One last thank you for my 3 additional hearts.

So generous. 🥰

A couple of someone's snuck in a couple of last minute hearts.

Thank you. I’ve spent most of this last week either in the hospital, appts before, and now recovering from heart surgery. Mostly I’ve stayed out of the discussions etc., but I’ve very much appreciated the hearts. Supposedly I’m good for another few years. Who knows. 😂

Thank you for my star. Lovely way to wake up.

Thank you for the stars. They do feel good.

Thank you for my stars. They feel yummy.

I heard from George McGovern.

I had left him an email note several months ago. He said to pass the information on to everyone else. He has contracted Parkinson Syndrome. He said he and his wife were adjusting but it isn’t easy.
I miss his photographs both the sunsets, but also the ones around his ranch. Sigh.

I have a theory about our nation's misogyny which may be too simplistic, but keeps coming back up in my mind.

From the mid 50s to the 70s American TV was peopled by "strong, often silent men" keeping law and order. Now I do realize that they were there because of prior myths of our culture, but we were inundated with these TV shows. There was rarely anything to counter these mythic shows.

I know I struggled a lot with getting passed their message when I was growing up. I still find myself falling into the thought patterns that men solve problems and woman are school teachers and saloon owners (if they're lucky).

I don't believe that Europe was nearly as inundated with this type of TV show. Probably because it wasn't nearly as important a myth for them. They had seen first hand what "strongmen" accomplished.

Yes, I know this is very simplistic and, of course, it doesn't solve our current problem of blatant and destructive misogyny. I've just often wondered what our nation would be like if we hadn't had TV propagandizing with a couple of decades of Western heroes.

I am just seething. I'm so angry I could scream!

The New York Post put out long, front page hit job on President Biden today. Yes, I know they are trash, but AOL is carrying it as news and the few comments I read made me even more angry.

Nope, I haven't a clue how to post a link to the story and quite bluntly I don't want to. I just skimmed it.

This man has given his all to this country and tried to do his very best and they attack him now, when he is on his way out.

Yes, I'm sure this is to deflect from the chaos in congress and the mess with king trump and president musk.

The republicans have absolutely no morals or ethics. This just makes me so mad and so sad. Nothing new, I know, but damn them!

Grief is a funny thing. It manifests in many different ways.

I've been noticing what I thought was a strange phenomenon on DU over the last couple of weeks. A lot of people seem to be writing basically mean posts to answer others posts. I know we disagree a lot and do so in many different ways, but I don't remember just plain mean ones usually. I'm responding this morning to responses to a post by someone unhappy about not being with their family over Thanksgiving thanks to politics. As I read the responses I kept thinking, 'well, that was kind of mean to say' or even more 'that was a mean thing to say to the poster'.

I've been seeing more and more responses that sort of set me back on my heels because I couldn't imagine saying something like that. Now mind you, I am not a basically sweet person, but I have learned over the years to be very careful what I say in public, although this post is obviously not a good example of that discretion . Yes, I'm well aware I'm setting myself up for some comments that I probably won't like. But, you see, grief has made me angry and I'm tired of holding my tongue and while people do and say unkind things. I'm just basically pissed at what has happened, but I don't want to be pissed at what I see as happening more and more on DU.

Can we please just breathe a little bit, and think of the person we're responding to as a real person with real feelings that might now align with yours but what good does being mean do?

Why are they so afraid of Kamala Harris?

My home server is AOL, they have news (sort of) stories running all day. The top one currently is "What's next for Kamala Harris?" The comments section was the most outrageous I've seen all fall. The bots and trolls were out in full force along with, I'm sure, idiot real people. What I didn't get was the level of anger and hatred towards Kamala. They truly would lynch her if they could get hold of her. I would understand this if she had won the election (sort of), but not after she lost. What are they so afraid of? Buyers' remorse already? I mostly skimmed the posts, but it was the worst that I've seen on AOL and I truly don't get it.