Most of you of a certain age will remember this. I stumbled across it the other day, and seeing it again gave me goosebumps.
This station ID (with its accompanying music) was introduced in 1962 as an attempt to get people to buy color televisions, which were new then. It was retired in 1975.
NBC (and its affiliates) still uses a multi-colored peacock in its logo, but it’s been stylized and simplified and is just not the same as the original.
There is a new Moral Majority in America. And it isn’t white evangelicals, the NRA, or the supporters of Trump. It is the majority of the country who believe in integrity in government, compassion, the rule of law, and justice. They are raising their voices daily. Especially today. — Matthew Dowd
Millions of people gathering to peacefully march against gun violence in every city in the country, and across the globe. The enthusiasm and passion of the kids leading the movement gives me hope that maybe America will be okay after all.
Listen to 11 year old Naomi Wadler. Hear this young woman roar. THIS is what democracy looks like.
Here is Emma Gonzalez’ powerful speech and 6 minute moment of silence. If you aren’t moved by this, you don’t have a soul.
Watch out, GOP, you old dinosaur. The new generation is going to change things, and they are NOT going to vote for you.
I can’t take this anymore. I’ve had about enough of the crapfest coming from the Trump White House, and the firing of H. R. McMaster, one of the only sane people left in his administration — only to be replaced with the warmonger and Fox News commentator John Bolton as his National Security Advisor — just about sent me over the edge. It’s exhausting and terrifying, and I think it’s especially upsetting for those of us who were raised or had close relationships with narcissists or sociopaths.
John Bolton wants war. He wants to nuke both Iran and North Korea. Such a stupid and dangerous move could set off global nuclear war. Now, with Trump consolidating power and leaving most abandoned posts empty or filled by people much like himself who will never disagree with him or criticize him, I’m really afraid there’s nothing left to keep Trump from pushing the nuke button.
I spend a lot of time on Twitter these days, and most people are really afraid we are on the edge of nuclear war — possibly the end of humanity and destruction of the planet. I have no doubt Trump would start nuclear war just to distract from the Russia investigation, the Cambridge Analytica fiasco, and the revelations from Stormy Daniels. He’d blow up the planet just to save himself from having to eat some humble pie. He is that disordered.
That’s why I hope Mueller decides to go ahead and charge Trump and his cabal now, rather than wait until his investigation is complete, which could be months away. We may not have months left. I’m sure Mueller has enough dirt on Trump to arrest him now. Everything he’s done is being exposed, and it’s 10 times worse than anyone could have imagined. I’d rather have the Mazda now rather than have to wait for the Rolls Royce and maybe never get it.
Here’s my conundrum. I’ve had enough of this crap, and continuing to stay “woke” is really messing with my mental health and triggering my PSTD bigtime. I could save myself a lot of grief by simply deciding not to follow the news anymore. I could choose to be blissfully ignorant instead.
But I know I won’t do that, because by ignoring the truth and acting like all the crapisn’t happening, I become complicit in the damage Trump is doing to our country and the world. By writing about it, by calling it out, by talking to people, I’m making a difference, even if it’s a tiny one. Even if I can only change one mind or get one person to rethink their views, I’m doing something. I wish I could do more, but being blissfully ignorant is not an option. It sure is tempting though. The shit’s flying so fast and furious now that just taking breaks doesn’t seem to help much anymore.
The second reason I won’t give into the temptation to shut off the news for good and pretend none of this is happening is because that’s exactly how Hitler’s Germany happened. Too many people were either too afraid, or too ignorant, and did nothing. They went on with their lives as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Hitler took advantage of their tacit compliance to do the unspeakable things he did. Trump wants compliant, ignorant sheep who turn a blind eye to all the damage he is doing.
Of course, there are good things happening too. In fact, lots of good things are happening. Some days I even feel encouraged and hopeful that the tide is turning. But if Trump vaporizes us all, none of that will matter. Hiring John Bolton as Trump’s national security advisor just makes that so much more likely now.
“The Century of the Self” is a good documentary explaining the history of how Freud’s ideas about psychology and human desire led to corporate manipulation that brainwashed Americans to crave things they did not need. This in turn led to a culture of selfishness and instant gratification. Paraphrasing writer Blythe Gryphon, targeted marketing based on psychological desires and needs
result[ed] in feeding the rapacious capitalism that dehumanized us, exalted hatred, and put a malignant narcissist in power.
In other words, we got the government we deserved.
Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know,” released in 2004, seems like it’s from another lifetime, because everything has changed so much since then. It seems like the world was more innocent then and so were we. Fourteen years is a long time, but not so long to make me feel like we’re in an entirely different eon. This piano rock ballad, already melancholy enough, is made even more so for me for this reason. I still love this song.
Like many others, I was deeply saddened by the loss of Stephen Hawking at the age of 76.
This is a man who was given two years to live in 1963, when he was first diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease. He proved his doctors wrong.
Hawking was living proof that no matter what obstacles or challenges you have, you can still reach for the stars. He did in a big way. Stephen Hawking’s body may have been a terrible burden to him, but he was blessed with a beautiful mind that allowed him to open doors to the universe and let the rest of us through.
I just saw this picture and had to share it because I was so moved. I have no idea who the artist is, sorry.
This is a brilliant Twitter thread by @HoarseWisperer, who often posts threads about Trump’s probable NPD/sociopathy. In fact, I think this short write up about Trump’s narcissism is the most spot on description I have ever read, so I’m posting the thread here in its entirety (with the author’s permission).
I also like the sense of hope it left me with. The nightmare will not last forever because of the nature of NPD is ultimately self destructive. Trump will burn all his bridges before he can take down an entire nation. At least I hope this is true.
Here is the thread.
1. As I’ve often talked about, I’ve seen Trump’s narcissism up close. It’s as familiar as an old movie, so let me put today in some context…
2. People with severe narcissistic personality disorder like Trump are driven solely by the shallowest of primitive impulses. They are incapable of complex reasoning. They are emotional cavemen.
3. Their entire world is an endless, futile effort to avoid facing the humiliating shame their own failings deserve. Their lives are empty, contrived caricatures of what they think others will approve of and admire. They’re broken child-actors.
4. Trump exists solely to mimic what he imagines is worthy of esteem… and since that is so vulgar, crass and unsuccessful, he fails and fails and fails. He’s an actor addicted to the reviews but who gets panned after every performance.
5. A functional person would be capable of insight and reflection. They’d be capable of learning. They’d take social cues. They’d adapt. They’d grow. Again, back to the caveman bit, Trump is incapable of any of that.
6. The only primitive tools Trump has in his Neanderthal toolbox are anger, blame and lying. Whenever he feels the weight of his own failure, he pulls out a combo of those three clubs and beats on someone. Sometimes the media. Sometimes someone around him.
7. The net result – and it is always this way with severe NPDs – is that there is endless chaos in their inner circle. It only briefly calms when they’ve turned over the entire cast – because they briefly think the new cast buys the shtick.
8. Trump is going through the automatic destruction cycle of an ordinary narcissist. The narc I know well went through it every two years. I could set my watch to it. Entire circle burned to the ground and replaced…
9. Trump isn’t done yet. He will fire and replace numerous others. He will purge multiple others he sees as disloyal… …but he will leave a few people who merely hide their disdain and put on a better act.
10. Those people will carry the tribal knowledge of Trump’s failings to the newest members. They’ll poison the new cast… …and within weeks, we will be hearing rumblings of the next purge wave coming.
11. While the replacement of a Tillerson with a Pompeo stokes the fear that an authoritarian is building a regime, in reality, Trump is a deeply, deeply dysfunctional man utterly incapable of keeping from burning down his own house. Trump is a destroyer of his own circle.
12. There is no chance that Trump will assemble a new cast that will survive and work together functionally. Trump is a toddler gorilla utterly compelled to fling his own feces on everyone around him. Thus it is. Thus it will be.
13. If you are worrying that Trump is building something that will worsen and endure, breathe a little easier. This is a cycle. It will repeat and repeat. Today’s appointees will be next month’s casualties. There will be nothing more than build-and-burn loops.
14. Last year it was Bannon, Gorka, et al. Now it will be Pompeo and newbies. This cast won’t last. No one will ever last. Narcissists burn down their own houses. No one lasts.
15. So, as best you can, breathe deep and exhale. This is the cycle of narcissism. It’s a rollercoaster. Watch with detachment. After all the hills and drops, a month from now, Trump’s dysfunction will be right where it is today. No better. No worse.
16. As they say in the support world: Don’t get blown about by every breeze. Today has been windy but we shall not topple. Stay strong, stay centered. This too shall pass. We shall make it so.
Nope, it’s not photoshopped. WTF?
