Tag Archives: News

Remember Martin Luther King, Jr. (NOT The Other Event) On January 20,2025

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And that’s about all I have to say about that meaningless event that’ll take place in Washington DC on January 20, 2025. Instead, let’s focus our attention on Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right down in Alabama little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

This is SO repulsive…I learned that Alabama and Mississippi both combined the King holiday with “Robert E. Lee Day” to honor the birthday of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who was born on January 19.

If you’re like me and refuse to watch a single second of the inaugural farce, there are plenty of ways for us to stay busy by streaming the King Center’s commemorative service and by volunteering in our community, as MLK Day is designated a day of service.

I absolutely will not acknowledge the magacult funeral of the death of democracy and neither will beautiful and intelligent former first lady Michelle Obama…

After election day, I really hoped something was going to be done to nullify the fraud, but now I’m really depressed. It’s going to happen and no one stopped it.

I’d never use the word “presidency” to describe his criminal power grab. Muskrat/Russia seemed to have succeeded in stealing the vote and I’ll never stop wondering why Kamala Harris conceded and why President Biden didn’t do something — ANYTHING — to stop this travesty.

That orange POS is a twice-impeached, convicted felon and that’s his legacy.

I will never acknowledge him as president. I didn’t last time, either. My condolences and sympathy go to democracy. It’s on life support right now.

P.S. I always kinda sorta liked Carrie Underwood, but I can ‘t understand her very poor decision to perform at the rapist felon’s inauguration. Shame on her!

Randy Rainbow nailed it in 2017:

OUT OF CONTROL | Los Angeles on FIRE

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As I’m writing this post, there are six major wildfires ravaging the Southern California Los Angeles area, about 100 miles north of me, burning more than 30,000 acres. As many as 10,000 structures have been burned and the death toll is reported to be ten, but will most likely rise.

**The last time there was a major fire in my area where neighbors just a few blocks away were evacuated was in January 2021. https://enchantedseashells.com/2021/01/20/fire-in-carlsbad/

Santa Ana winds were calculated at 100 miles per hour BEFORE they were supercharged by the heat of the fires themselves. We haven’t had rain in months; everything is bone dry.

Many celebrity homes in Malibu are completely destroyed, not that I think those people are any more special than anyone else who lost everything in the fires or other disasters. It’s just crazy to see those beach homes right on the Pacific Ocean burned to a crisp.

Thousands of homeowners were dropped by their insurers before the Palisades fire, leaving them with no protection. It’s been happening for the last few years to homeowners who live in regions prone to climate disasters.

The coastal Palisades Fire is now the most destructive ever to hit Los Angeles County, while the Eaton Fire has devastated communities below Angeles National Forest to the east. There’s also the Hurst Fire, Lidia Fire, Kenneth Fire, and the Westhills Fire near Calabasas.

I don’t want to even think about the cause or repeat any unsubstantiated gossip. Mostly I care about the poor animals– pets and wild creatures — who are now injured and displaced. It’s so sad.

In the midst of this tragedy, I’m sharing a heartwarming story of a heroic woman who rescued forty one pets from the wildfires.

Dr. Annie Harvilicz, a veterinarian, bravely risked her life to help rescue dogs, cats, and a rabbit from the path of the Pacific Palisades fire as their owners were forced to flee.

The animal lover has opened her home and an empty pet hospital because their owners simply don’t have the space or resources to bring the pets with them.

She also rescued 4 dogs near LAX airport and has taken them into her home.

If you’d like to help, her email is: drannieawc@gmail.com and you can donate here: www.animalwellnessfoundation.org

Here’s video from the BBC:

REST IN PEACE President Jimmy Carter

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I originally wrote this a year ago: Everlasting Love | Rosalynn and President Jimmy Carter

President Carter passed away today at the age of one hundred, so it seems appropriate to repost, along with the thought that he’s now been reunited with the love of his life.

I only recently learned how deep was the life of love between former President Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn, and so profound that his mother was the nurse that assisted in delivering Rosalynn. This was an inevitable destiny.

Said President Carter, “Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished. She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”

In October 2019, Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, became the longest-married presidential couple in American history, and this July marked their 77th—and final—wedding anniversary together. Rosalynn died on November 19, 2023, at age 96.

The hometown sweethearts’ seven-decade relationship saw them travel from their rural roots to the highest office in the land and beyond. Even in their final months together, as Jimmy entered hospice care in February 2023 and Rosalynn eventually joined him, the pair was there to support each another.

Jimmy and Rosalynn came from Plains, Georgia, a town of 600 people. Born in 1924—the first president to be born in a hospital—James Earl “Jimmy” Carter Jr. was the eldest of James and Bessie “Lillian” Carter’s four children. James was a successful local businessman and Lillian was a nurse.

Edgar and Allie Smith were neighbors of the Carters, and in the summer of 1927, Lillian helped deliver their first child, Eleanor Rosalynn. Jimmy, then a three-year-old, and newborn Rosalynn met just a couple days later for the first time. 

Although Rosalynn had known Jimmy all her life, it wasn’t until 1945 that romance blossomed. She was a freshman at Georgia Southwestern College. Jimmy, following stints at that same school and the Georgia Institute of Technology, was entering his final year at Annapolis.

When Jimmy returned home that summer, Jimmy spotted his sister and Rosalynn walking down the street and impulsively asked her to the movies, after which the two shared their first kiss. Jimmy was immediately smitten after their first date, and told his mother that he had met his future wife.

The whirlwind courtship continued when they both returned to school, and that winter, Jimmy proposed. Initially concerned about how fast the relationship was moving and wishing to finish college first, Rosalynn said no. But Jimmy persisted, and when Rosalynn visited Annapolis that spring, they became engaged. The couple married on July 7, 1946, just weeks after Jimmy’s graduation.

In 1962, he won a seat in the Georgia State Senate, and subsequently became governor in 1970s. Rosalynn campaigned tirelessly on her husband’s behalf. Jimmy’s victory saw her take on a new role as Georgia’s first lady, where she began working on causes she championed for the rest of her life, including mental health. Rosalynn became first lady when Jimmy Carter became president in 1976, Rosalynn was the first presidential spouse to have her own office in the East Wing. She sat in on Cabinet meetings, advised on staff and personnel moves, served as an envoy on overseas trips, and joined former first ladies in the unsuccessful effort to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. So closely aligned were the couple that Jimmy referred to Rosalynn, who he’d nicknamed Rosa, as a “perfect extension of himself.”

After President Carter lost re-election in 1980, they moved back to Georgia and continued farming peanuts, as well as supporting global humanitarian efforts, through both the Carter Center and their work with Habitat for Humanity, through which they built more than 4,000 homes around the world. In 2002, Jimmy was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his decades of work supporting democracy and human rights.

In all their years together, the couple also had time to prepare for their eventual final goodbye. Back when Jimmy was being treated for cancer, they created a fitting plan: Both of them will be buried under a willow tree on the grounds of their house in Plains, where their stories began.

They have spent their final months together at home. If ever two people are an inspiring example of the enduring love of true life partners, it’s Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter.

Curated from https://www.biography.com/political-figures/jimmy-rosalynn-carter-love-story

Goethe’s Wisdom

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I’m not sure there’s a whole lot to celebrate this year; I don’t feel entirely full of the joy of the holidays, and I’m not all that excited about buying presents for anyone. The depressing election results seem to have cast a pall on our future and what’s going to happen in just a few short weeks.

I found these Goethe quotes which make a lot of sense to me right now. Even though I really only know about Goethe because of my German professor Angel Boy, and despite the fact that Goethe died in 1832, his words are timeless…

“Man sieht nur das, was man weiß.” (You only see what you know.)

“We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”

“The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.”

“You must, in studying Nature, always consider both each single thing and the whole.”

It is said that the following words were Goethe’s last as he lay on this deathbed, “More light, more light! Open the window so that more light may come in.” 

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is widely regarded as the greatest and most influential writer in the German language, his work having a profound and wide-ranging influence on Western literary, political and philosophical thought from the late 18th century to the present day.

Democracy Lost. Hate, Racism, and Misogyny Won

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Could this day be any more sad? What the hell happened?

This election was important. We needed Kamala Harris to win to save democracy. We showed up, we understood the assignment, and more importantly, we VOTED.

We were on the right side of humanity, morality, intelligence.

I had predicted a Harris landslide, and anticipated being able to right the wrong that was done to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and finally have an intelligent (female) president BUT it seems as if that disgusting orange POS has worked some black magic to win? tamper? with the voting process AGAIN. I will never refer to him as president — I didn’t last time, either.

