{"id":112,"date":"2021-03-08T23:46:26","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T23:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.susanoneill.us\/?page_id=112"},"modified":"2026-04-20T13:47:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T13:47:59","slug":"new-blog","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.susanoneill.us\/?page_id=112","title":{"rendered":"Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For NO KINGS day, March 28:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an Army nurse in Viet Nam, I saw my first Forever War. I went home in 1970, when Kissinger and the Vietnamese were negotiating its end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it did end. In 1975, five long years later. Five more years of death and further destruction\u2014of human beings, of that beautiful country; more than 3,000 new US names to be added later to our Memorial Wall in DC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the king he THINKS he is, Donald Trump (who had his daddy work hard to avoid having him sent to war) believes war is a game, and that our military is his to use and lose\u2014disposable while they\u2019re alive; \u201csuckers\u201d and \u201closers\u201d when they die in service to their country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m old; I don\u2019t play Call of Duty. But I have played Chess. If Trump played chess\u2014which I really can\u2019t picture\u2014he\u2019d be that guy who tries to win by wiping out every piece on the board: tear down the castles, humiliate the bishops (maybe even make them all wear black shoes that don\u2019t fit to show who\u2019s boss), and blow up the pawns. Boom!\u2014No foresight, no strategy, no endgame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, that guy loses because there\u2019s nobody left to protect the king.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can we wait forever for this wanabe king to fail, and to fall? Once the board is laid waste, how many pawns will have to bleed and die in his name?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

War is no game, to be fought at one man\u2019s whim. We need no kings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our troops are not pawns: We must say no to Forever Wars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And finally, immigrants add to our country\u2019s strength; those I\u2019ve met\u2014I live in Brooklyn, and it\u2019s hard to NOT meet, know, and live with immigrants here\u2014are ambitious, hard-working, and determined to give their children a better life than theirs. ICE has only existed since 2003. We got along without it before, and we\u2019d be far better without it now. I humbly suggest that we abolish ICE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

February 2, 2026:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been awhile since I\u2019ve posted. Frankly, I haven\u2019t had the heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been watching this country race toward mass acceptance of cruelty and delusion at a pace that I find dizzying. Our \u201cpresident\u201d is throwing out bile and disinformation, both on his own, and through his chosen playthings (GI Joe, Brunette Barbie, Blonde Barbie, cross-wearing Barbie–and Stephen Miller, his Claus Barbie), at a literally insane pace. He is using our hard-earned tax money for his own enrichment, and spending it on a great smorgasbord of crap that profits him and others among the super-rich, while dancing the YMCA on our Constitution\u2014all through the befuddled inaction of a supposedly \u201cco-equal\u201d congress, and the blessings of a supposedly \u201cco-equal\u201d court that\u2019s stacked to favor him politically, even criminally, when his endless lawsuits reach their level. We’re almost certainly also paying for all those lawsuits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But hey, the super-rich work hard for their tax cuts and government perks… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I once met a waitress who greatly admired Trump. When I asked her why, she answered, \u201cHe tells it like it is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at the way things are shaking out, I take that to mean he \u201ctells it\u201d out loud\u2014the \u201cit\u201d being thoughts that we common people tend to avoid saying, because we don’t want other common people to think we’re nasty a**holes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I digress… So, about the atrocities in Minnesota right now. So our \u00fcber-powerful “president”\u2014with the advice and hearty participation of Stephen Miller\u2014has singled out the least powerful people in the country to vilify, torture, and stoke hatred against: so-called \u201cillegal\u201d immigrants. Cheering him on from the sidelines are the above Barbies, the likes of Fox and NewsMax, and the Greek Chorus of the Heritage Society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He sends ICE’s badly-trained masked sociopaths in huge numbers to places like Minneapolis, Portland, OR; even Lewiston\/Auburn, ME, to wreak havoc and break up families, and kill a couple of citizens in the process. That so many of those grabbed off the street (or seized from their own homes via government-sanctioned break-ins) are in the LEGAL process of seeking asylum evidently doesn’t mean squat: they still have to go\u2014to an interim \u201ccamp\u201d as far away as possible from those who love them, then–after cooling their heels for days, weeks, months, or years–to their home country, or maybe just to some random country where they\u2019ve never set foot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of our biggest issues, I think, is how we frame immigrants as \u201cillegal.\u201d In addition to those who are actively seeking asylum–who have suddenly become “illegal,” for no really good reason–there are others who don\u2019t have the proper papers and are also \u201cillegal.\u201d And being “illegally” here, all<\/em> these people are officially \u201ccriminals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a great many of those without papers have been working here for years, supporting families, making a place for themselves in a community. Being productive, being decent neighbors. We have no official mechanism for these people to be permitted to stay, once somebody official discovers their papers are not in order. Because, once again, they’re “illegal,” and therefore “criminals.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if they came here for the same thing so many of our ancestors wanted–a chance to make something of themselves, and their descendants–they have to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we mass-deport them, who pays for that? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why, you and I; we the taxpayers. We pay for Trump, ICE, Miller (WE PAY FOR STEPHEN MILLER–let that<\/em> sink in!), all the participating Barbies, the see-no-“illegals” congress, the litigation, even the aptly-named Cash and his FBI–who have somehow gotten into the deport the “criminals” act–and for all those zip-ties, the flights, the camps, the food (such as it is), the medicine (such as it is), the guards (such as they are).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weeeeee!! WE do all that!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, yeah: If we break up their families, we also have to help pay for the upkeep of those left behind, because the deportee is not around to do it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of this is exactly an economic bonus. Not to us; not to the family, who are so often full citizens of the US. Nor does the loss of the worker profit those for whom, or with whom, they work. Nor is it an economic boost for the customers they have been dealing with. Whose houses they help build; whose food they pick, prepare, serve, or clean up after; whose chickens they pluck; whose homes they clean; whose sick grandparents they care for; whose decent lives they make possible in myriad ways that most of us don\u2019t even think about. Until they’re gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I suppose spending that money is how we thank them for their services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such situations are far more complicated than the insults, labels, and absolutist actions, that frame the cruelties that are being perpetrated in our names. And on our dime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To sort out this mess to everybody’s advantage requires working together. It requires a sense of history. It requires REAL Christian values, not the fake Heritage Society variety. It requires human kindness, a will to find justice, and a functional government that respects its checks and balances. A government, dare I say, that appreciates ambition and drive, even when those who exhibit it have skin that is not lily-white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we could do that, maybe we wouldn’t have so many people circumventing our current unnecessarily byzantine process by coming in “illegally.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

