FailureToCommunicate
FailureToCommunicate's JournalHiding under our desks, or under the windows, seemed so long ago...until this.
Those memories that lay dormant now crowd forward again.
Nuclear experts, and negotiators, who worked tirelessly during and after the Cold War with their Russian counterparts, are now being contacted by the media to voice their opinions on what might happen next.
Fearful days indeed.
Yes! Happy Birthday Malia! Good thing I did not run her over in Harvard Square...
There I was driving thru Harvard Square, making a left turn onto Mass Ave by one of the Harvard College gates. I was glancing to my right to make sure no cars were coming, and, when I glanced back left, I was face to face (face to bumper?) with Malia in the cross walk. I stopped abruptly, then recognized who it was and waved like a crazy fan. She at first had the anoyed look of someone about to be struck by an inattentive motorist, then she broke into the most dazzling smile and walked on across the road. I sat there, stunned, a moment, only then noticing the menacing faces of Secret Service on either side of the road glaring at me.
Yikes. But the image of her smile will always stay with me.
Oh, and PLEASE don't ever mention this incident to her dad. I worry he might hold a grudge.
Misspelling corrected. Too early. Yes, Bethel was our home while my father counseled...
families of thalidomide children in Germany and other European countries advocating for the kids to be mainstreamed instead of placed in separate schools or institutions. This was back in 1967 when those kids were just reaching school age.
And yes, the weather kinda sucked, plus, I couldn't WAIT to get back to America. The Motown sound was just hitting big, and the few that they played on Radio Luxembourg made me VERY homesick!
I also vividly remember our grade school "nuclear attack" drills in Ohio...
Our one story school building had apparently only one really solid wall, located in the auditorium, so the teachers would march us all thru the halls to huddle together there for the duration of the drill.
That practice would of course also been for a tornado event. Violent storms were not uncommon in Northern Ohio.
As a kid, I was only vaguely aware of the horror of a potential total nuclear war, but I strongly remember really liking being crammed tightly next to Christine Duncan during those drills. Her slightly worried smiles definitely helped pass the long minutes till the "all clear" sounded.
Some high school friends and I gave a few dollars to a homeless guy, and moments later...
a police car pulled over and two cops jumped out and slammed all of us again the car.
They accused us of buying drugs from the guy.
I started to argue with them, but my friends, who were Black, hissed "Just shut up, you'll make it worse!"
Glad to see this video of this act of empathy and kindness turned out much better.
RBG dies and I thought it couldn't get worse. Then today, my older brother passed away...
He had been in somewhat declining health for the last six years since he was assaulted by a drunk guy -hit repeatedly in the head- and had to have emergency brain surgery for the swelling.
After the assault he had to retire and give up his two congregations...he was a minister, like my father.
He never really got back to health after that.
I talked to him yesterday (by phone, he's in North Carolina and no visitors are allowed where he is (was)) but I just didn't have the heart to tell him of RBG's passing. It would've broken his heart even more than it was already.
He mentioned that as bad as he was feeling, he was happy that he had early voted.
I take that as at least a small consolation.
2020 just got even worse. 
-FTC
Edit to add: that talk was virtual ...like almost every human contact these days it seems.
This scene that gets me every time. "I know what to say Homer. I love you, and
I'll never leave you..." spoken by his girlfriend in the film- Wilma - after Homer is assuming she'll just leave him now that he's returned from war missing his hands.
It gets me because I think my mother probably said something similar to my father, a WW ll chaplain, missing both arms.
Her father said to her, when he learned of her new love for my father: "You walk along a path in the woods... and why do you have to pick up the broken branch?"
Luckily for me -and my four brothers- she ignored her father's disapproval and married my father anyway. And never left him.
Wow. Powerful. I saw the same effect on people when my father shared that his disability did
not define him, did not slow him down, or keep him from striving to achieve the same, and much more, than able bodied.
You could see it in people's faces...here was an important man telling them that they could hope to look beyond their disability.
That the right to seek some type of normal life, with fewer barriers to buildings and to the ladder of success, was a civil right.
Some would smile, some beam, some would softly tear up. But always an impact. A reaction to a human outreach of genuine concern and empathy that is far too rare.
And Joe Biden clearly has that empathy.
Top three -or four - for me...so far...
(Edited to swap Michelle (who REALLY has said "No"
for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev)
Kamala Harris,
Florida's Val Demings,
Michelle Lujan Grisham, or...
Senator Catherine Cortez Masto
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I still have my Impeach Reagan button somewhere. Actors, and TV personalities, make
terrible Presidents. Boy, he sure fooled so many gullible voters with his Aw shucks manners. But ANYONE who had payed attention to what he did as Governor of California knew he'd be awful as President.
We just didn't know how awful:
_Sent National Guard to UC Berkeley campus (People's Park)
_On first day in office, lied that HE, not Carter, secured the release of hostages from Iran
_As new President, took down solar panels on WH and ended alternative energy incentives
_Supply Side economics
_Tax cuts for rich, eliminated middle class tax breaks
_1982 Recession
_Sent weapons to Iraq, Saddam Hussein
_Invaded Grenada as a distraction
_busted unions like the Air Traffic Controllers
_Funded Star Wars nonsense
_Iran Contra scandal - arms for hostages
_Reignighted Cold War with USSR
_Supported the Mujahideen (Osama bin Laden)
_Supported dictators like Noriega, Hussein, Marcos, El Salvadore regime...
_"Trees polute more than automobiles"
_138 Reagon officials indicted, or convicted of crimes
_Tripled National Debt
_Savings and Loans collapse
_Ignored the A.I.D.S. epidemic
_ etc. etc
And much more...that I have probably forgotten.
No, NOT a good President.
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Gender: MaleHometown: Massachusetts
Member since: Sun Sep 14, 2008, 06:48 PM
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