Who goes there? Please leave comments so (An Aries Knows)!
Same old thing. Not enough sleep. Should have eaten breakfast sooner. No interest in reading all the post-mortems because everybody’s a political genius after the fact. Mopped the library. Finished a coloring page from that book on the right. Thinking of a woman I know who loves horses. (A real person I used to work with, not a character.) Suspect there’ll be a lot of coloring in days to come.
Must sleep. Perchance to dream. May it be something to inspire my writing.
I will now get to learn how to manage depression and anxiety. I’ll be seriously curtailing my online time. This morning, I read the social media post of a personal friend. He’s a really good human. A gay man. Gifted. Smart. Compassionate. He was being encouraging to people who feel wounded by the election results. Reminding his readers to take the long view, knowing there are still ways we can make our world a better place for ourselves and the marginalized. There was nothing hateful in his words. Nothing objectionable. But his comments began filling up with people mocking him, verbally attacking him. Gloating. Even low-key threatening him.
I’m sure he’s not surprised. I’m not surprised.
I’ve never tolerated hatefulness on this blog since I began it in 2004. I will ask you do not comment here or speak to me elsewhere and tell me ALL [fill in the blank with whatever descriptor you identify as] are not like that. I know. I’ve been around a while. I’m not the one making hateful generalizations. In so many places in my life, I have to choose my words and remain kind with people I know, people who are friends and family members, who vote in ways that literally threaten the health, peaceful and full life, and happiness of people I love. Their choice.
But never try to justify to me that chaos, division, demonizing, mendacity, and mental, emotional, and physical cruelty are okay. Hide yourself in a cloak of something abhorrent to me, and know that even then, I will listen, for a while, anyway, to all the things you say and all the things you don’t even realize you say, and the only, ONLY, point when we are done is if you begin to insult and demean me or the ones I love. If you don’t like me, respect me, or love me, for who I am, step off. Find a better way to fill your time than wasting it on me. (I have people in my life who build me up. Who comfort me. Who started bright and early this morning sending messages of love and commiseration, and the reminder that I can breathe with them. We can speak frankly whether we’ve been friends since we were eighteen, or since 1989, ’92, ’93, ’94, ’97, 2005, 2007, 2011, or 2015, I’m there for them. They’re there for me. We connect in so many ways.) To them (or you if you need to hear it) I say:
And to the others of you…
If your candidate won, celebrate. Sit at home with a big smile on your face; have some champagne. Crack a beer. Grill your favorite meat. Call or gather with your likeminded friends and repeat all the things you’ve been saying out loud since 2016. Actually, since 2008. You’ve gotten what you wanted. You’ve taken the White House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, (as of this writing, the jury’s still out on the House), and you’re already anticipating how all your “enemies” will be punished, controlled, vanquished. Do that instead of traveling social media and finding the accounts of strangers (and celebrities, because they are your very favorite targets) to pester them. Go and live the idyllic life you’ve been promised.
Today, I’ve spent lovely hours with my dogs. (Starting at about 4:30 am, when they began nudging Tom and me to GET UP. He took them out but then made them come back to bed and wait for breakfast.) They’re all a little crazy in all their different ways, but they have so much love to give. I don’t mean to aspire to craziness when I try to be more like them. It’s just a bonus, I guess. I showered, dressed, left the house to wash my car (the weather is lovely), make a bank deposit, and grab Starbucks.
My heart hurts. I want to be nice to myself. I’m not sure if I have the focus to write. There’s so much I’m unsure about. But I sure am grateful for the love in my life. I’m grateful for the values and strength I was given by my family, and the family I’ve made since. I feel far away from and lonely for many of them, but I also feel the love. Thank you.
Wishing you all peace of mind. Happy Monday.
For me, I hope it’s writing, home, husband, dogs, music, and nourishment. For you?
Was sad to hear about the death of Quincy Jones today, though he lived a long and eventful life. What an impact he had on music and culture. Someone in comments to the obituary I read strongly recommended Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones, and just like that, it’s in my Kobo ebooks. Research!
Pick your heroes and villains, as you wish, starting off with Super Friends.
DC Super Friends Little People Figure Pack: Wonder Woman, Superman, The Joker, Batman, Robin, Batgirl, and Green Lantern
Superman, Batman, and Flash
A quite muscular Superman and quite petite but fit Wonder Woman.
