Offer: Votes counted, recorded
Wanted: Respect the process
Wanted: Respect the poll workers
Wanted: Respectful governance
Offer: Divisive grandstanding
Wanted: Cooperation, infrastructure fixes, progress on climate change, social justice, fair wages and workplace equity, election reform, Covid stimulus, policies informed by science
Wanted: Problems solved
Offer: Solutions denied
Taken: by “fake news”
Offer: More of the same
Wanted: Critical thinking
Offer: Knee-jerk opposition
Taken: The path of least resistance
Taken: in by divisive grandstanding
Given: More of the same
Offer: Both sides media
Wanted: Fact based media
Wanted: Fact based politics
Wanted: Starting now: communicate, listen, empathize, come together.
Trying to cheer me up, a friend said, “Imagine a start-up selling a flying car. A guy named Tad, with genius hair and cargo shorts, runs things. Like Icharus, he falls to earth. Landing in an old growth forest close to the coast, he’s looking for a mechanic when Chloe comes along on a breath of pine and salt water.
“They marry. They’re happy, too, despite the devil on Tad’s shoulder teasing that he could have had the world. Tad pays that devil no mind. A new dad, now he’s flying by the seat of his pants.”
“I don’t say women’s rights—I say the constitutional principle of the equal citizenship stature of men and women.” ― Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; …public discussion is a political duty; and… should be a fundamental principle of the American government.” ― Brandeis concurring with Holmes in Whitney vs. California, 1927
“He (Nabokov) used words to paint pictures. Even today, when I read, I notice with pleasure when an author has chosen a particular word, a particular place, for the picture it will convey to the reader.” ― Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Quotations from Goodreads in a review of Ginsburg’s book, My Own Words (2016)
John Lewis was buried this week in Atlanta. He grew up in Troy, Alabama, where using a public library was for whites only in 1956. Sixteen years old, he sent the city council a letter, the first of many times he protested Jim Crow.
Arrested 45 times in civil rights demonstrations, he was known for making “good trouble.” Also for mobilizing political action with the phrase, “We’re going to march.” In 1987, he marched into Congress representing Atlanta.
Can’t stomach an unfair legal system? Can’t accept people getting arrested for exercising the First Amendment? Stand with John Lewis’s legacy. Support change. Vote justice.
The gnome winked. “Disturb you, did we? Meant to, didn’t we?”
Annoyed, I watch the ivy root I’d been hacking slither into the ground.
“Burrow they do. Like rumors they monger, multiply.”
I slump in the dirt. “It seems hopeless.”
“Aye, Whac-a-Mole.”
“Then what, let them take over?”
“Nae, ye be between Odysseus double monsters. Then strap yourself down and through it ye go.”
Churning waters, sailor’s oars pulling strong. A group effort. Is that what he means? “I don’t understand. Is it restraint or escape that let us resist the siren’s song?”
Since the virus started, Lolly made her own decisions. Even hard ones, like, could she go across the street for a physically distant chat with her best friend, whom she’d known since first grade. Tempting fate, maybe.
Her parents worked at the hospital. They self quarantined. She missed seeing them and arguing about the silly things that had seemed important three months ago.
She said, “I love you.” Made omelets and sausage plated with sprigs of parsley which everyone ate alone. So grown up. So post high school. So very responsible and thinking about others more often now. Real adulting.
I’m about to explode. Despite training in enhanced mindfulness techniques, there’s a tension in my thighs and my toes itch. I’m leaving suspended relaxation. From the ceiling viewing screen, I see we haven’t left the atmosphere.
Hibernating in self-contained pods, we hope to make it to Mars in a self-driving ship. Some billionaire’s idea. What a bad time for insomnia since success depends on no one eating for six months.
This is my sister’s idea of togetherness. She’s a long time yogi. I’m not. Though I’d like the company, I hope no one else wakes up. I need to relax.
His father told him good things come in multiples of three. Then, he left his third son at the crossroads. Taking a contemplative path into mountains and mists, the youth finds an ox, a horse and a royal ring. Riding the horse, leading the ox and wearing the ring, he’s stopped by a bailiff. The man’s skin and bones poverty cries out for help. The youth hands the man the ox’s rope.
Giving the horse its head, he arrives at a castle where the glint of the ring summons the queen. Three well solved quests later, she makes him king.
Angie wanted to act in Hollywood. She moved to LA, took a job at a cafe, and waited to be discovered.
Yoga strengthened her, put her in touch with her chakras. She realized that acting had brought her a shallow kind of security. Now she wanted more. At least enough to pay the rent.
Meditating her way into a sales career, she found that she was good at persuading people to buy what they wanted, whether they needed it or not. Convincing herself that the path to enlightenment had led her to this point, amassing things became her life goal.
Put women in charge. That’s the antidote to snake-oil salesmen working in a post-truth environment to steal your democracy. Endorsed by the New York Times: Elizabeth Warren has a plan and Amy Klobuchar can work. Restore dignity and fairness to civic life. There’s hope.
Pay no attention to juvenile slogans. Forget social media. Turn the television to another station or take a news break. Read escapist fiction. Whatever else, ignore the sad little man tweeting behind his Wall. Meditate on the image of him leaving office by military helicopter saying, “I can’t come back. I don’t know how it works.”
Monica's Monday Morning Flash 