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Day 1044

11/30/2019

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ANXIOUS & SCARED ABOUT 2020? DON'T BE. IT'S OUR BIG CHANCE TO CHANGE HISTORY

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   In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.
   -  John F. Kennedy, from his inaugural speech, Jan. 20, 1961
YOU’RE SCARED. Bewildered. Discouraged. And very likely, you're very ticked off.  
   This means that you are either one or the other: A Democrat or a dog.
   I’m both, so maybe I can help my fellow Democrats get through their dark hours of despair.
   You ask: How can a dog possibly comfort a Democrat? Can a mere hound assure them that in the morning, they'll  realize that terrible nightmare – the recurring one about Donald J. Trump winning a second term – was just a silly, laughable dream?
   Ha. Hah ha. Ha hah. Ha HAH!
   Sorry, Democrats, it's no dream. And no joke. The Trumpster is holding steady in the polls, maybe gaining. His Hive-Cult voters may have an outsized impact thanks to the blunder the Founders committed when they concocted the Electoral College.
   In contrast, consider the Democrats: How many  charismatic, sure-bet, can't-fail marquee superstars can they put up against Trump?  You know the answer: Zero. As in 0.
   Go ahead and say it: Phoebe, you’re just a dog; dogs don't talk; dogs don't type; dogs don't know anything. Ergo: be a good girl and get lost.
   And I say: You sniveling, scared, cowering bunch of self-pitying Democrats, stop whining and quit your obsessive worrying and hand-wringing, and please, please stop believing everything that the polls and the pundits are telling you about your failures and mistakes.
   Instead, look at the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity we've landed: a chance to save both Democracy and the World.

 THINK OF IT.
   Our country is right on the edge – teetering between oblivion and resurrection.
   Meaning it's the best time in memory – maybe in all history – to be a liberal, a progressive, a reformer with a chance to actually do something big, something more important than learning the third and fourth verses to a folk song.
   Donald Trump is the embodiment of absolute evil.
   Everything he does violates what most people believe in and strive to be. He’s mean. He’s racist. He’s anti-immigration and pro-Russian. He’s a polluter and a serial liar, who hates science, education, the arts and history. Trump is scared of dogs, like when he ordered Conan, the warrior dog that helped bring down an ISIS leader, to come to the White House for a photo-op. Trump kept his distance, assigning Veep Mike Pence, his personal poodle, the dangerous job of patting Conan on the head.
   Could there be a better candidate to run against?

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CREDIT: The White House. Screenshot from YouTube video
   Our major challenge, of course, is heading off environmental disaster. We’ve got 10 years before the gasses - caused by the way we live and how we power our economy - deliver every catastrophe mentioned in the Bible: fire, flood and famine, with maybe a few billion toads tossed in as a bonus.
   Does it get any better than this?
   In the Great Election of 2020, we have a chance not only to vanquish The Bad Man, but to rescue an entire Planet.

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WHY AREN’T DEMOCRATS EXCITED?
   Boo-hoo. Trump’s got his base: zombie goons in the South, obedient Robo-Senators in the "Upper Chamber," and over at the High Court, a couple of fellow sex offenders. Meanwhile, all sorts of opportunists are playing the art of the deal, angling to feast on more tax breaks and to wangle exemptions from safety regulations, even as criminals -- military and civilian alike - come crawling, hoping to pick up a pardon or two.
  What can Democrats offer?
   A cast of candidates, whom, we're told, are either too liberal or too bland;  too rich or too young; too unknown or too past their shelf lives. Candidates with last names that are too hard to pronounce or spell, or who have racked up too many candles on their birthday cakes. Candidates who are too white, too rich, too black, too gay, too girly or too manly. And overall, there are just too many candidates.
   So Phoebe, the Democrats ask, what did we do to deserve this?
   I have no answer. Like you said, I’m just a dog.
   Maybe it’s just the way the cookie crumbles.
   Maybe America was never as perfect as we imagined. Maybe we got too fat, lazy and spoiled, taking democracy for granted when it’s actually a work in progress, always in need of protection from forces that are constantly on the prowl, looking for ways to destroy it.
   To be fair, Democrats truly have suffered an ungodly series of disappointments.
   Every time it looked like Trump was a goner, he kept going with his no-consequences shooting spree on Fifth Avenue.
   Dogs know what it’s like to be disappointed.
   You hope a piece of meat will fall off the kitchen table, that you’ll be invited for a ride in the car, that the Humans will leave the bedroom door open so you can sack out on the big bed. Lots of things don’t work out.
   But if a dog wallows in despair, she’ll miss her big chance.
   Let's say a dog is hauled to the pound as a stray. Because she has this poor-me, hang-dog attitude, she forgets to wag her tail and to make goo-goo eyes at the nice lady with a nice home to offer, but who who keeps on walking right past her cage.

