Media and Trump

Make no mistake about it: I don't like Donald Trump.
I didn't like him as a human being before he even hinted at going political, and I liked him even less during his campaign for President.
I was absolutely certain that the man would never be allowed by the Republican Party to represent them as their presidential candidate, and was appalled when he actually won the election, however crooked it may have been.
My feelings about the man have devolved into hatred in his role as President of the United States.  I no longer think he is merely disgusting.  I think he is dangerous, and too much of America has drunk the cyanide Kool-Aid that puts them on his bandwagon.

I am aware that my opinion of Mr. Trump doesn't matter one iota in the grand scheme of things, but if I were to be asked for the reasons for my opinion, I could spell them out in just a few words:
He has brought the American presidency and government down to the level of first grade playground mentality with his narcissism, hypocrisy, flagrant violation of the truth, name-calling, finger-pointing, threats, Teflon personality, and total absence of personal morality.  He is everything I ever hated in human beings...and now he is president of my revered homeland.

How did this happen?  Well...it's complicated.
How do I know that the Trump presidency has brought us to the bottom of the barrel of American values?  To quote an old saw, "Familiarity breeds contempt".  The public wouldn't be as likely to take common pot-shots at a man who behaved with dignity, but Mr. Trump's insistence on using Twitter to make outlandish comments puts him right on the firing line for contempt.  Americans love to take down giants.  It's part of our heritage.  Every time he makes an outrageous comment, there are hundreds of responses pointing to the errors of his ways, and they aren't all following political party lines.

Mr. Trump has, for the last two years, boycotted the annual and traditional White House Correspondent's Dinner.  And while the cat's away, the mice will play.  This year's dinner happened just this weekend.  I haven't wholly followed it, but apparently they had a segment given to a female comedienne of some ilk, Michelle Wolf, who didn't just roast the President and his staff.  She fried them.  I refuse to read it all, but what I have seen through a little Internet reading is that her whole bit was disrespectful, somewhat profane, and to many on both sides of the aisle, definitely not funny.   I think heads will roll over who selected this comedienne as a speaker, and future speakers could be asked to provide a script relevant to what will be said.  Freedom of speech is guaranteed in this country, but there is a time and a place for some of her comments--and this particular dinner to celebrate the accomplishments of DC journalists probably isn't one of them.  Good-natured ribbing is always acceptable.  Down-and-out disrespect is not.  I am 100% certain that this so-called comedic diatribe would not have been possible if the target weren't so big and blatant.  Goliath in the face of David with a slingshot.

There is one thing the comedienne said, or so I read, that rings a bell with me:

"You guys are obsessed with Trump. Did you used to date him? Because you pretend like you hate him, but I think you love him," Wolf said. "I think what no one in this room wants to admit is that Trump has helped all of you."

All during the campaigns leading up to the Republican National Convention, etc., I sat in my little house-on-a-slab listening to the news on TV every day...and every day, I was shocked at how much attention Donald Trump was receiving versus other candidates of either party.  His name and his face were on every single newscast in the name of "news".  The very media that he now decries as false and unfair was giving him HUGE free publicity.  Publicity that no other candidate in either party got.  I have a friend in the media.  When I asked her about that, her response was akin to "We can't make this stuff up.  He is so outlandish that we are forced to cover it."  I get that.  I also understand that there need to be standards and policies similar to those that require not to reveal victim's names and/or don't give excessive press to the perpetrators of mass killings.  Manipulation of the press is a dictator's move.  Suck it up, Mr. Trump.  The media gave you a gift during the campaign that helped you get elected.  Take your lumps like a real president, and start to act beyond first grade playground mentality.

I am not so stupid as to believe that the media can't put a spin on situations.  Unfortunately, the Internet is raising a generation of non-critical thinkers.  One of my main focuses as a teacher was to encourage my students to think for themselves--to look past mere rhetoric to seek the truth.  I've lost friends because I found myself having to challenge re-posts on Facebook.  People were posting things that were falsely attributed or just plain not true.   Once in awhile, the poster would say, "Oh, sorry...I should have checked before I posted that"...but most of the time, I was told that the truth of who said it or whether or not it was true wasn't an issue for them.  They just liked the sentiment.    

