Sad and Angry Week in America

I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to write a political post today or one about current events. I was looking forward to less drama in Washington D.C. that I thought will come when Trump is finally no longer our sitting president. Just a few more days, I thought, and he'll be gone. Already I was sleeping better. Then all hell broke loose and the national news was too big to ignore. The post I had prepared for today was about mindfulness, of all things. Happy, happy, happy and how to achieve contentment. Well, I don’t feel happy. I don’t feel contentment. I’m angry! But what I’m not is surprised. How can anyone be surprised that a bunch of Pro-Trumpers stormed the Capital in an attempted coup. Yes, a coup to overthrow an election, to overthrow Democracy. There is no other name to call what they attempted to do when they did it at the direction of Trump himself, who that very morning stood in front of a rally telling those in attendance the lies that he won the election, that it was being stolen from him and he urged the crowd to walk up to the Capital and “get wild” and “have fun” and “I’ll be right there with you.” He needs to be charged with inciting an insurrection!

No one should have been surprised when that crowd at Trump’s 'pep rally'---the Proud Boys, the Qanons, White Supremacists and others who are not smart enough to come out of the rain---took him at his word and stormed our Capital. It was all planned in plain sight online and instead of trying to smother the flames he threw gas on them with Rudy Juiliani at his side calling what they were about to do, "Combat Justice." They took over the Capital on the day when our government was supposed to certify the results of the Electoral College’s vote. If you were watching the beginning of that certification process you saw Mitch McConnell actually grow a pair of balls right in front of the camera. Now, that did surprise me. But it was too little, too late after all the blow jobs he’d given The Donald over the past four years. If you don’t like my crude language, I’m sorry. Expect some more. On a day that will go down in history as the day a sitting president tried to orchestra an insurrection it’s perfectly acceptable for a chorus of ordinary people who don’t usually talk in fluent Marine slang to shout out, “What the fuck is going on?!"

Even when the president finally did make a public statement to call off his 'mad dogs' he was insincere, like someone was making him do it. In addition to telling his out-of-control supporters to go home he also said, “We love you!” and “you’re special people!” To the very people who were still inside the Capital breaking windows, shooting bullets in the walls, forcing doors open and they managed to get to the floor of both chambers of congress where they went through desks and stole stuff including papers containing sensitive material that could put our country at risk. They stole things from offices, too, and hoisted them in the air like trophies for their photo-ops. These are the same people that Mitt Romney and others are calling “lawless insurrectionists” and Trump was calling 'patriots'. While watching all this all unfold, I’ve never wanted a bag of cookies more than I did then. There’s never any damn comfort foods in the house in January and I plan to fix that before inauguration day.

Congress did their job during the wee hours of January 7th, they certified Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the victors of our last election. They will be our next President and Vice-President and nothing Trump can do will stop that. His plan to incite so much violence in D.C. that he could declare Martial Law and postpone the inauguration indefinitely didn’t work. This time. What will he do over the next eleven days? Instagram, Twitter and Facebook have all suspended his accounts which will make whatever he does a tad harder. It’s surreal that we have a president walking around with the nuclear codes but he can’t be trusted with social media accounts.

Five members in my husband’s family are rabid fans of Trump. The day before this all went on they started a Facebook thread about how the election certification needed to be postponed to investigate election fraud. I try really hard not to engage them but that day I commented:  “Trump has filed 60 lawsuits contesting election processes, vote counting, and the vote certification process in multiple states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and the Supreme Court. They have all been thrown out. The only one screwing with the integrity of the election is Trump. Did you see the letter 10 former Secretaries of Defense signed and sent to Trump over the weekend condemning him for entering into dangerous territory for our democracy with his not adhering to a peaceful transfer of power and for suggesting he'll use the military to stop Biden's win? He lost and needs quit listening to the dark web's conspiracy theories which are based on zero evidence.” As was predictable I was called, brain-washed, delusional, stupid and a person I never met called me a "bitter old bitch" based on what I wrote above in this paragraph. Trump has taught his disciples the Art of Insults well.

After the violence in D.C. these same family members were on Facebook again blaming Antifa for all that went down at the Capital. Antifa is like the imaginary twin my brother had in his teens who Jerry tried to blame all his missteps on. At least my brother had a double exposure photograph from Kodak to give creditable to twin Jim’s existence. He carried it around in his wallet for a long time. It was a mirror image of him sitting on the opposite ends of our couch and at least one girl bought the lie for why she got stood up for a date Jerry didn’t keep. But I digress.

