NAMES

 “Have you ever felt like nobody was there?

Have you ever felt forgotten in the middle of nowhere?

Have you ever felt like you could disappear?

Like you could fall, and no one would hear?” (You Will Be Found/Benj Pasek)

 

Most of those who are remembered at The AIDS Memorial are unknown, while a tiny few aren’t, though even those who are in the latter category have receded so far back they’re being lost to memory if they haven’t already done so. But what this brilliant and crucial accounting of lives does is simple: It asks us to engage with each and every person’s story, so that we can honor them and what they went through with dignity and respect. (Vogue).

 

I originally was to write my BLOG, with greater anger than usual, as I read and re-read how WAY too many TRUMPSTERS (aka Anarchists, and wannabe Fascists) have decided that the death and dying, the morning and loss of people who have died from COVID has somehow become a political ploy or worse, one more point of propaganda for the ilk known as Republicans. I became inundated with the STUPIDITY of groups of people either uneducated in the SCIENCES/MECIDINE/ or so BIGOTED AND RACIST, that lack of common sense, has left them SENSELESS, and in my opinion, INSANE! And then a thought entered my brain, trying its best to not drown in the DUMB AS SHIT RESIDUE, spilling out like raw sewage from FOX/the GOP Leadership/ and MAGA… why not follow the actions of the LGBTQ community, and read the NAMES of the innocent who died, because way too many of the GUILTY wanted to ignore suffering, death, dying, and preferred their own HATE to TRUTH. I believe every day, every paper in the land, and every news outlet, no matter how large or small their community may be, should read the names of the unknown who have died due to COVID. As the NAMES Project intended, we can provide, DIGNITY AND RESPECT, and SHAME the FOOLS who declare it otherwise…

 

And then, before I decided to post my BLOG, this happened…Law enforcement officials say that three students have been killed and six others have been injured in a shooting at Oxford High School in suburban Detroit. (MSNBC) And I thought, I am just as angry by the death by guns and the men and women who use them to murder, and decided, why not begin to list the names of ALL the victims of mass shootings, and individual’ killing spree… Sadly many to most of the people who pretend MURDER BY WEAPONS is not real, just as DEATH from COVID IS NOT REAL…

again they lie

 Roughly 24 hours after most people in America first heard about the Omicron variant of Covid-19, Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson (R) offered a conspiracy theory to explain what was happening.

"Here comes the MEV - the Midterm Election Variant," tweeted Jackson, who, not for nothing, is also a physician. "They NEED a reason to push unsolicited nationwide mail-in ballots. Democrats will do anything to CHEAT during an election - but we're not going to let them!" (CNN Politics)

 

I did not want to blog about this…I SWEAR, I thought there were way too many other BOOGIE MEN AND WOMEN piling up across the country, to fixate upon this PHYSICIAN turned POLITICIAN, and his REPUBLICAN talking out of his ass, Bull Shit. BUT COME ON, for this DOUCHEBAG, the health and welfare of Americans, (let alone the rest of the world), is of NO IMPORTANCE…not when HE and the other GOP understand the mindset of the MAGA MINIONS, the TRUMP LEMMINGS and the Q-ANON GRIFTERS; you know, the people who for whatever Racist/Bigoted/Biased lack of reasoning prefer to place their loved ones in danger, almost acting as might a PRE-MEDITATED MURDERER!

 

So now another VARIANT is approaching this planet, another VIRUS, another attack not only on medicine, and science, but an attack on COMMON SENSE. So Good Ole’ Ronny (Ronnie the doctor), is CERTAIN Mother Nature, is Democrat, and intends to steal the vote, just like the REPUBLICANS have tried with THE BIG LIE/GERRYMANDERED DISTRICTS/VOTER ID LAWS. And even though Ronnie is a newly minted GOP POLITICIAN he still follows the GAME BOOK of most GOP GOONS, by accusing the DEMOCRATS, of participating in the same STEAL THE ELECTION tactics of the GOP!

wax and candles

 It is Hannukah, and like its spelling, this Jewish Holiday has a variety of ways in which we celebrate, as to its origins, and both the spiritual and cultural lessons one might learn!

 

For my family, Chanukah (see, another spelling of it), was about the glow of the candles, and the very special MENORAH, from which the eventual 8 candles shone, dripped their wax, and soon melted, leaving behind a trace, a hint, a story of EXACTLY what THIS current year’s current events included. There was never a recipe or a set of directions as to HOW we should celebrate Hanukah (yet another spelling), BUT there was always the MENORAH upon which we lit the candles one evening at a time…ONE DRIP DROP OF WAX.