August 14. 2025:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was listening to a report this morning on our under-attack NPR station (because the King always<\/em> attacks the media that criticize his reign) about the current court order to humanize the ICE facility in NYC. Among other things–such as granting reasonable living space to the inmates, who are “criminals” because of their seditious (See June 11 entry) efforts to immigrate, at the potential cost of their lives, to our immigrant country–the order stipulates that they receive three meals a day instead of the current two, get reasonable necessary healthcare, and are granted access to legal representation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m sure the Trump administration will comply, as they always do (that’s sarcasm, for those who don’t recognize it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought about the Germans during WWII, how they seemed to remain willfully ignorant of what happened in the camps in order to live their day-to-day lives. At what point, I wondered, do we all become Nazis by extension?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It doesn’t necessarily take enrolling in the Party to become a Nazi; it might just take a complicit ignorance. And when you’re barraged daily with NEWS (as opposed to common news), it’s easy to follow your preferred outrages or delights of interest. Which often excludes people you don’t know in person, even though–here in Brooklyn and beyond–they might have prepared and served you your food, cleaned up the club where you danced, polished your fingernails, staffed your local bodega, helped build your new roof, and lived two block over in that housing complex where you’re glad you don’t have to rent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don’t have to join ICE to be a Nazi, although it seems they’re eager to sign you on. You just have to ignore what they’re doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And really, what choice do we common people have in the matter? Might as well not stress over the treatment, and the fate, of people we don’t know, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My guess–not having lived in Germany in the 30s and 40s–is that people in many European countries during WWII felt that way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this disturbs me, an old woman of 77 with no real power to change the horrors I see developing around me. Human beings being abducted in the streets by masked goons; a “camp” built in an ecologically fragile area in Florida that is surrounded by alligators and infested with mosquitos, or even an overloaded, inhumane “camp” in New York City, where a sick “inmate” can have a seizure for a half-hour before somebody finally tends him, where nobody has access to a lawyer, never mind a semblance of any due process–what can I<\/em> do about it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public protests? Check. Letters and calls to my reps in Congress? Check. Petitions signed? Entries in a blog that is mostly unread? Check and check.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even people who have so much money that they could<\/em> do something about it are doing nothing, because pissing off the King–which our Constitution insists we do not have–begets retribution. Well…doing almost nothing: Mark Zuckerberg’s growing compound in Palo Alto evidently features underground shelters to protect him and his family from whatever takes place outside. I’m sure others are using their billions equally altruistically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do we have to wait until the growing economic mismanagement causes someone–anyone<\/em>–with power to reconsider the folly of Project 2025, which now governs us, while our neighbors are disappeared into our ever-growing cancer of concentration camps? Do we have to permanently move ourselves and our clever signs into the streets? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or do we have to just turn our backs on the inhumanity fostered by the authors of P2025, their orange puppet King, our corrupt Supreme Court, and the soulless Stephen Miller, as they trash our Constitution and ignore the last bastions of resistance in the lower courts–so we can get along with our own small lives? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

