Category: blogging

SoCS: October

October is one of my favorite months.

Part of the reason is that I was born in October. My birthday is the fourth, which also happens to be the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi, who has become increasingly important to me spiritually over the years.

Growing up In New England, I always appreciated the beauty of October. It is the month when the leaves turn colors. Because our forests are mixed, there are red, orange, yellow, and russet leaves, punctuated with the deep greens of evergreens. I am lucky to still live in the Northeastern United States so our autumn foliage is still similar.

The last two Octobers I have  been back in my home area for early October with the Boiler House Poets in residency at MASS MoCA. Being back at that time of year is even more special as it has coincided with the annual Fall Foliage Festival. I have even written a poem about it.

Of course, October ends with Halloween. I admit that it is not one of my favorite holidays, but October 31st is special for another reason. It is my elder sister’s birthday and so another reason to celebrate the crisp, beautiful month of October.
*****
The prompt this week was a word beginning with “oc.” Join us for Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday and/or Just Jot It January! Find out more here:
https://lindaghill.com/2018/01/19/the-friday-reminder-for-socs-jusjojan-daily-prompt-jan-20th-2018/

Linda!

Sending out best wishes to Linda, who brings all of us together for One-Liner Wednesday, Stream of Consciousness Saturday, and Just Jot It January and delights and entertains us with her other blog posts, fiction, and books! She had a bit of a health scare earlier in the week but was able to get to prompt care, thanks to the Canadian health care system.

She is doing better, although dealing with some of the aftermath and waiting for test results to determine if further treatment is required. Let’s all send out good thoughts, prayers, and/or positive energy to Linda, who is intrepidly continuing with Just Jot It January in the midst of it all!
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here:
https://lindaghill.com/2018/01/19/jusjojan-daily-prompt-january-19th-2018/

 

US immigration

The current United States government offers so many perplexities and outrages that it is difficult to react or reach out to policymakers about all of them. Or most of them. Even closely following a handful of issues can be daunting as legislation and DT’s mind often change markedly over the course of a few hours.

One of the most critical issues at the moment is immigration. DT has insisted since his campaign began that he would build a wall across our southern border and deport undocumented people. He also wanted to restrict Muslims from entering the country, even though that clearly violates the US Constitution and laws.

As president, he has succeeded in restricting visas from some majority Muslim nations and has been deporting some undocumented people who had been allowed previously to stay. In recent months, problems have intensified for people who were brought to the United States as children, known as Dreamers. Then-President Barack Obama had signed an executive order on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in 2012, protecting some of the Dreamers until Congress could pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill. The Senate did so in 2013, but the House of Representatives failed to consider it, so DACA stayed in place until DT rescinded it in September 2017, calling on Congress to put a law in place to deal with the issue within six months. At the moment, there is the threat of a government shutdown because the budget still hasn’t passed and a replacement for DACA has been drawn into the negotiations.

It’s actually even more complicated than that, but I’ll spare you any more details.

The general upshot is that the current US immigration system is broken and has been for a long time. Some of the same people who rail against immigrants are exploiting immigrant labor, either undocumented people or those brought in as guest workers. For example, DT’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida has for years used H-2B visas to bring in foreign workers, even though there are Floridians available to take those jobs.

Immigration issues are sometimes used as cover for discrimination, prejudice, and racist attitudes. The most blatant recent example is DT’s disparaging Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries while asking why we don’t have more immigrants from Norway, a country with less than 10% people of color.

The vast majority of United States citizens are either immigrants themselves or have forebears who were immigrants. Many of those people came here to escape poverty or oppression in their home countries, the same reasons many current immigrants come here. Others came here to join family members.

It is hypocritical for people in government to disparage current immigrants when people in their families followed the same pattern in settling here.

It is true that our immigration procedures are desperately in need of updating. Processing times are also very slow, partly due to outdated procedures and quotas.

As some readers may recall, my daughter E’s spouse is British. They met in grad school and married and now have a daughter. At the moment, E and the baby are living in the US with us; L had to return to the UK after his student visa expired. They hope that E will be able to get a spousal visa in the UK later this year. Despite the uncertainties caused by Brexit, it is much easier, faster, and cheaper for E to get a UK visa than for L to get a US green card. I’m sad to say that there are some in the US who might use L’s immigration status, even though it would be legal, as a covert means of racial discrimination.