A mysterious Batman.
Entertainment:
Two random aliens.
My Mad magazine Spy vs Spy guys!
Formerly of “Saturday Night Live’s” Weekend Update, actors, writers, and comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
Musician, songwriter, guitarist, and performer Jimi Hendrix.
Fandoms:
From the Star Wars franchise, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. Disparity in height is due to different manufacturers. (A certain Jedi made me say that.)
From the Harry Potter franchise, Harry Potter and Dobby.
From the Twilight franchise, Bella Swan and Edward Cullen.
From Becky’s “Adventures of Katnip” blog series, Twilight’s Edward Cullen appearing as Star Bunni Keri’s “Lil Eddy” and The Hunger Games’s Katniss Everdeen appearing as Katnip.
That time I wanted to convert an action figure to The Vampire Chronicles’ “Lestat,” but when the action figure Angelica from Pirates of the Caribbean was a little too busty, I chose Twilight’s Victoria to become my Lestat.
TRIGGER WARNING: Real people affiliated with or in politics
Ruth Bader Ginsberg, appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter. Nominated as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton, where she served during the presidencies of Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. Robert Mueller who served in various roles during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.
Candidates, Congress, and White House cabinet:
Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts U.S. Senator; Bernie Sanders, Vermont state representative, Burlington, Vermont mayor, and Vermont U.S. Senator; Pete Buttigieg, South Bend, Indiana mayor, U.S. Secretary of Transportation under President Joseph Biden.
Candidates, Congress, and White House:
Hillary Rodham Clinton, First Lady 1993 to 2001, New York U.S. Senator, U.S. Secretary of State under President Barack Obama; Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Delaware U.S. Senator, U.S. Vice President under President Barack Obama, U.S. President; Kamala Harris, California U.S. Senator, U.S. Vice President under President Joseph Biden.
And my goodness, can that White House give you gray hair: Barack Obama, Illinois U.S. Senator; U.S. President.
Respect for standing by their convictions no matter how relentlessly bullied or by whom:
Stacey Abrams, Georgia House of Representatives and Minority Leader Georgia House of Representatives; Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, 1984-2022 under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joseph Biden, 2nd Chief Medical Advisor to the President under President Joseph Biden; Volodymyr Zelenskyy, sixth and current president of Ukraine.
I have another action figure never removed from the box, and that’s where it will remain.
Friday, I started looking at a social media site I rarely visit after I learned that The Washington Post declined to endorse a presidential candidate. One of the first things I saw was this film still from the 1976 movie All The President’s Men, in which the characters’ grim expressions probably mirrored my reaction to this news:
Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford portraying Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward; along with Jason Robards as Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee; Jack Warden as Harry Rosenfeld, the assistant managing editor who supervised Woodward and Bernstein; and Martin Balsam as Howard Simons, the managing editor.
The real Woodward and Bernstein during the Watergate period:
Fiction meets fact:
Katharine Meyer Graham presided over The Washington Post, her family’s newspaper, as publisher from 1963 to 1991. That includes the paper’s coverage of the Watergate scandal, which eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon and convictions of many Watergate co-conspirators.
The Washington Post is now owned by the second-wealthiest man in the world, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos. A source close to Washington Post leadership claimed to Fox News Digital that Bezos was not involved in the decision. However, a separate source spoke with Fox News Digital and believes otherwise, citing The Post’s own reporting claiming the billionaire directly intervened.
Reactions to the news were swift; within 24 hours, more than 2000 subscriptions to The Post had been canceled. There were dozens of immediate public reactions shared across the news media from columnists, reporters, journalists, and political analysts, including this joint statement from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein:
“We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 12 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy. Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process.”
Former Post executive editor Martin Baron, who led the paper while Trump was president, said in a text message to The Post: “This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty. Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners). History will mark a disturbing chapter of spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”
Here are quotes from the news side of the paper in reaction to the announcement:
“An endorsement of Harris had been drafted by Post editorial page staffers but had yet to be published, according to two sources briefed on the sequence of events who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. “The decision not to publish was made by The Post’s owner–Amazon founder Jeff Bezos– according to the same sources.”
