Repugnant

I grew up in a right-wing, Republican family. As I grew to adulthood and read about the proud history of the Republican party, beginning with Lincoln, I embraced that party, even as racism began to be embraced as a political strategy during Nixon's campaign for president. I overlooked that part, because I didn't want to see it. Besides, the Democrats were the party of racists.

However, as I heard about the crimes that President Nixon seemed to be excusing, and that people around me also seemed to excuse, I began to think long and hard about party versus principle. Within a few years, I left that party, especially as I saw the Democrats, so long the party steeped in racism, begin to attempt to repair that damage done to the country. It took me many years to admit that I had changed parties, because my beliefs have not changed that much. I just see things more clearly now, after reading a lot more history.

Today I've seen a Republican president embrace racism, support of the Confederacy, and support racists, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and the Ku Klux Klan party -- a party his father supported in Queens, New York. Fred Trump was arrested for marching publicly in full regalia, masked, hooded and robed. I've seen no report that he was convicted, although there are pictures of the march and the arrest report in the local newspaper.

Make no mistake about it; today's statement was deliberate. Trump's entry into the political fray was as a leader of the so-called birthers, questioning Barack Obama's citizenship. His announcement of candidacy was a full-throated anti-immigrant stance, which he never moderated and has not changed.

Yes, previous American presidents have been racist, some of them proudly so. But since the Civil War we have not seen -- until today -- a president of the United States throw his political lot in with white nationalists and neo-Nazis. Good people voted for this man, hoping that he would shake things up in Washington. Good people cannot stand by statements such as Trump made today.

It is time for the Congress to censure this President. The statements made today are morally bankrupt, and are intolerable. Good people do not march with neo-Nazis, and good people cannot let statements such as those made today, stand.

Books, books, books

Our days like our food have the main ingredients (protein, vegetables, fruit / work, sleep), but what gives us joy is the seasonings and the sweet. In my life, that is time with friends and family, news & politics, and reading and movies. If I were younger, maybe video games would be part of that too, but to me games don't enlarge my mind and heart as books and movies, conversation with friends and family, and thinking about news, policy and politics do.

Lately I've been focusing on books, although son Thomas and I did see the Lego Movie last week, which was excellent. Not just fun, but irreverent and subversive too!

Today I finished A House in the Sky, by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett. Really amazing, absorbing read; it is the story of Lindhout's abduction, imprisonment, rape and torture by Somali teenagers. These days, she heads up a foundation to bring health and education to Somalis women, in honor of the one Somali who tried to help her to safety.

Before that, I read The Family: Three Journeys into the Heart of the Twentieth Century by David Laskin. Whether or not you have Jewish or eastern European roots, this book opens a beautiful and painful look into the twentieth century through the eyes of a Russian/Luthuanian/Belarus/Polish/Jewish family. Laskin found that his wealthy non-religious family in the US was tied closely to cousins whose parents settled in Palestine and helped birth the Jewish state of Israel, and a lost branch who all perished in the Holocaust. Laskin was already a writer before digging into his family history; and this book is the wonderful product.

They gave me so much, these fierce, passionate immigrants -- my life, my freedom and privileges, my education, my identity, my country. The least I can do is give their stories back to them. - from the Introduction, p. 7

Last year I read one as good, called Sugar in the Blood, by Andrea Stuart. Again, when Stuart began her research, she had no idea that the family she would find would change her worldview. This book transformed my understanding of the Caribbean, slavery, and racism, which was deliberately created to support the slave trade.

Last month, I wrote about The Forgetting - Alzheimer's: Portrait of an Epidemic, by David Schenk.

Amazing books. What a way to start the year! Feel free to respond in the comments with games you find which are transformative, and also films, books and other works of art.