It has been heartbreaking to see families being broken apart as parents are deported away from their citizen children or children leave the only country they know to go to a parent’s country of origin where they may not even speak or write the language.

Congress and the President have the power to show compassion, justice, and welcome to immigrants by instituting a new system with an earned path to citizenship, similar to the path their ancestors followed in setting here.

Enough of the name-calling and threatening and divisiveness.

It’s time to protect the Dreamers, those under temporary protected status, and all immigrants, regardless of current documentation status. As Emma Lazarus wrote in “The New Colossus” which is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here:
https://lindaghill.com/2018/01/18/jusjojan-daily-prompt-january-18th-2018/

 

One-Liner Wednesday: change

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.
Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
— Rumi
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January and/or One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here:
https://lindaghill.com/2018/01/17/one-liner-wednesday-jusjojan-daily-prompt-january-17-2018/

 

 

Eye One

This will really be “just a jot” today. B had cataract surgery this morning, which went well, but today has been super busy.

There will be an early morning recheck tomorrow and his vision should improve as the eye heals.

There are lots of eyedrops to use over the next few weeks.

And two weeks from today, it will be time for the same drill with the other eye…
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here:
https://lindaghill.com/2018/01/16/jusjojan-daily-prompt-january-16th-2018/

 

Christmas tree takedown

Over the weekend, B and T undecorated the Christmas tree. We usually do this on Epiphany, but that was when L was flying out to return to London, so it got pushed back this year. Because B and E had cut the tree down themselves in mid-December, it was still in good shape so the extra week in the house didn’t matter.

I admit that I continued my largely hands-off policy with the tree. I didn’t really even look at it that much, other than when I would bring ABC close to it because she enjoyed the lights and grabbing at a few strategically placed safe ornaments. I especially liked that she played with – and could chew on – a red plastic-canvas-and-yarn ornament that was part of a set I had made before ABC’s mom E was born. E and T both played with those ornaments when they were young and I appreciated seeing our first grandbaby doing the same.

The other thing that was comforting about the tree this year was the scent. Even though I didn’t much care to look at the tree and often sat with my back to it, I loved the scent of our Canaan fir. I miss it now that it is gone.

This morning, a truck from the town came by and collected the tree from the curb. It and the other Christmas trees will become mulch for use in the town parks. Having served its purpose at our home, I’m glad that it has been returned to the natural world.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here:  https://lindaghill.com/2018/01/15/jusjojan-daily-prompt-january-15th-2018/

 

three firsts

When I went to church this morning, Sister Alma, who is pastoral minister, asked about my mom who is under home hospice care. Sister Alma usually goes to visit, but she has had a bad cold so has been unable to make her usual rounds. She asked if I brought communion to my mom on Sundays, which I had never thought to do. She went to the office to get a pyx for me; that is the small container that is used to carry the Eucharist to someone who is unable to attend mass. I brought the pyx with me when I went up to receive communion, the Eucharistic minister placing a host in the pyx before I received myself. When we went up to my parents’ for Sunday dinner, my mother and I said a couple of prayers together and I gave her communion. It was a privilege to be able to do this and I will be able to do it every week. Sister Alma will still visit when she is able to, but my mom will at least get communion once a week even when she can’t.

The other two firsts belong to the now seven-month-old ABC. After weeks and weeks of swollen gums and chewing on everything she gets her hands on, the corner of ABC’s first tooth broke through today. She also managed some self-propulsion today, not exactly crawling, but sort of scooching on her belly, enough that she moved off her play quilt and across the braided rug to the chair before I scooped her up. As is typical, she was moving backward rather than forward, but still progress!
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out how here:
https://lindaghill.com/2018/01/14/jusjojan-daily-prompt-january-14th-2018/

 

SoCS: no retreat

“After what might” have been a night on retreat, I am instead sitting on an upholstered chair next to our still-fragrant Christmas tree with my new Christmas-present laptop on my lap.

I had hoped to be on a 24-hour retreat at a nearby spiritual center. The theme was to have been finding some optimism for the new year.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough people sign up to go ahead with the program.

Part of the reason signups were low was probably the weather. Yesterday, the weather was rainy with a high in the 60s F. (16 C). Overnight, the temperature plummeted to well below freezing. There is an inch or two of snow (5 cm), mostly likely with a coating of ice underneath with more snow expected.

I know it is safer for all of us to be at home, but I still wish the retreat had not been cancelled.

