I had no qualms at all in voting for a Republican woman, Senator Margaret Chase Smith, in the Illinois Republican primary back in 1964 when she was running against Barry Goldwater. Was that the beginning of the end of the respectable Republicans? Lincoln, Grant, TR, Eisenhower. Were there more of which the country can be proud? I don’t remember. They are all gone now. Read more about The Loyal Opposition

This latest wave of feminist uprising has gotten me thinking about my own life, my own choices. I'm still trying to figure it all out.

I have not been treated badly by men. Read more about Men – A Litany

I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things ...
(Frodo to Sam, The Return of the King, JRR Tolkien)

We come at last to the end of 2017, and I am in an apocalyptic mood.

Why?

I tried listing the reasons, but there are too many to list. All around us, agency after agency, courtroom after courtroom, police and fire and local administrations, structures and strictures that we have long counted on to be there when we need them are being gutted almost behind our backs. Read more about The End of All Things

“Hope,” I wrote recently in a Facebook post, “is raising its ugly head once again.”

This was in direct response to the results of Tuesday’s elections in Virginia and elsewhere which seemed to repudiate the election results of 2016. “Maybe,” I could hear Hope whisper, from the deep recess of my soul in which I had stuffed her a year ago. “Maybe there’s Hope.” Read more about Dash It All, Hope

Almost everything I can say about guns and gun safety issues has been said and is being said a thousand times over and a thousand times better. I offer only a couple of thoughts I haven't heard lately. Read more about About Them Guns