ECONOMICS

I do not profess to know as much as I should. My colleague, who knows a lot, has already told me the Trump presidency will force her to work a few more years, and she is now already past 65. Our pensions will suffer, she has told me, and I believe her. In Friday's NYT, Stephen Ratner, a Wall Street economist, has said TRUMP Economics: FIRST: DO HARM. Interest rates on treasuries have already risen.The Affordable Health Act-gone-but what will it be replaced with-Medicare. Where is the money coming from? He will not tax the rich, since many of those are his core voters. Do not forget, he has not paid taxes for how many years? And then he quotes: "Mr Trump's single issue was immigration, where he promised deportation. Immigrants, including undocumented workers, play an important role in our economy, doing jobs that many native born won't, and PAYING TAXES. His deportation plan will cost four hundred to six hundred billion."

Aside from the clear and apparent DAMAGE he is doing to our economy, I want to ask his voters: were you a child or grandchild of an immigrant? What if post War-War II-or after the Russian programs-your family was told there was no room for you on American shores? That was, after all, the LASKIN legacy. My grandpa Sol, bless his soul, was a Zionist and a Socialist.

But my grandfather was lucky, that the world was a kinder, more compassionate place then. Now? If not for my very wonderful immediate family, I would leave this country. My money would be better served somewhere else.

Thoughts for the Horrified: Paul Krugman: NYT, November 11th, 2016

I am horrified. I am mortified. I am crying. And Paul Krugman is saying so much of what I believe that this emperor is SO NAKED. And so I quote: "Remember, that elections determine who gets the power, not who offers the truth. The Trump campaign was unprecedented in its dishonesty; the fact that the lies didn't exact a political price, that they even resonated with a large bloc of votes doesn't make them any less false. No, our inner cities aren't war zones with record crime. No, we are not in the highest taxed nation in the world. No, climate change isn't a hoax promoted by the Chinese. Once you get past the lies, everyone has to face up to the unpleasant reality that a Trump administration will do immense damage to America and the world."

I am terrified, and I do not need Paul Krugman to tell me, for example, the climate damage a Trump administration may spell out may be irreversible. And the supreme court. And the way we are seen in the world.

I am mortified, embarrassed and depressed. I continue to wear a safety-pin to indicate a nationwide appeal-You are pinned, in safety, to like-minded people. This is not about race, class or economics. It is about VALUES. If yours are mine, I am with you all the way!

Never doubt...

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Presidential Nominee, 2016

"Never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue your dreams."

Ella, the world is your oyster. Dream on; your family will support you and support a better world for you!

Proud Mama and the ACLU

Guess where my daughter is working this summer? THE ACLU. Guess who took out a full-page ad in the NYT on November 11th? The ACLU. So proud of her and her commitment to social justice. So proud of my children, period, for what they are about. So proud of this organization. So they have said, in the ad, all of Trump's promises: to amass a deportation force to remove 11 million undocumented immigrants to ban the entry of Muslims and to institute aggressive surveillance programs targeting them; to restrict the right for a woman to have an abortion; to reauthorize water boarding and other forms of torture; to change the nation's libel laws and restrict freedom of expression, are un-American, wrong-headed and-more importantly, unlawful and unconstitutional. ACLU will fight them and so will the many people in this great nation who still believe that human life and law is sacred.

What is Your Moral Compass?

Everyone has to have one. When you go to sleep at night, you have to think, what have I done to make the world a better place? This means that you have to have inner convictions. The statement resonates: If you stand for nothing, you fall for everything.

My daughter asks: How could a woman vote for Trump? That is a conviction. In our discussion what emerges is it is not okay to denigrate women and grope them for recreational leisure. No one should behave this way. And now, this is our president.

The issue runs deeper. What about denigrating others? When my children were little, if they bad-mouthed people or attempted to bully, they were punished. I had higher expectations for them. I expected for them to become moral citizens of the world, which they have become. The debates were a mockery of civil behavior, when Trump started discussing the size of people's hands.

Yes, what if the president of your country is not civil?  What is he has a son who compares immigrants to Skittles? Then what? I have heard elementary school students crying because their president is a mean man. "Will he get punished, Mommy?" a young boy asks his mother, my colleague. And the answer is no-no consequences. How can that be? My grief is about my naive assumption that there are HUGE consequences for bad behavior. Religious leaders-the pope-has reiterated people just don't speak that way; no one does, no one should.

Or perhaps, others do, and Trump has given license to an amoral world, where it is okay to speak language which incites. The consequence? Getting elected to a presidential office-a narcissist's dream of power. And half our country put him in this place. CONVICTIONS? MORAL COMPASS? 

Tell that to your children when you put them to sleep at night, then look yourself in the mirror.

Baltimore

Went to Baltimore to a friend's wedding and spent a few days seeing the city. Wow! The architecture was just spectacular. I saw brownstones the likes of which I had never seen before. We visited the aquarium, which I would say rivals the one in Boston, and I could not believe how mesmerized I was by the fish. We walked miles, passing John Hopkins University-a spectacle in itself, and finally landing at the Baltimore Museum of Art, where we saw an amazing exhibit: The work of Matisse and Diebenkorn, an American artist inspired by Matisse. Such a wonderful weekend in so many ways, including the wedding, which I will write about next.

Ghost by Jason Reynolds
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Just finished the most spectacular middle-grade fiction, GHOST by Jason Reynolds, nominated as a National Book Award finalist. It is a book about running, but running as in the metaphor of "running away from." GHOST, whose real name is Castle Crenshaw, ends up on the track team, since the coach spots an extraordinary talent in the young boy who faces challenges in school and in life. With his Dad in jail, he harbors a frightening secret, which manifests itself in unbridled anger. His coach recognizes Ghost's rage, but also something else-desire-to shed his secrets, to belong, to be freed up from the "baggage" which haunts him. Told in gritty, authentic diction, GHOST promises to cut to the chase with a voice at once sparking and always wholly real!


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