Halloween Frights

Image by Bany_MM from Pixabay

It's Halloween, and the terror is real.

Here in the greater Seattle area, I walked into a post office yesterday morning to find only two customers ahead of me. Great, I thought, this won't take long. The first woman was spending the money to send a ballot Priority Mail, I guessed to a child in college. That's commitment.

The second customer appeared to be a grandmother, with grandchild in tow. She all but made the clerk swear by the United States Postal Service creed that her ballot would arrive in Arizona by Election Day.

This is a liberal region, and I presumed both of these ballots would be cast for Kamala Harris. With Arizona'a swing-state status, I fervently hoped the grandmother's ballot would arrive on time, and I brooded over the potential consequences of all the swing states . . . and by the time I got out of there I couldn't have told you my own zip code.

Yesterday evening I attended a "Pre-Election Spiritual Retreat" at my church. The ministers offered poetry, breathing exercises and words of wisdom designed to help us retain emotional equilibrium over the days ahead.

I tried to be receptive. But I know perfectly well that my best shot at staying sane during this obscenely tense period is to don a costume right now that allows someone 61 to pass for 12, rush out into the neighborhood and procure enough 3 Musketeers and Hershey Bars to last me till Thanksgiving.

This Week's Quote

Image by Yvette W from Pixabay

I think a lot of gay people who are not dealing with their homosexuality get into right-wing politics.

Armistead Maupin

Source:  The Book of Gay & Lesbian Quotations

If Only

 

I'm Getting There

Image by Barbara from Pixabay

I've been one of those unwilling to call Donald Trump a fascist. I've been willing to call him plenty of other things—criminal, treasonous, burnt umber—but not fascist.

My reticence is due to a fondness for linguistic and historical accuracy, and an aversion to hyperbole. But mainly it's due to the fact that I was raised by a woman who was born into Hitler's Germany and lived, barely, through the results of fascist leadership. Yes, we know Trump has authoritarian tendencies, but does he truly rise to the level of 'ol Adolph? I mean, my family has high standards for the evil despots we encounter.

Then along comes John Kelly. As Trump's longest-serving chief of staff, Kelly told The New York Times this week that his former boss fits "into the general definition of fascist" and "certainly prefers the dictator approach to government."

Kelly is hardly a delicate liberal flower. He's a conservative Republican and a retired Marine general who spent a lot of time with the former president. He saw Trump up close and personal, for which I bet even combat training didn't prepare him. Unless that combat training took place in Studio 54.

Kelly said he opted to go on the record because of Trump's announcing he might try to use the military against his domestic foes, an unequivocally fascist move. I'm much closer now to being willing to call Trump a fascist, but I sure wish Kelly had come clean a lot sooner than two weeks before the election.

If she were alive, my mother would offer an irritated "Jawohl."

This Week's Quote

Image:  Facebook

BREAKING: Trump fired after cash register comes up short in first shift at McDonald’s.

Kyle Keegan

Source: X

Message to Every Friend of Dorothy

 

Hoop and Hate

Image:  Facebook

If the New York Liberty win today's Game 4 of the WNBA finals, they'll capture the franchise's first league title, overcoming a resilient Minnesota Lynx team, the defensive player of the year . . . and homophobic death threats.

I don't think Vegas oddsmakers figured in the latter.

After Game 1 of the series, Marta Xargay, wife of Liberty superstar Breanna Stewart, received anti-gay death threats via email. The couple alerted the league, and the NYPD is investigating.

Minnesota beat New York in Game 1, in part because Stewart blew a free throw at the end of regulation, which makes me suspect the email is more likely to have come from Montauk than Minnetonka.

Social media abuse against WNBA players, much of it racial, rose this season. "Why is this happening? Because we are the most inclusive league in all of professional sports and I can say that with confidence. But there’s no place for hate," said Stewart.

Apparently receiving death threats against your family can focus a person, as Stewart had a monster Game 2. But as motivators go, that one purely sucks.