I have seen disaster situations where TV correspondents were sent to a scene and covered every second of every minute, even when there was nothing further to report until further notice.  Every confirmed fact had already been covered, along with some unconfirmed reports that only helped to inflame audiences into knee-jerk reactions.  At some disaster events, when there was no longer anything new to cover, the correspondents were actually interviewing each other just to fill air time!  (I've been on scene for a couple of those.)  The media is an influence on today's society, for sure, as is the Internet.  Nothing is ever as simple as is reported.  Time to re-learn critical thinking skills, my friends.  Time to think for ourselves!

The media AND Donald Trump deserve each other.  Neither is innocent or defenseless.  And neither is unfair, but both are guilty of creating their own circumstances.  May cooler heads prevail!

Barbara Bush

As the whole world knows, former First Lady Barbara Bush died last week.  Apparently it was her choice to have no further medical treatment.  (Some sources have said that she had COPD and congestive heart failure.)  Regardless, the world mourns a grand lady who was a no-nonsense gal.

Barbara Bush was the wife of a president, and the mother of a president.  She made no pretense to want yet another of her sons to run for president in the 2016 election.  "We've had enough Bushes."
I confess that her husband, George Herbert Walker Bush, was the last Republican candidate that I voted for.  I have always considered myself an independent voter.  I liked the man, even though he had to renege on his "Read my lips: no new taxes" remark.  Even he joked about it after new taxes were applied.  He was an honest man...a good man.  If he were running for office today, I would still vote for him.  Unfortunately, no one of his caliber in the Republican Party comes anywhere close to whom I want to see in the White House.  Did NOT vote for his son, George W. Bush, although his negative influence seems tame against the damage Donald Trump has caused...and still causing.

I always thought Mrs. Bush just looked old compared to other First Ladies, but her charm was engaging.  Over the years, her blunt honesty became her persona.  A few days ago, one of her granddaughters who is a correspondent to The Today Show--Jenna Bush Hager--submitted a tribute to her "Ganny".  One of her memories had to do with visiting the White House as a child.  She was in the WH bowling alley with a sibling and had ordered PBJ sandwiches from the kitchen, without permission from Ganny.  As Jenna and sibling were chowing down on what they thought would be wonderful sandwiches a la the White House, grandma found out and scolded them, telling them they could never again order anything in the WH without permission.  "This is NOT a hotel!"  I really, really respect that!

I also note that Mrs. Bush's Secret Security guards didn't leave her side, even in death.  Even when told that they could  They had that much respect for the woman.  It makes me weep.

She and Former President Bush were married for 73 years.  Can you imagine?  I am only 71-years-old.  They were together in life longer than I've been alive.  Mr. Bush still lives, although in fragile health.  Pictures on the Internet show him to be attentive and in awe of his wife's funeral.

God bless the man and the family.  All politics aside, this was a woman of class and honesty and grace.  Anyone who chooses pearls as adornment can't be all bad.

 

The Grandma Club

There are unwritten rules carved in the stone tablets of human family dynamics.  Some are arguable.  People are people, of course, and each person brings his/her own contributions and contaminations to each relationship, which means they aren't really all that immutable.  Still, there are some circumstances that seem to fit the patterns of society quite well.   Some experiences are shared by most of us who are in the same boat.

After I paid for my groceries at Meijer this afternoon, I pushed my cart past a white-haired woman who was sitting on a bench, waiting for someone.  Next to her were two little boys, unrelated to her, who were riding on the rocking Meijer horse for a penny.  They were riding double, hugging (strangling?) each other.  And the William Tell Overture was playing as the horse galloped.  I looked at her and  simply said, "I remember the days..."  Her response?  "Oh, I know!"  I didn't have to say anything more.  She knew what I was talking about, and I knew what she meant, as well.   We were both part of another unwritten societal thing:  the Grandma Club.  I could tell in an instant that she was a mother and grandmother.  There is a bond in that.