Sarah Kendzior, an expert on authoritarian states who often appears on MSNBC to talk about the Trump presidency and its similarity with other autocratic regimes, shared her thoughts with Flood Magazine in which she uses the plot of Madeleine L’Engle’s famous 1962 young adult novel, A Wrinkle in Time, as a metaphor for the dark political days we are living in. As a lifelong fan of L’Engle’s Newbury award-winning science-fiction/fantasy novel (and being as against Donald Trump and his regime as I am), Kendzior’s words really resonated with me:
“It’s a good book for children to read now, growing up during the Trump administration,” Sarah Kendzior told me. “The rejection of conformity, the emphasis on compassion.” She’s called IT a “fascist monster,” comparing his brainwashing of Meg’s brother Charles Wallace to the “normalization” of Trump Times. “One of the scariest lines in the book is, ‘Just relax.’ Just give in, we’ll take care of you. Relaxing is much easier than trying to combat IT. That’s what happened to us as a nation—people had faith in institutions and checks and balances, but it comes down to individuals’ willingness to uphold those things,” Kendzior said. Lucky for her father, Meg takes responsibility, defeats IT, and rescues him by virtue of thinking hard and getting angry.
Kendzior is right. “Wrinkle” is very much about empathy, using one’s brain to solve problems, and the age old battle between good and evil. Madeleine L’Engle, who died in 2007, was a Christian who often explored religious and moral themes in her works, without ever becoming preachy or self-righteous. Rather than reject or deny science (as many evangelical Christians today do), in “Wrinkle,” she embraces science — specifically quantum physics and the possibility of alien life — to tell a riveting and rather dark story about a 13 year old girl (Meg Murry) who is forced to use her righteous anger to fight against an evil force that has kidnapped her father and is about to take over the universe. I agree with Kendzior that kids today should read this book. (The movie, which I believe is being released in theaters today, couldn’t have come out at a more appropriate time in American history — although I have heard the reviews for the movie aren’t that great, so maybe it’s better to stick with reading the book.)
Meg isn’t alone in her quest. She has help, in the form of three mysterious and sometimes humorous old women (L’Engle has described these women elsewhere as guardian angels rather than the “good witches” they appear to be). Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatsit, and Mrs. Which have supernatural powers and can appear or disappear at will. Mrs. Whatsit is also able to shapeshift into a being who is a cross between an angel and a centaur. There is also Meg’s telepathic 5 year old brother, Charles Wallace, whose ability to empathize must be off the charts and who also has a genius level IQ. Finally, there is Meg’s new friend Calvin O’Keefe, seemingly average in most respects, but who, like Charles Wallace, seems to possess an impressive ability to empathize.
The story revolves around Meg’s father, a physicist who had been working on some top secret project involving quantum physics, and then suddenly disappeared and was never heard from again. There’s some kind of connection between his disappearance and a concept he’d been working on called a “tesseract,” which refers to a 5th-dimensional shortcut that can be taken through time and space by “folding” it.
Meg is a relatable but not always likeable girl. She is brainy, awkward, unsure of herself, and apparently not very popular with most other kids because she’s not perky or upbeat all the time (I loved Meg when I read this book at age 11 or 12 because she was exactly like me!) Meg’s reaction to things tends to be to get angry or sulk. Her teachers have expressed concern over her rebellious and uncooperative behavior and her falling grades. Since her father’s disappearance, her problems have only gotten worse. Her little brother Charles Wallace is the family’s youngest child and has an uncanny ability to always know when Meg is upset, and even know the exact details of what she is thinking about. Calvin O’Keefe, while he seems to be Meg’s opposite in many ways (he is popular, athletic, and only “average” IQ-wise) also is unusually understanding and empathetic of Meg’s emotional needs.
Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatsit, and Mrs. Which, who have ensconced themselves in an abandoned house in the woods near Meg’s home, come to the children one stormy October night. Soon the kids find out these old women are celestial messengers and know where her father is — and that only Meg can be the one to save him. Soon the three kids are embarking on a journey across the universe, traveling by “tessering” through space and time.
Meg is at the center of the fight to return her father from the forces of darkness that have captured him, and the evil and powerful entity (IT) that has engulfed and now controls a large part of the universe. Along the way the reader is treated to alien worlds and creatures. The world on which her father is held prisoner is a terrifying planet of total conformity and utter control, in which people are literally turned into programmed robots. Anyone who deviates from the “program” in any way is coldly disposed of. This is also the planet where IT resides. Some of the worlds Meg visits (that have not yet been engulfed by IT’s dark forces) are populated by beings with high levels of empathy and altruistic love. On these worlds, Meg finds the emotional and physical replenishment she needs to succeed on her quest. On one planet, she is nurtured back to health after almost losing her life by a huge and ugly but maternal creature Meg comes to call “Aunt Beast.”
