Claims And Issues

'"SO IT'S ON TO CHICAGO, AND LET'S WIN THERE!"

Senator Robert F. Kennedy said that on June 5, 1968.  Right after he said that, he left the stage in a hotel in Los Angeles and walked through the kitchen.  He was murdered there.

          President Joe Biden is not Senator Robert F. Kennedy.  Judging by the frenzy surrounding Joe Biden's candidacy for re-election, that is his great sin in the eyes of many people, that he is not Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

          Full disclosure:  I am not now and never have been a big fan of Joe Biden as a candidate.  He is not my first choice to run for President.

          But he is an adequate candidate.  And he is a very good President.

          If as appears likely he stays in the race, consider the likely results.

          If he wins and dies in office, Vice President Kamala Harris would replace him automatically.  She is capable and we as a country can certainly make it  through four years with her as President.

          Or President Biden might win and become incapacitated while he is in office over the next four years.  That is why we have a 25th Amendment, and if he were removed because of incapacitation at any point during that time, once again Kamala Harris would become President Harris.

          Or President Biden might win and become too sick to serve for some of the next four years.  Everyone even his current critics concedes that Joe Biden loves this country, so if the 25th Amendment was not invoked then we can expect that he would step aside and once again, we would have President Harris.  (This scenario keeps repeating because that is why the Constitution requires a Vice President, someone to step into the office when the President no longer can.)

          If the other guy wins the Presidential election in 2024 (although if he won the popular vote this would be the first time in his career that he won the popular vote for anything), then the game is over.

          Likely, it will be over for many years if not forever.

          Given the likely outcomes of Joe Biden remaining in the 2024 Presidential election, my choice is Joe Biden.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

BUZZ EVERY LIE! GONG THE CANDIDATES!

Game shows on TV sound a buzzer when a contestant gives a wrong answer.

          Presidential debates in the 21st Century are game shows at heart.  They should sound a buzzer every time a candidate lies.  ANNNNH!  Like that. 

          Then at least one candidate would be heard for what he is.  If used right, a buzzer would sound practically every sentence the guy speaks.

          The other candidate would probably continue as before as far as the media is concerned, but we can all agree that we would hear the "Gonged" candidate for who he truly is, regardless of what the media says or what else it does about him or about the other guy.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

A PRAYER TO SEE THE OPPORTUNITIES.

Dear Lord, open our eyes to the opportunities that await us.

From a prayer written by Rev. Herbert Yost, C.S.C.

GO FORWARD

DR. FAUCI AND THE REAL STORY OF THE GREATEST GENERATION.

On this the 80th Anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, the Greatest Generation demands that the real story of Dr. Fauci be told.

          Newspaper columnists and cable talking heads have wondered why Republican Members of Congress and other Republican officials and talking heads attack Dr. Fauci over the handling of the Pandemic.  Dr. Fauci is not responsible, that's why.  The attacks on him are a distraction of course.

          They do not attack the head of the CDC at the time.  He was appointed by Their Furor.

          They do not attack Dr. Deborah Birx, who ostensibly was an adviser of some sort to Their Furor.

          And of course they do not attack the person most responsible:  Their Furor. 

          Here it is, caught on tape.  Take a look in case you too have forgotten.  I have not forgotten.  And I am not distracted.  And I am not resigned.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

THREE THINGS I AM THINKING ABOUT ON THE FIRST OF MAY.

I plan to expand on these thoughts, but for now I want to throw them out to you and to me for us to think about.

1. The reaction of people in power to the campus protests over Gaza and Israel has revealed that universities and colleges have shifted their focus.  Universities are now for money not for students.  School presidents are calling the cops because their rich donors want the students to get off their lawns, literally.  In the vast majority of cases, there is no violence until the police arrive on campus.  Students who paid tuition are arrested as trespassers but once arrested, most of them are released because there are no charges against most of them.  Even the New York Police Department says that the protestors they have encountered have been nonviolent and peaceful. 
2. People in charge are willing to use violence if they can get away with it.  It once was unthinkable that people in charge would call the cops on other people who are not injuring anyone or destroying property, just because the people in charge are afraid.   The people in charge who do this will not do it themselves, however; they are only willing to use violence on you if they can use others to commit violence for them.
3. The Washington, D.C. Police stand tall.  They know how to deal with protestors; they are experienced in handling protests.  When the people in charge at George Washington University called the cops to arrest student protestors, the Police said "no."  The police in Washington, D.C. said that they would not arrest people who had done nothing wrong.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

HOPE IS AN UNDERSTANDING THE FUTURE IS NOT YET WRITTEN.

"Hope is a belief that what we do might matter, an understanding that the future is not yet written.  It's informed, astute open-mindedness about what can happen and what role we may play in it.  Hope looks forward, but it draws its energies from the past, from knowing histories, including our victories, and their complexities and imperfections."