I don't have a clue what is different about grandparenting from parenting, except that I know I don't have to fix my grandkids, and I don't have to fix their parents.  All I have to do is love them.  I loved their mother, too--unconditionally--but this grandparenting thing is less stressful than being the one(s) responsible for seeing that they turn out "right".  I have blasted my brain with thoughts of what they could do that would possibly change my love for them or opinion of them.  Haven't come up with anything yet.  I worry about them, for sure, but I'm not in charge.  It's not my job to teach them how to be responsible or how to serve society.  I wasn't placed on earth to falsely tell the kids that my example is best.  It's not my job to rescue them from their own bad decisions or enable them to continue doing self-destructive things.

Grandmothers all over the world understand.  It's a club.  We get it.   

Kid Torture, the Old-Fashioned Way

Every generation has its own version of ways to torture kids "for their own good".  The modern translation of this might be taking away technology for a few days.  But for my generation, the torture came at a molecular level: for health.

Yeah...right.

Understand that, in those days, parents didn't know any better.  They did what they knew how to do to help heal boo-boos and promote general well-being.  In most cases, the Dr. Spocks of the world actually told them that their cures were the things to do to make it all better.  Not everyone understood that letting nature and the human body take care of things without intervention would sometimes work.  And parents didn't take the pledge to "first, do no harm".

Yeah...right.

I'm guessing here, but I would bet that many children of the Baby Boomer generation sucked up their pain rather than risk having things be made to hurt more from treatment.  Being bereft of cell phones and computers for a few days of torture didn't exist back then.  Instead, there were other instruments of torture that were approved.

Case in point:  If you got a cut and pointed it out to your mother, she would treat it with tincture of iodine,  mercurochrome, or merthiolate--all of which were orange in color.  And all three stung like crazy when applied to a wound that already hurt.  Most of us were crying BEFORE the stuff was applied, in anticipation of the pain that would follow.  Blowing on it was the consolation we got for the torture.  (Just for your information, the latter two of the three antiseptics--the two M's--contained mercury and are no longer used in the US.  Not banned.  Just not used anymore.  Whew!)  Peroxide was almost as bad, but my family didn't use peroxide.  Just the orange stuff, much to my dismay.

One time, while first learning to ride a two-wheel bike, (second grade) I skidded on rocks and got a road burn that ran from the side of my buttocks all the way down to my ankle on one leg.  I ran the rest of the way home, crying.  The first thing Mom did was plunk me in the bathtub to wash the dirt out of the wound, which hurt like crazy, then applied the antiseptic when I got out.  Ouch!!  That whole thing didn't get painless until it all scabbed over, days later.  I'll never forget it.

Case in point:  My mother wasn't one to administer cod liver oil for whatever ailed us, thank goodness, but I think many other parents did.  If you want a clue as to what it tasted like, take a tablespoon of cooking oil and swallow it.  It isn't just the awful taste but also the texture that makes you want to throw up.

Case in point:  Have you read the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer?   There is a chapter called something like "Cat and Pain Killer".  Tom's Aunt Polly would frequently administer something she called pain killer to him.  It was so horrible that he found a crack in the floorboards of the house to pour his ample tablespoon of it into when Aunt Polly wasn't looking.  And then, there was the cat who came into the room and curiously seemed to want a dose of it.  Tom complied, and what resulted was a cat that did all kinds of gyrations as a result.  Funny stuff!  My best guess is that the pain killer was mostly alcohol, but Aunt Polly just was certain it had medicinal qualities.   In today's parlance, giving alcohol to children would be grounds for CPS to remove kids from their homes.  Child abuse.  MY parents would never do that, right?  Wrong!  Once upon a time, along about junior high, I badly sprained my ankle in a game of tetherball with my best friend.  That evening at home, I got the chills.  Shock, I guess.  My mother fixed me a hot toddy.  I think she fixed it with bourbon, lemon juice, and sugar, then warmed it up and delivered it to me.  It burned all the way down my throat.  I couldn't begin to drink it all.  Torture?  You bet!  But the chills went away, and I slept well that night.