 

As kids, we had the official this was Grandma’s MENORAH. It was a plain, almost simplistic copper-made MENORAH! As my Grandmother would add, “a right to the point MENORAH, but it has been the one Grandma Braff purchased when she arrived in America, from Romania, and the one from which she embraced her new identity as an American, but retained her grasp on the days before, being a young Jewish Girl. As a parent starting my own family, we had the clay MENORAHS the kids made while at the JCC, and the family MENORAH, with the puddles of yellow, or white or blue wax, falling from the fingers of my kids.

 

For me, Hannukah- Chanukah- Hanukah, will remain, reasons why we persevere, we hope, we dream, and we fight to face the next horizon with fortitude and promise, DESPITE the VILLIANS of this world who seem to delight in this worlds DEMISE!

ONE, TWO, THREE

 A, B, C

Easy as 1, 2, 3

Or simple as Do-Re-Mi

A, B, C, 1, 2, 3, baby you and me. (A,B,C,1,2,3/Deke Richards)

Seven doctors contract Covid after attending Florida anti-vaccine summit

Doctors tested positive or developed symptoms ‘within days’ of conference at which alternative treatments were discussed. (The Guardian)

 

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do

Two can be as bad as one

It's the loneliest number since the number one (One/Harry Nilsson)

MIKE HUCKABEE: Dr. Fauci was, I think, very credible in the early days because we didn’t know any better.

We thought, ‘Well, this guy must be the expert.’

But as he continued to serve in that capacity, he would change his mind as to what the science said. (FOX News)

 

One, two, buckle my shoe

Three, four, shut the door

Five, six, pick up sticks

Seven, eight, lay them straight

Nine, ten, begin again (One, Two Buckle My Shoe/Traditional)

President Biden once proclaimed himself the “most pro-union president.” Now he’s looking less like a hero to union members who could lose their jobs because of his vaccine mandate. (The Hill)

 

Groundhog Day 2021 a myriad of monsters pretending that death and dying is somehow a Rite of Passage for Americans, prioritizing the denial of Science and Medicine as a true sign of Patriotism as they similarly do regarding Gun Rights and the 2^nd Amendment. All it takes is ONE Conspiracy Theorist, TWO Chicken Littles declaring the sky is falling, THREE abstruse idiots with their head in the sand, and FOUR or more Republican politicians prioritizing their political careers above people’s lives and… WHAM BAM THANK YOU, MA’AM…COVID takes a curtain call and remains center stage. I am not certain if this decade in time will be referred to as the SECOND COMING OF THE DARK AGES, or maybe THE RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES?

 

 

evil grows

 Tucker Carlson Is One Week Away From Adding Kyle Rittenhouse to His Family Cell Phone Plan

The Fox News host is full of praise for a guy who killed two people. (Vanity Fair)

 

My lips grew gnarled, stretched in an awkward shape forming into a weird simulation of the infinity icon. I felt a pain fly across my eyes, it then moved slowly toward my temples, and like a riverbed, in the path of a flash flood, the intensity of the wave of pain rushed onto the nerves at the nape of my neck. My gut shouted, “MY TURN,” and a bit of nausea traversed to the spot where my rib cage and esophagus meet, and I felt as if someone kicked me in my solar plexus. I did not want to read this article, HONESTLY, I tried to ignore it, thinking aloud, don’t give this monster Tucker anymore oxygen, and certainly don’t permit a person who murdered two people any more hype; BUT my conscience kicked in and speaking for the rest of my emotions insisted I read about this IMMORAL act and shout out how WRONG, ROTTEN, and INSIDIOUS Tucker Carlson has become, and how much he enjoys HIS NEWLY CROWNED HONOR of becoming FOX’s VILLIAN!

 

In a world not knocked upside down, PRAISE and PROMOTION of anyone murdering even a single person in cold blood, would seem a sin of proportions so large, that a life time in prison might not be enough JUSTICE. BUT, here we have Tucker Carlson, acting as a might a Vampire, sipping on the blood of the murder victims, chomping on the arteries of RACIST and BIGOTED Americans, whose only delight in life, it seems is to celebrate the vilest of human kind. Making Rittenhouse a hero, for the slaughter of two and the injuries of another. But then TUCKER has become the NEWEST STAR of FOX, besting Ingraham, and Hannity in being the most DESPICABLE DOUCHEBAG, the Murdoch Family can promote; begging the question, why are so many Americans remaining silent while this EVIL GROWS LOUDER AND LOUDER!