Like Meg and her companions, we who resist Trumpism are on a journey to fight a force that, like IT, seeks to gain complete control and enforce lock-step conformity. It’s a force devoid of empathy, atruistic love, gentleness, and compassion, because those are values of the Light, which are alien to the dark forces of Trumpism. Trumpism holds a dark, violent, and toxic masculinity that insists that the Light is weak and feminine, or “socialist,” as somehow virtuous. Darkness hates the Light because it’s petrified of its power to expose the truth, so it will gaslight you and try to make you believe that goodness is really evil and evil is good. Light values are the same ones Jesus taught in the Gospels (and almost every humanitarian spiritual leader has encouraged, from Gandhi to Martin Luther King, Jr.) Ironically, the darkness of Trumpism, while insisting it’s based on Christian values, has in fact twisted and perverted Christ’s true message of love and inclusion into its polar opposite.
Like Meg, we in the resistance are going to be forced to go outside our comfort zones (Meg got quite sick while “tessering” at one point, and always did find the shortcut frightening). We can’t be tempted to “give in” to darkness just because it seems easier or because we’re being told that fighting it will only cause us more trouble than lying down like sheep and and accepting it. Like Meg, we may need to use those qualities we dislike in ourselves, especially anger, to fight off the darkness before it consumes everything it touches, including our souls.
A Wrinkle in Time has aged well since its 1962 publication. While the language the kids use in the book seems dated and overly formal (what kid calls their mother “Mother” anymore?), the book was well ahead of its time in its attitudes toward women and their intellectual aptitudes (Meg’s mother is a successful microbiologist). The battle between good and evil is as old as humanity itself, and is especially well told in this classic and entertaining book. The Christian message of the story is clear, while never beating you over the head with religion or Christian symbolism. I worry about kids today being brainwashed by the sociopathic, nationalistic, racist, pro-violence, anti-woman, anti-science, and anti-education messages of exclusion and intolerance they are hearing from Trump and his followers. A Wrinkle in Time is a great anecdote to that and if kids aren’t into reading, I’m sure seeing the new Disney movie can’t hurt them any.
It’s also a book that adults can enjoy too, and since reading the article I linked to above, I just started reading it again.
I have three cats. BabyCat is my old girl, getting up there in years but as needy and neurotic as ever. Then there are The Boys. Marley and Sheldon. I may not have mentioned Marley before (named after Bob Marley), who is really no more than a big kitten, or catlet, since he is over 6 months but less than a year old. That’s him above in my daughter’s arms, and he’s every bit as devilish as he looks.
Marley and Sheldon (my black and white tuxedo, pictured below) have a morning routine that works every time. There is no way I’m getting back to sleep when they team up for their daily torment regimen.
Sheldon taught Marley a neat trick: knocking small objects off dressers, tables, etc. Sheldon always did this to get attention, and he’d keep looking at you while he slowly extended his paw toward the object, slowly pushing it to the precipice, as if to make sure you were paying attention. After the object fell, he’d yawn. Jerk.
Now, Marley does this too. Talk about double trouble. I have a tag team of furry little monsters who like to cause mayhem in my bedroom every morning. They do this to try to wake me up for a variety of reasons, or no reason at all.
Usually it works, because I’ll be out of bed chasing the little demons as they scamper off into the kitchen, or whatever. They go to their respective food bowls, which usually have some food left in them, except at that time of day, a patch of the bowl at the bottom is visible. To The Boys, if they can see the bottom of the bowl, there isn’t any food there and they are going to starve to death! Fill my bowl before I die, human!
If the knocking objects onto the floor tactic doesn’t work, The Boys come up on the bed as I’m trying to sleep. They have assigned roles, apparently: Sheldon walks on my face, purring loudly and sometimes meowing pitifully into my ear. He knows well enough not to extend his claws into my face while he’s walking on it, but sometimes he will deliver a juicy fart! If he opts to walk on the soft underside of my arm or another soft, tender part of my body which I won’t name here instead, sometimes he will start to knead my flesh like so much bread dough! Ouch! Meanwhile, Marley is scaling the curtains, batting some noisy object around on the hardwood floor, or leaping up on the dresser pushing things to the edge.
Once I get out of bed, I’m usually grumpy and cuss at them. They go to their half empty food bowls and look at me as if to say, “what’s wrong, human? Why are you so upset?” Sometimes they aren’t even hungry and just don’t want me to sleep in, or they want to go outside, even if it’s pouring rain and there’s no way they’ll stay out once they get there.
I love my little furry psychopaths and would do anything for them, but why can’t they let me sleep late sometimes?
Lucky Otters Haven 