----Rebecca Solnit

TODAY I TURN THE POST OVER TO REBECCA SOLNIT ...

"What if we imagined 'wealth' consisting not of the money we stuff into banks or the fossil-fuel-derived goods we pile up, but of joy, beauty, friendship, community, closeness to flourishing nature, to good food produced without abuse of labor?  What if we were to think of wealth as security in our environments and societies, and as confidence in a viable future?

          'Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers,' William Wordsworth wrote a couple of centuries ago.  What would it mean to recover those powers, to be rich in time instead of stuff?

          For so many of us, being busy with work has leached away our capacity to pursue true riches.  What if we were to prioritize reclaiming our time ...."

Rebecca Solnit, What if Climate Change Meant Not Doom—But Abundance?, essay in Opinion Section published by the New York Times on March 15, 2023 (but which I can no longer find there today; emphasis added).

NOBODY IS COMING TO SAVE US TODAY.  BUT TOMORROW, YES!

Nobody is coming to save us today.

          Not Mueller.

          Not Congress.

          Not the Supreme Court.

          And unfortunately not journalists or the news media they serve.  See "ALL OF THE INTERESTING PEOPLE HAVE LEFT," published here March 27, 2024.

          But ... Tomorrow Someone Is Coming!  He will help us save ourselves!  Without Him, we can do nothing; with Him, we can do this.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

VISION WITHOUT ACTION IS A DAYDREAM. ACTION WITHOUT VISION IS ...

A NIGHTMARE.

Adapted from a comment by Gordon Brown, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in his guest column titled Nelson Mandela Taught Me This:  Hope Survives Wherever People Come Together,  published on New Year's Eve 2023 in The Guardian online newspaper.

Hands down.  Our time is best occupied by acting on our visions.  We will not always achieve them, of course.  But if we do not act on our visions, we guarantee that they will not amount to anything more than a daydream.

GO FORWARD THIS YEAR.

HOPE IS NOT PROGNOSTICATION.

It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart.

--Vaclav Havel

GO FORWARD

"HOPE IS NOT CONVICTION THAT SOMETHING WILL TURN OUT WELL, ...

but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."                 --Vaclav Havel

GO FORWARD

HOPE IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS ON IT.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops – at all –

--Emily Dickinson

GO FORWARD

 

WHEN HOPE IS NECESSARY.

 Continued ….

“In times when everything is fine hope is unnecessary.  Hope is not happiness or confidence or inner peace; it is a commitment to search for possibilities.”

          --Rebecca Solnit

GO FORWARD

AUTHORITARIANS THRIVE ON HOPELESSNESS.

Authoritarians thrive on hopelessness.

          So you keep hope alive.

          What is hope exactly?  To be continued ….

GO FORWARD

NEGOTIATION 101: KEEP YOUR OPTIONS ON THE TABLE.

Even if you yourself know that you are probably not going to use them, keep your options alive.  If you take them away yourself, you have lost them just as surely as if your adversary took them away.

          The Biden Administration had an option to have a coin available to pay off the debt, a massive, magic coin.  Bitcoin I believe it is called.  The Biden negotiators took this option off the table.  Treasury Secretary Yellen, for example, called it "a gimmick."

          The Biden negotiators still have the option of following the Fourteenth Amendment but, thanks to the Biden people themselves, this option is on life support.  Barely alive as an option now, following the Fourteenth Amendment would be relatively simple stuff.  The Fourteenth Amendment expressly provides that the full faith and credit of the United States shall not be questioned.  That's the Fourteenth Amendment in the Constitution.

          Last I looked at Constitutions and statutes, the U.S. Constitution takes precedence over any conflicting statute.  That includes the debt limit statute which is currently being used to take the Biden Administration – and the United States itself – hostage if the demands of the maggots are not met.  So the Constitution should win over the statute, right?

          Well, Biden aides have let it be known that they do not think much of this option.  It would inevitably mean going to Court.  That could take a long time.  And it would ultimately end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, and who has any faith in them or at least in about 6 of them, anyway?  (Sounds like Merrick Garland, doesn't it?)

          Lawyers look at arguments.  Lawyers ask if the argument is good or bad.  I know.  I am one of them.

          I think the Fourteenth Amendment is a pretty good argument.  Actually, it's a very good argument.  This is one argument that I would have been happy to make in Court myself, except that I am not the Attorney General or the Solicitor General or even one of Joe Biden's aides.  Still, surely one or more among them can make a good argument, especially one that is as good as this one.  One that is handed to you.

          Well, it could take a long time.  So what?  People will receive Social Security checks and paychecks in the meantime, and all the other debts of the nation will be paid in the meantime as well.  The Civil War took 4 years.  Some people thought that was a long time.

          But the toil, the strife, the sacrifices, were all worth it in the end.  Certainly that was true for the vast, vast majority of the nation.