I BEGAN THIS POST with something from a nearly 60-year-old inaugural speech, which probably was written by someone other than the guy who delivered it. The man who made the speech was a genuine war hero, with great hair, a quick wit and a long list of flaws.
   John Kennedy cheated on his wife, nearly started a nuclear war, advanced the Vietnam "conflict," seemed halfhearted about civil rights, couldn’t get Congress to do much and suggested we go to the moon to expand our horizons, when all he wanted was to scare the bejeezus out of the Commies.
     Still, Jack Kennedy genuinely inspired lots of Americans to do lots of great things, and after he was gone, we really did dance on the moon.
     Those lines Kennedy delivered in the last century apply just as much to us in our  century.   “… only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.”
    Democrats, stop sulking and start fighting. There’s no perfect candidate waiting to be discovered: she doesn’t exist, neither does he. But any Democrat on our big stage will be a terrific president, not just compared to Donald Trump, but because they're part of a talented, decent and capable group.
   Let’s consider ourselves the luckiest generation, the one that's been presented with a onetime chance to rescue democracy and save a planet.
   Does it get any better than that?

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Day 1038

11/24/2019

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hOW COULD YOU, ALISON KRAUSS, ACCEPT TRUMP'S MEDAL - AND BREAK OUR HEARTS?

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CAT AND I HAVE LONG BEEN TROUBLED by people who get together with Donald Trump when their official duties don’t require them to.
   (Okay, I’m still referring to Cat as if he were here; it takes time to remember that he’s gone – that he’s dead, if you want to be harsh about it).
   So I was devastated when I heard that Alison Krauss was among artists who went to the White House to receive national arts and humanities medals.
   Alison Krauss has been in the air I breathe since I landed in Newport, R.I., at the home of Our Humans, The Nice One and The Grouchy One, and now she’s part of my soul.
   I acknowledge that people generally don’t think dogs know anything about music, to say nothing of whether we have souls. So let's move on.
   Alison Krauss’ voice is often described, accurately, by a cliché: as the voice of an angel.
   Of course, there’s the question of whether there actually are angels. I’m hoping Cat, now that he’s in a position to know, will clear that up when he phones in. He hasn’t called yet, but I figure he’s only been gone for 10 days, and there’s a million things to do when entering Heaven: going to briefings and assemblies; plowing through rule books and manuals; getting cloud assignments; pairing with a mentor; socializing at the inevitable newcomer mixers. And Cat might not yet been issued his triple-camera iPhone 11 Pro (it IS Heaven after all), much less figured out how to use it.
   But if there are angels, then Alison Krauss is their star vocalist. She has a clear, gently piercing soprano that rewires your whole being; I’m in a trance whenever I hear her voice coming out the big living room speakers, and I’m always surprised that I’ve forgotten just how beautifully she sings.

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ALISON KRAUSS performing at the 2011 International Bluegrass Music Association Awards. CREDIT: Creative Commons, via Wikipedia
IF YOU'RE NOT SURE who Alison Krauss is, here's the short version:
   She was a musical prodigy at 5, when she started learning the violin; by 14 she was signed by Rounder Records, which released her “Too Late to Cry” album when she was 16.   Krauss is classified as a bluegrass musician – she’s a wicked fiddle player as well as a superb singer, whether by herself, as part of a duo or with a full band. But we’re still not finished with the clichés: she transcends her genre, which sets a lot of people’s teeth grinding,  and she connects with a far broader audience. As to where she belongs in the musical universe, Krauss has won 27 Grammy Awards, more than any woman on the Planet, and she ranks third among all-time Grammy winners.
   So why does Alison Krauss need another award, one presented by a psychopath, a bully, liar and thug, who is legally the 45th president of the United States, but otherwise is dangerous, a disgrace and unfit for the job.
   Why, Alison?
   Maybe Cat has already found out and will fill me in when he phones. But as a mortal, I cannot fathom it. I’m hurt, bewildered, and really, Alison, I’m really, really ticked off.

