Quote of the Day -- Sunday Edition

Response Number One to Trump's Attack On the People of Puerto Rico Today

From reporter, writer, Dan Rather, today:

Excuse me, Mr. President but your tantrum tweet storm this morning attacking the mayor of San Juan, a fellow American citizen dealing with a real-time life and death struggle for hundreds of thousands of her constituents on an island of millions in crisis, is not only far below the dignity of the office you hold. It fails even the most basic test of humanity.

Did she have harsh words for your Administration's response to the aftermath of Hurricane Maria? Yes. It's called a reality check, and one that conforms to every firsthand account coming out of Puerto Rico no matter how much you try to deflect with your "Fake News" epithets. To take this personally is to put ego before country. And you also blame the Puerto Ricans themselves? That they want "everything done for them"? No. They just expect to be treated as any other American would.

I have seen more than my share of wretched desperation over the course of my career. I have reported from crisis zones where matters of life and death hang moment to moment in the balance between action and inaction, where communication is limited, and the sense of panic is building. I have seen the most steadfast of leaders feel the crushing weight of responsibility as they survey a landscape of almost incomprehensible need.

It does not take a saintly amount of compassion or empathy to feel for those who are struggling to stay alive, who are worried for the fate of family and friends, and who have seen so much that they have known and loved blown and washed away. You swore to "faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States" and that means a responsibility to look out for all Americans, even if they live on an island in the ocean, or look different or even speak a different language than what you think is America.

I worry that whoever has your ear has not adequately impressed upon you the gravity of this situation, or even the political price you are likely to pay (although that can be no where near the top concern at the moment). Or perhaps you have been told and haven't listened.

Regardless, what Puerto Rico needs now is not rhetoric but help, not a bumbling response, but the precision and competence we expect of our government. I do not believe "blame the victim" is what Americans expect of their president.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump can't be bothered. He's off at his New Jersey property today, this weekend.

Golfing.

Donald Trump, USA President, Today

From former NPR reporter Jacki Lyden today, from her Facebook page.

What did you do with your morning?

Kiss the kids, hug the spouse, walk the dog, pour coffee for the friend, chat to the neighbor?

Phone abroad, pull a weed?

In some way, be glad you were alive?

The leader of the free world (I’m fairly certain) did none of that.

In a 15-tweet-tweetstorm, the day before a UN roll-out, amid N Korea threats and Prez Taunts (now we’re down to taunts like Rocket Man) and post-Irma & Harvey, he woke up with tweet indigestion.

He put misogyny into the mix, re-tweeting from an anti-Semitic account fantasizing that this oaf could possibly swing a golf club hard enough to Hillary Clinton in the back, without getting a hernia. The meme splices in a clip of Clinton visiting Yemen.

Jealousy over Clinton's book reception likely triggered it (as well as raging jealousy over her accomplishments as a female Secretary of State-- (heaven help Ivanka) but -- racism and misogyny and paternalism/white supremacy are absolutely at the core of Donald Trump's id. (I would never reflect on the state of his soul. That remains to be developed.)

Every single day, Americans who worry about the myriad obliques and angles threatening modern life, must additionally worry that this unstable man will further undermine what remains of our democracy, society, and civility.

Every hour.

Columnists write columns about their rising blood pressure (see Dana Milbank, "Trump is Killing Me).

The best antidote, of course, is to prevail with those principles Trump cannot affect -- morality, civility, decency, and courage. It's not about "moving past" Trump's latest outrage -- it's burned into our psyches already. Short of removing this completely unfit human from public office, we must do all we can to hang on to our own characters, which are, of course, already going to be tested by the ungrateful kid, horrid neighbor, food poisoning and dog that bites. 

My point being that life is a series of intended and unintended feints and parries, an equilibrium forever poised on the precipice of eclipse, but with this president we can count on poison and only on poison. 

There are no legislative political accomplishments, and of course, he is politically impotent. 

And knows it. 

Remember we need health care, mental health parity, community need, a fight against ethnic cleansing, fairness for the the frail amongst us, an environment and planet health we must improve. 

