Summer's View

Today I added Martin O'Malley to the list of males who talk out of their penis.   I almost fell out of my chair when he actually said he could have beaten #45 in last year's presidential election.  Mr. O'Malley was recently interviewed on  MSNBC and  actually had  the audacity and temerity to say he could have won if he had been the candidate.  I don't think it is a stretch to say that very few Americans even know who Martin O'Malley is.  Some Democrats and a few political junkies might know him as a man who was once a governor of Maryland and one of three candidates that ran for the nomination on the Democratic ticket, but the average man or woman on the street would probably say, "who?"  But he thinks he could have beaten #45. Martin O'Malley, you are now a member of my HALL OF SHAME .  Not to worry you are in "good" company:  Al Franken, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, David Axelrod, Phil Mudd and David Gregory.  Question.  How many wo

No one likes or wants to admit they were wrong, but confession is good for the soul or so they say.  This makes me angry, sad and feeling very foolish as well as duped.  I did not vet the Women's March as well as I should have before I participated.  Knowing what I know today, it was a sham that was perpetuated by Bernie Sanders' extreme supporters. I was devastated when Hillary Clinton lost the election in November 2016 and sick that a narcissistic bully and predator had been elected as our president.  Seeing that a women's march was being organized, I jumped on  the bandwagon as a support mechanism to get me through the grieving process.   I enlisted my sister and we both embraced the march.  Having never been to a protest, it was exciting and exhilarating to be part of something so mind bogglingly big.     Please read my post of May, 29, 2017, "What is a Feminist?" which explains how, when and why I began to see the writing on the wall regarding th

I did a book report on The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler by William L. Shirer when I was in junior high school.  The report was returned to me by my English teacher, Mrs. Lombard with a slash through the title and the words, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich  inserted as the "correct" title.  Yes, William L. Shirer  did write the more popular The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich , but he also wrote " The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler in 1961.  Being extremely shy, I was loath to correct my teacher and to this day, I am still annoyed for not standing up for myself.  I still question whether she thought I really didn't read the book; I accidentally wrote the wrong title; she didn't care to check with the local library because obviously I, as the student had to be wrong.   History was one of my better subjects and I was fascinated with WWII, reading many books and watching all the many movies from that era.   It seemed unfathomable that a country wou

 Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre 242 West 45th Street When this baby boomer's 70th  birthday was coming up, there was only one place I wanted to celebrate.  The city that still makes my heart beat just a little faster and makes me feel truly alive, New York City.  I have over 50 years of New York memories that include the  many Broadway shows I have been so very fortunate to see.  One of these days I will have to go through my file of a mind and come up with post about them and my love affair with New York.             Today, however, I want to tell you about this exciting new musical, BANDSTAND -- The New American Musical.  With only a three day weekend and considering the prices of tickets to Broadway shows, my retiree budget allowed for only one show.  It is always difficult to choose one show over the many excellent productions in New York.  I really wanted to see something new and fresh.  Living in a small town, I get to see so (too) many rehashes of Broadway shows in

If you are not familiar with the Washington, DC area during the 1960's, you probably never heard of the The Mighty Mo, a double burger with a slice of pickle and a secret sauce.  It was the big hit of the Hot Shoppes restaurants and it was Delicious, with a capital D! I haven't thought about those delicious burgers in years, but today my thoughts went from a "nothing" burger to the big ole Mighty Mo.  A burger that was a few years ahead of the Big Mac with a sauce that reminded me of Russian dressing but was called a "Secret Sauce." To be honest, I had never heard of a "nothing" burger until recently when 45's surrogates and supporters used that term regarding the Russians and the Trump campaign.  Yesterday, July 11, 2017 that all changed with DTJr.'s  release of the emails about his meeting with a Russian government lawyer who wanted to give him dirt on Hillary.  Suddenly, Democrats were walking around with a gleeful twinkle in

