What if it never really ends, just recedes?
Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years and proved so willing to parrot anti-western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow, a former KGB spy has told the Guardian.
Rough winter weather is working its way across the United States, with bitterly cold air hitting the Northeast and snowstorms expected along the East Coast next week.
Forecasts predict Chicago can expect several inches of snow. Six to eight inches of snow could fall along the I-95 corridor from Washington through New York and up to Boston on Monday and Tuesday https://www.nytimes.com/2021/
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YAMHILL, Ore. — This is an open letter to some of my old friends and neighbors who believe that Donald Trump won re-election, who think that face masks are for wimps and who fear that Democrats are plotting to seize their freedom.
Dear friends and neighbors,
Relax! We liberals aren’t plotting to round you up in “re-education camps.”
It’s getting tougher, if not downright impossible, to walk into a Publix store in Florida without feeling repulsed by the company’s partisan politics.
The powers that be have turned grocery shopping at the popular chain into a necessary chore that feels oh so slimy (if you have a conscience, that is).
It’s not just about the titillating revelation that the Publix-generated wealth of a seditious heiress funded the Trump rally that turned into a deadly attempt at a coup d’état that put our democracy to the test.
Florida’s COVID vaccine rollout is more like a flaming ant farm, only less organized.
Day after day, millions of exasperated seniors armed with laptops, cell phones, iPads and tech-savvy grandchildren try to penetrate swamped local websites that fleetingly offer appointments.
Meanwhile, in the blue-sky parallel universe accessible only to the mind of Gov. Ron DeSantis, the state’s distribution networks are humming along like well-oiled machines. The only problem is a shortage of vaccines.
Gate A-4 By Naomi Shihab Nye:
Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement: “If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.” Well— one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. “Help,” said the flight agent. “Talk to her . What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”
I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly. “Shu-dow-a, shu-bid-uck, habibti? Stani schway, min fadlick, shu-bit-se-wee?” The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day. I said, “No, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late, who is picking you up? Let’s call him.”
We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.
She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life, patting my knee, answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies— little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts— from her bag and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single traveler declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo— we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.
Then the airline broke out free apple juice and two little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they were covered with powdered sugar too. And I noticed my new best friend— by now we were holding hands— had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that gate— once the crying of confusion stopped— seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.
Don't get too excited, but today is the deadpan comedian's 59th birthday.
1. It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it.
2. I almost broke both my arms trying to hold open a revolving door for a woman.
3. I got a new dog. He’s a paranoid retriever. He brings back everything because he’s not sure what I threw him.
4. Every morning I get up and make instant coffee and I drink it so I have the energy to make real coffee.
5. Woke up this morning and folded my bed back into a couch. Almost broke both my arms cause it’s not that kind of bed.
6. I’m going to get a tattoo over my whole body of me but taller.
7. I went to a tourist information booth and said "tell me about some people who were here last year."
8. I’ve been getting into astronomy so I installed a skylight. The people who live above me are furious.
9. Why is it a penny for your thoughts but you have to put your two cents in? Somebody’s making a penny.
10. I broke a mirror in my house and I’m supposed to get seven years bad luck, but my lawyer thinks he can get me five.
11. When I get real real bored I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if I’m leaving.
12. I spilled spot remover on my dog and now he’s gone.
13. I’m writing a book. I have the page numbers done; now I just have to fill in the rest.
14. When we were driving over the border back into the United States, they asked me if I had any firearms. I said what do you need?
15. I've written several children's books ... Not on purpose.
16. I called the wrong number today. I said “Hello, is Joey there?” A woman answered and she said “yes he is.” And I said ‘can I speak to him please?’ She said ‘no, he can’t talk right now, he’s only two months old.” I said “alright, I’ll wait.”
17. I went to a place to eat. It said "breakfast at any time." So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.
18. We lived in a house that ran on static electricity. If we wanted to cook something, we had to take a sweater off real quick. If we wanted to run a blender we had to rub balloons on our heads.
19. I stayed up one night playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.
20. I was Caesarean born. Can’t really tell, although whenever I leave a house I go through the window.
Late in the night, he finally regained consciousness.
He was in the hospital, in terrible pain.
He found himself in the ICU with tubes in his mouth, needles and IV drips in
both arms, a breathing mask, wires monitoring every function, and a nurse
hovering over him. He realized that he was obviously in a life-threatening
situation.
The nurse gave him a serious, deep look, straight into his eyes, then spoke
to him slowly and clearly, enunciating each word and syllable, "You may not
feel anything from the waist down."
Somehow he managed to mumble in reply, "Can I feel your boobs, then?"
AND THAT, MY FRIEND, IS A POSITIVE ATTITUDE!!!