July 9, 2025<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear Donald:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every time I see you, you look so unhappy. I miss your good humor, your sense of joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it\u2026the bone spurs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s upsetting to see you this way. It looks<\/em> like you\u2019ve got everything you could want. You even got that Big, Beautiful Bill. Think how rich that tax cut will make you! And there\u2019s that billions of dollars coming to help you put immigrants away in those camps. And more camps<\/em> coming! Alligator Alcatraz? Hah\u2014nothing compared to what you\u2019ll build with all that money!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even those voters who wanted you to put immigrant criminals away are gobsmacked at how efficient and effective those guys are that you hired to \u201cdisappear\u201d all these people, even the ones that aren’t<\/em> criminals. Poll after poll tells you how good you are at that whole business! So much so, that\u2014just like you promised once before\u2014there\u2019s so much success that everybody\u2019s<\/em> getting tired of succeeding!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why can\u2019t you cheer up?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve put people who look so great<\/em> in high positions, that when they go on camera, everybody thinks, \u201cMy, he does hire great<\/em>-looking people!\u201d Pete, Kristi, Karoline\u2026even JD\u2014that eyeliner really makes his eyes pop–they all look so amazing<\/em>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019d think that alone would make you smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it\u2026Stephen Miller? Okay, not so pretty. But sometimes you just gotta go with function over form. You have to admit, he\u2019s a real gem, the best ever<\/em> at caging those immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That<\/em> should make you happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it your fallout with Elon? I know\u2014it\u2019s kind of like another divorce, right? Aw. But hey\u2014You won the election\u2014and<\/em> you got to keep the money<\/em>! And X! And all those \u201cstaff cuts\u201d that his little techie-bros made happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why so gloomy-gus?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve got your Crypto coin. And your bibles. And bonus<\/em>\u2014you got all those super-Christians who buy them! You\u2019ve got your airplane. And you\u2019ve got lots of friends: just over half the Senate; even more of the House; they\u2019ll do anything<\/em> you want! And the old gang at Fox. Oh, and the Supreme Court just loves<\/em> you! They love you more than they love the Constitution<\/em>! And since loving the Constitution is what the French would get all fancy and say is their raison d\u2019\u00eatre<\/em>\u2014that means it\u2019s the reason they exist\u2014that\u2019s a really<\/em> big deal!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That should have you dancing. It\u2019s been so long<\/em> since you danced\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it Melania? Hmm. But look at the bright side: you\u2019re famous, and as you yourself said, when you\u2019re famous<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ha! Do I detect an itsy-bitsy glimmer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, dear\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well… You\u2019ve got the Heritage Society, and that plan they wrote for you, and they even bring you all those nifty proclamations you just have to sharpy your name to. Why, you don\u2019t even need those boring Daily Briefings, because they take care of everything<\/em>. Amiright?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donald??<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How about this: You\u2019ve got all those countries quaking in their boots, if countries have boots, because of your Mighty Tariffs. And all your buddies at Mar-a-Lago. And your golf trophy<\/em>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it Vladimir? Bibi? Iran? The Houthis? Oh? Just think how impressed they\u2019ll all<\/em> be, when you get that Nobel Peace Prize! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So\u2026why do<\/em> you look so unhappy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

