Noticing

I'm just watching things unfold in our societal reality. It's interesting, and I'm feeling at least a modicum of hopefulness in the political realm.

I never knew, when I was younger, how much of what affects us relates to politics.

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Ivanka, Louise and the Little People

 I'd like to suggest a nice opinion piece by the great writer, Frank Bruni. It's published in The New York Times under the title listed above. It's dated November 25, 2017.

It talks about Ivanka Trump's suggestions for a pretty Thanksgiving dining table ("festooning the terrain around the turkey with Waterford crystal, Astier plates ($300 and up for a single place setting)..."). But, more importantly, it talks about the plutocratic cabinet Trump surrounded himself with in his first term. Here's a snippet:

--Steven Mnuchin, Treasury Secretary and a former Goldman Sachs partner--net worth, $385 million.

--Gary Cohn, director of the National Education Council--net worth, $250 million.

--Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary--net worth, $700 million.

--Betsy DeVos, Education Secretary--net worth, $1 billion.

That buys a lot of turkey.

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Climate Change

The fires in France and Spain seem to be getting the world's attention. A New York Times' article sums it up well, "Earth's Warming Primed France and Spain to Burn, Scientists Find." 

Also, on Bill McKibben's Substack, he had a piece called "High Heat, High Drama," which laid out the many bad things that have happened because of climate change. 

Not to sound like a Cassandra, but when will the world wake up. Time will tell, but it is running out.

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Some Nice Writing

I just wanted to share some phrases or sentences that caught my attention (primarily for their euphony).

--"like Geppetto fabricating his Pinocchio"  (Phillip Lopate)

--"the self as a social construct"  ("   ")

--"my physiological restlessness"  ("   ")

--"these societies are beset by a broad, nebulous discontent"  (Albena Azmanova)

--"To be radical is to grasp things by the root."  (Karl Marx)

--"There's something about being cooped up that calls for an abundance of comfort food."  (Whitney Perry)

--"a low-slung modern building of white bricks and smoke windows"  (Sam Freedman)

--"over-the-top opulence"  (Debbie Millman)

--"helping to seed the resentment that would later erupt in revolution"  ("   ")

--a 'pretense of undiminished vigor"  (Frank Bruni)

--"pharmacological affinities"  ("   ")

--"the calm reasoning of Aristotelian science"  (Carmen Lea Dege)

--"It's important to keep a few caveats in mind"  (Richard Conniff)

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Quotes

Here are some quotes on the topic of love from the social psychologist, Erich Fromm:

“Love isn't something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn't a feeling, it is a practice.”

“Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love.”

“Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.”

“The mature response to the problem of existence is love.”

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Venting

I'm just venting. That is, about the state of our country, the U.S. I think even some people who support our president are beginning to see they were sold a bill of goods (and the seller keeps raising the price). 

I keep thinking--hoping--it will be like what happened in the Gilded Age and thereafter. Much bad was followed by shocking good for the masses. It seems to be playing out that way.

I will hold on to hope.

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Some Words

I always try to write down words I see in material I read that I sense are not seen frequently seen in writing. 

Here are some of them:

acrimonious adj.

tete-a-tete n.

detente n.

rapprochement n.

belle epoque n.

janissary n.

shanghai v.

ergophobia n.

satori n.

walleyed adj.

taunter n.

epiphanic adj.

feted v.

Pantagruelian adj.

Thanks.

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Thinking Out Loud

I am puzzled and bemused by what is happening politically in this country. I wish I knew how the craziness of the president will finally end. It seems like he has great momentum. But life can be tricky, so what appears at the moment may not be the reality.

I do hope that people feeling the pain through their pocketbooks will result in a big turn away from Trump. Yet, us Americans can sometimes do things that directly harm ourselves. 

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About Writing

I just read an article that I've read a number of times. It deals with "flow" in writing. It's on the Writer's Digest website, written by David Jauss ("What Writers Mean by 'Flow'"). 

I think it gives to readers one of the big "secrets" of writing. That the variation of the length of sentences and consequently the type of sentence structure, is key to good writing. 

I try to remember that, but I sometimes forget.

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What is New

I do think our present government will "fall," in some key sense of the word. The Trump regime seems hellbent on creating as much havoc as allowed--and not allowed--by law. It is picking up its pace of its chaos-creating.