What’s worse is WHY anyone could vote for a convicted felon, a horrible immoral, sociopathic narcissist.

It makes me so sad that, as sick and evil as that orange POS is, there are those who think he should be president, who laugh at his cruelty and support his insanity. What the hell is wrong with people like that?

I will never believe that he fairly won the election. This country is in for some dark days — in fact, the entire world and humankind will be in for a most difficult time.

I have a message for Kamala Harris. Don’t concede. Demand a recount and a thorough investigation. Did that evil Musk have something to do with this unexpected outcome? I think that needs to be scrutinized at the highest level. Something needs to be done.

This is an overview of Project 2025. It’s as horrific as it sounds. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. There is only darkness.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day

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Today, October 14, 2024, is known as Columbus Day. Some states have proposed legislation to legally replace it with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, which is the only right action to take.

I don’t acknowledge Columbus Day because it’s more of the same; entitled males making unilateral decisions without regard for anything but their own selfishness.

Columbus Day has since come under fire as a celebration of a man whose arrival in the Americas heralded the oppression of another group of people: Native Americans. 

Indigenous Peoples’ Day honors the truth about the American soil on which we live. It serves as a counter-celebration to Columbus Day by recognizing the perseverance and contributions of Indigenous people across the United States.

Even the Angel Kids know what this day really is all about, and good for my son/DIL talking TRUTH to the next generation.

happy indigenous people day meme - - Yahoo Image Search Results

Sisters, ARISE… I Understand The Assignment

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Let’s do it this time; let’s get the job done and elect President Kamala Harris!

When Hillary Clinton ran for president, I was really excited. I posted signs, I made phone calls, I participated in governance.

I thought she won. We ALL thought she won. She SHOULD have, but…

There’s a lot to unpack and delve into about why and how she didn’t become president because she absolutely won the popular vote. I truly believe the vote was interfered with.

According to TIme magazine, When Russia set out to interfere with the 2016 election, it went all out.

“Over the course of the election, a wide-ranging group of Russians probed state voter databases for insecurities; hacked the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee; spread propaganda on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram; staged rallies in Florida and Pennsylvania; set up meetings with members of the Trump campaign and its associates; and floated a business proposition for a skyscraper in Moscow to the Trump Organization. The goal, as determined by the U.S. intelligence community and backed up by evidence was to damage the Clinton campaign, boost Trump’s chances, and sow distrust in American democracy overall.”

I remember first being overjoyed, then confused, and finally, majorly depressed as, with class and dignity, Hillary conceded.

Since President Biden has chosen not to seek another term and has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the BEST and ONLY Democratic party nominee, we are BEYOND EXCITED!

From Kamala’s speech: “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you. Part of the extension of the work you will do is, yes, focused on our young leaders and our young people, but understanding we also then have to be clear about the needs of their parents and their grandparents and their teachers and their communities, because none of us just live in a silo. Everything is in context.”

With future President Kamala Harris, we have another chance. I hope you understand the assignment, too.

It’s too important to NOT vote. We need to save democracy and save our reproductive rights and save this country from the horrors of Project 2025 or another four years of that insane orange turd and his disgusting MAGA cult, the cult of derangement.

Lady Justice Prevailed With a GUILTY Verdict On All Counts

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I don’t often write about political issues, but this is big news.

Have you heard?

On May 30th 2024, a jury of citizens in the state of New York convicted a former President of thirty-four felony counts.

There has been a full scale political assault on Lady Justice these past few years, but she’s still standing, proud and resolute.

In my opinion, the true crime is whatever the orange turd did to steal the election from Hilllary Clinton in 2016. He should have never been elected President.

I was a bit worried that the jury wouldn’t understand their task, but they did.

From the New York Times:

Donald J. Trump was convicted on Thursday of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to derail his 2016 presidential campaign, capping an extraordinary trial that tested the resilience of the American justice system and will reverberate into November’s election.

From BBC News, here’s exactly how it happened when the jury returned to the courtroom with a verdict:

The judge walked into the courtroom shortly after 4:00 pm, and said he planned to dismiss the jury for the day in a half hour. Then he left to talk to them.

Passing the time, Mr Trump and his lead attorney, Todd Blanche, huddled together at the defence table laughing. They looked like old friends sharing a good joke – and Mr Trump’s shoulders even shook in a rare display of mirth.