June 11, 2025<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, I painted this on a piece of posterboard:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not criminal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

to seek<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

SANCTUARY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Violence and Inhumanity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor to give it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a sign for Saturday\u2019s protest. The protest is themed \u201cNo Kings,\u201d to counter the over-the-top military parade scheduled to grind through the streets of DC to celebrate \u201cFlag Day\u201d\u2014and Trump\u2019s birthday. (For the record, the sign\u2019s reverse shows a drawing, the rear view of a certain naked monarch. Caption: The Emperor Has No Morals<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In honor of the firehose of new atrocities flooding from the Oval office, the Sanctuary statement covers the latest dubious attempt to Make America Grate Again. In truth, we\u2019re really Making America More Cruel, but that doesn\u2019t reduce to MAGA. Not clever enough for this circus sideshow administration; they deliver their cruelty with snide<\/em>\u2014like \u201cIf you spit, we will hit\u201d\u2014so it will come across as yet another distracting bit of performative art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whoopie! Fun! Squirrel!!!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here we are, poised to send soldiers trained for combat to quell a US protest against ICE agents. They don\u2019t carry rubber bullets, unless combat has changed a lot since my day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What could possibly go wrong\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I won\u2019t discuss the obnoxiousness of sending in the National Guard over a governor\u2019s objections for a relatively small and localized protest that should\u2014and could\u2014be handled by local cops. And I won\u2019t bloviate further on the offensiveness and danger of adding active-duty Marines to the mix. Cuz, you know\u2026deliberate provocation is standard for our Bully-in-Chief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m truly sick of the \u201c(Dark-Skinned) Immigrants are CRIMINALS\u201d mentality being foisted on our country by a government of comfortable, \u00fcber-privileged white offspring of immigrants who, when they came to the US, basically just had to prove they didn\u2019t have TB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, those white ancestors\u2014who weren\u2019t brought here in chains, and didn\u2019t own this land before righteous European settlers landed and marched them off said land wrapped in smallpox blankets\u2014all came to our shores to find a better life. Most of them worked like hell, at terrible jobs, to create one. Why, Trump\u2019s own Granddaddy Friedrich, a poor German immigrant, made his fortune with hard menial labor during the Gold Rush by running a brothel for miners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My point is, immigration opportunities were there back in the days of our forebears (with a few exceptions, like the Jewish refugees on the disastrous 1939 voyage of the St Louis). Coming to this country in my great-grandpa Ahinger\u2019s time was simpler than marching through the jungle for months with your family in tow, following guys you paid with your life\u2019s savings, who still might rob and\/or attack you, then surviving the Darien Gap, where others rob and\/or attack you, then swimming the river, then stumbling out into the arms of US border agents…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To give due credit, just to pack up what you can carry and decamp to a new country in a crammed-full, stinking boat had to take a lot of despair, ambition, and nerve, not to mention a resilient stomach. Our white ancestors had to be truly motivated by their circumstances to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But to come here via the route taken by so many of today\u2019s Venezuelan refugees and their fellow travelers\u2026Why would you even consider that unless you were flat-out desperate<\/em>? And if you survive that final swim, and you sit at the desk to make your case for sanctuary, and you get your glimmer of hope\u2014your marching orders for government check-ins\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, then you have to worry about getting and keeping that terrible job\u2014or two, or three\u2014long enough to get to something better, to safety<\/em>; to, if possible, legal<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just like our ancestors did. The job part, that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now, poof!\u2014It\u2019s dangerous to meet those check-ins. No matter who you are, what you\u2019ve lost, what you hoped for; no matter how determined you are, how hard you work, how much hope forced you to take this whole overwhelming journey to begin with\u2026 You wind up handcuffed, without due process. Which, incidentally, is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And you\u2019re not the only target:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly, it\u2019s a crime to contribute peacefully to the economy for twenty or thirty years, to raise a family, send your kids to school, build your small life, to become an American in everything but the possession of a paper. You are a criminal, you lead gangs and eat people\u2019s poodles, and nothing you say will change that because you have no right to plead your case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am ashamed of my government. My immigrant<\/em> country. We are spending billions to insult and criminalize hard-working people. Billions, to tear families apart. Billions, to send fathers and mothers and students to horrific holding pens. The white, comfortable, \u00fcber-privileged offspring of immigrants are perpetrating extreme cruelty against immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whom they consider weak, because they can\u2019t fight back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wonder how they<\/em> would fare in the jungle, in the Darien Gap, in the Rio Grande?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

