Hallway to Nowhere

Category: poems

  • The Innocents By Ace Atkins-A Review

    The Innocents By Ace Atkins-A Review

    Welcome back to Tibbehah County, Mississippi !. If your view of humankind runs cynical, dark, and depraved, this is the book for you. The latest to feature Quinn Colson and Lillie Virgil, it paints a truly grim picture of life in small-town Mississippi. Corruption and misery seem as endemic to this place as the cicadas and heat; Lillie Virgil fights a hard battle against the tide as acting sheriff with Quinn as Deputy. There’s mayhem, murder, race, drugs, a titty bar, moonshine,  bikers, Jesus, dirty politicians, guns, rednecks, and football involved. Whew!

    I’ve been following this series from the beginning. The books just keep getting better and grittier, if possible. I lived for while in that part of Mississippi (a long, long, long time ago) and, while there is no actual Tibbehah County, Atkins’ description runs fairly accurate. Let it be known that I am not, shall we say, a fan of the state of Mississippi, despite having been born, bred, raised, and schooled there. I escaped after grad school. When people ask me, “Why don’t you go home?” I look at them like they’re crazy. They make laws against people like me there. I think it might be one of the states that still has a law on the books prohibiting an atheist to run for election. Not to mention that I’m Jewish, neutrois, and queer! Oh, yeah, a trifecta for being accepted down in Dixie! But I digress from the review. This is an outstanding book in the series. Read it for the mystery; read it for the grit; read it for the characters. I don’t care-just read it!

  • SCOTUS Temporary Hold on TG Case

    I’m very disappointed that SCOTUS temporarily put on hold a brief from a lower court that allowed a transgender student to use a bathroom that conformed with his gender. This was the first time that the Supreme Court has ruled on transgender rights. As one would expect, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, the liberal wing of the court, would have upheld the lower court’s ruling and granted the student the right to use the bathroom that conformed to his gender. Justice Stephen Breyer, who usually votes with them, joined with the four conservative members this time, saying in a one-sentence explanation that he was doing so out of courtesy to preserve the status quo until SCOTUS could consider the matter more fully. This is only temporary, of course. The court WILL have to decide the issue, one way or another, since states are suing the federal government over Obama’s directive that transgender students be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice.

    Here’s my take on the whole bathroom controversy. Stop gendering bathrooms. Period. Make them all clean, private, safe places with no open urinals and problem solved. I’ve been in places that only provide one restroom for patrons, and this has not been a problem. No children have been molested, nor women accosted. Bathrooms serve a function; work on improving that, and get the public’s mind out of the gutter!

     

  • Rigged Elections?

    I want to comment about Trump’s paranoiac remark that upcoming election could very well be rigged. He is clearly setting the stage for a voter revolt, should he lose. Now, Republican talk about rigged elections is standard fare, part and parcel of Conservative lore. But this is putting the process at risk, for I do not think that Trump will do as previous candidates have done in  the past, as for example when Gore lost and his supporters booed, he calmed them as  he asked that they support his opponent as the elected President. Rather, I have heard his supports warn of  more that civil unrest, of actual uprising and violence. The U. S. could potentially face the sort of disturbance seen in Europe after an election, something we have never before seen. This, because of the clever machinations of a slick sociopathic demagogue.

    As to the actual content of his remark, yes, the election might well BE rigged! The Federal Courts are doing their best to address that, however! States which have enacted highly discriminatory voter identification laws have been having them stricken-Kansas, North Dakota, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Texas. These laws would have affected those voters most likely to vote AGAINST Trump-the poor, Latinos, African Americans, and other minorities-and it is precisely these voters, along with women, against whom the system has traditionally been rigged. For voters in Trump’s demographic swath not to counted is extremely improbable, despite his delusions. But, then again, Trump has never let reality get in the way of a good story.

  • Advice to A Young Feminist

    Recently I made the acquaintance of a young feminist/activist. She had read my blog on a different site before I moved here and decided we were kindred spirits. She was despairing of contemporary America and told me that she planned to find an affordable island somewhere and set up a lesbian separatist commune. I was invited to join, and she asked for my thoughts and advice on the subject. After noting that I do not qualify either by gender or sexuality, being neither female nor lesbian (I had to explain I was ace and neutrois), I told her I had experience that historically most lesbian separatist communes failed. (I remember them from the 70s and 80s.) They do so b/c women are still humans and bring with them all the problems that humans have. IMHO if she were serious about wanting to improve the lives of women and work for a more equitable society, she would stay and fight here in the U.S. We live in a time of change, where women have amazing role models before them: Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Michelle Obama, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, etc…Should Clinton win, the glass ceiling of the highest office in the land will have been shattered. But the struggle for equal opportunity will not be over-there will still be those who seek to defund Planned Parenthood, ban abortions, and oppress LGBTQA individuals . Should (shudder) Trump win, those who are feminists/activists will be even more needed. Being the librarian I am, I gave her a reading list.