          So don't be afraid or very afraid.  Have faith and be hopeful, be very hopeful.  And keep all your remaining options alive, for gosh sake.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

CONTINUE TO BE CONFIDENT. THEY'RE PROVING THE CASE FOR US.

This follows the article posted here about the Wisconsin Supreme Court election on Tuesday, April 4, 2023, TODAY WISCONSIN ELECTS A SUPREME COURT JUSTICE.

I hesitate to say "I told you so," but I told you so.

Now there are reports circulating that a Wisconsin State Senate race has resulted in a "supermajority" of maggots in the Wisconsin State Senate.  They couldn't have done it without gerrymandering.  The way things were going in Wisconsin, I kind of thought that the maggots already had a supermajority in the entire Wisconsin Legislature.

Now the "afraid, be very afraid" crowd is speculating that this new supermajority in the Wisconsin Senate may impeach one or four of the Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices.  Let them try.

Let's see how that plays out.  One thing is already certain:  If they try stuff like that, they will be continuing to prove the case for us -- including for the good people of Wisconsin -- exactly why maggots are not good.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

WHERE WE ARE, AND WHAT WE ARE DOING.

We see most clearly where we are, and what we are doing, when we take the long view.

Taking the long view, we can see events that consume our daily attention in a larger, longer context: for example,  protests that began in about 1964 ended 10 years or so later in the United States completely ending its involvement in war in Vietnam; or to take another example, eventually learning to incorporate  accommodations for disabled people in each new way of living in America.

And now we can see the daily reports (always presented in terms of "Be afraid, be very afraid") in context, things like terrorists in charge of the U.S. House of Representatives or certain State Legislatures threatening new ways to keep their opponents from voting.  The terrorists will be gone from our House;  State Legislatures will eventually flip from the dark side to the Force, as it were.

Taking the long view of things is the best antidote to 'being afraid, being very afraid.'    It is worth repeating that courage is not the antidote to fear, faith is the antidote to fear.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

THE STORIES WE TELL AND WHOSE STORIES ARE HEARD.

"What the climate crisis is, what we can do about it, and what kind of a world we can have is all about what stories we tell and whose stories are heard."  Rebecca Solnit.

And not just the climate crisis.  Many a thing is described in stories about "what we can do about it, and what kind of a world we can have is all about what stories we tell and whose stories are heard."

Democracy?  The stories about what we can do about it include the Women's March in Washington the day after The Grievance Boy gave an Inaugural Address but nobody came.  People did come to the Women's March, however.  All over the world, they came, making the Women's March not only the largest protest in the history of the United States but the largest gathering in the history of the world.

Democracy?  The stories about what kind of a world we can have are told in Michigan, for example, where the voters either threw The Grievance Boy's minions completely out of office or kept them far away from State-wide offices, including the Governor's Office, the State Senate, the State House, the Secretary of State's Office, and the Attorney General's Office.

The stories about what kind of a world we can have are also told in Arizona, for another example.  In Arizona, the voters closed the office doors to the minions that sought out the Governor's office, the Secretary of State's Office, and the Attorney General's Office.

There is more to be done, no doubt.  No doubt, there are also many more stories to tell.  In the end, the stories we tell and whose stories are heard will decide what kind of world and what kind of country we have.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THEM THAT'S BEHIND THE CURTAIN.

Heather Cox Richardson writes an informed and informative newsletter just about every day.  She is informed because she brings so many perspectives to bear; she is a historian in her day job.  She is informative for exactly the same reason.

Richardson wrote in the newsletter I received today, that she probably will not pay attention to them behind the curtain in the U.S. House of Representatives these days, unless what they do may have a chance of becoming law or otherwise affecting our lives.

This makes a good New Year's Resolution for everyone.  Pay no attention to them behind the curtain unless what they do may actually affect the way you live your life.  Paying attention to them takes all the oxygen out of the room, as they say.  To put it another way, watching their antics takes so much time that there is nothing left for the good.

So, this year pay no attention to them behind the curtain unless they may actually affect our lives, which they rarely do.  Otherwise we risk losing sight of the vast majority of life that is good.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"THE TRUTH IS …" PART TWO. THE SHORTER PART.

Besides the copier I wrote about in Part One, The Longer Part, I also took a very heavy bookcase apart and took the frame to the street.  When I write "frame," I mean the enclosed top and bottom, left side and right side, of a rectangle that stood as tall as a person, made of oak or oak particle wood, and with the middle shelf unremovable and holding what I call the frame together.

It weighed a couple of hundred pounds.

With the use of a dolly, I got it out to the end of my driveway, which was my goal and the bookshelf's destination for special pickup by Seminole County's garbage and waste collection service.

That is where the bookcase fell off the dolly and onto the grass.