The FBI is activity trying to identify those Trump fans who did damage in the Capital. The ringleaders won't be hard to find because they've been posting their plans to storm the Capital for several weeks and posting selfies while they were "going wild" inside the People's House. And if found guilty they can thank their president for the time they'll spend in federal prison because back when confederate statues were being destroyed Trump signed an executive order to give those caught doing damage to Federal property minimum sentences of ten years. I just hope law enforcement won't bring formal charges until after the 21th so Trump can't use his pardon power on those who left a disgusting and long-lasting stain on our country. ©

 

 

Romance and the Power of Forgiveness

 

Someone made a comment on one of my blogs that it sounded like I was romantic in my younger days and I was thinking about that on the way to meet my Movie and Lunch Club yesterday. I was writing in my head how I would answer that, if I was inclined to explain how I happened to become a bridal consultant in the floral industry. It’s not what it looks like on the surface. I didn’t and still don’t go gaga over weddings, I wasn’t drawn to them like a bee to honey. It all came about because of my mother’s raging hormones when she was going through menopause. Her doctor told her she needed to get a job. That was his prescription, can you believe that? So off she went to work at a large wholesale greenhouse when I was 12 or 13 and suffering from my own raging hormones. My poor father, what he must have gone through back then.

Fast forward a few years and one holiday the greenhouse wanted some teenagers to come help out with the rush. Entry me. I worked there all through high school and my first three years of college. One of owners was a crusty old man that a lot of workers were afraid of and they didn’t stay around. Not me. He liked my work ethic and I liked the challenge of keeping up with his barking orders. It was like a game to me and with my interest in art, I was good at the game we were “playing” which at that time was dressing holiday plants and making planters that were shipped out by the hundreds to places in five states. And in between wholesale orders, I was a ‘runner’ for the floral designers in the retail division. Thus when I dropped out of college at the end of my third year of college and needed a full time job I didn’t have to look hard to get an offer. And that is how I ended up spending two summers at floral design school, the second year for advanced wedding design.

I had all this on my mind when I sat down in the movie theater. I hadn’t read any of the reviews of the film we were seeing so I had no idea what The Railway Man would be about. It started out with a chance meeting on a train of a couple and when the lead character, Eric, asked Pattie: “Are you romantic?” I thought, Ohmygod, it’s a sign! I really DO need to write about this question! I was thinking the movie was going to be a romantic comedy. I couldn’t have been more wrong.  

For the next 116 minutes I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. The film is about a true story of prisoners of WWII who were tortured in a Japanese labor camp while building the notorious Thai/Burma Railroad. Eric had been traumatized and shut down emotionally for years because of his experiences and the story was told through a series of flashbacks after he and Pattie were married. She was determined to help him put his demons to rest and when the news came that his veteran’s group had tracked down the prison’s camp interpreter---who the prisoners hated and blamed the most for their torture---Pattie encouraged Eric to go confront his tormentor. The guy was a guide at the former work camp that had since been turned into a museum. So Eric packed a knife fully intending to kill the guy and extract vengeance but instead---spoiler alert---they ended up becoming good friends. It’s a true story about the power of forgiveness, but in a way it’s also a love story about a woman who believed so much in the goodness of the man she married that she was willing to do whatever was necessary to help him make peace with his horrible past, and a story about a man who loved a woman so much that he was willing to finally put his past behind him to hold on to her. But the "love story" part of the film only took up about 6 of 116 minutes so don't go expecting much romance on the screen. It won't be there.

Needless to say, I liked the movie. I like films that make you think and that are based on actual events. The atrocities of war are hard to watch but I feel strongly that we need to bear witness to them IF they are presented in a responsible way and not just showing violence gratuitously. I had similar feelings about watching the opening ceremony of the 911 museum this week. I didn’t like having my emotion churned up by what I was seeing, but it was important for me to stay tuned in to it---to honor those who suffered and are still suffering. And often times you can get glimpses of hope seeing ceremonies and movies of this kind and I am stuck by the resilience of human beings. That people can go through that kind of stuff and come out the other side finding that all import power of forgiveness that lets them move forward is amazing. I guess I really am a romantic because I truly believe and hope that someday the powers in charge will throw a war and no one---NO ONE on either side---will show up to fight. ©