my letter got the usual reaction

not surprising .

Insults, name calling, innuendo, pourers, unabashed ignorance....

I understand why they back Trump.  They are exactly like him....

Bernie in 2020

Didn't know this until today.  Significant, I think.

Bernie is running for president, again.  He was only recently re-elected to the Senate so if his attempt is not successful, he will still be in the Senate.

It will be an uphill battle, like it was in 2016.  I remain convinced that he would have won back then if the primary was not rigged against him.

Age will be an issue.  So will his standing as a "democratic socialist."  The oligarchs, both democrat and republican will mobilize against him. no doubt.

I've already contributed to his campaign, on a monthly basis, as I did three years ago.

We need to take sides, to stop bringing a knife to a gunfight. It's time for that "revolution" that Bernie called for, actually, past time.

The Phoenix bird symbolizes rebirth.  I plan to post it within my almost completed book My Country Tis of Three.   A local artist did the rendition for me, thus no copyright violation.  So I guess, in that context, it is not so much a revolution we need, but a rebirth, a rededication of the ideals I am told,  this country was founded on.

"With liberty and justice for all."   ???????????????????????

Okay, originally, the intent was a benefit for white men who owned property.  That has morphed, a great deal.  Women have the the vote now.  So do all eligible citizens of the United States of America, including those of color or of a different national origin or "religion."  None of that could have happened without the ratification of the constitution and its defense and transformation over the years.

I published a letter to the editor today:

 I am a retired teacher with thirty some years in the classroom. The first ten were in non public ( Catholic ) schools, but the rest were in public schools. I've written a book on the subject of education and sections of four other books I penned all have excepts on the matter. There is a gulf between public and non public education. Public education is far more egalitarian in method and in spirit,  and is the underpinning of democracy, as it takes an informed and somewhat enlightened populace to make our system of government work. Secretary DeVos and her GOP confederates have virtually NO interest in maintaining our democratic traditions and seek, instead, to establish a revival of the feudal system that dominated Europe in the dark ages. They MUST be stopped or the American experience will be at an end.

I apologize  for NONE of what I say, zany as it may sound.  Our rights and our privileges are being eroded and/or taken away by some selfish and openly evil sorts.

Not hyperbole. Not hysteria.

I wish it all were just my over active imagination.  I do.  My letter to the news and record will most certainly be lampooned and discredited by the usual few.  It happens all the time.  I'm quite accustomed to it by now, but my status with the local editorial page editor has made me "a VIP," something he refers to me as, not myself.

I don't have a lot of money or political clout, but what I have, I give.

Many credit me with being a wizard with the written word. And it's said that the pen is more powerful than the sword.















I hope and I pray that things never come to something like what is portrayed to the left.  It has happened twice in our history and with as much rancor, unbridled anger and division as exists in America now,  it could happen again, on some level.

Some believe it already has.  There has been more than one mass shooting, inspired by the spirit of intolerance and division at the national level.  That is a fact that is hard to refute.

If things degenerate to a low enough level, the American people might be left with no other alternative.  That will be more than tragic.

My developing saga And Reap The Whirlwind is based on that scenario. I have been crafting it since 1972 and am determined to complete it this time.

Then, we will see if the pen is indeed more powerful than the sword.

It's said that Uncle Tom's Cabin was at least, a partial cause of the War Between the States.

Let me be straight forward and emphatic:  the ONLY kind of revolution that I favor is one without bullets, bombs and bodies.

It's been done before.

The Soviet Union and the "Iron Curtain" fell without a shot being fired.  Jim Crow fell without an uprising. Woman got the vote without bloodshed.

It can happen again, but we must begin the process right away.  The stronger the forces of the alt right and oligarchy become, the more likely it is that it will not be swept away except for violence. The selfish and the self absorbed will not yield to anything else.

That would be insane, utterly insane.

Pretty much true. No denying it.

What wounds me most is that so many working class people are being pushed into voting and advocating against their own good.

The Roman church advocates against abortion and gay rights, but overlooks that republicans also advocate against medical care for all and for a culture that sees war as profitable.

I haven't been a part of the Catholic Church for some time now.  That is one of the primary reasons why, that and the growing stain of sexual abuse that the church has covered up for generations.

Is this the kind of things that JESUS would support?

I think not.

Cold and wet

and it's not just the weather.

The more I write of my book My Country Tis of Thee, the more enraged I become. We are being robbed, lied to and manipulated by some purely evil and self-serving people.

And so many just don't see it.

The last election did some damage to the Trump Agenda, but the painful reality, at least for me, is that there are still some democrats out there who are owned and operated by the oligarchs, the ones who would "own" us as proverbial serfs.

The peril is real.  Some laugh at me. I only hope and pray that what I say is wrong because as delusional as to many Americans are, now, it will be far too late to stop the death of our democracy by the time its imminence is realized.

cold again

knew it wouldn't last.  It is still winter, after all.  My year in Florida definitely thinned the blood.

Saw the former CEO of Starbucks on CNN last night.  He's pondering an independent run for president.  Didn't some of what he said, mostly because of how he said it or did not say it.

I suspect he is actually just a decoy, a stalking horse for trump.

No doubt about it...

Cold cold cold!!!!

but not nearly so much as up north....

Some states have closed schools because it is so very cold.n 43 here yesterday. Not balmy but above freezing.

Trump used the cold to dis climate change.  "We need it back!!!"  what an ass.

Too many corporate sponsored democrats.  We need something different and new.