Category: World

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Government Politics World

Citizen of the World

downloadOn Saturday night, at the conclusion of Lady Gaga’s “One World Together at Home” concert, I wept as she and a host of brilliantly talented musicians ended with “The Prayer.” Andrea Bocelli, Celine Dion, John Legend, Lang Lang on the piano, and Gaga herself stunned us all, stopped us in our tracks as they gave us a vehicle for our grief as well as a path to the hope we must have to continue in this moment in history. She said we are all citizens of the globe.

It made me realize that we are all citizens of the globe. Those in Africa and Europe and everywhere else are just like you and me. They are trying to find their place, as we all are. How can I be of use? How can I protect those whom I love when I am so far away from them? And, most importantly for me right now, how can I let go of the hatred that wells inside me toward our president and the millions who mirror him. The day after he was elected in 2016, I couldn’t imagine the blanket of uninterrupted corruption and lack of humanity that he would bring about. But last night, in that moment at the end of the program, I had a flash of being a proud citizen of the world regardless of the actions of some of my fellow global citizens.

I have always cherished my American citizenship. I have felt a strong obligation to it ever since my grandfather spoke to me of our great fortune and our resultant responsibility to others. I tried very hard to instill in my child and those within my sphere of influence my belief in our responsibility to our country. I have given my time, my thoughts, and my money to furthering that which matters to our country. I shed tears over the assassination of President Kennedy and when flag-draped coffins returned from Vietnam. I just cried a few weeks ago when two soldiers came back from Afghanistan in boxes. I have been both proud and ashamed. I stood in the back of a resort in the Catskills, right out of “Dirty Dancing,” watching Nixon resign on television. While others cheered, I sat in the back, filled with shame that our president was having to leave office in disgrace. I felt it was my disgrace. Then years later, I proudly voted for our first black president, believing we had come so far from the racial division of the 1960s. The highs and lows of citizenship.

After college, I moved to New York City and became her citizen. I went to the Simon and Garfunkel concert in the park and took a moment in the dark to consider that nowhere else in our country could one attend something like this both for free and with such a scenic backdrop. On Christmas morning, I went to Dunkin Donuts and loaded up the car to deliver 200 donuts and 100 cups of coffee to the homeless at NYC’s bus terminal. I wanted my daughter to give back on Christmas, before she opened all her gifts. I watched my 7-year-old daughter Sarah as she passed out the donuts and hugged a homeless man who told her he would only take one because he was afraid there wouldn’t be enough for everyone. Sarah has chosen a life of service in the law. I am in awe of her citizenship and her commitment to her work in government, prison reform and women’s issues.

Then there was 9/11, which was a personal shock. I watched the second plane go into the towers. I lost people I knew and cared about. I went to funerals for the police and firefighters at St. Pat’s because my mayor asked me to serve in that way. I took such pride in our response as citizens of this city. I have traveled the world. There is no other New York City. Over the years, as 9/11 faded into the background of more current events, I have continued to take such great pride in our response to the events of that day.

Today, I look at my beloved New York City and those who are risking their lives — and losing them — to save the lives of other New Yorkers they don’t even know but love and cry for all the same. I watch the citizens of my city (how lucky am I to call her my city?) sheltering in place while I see those in other cities that have suffered nowhere near the amount we have, who can’t seem to understand that strapping on guns and storming the capitol steps because they don’t want to stay inside to save others shows that they have no understanding of what citizenship means. I am so proud — so very proud — to be a New Yorker right now.

This morning I woke up still thinking about citizenship, and I realized that I am also a citizen of myself. I am master of my beliefs and my vision and my morals and my ethics. It occurred to me that perhaps the kind of citizen I am to myself bleeds into all the other passports of citizenship I hold. I also get to decide who benefits from having me as their citizen and how I will honor that responsibility. I take a moment this Sunday morning to thank my grandfather John Hinckley (descendent of Thomas Hinckley, the first governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts), who instilled in a 5-year-old me the understanding of where I belong in the world and my responsibilities as a citizen.

Categories
Parenting Personal Essays Politics Relationships Women World

Sharing on Thanksgiving

FullSizeRender-2This Thanksgiving, my favorite daughter, about whom I’m not allowed to write, is trekking in Nepal. She sent me this picture this morning. She told me about the wonderful people she is meeting and how hard their lives appear to be. The only reason I can post it is that I’m counting on the fact she won’t see it.