I thought that it might move easily across the grass when I tried to push it the few feet that were left to get it into its position, but I was wrong.  The bookcase was reluctant to budge even a few inches across the grass.  I am almost embarrassed to write this, but the truth is that at that exact moment, a pickup trucked pulled up into the driveway of a house across the street.

I had never seen the driver before.  I have not seen him since.  He must have seen me, though, in my struggle with the bookcase on the grass that resisted my best attempts to move it.  He got out of the cab of his pickup truck and advanced towards me.  This stranger's first words to me were "Do you need help?"

I did not learn his name, but he helped me lift that bookcase to the concrete of my driveway where it rested until it was eventually taken away by them that take away bookcases that you put out on your driveway.

This is not a long story.  We are almost at the end already.  But it is a good story, by which I mean a story of good.  The truth is, stories of good do not have to be long.   They just have to be.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"THE TRUTH IS …" PART ONE, THE LONGER PART.

"THE TRUTH IS …"  PART ONE, THE FIRST PART.

by

Dennis J. Wall

The truth is that I was at a dead end.  I had reached the end of my rope.  I had run out of ways that I could take care of this alone.  All those things.

You have to understand that I have spent a lifetime taking care of things, most of the time alone.  "If I don't do it, it doesn't get done."  I bought a coffee cup with that saying on it.  It fit me to a "t".

This doesn't mean that I have not tried to work with other people. On the contrary, I have.  My greatest success rate in accomplishing anything in life, however, has almost always been to get it done myself, and with no excuses, thank you very much.

Oh, this is not the reflection of a narcissist for gosh sake.  I have failed.  Many times.  But I have succeeded many more times.  And either way, failure or success, I have generally had myself to see as the cause whenever human actions were the likely cause.

Which brings me to the last week of December, 2022.  Seventeen years ago I got cancer.  At the same time, my office lease was up at a building where I had my office for sixteen years, as it turned out.  I moved to a home office.  It is a converted shed that was on my property already; my wife oversaw the renovation.  I was too sick to contribute much time or effort, or I would have helped her.  As it was, she oversaw the renovation of a building that did not even leak for the better part of the next seventeen years.

Until Hurricane Ian came on September 28, 2022, that is.  Then The Shop (as I called it, and call it still) leaked.  Water ran across the floor.  Long story short, I cleaned up the mess.  It was then I realized that I had to get rid of some things as I began plans to reorganize The Shop.

The truth is that long before Ian arrived, I had often thought about reorganizing things.  The truth is that I was very comfortable turning over and going back to sleep, so to speak.  No sooner did I have those thoughts about reorganizing The Shop and moving things around and getting rid of things, then I turned my thoughts to other things that I found much more pleasant to ponder.

One of the bigger obstacles, if not the biggest obstacle, was a very large photocopier.  It had a large paper feeder and what I recently found out is called a "finisher" by manufacturers but which we in my office called a collator.  The feeder and the finisher were on wheels, one 70 pounds and the other 50 pounds according to the manufacturer's specs.  I could get them out to the curb for a special pickup by Seminole County garbage and waste collection.

The truth is, the  copier itself was a different story.  Although it sat on a cabinet that has wheels, the copier weighs 220 pounds.  At one point, I could have picked it up by myself (or at least I think so), but not now.  The stipulation by the Seminole County garbage and waste collection is that two people have to be able to pick the object up.

My neighbor must have heard the clatter as I first wheeled out the feeder, and then the finisher for pickup.  She came across our respective yards and asked if I needed help.  I said "no" as to lifting the copier, and asked for her ideas, because I would feel really bad if she hurt herself, and told her so.  She asked if she could see the copier.

In The Shop, I showed her the four handles that I had discovered were built in to the copier. I had spent hours trying to figure out why there were four little black rubber tips, two each on opposing sides of the machine.  The rubber tips were attached to levers that pulled straight out.  Once I eliminated the possibility that these levers had anything to do with screwing the machine into the cabinet it sat on, I recognized them as handles.  The copier  was obviously designed from the beginning for two people to lift.  But I had my doubts that I was any longer in a position to lift something that weighs 220 pounds, while I did not have any doubt that I did not want my neighbor to hurt herself trying.  (Even though she is stronger than I am, I did not want anyone to hurt themselves trying to lift the thing.)

She suggested we try to lift it, just to see if we could, using the handles.  We could.  We proved my theory that these were handles we were using, and that the copier lifted straight up and off the cabinet (which I wanted to keep if I could).

We put the copier straight back down on the cabinet.  That done, my neighbor said that she has a dolly on four wheels that, if we lifted the copier onto it, I could keep the cabinet and we could wheel the whole assembly down to the curb for pickup, so long as the garbage people did not take the dolly.

That gave me an idea.  With her help, we could wheel the copier down to the curb sitting on the cabinet which it sat on already.  The cabinet has wheels, after all.  Once at the curb, we would leave it to the two garbage people to lift the copier.  We would ask them to leave the cabinet.  She agreed.