    I do intend to write on the Democrats and Hillary’s nomination. I’m dealing with some health issues, though, and my energy is limited.

  • Trump’s New Slogan: Make Russia Great Again!

    The FBI is investigating the hack into  the DNC which released emails to WikiLeaks from the Clinton campaign about her former rival Sanders. U.S. officials suspect that it was in fact a Russian cyber-attack. The timing and nature of this incident has the Clinton campaign saying that it was done deliberately to help Republican nominee Trump. Trump has been vociferous in his admiration of Russian leader Putin, and Putin has returned that by giving his endorsement to the controversial candidate. Given Trump’s ties to Putin, including substantial Russian monetary ones, this is hardly surprising. But Trump has channeled this politically, pushing the Republican platform to change its stance on the Ukraine and saying that he would not honor the NATO treaty to defend U.S. allies, a move which could potentially benefit Russia in its move towards hegemony in the Middle East and Europe. The question is: will Trump supporters CARE about any of this? They seem to be fueled by faith and willing to give The Donald an innumerable number of passes. Lied? No big deal. Scammed people? He’s a businessman! So maybe it’ll be “What’s a little bit of foreign intrigue/quasi-treasonous activity?”

  • Faith and Office

    So. I get an email from Hillary telling me how she has picked Tim Kaine to be her VP. As a Virginian  I’m happy, though I had hoped she’d pick Elizabeth Warren. But something has been irking me. She made a point of telling me how he and his had joined a church and built a home centered around faith. And this annoys me why? Because I do not think his faith has anything to do with his ability to govern, unless I’m missing something and churches ARE now teaching classes. (Given the current political atmosphere, I fully expect that some Evangelical churches probably are doing that very thing.)  I long for the day when a political candidate does not feel obliged to take a faith-based litmus test in order to run for public office in the US, as if being a good Christian automatically confers greater executive, legislative, or judicial skills. I say “good Christian” because, despite there being Jewish and even a few Muslim elected officials, we all know that Christianity is the religion that rules the land. Witness the RNC. And let agnostics and atheists beware! For a individual to come out publicly as a nonbeliever is the kiss of death. No-one currently serving in the Senate or House of Representatives admits to being atheist or even agnostic. Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), the only openly avowed atheist, left office in 2013; Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) only came out as atheist after he had left office. No-one atheist has ever been elected to the Supreme Court. There are still states where it is AGAINST THE LAW for an atheist to hold public office.

    One of the many things I liked about Bernie was that I DIDN’T hear him talk about his faith. I never heard him say anything about how he belonged to this or that synagogue, how much god meant to him, etc. etc. Of course, he IS Jewish, and we tend to talk and think about religion differently than Christians. And, to give Hillary her due, she doesn’t beat you over the head with a religious schtick (pun intended), either. I think she mentions it about as much as she has to.  She might have her personal beliefs,  but I’m pretty confident that the government she runs will not be faith-based and  that the wall of separation between church and state will be respected. And that, I’m afraid, is about as much as we can ask for, given the current furor and frenzy that seems to sweeping the land.

  • Trump: Not My Voice!

    I’m only writing this because I feel obligated to address it, a metaphorical gun to my head, since I’ve been blogging about Republicans. Sigh. Trump’s Big Speech. The utter hubris was what really got to me. He comes off like a gimcrack Mussolini, with his finger-pointing and gesturing. He-and he alone-can fix what is broken with the American government. I won’t even begin to list the outright lies, obfuscations, and cherry-picked facts in his recitation; other sources have done that and are readily available. But that he, who has always had this attitude of “I’m better, I’m smarter, I’m richer, I’m SUPERIOR,” should DARE to say that HE is the voice of those suffering injustice is simply intolerable. Donald Trump is only speaking for those who feel themselves disenfranchised because it suits his purposes-for the moment. When that moment has passed, when they are no longer needed, I suspect they will be thrown to wolves. When in his past as a businessman has he ever shown this compassion and concern for the unemployed? Ask him where HE has HIS products made! (The answer will be China. It’s cheaper.) In his campaign, he has stayed in Trump facilities (thereby benefiting himself), sold Trump merchandise (thereby benefiting himself), and generally branded his name on everything possible. Forgive me if I now think his rebirth as the Voice of America is just another ploy. As far as I can tell, Trump is the same lying manipulative narcissistic sociopath he’s always been.