March 26, 2025:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I lugged two heavy packages, mostly kids’ books, to the local post office today to mail them to the grand-girls in The Netherlands. There wasn’t much of a line when I started, but there was only one clerk–the Asian woman who calls me “Grandma,” and whom I refer to as “Granddaughter”–and she was working all the mail, as well as the passports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She’s amazingly efficient. She’s been there at least as long as I’ve been in Brooklyn, which is since early 2008, and she’s also unfailingly civil to all in spite of the craziness of the fully-international crowd she serves. Even so, after she processed a passport and served two other customers (one had brought an item to be returned to a store in its original plastic bag with no mailer, and was taken aback when she was nicely informed that it couldn’t go out that way, and she’d have to buy one of the big plastic envelopes available at the window or provide her own), the line behind me was doubling on itself. And this was mid-afternoon, mid-week, when the post office is normally all but deserted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She hefted my first box. “I can’t say anything, but Uncle Trump has made a few changes,” she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Is that why you’re by yourself today?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She rolled her eyes and didn’t reply. “I should tell you this–and I don’t want to lose you as a customer, but the price your children will pay for this on the other side is going to be very much higher. You might want to think about this.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I shrugged. “I can’t do much of anything about it now, I’m afraid.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Yes, but–and I really like you, and want to keep your business, but you might think about it next time.” She processed the first package, then the second, quite efficiently. Then she looked up at her computer and plugged in some numbers. She gave me a figure–“This is what they are supposed to pay.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was astonishingly high. “I hope not,” I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She shrugged, “This is what it says it will cost. You should ask them what they have to pay.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I said I planned to do just that. I paid her the $200 it cost to mail the boxes, whose contents were listed at a total of $54, and told her to get some rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I got home, I evaluated the experience, as I always do. I’m always positive about the staff–with the single exception of a young woman who was new, and obnoxious to everybody she served (it was the last time I saw her; she obviously hated the job, so I assume she didn’t show up the next week–or maybe the next day).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The service was great; it always is with this experienced and efficient employee. HOWEVER: she was the only one working, with a line that essentially went out the door–and she was also in charge of the passports. I was amazed at her perseverance and good will, considering the stress that has to be grinding on her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“And the charges for my packages seemed higher than usual; also, she warned me that the cost to my kids who will be receiving these gifts will be higher. She couldn’t discuss it, but I gathered both the absence of others working and the costs can be laid at the feet of a government trying to make service so bad that we citizens are just dandy with privatization. Which I’m NOT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“So I’m waiting to see what the reciprocal costs will be to our president’s stupid tariff war, and trying to get my head around how cutting staff at already understaffed post offices will “streamline” the service. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In the meanwhile, the physical facility is in its usual horrible shape, unkempt and grubby, with black mold in evidence both up front and where the staff have to work. I understand that has to do with the landlord trying to oust the office, but it still seems unfair to the staff to have to work in these conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I think I understand why Dejoy resigned without comment. I imagine, even with his many faults (he was, after all, the first link in the Privatization scheme), even he was pissed about the micromanagement planned in the name of our so-called president.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t expect an answer. In the meantime, postal service employees are marching to keep their own jobs, and to fight the privatization of the service. Good luck, folks: it’s heartening to see somebody<\/em> standing up to the power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

March 10, 2025:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An old poem (in the public domain) has been bouncing around in my head as I watch what’s going on in Washington DC. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democracies fall; kingdoms die; countries morph into theocracies, autocracies, dictatorships, and sometimes…into democracies. I realized that back in high school, when I chose this as one of my poems on just that subject for National Forensics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funny, isn’t it, the vivid pictures that poets can paint…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Carl Sandburg<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1878 \u2013 1967<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The past is a bucket of ashes.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The woman named Tomorrow <\/p>\n\n\n\n

sits with a hairpin in her teeth <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and takes her time <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and does her hair the way she wants it <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and fastens at last the last braid and coil<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and puts the hairpin where it belongs <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and turns and drawls: Well, what of it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What of it? Let the dead be dead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The doors were cedar<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and the panels strips of gold <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and the girls were golden girls <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and the panels read and the girls chanted: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  We are the greatest city, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  the greatest nation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  nothing like us ever was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The doors are twisted on broken hinges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sheets of rain swish through on the wind <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  where the golden girls ran and the panels read: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  We are the greatest city,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  the greatest nation, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  nothing like us ever was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has happened before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strong men put up a city and got <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  a nation together,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And paid singers to sing and women <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  to warble: We are the greatest city, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    the greatest nation, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    nothing like us ever was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while the singers sang<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and the strong men listened <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and paid the singers well <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and felt good about it all, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  there were rats and lizards who listened <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  \u2026 and the only listeners left now<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  \u2026 are \u2026 the rats \u2026 and the lizards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there are black crows <\/p>\n\n\n\n