Thanksgiving 2021

 We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;

He chastens and hastens his will to make known;

The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.

Sing praises to his name; he forgets not his own. (We Gather Together/ Adrianus Valerius)

This hymn was originally a Dutch patriotic song, written around 1600 to celebrate the freedom of the Netherlands from Spanish rule, it is popularly associated with Thanksgiving Day and is often sung at family meals and at religious services on that day.

 

Linden Elementary School circa mid 1950’s, Miss Cypher’s music class (yep back in the day we had Art Class, Library Class, Band, French, PE, and Music classes, and oh yeah, received our Polio Vaccines in Public School). Thanksgiving was almost as important as Christmas, and Miss Cypher’s made certain her School Choir, (of which I was a soprano, even though I could not read music, but somehow could memorize the song) was prepared with a plethora of appropriate AMERICAN TRADITIONAL SONGS, even if those songs were not necessarily demonstrating a divide between CHURCH and STATE. To this day, I still hum the words to “We Gather Together,” right after Halloween and Thanksgiving having my hands placed in a triangle across the middle of my chest, look straight ahead (it was a Miss Cyphers strict rule that a GOOD member of a CHOIR, never look around or lost, but know that the words being sung, are the only direction a person needs). Back in the day, there was no Black Friday sales, no stores open on Thanksgiving, and kids were treated to a four-day weekend. Back in the day we actually felt safe and sound from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day because WHO IN THE WORLD WOULD DO ANYTHING TO SCREW THE WORLD, when so much joy and happiness was supposed to take place.

 

So, thank you Miss Marie Cyphers for enriching my life with music, music I still remember, recall, and embrace and for the memories of moments in time, which had meaning and magic. I know nostalgia neglects to often times include the awful and insidious, and almost as a drug of relief nostalgia eases the stress of today. Thanksgiving 2021, and I want to remember this DAY, for GIVING THANKS to the people in the world who ACTUALLY do good, want good, and make life GOOD. Happy Holidays!

full frontal

 “…Barr then spoke to Mitch McConnell. The Senate majority leader hadn't spoken up and was therefore portrayed as pro-Trump but was actually one of the few high-level elected officials who was thinking strategically at the time, his actions matching his words. He told Barr they still needed Trump to focus on Georgia ahead of the January 5 runoff election that would determine if Republicans held the Senate. "I can't afford a big frontal attack on the president at this point," McConnell told Barr.

According to both "Betrayal" and "Peril," McConnell felt that he couldn't declare Joe Biden the winner, fearful that his pronouncement would provoke Donald Trump into doing something like sabotage the Georgia race, or worse…” (Newsweek)

 

My Grandpa Buncher, owned a Tailor Shop in a neighborhood of Pittsburgh, called Shadyside. In the 1940’s and 1950’s gentrification was as much a foreign word as climate change, carbon footprint, and pollution. In its earliest days Shadyside Tailor Shop, was one more small business on a soon to emerge important street of Small Business, called Walnut Street. Way back in the earliest days, the Shadyside neighborhood was a place for the ultra-wealthy Pittsburgh elite, names like Clay, Mellon, Scaife, Carnegie, Frick, and until most of those families grew tired of the “everyman,” suddenly moving too close for comfort, the Elite of Pittsburgh Society moved away, but close enough to Shadyside to shop the businesses necessary for daily existence.

 

When my Grandfather retired, sad that my father did not desire to take over the Tailor Shop (my Grandfather was willing to change the name to Buncher and Son), he finally spoke about his clientele. It was my Bar Mitzvah, I became a man in the Jewish Tradition, so Tailor Shop talk was now a right of passage. Here are snippets of Grandpa-Grandson advice: Never deny being Jewish, many of his wealthy clients thought the name Buncher was Polish or German, my Grandfather replied he was a Ukrainian Jew. Never let people parade in a float of money. When the wealthy clients would insist their fabrics were too fine to be badly soiled, my Grandfather would tell them maybe you spent too much money on something cheap. And Grandpa Buncher told me, be a MENCH but never let anyone think they can wipe their feet on you because of a last name. He would tell the staff of the Mellon’s or Scaife’s, my name is spelled B-U-N-C-H-E-R and this is MY shop! And as I recall, using other words, my Grandfather told me, be direct, don’t hesitate when you know right from wrong, as painful as it might be…So to PEONS like McConnell and Barr shame on you for not doing anything but licking the entrails of an ENEMY OF THE STATE, like TRUMP!