    I am looking forward to the DNC. I’m REALLY tired of blogging doom and gloom about Republicans. The Donald is responsible, btw, for a  monthly contribution to both the Hillary For President campaign AND the DSCC from me. Just my way of putting my money where my mouth is.

  • RNC: “LOCK HER UP!” : A WITCH HUNT

    Upon perusing my posts, I feel like I should perhaps change the name of this blog to something more appropriate. RepublicanWatch? I’ll report on something else soon. It’s just that they make themselves, well, such tempting fare. The RNC, for instance. So many possible topics, I wasn’t sure which one I would choose. Malania’s plagiarised speech? The defunct NeverTrump movement? The cringe-worthy “minority you can trust ” remark by the (laughably non-representative) Asian-Americans For Trump? I decided to address the tone of the convention. While conventions past have been raucous and  involved namecalling by nominees, this particular one has taken on overtures that once again evoke more ominous images, say from a KKK rally, a witch burning, or a Hitler rally. There have been remarks made by speakers that were overtly racist, stating that the white race had contributed more than any other to civilization (something I’m certain that everyone not Caucasian is DELIGHTED to know, as well as, oh, China and India)and anti-transgender , calling them “absurd” ( something I’m sure that Caitlyn Jenner, who reported how difficult it was to come out as Republican, was overjoyed to hear). But most disturbing was the vitriol directed towards Hillary Clinton. This included a linkage of Clinton with Lucifer and a mock trial of Clinton. Rather than focusing upon the Republican nominee-Trump, the RNC seemed to feel that it could unite itself by bashing Clinton. The slogan became not “Make America Great Again” but “Lock Her Up.” The party that fractured over Trump attempted to put a bandage of “we might not like him but we surely hate HER” over its divide. Whether or not that will be enough remains to be seen. But it was enough to get those listening good and riled and to inspire the already-crazed to even loonier tunes. (Example-Frank Gaffney, a right-wing broadcaster, was so convinced by Christie’s mock trial of Clinton that he declared on his show that the only out for her was by a preemptive pardon by President Obama. Remember, now: CLINTON HAS NOT EVEN BEEN CHARGED WITH ANY CRIMES.)

    Though I would like to be aghast at such behavior, I cannot be. Witch hunts have a long history in this country. I saw Klan marches as child in my home state. I’ve seen films of Adolf Hitler as he roused crowds with his words. This raising of a new demagogue-Trump- on his path with racist, homophobic, and hateful words is sinking to only too human depths. I hope that we prove ourselves better than these people have acted.

  • Pence

    Pence does not offer any consoling alternative to Trump. He is even is in some ways more unsettling, since he has well thought-out reasons for why he believes what he does. He’s a devout Evangelical Christian and a staunch Tea Party conservative who has been known to describe himself as “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order.” As governor of Indiana, he was responsible for a 2012 anti-gay “religious freedom” bill (later amended) and  one of the strictest abortion laws in the nation. He has also attacked Planned Parenthood. His stance on immigration is definitely NIMBY. While he did decry Trump’s tweet on Muslims entering the country, he proposed as a congressman in 2006 that undocumented aliens be encouraged to self-deport and re-apply as guest-workers. As governor, he has opposed taking in immigrants. He’s liked by Paul Ryan and has ties to the Koch bros. Pence:Trump’s “man in the gray suit”.

    Lest you be tempted to mistake my words for admiration, let me make myself clear: Pence is fervently ANTI-everything I hold dear: anti-gay; anti-abortion; anti-feminist; anti-open immigration; anti-Liberal…..the only redeeming thing I’ve found is that he does have a healthy respect for the freedom of the press, unlike his running mate, Trump. Otherwise, he’s the kind of hardcore True Believer that I definitely don’t want  as potential POTUS, anymore than I wanted Ted Cruz. I don’t want anyone who is going to govern by faith, rather than reason. We’ve tried that before (with George W) and ended up with the mess we’re in today.

  • The Wall

    I read that Kansas Secretary of State and prominent anti-immigration activist Kris Kobach has successfully lobbied for language supporting Trump’s absurd Wall into the Republican platform.  “The border wall must cover the entirety of the southern border and must be sufficient to stop both vehicular and pedestrian traffic.”  Exactly how this wall is to be paid for was not addressed, though Trump has said that he will force Mexico to do so, both by threatening to seize money that people here send back to relatives in Mexico and by some unspecified more ominous means. Despite Dan Stein’s statement that Trump’s Wall is a “surrogate” for other border control measures, Trump himself has never disavowed that he intends building a physical wall, though  engineers, economists, and others have repeatedly said that it is impractical, ineffective, and costly. But reason has never stood in way of Trump’s fevered plans.

    Here’s a little something to help you contemplate Trump’s Republican  ‘Murica: