TGIF 8/23/19

I hereby order you to appreciate this TGIF post, or else!

Or else, what, you ask?  I'm not certain, honestly, any more than anyone has a clue what the president was talking about when he "hereby ordered" American companies to "immediately start looking for an alternative to China..."  Does it mean they have to leave forthwith? A$AP Rock(il)y? Never?

Trump was trying to make some kind of point, just like he was earlier in the week with his repeated accusations of disloyalty on the part of any Jew who votes with Democrats instead of voting with Republicans or maybe any Jews who don't agree with Trump, it's hard to tell exactly what disloyalty he was talking about.

Never mind that such an accusation has long been considered to be anti-Semitic; heck, even Trump said it was when one of the Squad said something along those lines. But when he says it, of course, it's not anti-Semitic. It can't be: his son-in-law and daughter are Jewish, after all. You know, just like someone can't be anti-gay if they have a gay friend, or can't be racist if they have a black friend.

Were any of his points made? Yes, if you listen to his base. No, if  you don't But I think his collective actions put him on top of the 'bad week' list, especially if you include his childish dropping of a visit to Denmark after it was suggested nastily (his characterization) that his offer to buy Greenland was 'abzerd' - and then, to make reference to President Obama in the same conversation, about how the US is being treated by other countries. Egads, man!

On the good week side of the ledger? Democratic presidential primary voters had a good week, I think, with the cast of thousands running for the top spot on the 2020 ballot dwindling by a couple. Jay Inslee and Seth Moulton dropped out this week, joining John Hickenlooper who bailed last week.

Ideally, the third debate, coming up next month, will be held on only one night (I would be delighted, since I live-comment the debates on my Facebook page). Here's the list of the ten who have met both the fundraising and polling requirements:  Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Julian Castro, Pete Buttigieg, Beto O'Rourke, and Andrew Young.  Anyone who doesn't meet the requirements by the August 28th deadline should drop out, in my opinion.

Of course, I say the same thing about anyone who's not a registered Democrat, but what do I know?

Finally, I wanted to share something that happened last Saturday, when we were returning from vacation in Nova Scotia. We were waiting in line for the ferry to New Brunswick when the line of cars next to us was given the go-ahead to board. Several cars started their engines and pulled forward, but one car wasn't moving. After what seemed like half a minute, I looked over and the two women in the car were both dozing, holding up several other cars in line behind them. I got their attention and they quickly started their car, pulling up to the front of their now-empty lane.

None of the drivers behind the women honked their horns. There was no shouting or cursing or fist-shaking - in fact, it was strangely calm. I pointed out to my husband that the other drivers must have been Canadian, because we're so used to horns, shouting, cursing and fist-shaking if a person doesn't immediately go as soon as a light changes, or as soon as there's even the hint of an opening in traffic leaving the grocery store. I mean, we're Americans, dammit, and we have things to do, people to see, places to go. We certainly don't have time to sit around for an hour in a line of cars...

Truth be told, all but one of the cars that pulled up behind the now wide-awake women had US plates. So, for a brief moment, at the Digby ferry terminal at least, the US had a good week.  Yay, us.

TGIF, everyone.

Hereby ordered.

We Shall Overcome, If We Want To

The eleven innocent victims of Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue shooting have been laid to rest, as has the first of the two lesser-known victims of the Kroger shooting in Jeffersontown, Kentucky; the second is being buried today.

For those of you who may have missed the Kentucky shooting, the victims died from multiple gunshot wounds, shot by a man who later allegedly said to someone in the parking lot, "Don't shoot me. Whites don't shoot whites."

We've learned that before the brazen murders at the grocery store, the suspect apparently tried to enter a predominantly black church. One of the reasons he wasn't able to get into the church was because significant security upgrades were made after the murders at Mother Emanuel in Charleston back in 2015. Cameras. Automatic door locks. That kind of thing.

Robin Young, co-host of Here and Now on NPR, has an interview with Billy Williams, a staff members of the First Baptist Church - it's well worth a listen. You can feel the emotion in this account: what if the shooter had come during a service, when the doors are unlocked? What if I had been here and opened the door when he tried to get in? How do we heal, having lost a parishioner in the shooting?  How do we help, now?

It's not your fault if you didn't hear much about this one. We certainly didn't see the president tweeting about these two innocent Americans. They're not on his radar, and I don't think I'm wrong in saying that they're never going to be: they were killed by a white man, not by a brown-skinned immigrant or gang member. They were black folks in their 60s, not white schoolgirls on Long Island or college age young women from California of the Midwest. Maurice Stallard and Vickie Jones simply don't fit his narrative. He knows it, and we all know it.