It took me back to a memory I’d forgotten. Another Thanksgiving.

When Sarah was seven, it was an especially cold Thanksgiving. My friend, whose daughter was Sarah’s friend, and I decided we would take the children on an adventure on Thanksgiving morning. We put them in my SUV and went to Dunkin’ Donuts, where I bought one hundred cups of coffee, one hundred cups of orange juice, and two hundred doughnuts. We drove down to the Port Authority, where many a homeless person finds shelter when it’s just too damn cold outside.

I asked a police officer to spread the word that we were there to other officers in the Port Authority and ask if anyone would like to have a doughnut and cup of coffee. My friend and I sat in the back seat of the car for two hours while those two seven-year-olds handed out coffee, OJ, and doughnuts.

There was a moment. There always is.

Sarah was helping a man who couldn’t decide between two doughnuts. Here is their conversation as I can best remember it:

“You can take both of them. We have enough — and if we don’t, my mom will go get more.”

“Oh, no — do you see the line behind me? I want to make sure we all get one. Maybe I’ll wait and see if there are any left over at the end. And your mom already did a lot for us.”

I saw her look at him. I watched her take in the message that this man, who had absolutely nothing — including a winter coat (I remember him vividly) — was not going to take more than his fair share.

Seeing Sarah’s picture today reminded me of Thanksgiving and sharing around a table an abundance of all things — especially stuffing, in my case.

And then I thought about our country, and how, as a country, we used to be like that homeless man. We used to know when each of us individually had enough, and when it was time to share with our fellow countrymen. All those working for large corporations had benefits. Health care. Retirement. And the shareholders were fine with returns that had slow growth to help them when they retired rather than wealth through stock at someone else’s expense. We didn’t simply buy the cheapest things; we bought from stores where we knew the purveyors. We waited while they gift wrapped the presents. There was enough for everyone, so on Thanksgiving, most Americans could sit back and be thankful for the opportunity our country provided to all its citizens.

We can go back to that. I believe that the 1 percent that I think has taken over my country for their own personal gain — and dollars in the bank that they couldn’t spend if they tried — will be brought down. And this Thanksgiving, when I say my silent prayer before eating my turkey, I will pledge to do what I can to make sure of it.

God bless my broken country on this Thanksgiving.

Categories
Politics Religion World

Grace

imgresThose who know me well know that I’ve wanted to get a tattoo for a long time. If I were allowed to blog about fabulous daughter Sarah, I would say that she made it very clear that if I got a tattoo my motherhood status would sink to zero. Since I never wanted her to dye her hair and she hasn’t, I have steered away from the parlors that beckon.

When asked what I want to brand myself with, my answer has never wavered. The word Grace. It’s my favorite word and most elusive selfie adjective.

When someone moves with Grace, they are a joy to watch. I am athletic through DNA, but not filled with Grace in my movement. I’m more power based.

My words are occasionally eloquent, but they are never filled with Grace. They are sometimes funny, but never filled with Grace. Would it be that they were!

And, I’ve lamented for many, many years my inability to incorporate grace into my persona. My apologies are not graceful. The bottom line here is that no one would ever use Grace in their description of me.

Then yesterday, President Obama, eulogized those lost in South Carolina by explaining to ungraceful me the meaning of the word and where it comes from. That it’s not something we learn, or inherit, but that it’s something that God bestows upon us and we all have it. We just have to embrace it.

​According to the Christian tradition, grace is not earned. Grace is not merited. It’s not something we deserve. Rather, grace is the free and benevolent favor of God.

“Oh happy day,” saith I! I have grace. And, you know, I actually can feel it. Seriously I can.

Then he sang it. Watch it here. If you can, watch his entire eulogy. Finally he emerges and leads. No anger. Clear. Hopeful. Forceful. He has Grace. Always has. And, he might just have saved a wretch like me.

Categories
History Politics Religion World

Finding Perspective.

I don’t know how to find perspective in wake of this most recent violence in Boston, just an hour from where I call home. Twelve years ago, I had perspective. I physically witnessed both planes fly into the Towers. I knew people who lost their lives. I heard first-hand personal stories from those I held dear. It was easier then. I was part of the fray, and I was honored to feel the pain from a place of true association. I was allowed to be in the inner circle of what was happening, and from that place, you have perspective. You are entitled to feelings of anger, grief, and sorrow.