Case in point:  When I was very, very young--actually among my very first memories--I got pinworms.  We had an open sandbox that I played in...and the neighborhood cats used as a litter box.  Need I say more?  I have no clue how my mother discovered that I had them.  Apparently, they are a common parasitic infestation in humans--to everyone's horror--but it seems that the worms lay eggs in the host's intestines, then get expelled through the rectum.  The treatment in those days was to treat the external rectal area with gentian violet.  I actually remember my mother turning me halfway upside-down to apply the purple stuff to my bottom.  It didn't hurt, so it wasn't exactly kid torture, but just the idea that I had worms still makes me cringe.

Case in point:  The dreaded enema.  Today, enemas are only used in cases of extreme bowel compaction.  In the days of my youth, they were used if kids didn't have bowel movements soon enough or in acceptable amounts.  I can remember twice when I was subjected to this torture at the hands of my own mother.  There was a bag that looked a lot like a douche bag or a hot water bottle.  It had a hose and a nozzle.  Mom made me lie down on the bathroom floor as she administered this, until I was frantic because the internal pressure said I was going to explode in ways that toilet training had taught me to avoid.  That's all the detail anyone needs to know!

I dearly loved my mother.  All of the health treatments I got from her were totally about doing what was best for me, based on the medical knowledge at the time.  She would never have tortured me on purpose.  Things were just different back then.

Yeah...right.  :-)



 

Flight Anxiety

On the Internet, I read things relating to airline flights.  Once upon a time, I thought my flying times were over, but after my family moved to the Seattle area, that changed.

Fortunately, most of the time, I haven't experienced problems while flying.  But there have been some.

Once, on the way back from Oklahoma City, my bag was randomly selected for a search.  I stood there while a gal wearing gloves went through everything I had packed.  Sniffed my toiletries to make sure they were what they were, and randomly went through my underwear and clothes.  Nothing I could do about it.  I was cleared to go on my way.

Another time, on my way home from Seattle, my carry-on bag alerted for gun powder (or so I was told).  It was a brand new suitcase.   Inside was my laptop computer, my breathing nebulizer and mouthparts plus albuterol sulfate vials.  Didn't think about it at the time, but I had been careless about putting the mouthparts into the suitcase.  Duh...gun powder also has sulfate in it.  I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that my breathing medication created an alert for gun powder.  I got totally patted down and examined.  Eventually, I was cleared to go.  My wheelchair pusher wasn't happy about the delay--less money for her--but I was happy to be on my way.

One time, while escorting my grandchildren to San Jose, California, my bag didn't make it.  The family took me to the store to buy what I needed to get through the next few hours.   The suitcase turned up the next day.  Southwest Airlines offered to deliver it to me, but we decided to retrieve it ourselves because we were very close.

One time, on my way to my daughter's in California alone, my flight was delayed for three hours, or so we were told.  And then the person at the desk called my name and told me that I was being redirected, along with another person, on another flight that was "now boarding" for San Jose.  On the plane, I asked the flight attendant to make sure I was on the right flight for San Jose.  He said, "This flight is going to Orange County Airport."  I was mortified.  What??  Am I on the wrong flight?  And then he smiled and said, "And THEN we will go to San Jose".  I wanted to smack him!

