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| Image: Facebook |
Image: Facebook
Today in Florida, a Democrat defeated a Trump-backed Republican in the race for the open District 87 state House seat. District 87 happens to include . . . Mar-a-Lago.
Feel free to bask in the moment.
I'm not so optimistic as to say the flipping of this seat is a harbinger of things to come, but I sure am digging the symbolism.
By the way, for all his carping on the subject, Trump voted by mail. And probably always will, until they put a polling place on a golf course.
Image: Facebook
I've waited a couple of days to let the news about César Chavez sink in. I hoped giving myself that time would allow me to come up with an incisive comment.
It hasn't.
Apparently I'm on the emotional slow train, only just moving from shock to deep disappointment. With stops at anger along the way.
It's one thing when a social-justice hero is revealed to have had feet of clay. Think MLK's many infidelities. It's another thing when the icon is revealed to have been a serial rapist.
What do we progressive types do with this news? Wallow in sadness? Work to separate the man from his accomplishments? Become even more cynical?
I admit I've had overwrought thoughts like, "Men just can't be trusted, and for the sake of girls, women, and the planet, should all be confined to Oklahoma."
But even this lesbian needs men, as friends and relatives and to balance my existence. Besides, my straight women friends couldn't live without men—although more and more sound willing to try.
So far what I've taken from the revelations about Chavez is an abiding respect for his accusers. That the two women he groomed as girls have come forward despite enormous cultural pressure is beyond brave.
And Dolores Huerta, telling her ghastly truth at the age of 95, keeping the secrets all these years so the farmworker movement wouldn't be wounded. That's heroic, tragic, and so female.
If it should turn out that Huerta likes to strangle kittens in her free time, don't tell me. I can't take it.
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| Image: Facebook |
Image: Facebook
Twice yesterday Donald Trump claimed he talked to one of his predecessors about the Iran war, and the former president told him, "I wish I did what you did."
However, aides to George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama said no conversations took place, and Joe Biden has also been ruled out, reports NBC News, exhausting the pool of living former presidents.
So either Trump—gasp—lied, or he meant he talked to himself, since he's also a former president, and received hearty approval.
I suppose there's a third possibility, that he's in nightly contact with Rutherford B. Hayes, but let's not make things worse than they already are.
