Tag Archive | seeing truth clearly

Courage

Feb10
Leftovers: a crabcake smashed into a cheese and avocado sandwich.

I’m grateful today for courage. Not mine, but the courage of the many voices being raised in the independent news and opinion sphere about the recklessly biased coverage of the two presumptive candidates for president this coming November. Once again, mainstream media is following the lead of rightwing so-called ‘news’ like Fox propaganda, by trumpeting the grandiose theatrics of the former narcissist-in-chief while ignoring his daily distortions, lies, and cognitive failures; at the same time, pouncing like a starving cat on a single mixup by an accomplished and proven statesman who cares more about Americans than about his own ego, and more about the planet than his own profit.

The New York Times and The Washington Post, among other infotainment outlets, won the 2016 election for Trump with their free nonstop promotions, and seem on track to do the same thing again in 2024. Their recent egregiously skewed coverage of the biased Hur report and their relentless attacks on President Biden for his age and occasional mistakes is unfathomable. I can’t say anything about it nearly as well as courageous writers like Robert Hubbell in Today’s Edition:

“Perhaps voters don’t question Trump’s sharpness despite more frequent and serious misstatements because the NYTimes devotes an inordinate amount of coverage to Biden’s missteps but hardly mentions Trump’s. The Times creates the dominant narrative and then claims it doesn’t have to report on the counter-narrative because voters aren’t interested in it! What arrogance!

Within the 24-hour window of the NYTimes raking Biden over the coals, the following Republicans misspoke but the Times reacted with indifference:

  • “An hour after Biden says the President of Egypt is the President of Mexico Trump says the Prime Minister of Hungary, [Viktor Orban] is the President of Turkey”—a repeated mistake by Trump on the campaign trail.
  • Speaker Mike Johnson confused the countries of Iran and Israel in an interview on Fox News, saying that the US has already “funded Iran” in the existing US budget—a mistake viewed as slanderous by the tens of millions of citizens in both countries.
  • Fox News infotainer posing as a journalist Jesse Watters introduced South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as the “South Carolina Governor.”

Another daily voice for sanity is Jessica Craven, who shared in her newsletter yesterday her letter to the NYT editorial board. A bonus with her newsletter is a weekly dose of good news which celebrates political, environmental, and social justice victories in the previous week, of which there are many. Here’s an excerpt of her letter to the Times:

“What can the New York Times be thinking? Trump shows clear signs of cognitive impairment. You regularly give him a pass. President Biden is considered by all who’ve interacted with him—including his political enemies—to be sharp and capable. The Hur report was written by a former Trump associate; it was a political hit piece and the Times bought into it with zero journalistic scrutiny. 

I have to ask again, do your editors WANT a Trump presidency? Because that’s what your misleading, biased, and hysterically one-sided coverage will bring us. 

History will not be kind to the Times for its relentless attacks on the one man capable of saving us from dictatorship. Shame on you.”

As agitated as I am by the unraveling political coverage, I still make sure that I appreciate the simple pleasures in life, taking time to enjoy a simple, delicious lunch: homemade sourdough toast with ‘fromage fort’ and avocado, salt, pepper, and a sprinkle of homemade paprika. We have to nurture and take care of ourselves, and find joy in our lives, in order to have the strength and resilience to rise to the demands of our current crises, be they personal, local, national, or global.

If you feel discouraged by the media narratives that are shaping the opinions of Americans, then take some action to shape the media narratives. Write to the papers or networks you follow, share your outrage on social media, use your right to free speech, and speak truth not only to power but to the media that seems to control it. Join one of the thousands of grassroots political organizations that sprang up during the Trump regime to fight his agenda of power and tax cuts for the wealthy, stepping up the rape of the planet, racism, antisemitism, white male supremacy, and oppression of minorities of all kinds. Subscribe to Hubbell’s and Craven’s newsletters, they tell us how to fight this fight every single day. If we don’t beat Trump at the ballot box in November or legitimately stop his campaign before that, we are in for a worse nightmare than you can imagine.

But as Hubbell often says, we’ve beaten him and his agenda in almost every election since 2016, from special elections to midterms and the 2020 presidential election; we can do it again. “We have every reason to be hopeful, but no reason to be complacent!”

Truth

Jul21

The most riveting TV drama of the summer is paused now until September. It’s not the kind of thing I normally would have watched, but after the first episode I was hooked. I’ve watched all but one of the January 6 hearings in their entirety, and only missed half of one because it overlapped with Boyz Lunch. I’m grateful that the final hearing of the first set occurred this evening, so that I could enjoy lunch without distraction, and focus on the hearing without distraction also. I’m grateful for truth in general, and I’m grateful for the committee’s lucid, compelling, and relentless reveal of the truth of that devastating day. I’m grateful that this truth remains public record, that all the hearings are available to watch on the committee’s website.

I’m grateful that Wren is getting more comfortable with company.

I mentioned an upcoming hearing to a friend a couple of weeks ago, and someone else on the zoom referred to it as “another nothing burger in the witch hunt.” I’m flabbergasted that anyone can think like that. Especially after today’s hearing, in which a truth that was already crystal clear was made even more strikingly irrefutable. I have no more words. See for yourself. Trump must never return to power, and his followers must come to understand that he lied to and betrayed them from the beginning. I hope the tide turns soon; when it finally does, it may be a tsunami.

I’m also grateful for another Top 5 Boyz Lunch, and the overwhelming success of the twice-baked pizza. I’m grateful for green salad, homemade peppercorn dressing, and a 7-Up cake that mostly held together even though I ejected it from the pan a little too soon. It was a big hit with the fellas, “the best ever.” That’s a high recommendation to make it again, especially since it was so easy. I’ll have to do a little research about the physics of baking this particular kind of cake, leavened only with 7-Up, at high altitude. It needed about twenty minutes longer than the recipe suggested, and maybe should have baked at either a higher or lower temperature to keep a portion from falling.

Inauguration

Jan20
I Can See Clearly Now

Like at least a hundred million other Americans, I’m grateful today for the new President and Vice President of these United States of America.

President Biden is not a flawless human being. Vice President Harris is not a flawless human being. They are both bound to make some mistakes, and I’m sure they’ll take some decisions I’ll disagree with. However, they each have more integrity in their little finger than their predecessors.

Truth matters a lot to me; it’s one of my highest values. I strive for honesty in my every interaction, and even in my thoughts. Biden’s words today made my heart rejoice: “There is truth and there are lies, lies told for power and for profit. And each of us has a duty and responsibility, as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders, leaders who have pledged to honor our Constitution and protect our nation, to defend the truth and defeat the lies.”

Like many people I know, there was some anxiety around an outdoor inauguration. Several friends have expressed today their relief that there was no kerfuffle. We’re all grateful for that! Although when you have to give thanks that no one was shot during ‘the peaceful transfer of power,’ it remains something of a dark day. May we settle in to a brighter future for our country, for Americans suffering from the pandemic and all its fallout, from years of gaslighting and all that fallout, from racial, social, economic, and medical injustice, and from decades of eco-anxiety, all stirred up by the toxic hurricane and wildfire lies of the past administration.

As former President Barack Obama said last fall, “If we do not have the capacity to distinguish what’s true from what’s false, then by definition the marketplace of ideas doesn’t work. And by definition our democracy doesn’t work.”

Let us all learn to see truth clearly. Going forward, let us shop in the marketplace of ideas walking and talking in the sunshine of truth.