And that is what we did.  The truth is, we did it together.

Now that may seem like a natural place to end this story, but the truth is that I have another end in mind.  Long before the copier reached the curb, I was at a loss as to how to get it there, and even whether it would be worthwhile to get it there if, once it was there, two people could not lift it after all such as if it was still attached to the cabinet somehow.

To return to the beginning of this story here at the end, I was at the end of my rope.  I had hit a wall (no pun intended) as far as my own abilities would take me solo.  It was then that, through no fault of my own and with me not even suspecting that it was about to happen, my neighbor appeared.  She was the previously unknown answer to my prayer that somehow, I could get this copier down to the street where it could be hauled away.

The truth is, the end of this story is not complicated.  To many people, including some people who share our social circles, the end will even seem trite.  But the truth is that we are simply not in control of everything.  We will, all of us, reach the end of our rope, run into a wall, run out of ways to do things strictly by ourselves alone.  All those things.

So we perhaps we had better realize that.  For people like me, that involves shedding years of thinking otherwise.  My experience in the last week of December, 2022 that I have described in this true story is not the only opportunity I have had for this kind of enlightenment.  But it is the most recent and it is one of the more unexpected opportunities I have ever had to realize that Sinn Fein, "Ourselves Alone," is best left as the name of a political party in Ireland.  A good,  secular way to express the thought  as a behavioral idea or way of life, was given to us by The Beatles back in the day:  "I get by with a little help from my friends."

Another way of expressing the lesson I took away from my experience with a copier and a neighbor in the last week of the year, is the same sort of story that Linus told Charlie Brown.  "And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"SOMEBODY TOLD ME I COULD" HAS JUST BEEN PUBLISHED!

I was there.  I saw it, heard it, and lived it.

Dianne McTaggart Wall is a Polio survivor, an inspiration, a musical genius, and now she is an author.  She is also my wife.

So I could see up close and personal, as they say, what it took for her to write this book.  And what it took for her to live this story.  And what it still takes.

See for yourself.  Here is a link to the Amazon Books page where you will find information about the book and Sample Chapters from it:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BR8PLTYK/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1JIBQI7PU8DF4&keywords=dianne+mctaggart+wall&qid=1672317795&s=books&sprefix=dianne+mctaggart+wall%2Cstripbooks%2C100&sr=1-1.  I have read the entire book many times.  Reading the Sample Chapters on Amazon made the book new again to me, with appreciation and wonder.  I could see it through your eyes, fresh and joyful. 

Give yourself a reward.  Take a visit.  Sit down with Dianne.  Live, learn, and most of all, thrill to the story of how every person's life is well lived.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

VALUE WHAT THEY DO, NOT WHAT THEY SAY.

The government of Texas has been sending people North where they will be cared for.  The latest shipment was sent by bus to the Vice President's residence in Washington, D.C. in the piercing cold on Christmas Eve.

The reported numbers of people ranged between 110 and 120 or so.  These were all people from warmer climes, of course, likely including Colombia, Argentina, Nicaragua, and Mexico according to reports.   While the reports of their numbers varied, the reporters all agreed on this:  Many if not most of these people were not clad for the cold but for warmer climes.  Their T-shirts and short pants and the thin blankets for the children did not stand a chance in the freezing wind.

Reporters all agreed on this as well:  A local area church stepped up to welcome the arrivals, offer shelter and donate warm clothing.  And food.  Apparently the Texas government's cruelty knows no end, for they not only sent these people into the Northern freeze but they sent them without food or at least enough food for the trip.

It is important to recall that the Good Book recorded that you could tell the early Christians by doing this:   "See how they love one another."  It did not say, 'Hear how they say they love one another.'

In this reporting from Christmas Eve, it is clear that the residents of Washington, D.C. who fed and clothed and sheltered these people were ones of whom it would have been said, "See how they love one another."

P.S.

The bus company that chartered the torture of these people runs with a license for which it must apply to the Federal Government.  Perhaps human trafficking is something that the relevant agency might look into concerning this company which operates only because it has a license from us, the federal government.  Come to think of it, recent reports of airplanes chartered at the expense of the people of Florida to take people from Texas up North, bears looking into as well.  That airplane charter company cannot fly without the approval of the Federal Aviation Administration or perhaps other agencies to approve their applications for a license to run their businesses to include things like tearing people away from one place and transporting them to another place.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

A STORY FOR CHRISTMAS, THIS CHRISTMAS EVE.

 

Christmas 2022 (Image by Dennis J. Wall)

This is a Christmas story that came about this way.  There is nothing spectacular about it.  But it does involve miracles. 

This story began when my doctor gave me a prescription for a blood test.  I went to a lab which shall remain nameless.  Quest.