Don't believe that Alison Krauss has an angel's voice? Listen to this  and see if you're still a skeptic.
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TRUMP prepares to present a National Medal of Arts to Allison Krauss, Nov. 21. CREDIT: Screenshot from White House video posted on YouTube
SOME PEOPLE – cabinet secretaries, generals, White House correspondents, Congressional leaders and fast-food deliverers – have to meet with Trump; it’s their job. But nobody else needs to. Indeed, refusing will help short-circuit his egomaniacal, attention-seeking presidency.
   I think the New York Times columnist Charles Blow has stated the best guideline about deciding whether to take a meeting with Donald Trump.
   Writing soon after the 2016 election, but before Trump was inaugurated, Blow reported that Trump had gone to the Times’ offices to meet with that newspaper’s writers, editors and poohbahs:
    He (Trump) ended the meeting by saying: ‘I will say, The Times is, it’s a great, great American jewel. A world jewel. And I hope we can all get along well.
   Blow described his own viewpoint:  
   I will say proudly and happily that I was not present at this meeting. The very idea of sitting across the table from a demagogue who preyed on racial, ethnic and religious hostilities and treating him with decorum and social grace fills me with disgust, to the point of overflowing.
   Addressing Trump directly, Blow continued:
   Let me tell you here where I stand on your ‘I hope we can all get along,’ plea: Never. You are an aberration and abomination who is willing to do and say anything — no matter whom it aligns you with and whom it hurts — to satisfy your ambitions.
   Blow’s column is Old Testament in its fiery conviction, so hot you’d think he seared “Never” into a stone tablet:
  •    If you’ve just won World Series: Never.
  •    If your son or daughter has completed the requirements to be an Eagle Scout, and Trump offers to share some of the kid’s glory: Never.
  •    If you’re a Teacher of the Year: Never.
  •    If you’re a member of a garden club, a tourist, Rotarian, atheist, Westminster champion, environmentalist, CEO, nun, portable toilet installer, bridge player, race car driver, stamp collector, a major or petty thief: Never.
   Don’t be in the same room with someone who’s trashed the environment, demonized immigrants, promoted violence, lied nearly every day, bullied allies, praised dictators, suggested black members of Congress go “home,” tossed paper towels at flood victims, mocked disabled persons, phonied up weather maps and spent several months bullying the president of Ukraine into promising “investigations” Trumped hoped would smear a potential rival in the 2020 election; in return, he’d release U.S. military aid vital to Ukrainians fighting Russian interlopers.
   About that last part, Alison: at the very moment you were being “honored” in the East Room, impeachment hearings were concluding at the Capitol, as a national security expert and a foreign service diplomat were putting their careers and themselves in jeopardy by testifying  about Trump.
   It’s likely that those witnesses knew Trump will likely survive a Senate trial, since Republicans controlling that chamber do whatever Trump tells them. And yet, the witnesses were willing to defy Trump, for democracy’s sake.

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A NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER  covered the award ceremony and noted that Leon Botstein, president of Bard College as well as a symphony conductor, described the “awkward predicament” in which Trump placed you and other potential honorees: on the one hand, prospective honorees knew it’s important for the country to recognize its artists; on the other hand, they understood that receiving a medal from Trump is “an embarrassment.”
   The reporter also wrote about you, Alison, letting you off the hook too easily, I thought; but maybe that’s because, like me, she’s a fan.
   Her story said: In receiving her award, Ms. Krauss, who has won more Grammy Awards than any other female musician, seemed to embody the tension. She appeared to be polite to Mr. Trump, but also at times seemed to avoid his gaze.
   Please. I’ve watched the video that the White House uploaded to YouTube, and you can judge for yourself by clicking on this link.
   You seem perfectly comfortable, sitting next to the podium as Trump plays master of ceremonies. You look grateful, yet humble, modestly subordinating your own achievements to the privilege of being in such a special place.
   The White House plays a recording of “Down to the River to Pray,” which you made famous on the soundtrack of the film “O Brother, Where Art Thou,”  as Trump, a smirk on his face, sways slightly, as if he really cares the slightest about your music.
   The music dies down, and a man – accused by 27 women of abuses ranging from unwanted touching, forced kissing and rape – reaches over and actually shakes your hand. Later in the 26-minute ceremony, he drapes the ribbon and medal over your neck, and actually puts both hands on your arms.