crying, “Caw, caw,” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

bringing mud and sticks <\/p>\n\n\n\n

building a nest<\/p>\n\n\n\n

over the words carved <\/p>\n\n\n\n

on the doors where the panels were cedar <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and the strips on the panels were gold <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and the golden girls came singing: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  We are the greatest city,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  the greatest nation: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  nothing like us ever was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only singers now are crows crying, “Caw, caw,” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the only listeners now are \u2026 the rats \u2026 and the lizards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The feet of the rats <\/p>\n\n\n\n

scribble on the door sills; <\/p>\n\n\n\n

the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints <\/p>\n\n\n\n

chatter the pedigrees of the rats <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and babble of the blood<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and gabble of the breed <\/p>\n\n\n\n

of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers <\/p>\n\n\n\n

of the rats. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the wind shifts <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and the dust on a door sill shifts<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and even the writing of the rat footprints <\/p>\n\n\n\n

tells us nothing, nothing at all <\/p>\n\n\n\n

about the greatest city, the greatest nation <\/p>\n\n\n\n

where the strong men listened <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

December 27, 2024:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two and a half stories of brick and glass; no overhanging trees. Sigh… (See 9\/29, below…) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nov. 6, 2024, Politics on the Micro Level:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yesterday, I got up at 4 a.m. to work as part of Vet the Vote, an effort to recruit military veterans to help work the polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was assigned to an old American Legion on Avenue X, a neighborhood that, when the hall was built in the 40s, was primarily Italian. Now it\u2019s mostly populated by folks who came to Brooklyn from various corners of the old Soviet empire. Our interpreters were Russian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hall was not ideal for voting. It was a longish room, with a bar and poker table at the far end and a huge, unmovable pool table toward the front. There were five portable tables lined up on the left-hand wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first was mostly covered with random stuff like extra \u201cprivacy sleeves\u201d to cover the ballots, information leaflets, poll-worker instructions, and minor detritus that wouldn\u2019t fit anywhere else. The second, third, and fourth tables were assigned, one district each, to the voter check-in clerks. The fifth belonged to the coordinator, and his supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The middle of the room was filled with what, at first, looked like entirely too many privacy booths, where voters would mark their paper ballots. Within reach of these was a file of chairs lining the right-hand wall for tired voters and poll workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there was our section\u2014the ballot scanners. We and our three machines were sandwiched between that behemoth of an oak-and-slate pool table and stuff you might expect to line an end wall in an American Legion, including a beer-and-soda vending machine and a big out-of-commission motorcycle. Our scanners were there because it was close to the electrical outlets\u2014and because it was the only space left for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ballot scanners are supposed to be private; they are supposed to have several feet of clearance. Ours\u2014because it literally would\u2019ve taken a crane to move the pool table, and that wasn\u2019t part of our equipment\u2014rated a three- to four-foot aisle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just getting to us from the privacy booths was a challenge. From the right, voters had to thread between the chairs and the special Ballot Marking Machine designed to help those with various physical handicaps (It stopped working before noon). From the left, they had to push through three lines of voters waiting for ballots from the tables, and edge past the front wheel of the motorcycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two observers from the Election Commission were disturbed by our positions next to our scanners. They recommended that we stand on the other side of the pool table to avoid observing the actual scanning. It was a solid suggestion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in practice, most of the more than 1000 citizens who turned out were new voters. Many of them had registered to vote specifically for this election\u2014for Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In theory, I shouldn\u2019t have known they were voting for Trump. But the NYC ballot is not easy for newcomers to understand without reading the fine print. Especially when English is your second language, and you have to figure out what \u201cvote for one\u201d means when you see the names of both presidential candidates twice on the “president” line, because here Trump is listed with the Republican Party and the Conservative Party, while Harris is with the Democrats and The Working Families Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many, many of our voters marked both options for their candidate. Which made the scanner spit their ballots out, declaring that the voter had \u201cmarked more than one oval for a candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It fell to us scanner personnel to figure out what the problem was\u2014which meant examining the ballot, a process that should in theory take one person of both parties. In practice it meant a Democrat who manned the scanner, perhaps wedged between a wheelchair-bound voter next to the defunct motorcycle on one side of her aisle, and a voter with a walker on the other, facing a line of waiting would-be voters, had no immediate access to a Republican scanner-manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a ballot problem couldn\u2019t be remedied, we had to explain the issue, put the ballots back into a \u201cprivacy sleeve,\u201d and send the poor voter back to their district\u2019s table, where they\u2019d turn in their unusable ballots for clean ones. Which they would carry back to the privacy booths to re-mark. So it turned out that we did<\/em> need all those booths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had a lot of scrapped ballots, which had to be put into specific receptacles and logged in as deactivated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I was about to leave for my lunch break, a wiry grey-haired woman broke from the crowd, waving an Affidavit Ballot, a non-scanning ballot that clerks provide voters who can\u2019t be found in the registration records. \u201cWhat do I do with this<\/em>?\u201d she demanded.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou mark your vote,\u201d I said, \u201cthen put it in its envelope.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“So who do I vote for?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I can’t tell you that–you have to choose your candidates.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She frowned. \u201cI gotta fill all these blanks on this envelope? It says I gotta put my birth date. Nuh-uh! My birthdate is my own damned business\u2014it\u2019s personal<\/em>! I don\u2019t have to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just then, one of the Election Commission observers I\u2019d met earlier passed by. I pulled him over. \u201cThis gentleman can tell you anything you want to know about it,\u201d I told the woman brightly. I gave them a smile and left for lunch, stifling a grin. Let him deal with this secrecy issue\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I returned a half-hour later, both of them were gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I realized, by the time I left Avenue X at 10 pm, that Trump would probably win. This voter turnout, from the new registrations to the polls, was very well-organized. The Democrats, in contrast, seemed far less engaged on this important micro level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several women whose ballot errors I helped remediate\u2014lovely, sincere individuals\u2014assumed because I was so supportive of their new voting efforts that I was Trump-friendly. \u201cWe must pray this turns out right, or we lose our country,” one told me. Another said, \u201cIf he wins, I will put these \u2018I voted\u2019 stickers all over myself and dance.\u201d Yet another said, \u201cGood luck to us! This is SO important for us all!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The men were more restrained. Many seemed morose; some angry. Most appeared serious, determined, and proud of their first big foray into democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This morning, the media are jumping on the Democratic party for not coming out more strongly. I agree with much of this. But I also realized by the end of the long night that whatever Democrats did, they were spitting into a whirlwind of misinformation, from Trump and his media and surrogates, but also from the modern\u2014or perhaps ancient\u2014predilection of our flawed human minds to grasp for simple solutions to complicated problems. It is easier to conjure enemies for us to battle, it seems, than to bring us together with positivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps I’m just depressed this morning, but I\u2019m not sure anything can effectively counter forces like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

