Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Much of what I've been thinking

Is contained in

THIS.

I read this today and wanted to stand up and shout "AMEN!" and that's really weird because I was raised Catholic and we didn't ever do that - except for when we had a firebrand preacher-type priest in residence from Ireland, and he got a bunch of stodgy suburban mostly Republican types to stand up and cheer. (He wasn't there long and vanished without explanation, but I digress.)

It's what John Pavolvitz said, and so much more. The so much more is something I felt in my bones, and that is now being played out. The cabinet picks, people selected for their enmity for the departments they will head, the daily "tennis ball machine of bullshit" distraction stories, the sheer, incompetent, loony, disorganized batshit insanity of it all - the SoS isn't invited to the meeting with the Saudis, while his FUCKING SON-IN-LAW was - it's just exhaustingly crazy, 24/7.  Every goddamn day is another dozen "Wait, WTF?" stories, but we cannot take our eyes off the ball. The common thread is the Russian connection. That must not be allowed to fade away.

And I do admire the people who do this for a living and write about it for the rest of us, because seriously, I do step back. I want to write about it, but honestly, I'm still just in the "fuck everybody who made this possible" stage. Maybe someday I'll reach objective analysis, but I'm still in the mode of screaming "FUCK YOU!" at my garage door opener when it fails to open when I get home from work.

I am very functionally pissed-off, and I am crushing on my new smart young Congresswoman and want to meet her. So far, her local events have been while I was at work, but one of these days our schedules will work out. I reach out to her on Twitter and really feel good that she's new and outnumbered but totally in there swinging.  Her office returns phone messages almost immediately! She's all over the place doing good things for veterans and jobs and sponsoring bills to stop the madness, and I'm really proud of her.  I do wish I could have a glass of wine with her and ask her if she ever expected to be plunged into this level of madness before she got her bearings on the restroom locations in the building. She's already targeted as a "must be defeated" two years from now, so You Go Girl! Keep being awesome!

But goddamn, these Republicans are truly showing their true colors/allegiances, and it certainly isn't for their constituents/this country.

And yes, as John Pavlovitz said, I'm not the same. I had so much faith in the innate smarts and goodness of my country, and I'm realizing that I was still naive at 58 fucking years old. I was raised on stories of Good Old American Common Sense, and Fairness, and that we are a Melting Pot, and was truly shocked off everything that made me proud to realize that there's a whole lot of people who are either outright white supremacists or just cool with it.

I am a big fan of Bill Bryson (up until his last book about revisiting England, which was very Cranky Old Fart IMO), and I always remembered the simple formula for assimilation of immigrants he summarized in one of his books. Paraphrased: The first generation speaks their native language and very little/poor English, and live in enclaves where they can get around and do business. The second generation is fully bilingual and has ventured outside the enclaves. The third generation speaks barely enough of their native language to talk to their grandparents. (And that's a shame, but it's been true for everyone I've known.) Assimilation to the culture doesn't happen in two weeks, and shouldn't, and we as the great melting pot have always been proud and knew we were enriched by the process.

I truly thought that we were all raised to believe in the Melting Pot,  that this was a foundational belief of our country, and then a fucking US Congresscritter spouts flat-out white supremacist rhetoric about needing more white babies because white European culture is superior and it's called "controversial" in much of the media, instead of "white supremacist rhetoric." I mean, that guy has always been an ignorant asshole, but he keeps getting re-elected, so that says a lot about where he came from. Nothing is off limits now, the things he used to say privately are now acceptable in his party, and he is free to let his racist flag fly.  It's ugly, it's all ugly.  So I'm sometimes yelling at my garage door opener, because I really thought we were better than THIS.

As a counterpoint to the ugly: I have been waking up at 5:15 to do a half hour of yoga, more or less, every morning for the last 15 days. I'm doing the 31 day Revolution again, because I think I dropped  out last time around Day 12, with only half-assed attempts to get back on track.  I have vowed to myself that I wouldn't do my usual, "I'll skip today and do two tomorrow!" Which somehow never works out and leads to three days, then a week, of missed sessions.  And I am doing this. I absolutely believe that a half hour every day is enough; at least it is for me.  Some days I struggle. Today was hard, a lot of balance poses and my balance wasn't there for me, but I did my best. And I'm sorry, my screwed up knees can't hold a deep squat for love nor money, so when there's a long squat I just do what I can seated on my ass until we come up into down dog.  I love the emphasis on the breath, because I know that's really where it's at, and I've taken so many classes that didn't pace with breathing, the way Adriene does.  So while I may be months away from Crow Pose I'm doing around 90%, and I'll take it. 

I've also been reading some great Kindle Unlimited finds, and I'll get around to sharing them, I swear.

Onward into the Crazy!






3 comments:

wednesday said...

Yes, exactly! I can't believe the things that are being said openly now. Although it is kind of a relief to have them exposing their true natures instead paying lip service to ideals and privately working against them. At least we know who to target with our progressive liberal rage.

Kirsten said...

Republicans hate Big Bird and Elmo. They are psychotic.

Anonymous said...

After a busy week with visitors, and then a crazy Friday afternoon with Ernst in the ED with atrial fibrillation I needed the weekend to recover. The care in the ED was excellent, kindly, friendly and very supportive, by the way, and cost us nary a penny.

Ernst is fine on two new drugs, one to control heart rhythm, and an anti-coagulant, and I have made an appointment for Wednesday to see our family doctor, to get prescriptions for the two new drugs (the hospital only issues enough for a week) and to get a referral to a cardiologist asap. He is also on a special anti osteoporosis injectable medication (twice a year) which we get at the subsidised price of $ 6.30. Full whack = $ 271.00.

So I finally got around to reading the blog, and another of his posts, and have bookmarked the blog, for future reference. Another nice clear window into the shenanigans you have to endure.

All the very best,

Gae, in Callala Bay