Perhaps the test for us is that in addition to never overlooking his sickness--for he is a sick man, very sick--we must expand our empathy gene in direct opposition to Trump’s failure to affect anything except hatred. 

We must speak out. 

That to me is indeed but one good reason to get up in the morning and carry on-- because someone this sick and desperate can make everyone a little more sick and desperate and would revel in doing so if it made him feel powerful. 

There is no moral compass there, just an id. 

So onward friends, in the engagement of your best self, best talents, best friends, best heart. We struggle, but at least, we struggle together.

Links:

Jacki Lyden

President Trump is killing me. Really

Missouri, the Death Penalty and the Shame it Brings on the State

It seems Missouri hit the New York Times today. Unfortunately, as is so frequently and repeatedly happens lately for Missouri and Kansas, lots of "red", Republican, Right Wing states and even the nation, it's not for anything good. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Just now, Missouri is scheduling the death penalty for this March 17 for a citizen who is 74 years old, who had horrible brain damage and loss, years ago and who now has an IQ of 71, it's reported:

Lawyers Seek Reprieve for Killer Who Lost Part of His Brain Decades Earlier

If ever there were a case of "extenuating circumstances", surely it seems this would be the one. Some of the facts:

In January 1972, Cecil Clayton was cutting wood at his family’s sawmill in southeastern Missouri when a piece of lumber flew off the circular saw blade and struck him in the forehead. The impact caved in part of Mr. Clayton’s skull, driving bone fragments into his brain.

Doctors saved his life, but in doing so had to remove 20 percent of his frontal lobe, which psychiatrists say led Mr. Clayton to be tormented for years by violent impulses, schizophrenia and extreme paranoia. In 1996, his lawyers say, those impulses drove Mr. Clayton to kill a law enforcement officer.

Lawyers for Mr. Clayton, who has an I.Q. of 71, say he should be spared because his injury has made it impossible for him to grasp the significance of his death sentence, scheduled for March 17.

“There was a profound change in him that he doesn’t understand, and neither did his family,” said Elizabeth Unger Carlyle, one of Mr. Clayton’s lawyers.

But wait, it gets worse:

Mr. Clayton is missing about 7.7 percent of his brain.

“If you can prove mental retardation, you can get exempted, but mental illness alone is not an exemption to the death penalty,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

What anyone evaluating this situation needs to understand is what the frontal lobe is responsible for in we humans: "...the part of the brain involved in impulse control, problem solving and social behavior..."

With all this information, it might seem as though the courts and state might take all this into consideration and waive the death penalty for Mr. Clayton.

But you'd be mistaken.

The conviction and death sentence have been upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. His lawyers are now seeking a competency hearing for Mr. Clayton to determine whether he understands his circumstances.

And this is where we stand now with this case:

In a court filing last month, Missouri’s attorney general, Chris Koster, wrote that Dr. Reynolds had “found Clayton’s comments concerning the emotional stress that the threat of execution is causing him are evidence that on a visceral as well as cognitive level, Clayton understands his potential fate.”

And if that's not enough, there's still more,

In Mr. Clayton’s case, two years after the sawmill accident, he checked himself into a mental hospital for 15 months because he feared he could no longer control his temper. After his release, Mr. Clayton decided that he could no longer perform the work required at the sawmill, and instead took a job as a police officer in Purdy, Mo. He quit after nine months.

“He was so unsure of himself and worried about his judgment to the point that he felt he should not be in a position of responsibility,” according to a 2001 filing by his lawyers to the Missouri State Supreme Court.

In 1983, Dr. Douglas Stevens, a psychiatrist, wrote an evaluation about Mr. Clayton that proved prophetic.

“There is presently no way that this man could be expected to function in the world of work,” Dr. Stevens wrote. “Were he pushed to do so he would become a danger both to himself and to others. He has had both suicidal and homicidal impulses, so far controlled, though under pressure they would be expected to exacerbate.”

Surely we Missourians are better, smarter and more empathetic to another soul's situation than to allow this execution go forward.  Surely we're better Christians or Jews or Muslims or atheists or whatever. Surely we're better humans than to go through with this.

Surely.