My appointment was just after 6:30 in the morning.  On a Friday in December.  It was cold outside.

Inside it was even more difficult.  I brought my printed EMail with my QR Code.  I showed it to the machine which is the only way to sign in for your appointment at the lab in December, 2022, which is true I think of every day and not just when your appointment is close to 6:30 in the morning.

The machine did not take it.  It rejected me and my appointment.  Three times.

A young woman who had just signed in for her own appointment asked me if I was having trouble signing in.  That was a smart question to ask.  If she had asked me, a  man who has lived through many things across many years, if I needed her help I might have done the masculine thing and gruffly barked a "No, thanks."

As it was, she may have had some experience with old cranks in her life, perhaps a grandpa or two.  She asked me if I was having trouble.  I was able to reply to that question without being defensive, but I would not contradict anyone who heard my voice dripping with frustration at that point, "Yes, I am."

She tried herself.  Twice.  (By the way, it has since occurred to me that she was there for a lab test herself.  She did not just show up at the lab that morning.  She had a prescription from her doctor for some kind of test herself.)

Then an employee appeared, ready to usher in the next appointment.  She noticed the young woman trying to check me in and asked if she could help.  The first young woman replied to the second young woman with a short narrative of what had happened.  The employee did a brilliant workaround and when I did not even notice it, she signed me in as a walk-in appointment on a not-very-busy morning or hour of the day.

I got my blood test.  It was all over before 7:00 A.M.  The results have already been delivered to my doctor.  My appointment was successful, through no fault of my own.  But that is not the reason I am writing this story.

The first young woman has red hair and a fair complexion.  The second young woman has black hair and a dark complexion; I guessed that she or her family came to this country from India at some point.  That is what I think of, when I think of American exceptionalism:  Everyone is welcome here.  Everyone belongs.  Here there are no artificial differences built around obstacles of the mind like gender or youth.  Not here, not in the United States of America we truly live in.

That may not strike you as a Christmas story, but it is a miracle to me and to me, Christmas is a miracle.  Besides, the things I have told you happened at Christmastime.

Think of this as well.  This may be more of a story we would expect for Christmas, a story with the flavor of Christmas in it.  The first young woman did not have to say or do anything.  But she saw another person in trouble and she offered to help.  (It so happened that this time I was the other person in trouble who could use some help.)  She stared down any risk of rejection she may have felt.  She reached out.  And she reached out in a way that shows she knows very well how to deal with people, especially strangers like I was to her.  As a result, I am eternally grateful.

The second young woman may have offered her help as part of her job, and probably  did.  But there was more in her actions than just her job.  There was the same character at work that is so clearly alive in the first young woman as well.

So there you have it, a Christmas story on Christmas Eve.  But this story is not unique to one day a year at 6:30 A.M. on a Friday morning in December at a lab.  This is a Christmas story that happens every day in every place at all hours.  There are more stories of this kind than there are of the depressing kind, but it seems like depressing stories are mostly what we are told by media and so they are the ones we hear and see most of the time.  But those stories are not the way we really live.

We all have stories for Christmas and not just on Christmas Eve.  Tell your stories.  Even if together we do not drown out the naysayers, we will sweeten and soften the air around us.  Telling our Christmas stories will help to make gentle the life of this world.  So, Merry Christmas to All and, on this Christmas Eve, to All a Good Night!

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

THE ANTIDOTE TO FEAR IS NOT COURAGE. IT IS FAITH.

The antidote to fear is not courage.  It is faith.

I first heard this years ago and it has proven true ever since.  It especially proves to be true right now.

The time we live in is populated by fear.  We are constantly bombarded by media and the people who manipulate them.  Their message is to be afraid, be very afraid, no matter the situation of the moment.  They tell themselves that they, not we, are in charge then.  They recognize that that may be the only way that they can hold our attention.

The time we live in is also populated by faith.  We will not hear much about it if all we listen to are the media and the manipulators.  "See how they love one another" is an observed fact.  The observers of that fact absolutely did not say, 'Hear how they say they love one another.'  No, the observation was a statement of this simple fact:  "See how they love one another."

At this Holy Holiday time for us all, let's remember that fear does not come from the Divine, we do.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

THE PLEASURE OF YOUR COMPANY: WE'RE BACK!

Volunteering with the Poor People's Campaign textbanking to Get Out The Vote has been a blast.  I am looking forward to future events like this one.

A good friend of mine who joined the textbanking campaign told me that he enjoyed every minute of it.  John DiMugno is a distinguished lawyer and the editor of a prestigious newsletter for lawyers.  Like me, the Replies to texts that he remembers best are the ones that said, "Thank you for reminding me to vote," or just "Thank you."

Older citizens like me have been here before.  Third Act is an organization founded by Bill McKibben that invites older citizens to reach into their experiences and pull out an effort to change things for the better one more time.  After youth (our First Act) and raising families (our Second Act), this will be our Third Act.