But this time, it’s different. I didn’t know anyone who is in peril in a hospital anywhere. I don’t run; hell, I barely walk these days. I don’t follow marathons, nor did I know the history of the Boston Marathon until yesterday, a rich history that is now forever tainted. It’s been almost 24 hours since the bombs went off, and we have no idea who was involved. My gut — which has no right to have an opinion — says it was not international, but some messed up American person or persons who created this carnage on a local level, but will gain global notoriety because of it. But whatever comes from all this, I don’t feel I have a right to feel anything but a sense of voyeurism.

What do we do with what happened if we really have no personal association with it? A friend in Colorado sent me a picture of his snow-laden house this morning and said that more snow was on the way. I wanted to e-mail him back, “I don’t give a good God damn about snow, idiot, an eight-year-old boy was blown to bits after hugging his father who had just crossed the finish line, and you want to talk about snow? Who are you?” I have another friend who makes it all about her, even though she wasn’t there and knows no one who was affected. Perspective. Where do we Americans belong in these moments? How do we find perspective?

We are the only species that kills each other randomly for no reason. Okay, those who perpetrate these cowardly acts of terror will say there is a reason, but truth be told, there was no reason to kill that young boy, take away his sister’s limb, and put his mother in the Critical Care Unit of Mass General. No reason at all as far as I can tell. Why do we do that? What does it mean?

I search for answers at times like these, and I know that I will not find them. Gaining perspective, or finding a place to put feelings of grief, rage, and sorrow at times like these is impossible for me. Then time passes, feelings fade, and we move on with our lives with nothing much changed or gained. I have to believe there is something more here. I have to believe that we should be able to find something that helps put these kinds of events in perspective, or better yet, give us some tools to stop the next one.

I have to say that I strongly dislike (trying to keep the bad juju out of my life by using words like hate) the religious talk we hear at times like this. “God has a reason.” “At times like these, turn to God, who will give you strength and healing.” Seriously? If I were God, I’d shake my head and say, “You are on your own on this one people. Who have you become? This has nothing to do with me.” Yesterday, a dear friend of mine, with whom I share a love/hate relationship when it comes to religion and politics, said that the moral decline of the country was because families weren’t going to church. She would say that was not her point, but I would say it was. Perspective.

I want to go to sporting and other events with a song in my heart and no fear in my belly. My fabulous daughter, Sarah, graduated from Law School in Boston last year, and I wasn’t afraid for a moment. Should I have been? If she were graduating this year instead of last, would I worry whilst attending the festivities, listening to speeches designed to inspire? I think I would, and I’m sorry for those who will have to live with increased angst over the coming months and years until it all fades again with the novocaine of time.

I want to be able to put things like this into perspective. It seems like it would help me get through them. But for all my searching over the last few hours, I cannot.

Categories
Sports World

Olympic Perspective

Gabby’s hair? You can’t be serious. The girl flings herself up off the uneven bars with no fear; she flips backwards on the balance beam with her arms gently limp at her side, muscles bulging in a perfect line. And you want to talk about her hair? Who are you people? Besides, it’s not like it was hanging in dirty clumps or anything. The truth is, I never noticed her hair and neither should you. It’s her toned body you should notice, which she has worked for years (years, I tell you) to make it perform perfectly. And it’s her clear eyes and extraordinary mental focus. I lose focus in a movie theater when someone ten rows behind me reaches into their popcorn box. Listen, American Idiots, we need a little perspective here. Get it together.

Then we need to talk about Michael Phelps, who was called a loser when he came in fourth on his first time in the water at these games. Seriously, the man had something like tfifteen gold medals at that point (and a bunch of other colors too); he comes in fourth at the Olympics, and you are all disappointed? Don’t be absurd.

Then there is a poll this morning on one web site to vote for the “best” Olympian at these games? It’s not enough that they are the best in their respective sports―which is why they are there in the first place―now you want them to compete with each other? Are you high? What, a week into watching the best athletes from all over the world compete in sports that take a lifetime to master, you want to create another layer of competition? Shame on you.

