One of my favorite memories is that of July 4 in the 50s and 60s. Our family, along with the family of my father’s brother, went to the Washington Monument for spectacular fireworks. We’d spread out blankets, and we’d have our own sparklers. It was magical for a child. My folks were both WWII veterans …
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives took the extraordinary and dangerous step this week of supporting a lawsuit by Texas against other fellow states. Sadly, my U.S. representative, Rob Wittman (1st District of Virginia), joined some other Republican members of the House of Representatives by adding his name to this filing, an alarming document. …
A commentator on the news this a.m. (sorry, I can’t remember who it was!) noted the link between anti-maskers and election-conspiracy supporters. I’d not thought about this before, but there’s an absolute connection. It all has to do with an increasing failure in our society to acknowledge demonstrable, provable, evidence-based facts. There are facts, and there …
There’s a widely-circulated Facebook post purporting to be from a Democrat. The author (not surprisingly) is unknown. The facts generally false or misleading, although the author gets a few things right. I’ve decided to break it down, paragraph-by-paragraph, to determine accuracy. If you’ve reposted this post, why not include this response? Because of the length of …
Yesterday’s news was filled with images of Vice President Pence visiting the Mayo Clinic – and its COVID-19 patients, sans face mask.I don’t get it. He was quoted as saying, “As vice president of the United States, I’m tested for the coronavirus on a regular basis, and everyone who is around me is tested for the …
We’re faced with a crisis in our country, the likes of which I’ve never seen in my (ugh) 70th year on this earth. I should use the plural: crises. We have a health care crisis of extraordinary proportions, one shared with the rest of the world. We also have a leadership crisis, the likes of …
The New York Times has recently published a quiz to help folks determine with which Democratic candidate they are most closely aligned. The Washington Post had a similar quiz last month. The papers had different approaches, different questions, but the same goal: What candidate agrees with my views? For those of us who are disgusted and …
This morning, I posted the following on my Facebook page:I am extremely uncomfortable with pundits criticizing Trump’s defense team on the basis of people they have previously represented. I don’t care if they’ve represented Epstein or O.J. Everyone is entitled to a defense. Period. Yep, even Trump. The discussion has been a bit surprising to …
A friend – whom I like personally, but disagree with politically – recently posted a meme with remarkable inaccuracies. Let’s break the claims down one-by-one. The meme includes a picture of Osama bin Laden, with 11 distinct claims of victory “18 years after 9/11”. 1. You teach Islam in your public schoolsResponse: No more than we …
I’m weary of the memeification of false facts. Memes seem to have taken over Facebook, and to a lesser extent, Twitter. Over the past week, I’ve responded to memes purporting to state “facts” which aren’t true. The first related to Trump’s alleged economic achievements related to the black community; the second related to alleged compensation/spending …