The absolute worse experience for me, however, had nothing to do with the airline.  I was escorting my grandchildren to California to be with their mother.  They were quite young...  We experienced a delay on the tarmac...something about not being cleared to leave until the skies cleared of planes, etc.  Granddaughter Robin needed to go to the bathroom and so was allowed...but she didn't come out and she didn't come out.  Finally, we were cleared to take off but couldn't because Robin was still in the bathroom.  I got up to check on her with a flight attendant's encouragement.  The bathroom door wasn't even locked.  She was washing her hands and seemed nonchalant but, unbeknownst to the rest of us, had diarrhea.  She'd had no choice, but I didn't know it at the time.  I chided her, "Robin, the whole plane is waiting for you so we can take off!!"  She came out and took her seat...and we took off.  Whew!

On our approach to San Jose, CA, I began to experience strange sensations in my head.  Pain was popping here and there.  Ping here and ping there.  Scary stuff.  Things I couldn't explain.  Things that hurt and affected me, big time.  I began to feel weak and anxious.  I wanted desperately to tell someone what was going on, but even the flight attendants were strapped in for landing and couldn't have helped.  I never said anything to anyone, but in my brain, I was saying, "Dear God, please let me get these children to their mother before you take me!"  I had no idea what was happening to me, and it affected me the entire rest of the day, I was so very scared.
Over the next 24 hours, the whole thing faded.  No lasting effects.  I had flown before and have since.  Nothing like that has ever happened to me again.  The best explanation I have is that, somehow, the cabin pressure in the plane messed with my head.  I was just so very happy that the kids got to their mother on my watch, in spite of what was going on with me.  Whew!  I'm not sure anyone really understands how totally frightened I was.

For me, flying is akin to going into surgery.  Your life is in someone else's hands.  What goes up must come down, and you pray that your surgeon and your pilot are paid handsomely enough to be dedicated to what they do.  I will be flying to Seattle again in early May, with my co-grandma, Judy.
With God's help, we will survive!

My Daughter's DNA

My daughter got her Ancestry DNA results back.  The running joke is that it proves that I am her mother.  She congratulated me.  (I'll take that, thankyouverymuch!)  There was never a doubt who her father was.  Aside from the fact that I was married to him and never cheated, she was the spitting image of his daughter from his first wife, as a toddler.  The McNary genes are stronger than the Covill genes that determine appearance.  (That is actually merciful.)  A few hours after she was born, her father and I walked down to the nursery to look at her through the window.  I said to him, "She looks like you."  He said, "Yes, she does."  Case closed.

The DNA reports show propensity toward health risks.  Doesn't mean they will happen, only that they could by nature of genetics.  There is a lot to digest in those reports.  Apparently, Meg has many indicators for obesity, which has been a constant problem for her in life.  She tells me that, of the three sets of DNA results that she's seen (including mine), I have the lowest risk of obesity.  Tell that to my body!!!  Does that mean that her fatness risk comes from her father's side of the family, or that I've just been inattentive to my own health?  I can't begin to understand, but now I wish I had learned more about genetics science in my younger years.  It's fascinating!

I have long jokingly complained that my sister got all of the good family genes, and I got what was leftover.  SHE has a full, thick head of hair without much by way of gray, even at her age.  SHE was told that she had a "young heart" in spite of a family history of major heart disease.  SHE always carried a reasonable amount of weight for her tiny frame.  Me?  Yeah...well...we'll not talk about that.

My poor daughter is tall (5' 11") with a large frame.  That didn't come from my side of the family.  I think my mother's brother was probably the tallest person in our family.  My grandmother was normal-sized when she was on her feet.  (Maybe 5' 6".)  My mother was 5' 3".  My sister is 5' 2".  I'm 5' 5".  All of the men--except maybe Uncle Bud, who I just mentioned--were all under 6 feet, as far back as I know.  The unknown factor is my father's side of the family.  He distanced himself from them as a young man, and both of his parents had passed before I was born, so much of that history is gone.

Does it matter?  No.  Yes.  Er...maybe.
I had my DNA tested a year ago, thanks to a gift from my daughter.
She and her husband just got theirs done, as well.  It's nothing else if not fun to know where you are at the molecular level.   So be it!