I'd be lying if I said it's not fun to watch, even though I'm aware the fallout falls on all of us. Hopefully there will be clear accountability when all this is over.

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Book Suggestion to Pass On

A book I'm reading again (because I need the help) is Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time by Paul Rogat Loeb.

Simply written and is a great tonic for our political times. Here are some blurbs.

"Mandatory reading for anyone over the age of 12--especially every woman or man who has traded 'I give a damn' for 'I give up.'"  --San Francisco Chronicle

"Rich, engaging, clearly written. An essential book for anyone who wants to work for change."  --Howard Zinn

"Loeb can pierce a cynic's armor with his practical examination of social change."  --San Jose Mercury News

"Convincingly affirms the human ability to create changes."  --Booklist

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Some Nice Phrases

Here are some short, nice phrases that I like.

--"excusing his outrages and laundering his lies" (Frank Bruni--this is talking about our Commander in Chief's underlings)

--"The task before us sometimes seems mountainous..." (Anonymous)

--"make like a pack of hyenas and go for the jugular" (James Carville"

--"sweat-soaked blankets" (Debra Gwartney)

--"a bounty beyond imagination, the ad promised" ("  ")

--"perfect crisp-dry conditions for fire" ("  ")

--"asking mind-bending questions" ("   ")

--"watching the US implode before our eyes" (Margaret Sullivan)

--"He and his ilk are disciples of a Tangerine God." (Robert Mann)

--"poetry, the art of intimations and intuitions" (M. Gessen)

--"presumably under the exigencies of making a living" (E.L. Doctorow)

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Funny Quotes

The entire economy of the Western world is built on things that cause cancer.   --From the movie Bliss, 1985

Time is a great teacher, but it kills all of its students.   --Hector Berlioz

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.  --Will Rogers

Being at a loss for words has saved many relationships.   --Bill Watterson

The truth will set you free, but it will first piss you off.    --Gloria Steinem

A fool and his money are soon elected.   --Will Rogers

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An Observation

Like many people I find it good to take breaks from the political arena. Trump has done a good job of implementing Steve Bannon's dictum: "to flood the zone with shit." It is healthy, I think to take a break from that fecal deluge.

The Trump reign will crash. It's just taking longer than most thought. No doubt, then, the crash will be something to behold.

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Exceedingly

Just a short comment on our political situation. It's getting worse and hard to stomach. Yet, maybe there is truth in the proverb, "The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine."

 

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Words I Would Like to Use in My Writing

I'm a collector of words and phrases that I like. I written a number of posts on both words and phrases. Here is just some words I've come across that I will try to use (at least periodically) in my writing.

abashed adj.

admonishment n.

affable

apparition n.

armamentarium n.

Artemis n.

ashen adj.

asinine adj.

aspirant n.

assail v.

atrophic adj.

Augean adj.

basementful n

basterdize v.

"battleship gray" 

begrime v.

behatted adj.

bellicose adj.

best v.

BFF n.

black hat n.

blase 

boffo adj.

bracero n.

brilliantined adj.

brio n.

broach v.

cafe-au-lait adj.

cannabilize v.

cause celebre n.

celadon adj. n.

checkered adj.

citadel n.

clandestine adj.

clishmaclaver n.

cloistered adj.

comestibles n.

comeuppance n.

complicit adj.

comport v.

confer v.

co-opt v.

coterie n.

cowed v.

crapehanger n.

damp squib n.

deference n.

Delphic adj.

diffident adj.

dispirited adj.

Damoclean Sword n.

enfeebled adj.

engage n.

erstwhile adj.

excoriate v.

facile adj.

fetching adj.

fettle n.

fictive adj.

flyspeak v.

foist v.

foment v.

frisson n.

gainful adj.

galoot n.

gastronomy n.

Gibson girl n.

grouse v.

hackerazzo n.

harebrained adj.

hoary adj.

hoi polloi n.

homo economicus n. 

hora n.

horchata n.

husband v.

ignoble adj.

imbibe v.

imbroglio n.

incandescent adj.

inciting incident n.

ineffable adj.

innards n.

in toto n.

Janus-faced adj.

jilted v.

jobsworth n.

Jumbotron n.

knedliky n.

leviathan n.

logrolling n.

lousy with Idiom.

mammon n.

mana n.

mastodonic adj.

maunder v.

Medusa n.

mendacity n.

mesmeric adj.

mystique n.

neutered adj.

noblesse oblige 

oldster n.

oligarchy n.

opsomaniac n.

overlord n.

