September 29, 2019

Anyone watching the Global Citizen concert?

Queen is there with Adam Lambert as the vocalist. He's no Freddie, but he's good.

So many good songs...
I wonder what he thinks-- he was one of the first openly gay contestants on the music contest shows here. And now he sings Freddie's songs-- poor Freddie in the 80s, trapped by homophobia and 20 years early for the miracle cures for AIDS.

There was a real lost generation of magnificent and powerful gay men in the 80s and 90s-- we owe them a lot for persevering and making art and music and fighting prejudice.

August 31, 2019

What is a book you loved in the past and re-read recently?

Did you love it as much, or wonder-- "what did I ever see in this?"

I remember reading Susan Howatch's "Church of England" series many years ago. I picked up the first recently, fairly certain I wouldn't still like it...

gobbled it up in a few hours.

Got the second book in the series on Kindle because I couldn't wait for the print copy to be shipped.

Presciently put the rest of the books on my Kindle list, which was good because I finished reading book 2 and couldn't wait to start book 3.

I was reading while standing in line at the grocery store cash register... waking up at 2 am and deciding maybe I'd just read another chapter...

It's been a long time since I got so immersed, and this is with books I'd already read.

Anyone else have a book or series they keep re-reading?

July 30, 2019

Matt Gaetz (R, Stupidville) gets an endorsement from Dershowitz

See, Matt Gaetz months ago invited a Holocaust denier to the SOTU speech.
Holocaust denier denies he's a denier-- he was just "testing the limits of free speech" when he, you know, denied the holocaust.

So Matt Gaetz scurried around looking for a character witness, preferably Jewish. Who could he come up with who would be happy to endorse this non-denier denier guy?
Alan Dershowitz. Really. He posted an email from Alan Dershowitz saying the denier wasn't a denier.

He actually thought Dershowitz would be a great character witness--https://twitter.com/mattgaetz/status/1155993249112133632?s=20

July 16, 2019

How do I delete one of my posts? It's a duplicate.

I can't find a delete button, or any instructions. I know I must be missing something.

July 5, 2019

Macy's Fireworks in NYC on TV now--

This is really impressive-- the fireworks come off the bridge and the river.
The Hollywood Scoring Orchestra is playing -- very good, great film scores and patriotic songs.

This is the sort of 4th I like.

July 1, 2019

Why did Ivanka stick so close to Trump this trip?

Interesting Twitter thread suggesting that she has become Trump's "caretaker", that he is descending into dementia.
Also that this is what Pelosi was talking about when she said his family should stage an intervention... and that this is perhaps why she's slow-tracking impeachment, that he will have to resign within a year.

Also the suggestion is that he can no longer read well, and that's why she gave that televised wrapup for him.

I don't know, but seeing Ivanka there (not his wife) practically welded to him... it looked so strange, all these heads of states, and then a daughter sitting there like she's one of them, but right next to him.

https://tweetsrepeat.com/tomjchicago

June 29, 2019

I came across these heartbreaking images-- Ruby Bridges, who integrated a New Orleans school--

All by herself, and a host of federal marshals, and one kind teacher from Boston.
Lest we forget....


From Wikipedia=
Judge J. Skelly Wright's court order for the first day of integrated schools in New Orleans on Monday, November 14, 1960, was commemorated by Norman Rockwell in the painting, The Problem We All Live With (published in Look magazine on January 14, 1964).[9] As Bridges describes it, "Driving up I could see the crowd, but living in New Orleans, I actually thought it was Mardi Gras. There was a large crowd of people outside of the school. They were throwing things and shouting, and that sort of goes on in New Orleans at Mardi Gras."[9] Former United States Deputy Marshal Charles Burks later recalled, "She showed a lot of courage. She never cried. She didn't whimper. She just marched along like a little soldier, and we're all very very proud of her."[10]


U.S. Marshals escorted Bridges to and from school.
As soon as Bridges entered the school, white parents pulled their own children out; all the teachers except for one refused to teach while a black child was enrolled. Only one person agreed to teach Ruby and that was Barbara Henry, from Boston, Massachusetts, and for over a year Henry taught her alone, "as if she were teaching a whole class."

That first day, Bridges and her mother spent the entire day in the principal's office; the chaos of the school prevented their moving to the classroom until the second day. On the second day, however, a white student broke the boycott and entered the school when a 34-year-old Methodist minister, Lloyd Anderson Foreman, walked his 5-year-old daughter Pam through the angry mob, saying, "I simply want the privilege of taking my child to school ..." A few days later, other white parents began bringing their children, and the protests began to subside.[2][11] Yet, still, Ruby remained the only child in her class, as she would until the following year. Every morning, as Bridges walked to school, one woman would threaten to poison her, while another held up a black baby doll in a coffin;[12] because of this, the U.S. Marshals dispatched by President Eisenhower, who were overseeing her safety, allowed Ruby to eat only the food that she brought from home.[citation needed]

The Bridges family suffered for their decision to send her to William Frantz Elementary: her father lost his job as a gas station attendant;[15] the grocery store the family shopped at would no longer let them shop there; her grandparents, who were sharecroppers in Mississippi, were turned off their land; and Abon and Lucille Bridges separated.[14]

Ruby Bridge integrating New Orleans School



The great Norman Rockwell painted this portrait in her honor (notice the splattered tomato on the wall, hurled by someone objecting to this little girl).]

June 19, 2019

"They want to destroy you."

“Our radical Democrat opponents are driven by hatred, prejudice, and rage and want to destroy you, and they want to destroy our country as we know it,” Trump said.

The cheering Trumpists think this is right and good. But I can't believe-- I simply cannot believe-- that ordinary Republicans can listen to that and accept it.

Maybe I just don't want to believe that my in-laws and my neighbors have gotten that deep into the moral morass of Trump. But if they DON'T agree, why don't they pull away from him? Why don't they say, "That's just wrong. No Democrat wants to destroy me or the country."

What is it they get from Trump that's worth collaborating with that sort of hatred?
I know, I should ask them, but they'll mutter something about how they disapprove of that but Hillary.



Trump's fascistic speech

June 9, 2019

Watching "The Society" and crying a bit-

Anyone watching this?
I thought-- teen drama, annoying characters, too many characters- can't keep track--

Now I'm at the end of Season 1 (Season 2 hasn't dropped yet), and it's about 2016. I don't want to spoil it. But it's all there.

June 4, 2019

Cynthia Erivo singing Impossible Dream... wait till the end--

The photos of JFK-- and then Aretha in the audience, singing along, and the Obamas, I want to cry-- I want them all back.

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