Day after day, I see the hate on cable news, internet and Facebook.  Every time Hillary Clinton opens her mouth, she is criticized.  And boom, it gets worse with my own party's leaders making stupid sexist remarks.  Some would argue that they aren't sexist, they are just making what they believe are valid comments and people need to stop making everything about sexism and misogyny.   How many female presidents have we had? (just making a point with sarcasm) How many candidates for the presidency have had to contend with Russian interference? What is the precedent for a female from a major political party running for president? Are the comments regarding the 2016 presidential campaign similar to other campaigns i.e. Al Gore, John McCain, John Kerry, Mitt Romney, etc., etc.?  Did all of these candidates who lost, publicly take responsibility for their losses and if they did not, did you rant and yell about them needing to personally take responsibility? To some of those

  A few days ago I read an article that had been posted on the Women's March Facebook page.  It had been shared by the administrator(s) of that page from www.Bustle.com, "8 Issues To Support If You Call Yourself A  Feminist,"  by Noor Al-Sibai. From that article: "One of the biggest wake-up calls in the 2016 elections took place around the issue of class — while Bernie Sanders deftly spoke to the working classes, Hillary Clinton failed to do so , and that failure to appeal to members of the lower American classes likely contributed to her loss." I have lost count of the many opinion pieces that have been written about why Hillary Clinton lost the election.  Several of which believe that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren's critique of the Clinton campaign regarding Hillary's "not speaking to the working class" is  wrong.  So we have yet another opinion from a self-described feminist who in three sentences tells us that Bernie is good

Dear Founding Board Member: I knew from my very first board meeting that everyone walked on egg shells around you.  And when you spoke it was not necessarily with authority, but with an unkind smug attitude.  I think the word I'm looking for is strident.  You could be making the most inane statement, but somehow it would sound challenging and strident.   It was only after joining the board that I received comments from members of the community that you were one hell of a bitch.  Even other board members conceded that you were impossible to work with, but I just kept going like the Energizer bunny.  For six years, I kept "gunny sacking" all your pettiness; Silas Marner pecuniary, hatefulness and stonewalling of any new, modern ideas.  Keep in mind that it wasn't just you that was the problem.  You had your accomplices:  the passive-aggressive board members who talked incessantly about you behind your back, but left it to me to confront you;  the ones with personal ag

Whenever we are headed to a full moon, I suffer from insomnia.  As I tossed and turned last night, instead of counting sheep, I started thinking of all the Russians that I could name off the top of my head.   Let's see, there is Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Yeltsin, Gorbachev, Baryshnikov,  Nureyev, Yul Brynner, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Catherine the Great, Emperor of Russia and Anastasia.  Then my thoughts turned to the movies about Russia and the Soviet Union:  The Brothers Karamazov, Doctor Zhivago and thanks to TCM, Ninotchka with Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas as well as another Greta Garbo film, Anna Karenina.  There may be other names, books and films somewhere in the recesses of my brain, but I think I have listed enough to illustrate my point.  Of the few Russian leaders, authors, dancers, actors, etc. I can name, there is one category in which I can say with absolute certainly I do not have any names:  Russian ambassadors.  That was the case until last week   when sudden

The far right of the conservative movement is working very hard to turn back the clock.  Those good ole boys want to keep their women barefoot and pregnant, with their foot firmly planted on the necks of all women.   White men are feeling the pain, their confidence eroded and their manhood in question.  Can you believe a black man actually became president of these here United States?  Thank God, the Russians put a stop to putting that bitch in the White House.  For too long, white men whether privileged or not have been getting by, by the skin of their teeth.  Let's be clear,  women and people of color have had to perform at a much higher level than a white man.  Women have been trying to prove their worth for centuries.   Because of this imbalance, white men became sloppy, self-indulgent  and relied on their feeling of entitlement to get by.   But then they found a hero who could make it all better, change the landscape, take rights away from women, scapegoat all the minorities a

Seeing and hearing all the negative posts about the Women's March on Washington, I feel compelled to put my two-cents into the discussion. I made the decision to go to the march almost immediately after I heard about it. I wasn't going to see or hear any celebrities. I was going to be on the right side of history; to show my solidarity with women and the issues that directly affect our life; I walked for the future of all women and for the memory of the women who came before me that fought for my right to vote; I walked in memory of my grandmother who was told that since she was not the breadwinner she would not receive equal pay for equal work (remember the scene with Mary Tyler Moore and Lou Grant when she questioned why she wasn't making the same amount of money that the men were getting -- well that is pretty much exactly what went down with my Gram and the owner of the company she worked for); I walked to protest the election of a man completely unqualified for t