Only a blip

I will be taking three trips this summer. The first one starts Wednesday. My performance group is going on a two day tour. We are giving a home concert tomorrow night (more like a dress rehearsal), then a concert in central Pennsylvania on Saturday and another south of Cleveland on Sunday. Between the home concert and the PA concert I’ll be spending time with my brother near Pittsburgh. That means I don’t have to depart Detroit at 6:00 am Saturday morning, though I do have to be on the road that early Sunday morning.

All that to say I won’t be posting the rest of this week.

On to the little things that have been accumulating in my browser tabs.

E. Jean Carroll published an account of the nasty guy raping her back in the mid 1990s. She is the 22nd woman to accuse the US President of sexual assault.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville and others note how much this rape story is not front page news in every newspaper across the country. It did not get discussed in the Sunday morning talk shows. The careers of Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and many others were ended by such scandals. But the President? Silence.

Which prompted Mikel Jollett to tweet:

A sitting US President is credibly accused of RAPE by a famous writer and there are NO front page headlines in the @NYTimes. A woman manages her emails poorly: [NYT front page showing the headline: “New emails jolt Clinton Campaign in race’s last days.”]

As the nasty guy inflames tensions with Iran and threatening then calling off an attack, Polly Sigh tweeted:

Just a terrifying reminder as Trump does whatever the hell he's doing with Iran, that not only has the Pentagon been without a permanent leader for 6 months, but there has also been a mass exodus of senior Pentagon officials over the past 6 months. A perilous time to have temps running the Pentagon. An acting Secretary of Defense won't have all of the decision-making power they need when the nation is at war in several countries and conducting major military operations in dozens.

The Washington Post reported that federal officials and GOP campaigns have been staying at nasty guy properties, bringing his private businesses $1.6 million in revenue. McEwan says this should be a scandal, but it will only be a blip. This self-enrichment alone should be enough for impeachment.

Yahoo Finance reports that Amazon had a profit of $11.2 billion in 2018. Taxes paid: zero. I’ve written before that one becomes a billionaire by exploiting and oppressing others. By not paying taxes Amazon is oppressing others by underfunding schools and the social safety net (and that’s just a start).



Jim Hightower through his Hightower Lowdown discusses the USMCA, the United States Mexico Canada deal that is to replace NAFTA. Yeah, there are some really nice things in the deal. One is some new great worker protections.

But the deal also had a great deal of input from Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Food and other corporations. Those worker protections are great – but the deal provides no way to enforce them.

So labor leaders are now telling their members about the deal. The good parts are worthwhile. Let’s keep them. And talk to your Congress person about revising the rest.



Jo Yurcaba, writing for Bustle wrote of a watershed moment. Twenty-three candidates for the Democratic nomination for president were at a Planned Parenthood forum on reproductive rights held in South Carolina. A non-binary person asked candidate Julián Castro how he would expand sexual reproductive health care access for trans people. A person who is non-binary is one who thinks of themselves as either both male and female or neither male nor female. Before answering Castro did something wonderful, he asked the person what pronouns they preferred. This is a really big deal for trans and non-binary people. It says I want to honor you for who you are. That a candidate knows to ask the question is also a big deal. This guy gets it. Castro’s answer to the actual question was pretty good too!



An NBC News report says, “An estimated 10,000 LGBTQ youth have been spared from conversion therapy due to state bans, report finds.”

Leah McElrath tweeted:

EXCELLENT NEWS!

But, remember, this torture of #LGBTQ folks (it’s not “therapy” — it’s literal torture) is supported by Mike Pence.

And you can bet there is something in the works at a federal level to try to supersede state bans.

Claire Rudy Foster writes for Catapult about his transition to male (the article is in the first person so I’m not sure which pronouns Claire prefers). He wants a lower voice and maybe a beard, but masculinity is scary.
https://catapult.co/stories/hormone-replacement-therapy-masculinity-sweetness-foster

In my mind, masculinity was linked with lack. Men were greedy because they were deprived of intimacy and pleasure, the rich experiences women share with one another. Grown men didn’t cuddle. They didn’t laugh until they cried, or eat an entire bag of caramels because their feelings were hurt. They didn’t know the balm of hearing their friends say “you are so lovable” when their hearts were aching. A man’s role was to take power, control his emotions, and tell everyone else what to do. To me, trading estrogen for testosterone meant agreeing to live behind a thick, unbreakable pane of glass, separated: both policing the rest of the world and unable to enjoy it for yourself.

His father was like that. So were most of the men and boys he knew. He remembered a man who was different, his grandfather. There was a model to grow toward. Claire saw what male supremacy does to men.