I need any hope or optimism I can get for the year ahead.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week was to base the post on the sixth, seventh, and eighth words of whatever piece of writing was at hand when we sat down to write, hence the quotation marks at the beginning. It’s also part of Just Jot It January. Join us for one or both! Details here:
https://lindaghill.com/2018/01/12/the-friday-reminder-for-socs-jusjojan-daily-prompt-jan-13th-2018/

 

 

Review: “The Post”

Most of the plot of “The Post” takes place over a few days in 1971 when the Washington Post released parts of the  Pentagon Papers, detailing what was going on behind the scenes in the government and military before and during the Vietnam War.

Meryl Streep plays Katharine Graham, the paper’s publisher, with great sensitivity and nuance. She conveys so much with a slight raising of an eyebrow or trembling of fingers. Tom Hanks plays the hard-driving Post editor Ben Bradlee with appropriate business-like bluster, although letting his personal feelings show in some scenes when he is alone with Graham or his wife.

I was a child living in rural New England when the Pentagon papers were released. We were somewhat sheltered from the protests and intrigues about the war, but there were certain things about that time that I remember and that resonated for me while watching the film.

First was how much I admire Katharine Graham, who was a woman in a position of power in a field dominated by men and also dealing with the overwhelmingly male realms of finance and government. There are several scenes in the film that accentuate the uniqueness of her position in that timeframe. After the death of her father and her husband, she inherited the job of publisher of the Post and succeeded in bringing the paper from being a local Washington one to national prominence.  The Pentagon Papers story was a major part of that rise in stature, which continues to this day. The Washington Post has been breaking major stories on the inner workings of the current White House and on the Russian influence investigation.

Second was where my brain jumps every time I hear the name Daniel Ellsberg – to the phrase “Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist.” I remember news coverage after the Papers came out about efforts to discredit Daniel Ellsberg, who had been the source of the secret study to both the New York Times and the Washington Post. The office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist had been broken into by an FBI and a CIA agent to try to find materials with which to blackmail Ellsberg and this was covered in the news media.

I hope that no one is breaking into offices in the present day, but it is a stark reminder of how chilling it is to have the government try to interfere with the freedom of the press. Toward the end of the film, there is a quote from the 6-3 majority Supreme Court decision that allowed the Times and the Post and other papers to continue to publish stories from the Pentagon Papers. [What follows is probably not the exact quote from the movie, but it is taken from the concurrence of Justice Black. The Supreme Court document can be found here.]

In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.

I hope people will think of this every time the President denigrates the press or says that a member of the press is lying when they are actually reporting or says that the press is the enemy.

The United States needs a free press today as much as it always has. It is an absolute necessity for the health of our nation and our democracy. I thank director Stephen Spielberg and everyone involved in “The Post” for the timely reminder.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out how here:
https://lindaghill.com/2018/01/12/jusjojan-daily-prompt-january-12th-2018/

 

 

news response

I try to keep up with the news, both here in the United States and internationally, but it is getting more and more difficult to do, especially regarding the federal government here. It seems that every day has so many important news stories that I can only hear summary reports on most, delving into detail on only a small fraction.

One story that is more and more alarming is the interference of Russia in election campaigns, both here in the United States and around the world. During the 2016 election campaign, I was disturbed about the role of Russia in the Democratic National Committee hacking. I was also disgusted that Congressional Republican leaders blocked a unified response to the threat under President Obama.

Even more shamefully, that denial/lack of response persists both among most Republicans in Congress and with the current executive branch.

Meanwhile, more and more evidence has been found of Russian meddling in our election and many other countries, especially European ones, have experienced Russian interference as well. These countries are actively taking countermeasures, but the United States federal government is not.

Among the people, the response to the situation is mixed. Some of us are alarmed and making a point of staying informed and alert. Some companies, media, and state and local governments are putting in policies to counteract as much Russian interference as they can.

The problem is that the Republican lies about Russian meddling are believed by some of the people, making them particularly vulnerable to further foreign influence and adding to the bizarre discounting of facts and mistrust of the mainstream press that made the whole mess possible in the first place.

This division is dangerous to our society and our democracy. It appears that what Russia wants is to destabilize democracies.

I’m very much afraid that they have succeeding, in part, here in the United States.

We cannot and must not let them change our fundamental structures of government and daily life. Many of us are and will continue to fight for our American values.

We must prevail.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here:
 https://lindaghill.com/2018/01/11/jusjojan-daily-prompt-january-11th-2018/