Think of the North Koreans for God’s sake. Supposedly, if they come home without having done well, they are sent off to labor camps. Then there is the endorsement pressure. One hundredth of a point and you lose that Corn Flakes ad (seriously?), which means you will never be financially secure after spending upwards of twenty years working seven days a week, ten hours a day to achieve a gold medal and a little bungalow in the Valley. Then there are the commentators talking about how Great Britain hasn’t won any gold medals, as if hosting the Olympics means you are obligated to rise above your potential.

I’m done complaining, but seriously? Back to basics, people. Just becoming good enough to compete is an accomplishment beyond 99% of the world’s abilities, and winning a medal―any medal―is the moon. Congrats to you all, and just remember that those talking about these ridiculous things have never won anything. Oh, and Team USA? Wow. Wow. And, thank you. I’m so very proud to share the same citizenship, even if that’s all we have in common. You inspire me.

Categories
History Sports World

Olympic Opening Ceremony

I love the Olympics. Not surprising, considering how much I love my country. I consider my birth here to be one of the greatest gifts the luck of the draw has given me.

I always love the opening ceremonies, and I was totally enthralled with the London Opening Ceremony. My friend Samantha lives on the West Coast and shares my love of the Olympics. She texted me about two hours into the replay on the east coast, an hour before it started to play in LA.

“How is it?”
“Oh my God, Samantha, the best ever! Just wait!”
“Can’t wait.”

I told her to text me and let me know what she liked best.

I awoke Saturday morning to see the following on her Facebook.

“I am just shocked! My anticipation for the Opening Ceremonies was such a letdown. 42 million on what?! Danny Boyle made a hefty chunk of change. Event producers have to do more at a movie premiere than that. Lol! Sorry folks that loved it. I don’t need an ambien tonight. Hahaha. Let’s go USA!!!!!! On to the Olympic Games!” 

Did I mention Samantha does movie premieres?

I haven’t spoken to her since she posted it. Our friendship is on the rocks for sure.

Here it is in a nutshell people.

The Opening Ceremony in Beijing was a parade of colorful precision. It was like watching the Chinese Army in colorful clothing. Okay, the waving of flags and the train of dragons made it stunning, but I don’t think it touched the London Ceremony, and I certainly didn’t learn anything about their history. Tiananmen Square was no where to be seen. No show of factories filled with small children. I’m just saying.

I hear you all now. There is no place for that at the Olympics. Well, I beg to differ. That’s exactly the place for it. Give me truth and give me competition, and I’m a better person inside and out. Boyle walked us through English History  and Culture—good and bad. I loved that he showed the dark side of the Industrial Revolution. I had no idea that so many children’s literary masterpieces were spawned in England. (101 Dalmatians? really? I so thought that Cruella DeVille was from New York City for sure!) I was especially surprised and spellbound by the use of real nurses and doctors to celebrate England’s amazing health care system. I loved the humor and musical history of the Chariots of Fire number, and what better entrance for the Queen than a fake one with James Bond? (Ok, she could have smiled just once! But overall, I liked the show of British humor.)

And come on. When those rings of fire floating around the darkened sky came together as the Olympic Rings, you had to feel something! No?

The truth is that I fell asleep before it was over, but that’s only because I work too hard and get up too early. It had nothing to do with the quality of the show.

We Americans must learn the nuances of storytelling, and we must realize that storytelling is not always filled with color and parades. I know more about England’s strengths and weaknesses than I did before, and I like her better than I did before.  Thanks Danny Boyle, for a little bit of history, some smiles, and Paul McCartney, and I hope that your health care system comes our way really soon. Best of luck in the Olympics.

Let the games begin. As for Samantha—love you, girlfriend.

 

Categories
History Politics World

Fragging

I know. I never heard of it either, but not only is fragging a real thing, it’s a really awful thing.

I am in a screenwriter’s group. (Ok, although I’m in this group, I haven’t presented my screenplay yet. But writing it as if I were really ready to accept my Academy Award is tons of fun.) Last night, someone who had been in the military in Afghanistan was presenting his script and talking about how a new officer can come to a combat zone and be in charge of everyone, even though he has never been there before and knows nothing about the lay of the land or the people he is leading. It’s the way the military does it. Just one more reason I think we should approach things like Switzerland does, and not have a military. But we all know no one at the Pentagon cares what I think.