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This is where I start barking furiously, baring my teeth, and I make a run straight for the lecher at the lectern.
   “Run, Alison, run!” I’m yelling between barks. “Get out of here. Nobody’s going to protect you. Not the Marine guards, not the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. They’ll do whatever Trumps wants. They’re scared of him. I’m scared of him. RUN, ALISON, RUN!”
   The video continues.  After Trump presents the medal, he and you stand side by side for a few seconds, so a White House photographer can get some official stills. You return to your seat while the ritual is repeated for others, including the actor, Jon Voight and mystery writer James Patterson.
   Why are they here? Voight’s a longtime Trump supporter. But why Patterson – coauthor with former President Clinton of a mystery book? Doesn’t Patterson know about the refugees and kids at the border, Trump’s re-poisoning of the air and water, his racial taunts?
   Why are you there?

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I MADE A CUSORY INTERNET SEARCH to see if Krauss has said why she accepted the medal, but reporters couldn’t reach her or a spokesperson. Krauss’ website, Facebook page and Twitter account make no mention of the award, just listing out-of-date concert appearances. And Trump’s Twitter account seems to make no mention of ceremony.
   It’s not hard to come up with reasons why an Alison Krauss would accept the award.
  •  The award is bestowed by the office of the president, not the man who happens to occupy it.
  •  Maybe Krauss was just curious – ‘What’s he really like?’
  •  Maybe she voted for Donald Trump.
   Whatever her reasons, Alison Krauss surely has the right to her medal. She’s been giving, giving, giving all during her childhood, adolescence and adult life. Now, at 48, she surely can do as she pleases without being hectored by her fans.
   Her fans, after all, have received exceptional value for their money. We’ve attended memorable concerts, stocked up on some the best albums ever recorded. For Heaven’s sake, she sang, and sang and sang so much – remember all those encores that we all screamed for – that for a while her vocal cords practically shut down. Alison Krauss lifted our souls, now let her be.

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 BUT I CAN'T LET IT GO. When Alison Krauss went to the White House at 4:09 p.m. on Nov. 21, she ignored the damage Trump has done to this country and its people. She ignored how he’s divided us, split families, splintered friendships, set immigrants against native born, turned black against white, red versus blue, North against South, so that it’s impossible for us to talk sensibly to each other. Come Thanksgiving Day this week, dining rooms in many homes will turn into war rooms.
   We cannot let him do this. Our families, our friendships, our neighbors are too important. We cannot let the fact that, because someone supports or opposes Donald Trump, it means they are no longer loved, respected and cherished.
   For my part, I don’t want to stop listening to Alison Krauss. As I was writing this, I got out some of her CDs and was surprised again how wonderful a singer she is and what she has meant to me, my Humans and to so many millions of others.
   And yet this challenge Americans are facing is no ordinary political moment. It’s the most perilous crisis of our lifetime. Democracy has been degraded, diminished and defiled. Imagine what he and his enablers will do in a second term.
   Now, I’m wondering what listening to an angel’s voice is doing to my soul and whether I should let her near it.
   I don’t have answers, except that I am shaken by what you did, Alison.
   You didn’t go to the White House by yourself.
   You also took my soul with you – and the souls of so many others – to an awful place.

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Day 1032

11/19/2019

1 Comment

 

CAT

   Dec. 29, 2004 – Nov. 14, 2019

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 Cat is dead.
   He’d been declining since summer, and most noticeably his back legs, and then the right front paw, betrayed him so often that he usually flopped over on his side several times on his way to his food dish. The Humans arranged a sort of stairway – a pillow, and a footstool – so he could lurch his way from the floor onto the couch. He steadily lost weight, and at the end, he was a scrawny 10 pounds, compared to his years-ago record of 18 plus.
   Last Thursday, The Grouchy One and The Nice One lowered Cat into his carrier and drove off. When they returned an hour-and-a-half later, the carrier was back, but Cat was not. To be fair, the Humans had invited me to say “goodbye” as they were leaving, but nobody ever sat down with me before or after to explain what was going on and how I might feel. I had to figure it l out by myself, and I still don’t know everything, except I’m here and Cat isn't.
   On these kinds of occasions, it's traditional to say a lot of things that aren't true about the one who isn't here, usually along the lines of how generous, what an incredible genius, yet humble, kind, funny, loyal and saintly being he was.
   This is not going to happen. When Cat and I set up this blog, we promised to be frank and straight-forward.
   Which leaves me little choice to tell you things like this: Cat voted for Donald J. Trump.
   I know. I KNOW! 
   A lot of you are thinking that good old “sweet” Phoebe has lost it, writing such gossipy drivel, just the sort of thing that doesn’t belong in anyone's obit or at his memorial service or even a “just between the two of us” chat as the wake is winding down. Talking trash about a cat whose just been reduced to a few ounces of ash in a vase -- well, it's contemptible.
   But Cat never denied the crime he committed in the cloaked horror chamber known as the 2016 voting booth; he never denied being among the Americans who precipitated the original sin of the 21st Century, electing Donald Trump the 45th president of the United States.