John DiMugno said another thing that ties in here.  He told me that his volunteer experience with the Poor People's Campaign reminded him of his own youth, and the energy and enthusiasm of other campaigns.  I felt that too.

The message is pretty clear to me:  As I said, we have been here before.  Now, "WE'RE BACK!"

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"I WILL!" VOTING IN THE GEORGIA RUNOFF ELECTION.

I have sent out 15,300 texts as a volunteer with the Poor People's Campaign to Get Out The Vote in the Georgia runoff.  I want to tell you today about the reply that meant the most.

Parenthetically, the Poor People's Campaign GOTV texting is nonpartisan, although I can tell from many of the replies that some people perceive a partisan bent toward the re-election of Senator Warnock, which is not the case with the PPC's texting.  I have also sent out 50 nonpartisan GOTV letters for a different organization, and 100 partisan postcards for other organizations to re-elect Senator Warnock in this runoff.

The replies to my texting have used one certain curse word, many of them.  A significant percentage, but not nearly half, maybe 20% of the replies have used the "f" word.  They do not use any curse words that begin with b, d, s, or any other letter except f.  I put the lack of vocabulary down to the sad state of American education.  But that's another issue.

Today I want to tell you about the text reply that meant the most.  Our standard Poor People's Campaign text to Get Out The Vote is a straight-forward message to vote in this important election, that every person's vote matters, and for more voting information such as voting hours and locations to click on the link provided in the text by the PPC.

The one reply that meant the most to me was more of an exchange, or in EMail terms, you might call it a string.  I do not remember the voter's name, and I would not tell you her name if I did remember it.  She replied: 

"Thank you."

I wrote back:

"Thank you as well.  Stay well and stay safe.  And … keep on voting!"

She replied again:

"I will!"

Out of the 15,300 texts I have sent so far in the Georgia runoff, this exchange means the most.  Oh, I am not saying that 15,299 texts are not good; they were and they are good.  What I am saying is that this exchange alone makes it all worthwhile for me even if there had not been 15,299 other texts.  So far.

Before I conclude this simple report, I want to add a simple message.  We, all of us, me included, often go through each day without realizing the positive effects our words and actions have on other people every ordinary day.  We don't have to be a United States Senator or something like that in order to have an effect.  We can make a contribution even without special words or actions.  I knew that, but I kind of forgot it for a while.  This unknown person texting replies in Georgia has reminded me of that.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

MAYBE NOT OPTIMISM, BUT ALWAYS HOPE.

(Image by Peter Ringenberg / University of Notre Dame)

 

I have been thinking a lot lately about optimism vs. hope.  What's the difference?

Sometimes the best definitions are by example.  Take the current U.S. House of Representatives for example.  I personally am not overly optimistic that Democrats will win a majority of the gerrymandered districts at this point.  The numbers favor the Republicans, as they intended when they drew most of these districts.

But I am hopeful.  Hope is durable.  It endures.  It lives for the long term.

To paraphrase Robert F. Kennedy who paraphrased George Bernard Shaw back in the day not so long ago, "Some people see things as they are, and ask 'Why?'  I dream things that never were and ask,  'Why not?'"

Maybe I am not overly optimistic, but I am hopeful.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE; NOTRE DAME, VATICAN II, UNIVERSAL APPEAL.

This is a personal footnote to FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY WERE IN KANSAS THIS WEEK, an article I published here last Saturday.

I was born and raised a Catholic when Vatican II came of age.  The Church grew then.  It added more than numbers, although it certainly did that.  The Church also added inclusivity, the quality of reaching out to include one's neighbors.  Faith, Hope, and Charity.  The last virtue is often called "Love."  That is what Vatican II is responsible for, what it inspired people seeking God to do as well as to say.

I went to Notre Dame when the Reverend Theodore Hesburgh was the President of the University.  We called him "Ted the Head."  Father Hesburgh was also the Chair of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, until he resigned to protest the activities of President Richard Nixon.

During my time as a student at Notre Dame, there were was a lot of discussion about Faith as you might expect.  Notre Dame students, faculty, and administration not only talked about their Faith, they tried to live it.  That gave everyone Hope.

There were many campaigns for Charity, running from raising funds for Biafra (a breakaway republic in Africa that no longer exists) to raising funds for the Tom Dooley Foundation (which delivered medicine and provided doctors in Southeast Asia, until the foundation was eliminated by those who took power later).

In my first article with FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY in the title, I mentioned the activities of the so-called Catholic Church in Kansas City.  They campaigned this Summer to make everyone believe what they believe, which is not at all the kind of campaign that real Catholics ever waged.  To begin with, the Kansas City campaign was not a campaign for Charity.   What's more, it was not "universal" and so by definition it was not "Catholic," which means "universal."