So I have to pipe up. “I don’t understand. Isn’t it dangerous to have someone lead people he doesn’t know in a situation they have been in and he hasn’t?”

One of the group, a man in his fifties, said, “Well, it’s really not a problem because there is always fragging to fix the problem, and officers know that, so they tread carefully.”

“What’s fragging?”

“In Vietnam, if you didn’t like the officer in charge, you made sure a grenade went off near him and the fragments killed him, getting rid of the problem. Fragging is short for fragments.”

“No, that can’t be true!”

“Yes it is true and it’s a good thing.”

Clearly he wasn’t an officer.

So I went home, looked it up, and sure enough, fragging even has a page on Wikipedia. I just thought you should know.

 

Categories
History Movies & TV World

Movie Review: The King’s Speech

Colin Firth, welcome to the big time. You are a magnificent actor and we expect you to rise to great heights from now on. No more Bridget Jones for you. Those days are over. Sure, there were signs (Pride and Prejudice), but nothing like the incredible breadth of this role and nothing as difficult to bring to us. Your performance in The King’s Speech is Oscar worthy, and perhaps even more important, worthy of being used as a teaching tool to help the public understand the pain of speech impediments for years to come.

Ok, Geoffrey Rush was amazing as well, but I have come to expect him to be. And Helen Bonham Carter was wonderfully stoic as the King’s supportive and kindly wife, but she needs to re-evaluate her real-life husband choices for me to go much further than that. A supportive wife who has no soul for her own life just doesn’t get many words for me. It’s my review, and I get to focus on Colin, whom I feel I have seen on the screen for the first time.

Acting aside, history teachers in middle schools across the land should insist that their students watch this film, as well as the others I reviewed this week. Let’s all remember that greatness is in each of us and can be brought out with hard work and commitment to our responsibilities, whether we choose it or not. You gotta give that to the Royal Family; they give it up for the greater good of their country’s traditions even though they now have less power than they used to.

I have always believed that if history were taught from a sociological point of view, or through personal stories, rather than war to war, battle to battle, we would have a different future. The curriculum for history was set up many hundreds of years ago, when men went to school and women didn’t. They needed to learn to fight wars, because that was what they were going to be doing. To change all that, we need to teach history differently. I’m not sure this paragraph belongs in this review, but I think it’s a cornerstone of my belief in education, so I’m throwing it in for your consideration.

Who knew that George VI was so amazing? I’ve never particularly considered any of the Windsors extraordinary, but he seems to have been. And the young Elizabeth, now Queen of England, had a childhood that she chose not to pass to her own children (that is, if the movie accurately represents the past). And who knew that Wallis and her husband the Duke of York were such jerks? I knew he gave it all up for love, and when I looked at pictures and film of them I wondered what that was all about. But let’s face it, who cared?

I also knew the King had a speech impediment. I just forgot, or never really understood what it meant. The pressure on the man even without an impediment would have been tremendous. War. Hitler. Sacrifice. Not prepared to be on the throne. A ne’er-do-well brother. To have to add to that pressure a stumbling block in communicating, one that must have appeared to be as big as the Himalayas, must have been monumental. And so lonely. You feel his isolation as he stands before the stadium of embarrassed people in front of a blinking red light representing the millions who were trying to hang on every word. Words that just weren’t coming out.

I love that so many movies now do the history thing for us. Watching history told through the stories of the people who lived it really brings it home. I love movies like Made in Dagenham, Secretariat, and Mao’s Last Dancer, to name a few. Bring these films to the schools and put them on cable for the world to see. They’re so much stronger than the reality TV that has taken over. Why shouldn’t we show these films instead of reality shows and see if they can’t take off. Let’s face it, I’d rather follow King George’s life on TV than that woman who had eight kids, divorced her husband, and ended up on Dancing with the Stars. Her name escapes me, and it is not worth looking up.

Categories
Politics World

Two Sides to Every Story; Missionaries Arrested in Haiti

I’ve been out of the loop a bit recently. I’ve been traveling and busy at work and away from the fray of politics, media, and especially Haiti. At a dinner last night, there was talk about the missionaries from the good ole US of A who went into Haiti, took 100 children and were “going to the Dominican Republic with them to set up an orphanage.” They had no paperwork for the kids, no proof the kids were orphans, and no proof of their mission (their website is in the hopper and not up yet). The woman in charge is quoted as saying she was going to get the kids settled in a hotel and then go back to Haiti and do the paperwork. They were arrested and still sit behind bars.