Quote of the day

Quote of the day -- Sunday Edition

Quote of the day -- on speaking up

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On the importance of empathy and understanding

Quote of the day--on life

Sunday thought

Who would Jesus help?

"Compassionate Conservatism" redux (guest quote)

"Today Mitt Romney is in Ohio, telling anyone who'll listen that his heart bleeds for the unemployed. Apparently "compassionate conservatism" is back -- at least rhetorically. But note that Romney isn't in favor of extending unemployment benefits. He doesn't want to provide food stamps or housing benefits for families that have fallen into poverty.

He doesn't want medical care for these families -- to the contrary, he wants to repeal Obamacare. He doesn't worry that Wall Street financiers -- including his own Bain Capital -- have put so much pressure on companies for short-term profits that they're still laying off workers and reluctant to take on any more. And he doesn't want government to spend money repairing our crumbling infrastructure, rebuilding our schools, or rehiring police and firefighters and teachers.

Romney may care about the unemployed but his policy prescriptions would create more unemployed.

He wants to cut taxes on people like himself -- in the belief that the rich create jobs, and the benefits of such a tax cut trickle down to everyone else.

That isn't true. George W. Bush cut taxes -- mostly for the wealthy -- and we ended up with fewer jobs, lower wages, and an economy that fell off a cliff in 2008."

--Robert Reich, American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997.

Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us.

Links: https://www.facebook.com/RBReich

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Reich

Quote of the day, Sunday edition

"True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring." --Martin Luther King, Jr., civil-rights leader (1929-1968)"

World AIDS Day--two local events tomorrow

The United Nations has proclaimed “Getting to Zero” as the campaign theme of World AIDS Day 2011. To mark the occasion, the AIDS Service Foundation of Greater Kansas City will host two public events. The first event is a Community Luncheon on Thursday, December 1, 11:30 am to 1:00 pm at the Kauffman Foundation Conference Center, 4801 Rockhill Road, Kansas City, Missouri. Limited seats remain at the Luncheon and Reservations are required to attend. To inquire on remaining seats, please email michael@lintecumgroup.com or call 816-931-0959. The second event is a World AIDS Day Reception at the Burstert Studio, 122 Southwest Boulevard, Kansas City, Missouri from 5:30 pm to 7:30 p.m. A donation of $50 at the door is requested. You may purchase tickets to the Reception on event night at the door. More than 1.1 million people are currently living with HIV/AIDS in the United States. In Kansas City alone over 5,700 people living with HIV/AIDS — 700 of them young people between the ages 13 and 24. Financial support of the World AIDS Day events will help provide prevention, treatment, shelter and the message of empowerment for those that need it most in Kansas City. Link: http://www.asfkc.org/

Quote of the day

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive. --Dalai Lama

Quote of the day--on living

"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us "universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."  --Albert Einstein

Quote of the day

"The heart is what matters most of all."  --Kris Kristofferson  (Yeah, tough guy Kris Kristofferson.  Go figure.)


Enjoy your Sunday, y'all.

Quote of the day

"Believe in yourself and believe in love.  Love something.  We've got to learn to love something deeply."  --Andrew Wyeth, quoted in the book "Wisdom" by Andrew Zuckerman.

(Go, get this book.  It's inexpensive but good.)

Have a great weekend, y'all.

A different entry today

 

One of few times, if ever, my entry for the day--my message--is a photograph of mine and not prose.

Ronnie is a friend of mine, of a sort, honestly, and I occasionally have shot pictures of him or his things. You may have seen them if you ever saw my other, photography blog: www.kcphotogblog.blogspot.com.

I was just putting this up on that photo blog under the heading "Ronnie's bedroom and closet", when it occurred to me it would be very appropriate here, as well, today.

I think it can speak volumes to us, if we care to look.

If I were a better photographer, you could read that the sign says "No Loitering".

Try to have a good weekend, y'all.

Think mankind is unique?

Think mankind is the only life form that can and does show compassion?

Think again.

What's really great, too, is that this came to me on the anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth.

We think--or some of us used to--we are so "above" or removed from the animal kingdom and that we are so superior to them.

Right.


More to come in this series.