“A non-endorsement would have made sense if it had been announced before the nominees were known. But doing it 11 days before the election suggests Bezos is worried he’d lose government contracts if Trump wins. So it signals intimidation works,” a current Post staffer told Fox News Digital. “Trump certainly caused trouble for Bezos in his presidency by killing a big cloud computing contract and messing with the Amazon postal contract. So [Bezos] knows how expensive a second term might be if Trump were mad at our coverage.”
The Post’s Guild statement in reaction to the decision:
Much has been made of the paper’s official slogan, adopted in 2017: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
Indeed.
Out of the 80-plus newspaper endorsements for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, a few of the notable ones include Winston-Salem Chronicle, New York Times, Boston Globe, The New Yorker, Houston Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Denver Post, The Las Vegas Sun, Los Angeles Sentinel, Seattle Times, The Star-Ledger, Tennessee Tribune, Scientific American, and San Antonio Express.
Meanwhile, the fewer than ten media endorsements for Trump include New York Post, The Washington Times, and Las Vegas Review-Journal.
At The Los Angeles Times, the man in charge is Patrick Soon-Shiong, another billionaire, who blocked the paper from endorsing California’s own Kamala Harris for president, as its board was reportedly planning to do, resulting in at least three editorial board members’ resignations.
Guess today wasn’t a silent day.
Reading is what I’ve been up to, and these books were purchased locally at Murder By The Book.
New this year:
I can’t believe Requiem For A Mouse is my friend Dean’s sixteenth book in his Cat In The Stacks Mystery series. I feel like I just started reading them! Writing as Miranda James, his cozy series features a librarian/widower named Charlie Harris and his helpful Maine Coon cat, Diesel. The books are set in a fictitious college town, Athena, Mississippi, and every time I read one of the novels, his characters make me feel like I’m spending time with old friends. There are other cats, the occasional dog, and enough bad guys and murders to keep Charlie busy as an amateur sleuth. Plus: a library and plenty of good Southern cooking!
Martin Walker’s Bruno series includes 24 works, including novels, novellas, and a short story collection. There’s also a Bruno cookbook he wrote with his wife Julia. The series features Benoît Courrèges, aka Bruno, a former soldier turned policeman, enjoying the “pleasures and slow rhythms of country life” in the fictional village of St. Denis in the Périgord Region of France. The novels’ horses, dogs, townfolk, and meals are part of those “slow rhythms,” but Bruno’s romances, the crimes he solves, and the historical context Walker provides season the novels with delicious details, while the international intrigue adds a soupçon of suspense. I’ve learned so much from Walker’s books and his booksignings, and an offhand post-war diplomacy tidbit he once mentioned at a signing inspired me to research and develop an intricate part of my own Neverending Saga.
I got this one a couple of years ago and have finally raced through it in two days because I COULDN’T PUT IT DOWN.
I would hope anyone reading here knows who Hillary Rodham Clinton is, and Louise Penny is the author of the Inspector Gamache mystery series set in the fictitious Three Pines, Québec (the nineteenth novel in that series is due the end of this month, and I can’t wait). The real-life story of how the two woman became friends, and how publishing figures and life events brought them together to write a suspense thriller, is naturally fascinating to me–friendships having been not only a huge part of my adult life, but also because I co-authored novels with friends. Though I only occasionally read thrillers, political or otherwise, this one held me spellbound. It features a new administration in the White House, including a new president and his female secretary of state. She was the head of a publishing empire, and the president may have chosen her only to settle an old grudge and ultimately disgrace her. We get to travel the world with this one, and meet plenty of heroes and villains, though sometimes we’re not exactly sure who’s who. Though published in 2021, the themes and ideas explored remain topical, and I appreciated reading about strong, smart women, complicated and often painful family dynamics, and fascinating settings (the political leaders and figures throughout are fictionalized, though there are effective references to real-life international figures, as well). I also was delighted to find Easter eggs in mentions of Penny’s Three Pines village and characters (Clinton was a reader of the series before she and Louise Penny were introduced). I hope one day these two will write another together.
None of the photos in this post are my photos, but hundreds like them are easy to find.
I found an article, “Your Cynicism Isn’t Helping Anybody,” completely by accident, and finally, I have a succinct, orderly explanation for why I often call myself a skeptic and why, for many years including right here on this website, I have denounced cynicism. (I think my earliest mention was on Christmas Eve 2007, when I quoted Carol Burnett’s interview on “Inside The Actors Studio,” wherein she said her least favorite word is “cynicism.” INDEED.)