Palladian adj.

panache n.

Panglossian adj.

parrhesia n.

parsimony n.

pauperize v.

peon n.

peripatetic adj.

pettifog v.

plebs n.

plenitude n.

Potemkin Village n.

pounce v.

prepossessing adj.

privation n.

profligate adj.

progeny n.

pulverize v.

pummel v.

Pyrrhic Victory n.

rabble-rouser n.

regnant adj. (dominant)

rail v.

reprisal n.

restive adj.

riled up idiom

riven adj.

rococo adj.

sagacity n.

savvy adj.

schlemiel n.

schlep v.

schlimazel n.

scorched-earth adj.

skein n.

soupcon n. 

splenetic adj.

succes d'estime n.

sui generis adj.

superannuated adj.

sybaritic adj.

sycophantic adj.

synergistically adv.

tabula rasa n.

taphephobia n.

teeming v. adj.

tobaggan v.

trenchant adj.

truculent adj.

turpitude n.

unabashed adj.

unburden v.

urbane adj.

vale of tears idiom.

vend v.

vestigial adj.

volte-face adj.

vox populi n.

wag n.

waggish adj.

Zelig n.

Just Some Quotes

Here are some quotes I got from a good book, Figures of Speech: 60 ways to turn a phrase, by Arthur Quinn:

--Whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad.   Euripides

--About suffering they were never wrong,/ The old masters.    W.H. Auden

--I am going in search of the great perhaps.    Rabelais

--Her voice is full of money.  F. Scott Fitzgerald

--A hungry stomach has no ears.    La Fontaine

--Night's candles are burnt out.  Romeo and Juliet

--All is flux, nothing stays still.    Heraclitus

--A man should be mourned at his birth, not at his death.  Montesquieu

--Give me chastity, but not yet.   Augustine

--Who shall stand guard to the guards themselves?    Juvenal

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Trump

I am fascinated by what our president has been doing. In fact, his actions seem to be a prelude to his undoing. His actions seem to get wilder, less calculated, and more harmful to the GOP. In other words, his deeds do not bode well for his party's November midterms.

To those of us not in the GOP or the MAGA movement, this bodes much glad tidings.

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No Kings

It was simply nice to see the third "No Kings" protests. Delightful. Justice, it seems, will not be denied, though, there are many that have a vested interest in our present king.

It's impossible to know for sure in politics--as in life--but it seems many forces are gaining against MAGA. And Trump is not looking too healthy--in a number of ways.

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On Fascism

Here are some quotes from the excellent book by Dr. Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works.

--"When the Israeli right uses the unquestioned history of Jewish oppression to assert Jewish dominance over Palestinian lands and lives, they are relying on the ease of victimization to obscure the contradiction between a struggle for equal respect and a struggle for dominance" (p. 115). 

--"The Confederacy, like Hitler's Reich, was built to defend, 'the aristocratic principle in nature,' the principle of racial hierarchy" (p. 91).

--Quoting Hitler from Mein Kampf : "...all effective propaganda must be confined to very few points which must be brought out in the form of slogans" (p. 64) 

The last quote brings to mind some words of a certain man named Trump: 

     --"Drain the Swamp"

     --"Lock Her Up"

     --"Drill, Baby, Drill"

     --"Make America Great Again" (thank you former Pres. Reagan)

     --"Too Big to Rig"

     --"Make America Healthy Again"

     --"Never Surrender" (thank you Corey Hart)

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Erasing History

I just read an excellent book by Jason Stanley, Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future. Here are a few quotes:

--"Erasing history helps authoritarians because doing so allows them to misrepresent it as a single story, a single perspective" (p. xi).

--"At the heart of fascist ideology broadly, and Nazi ideology specifically, is this conspiracy about the replacement of a dominant group" (p. xv).

--"Wars are won by teachers." (Vladimir Putin) (p. 1)

--"Authoritarians have long understood that when they wish to change the political culture, they must begin by seizing control of education" (p. 23).

The book speaks truth to power and to the present.

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Just Enjoying It

Simply put, I'm just enjoying the trials and tribulations of our president. The day draweth nigh.