There were two sides to the debate last night. One diner was outraged that Haiti would arrest these “well-meaning” individuals and the other person wasn’t so sure it was turning out that they were well-meaning at all. Diner number two mentioned the “church” from which they came from might be suspect. The other countered that they were obviously middle Americans trying to help, you could tell by “just looking at them.”

So, me being totally out of the loop, spent some time reading about it all when I got home, and guess what? I have no idea what their intentions were/are. I have no idea if those kids were orphans. I have no idea if they should be behind bars or get the Nobel Peace Prize. And, at this point, neither does anyone else.

Here is the thing that really kills me. When did we become people who believe that we know something because of a three-minute sound bite we see on TV? CNN telling me what’s real? Fox? Not so much. When did our reality move outside our own personal purview? When did the movies we see on TV news, and in print in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, turn out to be our personal truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

The debate should be about what it all might be, not what it is. This is becoming more and more true as media presents more and more information long before it’s really information. Get the news out fast and worry about whether it’s fact-based later. We must stop believing we are part of a community outside our own personal community and really recognize what we know to be true, rather than what feels to be true from the outside looking in.

I will follow the Haiti story in the news now and watch it unfold. I hope their motives were as they presented them. But knowing their reality now? I don’t think so.

Categories
Politics Religion World

Pat Robertson and Haiti

I understand that I’m an opinionated person who sometimes can’t see another point of view. I think we are all held hostage by the movie running in our heads about what we think about this and that. It doesn’t offer commercial interruptions from others who might hold a different point of view. I try very hard to “seek to understand, rather than to be understood,” and rarely get there. But then there are times when I am actually baffled by what another person says, and I can’t help but wonder at those who follow these crazy thinkers. Do they really believe them? Do they follow blindly? Is their nod of agreement real?

Quite often of late, my feeling of incredulous disbelief comes to me from things said by the far right. This week my thoughts go to Pat Robertson.

As Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said “well over” 100,000 people may have died in the natural disaster, Robertson took to the airwaves Wednesday on his show and said that the country has been “cursed by one thing after another” since they “swore a pact to the devil.”

 

“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it,” Robertson said Tuesday. “They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.’ True story. And so the devil said, ‘Ok it’s a deal.’ And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another,” Robertson said.

Here is what comes to mind. How do you dial the devil to swear a pact with the devil? Do you call 1-800 Dial a Devil? I would like to get in touch with the devil. I have a few questions. I digress.

Does Robertson really believe this? Or, is he trying to get publicity, which of course he is doing on the airwaves and through stupid, self-serving blogs like my own?

Does anyone really want to continue to listen to him after hearing him say this? What happens to a brain that takes something like this statement in and doesn’t question the premise, the motive, and the waste of time listening to it? What am I missing? Do I not get it? Could I be this wrong? And, if I’m not wrong, how could they be this wrong?

According to Wikipedia, “Robertson is a Southern Baptist and was active as an ordained minister with that denomination for many years, but holds to a charismatic theology not traditionally common among Southern Baptists. He unsuccessfully campaigned to become the Republican Party’s nominee in the 1988 presidential election As a result of his seeking political office, he no longer serves in an official role for any church. His media and financial resources make him a recognized, influential, and controversial public voice for conservative Christianity in the United States.”

Apparently millions of people follow him. Millions. Who are you people that follow him and others like him? Do you look like me? Are you smarter than me? Dumber? I truly would like to talk to one of you. I seriously think that I might take a little trip down Southern Baptist Lane this summer and actually try to have a conversation with some of them. The goal would be to never comment on what they say, but to ask questions and try to figure out where their thinking comes from. I’m not kidding.

Phrases like moral majority, pro-life, conservative Christian have always baffled me. I’m in marketing and I know that turning a phrase sells a product. I get that, but it doesn’t seem like those on the left (how come we didn’t take the side called right, it has such a stronger positive connotation) turn phrases in the scary way the ‘right’ does. Let’s figure that out now. Call me the ‘caring left’ from now on. Or, the ethics majority.

Ok, I’m done I guess. Actually, I’m so not done. I’m just not sure what to do with what I’m not done with right now.