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Since we’re being honest, there’s more.
   Cat was said by Our Humans to be the perfect host, welcoming every visitor to our home without discrimination, which is to say, whether the newcomer loved or hated cats, he would materialize next to where they were sitting, cozy up to them and begin this deep purr. “Oh, how wonderful. Cat loves me!” the visitor would say, forgetting until it was too late about his or her hyper allergy to cat dander.
   But those of us who keep our four feet close to the ground knew better. So cloying. So self-centered. So disingenuous. I don’t know about you, but just thinking about Cat’s duplicity makes me want to puke.
   The fact is that this was one mean cat.  
   He raged night and day, protesting that his Higher Power had made a single but unforgivable mistake: inventing dogs.
   “How couldest Thee (or is it Thou)?” Cat would howl day and night.
   Cat often placed himself strategically on a stairway landing or in the middle of a doorway, just to prevent my passage, stopping me cold with that menacing, icy glare. At the end of the day, he might be sitting on a chair, snuggling with The Nice One, then he'd jump down, turning his face in the direction of where I was lying on the floor and letting out the most godawful goodnight hiss before marching off to the cellar and his food bowl.

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 Cat: a hero in the Age of Trump
    When we discussed writing a blog about tracking the Trump presidency, Cat volunteered – barged in, is another way to put it – to speak for those whom history will hold responsible for unleashing unimaginable evil upon our land and planet.  
   But Cat couldn’t stand it.
   Don’t get me wrong. Cat did not go all namby-pamby, Kumbaya, soft-in-the-brain  “progressive” (Lordy, how he despised that word) on us. 
    He simply came to see Trump for what he is: a mean, greedy, egotistic, cowardly, cruel, sadistic, lying, bullying, destructive, Twittering, psychophatic golfing cheat.
   From then on, Cat had nothing to do with the See-Hear-And-Speak-No-Evil Enablers of the Republican Hive.
    Instead, he became The Common Sense Cat, the contrarian, contemplative sage, who would bring rational, wait-just-a-minute balance to the freaked-out, terrified, we’ve-lost-our-minds Left Wing, lurching as we do between wild optimism and paralytic depression.
   I truly believe this: Cat may have been the last creature in this divided, polarized country willing to change his mind. He listened. He read. He thought. And he changed his mind.
   Think of it.

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 Cat would have been 15 a few days after Christmas.
  
On his last full day, he slept through the entire Session One of the Trump impeachment hearings, his back turned to the flat-screen as he nestled in a pile of comforters and blankets, purring deeply whenever someone, usually The Nice One, sat with him.
   It’s quiet, now. There’s no one blocking the doorway, no one glaring at me from the top step, no angry goodnight hiss. No one to talk with. No one to pull me back from the cliff when I go crazy about Trump. No one to say: “But Phoebe, you’re sounding so crazy .…”
   There was a lot we never talked about.
   I don’t know whether Cat expected Trump to win a second term. Or whether he believed that Trump would keep getting away with everything, whether immigrants would one day be welcome again, whether there is time to prevent the worst of climate change, whether there will be a woman President and if democracy can survive. 
   I don’t even know what Cat thought about death.
   What I do know is that he was more than my colleague, and that whether or not he wanted to be one, Cat was also my friend.
   Now he's gone. And around here, it’s quiet.

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1 Comment
    A "sweet dog" confronts the catastrophe of the Trump presidency

    The Tracker

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    PHOEBE might have remained a “sweet” and apolitical dog but for the Trump crisis. Now, like millions of Americans, she wrestles daily with the challenge of what to do about it. With no illusions about the impact, she founded and is the principal writer of the Tracking Trump  blog.

    In Memoriam

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    CAT, a cat and Libertarian was Phoebe's co-author. He died Nov. 14, 2019. His self-described role was to leaven Phoebe’s naiveté and idealism with “common sense." He is remembered and missed.

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