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From "The Status Kuo"

A great political website is "The Status Kuo," run by Jay Kuo. Here is a part of one of their emails, dated Feb. 27, 2026:

"Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was forced to testify behind closed doors for some six hours before the House Oversight Committee, despite never having met Epstein and knowing nothing about him. She issued a blistering attack on the weaponization and cover-up of the Epstein files. Her opening statement blasted the sham proceedings:

    'You have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist

    your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump's actions and to cover

    them up despite legitimate calls for answers.'

She added, 'You have made little effort to call the people who show up most prominently in the Epstein files,' noting that not a single Republican had attended the deposition of Les Werner, a billionaire who helped Epstein become a tycoon."

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Some More Nice Writing

--"a zap to the synaptic cleft" (John Leonard)

--"a slice of the strange" ("   ")

--"Alone in literature, we find sanctuary"  ("    ")

--"and a muffled barking of dogs"  (Joan Didion)

--"unremarkable good looks"   ("  ")

--"and dreams about bigger houses, better streets"   ("   ")

--"cutting both their losses and their hopes"  ("   ")

--"I wouldn't believe Donald Trump if his tongue were notarized."  (Alair Townsend)

--"He invited them over for a carne asada cookout..."  (Jennifer Medina)

--"at the still point of the turning world"  (T.S. Eliot)

--"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.."  (William Butler Yeats)

--"Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast."  (Shakespeare)

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The Atlantic

I have been reading a number of good articles in The Atlantic (from my local library's online database). I especially like the articles by the editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. They seem able to show, better than most newspapers and magazines, what are the moving parts of the MAGA movement.

Reading the articles help keep me quasi-sane.

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Trump

I've been thinking about President Trump again. Months back I was beaten down thinking about him and about the gains he and his followers have had. Yet, it seems the tide is turning, indeed.

He seems beaten down, and tired. He has always been good--stunningly good--at dealing with the pushback on all of his lies. Now, his age coupled with the mountain of lies are coming home to roost. And he's starting to flail wildly in an effort to look poised and in control. 

He is beginning to look unpoised and out of control. Maybe the arc of the universe does bend toward justice.

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Nice Writing

I'm just typing up some interesting phrases and sentences that I find euphonic.

--"dumping out prodigious amounts of rain" (Peter Brannen)

--"The concreteness of the scene carries the burden of the meaning." (Chris Anderson"

--"a disturbing sense of mental disorientation" (Robert Atwan)

--"petty crimes and murder across a desperate American landscape" (Richard Sandomir)

--"We're all dying in increments." (Roger Ebert)

--"It's a colossal miscalculation." (Roger Ebert)

--"a waltz-length white wedding dress" (Joan Didion)

--"a frail and unhinged casualty of modern life" (Nathan Heller)

--"trim back on the magnitude of your ambition" (Jon Franklin)

--"enriching the story with new revelations" (David Sassoon)

--"For all the drug-addled extravagance" (Peter Richardson)

--"No views, no food." (David Brooks)

--"alongside a state-of-the-art waterpark" (Eric Adler et al.)

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Excellent Book

I've been reviewing a book I got years ago. It's called Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors, by Bill Bryson. It's a great book for writers. It gives the correct spelling, and lots of definitions, on thousands of words. They tend to be words that the spelling can be tricky. 

Here are some examples:

Minsk Capital of Belarus.

mullah Muslim teacher.

murmur

oscillate

plenteous

propinquity Nearness or similarity.

rumba A lively dance of Cuban origin.

Senegal West African republic; capital Dakar.

seppuku Ritual suicide in Japan; hara-kiri.

tattoo

Valhalla In Norse mythology, a great hall of slain warriors.

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Some Quotes

--There is more to life than increasing its speed.   Mahatma Gandhi

--What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other.    George Eliot

--The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.   William James

--Measure twice, cut once.    Craftperson's aphorism

--Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.   John Updike

--If you're not making mistakes, you're not trying hard enough.    Vince Lombardi

--Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.   Robert F. Kennedy

--A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.   Spanish proverb

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Writing

I have been trying to write more. It's always present in my psyche but most of the time I don't follow-through with the action steps.

I seem to be dealing with some momentum that is helping now. I do find it interesting to puzzle over why writing at times can be difficult and at other times quite natural.

I have guesses but no answers.

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Interesting

I know I go back constantly to President Trump but it seems the nature of the beast. Now the president has invaded a country. That's new.

I remember him saying he would be the president to end Bush-style wars. I know this is truly out of character for the president, but it looks like he fibbed.

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