Plugging the Poll

I know that 2025 is an “off year” in terms of national races — U.S. Representative, Senator, President — but there are still general elections next Tuesday. Not just that newsy mayoral one and the couple of gubernatorial contests, either.

Booker Tour

One week after his 25-hour speech on the Senate floor began, Cory Booker spoke to Stephen Colbert on The Late Show with familiar eloquence.

“You and I are people of faith,” Booker told the host near the end of the conversation, “but there is a Civic Gospel in this country that we need more than ever.” He noted that the Declaration of Independence from a kingdom overseas was a declaration of interdependence among the people of this emerging nation as well. An extended version of the interview is now up on YouTube.

The Sixth, Lies, and Videotape

I did the absolute bare minimum in support of our democracy on January 6th,
2021: I bore witness. Sat down in front of my TV set to experience what’s supposed to be a mere, if potent, formality and stayed there all day long. I could hardly believe my eyes and ears.

How anyone watching footage of the assault then or now can honestly describe it as a peaceful expression of free speech is beyond me.

I and every other American would have been collateral damage if the rioters who overran the Capitol had successfully forced the United States Congress to halt its proceedings in some indefinite fashion. The people actually placing their lives on the line, however, were both those like the police who chose a career that puts them in a position to run towards danger, or stand as a bulwark against it, and citizens such as the Congressional staffers whose job it is to keep the cogs of government moving as smoothly as possible. We owe it to them and ourselves to never let what truly, clearly happened be forgotten, and so I share these words, reeling with turmoil over the knowledge that consequences have been avoided by too many who belittled, distorted, and outright lied about the horrific events of that day, but hoping that with enough of us speaking up and simply pointing to what the cameras saw history will get it right.

S Is for...

… Sonja from Sweden — the latest citizen curator of the official @Sweden Twitter account — who last week twitted out some controversial questions and comments on a certain subject that have spurred me to share a short soliloquy about schmutz.

I can’t use the verb (or noun) “tweet” unless we’re talking about birds. Call your
service Tweeter if you want “tweets” to be “tweeted”. If it’s Twitter, the gerund is either “Twittering” or the backwards formation “twitting” and the messages are Twits. Since Twitter and other social-media platforms that encourage short bursts of prose or graphics are considered “microblogging” that would make the entries “microposts”.
All I know is that I just refuse to say “tweet”.

Where was I? Oh, right... This:



This was sent out under the aegis of the actual country of Sweden. It was not any random little Twit from a random little twit. Sweden, in a grand experiment with vox populi democracy or individualism or whatever, has been handing over the official Twitter feed of the nation to a different Swede every week. Sonja is a young Swedish woman who seems to think that Jews as well as a select number of sneaky non-Jew decoys have multiple penises.

There Are No Words

Of course I remember September 11th, 2001. Not a soul who was of age to
remember it will ever forget. And no matter what that day was going to be for them, when it started, it ended up different.

I was supposed to move that morning, only the truck broke down. We got a call quite early — at my mother’s house, where I’d been staying between apartments — that the hauling of stuff would have to wait a day. Sure, I could have gone over to the new place and spent the night there anyway; the events that soon unfolded, though, called for family. I sat and watched Peter Jennings cover the unfathomable news just as I had 25 years earlier, home from school with the flu on the day the Challenger was lost.

That’s all you’ll hear me say directly about the grim scenes whose 10th anniversary we mark today because, really, there are no words.

What to do, then? How to do… something?

Scrap Medal

Just about a year ago, I had The Honest Scrap Award bestowed upon me by my
blog buddy Ashlie. You’re supposed to reveal ten embarrassing things about yourself, Ashlie said, backed up by various links in the chain, and then pass the award on to a
few other folks in turn.

I did not do that.