The article I found is from Time, and I know people very often don’t click on links, but you can read it in five or fewer minutes here. I don’t dare post it in its entirety, because I don’t want to violate copyright. In the article, Zaki rebuts and questions the following MYTHS: that cynicism is clever, safe, or moral. In fact, he says, cynicism is a trap that makes us underestimate and distrust others.
Damn near everyone I know, and believe me, that group covers a range of beliefs and attitudes related to the “forbidden” topics: sex, money, politics, and religion, keeps bringing up in our conversations, and on their social media, the same questions these days: why is everyone so mean now, why is everyone so divided and disconnected, and why does no one trust anybody? I agree with the take in this article, that “cynicism,” and the way cynicism is used against us, is at the root of these problems. I’m not a cynic, but possibly I’ll end up getting Zaki’s book, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, because that’s how much this article resonated with me.
The many forms of art and creativity can offer us several things. Art can confront us with what’s wrong and destructive in the world and challenge us to make things better in large and small ways. Art can remind us of our common connections and give us hope. Art can elicit our humanity by giving us the opportunity to laugh, weep, and wonder. I’m grateful that during a challenging few months, I’ve had movies to remind me of all of this. My most recent rewatches have been:
1991’s Frankie & Johnny, 1997’s My Best Friend’s Wedding, 1999’s Runaway Bride
Along with their humor, all three of these movies illustrate what a difference believing in oneself and others, or NOT believing in oneself and others, can make in their characters’ lives. Relationships that endure make room for apologies, forgiveness, and changes. Once again, the lead actors inhabit the lives of their characters skillfully, and Héctor Elizondo is in two of the three films, along with others I’ve already watched. If he ever plays a bad guy, I don’t want to see it. =)
Since I was definitely in the mood for something more lighthearted than the previous movie I watched, last night, Tom and I streamed 1999’s Dick, a fun comedy with Michelle Williams and Kirsten Dunst as two teens who stumble into encounters at the Watergate facility on a fateful night. This happenstance later repeats on a class trip to the White House, when they encounter Nixon, his dog, and major players in the Watergate scandal. The timeline was compressed a bit, and it was a fun watch for me. I was an avid Watergate follower (and kept making little asides to Tom about how true facts were bent to involve the girls). It was also nostalgic to remember being a teen in that era, having fun and cutting up magazine pictures of our teen idols with a best friend. (Note to Lynne: Can you believe they love Bobby Sherman? Like Susan B.)
The dog Brunswick played the movie’s version of another Checkers (Nixon’s original dog Checkers, who died at the age of 13 in 1964, never lived in the White House, as Nixon was elected president in 1968).
There were three dogs in the Nixon White House: King Timahoe, Nixon’s Irish setter, Vicky, Julie’s French poodle, and Pasha, Tricia’s Yorkshire terrier. All three dogs wore flowers and participated in Tricia’s wedding.
I don’t remember if there’s a dog in my last RomCom DVD with a president to rewatch during DNC week, 1995’s The American President. I haven’t seen it for quite a while, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it again.
Directed and produced by Rob Reiner and written by Aaron Sorkin, Sorkin has said that the film influenced his later TV series, “West Wing,” which aired from 1999 to 2006. Websites attest that Sorkin says much of the first season was actually taken from material he edited out of the first draft of The American President’s script. Though it was highly recommended by Denece and Tom, I didn’t watch “West Wing” when it aired, but watched it in full a few years after it ended. Marika simultaneously watched it late at night (she from either New Orleans or Arkansas; I from The Compound). We Google-messaged each other with commentary while we watched each episode. Some of you may remember I joked that from November 2016 to January 2020, I chose to keep my head in an alternate universe wherein WW’s Josiah “Jed” Bartlet (Martin Sheen) was my president. =)
As predicted, I started reading this last night and finished it today. Once again, enough time has passed that things seemed fresh and new to me, and it was nice to read it without an inner critic. Some things are dated, of course; it was written over the years 2006-2008. But I no longer think the beginning is problematic. It may take a little effort for some readers: We’re being dropped into someone’s life as she deals with an automotive crisis and has time to think briefly of how she got to that point, plus she tells us about two encounters with the person who’s going to help her resolve said automotive crisis. Basically, we’re getting her backstory as she mentally processes it in three parts before the action begins.