September 29, 2024:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a frenzy of shrieking outside the dining room. Male cardinals are noisy, especially young male cardinals. This one was not fully red, and he wanted, needed, demanded<\/em> the seed in my feeder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the dove, sleek, regal, just\u2026sat. Not foraging; simply guarding its kingdom from this Little Twit, with his spiked pinkish feathers and punk swagger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This dove radiated power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another dove, who had been feeding before it, departed, wings whistling, when it arrived. Yet another\u2014pale-grey-brownish, puffy, most likely young, certainly foolish\u2014tried to squeeze in beside it, but flapped off in disarray after an adept peck to his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems that \u201cpeaceful\u201d reputation might be exaggerated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So…the teenaged cardinal nattered in vain as the big dove sat. When I walked to the window, the dove placidly turned a bright, blue-lined black eye on me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The young cardinal squawkled off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My bird feeder is suction-cupped to our second-floor apartment\u2019s dining room window. Technically, co-op rules say we\u2019re not supposed to have one. I first flouted those rules a few years ago, when I hung a cylindrical plastic seed tube from the bottom of the fire escape above our small kitchen balcony. It seemed a fine place to put it. Unobtrusive from the outside, easy to see from the inside when I puttered over the stove. Above ground level, away from urban fauna. What could possibly go wrong? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first month, it brought flocks of birds\u2014cheeky sparrows, chickadees, red-headed house finches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the squirrels discovered it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a \u201csquirrel-proof feeder.\u201d Right. Those furry little monsters are smart. And persistent. Perhaps you\u2019ve seen this guy\u2019s backyard squirrel obstacle course?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n