But then, as time passed, the judge still had not returned.

A few minutes later, Justice Merchan arrived in a swoop of black robes, his face inscrutable.

The jury, he said, had a note. And a verdict. They had taken extra time to fill out required paperwork, but they were ready.

The atmosphere shifted. The only noise was the sound of reporters frantically typing.

“All rise,” a court officer said suddenly. “Jury entering”.

One by one, the twelve walked past Trump who rose along with the rest of the courtroom for their entrance.

Justice Merchan, in the same even tone he used throughout the trial, asked the jury to confirm they had a verdict.

They had, the foreperson said.

The first guilty verdict landed – the next 33 added a crushing weight.

Silent and still at the defence table, Trump kept his lips pursed as his lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove on either side of him, glanced sternly toward the judge.

As each juror verbally confirmed the decision to convict him, Trump turned his head in their direction and followed their faces one by one as they answered.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office charged Trump with 34 counts of falsification of business records. He was guilty on all counts.

Prosecutors said that with Trump’s approval, his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to stay silent just before his 2016 presidential run about an alleged sexual encounter. Trump then was accused of approving a fraudulent scheme to disguise the reimbursement to Cohen as legal expenses.

He pleaded not guilty and has denied having sex with Ms. Daniels.

On Thursday, Trump’s pursed expression remained unchanged after the verdict was read and his attorneys pleaded with the judge for acquittal, claiming Mr Trump’s former fixer had committed perjury with his damning testimony on the stand.

Denied, Justice Merchan said.

Can he still run for president?

Yes. The US Constitution sets out relatively few eligibility requirements for presidential candidates: they must be at least 35, be a “natural born” US citizen and have lived in the US for at least fourteen years. There are no rules blocking candidates with criminal records.

What could Trump’s sentence be?

Trump has been free on bail throughout the trial and this did not change after the verdict was read on Thursday.

The judge will have several factors to consider in sentencing, including Trump’s age. The sentence could involve a fine, probation or supervision, or possibly prison time.

The more pressing matter to discuss is how messed up this country is, how his cult of hatred attracted so many disturbed followers — and how we can make sure this never happens again.

It’s really scary to consider that millions of Americans were being brainwashed by a reality-TV host.

Do they need to be deprogrammed? Can they be deprogrammed?

From Vanity Fair, Steven Hassan, a former Moonie turned cult expert and author of The Cult of Trump, says the process will require not only empathy and individual family involvement but a wholesale change in how social media and information systems separate fact from dangerous fictions. “I would put undue influence or mind control as the number-two most important thing that we address for the planet,” he says. “Because otherwise authoritarianism, using social media, is a threat.”

At the end of the day, Lady Justice might be slightly tattered, but this time she was able to rally and stand for truth. We need more of this.

Today is World Naked Gardening Day!

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The first Saturday in May is World Naked Gardening Day.

We’re encouraged to wear NOTHING but a sunhat and sunscreen, to pick up a trowel or a rake, and seed and weed au naturale.

Why garden naked? Our culture needs to move toward a healthy sense of both body acceptance and our relation to the natural environment. Gardening naked is not only a simple joy, it reminds us–even if only for those few sunkissed minutes–that we can be honest with who we are as humans and as part of this planet. and that’s also a definitely NOT ME, whether it’s “world wide” or “worldwide”! Curated from https://naturisteducation.org/wngd/

Today, you’ll find me in the garden, fully clothed, planting peas and beans and mixed leafy greens.

However, if YOU choose to celebrate in your birthday suit, DO NOT send pics!

Enjoy!

Festival of Lights | Happy Hanukkah! | Chag Sameach 🕎 

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Tonight’s the first night of Hanukkah and Hello Kitty reminds us to let our light shine!

Our Jewish Festival of Lights lasts for eight days and nights in honor of a 2,000-year-old miracle in which light won out over darkness.

During Hanukkah 1931, Rachel Posner, wife of Rabbi Dr. Akiva Posner, took this photo of the family Hanukkah menorah from the window ledge of the family home looking out on to the building across the road decorated with Nazi flags.

While it’s definitely a time for serious reflection, it’s also all about fun with latkes, gold coins, dreidels, lots of presents, and this iconic song by Adam Sandler:

Last year’s post about Hanukkah has a lot more info about the historical significance https://enchantedseashells.com/2022/12/19/whats-hanukkah-all-about/