I am going to Germany with a side trip to England. My brother currently lives in Munich and he has gotten as interested in genealogy as I am. So he, his daughter, and I will travel for two weeks with the goal of visiting several of the small villages my mother’s ancestors are from. And that little jaunt into England will include a cluster of villages where one branch of my dad’s ancestors are from. Of course, there will be lots of other things to see in Germany and England. And I shouldn't forget France – our first stop out of Munich will be Strasbourg because the first village to visit is across the Rhine River from there.
For the duration of the trip this blog (as I’ve done before) will become a travelogue, perhaps even with pictures.
Some bits of news (something I hope to ignore for a few weeks). First the bad:
Last Thursday I wrote about how the nasty guy and his minion Attorney General William Barr needed a distraction, so announced the resumption of criminal executions at the federal level, something that hadn’t been done since 2003.
Twitter user Jaded Vet thinks there is a much more chilling reason for resuming the death penalty:
Anyone else think that Barr's reinstatement of the #DeathPenalty is a precursor to Trump accusing his political opponents, criminal investigators, critical journalists, human rights activists, etc. of treason?A response from user Malcolm Nance’s Woodchipper of Justice:
That was my *first thought*. They'll start with people everyone hates – murderous rapists and pedophiles – then gradually move along the path to drug dealers, et al. and eventually end up at political opponents.
Now the good:
Last week, in the same post I referenced above, I wrote that after Special Counsel Robert Mueller talked about Russia continuing to meddle in American politics Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had a hand in preventing yet another attempt to have the Senate vote on bills to protect our elections.
That prompted conservative pundit Joe Scarborough to coin a new nickname: Moscow Mitch. That’s a lot easier to type than “democracy gravedigger,” which I’ve used a few times now. This new nickname has been gaining a lot of usage, even trending on Twitter. Even better, the word “treason” is used along with it. As in: MoscowMitchMcTreason. A few tweets exploiting that are here.
California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that says for a candidate to appear in a state primary election they must disclose at least five years of tax returns. The reason for the bill is to force the nasty guy to release his taxes.
Commenters debate what might happen. Some think this will achieve nothing because the nasty guy doesn’t need California to win, and certainly won’t get it. So what if he doesn’t appear on the ballot at all? Though the GOP state legislators might not agree with that. Others note that in California the primary rules say the two who get the most votes, even if they’re from the same party, go on to the general, so the nasty guy may not get on the ballot anyway.
Even so, I appreciate the California legislature’s efforts and wish other states would do the same.
And the wonderful!
Resistance comes in many forms. Mauricio Martinez tweeted a short video of an art exhibit designed by Ronald Rael. The art is three bright pink seesaws that go through the border fence. This allows a child on one side of the border to play with a child on the other side.
A comment to the Martinez tweet took me to another bit of border resistance. Artist JR created a piece of art showing two eyes, one on either side of the border. On the last day it was on display JR turned it into a giant picnic table so guests in Mexico and the US could share a meal together. People shared food between the slats of the fence and a band accompanied the meal with half the players on each side.
Samantha Schmidt wrote about the picnic for the Washington Post. Her article included a couple more photos that show another nearby bit of work also by JR, one that I had written about before (though I haven’t found that previous post). This art is of a huge photo of a little boy who, from the American side, appears to be peering over the border fence. We see the picnic table was placed in front of the huge photo.
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