I have Trump-voting friends who despise him for his character. Educated and intellignt people, they can’t stomach his voice. How he treats others nauseate them. But as he’s promising to give them the one thing which they want, they will suck it in and vote for him.
For a small segment, their vote for him was over social matters. They are against the DEI agenda, which is touted by them as ‘anti-white’. And it’s any effort that recognizes genders or sexes than CIS male and female.
Yes, I don’t think much of those who stand against enlightening our children.
Another group is against abortion because their god or their religion. To them, that trumps all others’ rights and freedoms because their god is the on god, the true god, the only god. The rest are just wrong.
They know.
Perhaps most fucking maddening for me are those voting for Trump because they want lower taxes. They have excellent incomes but it’s a struggle to keep up with new car leases, a manse, and those luxury trips. Lower taxes ring their greedy bells.
These people don’t contemplate our society or government beyond their narrow focus. Police state to capture, imprison, and deport people? We hear versions of, “Well, that’s pretty horrible, but it’s not my problem.”
Public education system? Not their problem.
Equal rights and democracy? They wave those concerns away as overblown.
As a friend said after hearing these responses, “If Trump wins, it’ll go to shit and take these people and this country down. When it does, I’m going to get some popcorn and watch. We tried warning them. They wouldn’t listen.”
No, they listen. They just don’t think beyond a tiny, tiny slice of the spectrum of their existence.
It’s a sunny, cloudy, snowy, dry, cold Friday out there in Ashlandia today, January 12, 2024. (Ashlandia: where the snowfall is below average.) The snow isn’t falling but hazardly tossed as lumpy blankets as it unevenly melts and freezes. Roads are clear and dry. Clouds are a buff, low gray mass which sometimes permits a blinker of sunshine. It’s 34 F now, but rain is supposed to be coming as we’re treated to a high of 44 F today.
The cats are out, taking advantage of the storm lull. Though I dislike it, Papi is prowling and inspecting, looking for changes in his kingdom. Tucked in with his tail wrapped around him as a warmer, Tucker is just breathing fresh but cold air on the covered front porch’s doormat.
I’m better, thanks, already drinking coffee, breakfast already well along the digesting process. It’s interesting, too, but after Wednesday night’s BVVP experience, my tinnitus is amost completely gone. The worst after-effects is worry that it’ll happen again – especially in somewhere public — and my abdominal muscles. Every giggle, guffaw, laugh, yawn, cough, sneeze, and grunt has those muscles screaming, give us a damn break.
I perused the list of ‘not banned’ books in Escambia County, Floridayesterday. These over sixteen hundred novels, biographies, dictionaries, and encyclopdias are not banned, the county always explain, but have been called unsuitable by some and were removed for review and decisions.
From the cited article, PEN America notes (their emphasis),
“Five dictionaries are on the district’s list of more than 1,600 books banned pending investigation in December 2023, along with eight different encyclopedias, The Guinness Book of World Records, and Ripley’s Believe it or Not – all due to fears they violate the state’s new laws banning materials with “sexual conduct” from schools.
“Biographies of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Nicki Minaj, and Thurgood Marshall are on the list, alongside The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Black Panther comics by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The Feminism Book was banned along with The Teen Vogue Handbook: An Insider’s Guide to Careers in Fashion.
“The list obtained by the Florida Freedom to Read Project also includes Anne Frank’sDiary of a Young Girl, The Adventures and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’sDeath on the Nile. The Princess Diaries and 14 other books by Meg Cabot have been taken from libraries, alongside books by David Baldacci, Lee Child, Michael Crichton, Carl Hiassen, Jonathan Franzen, John Green, John Grisham, Stephen King (23 of them), Dean Koontz, Cormac McCarthy, Celeste Ng, James Patterson, Jodi Picoult, and Nicholas Sparks. Conservative pundit Bill O’Reilly’s two books, Killing Jesus and Killing Reagan, were also banned pending investigation.”
I have to thank Scottie’s Playground for pulling this together and providing it to us. To close, the most shocking aspect are the quotes Scottie included from Judd Legum’s coverage:
Attorney General Ashley Moody argued that the school board could ban books for any reason because the purpose of public school libraries is to “convey the government’s message,” and that can be accomplished through “the removal of speech that the government disapproves.” This is a novel argument about the purpose of school libraries.
That’s GOP freedom and democracy for ya.
For some alien reason, The Neurons were playing operator-themed music in the morning mental music stream (Trademark perplexed). Songs like “Operator” by Jim Croce, “Smooth Operator” by Sade, ”Operator” by the Grateful Dead, and “Operator” by Manhattan Transfer. The last stayed put for a longer period, morphing into today’s theme music.
Although either agnostic or pastafarian — it changes as much as the weather — I enjoy gospel music. I also feel for the search for community, support, reassurance, love, information, etc., from something beyond our daily endeavors. You never know what you’ll find or where you’ll find it when you reach out in need. Although religion doesn’t do much for me, I’m happy for those who can find their answers there, so long as they don’t tread on me or try to foist their answers on the rest of us.