Certainly the scope of these two shootings is vastly different, even though they have the common denominator of hate as a root cause. The shock of what happened in Pittsburgh - 11 Jewish victims, one a 97 year old Holocaust survivor; a synagogue literally (not just Joe Biden literally) in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, for Pete's sake. We handled the vandalism at cemeteries and bomb threats at Jewish organizations and schools (including multiple incidents at the JCC in my area) pretty well, and moved quickly past those, but this? This knocked us off our feet.

We thought we had expressed enough collective rage and outrage over the shootings and loss of life in Charleston; we expressed more after the shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas back in 2017, although that had no racial or religious motive; and now we offer up more rage and outrage on behalf of the victims at Tree of Life.

Flags were ordered lowered to half mast in honor of those lost in Pittsburgh, as happened in honor of those lost in Sutherland Springs. No similar respect was ordered for the Kroger victims. It would have been respectful, but I don't think it's necessary.

We have a problem in America - well, several, if we're honest with ourselves and each other, including a gun problem.  And before you yell at me, I included that link not to make this about guns, but because that post touches on a lot of other things we do to exacerbate the problems that guns in the wrong hands create.

But it's bigger than the weapon - it's the weaponizing of hate, the purposeful weaponizing of hate, that we really need to solve. And that requires admitting we do it; calling out those who purposely fan the flames; refusing to accept their denials; and individually committing to making it stop.

Lowering flags for a couple of days is one thing. Lifting up hearts and filling them with love for those lost, for their families, their churches and synagogues, and for all of us, that we find a way to end the hate, is not limited to a Presidential Order time frame. It will long outlast that act, if we do it right.

And we can do it right, if we want to. We just have to want to.

Wondering, on Wednesday (v80)

I wonder what it was that finally made Donald Trump respond to a question about anti-Semitism?

Trump had at least two chances recently to condemn threats against Jewish Community Centers across the country, including the JCC here in my neck of the woods. Instead of actually doing that, though, he talked about himself. As in, "I don't have an anti-Semitic bone in my body" and "I'm the least racist person I know" and "hey, my daughter's Jewish now", all of which had everything to do with the Trump world view: that we are constantly as interested in Donald Trump as he is interested in himself.

Except that what people were really interested in was Trump using his bully pulpit (lord, the irony in that phrase now!) to call for universal condemnation of the bomb threats, and now the destruction in the cemetery outside St. Louis, and he finally did that Tuesday. Some organizations are not appeased, holding out hope that the next time (and there will be a next time), Trump will answer forcefully and without prodding.

Speaking of prodding, I wonder whether Ivanka tweeted her message about religious tolerance Monday night in order to prod her father into finally saying something about the threats?

I also wonder what would have happened if Trump had quickly tweeted his dislike of people attacking his daughter's adopted faith, just as he did his dislike of companies who no longer wanted to carry her under-performing products?

People are also wondering why the official White House statement about Trump's comments doesn't mention Jews or Judaism, just as the official White House statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day last month also didn't mention Jews.

This administration doesn't have a problem making sure everyone knows that Christians are under attack, and that Muslims are on the attack, but for some reason can't seem to mention Jews unless the words Ivanka, Jared, or grandchildren are also used. Why is that, I wonder?

And speaking of Jared, who along with Ivanka does not partake of many activities on the Sabbath, he might indeed have a calming influence on his bombastic father-in-law. Someone at Slate examined Trump tweets to see if there was a difference when Jared was around during the week and when he was not. It seems that the 'crazy' score of Sabbath tweets was a 4.49 out of 5, whereas the non-Sabbath tweets scored only a 3.92 on the same scale. If anyone was wondering, Kushner might just be necessary to the survival of the nation.

And one final thought on this - I wonder what people close to Trump think about these comments, from his press conference earlier this month. According again to an article in Slate, Jared Rizzi, a reporter for SiriusXM followed up on one of those questions I mentioned at the start of this post.

First is the question and then Trump's answer follow. The NY Times video and transcript confirm the reporting in Slate:

Rizzi: I'll follow up on my colleague's question about anti-Semitism It's not about your personality or your beliefs. We're talking about a rise in anti-Semitism around the country. Some of it by supporters in your name. What can you do to deter that?

Trump: And some of it - can I be honest with you? And this has to do with racism and horrible things that are put up. Some of it written by our opponents. You do know that. Do you understand that? You don't think anybody would do a thing like that. Some of the signs you'll see are not put up by the people that love or like Donald Trump, they're put up by the other side and you think it's like playing it straight?  

No. But you have some of those signs and some of that anger is caused by the other side. They'll do signs and they'll do drawings that are inappropriate. It won't be my people. It will be the people on the other side to anger people like you. OK.

And I end up wondering, as I do just about any time Trump is asked a question, why he seems incapable of just answering the darn thing.