But let's focus just on the money.  Following the money means following at least $2,450,000.00 or $2.45 Million Dollars.  That is the amount that the Archdiocese of Kansas City spent on a political campaign to pass an amendment to the Kansas State Constitution so as to permit the Kansas State Legislature to ban abortion for anyone and everyone in Kansas.

That $2,450,000.00 did not come from God.  It was donated by thousands of parishioners in the pews.  It was not the Archdiocese's money to spend on a political campaign.  Especially a campaign that turned God into Big Brother.

The contribution of $2.45 Million would have gone a long way to support adoption services.  That alone would be a huge encouragement to mothers to decide to bring babies to term  instead of having an abortion.  But of course, then there would have been no guarantee that women would be absolutely prohibited from making their own decisions.

The millions of dollars spent by the Archdiocese of Kansas City on a political campaign could have been spent to support healthcare of mothers and babies and small children in Kansas City and anywhere in Kansas for that matter.  The millions should have been spent for those purposes, or perhaps even to buy diapers and formula, and in a different age, Catholics' money would have been spent on Charity.

Where your money is, there will your heart be also, the Bible says.  And speaking once more of all that money taken from the faithful Catholics of the Kansas City Archdiocese, it should be paid back.  That would be the Christian thing to do.

Let us Hope for Charity as our Faith would have us do.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY WERE IN KANSAS THIS WEEK.

Earlier this week, the people of Kansas rejected an attempted coup of their State Constitution.  In the process, they were gracious hosts to Faith, Hope, and Charity.

The people rejected a convoluted, devious scheme to overturn the Kansas Constitution that would take the right out of their own hands to decide whether to have children or not, and award that decision to the politicians in the Kansas Legislature.  For example, the election was scheduled by the Legislature for primary elections which are not usually well-attended.  (The election turnout  this year broke records.)  The amendment was written in language that was so convoluted very few people could understand it.  (An overwhelming majority voted "NO" anyway).  The people of Kansas voted overwhelmingly to keep the right to abortion a private right of each person to decide, and to reject the forced-birth crowd in the Capitol.

In contrast to the Kansas citizens' open display of Faith, Hope, and Charity, the Kansas City Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church contributed more than 200 times the amount contributed by anyone else to promoting this amendment.  According to a report stamped filed on July 18, 2022 with the Kansas  Governmental Ethics Commission, the Kansas City Archdiocese contributed $2,450,,000.00 in cash and another $16,000+ in what it called "in-kind contributions" to the failed campaign to change the Kansas Constitution.  The other nearest contributors gave $5,000.00 in cash, more than 200 times less.

Some reports put the Archdiocese's contribution at $2.45 Million, without counting the "in-kind contributions."  See, e.g., Jack Jenkins, Catholic Bishops Spent Big On Kansas Abortion Vote – And Maybe Lost Bigger, Washington Post online, August 5, 2022.

Parenthetically, the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission report also lists the expenditures of that campaign as well as the contributions.  The campaign spent $350,000.00 of the contributors' donations to a business in Florida for "canvassers."  The Florida business lists Carter Page as one of its Advisors.

Returning to Kansas, the head of the Kansas City Archdiocese is a man named Joseph Naumann.  Archbishop Naumann is famous for denying Communion to Catholic office-holders who, while perhaps personally opposed to abortion, still support everyone else's right to choose, which is what the Kansas Constitution does.

Do you think that Naumann will deny Communion now to everyone who voted "NO" against the amendment scheme?

Will he try to deny Communion to the two nuns who published a letter on July 27 in The Kansas City Star opposing the amendment scheme?  To Many Catholics, Social Justice Demands a No Vote  on Kansas  Constitution Amendment / It's About Control.  I understand that one of the nuns is a co-founder of Network, the Catholic Lobby for Justice.

More to the point, why did Archbishop Naumann spend Millions of Dollars raised from the Catholic faithful of the Kansas City Archdiocese to take away a constitutional right?  The money he spent was not his money, you know.  It was given by the people in the pews.  Given the size of the vote, I doubt that many of them intended their money to support the scheme.

If Archbishop Naumann was going to spend their  money, wouldn't it have been much better to spend that kind of money to assist mothers who bring children to term by supporting adoption services?

Or by supporting healthcare of mothers and babies and small children in Kansas City and anywhere in Kansas for that matter?

 Or in support of parental leave?

Or maybe even to buy diapers and formula?

Where your money is, there will your heart be also, the Bible says.  The people of Kansas put their money where their mouth is, this week:  Their vote invited Faith, Hope, and Charity to pull up a chair in Kansas and sit awhile.

Archbishop Naumann's choices, on the other hand, are failures.  Speaking of all that money taken from the faithful Catholics of the Kansas City Archdiocese, it should be paid back.  That would be the Christian thing to do.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.