On to the day. Stay pos, be strong, test negative, and keep leaning forward. I know it’s not always easy, believe me, but I’ll keep trying for those four fundamental foundations. Here’s the music. Cheers
Beautiful windy, cloudy, sunny Saturday morning in Ashlandia, where the drivers are average and polite, but getting hit while you’re walking is close to happening all the time. The temperature is 54 F. Light rain might visit, and our high temperature will only be 57 F, but that’s better than 47 F.
It’s November 18, 2023, already. Counting down to all those things that are growing more and more imminent, from tests for students to mark the year’s end or term’s end, to buying presents and cooking foods for different holidays, to making travel arrangements to visit family or run away to somewhere warmer. All of these things speak from positions of privilege and having the money and food security to make these plans. Too, too many people will be scrambling as they have for years, trying to be safe, have a warm place for themselves and their families to sleep, and a decent meal. Their reasons for those situations are many; some are from choices made, but others arrived at their precarious situation through discrimination and bias, personal disasters, or mental health matters. Hope you can keep them in mind and help them out some during this season of celebration.
It’s time for the Leonids meteor show again. I went out to look for them last night,but the sky wasn’t cooperative. While Thursday night was fantastically clear, Friday night was hopelessly overcast. Bummer to me as I like watching the streaks and think about where they’ve been and what they represent. Three trips outside were done, and nada was seen but clouds and light pollution.
The Neurons popped an Isley Brothers song from 1970 into the morning mental music stream (Trademark marginal). “Freedom” is a song off an album called Get Into Something. I first heard it at the house of a girl I was seeing, but it was her mother playing the album. Her mom was about my mom’s age, but their musical selections seemed very different. As a thirteen-year-old heading for fourteen, I found myself listening intently to the vocals and the lyrics, and enjoying the instrumental elements of this R&B sound. I’d heard R&B previously but this was like, wow, there is such energy.
Let me tell you, this particular song, “Freedom” is so apropos as today’s theme music. Check out these lyrics.
Well, I wanna say, I wanna tell you I wanna say when you can do what you wanna do And go where you wanna go And live where you wanna live And love who you wanna love
And be what you wanna be Join what you wanna join Well, well, well, that’s freedom Yeah, yeah, freedom, yes sir
When you can learn what you wanna learn And read what you wanna read (Free, free, free)
And write what you wanna write (Free, free, free) Do what you feel is right (Free, free, free)
Because, I’m remembering this song at a time when a group of misnamed people called “Moms for Liberty” are getting books banned, so students can’t read what they want to read. Red state school systems are pushing to limit what is taught so you can’t learn what you want to learn. And you can’t be who you want to be when state legislatures are making shit up and declaring that people who aren’t binary can’t decide what pronoun they will use or love who they want to love because these narrow-minded cultural dictators think that love and sex is only between a man and a woman. So, “Freedom” by the Isley Brothers is a solid theme music choice for this new wave Era of Repression and Fear that Republicans are pushing.
Stay positive, be strong, and lean forward with optimism and courage toward a brighter future of freedom, equality, and justice. As Martin Luther King, Jr., said, as written in a 1918 book, “Readings from Great Authors”, attributed to Theodore Parker, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” h/t to quoteinvestigator.com.
Ah, the sun is shining and rain is falling. There’s a rainbow somewhere. Here’s the music. See you at the coffee maker. Cheers
News came that a man has successfully removed over one hundred books from school libraries. This is in Florida. He’d moved there earlier in the year and then began challenging books. See, he didn’t want them in the school’s library. Either they offended his reading tastes or they included sex, and he didn’t approve, and didn’t want his child to be able to pick one up. This one man is dictating, through Florida’s ridiculous laws regarding books and their zany laws about sexual preferences or genders other than straight up between one man and one woman — and they should be married and in a stable relationship, I infer from his comments and news reports — then they shouldn’t be in his school library. Because, you know, his child might pick it up and read it, and then, flash, OMG, what will they become?
Oh, yeah, he hasn’t totally read those books which he demands to have removed. He knows enough, see? No need to read the entire book. Could there be any redeeming reasons beyond sex to read a book? Why, of course not. That offending sex ruins the ret of the book.
I guess that’s what he’s thinking, as it’s solely on that one aspect that this fine Christian is having books challenged and removed.
One of the books that he hasn’t read which he wants to have removed is a YA graphic novel, The Girl from the Sea, by Molly Knox Ostertag. Curious about it, I went searching for more and found an excellent Advocate story about Ostertag and her graphic novel. Besides comments from Ostertag, Advocate includes several pages of The Girl from the Sea. It is funny and sweet, and I want to read more. Fortunately, it’s available at my county’s library. I’ve joined the waiting list of people wishing to read it.
Here’s a link to the Advocate so you can check it out.
Michael Seidel, writer 